Genocide, Joshua, and the OT with Dr. David Schreiner
February 24, 2022
What are we to make of genocide in the Old Testament? Today Dr. David Screiner talks through this challenging subject. He focuses on one Hebrew word that is often translated as “totally destroy” (Josh. 10:28). I found this discussion to be incredibly helpful and I think you will too. Here are the links:
YouTube - https://youtu.be/Kaq_ayjKqlQ
Audio - https://andymilleriii.com/media/podcast
Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/more-to-the-story-with-dr-andy-miller/id1569988895?uo=4
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Transcript
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Transcript
00:00:01 Speaker 1
This is the more to the story podcast with Doctor Andy Miller.
00:00:05
We hope you guys enjoyed today's conversation.
00:00:07 Speaker 1
Welcome to the more to the story podcasts.
00:00:10 Speaker 1
So glad you've come a long day and look this is gonna be a fun episode and some of you saw the title and this might be a question that you've wondered about for a while, so I hope you'll stay around.
00:00:20 Speaker 1
This podcast is brought to you by Wesley Biblical Seminary, where we are training trusted leaders for faithful churches.
00:00:28 Speaker 1
And we have a sense that this doesn't just mean just training people to become pastors and senior pastors and churches and said we have things that we offer for the whole church.
00:00:37 Speaker 1
People who are Sunday school teachers, people who just want to go deeper in their faith.
00:00:41 Speaker 1
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00:00:43 Speaker 1
This is a month long, a several month long process of working through every book of the Bible.
00:00:48 Speaker 1
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00:00:52 Speaker 1
Which is an opportunity to go deeper into theological studies so you can find information about that at wbz.edu.
00:00:58 Speaker 1
In addition to all of our other academic programs where you offer a bachelors degree in Pastoral Ministry Pastoral ministry, right?
00:01:05 Speaker 1
We say my.
00:01:07 Speaker 1
Uh, Chris Christian Mission Critical Mission Ministry kill and then we have various Emazemasters divinity Dr of Ministry program.
00:01:07 Speaker 2
Christian Ministry Christian ministries.
00:01:15 Speaker 1
So we hope you'll check that out today.
00:01:18 Speaker 1
I have on the podcast with me.
00:01:20 Speaker 1
One of our very own professors from WBZ doctor, David Shriner Dave.
00:01:25 Speaker 1
Welcome to podcasts.
00:01:25 Speaker 2
Thanks Annie, I think.
00:01:27 Speaker 1
Show me so.
00:01:27 Speaker 1
Dave serves as associate in a couple roles.
00:01:30 Speaker 1
He's the associate academic Dean.
00:01:32 Speaker 1
He's also an associate.
00:01:33 Speaker 1
Are you associate professor, associate professor of Old Testament.
00:01:37 Speaker 1
So Dave came over to my house last night and my boys attacked him with their swords, right almost and so and in that moment, when the.
00:01:44 Speaker 1
Happen, that just led to an impromptu lecture on ihud.
00:01:48 Speaker 1
Well this far.
00:01:48 Speaker 2
It was it was a bit it.
00:01:50 Speaker 2
Was a bit prodded, you were like.
00:01:52 Speaker 2
OK, yeah I
00:01:54 Speaker 2
Share with my kids some information.
00:01:55 Speaker 2
So I was.
00:01:56 Speaker 1
Like OK look when you have a Old Testament scholar in the house, what?
00:01:59 Speaker 2
Do you do?
00:02:00 Speaker 2
Yeah, just advantage of it.
00:02:02 Speaker 2
Ask him to bore everybody with his lectures.
00:02:03 Speaker 1
There was not boredom, there was no boredom.
00:02:06 Speaker 1
My boys were holding onto their swords.
00:02:08
Looking up at.
00:02:09 Speaker 1
A white iron and they're here.
00:02:11 Speaker 1
And and then you started talking about.
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I'm like look.
00:02:13 Speaker 1
Old Testament I I'm trying I'm trying.
00:02:15 Speaker 1
I'm hopeful that as they listen to you that they might think, huh?
00:02:18 Speaker 1
I'd like.
00:02:18 Speaker 1
To do that job right?
00:02:19 Speaker 2
Maybe who knows? Yeah, maybe.
00:02:19 Speaker 1
It's learning about Iron Age and Spears.
00:02:21 Speaker 2
Yeah, Iron Age and culture, javelins and Spears and yeah.
00:02:23 Speaker 1
All kinds of things.
00:02:25 Speaker 1
So this then led to an interesting discussion to like as we learn further, Abby and the kids have been working their way through like studying the Bible themselves in our kind like our home school curriculum.
00:02:33 Speaker 1
And they've just they're like halfway through Joshua, and then the discussion came.
00:02:36 Speaker 2
Right?
00:02:38 Speaker 2
Up which it always does, and this is.
00:02:40 Speaker 1
Are you?
00:02:41 Speaker 2
Just this yeah, yeah, yeah it happens it it comes up it comes up a lot like what do we what do we?
00:02:46 Speaker 2
What do we do with this?
00:02:47 Speaker 2
How do we?
00:02:47 Speaker 1
I mean, if you're every Old Testament scholar worth their salt needs to be prepared prepared to deal with you know, violence in the Old Testament, these types genocide.
00:02:56 Speaker 1
These type of questions. So for instance, right? We just went and we had another. After that after we had 1/2 an hour on ihud then we had half an hour 45 minutes on Joshua. So for instance I don't know.
00:03:03 Speaker 2
Right wasn't that long?
00:03:05 Speaker 2
Some of this?
00:03:07
Oh my God.
00:03:07 Speaker 1
But I'll, I'm not saying that in a dominating way.
00:03:11 Speaker 1
It was a.
00:03:12 Speaker 1
Great, you know half an hour and my kids were really listening so.
00:03:15
That's good, I thought.
00:03:16 Speaker 1
If they're listening and they're interested, I think my podcast audience from B as well.
00:03:19 Speaker 2
All right, let's go, let's go, let's do it.
00:03:20 Speaker 1
So I think you can help him.
00:03:22 Speaker 1
OK, so for instance Joshua Chapter 10 verse 28 that day Joshua put the city and its king to the sword and totally destroyed everyone in it. He left no.
00:03:37 Speaker 1
And he did to the king all her makeda, as he had done to the King of Jericho, right?
00:03:44 Speaker 1
So this brings up this question, why?
00:03:47 Speaker 1
Why would God ask Joshua to conquest the land and totally destroy everything?
00:03:53 Speaker 1
I mean, what's going?
00:03:54 Speaker 2
On here, yeah, so there's a lot going on there.
00:03:56
I'm sorry.
00:03:56 Speaker 2
And and and I and I will back up and say that this has been kind of a point of recent conversation.
00:04:03 Speaker 2
It's kind of been revived for a variety of reasons.
00:04:05 Speaker 2
I'm I'm thinking of Charlie terms book that's getting ready to come out, and while they pushed back the publication, it was supposed to be in February.
00:04:12 Speaker 2
I think it's coming out in March now.
00:04:13 Speaker 2
It's it's about this topic in in the the the destruction of the Canaanites or something along those lines.
00:04:19 Speaker 2
It's published by Erdmans and it's kind of continuing a a lengthy conversation.
00:04:26 Speaker 2
There's been some ongoing conversation about violence in the Old Testament over the past few years, and any time you have conversation about violence, it ultimately leads into the book of judges and the Book of Joshua, because particularly with Joshua.
00:04:40 Speaker 2
Many English translations, particularly in Chapter 10 and chap.
00:04:44 Speaker 2
11 start talking about utterly destroying people.
00:04:49 Speaker 2
Devoting people to the ban and and and and.
