AS178: Tyler Vela on Interpreting the Bible, Part 2

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:31 Thomas: Hello and welcome to episode 178 of Atheistically Speaking. I'm your host, Thomas Smith. Alright, well, I'm going to go to part two of the discussion with Tyler. If you remember, I had just said that it's incredibly uninteresting and boring that the Jews, the Old Testament is basically just the Jews do something wrong and God tells them not to do it and then they do it and then they're punished and etc etc etc etc and then Tyler just said well that can all be everything you just said is because of bad hermeneutics or whatever so we'll see if he supports that statement we'll find out in part 2 so I'm just going to go ahead and play it here we go.

0:01:23 Tyler: So let me give you some concrete examples, right. You read through the Old Testament, you read through Judges, right, uh, yeah What'd you, what'd you think of Judges, uh?

0:01:31 Thomas: I read the whole Old Testament. So Um, remind me, I don't know, what are we talking about specifically?

0:01:37 Tyler: Judges. Is, Israel has taken the land, uh, and they keep

0:01:39 Thomas: It's just when several different judges rise up and they kind of lead them for a little bit and then that inevitably

0:01:40 Tyler: Yep yep they they keep, they keep falling, they keep messing up, other people keep taking over, judge rise up, redeems them, and then they, they go on their merry way, right? All that kind of stuff. What, horrible book, good book, terrible book, pointless book? Yeah.

0:01:46 Thomas: They fail, yeah, Uh, One, I think the repetitiveness was really, really boring, I would say. It's not the worst, I would say it's somewhere in the middle in the Old Testament in terms of how bad it was, in my opinion, sure.

0:01:59 Tyler: Right. So, so the entire point, so if this is why hermeneutics is important. Right. Not just understanding the genre, but also understand the literary, the literary features, the themes that are developed. Right. So if, if you read it as a piece of literature, again, everything I'm about to say, it doesn't matter whether you think it's true, false, inspired, inerrant, whatever. Right? When I'm talking about hermeneutics, I'm just talking about reading it as piece of literature, right?

0:02:34 Thomas: Sure.

0:02:34 Tyler: Reading it as what the author said. So you could entirely think that Israel, you know, is a post-exilic invention and still completely follow what I'm trying to say, right? I'm not here making an appeal for biblical inerrancy, right.

0:02:45 Thomas: Sure. I'll Go with that, well,

0:02:47 Tyler: So Judges, when you, I pick Judges for a reason because Judges comes up a lot when I'm talking with atheists and they say the Bible condones rape, right, how can you believe the Bible because the Bible tells, tells you that it's okay to rape someone. And a lot of times they'll point to the passage in Judges where it talks about the Levite having a concubine and the Levite's offering over his concubine to be basically gang raped all night and then killed. Then he cuts her up and then sends her out to the tribes, right, and they say, well, how can you affirm a Bible that so affirms, you know, rape. Really, what that person has just said is, I don't know how to read. And I don't mean that in a mean way.

0:03:27 Thomas: I'd like To make it very clear

0:03:29 Tyler: I mean that in a serious way.

0:03:29 Thomas: That that is not at all the claim I've made, I don't think I've ever made that claim.

0:03:32 Tyler: No, no, no. So I'm not saying that that's your claim. I'm using this as an example and then I'll kind of go back to your claim, One of the major problems there is that they're confusing description with prescription, right, describing something with prescribing something.

0:03:34 Thomas: Okay.

0:03:48 Tyler: So that's their problem. That's not your problem. That's the claim you're making. The problem when it comes to you is so the concubine story story is at the very end of Judges, right? It's the last couple chapters of the book of Judges.

The whole point of that very end is that Israelite is so bad, right, they've gotten so, which by the way undermines, I constantly in my adult Sunday school class go over the kind of moralism where, be like David, be like Daniel, 99% of the time the Bible is saying don't be like this. I mean, I mean, it doesn't come out and say, don't rape your concubine, right? Or don't offer up your concubine for gang rape. It doesn't, it hasn't come up and say this is bad.

But when you're reading through the text, the whole point of the narrative is that Israel has gotten so bad that you have, you have a wandering Levite, right, a Levite supposed to be a priest serving at the temple in Bethel right now. You have a wondering Levite who basically gets hired by a family so he can just bless them, right. It turns God into like a private deity just for this family.

He has a concubine which he's not supposed to have, right, the, the men of Benjamin have become worse than Sodom and Gomorrah is, is one of the major points, uh, so, so you have kind of the, the end of this really downward spiral.

Now I'll get to your point going back through the book of Judges, if you, if you read it carefully and you read it closely, what happens throughout the book of Judges is starting at the very beginning, if you picture it like a big funnel, and it starts, it's really big on the bottom, it gets really narrow on the bottom. The entire point, and why it's repetitive,

0:04:35 Thomas: Yeah. I know that entire

0:05:22 Tyler: Right, you caught on that it's repetitive, which is good, because the entire book is a big cycle. It's a big, it's a big cycle all the way down. Because it goes from, you have the judge at the very beginning, you have one person, and he saves Israel by using the entire Israeli army, he's able to do with lots of people, and they're, and they're spared for a very long period of time. As, as you go down, Israel gets worse and worse and worse. The judges become less and less effective with less and fewer people and their judgment is effective for less and less amount of time until finally you get all the way down to Samson. Samson's a horrible guy, right? We shouldn't look at Samson as a moral example. He's a terrible guy for the most part. You have one guy who's redeeming Israel single-handedly by himself, right, he can't use other people and his salvation that he gets only, only lasts basically for, you know, basically his lifetime.

