1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:04,960 Almost everything that we, you know, get wrong, or at least 2 00:00:04,960 --> 00:00:08,240 everything that we think about the 10 commandments today, that 3 00:00:08,360 --> 00:00:11,920 isn't what I think the 10 commandments were about when 4 00:00:11,920 --> 00:00:15,200 they were originally written. Almost all of that is actually 5 00:00:15,320 --> 00:00:17,800 about 2000 years old. The big question I'm asking here 6 00:00:17,800 --> 00:00:20,160 is really like, how did we get from this? 7 00:00:20,480 --> 00:00:22,920 You know, however you want to think about ancient Israelite or 8 00:00:22,920 --> 00:00:27,040 like ancient Jewish biblical text in the Hebrew Bible, how 9 00:00:27,040 --> 00:00:32,600 did that thing become the symbol actually of like contemporary 10 00:00:32,600 --> 00:00:36,160 right wing Christianity? And why is it that it's like a 11 00:00:36,160 --> 00:00:38,560 Christian obsession rather than a Jewish one? 12 00:00:38,680 --> 00:00:41,320 Are Americans obsessed with the 10 commandments? 13 00:00:41,600 --> 00:00:45,520 And if so, is it a uniquely American thing or a part of a 14 00:00:45,520 --> 00:00:48,040 long story? Hey, I'm Jordan, and this is 15 00:00:48,040 --> 00:00:50,400 Bible and archaeology. I'm so happy to be joined today 16 00:00:50,400 --> 00:00:53,240 by Doctor Joel Baden for a discussion about the 10 17 00:00:53,240 --> 00:00:56,360 Commandments, the context that you should be reading them in, 18 00:00:56,520 --> 00:00:58,880 the problem of taking them out and acting like they are 19 00:00:58,880 --> 00:01:03,360 independent, and why Americans seem to interact with the 10 20 00:01:03,360 --> 00:01:07,480 Commandments in the way that they do because it may not be so 21 00:01:07,480 --> 00:01:10,560 uniquely American. I think some parts are, some 22 00:01:10,560 --> 00:01:13,240 parts aren't. If you are interested in a deep 23 00:01:13,240 --> 00:01:16,120 dive into the 10 Commandments and learning more, you're in 24 00:01:16,120 --> 00:01:18,800 luck because Doctor Baden is going to have a class all about 25 00:01:18,800 --> 00:01:21,160 the 10 Commandments at the end of April. 26 00:01:21,160 --> 00:01:22,840 There's a link down in the description. 27 00:01:22,840 --> 00:01:25,840 You'll get 10 hours on the 10 Commandments with Doctor Joel 28 00:01:25,840 --> 00:01:27,120 Baden. Go and sign up. 29 00:01:27,120 --> 00:01:29,760 But for now, settle in and I hope you enjoy our conversation, 30 00:01:29,840 --> 00:01:31,840 conversation all about the 10 commandments. 31 00:01:35,040 --> 00:01:37,800 Doctor Baden, thank you so much for taking the time to come back 32 00:01:37,800 --> 00:01:39,680 again. There said long time no see. 33 00:01:39,680 --> 00:01:42,760 Happy to have you here to talk a little bit about the 10 34 00:01:42,760 --> 00:01:45,800 commandments, something you're going to be talking about a lot 35 00:01:45,800 --> 00:01:49,080 here in the near future. At the end of April, 10 hours on 36 00:01:49,080 --> 00:01:51,160 the 10 Commandments, which isn't the name, but feels like it 37 00:01:51,160 --> 00:01:54,280 could be the 10 Commandments class. 38 00:01:54,280 --> 00:01:55,400 You're going to be covering it all. 39 00:01:55,400 --> 00:01:58,040 So we're going to dip our toes into that today. 40 00:01:58,040 --> 00:02:00,000 So thanks for coming over my. Pleasure. 41 00:02:00,360 --> 00:02:03,880 Can we start with maybe the elephant in the room, which is 42 00:02:03,880 --> 00:02:06,600 the American obsession with the 10 commandments, 'cause I think 43 00:02:06,600 --> 00:02:10,520 this is maybe the entry way that we have to acknowledge before we 44 00:02:10,520 --> 00:02:16,520 can talk about anything else. Do you have any sense for why 45 00:02:16,680 --> 00:02:20,040 you think Americans are obsessed with the 10 commandments in the 46 00:02:20,040 --> 00:02:23,480 way that they are? Yeah, I mean, this is sort of 47 00:02:23,480 --> 00:02:27,520 where the the course starts too, which is like, you know, the 10 48 00:02:27,520 --> 00:02:31,800 commandments are like this text that somehow like this is the 49 00:02:31,800 --> 00:02:33,560 one that we want to put in front of courthouses. 50 00:02:33,560 --> 00:02:36,800 This is the one that we want to put in classrooms and curricula. 51 00:02:38,200 --> 00:02:42,800 And, you know, the question that I'm, I'm looking to answer a 52 00:02:42,800 --> 00:02:47,960 little bit is not so much like why that's the case, Because, 53 00:02:49,520 --> 00:02:53,160 you know, I think there's, there's like a, a big long story 54 00:02:53,160 --> 00:02:56,960 there that has a lot to do with like contemporary evangelical, 55 00:02:56,960 --> 00:02:59,400 sort of, you know, thoughts about the Bible. 