 You're listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. To support this podcast, click at 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 New Start Here at NakedBiblePodcast.com. Welcome to the Naked Bible Podcast, episode 241, Psalm 24 and 29, in the ancient context. I'm the layman, Tray Strickland, and he's the scholar, Dr. Michael Heizer. Hey, Mike, how you doing this week? Well, it's been a difficult week. Some listeners may know my dad is not in good health. I mean, I mentioned that in the newsletter from time to time. So he's had a rough week, so pray for him and my mom especially, you know, if this is, you know, my dad's time to go and it is serious, then I'm more concerned for her. You know, he's a believer and he's ready, but it would be rough for her obviously to be married, I don't know, 50-some years. So, you know, it's been a rough week. And we'll just, you know, we'll see. We'll see. That's all you can do is wait. Absolutely. We all are in our prayers. And also, for those that are in Denver, we may or may not be able to have that on Friday night. So stay tuned. If I end up having to bail, you know, and go home, that'll be the reason. So just be on the lookout for that and keep Mike's family in your prayers. Mike, we have a topic this week. I'm pretty excited about, I'm sure you are getting back into the Old Testament. So you mentioned that you wanted to do something for yourself. So I assume this subject is close to something you're interested in. Yeah, it is. You know, I get questions about, you know, the value of interpreting things in their ancient context. I got one this week. Actually, it was on an interview where one of the questioners sort of criticized me for inserting ancient stuff into the Bible, like Ugaritic stuff. And of course, they didn't understand that the point was, no, I can't really talk about parallels between the Hebrew Bible and ancient Near Eastern material unless there's actually stuff in the Bible already that is analogous. So I don't think they quite got the point. And that, you know, set my wheels turning that maybe it'd be nice to go back to have another one of these topical specific episodes where I like and at least illustrate why this is legit and the value of it. So here we are with Psalm 24 and Psalm 29. All right, looking forward to it. All right, well, let's just jump in here. We got, you know, a good bit of ground to cover. I'm going to read Psalm 24. We'll just take them in the numerical order. And I'm going to read the Psalm and then we'll just drill down into a few particulars. So Psalm 24 begins, and again, this is ESV, a Psalm of David. false and does not swear deceitfully, he will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation, such as the generation of those who seek him who seek the face of the God of Jacob, Selah, lift up your heads, O gates, and be lifted up, O ancient doors, and the King of glory or that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory, the Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle, lift up your heads, O gates and lift them up, O ancient doors that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory, the Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory, Selah. Now, again, just to drill down into a few things, there's a lot of things that we could talk about, but I want to just again pinpoint a few of the details that again, get us into ancient cognate material, and we'll take a few rabbit trails along the way, a few sidebars, but Psalm 24 has, you know, a number of commentators have pointed out over the years, you know, in their work on the Psalms, and I'm going to be referencing, you know, a serious commentary like word biblical commentary, I'm going to quote a few things from that particular volume, but scholars have pointed out that there's basically three types of Psalter material in this Psalm that often characterize entire Psalms elsewhere. For instance, verses one and two is a hymn. It praises Yahweh for his establishment of the world and his dominion over it. Verses three through six is an ascent Psalm or at least that portion of it. Who shall ascend? Verse three says the hill of the Lord. This is sort of a subset of Psalms, ascent Psalms. Many scholars look for, again, this kind of language as indicating the ascent of a pilgrim up to the temple, again, up Mount Zion, or a Psalm after the exile describing a return to Zion. You know, again, it's sort of a geographical reference that we either, we're either in the land and we go up to the temple or we're outside the land and in our journey to the land when we hit Jerusalem, we ascend up, you know, to Zion. The language here might sound anachronistic, but it may not be. And what I'm getting at there is if you're looking at it as sort of a return to Zion Psalm, well, then it doesn't make sense to have it a Psalm of David, because this is well after David. And even the whole idea of ascending, you know, up to the temple, verse three, who shall ascend the hill of the Lord and who shall stand in his holy place. It feels like a clear reference to the temple. And when you get to verses seven through 10, the doors and the gates, again, the temple idea, well, there was no temple in David's time. This is a Psalm of David, you know, again, ostensibly. And after the exile, there was no temple either. So what we have to deal with that. So the language appears anachronistic, you know, the Psalm itself could be kind of an editorial composite, you know, later editor wanting to associate the kingship language in the Psalm with the House of David. And that's legit, because the English translation, a Psalm of David is Le David, Ms. Moore, that could just as well mean a Psalm or a song for David, on behalf of David, with respect to David. I mean, it doesn't have to mean of David. There are other ways to take that phrase. If the right context in view is worship, it may be a reference to ascending to wherever God's house was. In David's day, that would have been the tabernacle. The tabernacle is referred to as the Lord's house in Joshua 624. For instance, I'll just read that they turned the city or they burned the city with fire and everything in it only the silver and the gold and the vessels of bronze and of iron they put into the treasury of the house of the Lord. Now that's a reference to something happening in the conquest. There is no temple. There's no temple complex. They're not even in the land, so the only reference to the house of the Lord there has to be the tabernacle complex. In 1 Samuel 1.9, you get the same kind of thing. After they had eaten and drunk and shiloh, Hannah arose. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat beside the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. Well, there is no temple. This is Samuel's day. So the reference has to be to the tabernacle. And if we look at it that way, all of that would align with Davidic authorship, the Psalm that David actually composed. For other reasons, again, namely stuff we're going to talk about a little bit later, the context of tabernacle prior to the exile is probably preferable anyway. Versus 7 through 10, again, the first part was a hymn. The second part is one of these ascent kind of situations. And the third part is, again, a subset of Psalms and other poetic portions in the Hebrew Bible. That is the procession of the ark. It's some kind of liturgy, a ceremonial or liturgical sort of situation. Craigie, for instance, in his commentary on in the word biblical commentary series, volume one, there are three volumes of Psalms. Craigie was one of the writers. He might have been the only writer of volume one. The second edition is what I'm going to be quoting from, but he writes this, he says, these verses are associated with a procession of the ark. Again, it is liturgical in form, having a question response format. The ark bears declaration comes in verse seven, second, the question posed by the gatekeepers of the temple. Again, lift up your heads of gates, be lifted up, o ancient doors that the king of glory may come in. Who is this king of glory? The gatekeepers would ask. Third, the response of the bears of the ark. Well, it's the Lord of hosts. He's the king of glory. Fourth, Craigie notes the further question of the gatekeepers continues. Again, they ask actually a series of questions. And you get this question answer back and forth response sort of thing. It's common in