0:05:26 Thomas: Bible is repetitive, but yeah, sure, now

0:06:19 Tyler: And that's about it. So the whole point of that cycle is that it's this downward spiral, right? So when I'm talking about, you know, it being, you know, the Bible written as a piece of literature, as a work of art, we're talking about those types of theme developments, those type of the author's using intentional structures, the author, you know, there's all these literary devices that happen that whether or not you think it's true or false, it's very, very, it literarily, it's beautiful, right, even, even if you even if you think the story is ridiculous, I

0:06:50 Thomas: See I disagree, I think you've, I think you've a misunderstood, understood my criticism of the Bible, or maybe you, I would never, I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy, but it's possible you should listen to my show. Because my main criticism, here's my criticism. First off, none of, I think you're confusing, like, you know, you've said how atheists still confuse, what, prescription with description or vice versa. I think you've confused being able to identify a literary strategy with that literary strategy, therefore being good. I think that you go through the Bible and you say, ah, here's the strategy. You're missing the strategy, this is repeating for a purpose. And I'm saying, yeah, no, I get that, it's just not good. It's like if I heard a song that had 4,200 choruses. It

0:07:05 Tyler: Do actually believe it or not, yep, right

0:07:40 Thomas: Is like, yeah I get that they are trying to be repetitive, they are tying to make a song to be catchy, I hate it. It's so, it's too much. It's bad writing. And it's fine. That's a matter of, I understand that's a matter of opinion, but I would go through and be able to defend my opinion very well, I think, if I took, especially if I went back through the entire Bible, the entire Old Testament, I would be able to make a pretty good case for why it's terrible writing. And that's fine if we're just dealing with the claim of, is this good literature? Is this a brilliant work of art? No, it is not in my mind. And nothing you've said has changed changed my mind on that.

I understand that you can have a difference of opinion. That's fine. But I don't think it's fair to say that I'm insane for thinking something that hasn't been the widespread view, which is that I don't think it's good. I think it's been given too much reverence purely as a piece of literature. The other thing I'll say, I've never confused the prescription with description. Well, I mean, that's a strong term.

0:07:48 Tyler: Yeah. It is no

0:08:39 Thomas: I don't think that's what I've been doing. I think that when, in the Old Testament, when you have instances of God telling people to do stuff, then it's fair to say God is endorsing this. I don't think, I've never said, oh, here's what's happening. Or I would say, if a character in the Old Testament has done something and God has rewarded them for it, then God is endorsing it. Would that be fair? Or are you going to say that it's some poetry or something thing that I'm missing out on.

0:09:10 Tyler: I, I would need an example, um, to be honest, and I you know, I, to be honestly, I listen to this show regularly, I listen your other one kind of sporadically, uh, and on this and this show, I, I normally want to like, you know, high five you. On the other show, I normally want to throw your podcast out the window.

0:09:12 Thomas: Well, I mean, the Amalekites, I'm sure you've thought of that a lot. I don't blame you. I mean... Hey, understood.

0:09:26 Tyler: So yeah, right,

0:09:27 Thomas: But I don't think you should listen to it. If you are... The only reason I said that is because I think you would hear that my criticism is with broader themes, and here's one. So, you've just brought up the fact that, okay, here's the point of judges. It's that they're so bad. The Israelites are so bad, sure. Who chose the Israelites? Did I or did God? Because I didn't choose them. I didn't choose to follow this piece of shit people that keeps doing things wrong. They're talking to God. They have communication with God.They've seen miracles. Why are they so dumb? Why are they so incompetent that they can't follow simple directions of the God that they're actually supposedly talking to. And God is the one who chose him. Why did he choose him? Why didn't God choose an Asian culture or anyone else?

0:10:17 Tyler: Right.

0:10:18 Thomas: Someone, a culture capable of receiving the simplest instruction and carrying it out. That's a problem I have that I don't see that you've undermined with your talk of poetry or of literature or whatever, you know? I mean, that's a broad theme. Though

0:10:31 Tyler: Well, no, and again, you know, I, I'm more talking about hermeneutics in general. So you're asking more theological questions in those kinds of cases. And, and

0:10:38 Thomas: These are the things Sorry, I'll just interject quickly that that is the kind of the reason I said, you know, you hadn't listened to my show, is that's the kind of criticism I have more often. That that's the thing, I mean, there's no, I don't think hermeneutics explains that. That's a broad theme of God and a reason I think the Bible is dumb. Now, I now admittedly, I guess that wouldn't be like a literary reason. You're right, it might be more of a theological reason, reason, but it's something that that's the kind of thing that I think is a problem. But similarly, I would say when you're talking about God prescribing horrible things, that's not a literary problem. That's a theological problem. Because as far

0:10:39 Tyler: Yeah, right. So,

0:11:17 Thomas: As literature is concerned, God can prescribe whatever the hell he wants as long as it's good literature, right?

