WEBVTT 00:00:37.040 --> 00:00:39.520 Welcome to the Stone Choir Podcast. 00:00:39.520 --> 00:00:40.720 I am Corey J. 00:00:40.720 --> 00:00:41.600 Mahler. 00:00:41.600 --> 00:00:44.000 And I'm still Woe. 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:49.360 On today's Stone Choir, we're continuing our discussion of the Septuagint. 00:00:49.360 --> 00:00:54.000 This week's episode is going to specifically be focusing on wisdom literature. 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:57.200 So we're gonna talk a little bit about the Psalms and mostly 00:00:57.200 --> 00:00:59.360 Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. 00:00:59.520 --> 00:01:03.280 Before we begin, brief housekeeping, apologize for the last couple weeks not 00:01:03.280 --> 00:01:03.840 being around. 00:01:03.840 --> 00:01:06.080 I was on my way out the door to have my surgery 00:01:06.080 --> 00:01:08.160 when I got called and said it had been cancelled. 00:01:08.320 --> 00:01:10.320 I don't have a date yet for when it's gonna be done 00:01:10.320 --> 00:01:14.640 again. I am thankful that happened because I realized afterwards I have 00:01:14.800 --> 00:01:17.440 six tons of wood pellets coming soon that I have to get 00:01:17.440 --> 00:01:20.000 into my garage, so I would not have been able to do 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:23.920 that when I was healing from surgery, so God protected me from 00:01:23.920 --> 00:01:26.800 being an idiot, as he does us all. 00:01:26.800 --> 00:01:28.960 I don't know yet when that's gonna be, so there will be 00:01:28.960 --> 00:01:29.920 another delay. 00:01:29.920 --> 00:01:31.840 A bunch of other things have come up and interrupted. 00:01:31.840 --> 00:01:36.160 I apologize for the intermittent nature of this series. 00:01:36.160 --> 00:01:41.120 If you don't follow on X, we recently published the entire six 00:01:41.200 --> 00:01:44.960 plus hour episode of the interview that Corey and I did with 00:01:44.960 --> 00:01:47.200 Will Spencer last year. 00:01:47.200 --> 00:01:52.560 He published it all his episodes on his sub stack and immediately 00:01:52.640 --> 00:01:54.720 pulled them down and stabs us in the back. 00:01:54.720 --> 00:01:58.800 So So this is the last bit of pre-drama version of that. 00:01:58.800 --> 00:02:00.800 We decided to put up a whole thing because there were some 00:02:00.800 --> 00:02:04.320 new questions that came about from that camp of evil men, and 00:02:04.480 --> 00:02:07.520 we don't have any of the episodes that were edited, which is 00:02:07.520 --> 00:02:10.800 the reason that we didn't actually put it on the Stonequire feed. 00:02:10.800 --> 00:02:13.680 So in the link to the show notes for this episode, and 00:02:13.680 --> 00:02:16.080 we'll go back in the link for the show notes to the 00:02:16.080 --> 00:02:19.760 episode that we published on our feed a year ago, we will 00:02:19.760 --> 00:02:21.920 have a link to the six and a half hour, six hour 00:02:22.400 --> 00:02:24.880 roughly raw, unedited. 00:02:24.880 --> 00:02:26.640 So it's not high quality audio. 00:02:26.640 --> 00:02:28.000 There's no editing or anything. 00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:30.240 It's just a conversation that we had with Will. 00:02:30.240 --> 00:02:31.520 It's a really good conversation. 00:02:31.520 --> 00:02:32.800 It was a great interview. 00:02:32.800 --> 00:02:36.480 So if you're Jonesing for us in the meantime, well we're we'll 00:02:36.480 --> 00:02:40.640 probably have some more intermittent downtime between getting these episodes out. 00:02:40.640 --> 00:02:43.600 In the show notes there's a six hour interview with us. 00:02:43.600 --> 00:02:46.880 We didn't put on the feed because we didn't want to push 00:02:46.880 --> 00:02:51.280 such a huge episode to everybody's device is get a big file. 00:02:51.280 --> 00:02:54.160 And we also didn't want to push something that was unedited. 00:02:54.160 --> 00:02:57.840 Like it's not really an episode, but it's a really good introduction. 00:02:57.840 --> 00:03:01.920 Frankly it's the best introduction to Stone Choir that exists right now. 00:03:01.920 --> 00:03:04.880 So that recording is available if you want to hear it, but 00:03:04.880 --> 00:03:06.960 you'll have to click on a link and listen to it in 00:03:06.960 --> 00:03:09.120 a web browser or whatever. 00:03:09.120 --> 00:03:12.960 As we're discussing the Septuagint today. 00:03:12.960 --> 00:03:16.800 I want to recap a few things that we've talked about in 00:03:16.800 --> 00:03:18.720 previous episodes. 00:03:18.720 --> 00:03:22.880 We're going to give a few examples principally from the Psalms of 00:03:22.880 --> 00:03:28.080 some different problems that exists when you compare the Hebrew text, the 00:03:28.080 --> 00:03:31.680 rabbinic text to the scripture of the ancient church. 00:03:31.680 --> 00:03:34.880 And we're doing that for a very specific reason. 00:03:34.880 --> 00:03:37.280 It's answering the question, what's going on here? 00:03:37.280 --> 00:03:38.720 What are the differences? 00:03:38.720 --> 00:03:41.680 Because it's one thing to make the historical argument, as we have 00:03:41.680 --> 00:03:45.840 in previous episodes in this series, and it's one thing to make 00:03:45.840 --> 00:03:49.440 the conclusive argument from the New Testament, which will be where we're 00:03:49.360 --> 00:03:50.880 gonna finish up. 00:03:50.880 --> 00:03:55.040 But that's still not necessarily enough for a reasonable, honest Christian to 00:03:55.040 --> 00:03:58.320 say, well, okay, I like the arguments those guides made, so I'm 00:03:58.240 --> 00:04:01.280 not gonna read the Masoretic, the Rabbinic texts anymore. 00:04:01.280 --> 00:04:04.240 I'm just gonna read versions that are based on the Greek. 00:04:04.400 --> 00:04:07.120 It's entirely reasonable to say well and hear what the differences are. 00:04:07.120 --> 00:04:08.880 That's a fair question. 00:04:08.880 --> 00:04:12.400 So this couple of middle episodes we're doing here where we're covering 00:04:12.400 --> 00:04:15.840 the old testament changes that were made by the Masoretes and the 00:04:15.840 --> 00:04:22.480 rabbis to the Christian text is not engaging with their arguments. 00:04:22.480 --> 00:04:25.600 It's something we tried to hammer home in the first couple episodes 00:04:25.600 --> 00:04:26.560 about history. 00:04:26.560 --> 00:04:29.440 No Christians should have ever been listening to rabbis. 00:04:29.440 --> 00:04:30.880 And we're not either. 00:04:30.880 --> 00:04:33.760 We're not arguing with them, we're not getting down in the mud 00:04:33.760 --> 00:04:37.200 with them, but every Bible in your house, unless you've gone out 00:04:37.200 --> 00:04:40.240 and bought a Septuagint since we started talking about it, or if 00:04:40.240 --> 00:04:43.760 you happen to already have one handy, all your Bibles are based 00:04:43.760 --> 00:04:46.160 on the rabbinic text. 00:04:46.160 --> 00:04:49.200 So it's fair to ask, well, okay, what am I losing? 00:04:49.200 --> 00:04:50.560 What am I gaining? 00:04:50.560 --> 00:04:51.520 What is the nature? 00:04:51.520 --> 00:04:53.760 What is the meaning of these changes? 00:04:54.080 --> 00:04:56.800 Most of the examples we're going to give today, which will principally 00:04:56.800 --> 00:04:58.400 be from Proverbs. 00:04:58.400 --> 00:05:00.560 We're not going to do a lot of deep analysis on all 00:05:00.800 --> 00:05:03.840 here's the Hebrew word for this and here's the vowel pointer and 00:05:04.160 --> 00:05:05.520 none of that. 00:05:05.520 --> 00:05:08.080 The point that we hope to get across from the whole series 00:05:08.080 --> 00:05:12.000 is we as Christians have to stop doing that because we never 00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:13.600 should have done it in the first place. 00:05:13.600 --> 00:05:15.200 Jerome shouldn't done it. 00:05:15.200 --> 00:05:17.280 No one should have followed his lead. 00:05:17.280 --> 00:05:20.240 We must break with that false tradition. 00:05:20.240 --> 00:05:22.640 We have to stop listening to rabbis. 00:05:22.640 --> 00:05:26.640 So the only way for most people unfortunately to make the case, 00:05:26.640 --> 00:05:29.280 why should I stop listening to the rabbis is to show what 00:05:29.360 --> 00:05:31.600 the Christian text of the early church looks like. 00:05:31.600 --> 00:05:34.160 What did Jesus and the Apostles Bible look like? 00:05:34.160 --> 00:05:38.240 So these comparison episodes are specifically answering that question. 00:05:38.240 --> 00:05:43.040 You have, you know, just like Origins Hexapla did before Jerome, you 00:05:43.040 --> 00:05:47.600 have a column of the rabbinic text, and you have a column 00:05:47.600 --> 00:05:50.000 of the Greek text and you have something that you can read, 00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:53.760 you know, which was already beginning to be Latin. 00:05:53.760 --> 00:05:55.360 Today it's English. 00:05:55.360 --> 00:05:56.720 What do we do with that? 00:05:56.720 --> 00:06:00.640 It's a fair question, but this is a much a thinking about 00:06:00.800 --> 00:06:03.280 thinking question as anything. 00:06:03.280 --> 00:06:06.720 We cannot fall into the trap of wanting to be guys who 00:06:06.720 --> 00:06:11.440 just argue all the time, especially when Jews want us to argue 00:06:11.440 --> 00:06:12.480 with them. 00:06:12.480 --> 00:06:15.120 Have I've had guys wanted to do this on X. 00:06:15.120 --> 00:06:16.320 Everybody wants to do that. 00:06:16.320 --> 00:06:19.600 Oh well, the rabbis taught us this and and my Bible says 00:06:19.600 --> 00:06:22.240 this which is what the rabbis say, and you're saying this different 00:06:22.240 --> 00:06:25.200 thing. We need to go have you argue with the rabbis so 00:06:25.200 --> 00:06:27.280 that we can know what Jesus said, so that we can know 00:06:27.200 --> 00:06:29.360 what Christianity is about. 00:06:29.360 --> 00:06:33.120 Breaking that cycle is what is happening here. 00:06:33.120 --> 00:06:37.040 And so there are going to be some arguments, some examples, but 00:06:37.600 --> 00:06:41.120 we're deliberately, both because it would be a waste of time and 00:06:41.120 --> 00:06:44.560 it would simultaneously not be remotely exhaustive. 00:06:44.560 --> 00:06:48.480 You could go through entire books of the Bible and find huge 00:06:48.480 --> 00:06:52.080 changes between the rabbinic text and the Septuagint. 00:06:52.080 --> 00:06:55.680 The categories are important and we're gonna highlight the categories and then 00:06:55.680 --> 00:06:57.040 we're just gonna let it drop. 00:06:57.040 --> 00:07:00.000 We're gonna, you know, maybe mention well here's a verse that falls 00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:02.240 into this category or that category. 00:07:02.240 --> 00:07:06.880 But I wanna highlight that we are not gonna fight with Jews 00:07:07.360 --> 00:07:09.280 over what God said. 00:07:09.280 --> 00:07:10.960 That's not what this is about. 00:07:10.960 --> 00:07:13.680 That's not what you should have in your heart or on your 00:07:13.680 --> 00:07:16.400 mind when you're looking at these questions. 00:07:16.400 --> 00:07:20.480 Some examples are necessary, but once you are satisfied that the Bible 00:07:20.480 --> 00:07:23.520 of Jesus and the Apostles and the early church is a Greek, 00:07:23.520 --> 00:07:29.360 at that point you personally, church denominations, new bodies that are formed, 00:07:29.360 --> 00:07:32.000 are going to have to make the decision okay we are done 00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:35.280 with the rabbinic text forever, for eternity. 00:07:35.280 --> 00:07:37.600 I'm convinced that it is not the word of God. 00:07:37.600 --> 00:07:40.560 I'm convinced that the Septuagint is the Word of God. 00:07:40.560 --> 00:07:42.240 Next question. 00:07:42.240 --> 00:07:45.600 And everything that comes after that is not going to be in 00:07:45.600 --> 00:07:47.520 view at all of the Hebrew. 00:07:47.520 --> 00:07:51.600 The rabbinic text is going to die with their lies, and all 00:07:51.600 --> 00:07:54.240 we're going to have is the Greek of Jesus and the Apostles 00:07:54.400 --> 00:07:55.680 in the early church. 00:07:55.680 --> 00:07:59.520 So I say that up front because there can be a bunch 00:07:59.520 --> 00:08:03.360 of places today where we just skip over the textual argument. 00:08:03.360 --> 00:08:05.760 We're just gonna look at what it says in English in a 00:08:05.760 --> 00:08:06.960 faithful translation. 00:08:06.960 --> 00:08:09.680 We're not gonna care about the underlying text in Greek or the 00:08:09.680 --> 00:08:10.720 rabbinic text. 00:08:10.720 --> 00:08:13.280 We're just gonna look and say, okay, what is the meaning? 00:08:13.520 --> 00:08:16.640 Because fundamentally that's what's going on here, the meaning's changed. 00:08:16.640 --> 00:08:19.440 And those are some of the key categories that we're gonna go 00:08:19.440 --> 00:08:20.560 through here initially. 00:08:20.560 --> 00:08:23.920 But please just recognize the distinction that we're making here at the 00:08:24.320 --> 00:08:27.760 outset. We are not arguing with rabbis. 00:08:27.760 --> 00:08:30.480 If your impulse is arguing with rabbis, you have sinned. 00:08:30.480 --> 00:08:34.240 You have sinned against God by listening to those who deny him. 00:08:34.240 --> 00:08:37.040 That is not where you should receive your teaching from. 00:08:37.040 --> 00:08:40.160 If you learn nothing else from the Septuagint series, it should be 00:08:40.160 --> 00:08:42.400 that. I don't uh say it any plain or that. 00:08:42.400 --> 00:08:45.760 We're gonna keep repeating it, but I say that because we are 00:08:45.760 --> 00:08:48.640 not engaging in the very thing that we're condemning. 00:08:48.640 --> 00:08:53.120 We're sure showing some examples of where the actual text in English 00:08:53.120 --> 00:08:55.600 differs. You can pick your translation. 00:08:55.600 --> 00:08:59.200 A translation that's faithful to either the Greek or to the rabbinic 00:08:59.200 --> 00:09:01.760 text, they're all pretty much going to say the same thing. 00:09:01.760 --> 00:09:05.760 You can basically get from one language to another. 00:09:05.760 --> 00:09:10.400 First example that we're going to use is from Psalm 599. 00:09:10.400 --> 00:09:13.760 This one I'm going to quote from the King James and then 00:09:13.760 --> 00:09:15.440 from Brenton. 00:09:15.440 --> 00:09:19.520 King James fifty nine nine Because of his strength I will wait 00:09:19.520 --> 00:09:22.320 upon thee, for God is my defense. 00:09:22.320 --> 00:09:26.400 And then Breton says I will keep my strength looking for you, 00:09:26.400 --> 00:09:28.640 for you, O God are my helper. 00:09:28.640 --> 00:09:31.680 So there are two crucial changes that happened here. 00:09:31.680 --> 00:09:36.160 The first the King James based on the Masoretic text says because 00:09:36.160 --> 00:09:40.480 of his strength, whereas the Bretton says I will keep my strength. 00:09:40.480 --> 00:09:43.120 So we've changed the pronoun entirely. 00:09:42.960 --> 00:09:46.800 whose strength is being commented upon is either God's or it's mine. 00:09:46.800 --> 00:09:50.000 The reason that I quoted the King James here, though I usually 00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:55.120 use the ESV, is that virtually every modern translation follows a Septuagint 00:09:55.440 --> 00:09:55.760 here again. 00:09:55.840 --> 00:09:58.000 There's a pattern that we had in the previous episode talking about 00:09:58.000 --> 00:09:59.600 the Christological passages. 00:09:59.600 --> 00:10:03.280 Yet again, your Bible, which probably doesn't footnote at all that's following 00:10:03.280 --> 00:10:07.680 the Septuagint, maybe some of them do, they're actually not being faithful 00:10:07.680 --> 00:10:10.800 to their binic text despite claiming they're based on it. 00:10:10.800 --> 00:10:12.400 Because it changes whose strength. 00:10:12.400 --> 00:10:14.560 Is it my strength or is it his strength? 00:10:14.560 --> 00:10:16.640 Whoever that is. 00:10:16.640 --> 00:10:21.920 The reason that this my to his flips is once again a 00:10:21.920 --> 00:10:23.200 vowel pointer. 00:10:23.200 --> 00:10:26.240 The vowel changes it from my to his. 00:10:26.240 --> 00:10:31.040 So at some point the rabbis change their teaching to change the 00:10:31.040 --> 00:10:34.400 meaning of this text in that small way If you don't have 00:10:34.400 --> 00:10:37.200 vows because you don't have a complete language and all that you 00:10:37.200 --> 00:10:40.800 have is an oral tradition for rabbis, it can go either way. 00:10:40.800 --> 00:10:43.920 And you can only know from oral tradition which one it is. 00:10:43.920 --> 00:10:47.760 And the rabbinic text, which the King James preserved and everything else 00:10:47.760 --> 00:10:50.320 abandons, says his versus mine. 00:10:50.320 --> 00:10:53.680 Brenton in the Greek says I will keep my strength. 00:10:53.680 --> 00:10:56.560 And the other change at the end is different, it's not a 00:10:56.560 --> 00:10:59.520 vowel change, but it's in a way it's even more important. 00:10:59.760 --> 00:11:02.480 The second half of that passage says, For you, O God are 00:11:02.480 --> 00:11:03.840 my fortress. 00:11:03.840 --> 00:11:07.040 That is present in both King James and ESV, because it's based 00:11:07.040 --> 00:11:08.320 on the Rabbinic text. 00:11:08.320 --> 00:11:13.360 Brenton, based on Greek, says, For you, O God, are my helper, 00:11:13.360 --> 00:11:18.240 which is an important distinction and it's one that highlights one of 00:11:18.240 --> 00:11:21.200 the types of changes that we're going to see here today. 00:11:21.200 --> 00:11:25.360 To say that God is our fortress, like as Lutherans, we obviously 00:11:25.360 --> 00:11:28.160 really like that sentiment, which is found elsewhere in scripture. 00:11:28.160 --> 00:11:30.000 It's entirely Christian belief. 