Aaron RossSpeakers:
Aaron Ross
Brad Embry
Aaron Ross
Welcome to Everyday Theology, where we don’t tell you what to believe, or why to believe it, but rather explore our Christian beliefs and why they matter for us in relation to God, to creation and to others. My name is Aaron Ross.
Today with me on Everyday Theology, I have the pleasure to have Dr. Brad Embry, who is an associate professor of Hebrew Bible Old Testament and holds a PhD in theology from Durham University, really meaning that he’s incredibly smart. And he specializes in Second Temple period, Jewish and Christian texts. So Brad, thank you so much for being with me today.
Brad Embry
My pleasure, Aaron, I nearly burst out in laughter when you said incredibly smart, I normally just go with smart.
Aaron Ross
You know, you have to be incredibly smart.
Brad Embry
Well, I worked alongside a number of very talented people. And I’ve had the fortune of keeping in contact with many of them. It’s a good experience.
Aaron Ross
Hashtag jealous. And if you wouldn’t mind telling our listeners a little bit about yourself your research and your study before we get into our topic for the day.
Brad Embry
Yeah, sure. Well, thank you for having me on. I don’t do many podcasts. So I’m excited to give this a go. Um, so as you mentioned, I went to Durham University, and there, my doctoral studies were in the area of Second Temple period, Jewish literature, but my research really, in those Second Temple text really orbited the use of, you know, for, in general terms, kind of Old Testament themes and concepts and how they formed a structure in which some of these later texts, or written or interacted with at least, and I worked on a on a document called the S ongs of Solomon. And, but in that process of kind of tracing those old testament themes and structures and concepts, of course, you have to become somewhat familiar with them. And I found myself really just sort of, you know, falling in, in love with the study the Old Testament. And so as I as I completed the PhD, and especially when the job market where, you know, normally it’s broken along along the lines of the two testaments, you teach a New Testament or Old Testament in terms of Biblical Studies, I just naturally gravitated towards towards the Old Testament. And when I’m, I’m really glad you know, I haven’t, I haven’t really looked back, I still work a little bit in Second Temple period texts. We did the two volume Bergman’s commentary series on the early Jewish reader, which came out a couple years ago. And I still keep in touch with some of the Second Temple period stuff, but most most of the time now my interests are in, in Old Testament stories and in research and certainly in teaching.
Aaron Ross
So which, if I were to go back? You know, I hesitate to say this, but I, there’s a big part of me that says, If I had to go back, I’m, I would feel really drawn at this stage in life to the Old Testament.
Brad Embry
You’re getting older and wiser, Aaron.
Aaron Ross
Oh,yeah. Thatand maybe I’m, I’m ready for this PhD to be done. And I just want to do anything other than that, right?
Brad Embry
Yeah, no, I get it, man. No, no, you there’s everything else looks more attractive. Once you’re in the you’re neck deep into your doctoral work, but I’m absolutely glad, you know. And, and, and the thing about it is, you know, especially coming from a Christians framework of thinking about the Old Testament, I mean there’s a lot to, you know, what constitutes this the theology and Christian, the spiritual sort of exegesis or reading of Scripture, which I think probably ought to stand at the center of, how we understand our own Christian walk, and what what theology is for a Christian is really the exercise of trying to understand the Old Testament and its content, you know, in light of the gospel account. So, in a lot of ways, you know, when you when you read, you know, especially read some of the ancient commentators, a lot of their work is on Old Testament texts. I mean, they’re, they’re neck deep, talking about, whatever the nature of God is, in three parts. They’re doing that in the Psalms, right, or they, they’re thinking through this and actually So, you know, I think good. A good Christian reader of Scripture is one who will naturally be drawn to reading the Old Testament. More and more, and that’s one of the, you know, that’s one of the, I think, for, for my, for me, and for some of my colleagues who work in it, you know, who see kind of a Marcin ism still alive and well, and a lot of places in, in perhaps in more covert ways. That’s what’s, you know, lamentable to us. And what I think is somewhat alarming as well, is that, that sort of, even even in close it attitude, is something that really has no place in, in, in Christianity.
Aaron Ross
And I hate to say it, but I feel like that, you know, for anyone who doesn’t know what marcionite is right, oversimplified by saying get rid of the Old Testament? That’s, yeah. But I feel like that attitude that you’re kind of describing there isn’t quite so much found in the academy. Right, it’s much more in our churches than it is in the academy, which seems very odd to me.
Brad Embry
No, I think you’re right, and, and in some ways, more alarming. Yeah, in large measure, because within the Academy, the, the way in which MS is to say this is every part of the Academy, or every way in which the academy finds, you know, purchase, but there’s a tendency, sometimes to sort of pocket the academy off from, you know, what is considered the, you know, the life of the church or the life right, or whatever. The problem with those two, you know, coming together and conversing, I think, you know, can be in some ways, kind of trot it out in terms of, you know, this is how the rank and file people kind of think, implicitly. And then the Academy is often aloof and does its own thing. And, and that’s unfortunate. And that’s one of the good things about podcasts like yours, because, they try to situate, you know, it’s intentionally situated within, the practicing life of Christians, but at the same time, is trying to draw on, you know, academics and get them to come out a little bit of their show and talk about it. All right, drag me out from under my rock.