56 00:02:59,400 --> 00:03:02,840 I'll get there. But you know, how is it that 57 00:03:03,280 --> 00:03:05,920 the, the big question I'm asking here is really like, how did we 58 00:03:05,920 --> 00:03:08,080 get from this? You know, however you want to 59 00:03:08,080 --> 00:03:12,160 think about ancient Israelite or like ancient Jewish, like 60 00:03:12,320 --> 00:03:16,160 biblical text in the Hebrew Bible, How did that thing become 61 00:03:17,040 --> 00:03:21,760 like the symbol actually of like contemporary right wing 62 00:03:21,760 --> 00:03:26,000 Christianity? And why is it that it's like a 63 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:28,880 Christian obsession rather than a Jewish one, say? 64 00:03:30,400 --> 00:03:35,400 And you know, part of the story is like part of the story has to 65 00:03:35,400 --> 00:03:41,160 do with, you know, a, a, a very sort of modern Bible centric, 66 00:03:42,560 --> 00:03:47,600 like Christian movement. You know, like all the stuff you 67 00:03:47,600 --> 00:03:52,440 see out there, like phrases like biblical worldview and like, 68 00:03:53,040 --> 00:03:55,640 like these, these, these notions of like, I were like we're 69 00:03:55,640 --> 00:03:58,560 upholding the Bible, of course, colored in Christianity by the 70 00:03:58,560 --> 00:04:03,680 fact that, you know, not the whole Bible, like not all the 71 00:04:03,680 --> 00:04:07,720 laws, just these laws and that right. 72 00:04:07,880 --> 00:04:11,160 And, and, and, and that like selectivity, right. 73 00:04:11,160 --> 00:04:13,960 The notion that like these ten are the laws that matter and the 74 00:04:13,960 --> 00:04:17,959 other laws that like Jews follow really don't that, of course, 75 00:04:17,959 --> 00:04:20,880 isn't modern. That's nearly 2000 years old. 76 00:04:21,959 --> 00:04:28,360 And actually not just that, but basically almost everything that 77 00:04:28,360 --> 00:04:32,400 we, you know, get wrong, or at least everything that we think 78 00:04:32,400 --> 00:04:37,560 about the 10 commandments today. That isn't what I think the 10 79 00:04:37,560 --> 00:04:39,600 commandments were about when they were originally written. 80 00:04:40,320 --> 00:04:43,800 Almost all of that is actually about 2000 years old in terms of 81 00:04:43,800 --> 00:04:47,880 like interpretation. And so, you know, the class is 82 00:04:47,880 --> 00:04:50,480 going to be looking at like all these different facets of this, 83 00:04:50,760 --> 00:04:54,280 of this text, it's history. You know, who wrote it, when it 84 00:04:54,280 --> 00:04:58,120 was written, why it was written, what it's like, what it was, 85 00:04:58,120 --> 00:05:01,920 what its function was both in the real world and in the text, 86 00:05:02,680 --> 00:05:06,120 like how important it was. And of course, like what's 87 00:05:06,120 --> 00:05:08,240 actually in it and what those, those words mean. 88 00:05:09,920 --> 00:05:13,800 We're like 2000 years deep into a bunch of, I don't want to say 89 00:05:13,800 --> 00:05:18,400 misunderstandings, but just like interpretations that are 90 00:05:19,280 --> 00:05:23,200 different from what any of those things would have been, you 91 00:05:23,200 --> 00:05:25,600 know, in ancient Israel when the text was written. 92 00:05:26,480 --> 00:05:29,400 When you're looking at that question of how we came here, do 93 00:05:29,400 --> 00:05:34,680 you see that 2000 year cycle as fairly constant or are there 94 00:05:34,680 --> 00:05:38,440 real like jumps and starts and movements in direction along 95 00:05:38,440 --> 00:05:42,520 this path of misunderstanding or shifting or understanding or 96 00:05:42,520 --> 00:05:45,120 however you want to frame that because that is such a long 97 00:05:45,400 --> 00:05:49,520 scope to look at for the how? Yeah, I mean it actually. 98 00:05:49,520 --> 00:05:52,760 So what I, what I think I would say, what I think I'm going to 99 00:05:52,760 --> 00:05:58,720 say is that like most of the interpretations of the 10 100 00:05:58,720 --> 00:06:03,040 commandments that sort of shaped how we think of them today are 101 00:06:03,040 --> 00:06:06,040 really very, very, very old. Essentially like we've been, 102 00:06:06,320 --> 00:06:08,960 like, I say, we've been sort of sitting with an understanding of 103 00:06:08,960 --> 00:06:13,040 the 10 commandments and like, not like, like, not like 1 104 00:06:13,040 --> 00:06:16,360 moment and then 2000 years of nothingness, but you know, like 105 00:06:17,280 --> 00:06:23,520 moments in antiquity where meanings were lost or shifted or 106 00:06:23,520 --> 00:06:26,120 adjusted. Sometimes it's Jewish, sometimes 107 00:06:26,120 --> 00:06:31,680 it's Christian, sometimes it's even inner biblical, you know, 108 00:06:31,720 --> 00:06:37,440 and, and some of it is like, you know, overtly