 You're listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. To support this podcast, visit nakedbiblepodcast.com and click on the support link in the upper right-hand corner. If you're new to the podcast and Dr. Heizer's approach to the Bible, click on newstarthere at nakedbiblepodcast.com. Welcome to the Naked Bible Podcast, Episode 223, our 31st Q&A. I'm the layman, Trey Strickland, and he's the scholar, Dr. Michael Heizer. Hey Mike, how you doing? I'm sweating, Trey. You and me both. What must mean you're actually in my state of Texas? It does. As we're recording this, I am in the Dallas area, and man, is it hot? It is hot. It is that. And what makes it even hotter, Mike, is when your air-condition unit goes out, which is what I'm suffering. Are you serious? Yes, it makes it even hotter. It's not fun. I'm sitting here right now sweating as we're talking. Boy, oh boy. Just know however bad you have it. Just know that I have it just a little bit worse than you. Yeah, well, I'm in a hotel, so it's not bad now, but out and about, it's hot. Right, right. So you were doing some French pop recording. Yep. I take it. So how'd that go? Anything to report there on that end or anything? Well, we got our full crop of episodes. We got 10 or 12, depending on how we divide things up. So yeah, we had a good week. That's good. Well, I guess maybe since we're talking about other shows, Mike, we ought to remind people about our PuroNormal show. I think we've got a three-part good series about quantum physics and metaphysics. Part one's out now, and over the next two months, the other two parts will come out. So if you haven't checked out our PuroNormal show. Yeah, people are already talking about that. We did two interviews for Fringe Pop this week, and both, again, without giving away too many details, both people we interviewed were heavily involved in the new age and Satanism and just stuff like that. And, you know, they were very familiar with the, to put it unkindly, gobbledygook that sort of gets passed off as metaphysical commentary or theology based on quantum physics. So it's a really timely series. Also, Mike, I want to let people know that last week we opened up the voting for the next book of the Bible that we're going to cover on the podcast. And the voting ends July 12th at 12 p.m. And that's central time. So that's Thursday, July 12th at 12 p.m. Central Standard Time is when the voting will end. So you got at least another week or so to vote. So go do it. Yeah, make sure you vote. There you go. You can get it on Facebook. You can get it on NecrobiblePodcast.com website or DrMSH.com website to vote. And all right, Mike. Well, this episode we actually have about six questions from two people. So we're going to tackle a bunch of questions here. I'm ready if you are. Yeah, let's jump into it. Our first one is from Margo. I have read arguments that Caleb, a prince of Judah, was most likely a Gentile convert. And I've also read arguments that Caleb was most likely not a Gentile convert. This seems to be a lively topic in messianic circles with messianics favoring a Gentile origin for Caleb. Do you take a position on this question? Yeah, we should tell everybody. Trey, let me see the questions here and this fortunate that he did because this question is extremely complicated. We're probably going to take half the episode to address this question. So it was good to get a heads up. And what I decided here was rather than trying to wing it, since it is so complicated, you know, the interest of time and clarity, I'm going to quote at length on and off from the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary Articles on Caleb, which that one's by Mark Fritz and Raphael Panitz. And the article on Kenaz, which is by a different author, whose last name was Kunz, we're going to have to hit both of those. And I'll make some summary comments along the way to try to tighten things up here. But I don't really know why the messianic movement cares about this. After I go through the material, I'm going to venture a guess here, at least part of the messianic movement. But I really don't see any importance to it one way or the other. And I think in the end, you'll see it's it's a bit of a moot point because does it really make much of a difference is some if someone was born into Abraham's lineage or married into it or absorbed into the the family of Abraham, the family of God at some other point or in some other way. So I, you know, I don't know why it's important, but we'll just just jump in here. The first thing we have to sort of establish here is that there are actually three people in the Old Testament with that are named Caleb. So Fretz and Panitz write this to summarize kind of the getting into the topic here, at least the at least the beginning part here. They say any discussion of the name Caleb and its variant form must of necessity also entail an investigation of the Calebites or the descendants of Caleb. And that's going to become an issue as we'll see it's kind of important because depending on sort of which Caleb you're talking about, it's going to involve geography and sort of towns and things within a certain geographical area that that get absorbed into the tribe of Judah. So sidebar here before we we jump back into the three candidates or the three Caleb's here, the root, you