00:04:52 Speaker 2
It paints for us a picture.
00:04:54 Speaker 2
That's quite disturbing, yeah, so let.
00:04:56 Speaker 1
Me stop so you say, just over the past couple of decades.
00:04:59 Speaker 1
But there's a sentence or just recently, but I mean, there's a way that this has been a topic for centuries.
00:05:03 Speaker 2
Right, it's a perpetual topic.
00:05:06 Speaker 1
I mean, it's probably always going to be there but but you're saying kind of like in the academic discipline, it's heated up recently.
00:05:09 Speaker 2
Yeah, right?
00:05:11 Speaker 1
Become more.
00:05:12 Speaker 2
Yeah, everything, everything cyclical, right?
00:05:14 Speaker 2
You you revisit old things and and and recently with in recent memory.
00:05:17 Speaker 2
Within the past handful of years.
00:05:19 Speaker 2
Yeah, particularly two or three.
00:05:21 Speaker 2
This has come up again and this is this is always going to be there because people like Richard Dawkins will point to these passages and talk about the ludicrousness of Christianity and Christian theology.
00:05:30
Yeah, yeah.
00:05:31 Speaker 2
And you know how can you worship a God who advocates genocide and those types of things, and so there's a lot of strawmen that are being created and used for discussion and beaten and and and.
00:05:41 Speaker 2
And we'll destroy one straw man only to create another one, and we'll beat on him.
00:05:46 Speaker 2
And and so there's, there's.
00:05:47 Speaker 2
There's all this to say that there's a lot, a lot, a lot going on here.
00:05:51 Speaker 2
And while.
00:05:55 Speaker 2
It's very difficult to answer everybody's questions. All the questions I should say that that anybody may have, you know, we have to approach this conversation with.
00:06:06 Speaker 2
Nuans right patience intentionality.
00:06:10 Speaker 2
Because, as I've already mentioned, there's a lot that's going on here.
00:06:13 Speaker 2
We have to think about not just historical things.
00:06:15 Speaker 2
We have to think about literary things.
00:06:17 Speaker 2
We have to think about linguistic things because they're all converging, they're all converging.
00:06:19 Speaker 1
Right, right, right, right.
00:06:20 Speaker 2
And then there's also a final layer onto this of of these passages, and what's the meaning and and how do we take these?
00:06:27 Speaker 2
There's a way for the context of the Canon, because you order the implications of Jesus and and and the issue of final judgment day, and you know Orthodox Christian theology that adds a whole another layer to it.
00:06:29 Speaker 1
Right, right, right sure.
00:06:38 Speaker 2
As well, right?
00:06:40 Speaker 1
So let's just start with that.
00:06:41 Speaker 1
Then like how do we?
00:06:42 Speaker 1
Is this a good translation like I'm I've just read from the Nivs totally destroyed everyone.
00:06:47 Speaker 2
No, no English translation is a good translation on this topic and.
00:06:47 Speaker 1
In it.
00:06:51 Speaker 1
Hey, that's a that's a really important.
00:06:53 Speaker 1
No English translation is a good translation.
00:06:54 Speaker 1
So what?
00:06:55 Speaker 1
Do you mean by?
00:06:56 Speaker 2
That well, this is a word.
00:06:58 Speaker 2
The word that is and and you can open your own English translation up to this and you can see what your favorite Bible translation says.
00:07:04 Speaker 2
Like I said, I'm used to ideas of totally destroy utterly destroyed devote to the band.
00:07:09 Speaker 2
There's that one.
00:07:10 Speaker 1
Van Ba, Andy not the band.
00:07:11 Speaker 2
And yeah, band to devote to the band and and you, you, you first read that you're kind of like what?
00:07:13 Speaker 1
OK.
00:07:16 Speaker 2
Well, there's a reason to that.
00:07:17 Speaker 2
But anyway, in my opinion there's no English translation that really does this concept justice because.
00:07:24 Speaker 2
We're dealing with a family of words, and the noun is Haram and the verb is haraam and it comes from the root het reash mem.
00:07:33 Speaker 1
OK.
00:07:33 Speaker 2
And there's no good English translation for this.
00:07:37 Speaker 2
There's no one to one correspondence.
00:07:39 Speaker 2
This is this is a, in my opinion this this word borderlines on the untranslatable and, and I often tell my students.
00:07:44 Speaker 1
OK.
00:07:47 Speaker 2
Well, you get to this and maybe you should just say God horam them or Joshua, Hiram them or something along those lines, because that signals to me as your professor that you understand the baggage associated with this.
00:07:52 Speaker 1
Right, sure, sure.
00:07:58 Speaker 2
There's a lot of baggage here, so that's the first thing we have to realize.
00:08:01 Speaker 2
There's no good English translation for for all of the things that we're going to talk about, and so.
00:08:06 Speaker 2
You really have to be patient here and you really have to dig deep and and really kind of figure out all the.
00:08:13 Speaker 2
So that's the first.
00:08:14 Speaker 1
Thing so so even in like the way you would get to a translation is you would look at it and how it's paralleled in other ancient Near East languages and how it's used.
00:08:22 Speaker 1
So I mean is this word not shell param?
00:08:25 Speaker 1
I can't get my gut rolls in there as well as you, but yeah it does not show up.
00:08:28 Speaker 2
It you know one of the things, one of the things that we do, particularly testament studies when we're dealing with a difficult concept or a difficult term, is we look to the related languages to build.
00:08:37 Speaker 2
Hebrew we call these cognate languages, and so we look to see if there's the same word, or if it has related words that are used in similar contexts and those types of things.
00:08:48 Speaker 2
And this happens all the time.
00:08:49 Speaker 2
You may look to Aramaic.
00:08:51 Speaker 2
You may look to Ugaritic.
00:08:52 Speaker 2
You may look to Akkadian.
00:08:53 Speaker 2
Those types of things 'cause these.
00:08:54 Speaker 2
These languages are all related some more closely than others.
00:08:55 Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.
00:08:57 Speaker 2
And sometimes.
00:08:58 Speaker 2
You can find this word or its cousins or anything like that used in similar ways, and that helps us that understands the semantics.
00:09:04 Speaker 2
Because when you're looking at a word and you're trying to translate a word, you're looking at more than just the word you're looking at.
00:09:09 Speaker 2
The way the word is functioning at the clausal level, so in relationship to other words, ET.
00:09:12 Speaker 2
Right?
00:09:13 Speaker 2
And so in.
00:09:14 Speaker 2
Particularly difficult cases.
00:09:15 Speaker 2
We also look outside biblical Hebrew or Greek and look for related languages.
00:09:20 Speaker 2
The problem with this word is that outside of Biblical Hebrew, there's.
00:09:25 Speaker 2
Not a lot of occurrences of interesting, so there's one occurrence that we have in Moabite on the Moabite stone.
00:09:31 Speaker 2
And it's actually a very close parallel where Mesha talks about.
00:09:34 Speaker 2
How he harmed the Israelite population and devoted them to Haram them to chemosh his God.
00:09:40 Speaker 2
So it's actually quite quite close, but the problem is in the Moabite stone is that as you just have one occurrence of it, it's just one and Joshua.
00:09:47 Speaker 2
I think this word in its related this, this this this route with the verbal form in the nominal form.
00:09:53 Speaker 2
I think it appears over 20 times.
00:09:55 Speaker 2
So it's all over the book of Joshua.
00:09:55 Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah interesting.
00:09:56 Speaker 1
So even in that case though, the Moabite, sorry to interrupt.
00:09:59 Speaker 1
Yeah, so like.
00:10:00 Speaker 1
Even in that case though, it obviously can't be the total destruction, right?
00:10:04
Right?
00:10:05 Speaker 2
Then and and that gets into some other things that we'll get into and.
