Adventures in Biblical Interpretation

Transcript

adventures in Bible

interpretation the if you read the blur what I I'm going to give three examples of different common types of how we uh do Bible Study Bible

interpretation but the what I want to really emphasize is less the conclusion and look here's something cool I I found but more about the process and how uh are you seeing the uh Arrow here

yes we are good okay you keeping pet ideas honest we all get oh that's a cool idea what if this connects to that uh so the idea I want to share is is uh how to maybe be critical of our own ideas of mine how to uh what tools and methods we can use when we're doing our Bible study and creating classes or uh getting ideas to make sure that uh they're probably valid and if they're valid they're useful not just some interesting piece of information so uh before we start with the

Bible

uh

okay the advancement is not

advancing oh there we go okay I'm going to start with uh an analogy

of how we would look at a work of art there's a lot of similarities here in looking at scripture and the the main idea here is before you analyze a work of

art the first thing you need to do and there's a the Bible name for this and I'm going to be throwing a few funny words at you later but it's called exag

Jesus which is just determining what's actually in the text in this case it's it's an oil painting uh in the Bible it's what's in the text you what what's there what am I working with and I'll I'll be seeing an example of that from Genesis

one we looking at text well is it say this or to say this because you can only go as far as the text allows you to go so in this painting here by Yan verir uh one of the great Dutch Masters

reason I'm showing this is this is a one of his famous well they're all famous paintings by vermier he was just just fantastic artist she's holding a balance in fact the painting is called woman holding a

balance uh you may be able to determine in the balance there's little kind of shiny things in there uh and for years our the historians trying to figure out or ated what's that is she weighing coins is she weighing pearls is it just a reflection on the metal pants is one actually higher than the other just try to determine what's what's actually in the

picture uh evidently the the uh conclusion now rests on there's nothing in the balance it's just Reflections this was done by careful chemical analysis of those little shiny spots compared to the pearls over here and the coins down there that uh it's just a balance and it's balancing and she's holding a

balance okay neat uh another uh discussion has been right there is this woman pregnant or not or is that just some style or fashion she was wearing uh so first they did you'd have to decide what are we seeing there's a cloth here there's pearls there's coins uh what's in the background here if you can make it out this picture behind her is a picture of the last judgment which of course was a common a common theme for art European art for for

centuries so once it's determined to say okay we know when this painting was made we know the general uh I idea of Dutch art at the time the lot of symbolism oh I say you know what's the warrant for even proposing any interpretation uh it's it just a picture no it's it's got a lot of meaning because that's that's what uh Dutch art was or European art just it's full of symbols so the idea of a woman holding a balance the last judgment in the background there's certainly some message there what's the message well we're not sure about that rier is not here to tell us uh what exactly it was or if he wanted to leave it open is she uh one proposal is she's uh depicting the Balanced Life the ideal life or she's depicting the vanity of of wealth because there's lots of uh coins and Pearls there or she's depicting uh Prudence in business so different ideas but they all depend on what exactly are are we looking at the next example here we're getting closer to biblical

imagery

uh this guy here this uh I call a work of art it probably was not intended to be a work of art but a ceremonial work I doubt if the Craftsman who made this considered himself an artist as we would consider

today but what is this it was discovered nearly hundred years ago it's from the Royal tombs of Sumer it's found near the ancient city of or it's probably dates from the time of Abraham or or possibly earlier the archaeologist who discovered actually there's two there were two of

these

uh a fon kind of facing each other and they were smashed this is a reconstruction careful reconstruction but these were found buried and of course under 3,000 4,000 years of of uh dirt and compaction but they've been reconstructed this there's one here that's in the Philadelphia uh un excuse me University of Pennsylvania museum in Philadelphia and the other ones in the British museum the previous picture by vermier by the way you can see in the National Gallery in Washington

DC uh sir Leonard woy discovered this he was the main excavator uh and he called it Ram in a Thicket because it reminded him or because it came from suaria and it was attentively dated around the time of Abraham and this looks like a ram and this bush here so he called it a ram and a