00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:34.480 It's one that Luther memorialized and a mighty fortress is our God. 00:11:34.480 --> 00:11:38.800 But Psalm fifty nine nine is not a proof text for a 00:11:38.800 --> 00:11:40.480 mighty fortresses or God. 00:11:40.480 --> 00:11:43.840 Psalm 59-9 says that, oh God, you are my helper. 00:11:43.840 --> 00:11:46.960 What's the difference between being a fortress and a helper? 00:11:46.960 --> 00:11:52.400 One of the common changes that the rabbis made to scripture was 00:11:52.400 --> 00:11:54.240 exactly this sort of thing. 00:11:54.240 --> 00:12:00.080 They turn God into a place, into a status. 00:12:00.080 --> 00:12:04.080 It's basically the essential form of the argument that the Pharisees made 00:12:04.080 --> 00:12:07.120 to Jesus, we have Abraham as our father. 00:12:07.120 --> 00:12:07.840 What is that? 00:12:07.840 --> 00:12:09.200 That's a status claim. 00:12:09.200 --> 00:12:13.200 God is my fortress is true, but then God's just sitting there. 00:12:13.200 --> 00:12:15.040 Abraham is my father. 00:12:15.040 --> 00:12:18.000 You know, maybe that was true in some cases in that day 00:12:18.080 --> 00:12:21.440 genetically, but it was beside the point. 00:12:21.440 --> 00:12:24.960 When you make a status claim saying, Well, here's a placement, what 00:12:24.960 --> 00:12:25.840 don't you have? 00:12:25.840 --> 00:12:27.520 You don't have any actual activity. 00:12:27.520 --> 00:12:29.120 A fortress just sits there. 00:12:29.120 --> 00:12:32.160 So if God is your fortress, like he's a shelter, he's a 00:12:32.160 --> 00:12:37.040 refuge, which is a good thing, but it's inert inherently. 00:12:37.040 --> 00:12:40.000 To say that God you are my helper is a very active 00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:42.320 thing. So it's a small change, it's not a huge thing. 00:12:42.320 --> 00:12:45.040 It doesn't change Christian doctrine one way or another because those are 00:12:45.040 --> 00:12:48.080 sentiments, both of them are preserved elsewhere in scripture. 00:12:48.080 --> 00:12:52.480 But as we look throughout today's series of examples, one of the 00:12:52.480 --> 00:12:57.680 common refrains will be that God's action is reduced. 00:12:57.680 --> 00:12:59.120 God's no longer doing anything. 00:12:59.120 --> 00:13:00.640 He's no longer participating. 00:13:00.640 --> 00:13:02.000 He's just sort of sitting there. 00:13:02.000 --> 00:13:03.280 You're making a status claim. 00:13:03.280 --> 00:13:04.080 He's my fortress. 00:13:04.080 --> 00:13:05.680 He's my father. 00:13:05.680 --> 00:13:07.600 And everything else is implied. 00:13:07.600 --> 00:13:10.480 And that's one of the problems that we're going to have as 00:13:10.480 --> 00:13:14.400 Christians looking at some of these changes, is that as Christians we 00:13:14.400 --> 00:13:16.240 can baptize a lot of these. 00:13:16.240 --> 00:13:20.240 So throughout the many examples we'll give here today, and we're gonna 00:13:20.240 --> 00:13:23.040 run through 'em pretty quickly, apart from my introduction here. 00:13:23.440 --> 00:13:26.880 That's part of the reason for doing this kind of lengthy example. 00:13:26.880 --> 00:13:28.960 One of the things I want you to keep in mind as 00:13:28.960 --> 00:13:32.880 you're listening to all these examples, don't just think about you, you 00:13:32.880 --> 00:13:35.600 know, maybe you're a Christian who's been raised in the church, you've 00:13:35.600 --> 00:13:38.240 been a Christian your whole life for decades. 00:13:38.240 --> 00:13:40.720 So you're really well inculcated in all this. 00:13:40.720 --> 00:13:42.000 You know it pretty well. 00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:44.560 You have a Christian heart, you have a Christian mind. 00:13:44.560 --> 00:13:47.440 When you hear something like for God is my defense, God is 00:13:47.440 --> 00:13:48.640 my fortress. 00:13:48.640 --> 00:13:50.000 You know exactly what that means. 00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:51.680 You pull all of it in. 00:13:51.680 --> 00:13:54.640 Because you're incorporating all the rest of scripture. 00:13:54.640 --> 00:13:58.400 Think about these differences from the perspective of someone who's not a 00:13:58.400 --> 00:14:02.240 Christian yet, who is a brand new Christian, but they don't know 00:14:02.240 --> 00:14:03.520 their way around Scripture. 00:14:03.520 --> 00:14:06.080 They don't know what God's voice sounds like yet. 00:14:06.080 --> 00:14:12.080 And think about the differences between the passive fortress, the passive status 00:14:12.080 --> 00:14:14.800 claim, versus the act of God as my helper. 00:14:14.800 --> 00:14:16.720 That's a theological difference. 00:14:16.720 --> 00:14:19.920 And it's one that's repeated in many of these cases. 00:14:19.920 --> 00:14:24.560 Oftentimes the changes that the Masoretes made, that the rabbis made long 00:14:24.560 --> 00:14:29.280 before them, some of these changes exist before the day of Jesus, 00:14:29.280 --> 00:14:31.840 which is why the Bible of Jesus and the apostles was the 00:14:31.840 --> 00:14:38.720 Septuagint. You will find God's activity is actually removed from the text. 00:14:38.720 --> 00:14:40.160 And so just keep that in mind. 00:14:40.240 --> 00:14:43.280 You as a Christian know what's going on, but someone who's not 00:14:43.280 --> 00:14:47.200 well informed, if they were to be reading a Bible based on 00:14:47.200 --> 00:14:51.280 the rabbinic text versus one based on the early church and Jesus 00:14:51.280 --> 00:14:54.960 and the Apostles Text, what conclusions would they reach? 00:14:54.960 --> 00:14:57.040 Because that's really what's going on here. 00:14:57.040 --> 00:15:00.800 It's not just about oh I have an expert level theology understanding. 00:15:00.800 --> 00:15:03.520 I'm a very good Christian, very well informed, so I can get 00:15:03.520 --> 00:15:06.240 these things right, because I know the backstory. 00:15:06.240 --> 00:15:09.040 When you look at these texts, what are you missing if you're 00:15:09.040 --> 00:15:11.200 using the rabbinic text? 00:15:11.200 --> 00:15:13.360 So the next example that we're going to look at here at 00:15:13.360 --> 00:15:15.680 the beginning that shows of some of what we're going to see 00:15:15.680 --> 00:15:20.640 throughout this episode is from Psalm eighty four verses 5 through 7. 00:15:20.800 --> 00:15:24.000 I'll read first from the ESV and then from Brenton. 00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:27.280 Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are 00:15:27.280 --> 00:15:28.960 the highways to Zion. 00:15:28.960 --> 00:15:31.280 As they go through the valley of Baca they make it a 00:15:31.280 --> 00:15:32.720 place of springs. 00:15:32.720 --> 00:15:35.120 The early rain covers it with pools. 00:15:35.120 --> 00:15:38.560 They go from strength to strength, each one appears before God in 00:15:38.560 --> 00:15:42.080 Zion. And then Brenton, for the most part, reads pretty much the 00:15:42.080 --> 00:15:45.600 same. Blessed is the man whose health is of thee, O Lord. 00:15:45.760 --> 00:15:48.400 In his heart he has purpose to go up to the valley 00:15:48.400 --> 00:15:51.760 of weeping, to the place which he has appointed. 00:15:51.760 --> 00:15:53.440 And here's where it differs. 00:15:53.440 --> 00:15:56.240 For there the law giver will grant blessings. 00:15:56.240 --> 00:15:58.480 They shall go from strength to strength. 00:15:58.480 --> 00:16:00.800 The God of gods shall be seen in Zion. 00:16:00.960 --> 00:16:03.680 So most of that was the same, but what changed? 00:16:03.680 --> 00:16:04.960 Right there in the middle. 00:16:04.960 --> 00:16:08.880 The early rain also covers it with pools, changed to for there 00:16:08.960 --> 00:16:11.040 the law giver will grant blessings. 00:16:10.960 --> 00:16:13.040 That's a completely different sentence, isn't it? 00:16:13.040 --> 00:16:14.960 Or a phrase is a part of a sentence. 00:16:14.960 --> 00:16:16.240 You know what changed there? 00:16:16.240 --> 00:16:18.000 A single vowel pointer. 00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:22.720 This is a second example where one small tiny little change to 00:16:22.800 --> 00:16:28.480 you know, in English, dog versus dig versus dog are three different 00:16:28.480 --> 00:16:31.680 words, and two of them are related, and dog is sort of 00:16:31.680 --> 00:16:35.280 conceptually related to dig and dug, but it doesn't have an etymological 00:16:35.280 --> 00:16:38.960 root. Totally different words, the only difference is a vowel. 00:16:38.960 --> 00:16:42.640 If I gave you DG and you had five vowels in English 00:16:42.640 --> 00:16:48.240 to choose from, well two of those examples, DAG and DEG, are 00:16:48.240 --> 00:16:49.360 not even English. 00:16:49.360 --> 00:16:50.720 That's what Dutch or something. 00:16:50.960 --> 00:16:52.480 But we don't use those. 00:16:52.480 --> 00:16:55.920 So you wouldn't know if it was dog, dig, or dug. 00:16:55.920 --> 00:16:59.120 That's the sort of problem that we have when we only have 00:16:59.120 --> 00:17:00.240 an oral tradition. 00:17:00.240 --> 00:17:03.200 And so here we see an example of the ESV is faithful 00:17:03.200 --> 00:17:06.480 to the rabbinic text, which is not faithful to scripture. 00:17:06.480 --> 00:17:08.160 And yet again what do we find? 00:17:08.160 --> 00:17:09.280 What was the change? 00:17:09.280 --> 00:17:12.480 You go from this sort of ambiguous the early reign also covers 00:17:12.480 --> 00:17:16.960 it with pools to for there the lawgiver will grant blessings. 00:17:16.960 --> 00:17:21.520 Once again we see a case where God's activity vanishes entirely. 00:17:21.520 --> 00:17:26.560 God was erased from this entire passage by one vowel changing, because 00:17:26.560 --> 00:17:30.800 when you look at the minimal structure that's left in the Hebrew, 00:17:30.800 --> 00:17:33.680 the only way that the rabbinic text can make sense is if 00:17:33.680 --> 00:17:37.600 early rain is used and then you blush out the rest. 00:17:37.600 --> 00:17:40.720 Whereas if you believe it's teacher or lawgiver, which is what is 00:17:41.200 --> 00:17:45.680 translated in Greek, that's very clearly a place where God is active. 00:17:45.680 --> 00:17:50.080 So again, these are examples where just one vowel changes and a 00:17:50.080 --> 00:17:54.000 substantial portion of the meaning vanishes entirely. 00:17:54.000 --> 00:17:58.240 And one of the frequent patterns that you will find as you're 00:17:58.240 --> 00:18:03.840 comparing whatever your rabbinic-based Bible is to the Septuagint, you'll find that 00:18:03.840 --> 00:18:06.640 these weird things like that were like, ah, the the early rain 00:18:06.640 --> 00:18:07.760 covers it in pools. 00:18:07.760 --> 00:18:10.400 You think well that's you know some weird smack idiom. 00:18:10.400 --> 00:18:12.160 I'm not really sure what that's about, but okay. 00:18:12.480 --> 00:18:14.320 It's just flowery language. 00:18:14.320 --> 00:18:16.400 You don't realize what you've lost. 00:18:16.400 --> 00:18:18.160 You've lost God's activity. 00:18:18.160 --> 00:18:21.680 You've lost that for there the law giver will grant blessings. 00:18:21.680 --> 00:18:23.520 God's doing something in that place. 00:18:23.520 --> 00:18:26.320 Yeah, they made us sound pretty, but it was just pretty for 00:18:26.320 --> 00:18:28.960 its own sake and not a place where God was doing anything. 00:18:28.960 --> 00:18:32.800 Just like the previous example where a fortress gave way to a 00:18:33.280 --> 00:18:37.920 helper. When God's action is removed, we have less of God. 00:18:37.920 --> 00:18:41.360 And someone who's not familiar with the Christian faith wouldn't know. 00:18:41.360 --> 00:18:44.400 It's like, okay, well this is this is nice flowerly language, but 00:18:44.400 --> 00:18:46.320 what's God doing for me? 00:18:46.800 --> 00:18:52.080 These changes are not insignificant and the pattern becomes very obvious the 00:18:52.080 --> 00:18:53.120 further you go. 00:18:53.120 --> 00:18:56.640 We're not even going to scratch the surface today, but I'm highlighting 00:18:56.640 --> 00:18:59.680 these because as you do your own exploration, you will find this 00:18:59.680 --> 00:19:02.240 pattern. And you won't have to worry about vowel pointers, any of 00:19:02.240 --> 00:19:02.720 that garbage. 00:19:02.720 --> 00:19:05.200 Again, we don't want you engaging with the Hebrew. 00:19:05.200 --> 00:19:08.160 We just want you engaging with the Greek text in English. 00:19:08.160 --> 00:19:11.280 A faithful translation, which is it doesn't yet exist. 00:19:11.280 --> 00:19:12.880 I'm using Brenton in some cases. 00:19:12.880 --> 00:19:15.040 Corey's going to use Lexum in a bunch of cases. 00:19:15.760 --> 00:19:18.480 A lot of times a Brendan follows the Hebrew anyway. 00:19:18.480 --> 00:19:22.480 It does it a lot less, like it's technically a septuagin-based translation 00:19:22.480 --> 00:19:23.440 of English. 00:19:23.440 --> 00:19:26.640 But for whatever reason, Brenton didn't pick a lot of these fights. 00:19:26.640 --> 00:19:30.080 So there are many passages where he follows the Hebrew for no 00:19:30.080 --> 00:19:31.680 justifiable reason. 00:19:31.680 --> 00:19:34.640 So it's a much better Bible to read, but we still don't 00:19:34.560 --> 00:19:37.520 have the one that we should that's actually faithful to the original 00:19:37.520 --> 00:19:39.360 Septuagint jump text 00:19:40.880 --> 00:19:41.040 for 00:19:41.040 --> 00:19:44.160 those of you who like the King James, you may have noticed 00:19:44.160 --> 00:19:48.560 that there is a difference between the ESV and the King James. 00:19:48.560 --> 00:19:52.080 And I want to read just verse five from the King James 00:19:52.160 --> 00:19:54.240 to note this difference. 00:19:54.240 --> 00:19:58.000 Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee, and whose heart 00:19:58.000 --> 00:20:00.560 are the ways of them. 00:20:00.560 --> 00:20:04.720 You may have noticed there's something that disappeared, but The highways to 00:20:04.720 --> 00:20:09.200 Zion not there in the King James, because if you note from 00:20:09.200 --> 00:20:13.760 the footnote of the ESV, it says that Hebrew lacks to Zion. 00:20:13.760 --> 00:20:17.120 They've just gone ahead and inserted that in order to make sense 00:20:17.120 --> 00:20:21.360 of the underlying underlying Hebrew, that doesn't make any sense if you 00:20:21.360 --> 00:20:25.440 don't do something to it to make it make sense. 00:20:25.440 --> 00:20:29.760 This is something that crops up frequently, particularly in the Psalms but 00:20:29.760 --> 00:20:32.480 in other places as well, if you start to look at some 00:20:32.480 --> 00:20:36.160 of these footnotes that are in our Bibles for those translations that 00:20:36.160 --> 00:20:40.480 include footnotes from the translators, there are many places where it says 00:20:40.720 --> 00:20:45.120 Hebrew uncertain, or essentially we don't know what this word means, so 00:20:45.120 --> 00:20:47.360 we just made something up. 00:20:47.360 --> 00:20:53.120 Sometimes they will resort correctly, incidentally, although without following through the logic, 00:20:53.120 --> 00:20:56.160 they will resort to the Septuagint in order to get the sense 00:20:56.160 --> 00:20:59.120 that actually is not you can't even draw it out of the 00:20:59.120 --> 00:21:01.280 Hebrew, it's just not there. 00:21:01.280 --> 00:21:06.960 But these footnotes appear frequently, particularly again in the Psalms. 00:21:06.960 --> 00:21:11.200 When other minor point from this psalm, not from a section we 00:21:11.200 --> 00:21:14.640 read, but at the end of verse eight, you see the word 00:21:14.800 --> 00:21:18.960 Salah. You may have heard a pastor or a teacher at some 00:21:18.960 --> 00:21:20.960 point in the history say, we don't know what this word means, 00:21:20.960 --> 00:21:25.120 it's just in the Psalter, it exists, it's it's something that's there. 00:21:25.120 --> 00:21:29.360 Usually they'll guess it's probably something to do with a pointing the 00:21:29.360 --> 00:21:33.760 psalm for chanting or for singing, whatever it happens to be. 00:21:33.760 --> 00:21:35.920 We don't need to guess because we know what it means because 00:21:35.920 --> 00:21:38.320 in the Greek it says musical interlude. 00:21:38.320 --> 00:21:39.600 That's all it is. 00:21:39.600 --> 00:21:42.640 It is in fact what people have guessed it is, but we 00:21:42.640 --> 00:21:43.520 know what it is. 00:21:43.520 --> 00:21:47.040 It's not something that is this mystery left in the text for 00:21:47.040 --> 00:21:50.160 us. We have the Word of God telling us what this actually 00:21:50.160 --> 00:21:53.440 means. So when you are reading the Psalms and you see this 00:21:53.440 --> 00:21:56.160 word salah, if you're still reading from a version that has that 00:21:56.160 --> 00:21:58.800 in it, just recognize we know what it means. 00:21:58.800 --> 00:22:00.160 It's not some mystery. 00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:02.720 It just means play some music here. 00:22:02.720 --> 00:22:08.320 Because the Psalms are one of the hymnals of the church. 00:22:08.320 --> 00:22:08.480 So 00:22:08.640 --> 00:22:12.160 basically salah means guitar solo. 00:22:12.160 --> 00:22:14.800 Just remember that and you'll never forget again. 00:22:15.680 --> 00:22:18.240 And please don't play guitars in church. 00:22:19.040 --> 00:22:22.880 The next last example that we're gonna use from the Psalms is 00:22:22.880 --> 00:22:26.880 from Psalm four, verse three. 00:22:26.880 --> 00:22:28.880 I'm gonna read again from the ESV. 00:22:28.880 --> 00:22:32.720 O men, how long shall my honor be turned into shame? 00:22:32.720 --> 00:22:36.560 How long will you love vain words and seek after lies? 00:22:36.560 --> 00:22:40.800 Then the Septuagint reads, and I'm actually combining Brenton and the Lexum 00:22:40.800 --> 00:22:43.600 here. O you sons of men, how long will you be heavy 00:22:43.600 --> 00:22:47.200 hearted? Why do you love vanity and seek a lie? 00:22:47.200 --> 00:22:51.920 So what has changed here is my honor how long shall my 00:22:51.920 --> 00:22:53.440 honor be turned into shame? 