liturgical texts as the point. Craigie notes the original kind of setting presupposed by such a procession is provided in 2 Samuel 6-12 through 19. I'll just read a little bit of that. And it was told King David, the Lord has blessed the household of Obed Edom and all that belongs to him because of the Ark of God. So David went and brought up the Ark of God from the house of Obed Edom to the city of David with rejoicing. Again, it just goes and describes a little bit of that procession. So you have a couple of these scenes in the Hebrew Bible about transporting the Ark, moving the Ark around. So in this Psalm, you get kind of all that packed into 10 verses. Some of these Psalms subsets and these specific themes that can really sort of be evident or frame entire Psalms elsewhere in the Psalter. Now a little sidebar here on the Psalm titles and superscriptions. I think it's probably worth mentioning something here. I'm going to reference here the dictionary of the Old Testament wisdom and poetic books, that particular volume in the IVP series. The material on the superscriptions, the Psalm titles is written by D. A. Bruggeman. And he notes this, evangelical scholarship generally attributes significant authority to the titles. Derek Kidner, and he wrote a few commentaries in the Tyndale series. Kidner even appears to treat them as inspired and canonical, noting that the New Testament even builds arguments on authorship notes. Again, he has a few New Testament references like Mark 12, 35 through 37, Acts 13, 35 through 37, those sorts of things. Well, again, these are a bit problematic, despite again the sort of positive orientation in general of evangelical scholarship, because of some of the things we've already hinted at. Let me just, again, draw from some of what Bruggeman says in this dictionary entry about the problems. Number one, some doubt that composing Psalms is what one might expect of David when he was hiding in caves and fighting the Philistines. So you have a reference in Psalm 57.1, which again is supposed to be a psalm of David and, you know, at that time in David's life, he's like in battle, you know, he's doing military stuff. There are other Psalms like that. And so some people say like, would he really like have time to do this? Well, the answer is, well, sure, he could have, because you have lots of examples from like World War I, World War II, where people write poems, they write, you know, even portions of books while they're in prison or while they're in the trenches, you know, that, I mean, this, this happens. So the circumstances don't specifically rule out David being able to do this. Second, Bruggeman comments, some see historical tension with Old Testament and broader ancient Near Eastern history when, you know, with respect to the titles. Psalm 56 says that David composed it, quote, when the Philistines seized him in Gath, unquote. However, the historical record of the Bible itself says that David took himself, or David, you know, took himself to the king of Gath to escape sorrow. In other words, he went there. So nobody brought him. He in effect brought himself, you know, 1 Samuel 21-10, 1 Samuel 27-1 through 3. So it seems like that doesn't really work. However, again, Bruggeman notes, we should note that David began to fear the king of Gath. He feigned insanity and escaped to the cave of Adulam, 1 Samuel 21-12 through 23-1. So what, what he means by mentioning that is that, well, you know, maybe he was held there against his will. You know, when he, when he was at Gath, sure, he went there by himself, but maybe there was some problem there that we aren't specifically told about because David very obviously came up with a ruse to get out of dodge. So maybe, maybe it does fit. Several Davidic Psalms, of course, mentioned the temple. Again, ours is one of them, Psalm 24, before it was actually built. However, the Tabernacle again could be called the Lord's house. So as we saw, so that's not, again, an insurmountable problem. Third, some say that the third person referenced in the Psalm titles, a Psalm of David. Okay, it's like somebody's talking about David, seems incongruent with a first person reference in the Psalm itself. So if David was writing it, would he really include the line a Psalm of David? Well, you know, maybe, maybe not. It just seems like somebody else is writing it to David or for David. Again, that led David, Ms. Moore, could be translated that way. So, you know, how much should we read into these titles? And Bergamund notes that for that reason, and others, this, this doesn't necessarily undermine Davidic authorship of these titles, since, you know, we could take it in other ways. And sometimes writers do refer to themselves in the third person on occasion. So, you know, what do we make of that? Again, it probably that, you know, if you want to assign a lot of importance to the Psalm titles, there's probably a way to get there, you know, and have them make sense. But on the other hand, you know, there are indications that they might be secondary. They might have been added by somebody else at a different time period or something. So this is why this is sort of a tug-and-war. It's a minor discussion. It's not really a big deal in Old Testament study. But again, just so that you know why there are two sides to the titles, to the superscriptions. So let's get back to Psalm 24. Again, it begins, you know, with this, you know, declaration of Yahweh's creation and supremacy, and then it goes into this ascent language. Now essentially, the Psalm is about an ascent to worship Yahweh, the Creator and Lord of all creation, in His house, whether that's the Tabernacle or Temple. Wherein is the ark? That's the place or the symbol of Yahweh's presence. The Psalm presents Yahweh as king. The basis for His kingship is His creative power and subjugation of the chaos waters. We see the conditions necessary for worshiping the king and what follows, you know, clean hands, pure heart, which refers to disposition, not perfect behavior, which of course is impossible. Someone whose heart inclines away from evil is the point, and toward Yahweh, not towards some other God. Again, clean hands, pure heart. If you hear a preacher basically preaching that this means God requires sinless perfection in your behavior, well, you know, feel free to ignore that person because God's not going to require an impossibility. What he's talking about is disposition. The ark procession that follows reminds us of the divine warrior who led Israel into the land by conquest, you know, when it go back to the Tabernacle, the conquest settings, they're traveling with the ark and of course with the angel and whatnot. So that's what it reminds me, it reminds us of this divine warrior thing leading Israel into the land. And, you know, therefore, it speaks of Israel as Yahweh's portion and the Deuteronomy 32 worldview among all humanity. Israel was created by Yahweh himself after Babel and, you know, he has chosen a land and that's where they're going. This act, again, this procession would further remind Israelites that Yahweh is Lord of all nations. Again, he's traveling, you know, through these spaces, he's defeating their enemies and why? Because, well, he actually owns all the nations anyway. He disinherited them and he chose, he created them and chose Israel for his own. So, again, these sorts of things would have been reminders, you know, this kind of language and song would have been reminders to the people listening to it. Now, it's fairly easy to see all that in a more than surface reading, but there are other nuggets that can only be discerned if we were literate Israelites familiar with Canaanite literature or even non- or semi-literate Israelites nevertheless familiar with the stories of Baal and El's counsel from wider Canaanite religion. That's where we want to drill down here. So, let's go back to verses one and two and some of you out there in the audience, again, because of your familiarity with unseen realm, you know, my book there and other episodes we've done probably have already picked these things out, at least these two. Listen to the verses. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein. For he has founded it upon the seas. The Hebrew term there is yameem. The lemma is yam. Okay, store that away. Yam means sea. In Hebrew, the plural is yameem. He has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. The word is neharot. The lemma is nahar. So, remember, yam and nahar. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell in it. Why? Because he has founded that world. He created it. He founded the world upon yam and upon nahar. So, he has mastered, he has brought order by creating an inhabitable world and he has put it on the back, so to speak. He has nestled it on top of, put it on the back of yam and nahar. I'm going to read you a little section from Kregi's commentary here, just so that you know that what I'm going to say and what follows isn't just Mike making stuff up. I mean, this is scholarship 101 for people who do Old Testament and Semitic. Okay, so Kregi, from his commentary again in second edition, first Psalms volume in the word Biblical series, he writes, the hymn begins with an affirmation of the Lord's dominion over the created world and its inhabitants. That dominion is based upon the fact that God himself fixed and established the world. At first sight, it appears as if the language of verse two reflects primitive cosmology. The world like a floating saucer is anchored upon the seas, yet the language is more profound and contains within it a transformation of Canaanite, Ugaritic cosmology, or cosmogeny, excuse me. Yam, literally sea, who is also called nahar, literally river, represented a threat to order in Canaanite mythology. The conquest of Yam by Baal represented the subjugation of chaotic forces and the establishment of Baal's kingship. The Hebrew poet using the terms Yam and Nahar in a demythologized and depersonified sense depicts forcefully the Lord's creation of an ordered world upon seas and rivers symbolizing the subdued forces of chaos. The symbolism of the language is significant. Just as in the underlying Ugaritic myth, the conquest of Yam culminated in kingship. So too the Lord's creative work as described here is linked with his kingship in verses seven through ten, who is this king of glory. Now, this is a good example of a polemic response to Baal theology. This is me now. We just ended Craigie's quote. This is a good example of this kind of thing that we talk about on the podcast a lot in the ancient Near Eastern polemic. In this case of Baal theology, it's not Baal who brought order out of chaos. It isn't Baal who keeps the waters of chaos at Baal. Baal is not Lord. Yahweh is. Baal was called king of the gods at Ugarit, and he's the co-ruler with El, but Yahweh is king, not Baal. Now, another little sidebar here again. There is a propensity, even among evangelical Old Testament scholars, to think only in terms of Mesopotamia and not Canaanite literature when it comes to creation language in these sorts of Psalms, these sorts of instances. Now, I'm bringing this up because occasionally I'll get a note about maybe something John Walton says or somebody else. It sounds a little different than what I'm saying. And one of the reasons is that Walton, for some reason, is he sort of fixed on Mesopotamian material. That's kind of his default, what he looks for. I'm not sure why, but maybe he just likes that more. But I'm going to read you something from Trimper Longman in his book Psalms and Introduction and Commentary, also Intervarsity Press. He's quoting Walton, referring to Walton here in this Psalm, Psalm 24. This is just to illustrate. Contrary to ancient Mesopotamian creation accounts, and he quotes Walton. He gives a reference there. Contrary to ancient Mesopotamian creation accounts, though, there is not a hint of conflict between the Lord and the sea in the description of creation. And then he adds, but see Psalm 74, so good for Trimper there. So what? We don't need to have Mesopotamian material like the Tiamat battle from Enuma Eilish, whether that is the point of Genesis 1, 1 through 3 or not. We don't really need it. That could actually be Ugaritic as well, because of Tahom and then the etymology of that. It doesn't matter. We do indeed have conflict, chaos, comf, okay, is the German term, in these passages. But it doesn't come from Mesopotamia. It comes from Canaanite literature, comes from Ugaritic literature. And in this commentary, there's no word about Canaanite material. Now, I point this out again, because sometimes evangelicals don't see ancient Near Eastern connections clearly, or they don't draw attention to them, because they're fixated on Mesopotamia. Well, our eyes sometimes need to move away from Mesopotamia. Again, this is the kind of thing that creates a bit of a disconnect between the way Walton talks about the Divine Council and divine beings and the way I do. He's always looking for parallels in Mesopotamia, and if he doesn't find them, he says, oh, we can't say this or that about the Divine Council. And my objection is, why should we care if we have Mesopotamian parallels? The better parallels are Ugaritic, and they're clear, and there's a bunch of them. So again, I just want to point this out, because I don't really know why. John is certainly aware of this material, but he has this propensity to filter the Old Testament material through Mesopotamia. And I think in some cases that makes a lot of sense to do. In other cases, it really doesn't make any sense to do, and you're going to miss some things, and your attention is going to be deflected away from certain things that are important. So again, I just thought I'd point that out, because I do get some questions on that. So back to the psalm again. Let's go to verses 7 through 10, and we talked in verses 1 and 2 about you have two clear references to Baal's conflict with Yom and Nahar. And in the Ugaritic Canaanite religion, Baal has this battle with Yom, again, who is also called Nahar. It was sea and rivers. He has this battle, and he defeats Yom, and the result of that is Baal becomes king in the Canaanite, the Ugaritic story. First two verses are a clear allusion to this, and again, Baal isn't the king. Baal isn't the one who subdues chaos. Baal doesn't do any of this stuff. It's Yahweh, and it sets up what follows. So you have this king deity. You've got this creator deity. How should we approach him? Well, verses 3 through 6, with clean hands and a pure heart. That's what he wants. He's not talking about perfected performance. He wants a disposition that seeks him as God and seeks righteousness, even though we're humans, we're going to fail, but this is the orientation, the disposition of our hearts. And once his blessing, once that relationship, then does not follow some other God. And then he hit verses 7 through 10. Craigie, again, just another little note from his work. Kingship of God is the central theme in the last section of the Psalm, verses 7 through 10. The basic concept involved was, in no sense unique to Hebrew theology, for many ancient Near Eastern nations attributed the role of kingship to their deities. The kingship of Baal, following his conquest of Yom, was central to Ugaritic mythology. Again, we see how the Hebrew writer, the Israelite writer, the biblical writer, is shooting at Baal in the first two verses. Well, he's going to shoot at Baal again in verses 7 through 10, because he's already answered his own questions here in 7 through 10. Who's the king of glory? He's already answered that in verses 1 and 2. So, Baal's going to get his nose rubbed in it again in verses 7 through 10. Now, the key phrases here that would have made literate Israelites, or someone really familiar with Ugaritic religion, they're key phrases that would have made their ears perk up, and they are, lift up your heads, O gates, be lifted up, O ancient doors. You say, what in the world is that? Well, just hang on. Baal's victory, again, over Yom and Nahar has a context of its own. His victories ensure his status as king of the gods. That's what he wins when he defeats Yom, Yom slash Nahar, okay? Now, that section of the Baal cycle in which that battle occurs, and again, it's set up by a particular scene in El's council, that section of the Baal cycle is about kingship. The whole section of the Baal cycle there is about establishing Baal as king of the gods. So, let's read some of that, some of the Baal cycle and see if it sounds a little familiar. And I'm going to read from Nicholas Wyatt's translation from his book, Religious Texts from Ugarit. This is the second edition. And as far as the Baal cycle reference, this is going to be KTU 2.1, line 17 through 28, also known as CTA 2, again, 2-1, this line 17 through 28. So, here's, let's