Aaron Ross
So, so let’s do that. And we’re gonna jump into our topic for today, which is one that I’m particularly excited about. It’s talking about Judges, right, this really interesting text of the Old Testament. And just for you, here’s a little bit of my kind of story. And it may resonate with some people about judges. As I, as I understood it as a kid, right. So growing up a pastor’s kid, and growing up in the church. We only really ever heard Old Testament passages kind of given to us in a very well sterilized ways, for sure. But then also just it didn’t matter what happened. It was good, and God did it. And so I loved the book of Judges, because it kind of gave me this feeling of Well, first off, it was very narrative driven, right. It’s just stories, and especially as a kid doesn’t like stories. Yeah. And these stories often had huge acts of heroism in them. So great, you know, almost as good as a movie, right? But maybe it should be a movie. But there is so much death, and killing and bad things happening that as a kid, I just ignored all of that. Because it was, Hey, this is this is God and God’s justice, boom, here it is. And so I loved it. But I also feel like as a kid, I never really got to know the book of Judges, because I had this very both sterilized view of it. And also, when that really didn’t have me engaged with deeper questions, right? It was just like, this happened. And it happened because God is good. And God can’t stand evil, and then evil happen. And then God did it again. Right? And this kind of not repetitious, but kind of cyclical way. Right? So but I know that you’ve written on a better way, right? Like, how should we think about this, this text in helpful and good ways? And so I want to open that up to you and just say, help me, right, help our listeners, what is the best way that we should think about it with a more helpful way and what does it really speak to in terms of our life today?
Brad Embry
All right. Um, well, I’ll start talking and then let you kind of, you know, probe some of the edges of what I do or some of the core of what I would say Yeah, report? Um, yeah, I mean, there’s there’s definitely a superficial way of reading and I don’t mean that negatively or pejoratively, because you know, children sometimes read things, and then what we might call, you know, from an academic standpoint, very superficial way, but that that’s the right way, they just read it and accept it. And that’s what you should be doing.
Aaron Ross
I don’t know, if I needed the rated R version when I was 10.
Brad Embry
No, well, you know, that’s right. Well, funny story. So my, my mother, Marlene Embry,
when I was when we were kids, you know, she would read to us at night, and she would read, oftentimes read the Bible, and we would just, you know, crop and bear with her, and she’d read it is just before going to bed. Well, she, she would read the Bible from cover to cover. So she would be reading to us, you know, as kids and I, you know, I’d be eight years old, six years old, whatever. And my mother would be reading right out of Leviticus, and she would just read through chapters, and you just sit there and listen. And then there wasn’t a, there wasn’t a, you know, sort of a Midrashic moment with my mom in those settings, where she would sort of unpack what’s going on, or try to unpack what’s going on, she would just read these stories, and then say, Good night, sweetie, and off to bed and go there. And that’s a, you know, there’s a, there’s a level on which, you know, a child’s imagination can swing from, this is a Coen brothers. But even that, you know, this is like a felt board of the story of judges all the way to sort of a Rob Zombie, you know, rendition, edges. So, that was a, you know, I remember as a kid, and since, and since I’ve gotten into this study, the Old Testament, I go back to those story moments with my mother, where she’s just sort of, she’s just reading it. And I asked her afterwards, or later, you know, what was it about, you know, you’re like, what were you thinking and reading, not in a negative way, but what was going through your mind as you were reading us, you know, these stories straight through, you know, like I say, Leviticus, judges, you know, difficult portions of the Old Testament to kind of integrate. And she said, Well, you know, it’s God’s word. So I just figured you ought to hear it. And something, there’s something, beautiful about that approach. And it wasn’t something that she came to, you know, it’s not like my mom was reading, you know, narratives theologians on how to kind of, you know, integrate or work around, you know, stories, and what should we do? And how should we, you know, it wasn’t like she was reading anybody, dealing in a critical way with tech, she just said, this is the word of God, and you need to hear it. And so I think, to come back to that, I think there there is a superficial reading of judges that can, can be very wholesome and healthy, even if it’s difficult, to kind of get, kind of grasp the content in the sense that it’s these are, some of these are very tough stories, right. But seeing those patterns, as you mentioned, you know, that cyclical sort of pattern, especially in the middle portion of a book in three through 16, I think is a very helpful way of kind of, kind of coming to terms of what the content of books trying to say to us and, and what I mean by that is that, that cyclical pattern is a way of kind of revealing to the reader that there’s a problem, not simply with the community of God, and I like just for your listeners, awareness. I like to speak of Israel in terms of community of God, because I think that helps to minimize some of the distance between us and them, if that makes sense. Yeah, I mean, Israel, and I’ll still use Israel from time to time, but you know, Community of God, there’s something problematic with them, in terms of their ability or capacity to kind of dial into what they ought to be. But then that cyclical pattern also indicates that there’s something potentially problematic in broader ways. In other words, if we keep repeating this, there’s a problem with the people who are repeating it. But then maybe if generation after generation is repeating the same issue more or less, then there’s something structural, that’s a problem that you’re trying to kind of lay bare to us. And I think that’s a good starting point, as we kind of probe beneath the surface a little bit to say, what what is that lesson that Judges wants to communicate to us, among many others, but what is the lesson that we’re meant to hear?