00:22:53.600 --> 00:22:55.920 How long will you be heavy hearted? 00:22:55.920 --> 00:22:57.760 No mention of shame or anything else. 00:22:57.760 --> 00:23:01.680 Once again is a case where a single vowel change causes all 00:23:01.680 --> 00:23:06.960 this. And even in the Greek there's the idiom that's preserved heavy 00:23:06.960 --> 00:23:10.960 hearted. This is also translated as slow of heart or dull of 00:23:10.960 --> 00:23:14.960 heart. It basically means stubborn or unrecepted or dull witted. 00:23:14.960 --> 00:23:19.440 You could translate this as you know colloquially how long will you 00:23:19.440 --> 00:23:21.360 be unreceptive to my teaching? 00:23:21.360 --> 00:23:22.880 How long will you be idiots? 00:23:22.880 --> 00:23:25.360 How long will you be deaf to what I'm saying? 00:23:25.360 --> 00:23:28.320 That's another way of expressing the sentiment here. 00:23:28.320 --> 00:23:31.920 And the reason I incorporated the whole passage is that the second 00:23:31.920 --> 00:23:34.800 half of it makes very clear that's what's going on there. 00:23:34.800 --> 00:23:39.440 When you understand the heavy hearted means stubborn, you know, unreceptive to 00:23:39.440 --> 00:23:42.320 teaching. Oh you sons of men, how long will you be heavy 00:23:42.320 --> 00:23:45.440 hearted? Why do you love vanity and seek a lie Why? 00:23:45.600 --> 00:23:47.120 That makes perfect sense. 00:23:47.120 --> 00:23:51.520 You're seeking lies instead of hearing what God has to say. 00:23:51.520 --> 00:23:56.000 That's a much more important sentiment than oh man, how long shall 00:23:56.000 --> 00:23:57.840 my honor be turned into shame? 00:23:57.840 --> 00:24:00.720 Which again as I said, a Christian can sort of baptize that 00:24:00.720 --> 00:24:02.320 and make it into something that makes sense. 00:24:02.320 --> 00:24:03.200 You can explain it. 00:24:03.200 --> 00:24:07.840 And the commentaries do, but they're explaining Hebrew nonsense. 00:24:07.840 --> 00:24:10.640 They're explaining something that isn't scripture. 00:24:10.640 --> 00:24:12.640 That's gonna be a tough part that we're gonna have to get 00:24:13.360 --> 00:24:17.200 past as the established Christian churches that in many cases what was 00:24:17.200 --> 00:24:21.840 written about these passages won't be of any use to us because 00:24:21.840 --> 00:24:24.720 they weren't analyzing the text that's actually in question. 00:24:24.720 --> 00:24:28.080 Now there are lots of places where the Greek and the rabbinic 00:24:28.080 --> 00:24:31.120 text do basically match as much as any two languages can. 00:24:31.120 --> 00:24:32.960 So they're not losing anything. 00:24:32.960 --> 00:24:37.440 But whenever we do find these changes, we as people who might 00:24:37.440 --> 00:24:40.400 consult a commentary or what has been written or said in the 00:24:40.400 --> 00:24:44.640 past have to realize that anyone who was commenting on how long 00:24:44.640 --> 00:24:47.840 shall my honor be turned into shame has nothing to say about 00:24:47.840 --> 00:24:49.600 Psalm four or three. 00:24:49.600 --> 00:24:53.840 Has nothing to say about it because you've completely lost the essence 00:24:53.840 --> 00:24:55.600 of what's going on. 00:24:55.600 --> 00:24:59.840 And I understand that these examples we're giving are going to be 00:24:59.840 --> 00:25:02.960 bait for many of you to go and do your own comparisons. 00:25:02.960 --> 00:25:03.920 That's a good thing. 00:25:03.920 --> 00:25:05.760 That's not not going to discourage that. 00:25:05.760 --> 00:25:09.120 We certainly want people who have the aptitude and the time and 00:25:09.120 --> 00:25:10.960 the inclination to do that. 00:25:10.960 --> 00:25:13.760 My only exhortation to you is this. 00:25:13.760 --> 00:25:18.160 If we say Psalm four three says this, don't go read Psalm 00:25:18.240 --> 00:25:19.120 four three. 00:25:19.120 --> 00:25:20.640 Read all of Psalm four. 00:25:20.640 --> 00:25:23.520 Read the entire thing before you even look at any of the 00:25:23.520 --> 00:25:31.040 differences. That's crucial because the context is always going to be consistent 00:25:31.040 --> 00:25:33.840 with what we find in the Septuagint. 00:25:33.840 --> 00:25:36.640 It always makes more sense when you look in the full context, 00:25:36.640 --> 00:25:40.720 like, oh yeah, suddenly this is a natural reading that is overwhelmingly 00:25:40.720 --> 00:25:43.840 the case when there are differences. 00:25:43.840 --> 00:25:46.880 So it's fine to go hone in on well, here's what you 00:25:46.880 --> 00:25:49.600 know, this verse or this portion of this verse says one thing 00:25:49.600 --> 00:25:52.160 versus another, and that's where the differences are. 00:25:52.160 --> 00:25:54.320 But the context is where the entire semantic 00:25:55.280 --> 00:25:56.800 neighborhood is. 00:25:56.800 --> 00:26:00.640 If you don't understand that this is about lies versus the truth 00:26:00.640 --> 00:26:03.840 of the Lord, then the second half of the verse doesn't seem 00:26:03.840 --> 00:26:05.520 to have anything to do with the verse. 00:26:05.520 --> 00:26:07.760 So when you read it in context, you're gonna get that. 00:26:07.760 --> 00:26:12.480 So just as a general admonition, please read entire chapters anytime you 00:26:12.480 --> 00:26:13.920 look at anything that we say here. 00:26:13.920 --> 00:26:14.960 I genuinely mean that. 00:26:14.960 --> 00:26:18.080 Any verse that you look up that we mentioned today, read the 00:26:18.080 --> 00:26:19.840 whole chapter right off the bat. 00:26:19.840 --> 00:26:23.120 Read it in either the Lexum or the Breton, and then read 00:26:23.120 --> 00:26:26.400 it in wherever your favorite rabbinic text translation is. 00:26:26.400 --> 00:26:29.680 Read the whole chapter, and then focus on the verse we're pointing 00:26:29.680 --> 00:26:33.280 to, because the context is going to help you understand well yeah, 00:26:33.280 --> 00:26:37.920 I can understand that this is not just some translation committee change 00:26:37.920 --> 00:26:42.240 that occurred twenty two hundred years ago, that God's speaking with one 00:26:42.240 --> 00:26:43.200 voice. 00:26:43.840 --> 00:26:47.360 This is one of those episodes where there is essentially a bit 00:26:47.360 --> 00:26:52.640 of homework, and that will become manifestly apparent as we go through 00:26:52.640 --> 00:26:53.840 these examples. 00:26:53.840 --> 00:26:56.400 Because we will be spending basically all of our time for the 00:26:56.400 --> 00:27:00.640 balance of this episode in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. 00:27:00.640 --> 00:27:03.360 And I am going to go ahead and say that you should 00:27:03.360 --> 00:27:06.240 probably just read both of those books in a translation of the 00:27:06.240 --> 00:27:12.400 Septuagint. Insofar as the wisdom literature is concerned, in particular Proverbs, Ecclesiastes 00:27:13.120 --> 00:27:15.360 and Job, and we will not really be getting to Job at 00:27:15.360 --> 00:27:16.080 all today. 00:27:16.080 --> 00:27:19.840 In fact we probably won't get to it at all period. 00:27:19.840 --> 00:27:26.800 There are significant differences as between the rabbinic text and the Septuagint, 00:27:26.800 --> 00:27:28.880 the actual word of God. 00:27:28.880 --> 00:27:32.880 And so I would recommend that you simply read those three books 00:27:32.880 --> 00:27:34.160 in their entirety. 00:27:34.160 --> 00:27:35.840 Whenever you happen to have the time. 00:27:35.840 --> 00:27:38.560 It's not something that you need to go and do as soon 00:27:38.560 --> 00:27:40.800 as you hear me say this, pause the episode, do it now 00:27:40.880 --> 00:27:41.360 and come back. 00:27:41.360 --> 00:27:42.560 That's not what we're saying. 00:27:42.560 --> 00:27:46.000 Just this is something that you should do in order to see 00:27:46.160 --> 00:27:48.800 what God has actually said in his word. 00:27:48.800 --> 00:27:53.600 We will try to keep these examples relatively short because given this 00:27:53.600 --> 00:27:57.360 format, as we said in the previous episode, it is difficult to 00:27:57.360 --> 00:28:01.200 parse large chunks of text, particularly when you are trying to compare 00:28:01.200 --> 00:28:03.520 them, even if they are read one after the other. 00:28:03.680 --> 00:28:06.240 So we'll try to keep these relatively short. 00:28:06.400 --> 00:28:06.560 So 00:28:06.720 --> 00:28:10.480 last Psalm that we're gonna look at here today is Psalm fourteen. 00:28:10.480 --> 00:28:14.000 And the reason that we're looking at this is that this is 00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:16.640 one of those cases where there's actually a long ending to the 00:28:16.640 --> 00:28:19.760 chapter. You may have heard that phrase for some other books in 00:28:19.760 --> 00:28:20.880 the Bible. 00:28:20.880 --> 00:28:26.400 The long ending to Psalm 14 is quoted in its entirety in 00:28:26.400 --> 00:28:27.520 Romans 3. 00:28:27.520 --> 00:28:30.480 So I'm going to read this from Romans three, because it has 00:28:30.480 --> 00:28:34.960 an uncontroverted text that we all agree is absolutely scripture. 00:28:34.960 --> 00:28:39.520 Beginning with verse nine, Paul writes What then? 00:28:39.520 --> 00:28:41.280 Are we Jews any better off? 00:28:41.280 --> 00:28:44.640 No, not at all, for we have already charged that all both 00:28:44.640 --> 00:28:48.000 Jews and Greeks are under sin, as it is written. 00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:51.760 No one is righteous, no not one, no one understands, no one 00:28:51.760 --> 00:28:53.200 seeks for God. 00:28:53.200 --> 00:28:54.640 All have turned aside. 00:28:54.640 --> 00:28:56.640 Together they have become worthless. 00:28:56.640 --> 00:28:58.800 No one does good, not even one. 00:28:58.800 --> 00:29:00.640 Their throat is an open grave. 00:29:00.640 --> 00:29:02.640 They use their tongues to deceive. 00:29:02.640 --> 00:29:06.080 The venom of asps is under their lips, their mouth is full 00:29:06.080 --> 00:29:10.160 of curses and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood, and 00:29:10.160 --> 00:29:13.120 their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they 00:29:13.120 --> 00:29:14.160 have not known. 00:29:14.160 --> 00:29:17.440 There is no fear of God before their eyes. 00:29:17.760 --> 00:29:21.920 Now if you look at Romans three in any Bible that has 00:29:22.240 --> 00:29:27.840 footnotes and commentaries it gives citations of what they're quoting. 00:29:27.840 --> 00:29:30.480 In the ESV I counted it up and it said that there 00:29:30.480 --> 00:29:34.800 were eleven different citations here for what Paul was quoting from elsewhere 00:29:34.800 --> 00:29:35.440 in scripture. 00:29:35.440 --> 00:29:38.880 So Paul says as it is written, and then gives you know 00:29:39.120 --> 00:29:41.360 about fifteen lines or so. 00:29:41.360 --> 00:29:46.160 The claim that is made by the modern scholars is that this 00:29:46.160 --> 00:29:48.480 is what they call a katana. 00:29:48.480 --> 00:29:49.520 It's a concatenation. 00:29:49.520 --> 00:29:53.040 It's just a it's a big conglomeration of a bunch of different 00:29:53.040 --> 00:29:57.040 verses that Paul consolidated to make his one point. 00:29:57.040 --> 00:29:59.040 So he took a bit from here and a bit from there, 00:29:59.040 --> 00:30:00.080 and there are a bunch of psalms. 00:30:00.080 --> 00:30:04.080 I think Zechariah and maybe Jeremiah Isaiah shows up once or twice. 00:30:04.080 --> 00:30:06.400 It's a big grab bag of things. 00:30:06.400 --> 00:30:10.080 At no point in at least the ESV's notes does it mention 00:30:10.080 --> 00:30:15.360 that this is literally a verbatim quote of Psalm fourteen, the end 00:30:15.360 --> 00:30:15.840 of it. 00:30:15.840 --> 00:30:19.520 This is one of many examples where they will go to such 00:30:19.520 --> 00:30:24.000 lengths to deny that the New Testament is quoting the Septuagint that 00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:27.040 they make up preposterous arguments. 00:30:27.040 --> 00:30:30.080 Now, when you look at the text, when you look at all 00:30:30.080 --> 00:30:33.440 that, beginning with no one is righteous, no not one, it is 00:30:33.440 --> 00:30:39.840 true that many of those so-called citations are echoed, if not verbatim, 00:30:39.840 --> 00:30:41.760 in other parts of Scripture. 00:30:42.160 --> 00:30:48.240 It does not therefore follow that the ending of Psalm fourteen that's 00:30:48.240 --> 00:30:52.640 present in the Septuagint, which is entirely deleted from the rabbinic text. 00:30:52.640 --> 00:30:53.920 They chop this whole thing off. 00:30:53.920 --> 00:30:57.280 You will not find a single word of this in Psalm fourteen 00:30:57.280 --> 00:30:58.720 in the Masoretic text. 00:30:58.720 --> 00:31:00.000 They deleted it. 00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:03.120 The argument that's made today by scholars oh well that's fine because 00:31:03.120 --> 00:31:05.200 we find that everywhere else. 00:31:05.200 --> 00:31:08.640 This is another essential problem that we have to deal with. 00:31:08.640 --> 00:31:14.800 There's this tremendous casual attitude towards just not caring about whatever the 00:31:14.800 --> 00:31:16.560 rabbis did to the text. 00:31:16.560 --> 00:31:19.680 If, again, as a knowledgeable Christian, say that's an echo of this 00:31:19.680 --> 00:31:20.480 other thing. 00:31:20.480 --> 00:31:23.840 Here's a citation where that's present, so it's true that when Paul 00:31:23.840 --> 00:31:26.240 writes as it is written, it is written, it was written in 00:31:26.240 --> 00:31:26.880 somewhere else. 00:31:26.880 --> 00:31:29.600 It just wasn't written in Psalm fourteen. 00:31:29.600 --> 00:31:35.920 It's important to know the Athenaeus, Augustine, Chrysostom all referenced this psalm 00:31:36.080 --> 00:31:38.720 the long ending, and they treated as scripture. 00:31:38.720 --> 00:31:41.600 There's no doubt in their minds that this was the inspired word 00:31:41.680 --> 00:31:42.800 of God. 00:31:42.800 --> 00:31:46.640 In Romans also cites the Septuagint at least half a dozen other 00:31:46.640 --> 00:31:49.280 places. So it's not like this is the only place where Paul 00:31:49.280 --> 00:31:50.720 cites the Greek. 00:31:50.720 --> 00:31:56.160 He also cites the original ancient Hebrew, but overwhelmingly he is in 00:31:56.160 --> 00:31:59.280 his other epistles, he cites the Septuagint. 00:31:59.280 --> 00:32:02.400 So it's fine for us to acknowledge as we said in the 00:32:02.400 --> 00:32:06.000 previous episode, there are cases where you will find that the rabbinic 00:32:06.080 --> 00:32:11.520 text, as it existed in that day, was cited authoritatively by inspired 00:32:11.520 --> 00:32:13.840 apostles or by Jesus himself. 00:32:13.840 --> 00:32:14.720 That's fine. 00:32:14.720 --> 00:32:16.080 They knew what they were talking about. 00:32:16.080 --> 00:32:20.720 They had direct, immediate access, and they also had the Holy Ghost. 00:32:20.720 --> 00:32:23.040 We don't have the access that they had. 00:32:23.040 --> 00:32:25.520 What we do have is them saying, yes, this was true, so 00:32:25.520 --> 00:32:29.040 we can take it as gospel, but it doesn't follow that that 00:32:29.040 --> 00:32:32.480 retroactively blesses the rest of the rabbinic text. 00:32:32.480 --> 00:32:35.120 If you think it's okay to just delete the rest of Psalm 00:32:35.520 --> 00:32:38.640 fourteen because you know, it's it's found elsewhere. 00:32:38.640 --> 00:32:41.520 You should know how often this happens in scripture, just a few 00:32:41.520 --> 00:32:46.000 examples of places where a passage of scripture is repeated elsewhere. 00:32:46.000 --> 00:32:50.880 Psalm one hundred eight is entirely a composite of Psalm fifty seven, 00:32:50.880 --> 00:32:55.680 verses seven through eleven, and Psalm sixty, verses five through twelve. 00:32:55.680 --> 00:33:00.000 So if you are okay with deleting Psalm fourteen and saying, Yeah, 00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:02.560 I don't believe that Paul was quoting the Septuage. 00:33:02.560 --> 00:33:04.000 I think that's a bridge too far. 00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:07.600 I think the simplest answer is that Paul was quoting eleven other 00:33:07.600 --> 00:33:11.200 verses just as a hodgepodge that he mashed together. 00:33:11.200 --> 00:33:14.640 Then you have to accept that it's entirely reasonable for somebody to 00:33:14.640 --> 00:33:17.600 come along Come along and delete Psalm one hundred and eight, or 00:33:17.600 --> 00:33:21.360 to delete either Psalm eighteen or second Samuel twenty two, because they 00:33:21.440 --> 00:33:22.720 say the same thing. 00:33:22.720 --> 00:33:27.120 Or Psalm seventy, which is nearly identical to Psalm forty, verses thirteen 00:33:27.120 --> 00:33:28.240 through seventeen. 00:33:28.240 --> 00:33:32.400 Or all of Isaiah thirty six through thirty nine, which is basically 00:33:32.400 --> 00:33:36.720 the same as second Kings eighteen, beginning with verse thirteen through twenty, 00:33:37.200 --> 00:33:40.320 nineteen. God repeats himself a lot. 00:33:40.320 --> 00:33:42.640 That's why we're not shy about repeating ourselves here. 00:33:42.640 --> 00:33:44.800 It's an important didactic tool. 00:33:44.800 --> 00:33:46.480 It's fine to repeat yourself. 00:33:46.480 --> 00:33:49.120 Oftentimes the only things that end up getting through are the things 00:33:49.120 --> 00:33:50.000 that are repeated. 00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:52.240 We know that, and so there are times where we belabor points 00:33:52.320 --> 00:33:55.760 and you can search the transcripts of saying belabor point. 00:33:55.760 --> 00:33:56.720 That's why. 00:33:56.720 --> 00:33:58.240 It's not to be annoying. 00:33:58.240 --> 00:34:00.720 It's because we want you to hear certain things so many times 00:34:00.720 --> 00:34:01.840 that you get aggravated. 