>> I'm gonna give a lecture on
the theological anthropology
of the Pentateuch.
That's a little too much
of a definitive article.
I don't think this is the
theological anthropology
of the Pentateuch because
I'd have to do more work
to do that.
This is something more like
some organized thoughts
and musings and hypotheses about humanity,
as seen in the Pentateuch,
something like that.
And one thing to say too,
so I'm a theologian,
but I'm a sort of theologian
with a weird training.
I never took Greek and Hebrew,
I never got an MDiv.
I came in through the
humanities in the backdoor
and ended up doing systematic theology.
I love it.
But I'm in in a funny place
where I don't have the kind
of Biblical studies training
that most theologians have.
So I'm sitting here much
more like an advanced version
of you all than like an
expert in Biblical studies.
And so I'm kinda aware
of that as I'm talking
about this stuff.
I'm a little wary of not
wanting to lead you astray.
But I also want you to know that
because I'm just having a blast,
learning from the Pentateuch
in last couple weeks
as I've been teaching a
whole bunch of sessions,
but as I've been
preparing for the lecture,
and year after year, as I
do more work as a theologian
to be grounded in the Scriptures,
like this is a fascinating big book.
There's so much in here, the drama of it,
the insight in it, the complexity of it,
it just kind of blows my mind.
And so I'm a systematic theologian.
Right now, I just want to read a bunch
of Old Testament books.
I'm really having fun with it.
So it's recommended to you,
the great books project works.
So just reading, you know, in
English translation together
and trying to take the text seriously
can yield tons of insight.
So,
there we go.
I want to start,
so I think the first half or
so of the lecture tonight,
I want to offer a close reading
of Genesis one to three.
The Pentateuch is five books,
Genesis one to three is
three little chapters
of the five books.
So part of the backstory here
is I'm just beginning work on big book
on theological anthropology.
And part of its remit is to
be rooted in the scriptures.
So that's part of why I'm
trying to do lectures like this.
Too often, actually,
people talk about theological anthropology
as if everything's done in
Genesis one through three.
That can be a real problem,
because there's the biblical
witness is broad, and deep,
and it's very nuanced.
And so there's a danger that
in paying attention one to three,
we give disproportionate attention to it.
That said, there's a lot there.
There's a lot there about
what it means to be human.
Particularly, if we sort of
keep in mind this distinction
between the created state
and the fallen state.
We need to be really careful
as we navigate that terrain
as we try to figure out
what is sort of held over
from the state of
creation before the fall,
and what changes or is even lost
or distorted in that process.
But anyways, I want to
give a close reading.
And I'm going to start by
actually reading it to you.
So most of you were in here
when I said get out your Bibles.
If you weren't, get out your Bibles
and get out your phone,
please don't text a bunch.
But I'm going to read you
a few different passages
as we go and then just stop
and talk about some stuff.
So first, Genesis 1:26-30.
Then God said, let us
make man in our image,
after our likeness,
and let them have dominion
over the fish of the sea,
and over the birds of the heavens,
and over the livestock,
and over all the earth
and over every creeping
thing that creeps on there.
So God created man in his own image,
the image of God, He created him,
male and female, he created
them, and God blessed them.
And God said to them,
be fruitful and multiply and
fill the earth and subdue it
and have dominion over the fish of the sea
and of the birds of the heavens
and over every living thing
that moves on the earth.
And God said,
"Behold, I have given you
every plant yielding seed
"that is on the face of all the earth
"and every tree with seed in its fruit,
"you have them for food,
"and every beast of the earth
and every bird of the heaven
"and everything that creeps on the earth,
"everything that has the breath of life,
"I have given you every
green plant for food,"
and it was so.
So just a few thoughts,
keep this open,
because I really,
and this is how I'm
preparing this lecture,
this is a good way to learn,
is I had my Bible open.
And I started typing some
notes and asking some questions
and trying to think through
some of the issues here.
So first is what is the
image and likeness of God?
Huge question.
Talk about something that has been given
probably disproportionate
attention in conversations
on theological anthropology.
Book after book, after book, after book,
talking about what the image of God is,
what people have said it is.
So spoiler alert,
I'm gonna basically tell you
that we're not quite sure
and that we need to be careful
that we don't say too much.
First of all, I think image,
there's tons of debate on this point.
But I think from just a plain
sense reading of the text,
that image and likeness
are likely the same thing.
You probably got some kind
of parallelism going on here.
And I don't think
there's a significant
material distinction.
Sometimes people will say,
there's a very material distinction,
and image is sort of like the
baseline of what it means.
And likeness is something more
like the aspirational piece
that can fluctuate.
I don't think that's probably the case.
Partly because over in chapter
five, there's a parallel.
It talks about our being
in the likeness of God,
it doesn't use image language.
The text just doesn't
seem overly fastidious
about distinguishing between the two.
So that's that briefly.
Now on the image itself
I think we need to be really careful
about confining the image
to a particular capacity
of humanity in such a way to exalt some
and denigrate others.
So that's been done over and over and over
in the history of Christian thought.
And usually, the image has been
tied into what is seen to be
the superior part of humanity in that era.
So in the ancient era,
when to be human was mostly
to be a rational animal,
of course, what's the image of God,
it's our reason.
In an era, like the early
19th century of romanticism,
what's the image of God,
it's probably something like our emotions
or our expressivism.
The 20th century, which
has had a fascination
with humans as linguistic animals,
or as relational animals
that kind of were uniquely
linguistic or relational.
The image of God has been
located in our relationality,
our capacity for language.
Now the danger there, twofold.
One is it treats only part of
us as being the image of God.
And the text just doesn't give
us reason to think that part
of us is the image.
It just says we are made in God's image,
which is the whole
of who we are intrinsic
comprehensive thing.
But the second danger is
that you sort of subtly imply
that people who have like
more developed capacities
in those areas are
maybe like a little more
in the image of God.
And usually people
wouldn't quite say that.
Sometimes it's explicit,
more often it's kind of hinted at.
If God's relational
and we are in his image,
and so far that we're relational,
I mean, this wouldn't
be said academically,
but kind of downstream it
would be something like,
what if I'm an introvert
who likes being alone.
It's almost like can God create triune
and humans are relational,
and that's what it means
to be in God's image
and so I should be really
extroverted and social.
Again, that's sloppy thinking.
But I think that's part of
how the images function.
I think we have to be really nervous
about over nailing it down.
Also, if you have human
beings who lack capacities,
and this is where rationality and language
are most problematic.
One of my godchildren is nonverbal.
God help us if we say that
because of that Matthias is
not made in the image of God.
That is a wicked, wicked thing.
But you can see how you could get that.
You get there in a really
innocuous way to say,
"Hey, you know, to be rational
is to be in image of God
"or to be linguistic is to
be in the image of God."
But if you don't have a
nonverbal person in your life,
you don't realize the consequences.
My hope is that none of us wants to say
that there is a human being
who is not made in the image of God.
In fact, that's probably
the most important thing
about the image is we should say
that all of us are made
in the image of God.
Luther, so I've been
reading Ephrem the Syrian
who's a fourth century Syrian theologian,
his commentary in Genesis
and also Luther's commentary in Genesis.
As I've been preparing the lecture,
Luther has this wonderful
apophatic reserve,
in light of how far we've fallen.
