 We'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. Heiser's approach to the Bible, click on newstarthere at NakedBiblePodcast.com. Welcome to the Naked Bible Podcast, episode 191, SBL, conference interview part two. I'm the layman, Trace Jicklin. He's a scholar, Dr. Michael Heiser. Hey, Mike. Still here? We are still here in Boston. Boston. I can't even say that. Boston. Boston. I can't even do it. I'm from West Texas. I know it's a real challenge for you. These Yankees, I don't understand it. Yeah. We should talk about some of the lift drivers that we've had, really thick accents. Oh, yeah. We had one that he was straight out of Boston, South Boston. Yeah. It was really pronounced. Yeah. Anyway, we have our second round of interviews. We have two in this part, part two. We have Ben Jaffone, and Ben is a podcast listener. He's familiar with the Naked Bible Podcast, really enjoys it, as does his mother. What's really interesting, what appealed to me about having him on the show is his teaching context. He teaches in Lithuania. And believe it or not, Unseen Realm is known in Lithuania, as is the podcast. So an interesting interview with him. And then we talked to John Schwant. John is the director of mobile education, mobile ed at Logos. Just about what mobile ed is, why it's important and why the listeners of this podcast would really, really benefit from, you know, that particular program, the courses that we have. We have over 200 courses that people can take right there in your own home and really learn biblical content. So mobile ed is kind of in the wheelhouse for us. Our aim, as always, is to try to get good content to anybody who's interested. So another good set of interviews back at SBL again. And we have with us, correct me if I mispronounce your last name, but Ben Jaffone. Jaffone. Jaffone. It's like giraffe. Well, Ben is a scholar that discovered the podcast and then Unseen Realm, but he has a really interesting story or at least a backdrop to this. I'm going to ask him to introduce himself and how he again found the podcast where he went to school and what he's doing. Well, yeah, thanks for having me on the podcast. Usually I go by Benj just for the for the record there. So the people know because I when I went to university, I went to Karen University. There were five other bends in my dorm. And so growing up, I had gone by Ben or Benj, but figured at that point, mononimity was something to aspire to. But I did my undergraduate work at Karen University, formerly Philadelphia Biblical University. And that was where I really got interested in biblical studies and original languages. I grown up in a Christian home, but did not really thought I knew the Bible well, but I really realized I didn't. So I wanted to go to seminary and go to graduate school and just keep on taking this wherever it would take me. So I did my seminary work. I did a year at Westminster Seminary, got out in the middle of a bit of a controversy there. Oh, were you there with was that Pete? There was with Pete. Yeah. Okay. So I was there that when he was suspended Pete ends. Well, that's interesting. We'll try not to drill down on that. Yeah, that's a story for Pete to tell if he's permitted by contract or by agreement, whatever. So then I went back to Karen actually and finished my two year seminary degree there and then did a master of theology and Ph.D. at Stellenbosch University in Western Cape, South Africa. Was that all by distance? Yeah. Yeah, the master's program was three oral exams on reading lists and a thesis. And so I went to South Africa a couple of times. Was it biblical studies? Right. Yes, I did Old Testament. So Lamentations was my master's thesis and then I did my dissertation on Chronicles. Okay. Was Christo your advisor or somebody else? No, I did my, both projects were supervised by Louis Yonker, who teaches in the faculty of theology. I think Christo is in the ancient studies department. Okay. This is interesting because I often have people ask about, hey, you know, I want to go to seminary or I'm thinking about doctoral work. And, you know, the Stellenbosch, again, I know several people who've gone through the programs there and it's inexpensive because of the RAND. Just give people an idea of what you would pay for a year. Well, for the MTH tuition, when I went there, it was the equivalent of $4,000. If the tuition has stayed the same in the RAND, that's going to be even less in dollars or euros right now. So that's the whole program. That was the whole program. Now I had to travel there a couple of times and the travel is actually, you know, it's the round trip is, depending on what time of year you go, maybe $1,200. But once you're there, staying there is fairly cheap. So in short, in three years I did two degrees and I, the PhD tuition is cheaper. And I went to South Africa, I think a total of four times, once with my wife and that was for a vacation in defense. I think I spent less than $10,000 the whole thing. Wow, two degrees and four trips. See, I mean, that's a dramatic cost reduction. Yeah, much cheaper than paying for an American program, which you should never do, unless you're independently wealthy. Really, yeah. There's a lot to be said for that. You had a good experience, I take? I did. You know, I don't think that necessarily that model would be for everyone. I had, you know, very supportive advisor. I had access in the United States when I was doing my research to good theological libraries close by. And I had already done Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, and some German by the time I got to the program. So it wouldn't work for everyone necessarily, but it worked for me and got me to the point where I could teach. Did you have a clear thesis and or dissertation topic before you enrolled? Because some of those, you know, the so-called European model, you pretty much have to have your research topic pretty well thought through to present it and then get it approved and then go do your research on it. Is that what you experienced? Yeah, that's the way it worked. I mean, when I applied, I originally applied for the doctoral program and actually Louie worked with me for several months before I was even enrolled as a student on refining my proposal, which was part of my application. And basically the faculty reviews your proposal and then if they like it, you're accepted. And so that was that was the application process. Now they accepted me because I had not done a research based masters in the States. They considered my seminary degree to be like a second bachelor's. Okay. So that's why they admitted me into the MTH degree first and then upon successful completion of the thesis, then they I had to apply again for a PhD. Okay. I at that time I was sick, a little bit sick of lamentations. And so I thought of something else to do stayed in the Persian period, but wanted to do more in the area of chronicles. So well, Well, hopefully, you know, somebody out there listening again, because I get the question a lot. Hopefully you're