just read again, some read through this, this section of the Baal cycle. The message of Yom, your master. So, let me just stop there the first line. The scene is, Yom has sent messengers, Malakim, okay, to El's council. And specifically, he's going to be, obliquely, these messengers are going to be obliquely talking to Baal, because Baal has emerged as a rival. So, when he says message of Yom, actually it's more than one messenger, they say, message of Yom, your master. Okay, Yom is king of the gods now. And again, Baal has emerged as a competitor. So, it just sets the tone, right off the bat, message of Yom, your master, of your Lord, ruler, Nahar, give up the God whom you obey. So, he's speaking to the divine council, and Baal is among, you know, the group, okay? And so, he's really talking to Baal, but he's speaking to the whole group. So, he says to the, the gods are going to be in the scene a little bit in a few lines. He's speaking to the group and says, give up the God whom you obey. Now, Wyatt has a footnote here. As king among the gods, Yom's legal right to their obedience is beyond question. It is not clear why Baal is the God whom the others obey, unless they are plotting rebellion, perpetuating an older loyalty or already anticipating a future development. Again, it suggests that there's some sort of coup being planned and Yom is aware of it. So, he sends his messages and says, hey, surrender to me, the God that you guys are obeying. It's a challenge. And then he adds, surrender the one whom you obey. And then the word tempest. It's interesting. Wyatt, at this point, said, he points out what the euguritic word is. It's H-M-L-T. And the Hebrew parallel is Hamulah, storm, or you could understand this word as referring to multitudes. Wyatt writes, the form H-M-L-T appearing in KTU 1.1315 in parallels is still appropriately translated in multitudes, even though the etymology may be the same. It refers to a vast crowd. So, that's probably the better way to take this. Like, you know, surrender to me, the God whom you obey. The one whom you obey, you multitude. In other words, you counsel, you multitude of supernatural beings here. Cough him up. Surrender him to me. This is a big confrontation. And then the bail cycle keeps going. Give up bail. And his retinue. The Son of D'Gon, whose gold I shall seize. The divine assistants depart. They do not delay. Then they set their faces towards the divine mountain, towards the convocation of the council. So, again, this is sort of a flashback. And then the scene again transitions again to where this challenge is going to be or is issued. Now, the gods were sitting down to eat. The sons of the holy ones to die and bail stood by El, though the gods saw them. They saw the messengers of Yom, the embassy of ruler Nahar. And the gods lowered their heads onto their knees, onto the thrones of their prince ships, and bail rebuked them. Why, oh gods, have you lowered your heads onto your knees and onto the thrones of your prince ships? I see gods that the tablets of Yom's messengers, and they came with an official message, of the embassy of ruler Nahar are humiliating you. Lift up, oh gods, your heads from on your knees, from the thrones of your prince ships. And I shall answer the messengers of Yom, the embassy of ruler Nahar. So, bail accepts the challenge. And he tells the gods of the council, who are like cowering, we're in trouble now because Yom knows what's going on, lift up your heads from your knees. As the cycle continues, again, the section continues, Yom messengers demand bail again, be turned over to him. And El says, okay, which really ticks bail off. And he responds by attacking the messengers. And then you have a section that's missing about 120 lines. And when the text returns to what we actually have, bail is actually fighting Yom himself, and he kills him. And he becomes king of the gods. So, if you think about it, when bail shows up, the gods lower their heads onto their knees, they cringe at bail's rebuke, they're afraid. They basically put their heads between their knees. They put their heads onto the thrones of their prince ships. They're putting their heads between their knees. I mean, they're getting as tight and low as they possibly can. They're apparently afraid that they are undone. Yom is angry. They have been under bail's lordship, not Yoms. And now they're in trouble. Now, all that, of course, assumes Yom is the greater deity. They think bail is going to get his clock cleaned, and they're going to be in trouble. Bail tells them to knock it off or buck up. He commands that they lift up their heads and stop being fearful. He is large and in charge again, like we would say, some of us would say anyway. So what's the point? Well, the language of the bail cycle where bail becomes king of the gods is repurposed by the psalmist in Psalm 24 verses 7 through 10 to declare the kingship of Yahweh. It has some subtle changes and applications. So let's read verses 7 through 10 again and be thinking about that scene in the bail cycle. Lift up your heads, O gates, and be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the king of glory may come in. Who is this king of glory? It's Yahweh, strong and mighty, Yahweh mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O gates, and lift them up, O ancient doors, that the king of glory may come in. Who is this king of glory? Yahweh of hosts, the Lord of hosts. He is the king of glory. Now, a couple light of interest, you know, rhetorically, who's the king of glory? Well, it ain't bail. It's not bail. It's Yahweh. Again, if you know the bail story and you read this psalm or you hear it, your ear is going to catch similarities and phrases. The difference, of course, is this lift up your heads, O gates, O everlasting doors instead of lift up your heads, O gods. Why the change from gods to gates or doors? What does it signify? Well, it signifies a couple things. Again, just for the sake of time, I'm going to limit the discussion here. It signifies there is no need to single out the members of Yahweh's council because they fear no other god. The context is different here. Okay, you don't have gods in Yahweh's council plotting to, you know, to side with some other deity. Alright, so that is not in the picture. They don't fear any of their own membership. They fear the Lord. They fear Yahweh. Okay, they fear no other god as being more powerful than Yahweh. So the threat element is not there. And second, recall that the context of verses 7 or 10, biblically, is the procession of the Ark of the Covenant, the throne or footstool, depending on what passage you're in, of Yahweh. And again, that also throne or footstool depends on whether we're talking about Tabernacle or Temple. The gates and doors speak of the Tabernacle or Temple entrances. In biblical descriptions, there's no other deity in this localized, earthly, sacred space. You bring the Ark in. There's no other deities in there. The Ark is the throne or the footstool of one deity. That's Yahweh. Other gods, even other council members are not in view there. There's no need to bring them into the scene because Yahweh is the only one who sits and throne on Zion. And so there's a theological and logical reason why the language has changed a bit, but it clearly draws on the Baal cycle. Verses 1 and 2 clearly drew on the Baal cycle. Again, the combat element there, the challenge that's issued by Yom, also known as Nahar, to Baal. Where Baal becomes king of the gods when he defeats Yom, and in verses 1 and 2, it's Yahweh who is over Yom. Yahweh is the one who is Lord of Yom and Nahar. It's not Baal. Then you get to verses 7 to 10 where it's talking about kingship. And you have this lift up your heads language. Again, that part is word for word from the Baal cycle. So again, literate Israelites would have picked up on this. And this is the way they are able to be taught or learn or even picture in their minds correct theology. That's the point. That's why the writers do this. They are picking a fight. They are blackening the eye. They are rubbing the nose of Baal in something. It's in this material. This is a side swipe, a theological side swipe. But it's easy for us to just read right over that stuff and think, well, that's kind of goofy talk. Or, oh, that reminds me of Handel's Messiah. Well, good. But, you know, there's still something else going on here. Let's, again, quickly go to Psalm 29. Again, we're just illustrating these points. And by the way, I didn't insert anything into Psalm 24. The language is already there. And it is parallel to language somewhere else in some other literature. I'm not saying, oh, there's holes in this Psalm. Boy, it would be nice if there was a few lines from the Baal cycle in here. Let's put those in. Okay, we're not doing that. And again, most of my audience is obviously going to know that. But again, just for the sake of making the comment, there it is. Let's read Psalm 29. Ascribe to the Lord. Again, it's the divine name. And this is also as a Psalm of David. Ascribe to the Lord. Ascribe to Yahweh, oh, heavenly beings, b'nay, aleem. Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory, do His name. Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness. The voice of the Lord is over the waters. The God of glory thunders. The Lord over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. The Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf. And Syrian like a young wild ox. The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness. The Lord shakes the wilderness of Qadesh. The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth. And strips the forest bare. And in his temple all cry, glory. The Lord sits enthroned over the flood. The Lord sits enthroned as king forever. May the Lord give strength to his people. May the Lord bless his people with peace at Psalm 29. Now by way of setup, I'm going to use Craigie again because he has some nice opening comments here and gets us into some things we at least ought to mention. Psalm 29 is a hymn. The whole thing is a hymn. It contains three basic parts. One, the call to praise versus one and two, which is addressed to the sons of God. Two, the praise of the Lord's voice versus three to nine. Voice of the Lord mentioned many times there. Three, a concluding section describing the praise of the Lord in the temple versus 10 and 11. Again, very easy to plot that out. What has drawn attention of course is Canaanite Ugaritic elements and Craigie comments. The Canaanite Ugaritic aspects of the Psalm formed the basis of a hypothesis presented by Ginsburg in 1935 in which he proposed that Psalm 29 may originally, that's a key word, may originally have been a Phoenician hymn. Now, you know, Ginsburg's theory, I just want to say something about it because this is the kind of thing that, you know, it's going to make internet theology headlines. You know, Psalm 29 really from the Phoenician. Yeah, nice. Thanks for the clickbait. Ginsburg's Phoenician orientation is due to the proximity of Phoenicia to the topographical references in verses five and six, Lebanon, Sirion, okay. That's right. Adjacent to Phoenician territory. You know, and he used that to argue that Psalm 29 was originally a Phoenician hymn modified by the Psalmists for inclusion in the Psalter. Now, Craigie and others, and Craigie certainly not alone here, disputes that. It's really an overreach of the data. And I think Craigie's summary of the issue is fair, I'll read it to you, just a sentence or two. Craigie says, it is clear that there are sufficient parallels and similarities to require a Canaanite background to be taken into account in developing the interpretation of the Psalm, but it is not clear that those parallels and similarities require one deposit, a Canaanite Phoenician original of Psalm 29. That's unquote. And to me, that's entirely fair. I mean, just because there's similarities doesn't mean that there's a point of origin here. Why not argue that for Psalm 24? I mean, you know, Ginsburg didn't argue that for Psalm 24 and other Psalms. I mean, it overreaches the data, it overstates the case, but you may see it somewhere. So on to a few observations. Again, in verses one and two, as Craigie pointed out, you have a call to worship. And the sons of God are the ones that are being spoken to, the B'nai-e-Lim, they are called to worship Yahweh. In effect, let's think about this. In effect, in verses one and two, the congregation of Israelites who would be singing this Psalm and worship, okay, are calling upon the members of the Divine Council to join them in the praise of Yahweh. Okay, it's kind of cool. As I point out in Unseen Realm, this is one of those verses that again shows very clearly the subservient status and the subservient or the lesser ontology of the members of the Divine Council compared to Yahweh. Yahweh isn't Elohim, but no other Elohim is Yahweh. What makes Yahweh unique and the faith of the Israelite writers, the biblical writers, in the uniqueness of Yahweh, the one God among other gods, has nothing to do with the term Elohim. What distinguishes him is the way that one Elohim is talked about and described elsewhere, that no other Elohim are. And this is one of those instances you'll never have. And I would challenge anyone to come up with some data that would suggest that a biblical writer would think that Yahweh ought to be worshiping some other deity. No, it's never the other way around. It's always ascribed to the Lord, Oh, Heavenly Beings, you B'nai-Aleem, you sons of God in the Council, you know, bow the knee. It's never the other way around. So again, this is one example of having really a data less position to argue that Yahweh was interchangeable with other gods in the Council. That's actually what polytheism says. You know, and even henotheism assumes that biblical writers did not think that way. There's no data to suggest that they did. Now, Craigie, again, is going to, you know, sort of build off this and riff off this. And he's going to spend a lot of time talking about the voice of Yahweh in verses three to nine. But he says this, the background to this song is to be found in language associated with Baal and his holy voice. Okay, Baal, the Canaanite weather God was associated with the storm, thunder, and lightning. Doesn't that sound like verse three, the God of glory, thunders? Doesn't that sound, you know, a little bit later? Let me read it to you again. The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire. And that's elsewhere. That's going to be regular, you know, regular language, regular description for lightning. Okay. So back to Craigie. Baal, the Canaanite weather God was associated with storm, thunder, and lightning. He is portrayed in Ugaritic iconography with lightning as a weapon in his hand. In the Ugaritic text, his voice is explicitly identified with thunder. He has a Canaanite reference there, you know, CTA 4.7, 29 to 31. But the psalmist who rejects the possibility of any real power of Baal over weather or the outcome of battle, adapts the language of storm and integrates it with his description of God's glory, of Yahweh's glory. It's the end of the Craigie quote. So the praise in the Psalm begins with an affirmation that the Lord's voice is upon the waters. Again, it's in the superior posture position, okay? He's over the waters. At a primary level of interpretation, the words might be taken to imply the psalmist is describing a thunderstorm at sea, perhaps a storm approaching the land from that sea. Does that sound familiar? Again, if you've read, I think it's in Bible Unfiltered, my little essay for Bible Study Magazine about the ancient Israelite context of Jesus walking on the waters, calming the storm, you get the idea. Okay. Again, at a primary level of interpretation, you might be a storm approaching, okay? But the undertones, this is, again, just trying to flesh this out a little bit. The undertones of the language go deeper and again reflect an adaptation of Canaanite or Ugaritic religious thought. In the Ugaritic text, yam, sea, is the God of the mighty waters. Again, Craigie is just sort of summarizing Craigie here. He gives another reference to the Ugaritic tablets there. Yet the chaotic God, yam, was conquered by Baal. An allusion to this mythological incident is already contained in the song of the sea, where the Lord is described as using sea, yam, as a tool of conquest. In Psalm 29.3, the Lord is described not merely as a deity whose thunderous voice is heard, but as one victorious over the chaotic forces symbolized by the many waters. The poetry amplifies the theme of the Lord as warrior. Again, that's also, you know, material from Craigie that, again, I'm just trying to summarize some of his thoughts because they're important. They just sort of set the stage for something that I want to jump into