00:10:07 Speaker 1
OK, so I'd jump ahead to yeah.
00:10:08 Speaker 2
And no, it's it's perfectly fine and and so.
00:10:11 Speaker 2
But from a linguistic standpoint, we just don't have a lot of data to work with and we don't have the cognate data.
00:10:15 Speaker 2
And that makes things difficult, so essentially any attempt to understand what's going on here is reduced to the biblical corpus a large part.
00:10:22 Speaker 1
Right, yeah sure.
00:10:23 Speaker 2
There's there's a few other, uh, there's a.
00:10:26 Speaker 2
Few other occurrences, 1 maybe 2.
00:10:30 Speaker 2
That are a little bit more distantly related, Moabites, very close Moabites, very close.
00:10:34 Speaker 2
It's a very close cousin to biblical Hebrew, and so the occurrence at Moabite is helpful, particularly because of all the parallels and how it's used as well.
00:10:43 Speaker 1
But that's about it.
00:10:44 Speaker 1
Interesting, yeah.
00:10:45 Speaker 1
So then, if we move away from that.
00:10:47 Speaker 1
So now, OK, we're dealing this so.
00:10:49 Speaker 1
We have a hard time translating this into English, so then, how how then does the idea of them being totally destroyed missed the point?
00:10:58 Speaker 1
I mean is that happen?
00:11:00 Speaker 1
Are they totally?
00:11:00 Speaker 2
Destroyed no, I would say probably not.
00:11:03 Speaker 2
And again, bear with me here.
00:11:04 Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but there's other things that are converging on this because you also have to ask your question the question about the type of literature.
00:11:11 Speaker 2
What type of literature are we doing?
00:11:13 Speaker 2
And this I think is helpful because while we don't have the linguistic parallels that we would like in the cognate languages, we actually have the literary.
00:11:17 Speaker 1
Right, right?
00:11:21 Speaker 2
Parallels interest and so we have similar literary types.
00:11:24 Speaker 2
This a similar type of literature that you read in Joshua elsewhere in Akkadian and other places.
00:11:30 Speaker 2
This is called conquest literature, and so royal figures in the ancient Near East would often brag about who they beat up.
00:11:32 Speaker 1
Oh, interesting.
00:11:37 Speaker 2
You know, they bragged about two things, what we built and who we beat up.
00:11:41 Speaker 2
And and so much of royal literature revolves around that, and in the case of who we beat up, they would often go into graphic detail.
00:11:48 Speaker 2
I mean, you're talking about piles of heads, blood running through the streets, ankle, deep, and that sort of thing.
00:11:55 Speaker 2
We're just and it's very violent and it's very and it's very vivid, but it's also hyperbolic.
00:11:59 Speaker 2
Yes, sure, and.
00:12:01 Speaker 2
And these ancient near eastern kings.
00:12:03 Speaker 2
And we can thank loss.
00:12:04 Speaker 2
A loss in younger junior for this because he's compiled a very good monograph that that juxtaposes all of these similar types of literature and said, look, we're dealing with a recognized literary type.
00:12:13 Speaker 2
And that's what we have.
00:12:14 Speaker 1
In Joshua and now last night when you're telling my boys this.
00:12:18 Speaker 1
This is perfect for them like their.
00:12:19 Speaker 1
Their titles will soon be 13 and 14 and when you said you know blood running ankle deep, I looked over at him and their eyes just kind of went up and but then I also saw in them like as you were saying it, but obviously you said.
00:12:34 Speaker 1
But this is hyperbolic.
00:12:35 Speaker 1
Now they they they know the word hyperbole.
00:12:38 Speaker 1
But then it was like, oh, it kind of clicked in.
00:12:41 Speaker 1
So you're saying it's like a form of literature just like you'd have a a biography or poetry conquest literature.
00:12:48 Speaker 1
His own literature that.
00:12:50 Speaker 1
Rooms some sort of like movement of exaggeration.
00:12:54 Speaker 2
Yeah it's there's there's hyperbole that's involved in the definite, and we do this from time to time and we will exaggerate details.
00:13:01 Speaker 2
You know I'll come home and talk to my wife and tell her a story and sometimes I'll exaggerate details for rhetorical effect.
00:13:02 Speaker 1
Yeah, sure.
00:13:06 Speaker 2
And that's what it's for.
00:13:06 Speaker 3
Right, right?
00:13:07 Speaker 2
And she knows me well enough to know.
00:13:08 Speaker 2
Like, OK, you really didn't do that, but I get the point.
00:13:11 Speaker 2
So we do this all the time, and in literature it's so different, and in these conquest accounts.
00:13:15 Speaker 2
Vivid detail of the violence is often exaggerated, right?
00:13:21 Speaker 2
For rhetorical effect, I mean, you stop and think about that.
00:13:24 Speaker 2
Think about how much blood has to be running through a street for somebody to walk.
00:13:26 Speaker 2
Through that street ankle deep in it, that's fine.
00:13:28 Speaker 2
Of bloodshed, so by definition.
00:13:32 Speaker 2
There's hyperbole involved now for people who tend to have a high view of scripture, this can be initially unsettling.
00:13:38 Speaker 2
Well, what do you mean?
00:13:38
Right, right?
00:13:39 Speaker 2
There's exaggeration in scripture.
00:13:40 Speaker 2
What are you talking?
00:13:41 Speaker 2
Thing about.
00:13:42 Speaker 2
And and that's a kind of a tangential conversation.
00:13:45 Speaker 2
But remember, Jesus used hyperbole as well, sure, and so there's hyperbole throughout Scripture.
00:13:49 Speaker 2
What tends to unsettle us is the possibility that there may be hyperbole in historical literature.
00:13:56 Speaker 1
Right?
00:13:57 Speaker 2
And and and because we like our history of a certain type, we like it, cut and dry, you know.
00:14:02 Speaker 2
Joe Friday give me the facts ma'am.
00:14:04 Speaker 2
Just the facts type thing when the reality is is that we have to understand the way ancient history was written and particularly when ancient.
00:14:12 Speaker 2
Conquest accounts were compiled.
00:14:15 Speaker 2
As historical literature historiographic literature, there was exaggeration involved, so I think that's another element that's converging on this.
00:14:23 Speaker 2
So do I think people died?
00:14:24 Speaker 2
Yes, I absolutely think people died.
00:14:26 Speaker 2
And when you're dealing with death, particularly Iron Age, you're going to have collateral damage.
00:14:30 Speaker 1
Right?
00:14:31 Speaker 2
But is that?
00:14:32 Speaker 2
Does that necessarily mean that I've Josh would totally destroyed?
00:14:36 Speaker 2
Everybody, no, I think that's where hyperbole comes into play.
00:14:39 Speaker 2
And I think that's what's to be expected in this type of literary account.
00:14:43 Speaker 2
Again, we're reading this.
00:14:44 Speaker 2
The text of Joshua with an awareness of ancient Near Eastern literary conventions, how they wrote their literature in the ancient world because they did it a little bit differently than we do, their history, history, writing looks a little bit differently, and in this case because it's this type of literature.
00:14:53 Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.
00:14:59 Speaker 2
This is involved.
00:15:00 Speaker 1
Yeah, so it's it.
00:15:01 Speaker 1
Would it be similar to saying?
00:15:03 Speaker 1
Like this Sunday is going to be the Super Bowl and I don't know you.
00:15:07 Speaker 1
You're from Ohio.
00:15:08 Speaker 1
Does that mean you're going to root for the Bengals?
00:15:10 Speaker 1
Or are you a brown person?
00:15:11 Speaker 1
No, I'm not.
00:15:11 Speaker 1
A brown person?