know, someone might be out there wondering if this has anything to do with the question. I actually don't know, but I'm I'm just throwing this out here. But the root of Caleb is KLB, OK, you know, Kaaf, Lamid, Bet in Hebrew, which means dog. And that should not be presumed to be automatically a pejorative or a negative thing. The root occurs in basically every Semitic language and it can indicate either some sort of self abasement or debasement. That would be the negative connotation. Or it can denote faithful servant, like faithfulness as in just servitude. So you'll actually see if you if you ran a concordant search on Caleb of the Hebrew term in the through the Hebrew Bible, you'd get examples in the Bible of both a negative and a positive connotation. So with that sidebar over that, let's go to the three Caleb's here because there are three of these guys and they all this is where it gets kind of kind of convoluted. You have to sort of land on one for the sake of the question. So again, quoting from Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary article on Caleb, the frets and panits, right? The son of Jefuna and the representative of the tribe of Judah among the 12 spies sent out by Moses to reconnoiter the land of Canaan is sort of the first one. That's the one everybody thinks of in contrast to God prohibiting the people from entering the land because they rejected his recommendation. God singled out, quote, my servant Caleb, unquote, and promised to bring him into the land where he had gone and to give it to his descendants as a possession. It's numbers 14, also numbers 26, Deuteronomy 136, so on and so forth. This promise set Caleb apart from all his peers, even Joshua. And it raises the issues of geographical location and genealogical identification of Caleb and the Calebites and continuing the land that came to be owned by Caleb through apportionment. That's the doling out by a lot to the tribes, the land of the tribes, Joshua 14 and 15. So the land came to be owned by Caleb through apportionment, through force. Again, he has to go and fight for it or a combination of the two. But these two means was associated with Hebron and Devere in Southern Palestine. First Samuel 3014 identifies part of this area as, quote, the Negev of Caleb, unquote. If we identify the cities and boundaries of the tribe of Judah, it becomes obvious that the land owned by or associated with Caleb is located within Judah's borders. And the reference for that is Joshua 15, one through 12. Hebron is a key element in this association, in part because of its proximity to other Judahite cities, but in light of the centrality of the Davidic dynasty in the biblical tradition, it was as the first capital city of David that Hebron played an unquestionable and an important role. Note that Naval, Nabal or Nabal, the first husband of David's wife, Abigail, was a Calabite who lived in this region. That's first Samuel 25. Three that will stop the quote there just to say, here's at this point, you know, that's the guy we're all thinking of, OK, that the question is really targeting. But it's actually at this point where things get complicated with the other two Calabs. So going back to the article, we'll read some more. So, quote, in First Chronicles, several genealogies contain the name Calab, and these reflect inconsistencies of lineage and raise questions in light of the other biblical information about individuals named Calab. First, Calab, the son of Jafuna, is only explicitly mentioned in a genealogy of the sons of Kenaz or the Kenazites. That's First Chronicles 4, 13 through 15, which is set within a section concerning the descendants of Perez. The daughter of this Calab is named elsewhere as Aqsa. That's Joshua 15, 16 and 17, and judges one, 12 to 13. While an Aqsa is listed as the daughter of Calab, the son of Hezron. So you got one, you know, you get this daughter of Calab in those references, then you have a daughter of Calab listed as the daughter of Calab, the son of Hezron. So you've got you got the Jafuna guy, the Jafuna Calab. Now you got the Calab, the son of Hezron here. Aqsa is listed as the daughter of Calab, the son of Hezron and a grandson of Perez. Second, the Maseridic text never identifies the wife of Calab, the son of Jafuna. So, you know, right away, you think, well, are they the same? Are they different? What's going on here? Back to the quote. However, Calab, the son of Hezron has several wives and concubines and his descendants are not easily placed in his genealogy. It's 1 Chronicles 2, 18-24, 42-55. One identifiable descendant, Bezalel, 1 Chronicles 2, 20, a great grandson of Calab, the son of Hezron, was a contemporary of Moses, according to Exodus 31, 2 and 35, 30. And therefore that one, he can't be the great grandson or excuse me, can't be the great grandson of Calab, the son of Jafuna. So, right away, we're getting a confusion here with Calab, these two Calabs and the relatives. They can't be the same. So third, a Calab, the son of Hor, can be identified according to the Maseridic text of 1 Chronicles 250. But according to his genealogy, 1 Chronicles 2, 42-55, this Calab appears to be his own grandfather. Fourth, the names of some of Calab's descendants are place names. In other words, they're not people names. They're place names, Takoa, Zif, Mademana and Hebron, which