0:11:17 Tyler: Right and so, but I'm going to say a lot of this does come back to hermoneutics. So for example, why, why did God pick the Hebrews,

0:11:28 Thomas: You got me. I have no idea.

0:11:30 Tyler: Um, yeah, well, uh, the, the point of the Old Testament, is it, is it because they're so fantastic?

0:11:36 Thomas: I don't know. He chose to give them rewards that he wasn't going to give anyone else. So, either there has to be some merit to it or God is incredibly unjust.

0:11:44 Tyler: Yeah. See, again, I think that those are, those are false dichotomies. So, and I, and I think that, that reading, so the other part of the problem is going to come, come about where, reading texts kind of, uh in isolation of other texts is going to be a problem. So when you read through the entire Old Testament, it's hard to come away thinking that God chose them because the Israelites are so fantastic, right? It's not a meritorious thing.

0:12:10 Thomas: Why does God have to choose anyone? Why does he have to chose a people? Why wouldn't he choose everybody? I mean, seriously, I'm not trying to be sarcastic or anything. This is a major problem I have with the entire book.

0:12:23 Tyler: Yeah, and that's going to be, again, a different type of problem. It's going be a different kind of question that you're even asking at that point. Yeah, so that's not going to a hermeneutics question.

0:12:29 Thomas: Yeah, okay. Well, then let me just make The point that when I say the Bible is terrible, I was including those questions. Questions. So when I say the Old Testament sucks, I'm including that thing. So, so if, if we wanted to try to isolate more to like the literary problems, then I would, I suppose it's not worth talking about those problems. It's more worthwhile talking about the fact that it's way too repetitive. It doesn't need to be that repetitive, but I, I don't know, I think that might be a, the reason I branched off a bit is I think that's a more of an opinion discussion than, than a point of fact, but I'll it. I'll let you continue. I

0:13:05 Tyler: Yeah, but again, so the repetitive nature actually might partially be the answer to your question, though. So when you're teaching something, I obviously don't know what you do for a living or if you've ever had to teach a seminar or class or anything. Repetition is one of the largest pedagogical tools that you're going to use, especially if you're dealing with people that are known to be forgetful, So part of the answer to your question is going to basically be, well, the Jews aren't special, but they're representative. I don't know if you or I would have done any better in those situations. We like to think we would, but I honestly don't think we Would have done that much better, if better at all, especially people, people at large. Repetition is going to be one of the one of the most important things. So especially when you're dealing with long spans of time.

0:13:54 Tyler: So we have that common saying that those who, those who, you know, forget their history are bound to repeat. Well, Israel needed to constantly be reminded because they kept repeating the same, the same problem over and over again. So I think that repetition, I know that it, that it drives you nuts and you said you don't think it should happen, you know, that much to that degree, but I actually think there's a point to that much, to that much repetition.

And I don't think we see a repetition to the degree where it's, it's really all that obnoxious. And, and, and I should, I should say this with a caveat that, um, I, I'm probably, you know, I'm not trying to say that I'm like some fantastic, you know, biblical, biblical, you know, exegete who just loves every single verse. I mean, I, I skim the genealogies, uh, I, I scim the dietary laws, right? I, I mean, I, I just, if I'm writing a paper for my master's degree, I might, I might do some research and read through those passages for the, for the most part. Honestly, I, I'm skimming large sections of, of law. And I'm skimming sections of that.

0:14:55 Thomas: I think that's what has caused this misconception that the Bible is a good piece of art, because when you actually have to read it all, it's very difficult to suffer through.

0:15:05 Tyler: Because, well, I think it depends. I mean, if you're talking about it as a literary whole, I think it's fantastic. If you're telling me about certain verses, well they're important. They set the stage, they set the context, they help you understand some of the historical details, it sets it kind of in its, it sits in Laban, its situation in life, right? I mean there are important things to that, but it doesn't mean that, I don't think that just because something is a great piece of literature that every single passage has to be riveting, there's that kind of portion of it as well. I think I think kind of moving beyond beyond that, because I think we'll both we both said what we can say on that. Probably not going to be much movement on either side.

0:15:39 Thomas: Sure, then I'll say one last thing. I think it's my opinion that you've set the bar way lower. If you were reading any other book, especially a book that is as long as this one, just as a piece of literature, because that's what we're judging. We're judging it, we're comparing it to other literature. If you read anything that wasn't the Bible that was that bad, I truly believe that you would not have the same reaction.

0:16:05 Thomas: The overall story, yeah, but it's way better.

0:16:05 Tyler: I don't know. I read War and Peace and I skimmed the sections with all of the Russian names that I don't understand.

0:16:13 Thomas: Well, there you go. That could be a weakness of war and peace. But the repetition is so, and the fact that the, I thought it was was funny that you're saying, yeah, in order to teach the Jews who aren't exceptional, you need to repeat. And even that didn't work. So, it's amazing. But I will just say that, yeah.

0:16:14 Tyler: Yeah.

0:16:33 Tyler: And it still doesn't work. I mean, we we have people who read and memorize the Bible and all the repetition. We still make the same mistakes today. So, I mean, repetition is helpful, but it's not like it's going to make people perfect.