00:15:12 Speaker 1
Absolutely not OK.
00:15:13 Speaker 1
So like if the if the Bengals win, right?
00:15:16 Speaker 1
They totally destroy their appointment like, but that's not necessarily they might.
00:15:17 Speaker 2
Right, they totally destroyed it.
00:15:21 Speaker 1
They might have won by a large margin now.
00:15:23 Speaker 1
I know these aren't apples to apples, type of analogies or waiting.
00:15:26 Speaker 2
Well, here's a close one for you. Here's a close one for you. Think of in recent memory. How can the United's, how could the United States?
00:15:27 Speaker 1
Just got this.
00:15:27 Speaker 1
OK, yeah, tell me.
00:15:33 Speaker 2
Declare victory complete victory in Iraq knowing full well that they were still in insurgency, knowing still well that they had to clean up the riffraff.
00:15:40
Right, Sir?
00:15:41 Speaker 2
But yet they could claim victory for for reasons.
00:15:44 Speaker 2
So we do this all the time in military accounts.
00:15:47 Speaker 2
In military rhetoric, we claim total victory, realizing that all the details aren't necessarily.
00:15:53 Speaker 1
Yes, yes, it's.
00:15:54 Speaker 2
Aren't necessarily so, so I don't have a problem with with with the accountant Joshua telling us that he totally destroyed or had complete victory.
00:16:04 Speaker 2
Against the Canaanite population, knowing full well that there were still love and there were still some of them that existed.
00:16:09 Speaker 1
'cause they persisted.
00:16:10 Speaker 2
Yeah, they and.
00:16:10 Speaker 1
They persisted as a people that they come up later in Joshua, right?
00:16:11 Speaker 2
We know this.
00:16:13 Speaker 2
This yeah and Josh with the book of Joshua itself seems to recognize this and that's the other thing about this.
00:16:18 Speaker 2
Joshua itself will make this statement.
00:16:20 Speaker 2
The book itself will make this statement and then also a few chapters later talk about the remaining inhabitants.
00:16:25 Speaker 2
In the land that had still had to be dealt with, yeah, so you can see how we need to be sensitive to these claims and understand.
00:16:32 Speaker 2
And then, in the context of conquest accounts.
00:16:34 Speaker 1
Sure, so there's also a sense of like the theological meaning Haram, and what that could mean and totally destroy.
00:16:38 Speaker 2
Right, right?
00:16:41 Speaker 2
Yeah, so this is another.
00:16:42 Speaker 1
What does that mean?
00:16:44 Speaker 2
So we have the linguistic issue, right?
00:16:45 Speaker 2
Right?
00:16:46 Speaker 2
That that's very difficult.
00:16:47 Speaker 2
We have the literary genre issue, which is the Conquest account, which involves hyperbole in in in a certain way of talking about these types of things.
00:16:56 Speaker 2
The another thing that is converging on the usage of this word is the theological implications of it because.
00:17:05 Speaker 2
This word will be associated throughout the book and particularly the opening.
00:17:10 Speaker 2
The opening 11 chapters I'm.
00:17:12 Speaker 2
I'm thinking of the raw data I'm trying to pull it off the top of my head.
00:17:15 Speaker 2
But I think of all the 20 plus occurrences of Karam in the root in Joshua.
00:17:20 Speaker 2
I think all but one of them.
00:17:22 Speaker 2
Occurs in the 1st 11 chapters and 10 and 11 are a big focus of locus where they appear, but they also appear there.
00:17:23 Speaker 1
Interesting, OK?
00:17:30 Speaker 2
There's also a congregation of recurrences around the Jericho.
00:17:33 Speaker 2
Right interesting so and and and for those of us who are familiar with the Jericho episode, we know the weight of the Jericho episode.
00:17:40 Speaker 2
We know the significance of the Jericho episode because this is the initial.
00:17:44 Speaker 2
Movement into the land.
00:17:45 Speaker 2
This is their first.
00:17:45
Right, right, right.
00:17:46 Speaker 2
This is their first.
00:17:47 Speaker 2
A proactive military action and.
00:17:52 Speaker 2
They're given specific instructions about what to do with Jericho right?
00:17:57 Speaker 2
And there's also people associated with Jericho, and they're given specific instructions on what to do, and so I'm thinking about rehab, right?
00:18:04 Speaker 2
Who is the Canaanite prostitute who was technically supposed to be under this Karam right?
00:18:09 Speaker 1
Yes, she should been.
00:18:10 Speaker 1
Taken out right?
00:18:10 Speaker 2
Yeah, she's a part of the indigenous Canaanite.
00:18:13 Speaker 2
And and so she's supposed to be under this classification and you got to really think about herram as a classification.
00:18:20 Speaker 2
More than anything else, so you can horam people, you can herram cities, you can cram objects you really do need to think about it as a classification.
00:18:30 Speaker 1
So the the word, the other translation that you gave earlier devoted to the band to the that that that's helpful to me.
00:18:35 Speaker 1
It's like it's devoted.
00:18:37 Speaker 1
To this task devoted to this saying that's against what God wants to have happened.
00:18:41 Speaker 1
So in that sense I can hear it like her being a part of that.
00:18:45 Speaker 2
Yeah, Herram really classifies.
00:18:49 Speaker 2
From something to be used in a specific way, there's a certain set of expectations that are then kind of imparted upon it.
00:18:56 Speaker 2
So This is why you see in Leviticus.
00:18:58 Speaker 2
You know that books all about ritual and and and the way how you handle yourself, culturally speaking in those types of things.
00:19:05 Speaker 2
So we do see this word in in Leviticus in the cultic context, and that seems to suggest that when something is crammed.
00:19:11 Speaker 2
There's a certain set of expectations that cannot be violated that have been that kind of gravitate towards.
00:19:16 Speaker 2
I've been put on it, so I think that's a healthy way to think of this and so Ray Hab is under this herram
00:19:24 Speaker 2
There's a certain set of expectations surrounding her as a Canaanite woman that you're supposed to know that they're.
00:19:29 Speaker 2
Supposed to be.
00:19:30 Speaker 2
2 they're supposed to be honored.
00:19:31 Speaker 2
And the Israelites are supposed to be obedient.
00:19:35 Speaker 2
But also when it comes to Jericho, there the.
00:19:38 Speaker 2
Either the plunder of Jericho is also put under this Karam classification and and that's specified in the book, and it's essentially you're not to.
00:19:45 Speaker 2
Take any of it, because normally you come upon a city and one of the things you do is you're you take the spoils out and this is part of your payment.
00:19:53 Speaker 2
You know you reap.
00:19:54 Speaker 2
Reap the spoils of your.
00:19:57 Speaker 2
And God tells Israel no, no, you're not gonna touch any of that.
00:20:00 Speaker 2
This is Jericho.
00:20:00 Speaker 2
This is all mine and this is where we get into Aiken.
00:20:03 Speaker 1
Right, right, right.
00:20:04 Speaker 2
Aiken is the Israelite who's a part.
00:20:06 Speaker 2
Of the take some.
00:20:07
Of it so yeah.
00:20:07 Speaker 2
And and he he he's, you know, the story goes that he's walking through Jericho, and he sees a coat and he really likes that coat, thinks it's a great coat and he takes the coat right?
00:20:11
Right?
00:20:17 Speaker 2
And he violates the Haram.
00:20:19 Speaker 2
And and and her him.
00:20:21 Speaker 1
Right there, so he he violates the here.
00:20:23 Speaker 1
That yeah, that like the destruction.
00:20:25 Speaker 1
So he's not doing that.
00:20:25 Speaker 1
Yeah right right?
00:20:26 Speaker 2
Yeah, he's he.
00:20:28 Speaker 2
This is hands.