So he said, "Because we've fallen,
"there's very little we can know,"
this is the Luther.
He says, "Therefore, when
we speak about that image,
"we're speaking about something unknown.
"Not only have we had no experience of it,
"but we continually
experience the opposite."
So as a result, he expresses
this dissatisfaction
with the typical
speculative determinations
of the image found in particular
in the wake of Augustine
and Augustine's book on the Trinity,
he does a lot of work with that.
And Luther writes,
"I'm afraid that since
the loss of this image,"
and Luther thinks we've
lost the image of God
since the fall.
He says, "I'm afraid that since the loss
"of this image to sin,
"we cannot understand to any extent,
"memory, will, and mind,"
these are Augustinian categories.
"Memory, will, and mind we have indeed,
"but they're most depraved
and most seriously weakened.
"Yes, to put it more clearly,
"they're utterly leprous and unclean.
"If these powers are the image of God,
"it will also follow that
Satan was created according
"to the image of God,
"since he surely has
these natural endowments,
"such as memory and a
very superior intellect
"and a most determined
will to a far higher degree
"than we have."
So love, Luther is reserved,
he says again, and again
in his Genesis commentary.
You know what happened in the fall,
we just lost it all.
And not just the image,
but we lost dominion.
We don't really know
what Paradise is like,
we don't know what it
was like to have dominion
and this is God.
And because of that, there's
very little we can say specific
about it.
And here's what we do know,
we know that God,
this is 1:27,
that God created the first
Adam in the image of God,
such as to say, man, is
to say male and female.
To say man, is to say male and female,
that's just 1:27.
And so Ephrem the Syrian says,
Adam, I love this,
Adam was both one and two.
He was one, that he was Adam,
and he was two, because he had
been created male and female.
So both men and women,
and all men and women are
created in the image of God.
And that's what later
in Genesis 9 underwrites
the prohibition of killing anyone.
It's because we're made
in the image of God
that we can't kill someone.
And that we also know,
from a sort of just surface read
of just the text of Genesis here,
the close,
I think probably the biggest thing
we would say about the image of God
is that humanity is given
dominion over the animals.
So perhaps this is the closest we can come
to a reflection of God
that the dominion that we
share could be a certain kind
of creaturely correspondence
to his dominion
as the Lord over heaven and earth.
And so Ephrem again, says,
it's the dominion that Adam
received over the earth
and over all that is in it
that constitutes the likeness of God
who has dominion over the heavenly things
and the earthly things.
Ephrem's explicit.
He says, there you go.
It's dominion.
Luther does a really
nice job talking about
how dominion implies knowledge
and entails obedience.
He writes,
who can conceive of that part,
as it were of the divine nature,
that Adam and Eve had insight
into all the dispositions
of all animals, into their
characters, and all their power.
So notice what he's saying.
He's saying, dominion requires
insight, requires wisdom.
I've got to know a thing
and know it intimately,
to properly be able to be a lord over it.
If it's the kind of lord that gives life
and this we know that our
Lord is the kind of Lord
that gives life.
It's kind of Lord that orders things
to their own flourishing.
I have to know these things.
And so Luther really wants
to trumpet the knowledge
that Adam and Eve had of the creation,
a knowledge that's been
unparalleled since the fall.
Now he says, this is a quote.
"Now we see the birds and the fish caught
"by cunning and deceit.
"And by skill, the beasts are tamed."
But this is extremely small
and far inferior to that first dominion.
When there was no need
of skill, or cunning,
when the creature simply
obeyed the divine voice,
because Adam and Eve were commanded
to have dominion over them.
Isn't that great.
So you wouldn't have to.
I mean, what we do is we set traps,
we trick animals,
because they don't come when
we call here in our service.
They're either independent of us entirely,
or they are our adversaries.
And Luther's saying,
no, no, dominion is the
kind of the lordship
in a life giving way where
you just ask someone to come
and they call.
Now, we have to set traps.
That's how far we've lost our dominion.
Couple of the quick things,
primordial vegetarianism.
It's just worth noting.
Adam and Eve are created as vegetarians
They were not eating meat.
They were given all the
plants they needed for food.
And Luther again will say,
"Oh my gosh, was it the best food?"
You guys have no idea.
He'll say that over and over.
Because I think about
vegetarianism and I wonder,
[audience laughing]
kale, great.
[audience laughing]
Luther says this is the best.
This is the absolute best.
In fact, he would
probably say that the fact
that to me a burger
sounds infinitely better
than a kale salad.
And that's a mark of the fall in my life.
Like I think he would seriously say that.
The other thing from that passage
is the primordial blessing.
Notice this, God blesses humanity
before he curses humanity.
The first word is a word of blessing,
and it's tied to fruitfulness.
Be fruitful and multiply.
He blessed them, he said
be fruitful and multiply.
By the way that's not that
special than the creation.
Birds and the fish also, 1:22,
are given the invitation to
be fruitful and multiply.
Lots of ways.
We can have a long
conversation about the ways
in which humanity is like the animals.
And this is one of the ways.
And that's not a denigrating comment.
All right, get out your Bibles yet again.
Chapter two, starting in verse seven.
Then the Lord God formed the
man of dust from the ground
and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life,
and the man became a living creature.
And the Lord God planted a
garden in the Eden in the east,
and there he put the
man whom he had formed.
And out of the ground,
the Lord God made to spring up every tree
that is pleasant to the
sight and good for food.
The Tree of Life was in
the midst of the garden
and the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil.
Go down to verse 15.
The Lord God took the man and
put him in the Garden of Eden
to work and keep it.
And the Lord God commanded the man saying,
"You may surely eat of
every tree of the garden,
"but the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil,
"you shall not eat
"for the day that you eat of it,
"that you shall surely die."
Then the Lord God said,
"It's not good that the
man should be alone,
"I'll make a helper.
"I'll make him a helper fit for him."
Out of the ground, the Lord
God had formed every beasts
of the field and every
bird of the heavens,
and brought them to the man to
see what he would call them.
Whatever the man called
every living creature,
that was its name.
The man gave names to all livestock,
to the birds of the heavens
and every beast of the field.
But for Adam, there was not
found a helper fit for him.
The Lord God caused a deep
sleep to fall upon the man
and while he slept took one of his ribs,
and closed up its place with flesh.
And the rib that the Lord
God had taken from the man,
he made into a woman and
brought her to the man.
And the man said,
"This at last is bone of my
bones and flesh of my flesh,
"she shall be called woman,
"because she was taken out of man."
Therefore a man shall leave
his father and his mother
and hold fast to his wife and
they shall become one flesh.
The man and his wife were both naked,
and were not ashamed.
So first, how in this
kind of second rendition?
Is this the second creation story?
Is this the stuff that
God or Moses forgot about
the first time he wanted to add,
I don't know how to read this,
but there seems to be
two creation stories.
And then the second one,
we get an account of how God created man.
So how did he create him?
Well, 2:7,
the Lord God formed a man
of dust from the ground
and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life,
and the man became a living creature.
So a few things here,
first, there's direct divine
involvement in making,
and not just the involvement of speech,
I think this is the only time
where God doesn't speak
something into existence.
But he, as Irenaeus would say,
he gets his hands involved.