00:34:01.840 --> 00:34:03.280 Like, yeah, I've heard it already. 00:34:03.280 --> 00:34:03.920 I know. 00:34:03.920 --> 00:34:06.240 You know, kids are like that, like, shut up, mom or dad, 00:34:06.240 --> 00:34:06.800 I want to hear it. 00:34:06.800 --> 00:34:08.880 If you're a kid, you shouldn't show up to your parents, I 00:34:08.880 --> 00:34:09.600 certainly did. 00:34:09.600 --> 00:34:10.720 I feel bad about it. 00:34:10.720 --> 00:34:13.360 But the sentiment is in all of our hearts, I'm sick of 00:34:13.360 --> 00:34:15.840 hearing this anymore, I'd get it, leave me alone. 00:34:15.840 --> 00:34:18.080 That's the purpose of repetition sometimes. 00:34:18.080 --> 00:34:21.760 So the notion that well God repeated himself, so I'm just gonna 00:34:21.760 --> 00:34:25.120 delete it because I don't take one of these as scripture, it's 00:34:25.040 --> 00:34:26.000 a deadly error. 00:34:26.000 --> 00:34:28.000 And it's one that we're so casual about. 00:34:28.000 --> 00:34:30.640 Why? Because the rabbis told us it was okay. 00:34:30.640 --> 00:34:32.880 Please do not fall down that trap. 00:34:34.480 --> 00:34:38.080 And so starting with Proverbs one, I will read first from the 00:34:38.080 --> 00:34:40.880 ESV and then from the Lexum. 00:34:40.880 --> 00:34:44.480 Basically all of my examples are going to be from the Lexum 00:34:44.480 --> 00:34:48.480 for the Septuagint translation I already commented on the difference between the 00:34:48.480 --> 00:34:52.160 Lexum and the Brenton in the previous episode, so you can go 00:34:52.160 --> 00:34:56.880 back and listen to that again or read that difference there. 00:34:56.880 --> 00:35:01.760 To know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight, to receive 00:35:01.760 --> 00:35:07.040 instruction and wise dealing, in righteousness, justice and equity, to give prudence 00:35:07.040 --> 00:35:10.800 to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth. 00:35:10.800 --> 00:35:15.920 And now from the Septuagint to know wisdom and discipline, and to 00:35:15.920 --> 00:35:20.880 understand words of insight, and to receive subtlety of words, and to 00:35:20.880 --> 00:35:25.200 understand true righteousness, and to direct a judgment, so that it may 00:35:25.200 --> 00:35:29.520 give cunning to the naive, and both experience and insight to a 00:35:29.520 --> 00:35:31.280 young child. 00:35:31.280 --> 00:35:36.000 Now there are a number of differences in this particular section as 00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:40.080 between the Masoretic and the Septuagint. 00:35:40.080 --> 00:35:42.560 In some places it is essentially identical. 00:35:42.560 --> 00:35:46.800 You may have noticed that verse 2B, other than the word and, 00:35:46.800 --> 00:35:51.120 is identical in both the ESV and the Lexum. 00:35:51.120 --> 00:35:54.960 But there are other places where the diction has changed. 00:35:54.960 --> 00:36:01.200 You have instruction in the ESV, you have discipline in the Septuagint. 00:36:01.200 --> 00:36:03.840 Those are not exactly identical. 00:36:03.840 --> 00:36:05.440 This is a different thing. 00:36:05.440 --> 00:36:10.960 You have righteousness, justice, and equity versus to understand true righteousness and 00:36:10.960 --> 00:36:12.800 to direct a judgment. 00:36:12.800 --> 00:36:17.360 Now you could try to excuse the differences and certainly exegetes have 00:36:17.360 --> 00:36:19.680 done that. 00:36:19.680 --> 00:36:23.280 But as we have been saying, the point we have been making, 00:36:23.280 --> 00:36:25.040 that's not the Christian impulse. 00:36:25.040 --> 00:36:28.160 The Christian impulse is simply to look at the Word of God 00:36:28.160 --> 00:36:32.000 and accept the Word of God, not try to make excuses for 00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:35.120 what the rabbis have done to it, and then passed off as 00:36:35.120 --> 00:36:39.920 the Word of God, their mangled version of it. 00:36:39.920 --> 00:36:43.600 And just as a sort of preliminary matter, sort of in the 00:36:43.600 --> 00:36:47.680 middle of the episode, but a preliminary matter nonetheless, we are going 00:36:47.680 --> 00:36:51.520 to generally stick to the numbering scheme that is in all of 00:36:51.520 --> 00:36:52.480 your Bibles. 00:36:52.480 --> 00:36:55.680 The numbering scheme from the Rabbinic text because it is the one 00:36:55.680 --> 00:36:58.880 to which we are all accustomed, and so it is easier to 00:36:58.880 --> 00:36:59.600 stick to that. 00:36:59.600 --> 00:37:02.640 Sometimes that is a little more of a problem in the Psalter 00:37:02.800 --> 00:37:05.840 where the numbers do not exactly line up, they're usually off by 00:37:05.840 --> 00:37:10.560 one. But there are certainly some places in the wisdom literature elsewhere 00:37:10.560 --> 00:37:13.760 in the wisdom literature where the numbering is not the same. 00:37:13.760 --> 00:37:16.640 We will be using the numbering that is in all of your 00:37:16.640 --> 00:37:18.240 Bibles. 00:37:18.640 --> 00:37:23.120 One of the recurring themes that will arise throughout this episode as 00:37:23.120 --> 00:37:25.840 you look for yourself is something that I've said before. 00:37:25.840 --> 00:37:28.800 I've been saying for well over a year on X. 00:37:28.800 --> 00:37:32.160 The more that I have come to rely on referring back to 00:37:32.160 --> 00:37:36.480 the Septuagint before I quote the Old Testament, the more often I 00:37:36.480 --> 00:37:39.360 realize that the point that I wanted to make just vanishes. 00:37:39.360 --> 00:37:42.080 And as in some of the previous examples we gave, it's not 00:37:42.080 --> 00:37:46.800 necessarily that what is present in the rabbinic text is actually actively 00:37:46.800 --> 00:37:50.400 evil. It's not that it's a bad thing per se. 00:37:50.400 --> 00:37:54.320 It's just that it's not what God said, and therefore it's less 00:37:54.320 --> 00:37:57.440 important. And certainly to us it shouldn't be important at all, but 00:37:57.440 --> 00:38:00.560 you can't even necessarily make the arguments that you intend to make 00:38:01.040 --> 00:38:04.320 until you make sure you're using the correct text. 00:38:04.320 --> 00:38:07.840 And as Corey was highlighting, you know, the difference between like equity, 00:38:07.840 --> 00:38:09.840 that's part of DEI today. 00:38:09.840 --> 00:38:13.360 I'm sure that there are people who have tried to use Proverbs 00:38:13.360 --> 00:38:16.960 one to justify DEI, because it's got the word equity in the 00:38:16.960 --> 00:38:19.120 ESV. Game set match, right? 00:38:19.120 --> 00:38:24.080 Obviously, you need to have racial quotas because this verse says equity. 00:38:24.080 --> 00:38:28.560 So while that's a garbage argument on its face, even attempting to 00:38:28.560 --> 00:38:32.160 make the argument in this case is not possible if you're using 00:38:32.160 --> 00:38:34.240 the text of the early church. 00:38:34.240 --> 00:38:36.480 So just keep that in mind. 00:38:36.480 --> 00:38:40.400 Not that it's going to undermine anything in terms of your faith, 00:38:40.400 --> 00:38:42.560 but it may undermine some of your points. 00:38:42.560 --> 00:38:44.560 And that's not a bad thing. 00:38:44.560 --> 00:38:46.320 Like your point can come or go. 00:38:46.320 --> 00:38:49.440 And frankly, you know, it's I've said before, like I have very 00:38:49.440 --> 00:38:52.960 poor knowledge of scripture in terms of citing chapter and verse. 00:38:52.960 --> 00:38:54.960 I haven't memorized very much at all. 00:38:54.960 --> 00:38:56.960 But I know a lot of stuff is in there and I 00:38:56.960 --> 00:38:58.080 know I can find it. 00:38:58.080 --> 00:39:01.680 Once I find it what I thought, usually the point is there. 00:39:01.680 --> 00:39:05.920 I'm not misremembering and having stupid things in mind that are disproven 00:39:05.920 --> 00:39:06.880 by the text. 00:39:06.880 --> 00:39:09.840 But even when I correctly remember what was in the text, I'm 00:39:09.840 --> 00:39:12.640 always going to be remembering the rabbinic text, 'cause that's all I've 00:39:12.560 --> 00:39:13.840 known my entire life. 00:39:13.840 --> 00:39:16.560 And so then when I consult what's in the Septuagint, what I 00:39:16.560 --> 00:39:19.360 find is that in about a third of cases, my point goes 00:39:19.360 --> 00:39:22.080 away. Not that my point was evil, like it may be proven 00:39:22.080 --> 00:39:24.960 somewhere else, but the specific proof text that I thought I was 00:39:25.040 --> 00:39:27.600 gonna be able to post and you know own whomever I was 00:39:27.680 --> 00:39:30.400 gonna be able to score points in some argument, it's gone. 00:39:30.400 --> 00:39:31.200 I can't do it. 00:39:31.200 --> 00:39:34.640 Because some other point, maybe a different more important point, is made 00:39:34.640 --> 00:39:35.840 in the Septuagint. 00:39:35.840 --> 00:39:37.440 You will find this over and over again. 00:39:37.440 --> 00:39:41.520 When you refer to the Greek, whatever verse you're looking at, you're 00:39:41.520 --> 00:39:44.160 gonna find in a lot of cases the point you thought you 00:39:44.160 --> 00:39:45.600 could make is gonna vanish. 00:39:45.600 --> 00:39:48.240 And sometimes it's gonna boil down to a single word or a 00:39:48.240 --> 00:39:50.640 few words, as Corey just highlighted. 00:39:50.640 --> 00:39:53.760 So just I'm warning you that you're gonna have to get used 00:39:53.760 --> 00:39:54.880 to that sensation. 00:39:54.880 --> 00:39:56.720 And it shouldn't be a cause for concern. 00:39:56.720 --> 00:40:00.240 It should be a cause for curiosity and for celebration. 00:40:00.240 --> 00:40:03.760 Okay, God has new things to teach me that I didn't know 00:40:03.760 --> 00:40:07.040 about that the church and Jesus and the apostles all recognized. 00:40:07.040 --> 00:40:09.680 I want to learn what misdom I've been missing out on. 00:40:09.680 --> 00:40:13.280 There's some better piece, there's some small word that's here that is 00:40:13.280 --> 00:40:14.640 important that was preserved. 00:40:14.640 --> 00:40:15.440 Let's go see. 00:40:15.440 --> 00:40:16.640 Let's go learn from it. 00:40:16.640 --> 00:40:18.000 That's a blessing. 00:40:18.000 --> 00:40:20.800 And more and more I think you're gonna be finding you'll be 00:40:20.800 --> 00:40:23.440 referring back to some of the Some of the early church fathers 00:40:23.760 --> 00:40:26.480 prior to Jerome, just because they're the last ones who looked at 00:40:26.480 --> 00:40:27.280 this stuff. 00:40:27.280 --> 00:40:30.000 And that's important because they also disagreed a lot. 00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:33.120 When I as a Lutheran say that, I'm not making the Roman 00:40:33.120 --> 00:40:37.200 Catholic argument or the Orthodox argument that pretends that there's been this 00:40:37.200 --> 00:40:43.040 absolute unity of Christian teaching and arguments about individual verses forever. 00:40:43.040 --> 00:40:45.120 Christians have always been having these fights. 00:40:45.120 --> 00:40:47.920 In fact, there's a verse that says that very thing. 00:40:47.920 --> 00:40:51.200 Disputes must arise among you, the truth may be known. 00:40:51.200 --> 00:40:53.680 That's not exactly how it's quoted, like that's not another example. 00:40:53.680 --> 00:40:55.280 I know it's in there somewhere. 00:40:55.280 --> 00:40:59.280 When you look and your point vanishes, that's fine. 00:40:59.280 --> 00:41:01.760 When you look at the early church fathers and find that they 00:41:01.760 --> 00:41:05.440 disagree, now you have a real opportunity to learn because you're actually 00:41:05.440 --> 00:41:06.480 gonna have to think. 00:41:06.480 --> 00:41:08.480 You're not gonna get a pad answer. 00:41:08.480 --> 00:41:11.760 You're gonna find that one guy says one thing, another guy says 00:41:11.760 --> 00:41:12.720 another thing. 00:41:12.720 --> 00:41:15.920 And frankly, most of the commentaries after that probably not going to 00:41:15.920 --> 00:41:18.720 be worth much because they're talking about the rabbinic text. 00:41:18.720 --> 00:41:21.120 They're not even talking about scripture. 00:41:21.760 --> 00:41:22.080 We 00:41:22.080 --> 00:41:25.360 are going to be sticking in Proverbs 1 for a while here, 00:41:25.360 --> 00:41:29.440 but the second example from Proverbs one is verse seven. 00:41:29.440 --> 00:41:33.360 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, fools despise 00:41:33.360 --> 00:41:35.280 wisdom and instruction. 00:41:35.280 --> 00:41:39.760 And then from the Septuagint The beginning of wisdom is fear of 00:41:39.760 --> 00:41:44.480 God, and good insight belongs to all who practice it, and piety 00:41:44.480 --> 00:41:49.040 toward God is the beginning of insight, but the ungodly despise wisdom 00:41:49.040 --> 00:41:51.600 and instruction. 00:41:51.600 --> 00:41:54.880 Now there is a great deal of similarity between the two, but 00:41:55.520 --> 00:41:58.400 you may have noticed the reading from the Septuagint is longer. 00:41:58.400 --> 00:42:02.720 This is another place where the rabbinic text has simply dropped part 00:42:02.720 --> 00:42:03.920 of scripture. 00:42:03.920 --> 00:42:07.440 It got rid of the middle part of this verse of this 00:42:07.440 --> 00:42:11.920 section, because again remember verse numbers are something we added for convenience, 00:42:11.920 --> 00:42:15.200 they're not technically part of scripture. 00:42:15.200 --> 00:42:18.000 This is another one of those cases, and there will be many 00:42:18.000 --> 00:42:24.560 of them where where it's not necessarily fundamentally different between the two 00:42:24.880 --> 00:42:30.320 textual sources, between the rabbinic text and the Septuagint. 00:42:30.320 --> 00:42:34.720 But just because there isn't a fundamental difference doesn't mean that it's 00:42:34.720 --> 00:42:38.080 acceptable. We're dealing here with the Word of God. 00:42:38.080 --> 00:42:42.800 We should want to be completely faithful, completely true to the Word 00:42:42.800 --> 00:42:43.520 of God. 00:42:43.520 --> 00:42:46.400 And the Word of God, in this case happens to have more 00:42:46.400 --> 00:42:47.280 for us. 00:42:47.280 --> 00:42:51.200 Good insight belongs to all those who practice it. 00:42:51.200 --> 00:42:54.080 That's just not there in the rabbinic text. 00:42:54.080 --> 00:42:56.560 And piety toward God is the beginning of insight. 00:42:56.560 --> 00:42:59.200 This is one of those verses that many that many people love 00:42:59.360 --> 00:43:02.720 because the beginning of wisdom is fear of God. 00:43:02.720 --> 00:43:06.240 Or in the rendering of the Rabbinic text, the fear of the 00:43:06.240 --> 00:43:08.400 Lord is the beginning of knowledge. 00:43:08.400 --> 00:43:10.880 Not exactly the same thing. 00:43:10.880 --> 00:43:13.440 Wisdom and knowledge are not identical. 00:43:13.440 --> 00:43:17.600 Wisdom is something higher and greater than knowledge, and that's what the 00:43:17.600 --> 00:43:20.480 proverb actually says, that's what it actually praises. 00:43:20.480 --> 00:43:23.840 So fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, not just the 00:43:23.840 --> 00:43:25.200 beginning of knowledge. 00:43:25.200 --> 00:43:28.800 It is a different statement. 00:43:28.880 --> 00:43:33.280 As Corey highlighted, the two lines that are missing, there's sentiments that 00:43:33.280 --> 00:43:37.040 are found elsewhere in scripture, but this is just a slightly diminished 00:43:37.200 --> 00:43:43.040 verse. You're not getting quite as much of godly wisdom as you 00:43:43.040 --> 00:43:45.360 would if you were reading the Greek. 00:43:45.440 --> 00:43:49.120 Yeah, it's another one of the common themes Sometimes these deletions don't 00:43:49.120 --> 00:43:52.320 destroy the verse, they just kind of hollow it out. 00:43:52.320 --> 00:43:54.080 And that's another recurring theme. 00:43:54.080 --> 00:43:56.720 There are a lot of passages that they're just kind of hollowed 00:43:56.720 --> 00:44:00.560 out. They lose their their oomph. 00:44:00.560 --> 00:44:03.680 They lose the spirit that actually conveys wisdom. 00:44:04.080 --> 00:44:07.600 Yeah, we're looking at wisdom literature here, and yet a lot of 00:44:07.600 --> 00:44:13.040 the wisdom, including the very word wisdom, was removed from this verse. 00:44:13.040 --> 00:44:14.640 It's not a small point. 00:44:14.640 --> 00:44:18.960 It's not It's not a dire point in terms of damnation versus 00:44:18.960 --> 00:44:23.200 salvation, but in terms of slowly starving us of what God wants 00:44:23.200 --> 00:44:26.000 to give us, it is consequential. 00:44:27.440 --> 00:44:27.680 The 00:44:27.680 --> 00:44:32.960 next example's still in Proverbs 1 is a different kind of example. 00:44:32.960 --> 00:44:37.920 This is perhaps a different category, where there's a fundamental difference. 00:44:37.920 --> 00:44:43.040 The saying in the Rabbinic text is simply a different saying from 00:44:43.200 --> 00:44:45.680 what is contained in the Septuagint. 00:44:45.680 --> 00:44:49.120 And so verse seventeen for in vain is a net spread in 00:44:49.120 --> 00:44:51.680 the sight of any bird. 00:44:51.680 --> 00:44:54.240 Okay, sure, that's a true statement. 00:44:54.240 --> 00:44:56.800 We understand the wisdom behind that. 00:44:56.800 --> 00:44:59.040 We understand what is being said there. 00:44:59.040 --> 00:45:02.480 But what is said in the Septuagint, for one does not spread 00:45:02.480 --> 00:45:05.040 a net for birds without reason? 00:45:05.040 --> 00:45:07.680 That's a different saying. 00:45:07.680 --> 00:45:11.040 Sure it's true that it is vain to spread a net in 00:45:11.040 --> 00:45:14.240 the sight of not any bird notably, but most birds. 00:45:14.240 --> 00:45:16.480 Some birds are in fact stupid enough you could spread a net 00:45:16.640 --> 00:45:18.320 and they'll walk into it still. 00:45:18.320 --> 00:45:21.360 But it is a very different thing to say one does not 00:45:21.360 --> 00:45:23.200 spread a net for birds without reason. 00:45:23.200 --> 00:45:25.280 There's a reason for why you're doing this thing. 