Thicket Well turns out that it's not a ram and it's not a Thicket but the name has stuck it's still called a ram in a Thicket uh it's actually a goat uh if you can see these Twisted horns it's called a maror goat m a r k h o r maror goat and this Thicket is uh plants been identified I I don't recall what it is and this animal is standing up it's got its front legs on the on the the uh uh St not the stem the trunk of the of the plant here there's its head it's standing up this thing looks like feathers I don't know if it's supposed to be a coat or ribs or whatever or it's just a a fanciful Beast with

feathers uh it's most it's found in the tombs Royal tombs

so uh it was probably thought to be some type of ferary symbol or or or monument to the uh King uh it's what I have heard this obviously not my field someone else talking about this it's probably a fertility symbol and that kind of makes sense as you can see the the goat is kind of mounting this and this bush or tree is identified as some female fertility symbol and and the goat is the the male fertility symbol so whatever the interpretation the idea is here uh coming over to the text first you have to figure out what it is it's not a ram and a thick it's got nothing to do with Abraham or or or uh uh an artwork created to uh show that once you know what it is then you can propose what it means what's the possible representation say is it a a commemoration of this or is it say I'll go say it's a fertility symbol or whatever whatever the interpretation it has to be consistent with historical and social context we can't decide that this uh oh it's a goat oh that means this is this is the greatest of alltime sculptures or something like that that's that's totally out of time and place for for what that was we can't you know impose our ideas of goats and trees and and put them back in history we have to read interpretations out of not into any object or text so that with that introduction let's look at uh the process of biblical interpretation I got four principles one is I'm going to use this word called warrant

which means a cause a reason a justification some prompt some motivation for developing the line of thought say what what uh impels us to think that I should even look at this and find it symbolic in the first place and if so what line of thought I should go what's taking me hopefully in there's something inside the text that tells you that and I'm going to look at some uh warrants some examples of types of warrant in the next slide

uh the next is this Bible word exog Jesus which is what's the text actually say what am I looking at am I looking at a sculpture of a ram in a Thicket or of a goat on on some type of uh other kind of tree standing up in it not being caught in it but actually uh mounting it with the text we want to determine and most of this is done for us because we're reading English translations already so already it's it's it's done but some times we have reason to look more carefully or or say well I don't think this is saying you know it might be another way of seeing this so we want to look and make sure whatever text we're working from that allows for the interpretation that we're doing the third principle of consistency especially if using some kind of symbolic ideas or

themes that it's consistent with other uses that if uh you know for instance uh you're following a theme of rainbows or something like that and they usually mean this and in some other context you can't say well this rainbow is really about fruit salad where that's where' that come from that's not consistent and if it's not consistent you want to say that's because in this instance it's a sarcastic use or it's or it's uh there might be reasons but consistency is really important to not take any ideas or symbols of

well for this purpose it's got to mean this because that's what I'm trying to

say in aptness uh just the idea of General uh I think this is pretty well in place uh for most of us all the time although I've certainly heard stuff that sounds so bizarre you wonder

uh this the interpretation just fit in with the context of what being taught of the parable of Jesus do to fit in with of what he might say in in general Bible teaching so those are four General key ideas now I talked about

uh

warrant

meaning

some positive reason for going the way I want to go here here's what I uh mean by that a warrant could be a precedent like Messianic prophecies if you read in the New

Testament and say Matthew is quoting a Psalm in or

Isaiah then that's a precedent that's a instance they say okay that gives me reason to look at other Psalms or look more carefully in this Psalm to find other uh possibly Messianic indications there or if Paul says something like is it for the bow that Paul uh that that that the God cares about when he says you shouldn't muzzle a excuse me the ox when it Treads out the grain he says is it for the ox you know he's making a point and that's that gives you to gives me say well that means that it's fair game to look at other texts like that and say you know maybe it's not for the animals benefit maybe he's trying to teach us

also so that's that's the idea of precedent is is a a kind of a

warrant correlation of key words or ideas in two different texts this is one I can examine carefully in our last third example and it's a very common one is you're let's say you're reading