He comes into contact,
that's anthropomorphic,
but it speaks of the direct
personal involvement.
You can speak from afar.
But if your hands are
going to be involved,
you have to be up close.
Second is that man is made from dust here.
That's just further on.
But it's again not by
speaking, he's made from dust.
And God breathed his own
breath into the man of dust
to be his life.
So I don't think that means
there's a divine part of us
in sort of a strong sense.
I don't think yet we're
in the strong sense of
this is the Holy Spirit,
or the word is in the background there.
But at the very least, there's
a sense of the intimate
ongoing involvement of God with humanity,
but also the ongoing dependence
such that if God takes
away his own breath,
humanities ceases to live.
We breathe by the very
breath of God's life.
Luther says, this is nice, he says,
"Man was created by
unique council, let us,"
so it's the first time
of the creation narrative
when God says, "Let us do something."
He seems to be sort of
setting back and say,
I know what we're going to do.
There seems to be some sense of,
if not premeditation,
at least sort of
announcing of appointment.
So man was created by
unique counsel and wisdom
and shaped by the finger of God.
And he says, this nevertheless
proves conclusively
that man is the most outstanding creature
when God creates and he takes counsel,
and he employs a new procedure.
So there are parts in the texts
that are announcing to
us a new thing going on.
And this verse, by the way,
is particularly important
to the wisdom literature.
The image of God language
is picked up a lot
in the New Testament partly
because Christ is the
image of the invisible God
and we're conformed to him.
But in the Old Testament,
wisdom literature,
it's much more 2:7, the sense of being
of the dust from the ground
and having the breath of life.
These are constantly on display
in the wisdom literature.
Now God made the woman from a
rib he took from the man side
and then he brought her to him.
And this is Ephrem of Syria.
This is wonderful.
Ephrem says, "Eve was inside Adam,
"in the rib that was drawn out from him.
"Although she was not in his
mind, she was in his body.
"And she was not only
in his body with him,
"but she was also in
soul in spirit with him,
"for God added nothing to
that rib that he took out,
"except the structure and the adornment."
This is beautiful.
First of all, it's kind of poetic,
and maybe even a little romantic.
But there's a profound thing going.
So listen to this, God
added nothing to that rib
that he took out, except the
structure and the adornment.
Why?
Because she was also in
soul and spirit within him.
So there seems to be this
sense that there was the Adam,
this first human
was somehow the man and the woman in one.
And when God took out this
rib is sort of a duplication.
Also a differentiation going on there.
But you couldn't say more about the way
that there was a oneness of these two
before they were differentiated.
Next from this passage,
where will he live?
Where will the man live?
And what will he do?
He's placed into the garden.
So I mean, Luther,
I was reading Luther today,
he goes so far as to say that,
therefore, it's clear
that Adam was created
outside the garden because
he was placed into it.
That might be a little much,
but I mean there is some
sense of being his placement,
he's placed into the Garden in Eden
to work it and keep it, 2:8 and 15.
So God planted,
God's the...
Is he the gardener?
He's the initiating
gardener, we could say.
God planted it, the man keeps it.
So what is this?
Is this cultivation?
Is it partnership?
And it's definitely not initiation.
But it does seem to be some kind of,
at the very least,
he's taking care of the
things that God made.
He seems to be cultivating.
I don't think there's
any reason not to think
that he wasn't even...
I don't know, probably not bettering
but in some sense enhancing
this already good and perfect creation.
Andy Crouch has a wonderful
book called "Culture Making."
And he said, you know what culture is.
Culture is what we make of the word.
And he means that in two senses,
interpretively, what do
you make of that thing,
we're already engaging in culture
when we interpret something in the world.
But he also means like what we make of it,
like you get metal,
and then you get a water bottle.
You get wood and you get a lectern.
We're making something of the world here.
And I take it that part
of what Adam and Eve
would have done in cultivating the garden
is that they would have
made something of it.
That it wasn't wild, it
didn't need to be like pruned
and gotten into a good order.
God made this beautiful thing,
but I take that part of the partnership
that he invites them
into is to make something
of this garden.
Remember, all of this is pre-curse,
this is pre-curse work.
Luther believes that there
were not even such things
as thorns and thistles at this point.
Because you go to the curse
where Adam is going to have to toil
with thorns and thistles.
He says that's a curse thing.
There weren't even thorns and thistles.
This is Luther directly,
"For to us work is something burdensome,"
he says, "But for Adam, it
would have been a supreme joy
"more welcome than any leisure."
So again, I think we
have to really discipline
our imaginations when we think pre-fall,
because everything we know
is tainted by the curse.
So my voice is a little weak right now.
I lost my voice for a month
because I've got good work to do.
And I'm subject to the fall,
I'm tired right now.
I'm little warm, a little comfortable
and you guys all look...
So all these little things that are part
of the very good work I have to do
that compromise it, that make it work,
rather than play.
And this is not the work that
Adam and Eve would have known.
So you have to remember
that again and again.
It does seem to be that, in some sense,
at least that God has a
law in the garden as well.
He has a law and he has a test.
That's 2:16-17, when the
Lord commanded the man,
there's a commandment, saying,
you may surely eat of
every tree of the garden,
but the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil
you shall not eat.
There's a command there.
That's easy.
I've been in these Deuteronomy
sessions and Exodus sessions.
That is a lot of law.
In the garden, just
don't eat this one thing.
And it starts with eat anything
you want, just not that one.
But there is a law that
just seems to be God's way
of ordering his people's
existence even before the fall.
The other thing is,
God does seem to have this
regular way of probative work
with his people,
probative as in testing.
This is what he does.
He tests Adam and Eve.
Eventually, he tests
Jesus in the wilderness.
That's also the place where
God's people get tested.
And this testing is often...
Often, the thought is
that you pass the test
and you emerge into a new reality.
So a lot of theologians think,
you know what would have
happened if Adam and Eve
had simply obeyed the Lord,
as they would have merged into that state
that Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 15.
They would have merged
into the spiritual bodies,
they would have been
immune to sin and death,
if they had passed this initial test.
Also to notice here,
man gave name to all the animals.
Bonus points if you know
who wrote that song.
The Youth of America.
There's a hell of I say I hate his voice,
but a lot of people think he's amazing.
Bob Dylan.
Bob Dylan had this kind
of short creation phase
and in it he has a song.
Did you know this?
Yeah, I mean, the Lord
knows about his soul.
I'm just saying, like he had a short phase
where he is writing like really
explicitly Jesus's albums,
and he has a song called Man
Gave Names to All the Animals.
It's kind of a lame song, but anyways.
But Adam gives names to all the animals.
So here's the thing to think about.
When Adam named the animals,
does he confer something on them,
or does he recognize something?
Does he in some sense,
add to them in naming them?
Or does he merely recognize what they are?
I don't think that's an
easily answered question.
So, we're not going to
take the time to do it.
But I do think it's a fascinating one,
and it relates to what it
means to have dominion.
It relates to what it means to participate
in God's work of cultivation.
It relates to what making something
of the world actually means.
I do think it's likely
that naming is an exercise
of demeaning here,
because part of what naming does is it...
Yeah, I want to say this carefully
because Adam eventually names Eve
and I don't quite know
what to do with that,
but at least with the animals.
