Understanding the Bible: Complexity and Literary Craftsmanship

The Bible is a complex literary masterpiece that invites deep intellectual engagement and conversation.

### The Bible as a Literary Masterpiece: Understanding the Complexities of Textual Stitching
* 📜 The Bible is likened to a quilt or mosaic, emphasizing the importance of how its **individual pieces were crafted and stitched together**.
* 🔍 This perspective shifts the focus from debating which parts apply to whom to appreciating the Bible as a **literary work with deeper meanings**.
* 🧵 Examples like Psalm 108, which combines parts of Psalms 57 and 60, demonstrate **intentional copy-pasting and repurposing of texts**.
* 👥 The "prayers of David, son of Jesse" conclusion in Psalm 72:20 signals a shift from historical David to an **archetypal Messianic figure** in subsequent "Davidic" Psalms.
* 📖 Luke's Gospel also incorporates Psalms 105-108, suggesting a deliberate connection to the **ongoing story of Israel's exile** and the need for a **new David-like figure**.
* 🧠 This approach challenges traditional views of total depravity by showing that the Bible is designed to **engage and challenge readers' intellectual capabilities**.
* 💬 The Bible is intended to spark conversations and provoke intellectual grappling, rather than providing **clear-cut answers or doctrines**.
* 🌐 This perspective highlights the **intelligence and complexity** of the Bible's authors, who believed in the **dignity and intellectual capacity** of their readers.

I'm Tim Ritter. I'm Nate Hansen. We're almost heretical, and this is how the Bible works. Okay, Nate, we're back. Why don't you try to rehash some of your big takeaways from the first introduction conversation and how the Bible Works Series. So, it's this quilt or a mosaic. That's what the Bible is. It's not so much that these are the actual books that are also important. They were included, but it's about how they were crafted and put together. And so, if you picture it like the quilt, let's say it's more so about how the pieces that are in the quilt were cut and then stitched together. That's where the meaning and the message and the purpose of this thing is, not so much in the quilt square, but more so in how that quilt square was cut to be in this quilt and then how it was stitched into this quilt. And so, that's what the Bible is, and it kind of gets it out of this debate of like how

much of the Old Testament. How much of the New Testament applies to us, and how much was just for Israel, and how much, like all that kind of stuff, and it changes it into this literary masterpiece that you can appreciate for completely other reasons, right? Yeah, so I think a lot of actually how this conversation will be experienced for people is it's just going to be a constant complicating of the waters, which I know the feeling of sometimes when an idea that was simple becomes more and more complicated. You know, when you have people saying, I know you thought it was that easy, but look, it's way more complicated than this, especially when we get into languages and translations. It gets tiring after a while. It does, yeah, and so unsettling, right? Because this is like a foundational thing for you. It's kind of what we talked about in the introduction episode for the series. Like, it's not a we don't take this lightly. This is a really big deal, and that's why we're doing it, because a book like the

Bible is so important to so many people throughout history, so that's why we would choose a book like this. But it also means that it is kind of shaking that foundation a bit. Yeah, I think there are a lot of theologians and pastors and everyday Christians out there who have studied the Bible, learned lots about it, seen lots of its complexities, learned the languages Hebrew, Greek, and have essentially made a conscious decision that because most people won't be able to actually handle the complexity of those ideas, most people won't be able to deal in the original languages, that we should kind of keep that stuff out and keep the simple view for everyday folk. The problem, I understand the sentiment, the problem is that simplification is inevitably a distortion. And so what we end up keeping for people is whatever we personally think is the version of the Bible they should keep. So ironically to me, there's a sense of like, you know, presenting the Bible in modern vernacular and doing good accessible

translation that is giving the Bible to the people. In a sense, in another sense, it's actually giving the people your version of the Bible. And as we've talked about in many episodes, uh, it's been white American male theologians who have done that for the last couple hundred years predominantly. And so, there's just going to be things, for instance, when we look at, and we've poked at some of these before, problems in Translation, right? Uh, today we're going to look at some of uh, the stitching that we're talking about, some of the literary design happening in the Bible. The problem is most of us will pick up our Bible and we won't see any of that stuff, you know? Like, if you don't know Greek, how do you know if a translation is good or bad? And honestly, like, I'm not fluent in either Hebrew or Greek. I can handle both of them, but there are lots of times where I have to do a lot of homework before I see these things, right? And a lot of times, I'll just read through