Augustinian, for 109 00:06:37,440 --> 00:06:41,720 example. But I, I guess part of what I'm, 110 00:06:41,720 --> 00:06:45,640 what I would argue is like, so the 10 commandments are from 111 00:06:46,160 --> 00:06:47,400 somewhere. I'm not going to give away 112 00:06:47,400 --> 00:06:50,720 where, but like somewhere in the, you know, first half of the 113 00:06:50,720 --> 00:06:55,680 first Millennium BCE. And I would sort of argue that 114 00:06:55,680 --> 00:07:01,080 by the first half of the first Millennium CE it they were what 115 00:07:01,080 --> 00:07:06,040 they are now. And like that to me is actually 116 00:07:06,400 --> 00:07:09,120 like fascinating. This is not a question of sort 117 00:07:09,120 --> 00:07:14,000 of modern readers or believers or interpreters or Christians or 118 00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:17,840 Jews sort of like coming to it and thinking, oh, this says 119 00:07:17,840 --> 00:07:21,560 something different from what it said, you know, back then. 120 00:07:22,320 --> 00:07:26,960 It's just picking up on and really sort of like adhering to 121 00:07:27,680 --> 00:07:33,400 an old set of readings and understandings and, and 122 00:07:33,400 --> 00:07:35,920 exploring like how and why those shifts happened. 123 00:07:35,920 --> 00:07:39,200 And they happened again at like various times in antiquity. 124 00:07:39,360 --> 00:07:42,200 Sometimes it was historical, sometimes it was theological, 125 00:07:42,360 --> 00:07:45,080 sometimes it was, you know, about Judaism, sometimes about 126 00:07:45,080 --> 00:07:48,200 Christianity. All of these sort of factors in 127 00:07:48,200 --> 00:07:52,440 antiquity shaped the text into basically what we think it is 128 00:07:52,440 --> 00:07:54,160 today. I feel like you're touching on 129 00:07:54,160 --> 00:07:56,640 so much of the the problem in thinking about these. 130 00:07:56,640 --> 00:08:00,160 When we think of them as we're going to set something up or 131 00:08:00,160 --> 00:08:03,360 someone wants to set something up someplace, it feels like this 132 00:08:03,360 --> 00:08:05,360 fixed thing. We've got a number, there's ten 133 00:08:05,360 --> 00:08:07,240 of them. You see it in this like 134 00:08:07,240 --> 00:08:10,760 monolithic thing, like the thing from 2001 Space Odyssey, and 135 00:08:10,760 --> 00:08:13,840 there it is, and it just sits there and it has appeared. 136 00:08:14,200 --> 00:08:17,960 And yet you're talking about so much of how this is not fixed, 137 00:08:18,040 --> 00:08:20,200 but very flexible and adaptable over time. 138 00:08:20,520 --> 00:08:24,200 And yet our approaches to it can almost be fixed at the same 139 00:08:24,200 --> 00:08:27,080 time. When you're thinking along this 140 00:08:27,080 --> 00:08:32,960 long how process, how do you balance the fixed and not fixed? 141 00:08:32,960 --> 00:08:35,960 It has descended as one thing and yet is very much back and 142 00:08:35,960 --> 00:08:38,600 forth because in some ways it's like an encapsulation of that 143 00:08:38,600 --> 00:08:42,320 struggle across all of the text, but in one nice narrow little 144 00:08:42,320 --> 00:08:44,440 list that almost makes it worse. Yeah. 145 00:08:44,600 --> 00:08:48,520 I mean, I think, you know, that notion of like it being fixed is 146 00:08:49,280 --> 00:08:52,440 part of the understanding we have today, right? 147 00:08:52,440 --> 00:08:57,680 That is like not actually maybe as accurate to antiquity as as 148 00:08:57,680 --> 00:09:00,720 we'd like to think, you know, and part of that is, you know, 149 00:09:00,880 --> 00:09:02,680 this is like the literal set in stone. 150 00:09:03,600 --> 00:09:06,480 Like these are texts. It's it's words that we're told 151 00:09:06,480 --> 00:09:10,360 were like inscribed on stone. And so they were fixed. 152 00:09:10,720 --> 00:09:14,400 But of course, that's like, that's in the world of the story 153 00:09:14,640 --> 00:09:19,440 that that that we don't have and nobody had these like tablets of 154 00:09:19,440 --> 00:09:21,960 stone. And honestly, even if we did, 155 00:09:22,400 --> 00:09:25,520 and even if they did, it's not like that means that they're not 156 00:09:25,520 --> 00:09:28,600 interpretable or that their meaning is fixed. 157 00:09:30,040 --> 00:09:33,160 But you know, part of what we'll look at is not just that the, 158 00:09:33,680 --> 00:09:35,880 you know, the, the whole like stone tablet thing is a little 159 00:09:35,880 --> 00:09:41,280 bit of a, a distraction, but also that, you know, the words 160 00:09:41,280 --> 00:09:43,440 themselves actually weren't particularly fixed. 