complicates an attempt to understand the purpose of the genealogies. Now, Williamson in his New Century Bible commentary on 1 Chronicles 2 resolves these problems by assuming that the chronicler pulled together most of the genealogies but was not concerned with the details of genealogical consistency. Rudolph, who's a German scholar, on the other hand, attributes the inconsistencies to later additions, which disrupted the consistencies of the chronicler's composition. It is generally agreed that one section, 1 Chronicles 2, 42-50, derives from a tradition which predates the chronicler, probably from the United Monarchy or shortly thereafter. That's according to Williams' opinion in his New Century Bible commentary. Now, the Anchor Bible article continues and says, the key to resolving the tensions in these genealogies is the fact that Caleb is part of Judah's genealogy. Caleb, the son of Jephuna, is a kenozite who gained special status through his deeds in the wilderness wanderings and the conquest stories. On the other hand, Caleb, the son of Hesron, plays a role only in the genealogies of Judah and Bezalel, the tabernacle builder, seems to be the central character in his genealogy. The chronicler does not attempt to relate Caleb, the son of Jephuna, to Caleb, the son of Hesron, because neither of them is central to his purpose of establishing a royal and cultic origin in the tribe of Judah. And that's the opinion of Williamson on page 52 of his commentary. Caleb, the kenozite, is important, rather, because of things he did. Numbers 13 and 14, Joshua 14, and the associations he had, Joshua 15, Judges chapter one, outside the chronicler's framework. Let me read that sentence again without the verse references. Caleb, the kenozite, is important, rather, because of things he did and associations he had outside the chronicler's framework, although these were not unknown to the chronicler. Therefore, in addressing the questions raised above, Caleb, the kenozite, who appears in 1 Chronicles 4.15, within the lineage of Perez, is to be identified with the individual so well known from the tradition of Calebites in Southern Palestine. Numbers 13 through 14 and Joshua 14 through 15. To ask whether his daughter, Aksa, is the same as the daughter of Caleb, the son of Hesron in 1 Chronicles 2.49, misses the point of the genealogy, at least in chronicles. So, you know, we have to distinguish these two. And to continue, again, with a quote just a little bit more, this introduces the final issue of the function of genealogies. According to Wilson, and a little rabbit trail here, Wilson is one of the recognized experts in biblical genealogies. He's got a bunch of articles and a book on it. According to Wilson, genealogies can be used to delineate social and political ties. Now, catch that social and political ties, not necessarily blood ties, OK, social and political ties between two groups, and in particular, to incorporate marginally affiliated clans into a central group. So I'll stop here just to make the point again. Genealogies are not always about lineal biological descent. They can be about social and political relationships. OK, back to the quote. The genealogy of Caleb is related in this way to the tribe of Judah, that is socially and politically, and was assimilated into the Israelite tribal system thereby. Not only the individuals and groups of people, but the places associated with them become part of the tribe of Judah. Thus, the genealogy provided a means for legitimizing social relations and for defining the geographical domain of the individuals or groups concerned. And here's their conclusion. It would appear that Caleb, the son of Jephuna is the name of a kenozite whose personal exploits became the tradition of the clan which took his name as a patron to the clan is named after. This clan existed independently in southern Palestine, but through political, economic and religious ties, it eventually became part of the tribe of Judah, even within the larger Israelite tradition. The distinctive stories the Calebites were retained into the post-exilic period. Now, that's the end of the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary article on Caleb. And the thing to take away from this is that you could see why some would insist that Caleb is an Israelite because of this relationship to Judah. But what the article points out is that you can't rely on the genealogies to talk about biological relationships, blood relationships. Sometimes genealogies are about social and political circumstances. And again, the evidence points to Caleb, the son of Jephuna, which is the Caleb that everybody's thinking about with the conquest story, that that Caleb was he and his relatives, he and his tribe were incorporated into Judah, not because of blood relationships, they're not Judahites, but the incorporation of Caleb and that tribe into Judah is based really on geography and political relationships and social relationships that really are tied to geography. So that last paragraph, it would appear that Caleb, the son of Jephuna is the name of the kenozite again, who's from Southern Palestine. That last paragraph means we now need to think about kenozites. OK, what's up with them? And for that, I'll go to a different article in the Anchorage Bible Dictionary, the article on kenoz. That's K-E-N-A-Z for