In this episode, Tim and Jon continue their conversation about Cain and Abel and why it is a good example of Jewish meditation literature.
The Cain and Abel story is famous for its lack of detail, mysteriousness, and brevity. Most of the things that modern readers find frustrating in this story are actually key features of ancient Jewish literature.
In the first half of the show (0-25:30), the guys finish the discussion on Cain and Abel.
In the second half (26:00-end), Tim outlines Psalm 1 and how it describes the ideal reader of the Hebrew scriptures.
The guys also have a brief discussion on the differences between modern meditation practices and ancient Jewish meditation practice. Tim talks about the Jewish community that gave us the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, and how their habits of Scripture meditation give us a window into the kind of meditation described in Psalm 1.
This episode is designed to accompany our How To Read the Bible video series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhmlJBUIoLk
Thank you to all our supporters!
Show Resources:
Jordan B Peterson Podcast
Jerome Walsh Books
Show Music:
Defender Instrumental by Rosasharn Music; Capital by Silent Partner; Voyage by Lemmino
Podcast Date: August 11, 2018
(40:11)
Speakers in the audio file:
Jon Collins
Tim Mackie
Jon: This is Jon at The Bible Project. This week on the podcast, Tim and I, finish a
conversation on how the Bible is ancient Hebrew meditation literature. Last
week, we talked about the story of Cain and Abel that you find on page 4 of
the Bible. It's a classic story that highlights the Hebrew narrative style. It's
short, confusing, ambiguous, and for millennia, people have studied and
meditated on it.
This week, Tim and I continue our conversation on the Cain and Abel story,
and we discuss why meditation literature encourages this type of wrestling.
Tim: Why do we use the word meditation? It's actually the way the Bible portrays
the ideal reader of this kind of literature. If you think about things like the
Cain and Abel narrative, it'll bring good things into your life. And that's what
the Bible is designed to do.
Jon: Thanks for joining us. Here we go.
Tim: Do you want to summarize right now or do you want me to try to?
Jon: I think we could summarize while looking at Psalm 1.
Tim: Oh, good. Great.
Jon: But before we go to Psalm 1, can we just blitz through a couple more things
in Genesis 4. I mean—
Tim: Since we're here?
Jon: We're here and we're saying it's genius. Let's just continue on. We got to the
point where Cain is angry downcast. We got to this really brilliant God's
statement of "do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have
you, but you must rule over it." That's verse 7. We talked about that.
Verse 8: "Now Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let's go out to the field." While
they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him." In two
lines there, all of a sudden, you're like, "Whoa, what just happened?
Tim: All right. Think about the narrative technique here. We had Cain’s response:
anger and fallen face. God says, "You got a choice here?" And what we don't
get is a whole depiction of the interior struggle of Cain, the scene of him...
Jon: It would make such a great scene if we're going to make a movie out of this.
Tim: It would. Him walking away from talking to God, and being like, "Oh."
Jon: This is the breaking bad moment. It could be over five episodes right now of
Cain—
Tim: Yeah, totally. Struggling with the decision. It would be of him having dinner
that night in a dark room—
Jon: And he starts to plot like, "Okay, I think I know what I'm going to do."
Tim: Yeah, totally. No, what we get is the next thing happens is Cain talk to his
brother.
Jon: "Let's go to the field."
Tim: "Let's go to the field." And you're like, "Wait, well, okay. The field?" The field is
where Cain works. Cain is a farmer. "So let's go out to my territory." Then, all
of a sudden, he rose up and slew his brother. You have to fill in the story
there. Why did he do that? What was he thinking?
Jon: And you go back to the previous verse...
Tim: And all you have is...
Jon: ...sin was crouching at his door.
Tim: ...he allowed the animal sin to eat his lunch and he choose not to rule over it.
God's point was, "You have a choice here. You can choose good and resist, or
you can allow sin to overwhelm you. But you have the capacity to rule it."
Jon: And the consequences are so severe. Like it's killing your brother.
Tim: Yeah, that's right. It's not just taking a piece of fruit, like in the parallel of the
previous chapter.
Jon: Yeah. It's kind of like, "What was the big deal about the fruit?" "Okay, pull out
the story. Killing your own brother."
