Transcipt

Is God the Ultimate Liar? What the Scriptures Reveal Will Stun You! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyIMwSnaZNs

Transcript:

(00:00) on Genesis. That was fun. And I know that we could have kept going, but it's like, you know, we got to spare some of this energy for other things. I like the idea of understanding it from its antecedent in Mesopotamia. And Josh, you're an Assyriologist.

(00:17) You're well aware of the languages that these are originally written in. And a Kip, you pay attention to all the stuff in the Hebrew Bible and Dead Sea Scrolls. So, I want to talk about God lying again. Or I'll phrase it another way. If we were in the court of law and the judge said, "Mr.

(00:36) Lambert, who is this guy, Henry, he shot your enemy and it shows a pay stub that you paid the guy to assassinate this person over here?" Um, and I said, "Your honor, I didn't pull the trigger." Okay. Do you think the judge will find me guilty of committing murder or trying to have someone killed if I paid the assassin to go and commit the murder? I didn't do it directly. Therefore, I'm innocent. I mean, if you're God, yeah, probably not, right? Because that's the key.

(01:02) You got to be You have to be divine, right? It's the only time it works. I have to be the right divinity. That's the That's the the real one. Yeah. I think you see what I'm leading up to here for everybody who might be watching. And that is God lies in a way that may not be direct here. Maybe you know somewhere he's more direct, but like Genesis, but in this case, he purposefully sends a lying spirit to have people lie. And uh tell us about the story, guys. Manipulative.

(01:32) It's very I love So I mean, I love this story um for a number of reasons. One one of the things that I like about it is that it it it provides I think it provides a nice narration of how how prophecy worked in ancient Israel in Canaan in in the ancient near east.

(02:01) There's a there's a whole story here about you know prophets interacting with with with kings and with each other how this whole institution kind of functioned. But in first Kings chapter 22, there is a story of I think it's uh it's Jehoshaphat and Ahab. Jehoshaphat is the king of Judah. Ahab is the king of the much more powerful northern kingdom that we we call Israel was probably called Samaria.

(02:26) And and they get together uh to form an alliance and go out and fight. Who are they? Ramothgilead. Ramothgilead. Yeah, that's right. So they're going out to to fight against Ramoth Gilead because I think it's Ahab is insisting that Ramth Gileia belongs to him, right? And and so he's invited Jehoshaphat to come along and help him out.

(02:46) And within this story, uh uh Jehoshaphat is sort of he's he's the Judeian, right? So he's he's the good guy. He's he's being promoted as like he's he's the king who is trying to do the right thing. So he's the one who actually suggests, well before we go out, let's make sure that we consult the prophets first.

(03:06) And so they get together 400 prophets in order to to inquire about whether, you know, what's the result here? Should we go out and and embark on this campaign? Are we going to be successful? What's what's Yahweh telling us to do? And I I think the the prophets all say, "Yeah, go you're you're good. Get out there. Um Yahweh will give you victory.

(03:33) And this is my I I love this part of the story. And then Josh can pick it up. But but what I love is Joshua then goes, I don't know. He's like, are you sure this is all the prophets? Like if we asked everyone about the result of this campaign and you could almost see Ahab's shoulders stoop and he sigh and he goes so there's one more prophet uh Micaia but I hate that I hate him and it says in the text there's this one more prophet but I just hate that guy because he never says anything nice about me. He never prophesies anything

(04:21) good. But Jehoshaphat insists, you got to hear from you got to do this right. You got to hear from everybody. So, uh they they they don't we don't know where he is. They they they go looking for for Micaia. Micaia, the son of Ila. Ila. That's it. That's right.

(04:43) So, they got to go they got to go find him to make sure that they they get this right. Yeah. And so, uh, of course, Micaiah eventually comes and the, you know, the two kings are sitting there and say, "All right, you know, what's what's the deal? Are we going to you are we going to be able to have victory?" And, um, and so Mica says, you know, like essentially, "Yep, good to go. Going up. You guys are going to win.

(05:07) " And say, "How many times have I told you? Tell me the truth." Right? And so Micaia says, "All right." Like, no, I think No, I I think it's Ahab. Ahab at this point is like because Yeah, cuz he's he's literally every single time he consults Micaia. Micaa never has anything good to say. So, right away AB's like, "Wait a minute.