those of you who have that resource. And if you don't have the resource, I highly recommend it. It's very detailed. The kenozites are ostensibly related to kenoz, but there are three kenozes in the Old Testament. So here's how the article or the author of this article, his last name is Quince, summarizes the three kenozes. He says, quote, first, there is Knaz, the son of Eliphaz, the firstborn son of Esau and Adah. That's Genesis 3611, first Chronicles 136, who functioned as an Edomite clan chief, again, according to Genesis 3615 and 42. Though Knaz of Genesis 3611 is ordinarily understood to be the eponymous ancestor of the kenozites, in other words, their remote progenitor. According to Genesis 1519, Quince writes, this connection is not buttressed by hard evidence. Second, there is Knaz, the younger brother of Caleb and the father of Othniel. That's Joshua 1517, judges 113, 39 and 11. In First Chronicles 413, Knaz is credited with a second son, Soraya. Third, there is Knaz, the grandson of Caleb, through Elah. That's First Chronicles 415. The plural gentilic adjective, that's sort of a people, gentilic refers to a people group term. The plural gentilic adjective, kenozites, surfaces but one time in the Old Testament, Genesis 1519, within a promise that Yahweh makes to Abraham in a theophany, listed in second position just after the Kenites. This is one of ten peoples whose land Yahweh intends to deliver to Abraham's descendants. In the singular form, this gentilic adjective is three times attested, Numbers 30 to 12, Joshua 14, 6 and verse 14. In the phrase, quote, Caleb, the son of Jephuna, the kenozite. This predication probably should be associated with the kenozites of Genesis 1519. The kenozites were a non-Israelite ethnic group that presumably penetrated the Negev from the southeast. What little is known about them emerges mainly from consideration of their wider geopolitical context. Though scholars lack the necessary data for reconstructing the early history of these tribes in any detail, it is nonetheless clear that owing to the prominence of David and the increasingly sturdy position of the tribe of Judah from whence he came, these southern tribes were eventually subsumed under the category of, quote, greater Judah. From the narrative in Numbers 13 and 14, we may infer that the Calabites settled into the city of Hebron. And these non-Israelite people settled into the city of Hebron and subjected its quite promising agricultural environments to their advantage. In Joshua 1513-19 and Judges 11-15, which is its parallel, the spotlight falls on the Othnielites. We are told that Othniel, the son of Kenoz, the younger brother of Calab, took possession of the city of Devere, southwest of Hebron. Though the text is too laconic to be of much help to biblical historians, it does attest that the Othnielites, residing in the hill country directly southwest of Hebron, clustered around Devere. To the southeast of Hebron, the Kenites held sway in the vicinity of Arad, according to Judges 11-16. The precise extent of the territories claimed by the Calabites, the Othnielites, and the Kenites is unknowable. Last section here, several biblical genealogies denote that the Kenozites, Calabites, and the Othnielites were closely related tribal groups and that from their tent encampments along the foothills of southern Palestine, all three maintained intimate associations with their eastern Edomite neighbors. Calab and Othniel are both recognized for their genealogical linkage with Kenoz. In due course, the Kenozites and other neighboring southern tribal groups became thoroughly absorbed by Judah. That's the end of the Kunz article, at least what we'll quote from it. So you take all of that and where you land is the best position seems to be that Calab is not an Israelite, but that he and his family or his tribal group were absorbed into Israel, becoming part of Judah. Now, again, as I said at the beginning, I really don't have any idea why this is an interest to messianic Christians. It's no shock that outsiders became part of Israel in the Old Testament period. Rahab did. Job was from Uz, which is Edomite territory. Othniel is one of the judges. He would have also been an outsider. God uses outsiders and makes them part of his people. If anything, Calab and these other examples show non-Israelites becoming part of Israel, that's not news. I hope that this isn't some sort of quirky argument used by Hebrew roots folks. Again, that's a subset of the messianic category. So I hope it's not some argument used by Hebrew roots people to say Gentiles need to become Jews. And the New Testament says the exact opposite. Gentiles are the seed of Abraham. That's a quote from Galatians three and heirs according to the promise also point blank from Galatians three, not because of circumcision and not because of other laws, but because of Christ. Abraham is the example of faith apart from the law prior to his circumcision and prior to the giving of the law at Sinai. So I don't know how much clearer the Bible can be on this sort of stuff, but if you want to make the Bible say what your group prefers, I suppose you're going to find a way. Unfortunately, this has become sort of routine for this little community in Middle Earth, you know, to prefer your pet position on something ahead of the gospel of the kingdom. But