Tim: So intense. That's right. There are two things happening here. Once again, the
previous verse 7, "If you choose Good," that's the hyperlink back to the good
and not good - good and evil of chapters 1 and 2. Then the phrase "sin's
crouching at your door but you can rule it," the word "rule" has appeared
only one time in the story so far, and it's what the humans are giving—
Jon: It's the image of God.
Tim: It's the image of God to rule over the world on God's behalf. Now, we hear
that you can rule your moral decisions if you choose. The implication is
"Okay, well, if I don't rule over sin, sin will apparently rule me." Which sounds
a lot like how Paul view sin in Romans chapter 6, which he's almost certainly
been reflecting on this very story and its vocabulary.
Jon: He's meditated on it.
Tim: What does it mean to let sin rule you? It means that I now define as good
that my brother must die.
Jon: That's the good thing. That's the right decision. The right decision because
my life isn't working out the way I want it to work out. I'm not getting favor
from God. What should I do? Well, maybe if I kill my brother, then I can get
some of the favor.
Tim: Yeah. Or I'm now angry because I've been left out. I'm the one who didn't get
what I deserve.
Jon: That's true. We don't get his motivation. We just know he's angry and now
he's in going to kill his brother. That's good in his mind.
Tim: That's right. This is a good example of what Jerome Walsh was talking about.
You have to fill out possibilities in mind.
Jon: Yeah. We just fill that too and then you could bring those forward.
Tim: I don't deserve what I've got in life and I'm angry about it, this other person is
getting what I deserve, the good thing for me to do is, whatever, make my
life more important than theirs. And so I kill them. That's one totally
legitimate way of viewing what's going on here. And if we could probably
imagine two or three others.
But the point is that we're intentionally not given what Cains motivations are
so that will go through exercise and wrestle with it. You walk away from that
cup of tea pondering Cains motivations learning a lot about yourself.
Jon: Success in reading the Bible - a devotional time, which is the phrase was used
in my tradition, or your quiet time - success isn't coming away with
necessarily some more understanding or some clear principle. Success could
just be coming away with an ambiguity that you need to wrestle with for the
rest of the week. Correct?
Tim: Yeah, right.
Jon: That success in and of itself. When I say freedom and excitement, that's what
it brings. Is like, "Oh, cool. This is something that I get to carry with me and
wrestle with and it can shape things. It's not like some textbook that I have to
go and memorize answers and then be done."
Tim: Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right. And every story is just a universe of this
kind of thing. Right now, personally I have a project I'm working on. I'm
studying 1 and 2 Samuel.
I'm in the thick of the narratives about Saul and David in period where Saul
goes from the chosen King, everybody's happy to his descent into madness.
And dude, I'm telling you it is breaking bad. Or whatever godfather series it's
a whole story that through this level of brilliance, there's like 40 episodes’
stories all packed next to each other and everyone is this brilliant. And you're
watching this man descend into selfish madness, destructive madness.
I'm telling you every time I read a new part and I'm taking notes and thinking
about it, I'm walking away going like, "Oh my gosh. I am so screwed up. Help
me. God, please help me."
Jon: You're supposed to fear the Lord in you.
Tim: It does. It does. Because you're just like, "I could do this."
Jon: How quickly I could unravel.
Tim: I see these own patterns in my own behavior that easily lead me down a path.
But you have to allow yourself to enter into the story of this ancient character.
Jon: Yeah. You can't just float above it and try to pick principles from it. You got to
enter in.
Tim: You got to enter into the world of this narrative. It's the same kind of thing.
Why did Saul do that? Why didn't he listen to Samuel? Why did he offer the
sacrifice then and not wait? And you're wondering, and then it's precisely
gets you in the same headspace of "Oh, I'm ever impatient? Oh, shish. I think
I am. I'm just like this guy. Oh, no." It's so good. But you have to take the
time.
Jon: Can we keep going?
Tim: You're right. Genesis 4. I want to keep moving. You want to keep going?
Okay, deal.
Jon: Should we move on then?
Tim: No. What questions do you have? Just keep going.
Jon: Well, verse 9. We're in verse 9.
Tim: He kills his brother.
Jon: "Then the Lord says the Cain, 'Where's your brother Abel?'" This should
probably help us. In the last chapter when Adam and Eve eat the fruit, they
hide, and then God comes and "Where are you?" It's like total hyperlink back
to that - that detail in the story. It's the same thing in Genesis 3. Like, why did
God ask where they are?"