now. We read a little bit of the Baal Cycle with Psalm 24. Let's read a little bit of the Baal Cycle for this one. Okay, now think about the voice of Baal. And again, this flashing lightning and all this kind of, even the cedar forest and the waters and the thunders and all that stuff. Okay, this part of the Baal Cycle is concerned with the fact that Baal doesn't have a temple of his own. And so there's this sort of, again, roughly speaking, there's sort of a campaign to get Baal his own temple. Baal wants his own house, you know, and he's not happy until he gets one. So, you know, some of the members of the council go to bat for him. You know, they have to get approval from El to do this, but they're on Baal's side. He needs a temple, he needs a house. So with that in mind, let me just read you a little bit again of the Baal Cycle. Let a house be built for Baal like the gods and a dwelling like the sons of Athirat. And the great lady who tramples Yom replied, this is going to be, I'm trying to remember if this is, you know, I think it's Athirat that gets that title. The great lady who tramples Yom replied, you are great O.L. So she's beseeching El now to get permission to build this house for Baal. The grayness of your beard does indeed make you wise. You know, she's sucking up to him. The knowledge in your breast does indeed instruct you. And now the season of his reigns may Baal indeed appoint. Baal is in charge of the reign and we don't want to get him off schedule here. He's distracted by not having a house. So the season of his reigns may Baal indeed appoint the season of his storm chariot and the sound of his voice from the clouds. There's the voice of Baal idea. His hurling to the earth of lightning flashes. A house of cedars. Let them build for him. And let them build him a house of bricks. You know, Anat gets involved in the discussion. Virgin Anat rejoiced. She stamped her feet. She likes the idea and the earth shook. Then she set her face towards Baal in the heights of Saphon. Again, Saphon and Eugridic is Saphon and Hebrew the north. A thousand miles away, ten thousand leagues off. Virgin Anat laughed. She lifted up her voice and cried, rejoice Baal, good news I bring. A house will be given to you like your brothers. And a dwelling like your kinsmen. So she's happy. Now let's look at verses three through nine again in light of that scene. So you have, you know, are you going to, I can't remember if it's Aothirat or Anat in the earlier section could be, brings the request, you know, to El, butters him up a little bit. El's going to wind up saying, yeah, go ahead. Okay. Baal is going to get his house. But, you know, Anat is thrilled with the news and she's going to go back and tell Baal and the way she describes him. Like he's in the heights of Saphon, the north. You know, we've got the description of his voice from the clouds hurling to earth, lightning flashes, the house of cedars and all this kind of stuff. She's thrilled. Now let's go to verses three through nine again in Psalm 29. The voice of the Lord is over the waters, the God of glory, thunders, the Lord over many waters. He is Lord over Yom, over the waters, just generally. We don't have the word Yom here, but just waters generally. And as things are going to pick up at the end of Psalm 29, we're going to see a reference to the flood again over the world. That's really what the waters are. And that denotes kingship over the entire world. So instead of Baal being king of the world, you know, because he's king of the gods, no, in verse three, the voice of the Lord, voice of Yahweh is over the waters. That's where he lives. That's where he speaks from. The God of glory is the one who thunders. And it's a direct borrowing of the thunder language from Baal. The Lord is over the many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. And these are clear allusions to Baal imagery, but it's Yahweh who is being described, not Baal. Verse five, the voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. Ouch. Yahweh is so powerful he breaks the cedars. The stuff that Baal's house is made out of. In other words, Baal's house went last very long. It's vulnerable. The Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf and Syrion, like a young wild ox. Now, get an ugeridic Canaanite thinking, this is the far north, and this is where Baal lives. This is his turf. This is his territory. Syrion is interesting, especially because that's a clear allusion to Mount Hermon, the Hermon region in the northern area of Phoenician rule. Remember, Baal was the big dude in Phoenician religion. Remember Jezebel? Ahab and Jezebel worshipping Baal. She brings Baal worship in Israel. This is his turf. And it's like Yahweh's just, his voice is all that's needed to just smash the place to bits. And Syrion is the name used for Mount Hermon by the people of Sidon, which is again in the north there with the Phoenicians. In Deuteronomy 3.9, I'll just read you for your references. It says, the Sidonians call Hermon Syrion. While the Amorites call it Seneer. Deuteronomy 4.48, from Aroware, which is on the edge of the valley of Arnaud, as far as Mount Syrion, that is Mount Hermon. So it's very clear what this is being directed toward. Again, Syrion is really a specific point of reference, Hermon, this whole region, the forests of Lebanon and all that. Verse 7, the voice of the Lord, the voice of Yahweh, flashes forth flames of fire. It isn't Baal who sends fire from heaven. It's the voice of Yahweh. It's not the voice of Baal. The lightning doesn't come because Baal speaks. It comes because the Lord speaks. These are his weapons, not Baals. The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness. The Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. You actually could have a double reference here with the fire, maybe being a reference to the burning bush in the Exodus. Again, Yahweh coming from the southern region, Kadesh here. Again, it could take the reader's mind back to that material as well. Verse 9, the voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth and strips the forest bare. Now, somebody should make a meme out of that, honestly. At the shout of God, the deer just drop their young. And the forest is just strip bare. I'd say cartoon. We don't want to make it cartoonish, but that would make a good meme. Verse 10, the Lord sits enthroned over the flood. The Lord sits enthroned as king forever. So again, to think of the cosmology, you've got this dome over the earth. You've got waters above. Again, reference to Genesis 1, 1, 6, and 7. Separate the waters above. You separate the waters above from the waters below by the firmament. The firmament is called heaven, the skies. So you have these waters above, and that's the domain of God, the domain of Yahweh. It isn't Baal who is above the waters or who had subdued the waters. This is in charge of this stuff. And since the dome covers the entire earth, it covers all the nations. So who's king of the world? Well, in Canite Ugaritic religion, it's Baal. In Psalm 29, it's like, pardon us, but no. And Baal gets picked on through the whole psalm. And the conclusion is, it's Yahweh who sits enthroned over the flood. It's Yahweh who sits enthroned as king forever. May the Lord give strength to his people. May the Lord bless his people with peace. Shalom. Again, the whole psalm just lifts this little things, again, out of the Canite Ugaritic context, specifically out of the Baal context, and burns Baal with them by doing so. Again, this is how these things operate. Now, another little sidebar here. This is going to, again, address something that sometimes I get an email on. At some point of contact here, those of you who are going to be familiar with some of the things I'll refer to here, we'll know why I'm bringing this up. And I'll try to explain it to those to whom this might be new. But I'm going to cite a little bit or read a little bit from one of my articles. And the article is from the Bulletin of Biblical Research, the first one I did, volume 18, number one, 2008. It's called monotheism, polytheism, monotree or henotheism toward an assessment of divine plurality in the Hebrew Bible. The idea that Yahweh is king over all the earth is, according to the critical consensus scholarly opinion, a late Israelite idea that emerged once the evolution to monotheism out of polytheism had taken place. Let me repeat that. The critical consensus says