a

uh uh let's say a parable of Jesus and you start noticing hey he uses this he says this this does that possibly tie in to where these words also occur

in some you know part of the life of David is he pulling this out you know where what's the background we see a lot of that and that's a good warrant is you see correlation of couple ideas from two different text and say that's an invitation to go further and see if those texts are

connected resolving apparent

contradictions the one text says this the other says that that's certainly a warrant to look at them say why does he say in one place he who is not with me is against me and another place says he who is not against me is for me you so you look at the context that that's certainly an invitation to interpret and figure out what's going on anything that's obviously symbolic of like the Revelation say well I know I can't just take this as it is it's not literal what does it mean so a lot of symbolic texts are invitations or warrants for

interpretation poetry

Parables uh are Al almost always invitations to look further and say what might this

mean you read a a metaphoric statement like circumcise the forkin of your hearts what does that mean you don't your heart doesn't have a forkin and if it did you don't want to circumcise your heart with a flint kn you know this is nasty uh it's got to have some other meaning so any any type of statement like that is certainly an invitation or warrant for interpreting what it might actually the message might be our last one is filling in the dots what connecting the dots uh all the historical narratives are necessarily highly compacted

and what actually is happening on the ground in between point a and point B in the life of Jesus life of David Samson you talk any historical uh narrative text there just a lot of stuff to fill in and those are certainly what I would call a warrant for interpretation and creating uh the

narrative so here's the three I'm going to pause a little bit later for

uh uh

questions right now

I do want to introduce this three common modes of interpretation these are my three examples what I mean by a common mode is

uh a theme Bible classes Bible studies often are based on a theme a key word or a key idea and you want to take it from the beginning to the end from Dan de be Sheba uh fill it out all the places where this idea or this uh you know word uh maybe it's a place a place name and you trace it and you go all the way through that that's one of our i' say common or principle uh methods of of of developing Bible Exposition and I'm going to look at an example of that and then have look at it critically to see if that's

valid symbolic language and metaphors is clearly another one run into that a lot and one of my examples will be on that and what I call I'm going to introduce a big fat word for this later uh scriptural self- reference that those uh correlations between text where you say you discover that uh a parable of Jesus is is based on some some incident in the Old Testament or uh stuff like that're going look at a correlation between a Psalm and a historical

event

so here's the first one and for all you New England folk up there I I don't know who this guy is uh probably some of you do I do know he's wearing a Boston uniform Michael Napoli Mike napol okay is he still with the team he is not but he won a World Series with them okay so he's okay to uh put on there absolutely he had a lot of home runs in his time here David good player okay good I I kind of chose it because I wanted to see a picture of going for the fences you know hitting it from Dand beer she but just knocking it out of the park and that guy looked like a brute and he's got a swing there and that is a some home run that he hit uh and it's a nice picture too I like the composition and the uh the uh the power that's shown and the angle here this way and this way X nice nice Val anyway uh that's what we want to look for hitting it out so you get a theme and you start it in Genesis and you say how far can I go with this it's it's a good way to get excited about something and develop it and take some little seed of an idea so here's the one I'm going to work

with and it's going to start with it's Genesis 111 as I said this this word it's a good word to know um exag Jesus it's different than interpretation it comes before interpretation it's just getting getting the facts right and then I like I say you know what's actually in the picture what am I looking at so this text here is about the vegetation that comes out of the dry land when the waters are part and the dry land appears

and I'm going to show you

three

different uh renderings of this verse and say deciding you know which one is most likely representing what's intended in the text is becomes a matter of EX aesus not interpreting what this means just say what is it actually saying so the

