Published: February 19, 2026 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Leviticus - The Parable of Leviticus 3 - Part 2 | Scripture: Genesis 15; Leviticus 18
Transcript
View Full Transcript →
0:11
trying to set the stage in these early weeks for the holiness code, especially code, especially Leviticus 18 through 20. And um I pointed out last week how Leviticus 18
0:23
and 20 frame chapter 19, the introductory verses of each of those chapters is unique and and that causes those chapters to stand out from the
0:34
surrounding ones. And then within the three chapter uh paricop you you could see not only the the opening verses uh cause 18 and 20 to be the book ends
0:46
and 19 in the middle but also the topic. Um we're not going to go verse by verse through 18 and 20. I don't think not only do I not think it's necessary I think it's actually um unprofitable to
0:59
do so. When you read it, again, it's kind of like reading the the narrative of David and Bashibba or the the Levite and his concubine. It's it's not pleasant reading, but you really don't
1:12
need anybody. I I I'm I'm amazed when you read the when I read the commentaries. They they basically just tell me what I can read right from the text. There's nothing really to add it.
1:24
It's better taken as a whole because there are features of it especially the repetition of phrases um that that show us hermeneutically that this is to be
1:36
looked at looked at beyond the the topic of the morality. Uh the the prohibitions the prescriptions of those chapters are most certainly
1:50
immoral. But they do bring us and this is why they they tie in very much with the first half of Leviticus. They do bring us to a concept that we'll be talking about um in the coming weeks and it has
2:02
to do with the land uh which is which is actually a character in this drama. It's not just a place. It's not the stage or a setting. It's actually one of the players uh in the in the cast of
2:14
characters. And we'll look at that. But this issue we've talked about before. That's not
2:33
And when we talked about the the animals, the clean and unclean animals and then the various things by which an Israelite could be rendered unclean. I think we saw at that point that there
2:45
was nothing moral about these these were these were defiling but not immoral. In fact, many of them were just frankly natural. They
2:57
were they were not something that that you could say, "Oh," and unfortunately, the church has not always made the distinction within the idea of pollution
3:07
between that which is established really as part of of the cult and really a a principle of separation and that which is in and of itself immoral.
3:19
That which is immoral is polluting. But not all that pollutes is immoral. Does that make sense? They're not co-extensive. And so, we've dealt with the defiling
3:32
a moral issues in the first half of Leviticus, particularly the latter part of that with the clean and unclean animals and the various uncleanness that comes from just living life, contact
3:45
with a corpse, for example. Um, those are not. You read them, you think, there's nothing really wrong. There's nothing immoral with having a ham
4:00
And there never has been. Even if it had to do with not being not knowing how to cook ham, a pig properly, that's not immoral. It's just stupid. Okay? So, that's polluting, but not not moral. And we really struggle with that, especially
4:12
in modern evangelical Christianity, because we we can't really get our mind around this idea that something that could be something could be uh defiling but not immoral.
4:25
And I'm not sure that it does apply one for one between the camp and the church. And we'll we'll get into that. Um normally what you read in the New
4:35
Testament that is defiling is in fact immoral. But you also read things like bitterness, you know, or gossip. Um, I
4:45
don't know that gossip is immoral in the sense that we generally think of that word. In other words, we can't get our heads around the idea that all things are lawful, but not all.
4:56
Yeah, that's that's getting getting our mind around all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. Not all things are beneficial. Uh, we have a hard time and we've talked about this in Romans 14. we do have a hard time
5:08
getting our mind around the freedom that we have in Christ. Um, and that is a a big difference between the church and the camp. Um, but when when we're in Leviticus and we get into the holiness
5:19
code, we're seeing things that are clearly immoral, but that's not the point because there are a number of things that are immoral that aren't mentioned there. These are distinctly
5:30
polluting. And that's where the land comes in as as an actor, as a player. because of those sets. No, I would say that in this case they
5:40
are polluting by their very nature. So uh no no no in the case of Leviticus 18 and 20 that this behavior yeah is no the other ones are polluting
5:53
because God said so and and when the new covenant comes God says not so I mean it's all foods are clean all okay so that that prescribed
6:04
pollution has been done away the moral pollution is still there and it's still here. And so I'm making a distinction, but it's I
6:16
think it ties Leviticus together because there there's a tendency also to separate the cult or the priesthood from the ethical laws that were used to
6:27
govern the people. And that's kind of a liberal mindset that we've talked about before. And yet there's there's tremendous evidence that the second part of Levit Leviticus flows directly out of
6:38
the first part. And and they're they're one fabric. They're not they're not two different sources or or more. So the idea here um that we're going to be
6:59
polluting itself at least in Leviticus under the old covenant the idea of defiling or pollution has two subcategories. And that's not really true. I mean it I can't describe it. It's it would be more like sets. So pretty much everything
7:12
that's immoral is polluting. But there are things that are amoral but are also polluting. Okay? And and that way we can read Leviticus and we get to these lists and we think, "Yeah, that's
7:24
bad stuff." But we're not really getting at the heart of it. And the heart of it is in Leviticus 18 where God says, "It is for this reason that the land is vomiting out the inhabitants." And then
7:37
Leviticus 20 when he says, 'If you do the same thing they're doing, the lamb will vomit you out. It's the only place those two passages, the only place in the in the whole Old Testament that that
7:47
verb vomit verb vomit is used. Okay, so that again that's significant. And the way that it's used clearly indicates that 18 and 20 are
8:00
counterpoised. One has to do with the current inhabitants, the Canaanites. That's significant. And the other is has to do with the Israelites once they're in the land. Again, keep in mind that we're
8:10
still 39 38 years from the conquest. And yet, and this is again, it trips up liberals all the time. This is a
8:21
prophetic present. prophetic present. It's it's it's talking like you're already in the land. And that's very common because you will be in the land because God has promised
8:32
you will be in the land. and the iniquity of the Amorites had reached its completion and they're now going to be spewed out. That's that's all part of the overall program. And so he can he
8:42
can talk in Leviticus as if they're already in the land, but we realize, no, this is a month. They're still at Sinai, right? And we have the dates when they
8:52
got there and when they left, 30 days apart. We know exactly when this was given to them. and they're still a generation away literally from entering
9:03
the land. But that generation is going to be used kind of like boot camp. The Israelites are going to be inculcated in holiness during that time
9:15
in the wilderness. It wasn't a matter of them, you know, and I use this this um anecdote um from my early years as a
9:26
Christian when I went to college. I I did get involved in one of those parurch on, you know, campus ministries. And their idea was, you got saved, go
9:40
evangelize. You know, it's like, I don't even know what I'm talking about. And and I'm supposed to evangelize. Um and but that's not what God did with Israel. you
9:50
they had a 40 roughly a 40-year preparation period from Sinai until um Pisgah until the con the conquest. But it is important for us to realize that
10:01
the conquest the flip side of the victory of the conquest was the prophecy to Abraham in Genesis 15 that the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. Well, now it is. And that's
10:13
that's what Israel's going to be doing. They will be the instrument. They will be what is that again? Is that epiakac? What's the one that mustard? I know you're supposed to take mustard if you
10:24
they're going to be inducing the vomiting. Uh the land is going to vomit out the Canaanites. And so now what
10:37
I want to talk about tonight, you might consider excuse me, chocolate chip cookie.
10:50
H you might consider it a rabbit trail. I don't think it is. Um because this is an area an area where in my opinion exesus has been massively benefited by archaeology.