(05:33) " Cuz he's saying he's, you know, he's you're like saying, "Yeah." So, he feels like something's something's off here, man. Something is a miss. And so he presses him and Micaiah says, "All right, you know, I'll tell you I'll tell you the truth." And he talks about this vision that he had.

(05:51) And so he sees Yahweh seated on the throne and the the divine counselors come around him. He's basically saying, "All right, who is going to essentially go up and lie uh you know, or who's going to go up and uh persuade the uh these kings to go up and to essentially to die uh to fight against Gilead and die?" And one says one thing, one says another thing, and then finally this lying spirit comes forward or this spirit comes forward and he says, "All right, well, what what are you going to do?" And he says, "I will go and be a lying spirit in the mouth of the prophets." And so Yahweh says, "Yep,

(06:21) good idea. Go do it. You're up." And uh and so of course uh this is, you know, this is sort of the the problem when you come to this passage if you're looking at it through uh this more evangelical lens. It's like you can't have Yahweh lying like this. And so it's it becomes a problem.

(06:41) And so, you know, as Derek said, well, you know, Yahweh, he allowed this spirit who was going to do this anyway. Um he he allowed it to happen. That makes He's not the one who's lying. Right. Right. Yeah. Well, that's the just bringing up two points. It doesn't sound like that's what's actually being said. Sounds like God's directly saying who's going to go.

(07:06) Yes, he's wanting to commission someone to lie. Two is this kind of brings up the whole Euthifro uh argument of like does God do good because good just is without God or or is God above what is right and wrong and justice and can do what he wants? And in this case, if I were stuck trying to be honest with this text, I would say God's above right and wrong. Yeah. I would have to. It's good because God does it.

(07:30) Exactly. So it's whatever God does, even if it's bad for us, it's actually good from his perspective, his point of view. And that whatever God chooses is right. Paul says, "Who are you, oh man, to answer back to God? Can the thing made?" You get the point. Yeah.

(07:50) And the the issue here is if you you know, if you don't take that approach and you wrestle with it because you know, God who cannot lie, you know, like these are is sort of a a theme particularly as I think as the theology develops. But, you know, you start to make these sort of special pleading cases and my response uh when I hear this sort of thing is like I'm using a microphone, right? Like I'm not directly recording onto that SD card.

(08:19) It's it's this electric signal that is it's actually the microphone that's doing it, right? It's not me. Uh and and so I can't really be blamed for what's being said here. there is the microphone that's doing it. But of course, no one like this is a microphone. It's designed to transmit my message, right? That's what it's for.

(08:40) And so, no one, you know, would uh would be able to say, "Oh, well, he didn't really say it. It was the microphone that said it." Like that. It doesn't work that way. And in this case, that's all the spirit is. And if certainly this is all the prophets are. And the the the other interesting thing about this that's sort of the a further complication to be thrown in is the fact that Micaiah lies as well.

(09:04) And that's something that I think is missed in the story when you read it, you know, because it's funny, but but you don't really pick up on it is that had they had not pushed back, they would have walked away going, "Yep, all good, awesome." Yeah. And Micaiah would have also lied. Right. So, um I this is this is an incredibly problematic passage, but again uh it it it speaks to I think this problem that we have with like a systematic theology because when you when you come to ancient texts and you're coming to them through the lens of a later text or a

(09:37) theological structure that you've put over top of a later text that then reinterprets the earlier text, you run into these problems. Yeah, I'm I am constantly getting after uh people on on Twitter and in in in the comment space of my own YouTube channel about how badly people misunderstand these texts because they are they are they are not in a position or or or they're they're not able to even imagine a different world from our world like in this is not I mean I don't think it's too strong to say that when the Deuteronomistic

(10:18) historian wrote this story and the first people were reading it, I don't think they were troubled by the fact that Yahweh was intentionally deceiving Ahab because on the I mean on the one hand they can't stand Ahab. So they're like, "Yeah, man. Just whatever." Yeah. So whatever you got to do to Ahab is fine.

(10:45) But the other thing is people in antiquity including the ancient Israelites the they had this perspective of God which was very much like just you know people but more everything that people can do the gods can do but you know on a much grander scale including lying a question that I've never really thought of before until just just you were just now as you were talking about Micaiah also having to lie It makes me wonder when he spills the beans at Ahab's insistence and gives up the game basically and says, you know, this is this is what's going on. Is he defying

(11:24) Yahweh at that point? Cuz he's telling the truth. He's now tell he's he's given up the game. Yeah. Right. I mean fortunate fortunately they go through with it and they end up going and and fighting this this this battle with Ramoth Gilead and uh one of them dies.