something, and I don't notice them. But I would rather say, Okay, this thing's massively complex, and it will take me the rest of my life and beyond to get a grasp on it, than to say, Hey, let's turn this thing into a version of the Bible that I can get a grasp on, and then hope that that has something to do with what the Bible actually is and how the Bible actually works. So, all that to say, this will feel like we're making things more complicated. It might feel like it's actually harder for you to go get alone with your Bible and read it well, but I think that's just an inevitable part of truth and of the journey that we all have to go on. There was a moment for me a couple of years back, and I've heard other people echo this same sentiment, where they realized what the Bible most likely was that they've read their entire life and loved their entire life. And this realization didn't make it so they didn't love it anymore; it made it so

they loved it more, but it made it feel almost nearly inaccessible to them. And it was just this stepping back and saying, If I'm going to approach this thing, which I knew in my head I do want to do, then I couldn't do that in the same way I had been. It was going to take a lot more work, a lot more study, a lot more leaning on people who understand and have spent their whole lives studying what this thing is in order to engage with it again. So, I'm all there with you, okay? So, the stitching, let's talk about the stitching. Yeah, so one thing I think would be helpful is to look at not only examples. You know, we talked about stitching as a metaphor that we're using for this larger idea of, I think, redaction. It's not a word we use often, but I do think it's the best word. Some person or people took a bunch of texts and arranged them, cut them, pasted them, edited them, added to them, and preserved them in an

arrangement right an artistic literary arrangement that whole project. I believe happened very obviously that the Old Testament is wanting us to see happened after the Exile, after the return from Exile, and during this state of prolonged Exile under Persian, Greek, and Roman oppression. So, I think what'll be helpful is seeing examples of that stitching. But also, what's kind of cool is I've seen that there are books within the Bible and passages within those books that actually function kind of as microcosms of the whole. So, we referenced the Psalms and the Pentateuch in our last episode and talked about how these are actually functioning as narratives. Even though the Psalms is made up of Psalms, it's telling a narrative story. Even though a good chunk of the Pentateuch is made up of laws, it's telling a story. It's not prescribing those laws. So, let's talk about Psalm 108. And Nate, you've got some color-coordinated notes in front of you, yeah.

uh, there's something really interesting about Psalm 108, which is that it's actually a copy-paste of half of Psalm 57 and half of Psalm 60, right? Okay, yeah, because the first, let's see, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 verses of Psalm 108 are copied over from Psalm 57, and then the second half of Psalm 60 is also the second half of Psalm 108, yeah. So, uh, just visualize this. Nate's got a visual in front of him. For those of you who are listening, you can take Psalm 108, and you can—what I have is the first half of the psalm, the first five verses, are color-coded as blue. The second half of the psalm, verse 6 through 13, are color-coded as red. And you can look at Psalm 57, and it's word-for-word. The last five verses of Psalm 57 have been cut to the beginning of Psalm 108, and then the last handful of verses from Psalm 60 have been cut onto those verses from Psalm

57 as the end of Psalm 108. So, Psalm 108 is literally one Psalm made up of two halves of two other Psalms, and there're the two second halves. The beginnings of each of those psalms have been cut out. Okay, so isn't this just um making a a new song out of two other songs that they had? And I don't know, we see that, isn't it? Is this just like ancient sampling when you like sample someone else's song at the beginning of your song or the the chorus of your song, you know, maybe it's just that. Well, what's interesting is like if you read a lot of commentaries and scholarship, uh, people say, Oh, the Psalms are really similar, as if the idea is that someone sat down and wrote Psalm 108 and it just happened to be really, really close to these other Psalms. Uh, it's almost like there's a fear in a lot of the Christian world, uh, to acknowledge something like copy-pasting, uh, happening. Uh, but here's