161 00:09:43,600 --> 00:09:47,800 You know, there are two versions of the 10 commandments in, in 162 00:09:47,800 --> 00:09:50,360 the Bible. There's the, the, the moment in 163 00:09:50,360 --> 00:09:52,840 Exodus where God speaks them. And there's the moment of 164 00:09:52,840 --> 00:09:55,240 Deuteronomy where Moses like, and this is what God said back 165 00:09:55,240 --> 00:09:56,920 then. And they're not the same. 166 00:09:58,240 --> 00:10:02,240 And, and they're not, and, and then, you know, Jesus quotes the 167 00:10:02,240 --> 00:10:07,000 10 commandments famously, but only half of them and not in the 168 00:10:07,000 --> 00:10:11,720 same order as in our Bibles. And we have other texts of the 169 00:10:11,720 --> 00:10:14,800 10 commandments for antiquity that aren't in the same order. 170 00:10:15,880 --> 00:10:21,360 So there's like this notion of sort of fixedness is part of the 171 00:10:21,360 --> 00:10:24,280 myth of, of the 10 commandments, right? 172 00:10:24,280 --> 00:10:28,760 Is this part of this, this notion of like this eternal, I 173 00:10:28,800 --> 00:10:30,640 mean, you know, sort of like you said, right? 174 00:10:30,640 --> 00:10:32,560 Like the like space Odyssey, right? 175 00:10:32,560 --> 00:10:36,040 Like it like came down to earth in this like fixed form. 176 00:10:36,040 --> 00:10:38,760 And it's always been that way, and it just hasn't always been 177 00:10:38,760 --> 00:10:41,480 that way. In the moments that you're 178 00:10:41,480 --> 00:10:43,760 talking about here where they show up, the different 179 00:10:43,760 --> 00:10:47,040 storylines that the 10 commandments or a version of 180 00:10:47,040 --> 00:10:50,240 them appear in, as you're noting, differ so wildly. 181 00:10:50,440 --> 00:10:52,720 And yet I think when we talk about the 10 commandments, it 182 00:10:52,720 --> 00:10:56,400 usually happens completely removed of any narrative context 183 00:10:56,400 --> 00:10:59,400 around them. Like they are just a world of 184 00:10:59,400 --> 00:11:02,160 themselves. When you try to plug people back 185 00:11:02,160 --> 00:11:05,320 into considering the commandments within the 186 00:11:05,320 --> 00:11:08,080 narratives, does it create discomfort? 187 00:11:08,240 --> 00:11:10,800 Because I think of this idea of like, we want them to be a fixed 188 00:11:10,800 --> 00:11:13,400 thing. Suddenly narrativizing it makes 189 00:11:13,400 --> 00:11:16,560 it so radically different. Yeah, I mean, we're, we're 190 00:11:16,680 --> 00:11:17,920 obviously going to talk about that. 191 00:11:18,880 --> 00:11:20,520 I, I, I don't know whether it causes discomfort. 192 00:11:20,520 --> 00:11:24,240 I'll find out, you know, from people's questions afterward. 193 00:11:24,880 --> 00:11:29,080 But yeah, like the narrative matters. 194 00:11:29,320 --> 00:11:33,520 And The thing is, we, we, we know the narrative matters in a 195 00:11:33,760 --> 00:11:37,600 few ways, right? The, the, the like Augustinian 196 00:11:37,600 --> 00:11:40,320 ancient Christian claimed that like, these are the only laws 197 00:11:40,320 --> 00:11:43,280 that really matter and all the rest of the laws we can do 198 00:11:43,280 --> 00:11:48,400 without is not like separable from the story, right? 199 00:11:48,400 --> 00:11:51,840 Because that's really grounded in the notion in the story that 200 00:11:51,840 --> 00:11:55,160 God spoke these words directly to the Israelites, right? 201 00:11:55,280 --> 00:11:58,000 These are the only laws that were mediated by Moses. 202 00:11:59,280 --> 00:12:03,200 So like that part of the story is part of the story, right? 203 00:12:03,320 --> 00:12:07,360 It's part of it's part of the 10 commandments like as a concept. 204 00:12:07,760 --> 00:12:11,120 But when you really get into what's going on actually in the 205 00:12:11,760 --> 00:12:14,960 in the biblical narratives, plural, right, The one in Exodus 206 00:12:14,960 --> 00:12:20,000 and the one in Deuteronomy, you know, actually only one of them 207 00:12:20,000 --> 00:12:22,360 says that God spoke directly to the people. 208 00:12:22,800 --> 00:12:26,280 And like, that's going to I just gave it away, but that's going 209 00:12:26,280 --> 00:12:28,960 to freak people out, right? Like it's or at least it should 210 00:12:29,200 --> 00:12:32,760 give people some pause, right? Like how did we get to how did 211 00:12:32,760 --> 00:12:35,600 we get to thinking that when it only appears in one place? 212 00:12:35,840 --> 00:12:38,200 You know, this is a little bit then a story about, you know, 213 00:12:38,600 --> 00:12:41,680 like how some versions of narratives become dominant and 214 00:12:41,680 --> 00:12:48,960 others and others fall away. But the yeah, the the the idea 215 00:12:48,960 --> 00:12:52,800 of like re situating them in their story also obviously helps 216 00:12:52,800 --> 00:12:56,760 us answer the question of, you know, for the texts that give us 217 00:12:56,840 --> 00:13:02,000 these this, this thing, you know, fixed or not, what do they 218 00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:03,800 think it was doing? Like, what was the point of 219 00:13:04,600 --> 00:13:07,520 because as you say, once you sort of pull it out and say 220 00:13:07,520 --> 00:13:10,560 these are like the 10 most important, the only like 221 00:13:10,560 --> 00:13:13,480 relevant laws you're not thinking about. 