ESV says let the Earth Sprout vegetation plants yielding seed and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their

seed vegetation comma he okay there's vegetation

now the NIV looking at exactly the same Hebrew text but makes a punctuation that changes vastly what it's being said let the land produce

vegetation

colon seed bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit so this one here has vegetation plants yielding you think was that three different things

or is vegetation a general CL class of which these two are

specific same text but two different ways of rendering it the Third

Way in the KJV or the

nkjv makes it explicit let the Earth bring forth grass the word translated vegetation now is rendered

grass the herb that yields seed and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind whose seed is in

itself so you look at the same Hebrew text and you got three options here are we dealing

with a general category in two different specific types of plants or is it this Sprout vegetation whatever that might be and plants and fruit or is this actually grass herbs and fruit

trees uh you can look at the words and probably not come to a

conclusion you can look at the comparative days of creation and see well which one kind of matches up with the Stars or the or the sea animals or the land animals or how God works it's uh it's it's I say uh is a reason why these are different because I think all of them are

possible it's a it's a difficult matter of EX

Jesus but my

opinion

is that it's three different things I think this matches up most clearly with the other creative days and also it has this feature which is uh very distinctly in it says grass herbs that yield seed so the second description is longer and then the trees that bear fruit that contain seeds so that's clearly three different types of things even though this first word that's can be rendered grass can also mean green stuff it's even more General than that it's hard hard to explain how in English um it's actually the noun cognate of the verb where it says let the Earth bring forth It's like let the Earth bring forth stuff that comes forth it's uh but in Hebrew that's uh knowing how sometimes words are kind of generic but I think this is probably where it's going so once I make a a determination that this is what the text is is there now I can work and say well okay grass herbs trees is there anything to go beyond

that uh just take it as it is and you know okay let's move on to the fourth day and see what's what's coming up there uh so this is what to me I saw this and I looked at this many many many many many years ago and decided to take it from Dand de beir Sheba I was going to knock this one out of the park

uh so first thing I noticed

was that these three represented the kind of three General uh yes I took plant ecology in college one of my favorite classes yeah there's Ground Covers there's midstory things like bushes and there's the canopy layer I said oh that's interesting God's got an ecological picture here that's really cool in the uh the Earth comes forth the dry land shows up and it's not just got plants but it's like this this is a good science here he he's got a great story and then I took it to the next step I said well what kind of

plants might these

be in the in a agricultural context

well there's

grains there's shrubs and Vines and bushes and there's fruit

trees and biblically or I have edible or edible what the what what's being pictured

here

is grain uh wheat or barley or any

grain that's the grass the

herbs have uh primarily in the Bible is talking about grape Vines and the tree the main tree is the Olive Tree that yields olives that yields olive oil so that's where uh pardon the p the seed of all this is in Genesis

1:1 that that's where it's it's hinting at and of course the very beginning

way so you have this picture now or this interpretation the dry ground ground land arises out of the sea remember the water see my waving my hands here uh the the uh and its purpose was

oh my goodness did I do that oh get rid of that apostrophe I'm sorry that's horrible mistake um its purpose was to bear fruit and this becomes

now a symbol when when we because a lot of places you read in the Bible about the Grain and the wine and the oil uh for instance this passage from Deuteronomy if you serve him with all your heart and all your soul Soul he will give you rain that you may Gather in your grain and your wine and your oil this is a reference back to Genesis 111 of the creation of the dry ground or the the Earth the same name for the the land uh the land of Israel that's in there and in places where Israel disobeys

God uh like this Prophecy from Joel the the grain is destroyed the wine dries up the oil

languishes uh there's a number of places where you

read of that type of text and what it's say here di in beers Sheba now you know gen Genesis 101 is home plate I'm really mixing these metaphors amazingly or that's Dan and I'm going all the way to BBA with this

I'm is that what we see way back in Genesis 111 about these three categories of grain coming out of the land it's a picture of baptism it's a picture of Israel going or Israel coming out through the Red Sea God wants to see fruit the fruit of the spirit if if you develop that I will take care of you that's that's a

symbol and when Israel doesn't develop fruit it's it's it's thought God is is taking it away they've already done that the grain destroyed it's because they have not brought for forth the fruit of the spirit that they become cursed so it's a symbol both of natural and spiritual