0:16:45 Thomas: Well, there's another option, perhaps an easier option that would allow for people who don't need the repetition to deal with it is just to write the thing once and then have God say, if you need, if you get this wrong, read it again. Read it as many times, almost like music. Go back to the coda or whatever. Whenever you find yourself not following this, read again. I don't need 4,900 examples of the same way that the Jews violated whatever, doing the same thing over and over again. But

0:17:17 Tyler: Well, again, and again, to be honest, so, for example, I just taught this section in the adult Sunday school class this morning, so it's on my mind. In Exodus 14, there's a repetition of the laws about the Passover. And one of the questions is why in in the space of a chapter and a half, does it repeat all of the regulations about the Passover Supper again? What's the point? Well, the entire point is if you read the text the situation in life, well, the first set was to the children of Israel. They're in Goshen. It's right before the 10th plague. They are actually being told about the Passover for the night of Passover, to prepare for the night. That's the regulations. Those regulations carry on to the Passover meal. So the next chapter is about the Passover meal.

0:18:06 Tyler: Well, who's joined the children of Israel, right? It says a mixed multitude came out with the children of Israel out of Egypt. So now you have Israel and you have a bunch of other Semites and Egyptians that are leaving Egypt with them. And so you have the retelling of the law because effectively you have a different audience, even though it's only a chapter apart, right? And so you have the retelling of the law for for a purpose

0:18:28 Thomas: Who's reading that? I don'T understand. So, are you saying the, I mean, when was it written? Because you're just recounting, they're recounting history, right? It's not like they they were writing it as they were going along, or is it? I mean, I don't know the specifics of that particular book.

0:18:29 Tyler: Yeah.

0:18:42 Tyler: And that's gonna, that's going to vary depending on your view if you think it's been, I mean, even even people who hold to say Mosaic authorship normally hold to some type of redaction because, uh, Moses doesn't talk about his own death, um. So But

0:18:55 Thomas: Because you very easily could just say, and they retold the laws that we just mentioned. You don't have to rewrite them.

0:19:02 Tyler: There, but there's a difference. So Right.

0:19:04 Thomas: All

0:19:04 Tyler: So, but there's, so the the initial set of laws, even though there's a lot of the similarities. The second set of laws is directly addressing to who can take the Passover, right? Because it's dealing now with, well, how do you handle all of these Semites and non-Israelites that are now among the Israel? They're going to want to partake in the Passover meal too, and they're allowed to, but here's some of the stipulations that they have to meet to do it, right. It's addressing a different situation.

So the repetition isn't, it's not like it's repeating the exact same thing, right, it repeats it. Normally, if there's repetition, there's a, a, there's a twist, there's a thematic change, there's a situation change, right, there's something like that that happens that causes some type of repetition to be needed, although, like I said, it's it's almost never just a straight repetition of the exact same thing over again for the same purpose to the same people, right? It it's not that type of repetition. So when you see repetition, repetition was one of the way that that Hebrew literature and and most ancient literature would, they, they would develop themes, themes through repetition, right? And this is one of those examples. So it's just kind of, I mean, it's just a minor point, but

0:20:10 Tyler: I taught it this morning, so it was on my mind.

0:20:10 Thomas: I know is any time in a real book, understood. And I think that you do a good job of coming up with a good explanation of some things. But I think I would go back to what I'm saying. Identifying a strategy does not mean that it's good. It really doesn't. I mean, if I read a book, any book that repeated the amount that this does, I would not want to read it. It's mind-numbing. Especially, I want to know what your explanation of the arc is because they literally say, here's a million years of instructions for precisely how to build this arc. This will be five cubits. This'll be 11 cubits, this'll be purple. And then they literally just change it to, and then they built it, and this was five cubics, and and this was 11 cubits, and this, they built this. Like, what in the earth? Do you have an explanation for that?

0:20:25 Tyler: Right. Yeah. Right. Yep. I have a, so you'll find if you keep talking to me, if I haven't completely turned you off or anything like that, you'll, you know, find that a lot of, a lot of what I, what I think about things in the Bible are, I don't, I always have an answer, but I think that sometimes I have a hint in the right direction, if that makes sense.

0:21:17 Thomas: All right.

0:21:18 Tyler: I think one of the major themes in the Pentateuch is the need to be obedient. It's one of major challenges. I mean, Israel wandered the wilderness because they were disobedient. Moses died without going to the Promised Land because he was disobedient, right? I mean obedience is a major problem in the Old Testament. So the need for obedience is like one of the predominant themes throughout the Pentateuch.

0:21:42 Thomas: Oh, I just got a great creative literature solution for you. And the Israelites did exactly what God said. Done. End of sentence.

0:21:50 Tyler: Yeah, so again, there's a reason why they're not modern.

0:21:53 Thomas: Or why not go into more detail? And the Israelites stepped five feet to the right, and he raised his hand. I mean, if you're saying they need to go into that great detail for some reason, why not going to more detail. Why that level of detail?

0:21:56 Tyler: I don't know. Again, like I said, I don't have an answer. I have what I think is an answer in the right direction, right?