(11:48) Is it is it Ahab or is it it goes just as it's as as Yahweh says it's gonna go. They they lose, right? And there's this other great great great image in the story where it says that uh the that the dogs uh drank the the water with the blood Yeah. of the kings in it and the the prostitutes bathed in it, too. But yeah, so it it ends up going the way Yahweh intended for it to go, but it it ends up going badly for for Ahab, but not no thanks to Micaiah. Yeah.

(12:22) At that point, yeah, I just make one comment about what you said, Josh, and this goes into this whole he spills the beans. I find it interesting, of course, that they already expect him to be negative in everything. Mhm. What really makes that weird for me, all right, we keep assuming Ahab's the bad guy.

(12:41) Okay, you know, we've done this several times when we talk to Christians. When the Bible says those other people that we go and conquer and take their women and whatnot, they deserved that. I wonder about the real Ahab, if he even deserved any of this. And so like the question I have is like if there is this Micaiah and he's like always giving bad negative report from Yahweh, what does that say about Yahweh? What does that say about how angry and how what kind of God is this? And and this is why I think having this sanctuary eastern context is so important in these

(13:12) in these circumstances because like if you look at uh the Assyrian Empire for example, the Assyrian Empire is sort of one of its um I don't know mission statements is we're going to campaign annually, right? That's what we're going to do. And but before they go on these campaigns, uh quite often you have these types of oracles, uh you know, they're doing the same thing.

(13:43) What they're doing is they're uh provoking uh a message to be given by the gods, right? So saying, okay, like uh tell us tell us if we're going to do this. So you have this whole host of for some reason I'm blanking on the the name now, but there are these uh these tablets to the sun god. they're in um like invocations to oracles to the sun god or something to that effect.

(14:01) Uh but they're you know they're they're saying give us a good you know give us a good yes if we're going to you know supposed to go forward on this campaign or supposed to go and do this other thing. And so that if if you do have a consistent uh uh return from your person who is designated or uh appointed to speak to the deity and they're always coming back with no no.

(14:27) If you think about what the Neo Assyrian mission was, it's working on behalf of the deity to march against these other nations. And so the the God himself, as you were saying, in a sense is is not doing what he is supposed to do from that perspective. So just in a nutshell, let me make sure I'm right. I love this. gods of nations because they were they were as Paul Frager phrased a great article one time or she did a lecture the the gods are in the blood.

(15:01) So like nations or tribes are usually connect like the the piece of land or the people of that land are usually connected with their deity in some way. That god is usually supposed to protect and and when they would fail to do so that was a failure of a god and often times other people would adapt that deity because that nation would conquer or whatever.

(15:21) Often times Here we have Yahweh explicitly working against, if you take this narrative in the ancient near east, against his own people, the king of his own nation. And he's like really wanting these other nations. He wants to lie so that Ahab will go and get his, you know what, kicked, ass handed to him. Next thing you know, it's like, yay, Yahweh, we punished our own people. Yeah.

(15:40) Like over and over and over this happens. And this like this is why first of all it's no accident right I mean as you were talking about the Deuteronom the Deuteronomist like if you think back to Deuteronomy 28 like this is the point right uh Deuteronomy 28 is like a a parallel version uh that we see with some distinctions from like Leviticus 26 but it's all of these if you obey me here are all the blessings that you're going to get. If you disobey me I'm going to curse the out of you.

(16:12) Yeah. Right. And it's part of this like Neoasyan vassel treaty formula. And so when the Deuteronomist is writing, why is it that Yahweh is always coming back with negative answers? And it's because the kings are wicked, right? They're not doing what they're supposed to be doing.

(16:30) And so it's ultimately spun back to to to it's what's the king, right? It's the people. It's the rebellion, right? But in reality, what's supposed to be happening is that that the God is supposed to be working on behalf of the people through this just, pious, righteous king who's going forth uh and and and you know marching against these other peoples uh on behalf of the deity. But it is it is all spin though. Yes. Right.

(16:54) like that and I think that's that's one of the things that's very fascinating uh in particular about the Deuteronomist because Ahab uh is the the grandson of Omry on the basis of the literature that we have of the period on the basis of what what the archaeology tells us Omry controlled he was a very very successful ruler he had a dynasty that was probably unrivaled in its in its uh wealth, power, reach, and influence within this region in the period. He's barely mentioned by the Deuteronomist.