Israel okay that's where I took it but it's all based on if there's actually those three categories in Genesis if that's the right ex of Jesus then I'm justified in going here not 100% sure that is correct I'm pretty sure I look at that a lot and I in my mind well is it there is it not there it's a great story if it is there but uh I'm not 100% convinced if if that indeed if those three things are indeed indicated by the the text in Genesis 111 then I think this is valid uh and it's hard not to see it uh it's also hard not to see this and then not look back at Genesis 1 11 and and have that kind of twist my mind into believing that's got to be what it says because here's where it go you know that's probably not the best way to to interpret scriptures you know justify our conclusion that say well it's got to be there because this rest of this looks so good well maybe it is but I really think it is and I really suggest when you see this or different combinations when he says like the fruit tree and your loaf uh or your your all Orchard and your wine Vats will will dry up there a lot of different ways this is stated but it's all I'm quite sure uh a spiritual an important spiritual lesson for us okay let's look at the second

example

okay I'll explain this word an idiote guide to idioms decoding idioms in other symbolic language but sometimes the Sheep is just the Sheep

uh I I will not comment on how much this sheep does resemble uh Sullivan but if you look at these eyebrows

here it's it's hard to mistake it

um sometimes a sheep is a sheep sometimes a sheep represents us so how do you know what's what what are the rules here does anybody uh know why I put this word in here an idiote besides it's a litera of ID idiotes

guide that's a Bible word it occurs in Acts

4:13 uh when Peter was and the disciples were speaking in the temple after I think it's after they were arrested put in jail God out they speaking the temple and it says when they perceived that these were uneducated common men they they they wondered and then they knew that they had been with Jesus that word for common men the Greek word there is this word idiotes from of course we get our our English term

idiot but that's not how the word started it's it meant originally a a citizen who was not of uh a a public servant you had like important people and then you had regular people com common people so the they're that they were they were the idiotes or or Ordinary People common people people of no office but just they're like the pawns or

uh and then of

course down through years in history and language change it became something else so this just a plain guide to idioms for ordinary folk like

us the idiomatic language I want to look at comes from the promises to Abraham what's our

time what I don't have

a six and

nine okay we're

good there are three the first time God promises anything about the seed he said in Genesis 13:16 right after uh Abraham and lot separate and he says I will make your seed as the dust of the

Earth and uh using that dust as a symbol

for

uh multitude multiplicity he says it's I make your seed dirty no so if you can if you can count the grains of your dirt you can count your

seed

so the warrant for even looking into this would be well that's that seems like a hyperbolic statement

that's the I mean that's uncountable that that's totally unrealistic no one can have that many descendants so we might want to look at that but the next time God promises something to

Abraham uh in this critically important text it's I think quoted four different places the New Testament Abraham believed God and God counted him as

righteousness and he says I'll make your seed this is what Abraham believed when God said I'll make your seed is the stars of heaven and I'm

imagining uh 1500 or so 2,000 BC there's not a heck of a lot of light pollution Abraham is seeing Stars uh a thousand stars for everyone that we can see it must have been amazing just absolutely amazing what the uh on a moonless night a clear night moonless night what what the heavens would have looked like

uh to to ancient

peoples so the warrant for you say why would I want to look into this well yeah it's it's hyperbole no one could have that many seed the stars of Heaven might be easier to count uh CU you look up there see 1111 but the the dust of the Earth but it's still you know clearly uh hyperbolic and plus it's different for what he said before so that you got two reasons for wanting to look into this I I wouldn't say it's a contradiction to what he said before but it's we got to figure this out is it like the dust of the Earth the Stars

Heaven God comes to Abraham a third time this one is after the uh the offering or the not offering of

Isaac and God says to Abraham because you've obeyed my voice and you proven yourself faithful to me now for the third time he says this I will make your seed

oh there's another type oh not the starts of Heaven the stars of Heaven and the sand upon the

seashore so now we got a third one added here one's been repeated and one's been added so the word for say get interpreting we got three different metaphors and they're

all

clearly hyperboles and this one I'm to my mind

is got to be the most hyper counting grains of

sand I mean even in a in a tiny amount you know handful of sand you think of the the seashore the whole

oceans that's a it's probably not as many as there are stars in in the universe but visibly I to me this is the most impactful uh metaphor