I think in part, what's going on here is
Adam is exercising loving authority.
It's his to name them.
It's not them to name themselves.
And God has given it
to Adam, to name them.
Also, if you look at this,
you might wonder why this is here.
With passages like this,
we're so familiar with them,
it's easy to miss the fact
that they could have
been written otherwise.
But it seems here, I think,
and rather comically,
that the animals are brought
out as potential companions.
You notice that?
There wasn't a helper fit.
And God made all the animals
and brought them along
to see what Adam would call them.
They are brought along
as potential animals
and helpers fit for the man,
but they don't fit, of course.
But so notice that the
same introductory language
is used for the woman, do you see this?
The Lord God brought them with the animals
or brought her to the man.
You notice this?
And when he named her,
I think he recognized
God's creation of her
in that instance,
rather than asserting something.
So he might have been asserting
something in the naming
of the animals, who knows
what he called them.
But with Eve, it's she'll be called woman
because she was taken out of me.
So he recognized God's prior action there.
Also, quick thing, this is great.
I love this.
Take this to the bank.
The helper language there,
women, how many of you want
to be called the helper
of your husband if you get married?
Yeah, so if you learn what it means,
you should love this thing.
Helper.
This word either I think
every other instance
or almost every other instance,
at the very least of it,
in the Old Testament is referring to God.
This is the one who saves your beckon,
who delivers you.
The Lord is my help.
He's my salvation.
The Lord of heaven and earth.
So, whatever is going on with Jenna here
and I think there is a
very, very complex text.
We know that to have a helper
is not to have like a little
buddy who rides in your sidecar
and it's to have someone
who will save you,
will help you out of a jam.
I love that.
I think that's one of the
most liberating words.
So Psalm 115:11,
you who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord,
he is their help and their shield.
The other thing in this passage,
this has the highest possible theology
of marriage, sexuality and the body.
It doesn't get any higher.
Marriage is grounded in creation.
It's not an arbitrary contract
that someday people think
up because it's pragmatic,
it's grounded in creation.
And it's a returning to the one flesh
from which these two are made.
There is even a sense,
I mean, I hate the whole
kind of complete me stuff,
you should too for lots of good reasons.
There is a sense in which
there is a completion here,
which doesn't mean that
everyone needs to get married.
But there's a sense in
which we turn to the one
from which one has been cloven.
That even feels a little like
Aristophanes in the symposium.
It's also different in a,
hey, hey,
[audience laughing]
it's also different in "A Thousand Words."
The other thing,
the highest possible theology
of marriage, sexuality and the body,
the man and his wife were both
naked and were not ashamed.
None of you have been there.
There you go.
This is a time where you
could be naked and unashamed
and even naked with someone
else and not ashamed.
Highest possible.
Okay, Genesis 3.
Now the serpent was more
crafty than any other beast
of the field that the Lord God had made.
He said to the woman,
"Did God actually say you shall not eat
"of any tree in the garden."
And the woman said to the serpent,
"We may eat of the fruit
of the trees in the garden.
"But God said, you shall not
eat of the fruit of the tree
"that is in the midst of the garden,
"neither shall you
touch it, lest you die."
But the serpent said to the woman,
"You will not surely die
"for God knows that when you eat of it,
"your eyes will be open,
"and you will be like God
knowing good and evil."
So when the woman saw that
the tree was good for food,
and that it was a delight to the eyes,
that the tree was to be
desired to make one wise,
she took of its fruit and ate.
She also gave some to her
husband who was with her
and he ate.
Then the eyes of both were opened.
They knew that they were naked,
and they sewed fig leaves together
and made themselves loincloths.
And they heard the sound
of the Lord God walking
in the garden in the cool of the day
and the man and his wife hid themselves
from the presence of the Lord God
among the trees of the garden.
The Lord God called to
the man and said to him,
"Where are you?"
And he said, "I heard the
sound of you in the garden,
"I was afraid because I was
naked, and I hid myself."
He said, "Who told you that you're naked?
"Have you eaten of the tree
"of which I commanded you not to eat?"
The man said, "The woman
whom you gave to be with me,
"she gave me fruit of the tree
"and I ate."
And the Lord God said to the woman,
"What is this that you've done?"
The woman said, "The serpent
deceived me and I ate."
Lord God said to the serpent,
"Because you have done this,
"curse it are you above all livestock,
"and above all beasts of the field,
"on your belly you shall go
"and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.
"I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
"between your offspring and her offspring.
"He shall bruise your head and
you shall bruise his heel."
To the woman, he said,
"I will surely multiply
your pain in childbearing.
"In pain you shall bring forth children.
"Your desires will be
contrary to your husband
"but he shall rule over you."
And to Adam he said,
"Because you have listened
to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
"you shall not eat it.
"Cursed is the ground because of you.
"In pain you shall eat of it
all the days of your life,
"thorns, thistles, it
shall bring forth for you."
Luther was actually onto something there.
"And you shall eat the
plants of the field.
"By the sweat of your face,
"you shall eat bread till
you return to the ground,
"for out of it you were
taken, for you are dust,
"and to dust you shall return."
The man called his wife's name Eve,
because she was the mother of all living.
And the Lord God made for
Adam and for his wife garments
of skins and clothed them.
The Lord God said, "Behold,
the man has become like one
"of us in knowing good and evil.
"Now, lest he reached out his hand
"and take also of the tree of life
"and eat and live forever."
Therefore, the Lord God sent
him out from the Garden of Eden
to work the ground from
which he was taken.
He drove out the man.
And on the east to the Garden of Eden
he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword
that turned every way to guard
the way to the tree of life.
Tons of stuff.
I'm going to just cherry
pick a few things.
But one thing I find pretty instructive,
it's a debate.
I don't know that they
knew what was going on,
but it shows up as a debate.
And it's a question of
whether Adam and Eve
were easy targets.
Most theologians, I mean,
there's just like funny
little scholastic debate,
when did they sin?
And it's usually like that
day or five minutes later,
or maybe the next day
or maybe they had a whole
week to like be sinless,
but it's always really, really quick.
Luther says it's the next day,
because the next day was the Sabbath.
And the Sabbath is the day
we're supposed to worship
the Lord and listen to the Word of God.
And clearly, they didn't
listen to the Word of God,
I think all the stuff would have happened.
So it must have been the next day,
but it happened soon.
But the question is,
what should we have expected
of these brand new created beings?
Yes, they were without sin.
But they were also capable
of sin, they did sin.
I mean, are we talking about people
who were like super, super righteous,
but had like this much of a chance to sin?
Are we talking about like, blank slate
who knows where they're going to go?
So here are Irenaeus and
again, Ephrem the Syrian,
the 4th century Syrian theologian,
so here's Irenaeus, 2nd century.
Irenaeus argued that Adam
and Eve were created good,
but not yet perfect,
and that they were young and immature.
So he says in "Against Heresies,"
he says, in paradise they were both naked
and were not ashamed in as much
as they having been created
a short time previously
had no understanding of the
procreation of children.
For it was necessary
that they should first come to adult age
and then multiply from that time onwards.
So they're not of adult age yet.
Now, I don't know if
that means they're three
or they're 17 or whatever old ages,
in fact probably would have
been younger for Irenaeus,
but he says that
and then in the demonstration
that the book you guys read
the absolute preaching, he says,
but they however were in
their full development.