11:03
Now there have been a difference of opinions over the last 200 years about archaeology. Um archaeology as a science is very young. Archaeology and geology are both I think they're about the
11:14
youngest sciences that are out there. Um archaeology is really going to start kind of in the 18th century and then it's going to pick up steam in the 19th
11:25
century and then really you know go to town with the discovery of the the Dead Sea Scrolls for example but in the 20th century um archaeology and then you get of course Indiana Jones and then that's
11:37
that's it you know it has arrived. So the idea
11:50
of archaeology and the Bible. Now now I'm sure you're familiar with magazines like the Biblical Archaeological Review, which is um uh what's the guy's name? Uh anyhow, it just escaped me. But
12:02
anyhow, he's um he's Jewish. I don't think he's actually a Jew. Well, I don't think he's actually alive anymore. uh a Jewish believer, but but he he kind of he might be um he started this magazine
12:14
or at least he was the for years the the head editor and the whole idea was to try to bring to the public popularize the idea of archaeology in the ancient
12:25
near east. Now there are so many other branches of archaeology but this is still what most people especially Christians think of when they think of archaeology. they they think of the various biblical dis or the the Bible
12:36
lands and what's been discovered there and and so we have archaeology and the
12:50
One of the problems that evangelicals have had with archaeology is that it is really a science that came out of the enlightenment of the 18th century. And it was largely used in attempts to
13:03
disprove the Bible or if not to disprove the Bible to show that the Bible is nothing more than a human document dealing with the evolution of a religion
13:16
called Judaism. called Judaism. Okay? And what that does is it it effectively undermines the foundation of Christianity to the point where many
13:28
18th century Christian theologians looked back on their lives and and they didn't actually say this. Some of them said something like this. What have we
13:41
done? They have undermined the foundation of the church because of their approach to religion in general and their use of archaeology in that. Nonetheless, we we
13:53
have had so much archaeology in the last 200 years that we we've come to take it for granted. And much of what we read, even um uh popular or devotional
14:06
commentaries will provide us with information about the Amorites, for example, that people 150 years ago didn't know.
14:17
William Albbright is considered the kind of the father of modern biblical archaeology. Isn't he the Albbright of the Albbright? Uh Tim, do you know if he's the Albright
14:29
of the Albright scholarship fellowship? Fulbright. Fulbright. Okay, that's not Albbright. Sorry. Um anyhow, Albbright was like the dean of 20th century archaeology. He
14:42
made this comment. Um, he said, "From the chaos of prehistory, the Bible projected as though it were a monstrous fossil with no contemporary
14:55
evidence to demonstrate its authenticity and its origin in a human world like ours." That's actually a very significant statement. So for for most of the
15:07
Christian era, most of the church era, the Bible itself was like this fossil that was discovered, but it has no
15:20
cousins. It it has no lineage. It's it's so completely different from everything else from that region. And the language of it speaks of peoples that have long
15:31
since disappeared. The most famous of course is the Hittites who were long thought to be kind of like the Book of Mormon where you've got all these madeup names which have never been validated by
15:44
any form of archaeology. But that's how the Hittites were treated. And that shows the approach of liberalism, enlightenment liberalism toward the use
15:57
of archaeology with respect to the Bible. Okay? that what they were trying to do is make it scientific. What they ended up doing is what it was make it academic and remove its its its
16:09
authority as a religious book. But what happens is you you get these names. Nobody's heard of the Hittites for two millennia, three millennia or two and a half. So they must never have existed.
16:21
Well, lo and behold, not only are the the Hittite culture uh discovered through archaeology, it turns out it was a it was a it was a Bloomman Empire. I mean, it was all through Anatolia and
16:34
Syria and and it was huge. Um and and so now that's that's that's kind of a standard and archaeology has provided us with this time after time. they've given
16:44
us excellent resources for um the the the history and the culture of the biblical times. Okay. So I I want to put
16:55
talk a little bit about the influence of um archaeology. um archaeology. Archaeology uh has different components.
17:10
It's it's not a uniform science. Um, archaeologists tend to specialize pretty much like engineers do. And so an archaeologist might specialize on the the the artifacts
17:22
or the not the the the geopolitics. They're the ones that are going to try to find um ancient Babylon or something. They're they're the ones that that do
17:33
the the actual digs of the of the tells the mounds and and then uh stake them out and photograph them and find whatever put in the museums. That's what
17:44
we think of archaeology. So, I'm going to put that one down as as as material.
17:58
This focuses on the stuff the stuff left behind. And again that's the common understanding of archaeology. But archaeology has has other aspects to it and like I said specialties within
18:08
archaeology. So for example uh there's an entire branch of archaeology that is focusing on linguistics and philology the languages and trying to not only
18:22
discover the the the the uh trans translations of these language. You think of the Rosetta Stone discovered by Napoleon's forces in Egypt in 1799. You
18:32
know that that unlocked ununiform um to to to science and it it was huge. Um those kind of discoveries there's an entire brand. It's very important. We
18:43
think of we think of pottery generally, you know, when we think we think of people with little paint brushes, you know, dusting things off. Um, no. They they probably spend more time in old
18:56
monasteries in the arid deserts looking for ancient documents. Uh, or or the Amarna tablets, the the clay tablets of the I think that's Assyria, right? Amarna.
19:07
It's Egypt. Egypt. Um, yeah, there's another one in Assyria, but it's not Amarna. Amarna. But the Amarna tablets just they they just call they they provide a cross link of references to
19:20
biblical references and and so they were amazing discovery again like the Dead Sea Scrolls only even more. So we have
19:31
linguistic the languages but but also just the philological the the various words um
19:43
Hebrew is a dead language. Uh we we do not know when we look at if we look at a Hebrew Bible, we we really
19:54
have no idea how those words were pronounced because Hebrew was a continental only consonants, no verbs. The verb point that allow us to read
20:04
Hebrew today are you mean you mean vow verbs? Yeah, vowels. Sorry. Yeah, they they had no vowels and so
20:14
they uh the Mazerites, the rabbitic group with in I think the 11th century AD developed vowel pointings to allow the
20:24
language to continue to be a living spoken language. It didn't really take um and and even Jews today speak more of
20:35
a Yiddish uh which is kind of Eastern European Slavic uh than than the Hebrew. And and it was long recognized that the Hebrew that was spoken by Moses or David
20:46
or we don't know how things were were pronounced at all. It's it's a dead language. It's not used. It's a one source language. We don't really have a
20:56
lot any other ancient Hebrew text but the scriptures. Now there's some intertestamental writings of course but they're starting to get more Aramaic and
21:08
also helenized the Greek influence. So there's this entire study and one particular scholar in the 18th century concluded that the way to read ancient
21:19
Hebrew is not to try to learn from modern Jews but rather from Arabic and the similar with their Semitic
21:29
languages and the similar. So that kind of started a trend. Again, it's philology, but trying to interpret the ancient Hebrew through a language that
21:40
really hasn't changed in millennia, and that's Arabic. Okay. Arabic uses Arabic uses over the years.
