Immoral Torah? Why Removing Hard Biblical Laws Does More Harm Than Good (Gary Edward Schnicker)

00:00:01
Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm doctor James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian on Doctor James Spencer and I am joined today by doctor Gary Edward Schnicker. I'm pretty sure I got that right, and you, yeah, you all know how I am things. He is a Distinguished Professor of Old Testament at the School of Divinity at Cairn University, and he's also got a substack at carpenterstudent dot com. That's carpenters what ends with an S and then student begins with an S, so there's two s's in the middle there. Those links will be in the show notes, so if you wanted to check out the rest of his work, you can go there. But today we're going to be discussing an article that he recently published in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, and it's on a pretty important topic from my perspective, repairing Torah James W. Watts and Moses as mediator of in moral instructions. So we're gonna have a conversation about the immoral instructions of the Torah and Gary, welcome to the program.

00:01:28
Speaker 2: Thanks very much for being here.

00:01:30
Speaker 3: Well, welcome and thanks for having me. But already have to say a thing immoral is in quotes.

00:01:37
Speaker 1: Yes, in moral and is in quote yes, and morals in quotes. That'll become clear as we have a conversation. So yeah, yeah, So give me just a sense of So I'm back in just you and I have never really met. We didn't have a ton of time to talk before the interview. But I'm an Old Testament guy too. I did my PhD in Theological Cities Old Testament It's heads, and so this article kind of threw me in early. I wasn't as familiar with Watts's work, and so I really appreciate your review of it. But what drew you into this topic? What makes it sort of relevant to you? And do you see it as something that is sort of peeking into Old Testament studies as a whole.

00:02:19
Speaker 3: So for the last part, absolutely, yes, this is very much a problem in Old Testament studies. But no, I've known of Watts's scholarship since the late nineteen nineties and I've followed him. He's a very sober, careful, good scholar, and I hadn't I wasn't looking for anything with him. I think about five years ago thereabouts, I turned in an article and to jso two and it's always the thing, you work really hard to make your word count and then they tell you add all these ten things, and so I was adding all the things, and one of the things I said is James Watts has a commentary on Leviticus one through ten, and so I wasn't aware of it. So I got it. It was great, really great. I mean I did use it from the library because it was so expensive. But then anyway, that article got published. But when I saw his new volume two coming out of the commentary, very expensive, but I said I have to have it, so I splurged when my wife wasn't watching. And when I got it, I was looking at it and I just couldn't believe what I was reading. He is saying in his introduction to cross out all the immoral verses of the entire Bible, but most of them are in Torah, and so he even gives a list of these immoral verses, and he seriously goes on and on about it. He's written one other essay about this, and I went and got that. So at first I was just disgusted that I had wasted money on this commentary. I mean really, And so it was that same day I was out biking and I was just so frustrated at myself, and I was just so dumb, and I certainly didn't want my wife to find out. But all of a sudden, it just hit me when I was out biking, is what would happen if we did cross out all of these verses that well, to be honest with you, I think the verses that Christians at least dislike, and I think probably many Christians hate them. Now nobody says that, but I think What's what I realized is Watts probably is tapping into something here because these are the verses Christians are embarrassed about because Christians worry maybe they are immoral. So but what hit me is what if we crossed them out, what would happen? And it was just in a flash I knew I had to research this. So this is not an area that I was really there was a lot long on REMP for It was Wats's commentary that pulled me into it, and then once I started researching it because of that question, what would happen if we cut these verses out? I realized immediately that these are God's protections and offering justice to people in the ancient world who need it most, and so we can't just cut these verses out of the Bible without ruining. In short, if we cut these verses out of the Bible, it empowers male predators and it puts everyone else at risk.

00:05:51
Speaker 1: Simply, so, let's clarify Watts's position for listeners just so they have a good understanding of it basically, and I'll kind of throw my summary out there and then you can geek it a little bit. But basically, there are these passages in the Old Testament that are related to things like rape, homosexuality, and I think there were a couple of slavery ones in there. You know, these kind of laws, as you rightly, I think state Christians are really uncomfortable with them. They don't like when they are reading through the Old Testament. These are the ones the passages you get to and you're like, oh wow, I kind of wish that wasn't there. I'd really like to skip over this, right. And so what he's saying is, listen, they don't have to be there. Let's just cross them out. He's advocating with for Bible translators even to leave them out or at least cross the mount and really doing some editorial work on the Old Testament to bring it up to the moral standards of modern day. Is that a fair characterization or what would you add to that?