listening now and you heard that that might be a good possibility, both in terms of expense. If you have a clear sense of direction in terms of research. Yeah, look into Stelenbosch. Yeah, I would say so. Or even there are other other universities in South Africa that are internationally known. I think it really just depends on the advisor that you have and what topic you want to study. If you can find an advisor who is well known in the field and is publishing and is willing to work with you, then I think it can be could be a great fit. And I'm always happy to put in a plug for South Africa as a great place to go with wonderful scenery. And if you're into wine or international cuisine Cape Town, which is right outside or right near Stelenbosch is a great town for those things. So just a great place to visit. Okay. I have to ask you, did you do the great white shark thing where you go out in the boat and watch them throw seals or? You know, I did. I actually did. I did cage diving with great whites. It was a dream of mine. I did it two days before I defended my doctoral dissertation. So this is in January. It's so January is the height of summer for them. And it's not the time of year when the great whites around Seal Island jump out of the water, but they still are present and they find. And so I'd always wanted to do this and it was fairly reasonably priced. So I decided to do it. And my greatest fear was that something would happen and you know, here lies part of Benjamin Jaffone. ABD. ABD forever. ABD. That was, that was the. Well, after that adrenaline rush, I'm sure your defense was pretty tight. Oh, it was just a breeze compared to that. All right. So where, where are you teaching? Because you're, you're teaching at an interesting place, something a little bit off the beaten path again for a different route than most. You know, new graduates would, you know, wind up taking. So tell us about that. Well, one of the things that my wife and I had agreed on when we first set out in doctoral studies was that first, we weren't going into any debt to do it. And second, that because there were so few positions available in North America for PhDs, we had to be prepared for the possibility of either doing pastoral ministry in North America, which would have been fine. And still not going to rule that out in the future, or going overseas to teach. And that was something that we had. So we've talked about it ever since we were even engaged. I was going overseas and after, as I was finishing my doctoral work, the opportunity presented itself to teach at very interesting school called LCC International University. It's in Claypada, Lithuania, so right on the Baltic coast. And LCC is a Christian, private Christian liberal arts university. It's not a Bible college. It's not a seminary, but faculty are Christian and staffed by many people who are Christians, maybe half or a third from North America. Maybe that's a higher percentage. Maybe it's a higher percentage than that. But many of the students who come to LCC are not Christians, would not say they're Christians or would have grown up in a nominally Catholic or Orthodox household in Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Belarus, any number of Central Asian republics. So we have Muslim students as well. But they're all required to take a core of Bible and theology courses. And so in addition, that's part of the mission of the school is to have these students from a variety of backgrounds in a Christian environment, and they go to study business and English language and other things like that. Then there's also a theology program. And that's much smaller for understandable reasons in that part of the world, but students that major or minor in theology. And that's primarily the courses that I teach is the upper level Old Testament courses for students that are majoring or minoring in theology. Now, when you get students in that particular program, what's the end goal for them? Is it ministry? Is it being a minister, being a pastor, whatever the terminology is over there? You know, it varies because a lot of the... Even though the school is broadly Christian in that we have Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant who teach there, the theology faculty is specifically a faculty and evangelical or Protestant theology. And in terms of the Protestant churches in this part of the world, there are very few churches that could afford to pay a pastor. And so most pastors are bivocational. Most pastors are male. There aren't that many female pastors. And so students that major or minor in theology are often looking towards either bivocational ministry or simply just having a better basis in their faith, especially those that do double degrees with something like English language or business. So it's also for personal enrichment. We don't have as many folks who are explicitly going down a pastoral track. How about access to Christian resources, books related in some way to theology or biblical studies? Is there a lot of it? Is it very little? Give us a description of that. That's a struggle for a school as small as ours. In a way it's better than it probably could be or should be. But we always struggle to find resources we don't have. We have limited access to the kinds of online databases and sure books that students and faculty at American institutions would just take for granted. We're kind of dependent on donations for much of what we do and including resourcing the library. So we get some of a library budget. But one of the ways we do this is to try to, instead of investing in textbooks or spending the resources that way, we try to use our department resources to beef up the library every chance we get. It is not really a place where you can do academic research of high quality without somehow getting access to journals and books some other way. So I'm very fortunate in that when I go back to the states from time to time, my home base is in Pennsylvania which is near quite a few libraries. Sure. Is the issue finances or is it language? Is there a language barrier? There just aren't many books in, again, whatever language that would be a first language? It's mostly an issue of resources because our students are all proficient in English before they come. And actually many of them speak three languages, so at least three. So Lithuanian students will probably speak English and usually some Russian and also English. And many of them also speak German as well. So they're even better equipped to do research than we are as monoglot Americans who had to struggle through German or French for graduate readings. But it's really a resourcing issue, not as much a language issue. What are, just give us an idea of one or two specific courses you teach. And then also we want to say something about, you mentioned Unseen Realm in the email that you, or email reply that you gave me. So let's talk a little bit about some of the specifics that you teach and then exposing students to some of that content. Yeah, sure. So because I'm