21:50
Arabic, it's a language, so it has changed. I'm saying they added little dashes and dots here and there around these words to help you pronounce
22:01
pronounce. They did the same thing because I think originally it was also continental. It was just consonants. That that was that I think is a trait of Semitic languages. But there's more
22:13
Arabic writing than there is Hebrew available to archae archaeological study. And so and I'm not saying whether we need to go there. I'm just saying this is this is a branch of of
22:26
archaeology that does impinge upon our understanding of the Hebrew Bible. Um, a lot of people say, well, you know, you don't use the Hebrew Old Testament, use the Septuagent, the Greek Old Testament.
22:37
That's the one that Paul used, Jesus used, you know, that's what they used. But in reality, um, the Septuagent is not really a very good translation of the Hebrew. There are a lot of mistakes.
22:49
So when you go to the Hebrew, you have a lot more textual variance than you do in the New Testament. When you go to the Old Testament, frankly, it's a very old language. Our manuscripts date much
23:00
further from the original than is the case with the New Testament. It's estimated that some available manuscripts are as close as within half
23:11
a century of the autographs of the New Testament. That's pretty close when you're talking 2,000 years ago. Generally, you're looking at almost a
23:22
millennia, a millennium between the oldest Hebrew manuscript and the original that it is a copy like Isaiah or a Psalm or whatever. There's a long
23:33
distance between it. Now, what that means is it presents Hebrew scholars with a greater challenge than New Testament scholars have. Old Testament scholars when they get to the language.
23:44
And that's why archaeology is pro is used to try to provide uh counterbalance and and counter evidence to support um interpretations and translations.
24:23
it does open that's that's right but archaeology opens things up for us and shows us that our our previous thinking was wrong. But there's another element going on in that that I I I appreciate you mentioning that because it gives me
24:33
an example and and that is especially among evangelicals and and especially among fundamentalists, among fundamentalists, we try to use archaeology to prove
24:45
something and and to say for example that Hebrew and Greek were somehow divine languages or I' I've read someone saying that you know Greek is a very simple and easy
24:56
language. Okay, given the fact that languages were given to mankind to confuse us, there is no such thing as a simple and easy language. And Greek is certainly no different than English or
25:08
Chinese or Russian in that sense. Um, Hebrew it seems to be simple because all of the verbs have only three letters and there are 23 letters in the alphabet. So
25:18
that means you have a limited number of verbs. that actually makes things harder because verbs have to do multiple duty and you have to try to figure out what duty they're doing in the context in
25:29
which you're reading it. And that's where the counter, you know, bringing in an Arabic word that is clearly or as much as can possibly be clear um rooted the same way within the Semitic family,
25:40
you can say, well, this is what it means because there are more examples in the Arabic than there are in the Hebrew. This is archaeology and that's beneficial. But you you have to be careful that you don't make you you
25:52
don't um put a load on it that it can't bear and that's where you get so and that's really popular among uh fundamentalists you know they they they will say things like they still do you
26:04
know to say that it's divine a divine language and language and there are many who think that Hebrew it was a divine language um I think research has shown that Hebrew was a
26:15
human language and we don't even know that the Hebrew that we think is Hebrew was actually the Hebrew that was Moses's Hebrew. Okay, that's
26:26
what is what is uh given directly by God. Kind of like um the reformed Egyptian of the Book of Mormon. It it's it's it's kind of silly. I mean, but it's it's like this was a language
26:39
was given only to Israel. Even their language was revelatory. And and we do that. we we um it's it's analogous to not being able to figure out the divine
26:50
in the human in Christ and we tend to lean one way or the other, you know, and we think that if it's in the Bible must be divine. Everything's divine. Even the language is divine. Um but it's actually no, it's
27:02
it's it's not either or. It's both. And the the revelation of God was mediated through the instrumentation of man. And so the the language of the Hebrews
27:14
was a human language and it probably went through the same vagarities over time that any human language does. But the distance of time makes it very hard
27:25
to retrace the steps. Um and and if you you get into a technical commentary of the Old Testament, they spend an inordinate amount of time talking about
27:36
the philology, the the actual words, when they really could just say, "We don't know." But nobody wants to say that. So they just keep on going uh and give you all the options. Um and I mean,
27:49
you do the best you can. I will say this as a caveat that just like the entire Bible there is no textual variant that impinges upon biblical doctrine.
28:03
Now we can also say that the Old Testament is not replete with biblical doctrine. We get a whole lot more doctrine in the New Testament than we do in the Old Testament. The Old Testament is much more narrative and poetry than it is um
28:16
systematic theology. But you do have, you know, There are different manuscripts that have different readings, different pointings. Um, and and it's it's it's a tough row to hoe.
28:28
Archaeology helps. Perhaps one of the most important areas that is often you'll see it in the archaeological magazines, especially the popular ones, and this is idea of cultural
28:49
Yes. You're saying that the translation that we have we have that's not going to be all wrong? All wrong. All wrong. Not all wrong. No, but you don't have
28:59
the if you were to take I don't know what version you read. What version do you generally read? Standard. The uh New American Standard. No, the English.
29:10
the English. The English. Oh, ESV. Okay. You take the ESV, the the New King James, the New America. Take the take the literal translations, not the dynamic ones like the NIV because they've already massaged
29:21
everything. You take those more literal ones and you put them side by side in the Old Testament, just the Psalms for example, they're not going to read the same
29:31
because the work that has to be done by the translator, the translator, the translators, the translation team, um they're they're working with the same documents, but even those documents are
29:43
are late and there are variations more so than in the New Testament. Okay, that's just the reality of of what we have. Yeah, not comparing,
30:01
Yeah, there are going to be a lot of differences. Just go on Bible Gateway think it's No, it's not. It's only divisive.
30:12
I don't know what Isaiah is saying anymore because anymore because my understanding of that language is so
30:24
I don't think I'm saying that. I'm saying for a translator, they have a much more difficult task than a New Testament translator. They have a more difficult task. And what I'm trying to say is that archaeology has helped
30:37
there. Okay? I'm I'm trying to show where archaeology has helped. I think if you read any of the modern English versions, you're reading a more accurate English
30:48
translation. Now, this is going to get me in trouble than the King James. And yet if you read the King James, I think you're getting a more accurate
30:59
translation than maybe the Geneva or the original or the Okay. In in other words, archaeology has provided us with much more manuscript evidence and with
31:11
methods to actually interpret that evidence so that I think our translations are more accurate than they've ever been. Is that a fair
31:22
statement, Abe? I don't think there I don't think you have anything to worry about anymore in the Old Testament than you do the New.
31:35
Well, yeah. I'm just saying I don't know if I can trust anything. Well, and that's that's where we're headed actually because what it boils down to is your approach
31:46
historically. What it boil boils down to is your approach to the scripture. There are two ways that historically the scripture has been approached and the
31:57
benefit of archaeology is massively impacted by which camp you're in. Okay. The one camp is the camp of
32:10
faith. This is God's word. Now I do not believe that copists were inspired. And yet I do believe that God has
32:21
providentially guarded his word. So there is nothing substantially lost throughout the thousands of years in which it has been transmitted because I
32:31
believe it's the word of God. But I believe I believe that because of the Holy Spirit that I've been given. So I approach the Bible. I don't you see archaeology and and manuscript evidence
32:43
doesn't bother me because I am firmly committed to this being the inspired word of God which means that
32:57
happened this this sounds I think even as I say it it's it's it sounds like I'm I'm uh special pleading special pleading that God has watched over his word.