00:06:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that is fair New Testament too. He gives a list of all the verses that he considers immoral. Luckily he's a strong specialist in the Taurus, because there's a lot of verses you and I might want to add to Hnsel he missed some good ones. But he does not cross out any narratives. So, for example, the narrative account of the destruction of sod ngomor, he doesn't cross out none of that because he doesn't want to be a hypocrite. That is, he wants to only cut out the norms where there's an authoritative teaching to do something that he considers immoral. So and he's just a matter of fact about it, like when the Bible commands genocide or sexual standards or patriarchy, or he's against capital punishment, and he very much points out that, you know, the Bible has capital punishment for just about everything, including a bunch of very minor religious you know, fractions, and so all of this is immoral, and so he thinks it's wrong. Now part of one thing to put in here that will help listeners just a little how to come to this. Watts does say very clearly that meaning has to be understood in context. What's different is his view of context. So he used to have a normal view of context. By normal, I mean ancient biblical literary context. But for about the past twenty years thereabouts he's been working on what he calls ritualization, and what that means we would call that probably reception history. But every reading, every interpretation, every book, every sermon, everything that's ever been said about, say, the Book of Leviticus, which this commentary is about, all of that is the meaning or the context, if you will. Essentially the meaning. So then he's done a series of studies on how the Bible has been used by criminals, terrorists, dictators, slave traders, awful people to justify awful things, and he says that's the meaning, and so he wants to nip it in the bud. And you know, he's admitting he feels like he's been responsible teaching Torah all these years. He's part of the problem. And so he wants us to essentially cancel the immoral teachings of Scripture by getting all scholars to cross them out and getting Bible publishers to put strike through text across them out. He doesn't want to delete them because we need to learn from past mistakes. So that's essentially his view is repealing the immoral teachings of Scripture. And he just over and over again lists all those kinds of things. Any do provide a list of all the immorals texts according to Watt's in my article right in the whole Bible.

00:10:13
Speaker 1: It's so that understanding of context is really I think helpful. I find it really difficult to hold given. I mean, I just had a gentleman named Dan Hawk on He's he's written a book on you know, American history, and to some extent, the use of the Joshua narrative to justify certain nationalistic tendencies and conquest narratives and those kind of things. You see this with the Exodus an awful lot in liberation theologies, but even in early colonial America, where you know, America takes on the Exodus narrative, they are, you know, essentially the Israelites being rescued from the tyrants of Great Britain. And so even though he doesn't include those narratives, that understanding of context would almost necessarily require that we read these other texts in the same way that we look across the whole reception history of this and say, well, how have these texts been used, and then what does that add to the meaning, or how should we understand these texts based on this meaning? It seems highly problematic from a methodological perspective to do this without calling balls and strikes on what is an appropriate interpretation and use versus what's an illegitimate interpretation and use?

00:11:37
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, I agree with you so far as it goes. I think, you know, and part of what you're saying is even we can't really separate the norms from the narratives exactly when we're talking about authority of text.

00:11:51
Speaker 2: That's right, But I think what.

00:11:56
Speaker 3: I mean to put a simple view on it, My view simply is bad interpretation. Isn't the meaning, It's bad interpretation, right. And maybe a second thing on context. I think, as far as a punchline, if we construe context in such a way that it contradicts the meaning of the text, that's not the context, right. I mean, right, we're you know, that's not how it works. But I think that I want to positively say Watts has really helped me and he has something important here because he's spent the last twenty years doing studies of terrible uses of scripture. And what I think that the list opens for us isn't just this argument with Watt's over hermaeneutics. I mean, I'm willing to just say, okay, we agree to disagree, but I think that the larger issue is these texts that he thinks are immoral. Those are essentially he's created a list of the scriptural norms, at least setting aside in airbans, scriptural norms that Christians are embarrassed about, and that's really helpful. To be able to quantify that. Yeah, maybe the underlying dark secret that no one knew Christians want to talk about is we think that maybe the Bible is immoral because I mean, let's face it, Christians have a hard time thinking that there's any way to contextualize killing all those people, there's any way to contextualize some of the laws, such as one of the most notorious is where the victim has to marry the rapist. Like, Christians can't imagine any scenario in which those could be contextualized, and so the easiest thing is I mean, you know this as well as anyone. I mean, every Sunday people are in church saying I'm glad we just have the New Testament. You know, it's like, well, wait, the New Trustment doesn't put a stop to slavery, right, Yeah, the New Testament isn't modern either. So so I think then Watts has done something really important, a couple of important things. But I think that there's something more here to do than just to disagree.

00:14:37
Speaker 1: With Watts, don't I Actually, I'm glad you brought that up. I think it's one of the things that I really liked about your piece is that you weren't overly harsh. It was clear you disagreed with but you weren't overly harsh about his work. You actually found that benefit within it. And so as I was reading it, and I'm you know, sort of thinking it through and saying, yeah, I'm probably identifying the same problem you are.

00:14:59
Speaker 2: I mean, we've been through multiple itterations of this.