You know, in those in those cyclical patterns, in other words, there’s a there’s a micro sort of structure that each judge in, in generation that you know, operates, you know, within, you know, alongside That judge or that judge operates with each generation, right? Something they themselves, you know, participated in this spot in the circle. But then the the consistent pattern that is replicated, more or less again, there’s, there’s nuances from one edge to the next that that indicates a bigger structural issue. And yeah, showing that a little bit is is a way to kind of penetrate a little bit beneath the surface for the story of judges and other ways. In other words, to kind of grab at it and and find new handles for a contemporary community.
Aaron Ross
Which and which is, yeah,
Unknown Speaker
yeah, no, it. I mean, I mean, it when I say literal, you just saying that all the sudden reshaped my mind immediately. Right, even even that little kind of snippet where you kind of bring out this if we talk about the cycle, right, there’s the falling away from the law. And from, you know, the works of God who got is to doing things their own way to the need for a judge to come up because the people had been overthrown, or, you know, been ruled by someone else, and the judge comes up and the judge does what the judge does, and reclaims the land for Yaweh are the people and you can correct anything I’m saying here, just kind of giving a basics of this of the cycle. Yeah, the reality is, I always, always was told as a kid, well, you know, people just they just got bad again, right. Like, even theologically, it’s just, you know, people’s depravity, this is just this is the natural thing that’s going to happen. Right, but never once that I stopped to consider exactly what you’re saying there, which is, maybe there’s something else going on. If this is different groups of people over a different, a long period of time, continually doing the same thing. Maybe there’s something that we’ve missed, when we’ve oversimplified this to just people being people. Right, what may that be?
Brad Embry
Yeah, no, I think I think that’s a, that’s an excellent way to kind of elongate that a little bit. And that’s where a lot of my work right now, as I think about Judges, or when I talk to people about Judges, or when I teach in the course, that’s where a lot of my work kind of orbits now is, you know, what is that? it, you know, if I use micro, what is that macro sort of thing that judges is trying to communicate to us. And if you think about it, in turn, and just like you say, you know, these are, historically we deal with this, you know, there’s so here’s this community, and I’ll use Israel, here’s Israel, it’s like the snapshot into the past this sort of artifact that we pull out, and that was what they did, then. And I think we miss some of the, you know, content of what judges might be saying to us, as the Word of God as Christians. And again, we can kind of come back around to that, you know, as we before, but it’s something that’s, there’s something that is trying to explore, this is a community of god that was endowed, with, here’s my Anglicanism, the gifts of God, for the people of God, to act in the ways that they ought to act in this world. And if you want to start to broaden this to kind of the unfolding purposes of God for this community to, you know, restore those, those things that were lost, befall, and create a context in which God can work, you know, through them to the whole world, they were given those incredibly potent and powerful gifts of the law of the tabernacle. So you’ve got word in the presence, they have what you know, are taken as prophetic figures, characters like Moses and Joshua, and in the sense that they are, you know, leaders who are speaking to them about the nature of the covenant, and what it means to live in that reality. And yet, here’s a community endowed with all those gifts who constantly falls away. And so on one level, I think there is a there is a powerful point there about whatever we want to say it’s an ontological reality. It’s a you know, this is the way people are wired. we’re wired to have the good nature and the evil nature, and we’re going to incline towards the evil. But I also think that there’s something about that commentary of what the community ultimately does, that speaks not simply to the nature of the people, or a people, but to the nature of a people in relationship to God through this covenant. So how do we understand what those mechanisms are within the covenant are in place to do in other words, is judges in a way making a comment on the limitations of the law, its ability or perhaps inability to actually shape somebody to do and be what They ought to do and be full stop. Now, it’s not to say the law is not important, but rather simply to say that the law is a, tool that can help you towards something. Right? It’s not that something and the moment it ever becomes that something, we see the problems that it can, it can kind of orbit around it, whether we get caught up too much in the law, or we see that the law is easily marginalized, we can kind of push it off or forget it, or move it over here. So I think, for me, the angle with Judges anymore now is trying to probe if there is something that’s missing, in the story of Judges that would help to create a community that actually could withstand
Aaron Ross
the movement from
Brad Embry
one generation to the next, if that’s where you want to put it, the framing it with judges kind of, you know, thought, Well, what is that thing? And if it’s not the tabernacle, because the priesthood, you know, virtually disappears in Judges, which I think is a is the author is one of the authors, kind of subtle points that he’s making. It’s this disappearance of the priesthood, which is active at the end of Joshua, and then re emerges at the end of judges, but in between, you know, we have these, very light hand in sort of overtures to the priesthood, otherwise, they’re just gone. They’re not,
you know, they’re not in play.