what I think is actually really interesting. Scholars have argued and wondered about something for a long time, and that is, you read through the book of Psalms, and you know lots of them will say it's a Psalm of David in the superscript at the heading. Yeah, I just always pictured him like sitting in a field somewhere with a bunch of sheep, like penning these poems, right, with pen and paper he never had. And oh shoot, yeah, that's right. We can get to that later. Okay, okay. But Psalm 72, verse 20. So this is the last verse, not only of the psalm, but it's the last verse of book two of the Psalms. So a lot of your Bibles will have a heading just following it that says book three. So these have been arranged in the books, meaning they're not just arbitrarily put here, like sing this one, and then you can sing that one next week, and you can sing the week after that. They've been somehow arranged into a

literary book shaping, but there's this really interesting line that says, This concludes the prayers of David, son of Jesse. The reason that's befuddled people for a long time is, for instance, this Psalm 108 that we're looking at is called Psalm of David. So, how is it that, as you're reading chronologically through the book of Psalms, that one of them is claiming that the David Psalms are over, and yet you have more David Psalms after this? Oh, you're asking me? No, I'm just pointing out, leaving space for you to comment. You don't have to if you don't want to. Oh, let's just leave a couple moments of silence here. No, I mean, I don't know. That is strange. It seems like we should, like I've said in other episodes, like if there's something weird going on that we see, don't skip over it, focus on it, because it's probably where I don't know what it means, but I just mean like

there's probably meaning there, right? Hi friends, Nate here. Real quick, if you have any questions for this series or any other episodes that we've done, you can ask those at almostral.com. And then we're so thankful that a number of you helped support our show, and if you want to do that as well, you can go to almostral.com and click on the give button in the top right-hand [Music] corner. Yeah, so some people say like, Oh, see, this is an error. Like, whoever compiled this was an idiot. He didn't even realize there were like more David SS after this one. Some will basically make sort of apologetic defenses. They're like, No, this isn't an error, whatever. I think that's all missing the point. I think what's happening, and we are seeing evidence of this in Psalm 108, is that the Psalms in the beginning of the Book of Psalms, in the first two books, which are presented as Psalms that David wrote from historical events in David's

life right. So, you have one that's attributed to his rape of Bathsheba and him confessing and repenting after that. You have some conversations with wars that he was in with Saul and then wars that he was in as the king. So, interestingly, I think what's happening is that marker that the prayers of David, son of Jesse, are ended, is a way of saying the prayers going forward are not referring to the historical life of David, who was historically the son of Jesse. Rather, any David Psalms that we read from this point forward are not referring to David, the son of Jesse, but David, the archetypal Messianic hero. In other words, you can have a David Psalm after Psalm 72 in the book that is no longer functioning as a David Psalm. It's been repurposed, and it's functioning as a part of a kind of Messianic narrative structure that points beyond David, beyond the history of David, towards some future David-like figure.

figure so that's actually happening, this kind of historical movement through Israel's history and beyond, the Biblical history of Israel within the book of Psalms. So, what's interesting is both Psalm 57 and Psalm 60 are basically taking place in the context of some sort of hostile battle that David was facing, right? So, I think what's happening is when they're placed as Psalm 57 and as Psalm 60, we're told to read these in light of the historical life and plight of David and the monarchy of Israel. But here, look at what happens when you cut out the first half of each of those psalms, and then you take the second half of each and you compile them into a new poem. It's basically all of the historical markers have been removed. So, in the first half of Psalm 57, you have some references to David being in the midst of these lions, and people are attacking him with arrows. He's in some kind of disaster. And in Psalm 60, you have this reference to

him feeling like he's he and the people have been rejected, and there's some sort of war going on. So, those pieces have been cut away, discarded. But then, you basically have these much more generic, broad prayers that come in the end that sound like, Save us, who will help us? They're these broad theological, poetic pieces. So, I think what we're seeing is whoever did this, whoever compiled The Book of Psalms, removed the historical markers from these two pieces, but then preserved the hope that was presented in these Psalms that God would save David from trouble, and pasted them into a Psalm that is now functioning as a prayer, not of the historical David who's long gone, but of Israel living in a continued time of trouble under Greece, under Alexander the Great, or potentially under Rome, and saying that those prayers David prayed for help back then, those are now needed again. We're going to pray the same things in this chapter of the story. Does that make sense? Yeah, so they're being repurposed essentially with the parts.