so what do you do with these

three you the seed is

Promised uh with three different promises and three

different uh metaphors make your seed as numerous as the dust of the Earth the stars of heaven and sand upon the seashore so we we we say we're dealing with symbolic language we're dealing with hyperboles in three different ones this is just a matter of God emphasizing something

and as if to say well if you think the dust of the earth is hard to count try the stars of heaven and you think that's hard to count try the sand on the seashore but the last one has stars of Heaven and the sand those are two are together in the Genesis 22 reference so maybe he's trying to make it even harder to count and over against all

that there a huge

contradiction which

is what does Paul say in Galatians about the seed

anyone is the seed numerous Paul

says say it's one one

right it's clearly you've got Paul says and and he makes this point the seed is not many but it's one was Jesus so there's a huge contradiction here not only these idic

but you Paul's read this a few hundred times he he knows these

metaphors and he's saying the seed is not many it's all about

Jesus so I would say that's a contradiction at least on the surface it's obviously not a contradiction in in meaning but it's really weird to see this in the in Genesis this threefold

repetition

of really great metaphors of uncountability dust of the earth stars of Heaven sand of the

seashore and then Paul says oh yeah by the way that's all talking about just Jes it's not doesn't mean a lot means just it's all about Jesus so what do you do with this that's what I say that's that's a clear warrant to look into it here's what I what I did with

it uh okay we got to apply these idioms to Jesus Paul says this though this is about Jesus so in some way we got to uh

find that somehow this points to Jesus this describes Jesus so let's let's go go from

here those first two figures I don't think are uh we're familiar with as a qualitative items I'm not talking about quantity like a number but dust is refers to things of the earth and

stars are Heavenly things in First Corinthians he you ex ex explicates that idea you got dust mortal Heavenly

Immortal and you say okay we're on the right track here because Jesus was both both of the dust and and and of the stars and he had you know an Earthly sense and a Heavenly uh Constitution uh born of God inside a mortal woman so we're okay there I think getting someplace sand on the

seashore the sand on the seashore is uh not used as often as those figures and it doesn't show up in the New Testament but if you look at the references where it does show up in the Old

Testament It's associated with a a concepts of authority rulership and Dominion Jeremiah this text here says I placed this sand as a Bound for the sea that it should go no more and if you take the sea for its symbolic meaning you know unruly peoples and the sand rules the seashore rules it first K 29 is about Solomon's wisdom that God gave him wisdom as the sand on the seashore so he could govern his people it's about governance these two references here are about uh armies that are described as as numerous as the sand on the seashore uh sub military Authority in that

case there's not a whole lot of places and there are some par not parallel but partial there's a lot of places that just talk about sand there's a lot of placees talk about sand of the sea but this specific one here sand on the seash shore uh got if you just restrict it to that you get a consistent picture of how that is used and now we can say well yeah okay we can see how this would apply to Jesus he is uh you know mortal person he's Immortal and he is certainly the authority the ruler the man who's given all things uh God gave him dominion over all things so I I think we're on on the right track here but taking it one more

step in looking at these three now as I say three chronological aspects of of Jesus that he came first as IM mortal human after his resurrection he is Immortal he is now as the stars of Heaven at the right hand of God when he returns he still Immortal but now returning as a ruler and those two were those two figures of speeech

the the stars of heaven and sand on the seashore were joined to together in Genesis 22 so that third prophecy now would describe Jesus after his

return so this all fits together together it correlates it makes a nice

story uh I think it's really

cool but looking at it critically you'd have to

say would Abraham have any idea what that was all about was this just written for our sake does this make any sense without all the other Bible references it's just something that was written you know how would this this uh metaphoric idea been important to to people who didn't have judges or Joshua first king to read to see how it's just used in scripture uh so again I have a little uh you know

reservation or maybe I should maybe it's okay just say no this was you Abraham got what he got out of it and we get what he we can see it because we don't have the God talking to us directly God talks to us through through a scripture and this is how he does it so like the previous one Genesis it makes it's terrific I like the outcome uh the validity of it is it anything more than just well it matches up and that's cool or is there uh you know real reason to believe that that was intentional it's hard to believe it's not intentional very many

occurrences and the one we're looking for is specifically sand on the seashore or talking about the the sea shore not just sand in in the sea