00:45:25.280 --> 00:45:27.520 This is wisdom literature. 00:45:27.520 --> 00:45:28.880 This is a wise saying. 00:45:28.880 --> 00:45:32.800 The other one, I'm not saying it's a dumb saying, but it's 00:45:32.800 --> 00:45:33.840 a different saying. 00:45:33.840 --> 00:45:36.480 It's a fundamentally different thing. 00:45:37.520 --> 00:45:40.240 This is one of the examples that I had in mind when 00:45:40.240 --> 00:45:42.480 I said you need to go read the whole chapter. 00:45:42.480 --> 00:45:47.680 This sentiment talking about nets is part of talking about it's an 00:45:47.760 --> 00:45:51.840 entire section talking about thieving and plotting to be a thief and 00:45:51.840 --> 00:45:54.400 falling in with the wrong crowd that's going to commit that sort 00:45:54.400 --> 00:45:55.200 of crime. 00:45:55.200 --> 00:45:58.720 So when if when you read this, in particular focus on Proverbs 00:45:58.800 --> 00:46:03.360 one verse eight through nineteen. 00:46:03.360 --> 00:46:07.280 That is the complete thought here because that entire passage deals with 00:46:07.360 --> 00:46:10.080 falling in with a bunch of guys who want to rob people. 00:46:10.080 --> 00:46:13.600 They want to steal, they want to take material possessions, and the 00:46:13.840 --> 00:46:16.880 admonition is don't do that, it's going to be bad for you. 00:46:16.880 --> 00:46:19.600 I want to highlight verse nineteen nearly at the end of this, 00:46:19.600 --> 00:46:24.240 in fact at the last one, because it's another substantive change that's 00:46:24.240 --> 00:46:27.920 made in the rabbinic text that doesn't seem like that big a 00:46:28.000 --> 00:46:31.360 deal unless you kind of have your focus correct. 00:46:31.360 --> 00:46:34.480 So again, this is a passage about you becoming a robber. 00:46:34.480 --> 00:46:37.920 You know, a father warning his son, son, don't fall in with 00:46:37.920 --> 00:46:40.160 the wrong crowd who wants to go rob people. 00:46:40.160 --> 00:46:43.280 Don't be a getaway driver for a bank robbery. 00:46:43.280 --> 00:46:46.160 Verse nineteen in the S V says Such are the ways of 00:46:46.160 --> 00:46:48.720 every one who is greedy for unjust gain. 00:46:48.720 --> 00:46:51.440 It takes away the life of its possessors. 00:46:51.600 --> 00:46:55.920 So the rabbinic text ends with something that's very much about stealing. 00:46:55.920 --> 00:46:59.360 It's about robbery, greedy for unjust gain. 00:46:59.360 --> 00:47:02.720 Listen to what Brenton's translation of the Greek says. 00:47:02.720 --> 00:47:06.800 These are the ways of all that perform lawless deeds, for by 00:47:06.800 --> 00:47:09.680 ungodliness they destroy their own life. 00:47:09.680 --> 00:47:12.240 The moral tenor here has changed completely. 00:47:12.240 --> 00:47:15.840 Instead of it just being a passage about robbery, we have a 00:47:15.840 --> 00:47:20.960 passage about all lawlessness, we have a passage about all sin, all 00:47:20.960 --> 00:47:26.320 ungodliness. This is crucial in the context of wisdom, particularly when it's 00:47:26.320 --> 00:47:29.920 coming right after the previous one, where we say that the beginning 00:47:30.320 --> 00:47:32.960 of wisdom is a fear of God and good insight belongs to 00:47:32.960 --> 00:47:36.000 those who practice it, and piety towards God is the beginning of 00:47:36.000 --> 00:47:40.480 insight, but the ungodly despise wisdom and instruction, the very next thing 00:47:40.480 --> 00:47:44.400 that follows is an admonition don't fall in with bad people who 00:47:44.400 --> 00:47:47.840 are gonna rob because this is an example of lawless deeds of 00:47:47.840 --> 00:47:52.800 sin and ungodliness, and that is what causes your destruction of your 00:47:52.800 --> 00:47:58.720 life. So both are true, but the Septuagint is so much more 00:47:58.720 --> 00:48:02.960 moral because it's saying here's a small example of the greater point. 00:48:02.960 --> 00:48:06.080 And crucially, this is another one of those examples I highlighted at 00:48:06.080 --> 00:48:06.720 the beginning. 00:48:06.720 --> 00:48:10.080 Imagine you're a non-believer, you're new to the Christian faith, and you 00:48:10.080 --> 00:48:14.400 read this and you read robbery and such are the ways of 00:48:14.400 --> 00:48:17.760 everyone who is greedy for unjust gain. 00:48:17.760 --> 00:48:22.720 The unregenerate heart, the immature heart look Looks for the line. 00:48:22.720 --> 00:48:25.760 It says where is the line that God draws such that if 00:48:25.760 --> 00:48:28.320 I go right up to it but don't cross it, I'm not 00:48:28.320 --> 00:48:30.960 sinning. I'm not gonna lose my eternal life. 00:48:30.960 --> 00:48:34.000 Where can I go without sinning? 00:48:34.000 --> 00:48:36.320 When you have an example about robbing and say this is what 00:48:36.400 --> 00:48:39.440 anyone who's greedy for unjust gain, you're gonna end up like this. 00:48:39.440 --> 00:48:41.760 Don't fall into the bad crowd that robs. 00:48:41.760 --> 00:48:46.480 Well, if greedy for unjust gain is your threshold for losing your 00:48:46.480 --> 00:48:50.880 life, then anything that is not unjust gain is on the table, 00:48:50.880 --> 00:48:51.360 isn't it? 00:48:51.360 --> 00:48:53.120 So you know, usury, fine. 00:48:53.120 --> 00:48:55.200 Our entire economy is based on usury. 00:48:55.200 --> 00:48:58.880 The very notion that usury could be abolished, people correctly point out, 00:48:58.880 --> 00:49:00.720 well that would destroy the entire economy. 00:49:00.720 --> 00:49:04.720 Yes. Quake in your boots at the prospect of how wicked we 00:49:04.720 --> 00:49:06.640 have become as a society. 00:49:06.640 --> 00:49:10.000 That's the sort of wisdom that's contained when you step away from 00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:11.440 saying where's the line? 00:49:11.440 --> 00:49:14.400 If it's greed for unjust gain, and I'm not gonna be a 00:49:14.400 --> 00:49:17.600 robber, I'm not gonna rob a bank, so I'm fine. 00:49:17.600 --> 00:49:21.200 You miss that all lawless deeds fall into the same bucket. 00:49:21.200 --> 00:49:25.840 All lawless deeds are ungodliness, and all ungodliness destroys your life. 00:49:25.840 --> 00:49:28.560 This is a sort of reduction that occurs in these texts. 00:49:28.560 --> 00:49:30.960 It's a small change, but it's not 00:49:32.560 --> 00:49:36.160 the next example is a great one for looking at what is 00:49:36.160 --> 00:49:39.120 lost in the rabbinic text, because 00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:44.880 while these two passages are going to sound similar, upon reflection they 00:49:44.880 --> 00:49:50.080 are fundamentally different, and you lose a great deal in what we 00:49:50.080 --> 00:49:55.120 have in translations from the rabbinic text instead of the Septuagint, and 00:49:55.120 --> 00:49:58.000 so verses twenty through twenty two. 00:49:58.000 --> 00:50:02.000 Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her 00:50:02.000 --> 00:50:05.520 voice, at the head of the noisy streets she cries out, at 00:50:05.520 --> 00:50:08.400 the entrance of the city gates she speaks. 00:50:08.400 --> 00:50:11.680 How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? 00:50:11.680 --> 00:50:17.120 How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing, and fools hate knowledge? 00:50:17.520 --> 00:50:22.240 And now from the Septuagint Wisdom sings in the exits, and leads 00:50:22.240 --> 00:50:26.080 confidently into open areas, and upon the top of the walls she 00:50:26.080 --> 00:50:30.320 proclaims, and at the gates she sits beside rulers, and at the 00:50:30.320 --> 00:50:33.120 gates of the city she speaks boldly. 00:50:33.120 --> 00:50:36.720 As long as the naive hold to righteousness, they will not be 00:50:36.720 --> 00:50:41.280 dishonored but the foolish, since they are ones who long for insolence, 00:50:41.280 --> 00:50:44.640 after becoming ungodly, they hated insight. 00:50:45.760 --> 00:50:50.640 These two are simply fundamentally different sayings. 00:50:50.640 --> 00:50:54.960 And of course it continues on, particularly in the Septuagint where that's 00:50:54.960 --> 00:50:56.960 not really a break in the full thought. 00:50:56.960 --> 00:50:57.680 There is an additional 00:50:58.560 --> 00:51:00.800 part to that, and you should of course go and read the 00:51:00.800 --> 00:51:02.400 entire chapter. 00:51:02.400 --> 00:51:06.800 But saying that wisdom is with rulers who sit in the gates, 00:51:06.800 --> 00:51:12.640 and that wisdom speaks boldly in the city gates, we simply lose 00:51:12.640 --> 00:51:14.160 that in the Rabbinic text. 00:51:14.160 --> 00:51:17.680 The Rabbinic text has at the head of the noisy streets she 00:51:17.680 --> 00:51:19.680 cries out. 00:51:19.680 --> 00:51:22.160 That's not the same saying. 00:51:22.160 --> 00:51:24.880 That is a fundamentally different thing, but that's not even the biggest 00:51:24.880 --> 00:51:26.160 change here. 00:51:26.160 --> 00:51:30.720 Probably arguably the biggest change is from verse twenty two how long 00:51:30.880 --> 00:51:34.080 O simple ones will you love being simple? 00:51:34.080 --> 00:51:35.440 Okay, sure. 00:51:35.440 --> 00:51:39.760 Versus as long as the naive hold to righteousness, they will not 00:51:39.760 --> 00:51:42.160 be dishonored. 00:51:42.160 --> 00:51:46.000 Those aren't even comparable sayings. 00:51:46.000 --> 00:51:49.280 What we lose if we're looking at the rabbinic text versus the 00:51:49.280 --> 00:51:56.240 Septuagint is a vitally important saying, a vitally important bit of wisdom. 00:51:56.240 --> 00:52:00.880 Even those who are not truly wise, so long as they hold, 00:52:00.880 --> 00:52:04.320 so long as they cleave in the words of Breton, to righteousness, 00:52:04.320 --> 00:52:07.920 and it's the same word for righteousness or justice, they will not 00:52:07.920 --> 00:52:09.600 be dishonored. 00:52:09.600 --> 00:52:14.160 That is a vitally important Christian sentiment, because regardless of 00:52:15.200 --> 00:52:19.840 your intellectual capacities, whatever they may or may not be, you can 00:52:19.840 --> 00:52:24.000 hold to righteousness, and Scripture says you will not be dishonored so 00:52:24.000 --> 00:52:26.560 long as you do that. 00:52:26.560 --> 00:52:29.760 What even is that compared to what we have in the rabbinic, 00:52:29.760 --> 00:52:32.960 how long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? 00:52:33.680 --> 00:52:38.480 That's practically a rhetorical question that doesn't give you anything in terms 00:52:38.480 --> 00:52:39.520 of wisdom. 00:52:39.520 --> 00:52:43.920 You get the actual wise saying in the wording of the Septuagint, 00:52:43.920 --> 00:52:47.040 it's just not there in the rabbinic text. 00:52:47.040 --> 00:52:53.840 The rabbis removed this saying and put something else in its place. 00:52:54.080 --> 00:52:59.440 Because so many of these comparisons are somewhat difficult for oral comparison 00:52:59.600 --> 00:53:02.640 when you're listening, one of the things we'll do is link in 00:53:02.640 --> 00:53:05.280 the show notes a thread that a friend did on X where 00:53:05.280 --> 00:53:08.400 he made some very nice slides that highlight these differences. 00:53:08.560 --> 00:53:11.200 In his case, he compared the King James, I think, entirely to 00:53:11.200 --> 00:53:13.840 the Brenton, since both are out of copyright and they have a 00:53:13.840 --> 00:53:15.360 similar language. 00:53:15.360 --> 00:53:19.280 So that's a very helpful tool for you looking side by side. 00:53:19.280 --> 00:53:21.600 And he also, I believe, looked at the Greek to make sure 00:53:21.600 --> 00:53:23.280 that Brennan was being consistent. 00:53:23.280 --> 00:53:27.120 So verse by verse throughout all of Proverbs, you can have a 00:53:27.120 --> 00:53:31.440 visual comparison that's very helpful because again, just processing this orally can 00:53:31.440 --> 00:53:32.400 be tricky. 00:53:32.400 --> 00:53:36.560 But again, we're not trying to convince with any one of these 00:53:37.360 --> 00:53:40.400 one way or the other, we're trying to convince by the preponderance 00:53:40.400 --> 00:53:42.800 of evidence that they are substantially different. 00:53:42.800 --> 00:53:46.480 That it's not just Isaiah seven fourteen that was modified. 00:53:46.480 --> 00:53:47.760 There's a lot more going on. 00:53:48.240 --> 00:53:52.320 And once you understand that, then hopefully a desire will be kindled 00:53:52.320 --> 00:53:56.320 to actually look at the Greek text because it is scripture. 00:53:57.280 --> 00:53:57.440 The 00:53:57.440 --> 00:54:01.040 next example still in Proverbs 1 is a great example similar to 00:54:02.080 --> 00:54:06.080 that change in Isaiah where you have a change of essentially one 00:54:06.080 --> 00:54:09.440 word. Now there's more difference here than just one word, but there's 00:54:09.440 --> 00:54:11.520 one key word difference here. 00:54:11.840 --> 00:54:15.760 so first again from the ESV, I also will laugh at your 00:54:15.760 --> 00:54:21.520 calamity, I will mock when terror strikes you versus the Septuagint. 00:54:21.520 --> 00:54:25.760 Therefore I also will laugh at your destruction, and I will rejoice 00:54:25.760 --> 00:54:28.320 when your destruction comes. 00:54:28.320 --> 00:54:32.480 Now again, there are several differences here, but the key difference is 00:54:32.480 --> 00:54:37.760 between mocking when terror strikes you and rejoicing at the destruction of 00:54:37.760 --> 00:54:38.640 the wicked. 00:54:38.880 --> 00:54:41.040 Those are two different things. 00:54:41.040 --> 00:54:45.600 Mocking someone who has fallen into calamity or terror, whichever word we 00:54:45.600 --> 00:54:50.000 happen to pull there from the ESV, is a fundamentally different reaction 00:54:50.000 --> 00:54:54.080 from rejoicing at the destruction of the wicked, and we see this 00:54:54.080 --> 00:54:58.160 rejoicing at the destruction of the wicked all throughout the wisdom literature 00:54:58.160 --> 00:55:00.880 and elsewhere in scripture. 00:55:00.880 --> 00:55:02.800 These two sayings are not the same. 00:55:03.040 --> 00:55:06.960 We have a different saying in the Septuagint from what is in 00:55:06.960 --> 00:55:09.440 the ESV. 00:55:09.440 --> 00:55:12.080 The Word of God doesn't say mock here. 00:55:12.080 --> 00:55:14.080 It says rejoice. 00:55:14.080 --> 00:55:17.440 Those are not the same sentiment. 00:55:17.600 --> 00:55:21.920 I think one of the great enticements to looking back to the 00:55:21.920 --> 00:55:26.480 Old Testament as you seek to compare these things is just rereading 00:55:26.480 --> 00:55:28.400 portions of the Old Testament carefully 00:55:29.280 --> 00:55:33.280 beginning with verse twenty through the end of Proverbs chapter one, it 00:55:33.280 --> 00:55:34.480 is a complete thought. 00:55:34.480 --> 00:55:36.400 It all belongs together. 00:55:36.400 --> 00:55:40.160 When you read these sentiments, these are things that will get you 00:55:40.160 --> 00:55:42.080 kicked out of churches today. 00:55:42.080 --> 00:55:45.680 If you were to say that God says these things, that God 00:55:45.680 --> 00:55:49.520 believes these things to be holy and wise, you will be called 00:55:49.520 --> 00:55:52.400 hateful, you will be called not a Christian, you will be told 00:55:52.400 --> 00:55:54.000 that you're going to hell. 00:55:54.000 --> 00:55:56.960 For saying what God says, for believing his wisdom. 00:55:57.600 --> 00:55:59.920 Understand that that's what time it is. 00:55:59.920 --> 00:56:03.920 One of the benefits to this comparison is re embracing the Old 00:56:03.920 --> 00:56:07.040 Testament in a way that frankly we've forgotten. 00:56:07.040 --> 00:56:10.560 Because I as Corey and I were talking before we began recording, 00:56:10.560 --> 00:56:13.760 I think one of the worst things that has happened to us 00:56:13.760 --> 00:56:18.880 by the false adoption of the rabbinic text is that solidified in 00:56:18.880 --> 00:56:24.560 people's minds the notion that was then later on named Judeo-Christian. 00:56:24.560 --> 00:56:28.320 The Old Testament became the Judeo part, and the New Testament is 00:56:28.320 --> 00:56:29.760 the Christian part. 00:56:29.760 --> 00:56:32.400 And so what do you end up with in the Old Testament 00:56:32.400 --> 00:56:33.840 as a modern Christian? 00:56:33.840 --> 00:56:36.800 You have either stories that are about the Jews, but they're not 00:56:36.800 --> 00:56:39.680 about us, or they're stories that are pointing to Jesus, but they 00:56:39.680 --> 00:56:41.760 don't have anything to do with anybody else at all. 00:56:41.760 --> 00:56:44.880 At no point does any of this tell us about who God 00:56:44.880 --> 00:56:48.320 is or about what he wants and demands of us and what 00:56:48.320 --> 00:56:50.240 the Christian life looks like. 00:56:50.240 --> 00:56:54.080 Those things, as soon as you open those last two doors in 00:56:54.080 --> 00:56:57.200 Christian conversation, you're on thin ice. 00:56:57.200 --> 00:56:59.040 You are going to get called a heretic. 00:56:59.040 --> 00:57:01.920 You're going to get told you are an evil man, that you 00:57:01.920 --> 00:57:06.560 have embraced satanic wicked thoughts for saying what God says. 00:57:06.560 --> 00:57:09.840 Understand that, and then read boldly what is in scripture. 00:57:09.840 --> 00:57:12.160 In this case, you can read it doesn't matter if it's a 00:57:12.160 --> 00:57:15.680 rabbinic text or the Septuagint for what I'm saying here, the overall 00:57:15.680 --> 00:57:20.160 sentiment has been obscured from us simply by virtue of thinking it's 00:57:20.160 --> 00:57:21.040 this old stuff. 00:57:21.040 --> 00:57:23.200 It's about the Jews, it's not for us. 00:57:23.200 --> 00:57:26.400 And even though people who say, Oh the Proverbs, it's wisdom literature, 00:57:26.400 --> 00:57:27.360 it's very wise. 00:57:27.360 --> 00:57:30.000 Are you going to say it's wise to rejoice in the destruction 00:57:30.000 --> 00:57:32.080 of your enemies and God's enemies? 00:57:32.080 --> 00:57:34.800 Good luck saying that and remaining in a church. 