Tim: Exactly.
Jon: Why is he now asking where Cain is?
Tim: Now he asks, "Where's your brother?"
Jon: "I don't know," He replied, "I am I my brother's keeper."
Tim: Let's pause right there. Now it's another narrative statement. Instead of the
narrator telling us, "And Cane thought to himself, 'I'm not accountable. You're
the one who didn't regard my offering. Why are you...,'" we have these two
words in Hebrew.
Jon: Am I responsible for my brother?
Tim: "I don't know," and then, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Then that gets you
thinking, "Well, oh."
Jon: "No, you're his brother."
Tim: Yes, that's right. "But am I the guarder, the protector of my brother."
Jon: "Am I the one to make sure my brother stays safe? No, that's your job. You're
the one that gives him favor."
Tim: It's such a rich question. It gets you thinking, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
Well, in one sense, I am.
Jon: Everyone's in a way.
Tim: Within the narrative world, these are the only four humans.
Jon: They're married at this point, right?
Tim: No, not yet. He's going to go find his mystery wise and in a very few
paragraphs. Such a rich line. And so you think, "Well, in once, yes, I guess you
are." I wouldn't have put it that way, but now that you've put it that way, what
a classic line.
Jon: Verse 10. "But the LORD said, 'What have you done? Listen!'"
Tim: Hold on. "What have you done?" It's exactly what he said to Adam and Eve
and to the serpent. "What have you done?"
Jon: "Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground!"
Tim: Yes. Holy cow.
Jon: That's going to become very significant idea in the Bible.
Tim: Innocent blood crying out from the ground.
Jon: That's weird statement.
Tim: Well, there are some cultural things underneath there, and then once some
little details. So maybe let's just start from the ground. The word "ground" is
the word "adamah," which is connected to the word "Adam." Human Adam.
Humanity comes from the "adamah" and they're supposed to return back to
the "adamah."
Jon: So if you're reading this in Hebrew, it would be like, "Your brother's blood
cries from the adamah"?
Tim: Yes.
Jon: And immediately you're triggered like, ground, humanity, our rule to cultivate
the ground, that we came from the ground. All this stuff, it's all in there.
Tim: Yes. "You came from the ground, and to the ground, you'll return." Genesis 3.
But here, Abel has returned to the ground, so to speak, but not in a
legitimate form of dying at a ripe old age. Rather, it's his blood that's been
spilled on the adamah, the ground. Yeah.
So then the innocent but blood lying on the ground, instead of this person
being buried in the ground, the blood on the ground. Then there's a cultural
thing about...Actually, it's true. Still, in our culture, I think burial or cremation
and whatever you call that, depositing the ashes in a certain kind of space, we
see that as a form of closure.
Most cultures are looking for a way to find closure for the end of a human
life. Many cultures have different practices and ways of doing this, but it's
appropriate. Or we equate it also with honor and dignity. Like if this person
deserves burial as the proper way to honor who they are, and so on.
So most cultures have an awareness that to die in a way in which your body is
not properly dealt with is somehow unjust. It's true biblical culture to not be
buried is one of the most dishonorable horrifying things you could imagine -
to have your body just lie there in the field rotting and your blood spilling on
the ground.
And so you get this phrase that "blood spilled on the ground becomes like
this megaphone to the just good Creator God. Then he notices all of the
innocent blood spilled on the ground and it cries out to him. It's very
powerful. And it's not the only time used in the Bible this image of the
unburied or the blood crying out from the ground. It happens.
It's the same phrase that's used of the Israelites and slavery. "And they cried
out, and their cry rose up to God." In Exodus chapter 2, it's the same phrase,
"crying out."
Jon: What about in the Psalm where the rocks will cry out? Is it the same face?
Tim: That's more about creation having this voice that praises God. That'd be
interesting. Things that cry out to God.
Jon: Things that cry out to God in the Bible.
Tim: Creation does.
Jon: Blood from the ground.
Tim: The suffering of slavery is a cry that God hears, God hears the cry of creation
and praise, and God also here's the cry of innocent blood. Now we hear the
statement that "Oh my gosh, human life matters to the creator of life, so
much so that God notices even the cry of innocent death in the middle of a
field where you thought nobody was listening. Why did they go out in the
field? No one will hear. But then you realize God knows and He hears.