It’s always judges. But if we’re missing, though, if those elements are still somehow active within the community, and yet the community continues to do this thing. What is it that is it that is lacking? And how do we, how do we deploy if that’s the right word, I don’t like it in some ways, because it suggests user usership of something that I don’t really use that quite that way. But if we deploy Judges, as kind of a, almost a hermeneutical, tool for understanding these things that define and I think, rightly define our own, you know, Christian spirituality, whether you know, we’re presence, the structures that are around us, what is it that just tells us, what are the things that the book can sort of lay in front of us to say, Just Just be careful, you know, remember what it is that actually holds all of this together. And if I were to put that in a nutshell, and this was all caught in my working, you know, my working set of ideas, is Judges tells us that without us without, without a connection to the real presence of God, these other elements that have become that our gifts of God that were given to us, by God through God actually can become real dangers to the community. Not that they’re dangerous in their own right, by any stretch, but there there is a possibility that these things endowed with this power have the power to destroy, they have to be,
They have to be pointed in the right direction and right. It’s almost like I mean, maybe some of your readers really quickly will know, you know, the X-Men this the I’m not great at these sort of references, but it just, it just came to me, man, so bear with me, but you know, go for, you know, the character Cyclops. Yeah. So he has this, this powerful vision, right? Well, if it opens his eyes, it just is, whatever that rain, Cheetos head will just just destroy everything in front of him. So he has to put on this set of glasses that can help him focus it. And in a way I think law is the unbridled power. Or the tabernacle in its own way can become the unbridled power. And it’s the it’s a proper sort of understanding of the relative the relative power that those institutions hold. And I say relative to God’s real presence in the life of a person that is part of what the book of Judges is exploring in, in kind of these touch points.
Aaron Ross
I don’t know if this is going to take us into a weird place. And so if it does just be like, let’s not do that, and here’s something else right? Like a dog with the treat like giving off the attention of something right. But something you’ve said kind of sparked my imagination, especially because some of my PhD work though it’s not in the Old Testament is on you know, James Dunn. Yeah. And this kind of new perspective, reality or thought process of covenantal nomism Of course, CP Sanders really being the guy there. Is what you’re saying is almost, yes, maybe the way and if I can explain this to the listeners who may not be familiar with some of these terms, right? That there’s an idea in kind of modern scholarship that says that the law itself functioned as what Dunn calls boundary markers. They are the things that would bring people into the community of God, or the things that were there to allow people to remain in the community God in the event of going astray. But what you’re saying, has a bit of a different vision of what that Torah law was really there for, and less of an in and out reality, who’s in who’s out? Or if you do get out, here’s your way back in and has more to do with how God’s presence and maybe this is the Anglican part of you, is being mediated to us where the real idea wasn’t about being in or out, but the presence of God always. Do I understand you correctly.
Brad Embry
Yeah, I think that’s a I think that’s a way a good way of putting it. And one of the things about, you know, taking up, you know, your mention of Dunn is that, in a way, it can be both and not in the sense that both right, but rather simply that the way in which the law, it, you know, was received was, you know, in a sense, as Dunn has pointed out, right, in other words, there, there were communities for whom, that that was the way the law was understood. Right? Yeah. And that’s, and that’s just a historical, you know, sort of reality. But, yes, it’s to pro and here’s where I think the spiritual to Jesus side of things is helpful when thinking through. So I think there’s historical, so take, take a text, even like Judges where, there’s this historical part to it. But coming to grips with the historical part of Judges, and if you sort of dealt with this, this book, in historical terms, can be somewhat frustrating. Not least of which, because there’s, you know, there’s, there seem to be some chronological issues with it. It’s cyclical nature suggests that it’s wrongly driven by trying to tell a particular story and not so much, you know, journalistic, which, you know, drives us up the wall when we think about history texts.
Aaron Ross
So you’re saying it’s not a history text?