00:57:34.800 --> 00:57:36.880 How wise is that? 00:57:36.880 --> 00:57:39.120 This is serious stuff. 00:57:39.120 --> 00:57:43.200 We have lost scripture by bits and pieces not only by the 00:57:43.200 --> 00:57:46.960 changes in the text themselves, but by our very view of what 00:57:46.960 --> 00:57:49.760 it is to inherit the Old Testament. 00:57:49.760 --> 00:57:50.800 It's not old. 00:57:50.800 --> 00:57:51.680 This stuff is not old. 00:57:52.480 --> 00:57:55.680 It's before Christ, but that doesn't make it old. 00:57:55.680 --> 00:57:59.600 All the New Testament quotations are from the Old Testament. 00:57:59.600 --> 00:58:03.360 It is every word breathed out from the mouth of God. 00:58:03.360 --> 00:58:08.320 I'll once again reiterate the ending of the Bible, Revelation twenty two 00:58:08.400 --> 00:58:11.040 that I mentioned in the previous episode. 00:58:11.040 --> 00:58:13.840 And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of 00:58:13.840 --> 00:58:16.640 this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of 00:58:16.640 --> 00:58:20.400 life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. 00:58:20.400 --> 00:58:23.360 We do not get to mess around with God's word as the 00:58:23.360 --> 00:58:24.800 rabbis did. 00:58:24.800 --> 00:58:29.280 Take seriously that when this reframing occurred to the Old Testament, it 00:58:29.280 --> 00:58:30.160 robbed us. 00:58:30.160 --> 00:58:32.640 We were robbed not only of the specific words by the translation 00:58:33.200 --> 00:58:37.440 changes, but by the very notion that this is not God speaking 00:58:37.440 --> 00:58:39.280 to us directly. 00:58:40.080 --> 00:58:40.240 When 00:58:40.240 --> 00:58:42.560 you go and read this for yourself, one of the things that 00:58:42.560 --> 00:58:46.480 you will notice is that the rabbis played games with how they 00:58:46.480 --> 00:58:49.040 chopped up sections of scripture. 00:58:49.040 --> 00:58:51.600 This is one of the ways that they managed to corrupt and 00:58:51.600 --> 00:58:57.040 pervert, particularly here in the wisdom literature, certain segments, certain sections of 00:58:57.040 --> 00:58:58.400 scripture. And the next 00:58:59.280 --> 00:59:05.120 two examples are a fairly good example of that, because in the 00:59:05.120 --> 00:59:08.560 Septuagint, and so I'm going to read them together and then compare 00:59:08.560 --> 00:59:14.560 them separately, in the Septuagint they are a complete thought, whereas the 00:59:14.560 --> 00:59:19.520 Rabbinic text has broken them into two separated thoughts, and so I 00:59:19.520 --> 00:59:24.080 will read first from the Rabbinic text, the ESV. 00:59:24.080 --> 00:59:27.200 Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way, and have their 00:59:27.200 --> 00:59:29.760 fill of their own devices. 00:59:29.760 --> 00:59:33.520 For the simple are killed by their turning away, and the complacency 00:59:33.520 --> 00:59:35.520 of fools destroys them. 00:59:35.520 --> 00:59:37.520 Verses thirty one and thirty two. 00:59:37.520 --> 00:59:41.040 And now I will read those from the Septuagint. 00:59:41.040 --> 00:59:44.400 Therefore they will eat the fruit of their own way, and they 00:59:44.400 --> 00:59:48.160 will be filled with their own ungodliness, for because they were doing 00:59:48.160 --> 00:59:52.640 wrong to infants, they will be murdered, and scrutiny will destroy the 00:59:52.640 --> 00:59:59.520 ungodly. This again is one of those times where these are not 00:59:59.520 --> 01:00:00.560 the same. 01:00:00.560 --> 01:00:05.120 This is not a difference in terms of nuance or something minor. 01:00:05.120 --> 01:00:08.560 These are fundamentally altered sayings in the rabbinic text. 01:00:08.560 --> 01:00:11.600 It is a corruption of what we actually have in the Word 01:00:11.600 --> 01:00:14.000 of God, and part of it just isn't there 01:00:15.120 --> 01:00:19.360 We have where did doing wrong to infants go? 01:00:19.360 --> 01:00:20.960 It's not there. 01:00:20.960 --> 01:00:25.520 Instead we have something else here in the rabbinic text. 01:00:25.520 --> 01:00:29.360 The complacency of fools destroys them. 01:00:29.600 --> 01:00:34.800 And it says fools, as opposed to the ungodly. 01:00:34.800 --> 01:00:38.160 This is another one of the changes that you will note it's 01:00:38.160 --> 01:00:42.720 a sort of type of change that runs through the wisdom literature. 01:00:42.720 --> 01:00:48.400 They will change certain things into certain lesser versions of them. 01:00:48.400 --> 01:00:51.680 And so here you have the difference between the ungodly or you 01:00:51.680 --> 01:00:54.960 could say the unrighteous or the evil, the wicked, the impenitent, whatever 01:00:54.960 --> 01:00:56.320 it happens to be. 01:00:56.320 --> 01:01:00.240 They'll change it to fools instead, which is a different saying. 01:01:00.240 --> 01:01:02.560 Why are these people being destroyed? 01:01:02.560 --> 01:01:06.720 They're destroyed because they're ungodly, they're not destroyed simply because they're fools. 01:01:06.720 --> 01:01:10.080 Now there can be sin in being foolish, but it depends on 01:01:10.080 --> 01:01:12.880 the kind of foolishness. 01:01:12.880 --> 01:01:14.080 There's no 01:01:15.040 --> 01:01:18.880 opaqueness here, there's no vagueness here in the Septuagint. 01:01:18.880 --> 01:01:22.240 These people are destroyed because they are ungodly, and they're doing wrong 01:01:22.240 --> 01:01:22.880 to infants. 01:01:22.880 --> 01:01:26.240 It says in fact they will be murdered, which is certainly stronger 01:01:26.240 --> 01:01:30.480 language than we find in what has essentially been sanitized in the 01:01:30.480 --> 01:01:32.080 rabbinic text. 01:01:32.240 --> 01:01:35.600 Another thing that runs all throughout the wisdom literature, and we will 01:01:35.600 --> 01:01:40.800 get into examples that show this as well, in many places you 01:01:40.800 --> 01:01:41.440 will see 01:01:42.320 --> 01:01:45.760 an admonition to treat your friends well, or not to treat your 01:01:45.760 --> 01:01:48.480 friends poorly, whichever one it happens to be. 01:01:48.480 --> 01:01:52.800 In the rabbinic text, often friend has been changed into neighbor, and 01:01:52.800 --> 01:01:56.720 so many of these verses many verses you may know you may 01:01:56.720 --> 01:01:59.120 know them by heart By heart, where it says something in the 01:01:59.120 --> 01:02:02.640 rabbinic text about your neighbor, when you actually read it in God's 01:02:02.640 --> 01:02:05.040 word, it says it about your friend. 01:02:05.040 --> 01:02:07.440 That's a pretty significant change. 01:02:07.440 --> 01:02:10.240 And that runs all throughout the wisdom literature. 01:02:10.240 --> 01:02:14.080 It is something that you will find again and again and again, 01:02:14.080 --> 01:02:18.560 because the rabbis have corrupted this text that they passed off to 01:02:18.560 --> 01:02:22.320 Christians who were insufficiently critical of the source. 01:02:22.320 --> 01:02:25.120 They did not think about what they were doing. 01:02:25.120 --> 01:02:26.080 They should have. 01:02:26.080 --> 01:02:27.440 They failed to do so. 01:02:27.440 --> 01:02:31.920 And as Woe said, this is not necessarily all bad news as 01:02:31.920 --> 01:02:34.800 it were for us, because when you start to look at these 01:02:34.800 --> 01:02:37.040 things with fresh eyes, which you are going to be forced to 01:02:37.600 --> 01:02:39.840 do because the wording is different. 01:02:39.840 --> 01:02:42.480 In some cases it's a completely different saying. 01:02:42.640 --> 01:02:46.880 You are getting to encounter and read the Word of God in 01:02:46.880 --> 01:02:49.840 a way that would be very difficult to do if If you 01:02:49.840 --> 01:02:55.200 were simply reading another translation of the rabbinic text, it's not that 01:02:55.200 --> 01:02:59.200 different going from even the King James to the ESV, and it's 01:02:59.200 --> 01:03:03.200 certainly not that different going from one modern translation to another. 01:03:03.200 --> 01:03:03.920 But when you have 01:03:04.960 --> 01:03:08.640 the rabbinic text in your mind and your memory because it's what 01:03:08.640 --> 01:03:12.000 you've been reading for many years in many cases for our listeners 01:03:12.000 --> 01:03:17.680 for decades, and then you go and look at the Septuagint, you're 01:03:17.680 --> 01:03:20.400 forced to slow down and actually think about what you're reading. 01:03:20.400 --> 01:03:22.080 And that's a great thing. 01:03:22.080 --> 01:03:26.720 We have an opportunity here in how we deal with God's word 01:03:26.880 --> 01:03:28.400 and how we process God's Word. 01:03:28.960 --> 01:03:33.120 And I've certainly noticed this myself while preparing these materials and going 01:03:33.120 --> 01:03:36.720 through and reading the Septuagint more obviously. 01:03:36.720 --> 01:03:42.160 Because I read aloud every single day from the Psalter, I have 01:03:42.160 --> 01:03:45.120 a lot of it effectively memorized, I don't have the whole thing 01:03:45.120 --> 01:03:48.960 memorized, I certainly couldn't recite it from memory, but in many cases 01:03:49.040 --> 01:03:52.640 I've been able to simply run these comparisons even with proverbs and 01:03:52.640 --> 01:03:56.400 things like that, just by reading the Septuagint text and knowing from 01:03:57.120 --> 01:04:01.440 memory what is in the Rabbinic text. 01:04:01.440 --> 01:04:04.960 Unfortunately I have the Rabbinic text memorized in many cases. 01:04:04.960 --> 01:04:08.240 I wish it were the Septuagint instead, but 01:04:09.200 --> 01:04:13.360 in reading the Septuagint and reading the actual Old Testament, the actual 01:04:13.360 --> 01:04:17.840 Word of God, I am forced to think about it more deeply 01:04:18.000 --> 01:04:21.200 and to slow down and actually spend the amount of time that 01:04:21.200 --> 01:04:25.120 I should be spending with God's word when I am reading it, 01:04:25.120 --> 01:04:27.920 in a way that I wouldn't necessarily be forced to do if 01:04:27.920 --> 01:04:31.440 I were reading from the rabbinic text with which I am more 01:04:31.440 --> 01:04:35.360 familiar. And so think of this in some ways and in some 01:04:35.360 --> 01:04:40.240 terms as a sort of advantage, a sort of opportunity for those 01:04:40.240 --> 01:04:44.640 of us who are encountering this in sort of a fresh way. 01:04:44.640 --> 01:04:46.960 Don't look at this as oh we have this huge problem and 01:04:47.760 --> 01:04:48.800 it is a problem. 01:04:48.800 --> 01:04:52.320 I'm not saying that to minimize it, but I'm saying don't personally 01:04:52.320 --> 01:04:55.840 take it as some assault on what you have done in the 01:04:55.840 --> 01:04:59.040 past with regard to your time in God's Word. 01:04:59.760 --> 01:05:02.800 That wasn't time ill spent. 01:05:02.800 --> 01:05:06.000 Because in many cases much of it is preserved, of course. 01:05:06.000 --> 01:05:09.760 We have gone through examples where it is virtually identical. 01:05:09.760 --> 01:05:11.600 But it has been changed in places. 01:05:11.600 --> 01:05:15.680 It has been corrupted in places, and so it is necessary, and 01:05:15.680 --> 01:05:18.960 hopefully in the near future there will be a proper modern English 01:05:18.960 --> 01:05:23.600 translation of the Septuagint, but it is necessary to actually read God's 01:05:23.600 --> 01:05:28.080 Word as he as he preserved it, not as the rabbis corrupted 01:05:28.080 --> 01:05:31.360 it and passed it off to Christians, who were far too trusting 01:05:31.360 --> 01:05:33.040 of people they should not have trusted at 01:05:33.040 --> 01:05:33.360 all. 01:05:35.200 --> 01:05:35.520 As 01:05:35.520 --> 01:05:38.400 I mentioned in the last episode, many of the guys who have 01:05:38.400 --> 01:05:41.920 gone gone out and gotten Septuagins and begun reading 'em have said 01:05:41.920 --> 01:05:43.040 precisely that. 01:05:43.040 --> 01:05:47.440 They've said that they've been enjoying and engaging with scripture more deeply, 01:05:47.440 --> 01:05:52.160 in part because it is novel in the sense of being univocal, 01:05:52.160 --> 01:05:55.040 which was how they all put it, not in those exact words. 01:05:55.040 --> 01:05:58.240 But as I said, they have all said to me, and I 01:05:58.240 --> 01:06:00.960 agree, and Corey agrees as well, I think you will too when 01:06:00.960 --> 01:06:03.840 you look, the voice of the Old Testament and the voice of 01:06:03.840 --> 01:06:08.000 the New Testament are the same when you're looking at the Greek. 01:06:08.000 --> 01:06:11.120 That's not the case when you're looking at the Masoretic, at the 01:06:11.120 --> 01:06:14.320 rabbinic text, versus the New Testament. 01:06:14.320 --> 01:06:15.760 They don't read the same. 01:06:15.760 --> 01:06:17.760 They don't feel the same. 01:06:17.760 --> 01:06:19.360 It's a sea of the pants thing. 01:06:19.360 --> 01:06:22.080 It's something that you can only have through familiarity. 01:06:22.080 --> 01:06:24.480 You can't do a word study and say, oh cool, I can 01:06:24.480 --> 01:06:27.120 explain it because of these sentence structures. 01:06:27.120 --> 01:06:28.160 You just feel it. 01:06:28.160 --> 01:06:32.320 And a lot of these small changes are what we're talking about. 01:06:32.320 --> 01:06:34.720 That's why I said read the entire chapters. 01:06:34.720 --> 01:06:38.640 When you read a whole chapter, it's gonna read differently, not simply 01:06:38.640 --> 01:06:42.480 because of small word changes, but because the voice is different. 01:06:42.480 --> 01:06:45.920 The voice The voice of God is present in the Septuagint. 01:06:45.920 --> 01:06:47.760 There's no other way to put it, and you will find it 01:06:47.920 --> 01:06:49.280 too. 01:06:49.600 --> 01:06:54.560 Moving on then from Proverbs one to Proverbs two, and reading verses 01:06:54.560 --> 01:06:56.880 sixteen through nineteen first from the ESV. 01:06:57.280 --> 01:07:00.880 So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress 01:07:00.880 --> 01:07:04.880 with her smooth words, who forsakes the companion of her youth, and 01:07:04.880 --> 01:07:08.720 forgets the covenant of her God, for her house sinks down to 01:07:08.720 --> 01:07:11.840 death, and her paths to the departed, none who go to her 01:07:12.480 --> 01:07:15.920 come back, nor do they regain the paths of life. 01:07:15.920 --> 01:07:20.240 And then from the Septuagint to set you far from the straight 01:07:20.240 --> 01:07:23.680 way, and make you a stranger from righteous intention. 01:07:23.680 --> 01:07:27.920 Son, do not let bad counsel overtake you, which abandons the teaching 01:07:27.920 --> 01:07:32.160 of youth, and has forgotten the divine covenant, for she has set 01:07:32.160 --> 01:07:35.280 her house close to death, and her paths close to Hades with 01:07:35.280 --> 01:07:36.800 the shades. 01:07:36.800 --> 01:07:40.080 All who go into her will not return, and they would never 01:07:40.080 --> 01:07:44.000 attain to straight paths, for they are not seized by years of 01:07:44.000 --> 01:07:48.640 life. This is one of those cases where again, these are not 01:07:48.640 --> 01:07:52.000 the same, even sort of remotely. 01:07:52.000 --> 01:07:55.680 And this is another sort of mini-theme that I noticed as I 01:07:55.680 --> 01:07:59.760 was reading through and comparing the wisdom literature. 01:08:00.080 --> 01:08:05.520 Oftentimes the adulteress comes up in the rabbinic text and then just 01:08:05.520 --> 01:08:09.520 is not there in the Septuagint. 01:08:09.520 --> 01:08:13.600 It's one of those things the rabbis decided to add, they decided 01:08:13.600 --> 01:08:19.600 to modify the Proverbs to deal much more frequently with the adulteress, 01:08:19.600 --> 01:08:23.920 and that's not the case in the Septuagint. 01:08:23.920 --> 01:08:29.120 The Septuagint is speaking about righteousness and the intent of one's heart 01:08:29.360 --> 01:08:35.360 and the rabbinic text is speaking about the forbidden woman, the adulteress. 01:08:35.680 --> 01:08:35.920 I 01:08:35.920 --> 01:08:40.720 think it's notable that if you use Proverbs two from the Septuagint 01:08:40.720 --> 01:08:45.520 that talks about not letting bad counsel overtake you or forgetting the 01:08:45.520 --> 01:08:48.560 divine covenant you have to come the conclusion that you shouldn't have 01:08:48.560 --> 01:08:51.680 been listening to rabbis. 01:08:51.920 --> 01:08:55.600 The next example is Proverbs 3, verse 5. 01:08:55.600 --> 01:08:58.480 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean 01:08:58.480 --> 01:09:00.080 on your own understanding. 01:09:00.080 --> 01:09:03.200 This is one of those that many of you have probably memorized, 01:09:03.200 --> 01:09:04.640 or at least are very familiar with it. 01:09:04.960 --> 01:09:07.440 didn't sound unusual to your ear. 01:09:07.440 --> 01:09:11.520 But then from the Septuagint, trust God with your whole heart, and 01:09:11.520 --> 01:09:15.840 do not be exalted by your own wisdom. 01:09:15.840 --> 01:09:20.080 Similar. This is a case where the sayings are similar, but again, 01:09:20.080 --> 01:09:21.680 not identical. 01:09:21.680 --> 01:09:25.760 Do not lean on your own understanding versus do not be exalted 01:09:25.760 --> 01:09:28.240 by your own wisdom. 01:09:28.240 --> 01:09:33.520 It is not the same to tell someone to avoid being haughty 01:09:33.600 --> 01:09:36.560 or to avoid being arrogant, which is what we're dealing with here 01:09:36.560 --> 01:09:41.600 in the Septuagint, versus telling someone not to lean on your own 01:09:41.600 --> 01:09:44.880 understanding. This is wisdom literature. 01:09:44.880 --> 01:09:47.920 It is constantly exhorting you to be wise. 01:09:47.920 --> 01:09:51.840 It is exhorting you to have understanding, to gain knowledge, to seek 01:09:51.840 --> 01:09:53.680 wisdom. These are good things. 01:09:53.680 --> 01:09:58.400 They're very highly praised in Proverbs and elsewhere. 01:09:58.400 --> 01:10:01.680 But you are not to be puffed up in your heart, you 01:10:01.680 --> 01:10:06.160 are not to be haughty, you're not to be exalted with regard 01:10:06.160 --> 01:10:07.440 to how you view yourself. 