00:15:02
Speaker 1: You know, Andy Stanley's work kind of was a more popular version of this, obviously more ancient. You have Marcian and saying let's get rid of portion, you know, the portions that we don't like events, right, And so this is sort of a cyclical thing that tends to come up where we're just having a hard time dealing with these specific passages. And so when I when I did a little more reading on Watts's position, I kind of sit back and I'm like, he's trying to solve a problem. I don't think he's trying to solve the problem in the right way, but I think he's identifying the problem correctly. I just I think there has to be a better way to do that. And I think your article sort of points toward one reason why we can't solve the problem in the way that he's suggesting that wasn't a just an appeal to hey, leave our Bibles alone, right. I think your argument gives it a little bit more teeth and a different understanding, So I appreciate it. That's why don't we kind of pivot how you responded to Wats's work in the article and help people understand that it's not just you know, we're not just clutching pearls and going to leave our Bibles alone, but there is a real rational leaving these passages in there, and a constructive aspect of having them as opposed to.

00:16:17
Speaker 2: Pulling them out or deleting them or whatever we do.

00:16:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think that, you know, that's that's really the big thing is crossing them out is entirely the wrong way to go. I use the word the expression collateral damage, right, So when we start crossing things out of the Bible, there's collateral damage. And Watts doesn't see this. In personal correspondence I've had with him, it's like, well, you know, this doesn't put ancient people in danger. But the way we interpret the Bible normally almost everyone we're interpreting it in its ancient content text. And if the Bible no longer said, you know, hey, we need to protect the most vulnerable folks in our society, like slaves. Then all of a sudden, we have a Bible that is I use this term at the beginning, empowering predatorial males. It's unleashing them today. That's the problem is. I'm not worried about the ancient world either. I'm worried about how the Bible functions for practicing Christians today, because you know, we're walking in circles of people that actually go to church and read the Bible and trust the Lord, and so in those circles it matters how we interpret it in what the Bible actually says. And I think that that sense. I mean, you mentioned Andy Stanley, and there's others who strongly for the New Testament and talk about almost how the Old Testament is neutered practically, you know, by how it's treated. That is also just as dangerous. And you might have done better than me. But when I looked at wats his list, I thought about, you know, he's worried about the other side of me. He feels like we're responsible and look what I've been promoting for the past, you know, thirty years of my career. I'm looking at his listing. Once I realized, these teachings are God protecting the most vulnerable people, and I've been skipping over them because they're hard. I've been teaching that, you know, covenants, and I've been teaching the Redemption, and I haven't spent the time in my seminary classes on the most difficult texts. And so I realized I'm part of the problem, not because I've been teaching those texts, but because I haven't been. Yeah, and so I need to start emphasizing these texts because we kind of have watts Is crossing out what are essentially non functioning laws. I mean, nobody's nobody's preaching on these passages. I don't want to say to nobody, but and then, well, anyway, there's more to it. But that's that's kind of I think part of the rub.

00:19:31
Speaker 2: Do you think this? So my dissertation supervisor is Dick Aberbeck.

00:19:35
Speaker 1: He wrote a book on the Old Testament Law for the New Testament Church. I don't think that's exactly the name of it, but in there he argues something about the law that the law is good, weak, and unified all at the same time, and he essentially makes what I think is the helpful He helpfully frames the law and says, basically, there's a point where he talks about, Look, the law isn't always about instituting the ideal. Sometimes the law is about managing the unideal. And I think we see this in Jesus's teaching when he's going back and forth with the Pharisees on divorce. Moses's command to give a certificate a divorce Jesus roots in the hardness of man's heart, not in the ideal situation that he paints in Genesis two, where man and will become one flesh, and so here the law is sort.

00:20:29
Speaker 2: Of holding back.

00:20:32
Speaker 1: The evil that might be done were that evil not for restrained. And so I guess my broader question is, do you think that part of what Watts is struggling with is this sense that when you read the law in the Old Testament, that you're looking at this as the law is constituting the ideal in society, as opposed to dealing with the in ideal of society and trying to curtail the sort of problems that would would arise if there are no implications for curtailing the behavior that makes sense.