Brad Embry
Well, I think it, it’s like,
it’s like approaching it, you know, in the sort of the multi senses of Scripture, that there’s a historical component to it, which is a jumping off point for coming to grips with other aspects of the story. So and this is where I think that notion of spiritual Jesus is helpful, because, you know, if you take something like, we’re just using the law as a conversation piece, Jesus in his interactions in the Gospel accounts with these scribes and Pharisees, you know, I have a sympathetic view towards the scribes and Pharisees in one respect, because, uh, you know, when you read about who they were, what they did, that, that their the religious life was their life, but they were deeply committed to, you know, the traditions that they saw were gifts from God to them for their benefit. And they had had deep knowledge and, you know, memory, a deep knowledge of Scripture and a memory of their past and what it is that had shaped into their day. And yet at the same time, again, if we trust, you know, the Gospels rendition of this, and we trust, the interaction of Jesus, when they see the word, you know, here to pick up John’s language, when they see the word sort of sitting sitting in front of them, they have no idea that, that that’s what it is. In other words, there’s a, there’s a sense in which these people who are deeply invested in the literal sort of reality of Scripture, the what I would say, the historical reality of Scripture, the tangible reality of Scripture, and probably many of them, you know, had it memorized. I mean, St. Bonaventure, be proud of these people, right, you know, these are the people who have that you’re at the starting point. Yet at that, at those moments, they are in some ways, at greatest risk for actually seeing the content of Scripture when it’s manifested in front of them. And I think that there’s something to that, you know, to then go back and take that sort of New Testament picture of the law and use their deploy that in some respects to kind of read through again as a as an aide to try to understand what might be the central concern or problem within the story of Judges. Right. What is it that this what is it that the story is laying in front of us to say these are the issues, and even short even shortcomings, you know, within the Within the the microstructure of the judges themselves. So you said about
Aaron Ross
the Pharisees and Sadducees, because I too have felt for a long time they get such a bad rap. In their, in their maybe sometimes overzealous fervor.
Brad Embry
Yeah, they’re the whipping boys. There’s no doubt about that.
Aaron Ross
And I think that was just like a point. I was like, here we go, here’s something I’m glad someone else feels right. But now the question I want to ask, which is, maybe you can provide an example, or give us a story in Judges in which can provide us a way to look through this lens that you’re talking about, and kind of a spiritual exit Jesus, not focusing so much on the cyclical nature, but the reason for the individual story, and maybe you can help kind of the listeners see that through one of the stories of the Judges?
Brad Embry
Sure. I think so. Well, I’ll give it a try. How about that. And there may be two ways to approach this. And perhaps you can help keep me on track. One One would be to pick up a scene and this is a scene I’ve, I have been thinking about and working on a bit in a more focused manner recently. And that’s the story of Jeptha and his daughter. So look at look at that, that scene, kind of through this, this lens and see what emerges or use that scene to kind of hone our lens. And then this, the second thing is to actually look at the bigger structure of Judges itself, because one of the things that I don’t know if it’s surprising to people, but it can come as a surprise from time to time is that the story of Judges, the Book of Judges, rather, contains, of course, these stories of these individual characters and their experiences. And it does this in a cyclical way, this repetition of you know, the cycle. But it’s not the full sweep of the book itself. Because once you advance beyond Samson, you go beyond 16, into 17, through 21. There is no Judge. So just the story concludes in a in a situation. And I think that’s very important, you know, thinking about this bigger structure, and perhaps a point is that that loss of the Judge as an individual character, at the end of the book, I think, is a critical piece to the way in which we read the I don’t know what you want to call it, the interior dynamics of the story itself, you know, the way in which these these periodic moments, but you know, the judges the stories that are told how they, how they function to kind of convey a bigger picture. And I think 17 to 21 is a useful way of kind of highlighting that so we can come back around to that most let’s start it, we should we go to Jeptha and his daughter.
Aaron Ross
Yeah, let’s do that one first.
Brad Embry
Okay. So if you’re, if your listeners I’m sure. I mean, the story of Jeptha is fairly well known. But the the sort of cliff notes version of it is that Jeptha is a judge. And he’s considered one of the major judges, you know, that an elongated story, surrounding him. He comes from, we might say, suspicious beginnings or humble beginnings, depending upon how you look at it.
His father had him through consort with what is typically translated as a prostitute. And as a result of this Jeptha is estranged from his family. And one of the important pieces to the reading of the story I think it is often missed is that a big part of the story of Jeptha is is an issue of inheritance. Now, I don’t think that that sits sort of front and center on Jeptha’s mind when he’s going through the process of functioning as a Judge, but I have a feeling it’s not too far from the center. If it’s not on the mind of Jeff himself, then I do think it’s something that the author wants us to keep in view, as it relates to Jeptha, his own interaction with his daughter. So the story of Jeptha his daughter, so as most people will know, Jeptha makes a vow. So Jeptha has been sort of tasked initially by the people has been requested, and then God endows Jeptha with God’s Spirit to undertake this task as the judge. And in the process of doing this Jeptha utters a vow to the Lord and essentially the vow is, if you grant me success in this conflict that is to come, then the first thing that appears to me from my house, I will sacrifice to you, right, and as the story unfolds, then it’s the first thing that appears from the south house is his daughter. And some people don’t think that she was sacrificed. I don’t think we need to get into the details there. I do think that this resulted in a sacrifice that tends to me to be the easier reading, even though more difficult in some respects.