He's talking about the animals over
which humans have dominion.
He says, they were in
their full development,
while the Lord that is
the man was very little
since he was an infant.
And it was necessary for him
to reach full development
by growing in this way,
but the man was a young child,
not yet having a perfect deliberation.
And because of this, he was
easily deceived by the seducer.
And he goes on to say things like,
Cain sin, way worse than Adam and Eve sin.
Was easily deceived.
Here's Ephrem.
Here's my summary of Ephrem.
Hardly.
So Ephrem says they were "young adults."
The law that was set for them testifies
to their full maturity,
and their transgression of the commandment
should bear witness to their arrogance.
He says, "Look, there's a commandment.
"They knew what it meant, and
they failed to adhere to it."
So sin on Ephrem's read
is profoundly unnecessary
and even unlikely.
It seems this is crazy.
It seems not only was the serpent like
that he didn't just see
Adam and Eve an easy target
but he was no match for Adam,
according to Ephrem.
The serpent, he says,
who didn't have the mind
of man didn't possess
the wisdom of mankind.
Adam was also greater than the serpent
by the way he was formed,
by his soul, by his mind, by
his glory, and by his place.
Therefore, it's evident
that in cunning also,
Adam was infinitely
greater than the serpent.
He continues, "Adam, who was
set up as ruler and governor
"over all animals was
wiser than all the animals.
"He who set down names of them
"is more clever than any of them."
And Ephrem goes out of
his way to lay the blame,
not at the feet of the serpent's cunning,
but at the feet of
"the avarice that came
from within herself,"
that is from Eve.
So he sees the serpent
as like a mere occasion
for what these grown man and
woman should have never done.
They were smarter.
They were shrewder,
they knew better.
They had all the capacities they needed.
And they did it anyways.
So I hope you can feel
there something about,
the bible doesn't tell
us how old they were.
It doesn't tell us much
other than they were good
and that sin was not a thing.
And that they were deceived.
And part of the deception was sort
of redescribing God's words to them.
And there was something
about the appetites.
It was good, good for food.
It was a delight to the eyes.
That's all we know.
But I hope you can feel the sense of like,
how a few early decisions
have major consequences
for how we think of that first sin.
I've got so much I want to say to you.
Just a couple more things
to pick up from Genesis 3.
One is the hiding and the shame
that is there and heartbreaking.
So the first change
after eating the fruit,
then the eyes of both were open
and they knew that they were naked,
and they sewed fig leaves together
and made themselves loincloths.
Oh my gosh, that the first move,
you'll know what it is
to hide psychologically.
The first move after they eat
is to hide from themselves,
from another, from God.
They've got fig leaves
because there's this shame
sort of immediately erupts.
And so all of a sudden,
Adam is not safe from Eve
and Eve is not safe from Adam,
as God is not safe from them either.
My dear friend Chris Mitchell,
who used to work in
Torrey for a short time
and then died suddenly.
I love, he used to say, "You
know what I love about heaven,
"is I'm going to be
safe for other people."
Just very humble and really tender.
But, I mean, I take it, part of it,
the background of that statement
is that we are not safe.
And as awful as that kind of shame was,
it wasn't entirely off base.
Now that doesn't mean
that bodies and sexuality
are something of which to
be ashamed in and of itself.
But it means that immediately
when sin comes in,
there's this radical
compromise over my very ability
to just bear myself before another,
even above myself, even to
bear myself before myself
and certainly to bear myself before God.
Hiding too.
Second strife in strain, immediately.
Strife between people.
I mean this is comical finger pointing
that the woman you gave me,
I mean, the sub is ridiculous.
The finger pointing and the strife
that is set up here immediately.
Augustine has got this big, great point
where he said you know the hard thing
about the minute Eve tasted the fruit,
Adam was in a knowing
and he's just as sinful.
But he's in this knowing where
the minute sin enters in,
he had to choose, is it God or my wife.
Well, that's just a bad choice.
You should love God, you
should love your wife.
But the minute sin comes in,
there's a competition of loves
that should never have been there.
So there's the strife.
And because I'm afraid that
I might not be safe from you,
I know that you're not safe for me
and so I'm always
defending myself from you.
There's also strife between humanity
and the non human creation,
the serpent, of course.
There's the mutual heel bruising,
but that will come in,
come up again and again.
The Lord says,
"I'm not going to take you
"to the promised land, Israel, too quick,
"because those animals
are going to eat you
"if it's too quick.
"So we need to do it gradually
"so that the animals
don't take over the place
"and then eat you."
That is a post lap Syrian,
a post fall reality.
And there's also a strain in fulfilling
the divine mandate to be fruitful.
That's a painful thing,
all of the pain that comes in with it.
And there's a strain in
the subduing of the earth
and the toil that comes on.
Death.
Death shows up.
Death enters the scene
and I find this really interesting,
the meaning of dust is revealed
or maybe even changed.
For you are dust, 3:19, you are dust
and to dust you shall return.
Originally, you were dust,
like you were made from the dust.
Who knows if Adam and Eve,
kind of quite what the
state of their mortality
or immortality was.
Certainly seems that because
there was a tree of life there,
that they could have been immortal,
even if they weren't made immortal.
But now we know you're dust,
which means you're of the earth.
Maybe also that you have some fragility
and vulnerability to you
just like all creatures do.
But now you are dust and
to dust you shall return.
Now it's guaranteed.
It's not hypothetical
that you're vulnerable,
but now you are headed to
death for all of your life.
Even God's merciful provision for them
in the wake of their shame
is caught up in death.
These are their clothing
and garments of skin,
how do you get garments of skin?
You kill whatever is in the skin.
So death has entered the
scene as a consequence of sin,
and as a mercy.
And that's how complicated it becomes.
And finally, there's an irony in the sin
because there's the most
profound opportunity loss.
So the serpent was right.
Then the Lord God said,
"Behold, the man has become like one of us
"in knowing good and evil."
This is the thing he held out to Eve.
"Don't you want to be like
God in knowing good and evil."
She's like, "Yes."
And it happened.
So in the one sense,
the very thing they wanted happened,
but that wasn't quite
the thing they wanted.
Jürgen Moltmann, a German
theologian has this great line
in a book of his where he says,
it's actually the Christian hope
that the serpent's
promise will be realized,
but on the divine initiative.
That you will be like God,
and not in this sort of tragic sense,
but like in the ultimate sense,
but on the divine initiative,
and that's the whole problem.
It wasn't they wanted something,
it's that they wanted
something on their terms
and without adhering to the word of God.
Or Ephrem says again,
if the serpent had been
rejected along with sin,
Adam and Eve would have
eaten from the tree of life
and the Tree of Knowledge
would not have been withheld
from them.
From the one, they would have
gained infallible knowledge
and from the other, they would
have received immortal life.
They would have acquired
divinity with their humanity.
And if they had acquired
infallible knowledge
and immortal life,
they would have possessed
them in those same bodies.
So the opportunity loss is massive.
Okay, that's Genesis one to three.
Now, I want to talk to you of
just a few more categories.
There's so much we could do
about theological anthropology
from the Pentateuch.
But I want to just pick up a few things,
one is the distinctions
that go into being human.