again, I'm just guessing on what might be the motive here and that Hebrew roots is lurking behind this question, not on the part of the questioner, but this real interest in this or this, I don't know if I can even call it a fight since I haven't, you know, I don't lurk on Facebook or anywhere else to find out what Hebrew roots groups are saying. So I'm just guessing here. But if it is some sort of argument that Gentiles have to become Jews, it's a bad one. It's one that, again, just point blank ignores the language of the New Testament, and it ignores the fact that Abraham is the, you know, he is the litmus test. I mean, he is the point of reference for Paul as the example of faith. It has nothing to do with his circumcision. It has nothing to do with the law. Law didn't even exist and Abraham was justified before he was circumcised. I mean, God knew his heart and he believed before he was circumcised again. I just don't know how much clearer this can be. But there are some that just kind of don't really care. So maybe Hebrew roots is behind this, looking for another non sequitur argument. I don't know. It's just a guess. All right, Sean has our next few questions and he wants to know in certain Bible passages, the angel of the Lord sometimes doesn't seem to mean what we say it means in terms of second Yahweh figure. Is the term sometimes used more generally? Also, does Matthew 28 verse two run counter to Jesus being the angel entirely? Yeah, in the Old Testament, let me just preface it by saying this, you know, you can't assume in the New Testament, particularly that when it says the angel of the Lord in an English translation that we're talking about the Old Testament figure, it gets a little bit confusing because of translation. I'll try to explain that. In the Old Testament, the phrase Malak Yahweh is definite. When you see that combination, it's called a construct phrase in Hebrew, Malak, I don't know, Malak Yahweh. It is the angel of the Lord by rule of Hebrew grammar. When you have a noun, Malak, messenger, angel linked to a following noun that is definite and Yahweh is definite. There's only one of those proper names, proper personal names are definite by definition in Hebrew grammar. When you have one noun joined to a definite noun, it makes the whole chain definite. So it's the angel of Yahweh. So that's Hebrew grammar. There's no way in Hebrew to just say an angel of the Lord, just an angel of the Lord, in terms of the construct phrase, you'd have to have literally something like Malak Ladonai. That's Malak, it's preposition Lamed plus the divine name, which never occurs in the Hebrew Bible. In fact, you only get Ladonai and Malak in the same verse four times, but they're never in a possessive construction. So you really don't have in the Hebrew Bible a way to say an angel of the Lord. When you have this construct phrase, it's always definite, the angel of the Lord. That is not the case in Greek, and it's not the case in the New Testament. In the New Testament, you can express an angel of the Lord, just an indefinite one, because Greek allows you to do that. It doesn't have the same rules, syntactical, grammatical, syntactical rules as Hebrews. And Matthew 28, too, is actually an example. There's no definite article, the word the, before angel, on the loss in that verse. And the genitive relationship in Greek does not require definiteness. So a good translation is an angel of the Lord. There's no there's no necessary link back to that figure in the Old Testament. It's just generic. It's just it's indefinite. Now I'm going to read a little a little section from a footnote from my forthcoming angels book where I talk about this. So I saw a commercial here for the angels book. This is just part of a footnote. I wrote the phrase angel of the Lord occurs 11 times in the New Testament. Only once does it occur with the definite article suggesting a translation, the angel of the Lord. That's Matthew 124. It is the angel of the Lord. Again, how on the loss courier definite article before on the loss. It is the angel of the Lord who tells Joseph to marry his betrothed Mary because her conception, which would be Jesus, is from the Holy Spirit. There's no conflict between this occurrence and the idea that Jesus and the angel of the Lord from the Old Testament are the same second person of the Trinity Trinity. The definite article in Matthew 124 is it's there. The definite article is there. It's used to refer back to the angel who appeared to Joseph, a specific angel in a dream, four verses earlier in Matthew 120, where the phrase lacks the article. So in Matthew 120, you have angel of the Lord without the article. And then four verses later, as the story continues, the writer Matthew puts the definite article in front of Angelo, you know, on the loss courier to make sure that you know that that this angel I'm talking about now is the one that I talked about four verses earlier. That is a function of the definite article in Greek. The article preceding Angelo's is in grammatical parlance. Grammarians call an aphoric. That is, quote, it denotes previous reference reminding the reader of who or what was mentioned previously, which is the most common use of the article and the easiest usage to identify. That's a quote from Dan Wallace's book, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics and Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament. So the presence of the article in Matthew 124 is therefore not to be taken as the language that imitates the Old Testament wording. So that's the end of my footnote. So no, there's there's not a conflict here, but it's easy to, you know, kind of get a little bit confused because of the way English handles the phrases. You've mentioned before that the Trinity view of Genesis 3 was wrong because, among other reasons, why would God tell Jesus and the Holy Spirit something he already knew? But doesn't Jesus say that there are things only the Father knows? Right. First, first of all, my comments didn't pertain to Genesis 3. So I think that that's got to be a typo. My comment was in reference to the plural exhortation in Genesis 126. Let us create humankind in our image saying that's that's that's not a conversation between the Trinity and in part because God doesn't need to announce something to the other members of the Trinity. They're co eternal and co omniscient and they already know. Now the answer to the question doesn't Jesus say that there are things only the Father knows is, yeah, yeah, Jesus doesn't know something that the Father does, like when the Lord's going to come back. But that was spoken when Jesus was incarnate. In the incarnation, the Son surrendered the independent use of his attributes. It doesn't mean he surrendered the attributes, by the way, just the use of them. He surrenders the exercise of them. And that was voluntary. It's limited by the incarnation and or the Father's will. We just think about it. Jesus could also get hungry. He could get tired. He could die. He could get sick. You know, he had to learn things. You know, Jesus grew in wisdom and stature in favor with God. Men lived to 52. That doesn't mean, you know, Jesus having these limitations doesn't mean, you know, he isn't God, but there's something there's something different going on. He is limited by being incarnate, by having a body, by being a man. The other two members of the Trinity aren't men. They are not embodied. They're not humans. The second person becomes human. And that changes the circumstances. It doesn't change his divine ontology, but it changes, again, his whole relationship to his attributes in terms of functioning as God in an unfiltered circumstance. And so by comment about Genesis 126 is a different context. It's pre incarnation. The son, the second person in the Trinity was not limited. So it's perfectly fine to say, hey, you know, back in Genesis 126, all the members of the Trinity would have known the same thing. They're co-eternal column mission. There's no limitation on any of them. It's a different circumstance when Jesus, you know, because of the incarnation, when Jesus is incarnate. And so that's when you get this language of limitation, you know, where Jesus doesn't know something that the father knows. So the circumstances are different. Sean's next question is, if Jesus conquered death and his kingdom is at hand, Mark nine, for instance, then why are principalities still called the rulers of this age? First Corinthians to he does say they are doomed to pass away. So is this more of the already, but not yet phrasing? Yeah, let me take the first part of that. You know, why are they called rulers of this age? Really, it's because that language is based on or derives from the Deuteronomy 32 worldview. They're described as, you know, it's true that the rulers, you know, you have other terms here as well. In the New Testament are described as defeated, but but such titles, you know, these these sorts of labels are the way to identify who he's talking about in the context of the Old Testament, specifically the Deuteronomy 32 worldview. The fact that they are defeated, you know, moving to the the rest of the question here, the fact that they are defeated and are progressively losing people and losing control is part of the already, but not yet matrix of ideas. So I think Sean is tracking well on this. As the Great Commission is carried out, you know, they're they're going to be displaced. They have lost legitimacy of rule. Again, remember that these rulers, to use, again, New Testament language, had their position by virtue of Yahweh himself giving it to them at Babel with the disinheritance of the nations and assign the nations to the sons of God. But the work of the cross, you know, the plan, God's plan, the plan of the Most High withdrew that authority or nullified that authority or terminated that authority. Their rule is now illegitimate. It's over. So, you know, because when the whole incarnation, the cross event, the son of the Most High comes again, and part of his mission, the effect of his mission is to reclaim the nations. And so their their legitimacy is over and done with. Gentiles are authorized to put it this way, to return to the family of God. God wants them to return. They are included now in the covenant with Abraham, again, back to Galatians 3. You know, if you are Christ, you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. Again, he's speaking to the Galatians. He's speaking to a predominantly Gentile audience there. They're included in the covenant with Abraham, but all of that doesn't mean that the supernatural powers hostile to God are not going to fight back or oppose God's will. I