0:22:10 Thomas: All right.

0:22:11 Tyler: I think it's reinforcing they did what they were told because sometimes it says, and they did what God said, right, and it doesn't reiterate. Other times it says and they did exactly. And then it basically recounts that they did. And then it says each one of the commands that they were told to do. It happens in the law. I mean, it happens throughout. So it's a certain type of literature. Again, I agree with you. Identifying the structure doesn't mean that you're necessarily going to like it. But at that point, then it's just we're now in the realm of opinion. I might say, well, you know, I don't like Picasso's blue period because it's too much blue. So you know. I can understand that it's a matter of opinion, opinion, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we should be free to read. So going all the way back to the beginning where you said, well, I'm not trying to misrepresent what it means.

0:23:00 Tyler: I'm trying to address the question of, well first we got to know what it mean, right? And knowing what it is means isn't always as clear as just kind of reading it tabula rasa, right, reading it kind of just as a blank slate. We just come to the English text and we'll instantly get it. Right.

0:23:16 Thomas: Granted, granted, understood.

0:23:17 Tyler: Um, so I mean, because I, I think that that type of assumption, and honestly, you know, like I said, I, I listen sporadically to your other one when I'm, when I're feeling, you know, especially masochistic, uh, I, you know, I, I listened to it, and and sometimes I, I give you a hard time. It's not always as bad as, as I'm making out to be, uh, if that's a backhanded compliment. Um, Well,

0:23:37 Thomas: Well, I Don't know. I mean, honestly, I just think we have a fundamental disagreement. I think your baseline belief is this is a good piece of literature because God wrote it or God had a hand in it in some way. And I just think that'll give that, that will not reliably produce a good conclusion. I mean, that's that's my opinion of what's happening here, because it's it's not well, well-written. And I think that I will grant you, though, that I'm sure there are places where I'm missing the meaning because of translation problems, because I don't understand the historical context. I would not pretend, and I think that's a point that you are much more educated on than I am, that I would not argue with that if there's times I'm getting the meaning wrong.

0:24:24 Thomas: But I do think the overall themes, I have a lot of critiques, that's why I started talking about them earlier about why they're the chosen people. Why did God do this? Why did God do that? That aren't really dependent on minutiae that I might be interpreting incorrectly.

0:24:38 Tyler: I think sometimes they are. I, I mean, that that's Probably. You Know A topic for, for a different For a different, you know, different.

0:24:41 Thomas: It could be. Yeah, especially we're already over an hour.

0:24:45 Tyler: Yeah. So, uh, and I'm trying to keep these as brief as possible.

0:24:47 Thomas: We'll try to, yeah, we'll try. I think we're gonna have to try to start wrapping up. I don't mean immediately, but well, if there's anything you've wanted to get to that you haven't, I'd recommend trying.

0:24:54 Tyler: No. Yeah, so I, I think, um, I mean, uh... I, I had some examples to, to address again. You know, these aren't the type that you normally make, but, um... you're gonna have some of, some of your audience, I'm sure, just still throw up their hands, say, well, the Bible's nonsense, you know, why do I have to? And then they're gonna go out and say things like, uh you know the Bible says that pi equals three, uh or they're going to say the Bible Bible says bats are birds, right? So, you know, some of those types of issues are going to come up.

0:25:20 Thomas: Feel free to explain those. I have heard both of those. I, I'm sure there are listeners of mine who, uh, agree with with both of those, so feel free to to explain those. I'll give you the chance to fight back.

0:25:31 Tyler: Yeah. So this is, this is a hermeneutics issue because, you know, there's a passage in, in first Kings where it says, you know, he's talking about making a bronze basin and it says that it's 10 cubits, right. A cubit is basically the length of your forearm up to the tip of your finger. That it's 10 cubics from rim to rim and it's 30 cubits around. And they're going to say, well, that's one third, right, and And a circle, right, is that difference should be pi. It shouldn't be, you know, a third. It should be 3.14 whatever, right? And they're going to say, well, see, the Bible's wrong because it says pi equals three. Note, I mean, trying not to be sarcastic, but part of me just wants to say look, that's just not how, I mean, if I'm talking about something, I am not going to say that's 3.14, right, whatever, ever. I mean, you know, it's it's about a third, right?

0:25:32 Thomas: Yeah.

0:26:20 Thomas: So, The the guy is approximating and that that's end of story. Is that does anything? I have, I gotten to, that was that Old Testament. I Don't even remember that. That's weird. I

0:26:21 Tyler: Yeah. We and We That was First Kings. Probably one of the things that you pass because it's talking about all the appliances that are going to go in the temple. Yeah.

0:26:37 Thomas: Read every single thing, but I probably just didn't. I, I see, I'm with you. I actually don't find that one that important, and especially given the fact that it is and just where all these things are going. It's not like, it would be one thing if the Bible said, and God said, pi is exactly three or, you know, or God said this should be precisely 20, you know whatever, whatever he said, 30 and then this will be precisely 10. That might be a different story. The fact that, it's not really God saying it, right? Or is it? Is he giving instructions or is this when someone is doing something? I actually don't remember.