00:21:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I'm very sympathetic, and I would hold to have view something like Dick Everveck's view that you just described. I think that, you know, we're kindred spirits in that sense. Yeah. I think that Watts isn't parsoning this out. He thinks this is immoral and we're just we're Yeah. But I think that your question really is one more that is important for Christians who wonder, for example, why God wouldn't say that slavery is wrong? Right now? You and I would be the first people to say, the Bible never promotes slavery. Yeah, but the Bible offers regulations to protect slaves and to promote righteous living within the ancient Near East, where slavery is extremely prevalent, and in the New Testament within the Roman Empire, where slavery is terrible and completely pervasive. And Christians, though the kind of people we teach and that Dick teaches, I wonder, well, why couldn't just God say that? But I didn't fully realize this until I started doing this research for this article and for a book that's coming out behind it. Now. There is no such thing as abolition of slavery in the ancient world. I mean no such thing, right, every culture has prevalent slavery, and all the evidence that we have and people are really who are specialists have dug into this and have read the dissertations and so on. Slaves who do get their freedom have made it when they own their own slaves. And when there are a couple of these revolts, there's not many. But when slaves actually take over society in a couple of moments, especially in Greece, they enslave other people. So like, there's no evidence at all until we're coming up much more towards modern times of anything like we would call abolition of slavery. So to put it in simple terms, the people in the ancient world wouldn't even understand well, putting even simpler terms, God's not Yahweh is not a modern American, and he's not giving teachings to modern Americans. He's reaching out to people in the ancient erees and he's giving them what they need. He's not being unrealistic. And the Bible does know of these ideals that you mentioned. Right, there will be no more slave, nor free male, nor female, June or gentile so the Bible knows about that. But the Bible is not in La la land talking about things that don't mean anything. It's helping people to serve God within these very difficult ancient situations.

00:24:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just it seems like such an important piece of that context. That is sort of when I read watch this work and I'm hearing.

00:24:22
Speaker 2: Him to all these these laws.

00:24:23
Speaker 1: And moral and then I read your article and your argument I think is really persuasive, because what you're saying is, look, when we when we strike these laws out, we're actually losing something really quite important, the equity and provision given to the vulnerable society. This isn't about authorizing rape or anything, you know, anything like that, capa punishment, all those different things Bible, right, This about curtailing the evils of society so that you know, you're you're sort of managing the chaos, right that would irrupt if these laws weren't there. And so it just seems to me.

00:25:04
Speaker 2: That that's a really crucial part of the context.

00:25:06
Speaker 1: It's just sort of falling a little flat here, is that these laws, no matter how they've been used after the fact, in context, they're actually really crucial and demonstrate a care and provision for the people in the society.

00:25:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's really important. And when I hasten to ad, I mean I feel the way of Watso's argument, and I feel the way of my students, my seminary students, my college students, when they chafe against these things. I'm also right, and I buy into Galatians three twenty eight. I love it, but that's not what people in the Roman Empire needed. And I think that, you know, maybe it's easy for us to sit here in our lives, but if we don't euphemize, and we don't like say, euphemistically human trafficking, we talk about slavery, and we don't change the definitions to make it too big of a number, right, we just talk about actual slavery. There are still millions of slaves in the world today. So even though we might enjoy ourselves here in the United States for the most part, not that there's no problems, we have lots of problems, but there's people who still are suffering under the same kinds of troubles that where God was trying to protect these folks from in the ancient world.

00:26:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we still see all that sort of all the sort of problems that were attended there.

00:26:46
Speaker 2: It's not as if we evolved to some sort.

00:26:51
Speaker 1: Of moral plane where our world doesn't have all these problems and there's necessity for laws of the similar nature to what we see in the Old test even today. Or it's not an advocacy for it's a an attempt to.

00:27:06
Speaker 2: Be against that's right, And.

00:27:09
Speaker 1: I think that, Yeah, sometimes it just feels like we lose that sort of tension in the law of Again, it's not instituting an ideal. Oftentimes it's curtailing a an avarant practice that, if left unchecked, would go to the end degree.

00:27:27
Speaker 3: And so, but I understand how it is, because yeah, things are things are different now than they were when you and I were growing up. In this digital age, people that come to church and all of us, we get that the world gets to scream at us in a way that it hasn't before. And right you point out, like you believe that, and there's no like deep thinking in it. So people are just thinking, oh, yeah, the Bible two is about slavery, The Bible two is about kill all these people. Oh, the Bible has these teachings that the victim has to marry the rapist. So nobody's really digging into it. This is all just this I don't know, this fear, this dread that you know that you can have an evangelical pastor that you mentioned and in Atlanta a large multi side church just like, you know, what would help the gospel if we unhitched the old Covenant. I'll tell you what. That shall not obey the ten Commandments. It's like, wait, that's not a Christian view, right, So I mean that's that's what's really frightening to me, is that Watts is saying something that a lot of people would really like to do, right, Yeah, oh yeah, there's some verses.

00:28:45
Speaker 1: I don't like when I think part of it is you know, I'm sure you have too. In the course of your study, you read treatments of this that are deeply scholarly and sort of stay in that real white geeky he through you know, technical journals sort of sense. And I don't think we're bridging some of that out to people that help them understand and get the frameworks for understanding and even combating some of these arguments. This this issue really came up to me. I had the gentleman who sings the lead for Remedy Drive On, and he does a lot of work with human trafficking, and he made the comment about the Old Testament texts on slavery and how could the Bible endorse slavery? You know, he's asking these questions on the podcast, and I'm sitting here like, I don't know, Like I've never really had a robust I've never just I've just never done the work. So I could give them the pad answers, right, sure, but the pad answers don't.