And but the the point that I would make their relationship we’ve been talking about is that for a long period of time, Jeff does this jeptha has come under criticism for the bow. It was, you know, it’s considered a rash bow, he didn’t think this about through the, you know, why did he ever make that?
Aaron Ross
Right, you know, what, what’s the strange vow to begin with?
Brad Embry
Right? Yeah, what’s the point of making this particular vow? And and, you know, did he did he hate his wife? Did he want his wife to come out? You know, was there this? You know, I need to get rid of my wife, how can I do this? Well, I’ll make a vow. And she’s sure to be the first one to come out and say something to me. But I’m a little more interested in the fact that he made a vow at all. In the fulfillment of that vow, which is both Jeff does act, but also his daughter’s collusions, not the right word, his daughter’s own involvement in the fulfillment of that vow. So let’s unpack this a little bit. The way was the story unfolds, is jeptha, comes home sees his daughter reacts very strongly to this, you know, basically my daughter, what is it done you you know, I am I’m done. And but then the text goes on to define this daughter of Jeptha. And I think the language there is very important. Because when Jeff that comes to his house, this is in 11:34, his daughter was coming out to meet him and she was singing and dancing. Now the singing and dancing would have been a normal way for female characters and households to greet returning warriors. That’s, that’s not an uncommon thing. And it’s not an unexpected thing, which, of course, is part of the criticism of Jeptha in the uttering of his vow. But then they, but then 34, defines her as his one and only child.
Now, English readers might hear that because that phrase is something that would, might stick out to you. But even readers of Scripture would certainly hear that that is a very strong connection to the story of Isaac, and the near sacrifice of Isaac. Yeah, you know, this is this is Abraham’s one and only Son. And I think that connects. Well, there’s other ways in which that might play itself out. But what we can focus on here is that Jephthah has an inheritance issue. So he, he is slowly finding himself back into a form of inheritance through this process of his act as a Judge. But at that moment, where everything seems to be coming together for him around issues of inheritance, he has to because of this vow, offer of his one and only child, he has no son or daughter besides her as a sacrifice. Now, if you know some of the legal dimensions from say, Numbers, where we have the story of Zilophohad’s daughters, they bring this issue to Moses, and they say to him, our father died and has no sons. So right, we’re worried about his inheritance as he comes into the land. And Moses takes this matter to God, God says, you know, that right? Daughters can inherit. And the reason for this principle is so that we can retain this inheritance structure as people enter into the land. Well, suddenly, Jeptha, this whole whole sort of world is starting to come unraveled along these legal lines, where now Jeptha has endangered I mean, his daughter, of course, as a central focus here in many respects, because she’s going to be sacrificed. But her sacrifice also wherever that represents, if we sort of play this out, the Jeptha, his own loss of name, this is in relationship to the look ahead daughters in that ruling, which comes from God through Moses, so it endangers his own inheritance to come. So what does this look like? Well, the vow coming back to the vow. Vow making was not something Yes, we can say that Jeptha made a rash vow, Jeptha should have thought it through. But vow making itself is something that has sort of what do you want to call it a time honored tradition in Israel like society? Yeah. Vow making is also part of the legal structure of Israelite society. So what jeptha was doing even if the particular was a bit or a little strange what Jeff was doing was actually something that you could say is, you know, noteworthy, he was making a vow to the Lord and he was involving God in this process of securing victory. This is something that has sort of a time honored tradition within Israelite society. Once he does that, though, he has entered into a legal framework with God, he has participated in something that has legal requirements, if you make about a Yaweh you’ve got to keep that bow, right. This is something that his daughter points out to him. And I think it’s in that relationship that we see if I could put kind of like, not, you know, broad brushstrokes to it, we see Jeptha accessing an element in the law
that his daughter then says yes to, and that accessing that element of the law actually destroys another regulation that is given to him through the ruling of Zillohad’s daughters. In other words, the story of depth in his daughters becomes this collision. Where law undermines law. And I wonder if there isn’t something in that whole sort of process. Now, you know, we want what do you want to say? Do you want to say that, you know, we wish Jeptha would his, you know, his daughter said, you got to make good on this, this law, that? And he says, well, the heart of the law doesn’t mean your death has to mean something else, right.
Aaron Ross
I mean, and maybe even a go serve, you know, at the tabernacle type of metaphor.