0:27:10 Tyler: It's Something was Doing something, but he it certainly needs to make it, but also you have to remember, uh, it's said in cubits. A cubit was literally the Person would Measure by measuring their forearm to Either The end of their palm or their, right, it's not an exact measurement. Anyways.

0:27:17 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. It's not precise. So I'm going to go ahead and say I agree with you on that one. I think that's a good point. I haven't brought that one up, and I will continue not to because I don't really think it's that great of a criticism. So what about the bats or birds one?

0:27:24 Tyler: Okay. Yeah. The The One Of them, it's talking about the list of animals, uh, that you can't eat, uh, and among the birds, uh, it says bats, right. You don't eat bats. Cave bats. Right, Not allowed to, uh, and a lot of people are like, well, that's stupid, right? Bats aren't birds, right? It's a mammal, right? It's not a bird, and they make this big thing about it, and it's like, well, um, and there's a couple of problems with it. First of all, taxonomy is an entirely artificial thing that we make up based on similar traits. What really happened in the ancient world, the word for bird, right? They didn't use birds in our modern taxonomical sense.

0:27:44 Thomas: All right.

0:28:09 Thomas: Yeah, see, I would have suspected this was more of a translation thing. I mean, I'm sure that there wasn't a precise word for this group of... Yeah.

0:28:13 Tyler: Yeah. No, it was winged things. Yeah. As opposed to swarming things, which is how they talk about insects, right. Right? You had winged things and you had swarming things. You had flying birds and you had insects, right?

0:28:25 Thomas: Yeah, it's very scientific. You know what? I think you're right about this, too. I don't actually think that's a big deal. I think that's a good point. So, lesson learned.

0:28:34 Tyler: So these are examples, though, of hermeneutic gestures. And when you read through things like merits lists of Bible contradictions or evilbible.org and all those types of lists, these are the types of things that you're coming across.

0:28:45 Thomas: I THINK you're RIGHT. I think some of these are exaggerated. Ithink that the important ones are probably more broad. Sometimes I poke little jokes at translation things in my Bible that I'm reading because it's just too funny. Like, there's just some words that are just so dumb that turns a phrase. But, I mean, I will acknowledge it's probably a translation thing. But they're, they're King

0:29:04 Tyler: Yeah. Especially if you're reading through, I forget, you're writing through the NIV, is that right? Yeah. See, King

0:29:07 Thomas: James. No, King James, that was the one that everyone said, sorry, what's that?

0:29:12 Tyler: Unicorns. You have unicorns in the King James, which is always fun.

0:29:16 Thomas: Oh, yeah, that wasn't, but I chose the King James admittedly, I didn't know much about it, I just needed to choose one, but, I chose it because that was, the one I had heard most oft referenced as, this is the great piece of literature, like, the King james version is the most poetic, the most whatever, so, that's why I chose that, I wanted to try to give it all the credit, I could, but I don't know. Maybe I chose the wrong version.

0:29:40 Tyler: Yeah, the King James is 16th century English. So even words it uses don't have the same meanings today. So it can use the word gentleman. And when we think of gentleman, we think a very polite man. When it uses gentleman, it means a landowner. So Words even in English change meaning. So I know we've got to wrap up. So, I came up with what I think is a really good example of kind of historical, theological, cultural, literary translation, kind of all like the perfect storm of hermeneutics on one passage that's so commonly misunderstood and so often used as an objection to the Bible, right? I didn't, I should have, I didn't listen to your, I don't remember. I was just about to confess and beg your forgiveness. Mea culpa. I'm sorry. I didn't actually go back into your catalog and pull up this episode to see if you addressed it. I should have. Right.

0:29:46 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hmm, yeah?

0:30:21 Thomas: Is this the one I used, or no? Oh, okay.

0:30:34 Thomas: That's okay.

0:30:35 Tyler: It's Elisha and the bears. Right? I'm sure you have. I'm sure you touched on it.

0:30:38 Thomas: All right. Is this the one where God murders a bunch of kids? No, wait. Yeah. God sends some bears to murder.

0:30:45 Tyler: Yeah. The two she bears come out and kills a bunch of kids.

0:30:48 Thomas: Yeah. Oh I can't wait to hear your explanation of this one. Okay, let's go.

0:30:50 Tyler: Right, so do you remember how you presented it? I can't say this is an indictment of you because I don't know how you presented it.

0:30:59 Thomas: I think that's been a long time. That's been probably, I would guess, I don't know, three years since I did that episode. So it'd be hard for me to remember, but I do remember it. And I do remember, I mean, I remember that content. And I think I, if I had to guess, I think I read it and said, well, that's awful. I mean that guy, I mean, it's just an awful thing that's described. I don't know.

0:31:21 Tyler: Yeah.

0:31:22 Thomas: I didn't get too much into what the background would be. I just said, Well, that that's like a horrendous story. And I can't believe that happened.

0:31:29 Tyler: Yeah, because when you read it and you read the surface test, it sounds like They made fun of a guy for being bald, a bunch of little kids, and he didn't like being called bald, and so he called on his big brother, God, and God was protecting his little brother and sent out some bears and killed the kids, right?

0:31:35 Thomas: I Yeah, yeah. All Right. So What Really Happened Let's see. Okay.