00:29:43
Speaker 2: Really work anymore.

00:29:44
Speaker 1: And I think that, you know, there have to be this sort of depth of engagement, like you're discussing, like, let's get into these texts deeply, but then we've also got to disseminate that depth at a level where people can understand what's going on. And again, that's part of what drumany your arearticle, because I think what you're doing is this sort of collateral damage is an easy notion to understand. Yeah, you know, it makes intuitive sense. You know, if you take a few lines out of a movie, you know that scene doesn't work anymore.

00:30:13
Speaker 2: Right, Like.

00:30:15
Speaker 3: We've all seen the new endings that they put on these movies and said, no, you're.

00:30:20
Speaker 2: That wasn't it right?

00:30:21
Speaker 1: You recut the trailers, you know, that kind of thing, And and so I just think there's something intuitive about the way you're arguing it that could make sense to people on a broader level, Like there is collateral damage anything you're remove out of these texts as implications, right, And it isn't just that we get to cross the mountain and ignore them and then think the Bible has the same meaning as full right, what you end up doing is creating a Bible in your own image, almost right, as opposed to just letting it stand and be itself and us struggling with it. We're trying to tame it in a way. And I think that's and obviously I think that's an unhelpful.

00:31:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I agree. And Frankenstein didn't know. Doctor Frankenstein didn't know what was going to happen to his monster, where he didn't realize what would happen if he created in his own image. That's right, And that's that's I think one of the real dangerous here. And I think, uh, when I did this research, I was I was invited to do a paper at a conference and I did, and then that became this article. Uh, well, I had some opportunities, and so I went out and I spoke at a bunch of different places on this. And so I spoke to Christian school teachers supposed to spoke to youth leaders, and at an all day seminar where I'm speaking to youth leaders. So I mean, we could really get our hands to it, you know, this full day seminar. And my one of my friends, he's uh who was hosting it. He's been in youth ministry for like forty years. He says, you need to write a book about this that people can use with their young people at church.

00:32:04
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:32:04
Speaker 3: And I'm thinking, like, now I'm a scholar, I'm going to read this paper. I don't mind doing these workshops. But then I started thinking more about what my friend Matt had told me. And I remember a student came to me, college student. I have to teach one college class of year still to pay my bills, Hey, my salary. A college student came up after a class, my tour class. I had my Bible here and she was like, this is like November, so it's most of the way through the semester, and she was all read hadn't said a word all semester, right, and so she reads me this. She says, I want to read you this passage. This is from Exodus twenty one. When a slave owner strikes a male or a female slave with a rod and the slave dies immediately, the owner shall be punished, but if the slave survives a day or two, there will be no punishment, for the slave is the owner's property. She said, how am I supposed to believe in a god like that?

00:33:14
Speaker 2: Now?

00:33:15
Speaker 3: This is like five years ago, and so I didn't miss a beat. So this is before I knew anything about Watts. Yeah, I say to her, what would the ancient slaves in Israel do if that law wasn't in the Bible? And so she's just like looking at me, looking at me, dude, Well, what do you mean? I said, can you imagine how awful it would be if God wasn't there to protect these ancient slaves from being beaten to death? I said, we need to look at it more. I said, you might not like God's solution, but God's there doing something to protect people that are in a really bad situation. And I think, because I mean you you admitted pat answers I didn't realize at the time. Once I've gotten into this and looked at it more, the punishment there is the death penalty, Like, so you kill your slave, no problem. I mean read the context, it's like death, death, death, death. And then the law right before this is if somebody beat in a fight injures another free citizen. Yeah, it's similar to the slave who's not dead, but the dead's the slaves who's beaten to death. That master has to face capital punishment. So it's you know, this is a practical but it's not the point here is impractical. This is a moral way to deal with a context where slave is ubiquitous. I mean, it's everywhere in the ancient world, and these these people need help. So anyway, to make a long story short, I did ask my academic editor about a book. And but a popular book, right, I don't want to say to it popular to be misunderstood, an accessible book. Yeah, And so I normally write academic textbooks and reference works. So she handed me off to a different editor, one that deals with this sort of thing. So I did get contracted for this, and so about a year from now, a popular level book will I will do this and just going back with what you said. One of the conferences I did for Christian school teachers and that was just a short workshop, so it was focused just on the ancient rape laws. So school teachers asking me, well, okay, I buy into everything you're saying. But and she she's ready to write this down. She has like her pad of paper there. She goes, can you tell me where I can look this up to fact check you? And so I'm like, well, I'm like trying to think. Yeah, Like well, I mean, i mean I've read the commentaries. I know the commentaries really well, they all skip over this point, right, I mean, you know, more or less juggle it out, she said. And then I'm like, after like thirty seconds or whatever she could say, I'm like not having an answer. She goes, you're telling me that I would need to get a PhD. And you couldn't just look this up easy. You had to really work to get this, didn't you.