Brad Embry
And that’s the other response that people you know, that scholars gave is that she was, you know, destined to a life of virginity, which, which man is occlusion from, from society. But there’s an element even there, though, that, you know, regardless of whether or not she sacrificed or you know, secluded in virginity, you know, there’s this damage that’s done to the to Jeptha’s longevity and to these inheritance issues. And remember, protecting this inheritance is a critical, critical importance during this period of transition from wilderness wanderings to settlement and land. And that’s why I say this inheritance matter, I think for the story of Jeptha, that is a biggie, because it’s, it connects to once against this legal framework. So in other words, there’s something about, you know, this whole process of Judges if we use this as an example, that there’s, there’s a, there’s a willingness to participate in the law. Or if you if you go back to the story of Gideon, there’s a willingness to participate in the tabernacle. But in so doing in participating in the law and participating in the tabernacle, there’s a jeopardy, the the community is put in a certain jeopardy because of that process. In other words, the dangerous thing, yeah, these these gifts of God become, like I said, they become these dangerous elements. And I think that in a way, what those start to do, those stories start to do is expose that there has to be something else. That is the binding agent toward the connective tissue that holds these laws together, that hold this reality together and actually makes it something that’s not that’s not dangerous in that regard, even though you know, interacting with God always, you know, has its inherent risks, because God is holy other God is holy, and we are not. And there’s this risk in that engagement. But, um,
Aaron Ross
It’s almost as if, if I can ask this question, it’s almost as if the ancient, you know, Israelites, and then the compilers of judges, as if, and I could be this, it can be going way out on a limb, and I’m in, you know, danger of falling off and break my neck real quick. But it’s almost as if they were themselves seeing the potholes in the law. And writing about it as if not the law itself was the problem, maybe but that the way the law is used can itself actually be antithetical to the law.
Brad Embry
Yeah, I think I think and that’s, I think that’s right. Another way of putting it if you don’t see the law is having an end goal. that it represents an an activity that moves towards the conclusion. You know, throwing a ticket like Levinson’s comment, this is the end of history. Right? This is something that has a force towards a filmer and a resolution. If it is a static entity that sort of sits there like a great moment monolith. And we pick and choose the places that we’re going to kind of wrap our arms around, that we miss something of the the real dynamic nature of what the Word of God is to us. Now, I’m not a person who is like, pick and choose. And, you know, cultural context determines how we read these things. And if we don’t feel comfortable with this particular, you know, text, then we find ways of kind of moving around it, right. But at the same time, there’s something about the whole sort of nature of the spiritual and religious life. And I think both of those, and I would partition those two things, you know, that there’s a religious life that does these things. And there’s a spiritual life that sort of says, We are made up of this, these sorts of things. We’re physical, we’re spiritual, and we tend towards spiritual actions. And they could be, but they could be all sorts of things. You can be a very spiritual Buddhist, so to speak, but you’re not of a particular religion. But there’s a confluence between what is spiritual and what is religious. And it’s that Confluence, that meeting point where we can work out the relative health of a community and prioritizing one over the other is, you know, you run risks, and how do we navigate that, and I think stories like judges can be helpful, because they, they help they help point us in the direction of we need some rain, you know, that sort of governs that? Sorry, I interrupted you.
Aaron Ross
No, no, no, I was interrupting you. It just, it just hit me. It’s, you know, again, as an analogy, maybe at the risk of oversimplifying it, but the analogy is the same way that the church today, if we go way back to the beginning of our conversation, has this kind of Marcionite problem, right? This, what do we do with the Old Testament? It’s a bit hard. It’s someone else’s letter. The New Testament is all we need, kind of mentality. Where if we read like what you’re kind of offering for us today, this reading of judges, we recognize in the story of judges itself, that the struggle that the church has in thinking about the Torah law, and thinking about how do we best live in light of God and who God is, is the same struggle that they were having much closer to the time of? Not even the you know, the finished formulation of the Torah law? Yeah, yeah. And they’re asking this same, again, not the exact same question, but the heart of it is the same question about the law in this story, do I fulfill this part of the law? Or do I fulfill this one? Either way, I’m breaking the law somehow, right? That we have the same struggle with in terms of, you know, when we go to read the Torah law, and we don’t want to kill our Grandma, because she’s wearing clothes made of two different types of fabric, right?
Brad Embry
What any of your readers killer grandmother, if they’re wearing wool.
Aaron Ross
Yeah, grandmas should be left alone, right? Go visit them after COVID’s over.
Brad Embry
Their clothes might be in poor taste, but that’s no reason.
Aaron Ross
But to me, that’s fascinating. I mean, that that is exciting to think about, that brings for me new life into the book of Judges, in a way I would have never have looked at it before. Because I would have never thought about it in this look at their struggle with the law that I clearly can’t see on my own as a reader of the text. Because I am not an ancient Israelite person that already has these things in mind while reading it.