222 00:13:13,840 --> 00:13:18,640 You know what, why they why they were just that they are. 223 00:13:19,600 --> 00:13:23,080 And, and, you know, this is really, this is, this comes back 224 00:13:23,080 --> 00:13:25,840 to the last thing we talked about actually, but the last 225 00:13:25,840 --> 00:13:29,400 time we, we chatted. But this, this, this sort of 226 00:13:29,400 --> 00:13:35,240 like readerly approach of taking a text and removing it from it's 227 00:13:35,240 --> 00:13:38,760 context and then treating it as like an independent little item 228 00:13:38,920 --> 00:13:41,560 is like a very old reading technique. 229 00:13:42,680 --> 00:13:46,320 But it's it's one that like, you know, changes the meanings of 230 00:13:46,320 --> 00:13:51,440 things or allows for, for new meanings to emerge and, and re 231 00:13:51,440 --> 00:13:54,560 situating them back into their narrative contexts, at least 232 00:13:54,560 --> 00:13:58,840 lets us sort of get a handle on, you know, what somebody might 233 00:13:58,840 --> 00:14:02,680 have thought they were doing when they were doing something 234 00:14:02,680 --> 00:14:04,800 with them. When we put them back in that 235 00:14:04,800 --> 00:14:09,120 context, should we be reading them more as a narrative than as 236 00:14:09,120 --> 00:14:10,600 law? Because when we take them out, 237 00:14:10,600 --> 00:14:14,520 it's easy to say here's a list, do or don't do these things, Oh, 238 00:14:14,520 --> 00:14:16,040 law, there we go. We can move on. 239 00:14:16,600 --> 00:14:20,000 But in plugging it back in and looking at the why they're here 240 00:14:20,000 --> 00:14:23,760 questions instead of just that they are, should we take a more 241 00:14:24,000 --> 00:14:26,920 narrative instead of legal approach to understanding them? 242 00:14:27,360 --> 00:14:32,080 Yeah, I mean, you're setting me up, you know, That's my thing, 243 00:14:32,080 --> 00:14:33,840 right? Like yes, we should. 244 00:14:34,520 --> 00:14:37,920 I'm happy to set you up, I love. You we should always be thinking 245 00:14:37,920 --> 00:14:43,000 about these. The 10 commandments appear and 246 00:14:43,000 --> 00:14:48,920 exist exclusively in a world of a story and. 247 00:14:49,240 --> 00:14:52,240 But for some people that like is a mind break thing because they 248 00:14:52,240 --> 00:14:55,360 almost exist exclusively without a story for so many people 249 00:14:55,360 --> 00:14:56,400 today. Yeah, yeah. 250 00:14:57,200 --> 00:14:59,760 And you know, this is this is part of the like, you mean you 251 00:14:59,760 --> 00:15:04,880 can hardly imagine taking almost any other like biblical chunk 252 00:15:04,880 --> 00:15:06,520 and being like, I'm going to put that on the monument. 253 00:15:06,520 --> 00:15:10,840 That's its own thing. But law has that, has that sense 254 00:15:10,840 --> 00:15:12,800 to it. But there's not a single law 255 00:15:12,800 --> 00:15:16,920 given in the entire Bible that isn't given in a story, right? 256 00:15:17,120 --> 00:15:21,920 There's no, like there's not even in that in that sense, like 257 00:15:21,920 --> 00:15:28,480 law or legal, the, the narrative or the literary genre of legal 258 00:15:28,560 --> 00:15:34,840 literature is, is, is almost, almost unique biblically in that 259 00:15:34,840 --> 00:15:36,960 way, right? We have an entire book of just 260 00:15:36,960 --> 00:15:39,240 Proverbs, just Proverbs. We have an entire book of 261 00:15:39,240 --> 00:15:41,720 Psalms, just Psalms. But we have stories. 262 00:15:41,720 --> 00:15:45,600 We have, you know, we have histories, we have all of these 263 00:15:45,600 --> 00:15:48,320 like we have prophecy. Obviously we've all of these 264 00:15:48,320 --> 00:15:52,000 literary genres that exist in their own, like there's a book 265 00:15:52,000 --> 00:15:54,760 of them. And obviously in antiquity we 266 00:15:54,760 --> 00:15:59,040 also had laws that existed as their own sort of document, 267 00:15:59,360 --> 00:16:02,640 their own independent being. But that that's not the case in 268 00:16:02,640 --> 00:16:05,360 the Bible. Every single law in the Bible is 269 00:16:05,360 --> 00:16:10,000 given by a character in a story. That character is God, all 270 00:16:10,040 --> 00:16:12,480 right. But by by character to another 271 00:16:12,480 --> 00:16:16,200 character or another set of characters, it's, you know, it's 272 00:16:16,240 --> 00:16:18,280 always embedded. There is no such thing. 