00:36:41
Speaker 2: I said, well, yeah, yeah.

00:36:45
Speaker 3: And then I realized that this book that I was talking to Zahner and reflective about, we need a book like this, not one that just says, you know, Christian morals are better than other morals, like a lot of the Apologetics books, and I have nothing against them. I mean, I've read a bunch of them now and I have to say they're great. But what we don't have is something to help young people who are growing up. They're coming of age now in this environment and they hate parts of the Bible and they ignore it and they wish it wasn't there. And pastors don't know because they're not like telling the pastor, Pastor, I hate part of the Bible. I'm going to leave Christianity when I can. I mean, we have a very serious problem that we've not set ourselves up well for. We've already lost a lot of young people in this past decade who have grown up in this terrible environment for Christian faith.

00:37:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think to your point on the For one, I'm really happy you're doing a book like this. When I started doing my initial research on some of this stuff, I couldn't find in those books. I kept running into the Apologetics book. She's looking in the commentaries and like, okay, guys, we've decided just to miss me.

00:38:08
Speaker 2: I guess. You know.

00:38:09
Speaker 1: So you find some of the stuff in more technical journal articles and things like that, but even there there, you know, those technical journal articles are intended to be pretty narrow, and so thinking through a broader scope of this just hasn't really been done, not in a way that's beyond apologetics. And I think what I kept running into with the apologetics arguments was this sort of worse better argument. You know, the Bible's laws are more just than the Ancienteer Eastern laws, which once you start read the ancient Near Eastern laws, you're kind of like, well that's you know, it's pretty low definition way to frame this, like it's probably not.

00:38:46
Speaker 2: Even true exactly, but it's is it really?

00:38:50
Speaker 3: Is it really true that six years of slavery and ancient Israel is better than three years of slavery and ancient battleon right? I don't see any evidence that that's actually a true statement. Right, That doesn't make any sense.

00:39:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so I think those to me, the apologetics books, like I said, there, if you think about low definition, what we need is a high definition focus on this, right. It'll bring some of these texts into a different sort of detail and understanding. Uh, and and really address it from a non apologetics review.

00:39:26
Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, I.

00:39:28
Speaker 3: Want to be I want to make sure I said this because I'm not an apologetics teacher either, but when I was doing this research for the article, I went to my apologetics professor friend, who I hold in very high regard. He's read everything. Yeah, so he gave me a long list of books and so I read them. And so what I realized though, in working with Watts's argument, Watts hasn't cited any of this. He's not read I wasn't sure if he read any of it, and so when I did reach out to him and correspondence, he shared with thing, No, I don't read any of it because these are immoral texts and it's irrelevant whether there's this worse better thing. And so then what I you noticed, what I've had to do in this article is I listed some of the things that I read. But I said, I'm not gonna I think that would be the right way to actually argue with Watts. I think that our apologetics research in these days, since there's been these new atheists, they've really done some great work and outstanding resource. But it was not a way to actually get to a biblical studies professor who's an expert in Torah. That wasn't a way to disagree with him. So I had to kind of what I went up doing, and this really helped me, is I need to argue with lots on his own terms.

00:41:01
Speaker 2: Yes.

00:41:02
Speaker 3: I took the theory that he's been promoting for almost a quarter of a century, his view of persuasion, and I critiqued Watts's argument based on his approach to ancient persuasion. And so that wound up kind of opening my eyes to some of these things that yeah, there really is something here that can help today's Christians that we haven't gotten a because we do need these. I mean, we're an environment where we need the apologetics that we have. I mean I can't even imagine going into youth ministry right now compared to when I was young, you know, when I was getting out of seminary.

00:41:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree, I don't.

00:41:46
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say that the apologetics are unnecessary. I would say that we've done that work and there needs to be more work done. I think there are areas here where we just haven't really done this as well as we need to. And that's probably on biblical studies, on Old Testament scholarship that's on you know, that's that's kind of on a different discipline than the apologetics guys. The apologetics guys have done their work. Now it's kind of time for a new path. And I think you're you're forging that, which I really appreciate.

00:42:14
Speaker 3: Good. Now, here's what you just did, all right, James, Whether those conversation's turned, you've helped. We've redeemed ourselves, I hope, so that we're not going to get a whole bunch of emails from everyone you know and Apologetics next week telling us what's wrong with you, Biblical studies guys, throwing us under.