And this is really important.
We need to make distinctions
within humanity.
So I'm going to run you
through a list of distinctions
that are vital.
The first distinction to
think about in anthropology,
according to the Pentateuch,
is that between creator and creature.
This is really vital.
It is by far more significant
than any other distinction
we can think of.
God is in heaven, and we're not.
It's creator and creature.
Now, the second big
distinction is between humans
and the non human creation.
Again, this is a huge distinction,
and we'd be a lot in
common with the animals,
but we are not animals,
or at least not non-human animals.
We could have a conversation about
whether humans or animals
are of a certain kind.
We are decidedly different
by creation and by design.
There are interesting
conversations to be had
about what kind of
rationality that porpoise is,
that orcas might have
and there's some really, really
interesting conversations
about what happens
when you get creatures
who approach at least low
levels of human capacities.
Those are fascinating.
That will never undo the basic distinction
between humans and non-human animals,
I think from a scriptural standpoint.
Now before noting
distinctions within humanity,
and this is sort of surprising to me
that this needs to be said,
but I think it really does these days,
we must note the importance
of our common human nature,
rooted biblically in a common descent
and our universal participation
in the image of God.
So those two things,
Adam and Eve, everyone,
and the universal participation
in the image of God.
I say it's weird that
this needs to be said,
because when I was in grad
school 15, 20 years ago,
the thing that we always
wanted to keep in one
was that people were particular.
Their particularities, all
sorts of particularities,
but you need to pay attention to gender
and ethnicity and class,
but also just all of
what it means to be you.
You can't talk about the
human in the abstract
or you're just bound to be totalitarian
and run roughshod over people.
And that's so vital.
But I think we're actually in a moment
where we are so aware of difference.
And we're aware of
difference in such a way
that we're liable to say things like,
you can't understand my experience.
I'm a man, you're a man.
And there might be some truth to that.
I mean, I think there's probably
some truth to the fact that
when we are at profound differences,
there are going to be ways
that we can't fully access,
but the acknowledgement
of a common human nature,
that means that, yeah,
there actually are ways
that I can understand you,
I think is vital.
Actually, apologetically,
pretty important these days.
So I'm going to go on
with more distinctions.
But I think it's important to acknowledge
that lack of distinction.
Now, the primordial human distinction,
according to the Pentateuch
is between man and woman.
And the first thing to
know about man and woman
is that they are the
same, that they match.
Again, not the same in like,
there's no difference in the
world between man and woman.
But they correspond.
Eve is a helpmate, suitable fitting,
she fits Adam.
All the other animals
were not suitable to help.
That's vital.
And yet, even though they are the same,
this is also the most basic
differentiation within humanity.
I think that is patent in the Pentateuch.
Now there's another early
distinction in the Pentateuch
between the righteous and the unrighteous.
It emerges even with Abel and Cain,
only one of them gives a
fitting offering to the Lord.
And the Pentateuch could complicate that
in all sorts of ways
because sometimes the
righteous are wicked,
and sometimes the wicked,
and lots of stuff.
But this basic distinction
between the righteous
and the wicked
is a vital one there.
God also makes a distinction
based on his election,
the covenants he makes
and the promises he gives.
So when he calls Abraham,
he distinguishes him from the nations.
This is a distinguishing
that God makes that is vital
to understand what it means to be human.
I think the Pentateuch wants to say.
And this distinction becomes embodied,
literally marked in the flesh,
in the rite of circumcision,
which ritually separates
God's people from the nations.
Now, I've got a really
fun little sidebar here
to talk about the way
God's people, Israel,
is distinguished from the nations.
You can call it Israel or Egypt.
That's what we'll call it for now.
So here's a bunch of things to
know about Israel and Egypt.
One.
Weirdly, both Joseph and Moses are,
well, Egyptians
and they're Egyptians at
the heart of imperial power.
When Moses goes over to Midian,
and saves the day for Jethro's kids,
they're like, "This Egyptian."
Well, of course, he's Egyptian,
he grew up in that household,
I know he's a soldier.
And I know he's an Israelite,
but he also grew up in
the courts of power,
he was fully enculturated into Egypt.
Joseph, second in command in Egypt.
One thing.
Now two on the other end, Exodus 11:7,
the Lord makes a distinction
between Egypt and Israel.
The Lord makes that
distinction and it's a vital.
Don't be Egypt, Israel,
don't go back to Egypt.
Don't be Canaan, you know, be Israel.
And in fact, to sin is to transgress
the distinction the Lord
makes between Israel and Egypt
and the nations.
And Israel commits the sin retrospectively
when it longs for Egypt.
Oh my God, Egypt was the best.
And prospectively, when
it lives in Canaan.
And yet, almost immediately,
once the covenant is made,
Israel becomes Egypt.
This is great, the word
makes a distinction.
You're Israel, you're not Egypt,
and yet, almost immediately,
once the covenant is made,
Israel becomes Egypt committing idolatry,
by worshiping a graven image
and receiving Egyptian style punishment.
Exodus 32.
Then the Lord sent a plague.
Heard of those?
I mean, it was like five minutes ago,
there was this like series of plagues.
Then the Lord sent a plague on the people
because they made the calf,
the one that Aaron had made.
And Israel repeatedly longs
for the good old days in Egypt.
So Numbers 14, "Would that we
had died in the land of Egypt,
"or would that we had
died in the wilderness,
"why is the Lord bringing
us into this land
"to fall by the sword.
"Our wives and our little
ones will become a prey.
"Wouldn't it be better for
us to go back to Egypt?"
Then they said one another,
"Let us choose a leader
and go back to Egypt."
This is just nuts.
The Lord warns Israel that
though he has chosen them
to be his covenant people,
that does not inoculate
them from idolatry.
This is Numbers 33.
But if you don't drive out the inhabitants
of the land from before you,
then those of them whom you let remain
shall be as barbs in your
eyes and thorns in your sides,
and they shall trouble you
in the land where you dwell.
And I will do to you as
I thought to do to them.
The herem, which is the word for
the total devotion to destruction
that God commands of the Canaanites.
The herem is put in place
as a radical measure
to keep Israel from becoming
like the Canaanites.
That is the whole goal.
Don't become like them.
And the curses of Deuteronomy
have Israel as Egypt
or Israel as Canaan in mind.
Listen to this.
Just a few passages
from 28, Deuteronomy 28.
The Lord will strike you
with the boils of Egypt.
You shall plant a vineyard,
but you shall not enjoy its fruit.
That's what the Canaanites had.
Remember that?
And he will bring upon you
all the diseases of Egypt,
and the Lord will bring
you back in ships to Egypt,
a journey that I promise that
you should never make again.
And there you shall offer yourselves
for sale to your enemies
as male and female slaves,
but there will be no buyer.
They can't even sell themselves
back into the situation
from which the Lord delivered them
when they go back to Egypt.
Or Deuteronomy 31.
The Lord said to Moses,
"Behold, you're about to
lie down with your fathers.
"Then this people will rise and
whore after the foreign gods
"among them in the land
that they're entering,
"and they will forsake
me and break my covenant
"that I've made them."
The Old Testament scholar Daniel Block,
this is a phrase already.
He says that the theme
of the book of Judges,
but I wanna argue that this is
already a foregone conclusion
in Deuteronomy.