Authority rulership or Dominion where do I get that Jeremiah 522 if you look at that says I place the sand as the Bound for the sea that it should uh go no further the idea being that the seashore confines or has uh rulership over the the waves in the sea and we usually take and I think with good reason the idea of the waves in the sea is to be

just people doing their people thing the the uh uh what you call the the masses people acting like just humans but the sea has the sea shore the sand has Authority First Kings 429 that reference was Solomon prayed for wisdom and God says Solomon prayed for wisdom that I might govern this people and the wisdom that God gave him was described as as the sand on the seashore

the metaphor there was

the his wisdom was to be used for governing rulership over his

people these two references I believe there's a third one uh this one describes the uh Canaanite armies and this one describes the midianite armies in Judges

7 but it says that they they came against Israel as the sand on the seashore so those in military context to uh describe the power let's say of those

armies does that help Bob yeah yeah I'll look into that some more

yeah see this other references just talks about the the the sand and they're less

specific don't have as much to go on say this is not as sturdy as as these ideas is the Dustin Heavenly which is you know pretty clear but it's there and it is in the promised Abraham so why did he include that and it just so happens those three promises happen to match up uh with Jesus as Immortal Jesus after his resurrection and Jesus as the immortal

ruler okay third

example

intertextuality you like that

word great word it's clean word don't worry about it uh you know if you find out the cyc did intertextuality don't worry about it that's okay uh it means just comparing scripture scripture finding out it it's a technical term that's used not just the Bible but in literary criticism about the dependency of one text upon another the influence of uh one

text it's just a big word CES viel and is a big word that means big word I love that word too finding connections and I I call this the Holy Grail of Bible study it's like one of the neatest things you find is when you can line up say look at all these things that are mentioned here and it uh you know it turns out that Peter's uh the the day of Pentecost you know just matches up with all these cool things I can find back in Genesis and things like that uh great stuff so we're going to look at example there

91 he who dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty I will say of the Lord he is my refuge in my Fortress my God in him will I trust surely he shall deliver thee From The Snare of the Fowler from the noisome pestilence he shall cover thee with his feathers and under his wings shall thou trust his truth shall be thy shield and buckler Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night nor for the arrow that flyth by day nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness nor for the destruction that wasteth that Noonday thousands shall fall by thy side and 10,000 at the right hand it shall not come near thee Only With Thine Eyes shall thou behold and see the reward of the wicked because thou Hast made the Lord who is my refuge even the most high thy habitation shall no evil befall thee neither shall any plague come near thy dwelling but he shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways they shall bear thee up in their hands lest thou Dash thy foot against a stone and thou shalt tread upon the lion and Adder the Young Lion and the serpent thou shall trample under feet because he hath set his love upon me therefore will I Del deliver him I will set him on high because he hath known my name he shall call upon me and I will answer him I will be with him in trouble I will deliver him and honor him with long life will I satisfy him and show him my

salvation great

thanks so that that Psalm is you know just one of the really nice psalms about God's protection I think it's specific it's not just talking in general about you know bad things happening and that God's going to take care of you and stuff like that uh

it's suggestion is that this Psalm is written with the seeds of Jerusalem in mind uh but just go through some of the the highlights or key

points that Yahweh my refuge and my Fortress my God in whom I trust I will deliver him I will protect him because he knows my name there's an emphas there not just knowing god knowing my name Yahweh the

deliverence deadly

pestilence God's faithfulness here is liken to a defense a shield in the

buckler there's a terror of the night and the arrow that flies by

day thousands 10 thousands dying but not coming near you is it starting to see the picture here maybe you will look and see the recompense of the

wicked and this last one being delivered From The Snare of the Fowler so compare

that

with some of the thing the phrases that show up these are mostly taken from the second King's account but it's in Second Kings it's in Isaiah and it's in in 2 Chronicles too we have three different accounts of this