00:42:30
Speaker 1: The vice Listen, we've done the political speak and that now we can avoid those emails. No, I think, you know, as I look at it, I think the way I framed it is really the way I think of it. I think as I've talked with more and more people about this since that one podcast I did with with the Gentleman from Remedy Drive, he was not convinced by the apologetics arguments. That's what I was giving. Oh, and you know so because when when he was doing what he was doing, to his credit, he was reading the Biblical text and he's kind of saying the same thing that I understand, wats to be saying doesn't matter better or worse.

00:43:13
Speaker 2: They're both bad.

00:43:14
Speaker 1: It's like you know, you know when you play that game with your kids, you know, would you rather write, would you rather eat dirt or look at the bottom of my shoe? You're going neither. Those are both horrible options. And that's sort of the way he was seeing it. So the apologetics arguments were he understood them. They were just swelling platforms because reading the Biblical text was those arguments weren't working once it hit the ground in the text itself.

00:43:41
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:43:42
Speaker 3: And and I think that the nagging question on it lady's side, your everyday Christians, but why doesn't God just say slavery is wrong?

00:43:54
Speaker 2: Right?

00:43:54
Speaker 3: I mean it's just yeah, Like so there's there's a couple of there's several moving parts. It's here, and it's these nagging questions just won't go away. If we have a clever argument. Well, I mean, we have to actually get her hands dirty in a different way than we have so far. Yeah, And so that's I mean, that's where I want to come back positive and say, I'm really I was so angry when I bought when I opened Watts's book, because I mean it's a lot of money. I mean, yeah, one hundred and forty dollars, Yeah, are pricey.

00:44:30
Speaker 2: Yeah. But the.

00:44:37
Speaker 3: Once he once, I felt like I had to at least for my own self before I even decided to do any research further than this, it began to turn more and more light bulbs on for me as far as wow. And so it's been a process for me thinking through how if there's any of my students out here watching, have let some of my students down over the past twenty years, and some things that I need to do different and am doing different thanks to Watts, I mean really yeah, yeah for goading me into it, if you will. Now, I'm not doing what Watts wants me to do. I'm kind of doing the opposite of what he wants me to do. But that's what I realized is we don't have to cross these out to get that collateral damage. We have that collateral damage as not just an individual, but as an evangelical reformed Christian body of faith because we haven't owned the Old Testament in the way we should. We have a little bit of mar scene in us and even the traditions among us that do own the Old Testament. They tend to use typology in Jesus and not actually get dirty. But what we actually have to do is say, there's nothing wrong with how the scriptures, you know, come to their culmination in Christ, but we need to get our hands dirty with God's protection of the most vulnerable people in the ancient world. Yahaweh cares about girls, they matter to him. Yahweh cares about slaves. He cares about justice, even to the people that were very unpopular in ancient Israel.

00:46:29
Speaker 1: Well, we're coming to the end of time here. I want to I want to get one more question in. And that is because as we're as we're looking sort of at the gap between people listening to this podcast episode in your book being published, right, there's a lot of space there. I'm I'm sensing from you that maybe you're not going to suggest the pastors just start preaching on these passages willy nilly from the pulpit, But maybe that's not the case. What would you suggest for a pastor or a teacher or something like that, non seminary teacher, like a lay teacher, a lay leader in the church, someone who's actually sort of guiding a congregation, what would you suggest for them to do about this topic, these texts, any approach to addressing him, addressing them that might be helpful.

00:47:19
Speaker 3: Well, if they're if they're viewing your podcast, this article, I've been given permission by the journal to give it away free and so I think you have a link there, So impacted any pastor to click the link, any Christian leader, any youth minister. I know that articles are kind of a drag to read, but these, you know, this, this is really important. And I want to say that what I was happily surprised by is I kind of made this whole push for you know, reaching people in church with this, and I said, we really need videos to go with this book, and so what and all my other projects that Zondervan has shot videos, they charge a fortune for them on the side, But this is this is a true story. Uh. This book is that I've I'm working on called Resurrecting the Bible of Jesus. Zondervin Reflective is giving the videos away with the book. So like when Sunday buys a book, there's no like extra million dollars you have to spend for the videos. It's it's with the book. So the idea. Then I'm hopeful that folks will, you know, take the time to read it, but then teach a class on it, get the elders on board, and all of us need to remember, you know, we've already lost a lot of young people from the faith because we've not handled what happens when you have a digital world like we have. We also need to begin to really think how are we going to instruct people in the Bible of Jesus in a very serious way. So yes, I wouldn't want somebody, you know, back to your question, really, Nelly, to go and not know what to say right right, to have to read these texts because I mean our literature really, I had to do a lot of work in ancient Ear Eastern texts and things like this that it's not the normal path to like the textbooks and reference books I've written. It was a different path than that. So anyway, I would encourage people, let's stop brushing these things under the carpet. Let's get them out, because we are creating collateral damage when we ignore these teachings.