That the theme is the
Canaanization of Israel.
Israel goes in the land and
rapidly they become Canaanized.
By the time Israel stands on
the threshold of the land,
it's become apparent that
circumcision of the flesh
is no guarantee of covenant faithfulness.
Some of us have been talking about that.
Turns out that even the very mark
of what it means to be
Israel isn't enough,
despite circumcision,
despite the election which presupposes,
despite the exodus and the law,
despite the fact that "This
commandment that I command you,"
this is Deuteronomy 30.
"Today is not too hard for
you, neither is it far off.
"But the word is very near you.
"It's in your mouth and your hearts,
"so that you can do it."
Despite all this, Israel
doesn't do anything.
Why?
Because their hearts aren't circumcised.
Their hearts aren't circumcised
and so not all Israel is Israel.
And that's one of the craziest things.
Not all Israel is Israel.
That is, not all those
who have been circumcised
are circumcised.
As Paul will say, Romans 9,
not all who are descended
from Israel belong to Israel.
That's already there in Deuteronomy.
So there's already this
fundamental distinction
even within Israel, not
all Israel is Israel.
To belong to Israel is to
belong to God's covenant people,
to keep covenant with God.
And only those who are
circumcised of heart can do that.
Fleshly circumcision just isn't enough.
If this man in Deuteronomy 6 calls Israel
to love the Lord your
God with all your heart,
with all your soul, with all your might,
Israel will do so only when
God restores her fortunes,
and regathers her from exile.
And the Lord,
this is Deuteronomy 30 again,
the Lord your God will
circumcise your heart
and the heart of your offspring,
so that you will love the Lord your God
with all your heart, all
your soul, that you may live.
So the final distinction here is
within the very people of God,
it's between those who
are circumcised in heart
and those who are not
circumcised in heart.
That might be,
I don't know if I want to call it
the most important distinction in humanity
for the Pentateuch, but it's certainly up.
Those whose hearts are circumcised
and those whose hearts aren't.
Okay.
Three last things and
I'll let you out of here.
Three features,
and again we could have like 10 of these,
but three quick features of what it means
to be human, east of Eden.
Features.
One, we are prone to wander.
The Pentateuch has a consistently
pessimistic anthropology.
Twice in Deuteronomy 9.
It says you turned aside
quickly, so quickly.
It's a description of Israel's apostasy
with the golden calf almost
immediately as soon as God
had made a covenant with them.
Also almost immediately
upon entrance into the land,
it's already predicted.
This also seems to have been
the case with Adam and Eve.
No one quite knows how quickly they fell,
but there's little narrative
space given to that time.
Adam and Eve, you turned aside quickly,
not eventually, but quickly.
Already knows this,
"The wickedness of man
was great in the earth
"and every intention of
the thoughts of his hearts
"was only evil continually."
And the Lord regretted that
he had made man on the earth.
The earth was corrupt,
this is all Genesis 6,
the earth was corrupt in God's sight,
and the earth was filled with violence
and all flesh had corrupted
their way in the earth.
And so, Lord says, I will
bring a flood of waters
upon the earth to destroy all flesh
in which is the breath
of life under heaven.
Everything that is on the earth shall die.
So first, like early on is a mess.
Second, as goes Adam, as goes
the human, so goes the world.
That's a vital thing too,
as goes the human so goes the world.
Also, God decides to start over with Noah.
That's a sign of how bad it was.
That with Noah, with the covenant of Noah,
you get the first animal sacrifices
so that they're not vegetarians anymore.
But they can't eat flesh with its life
that is its blood in it.
And the Lord said in his heart,
"I will never again curse
the ground because of man
"for the intention of man's
heart is evil from his youth."
That is merciful and pitiful
at once, that judgment,
because the Lord is saying,
"Look, all of them,
"their intentions are
evil from the youth."
So what's it going to do if
I start over again and again,
and again, and again.
So it's mercy, but it's pitiful.
The overwhelming supply of animals needed
for sacrifice is itself,
so just something of the
work of atoning continually
for Israel.
What it takes for God to
dwell amongst this people.
So Numbers 28 and 29 describes
the daily, the Sabbath,
the monthly and the
annual festival offerings,
the amount of animals
just to make it possible
for God to dwell with these people.
Says something about the
spread and the depth of sin.
Again, sort of God nearly starts over
even after he does so with Noah,
almost starts it with Moses.
Moses has to talk him down.
And it just keeps on
keeping on, Deuteronomy 9.
From the day you came
out of the land of Egypt
until you came to this place
at the cusp of the land 40 years later,
you've been rebellious against the Lord.
From the day, this is just who you are.
Now, early on God does deal
with individual righteous people.
There's Noah, Abraham and Lot,
these righteous who are
found amongst the wicked,
but the Pentateuch goes out of
its way to display the flaws
of even the righteous.
So we get Noah's drunkenness,
there's exposed nakedness.
You get Abraham and Isaac's attempts
to pass their wives off as their sisters.
You get Jacob's trickery and deceit,
you get Moses's hot at anger
and his reluctance to follow God's call.
And none of this establishes
a fully developed doctrine
of original sin in the Pentateuch.
I just don't think it's there.
And know that children actually
seem to have no knowledge
of good or evil, that's Deuteronomy 1,
and possibly thereby to be
as yet unstained by sin.
But already in the Pentateuch,
we sure do have the ubiquity
of sin, it's everywhere.
The depth of sin and
the universality of sin,
no one doesn't sin.
And even the good guys or bad guys,
that is what the Pentateuch is saying.
Two.
Humanity is marked by mercy.
So we're prone to wander, but
we're also marked by mercy.
So, Adam and Eve are barred
from the tree of life in the garden,
so they won't live forever
under the weight of calamity.
I think that's a profound mercy,
that we won't have to live
forever in this condition.
The garments of skin,
they clothed Adam and Eve.
Again, God is like, "Where are you?"
And here they are shamed and hiding.
Instead, you know, he could just,
I mean does do a little bit of this,
but he also is here, let me clothe you.
Here you are in your shame.
Let me cover your shame for you.
How are we even talking about shame,
but let me cover it for you.
Cain, fratricide shows up again and again.
Cain kills his brother,
and he knows he's gonna
get it from someone.
God gives him a mark to protect him.
Even in the midst of his
wandering and his exile,
he has this protective mark,
the mark of Cain.
A shortened lifespan,
930 years for Adam,
shortened 120 years,
partly in mercy and partly I
think a divine exasperation.
God says, "My spirits shall
not abide in man forever
"for he is flesh."
He's flesh to be 120 years.
Also the sacrificial system,
at least some of it,
we have this whole system
that is merciful towards us
and is structured such
that God can live with us
and we can live with him,
but in such a way that we
won't be sort of burned up
by the divine holy fire.
Laws.
This struck me reading
through Pentateuch this time,
laws that are ordered
to anticipated injustice
and unfaithfulness.
These laws are not a blueprint
for an ideal society for utopia.
They're a blueprint for a
society everywhere marked by sin
to restrain sin and
its worst consequences.
Putting it on a leash,
rather than stopping it in its track.
This doesn't stop sin,
but it does put it on a leash.
So Amy and I, hi, Amy.