00:20:29 Speaker 2
Off stuff in Chastain.
00:20:30 Speaker 2
So he looks at it, likes it to the point where.
00:20:32 Speaker 2
He's going to consciously disobey.
00:20:37 Speaker 2
The classification of all of that he's going to say, you know what?
00:20:39 Speaker 2
I'm just going to go ahead and pick this coat up, and I don't care if that's been under him and and it's been set aside for God.
00:20:41 Speaker 3
Love it.
00:20:44
Right?
00:20:45 Speaker 2
I'm not going to take it home, and of course this if you know the story, this is the problem because by him taking the object that is caromed right right he himself and his family become Haram.
00:20:56 Speaker 2
So when they.
00:20:56 Speaker 2
Violate the expectations.
00:20:59 Speaker 2
They put themselves under the punishment of violating those expectations.
00:21:03 Speaker 2
So it's a very interesting concept, and So what you have in the book of Joshua is this flip flopping.
00:21:09 Speaker 2
Because rehab, the story of rehab is is that she's once a Canaanite who's supposed to be under the fair and bang.
00:21:14
Right, right?
00:21:15 Speaker 2
But she ultimately at the end of the day, is not because what, because she is willing to go to the community, go to the spies and say you know what I'm I'm.
00:21:17 Speaker 1
Right, yeah?
00:21:23 Speaker 2
I'm signing up with you all right right.
00:21:25 Speaker 2
I want a part of that and I'm willing to make this confession.
00:21:28 Speaker 2
The statement of allegiance.
00:21:30 Speaker 2
I've heard about your God.
00:21:31 Speaker 2
I've heard about what he does and I want to be a part of that.
00:21:34 Speaker 2
And so by her confession.
00:21:36 Speaker 2
She basically states I'm willing to live by your community ethos.
00:21:40 Speaker 2
Conversely, taken through his disobedience size, I'm no longer willing to live by your community ethos.
00:21:47 Speaker 2
So the lady who was under the Haram ban initially is no longer based on confession and faith.
00:21:53 Speaker 2
And willingness to live by the Community's ethos and the guy who was in the community is pushed outside of the community subjected to the Haram because of his disobedience.
00:22:00 Speaker 1
Right?
00:22:02 Speaker 2
And so all of this this interaction preach, yeah.
00:22:04 Speaker 1
That will hold that.
00:22:06 Speaker 1
Thought I mean, I'm telling you This is why you come to seminary this 5 digit code.
00:22:09 Speaker 1
Like if you can't hear that and think like maybe there's this contrasting two people of what you do in the nature of confession, and admits that I'm telling.
00:22:16 Speaker 1
Now look, I want to encourage folks just to really think about like we're still working through this.
00:22:21 Speaker 1
But and this might seem kind of deep in you.
00:22:23 Speaker 1
Maybe you get lost for a second or two.
00:22:24 Speaker 1
But we're trying to outline the depths of what's going on here.
00:22:28 Speaker 1
It's like not just one thing, not just reading it and saying, oh, this is a terrible God, why did you want to serve it?
00:22:32 Speaker 1
And said, let's.
00:22:33 Speaker 1
Get underneath this little bit so this is in part.
00:22:35 Speaker 1
My encouragement to people to think about studying at a deeper level and WBS would be.
00:22:40 Speaker 1
A great place to go.
00:22:41 Speaker 1
Alright, just go ahead.
00:22:41 Speaker 2
And and and I think that's the key.
00:22:43 Speaker 2
I think everybody gets fixated on chapter 10 and 11, where it's where it's very quick.
00:22:47 Speaker 2
It's very rapid fire, Joshua.
00:22:50 Speaker 2
Caroming person after person after person, city after city after city, but we failed to connect it back to rehab and Aiken and the lessons to learn there.
00:22:58 Speaker 2
Because that's the same word.
00:23:00 Speaker 2
It's the same root family, it's appearing.
00:23:00 Speaker 1
Yeah, so interesting.
00:23:02 Speaker 2
It's so it's it's.
00:23:03 Speaker 2
You know.
00:23:03 Speaker 2
Instead of just looking at this thing piece meal, you have to take it under consideration of the of the message as a whole and the message of Joshua as a whole when it comes to this route is it's way more than what you think it's it's.
00:23:15 Speaker 2
It's way more than well, did you kill him?
00:23:18 Speaker 2
Or not, and there's something more.
00:23:21 Speaker 2
Deep, and there's something more rich, because all of these things are aligning and all of these things are converging.
00:23:28 Speaker 2
In those opening 11 chapters of Joshua, this is all related by the recurrence of that route, and so this is a concept that is way more than just well, is he committing genocide or not, right?
00:23:40 Speaker 1
It's like are you trusting that God is going to take you where he's promised to take you and like?
00:23:45 Speaker 1
And will you take this?
00:23:46 Speaker 1
That you need.
00:23:47 Speaker 2
To do that so and so.
00:23:49 Speaker 2
So again we have the.
00:23:50 Speaker 2
This is a very complicated conversation to have because of the linguistic issues because of the genre issues and then you have the issue of the literary message through the context that the message of Joshua as.
00:23:54 Speaker 1
Right, right?
00:24:02 Speaker 2
Whole and we realized, based on the recurrence of this word, that it's way more than just a military action.
00:24:09 Speaker 2
There's something more deep, and so at the the final level that we have to ask ourselves is what what makes what makes sense of all of this?
00:24:16 Speaker 3
Right, right?
00:24:16 Speaker 2
How can we use the same word in the context of rehab and Aiken and Jericho, which clearly seems to say something?
00:24:23 Speaker 2
Theological and it seems to be it seems to be import.
00:24:26 Speaker 2
Importing a commentary on the nature of obedience and are people within the Community willing to live by that ethos and continue to obey?
00:24:34 Speaker 2
Or are they going to choose to disobey?
00:24:36 Speaker 2
And then, uh, commentary about the people outside of the community and what allows them to come into the community.
00:24:40 Speaker 2
Well, it's their confession, so it it it it.
00:24:43 Speaker 2
You know it's it's telling us that there's something more than just a surface level.
00:24:50 Speaker 2
Monolithic meaning here it's there's something else going on and and what ties in my opinion.
00:24:55 Speaker 2
What ties this all together is the book as a whole.
00:24:57 Speaker 2
What's the book as a whole trying to trying to teach us?
00:24:58 Speaker 1
Right?
00:25:01 Speaker 2
And Joshua is, as I tell people, it's more than just conquest.
00:25:05 Speaker 2
And it's more than just land allotments, because remember in Joshua we have those really, really boring chapters that talk about land allotments and, and that's another type of literary that's another distinct literary genre, but it has its purpose in it, but but they're in there too, so Josh was more than just military conquest.
00:25:11 Speaker 1
Right?
00:25:22 Speaker 2
Josh was more than just land allotments, yeah?
00:25:25 Speaker 2
Joshua, in my opinion, is is about.
00:25:28 Speaker 2
Defining the community of God in this.
00:25:31 Speaker 2
Very critical time. Joshua is set against Iron Age one, which spans from about 1200 to about 1000 BC and this is very critical historically speaking because around 11 fifty 1200 Egypt recedes Egypt pulls back up into that point. They were ruling this area with with with dominance, and they're one of the great.
00:25:52 Speaker 2
Great ancient empires and they're forced out due to the collapse of Labor.
00:25:55 Speaker 2
One page, and so it leaves this entire swath of land right for the pickings, and it's crazy.
00:26:01 Speaker 2
And there are so many polities jockeying for position in Israel as one of them, and so Israel steps into this context, having to define themselves so Israel is going to lay claim to lay claim to this land, but they have to define themselves.
00:26:15 Speaker 2
Who are we?