that don't make sense for the current story to say we also need help. We are leaning on that same steadfast love of God for our own time and place and our own situation, which we all understand, and we don't need to maybe even include in here, right, and not trying to hide this at all. It's actually, I think, showing it off. I think the point is the author, editor, whatever you want to call them, actually thinks that we readers will get more meaning from Psalm 108 if we realize the way it's been created from Psalm 57 and Psalm 60 and what has been cut out. I think that's actually why that line that the Psalms of David, Son of Jesse, are ended is in there, is to tell us how to read the rest of the David Psalms, to not read them in light of historical David, but in something else. And so interestingly, basically what you see is that this has been, like I said, an example or in microcosm of a copy.

pasting repurposing that has actually cut away pieces of the psalm and made something new out of them. But I think what's even more interesting when we see the complexity of this all is if you actually read through the first couple chapters of the Book of Luke or the Gospel of Luke, and you see throughout what's called the infancy narrative. So, you have Mary getting this vision from an angel, and then Jesus is brought to the temple, and you have Zechariah and these others singing these songs and all that. Luke has this long drawn-out story of the news that Jesus is going to be born. Some scholars have pointed out that Psalm 105 through Psalm 108, which kind of functions as this group of Psalms together, this kind of four-chapter vignette, is referenced repeatedly throughout the first few chapters of Luke. There are all sorts of illusions, shared words, echoes, where it seems that what Luke is doing is giving us all these clues that somehow the news

that Jesus is coming is supposed to be read through Psalms 105 through 108. Well, interestingly, if Psalms 105 through 108 are about the historical David, that wouldn't add very much to the meaning of Jesus's birth. But if Psalm 105 through 108 are actually about Israel's experience of a long ongoing continued exile and their need for a new David-like figure, not the historic David but a new archetypal David, then Luke has all sorts of reason to basically ask us readers to read his gospel in light of these Psalms. In other words, Luke is seeing all of this. He's not only seeing this complexity and the repurposing that's happened in Psalm 108. He's seeing the way that Psalms 105, 106, 107, and 108 all are literarily woven together, and then he is himself picking up this practice by weaving in little clues of shared lines and what are called echoes sometimes or illusions and all the poems.

and uh and songs in the first few chapters of Luke in order to stitch the story of Jesus onto this part of the story in the Book of Psalms. Yeah, yeah, I see that. So he's, in a sense, kind of doing what whoever did this in the Psalms and kind of chopped out a little bit, chopped out this bit, copy and pasted them in. He's kind of taking an example from them and doing that same thing and stitching the continued story that he's going to tell into, Hey, like, look at this. See what that meant. See what they were hoping for there. Here's the realization of that hope. Let me tell you a story. Yeah, what I love about this is that it, and you said this last episode too, but it makes them, the writers, the crafters of the Bible, much smarter, much more intelligent, geniuses really, which I don't think we often give them credit for in a view that I would have said was a high view of the Bible.

that I used to have. I think I was actually diminishing the intelligence and the brilliance of these people because they were just primitive, and they didn't understand how to use text, and they didn't understand how to make these connections. But yeah, it's actually a higher view. Well, and here's something that's been really impactful for me in a way that I didn't expect. It's not just that the people who wrote and compiled these texts were a whole lot smarter and capable of more than we gave them credit for. It's that those authors think more highly of their audience and of us reading this book MH than we give ourselves credit for. And think about even just this tiny little example I pointed out. So, you see Psalm 108, you're supposed to connect it to these other two Psalms, see how the copy-pasting has changed the meaning and passed that meaning forward. Then, as you read through Luke, you're supposed to have seen all these little Echo Illusions, and in each one to be able to