33:07
There are There are manuscript differences. We We can't rationally deny that. They're physically available to us. Okay? And and so if God
33:20
inspired all of the copists, then there should be no manuscript variations at all. But that would override the human
33:31
element of inspiration. There are copy variations. But that's never bothered me because fundamentally it is the word of God and
33:42
he has preserved it. What the other one is is skepticism or unbelief but more
33:56
skepticism well you're going to find a lot of reasons to increase your skepticism but you don't fundamentally believe to begin with. begin with. So what value of archaeology to these
34:07
two camps? two camps? Many modern evangelicals and by modern I mean the 1600s on railed against archaeology because it
34:18
had come out of the liberal millu of the of the enlightenment which was pure skepticism. And so conservatives said no no that's
34:28
that's all evil. No, it's it's it's not evil or not e or or it's not good or bad. It's it's neutral. It's just sifting through the evidence of time and
34:40
trying to figure out what went on then. If you use archaeology from a position of faith, I think it's tremendously
34:50
beneficial. It is also easy to overdo it. And we're going to talk about that in a minute. If you approach the Bible as a skeptic, then I think archaeology will become a 12-pound hammer in your hand, and you
35:02
will continue to bludgeon the scriptures, as they have done, and do incredible and and inestimable and irreparable damage to the church, which they have done. But I don't think that
35:13
means you throw the baby out with the bathwater. I don't think you you you uh isue all archaeological discoveries just because one group has done a great deal of damage with it. I because I think
35:25
what happens then is you you adopt an anti-intellectualism that denies the reality of of what we have and that is manuscripts that are
35:36
not identical or languages that are so old that we really don't know exactly how I I mean I I use that argument against the idea of ex exclusive psalm
35:50
which is also taken by many It's kind of a King James only version of exclusive psalm and that is you can
36:00
only sing the psalms and only according to the 1912 Scottish psalter and I'm like say what?
36:11
I don't remember any reports of the spirit descending on a dove on the Scots in 1912. in 1912. But the fact of the matter is, do you do any of you play shiganoth on the piano
36:22
just in your spare time? I mean, you get my point, right? Oh, we're told the tune. There's no sheet music. I don't even have the chords.
36:35
We don't even know definitively how the words were pronounced. But that doesn't mean the psalm isn't the psalm. God has preserved his word because if he didn't,
36:46
it would have meant nothing to the New Testament writers. They were granted only centuries away. Okay? And so we do have the New Testament to help us
36:56
understand the Old Testament because they were only we're we're millennia away now, but they were only centuries away. Saying that we don't know how it was pronounced is not the same as saying we
37:07
don't know what most of the words mean. Exactly. For the most part, what we have is going to be basically the same between our
37:19
with words that we just don't know for sure because they're they're um hopa they're only one place in the old testament okay those words are always difficult um they are they're oddly
37:33
derived they could come from several roots because again Hebrew is is a continental language which means the roots were typically only like three letters and then with with all the
37:45
prefixes and suffixes that gave you your your tenses and your cases and everything that you built a whole family. But if you did it a little bit differently out of the same root, you could build a whole another family.
37:56
Okay? So it it's it ch it's a challenge. All I'm trying to say is Hebrew is more challenging. Old Testament Hebrew is more challenging for modern scholars
38:06
than New Testament Greek. And archaeology has helped. That's all I'm saying. I'm not trying to challenge the veracity. I mean, frankly, after this many years, I don't think anybody should
38:18
think that I'm challenging the veracity of the Bible. Okay? That's just not reasonable. The Bible is the word of God. And and yet, I think that if you if you ignore the fact that there are
38:31
manuscript differences and archaeology can shed light on those things, then that's a that's a standard of anti-intellectualism that I just can't adopt. And I don't think any of you do. either we recognize that there are when
38:43
you look at the psalms and you haven't always had the ESV you I don't know what you used before that but there was a word different maybe in a psalm and that's all I'm talking about whereas
38:54
archaeology is trying to compare not only the language that we do have which is still a long way from the actual original writings but then other languages like Arabic which has has
39:05
survived that whole time with modifications yes but Arab Arab Never. Arabic never died. It's always been a spoken language for as long as we have records. Whereas
39:18
Hebrew died. Hebrew died. Greek also. Greek also. Yes. Greek has not has changed. I mean, there was Attic and there's Queen A and now there's modern Greek and they're not
39:28
the same, but they're not. It's like English, you know. We don't go around talking like Chaucer, thankfully. Okay. Um but if we if we strain our brain then
39:40
we can understand most of what Chaucer is saying.
39:58
I say that because God and brought us in the very text of scripture the awareness that language has changed. But there are specific passages that
40:12
translation to us because it's an English word and an English word both of which we can understand but then labor to translate words that were no longer in use by the
40:23
time the audience that was receiving that work I think of first they weren't using the word seer anymore they were using the word prophet and and
40:33
the author decided we need to make sure they understand. they understand. We explain it to them. Yeah. So, even within the even within the chronology of biblical revelation, the language right? Because languages do.
40:44
And and all I'm really not talking about the language so much as I'm talking about archaeology and and the and the value that we have gained from archaeology. I and I don't want anybody
40:57
to go away thinking that they can't trust their Bibles. You I think you I mean, for what it's worth, I trust my Bible. I I don't have any problem. And that's why I I don't have any problems
41:07
with archaeology or or even with what the contributions of liberal scholars. They might not believe, but they're still good scholars. You know, they're still they're still well-versed in in
41:19
all manner of Hebrew, ancient Hebrew and Arabic and the and the culture of that time. And we've learned a tremendous amount from them. We can gain from that even though they're not profiting by it.
41:31
In fact, some of them are actually doing positive harm with with their knowledge. I I grant that. But I'm not going to throw it out simply because some people are misusing it. No, I say thank you
41:43
very much. I appreciate that additional knowledge. And and I think that biblical theology that archaeology has helped us
41:53
understand the connectedness of scripture. how how scripture uh unfolds a progressive narrative
42:06
where parts of the plot seem to have a beginning and an end like the Abraham narratives. And yet within those there are subplots that are intentionally
42:17
forward and they they keep going beyond the Abraham narratives themselves. And words help us understand that. phrases help us make those connections, but also
42:29
the cultural evol um the archaeology, the evidence of how these people lived is is very very valuable. Now, I do want to say a huge caveat about archaeology.
42:46
I think archaeology is analogous to evolution. And that is that just as evolutionists make mountains out of molehills,
43:01
jawbone. No, that's an ass. That's right. You get a wrong wrong thing. Um, so do archaeologists build civilizations build civilizations from an earring.
43:11
They make too much out of it. and and that recognition allows us to keep archaeology in its proper place. What we're looking at is an incredibly huge
43:21
hay stack with a half a dozen needles in it. You're really not finding all that much. Now in evolution I think it's the uh they crustaceians but um basically um
43:35
sea shells the the that is the vast majority of of archae or evolutionary discoveries right um and then the other ones I think are insects maybe there's a
43:47
lot of insects but in terms of of more advanced um animals including humans there's a very small point Okay.
43:58
Anatigusly, what is what do we have mostly with archaeology? When you go on an archaeological dig, what what are you going to find the most? You're going to find pottery. Most of it broken. Okay.