that Israelite religion, including the theology of the biblical writers, evolved from polytheism to monotheism. And when they finally got the enlightened monotheistic view in their heads, then they had to kill off the other gods because we don't believe they're real anymore. And they'll say, that's what Psalm 82 is about. You kill off the gods and now you have Yahweh over all the nations. And so Yahweh is king over the nations. And they wouldn't be thinking about that unless they had evolved out of polytheism. And we want to date all this material late, even though there's really no way to do that. Basically, it's circular reasoning. Well, we're going to date this Psalm late because we think the idea is late, therefore the Psalm must be late. That's how it's done. Unfortunately, that's how critical consensus scholarship is done. And my dissertation at Wisconsin Madison, I specifically argued against this, that this is circular reasoning. It's illogical because there's so much that comes after that takes the quote unquote presumed polytheistic language that they supposedly got rid of and evolved away from. It shows up in lots of places later. Well, like what happened there? Nobody got the memo or what? In other words, this neat picture about evolution from polytheism to monotheism that supposedly finally reached its apex moment, either maybe during the exile or a little bit after the exile because the exile had to beat the polytheism out of the Jews and all that kind of stuff. From that point on, we are intolerant monotheists. We're never going back to this other God's crap. We're just not doing that. Well, why do you have 180 references to plural Elohim or Aleem in the Dead Sea Scrolls? Dozen or so, which are clearly overtly in divine council context. That's supposed to be pre-exilic, primitive religion, primitive polytheism, and the biblical writers eventually broke through and they saw the light of monotheism. Honestly, I just think it's Hockam. That might be a little harsh. I think it's illogical. I think it implodes on itself. It does not conform to a lot of data. It conforms only to selective data. If you exclude some of the other stuff that gets in the way, well, then you have a nice picture. I don't think we should do that. Why do you mention this? I mention this now because I've gotten a few emails like, hey, have you listened to Pete N's podcast where he just had Mark Smith on? They're talking about this stuff. Mark Smith is the main voice. He's not an anti-Christian guy. Mark is a Catholic. I've had several conversations with him. He's really a nice guy. I think he's a good-hearted guy, too. But he is the main spokesperson for the consensus view. I just don't buy it. Mark knows that. We've been at the same conference as I even read a paper where he sat in on, which was a lot of fun because basically we took the whole Q&A time to go back and forth over the whole thing. He's just a nice guy about all that. This is what academics do. I think there's a propensity in some circles of evangelicalism to think that if critical scholars take a position, that's the only position that's coherent. That's the only position that makes sense because they're scholars and are scholars. Maybe have an axe to grind or maybe they're too confessional or so. They're afraid to go. No, this is a scholar that isn't afraid to go there. I could file this into the progressive revelation bucket like some evangelicals do. God doesn't have to reveal everything about himself to all the biblical writers the same way at the same time. I get it. I could file it under progressive revelation and say, okay, some of the early biblical writers, maybe they were polytheists, then eventually they weren't. I don't because it just doesn't make any sense. The logic of it implodes. Let me give you one anecdote and maybe somebody who heard that other podcast, we'll listen to this. I was in my last semester at the UW Madison. We're in an Isaiah seminar. Second Isaiah was the title of it. Second Isaiah is supposed to be in this moment, this apex moment of the breakthrough to monotheism. One day, we had Peter Machinist in who is the Hancock Professor of Oriental Languages at Harvard and another just super guy. Just a really, really pleasant guy, really, really likable and of course, a top notch scholar. He is viewed as sort of the scholar for Second Isaiah. He's in teaching our grad seminar that day. In between the two sessions, we're sitting around the table. I was mulling over a dissertation topic and Peter Machinist asked, well, where are you at in the program? I told him, I got to take prelims in the summer in a few weeks and then got to nail down the dissertation topic and so on and so forth. I said, I have a question because, again, I had been thinking about what to do as a topic. I said, if there's this neat evolution from polytheism to monotheism that culminates in the time of Second Isaiah, why do we get so many references to divine plurality, plural Elohim, plural Aleem, in divine council settings? In other words, all the pre-exilic language, why does it show up in later texts so frequently? Again, there's like 180 of these in the Dead Sea Scrolls alone. Why is that if we have this evolution? He looked at me and I'll be forever grateful for this. He looked at me and he said, I don't know. That's a good question. That was the moment for me. I was blessed by his honesty, his candor and his honesty. That was the moment for me where I thought, okay, I got my topic. It doesn't make any sense to me. Let's go back to Psalm 24. I'm going to give you another reason why it doesn't make any sense from this Psalm. Now, again, you have this idea of this trajectory, this evolutionary trajectory and the idea that Yahweh is king of all the nations, which means he has to get rid of all the other gods because the gods are over the nations, Deuteronomy 32 and all that stuff. We've got to get rid of those guys so that Yahweh can be the only god over all the nations. That's a late idea. They had to evolve toward that during or after the exile. That's what we're told. Well, Psalm 29 is by everybody's account pre-exilic. In fact, Psalm 24, Psalm 29 and Exodus 15 are among the earliest Hebrew Bible material according to the consensus critical scholars. Most of these guys, not all of them are going to be non-confessional. They don't take any theology position at all. What do we have at the end of Psalm 29? How is it that we're saying that before the exile, Yahweh wasn't king over the nations? That's what Psalm 29 says. Psalm 29 is part of this. I'm going to read you the bottom of page 3 and some of page 4 of my BBR article. I'm going to just read this section. I'm talking about Psalm 82 in the context. So concerning the idea that polytheism is being used rhetorically in Psalm 82 that we're killing off the gods here, much is made of the last verse in that Psalm where God is asked to rise up and possess the nations. Psalm 82. This is interpreted as a new idea of the psalmas to encourage the exilic community that despite exile Yahweh will rise up and take the nations as his own having sentenced the other gods to death. So this is a new idea. This view ignores pre-exilic texts such as Psalm 24 and 29, long recognized as some of the most ancient material in the canon. For example, Psalm 29.1 contains plural imperatives directed at the Benay Aleem pointing to a divine council context. Verse 10 declares, the Lord sits enthroned over the flood. The Lord sits enthroned as king forever. In Israelite cosmology, the flood upon which Yahweh sat was situated over the solid dome that covered the round flat earth. Since it cannot coherently be asserted that the author would assert that Gentile nations were not under the dome and the flood, this verse reflects the idea of world kingship. The song of Moses also among the oldest poetry in the Hebrew Bible echoes the thought, the same thought. In Exodus 1518 the text reads, the Lord will reign forever and ever. As Frank Moore Cross noted over 30 years ago and Cross was the guy that that machinists replaced at Harvard. Cross wrote, quote, the kingship of the gods is a common theme in early Mesopotamian and Canaanite epics. The common scholarly position that the concept of Yahweh reigning or as king is a relatively late development in Israelite thought seems untenable, unquote. And I would agree. I would absolutely agree. So the point is in Israelite cosmology, the flood