273 00:16:18,320 --> 00:16:20,600 There's no biblical book that is just a book of law. 274 00:16:21,040 --> 00:16:24,120 And I think that's interesting and meaningful and it at least 275 00:16:24,120 --> 00:16:30,160 gives us the opportunity to ask the question not like not how 276 00:16:30,160 --> 00:16:35,440 did these laws function in the real world, but rather how did 277 00:16:35,440 --> 00:16:36,800 they function in the story world? 278 00:16:37,720 --> 00:16:40,600 Because, you know, again, unlike, I mean, we can ask 279 00:16:40,600 --> 00:16:42,800 about, you know, Psalms, how did a Psalm function the real world? 280 00:16:42,800 --> 00:16:44,160 How did Proverbs function the real world? 281 00:16:44,360 --> 00:16:46,480 How did prophecy like who were prophets? 282 00:16:46,480 --> 00:16:49,560 What were they actually doing? But we don't have any, we we 283 00:16:49,560 --> 00:16:52,640 can't really ask that question with law in ancient Israel 284 00:16:52,640 --> 00:16:58,000 because we don't have such a thing as just like a law code. 285 00:16:58,000 --> 00:17:01,560 That would have been, I don't know, put on stone and plopped 286 00:17:01,560 --> 00:17:03,400 in front of the ancient Israelite courthouse. 287 00:17:04,920 --> 00:17:07,280 And thinking of it in the narrative way complicates the 288 00:17:07,280 --> 00:17:10,680 idea of, well, we can apply these when you take them out and 289 00:17:10,680 --> 00:17:13,560 they're their own thing and you imagine that they plopped them 290 00:17:13,560 --> 00:17:16,119 in front of some courthouse and applied them as they were 291 00:17:16,119 --> 00:17:19,200 written. Instead of that this is from a 292 00:17:19,200 --> 00:17:23,560 character within a narrative as a part of a thing suddenly makes 293 00:17:23,560 --> 00:17:27,560 them no feel feel very different and presents a different 294 00:17:27,560 --> 00:17:29,840 question of like what they are trying to address. 295 00:17:30,240 --> 00:17:34,040 When you look at them again in that narrative context and as a 296 00:17:34,040 --> 00:17:36,920 character and as a voice for a character going this way. 297 00:17:37,600 --> 00:17:41,600 Is there a real misdirection in that long 2000 year scope of 298 00:17:41,600 --> 00:17:44,760 where we're looking at them now that we're looking at the wrong 299 00:17:44,760 --> 00:17:48,360 maybe point they're trying to address by removing them and 300 00:17:48,360 --> 00:17:49,520 making them function in this way? 301 00:17:49,640 --> 00:17:54,880 Yeah, sure. You know, the, the really, like 302 00:17:55,120 --> 00:17:57,960 we're sort of keep on circling back around to the same idea, 303 00:17:57,960 --> 00:18:02,400 which is like the removal, the, the removal of the 10 304 00:18:02,400 --> 00:18:07,840 commandments from their narrative context is like not a 305 00:18:07,840 --> 00:18:11,800 separable process from our changed understanding of them 306 00:18:13,120 --> 00:18:16,800 and their function. And once you start talking about 307 00:18:16,800 --> 00:18:20,760 them, even even just talking about them as an independent 308 00:18:20,760 --> 00:18:23,040 thing, you start to make a, you're starting to make a claim 309 00:18:23,040 --> 00:18:26,080 for them as existing outside of the story in which they appear. 310 00:18:26,760 --> 00:18:29,000 Right. And, you know, this is like, I, 311 00:18:29,720 --> 00:18:32,000 I like, I do this all the time and I kind of hate to do it. 312 00:18:32,000 --> 00:18:37,320 But, you know, if anyone today were to write a story set in 313 00:18:37,320 --> 00:18:43,120 antiquity in which laws appeared, would we ask? 314 00:18:43,400 --> 00:18:47,280 Like, would we be talking about, you know, those laws as their 315 00:18:47,280 --> 00:18:50,600 own thing or were we talking about like, well, in the story, 316 00:18:50,600 --> 00:18:52,520 what were they? What were they for and what were 317 00:18:52,520 --> 00:18:54,120 they doing? And who will listen to them? 318 00:18:54,120 --> 00:18:57,400 And and you know what, what did they mean? 319 00:18:58,040 --> 00:19:05,960 So yeah, recontextualizing them sort of gives us space, gives us 320 00:19:05,960 --> 00:19:12,320 space to think about them not as what they have become, but as as 321 00:19:12,320 --> 00:19:15,160 what they like authentically, originally were, right, Which is 322 00:19:15,760 --> 00:19:19,840 an object in a story. I want to come back to the the 323 00:19:19,840 --> 00:19:22,960 starting question, the American obsession, because in thinking 324 00:19:22,960 --> 00:19:25,600 about how they've been removed and what they were from my 325 00:19:25,600 --> 00:19:29,800 approach, obviously, if you're experiencing the 10 commandments 326 00:19:29,800 --> 00:19:32,760 in this removed context in