44:10
Yeah. Exactly. The plastic bag of the ancient world, right? And you are you are digging in landfills what you're doing. You know, you're first of all, you're digging up their trash, which is someday someone's going to do that with
44:20
us. They're going to dig up and what are they going to come up with when they dig up enory? Oh my word. what you know what they're going to interpret of our civilization when they dig up any landfill is just I I'd love to be here
44:31
to read it. And so um vast human civilizations were they disappeared. That's my point is for much of Christian history what we're reading
44:48
was mystery or of course sometimes myth and legend because there was no connection between your contemporary reading of the text and the actual history that's being recorded that was
44:59
completely lost. Archaeology has rediscovered that. So we're in a much better place than our Christian ancestors even 200 years ago and I think
45:11
we'll be in a better place in a hundred years. So it's it's it's a benefit. It's something that we can profit from even though it is like evolution mostly
45:22
atheistic now. Okay. It's it's no longer driven by even moderately or liberal Christian Christians. It's pretty much a a humanist science entirely. But we
45:33
still glean from from that. We benefit from the efforts even of the unbeliever. And I think archaeology helps us see what's going on in Leviticus 18 and 20.
45:46
And then the the wording helps us tie it back to its biblical roots in Genesis. Okay? Genesis um well Genesis 9 and
45:57
Genesis 15. Tonight we'll talk about Genesis 15. But I do want to to to kind of combat to some extent the liberal
46:12
strategy uh which has been largely successful especially in mainline Christianity but the strategy of using archaeology to disprove uh or or to not so much disprove the Bible there that's
46:25
that's kind of a mis misnomer because they're not setting out purposely to disprove prove. They're actually trying to prove a Bible of a philosophy of the
46:35
Bible that is none. And and that's this um we've talked about this before, but the um uh let's
46:47
see the goal of modern
46:58
It is skeptical to begin with. And by that I mean they they do not approach the Bible believing it to be the inspired word of God. They do not believe it to be revelatory. They believe it to be evolutionary. But they believe all religion to be
47:11
human and evolutionary. Now this is where it attacks Christianity at the very heart and that is the nature of revealed religion which
47:22
is what we maintain as evangelicals but is attacked by modern science both on the evolutionary side but also on the archaeological and geological side.
47:32
Okay. So they're not they're not necessarily actively opposing Christianity. They're opposing a and actually in the 18th century what they were opposing was confessionalism
47:44
where the Bible had been reduced to a source of doctrine and those doctrines had caused a great deal of heartache in Germany including the 30 years war. All
47:55
they've ever gotten out of confessionalism was warfare and bloodshed and destruction. So, the Enlightened would was going to turn it around and bring a new world order, a an order of peace through
48:07
science. And we're going to apply science to the Bible. And what we're going to come up with is a book everyone can agree on. Now, punchl um spoiler, it
48:17
didn't work. didn't work. Okay? But that's what they were trying. So, many of them actually did this in the name of Christianity and of the Bible. They were trying to bring the
48:28
Bible into the modern world where it could still be a moral guide to society, British society, German society. Okay? But it was no longer a point of conflict
48:41
between Catholic and Protestant, between Lutheran and reformed. Okay? They wanted to get past that. So you could say, well, their motives were noble, um, but their efforts were feudal and in fact
48:52
ended up being damaging because they approached it from the perspective, um, of establishing
49:02
of establishing Judaism, especially, we're talking mostly the Old Testament and Hebrew, but establishing Judaism as simply the evolution and the assimilation of
49:14
other ancient Neareastern religions. They were what they were doing was they were u they were approaching it with a fundamental presupposition that there's
49:24
nothing exemplary. nothing exemplary. There's nothing uh exalted about the Jewish religion. It is just one of many. Now they would acknowledge its
49:35
difference. It's monotheistic. But they would say that that was actually somehow adapted and adopted from the surrounding pagan religions. So
49:46
that's the fundamental paradigm of most modern archaeology and that is Judaism
49:57
simply an evolutionary
50:12
abbreviation ancient near
50:26
This attitude infected evangelical Christianity and has infected it up to this day. The uh the nonuniqueness of Judaism flows out of a presupposition
50:39
against divine revelation. and toward human evolution. We talked about in the last biblical theology session the idea of the history of
50:50
religion school that you can look at religion itself as a developmental chronology and that's Judaism just fits
51:01
in there. Um, here's a quote from um, Ernest uh, Wright who I've quoted before and and who is by and large very evangelical, but I wanted to quote him
51:12
because it shows how this attitude has permeated even evangelical Christianity. Um, but he has, let's see, where is this quote? Um,
51:29
did I type the wrong page? No, here it is. Oh, nope. That's the wrong one. I gotta go up a little bit. Give me a moment, please. Where is it?
51:41
All right. Pardon me. I think it is on 19. Yeah, there he is, too. His face. That helps. Um, yeah,
51:51
there. Well, I like those pictures. Um, and where is the actual quote? Here it is. Um,
52:07
that's not exactly what I was looking for, but he he talks about, he says, "From animism, Israel was thought to have evolved through polytheism and henotheism, which is a national god, to monotheism." Now, there's another quote
52:20
in there, and maybe it's Rowley, and I'm I'm getting the the two gentlemen mixed up, but that basically it's a quote um hopefully you'll you'll find it if you
52:31
read the notes, but it's it's a quote that shows that even evangelicals have accepted this idea. It talks about sacrifices, animal sacrifices, um and
52:42
rituals and whatnot clearly were adopted or adapted from the surrounding nations. every every similarity is then concluded to be a derivation.
52:53
So there can be if if it was truly a divine religion, there would be no similarities to the religions around. There would be no animal sacrifices. There would be no priesthood. There
53:04
would be no temple or tabernacle. All of those things must mean that the Israelites borrowed from their neighbors, especially their older neighbors, the Babylonians.
53:16
That's an that's an a priori assumption. Okay. It could work the other way. And that is if we recognize the Garden of Eden as a tabernacle,
53:27
then what we're actually seeing within the pagan religions is vestigages of human memory of their origin. So it's kind of like evolution. You're not
53:38
looking at a direct lineage. You're looking at a common ancestor. Okay? And so there will be similarities. Now modern evolution says that if there similarities there must be genetic
53:51
No, there may be a common ancestor or there may be just only a certain number of variations on a theme. Common creator too. Yes.
54:06
witnesses from the oldest days of sacrifice that of the one whose heart is true to God and the one who brings it
54:17
with a heart not true to God. Right? It shows that yeah Genesis 4 shows the beginning of the divergence. That's where it says it was the time at that time that men began to call on the name of Yahweh. And so but you have a
54:29
clear delineation or division between the lineage the sons of men from Cain and the sons of God from Seth. They do a similar thing too. assume that
54:42
because things are similar, they must have descended from the same place. But then you have words, I think the word dog shows up in a native language in Australia, totally separate from
54:53
English, just a similar word for the same. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. But it's just because we all speak with the same the same similar ideas. similar ideas. Yeah. And we do have I mean there there
55:04
is a I'm sure there's a limited vocal range in in the human larynx you know and and um there is there is evolution and I and I'd say this about biological
55:16
evolution there is evolution within species there's evolution within languages and there's there is even cross uh fertilization among languages um there there's no doubt languages are
55:27
not biological and and you can learn many languages. So, um, but but the the conclusions all stem, this is where it all comes back to. It stems from this
55:38
approach. But the problem with those of faith is because of what the skeptics have done, we don't even want to talk about it. We don't want to read that stuff because it makes us nervous.
55:50
I don't think that's the right approach. We we have nothing to fear because we have been loved with perfect love and perfect love casts out fear. So there there should be if there's if
56:02
there's anything that anybody can say that will shake your faith and your faith is not firm anyhow. Is that a fair statement?