0:31:48 Tyler: This is a really good example because you have so many background issues that go into why this story's there. And again, I'm not saying this to say that the story is true. I'm Not even saying it to say the story's ethical, but we should at at least know what the story is saying, right? That's the whole point of hermeneutics. What is the author even trying to say? You have to know what it says before you can evaluate whether it's true, before you convite, whether it was ethical. Chances are, when I tell you this, you might change what you understand the story to be saying. I doubt you're going to change whether you think God is being ethical or not.

0:32:21 Tyler: So, okay. So first a couple of things, the children, we think of little doe-eyed traveling t-ball team kids, right? Little, little kids.

0:32:19 Thomas: All Right, they're Actually little shits, is that what you're gonna Say? All

0:32:33 Tyler: Basically, no, so the, the, the Hebrew word is na'ar. It's, it's basically a word that can mean, it covers someone up to like their, their late twenties, right. It basically, it kind of means like what we would think of as a young adult. It, It, it, that type of word. So it's right off the bat when you read these and and it says youths, right? If you think of a youth, right, even now we can think about someone being in their youth is still in their 20s, they're still in youth. That was especially common during, you're reading King James, it would have said youths. That was still common in King James' 17th century England. Your life expectancy was in your 40s. When you're 20, you're an adult. But you were a youth. You were a young man, right. You're not a child. A lot of translation says child. Another problem is um I don't know if you remember but there there are uh 42 of them that are mauled right so when the bears come out they attack 42 Of Him Uh So 42

0:32:34 Thomas: Right. Oh.

0:33:33 Thomas: I Don't remember that There Was That many, geez, this Guy Must have been really bald. Yeah.

0:33:38 Tyler: Right, and there's and there's and and that, that's just the ones that were bald or were mauled, right? How many do you think got away? Because it's two bears, right? They got 42 of um, chances are there there was more, right? So this isn't, this isn't some, some traveling like t-ball team of doe-eyed little kids, right? In this time and place we're talking about, the the, it's after the division of the monarchy, there's no more king, you have, you have little, little principalities, little city states that are, that are arising and expressing power, and you have what normally would be a check and balance on, on what are kind of roaming bands of brigands that are going around and kind of like highway robbers, they're, they're the, they assault people as they're out, right? So you have these, you, They have these little militia forces that go through and travel around, and they assault travelers, right?

0:34:25 Tyler: This is one of the problems. You read it through the prophets where it talks about how you assault the innocent on the highways, right. We think of highway like, you know, freeways. Highways were just, they're roads. You're not traveling. So this is most likely we're talking about a mob of brigands that are out to assault people, people. Um, we know that when they say go up bald man, go up all man, go up was their basically way of, it it was an assault, it was, it was like saying why don't you die, you should be dead, you're going to die, right? That's kind of the, the intent. Now, especially if it's coming from 42 plus uh men in a militia, right? If you were by yourself wandering and you have a militiam, 42 people come at you and saying you're gonna die, you're gonna die, do you take that as oh that's sweet, or do you take that as a threat in your life, right? I mean, so it's it's again, it's not just um, it's not just kind of this innocent, you know, go up, go up.

0:35:19 Tyler: They call it bald. Um, we think of bald and we think of male pattern baldness. Um, balding, for them, again, the Hebrew, uh, didn't actually, um, necessarily mean you were bald. People with leprosy, people who are outsiders, people who, um, were considered to be like the, the untouchable, they could have been called bald, right? The, the view was, um, you're an outsider, you're sickly, uh, you're untouchable, you, you're the scum of the earth, type of that, that's really what the, what the intent of that type of term would have been. So you have this, you havethis gang basically saying we're going to kill you, you, you worthless man, right? And where are we historically? Again, we're, we're in a time after, after the divided kingdom, he's going to Bethel, which is supposed to be the center of worship for God's people.

0:36:08 Tyler: But right now you have this group of people that are basically assaulting God's people as they travel to the tabernacle or to the temple, well, preventing them from going and offering their offerings or going to worship Yahweh, and probably beating and stealing, healing, and killing, and some of the people who are bringing their tithes and their sin offerings. So they're actually getting in the way of the purity of the people. When we come to the passage, when you understand the history and the literature and kind of everything that's happening at this point, where it's this band of brigands who are actually physically threatening his life, and it's the prophet of God, and they're getting in the way of people coming and worshiping God. Now again, it doesn't mean that you I doubt you suddenly are like, oh, hallelujah, Corius, it's true, God is great, right? But it's going to be a completely different meaning than if you just read the King James and be like, well, that's awful, right? Right. Did he kill a bunch of kids for saying this guy's bald? You're

0:37:10 Thomas: Allright, I, I would want to research that a little bit just to just to make sure, but yeah, I, I can, uh, I can accept that as a, uh, definitely a much different scenario. Is it translated any differently in different versions? All

0:37:25 Tyler: Gonna have, so I mean it doesn't trans, because really the only translational issue, um, is the word na'ar, which is translated youth, right? And youth, like I said, even in English can still mean a youth, it can still mean someone in their 20s, but some translations say you, some say young men, some say little ones, so I mean it, it can be translated as as different as different terms.

0:37:46 Thomas: Right.