Brad Embry
Well, and immediately, I mean, that I really appreciate your, your summary is very helpful. As you as you kind of unpack part of what you are getting at, and part of what our conversation is sort of suggested is that the moment you find yourself in, in that sort of situation where, you know, you’re not talking so much about, you know, an ancient Israelite artifact, but you’re talking about something. And that’s why I stressed earlier that I refer to this as the Community of God, you’re already in a place where the reading of that particular text is much nearer to your own spiritual and religious life. Because you see within that, not so much the actions that you yourself are taking. So, you know, we’re not sacrificing our own daughters, you know, but it’s to recognize that if we move in a direction, that prioritizes say, for instance, the keeping of the law at all costs without understanding what the law is meant to serve you towards. Being in relationship with, yeah, which I would say is this again, this real presence of God In a community, then you, you run the risk of creating a context in which that sort of sacrifice is possible. Or you create a context in which the rape and dismemberment of the Levite’s concubine engages 19th as possible. In other words, it’s not so much that we’re looking to find, you know, one for one, relationships, but rather simply to say, this picture the community of God endowed with all of these gifts, and, and resources that God has given to them, is precisely the place where we find these awful stories unfolding. Now, that ought to be a wake up call to us, and you don’t see that sort of poignant reminder or story anywhere, I mean, it’s, you can see it in places in the in the New Testament where maybe Paul’s railing against a particular community for their problems, but to have a story, and you touched on this, you know, as a child reading as having a story where you can pull children in, you can pull new believers, and you can pull people in with these difficult but also kind of rich, imagery driven stories, and use those as placeholders to say, this isn’t what we obviously want to do. This is why we can’t, this is what we can become. So the way in which we interact with those gifts that have been given to us is to look constantly and freshly, you know, each each day each, you know, each Sabbath each Sunday when we gather and worship in whatever form now and it’s crazy, these crazy times as we look afresh at what it is that is that is driving this? What is it that makes us a spiritual and religious person? And if our answer is, it is, you know, it’s Psalm 22, we may not be doing enough service to either Psalm 22, or to the, you know, the Christian life, because, you know, we are in a relationship not with the Bible, we are in a relationship with a living God.
And, and the biblical texts is a way of, and a critical way. I mean, you know, this is what I do. I make my living studying it, I love it and passionate about it. But at the end of the day, you know, my desires and encounter with God. Yeah, yeah, it’s not so.
Aaron Ross
Yes. And Amen.
Brad Embry
And then the other part, too, that I want to leave you, you, you, you, you’re the you’re the director. Go ahead.
Aaron Ross
No, no, I don’t want to cut you off. We’re just we’re coming close to the end here of our time together. And I wanted to say, because I was hoping to in our time to get to Judges 19 and the Levi and his concubine, because it’s such a strange story. It’s so strange. No. So maybe what we’ll just have to do is have you come back in a season, our next season to talk to us about that one, because more than anything, I’m just interested, like, I want to hear your take on such a crazy chapter. But we are coming to the end here, sadly. But so I want to ask this question. I mean, everything you’ve said today has been so helpful for me, hopefully, for our listeners, and reframing the way that we think about this text, maybe giving it new eyes for us to approach. And you know what, these stories, these stories we hear as kids, hopefully not judges 19 because I want to be really tough as a kid. But well, if you wouldn’t mind letting our listeners know where they can learn more from you, if you have any writings, anything that they can go and read or purchase so they can be more connected with your work.
Brad Embry
Sure, well, the I did write that chapter. You know, forget the year it came out. It’s in the Fortress Press Peries, Texts and Contexts. And it’s the Judges volume. And it’s on Judges 19.
Aaron Ross
So they can get like a preview of a podcast coming you know,
Brad Embry
sometime any time I’d be I’ve enjoyed myself, but I didn’t. I didn’t know. I didn’t know that I would but I did.
Aaron Ross
Seriously just said you’re gonna do another podcast with me. I probably should have asked first.
Brad Embry
No, no, no, you had every right you’re you’re reading the situation very well. No, I’d be happy to have enjoyed it. And I enjoy it. Enjoy our chat. So I really do. But most most of my work now is newer stuff that I you know, I’m kind of coming in too as a result of, you know, teaching the course on Joshua and Judges.
I’ve been interested in the book for some time.
But it’s only recently that I’ve turned my attention to it. I had other projects and opinion, you know, going on. So this this stuff on jeptha. I’ve read a couple papers at different conferences on him and her. And I have a couple article link projects that are in the works, I don’t know that it will become a bigger project than that. At the moment, I feel like what I can say I can probably say in the articles, but you know, these things can have a life of their own. And I’ve enjoyed the…
Aaron Ross
So keep an eye out for upcoming.
Brad Embry
Yeah. And I’m hopeful that I can get around to them sooner than later. But, you know, there’s all sorts of things going on.
Aaron Ross
Well, Brad, thank you so much for taking the time to enlighten me enlighten our listeners into thinking about judges and maybe some fresh perspective on it. It’s been a wonderful time. I can’t wait to have you back.
Brad Embry
My pleasure, Aaron. Thanks for for hosting me and happy to do it again.
Aaron Ross
Wonderful. We’ll talk soon.
Brad Embry
Sounds good.