Jon: Verse 11: "Now. you're under a curse."
Tim: You're cursed from the "adamah."
Jon: Yeah, you're driven from the adamah. In Genesis 3, he's cursed, but the curse
is actually the ground is going to be harder to deal with. Is there some sort of
link here?
Tim: In Genesis 3?
Jon: Yeah.
Tim: Yeah, that's right. In Genesis 2, you're set to cultivate the garden. Genesis 2,
use the garden, cultivate it, work it. Become farmers. Genesis 3, "Now that
you've chosen to know and to find good and evil on your own terms, the
environment, both relational environment and your experience of life here is
going to be one of hostility and tension rather than ease and peace. But
you're still working the adamah, the ground in Genesis 3; It's just hard.
Jon: And you're still working it.
Tim: Now what he's being cursed from is, "Now you don't even get to stay put in
one place to work the ground. You're cursed away from the ground." This is
what he says. "You're going to be a wanderer."
Jon: You're not going to have your own part of land.
Tim: Correct.
Jon: That's even a worse situation.
Tim: It's becoming the exile and sojourner who doesn't have a home anymore.
Jon: A restless wanderer on the earth.
Tim: Yes.
Jon: Cain in verse 13 says, "That's harsh. My punishment is more than I can bear.
You're driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence."
Which, by the way, if you're reading carefully, you're like, "God didn't say he'd
be hidden from your presence." So Cain's like putting words in God's mouth?
Tim: Yeah. He assumes that "If I'm a wanderer, then God is no longer with me."
Jon: Which I guess you're can understand why you would assume that at this
point, but it is an assumption.
Tim: And it's the introduction of a phrase that the hiding of God's presence or
being hidden from God's presence becomes a negative image of God's
judgment or of the Gods angry or withholding his presence from him.
Jon: Oh, if God's presence is—
Tim: If God's presence is not with me, I'm in danger.
Jon: It's interesting that Adam and Eve are the ones that hide in the last story.
Tim: Yeah, yeah.
Jon: And then?
Tim: And then everyone who finds me is going to kill me. So if your presence isn't
with me to guard and protect me—
Jon: It's over for me. So basically you're punishing me to death. I think it's really
interesting he's being such a whiner for having been punished for killing
someone. But I'm a whiner too, so I get it.
Tim: Yeah. Sorry. One more detail there. In verse 14, he says, "You have banished
me." It's exactly the word us to describe, "And God banished Adam and Eve
from the garden" in chapter three.
Jon: Another parallel of being banished.
Tim: Two parallel stories, but the banishment is away from the presence, so to
speak, in Genesis 3, which means away from the garden. Then here it's
another form of banishment.
Jon: It's a banishment from having a place to call your own, you become a
wanderer.
Tim: This sets up the image then to give in to sin, to not rule over it, but to allow
bitterness and anger and resentment to rule me. Then to begin to make
choices and have habits or behavior that have destructive relational results,
that will result in greater and greater isolation, becoming a more and more
isolated wanderer in the world with no home.
The phrases used is "to be hidden from God's presence." I'm in God's world,
but I'm becoming more and more hidden from God through my own moral
failures. And who doesn't know that experience? Destructive choices, the
breakdown in your relationships continue to isolate you more and more as
you go on through life.
And that experience of being in the world as an exile because of my own
stupid decisions, that is such an important image in the biblical story. So
much that we're going to make a whole video just about this concept of exile
and banishment. Once again, the story is loaded.
Jon: All right. We could stop there.
Tim: Okay.
Jon: So what just happened? We were showing how a chapter in the Bible is so—
Tim: It's not even half chapter. 14 sentences.
Jon: ...so packed, so dense, full of ambiguities, and we could sit there and we can
start to see as we wrestle with this ambiguity how it connects to the rest of
Scripture. In that way, not only is it telling us what the story is about, it's
actually messing with us. And we're realizing like, "Whoa, when I get bitter,
I'm letting sin devour me and the consequences of that is being left without a
home being isolated and wandering.
I get that when it comes to the story, but I also get that when it comes to my
relationships with people; relationships with my wife, or whatever it is. Now
by meditating on this, it's becoming much more significant. So that's the
Bible as meditation literature.