(17:33) Like the Deuteronomist does not care, and this is intentional. Um and I think this is the lots of of what what's going on politically here is playing out in this story. Jehoshaphat is the one who's who's, you know, coming up and and giving Ahab the the right advice of what he should be doing, right? But this is all very much it's it's very much playing out this little brother syndrome where you've got tiny little Judah who's out here in the hinterlands.

(18:04) Um, in reality, this is a they are barely a kingdom. Like it's it's a uh it's it's a it's a it's a city on a hilltop that controls this this little area. And and uh I had an apologist get really upset at me one time because I referred to it as a backwater. It is right. It's not a backwater. Same person that got upset at me for talking about the ancient Israelite cult. Oh boy.

(18:29) But this is but this is like like this is the Deuteronomist is painting this picture that is so it is so contrary to reality um throughout his entire work where he's got to do everything he can to downplay the success of the Omr the Omra dynasty which includes Ehab. And that's why uh Ahab is the brunt of so much of the criticism of the Deuteronomist throughout this um because he's he's working against the success of this this realm.

(19:06) Um and really I think this is one of the ways one of the only ways in which he can he can offer to explain this is that uh Ahab was just this this terrible bad guy who thwarted or attempted to thwart Yahweh at every at every turn. And this is like the the the Deuteronomist has to has to just kind of pile up all these these accusations against him at every point.

(19:38) And this is why be the reason I think that uh this is important to do and it's something to fight back against uh in the mind of the deuteronomist is because there is this one to one correlation in the mind of you know ancient ancient neareastern writers that if there's a successful kingdom the god is on their side right so like when you think about the um lagosh border conflict back in the third millennium the early dynastic period the reason that lagosh is winning against uma is because ngiru was like in the spiritual realm behind the scenes fighting on their behalf. That's why they're winning, right? And so if you have a

(20:09) successful Ahab, well that that that you you would have to conclude that Yahweh's on their side. And that that's that's not what you want. So you you as you say, you take and you try to spin it uh to make him the bad guy.

(20:26) Manasseh has a particularly long reign, you know, and of course, who's the child sacrifice guy, you know? So yeah, I mean I think these are the the worst the worst king in all of Israel. What did he reign like 50 years or something? ridiculous long reign. And by all, you know, it it certainly looks like we have some reflection of this in Deuter or sorry, in the book of Jeremiah, I think when um in Jeremiah chapter 44, there's there's there's a section where um the people are sacrificing the Maha Hashim, the queen of heaven, right? And uh I I think this is kind of a kind of a reflection on what life was like in the

(21:03) old days. M they say they tell Jeremiah directly this you know back when we you know we've always sacrifi we've we've always worshiped the queen of the heavens we've always offered libations to her and over this period of time you know we were safe we were well looked after we had enough to eat our lives were good so why wouldn't we continue to do this you know and uh it it just uh It's it's this weird um it it's this weird reversal that the Deuteronomist and and several of the other prophets are are are constantly doing throughout the Hebrew texts where they they can't really do

(21:48) otherwise because these these kingdoms were successful. So this this is a really interesting point. It it spins us back to God Yahweh. Okay, you're talking about the Deuteronomist, which means we're probably talking about the Yahweh source here. And in in that, we're looking at who is Yahweh? I It's a worthy question to ask this nomadic deity who doesn't really seem to want kingdoms. I did not want you to have a king like the other nations.

(22:21) I wanted you to be, you know, and it's almost like every time the voice, which is really the person or the author that's conveying it, I did this to John Dominic Cross, but God said, God never said with his Irish accent, the men in the text wrote, God never said. So, we need to understand who these people are and their God.

(22:42) And their God seems to be the opposite of well, we did this in the first video on God lying, which was the the ziggurat is the peak. No, that's the the lowest point you can go is to go up. And so down is up and up is down. Everything is opposite as you described. Great kingdoms are bad news. Not good. You need to you need to go and be nomadic. Tribes men in the wilderness.

(23:03) Listen to that still calm voice that you get after being dehydrated for 80 hours and not eating and hallucinating in the wilderness. That's Yahweh. Go meet him. I mean, I'm being funny with that, but the point is this god and what this god wants seems so contrary to a typical civilized deity that is known in the world.