the Old Testament guy. I am the one who teaches the upper level courses and so I teach them all in a sense all the canon courses on a rotation. Pentateuch, narrative books, wisdom literature. The whole canon issue would be interesting, you know, given who's in the class. Yes, that's definitely something we address up front. And I can tell you just a brief story that kind of got me down that track was that, you know, studying this more intently was, I was in Pentateuch class and we were talking about the vow of the Nazir in the book of Numbers that is sometimes called the Nazirite vow. And I asked, you know, we were exploring how it's not generally supposed to be a permanent lifelong vow. It's time bound. And I asked the students what, what is the, who's the only person in scripture who was a Nazir from birth. And one of my Moldovan students who reads the Russian Bible primarily raises hand and said, Samuel. And that's because I remembered back to when I had studied Samuel, Septuagint and M.T. It's that in the Nazirite texts, when Hannah gives her vow, or a vow to the Lord that her son would be, if she, if he gave, gave her a son, he would be devoted to the Lord. It says that a razor would never touch his head. But the Septuagint says a razor will never touch his head and he will not drink wine or strong drink. You get the rest of the vow there. Right. So it kind of completes the picture. Whereas I was thinking of Samson. So that the fact that we have Lithuanian students using a Catholic Bible that includes the, the apocrypha. And we have students who work with the Bible in Russian language that includes also apocrypha, but is even based on Church Slavonic, which is kind of a mix, has a mixed textual basis with Septuagint and, and Hebrew that we do always have to have that discussion in class of, well, why do our, why are our Bibles? Why are they the same? Right. So that's, it's, it's a great point of, you know, it's a great point to talk about history and some of the issues involved, but I think the other. Yeah. The unseen realm. Unseen realm. Yes. So unseen realm stuff. I was exposed, first exposed to unseen realm or to your work, Mike. I want to say two years ago, quite, it was after you were well into the Naked Bible podcast. And so I went back and listened to some key episodes and found your stuff and shout out to my mom, who's a big fan as well. I think she was the one who introduced me to. Obviously a woman of intelligence. She is great intelligence and noble character as well. And so I found that you were making sense of so many of the passages that that either that in the evangelical world that I had grown up with, they had just been kind of glossed over or in the wider world of biblical scholarship that they were just accepted as evidence of a certain developmental approach or as a certain development of Israelite religion that is based on, in my opinion, some questionable premises about what religion is and what revealed truth is. And so when I get to these passages in my in my class when we talk about Genesis six and we talk about in the in the wisdom literature, especially the book of Job and exploring who the Satan is the adversary in Job. I found that that paradigm and some of the excerpts that I gave to students, at least when I explained it to them using your your ideas, it made it made sense to them. Now I'm not sure, as I mentioned in my email, I'm not sure they had ever read the text closely enough to be troubled by these things in the way that I had been. But but it was interesting then to see how they play this out in their own thinking because some of them to come from such a wide ray of backgrounds but some of them who come from more charismatic backgrounds in especially in Ukraine, which has a very interesting very robust set of evangelical communities that I'm just beginning to learn about. I'll be actually teaching a course there next semester just to compress course at a small seminary there. But so those students that are more attuned to maybe the spiritual realm and hungering for something more spiritual amidst the kind of the darkness and say the deadness of, you know, in the Soviet and post Soviet kind of world. There's a real hunger to know about spiritual. And so I think that's something I sense in a lot of my students as well. You probably have heard somewhere on the podcast about the supernatural, you know, translation project, you know, have translation rights to the little book, you know, supernatural. That's the light version of unseen realm. And that's being that's being translated into 20 languages. Russian is done. So I could give you links to this because they're all going to be free. My non profit is funding this. Russian is done. Ukrainian is still in process. We have a check translation going. Someone actually just emailed me recently to do Polish. So we have some of the Eastern European languages. We have Arabic as well. Have you had to have people so you said people someone reached someone reached out to you about doing these? Have you sense that there's a particular hunger for that kind of there seems to be. Yeah, there seems to be a part of the world. It surprised me. I thought when we sort of launched this, the initial idea was I wanted to get the book, a supernatural translated into Russian and Arabic and Chinese and all three of those are actually done now. But the idea was again, these are places where you're going to have a church perhaps in an underground situation or really limited in resources. And so I thought, well, those would be three. Those are the three I'm shooting for. And they actually happen really quickly. I mean, almost, you know, maybe a week or two after we announced this, there were people in those three languages that stepped up and they've all Chinese is still in the process of being vetted. And also, I can't remember what the dialect issue is in Chinese, but the people who are vetting the one translation are putting it into. I think it was done in Mandarin. They're putting it into another desirable. Yeah, something I can't remember which one it is, but again, they offered to do that. The Russian translation was done by a Russian national who's actually a pastor in Egypt, which is really kind of, you know, off the beaten path. But then I know another native Russian speaker who, you know, vetted the translation afterwards. And the same thing with Arabic, you know, they just these people just sort of come out of the woodwork. And several of them are like, they do this for a living. You know, they put they take, you know, English works, they might be working freelance or for a publisher. And so this became a side project for them. So the response has been really, I think, both startling and gratifying at the same time. So anyway, they're for free. I'll send you the links, you know, to what's done and other things get done. You know, you'll they'll be put in the same folder so you'll have access to all of them. Just you can pick what you want, pick what's helpful. Yeah, Russian is quite important, you