mean, goodness, they've been opposing God's will all along. So why would the cross event be any different? You know, the whole point of the language is that their authority over the Gentiles, over the nations is illegitimate now. It has been removed by the by the Most High who gave it to them. He has withdrawn it and terminated it. But that doesn't mean they're just going to roll over and say, Oh, I guess we better be good now. I guess we better not be hostile to God. I guess we better not oppose God anymore. You know, that's what they've been doing the whole time. So you would expect them to resist. And that's what they do. And that's why, you know, Paul says, you know, our battle's not against, you know, flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness and high places and all that language. Is it merely coincidental that first Corinthians six begins with Paul mentioning judging angels and later in the verse discusses sexual immorality, which was the sin of the very angels we will judge. You know, I actually tend to think that it is coincidental here. And I'll try to explain why. The reason is because the context in the context, it's not the only statement like you don't have the judging angels and then only talk of the sexual immorality. You actually don't even have the sexual immorality emphasized in the context that the the problem when Paul brings up his comment that, you know, you're going to judge angels is taking each other, you know, to court is the lawsuit problem. And then he moves on to sexual immorality and some other things. You know, the you've got theft, drunkenness, reviling, swindling in first Corinthians six, 10. So there's a lot going on there. It's not just the judging and then the sexual immorality stuff. Now, if you had only the statement of first Corinthians six, three, you will judge angels and then, you know, coupled with the sexual stuff, then if that was the pairing, that was the two sides of the coin, so to speak, then I think a connection back to the transgression of the watchers might be in view. But since we don't have that sort of exclusivity, I tend to think it is coincidental. Sean's last question is maybe counter to the last question. And Genesis six, God doesn't seem to wipe out the Nephilim for merely being born. But for the corrupting of humanity, subsequently, would God have been angry had they not corrupted man? Is there a distinction to be made here, or am I inferring something that isn't there? Would does Jude one six through seven indicate that the two are not this distinguishable? Yeah, well, we have a problem here with conflating two related but different things. Jude one six and seven talks about angels who, you know, left their first estate. I think that's King James language. The angels that sinned is the parallel, you know, second Peter to ESV has angels who did not stay within their position of authority but left their proper dwelling. They're the ones who end up in chains again, second Peter to the angels that sinned end up in chains in the abyss. So you have angels who sinned can the Nephilim are not angels. They're not the angels. You get two different things here. It's the watchers. Again, that's the Second Temple Jewish term. The watchers, that's the Second Temple Jewish, the Enochian term for the angels that sinned for the sons of God of Genesis six. The Nephilim aren't those guys. The Nephilim are the byproduct. So, you know, the Nephilim are only in view in the biblical story in terms of their being a lethal threat later on, you know, their descendants being a lethal threat to the people of Israel during the conquest. And then they're also important because of the origin of demons, you know, when you when you killed a Nephilim, then the disembodied spirit, that's what becomes known as a demon. And you get hints of that in like Ezekiel 32, Isaiah 14, when you have the Refaim, you know, the disembodied Refaim in Sheol in the underworld in the realm of the dead. So they're little vestiges of in the Old Testament. And it gets more developed in the Second Temple period. The whole idea of where where demons come from, they're the disembodied spirits of the giant clans, specifically the Nephilim, but the Nephilim are the ones who are the progenitors of the other ones. So we need to keep separate the angels that send or the sons of God, you know, who transgress or the watchers. Those are all three terms that refer to these heavenly beings, okay, in Genesis six, the Nephilim are not those guys. So, you know, I really don't know what else to add. I think that answers the question because the elements of the question sort of presume that the Nephilim are the angels, which is not the case. Alright, Mike, that's all the questions we have for this episode. Again, I want to remind everybody to go vote on the next book of the Bible that we're going to cover here on the podcast voting ends Thursday, July 12th at 12pm central time. So get your vote in. Alright, Mike, well, we want to thank you again for answering our questions. And I want to thank everybody else for listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. God bless. Thanks for listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. To support this podcast, visit www.nakedbibleblog.com. To learn more about Dr. Heizer's other websites and blogs, go to www.brmsh.com.