Tim: That's a good summary. Now, watch this. This story is giving us language and
imagery, especially the way sin gets personified that's going to find greater
clarification way later in the Bible. There's this little paragraph in the New
Testament in the letter of 1 John chapter 3. He's talking about people who
are children of the devil and children of God.
Chapter 3 Verse 7. He says, "Little children, make sure nobody deceives you.
The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just like God is righteous.
The one who practices sin - Remember Genesis 4 is the first time that word
occurs - The one who practices sin or does sin is of the devil, for the devil
sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose to
destroy the works of the devil. No one who is born of God does sin, because
God's seed abides in him; he cannot sin because he's born of God.
So John's got this idea that you can either be a child of God because God
seed is in you and therefore you are a part of God's seed or you can be the
seed or the child of the devil, because you do sin. And you realize all this
vocabulary comes from Genesis 3 and 4. That there's the seed of the serpent
and the seed of the woman. But there is coming one - a seed of the woman -
who's going to crush the head of the serpent, which John phrases here as the
Son of God who came to destroy the works of the devil.
But even though that's happened in Jesus, victory over sin and spiritual evil,
you and I still have a choice of what seed we want to be a part of.
In verse 10, he says, "By this the children of God and the children of the devil
are obvious. Anyone who doesn't do righteousness is not of God, nor the one
who doesn't love his brother." This is the message we've heard from the
beginning that we should love one another not like Cain, who was—
Jon: At this point, if he didn't think he was referencing to these stories. Now he's
like, "Let me just name drop Cain."
Tim: Not like Cain who was of the evil one. I think Genesis 3 said there would be
the seed of the serpent. You entertain two possibilities there at least. This is
talking about baby snakes or it's talking about people who give in to the
serpent's temptation just like...
Then you get to Genesis 4, which is somebody facing another temptation and
the temptation is called sin, and you watch Cain do it. Which now you realize,
like, "Oh, I'm supposed to see people who give into sin as allowing
themselves to become the seed of the serpent."
Jon: Part of the legacy of evil.
Tim: The legacy of evil. That's exactly what he says here. "Don't be like Cain who
was of the evil one, and so murdered his brother." For what reason did he
slay him? Remember that was the question we asked. He just says, "Because
his deeds were evil, and his brothers were righteous."
Jon: It doesn't really give an explanation.
Tim: What he's saying is that Cain and Abel are these archetypes of the seed of the
woman and the seed of the serpent. The more that I give in to evil and act on
those evils, whatever, temptations or purposes, I become of the evil one. It's
becomes my nature.
But there is a different seed, a different nature that I can receive as a gift, and
it's to become the seed of the woman leading to the overcoming of evil,
which is...that's the story of Jesus.
Why this little paragraph is great is one, it shows us a new testament author
who's has meditated on Genesis 3 and 4. But also, it's also reading that story
in light of where it all led to in Jesus. John is reading the Bible as a unified
story that leads to Jesus, and then he goes back and he meditates on every
single story of the Old Testament now in light of the whole story.
So it's both allowing each story has to become a little universe of meditation
to reflect on myself, and life, and God. Then it's also learning how to read
backwards and forwards and read every story and poem in light of every
other story and poem as a unified whole. This is what we mean when we say,
"reading the Bible as ancient Jewish meditation literature."
Jon: Yes, that's great.
[00:26:06]
Tim: So why do we use the word "meditation?" That's intentional ambiguity we
have not answered up to this point.
Jon: Well, because the idea of meditating is slowing down and concentrating on
something. But did you pull that word out of a dictionary or a thesaurus and
go, "Oh, that's a good word"?
Tim: I didn't just think it up. It's actually the way the Bible portrays the ideal reader
of this kind of literature and the place where the Bible describes the ideal
Bible reader as in Psalm 1.
Jon: Okay.
Tim: That's great. Now we're looking at a poem. We looked at a narrative, now
we're looking at a poem.
Jon: We did look at some story and we looked at some discourse in John and now
we're looking at a poem.
Tim: It begins with how a blessed, how fortunate is a person who doesn't do three
things. He doesn't walk, stand or sit in the company of certain people. He
doesn't walk in the plans of the wicked, he doesn't stand in the path of
sinners or sit in the seat of mockers or scoffers. To walk is a very common
image of your way of life. Life as a path or journey.