know, say lingua franca in at LCC, you're just as likely to hear Russian in the dorms as you are English because of all the post-Soviet influence. I think one of the things that I found most interesting about the the work on Unseen Realm and the Divine Council, that worldview has been that just that that that you're trying to give people that take the Old Testament seriously on its own. Right now I have a thesis student who is very sharp and he's doing his he's German. He's doing his thesis on inspired by our wisdom lit class that we done a couple of years ago on the presentation of Satan or the Satan in Scripture and the problem of evil. And surprisingly, very little has been done on specific relationship of the Satan to the problem of evil. At least that's what he and I have found. And it's it's remarkable how the, you know, when you start to get into the contrast between the Old and the New Testament, I think so many people are just Christians are just trained to kind of read the New Testament back into the Old Testament without much regard for the original context of the Old Testament. And so and yet there is also a need, I would say, from from a Christian perspective to read the Old Testament, not just on its own terms first, that's important, but also in light of the New Testament. And so that's something that really resonated with me. And I think a lot of my students as well that are discovering the Old Testament for the first time on its own terms that that kind of way of thinking is quite quite attractive and quite freeing as well, because then you can look at the Old Testament and not feel like we have to shoehorn it into a particular theological system or a confessional commitment beyond the commitment that this this points us to Christ. And now it's our job to figure out how. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I have found that to me, it seems the more that you take the Old Testament in light of its own context, that will again open your eyes to new ways of thinking about any number of passages. And some of those new ways, in fact, a lot of them actually do have hooks into the New Testament where you wouldn't have seen that either. So to me, it doesn't distance the Old Testament from the New. I think it closes the gap a little bit, you know, in several respects. So it's not a non, it's not a Christocentric way of looking at things, but it's not like it's cutting off Christology and these other things. It just presents different ways to different threads that will carry through. And again, maybe maybe taking some connection point and and readjusting it in a certain way, but the connection points still there. It's just, you know, we have to think about a little bit differently. So I know sometimes it really freaks people out to to do what I'm asking them to do because they're so used to having this way of thinking between the testaments kind of solidified or they're just they're cemented in one way of doing that. And then it feels to them like you're trying to break it when that just isn't the case. Can I ask you a critical scholarship question or from that standpoint? Talk shop for a second. So one of the things I'm working on right now where I'm still still wrestling through this is first Kings 18, the Elijah's confrontation with the prophets of Baal. There's a lot of discussion about the way I got into this question was asking, why was it OK for Elijah to do what he did? He's not a not a Levite, not a Aaronite priest. And he's sacrificing it a place other than Jerusalem. And so why was this OK? And more importantly, why was this? How did this come to be integrated into a broader Deuteronomistic history that sees centralization and the role of the Levites as as critical? And one of the reasons why that passage, the first Kings 17 to 19 is often more recently scholars who do work on this have seen it as post Deuteronomistic incorporated after Deuteronomistic redaction is because of this this view that it seems to events or reflect that if we have a confrontation between Elijah and Baal and a strict sort of a strict monotheism that this must be Babylonian period or later because of our understanding of the development of religion because the evolutionary assumption there. Right. So what my question is, I mean, I don't I think it's situation is more complicated clearly than that and I'm whoever put the final touches on this I'm interested in what what they were thought they were doing but do you think that the way that first Kings 17 to 19 in particular is written that either the original author of that unit or the doctor who put it all together or both or either one. Did they think that Baal was a real being and simply not to be worshiped by the people of Israel that the people of Israel should only worship Yahweh? Or is it that that they believe that Baal is non existent along the lines of these idol polemics that we get in. And again, I think just as again to use an analogy will start this way just as in Second Temple Judaism there's no such thing as Second Temple Judaism singular you're going to have a spectrum of opinion I think the same would have been true in ancient Israel. So if we had 10 ancient Israelites here you might get a variance you know in their answers to that question. I think though that again based on you know what we'll just say again to use another analogy certainly in I'll go down two lines here certainly in older material. You're going to have you know I believe an acceptance in the reality of other gods these are spirit beings that in other words the belief in an animate spiritual world. It's going to be something that far from being unique to Israel or aberrant. It's like well everybody more or less thinks this way. So that that's one you know sort of aspect to this. And so if if that's the case, you know you're going to have some sense or some belief that Yahweh really does have spiritual opposition. They don't all whoever they are they don't all get along and there are rivals and things like this and so I don't see it very coherent to divorce what seems to be a really normal belief system. Again belief in an animate supernatural world. I don't see why it would be coherent to divorce that from lots of Israelites including the biblical writers. And the other problem or the other issue I think is you know you don't have in later literature you don't have a denial that there there's divine plurality. I mean you get lots of references to divine plurality at kumran. There's over 160 references to plural aleem and Elohim you know a dozen or so specifically in divine council contexts. Now they aren't rivals but it's still divine plurality. So there's a bit of a difference but again given you have the before and you have the after why would we divorce that line of thinking from what's in the middle. So I don't I would answer the question like yeah you know they they really did believe that Baal was some kind of entity. I mean Baal is just a generic term Lord or Master and it has geographical attachments and geographical variation