America, it feels like something 327 00:19:32,760 --> 00:19:36,440 that might be uniquely American or in some ways the certain 328 00:19:36,440 --> 00:19:39,720 expressions of it might be particularly American or 329 00:19:39,720 --> 00:19:42,080 American evangelical or whatever it is out of that. 330 00:19:42,800 --> 00:19:46,400 But as you're talking about this longer history, is it really a 331 00:19:46,960 --> 00:19:49,680 uniquely American thing in the way we might be seeing it 332 00:19:49,680 --> 00:19:51,800 expressed now? Or you might be knowing it in a 333 00:19:51,800 --> 00:19:55,160 news story now that is put it in a school room or put it in front 334 00:19:55,160 --> 00:19:57,360 of a courthouse? Or is that a longer part of this 335 00:19:57,720 --> 00:20:00,920 no continued cycle of people taking it out and doing it and 336 00:20:01,400 --> 00:20:04,840 different expressions of it, but a a similar type of concern or 337 00:20:04,840 --> 00:20:07,360 mistaken addressee in it? Yeah, it's interesting. 338 00:20:07,360 --> 00:20:12,480 I mean, I don't know that there is any like pre or non American, 339 00:20:13,160 --> 00:20:15,440 you know, equivalent to the like, oh, we should make a 340 00:20:15,440 --> 00:20:19,280 statue of these things, right? And like put it out there 341 00:20:19,280 --> 00:20:23,360 publicly as a symbol of our belief system. 342 00:20:25,600 --> 00:20:27,080 Not like not in that material way. 343 00:20:27,800 --> 00:20:31,360 Certainly, you know, they get pulled out and used 344 00:20:31,400 --> 00:20:34,360 symbolically. I mean, you can see it in in 345 00:20:34,400 --> 00:20:37,920 arts, right, like the famous Rembrandt, which I think is 346 00:20:37,920 --> 00:20:40,480 probably the, is the art that's being used for the, for the 347 00:20:40,480 --> 00:20:43,560 course is like the, you know, the Rembrandt portrait of Moses 348 00:20:43,560 --> 00:20:48,040 holding the 10 commandments. So like they, they, they, they 349 00:20:48,040 --> 00:20:54,000 get pulled out and sort of held up in, in, in in various ways 350 00:20:54,000 --> 00:21:00,040 over over time. But, but I'm not sure that we, 351 00:21:00,840 --> 00:21:04,920 you know, I mean, you know, not Calvin, Luther, right, makes you 352 00:21:04,920 --> 00:21:08,200 know, Luther's little little catechism, which is like, you 353 00:21:08,200 --> 00:21:13,840 know, like Protestantism for kids, basically like starts with 354 00:21:14,160 --> 00:21:15,680 here's the 10 commandments, right? 355 00:21:15,840 --> 00:21:18,560 So this notion that they are this fundamental basis of this 356 00:21:18,600 --> 00:21:22,840 particularly Christian identity and, and, and life is, is, is 357 00:21:22,840 --> 00:21:25,720 not, is not contemporary, but, but the sort of the 358 00:21:25,720 --> 00:21:30,040 monumentality of it, the, the, the desire to use it as a 359 00:21:30,040 --> 00:21:34,320 symbol. It does is, I think, pretty 360 00:21:34,320 --> 00:21:36,840 inextricably LinkedIn contemporary American culture 361 00:21:37,120 --> 00:21:44,400 to, you know, desires for like really like publicly, like 362 00:21:45,080 --> 00:21:47,760 stating something, saying something about what we as a 363 00:21:47,760 --> 00:21:50,560 country are. Obviously it's not, it can't be 364 00:21:50,720 --> 00:21:54,320 separated from this notion of like America as a Christian 365 00:21:54,640 --> 00:21:57,200 nation. That's that's all in the in the 366 00:21:57,200 --> 00:22:00,720 background of what's going on in in America today. 367 00:22:02,360 --> 00:22:07,280 But you know, similar things were were going on again in 368 00:22:07,280 --> 00:22:12,000 terms of like taking them as fundamental as foundational for 369 00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:13,560 identity and for religious belief. 370 00:22:13,760 --> 00:22:15,640 That's been going on for a long time. 371 00:22:15,640 --> 00:22:18,280 And again, that's, you know, I think it does go back to 372 00:22:18,280 --> 00:22:23,600 Augustine at the very at least back to Augustine who very 373 00:22:23,600 --> 00:22:27,520 openly is just like, yeah, yeah. Like the biblical, we shouldn't 374 00:22:27,520 --> 00:22:29,920 ignore the biblical laws, but especially the 10 commandments, 375 00:22:29,920 --> 00:22:31,720 right? Those are the those are great 376 00:22:31,720 --> 00:22:34,760 except for the except for the 19. 377 00:22:35,040 --> 00:22:36,840 The 9 commandments are awesome for Augusta. 