56:13
That's not to say that you know you don't get nervous about something and wonder. I mean that's just that we we see is in a mirror dimly. We have the sin that's still in our members. Yeah.
56:24
I'm not saying that we just kind of walk through life three feet or float three feet off the ground. But I'm saying there's nothing to be afraid of from academia. Nothing to be afraid of from modern evolutionary biology and nothing
56:36
to be afraid of from archaeology or geology. They've formed their conclusions, but their conclusions are formed from unbelief and therefore they are wrong at the very root. But that doesn't mean the data that they've
56:47
gathered and even the analysis of the data is wrong at the root. And we can benefit from I don't know where the passage is, but it it basically, you know, it says the the wealth of the of
56:59
the wicked is stored up for the righteous. Well, I think I could paraphrase that. The knowledge of the wicked is stored up for believers. And we can benefit from that. And archaeology has has shed a great deal of
57:11
light on the p on the narrative of the Old Testament. Old Testament. Archaeology will never prove the Bible to be the word of God.
57:22
That is an act of regenerative faith. But archaeology has never proved any part of the Bible wrong. And that's strengthening of faith. And
57:33
yet there is so much that has never been found that you can never look at a discovery and say, "Well, that proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt." It's just that nothing in the scriptures has ever
57:44
been disproved. It just may not have been proved yet. But everything that has come to light through archaeology has done nothing
57:55
other than confirm the scriptures. That's great. And I think that's evidence of how the the the exercise of the unrighteous benefits the people of
58:05
God and we do benefit from it. Um so Judaism I want to point out the fact that Judaism
58:19
I want to use the analogy of a book that I read I had to read in college and actually I enjoyed it. It's book by uh an evolutionary biologist by the name of Lauren I I'm not sure if he's a biologist. He may have just been a
58:29
philosopher. It's called the incredible journey or no the immense journey. The incredible journey was two dogs and a cat. Okay, cat. Okay, that's a good one, too.
58:40
That's a good one, too. Yeah. Um, but what he basically is saying in this book is that the idea of um arbitrary
58:50
molecular biological evolution, which he adhered to.
59:02
Under that paradigm, man is here billions of years too early. that that the difference between man and the closest
59:13
creature is far too vast to squeeze into that that steady arbitrary, you know, that's the way it's supposed to be.
59:25
But what it actually is is now some evolutionists um Stephen J. Gould I think or another one
59:36
that started with an E punctuated equilibrium came out. It's like the 60s and 70s with it's kind of like a Cambrian explosion in the sense that there's a layer in the Cambrian where
59:47
all these animals show up in their fossil form. Like what do we do with that? Okay. That's how you get the X. That's what That's what That's how you get the X. The X-Men. The X-Men. Sorry, I didn't do them.
59:59
Yeah, that's after my time. It really is. Um, but you know, the the idea of punctuated equilibrium is that yeah, you run along with some good old biological
1:00:10
arbitraria molecular evolution and then boom, you're up here now. Okay. Now, most of evolutionary science rejected that. I think they still do. I I don't
1:00:21
know. evolution as certain changes
1:00:33
Yeah, that's just like there there's there's beef baloney and lemon baloney. All right. Different different flavors of baloney. Um yeah, I mean that's they're they're always going to come up with
1:00:44
trying to figure out but the bottom line I think I is right. No matter how you look at it, if it's punctuated equilibrium, it might as well be called creation because it is off the chart in
1:00:55
terms of the difference of human capabilities and every other living creature. And oh, we could say that dolphins communicate. We're not saying that all other creatures are stupid. They're created by
1:01:07
the same God, but they still don't hold a candle. They're they're not even in the same they're really we're not even the same charge. You can put all of the other ones in their kingdoms and their films and all of that, but not human
1:01:19
beings. So, the same thing is is is analogously true with with Jewish monotheism. And and even liberal scholars have recognized I don't know how this came
1:01:30
about so quickly. It just kind of came out of nowhere. And there's no evidence or even logical rationale for the development of
1:01:41
monotheism from ancient paganism. Me being a one of these scientists, I try to read these books and I get part
1:01:52
of the way through it because they say things like that and then they still believe the same thing. Well, that's what I Okay, that's great.
1:02:03
Yeah, but I I think you can Yeah, but I think you can still read it because you're reading it from faith and you you're concluding, wow, God is good, man. This is amazing. We were looking at
1:02:15
a of a video uh Isabelle and I after lunch today and it was about electric eels or electric fish and we're going through the fact that they have these little basically battery packs where
1:02:26
positive and negative you know ions like chemistry. That was pretty cool. And then the the brain sends a neurological signal that has to arrive at all these battery packs precisely at the same time. And I paused the video. I said
1:02:38
that's an example of irreducible complexity. Everything has to be in place at the same time for any of it to work. Okay? And you see that it's like that's
1:02:51
design. How do you people these people are blind and yet they still have done the science and so we can learn from them how electric eels don't electrocute
1:03:01
themselves, right? We can still learn from them and just kind of pass over the garbage. That's what I do. Anyhow, James
1:03:21
forward, right? And that's what we do is we keep the cart where it belongs and we move forward. But but we can benefit that the and again I'll say it again using that
1:03:31
that biblical paraphrase that the knowledge of the unrighteous is available for us and we the science science was developed by Christians.
1:03:41
They were not necessarily evangelical. Many of them were Catholic. Okay. They they had their problems but they never thought it's like Psalm 19. The heavens declare the glory of the Lord. They
1:03:52
never thought that their researches research ever challenged creation or the the creator and nor should it for us even though the the unbelieving side of
1:04:03
it has has really taken over. That's sad. If we abandon it then we're just abandoning the field to the unbeliever.
1:04:13
Okay. If we embrace the whatever science is rational and well established, we have to be careful there because science is never proven, right? That took us a
1:04:26
long time to figure out that the earth went around the sun and they're still now they're starting to question Einsteiny in physics. Okay, so you never actually arrive. God has created his universe in such a way that his ways are
1:04:38
past finding out. And what we do learn as it says in Job are but the fringes of his ways. The heart of it is past finding out. We'll we'll never never do that. So archaeology is is very helpful.
1:04:51
But I want to read a couple of quotes again from uh one of them's English, one of them's German. Okay. um Ernest Wright and um
1:05:02
Walter I think I um these were 20th century 20th century in their own countries they would have passed for fundamentalist evangelicals
1:05:13
in our country they would be flaming liberals okay so you kind of have to take things in context with the era and the place that you're reading but um Wright has this to say and again I
1:05:25
alluded earlier to where he um uh made a comment ment concerning the the assimilation and synratism of Judaism with the ancient pagan religions. But he
1:05:35
says this, "How did Israel become a nation with such faith in its God that its very existence was conceived to be a miracle of grace?" There's no mythology
1:05:48
in Judaism. in Judaism. There's no mythology in the Old Testament. Even Genesis is not a myth. It doesn't read like a myth. It has none of the characteristics of the myth. It
1:06:00
has one creator god who didn't do anything weird anything weird like kupra. He didn't cry and a human came out. I mean he just said let there
1:06:10
be light with his fiat dictat. You know so it's just straightforward in the beginning god. Okay. So what
1:06:22
Wright is saying is here where'd it come from? The reality of archaeology is showing us that there's no genetic connection between Judaism and any other religion
1:06:32
of that era and that part of the world and there could could not be then the assimilation and evolution because there were no even comparable species. Ike
1:06:44
road adds to that. Um, okay. Where is that? Where does this start?