the Lord of Master of any given piece of turf you know that sort of thing. So I would answer the question affirmatively that yeah they do believe this and because they believe it. They they view it as a not just a violation of practice in other words taking away something from Yahweh but it's throwing allegiance to something else right. So I would tend to look at the issue that way the sacrificial thing is really interesting because you do have a character like Solomon again who would be you know firmly entrenched in in the issue as you described it. You know with the way Israelite history is talked about and he does priestly things. So does David. Yeah. So does Saul. So does Saul again with with varying degrees of response you know from the prophetic community. So you know what would the role of the prophet be. I mean a lot of this gets into speculation. Yeah. The king is just so awful that Elijah was viewed as the only one here representing Yahweh or who knows you know what if we can even go down a line like that. You know what what have you come across when it comes to is there another like template for this. Well we wouldn't really throw him into Melchizedek. No no no no. No what I think is going on here is I think that it makes my hunch at this point I have not I I think that you see a lot of kind of variation in the way that these northern and Benjaminite traditions are kind of incorporated into the Deuteronomistic framework. Especially before the temp the tabernacle is consolidated into the temple. Okay. And I have a piece that just came out earlier this year in in Vita's Testament of where I argue that the chronicler and the Deuteronomist have sort of a bit of a difference of opinion on on how centralization works. But they both agree that by the time you get to the temple that their centralization is then firmly. Yeah. There's no no question where there's we're not supposed to divide our time between the tabernacle and the Jerusalem temple. But what I think is going on I think might be going on in First Kings 17 to 19 is you could argue that it's an exceptional circumstance. The problem with that is that Elijah makes it sound like it's not supposed to be exceptional. Like he says that you've torn down they've torn down he complains he laments to Yahweh they've torn down your altars. Yeah. From a Deuteronomistic perspective that's a good thing. Right. And they've also so the one off sort of explanation doesn't there's a little bit makes it a little bit uncomfortable for that. There's the the balls home turf explanation that says well if you know we this is just a one off confrontation on Bale's home turf but then you have this issue of the continuity with the previous altar. So what I think is going on my hunch is at this point is that the we have to think of the authors that incorporate these stories into their they're not strict. They're not strict automatons or they're not strictly conforming every bit of material that they incorporate into their story to their unique theology. They let in a sense they let the texts that they're using speak for themselves and they're balancing community memory. They couldn't just make stuff up or change things. Sure. And they're trying to balance incorporating northern and southern perspectives and Benjamin night perspectives in their texts. And I think what I think what what sets the story and makes it OK is that the stones are consumed. And so for whatever whenever this is being read in its final final reckoning you can read this wherever you are and say this is important for us to know that Yahweh is is God. Is God everywhere and sovereign over everything. And he does he can choose to do whatever he wants with whoever he wants. But this is not something that you should then emulate. We shouldn't go then build an altar on Mount Carmel. We should still worship in Jerusalem. Again hearing you say that again this is all speculation but you could see where you know if you're back in the day you could really see an attitude something like well look. We got these high places here and it's a shame that if we have to have them or if they're here it's a shame that bail gets worshipped and Yahweh doesn't. So it may not be optimal if Yahweh gets worshipped at one of these places but it's sure better than than bail. You know that kind of thing you you could almost see this sort of pragmatic polemic kind of thing you know operating in their heads. So to get that speculative but if I were back there and somebody and I asked the question hey why are we doing this and that was the answer. It's like okay that kind of I get it you know I may not like it entirely but I get it at least. Right. Well what's interesting though is that by the time you get to you do see this when you have the moral assessments of kings in the book of kings. They'll say like he walked in the ways of David his father where he you know he did it was right in the eyes of the Lord but not as his father David has had done because the people still sacrificed at the high places and things like that. And the best kings are the ones that tore down the high places like Josiah and Hezekiah. But then by the time you get to Chronicles you really don't see much of a mixed assessment of of kings if they don't tear down the high places then they're looked upon negatively or. And again you can see that in the wake of what had preceded you know the right sort of the the extra awfulness you know of exile and all that. Right. Yeah and that's a very human it's a very human thing. You know sometimes I think you know we God certainly uses imperfect beings in lots of context and you know they they do the right thing in this or that set of circumstances and God uses them. Even though they're they're maybe not terribly consistent but they they're still servants you know and we tend to have this all or nothing. Right kind of perspective because you know some of the things you do read in in the historical books there but that's a really interesting topic. And when you get to I think the whole story of northern Israel in First Kings 12 to 2 Kings 17 is precisely that showing how God does remarkable things even with people who are not wholly devoted to him that Yahweh's relationship. He still has a relationship with northern Israel. He still his reputation is still tied to them and he's going to go go to war with them go to bat for them he's going to punish them to. But it's an imperfect it's imperfect but God still works with imperfect. And if judges again judges being part of the whole complex. Yeah I mean that certainly happens there so it's not like if it happens in these other books that it's some sort of aberrant. Yeah. Like what's that doing there well again it's part of the same corpus. You know you can certainly look at examples of doing just that you know where God is willing to do that. Even though you're a man you know you can even say that of David even though you're a mess. Right. Right. You know we're you're the right person at this this point in time and let's do that. Yeah that's