378 00:22:36,840 --> 00:22:38,640 And then there's then there's one that's not so good. 379 00:22:39,560 --> 00:22:43,000 When when we're talking about them as being set up, in some 380 00:22:43,000 --> 00:22:45,400 ways it feels like past work that you've done in talking 381 00:22:45,400 --> 00:22:49,800 about the way certain expressions of Christianity have 382 00:22:49,800 --> 00:22:53,480 sought to use artifacts, biblical artifacts, in holding 383 00:22:53,480 --> 00:22:55,160 up this thing. And the 10 commandments feel 384 00:22:55,160 --> 00:22:58,200 like that same type of point where we don't maybe have the 385 00:22:58,200 --> 00:23:01,840 things and yet those representations of them that we 386 00:23:01,840 --> 00:23:05,880 can make stand in as a helpful pseudo artifact that we can roll 387 00:23:05,880 --> 00:23:09,040 out or put in certain places to Marshall those same arguments. 388 00:23:09,320 --> 00:23:11,720 And we don't have to deal with the where did you get it from 389 00:23:11,720 --> 00:23:15,200 and who did you buy it from? Problems and just say same same 390 00:23:15,200 --> 00:23:17,600 solution but a a different presentation. 391 00:23:18,000 --> 00:23:20,240 Yeah, it it's funny that like the artifact thing really gets 392 00:23:20,240 --> 00:23:23,600 at the materiality of the 10 commandments, which is a an 393 00:23:23,600 --> 00:23:27,600 issue that's isn't, isn't unique, as I sort of suggested 394 00:23:27,600 --> 00:23:31,200 earlier, among biblical texts. There are virtually no other. 395 00:23:31,240 --> 00:23:34,720 I mean, there are plenty of like especially laws in the Bible 396 00:23:34,720 --> 00:23:37,320 that are said to have been written down, right, but not 397 00:23:37,320 --> 00:23:41,680 written down in stone. And like that part of the story 398 00:23:41,680 --> 00:23:46,240 that that notion that this of of all things in the entire Bible 399 00:23:46,240 --> 00:23:50,320 in New Testament included, was like was monumental back then. 400 00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:53,880 Back then being in the world of the story, I think very much as 401 00:23:53,880 --> 00:23:57,600 part of it's sort of like monumentality today. 402 00:23:59,320 --> 00:24:04,280 And again, I, I sort of, I kind of assume that underlying this, 403 00:24:04,280 --> 00:24:06,080 I don't know if I remember to say it is, is a notion that 404 00:24:06,080 --> 00:24:10,760 there must really have at some point been a stone like tablets 405 00:24:10,760 --> 00:24:14,680 of the 10 commandments that existed in the real world. 406 00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:18,560 So that such that we can, as you said, sort of like make a 407 00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:23,320 replica of them that would, that would contain some of the same 408 00:24:23,320 --> 00:24:27,240 kind of like numinous power that a physical object would have. 409 00:24:27,840 --> 00:24:29,880 Of course, there's like no evidence. 410 00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:33,400 In fact, I think it's no reason to even be looking for evidence 411 00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:39,040 that there ever was like stone monumental 10 commandments in 412 00:24:39,040 --> 00:24:43,560 the real world at any any time honestly before, like in front 413 00:24:43,560 --> 00:24:46,440 of courthouses today. Before you can go and find a 414 00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:48,840 bunch of versions of them now that have been put up all over 415 00:24:48,840 --> 00:24:51,480 the place. Yeah, I mean, you know, there, 416 00:24:51,520 --> 00:24:57,640 there, there are like there are texts with them on them, but but 417 00:24:57,640 --> 00:24:59,760 not this sort of monumental thing. 418 00:24:59,800 --> 00:25:03,760 That's it's my knowledge at least, that's reasonably new. 419 00:25:05,480 --> 00:25:08,520 Well, if you're interested in diving deeper into this 2000 420 00:25:08,520 --> 00:25:11,160 plus year story here that Joel's going to be talking about, 421 00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:12,480 you're in luck. There's a link down in the 422 00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:15,600 description. April 19th through 23rd, you can 423 00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:19,360 go join 10 hours on the 10 Commandments with Doctor Joel 424 00:25:19,360 --> 00:25:23,400 Baden and walk through a lot of the little teases that you got 425 00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:24,840 here. So if you are interested in 426 00:25:24,840 --> 00:25:27,520 learning more, go and sign up. Again, link down below. 427 00:25:27,520 --> 00:25:29,760 Joel, thank you so much for taking the time to tease out 428 00:25:29,760 --> 00:25:31,200 some of this. I always love getting to poke 429 00:25:31,200 --> 00:25:33,200 you to talk about the story in the context of things. 430 00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:35,480 So anytime you have the time, I'm happy to good. 431 00:25:36,320 --> 00:25:37,000 Pleasure as always.