00:26:15 Speaker 2
Where do we live?
00:26:16 Speaker 2
Who do we serve?
00:26:16 Speaker 2
How do we live?
00:26:17 Speaker 1
Wow, that's the point of Joshua.
00:26:19 Speaker 2
And now I think that's the point of Joshua because Joshua will revisit this covenantal idea over and over.
00:26:25 Speaker 2
It's about Joshua as a book is about identifying who Israel is by means of where are they living land allotments.
00:26:36 Speaker 2
How are they living? This is where the covenant idea comes into play, and that recurs in a variety of different ways, particularly in Chapter 22 and 23. Actually 23 and 24.
00:26:46 Speaker 2
Josh was on his way out the door and he's telling the people.
00:26:49 Speaker 2
The Covenant, so that's the ideological framework for the community.
00:26:52 Speaker 2
So who are we?
00:26:53 Speaker 2
Where do we live?
00:26:54 Speaker 2
How do we live, and who do we serve?
00:26:56 Speaker 2
And its values?
00:26:56 Speaker 1
Not just how we got.
00:26:57 Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, it's yeah.
00:26:57 Speaker 1
There, not just that that's part of like what people see it for.
00:27:00 Speaker 2
And so there is a desire to understand the way of life for this community that's bubbling below the surface.
00:27:08 Speaker 2
And so when you put all these things together and you put this layer upon layer upon layer, you realize that this word curome is more than just a military term.
00:27:15 Speaker 2
And it's not genocide.
00:27:17 Speaker 2
It's a way to have a commentary.
00:27:20 Speaker 2
It's a way to have to wait to have comment and it's a way to talk about defining the community and telling everybody that our community.
00:27:35 Speaker 2
Expects us to live a certain way and when we violate those expectations then there are consequences and so the the shadow of rehab ache in the shadow of the rehab bacon contrast really looms large over this entire con.
00:27:50 Speaker 2
And it ceases to be merely just a military statement, but it becomes a theological statement.
00:27:56 Speaker 2
And of course, the very last layer of this is when you.
00:27:58 Speaker 2
Put that in.
00:27:59 Speaker 2
The context of the Canon, right?
00:28:01 Speaker 2
In orthodox yeah.
00:28:02 Speaker 2
In Orthodox theology, we believe that there is at the end of the day there will be an extra set of expectations that we will have to answer for, and those of us who are within the Community.
00:28:12 Speaker 2
The Kingdom of God however, we want to say it and are willing to live by this standard.
00:28:17 Speaker 2
We'll continue to remain inside the community, but for those of us who are not willing to live according to that standard, and that should therefore find themselves outside of the Community.
00:28:26 Speaker 2
Well, there are consequences, so there's a lot of layers going on here, and there's a lot of things.
00:28:30 Speaker 2
So so you know.
00:28:32 Speaker 2
Again, does that answer all the questions associated with this?
00:28:34 Speaker 2
Absolutely not right?
00:28:35 Speaker 2
Does is this still a hard term?
00:28:38 Speaker 2
Is this still a hard concept?
00:28:39 Speaker 2
Absolutely, but at the very end of the day, don't kid yourself, it's not.
00:28:43 Speaker 2
This idea is not just about genocide.
00:28:45 Speaker 1
Right, it's interesting too 'cause this gets into the philosophical question based on the in the problem of Evil 2, and I know we're kind of stepping outside of like the literature.
00:28:53 Speaker 1
Or itself, but there also is this question about judgment in general and not understanding in totality what it means for the fate of the unevangelized.
00:29:04 Speaker 1
Like what does it mean for these folks to experience eternity?
00:29:08 Speaker 1
We if we assume that this life is it, well, then this might look.
00:29:13 Speaker 1
Pretty bleak, yeah, but we also affirm that there's another realm of existence beyond just this life, and we rest in the judgment of God.
00:29:21 Speaker 1
In that, like we're not aware of what's happening there, I mean, what do you I mean?
00:29:24 Speaker 1
Do you deal with those questions?
00:29:26 Speaker 1
And how do you think through that yourself?
00:29:27 Speaker 2
Well, you know it's difficult, that's the struggle you struggle with those questions.
00:29:29 Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.
00:29:31 Speaker 2
I mean, you know these are questions.
00:29:32 Speaker 2
That that, quite frankly, they haunt us and.
00:29:36 Speaker 2
They haunt professors because we don't have a great.
00:29:38 Speaker 2
Answer for him right.
00:29:39 Speaker 2
You know in situations like these I I lean back on to what I know and you know, I think the creeds are very clear that you know we we hold to this idea of final judgment and and and that's going to happen.
00:29:52 Speaker 2
And that's a very real reality and I hold to that as well.
00:29:57 Speaker 2
The details of that.
00:29:59 Speaker 2
Yeah, that's where faith comes in in in and that sort of thing.
00:30:01 Speaker 2
And I, I'm glad that I'm not the one making those decisions, and that sort of thing.
00:30:04 Speaker 2
But you know those are situations where I lean back on what I know right?
00:30:08 Speaker 2
And what's very clear.
00:30:10 Speaker 1
And there's a responsibility, I think, for what you.
00:30:14 Speaker 1
And you've been presented with like and even for us on this side of the New Testament.
00:30:20 Speaker 1
Like we are aware of the full revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ and our responsibility to respond to his gracious initiative in time and space.
00:30:30 Speaker 1
So it's like, that's the.
00:30:31 Speaker 1
Case looking back at how.
00:30:34 Speaker 1
So the Malachites are responded Canaanites here in this situation, like how do we end up like?
00:30:39 Speaker 2
I I I.
00:30:42 Speaker 1
We end up thinking of this.
00:30:42 Speaker 1
Maybe maybe there's something we will never.
00:30:45 Speaker 1
No, yeah yeah. But we do have what we do know we can trust in God's grace we trust in his goodness, His Holiness and the reality of judgment.
00:30:52 Speaker 1
That's coming, which isn't always a bad word like judgment brings in in eternity, judgment brings a new creation.
00:30:58 Speaker 2
Right, so I think and and and I think that's I think what you said is.
00:31:02 Speaker 2
Is is important.
00:31:05 Speaker 2
We can lean on what we know and what we.
00:31:07 Speaker 2
We have
00:31:08 Speaker 2
And I think when it comes to this issue of of the Canaanites and the judgment, particularly Joshua, it's not a hopeless message, particularly around the term that seems to be portrayed in such. Because remember, you do have those passages in Chapter 1011 where Joshua Joshua is caroming and Paramin, and going from one place to another.
00:31:26 Speaker 2
But you can't have that conversation without also having the conversation of rehab.
00:31:30 Speaker 1
Right, right?
00:31:30 Speaker 2
And they can and and so it it is a potentially hopeful concept.
00:31:36 Speaker 2
Because all of these things, again, all of these things are tight together in the book of Joshua through the recurrence of that verb or that into that root, and it's it's wanting you to have that conversation interest that that.
00:31:50 Speaker 2
It's not all doom and gloom.
00:31:52 Speaker 2
It wasn't all doom and gloom for the Canaanites.
00:31:56 Speaker 2
They had opportunities and rehab symbolizes.
00:32:00 Speaker 2
That the the the the as I say, the definition or that the boundaries of the community were definitive, but they were also porous.
00:32:08 Speaker 2
Meaning, meaning you could, if you were on the outside, could find your way in right.
00:32:08 Speaker 1
Just saying.
00:32:13 Speaker 2
The scripture is littered with examples of that.
00:32:15 Speaker 2
I'm thinking of the army in general as well.
00:32:18 Speaker 2
Sure, who was who was who, who finds himself.