Amy and I were talking
about one of the laws
of Deuteronomy 22, for about rape,
and it's like, so this
is a fantastic example.
And it was really helpful for me.
So a woman is raped in a field by a man
where no one can her cry.
And God says,
so that man has to pay for
her, pay to be married to her,
and he has to marry her
and he's stuck with her
and he can't divorce her.
And Amy's like, "I hate this."
Now, I know it's God's word,
so she also did the obligatory,
"No, it's God's word."
But here's the great
thing as we are struggling
and talking this through,
of course you hate this,
of course you hate, A, rape,
and B, that a woman would be
sort of stuck with her rapist.
But consider in small societies
the shame and the vulnerability
and the economic calamity that a woman
who has been raped is subject to.
Was almost assuredly unmarriable,
possibly in an economic dire straits.
And what God says is now you
are economically provided for.
Now, it's not great to
be with your rapist.
This is not sort of a
match made in heaven.
But she's economically provided for it
and that is a much bigger deal
than you feel okay about your partner.
And for the rapist, it might
make a guy think twice.
If he thinks, "If I rape a woman,
"this is not like, hey, I
can just sort of do my thing
"and then say thank you goodbye,"
no, you're stuck with her
and you can't divorce her,
and you're on the hook financially,
and people are gonna know about it.
Now, again, this doesn't stop rape,
but it does mitigate some
of the worst consequences.
And I think we see that in the law again
and again and again.
God says, "I know how
jacked up you guys are.
"But I'm going to put things
in place that mitigate,
"that lessens some of
the worst consequences
"and try to keep sin
on its leash somewhat."
The provision of cities of refuge
for those who accidentally kill others.
What a mercy?
Now, people who did it on purpose,
you're kind of screwed.
And the Avenger can find you.
But if you did it on accident,
you ran into someone,
you're driving along,
you didn't mean to do it,
someone crossed when they
shouldn't have crossed
and you ran over them.
And there's the horror of that.
But there's also people who
want to get even with you.
There's a place you can go
where you will be protected
till their anger has been cooled
a law that is attended to
sojourners and widows and orphans,
the vulnerable, and Israel
being continually reminded
of their need to care for them.
And lastly, and this is where
I'll stop, our third point.
And this is also a mercy,
the provision of mediators.
And I think partly this
belongs in anthropology
because I think part of what
Pentateuch is telling us
is that humans, at least
humans East of Eden
need mediators,
they need mediating presences.
So you get Abraham.
I love this passage where
he was sort of haggling
with God about Sodom.
What if there are 50 righteous people?
I mean, all due respects, 40, 30,
he's getting further and further.
Now God doesn't end up
having to change any plans,
because there are so few righteous people
that he can still torch Solomon.
But you noticed the way
that God invites the one
who's given dominion over the earth into,
let me put it this way,
what at least appears to be a
sort of negotiation
about the fate of a city
and in such a way that the human partner
is asking for mercy.
You see that again and
again in the mediators,
is that the mediators are the one
who are pleading to God for mercy.
Moses again and again throughout Numbers,
he's a mediator in the
face of divine anger,
convincing God again and again.
I don't know how I feel
about the language of convincing God,
that sure how it reads in the narrative,
God don't do it.
At one point, 40 days and 40 nights,
he's lying and he's fasting and praying,
God, don't do it.
Don't destroy them.
Similarly, priests,
actually I want to read that to you
and I really am almost
done guys, don't worry.
Deuteronomy 9:25-29, this is beautiful.
This is right after golden calf, Moses.
So I lay prostrate for the Lord
for these 40 days and 40 nights
because the Lord had said
he would destroy you.
And I prayed to the Lord,
"O Lord God, do not destroy
your people and your heritage,
"whom you have redeemed
through your greatness,
"whom you have brought out of
Egypt with your mighty hand.
"Remember your servants,
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
"don't regard the
stubbornness of this people
"or their wickedness or their sin.
"lest the land from
which you brought us say,
"because the Lord wasn't able
to bring them into the land
"that he promised them.
"And because he hated them,
"he's brought them out
to put them to death
"in the wilderness."
For they your people and your heritage,
whom you brought out by your great power,
and by your outstretched arm.
Again and again, these
human mediators pleading
for God's mercy.
Priests as mediators bear
the names, this is Exodus 28.
They bear the names of God's
people before the Lord.
Remember to carry the names,
presences of these people
before the Lord.
Mediators always seem to
move God from anger to mercy.
And they never,
this is really interesting,
they never convince God to vent His wrath
in the Pentateuch.
But only ever to show his mercy
or sometimes to do what he was going to do
as in the case of Abraham and Solomon.
This is interesting.
So, one more time with the girl, Amy,
because we're officers,
Amy said, "It's because
they're sympathetic,
"because they understand the situation."
And I think that's right.
That part of the role of the mediator
is to sympathize with
people in their weakness,
and that's part of what
a human mediator can do.
Now, it's a little troubling,
because it sounds like a mediator
has to convince God to be merciful.
And yet,
and even looks to me like Moses
is more merciful than God.
We know God's merciful.
He dwells above the mercy seat.
That's actually where he lives.
Psalm 80 says, he's
enthroned upon the cherubim.
And he expands.
So in Exodus 3, he gives us his name
and describes himself.
Exodus 34, he expands on it.
And there we hear,
the Lord descended in the cloud
and stood with Moses there,
and proclaimed the name of the Lord.
The Lord passed before him and proclaimed,
"The Lord, the Lord, a
God merciful and gracious,
"slow to anger,
"and abounding in steadfast
love and faithfulness,"
He doesn't always seem
slow to anger and abounding
in steadfast love and faithfulness,
merciful, and gracious.
We know he is,
but there's something in the
narrative that's difficult.
I think there's an
unresolved tension for us.
And I think, well, I think much of it.
Deuteronomy 18, Moses says,
"There's going to be a prophet
like me who comes along."
And then go with me to the
very end of Deuteronomy,
this is where we'll end.
He says, talking about Joshua.
And I think as you read you're thinking,
"Finally we got the prophet
like Moses, Joshua is awesome."
Joshua, the son of Nun was
full of the spirit of wisdom,
for Moses has laid his hands on him.
So the people of Israel obeyed him
and did as the Lord had commanded Moses.
And there has not arisen a
prophet since Israel like Moses.
I think we should be
very surprised by that.
And this is, whoever wrote
this last bit of the Pentateuch
is writing way back,
or sorry, is writing way
late in Israel's history.
Because he is reflecting on
the whole prophetic tradition,
he knows that there's
been a lot of prophets.
There has not arisen a prophet
since in Israel like Moses,
whom the Lord knew face to face.
None like him for all
the signs and the wonders
that the Lord sent him to
do in the land of Egypt,
to Pharaoh and to all his
servants and all his land
and for all the mighty power
and all the great deeds
of terror that Moses did
inside of all Israel.
So just to conclude with, I
think, in abiding tension,
here's what we got.
We know God's merciful.
But he seems as at least as a character
in the Pentateuch prone to wrath,
not slow to wrath.
We know that he acts mercifully
when a human mediator intercedes
and calls him to mercy.
And we also know that we haven't
had a mediator like Moses
since Moses died.
I think we're left with that kind of
pregnant pause at the
end of the Pentateuch.
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