interesting. Yeah that whole interplay between the Israel Judah and then Benjamin in the middle that's where I've really camped out in the last few years and just that see those the relationship between a lot of times we just don't really fully under fully appreciate the dynamics in the text of the relations between those tribes. Let me ask this question as we wrap up. If someone really wanted to get into your turf you know the historical books Deuteronomistic history. What's a good way of introducing that discussion again to an interested lay person somebody who's maybe not at Hebrew. What would you recommend to sort of you know awaken them to OK here's this here's this part of the Hebrew Bible. That's why it's called Deuteronomistic history or these these clump of historical books and here's this unit. Here are the issues to think about when reading in one of these books. Do you have a good recommendation for somebody to jump in in this. Well I think just I would say one general recommendation and then a specific plug I could make would be Chronicles seems boring. Until you understand and read it closely with Samuel and Kings and see how creative and you know what exactly. It's the only instance I think that we have in the Old Testament of where we have an actual author of scripture. What he was using as his source for scripture and so to see what the Chronicle does opens up a whole new world for understanding. Understanding what the scriptural authors are doing and Chronicle studies has just blossomed in the last 40 or 50 years because of that whole approach. Whereas previously everything was about reconstructing history and chronicler was thought to be late and unreliable so nobody really paid attention. But now there's just a lot of very interesting renewed attention on Chronicles. If you're looking for a very something more academic. So I think any standard introduction to the narrative books or a good commentary on Chronicles will have an introduction to that to those issues like Dave Howard's you know the old. I think it was moody. It was before the the hand. What was it called. It might have been called introduction to the and then they had a Pentateuch volume and a historical book spot volume. Bullock did the poetry volume. You know there was that. I think it was the old moody series. Yeah. Like Dave Howard you know has sort of David. Yeah. Out here. But he did that kind of book. And then I think it was Baker who did a series of handbooks. Okay. On the different sections you know the Hebrew Bible. Well there's Patricia Dutch or walls has written a good introduction to the narrative books that's more kind of approached a narrative approach. There's a lot of really good commentaries on Chronicles that have come out in the last 15 or 20 years from a variety of perspectives. Jewish and Christian and more critical perspectives by Sarah Jaffet and Gary Knoppers and Ralph Klein. And but if I were to recommend something more specific and you know a really interesting creative unique take on Chronicles. I have to put in a plug for my doctoral advisor Louis Yonker he published a book with more Z back last year that explores that he's pulling from different different disciplines including Persian period studies and you know working in a kind of a post colonial context as in South Africa. And but what he really brings to the text is an understanding of the multi layered identity that stands behind what the chronicler is doing and who the chronicler is speaking to and how how the chronicler would chroniclers work would have been received and speaks to a very unique and crucial but very exciting time in the Persian period or maybe the early Hellenistic period but where Israel's or Judah. The Jewish community is sort of at a crossroads and they're rethinking many things about their faith. But I would say Louis book it's called defining all Israel in Chronicles. Yeah, it's more Z back. Yeah, 2016 in the for Schungen zoom Alton Testament series so few that's that's more for the real committed. Yeah, yeah. But it is I don't think you need don't think you need much Hebrew or Aramaic to get into that and really glean a lot from it. Well, thanks for spending some time with us. My pleasure. Thanks for inviting me. Yeah, I'm glad we were able to do this again at just an interesting discussion. Again, and it's especially nice since you know you're used to the podcast you know the audience a little bit know the what we're trying to do here. So thanks again for spending some of your day with us. No problem. All right, we're back at SPL and we have with us John Schwant. John is a colleague at Faith life and he is the force behind mobile Ed. Hi, Mike. It's great to be here. Yeah, so tell the audience a little bit about yourself first. You know your education, your areas of interest and expertise and then we really need to talk about mobile Ed because it's something ideal for listeners. Well, fantastic. I am a big fan. I was a big fan of logos from the beginning. My first degree was in landscape architecture. Actually, you can actually see there's a. I did not know that. You know, it's actually a connection there again. We all go back to the garden. Right. So when I was finishing that degree, I also love the Bible and I ended up buying logos in 92. So the first version of it and I've loved it ever since and then eventually have come to work here. So and now not only has the library grown, but we're inviting the premium professors from around the world and you don't have to now pick and choose what seminary you want to go to to get a particular professor. We're bringing them here and then we connect them to the fantastic library. Yeah. I mean, I remember again, I was, of course, the listeners are going to know I was at the sort of at the beginning stages of mobile Ed. And again, the kind of people in this audience were the people we had in mind again. Just forget about the expense forget about upgrading your family forget about quitting your church to learn how to do ministry. If you want an education, you know, can we create courseware really course content again for someone to learn anywhere, no matter where they are. Again, there's a reason it's called mobile Ed on any device. And so yeah, this is we're now at a place where how many courses are actually shipping now. It's a lot. Yeah, it's over 200 now 200 courses. And again, we invite scholars in specifically with the intent that we want you to give, you know, us and so give our audience give, you know, those who jump into mobile Ed. What you do in your classroom, you know, it's not it's not watered down. It's not different. It's not, you know, something like that's remedial. This is what they do in the places where they teach. It's condensed, of course. But, you know, there it is. I mean, this is what they're going to they just they bring their own notes, they bring the notes they use and then they give us the content. That's exactly right. And that's where it gets kind of fun because education is starting to change. And I think it's going