00:32:21 Speaker 2
You know, having this confession of faith as well, there's a lot of parallels between what happens.
00:32:25 Speaker 1
Through you all the nations of the.
00:32:27 Speaker 1
Yes, will be blessed, right?
00:32:28 Speaker 1
Like this is like it's not just an exclusivist message, yeah?
00:32:32 Speaker 2
But the direction also goes the other way, so those of you who are inside can find yours.
00:32:36 Speaker 2
Right, based on a variety of things, including DBD.
00:32:39 Speaker 2
So these when you get so the point is, is that when you get to these statements.
00:32:42 Speaker 2
In chapters 10.
00:32:43 Speaker 2
And eleven?
00:32:44 Speaker 2
Yeah, it's not just this robotic.
00:32:48 Speaker 2
Genocidal ungracious, unmerciful action.
00:32:52 Speaker 2
You're supposed to understand the implication of what happened to rehab in Aiken.
00:32:57 Speaker 2
Like is it that?
00:32:59 Speaker 2
There's a possible.
00:32:59 Speaker 2
Yeah, there's a possibility here that these people associated with makada and all these other towns.
00:33:04 Speaker 2
You know?
00:33:06 Speaker 2
Could quite frankly be inside the community at some point based on something like what rehab does, so it's I don't see this.
00:33:12 Speaker 2
I don't.
00:33:12 Speaker 2
I guess the point.
00:33:12 Speaker 1
I'm trying to make is.
00:33:13 Speaker 1
I mean it's not historical and like you wouldn't.
00:33:15 Speaker 1
As a historian, you wouldn't look at this and say, yeah, they were all totally destroyed.
00:33:19 Speaker 1
Like we're saying they should already.
00:33:20 Speaker 1
We just reminding us that we went back through this.
00:33:22 Speaker 1
We looked at hyperbole.
00:33:23 Speaker 1
We looked at the semantic range of the word.
00:33:25 Speaker 1
We looked at theological meaning of the word.
00:33:27 Speaker 1
And we looked at it kind of the focus of Joshua then ultimately leading to the New Testament in Christ and the Christian community.
00:33:33 Speaker 1
So like this isn't just referring to it in this very simplistic way.
00:33:36 Speaker 2
Right, right?
00:33:37 Speaker 2
And and and we can't fall into the temptation of looking at complicated concepts.
00:33:42 Speaker 2
Myopically millimeter, and through this really narrow lens and everything like that because we do ourselves a disservice.
00:33:48 Speaker 2
And we do, we set ourselves up for somebody.
00:33:50 Speaker 2
Like Richard Dawkins?
00:33:52 Speaker 2
And so it's not helpful and and it's ultimately, it ultimately undermines our theology, because our theology is is one of graciousness, and it's one of hope, and it certainly is again.
00:34:02 Speaker 2
The image that I will continue to go back to is is we are we.
00:34:07 Speaker 2
We have a definitive.
00:34:09 Speaker 2
We, our boundaries, are definitive.
00:34:12 Speaker 2
We know who we are.
00:34:14 Speaker 2
We know how we live.
00:34:14 Speaker 2
We know whom we serve.
00:34:16 Speaker 2
OK, kind of.
00:34:16 Speaker 2
Sounds like Joshua, right?
00:34:19 Speaker 2
Yeah, and and yet people can move in and out of that based on their obedience based on confessions.
00:34:24 Speaker 2
Based on faith and and so that means for those of us who are inside that.
00:34:29 Speaker 2
Community we have to continually re up.
00:34:32 Speaker 2
For instance, we have to continually confess we have to continually repent and we can't blatantly disobey because we don't know the consequences that all it takes is 1 mistake and had a candid for all we know.
00:34:44 Speaker 2
Aiken just made that one mistake right and that not only undermine him and killed him, but it also had implications.
00:34:49 Speaker 2
His family as well.
00:34:50 Speaker 1
It's interesting, I just preached on Psalm 16 and there's a lot of this kind of language of of inheriting the land.
00:34:56 Speaker 1
You are my portion, my cup.
00:34:58 Speaker 1
The boundary lines, you're my portion.
00:35:01 Speaker 1
The boundary lines have fallen in pleasant.
00:35:03 Speaker 1
This is for me like it's.
00:35:04 Speaker 1
I think it's alluding back to this same image of taking on the land coming in to land, but but I think got the boundary lines for rehab and what that meant for her life.
00:35:13 Speaker 1
She Haram to, you know, and and so when that happens she becomes a part of the line that brings about them, a sign that you know.
00:35:19 Speaker 2
Yeah, and I think that's like I think that's like the quintessential statement on this whole thing is is, you know, not only she Canaanite woman.
00:35:26 Speaker 2
But she ultimately finds herself in the most important genealogy in all of human history, and that's crazy in and of itself, and I think that's kind of the icing on the cake that this woman you know represents a lot.
00:35:39 Speaker 2
And and I think she symbolizes a lot and and again part of the beauty and the oomph behind her symbolism is the fact that she's also contrasted with somebody who was supposed to be in.
00:35:49 Speaker 2
Aiken was supposed to Aiken, supposed Aiken supposed to understand this like he under he's supposed to.
00:35:50 Speaker 1
Yeah, it's a beautiful piece, yeah?
00:35:54 Speaker 2
You're supposed to understand when you come across taken.
00:35:57 Speaker 2
You're supposed to think he should know better, and he does, because when he's confronted, it's kind of like, yeah, I did this so, but.
00:36:04 Speaker 2
Man, so it's again.
00:36:08 Speaker 1
This is really good.
00:36:08
It's it's a.
00:36:09 Speaker 2
Very interesting concept that is so layered and so loaded and in many ways it's indicative of a book that is so layered and so low.
00:36:19 Speaker 2
It's way more than just.
00:36:20 Speaker 1
Any last final judgment hasn't come no, and so this interesting thing is like you, you can.
00:36:26 Speaker 1
We can raise our fists up at God and say, how would you?
00:36:28 Speaker 1
How could you let this happen?
00:36:30 Speaker 1
And there's a sense like I'm I'm hearing this like maybe this will be wrong.
00:36:33 Speaker 1
Maybe I'll pull it back but there's almost like God saying.
00:36:35 Speaker 1
You don't know how I finish.
00:36:36 Speaker 1
This story, yeah.
00:36:37 Speaker 2
Well, yeah.
00:36:37 Speaker 1
You don't know what you don't know, it's I mean, and I know that that raises some questions for people, but I think we're seeing here how studying Scripture in this way, the the kind of that the way we look at words, we look at history, the way you look at genre, the way we look at the direction of the book and what's happening here in the theological message that's in there.
00:36:55 Speaker 1
Dave, thanks so much for taking time to get what you want to say anything else.
00:36:58 Speaker 1
No, I kind of interrupted no I.
00:37:00 Speaker 2
I think that's fine.
00:37:01 Speaker 1
This is so good and like what?
00:37:01 Speaker 2
I mean, it's just.
00:37:03 Speaker 1
What are some of the classes where we talk about these scene themes here at WBZ like Old Testament interpretation?
00:37:09 Speaker 1
Would you?
00:37:09 Speaker 2
Yeah, we we cover a lot of this.
00:37:11 Speaker 2
I mean it's a real quick flyby, but you know, we get into issues of history and and the issues of literature.
00:37:16 Speaker 2
And how do you understand you know the ancientness of the literature because you know, remember you know vast majority of God's revelation comes through literature, but it comes to ancient literature and.
00:37:27 Speaker 2
And so we have to, if we really are serious about trying to understand what's trying to be communicated, you know we have to study these things, and so that's why I encourage my students to, you know, not just think about the conquest accounts of Joshua, just as conquest accounts, but also look at them as conquest accounts in the context of the engineer East.