1:06:55
Modern scholars have failed completely to show how this alleged transformation of early Israelite religion to a pure ethical monotheism could have taken
1:07:06
place and what basic forces there were which could have altered the picture of God so radically. This is another place where archaeology helps evangelicalism
1:07:18
and faith. And that is the more we discover, the more we realize there's no real connection between Judaism and any
1:07:28
other religion of that time and and area. It is truly radical. It's as if it came down out of heaven onto a
1:07:40
mountaintop, which it kind of did. Okay. And and so that for me that that that bolsters my faith. It doesn't it doesn't replace it. It doesn't cause it. Um but it it it
1:07:50
gives us we need as as a church, as believers, we need all the ammunition we can
1:08:00
muster. We need, not every one of us, but as a church, we need to be able to understand the language of our enemy and be able to refute it. Now, I'm not saying that's
1:08:10
our purpose in life. I'm not saying that's the church's purpose in life. But the church is in has been in a rear guard action for centuries. Are we going to just continue that? At
1:08:22
the very least, we need to be able to prepare our children for the world in which they're entering a a world of post-Christianity. Not just postmodernism, which is bad
1:08:32
enough, but very much post-Christianity in our country. Europe did not do that. And you can see if you go over there the results. Uh we're still at a place where
1:08:44
there's enough critical mass of believers in this country that and I'm not saying that we do another scopes trial and you know and and try to uh
1:08:54
hold back the tide of unbelief. That's not the point. I'm saying we just need to be prepared ourselves and prepare our children and be able to be able to speak rationally and yet believingly. We we
1:09:06
we've seen those two things, reason and faith over the last 500 years or 600 years since Thomas Aquinus. No, that's 800 years. Sorry. Uh we've seen those two separated.
1:09:17
two separated. Okay. There are things that we understand through science. That's our rational. That's our reason. And then there are things that we believe through faith. No, actually everything that we understand is built on a foundation of
1:09:28
what we believe. What we learn in science and what we think we know is built on the belief that the universe is a is an ordered
1:09:38
entity. So there's there's a faith that underlines even faith in your own rational powers is a vestage of the imo day. So we we cannot accept the divorce
1:09:49
between faith and reason and we cannot manifest that abandonment of the unity of the two or actually the priority of faith. We can't abandon that by avoiding
1:10:02
everything. I'm not a fan of using entirely Christian curriculum. I think we need to know what our enemy is saying and then refute it. Now,
1:10:13
that's my opinion. It's not some pronouncement, but I I never was. I have a chemistry book that is entirely secular. Not a big deal. Biology is where it's really, you know, evolution.
1:10:25
It's an atom. Well, our reason is based on our faith, but we also have a faith. It's based on history. It's based on history. It's based on
1:10:35
just give us enlightenment, right? And and that's where archaeology strengthens us. Again, it doesn't it doesn't it's not my foundation, but it it does allow me to say, well, this is
1:10:47
who the Amorites were, and this is what the Canaanites were like. And what we're reading here in Leviticus 18 and 20 was not just a matter of immoral behavior. It was actually part of their religious cult. What they did they did
1:10:59
religiously. What they did they did publicly and they praised it as as Paul says in Romans 1. You know what he says in Romans 1 is kind of a commentary on
1:11:10
Leviticus 18. It's almost like he's thinking of the Canaanites when he writes Romans 1. But not only do they know that it's wrong and that they shouldn't do it, they encourage others to do the same. So the Bible's very much
1:11:22
interconnected. And then learning about these cultures these cultures allows us to say this isn't just made up. This is not just some straw man. There there is evidence for example of
1:11:33
sacrifices to Molech. The sacrifice of children to in the fire to Molech. You know what we would cringe at thinking of? Abe, you had a comment then. No, I was going to say how do they say
1:11:48
together? How do they explain the difference between Islam and Christianity or Judaism? such a vast difference even though this one came
1:12:04
how do they they would say that they are similar again it's the common thread which is monotheism and then also they would say the the u the legacy of Abraham
1:12:15
uh one was Abraham through Isaac the other Abraham through Ishmael they would just point out the similarities but the mindset is already that similarities prove association.
1:12:27
prove association. That's see that's where they're coming from. If you come from that perspective, you're going to find similarities everywhere. And then you make up synthesis. You're not actually using historical
1:12:38
documents. You you you cannot convince me that Muhammad was a Hebrew scholar. You know, he he didn't study the documents of the Old Testament in the original texts. You know, if you read
1:12:48
the Quran, you can see there's different the same thing with the Book of Mormon. Yeah. It's not even the same category. Yeah. It it uh and and I do recommend
1:12:59
that you not read the whole thing, but you read some of the Book of Mormon, read some of the Quran, and and you see, you know, biblical religion is
1:13:10
well, again, I'm speaking from a position of faith, but I think it is self-evidently revealed. self-evidently revealed. Okay. But would I think that if I weren't a believer? No, I wouldn't
1:13:21
because my mind would be darkened and my eyes would be blind and I wouldn't be able to see it if it were the sun shining right in my face. And that's what we're dealing with. But we can
1:13:31
still glean from the efforts of the unrighteous and profit by it. I have two thoughts. One is that you want me to keep going and you get a
1:13:43
trifecta. I think there's a good bit of historical evidence that Muhammad was aware of and influenced by Jewish merchants and Christian merchants in the Arabian Peninsula in the medieval context.
1:13:54
Christians who do anything
1:14:04
that that's a good point was that was that scholars don't basically try to get around the only way they can try to get around being
1:14:22
except they can't well yes that's one way of doing it is to make it much later, make it after the exile. So you get away from that real real deep ancient paganism. ancient paganism. It was influenced by Zoroastrianism and you come up but then your your
1:14:33
manuscripts don't ever don't do it for you because the the oldest there's there's no evidence of such late um documents. everything has already
1:14:46
been accepted which is why now with with um I've often quoted Bvard Charles but now what modern scholarship is doing is is is adopting canonicity that you know
1:14:57
what we can't really figure out what wellhousen was saying and and the these documents and everything so what we're going to do is just say well what's important is the canon that has come down to us well duh I mean we've been
1:15:08
saying that for thousands of years and now you're going to say it but you're not going to abandon the documentary hypothesis They're still going to use J and E and P and D and H
1:15:19
and XX and O O. I mean, you know, they they still cling. That's kind of that's very typical of academia. What is radical becomes conventional.
1:15:30
What is conventional is defended to against anything that is radical. And it's it's it that's academia. And you just you say, "Well, no, this is he's a good Hebrew scholar, you know." And I'm
1:15:42
reading I think now he's probably not a believer, but he's a good Hebrew scholar. Got the third one. No, the same thought. I was just going to say that that's that also is very helpful for faith because it becomes
1:15:54
very obvious that they have no thing that they're saying to fix that. Yeah. And the longer archaeology exists and works, the same with evolution, the
1:16:06
less evidence they have. How evolution survived Watson and Crick is beyond me. Once that came out, in fact, it was Michael Beehe who who titled his book
1:16:19
Darwin's Black Box. What Darwin couldn't know regarding DNA, we now know. And if that doesn't prove a designer, you are truly blind. you know, and that's they
1:16:31
are that's that's we have to accept that. We can't look at the unbeliever for truth. But that doesn't mean that the work they do is necessarily false.