Jon: Yeah. The metaphor is life as a journey.
Tim: To stand is about where you're seated and stationed, and rooted.
Jon: Your position.
Tim: Oh, excuse me. Where you stand, your position. Sorry. And then where you
sit, is where you're rooted. All these images of "life as a journey," "life as a
position," and "life as a location," "as a home base"...
Jon: Standing is kind of your vantage point, and sitting seems to be more like your
home base.
Tim: Yeah. And so the wicked, the rasha [SP], the sinners and the scoffers.
Jon: That could be your way of life, that could be your point of view, that could be
your starting position?
Tim: Yes. And the fortunate human is the one who doesn't end up in any of those
scenarios. So if a fortunate person doesn't end up pursuing those kinds of
whatever life trajectories, then what do they do? They make them so
fortunate? What we're told is the blessed person's delight is in the Torah of
Yahweh.
Jon: Which if you're reading along in NIV it says, "The law of the LORD."
Tim: Yes, the law of the LORD.
Jon: But that's referring to the Torah?
Tim: Hebrew word is "Torah."
Jon: The teaching?
Tim: Yeah. Which in its most limited sense can refer to just teaching that an elder
give, a priest give, or a prophet. The phrase "Torah of Moses," or "Torah of
the Lord" can come to refer to the body of Covenant literature connected
with Moses. It can also come to refer to just biblical literature as a whole.
Jon: So delight in the Bible?
Tim: Delight in the Bible.
Jon: And scripture.
Tim: The Bible nerd. So they, first of all, find delight. Why is it that they find delight
or how did they express that delight? What they do is every day and night,
they meditate on the Torah. So meditate is the English word "invoke."
Jon: Right. We typically think of sitting quietly, emptying your mind, and maybe
repeating a phrase or something, listening to your breathing.
Tim: Yeah, that's a great point. In terms of the wave of influence of like yoga or
mindfulness, I mean, there's so much wisdom to engaging these habits of
breathing and emptying your mind for the purpose of kind of calming
yourself. That's not at all what's being described here.
Jon: That's not the meditation here.
Tim: Rather than emptying your mind, this form of meditation is about filling your
mind. But about filling your mind with something other than just your own
thoughts. The word "meditate" in Hebrew is "hagah" and it occurs like eight
or nine times. So it's not a super common word, but it's used enough. We
have a very clear picture. Actually, the majority of the times that it's used, it's
animals that do it.
Jon: Oh, they're meditating? Interesting.
Tim: It describes what a bear does over its prey.
Jon: A bear meditates over its prey.
Tim: So bear captures a raccoon. It kills a raccoon. Or in biblical terms, it would be
like a rock badger or something. So yeah, it's like eating it.
Jon: It's eating it.
Tim: So what sound does a big bear make as it's eating an animal?
Jon: Eating sounds.
Tim: It's like, "Harrh harrg."
Jon: Oh, right.
Tim: Mouth noises, right?
Jon: Right, yeah.
Tim: Like growling. The English word we have for that is growl.
Jon: Growl, but also the smacking in the enjoyment.
Tim: Two times this word, once in Isaiah 59, once in Ezekiel 7, it describes what
doves do up in the little rock crevice or in the eaves of a building. The doves
will go up there and hagah.
Jon: Hagah. Making their little noises.
Tim: Yeah. We have a very specific word in English.
Jon: Cooing.
Tim: Cooing, yeah. So in both cases, it's a quiet, low, primal, guttural sound.
Jon: Right. While you're concentrating on something. Well, while the bear
concentrate.
Tim: So this is what the fortunate person does to the Bible. Day and night, they
hagah in it.
Jon: And the word we use is "meditate?"
Tim: Yeah. "Meditate" it's fine because this is about focus, but what we miss with
"meditate" is the idea of quiet reading. What this is envisioning as somebody
who quietly reads the Bible aloud to themselves for the purpose of focusing
on it. I began this practice too, and I notice it all the times.
Jon: Interesting.
Tim: In my habit, times of reading the Bible, I read it aloud quietly to myself, and it
engages my whole body and mind in a way that's very different than when I
read silently. So you read it aloud all the time.