00:37:44 Speaker 2
Because when you start to understand the nuances.
00:37:46 Speaker 2
And the dynamics of how they wrote this type of literature.
00:37:48 Speaker 2
Then you begin to realize, OK, there's something a little bit more going on here.
00:37:51 Speaker 2
Let's go a little bit deeper and those types of things, so we cover a lot of that stuff in OT 516 interpretation, history of interpretation and stuff. And there are other avenues to to look into this with a little bit more depth.
00:38:01 Speaker 2
Detail, but those are the main classes that we emphasize.
00:38:05 Speaker 2
Understanding literature in the context of the ancient Near East understanding.
00:38:09 Speaker 1
And our philosophical theology classes to deal with these questions from philosophical level.
00:38:13 Speaker 1
So I'm just kind of giving people a.
00:38:15 Speaker 1
Little yeah where they.
00:38:15
I see.
00:38:16 Speaker 1
Came where they could pull this in and it's not going to be a quick Facebook or tweet where you're gonna get an answer no no.
00:38:21 Speaker 1
And that's that's an important thing to keep in mind.
00:38:23 Speaker 1
Let's go a little deeper.
00:38:24 Speaker 1
Do you really want to answer?
00:38:26 Speaker 1
Like, do you really want to be educated, or do you just want like a quick response?
00:38:29 Speaker 1
Somebody in office, and that's what I think we're.
00:38:31 Speaker 1
Trying to get out here.
00:38:32 Speaker 2
Yeah, I.
00:38:32 Speaker 2
I think if you I, I mean if you had to boil this down to uh.
00:38:37 Speaker 2
Tweet worthy statement it would be.
00:38:39 Speaker 2
Maybe it's more than meets the eye, at least on this topic in the book of Joshua.
00:38:43 Speaker 1
Or there's more to the story.
00:38:45 Speaker 2
There's more, oh, there you go.
00:38:45 Speaker 2
Well done.
00:38:46 Speaker 1
Alright, so let me conclude here.
00:38:48 Speaker 1
What's is there more to the story of Dave Shreiner?
00:38:50 Speaker 1
Some things that you know not.
00:38:52 Speaker 1
Your average student would know or that people don't know about you.
00:38:55 Speaker 1
So like I I asked this question.
00:38:56 Speaker 1
A lot of folks and like you know, maybe they like to scuba dive or maybe like to do other things.
00:38:59 Speaker 1
So what is it?
00:39:00 Speaker 1
What's more to the story?
00:39:01 Speaker 1
For document Shriner about me.
00:39:02 Speaker 3
Love it.
00:39:03 Speaker 1
Yeah about you or.
00:39:05 Speaker 2
Oh, I wasn't anticipating this.
00:39:09
Do you?
00:39:09 Speaker 1
What with your family?
00:39:09 Speaker 2
Do you like to do here?
00:39:10 Speaker 2
Well, we like to hike and we like to be outdoors.
00:39:14 Speaker 1
Tell us about your family.
00:39:15 Speaker 2
So I'm married to Jenny.
00:39:16 Speaker 2
OK, we we met in at church, so it's the typical like where'd you meet your wife for church?
00:39:24 Speaker 2
I can actually say that.
00:39:26 Speaker 2
Uh, so we I got married when I was in seminary. We have three daughters, Maddie, Bailey and Lily. Currently, they're 11/8 and three.
00:39:35 Speaker 1
And you guys you guys like to.
00:39:37 Speaker 1
Hit the national parks and.
00:39:37 Speaker 2
We do, we do we like to go to the national parks and we were talking about this last night, so we'd like to be outside.
00:39:42 Speaker 2
We'd like to.
00:39:42 Speaker 2
Be active, I run a lot OK and and Jenny Jenny was a all American cross country runner too.
00:39:49 Speaker 2
So at Indiana Wesleyan.
00:39:49 Speaker 1
OK.
00:39:50 Speaker 2
So she was on a.
00:39:52 Speaker 2
All American team and everything like that, so she runs a lot too.
00:39:54 Speaker 2
So we're very active.
00:39:55 Speaker 2
We like to stay active in that sort of thing and.
00:39:58 Speaker 2
We when when our kids get in trouble we make them run laps.
00:40:00
Ha ha ha.
00:40:01 Speaker 2
Is good and and those sorts of things.
00:40:04 Speaker 2
So yeah, I'm kind of a boring person.
00:40:07 Speaker 1
OK, well that's that's.
00:40:07 Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah yeah yeah my no it's it's nerd stuff but you know it, I'm I I like a good science fiction movie yeah yeah yeah so anyway I'm I'm kind of all over the place a little bit oh I like heavy metal I like heavy metal music OK did you, could you pegged me for a.
00:40:08 Speaker 1
That's I mean, look what we're.
00:40:09 Speaker 1
Talking about here yeah yeah.
00:40:15 Speaker 1
OK.
00:40:19 Speaker 1
What's your guess what comes to mind?
00:40:24 Speaker 1
Heavy metal guy I.
00:40:26 Speaker 1
I think I could.
00:40:26 Speaker 2
You could OK.
00:40:27 Speaker 1
There's no we're about the same age.
00:40:28 Speaker 1
And I could see you baggy pants, you know.
00:40:29 Speaker 2
'cause most people?
00:40:30 Speaker 2
Yeah no.
00:40:30 Speaker 1
And oh, interesting.
00:40:31 Speaker 2
No, I didn't know baggy.
00:40:31 Speaker 2
Pants, but I like.
00:40:35 Speaker 2
Heavy metal is my jam, which is kind of which is kind of weird because not many people can say that.
00:40:36 Speaker 1
OK.
00:40:39 Speaker 2
But yeah, it's that's kind of odd, I'd.
00:40:41 Speaker 2
Say that's a little.
00:40:41 Speaker 1
Bit odd for me.
00:40:42 Speaker 1
Well that's fine.
00:40:43 Speaker 1
It's good, so there's more distorted.
00:40:44 Speaker 1
Dave, Shreiner, there's more to the story of Joshua 10.
00:40:47 Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah yeah.
00:40:47 Speaker 1
And we hope you'll check it out.
00:40:49 Speaker 1
Thanks so much for coming to more story podcasts blessing to have you come along.
00:40:52 Speaker 1
Look, I just want to let some folks know like it's meant a lot to me.
00:40:55 Speaker 1
Over the last several months.
00:40:56 Speaker 1
Many people have reached out to me, wrote encouraging notes.
00:41:00 Speaker 1
Maybe one or two kind of negative ones, but I really appreciate all of the feedback that we get.
00:41:05 Speaker 1
And if you find this helpful, this might be something that you could just like share a link to this.
00:41:09 Speaker 1
One thing I found to be effective like it's great when people share on social media because that just like UPS the number of views that we get in the way people find us and people always find out about our podcast when people share it.
00:41:19 Speaker 1
An amazing thing that happens.
00:41:21 Speaker 1
I was talking to two people from two different continents just last week who wanted to reach out to me to talk about some of the things.
00:41:26 Speaker 1
Happen in the Salvation Army denomination where I serve, but they found out about the podcast because one person's mom just shared a link to him. And so in this case, when you maybe you've dealt with this question with somebody in your church or something.
00:41:38 Speaker 1
Maybe it's just a quick like forwarding it via text so somebody can get a sense that there's some more answers and there's more to story to these type of problems.
00:41:47 Speaker 1
Of genocide the Old Testament.
00:41:48 Speaker 1
Then maybe people think and and we think it's certainly the case.
00:41:51 Speaker 1
So thanks a lot.
00:41:52 Speaker 1
Thanks a lot for coming along this podcast.
00:41:54 Speaker 1
God bless you.