(23:23) It's odd to me. It's just really odd taking this where's the blame game, right? I would say obviously they think God wrote this. Well, then you put it on God. Now, since we aren't in a position saying we think this god is real, then it makes me want to know who are these people and where do they get these concepts? Why do they want opposite from what looks to be satisfying as a kingdom ruling, having power, all of this? Where did that ideology come from? I mean, that's an incredibly complex comp complex question. I mean, I think one of the things that we have to remember is when these texts are being

(23:59) compiled, when they're being written, and some of the questions that are rattling around in the minds of the authors are like, why has played out the way that it has? And so, a a perfect example of this, right, would be something like the book of Daniel. you know, Daniel in Daniel chapter 9, you have this lengthy, beautifully written section that talks about Daniel reading through uh essentially reading through the book of Jeremiah, which is playing and and this is being, you know, sort of put together with Leviticus 25 and probably parts of Leviticus 26 and coming up with this like theological

(24:34) explanation for why it is that shit's still bad. Why are we still, you know, uh, under the thumb of all these other powers? And so, uh, again, setting this back into the sixth century then, uh, and, uh, you know, making Daniel have this understanding, wait a minute, why is it that, you know, we're here? Oh, you know, it's it's it's actually not 70 years that we're supposed to be in captivity, but 70* 7 because that's what Leviticus 26 talks about.

(25:08) And it's but it's again it's trying to make sense of the political situation in which they find themselves in contrast to what they would have expected at the time. And so I think we need to be really careful when we read these texts to be able to say like that. One more thing that I'll point out.

(25:32) When you read through something like Leviticus 26 um or Deuteronomy 28, so many of the things that you see as if you disobey, this is what will happen. Read through the Deuteronomistic history and watch them take place. Oh yeah. And it's no coincidence, right, when it says like don't multiply to yourself horses as a king and don't multiply to yourself wives. What the hell? Solomon gets a bunch of bunch of horses, a bunch of wives.

(25:58) like, you know, 2 plus 2 is four, you know. So, I I again, I think that that there's this I'll call it beautiful because I mean, I really think that it is from a literary standpoint and from an artistic standpoint, you have this amalgamation, this trying to work together uh of the political situation, which they find themselves, trying to explain it theologically, but yet trying to reflect the reality as they saw it on the ground.

(26:22) It's it's it's very very complex right so so to put it in another way to answer my question which we there might be an ideology back there we just don't know exactly where the influence have come from for opposite uh ideology but if if if we're not looking there for the source the other source is just look out your window or just look out the front door that's your reality everyone Jim Bob Billy Susie everyone out in the ancient world would have seen these things had to have dealt with them and so in their mind they rationalized it by saying well this is this is the faith that obviously

(26:56) our God has given us and so rather than blame their god and sometimes they do sometimes the prophets cry out why Yahweh have you done this uh you know and then they kind of will put it on them spin it on them and say hey turn your people back you know because obviously they got to blame somebody and it can't be God the whole time it it's it's kind of weird I imagine maybe if we flipped it around and said the Assyrians did they ever blame their gods did they of course yeah they blame them for the failure that

(27:21) they got defeated by the Babylonians or like think think about when Shut Nuna, you know, takes uh the steely of Hammurabi, right? And then he's that the steel is brought back. This this whole notion is that Marduk has said, you know, um I'm out of here, right? And when the deity leaves because he's, you know, he's abandoned them sometimes or they they've been disobedient, whatever, it it it reflects this this uh what do we call this hedge of protection that the deity puts up. Um and so that the explanation for why this has happened it it it is

(28:01) because think about the Sumerian king list and then I'll be quiet but but if you think about the Sumerian king list or you think about the curse of Agade these literary texts everything focuses on there is a period of time that the gods have allotted for a king to rule for for for a dynasty to rule or whatever but you know Naram Sin tries to buck against this right he reads the omens he doesn't like him. So he tries to buck against this and like it all goes bad for him.

(28:30) And that's the message that the that the the the literary texts and these lamentational liturgies and all these things are trying to get forth or put forward is that the gods are the ones that say this is where the kingship will sit for now. But as soon as they want to take it back up and put it somewhere else, lo and behold, it's when that city falls, right? And so it it's it's something that makes things make sense for them.

(28:56) This works I was going to say this kind of works in in reverse too because what what you take a look at what uh what Cyrus did when he when he came into Babylon. What did he do? He's he came in and said so Neabba uh um Neabonitis has bucked because he's he's kind of a weird guy and he and he's and he's out of the he's not part of this ruling family that is that has controlled Babylon during the neoablonian period.