to really help the adult learner. And the person you're talking about is is me. I wasn't in theology to begin with later I went to seminary and and I had to choose that seminary of the faculty I wanted to learn from. And then became a great professor for 20 years and then finished my doctorate while I was doing that. But as we bring these professors in, we they have their class notes. We don't let them lecture for two hours. And that's what I like to do as a lecture. You're lucky. I'm not just dominating this conversation right now. We make them stop every 10 to 15 minutes and really think about what they're going to teach. And so it when you say condensed, yeah, we distill their course into this essential elements. They don't have to keep repeating themselves because we record, we record them and they can replay so an adult learner can sit down for five to 10 minutes and learn the key components of any particular lecture that would have been an hour long because of the repetition. And then you can see the you can stop at any point see the transcript make notes in it comment with your friends it's connected to lots of books that you wouldn't normally get to because of the the trek across the campus to the library. And so we can do so much more in such a small space of time that it's perfect for the modern adult learner. Yeah, I remember in the early days we'd we'd get people in you know scholars fall over the place in the building and they're like, I don't know if I can get through my material in a week. And it's like just look just trust us because we know that when you're in the studio, you don't have to. There's a lot of repetition there's a lot of waste of time you're not going to be talking but hey did everybody get this handout. For those of you who missed the assignment here's what it was for those of you who weren't here last time well let's read you know recap what we did the previous class period hey how about the cowboys you know you don't have these these rabbit trails and discussions and and they were amazed again in the that they could actually get through a semester long course in a week you know and then chop it up into these these increments that we have again that's the thing we imposed on them you know breaks in between you know the their course content again to chop it up into easily again you play back you know little pieces of it and if they ever make a mistake. Then it's not I don't have to repeat the last 30 minutes you know I just it's two or three minutes it's four or five minutes. So they were just kind of stunned that they could actually get through the content and it kind of made them wonder like what am I doing. You know in the regular class or why does it take you know 45 hours during a semester to you know to go through this stuff when I could do it really in 10 hours total. It is incredible I found this to be true to at other colleges universities and seminars who are recording some of their content but they don't usually connect it with the books that we have they. So Biola is one for example they will it's very common for them to end up distilling an entire semester down into six video hours when they do this. Now the the difference would be the the platform so when you take a course in in our platform it's going to be connected to a variety books and then price point is going to be a huge. And you can search the videos to because you have things you know transcribed I mean there are courses that have transcripts you can you know go in and out again interact with with like you said the sources the library. There is a lot of difference and this is not we should add somebody you know a camera in the back of the room and you got this you got the guy in the front and he's kind of tiny but you can hear it's it's not that that's right. It's designed for the online learner or the digital learner that a person's in the front space you're in a conversation with the with the guide. And I did mention price really as a reference point but because I do think that we need to think about this as as a society of what we're charging one another to grow in our understanding the Bible. And you know the way we've built the university system you know it's very common to pay over $1500 for a course a semester course and a single course. It's that's a lot of money when you start to want to learn a lot of things. And so we're since we don't have the overhead of a traditional school we can focus on the content. We're able to deliver this a fraction of that price point and it's there's some amazing deals right now the. Yeah we should talk about some of that both to churches and individuals so go ahead. Well in fact there's a free course it's available this month. The logos has the free book of the month this month the free book is a course. So you can go to logos comm and pick up an entirely free course and there's another one for for $10. And then there's going to be some fantastic Black Friday deals coming up and that for the entire month mobile ed is the spotlight for the company and so there is a. You're welcome to call sales and there's a number of bundles and a tremendous discount offer already it's crazy good price for what you're getting. Compared to most institutions right now mobile ed correct me if I'm wrong here because I'm a bit out of the sales loop but mobile ed is accessible through subscription correct yeah okay so let's describe that a little bit. Well subscription is a new ground for us and we're continuing to improve in that so. Currently there's it's $50 a month for access to around 30 courses and that that that content changes every quarter and so you can get quite a wide swath of education through that program. You're not going to touch that anywhere. Oh yeah. Yeah trust me. So you got you have exposed to about 30 courses you said is there is there a tiered thing or is there are there other subscription plans like logos now I mean what's the relationship between logos now and mobile ed. So so long as now is a membership program and by being a member of longest now you get access to a mobile ed course. There's lots of ways that you're going to be able to find a mobile ed course so if you purchase a base package they come with a mobile ed course at least one some of the levels come with multiple once. And then we have the free book of the month course right now now the now plan has a has a course. And I this subscription model is going to become we're going to add some new dimensions to it in the coming year so just kind of look ahead for that but the value is going to still be that same great value and there's no I wouldn't wait. We're going to just kind of add more value to the current program. Yeah. What are what are some of the more popular courses are the ones that come to your mind like if you want to know about XYZ topic. Hey we have this great course on you know this and that. Well you might be surprised to hear that prior our top selling courses are done by this. This professor called Dr. Heiser. Okay I'll take credit for this shameless