0:37:46 Tyler: A Lot of this is coming from just the historical context where we at, it's also remember a long time ago, at the very beginning I talked about literary couplets, that they use, this is another example. So the passage that just preceded this, when, when, when Elisha was in a different city, those people responded in faith and there was a miracle of healing. This people responded with violence, and there was a quote-unquote miracle of justice, or of wrath. So it's actually a couplet narrative where it's comparing the faith of two different groups. So that type of literary repetition is there as well. So again, like I said, you probably aren't suddenly like, praise God, that's great. Right. But it's,

0:37:47 Thomas: Well,

0:38:29 Tyler: It's an example of, right? It's a different example. It's just a good example of saying, well, why is hermeneutics important? Right? Why is it that understanding the context is important? Because there's so many times where I talk about this and they're like, well you know, you're just appealing to, and I've literally had atheists say, well you know we don't need to understand context, you just need to read the text. Right?

And I'm just going to be like, this is the same objection I get from Christian fundamentalists who are, you know know, King James only. And they're going to say, well, you don't need to read the Greek. Just read the King James. Only if it's good enough for Paul, it's enough for me. Right. I mean, it is that type of it's that type of response. Well, I want to say we'll know if we're going to be if we are going to be responsible readers. Right now.

And I'm not saying again, I'm not saying you have to you have to believe in inerrancy or just if you want to be a responsible reader, there's a certain level where we have to hold our our superficial reading of the text really loosely and say,

0:38:29 Thomas: It's definitely better, yeah.

0:39:21 Tyler: I am reading this as on the plain kind of the prima facie, on the face of it, of the English text. If something comes across as really, really weird, it could be really, really weirdly, or it could just be that it's a, I'm not understanding something about the history, I'm understanding about something about the culture. Understanding hospitality laws in the ancient Near East will go really far in understanding a lot of tests

0:39:41 Thomas: Sure, but there's obviously a line between that and assuming. There are people who read it as, if God is doing something wrong, I'm misunderstanding it, which will get you into trouble just as much, I would think. So, I understand that. That's it.

0:39:43 Tyler: True Yep, yep, it does it and actually

0:39:57 Thomas: It

0:39:57 Tyler: It does, uh, again, just, just in my sentence, it's just fresh on my mind because I taught it this morning. I've actually, I already talked to my class today about saying, you know, there's, we don't need to rescue God. A lot of what passes for apologetics is just attempts to say, well, it looks like God's done something really, really bad. Well, what type of hula hoops can we jump through to make it okay?

0:40:19 Tyler: And a lot of times when I read through those, I'm just like, well, that's just, that's, that's just as bad of exegesis as, you know, reading that it's 42 little children getting killed for calling some guy bald, right? Those are equally bad.

0:40:30 Thomas: Well, I, I, uh, I wish it had been translated a little better than, or something, because it is pretty misleading, um, but I understood. All right, well, I want to thank you so much for coming on, Tyler. I think we likely could find a lot more to talk about, and uh, I'd be happy to do so, so let me know if you ever have something more you want to come on and discuss, because, uh, it was fun. I liked it a lot.

0:40:54 Tyler: Oh good, yeah, I'll have to have you on on my show sometime we can talk about you know I'll give you the steering wheel of mine like you've given me the steering wheel of yours I'll return the favor

0:40:57 Thomas: Hey, I'm in anytime. All right. Well, thanks so much. Is there anything, so you want to promote your show? I promote, feel free to plug anything you want.

0:41:08 Tyler: Sure, it's just the Freed Thinker podcast, um, it's available on iTunes, Stitcher, and then there's the the Facebook group, uh, the Freed Thinker group, I do, but it's so sporadic, uh Yeah.

0:41:19 Thomas: Cool. Do you have a Twitter or anything that you want people to follow? Yeah, sure. All Right. Well freed thinker

0:41:27 Tyler: Thanks

0:41:28 Thomas: Podcast, Tyler Vela. Thanks so much for coming on.

0:41:31 Tyler: So much for having me.

0:41:47 Thomas: Thank you so much Tyler for coming on. That was a fun discussion. I'm sure we could have gone on for quite a long time. I also want to thank my patrons so much. You can always support me at patreon.com/atheist. Now is a great time to support me. I mean, there's no way that they're going to get hacked again. They fixed that problem, so they're probably safe and they're paying extra attention to it. So I actually have three new patrons to well maybe actually maybe four Rex Hammer thank you so much Patricia Mueller, I think, sorry if I'm pronouncing that wrong, and Columbia House Holdings, LLC.

0:42:25 Thomas: Good story behind that. If you're curious for that story, go listen to all of Comedy Shoosh.

0:42:33 Thomas: Let's suffice to say it was really good. It was a really good joke that this patron, whose name I still don't know, it's a really good one. So go check that out. Jimmy Miles, thank you. Thank you to my four new patrons. Very impressive, very heartwarming, much appreciated. Thank you for supporting the show and helping me bring you cool stuff like this interview, like the debate I had, got more exciting stuff in the future. So that's patreon.com/atheist if you'd like to support my work. And with that said, I'll see you next week for a couple new episodes. It seems to be the pattern here. So I guess that's what we'll do. Adios!