(29:25) And one of the weird things he does is he abandons the the temple of Marduk and he goes off and and starts worshiping uh sin. It's sin, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. So, uh what does what does Cyrus do when he's beginning his campaign against Babylon? He starts promoting himself as, you know, the the servant of martyrdom. Yep.

(29:52) coming to save the city of Babylon from this terrible ruler who is who is uh he's the one who betrayed Marduk. I'm the savior, you know, and uh yeah, and where else is he a savior, right? I mean, like Cyrus got the best of the best, you know, like he's a suffering servant. He gets Oh, boy was he I mean I mean it's a very very canny uh political move. Yeah.

(30:17) Yeah. To to assume that role, right, is your uh Yeah. What I do think is interesting just on like tying the bow there that I think you'll also agree is that how they have built their framework with their deity. Notice we don't have uh Marduk worship today. I mean, if there's someone, it's not systematic. It's not like like it hasn't been an ongoing religion ever since.

(30:42) Notice all of these kingdoms and all of their gods and their beliefs in these gods really have fallen apart. But you have a unique people who kept their their deity. And it's almost like they created this loop in their theology to always still keep God. Whatever happens to us, whether it's completely horrific and God lets us be killed in gas chambers, the horrific Holocaust situation to, hey, we went back in 1948 and we're getting land back.

(31:08) we're back in the maybe we build a temple one day. It doesn't matter what happens. And while I see that as clever personally as a humanist, as someone in a world where we I want to break down those kind of divisions and stuff, I think it's sad for me. I understand there's beauty and you can look at it two different ways.

(31:29) Um, it's interesting, but I find it ironic that they've made a system to where there's no way to finally look for for most that are in it to go, okay, come on. Are we really is there is Yahweh really over us really controlling this or is it us all along? This is what I think makes this type of hermeneutical approach that the text does itself so interesting.

(31:53) And to be be just a quick caveat like I said the suffering servant. I don't think that Isaiah 53 is actually about Cyrus. I was referring to just the servant. I should have said suffering. But anyway because I know somebody's out there listening going a um so but um but if you look at interextual ex Jesus we just talked about it right in the book of Daniel.

(32:19) Uh but you see this in apocalyptic literature in general. And so it's one of the reasons that Christianity is able to maintain what they've maintained because the way that apocalyptic literature is structured. We did an interview with oh my gosh, why am I blanking on his name? He's up at the Virginia Theological Seminary, Steven Cook, and he wrote uh a really nice book on apocalyptic literature.

(32:43) And what he said uh was it's it's and of course he's not the only one that said it but I mean he pointed it out that the ambiguity um of apocalyptic literature allows it to uh be something that is uh fulfilled now but not yet. Fulfilled now but not yet. And the way that he described it and I thought it was a really apt uh analogy was if you're driving up a mountain, you know, there's a there's a road that's been cut along the outside of this mountain. It's going up in concentric circles.

(33:08) If you get too close to the edge, you're you're looking down. Uh and it's like, "Oh, that's really close. Steer back." And and and if you if you come, oh, we're really close to the edge, and steer back. Well, in each case, you're looking at the end, right? You're looking at your end.

(33:28) Um it's not a different end in the sense that it's the same one that you're looking at each time, but it's at different points that you're looking at the same one. And so the way that apocalyptic literature was structured, it's like the when they would make specific predictions about like Antiochus, the fourth epiphanies, it's like they were getting really close to the edge in their minds in this interpretive structure, they got really close to the edge, but God pulled them back, right? So it's it's not that it it failed.

(33:52) They got to see it a little bit, but then it came back, right? And that allows this sort of yep, that was the end, but not really. And so it can be it can be morphed. The same stuff is playing out in uh in the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Kuman literature. One of the things that that you see that's that's consistent within their own self-standing.

(34:14) So we look at the literature and in our attempts to reconstruct who these people are that that wrote the text, we know some things. We know that there was some sort of dispute within the Jerusalem temple. We know that the leader of the community was was disenfranchised uh as a result of this.

(34:38) We you know we're pretty confident uh about this having been something that took place. The problem is we don't know when because the wicked priest was a guy who had a name. Uh but frustratingly the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls don't ever use those names. And I think this is part of why. Yeah. Like they are they are living in this already but now yet uh kind of point of expectation where there is some kind of subconscious realization.