plug. I mean this guy has produced these courses on difficult passages and those are very important. I mean that's what we want where we want to grow is we want to have answers to problem passages the stuff that's obvious. Well you know I don't need a teacher for that I don't want the extra instructions so those are have done very well in a very popular. We have some other fantastic professors as well. I would imagine Darryl Box courses sell pretty well. Yes. Craig Evans John Walton. Yep. You know Mark Furtado again this isn't you know these are these are experienced professors and they've taught what we're asking them to teach many times. So they're this is their wheelhouse and again you get that in an easily deliverable form. Again just think about again if you take notes if you are a log off user if you take notes on a course let's just say you're doing a mobile course and you have your own set of notes. Those are those are permanently part of your library you can actually go search them just like you would search a book. There's just a lot of things that you know that sort of changes the dynamic. It's not just sort of a static experience where you listen to a lecture then you leave the room and you've got to set a paper notes or even you know something in a word doc you have something that if you're doing it in the ecosystem. It becomes part of that ecosystem just by default. And if you miss something you can play it over. Again you could do it on your laptop you can do it on your phone. I mean it this is what it's designed for because you know let's face it you know real life is you know complicated you there's lots of things that draw on your time lots of things that get in the way. Nobody has really a sort of an easy smooth schedule. You have to break things up and again that's the logic behind what we're trying to do. Yeah actually that made me think of something to that we haven't mentioned in terms of the subscription plans. We've been talking about this serious student that that doesn't have to be at a seminary but if they are that's great to. What about education for the adult the adults in a church. Right somebody who just like like the curiosity the curious person you know I just want to try something out for a couple hours or you know that sort of thing yeah. We have an amazing program it's we call it the church deal because it's such a that would make sense. And what it is is it's access to the entire video content of the entire mobile ad catalog 200 courses for an entire congregation so every member of the congregation can watch it. Now the leaders are probably going to want to own a course or have the access to note taking and even take community notes with the leadership team probably. This is a program that on Faith Life TV unlocks all of the video content and actually at my church we have a number of small groups using this program to as the teaching content. Well I should mention the person who does the transcripts for the podcast her name is Brenda I've mentioned her before. She told me last week that her church subscribes to this so she gets access to the whole mobile ad catalog for again this the annual price you know dispense to a church everyone in her church. Has access to all of the courses and she's one I don't mean who knows how many people take advantage of that but but she really does she's been through a number of already. So yeah I mean if your church if you're a pastor you know listen to this or even if you're not a pastor bring it to your pastor's attention that hey you know you know we should check this out and our entire congregation. You know gets access to every course that mobile ad produces and you know go up to the website and find out what would that be called how would they find it on the website just church deal. Yeah so it's faithlifesites.com slash church deal. Okay yeah I again she was real Brenda was really excited about it and I know a few other people that you know I've met because of the podcast that their church does the same thing so just think about it everybody in your congregation who would care to you know put their toe in your even for an hour or so or 100 hours you know there you go you have access to everything. And I I end up using the video content more than I want to admit because I have I want to study and I and take notes and do all the reading links but the day gets away from me and then it comes night that the kids are down and I turn my And I also have Apple TV I tend to use my Roku more either one the faith life TV has a channel there and so I'll pop it on and I'll think okay I can watch five minutes of a lecture here there and and next thing I know it's 30 minutes later and I've learned quite a bit right it's kind of relaxed with it so that's how I use it. Yeah are you are you saying it beats you know dancing with the stars is that what you. I don't want to stuff on your favorite show that's not my idea I haven't I haven't throw a few things I don't understand a few mysteries to those in this world that's probably one for me. Well thanks for spending a little time with us and again mobile at is is a big deal I mean it's it's designed for people who just want to learn something about the Bible and they don't want to have to like change their life you know uproot everything incur a huge expense to be able to do it so we're glad that John could join us again introduce people to that program that effort really that that whole concept. The whole effort on the part of the company to get people content if that's what our listeners care about they want content they're the people who care about learning scripture and are really. They jump in they are determined again to teach themselves that's why they listen and mobile that is a great opportunity to do that in another form. Thank you. Thank you. Our Mike will to great interviews and I want to give Ben's mom a shout out. Yeah for introducing them to the podcast so good for you good mom. Yeah I mean yeah really this is what we need I tell people tell a friend maybe tell an enemy to. And she's a real real avid listener of the podcast and we're thankful for that. Absolutely and been feeling isolated where he's at says nobody to talk shop to so he can listen to your lovely voice every night. Maybe we can get more on and pinch it. And also Mike real quick you'll talk to John we have a coupon code for the naked Bible listeners. If you go to Faith life or log off city and you check out use the coupon code naked Bible 7. That's the number 7 so naked Bible number 7 naked Bible 7 use that coupon code when you check out. And I'm not quite sure right now what you're going to get but we'll have more details in the next podcast. You're going to get a discount on stuff but you know it remains to be seen. I don't have that in front of you right now so just go try it and see what happens. Yeah you're going to discount on something good. All right there you go. Well we want to thank Ben and John for coming on podcast and we 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.