1:16:42
And we can benefit from that. And I think we should I I think we should read philosophers if that's your bent. I think you should read books on science and and work through them, slog through
1:16:53
them. Um, and and gain, you know, a little bit more understanding of Schrodinger's cat, you know, like um I I I love this picture. It uh it's a china
1:17:04
cabinet and the plates have fallen forward against the door, but the doors it's
1:17:17
China. And and then there's another one of of Schroinger at his cat's funeral and he can't figure whether the cat's in the box. Okay, I don't understand Schroingigger's
1:17:27
cat or the theory of relativity. It it uh I I saw a video I showed Chave today. It's fascinating. They they're they're on a flatbed truck going 80 kilometers
1:17:38
an hour and they have set up a jettison of a man in a chair that's going to go 80 kilome is going to launch him at 80 kilometers an hour. or the opposite way.
1:17:48
Guess what he does? He just lands on his feet. It's it's it's, you know, it's fascinating. God created a fascinating world of biology,
1:18:00
of chemistry, of physics. It's it is truly it declares his glory. We shouldn't be afraid of that. Actually, I I'm kind of like Abraham Kyper. I think we should take it back,
1:18:12
you know, and there's nothing to be afraid of in terms of of of learning what man has discovered.
1:18:38
Okay. Einstein's problem with basically his dice. Yeah. He doesn't throw dice.
1:19:20
one of those things where it's too deep for us to know. It is it is a it is a an overlap of time and Yes. And therefore because we are spatial and
1:19:33
temporal we can't perceive it. You are such a geek. I know. I know. I was but I will tell you I was a bit
1:19:44
like that when I was 17. Um, I got into an argument my physics professor who told me that an electron moves from one energy level to another without the passing of time. I said that's not
1:19:55
possible. But you know what? The more I read scripture, the more I understand about God, I realize that both space and time are not meaningful to him. They are both created. And so therefore, as we learned
1:20:08
between energy and matter, we thought they were two separate and hermetically sealed fields sealed fields until Hiroshima, until Hiroshima, you know, with a that was a big light
1:20:19
bulb going off. All right, we realize that there's overlap. So it doesn't it should not bother anybody to realize that with an electron which is clearly matter. It has mass. It takes up space.
1:20:31
But it behaves like light which is energy in a in a overlap of time and space that we cannot perceive. I'm good with that because I know God. Okay. What
1:20:43
we're what we're everything we discover if it has any truth in it will redown to the glory of God. Not the other way around. Okay. So finally, archaeology. I
1:20:54
want to close with this because we're going to get into this next week. But the whole idea of the iniquity of the Amorites. Um, as I've mentioned in the notes and I've mentioned in class, Amorite is another distinction or
1:21:06
another designation of Canaanite. Genesis 15, and this is usually overlooked in the commentaries of Leviticus. Uh, in fact, I haven't found it anywhere. Um, but Genesis 15 where
1:21:20
God says to Abram, "You're not going to get the land yet." And in fact, you're not going to get the land for another 400 years. Talk about delay and closing. I mean, you just have to wait till
1:21:31
tomorrow. Um, but 400 years. Why? Because the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. And Abraham believed and he was fine with it and he went to his his fathers in peace. Um, 400 years later, now we
1:21:43
have the Amorites or the Canaanites. Their iniquity is complete. But with every prophecy every prophecy in scripture, you you I shouldn't say every, but with most prophecies, you will see a partial fulfillment
1:21:56
that in and of itself gives you the nature of the prophecy and the guarantee of its ultimate fulfillment. So, Genesis
1:22:16
to the iniquity of the Amorite. Archaeology helps us understand that that's who the Amorites were. They're not actually mentioned, as far as I can tell, in the table of the nations in Genesis 10. They are Canaanites.
1:22:26
But in Genesis 10, we also have some interesting terminology interesting terminology with regard to where the Canaanites settled. And the places that are noted in Genesis
1:22:38
10 for Canaanite settlement were Sodom, Gomorrah, Zaboim, and Admma. The cities of the valley, which in
1:22:50
Genesis 18 and 19 are destroyed.
1:23:05
This is the why why is that in the story? Why is that in the Abraham name? Is because of Lot? Well, yes, that that's part of it, but not all of it. This is the preliminary fulfillment of the prophecy that God gave Abram just a
1:23:17
few chapters earlier. These people had taken their iniquity to the point where the response of heaven was to wipe them out and not just vomit them, destroy them. But this is a
1:23:30
preliminary fulfillment of what we're now going to see in the conquest in Joshua. The rest of the Canaanites still had a few hundred years left to perfect their
1:23:43
iniquity. But it's the nature of the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah that is what is pertinent. I mean it's very important to see that this is a
1:23:54
fulfillment of that pro a partial fulfillment of that prophecy. But we know in fact we have a word now in our language that derives from Sodom
1:24:06
that what we're talking about here is is not the average iniquity of a wicked world. It is intense. And so when we go to Leviticus 18, what
1:24:18
we're reading is Sodom writ large. The the sin and wickedness of Sodom is now the whole land. And God is going to use the Israelites to wipe it clean.
1:24:30
That's why we follow those principles of cleanliness and clean and unclean. He's going to cleanse the land with blood, the blood of the Canaanites. This is also why it was such a horrible sin when
1:24:44
the Israelites held back and refused to do what they were told to do. when they held back um at at Jericho for example and kept some or later on when when uh
1:24:58
Saul holds back from killing uh the the king and the whole and he kept the animals God said no everything is devoted to the ban because this is
1:25:09
what's going on this is the interconnectivity of the scriptural story that the Canaanite and we we need to we need to talk a bit next week Lord willing about why the land of Canaan
1:25:24
one one guy said, "Well, it was available real estate." I'm like, I put a question mark in a book. Interest rates were low. I mean, no, no, no, no, no. They made it available.
1:25:36
God made it available real estate. It it was part of his purpose because of the the the depths of their iniquity. And so, this is also an abiding lesson. We
1:25:46
are in often times in the church's history. We dwell in regions of abject horrible iniquity. horrible iniquity. Not every not every believer, not your
1:25:58
your unbelieving neighbors, don't call them sodomites or please don't do that. Uh unless they are, I guess, don't say, you know, you you you wicked Canaanite or or uncircumcised
1:26:08
Philistine or whatever. Um you need to bring your speech up into the modern vernacular. Um, vernacular. Um, not that the point is there were many
1:26:20
unbelieving nations in the world out of which God created and formed Israel, but there was one in particular, Canaan. And that takes us back to Genesis 9
1:26:32
and the sin of Ham and the curse on Canaan. And and so this this Leviticus 18, Leviticus 20 takes us all the way back to Genesis 15 and then 18 and 19
1:26:43
and then further back to Genesis 9 where it all kind of begins with Canaan. But we'll Lord willing, we'll talk about that next week. So let's close in
1:26:54
prayer. Father, we do ask that you would open your word to us and open our minds to your word and also help us to to benefit in strong faith even from the
1:27:05
discoveries of the unrighteous. We know that the earth and the heavens are yours. We know that truth is forever settled in the heavens and cannot be in any way damaged by mankind. So, we have
1:27:17
nothing to fear. Help us clear our minds. Help us to learn, to grow, and to be strengthened in our faith with all that we learn for your glory and for our good. We ask in Jesus Christ's name.