01:10:07.440 --> 01:10:09.600 That is not the same thing as saying do not lean on 01:10:09.600 --> 01:10:10.960 your understanding. 01:10:10.960 --> 01:10:14.640 Because the whole point of reading the wisdom literature is to develop 01:10:14.640 --> 01:10:17.600 this sort of understanding on which you can rely. 01:10:17.600 --> 01:10:20.560 It's not leaning on it in a sinful sense, which is of 01:10:20.560 --> 01:10:22.560 course reading this with Christian eyes. 01:10:22.560 --> 01:10:24.320 You say do not lean on your own understanding. 01:10:24.320 --> 01:10:28.320 We recognize how you can take that in a Christian way. 01:10:28.320 --> 01:10:31.280 But if you simply read the words as they are there on 01:10:31.280 --> 01:10:35.040 the page, with none of that background, none of the rest of 01:10:35.040 --> 01:10:39.440 the context of Scripture in your mind, not a Christian understanding, just 01:10:39.760 --> 01:10:42.960 an understanding of the English language. 01:10:42.960 --> 01:10:44.880 That's not what it's saying. 01:10:44.880 --> 01:10:48.640 It simply says do not lean on your own understanding. 01:10:48.640 --> 01:10:53.200 For Fundamentally different saying from do not be exalted by your own 01:10:53.200 --> 01:10:55.040 wisdom. Don't be puffed up. 01:10:55.040 --> 01:10:57.040 Don't become arrogant. 01:10:57.040 --> 01:11:03.680 Basically don't mislead yourself with your own conception of your supposed wisdom, 01:11:03.680 --> 01:11:05.840 because that's a false wisdom. 01:11:05.840 --> 01:11:08.080 As opposed to just saying don't lean on your understanding. 01:11:08.080 --> 01:11:09.760 Your understanding may be correct. 01:11:09.760 --> 01:11:13.760 Perhaps you should lean on your understanding in something. 01:11:13.760 --> 01:11:17.120 But not in something In the sense of being puffed up and 01:11:17.120 --> 01:11:21.440 misled of being exalted in your own heart, because that then leads 01:11:21.440 --> 01:11:26.080 into and leans into the sin of pride, which is a different 01:11:26.080 --> 01:11:27.520 thing. 01:11:27.680 --> 01:11:27.840 This 01:11:27.840 --> 01:11:31.200 is a passage that makes more sense if you understand the idiom 01:11:31.200 --> 01:11:33.280 from earlier about being dull of heart. 01:11:33.280 --> 01:11:35.040 This is saying the opposite. 01:11:35.040 --> 01:11:38.320 The exhortation, trust God with your whole heart and do not be 01:11:38.320 --> 01:11:42.400 exalted by your own wisdom is the same sentiment. 01:11:42.560 --> 01:11:43.920 Don't be doll of heart. 01:11:43.920 --> 01:11:46.880 Don't be reluctant to understand God's wisdom. 01:11:46.880 --> 01:11:47.760 Don't be a fool. 01:11:47.760 --> 01:11:49.440 Don't be an idiot. 01:11:49.440 --> 01:11:52.560 And the notion of not being exalted by your own wisdom, where's 01:11:52.480 --> 01:11:53.760 the substitute? 01:11:53.760 --> 01:11:57.120 It's not a question of you being humble, it's a question of 01:11:57.120 --> 01:11:59.040 God's wisdom being your wisdom. 01:11:59.040 --> 01:12:02.800 Make God's wisdom your own, and then take confidence in that because 01:12:02.800 --> 01:12:06.080 your confidence then is in God and it's not in yourself. 01:12:06.080 --> 01:12:08.160 I think that's what this is hammering home. 01:12:08.160 --> 01:12:11.440 Trust God with your whole heart and do not be exalted by 01:12:11.440 --> 01:12:12.640 your own wisdom. 01:12:12.640 --> 01:12:15.040 Don't bring your stuff to the party. 01:12:15.040 --> 01:12:18.800 Use God's wisdom and use that to his glory, and then you 01:12:18.800 --> 01:12:19.840 can be confident. 01:12:19.840 --> 01:12:23.680 And then questions of pride and all the rest don't become ones 01:12:23.680 --> 01:12:28.320 of sin, because God's wisdom preclude that sort of thing, and you 01:12:28.320 --> 01:12:33.120 get your own understanding with full knowledge, because your understanding is God's, 01:12:33.120 --> 01:12:34.160 it's not your own. 01:12:34.160 --> 01:12:37.120 It's a question of how much daylight is there between your wisdom 01:12:37.120 --> 01:12:41.040 and understanding and God's when it's the same thing that's when you've 01:12:41.040 --> 01:12:43.680 achieved what God is exhorting here. 01:12:44.640 --> 01:12:44.800 The 01:12:44.800 --> 01:12:48.160 next example is verses nine through ten. 01:12:48.160 --> 01:12:51.520 Honor the Lord with your wealth, and with the first fruits of 01:12:51.520 --> 01:12:55.280 all your produce, then your barns will be filled with plenty, and 01:12:55.280 --> 01:12:58.000 your vats will be bursting with wine. 01:12:58.080 --> 01:13:03.360 And now from the Septuagint Honor the Lord from your righteous labours, 01:13:03.360 --> 01:13:07.840 and offer him of your fruits of righteousness, so that your storehouses 01:13:07.840 --> 01:13:11.520 may be filled in abundance with corn, and your wine vats may 01:13:11.520 --> 01:13:13.920 gush with wine. 01:13:13.920 --> 01:13:17.120 Now, again, this is one of those cases where you can look 01:13:17.120 --> 01:13:23.760 at the rabbinic text, and with a Christian lens, you can exegete 01:13:23.760 --> 01:13:27.920 this and explain what it means to honor the Lord with your 01:13:27.920 --> 01:13:32.560 wealth. But that's not what it literally says, because it literally just 01:13:32.560 --> 01:13:34.960 says honor the Lord with your wealth. 01:13:34.960 --> 01:13:38.720 You have to take that as figurative with regard to all of 01:13:39.120 --> 01:13:42.160 the gifts that God has given you, including your attributes and your 01:13:42.160 --> 01:13:47.040 abilities and all of these things, and explain how it can mean 01:13:47.360 --> 01:13:50.480 what a Christian should take it to mean. 01:13:50.480 --> 01:13:54.640 As opposed to the Septuagint which just says, honor the Lord from 01:13:54.640 --> 01:13:56.160 your righteous labours. 01:13:56.160 --> 01:13:57.760 Well we understand what that means. 01:13:57.760 --> 01:14:01.280 It means all of your labors, all of your righteous labours, whatever 01:14:01.280 --> 01:14:05.520 they happen to be, whatever God has given you to do. 01:14:05.920 --> 01:14:10.720 It is not the same admonition in the Septuagint as what we 01:14:10.720 --> 01:14:12.720 have in the Rabbinic text. 01:14:12.720 --> 01:14:17.120 Because the Septuagint is dealing with the fruits of righteousness, which you 01:14:17.120 --> 01:14:21.520 certainly should hear echoing in the New Testament, whereas 01:14:22.640 --> 01:14:26.320 we only have the first fruits of your produce here. 01:14:26.320 --> 01:14:27.680 That's a different thing. 01:14:27.680 --> 01:14:32.080 Perhaps that would call to mind the Old Testament sacrificial system in 01:14:32.080 --> 01:14:35.440 which you gave this certain portion to the Lord and you had 01:14:35.440 --> 01:14:40.240 different sacrifices you gave at different times for different things. 01:14:40.240 --> 01:14:43.360 That's not the same as saying the fruits of your righteousness. 01:14:43.360 --> 01:14:45.680 And you should perhaps be thinking then of the difference between what 01:14:45.680 --> 01:14:51.680 God says about desiring sacrifice versus what does God actually want? 01:14:52.000 --> 01:14:54.480 He wants your righteous works, He wants your good works that are 01:14:54.480 --> 01:14:57.840 done in faith for your neighbor, that's what we have here in 01:14:57.840 --> 01:15:02.880 the Septuagint, we don't have that in the rabbinic text. 01:15:02.880 --> 01:15:06.240 And lest any of our listeners from Iowa get too excited, the 01:15:06.240 --> 01:15:08.800 word corn here just means the chief cereal crop of a given 01:15:08.800 --> 01:15:11.920 area, not necessarily actual corn. 01:15:13.920 --> 01:15:14.160 I 01:15:14.160 --> 01:15:18.240 think it's notable that if you take the earlier passage that's talking 01:15:18.240 --> 01:15:24.560 about falling in with robbers and covetous greed and unjust gain. 01:15:24.560 --> 01:15:28.960 If you don't take the Septuagint version of your righteous labors, it 01:15:28.960 --> 01:15:31.280 would be perfectly fine for you to honor the Lord with the 01:15:31.280 --> 01:15:34.560 wealth that you received from robbing your neighbor. 01:15:34.640 --> 01:15:34.720 The 01:15:34.880 --> 01:15:39.840 next example is VES eleven through twelve My son do not despise 01:15:39.840 --> 01:15:43.840 the Lord's discipline, or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord 01:15:43.840 --> 01:15:47.520 reproves him whom he loves, as a father the Son in whom 01:15:47.520 --> 01:15:48.880 he delights. 01:15:49.200 --> 01:15:53.600 Now from the Septuagint, son, do not despise the discipline of the 01:15:53.600 --> 01:15:57.920 Lord, or grow weak when reproved by him, for the Lord reproves 01:15:57.920 --> 01:16:03.440 whomever he loves, and punishes any son he receives. 01:16:03.680 --> 01:16:08.960 This one is notable in large part because the Septuagint, for those 01:16:08.960 --> 01:16:12.880 who are particularly familiar with the book of Hebrews, you'll have noticed 01:16:12.960 --> 01:16:16.240 that's Hebrews twelve, five through six. 01:16:16.240 --> 01:16:20.400 Because the New Testament is using the Septuagint when it is quoting 01:16:20.400 --> 01:16:21.520 the Old Testament. 01:16:21.520 --> 01:16:24.720 So there's a great deal of similarity between these two. 01:16:24.720 --> 01:16:30.240 There are some differences, particularly in terms of nuance, but the truly 01:16:30.800 --> 01:16:35.840 salient part is that it is cited in the New Testament, because 01:16:36.000 --> 01:16:38.720 Hebrews twelve five through six. 01:16:38.720 --> 01:16:42.320 My son do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor 01:16:42.320 --> 01:16:45.920 be weary when reproved by him, for the Lord disciplines the one 01:16:45.920 --> 01:16:50.320 whom he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. 01:16:50.320 --> 01:16:53.600 Well, that's just the same as the Septuagint rendering. 01:16:53.600 --> 01:16:58.800 And in fact, the Greek verb there for despise and regard lightly, 01:16:58.800 --> 01:17:03.200 there are some differences in translation choices between translations, but the Greek 01:17:03.200 --> 01:17:05.040 verb underlying those is the same. 01:17:05.600 --> 01:17:08.960 And in fact, the same is also true of what is rendered 01:17:08.960 --> 01:17:11.680 as punishes and chastises in the English. 01:17:11.680 --> 01:17:15.440 It is again the same underlying Greek verb. 01:17:15.680 --> 01:17:15.840 I 01:17:15.840 --> 01:17:20.160 think it's notable that you have four lines and in the rabbinic 01:17:20.160 --> 01:17:24.560 text only one of them involves discipline and you not growing weak 01:17:24.800 --> 01:17:26.240 or weary. 01:17:26.240 --> 01:17:30.160 And yet when you look at the proper version that is quoted 01:17:30.240 --> 01:17:36.160 in Hebrews, punishment is recurring, it's kind of a couplet almost, and 01:17:36.320 --> 01:17:38.720 Hebrews twelve seven points out why. 01:17:38.720 --> 01:17:41.120 It is for discipline that you have to endure. 01:17:41.120 --> 01:17:44.160 God is treating you as sons, for what son is there whom 01:17:44.160 --> 01:17:46.320 his father does not discipline? 01:17:46.320 --> 01:17:51.040 The entire point of this passage in Proverbs is about discipline, it's 01:17:50.960 --> 01:17:52.080 about punishment. 01:17:52.080 --> 01:17:53.920 It's about chastisement. 01:17:53.920 --> 01:17:57.440 We've said before if something bad happens to you, take it as 01:17:57.440 --> 01:18:01.040 chastisement. When I had a stroke I took it as chastisement. 01:18:01.040 --> 01:18:04.160 I was like, okay, well, what should I be doing better? 01:18:04.160 --> 01:18:06.640 It's a smack upside the head. 01:18:06.640 --> 01:18:09.600 Sometimes these things happen to you, whatever it is in your life. 01:18:09.600 --> 01:18:14.160 If something bad happens, understand that God permitted it and that he 01:18:14.160 --> 01:18:16.800 cares and it is for a purpose. 01:18:16.960 --> 01:18:21.440 As we've explained before, that doesn't mean that God causes evil, but 01:18:21.440 --> 01:18:22.640 God uses it. 01:18:22.640 --> 01:18:25.360 God permits evil to occur in this fallen world. 01:18:25.360 --> 01:18:26.720 God permitted the fall. 01:18:26.720 --> 01:18:28.560 We don't understand why. 01:18:28.560 --> 01:18:32.160 But here we are in a fallen world where evil things happen, 01:18:32.160 --> 01:18:35.680 and we have a god who uses that evil to punish us 01:18:35.680 --> 01:18:37.280 for our benefit? 01:18:37.280 --> 01:18:40.160 It's not because he hates us, it's because he loves us. 01:18:40.160 --> 01:18:44.080 That's the entire point of Hebrews twelve hammerstone that would be lost 01:18:44.240 --> 01:18:47.440 if you're just looking at the Rabbinic text here. 01:18:47.520 --> 01:18:47.840 Still in 01:18:47.840 --> 01:18:53.200 chapter three, the next example is verses seventeen through eighteen. 01:18:53.200 --> 01:18:57.600 Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. 01:18:57.600 --> 01:19:00.000 She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of 01:19:00.000 --> 01:19:03.280 her. Those who hold her fast are called blessed. 01:19:03.280 --> 01:19:08.240 And of course it's speaking of wisdom here, which is obvious if 01:19:08.240 --> 01:19:12.960 you read the context from the previous verses, then from the Septuagint. 01:19:12.960 --> 01:19:16.800 Her ways are good ways, and all her paths are in peace. 01:19:16.800 --> 01:19:19.600 She is a tree of life for all those who cleave to 01:19:19.600 --> 01:19:24.000 her, and for those who lean upon her as on the Lord. 01:19:24.000 --> 01:19:26.480 Now these are fairly similar. 01:19:26.480 --> 01:19:29.520 There are some differences in terms of nuance and diction and things 01:19:29.520 --> 01:19:30.560 like that. 01:19:30.560 --> 01:19:34.800 But perhaps the most salient difference here is that last line. 01:19:34.800 --> 01:19:38.640 In the rendering of the rabbinic text, those who hold her wisdom 01:19:38.800 --> 01:19:43.600 fast are called blessed In the Septuagint, and for those who lean 01:19:43.600 --> 01:19:46.160 upon her as on the Lord. 01:19:46.160 --> 01:19:52.320 They've simply removed the reference to God from the rabbinic text. 01:19:52.320 --> 01:19:57.920 That is certainly an unjustifiable deletion, and that is something that, as 01:19:58.080 --> 01:20:03.280 well noted previously, simply runs through some of these corruptions and changes 01:20:03.280 --> 01:20:06.000 that the rabbis introduced. 01:20:06.000 --> 01:20:09.280 The next example is verse twenty-five. 01:20:09.280 --> 01:20:12.800 Do not be afraid of sudden terror, or of the ruin of 01:20:12.800 --> 01:20:18.400 the wicked when it comes, and then from the Septuagint, and you 01:20:18.400 --> 01:20:22.080 will not be frightened by intimidation when it comes, nor an assault 01:20:22.080 --> 01:20:24.800 of the ungodly when they come. 01:20:24.800 --> 01:20:29.200 There is similarity here, but it is again not identical, and they've 01:20:29.200 --> 01:20:32.080 also played a little bit of a game there with the ESV. 01:20:32.080 --> 01:20:37.120 Because the word there is actually storm, not ruin, the storm of 01:20:37.120 --> 01:20:38.000 the wicked. 01:20:38.000 --> 01:20:41.440 So that actually does bring it perhaps a little more in line 01:20:41.440 --> 01:20:45.680 with the Septuagint, the assault of the ungodly. 01:20:45.680 --> 01:20:46.720 But this is one of those cases 01:20:47.680 --> 01:20:51.120 where not only do we see differences in how they've decided to 01:20:51.120 --> 01:20:57.040 interpret the underlying Hebrew for their rabbinic translation, but the rabbis have 01:20:57.040 --> 01:20:58.880 changed the nuance. 01:20:58.880 --> 01:21:00.080 They have changed 01:21:01.200 --> 01:21:04.000 what the verse is truly teaching. 01:21:04.000 --> 01:21:06.880 And this is one of the games they play all throughout the 01:21:06.880 --> 01:21:10.400 wisdom literature and elsewhere in the Old Testament. 01:21:10.400 --> 01:21:13.920 These changes are not simply something that is in one place or 01:21:13.920 --> 01:21:15.680 a small handful of places. 01:21:15.680 --> 01:21:19.760 This is a consistent thing that they did to the text before 01:21:19.760 --> 01:21:22.640 they passed it off to Christians. 01:21:22.640 --> 01:21:26.080 And so moving on to verse twenty seven. 01:21:26.080 --> 01:21:29.600 Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when 01:21:29.600 --> 01:21:32.720 it is in your power to do it. 01:21:33.360 --> 01:21:38.080 Septuagint, do not refrain from doing well to the needy when your 01:21:38.080 --> 01:21:40.560 hand can furnish aid. 01:21:40.560 --> 01:21:42.560 These are two different sayings. 01:21:42.560 --> 01:21:46.320 It is a fundamentally different thing from saying do not withhold good 01:21:46.480 --> 01:21:50.480 from those to whom it is due, versus do not refrain from 01:21:50.480 --> 01:21:53.680 doing good to the needy. 01:21:53.680 --> 01:21:57.120 In the rendering of the Septuagint, this is an admonition to Christian 01:21:57.120 --> 01:22:00.480 charity. Now, of course, as a Christian, again, this is one of 01:22:00.480 --> 01:22:03.520 those cases where if you take a Christian lens to the rabbinic 01:22:04.080 --> 01:22:07.520 text, you can justify the interpretation 01:22:08.480 --> 01:22:10.480 of Christian charity. 01:22:10.480 --> 01:22:13.440 Because you can say that there is good that is due to 01:22:13.440 --> 01:22:16.000 the poor because it is our duty to God to render these 01:22:16.000 --> 01:22:19.200 good render these good works to our neighbors who are in need. 01:22:19.200 --> 01:22:22.080 And so of course as a Christian you can justify that. 01:22:22.080 --> 01:22:24.960 But it's not what the Rabbinic Text says. 01:22:24.960 --> 01:22:26.720 The Septuagint certainly does. 01:22:26.720 --> 01:22:30.320 The Septuagint again is that admonition to Christian charity, which is what 01:22:30.320 --> 01:22:32.800 we have here in this verse, it's what we should read in 01:22:32.800 --> 01:22:33.600 this verse. 