uh but just in I just in Second Kings alone three times the rabsha or the representative sakb says to the people of Jerusalem don't trust in Yahweh to deliver you three times don't do that uh there's a backstory there but clearly it says the psalm says I will deliver him because he knows my

name don't trust Yahweh that CLE clearly matches up I will defend my city the city for my own

sake matches up with this idea I am your shield and

buckler you that's specific phrase where they say don't let this is what the the Assyrians Ambassador says don't let Hezekiah deceive You by saying Yahweh will deliver you but it's

clear the Yahweh did deliver them I will deliver him and protect him because he knows my

name of course that famous famous statement when people Rose in the morning behold these were all dead bodies they looked over the city wall the whole Camp of Syria was dead matches up with you will look and see the recompense of the

wicked tens of thousands slain 185,000 Assyrians

this spe God said to Hezekiah via Isaiah he shall not come into the city or shoot an arrow specific reference you will not fear the tear of the night nor the arrow that flies by

day uh yeah look at the slain the pestilence of course was during the night that's when the angel of the Lord came and slew them there's the tear of the night the air of the Flies by day but that would not

come upon them this last one here is not in the Bible but it's really worth

noting in the psalm it says the God will deliver You From The Snare of the Fowler this statement here I shut him up like a bird in a cage that is the actual words of

sakb it's not in the Bible where it's recorded is on a historical uh Monument that's been Unearthed and of course it's in the British museum you they stole a lot of good stuff from them at least in a uh object called the tailor prism if you look up Taylor prism or it's also called I think the sakb prism or the steel of sakb but it has a history that very much parallels all the victories of sakar up into to The Siege of Jerusalem and it says I shut him Hezekiah up like a bird in a cage because they did have Jerusalem surrounded the psalm says I'll deliver You From The Snare of the Fowler the bird keeper and that's where the uh by the way the that's the last thing that's written in these types of uh ancient irishan monuments you you're not going to read about their failures this but it's really telling to to read the script or the translation of the script of on the Taylor prism of everything all the victories and then he gets up to this point where he's got Jerusalem and Siege and then it stops and well we're not going to talk about the rest of that stuff okay so you look at a list like this

and it's kind of hard to not think that this Psalm 91 is written with this in mind if you want to go The Next Step was written by Hezekiah written by Isaiah I I certainly couldn't say that or by somebody familiar with it or somebody using this history as a basis for this

uh but that leads us to some of the

expositional how do you do intertextuality like

this how many links War do like if there's just two or three is that connection or not how many do you need you know you can use the uh the uh the Goldfinger rule you know that

one famous line from uh one of the inflaming James Bond books once is coincidence now once is happen stance twice is coincidence the third time is enemy action uh or design intention is there three is there five is there six obviously the more the better but you know that that's the uh a question that's not all yet we're not there linking words how specific you know that word arrow is kind of specific uh I think it's not uh so that that's something to weigh too are are there really things that don't show up a whole lot you know words like death and life up a lot uh armies show up a lot but is something more the arrow that flies by day that kind of seems to me worthy of looking

twice if you see a few specific links does that invite looser associations the S says uh I'll reward him with long life so do you want to extend that say well yeah hezekiah's life was extended 15 years after that it's it's inviting to think that way uh I don't know I don't want to push that too hard but I want to keep myself honest here so I'll think that way and look at it and if there is a design this is maybe the most important if psalm91 really was written with that in mind what's the value for us is this just a curious piece of hey that's cool just you know I can mark up my Bible now and or I can make a good Bible class with it or does this help me uh understand God's care for me God's care for Israel is there there's got to be a spiritual lesson we don't want to ever do these list of connections from one text to another and just say wow that is so cool maybe that is its own benefit is just seeing how the Bible depends on each other but that to me is a a key key key item is taking any of these conclusion say well now that I know this how does that benefit my my uh my development of my spiritual life so there's three different ways of looking at scriptures three types of conclusions that I've come to or tentative conclusions that look good but always invite say uh

further investigation you don't want to be push things but I want to see everything that is in there that the Bible's got to offer me