draw in the literary meaning from the text and the book where those were drawn, and then we'll see this in future episodes. You realize that all of those connections make this incredibly complex and complicated picture where what it does is it doesn't give the reader a clear answer or a clear list of doctrines. It actually basically provokes a bunch of questions, and when we see all these layers underneath things, it's supposed to spark a conversation amongst us to say, Oh, which part of that story is this drawing in? Or, If I read this song of Mary in light of Hannah's song or in light of Miriam's song, how is that supposed to change the way I think about Jesus and the gospel? We're supposed to be doing that work, and the authors actually think that that intellectual grappling is the point of their text. So here's where this is taken me. The Bible itself and how the Bible works is actually the greatest theological pushback to the version of total depravity and original sin that

you and I grew up with, which is basically that you can't trust your brain. You are so fallen that you basically cannot rely on your own intellectual capabilities. You have to go to the Bible. The way the Bible works is it's written in order to spark our intellectual capabilities, and it's written in a way that expects that we can do a really good job thinking well about these texts, meaning the authors of the Bible wrote this book with an understanding of human dignity and human intellectual capacity that is far greater than what many have espoused based on this book about human dignity. I know that I, when I was leading the church and planting churches, would often teach people to be cautious, I guess, of thinking too hard about it all, about getting too intellectual. Just wanted like a simple reading of the Bible in whatever version we were holding at that time, you know, and I think we were really doing a disservice and injustice to what the Bible actually was. And the Bible would

have been screaming. The biblical authors that wrote all these things would have been screaming like, You're missing the whole point of this thing. Yeah, and I have that line. I think Rachel H. Evans says, The Bible is meant to start conversations, and we often use it to end conversations. Um, and that's just really ringing in my head right now. So, this is another small glimpse into how the Bible works. Find out more about us and the series at almosttal.com. Peace. See you. [Music]

#42 – Copy, Paste & Psalm 108

Almost Heretical

Understanding the Bible's Structure and Complexity

The Bible is compared to a quilt or mosaic, with its meaning and message derived from how its pieces were crafted and stitched together.

The conversation aims to complicate the understanding of the Bible, acknowledging its complexities and the challenge of simplifying its message for everyday people.

The presenters emphasize the importance of recognizing the literary design and translation issues in the Bible, highlighting the need for a deeper understanding beyond modern vernacular interpretations.

The Complexity of Understanding the Bible

The Bible's complexity is acknowledged, with the speaker emphasizing the need for a deeper, more challenging approach to engage with it.

The process of redaction, or stitching together texts, is highlighted as a key factor in the Bible's arrangement, particularly after the Exile.

Examples, such as Psalm 108's copy-pasting from Psalms 57 and 60, illustrate the microcosmic storytelling and artistic arrangement within the biblical texts.

The Structure and Significance of Psalm 108

Psalm 108 is composed of the second halves of two other Psalms, raising questions about its creation.

The arrangement of the Psalms into books suggests a deliberate literary structure.

The statement in Psalm 72:20, claiming to conclude the prayers of David, creates confusion as there are more David Psalms that follow.

The prayers of David, son of Jesse, are marked as ending, signaling a shift in the interpretation of subsequent Psalms.

Psalm 57 and Psalm 60, set in the context of David's battles, have their historical markers removed and are repurposed into a new poem.

This new Psalm functions as a prayer for Israel in a time of trouble, drawing on the hope presented in David's original prayers for help.

The Complexity of Luke's Infancy Narrative

The Gospel of Luke's infancy narrative features Mary's vision, Jesus' presentation at the temple, and songs from Zechariah and others, with a strong emphasis on Psalms 105-108.

These Psalms, referencing Israel's ongoing exile and the need for a new David-like figure, provide a backdrop for understanding Jesus' birth.

Luke's use of shared lines and echoes weaves the story of Jesus into the narrative of the Psalms, highlighting the intelligence and intentionality of the biblical authors in making these connections.

The Complex Nature of the Bible's Teachings

The Bible's intricate connections and layers provoke questions rather than providing clear answers or doctrines.

Its authors intended to spark intellectual engagement and conversation about the text's meaning.

The Bible challenges the notion of total depravity by emphasizing human dignity and intellectual capacity, urging readers to think deeply about its teachings.