Then when you read it aloud all the time, you also begin to think about it all
the time. It's what fills your mind. Why did Cain do that and why did Saul do
that? Why is Genesis 3 next to Genesis 4 and why is banishment used in both
stories? Why is banishment and an image for the consequences of sin?
Jon: These are the questions that are filling your thoughts during the day. Then
when you encounter your own life situation, these are the words and the
images and ideas that you have to process your life. Which is what the point
is, is not just to read this to read it, but for it to begin to shape you.
Tim: First of all, Psalm 1 is saying that's the ideal way to engage biblical literature,
is to read it aloud quietly to yourself on a regular basis, so that it's what you
think about constantly. That's one thing.
The second thing is, also the statement is saying that the Bible has been
designed to be the kind of literature that you can read and think about for a
lifetime. Implied here is that there's enough to think about to read and think
about every day for the rest of your life, and you will not have exhausted the
depth and richness of what's going on here. That assumes that the Bible is
designed with the kind of depth to it that no one human mind can exhaust it
even in the course of a whole lifetime.
I brought this up before in some previous podcast episode, but about the
Dead Sea Scrolls community. We have their own literature about their habits
and their practices. It's called the Rule of the Community.
Jon: They had to read one passage for like 10 years or something?
Tim: You had to be a Bible nerd already, be like 10 years immersed in what they
call...And they called the Bible, "the scroll of meditation," and they used
exactly this word from Psalm 1. They got the idea from Psalm 1.
So they were trying to be a community of Psalm 1 type people. What Psalm 1
is telling us as both the ideal readers because the producers of the Bible
were, these kinds of people - total Bible nerds. So you both had to have a
decade of Bible nerddom under your belt.
Then the life of the community is decades of daily scripture, reading,
meditation, and prayer along with other day to day life activities. In their
minds, it takes a whole community of people, a lifetime's worth of...not even
one human mind can comprehend everything that's going on here. You need
a group of people to read and meditate on it together.
The outcome of that is this image of the tree planted by streams of water,
which it's the Garden of Eden image of the eternal tree.
Jon: Verse 3.
Tim: The eternal tree, it's an unending stream. The scripture is an unending supply
of life and richness which results in a human life that's fruitful. If you think
about things like the Cain and Abel narrative, apparently, you'll be—
Jon: It's a destructive life.
Tim: Yeah.
Jon: Oh, but if you think about it, it's going to bring you life.
Tim: If you think about it, it's going to bring good things into your life. And that's
what the Bible is designed to do. This isn't a paradigm that either of us knew
about through our own growing up experiences. Like Bible was just not this.
Then, once you grasp that the Bible is this, then all of a sudden you realize,
"Oh, like biblical narrative is going to be a unique kind of thing if it's written
in this culture with this set of assumptions and design techniques, and biblical
poetry is going to differ from other cultures poetry. Biblical speeches, biblical
laws, biblical whatever, it's all going to have a unique flavor that we're calling
ancient Jewish meditation literature.
[00:37:36]
Jon: So the idea isn't mastery. It isn't some sort of completeness where eventually
you will crack all the codes and have all the answers.
Tim: But you are supposed to grow in your competency and confidence.
Jon: Yes. But won't stay ambiguous and shallow; it'll continue to get deeper and
more meaningful and more constructive.
Tim: Yeah, you do grow, you do learn but at the same time you're aware that this
is a deep, deep well so there's always more to discover. And that I could
always be wrong, probably about lots of things that after another decade of
life and meditation on the scriptures, all have an even more developed view
of things that hopefully will be more truthful and faithful.
There you go. That's the kind of humans the Bible is meant to produce is
faithful humans who rule the world well in partnership with God.
Jon: Because they're of choosing the good and not letting sin devour them.
Tim: Yeah, not letting sin eat their lunch every day.
Jon: Eat their lunch. I love that image. Thank you for listening to The Bible Project
podcast. We've got lots of other resources on our website. We've got videos
and study notes. It's all on our website, thebibleproject.com.
If you're new to the podcast, I'd recommend checking out our episode on
What's the Story of the Bible. It's a good overview of the entire biblical
narrative, and it's not the story you would likely expect.
We're a nonprofit in Portland, Oregon. We make these resources for free
because of a growing number of supporters just like you. So thanks for being
a part of this with us.