00:49:58
Speaker 2: That we need to teach very good.

00:50:02
Speaker 3: Like you said, we need help, and not all of us can do what you did and get your PhD with Dick averback. Right, but like anybody that can, you know, buy a pie and spend a couple hours with Dick. I mean that would be a well spent atom.

00:50:20
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:50:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good afternoon.

00:50:23
Speaker 2: It is a good afternoon. I agree. I think that overall.

00:50:28
Speaker 1: I really appreciate the work you're doing here. I think it's great that they're making the article available. We will have the link to that mission notes, and we'll make this as accessible as possible, because I guess my encouraging would just be the folks like this is, even if you don't preach on these texts next Sunday, Right, even if you don't teach on these texts next Sunday, there's no reason for you not to be looking at these texts and thinking about these texts and actually trying to study them for yourself so you have a better understanding of it. I think that's the best place for folks to start. I know that was a good place for me to start.

00:51:01
Speaker 3: Me too, Yeah, I mean I wasn't ready for it. I mean I teach tour for a living every semester. Yeah, I mean that's what I do.

00:51:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, and.

00:51:14
Speaker 3: Uh huh, I needed to say, whoa, I need to help my students in a way that I haven't helped them so far.

00:51:24
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:51:25
Speaker 1: Well, I'm excited about this work. Hopefully you'll come back home when your book.

00:51:30
Speaker 2: Comes out we can have another conversation.

00:51:32
Speaker 3: But i'd love to do that my pleasure, James. I'm really glad that you asked me, and I couldn't believe it. I mean, maybe you do this all the time because you're a podcaster, but I'm like, you know, I get asked to do podcasts for my books, but like, like a podcast on an academic article, whoa, because it's an important thing.

00:51:58
Speaker 1: This is the first one I've done, so you know, it's the first one i've done. I thought it went really well, and it's my sort of my I won't call it my New Year's resolution, but this year twenty twenty six, what we're really trying to do is have folks like you on who've written more technical articles and talk through those so that we can start bridging the gap between academics and lay ministry. I think a lot of times these articles you hear all the time, humanities articles you get cited. You know, you like, only two percent gets sided or something ridiculous number like that. And so I think there's a lot of wealth of good work in the articles that come out, particularly in Jets, Trinity Journal, you know, some of those other you know, sort of standard journals that academics are aware of, but that content doesn't disseminate itself out to lay people in a way that is particularly helpful. So, yeah, you're the first one i've had on. I thought this went really well, and I appreciated you taking a flyer on it and coming on and discussing your article.

00:52:58
Speaker 2: I think it's great.

00:53:00
Speaker 3: It's a pleasure because this topic is really important, and so you know, it was I have a full research plate besides this. But once Wats's thing came out and I realized what's going on, and I did a couple of venues and then I started doing more venues where I'm talking to leaders, and I said, no, I need to make room for this. This is something you know, do the videos to the accessible book, the whole thing.

00:53:29
Speaker 1: I agree. I agree. Well, Gary, thanks for being on the show. Like I said, everybody, the links will be on the show page. You can find Gary's you have a faculty page. I'm sure at Aaron University, where you teach, you have a Carpenter's Student to us is in the middle there Carpenter's Student dot Com that will take people right to your substack where they can get more information. And I just encouraged the people about for resurrecting the Bible of Jesus that'll be coming out next year them.

00:54:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, in the beginning of twenty twenty seven. And you know, my substack is free, so if somebody gets on there, I have some other things coming up before that, but in the fall especially, we'll be ramping up towards the release of that and have some you know, some things that people can begin to get on board with.

00:54:21
Speaker 2: Excellent.

00:54:23
Speaker 1: Well, check the show notes on this one more probably more importantly than a lot of the other episodes where I just have a book link. This one's going to have multiple places where you can get more information on this topic. So I just encourage everybody check the show notes, flick through on those links, find the articles, might start start.

00:54:40
Speaker 2: Getting into this subject. It's an important one.

00:54:42
Speaker 1: And I know I'm kind of an old Testament geek, and so that you know, coming from me, that may maybe that colors this a little bit, but I really think this is just a biblical studies issue, and so if you're interested in understanding the Bible better, this is an issue you really need to dig into.

00:54:58
Speaker 2: So we'll leave it there.

00:54:59
Speaker 1: Again, Thank you Gary for being on the show, and we'll catch everybody on the next episode of Thinking Christian Take Care. I just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio dot com, you'll find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.