waters above the earth, the waters above the firmament and Genesis one, six through eight language there, and those waters that presumed, you know, the dome covering the entire earth, not just Israel, but the entire earth. Okay, that framework means that we have here in Psalm 29 a claim to world kingship over the nations. And of course, that means over their gods. You know, again, the evolutionary arc narrative, you know, ARC, the evolutionary arc from polytheism to monotheism and lumping the biblical writers in there to me just does not account for a number of data points, which is why I just don't buy it. I just don't buy it. And some people who correspond with me are disturbed, you know, by the way, we have an evangelical saying about talking about this evolution. Yeah, they're going to talk about it because that's the consensus view. And to be honest with you, I really don't think they've spent much time looking at the data that don't conform to it. And that really undermine the evolutionary trajectory. Again, I could put this in the progressive revelation bucket. That's easy. But I don't because it just doesn't make sense. So I wanted to throw that in as a sidebar. Again, we're wrapping up here. So these two Psalms, again, I think have have value not necessarily for getting us into the sidebar talk, although I'm sure somebody out there in the audience is going to find that useful or interesting. Psalm 24, Psalm 29, these are good examples of if you're aware, again, of the Canite eugridic material, you can get a lot more out of these Psalms. And again, these aren't unique. There's a lot of other stuff, obviously, the Hebrew Bible like this and the Psalter itself. But I wanted to have a place where I could at least sort of try to illustrate this. And again, the main import of this episode is not so that your head can be into debates between scholars, because that's what scholars do. They go back and forth with each other arguing this to that point. That's just part of the enterprise. And all the people that I've mentioned here are good people. There's nobody in the bunch here that is just grinding an axe against the Christian faith or something like that. There's nobody like that in this list. Again, the people that I've mentioned insist that there's honest disagreement among scholars. But I wanted to have a place where at least you know why. Again, this is one evangelical who is not afraid of this material. I love it. Again, this is where I spent my time in my dissertation. And again, to my advisor's credit, he rolled with it. He allowed me to do it. He allowed me to challenge the consensus view. And I think he would admit that, hey, it probably needs this. Probably needs some challenge. I don't know if I won him over, probably not. Again, he's going to be part of the mainstream. But to his credit, he let me do this. So peer reviewed scholarship, this sort of thing at the dissertation level, at the publication level, there's no monolithic belief system that everybody has to conform to. That's not what scholars do. And so it's a good exchange. It's a friendly exchange. I like everybody in the mix here that I've met. So let's be clear on that. You're not going to be able to caricature me as being antagonistic toward anybody. I like them all. I enjoy them. Everybody that I've included in the discussion here. But I wanted a place where I could at least talk a little bit about why I don't buy this stuff. And also the value of, again, these ancient contexts for these two Psalms, and of course, by extension, lots of other passages too. Yeah, Mike, one of your biggest criticism probably from other people is that they think that you're saying you need external resources to understand the Bible. And it's ridiculous how they have this argument that without all this extra literature, you can't understand the Bible. And that's not really what you're saying. No, no. I mean, you can get the core ideas out of scripture just reading an English Bible. Okay, you can't have a firm grasp of a lot of things without situating the Bible in its own context. So the Bible did not just drop from heaven as though it has no context at all, like it just materialized. God used people. He used people at a certain time, a certain place, a certain worldview, a certain culture. These are God's decisions. So if you don't like the external context being part of the interpretive process, go complain to God, okay? Because these were his decisions. Yeah, absolutely. I find it enhances my faith. All this extra material, it enhances it. So it's funny when I get people who've been in seminary, something some of my friends, they've asked me since diving into this material stuff, what has it done to your faith and stuff? Because we all heard the stories that students in their seminary and they kind of lose their faith or they get discouraged. And I'm like, what are you talking about? This is only enhanced it. So I question people's faith going into it if all of this extra material starts to break down their faith. I'm like, this adds to it. Yeah, the real, I think the real, the underlying problem to that is they go to seminary with certain views of certain things. Let's just say for the sake of the discussion, how we got the Bible, like how the thing we call the Bible was produced. They've been taught so minimally about that topic that when their professors start bringing in other data or asking important questions like, okay, like the superscriptions and the Psalms, the whole idea of editing, or maybe it doesn't mean too David or of David, maybe it means four, that whole thing. They have never heard any of that before. And so they don't really know what to do with it. And some of that is going to feel so counter to the way they have been thinking about the topic to that point that they're going to feel tension. And what you need, and unfortunately what's lacking in a number of instances, you need a professor sensitive to that who can think through how this stuff makes sense and actually works with the theology that they already came with. In other words, just you have the same theology, but let's just change how that theology is talked about, how we talk about how we got the Bible and God's role and God's responsibility and stuff like this. This material should not squeeze God out of the equation. It should actually help us think better about how God did things. But you need a professor who's capable of that. You need a professor who's willing to do that, who will take 10 or 15 minutes of a class to do that rather than making sure they cover pages three through eight in their syllabus. There's a disconnect there that I think is really unfortunate and some students might end up in a hostile context where the professor loves to trouble his or her students. Again, that happens. I know people like that. That happens. So I understand students coming away with their faith is harmed and there's a number of reasons why that might happen. But my point is that that is not a necessary result or at least it shouldn't be. None of this stuff has made me like, oh boy, is any of this, to me, it just makes things a lot more exciting because this is going to sound. I don't know how this is going to sound. One of the best tools for biblical scholars and theologians is to have a little bit of imagination. What I mean by that is not so that you can add stuff to scripture, but so that you can take it apart and put it back together again. You can reimagine how God would have done this, how in God's interaction with human beings, how he could have used them to make this thing come to pass. But some people just can't do it. Their faith is a series of propositions, a series of sentences, a very strict, this is the way we talk about this topic. And when they are unable to talk about the topic that same way again, they have nothing to substitute for it. And it creates tension and distrust and all these other things, which is really unfortunate. It just doesn't have to be that way. Well, hopefully they listen to the Naked Bible Podcast to help. Yeah. Really, if they did, they would get some of that. And I think it would help. All right, Mike, another good episode. Again, listeners, be on the lookout for updates for this week and Denver, if we will or not have that live Q and A Friday. Again, Mike, go to your families and our prayers for your dad. 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.ermsh.com.