(35:18) I think that as close as these people feel like they are to the end to the to the day of the Lord, there's there's something there which which is is part of this, right? Like we're watching this history unfold. It's it's happening before our eyes. The prophets have have told us and and we can see our, you know, our existence, our life, our our uh everything's unfolding just as the prophets said.

(35:47) But I think there's some recognition in there that in order to ensure the the circulation of of these ideas or these these these texts, we can't name names. We can't be too clear about uh about everything that's going on. So that's how you know you end up with the teacher of righteousness. Was there just one teacher of righteousness? Was this a figure spawned other teachers of righteousness through the history of the Kuman community? Was there always just one wicked priest? or were there other wicked priests that they could point to and say, "Ah, yeah, you know, this was spoken of in our own literature." You

(36:18) can almost see, I mean, the the the Dead Sea Scrolls community, the people who wrote and collected them, it it came to an end at uh you know, with the uh with the destruction of uh Jerusalem and with the invasion of the Romans during the Jewish War. But what would have happened if that hadn't happened and they had continued? Would they have started to reconsult these texts and start to point to a new future, you know, new priests of new wicked priests and new teachers of righteousness? It be this is how something like this becomes a literary

(36:55) genre. And I see it today even with people talking about the Euphrates drying up. Like how many times has the Euphrates come close to drying up? I mean, you know, well, think about that show Parks and Wreck. I mean, I think it's a perfect example of it if I do say so myself. Um, his bow ties are cool.

(37:14) Um, he, uh, there's a there's a cult that meets once a year to, uh, to like have the end of the world. There's a big dragon that's going to melt everybody's flesh off or something. And of course, it doesn't happen and nobody's surprised. And and so you see him at the very end of the show that the the the cult leader uh comes up and he says, um h you know, he's got his, you know, old tattered book there and he goes, "Yeah, I I I I was as surprised as anyone that he didn't come back, but I went back and really dug into the to the text and I realized that I hadn't accounted for this year. So, it's actually going to be

(37:49) next year on May 27th. So, if we could book the park then?" And Leslie Nope looks down at her kind. He goes, "Oh, um, May 27th is an ice cream social." And he goes, "Oh, did I say May 27th? There's another day that's May 28th." And she goes, "Yeah, it's free." Then he goes, "Okay, great.

(38:07) " She goes, "And if you could put us down for a couple of tickets at ice cream social, but I mean, that's what it is, right? It's this ability for the text to reinterpret itself um in that in that odd sort of way. the way that Daniel can look and uh or the writer of Daniel can look and say, "Why are we sitting here in the second century and it's still all at pop?" Let's have Daniel figure out that it's not just 70 years of Jeremiah 25, but it's actually 70* 7 because that's what Leviticus 26 tells us. Uh and it it gives that now 490 years instead of 70

(38:42) and it never ends. Amen. Amen. Yeah. You know, this underscores though too the that what what some what what happens what what makes scripture scripture. One of the things that makes scripture scripture is is this idea that there's there's there's something magical embedded within the text that you didn't see the first time that you looked at or the second or the third time. But maybe you know there's always new things that you can you can see within the text.

(39:09) It's kind of interesting that that Daniel is set on this this passage of Jeremiah and he understands this as a prophecy of expectation, right? That the exile is going to come to end come to an end after 70 years. That's his focus within the original setting of that text.

(39:39) This this is this appears in a letter that Jeremiah delivered to the the captives who were living in Babylon from the first uh from from the the first captivity which took place in in uh I think it was 590 597 or 594. The the first the first group went to go live in Babylon. Jeremiah supposedly writes this letter to them. And the reason he writes this letter and the reason he says this to them is not to encourage them that they're coming back, right? He says to them, because what's going on is in Babylon, they're going, you know, in 2 years, we're coming back. Jeremiah has to write to them and go, "No, no, no, no, no.

(40:15) Stay put. Build houses. give your sons and daughters for marriage and and marry because it's not going to be two years. It's going to be like 70 years, right? This is not this is not a a prophecy of hope. This is a prophecy of cool your jets, man. You're stuck for a long time. Yeah.

(40:47) So, but you know, Daniel's able to turn that into something and and this is all we can think of when we look at this at this uh this passage anymore just because of the interpretive lens that's been that's been said on it. It almost doesn't it almost surprises people when they go back and they look at it and they think about it and they're like, "Oh, wow. It actually meant something completely different than I ever imagined it did."