01:22:33.600 --> 01:22:36.560 But the rabbinic text doesn't have that, and so you have to 01:22:36.560 --> 01:22:39.040 look at it also with the eyes of someone coming to it 01:22:39.200 --> 01:22:41.360 who does not have the Christian lens. 01:22:42.080 --> 01:22:47.120 Someone who simply reads that verse in the rabbinic text without a 01:22:47.120 --> 01:22:50.720 Christian lens is not going to come away from it thinking this 01:22:50.720 --> 01:22:52.720 is a verse about Christian charity. 01:22:52.720 --> 01:22:55.360 They're going to think this is a verse about paying your debts, 01:22:55.360 --> 01:22:58.400 which is a different saying. 01:22:58.400 --> 01:23:03.680 Verse 29 is one of the examples I mentioned earlier where there 01:23:03.680 --> 01:23:07.920 is a change in term that we see in many places in 01:23:07.920 --> 01:23:12.080 the wisdom literature, this is one of those consistent changes they made. 01:23:12.080 --> 01:23:14.240 And so first from the ESV. 01:23:14.240 --> 01:23:19.360 Do not plan evil against your neighbor who dwells trustingly beside you. 01:23:19.360 --> 01:23:23.840 And then from the Septuagint, do not devise evil things against your 01:23:23.840 --> 01:23:27.920 friend, as he dwells alongside and trusts you. 01:23:27.920 --> 01:23:32.080 They simply change the word friend to neighbor, which is indeed a 01:23:32.080 --> 01:23:36.560 different saying, saying that you should treat your friends well is not 01:23:36.560 --> 01:23:39.360 the same as saying you should treat your neighbors well who may 01:23:39.360 --> 01:23:41.600 not be your friends. 01:23:41.600 --> 01:23:44.320 Now, should your neighbors be your friends? 01:23:44.320 --> 01:23:45.600 Yes, generally. 01:23:45.600 --> 01:23:47.120 Should you treat your neighbors well? 01:23:47.120 --> 01:23:48.240 Yes, of course. 01:23:48.240 --> 01:23:49.600 That isn't the point. 01:23:49.600 --> 01:23:53.680 The point is not whether or not the saying in the rabbinic 01:23:53.680 --> 01:23:58.240 text is Christian, because of course you should not be planning evil 01:23:58.240 --> 01:23:59.600 against your neighbor. 01:23:59.600 --> 01:24:03.280 The question is whether or not it is the Word of God. 01:24:03.280 --> 01:24:06.560 And the Word of God says do not devise evil things against 01:24:06.560 --> 01:24:08.080 your friend. 01:24:08.080 --> 01:24:10.880 You can look at both of these and interpret both of them 01:24:10.880 --> 01:24:13.280 as being Christian, because of course they both are. 01:24:13.280 --> 01:24:16.640 You should treat your friends well, and not devise evil against them. 01:24:16.640 --> 01:24:21.040 You should treat your neighbors well, and not plan evil against them. 01:24:21.040 --> 01:24:24.480 But what God's Word says is friend. 01:24:24.480 --> 01:24:27.120 And that's what we should have in our Bibles 01:24:29.760 --> 01:24:33.520 This one's kind of a tough one because the this is the 01:24:33.520 --> 01:24:37.600 same verse that is used in love your neighbor as yourself. 01:24:37.600 --> 01:24:43.600 The notion of neighbor almost always in virtually every society has meant 01:24:43.840 --> 01:24:47.760 I'm looking here, what Strong says about the underlying word. 01:24:47.760 --> 01:24:50.880 It describes it as a moun, a neighbor, a fellow, a man, 01:24:50.880 --> 01:24:57.680 countryman, Christian, or friend The notion of adjacency without any familiarity is 01:24:57.680 --> 01:25:02.400 bizarre, which to virtually any day except for our day where almost 01:25:02.400 --> 01:25:04.320 everyone is unknown to us. 01:25:04.320 --> 01:25:07.760 And that was one of the essential points in the story of 01:25:07.760 --> 01:25:11.920 the Good Samaritan, was that even in a case where someone who's 01:25:11.920 --> 01:25:15.200 totally unknown to you, who's not even from the same tribe, the 01:25:15.200 --> 01:25:19.440 same race, if he's in trouble and he's adjacent to you, he's 01:25:19.440 --> 01:25:23.520 nearby, he is your neighbor and you have a duty to him. 01:25:23.520 --> 01:25:27.760 But that was a New Testament example in the same vein as 01:25:27.760 --> 01:25:32.880 God talking about in the Beatitudes when he was speaking about adultery 01:25:32.880 --> 01:25:36.800 and murder, saying you've heard it said you shall not commit adultery, 01:25:36.800 --> 01:25:38.240 I say don't lust. 01:25:38.240 --> 01:25:42.000 You've heard it said don't murder, I say don't hate. 01:25:42.000 --> 01:25:46.880 The admonition to draw the line at someone who's unknown to you, 01:25:46.880 --> 01:25:52.480 that's a random stranger, that you stumble across, is taking the furthest 01:25:52.480 --> 01:25:57.280 possible extremity of the notion of neighbor to show even in this 01:25:57.280 --> 01:25:59.360 case it is necessary. 01:25:59.360 --> 01:26:01.280 It's absolutely true. 01:26:01.280 --> 01:26:05.840 The question of how to translate neighbor versus friend versus you know 01:26:06.000 --> 01:26:10.400 countryman is one that in some ways comes down to the society 01:26:10.880 --> 01:26:13.840 that you live in in terms of what's going to make sense. 01:26:13.840 --> 01:26:17.840 So I think it's important to acknowledge that that whole lexical scope 01:26:17.840 --> 01:26:19.040 is present here. 01:26:19.040 --> 01:26:20.480 We're not trying to play games. 01:26:20.480 --> 01:26:23.520 What you will find is that friend is typically used in the 01:26:23.520 --> 01:26:28.320 English translations, and it's a good one because the Christian notion of 01:26:28.320 --> 01:26:30.480 a neighbor is gonna be a friend. 01:26:30.480 --> 01:26:33.760 It's gonna be a countryman, it's gonna be a fellow everything, right 01:26:33.920 --> 01:26:34.800 down the list. 01:26:34.800 --> 01:26:38.400 He's gonna be from the same tribe, from the same nation, he's 01:26:38.400 --> 01:26:41.680 gonna be, you know, probably a third or fourth cousin. 01:26:41.680 --> 01:26:44.960 That's the normal neighbor in a normal society. 01:26:44.960 --> 01:26:48.000 The further away we get from that, the more things have gone 01:26:48.000 --> 01:26:51.840 wrong. And the only example ever in all of human history have 01:26:51.840 --> 01:26:55.440 been in towns of great commerce, usually poor cities. 01:26:55.840 --> 01:26:58.800 Jerusalem is one of the notable exceptions. 01:26:58.800 --> 01:27:01.040 If you have a really big city where lots of people are 01:27:01.040 --> 01:27:04.240 coming for trade and commerce, then you have neighbors that are gonna 01:27:04.240 --> 01:27:06.560 be there may not fit any of those categories. 01:27:06.560 --> 01:27:09.360 Even that person who's a stranger in every other way, when he's 01:27:09.360 --> 01:27:12.240 adjacent to you, you can't still mistreat him. 01:27:12.240 --> 01:27:13.680 It's an essential Christian understanding 01:27:14.720 --> 01:27:18.240 because our natural impulse is say what he's not one of us, 01:27:18.240 --> 01:27:21.200 let's let's hurt him, let's pick on him, let's do something to 01:27:21.200 --> 01:27:24.560 him that we wouldn't do otherwise to one of our own. 01:27:24.560 --> 01:27:28.400 It's a wicked impulse, but it's one that's easy to well up 01:27:28.400 --> 01:27:30.640 from our sinful nature. 01:27:30.640 --> 01:27:35.360 But in a society where everything is working as it should, the 01:27:35.360 --> 01:27:39.040 neighbor in terms of adjacency is also going to be one of 01:27:39.040 --> 01:27:41.280 your cousins, in almost every case. 01:27:41.280 --> 01:27:43.840 He's certainly going to be from the same race as you. 01:27:43.840 --> 01:27:45.360 Because that's how it's always worked. 01:27:45.360 --> 01:27:47.600 That's what a nation means. 01:27:48.160 --> 01:27:48.400 The 01:27:48.400 --> 01:27:52.560 next example is indeed the very next verse, verse 30. 01:27:52.480 --> 01:27:55.600 Do not contend with a man for no reason, when he has 01:27:55.600 --> 01:27:56.960 done you no harm. 01:27:56.960 --> 01:28:00.880 And then from the Septuagint, do not behave with enmity toward a 01:28:00.880 --> 01:28:05.600 person pointlessly, lest he perpetrate any evil against you. 01:28:05.920 --> 01:28:10.240 Again, these are two similar sayings, but it is not the same 01:28:10.240 --> 01:28:14.800 thing to say, do not contend with a man for no reason, 01:28:14.800 --> 01:28:19.520 because he has not done you any harm, versus do not behave 01:28:19.520 --> 01:28:23.600 toward a man with enmity, which is a different thing in terms 01:28:23.600 --> 01:28:26.000 of nuance from contending with a man. 01:28:26.000 --> 01:28:31.040 Behaving toward him with enmity is a stronger thing, lest he perpetrate 01:28:31.040 --> 01:28:33.440 any evil against you. 01:28:33.360 --> 01:28:36.640 Some of you may look at that and think that perhaps it 01:28:36.640 --> 01:28:41.360 is a less Christian saying that you have here in the Septuagint. 01:28:41.360 --> 01:28:45.120 You may think that perhaps it is more Christian not to contend 01:28:45.120 --> 01:28:48.720 with a man, because he hasn't done you any harm, than to 01:28:48.720 --> 01:28:53.360 sort of take sort of the practical approach here. 01:28:53.360 --> 01:28:57.040 Perhaps even a cynical approach, do not behave with enmity lest he 01:28:57.040 --> 01:29:00.320 turn around and behave in the same way toward you. 01:29:00.320 --> 01:29:03.840 But again, as we've said in previous episodes, this is not a 01:29:03.840 --> 01:29:07.360 matter of picking and choosing what you happen to think sounds more 01:29:07.360 --> 01:29:10.960 Christian. Because has Wo said, he could write you a book that 01:29:10.960 --> 01:29:13.920 has a lot more Jesus in it than any of the Old 01:29:13.920 --> 01:29:16.800 Testament books if you just give him some time. 01:29:16.800 --> 01:29:19.200 That would not make it scripture. 01:29:19.200 --> 01:29:22.720 And in this case, what the word of the Lord says is 01:29:22.880 --> 01:29:27.680 do not behave with enmity toward a person pointlessly, lest he perpetrate 01:29:27.680 --> 01:29:29.920 any evil against you. 01:29:29.920 --> 01:29:34.240 And so there are really two takeaways two key takeaways from this 01:29:34.240 --> 01:29:38.880 proverb is that you are in fact permitted to behave with enmity 01:29:38.880 --> 01:29:41.920 toward a person if it's not pointlessly. 01:29:41.920 --> 01:29:46.160 That is the necessary inverse of the first part of this verse. 01:29:46.160 --> 01:29:49.120 And the second, of course, is that part of the reason that 01:29:49.120 --> 01:29:52.240 you do not do that is because he will turn around and 01:29:52.240 --> 01:29:54.960 behave with enmity toward you. 01:29:54.960 --> 01:29:57.440 This is part of living in a society, this is part of 01:29:57.440 --> 01:30:00.000 living alongside neighbors and others. 01:30:00.000 --> 01:30:03.840 If you behave in a certain way toward them, you are very 01:30:03.840 --> 01:30:06.000 likely to receive that back. 01:30:06.000 --> 01:30:10.640 Society cannot function if men do not take that into account, and 01:30:10.640 --> 01:30:14.080 control themselves accordingly. 01:30:14.080 --> 01:30:19.520 The next example is from Proverbs 4, this is verse 12. 01:30:19.520 --> 01:30:22.720 When you walk, your step will not be hampered, and if you 01:30:22.720 --> 01:30:24.480 run, you will not stumble. 01:30:24.480 --> 01:30:28.080 And then from the Septuagint, for if you walk, your steps will 01:30:28.080 --> 01:30:32.800 not be constricted, and if you run you will not grow weary. 01:30:32.800 --> 01:30:36.960 This is a change of nuance, the two sayings are indeed similar, 01:30:36.960 --> 01:30:39.760 but it is a different thing to be told you will not 01:30:39.760 --> 01:30:44.000 stumble versus you will not grow weary. 01:30:44.000 --> 01:30:47.600 It is in fact better not to grow weary. 01:30:47.600 --> 01:30:51.680 It is a sort of endurance about walking in the steps of 01:30:51.680 --> 01:30:54.800 righteousness and the right paths. 01:30:54.800 --> 01:30:59.280 Just because the change is one of nuance and not one of 01:30:59.360 --> 01:31:03.840 perhaps a substance or significance, does not mean that it is something 01:31:03.840 --> 01:31:07.200 we can ignore, or it is something that is trivial in the 01:31:07.200 --> 01:31:09.360 full sense of that term. 01:31:09.840 --> 01:31:14.000 We should want, again, as we have said many times, the fullness 01:31:14.000 --> 01:31:17.840 of God's Word, not just whatever has been passed off to us 01:31:17.840 --> 01:31:20.720 by rabbis, with however they have decided 01:31:21.600 --> 01:31:24.880 to point it with vowels and then interpret it. 01:31:26.080 --> 01:31:29.680 As we said earlier, it's important to read all the context for 01:31:29.680 --> 01:31:32.640 these if you want to look at the examples, because what comes 01:31:32.640 --> 01:31:35.840 immediately prior is he was telling his son, for I teach you 01:31:35.840 --> 01:31:38.000 the ways of wisdom and I cause you to go in right 01:31:38.000 --> 01:31:42.320 paths. So when you're talking about walking and not growing weary or 01:31:42.320 --> 01:31:46.880 being distressed, which is how Brenton translates it, it's as Corey said 01:31:47.280 --> 01:31:52.560 it's with regard to walking wisely and justly. 01:31:52.720 --> 01:31:52.960 The 01:31:52.960 --> 01:31:58.160 next example is a little longer, but still just three verses, although 01:31:58.160 --> 01:32:00.400 a little longer in the Septuagint. 01:32:00.400 --> 01:32:05.760 Proverbs four twenty five twenty seven Let your eyes look directly forward, 01:32:05.760 --> 01:32:08.080 and your gaze be straight before you. 01:32:08.080 --> 01:32:11.440 Ponder the path of your feet, then all your ways will be 01:32:11.440 --> 01:32:15.280 sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left, turn 01:32:15.280 --> 01:32:17.920 your foot away from evil. 01:32:17.920 --> 01:32:22.080 And then from the Septuagint, let your eyes look straight, and your 01:32:22.080 --> 01:32:27.120 eyelids beckon regarding righteous matters, and Make straight paths for your feet, 01:32:27.120 --> 01:32:29.040 and make your ways straight. 01:32:29.040 --> 01:32:32.640 Do not turn away to the right or to the left, but 01:32:32.640 --> 01:32:35.680 turn back your foot from the way of evil. 01:32:35.680 --> 01:32:38.960 For God knows the ways from the right, but those from the 01:32:38.960 --> 01:32:43.200 left are diverted, and he will make your paths straight, and he 01:32:43.200 --> 01:32:46.080 will lead your courses forward in peace. 01:32:47.040 --> 01:32:50.880 We simply don't have those last two verses in the rabbinic text. 01:32:50.880 --> 01:32:53.280 This is another case where the rabbi's decided to 01:32:54.160 --> 01:32:57.200 delete essentially the end of a chapter. 01:32:57.200 --> 01:33:00.880 They just chopped off a number of verses, and so we don't 01:33:00.880 --> 01:33:04.400 have for God knows the ways from the right, but those from 01:33:04.400 --> 01:33:08.080 the left are diverted, and he will make your paths straight, and 01:33:08.080 --> 01:33:11.280 he will lead your courses forward in peace. 01:33:11.280 --> 01:33:16.240 Other than that, these verses are largely the same twenty five through 01:33:16.240 --> 01:33:19.760 twenty seven until you get to A and B for twenty seven, 01:33:19.760 --> 01:33:25.760 very similar as between the rabbinic and the Septuagint. 01:33:25.760 --> 01:33:28.400 But we are missing part of the Word of God if we 01:33:28.400 --> 01:33:30.560 have only the Rabbinic text. 01:33:30.560 --> 01:33:32.480 We are missing two verses. 01:33:34.080 --> 01:33:39.280 I think it's important whenever you're seeing these passages about paths being 01:33:39.280 --> 01:33:43.440 straight and things like that, which is much of the discussion of 01:33:43.760 --> 01:33:46.560 walking in God's wisdom. 01:33:46.560 --> 01:33:50.560 Keep in mind what Jesus said in Matthew seven. 01:33:50.560 --> 01:33:53.040 Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the 01:33:53.040 --> 01:33:56.320 way is easy, the leads to destruction, and those who enter it 01:33:56.480 --> 01:33:57.040 are many. 01:33:57.040 --> 01:33:59.280 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard the leads 01:33:59.280 --> 01:34:01.920 to life, and those who find it are few. 01:34:01.920 --> 01:34:07.600 Now obviously Jesus is principally speaking of himself, but what is Proverbs, 01:34:07.600 --> 01:34:09.280 if not Jesus wisdom. 01:34:09.280 --> 01:34:12.720 God's wisdom, God's word is God. 01:34:12.720 --> 01:34:18.880 The manifest word walked among us, but it's not two different things. 01:34:18.880 --> 01:34:22.880 So I think it's important when you're reading especially through wisdom literature 01:34:23.120 --> 01:34:26.720 that describes the perfect life to know that Jesus led the perfect 01:34:26.720 --> 01:34:29.600 life because each of us fails. 01:34:29.600 --> 01:34:32.880 We are intrinsically going to fail, and no matter how hard we 01:34:32.880 --> 01:34:36.080 try, we're still going to fail by degrees. 01:34:36.080 --> 01:34:41.120 But that is nevertheless not an excuse not to try. 01:34:41.120 --> 01:34:44.400 We are called, every Christian is called to walk in wisdom, to 01:34:44.400 --> 01:34:46.880 walk in the narrow ways of righteousness. 01:34:46.880 --> 01:34:48.000 So anytime you see this path 01:34:48.880 --> 01:34:51.040 in discussion, keep that in mind. 01:34:51.040 --> 01:34:52.320 Jesus talks about it too. 01:34:52.320 --> 01:34:56.080 He's pointing back to this when he tells you about the narrow 01:34:56.080 --> 01:34:58.880 gate. The path that leads to destruction is wide. 01:34:58.880 --> 01:35:00.240 Yeah, it's easy. 01:35:00.240 --> 01:35:02.000 It's easy to do the wrong things. 01:35:02.000 --> 01:35:03.440 You'll be rewarded for it. 01:35:03.440 --> 01:35:06.160 We all know this, we see it, we observe it, we see 01:35:06.160 --> 01:35:10.000 that it, or we fall aside and try to take advantage of 01:35:10.000 --> 01:35:13.520 it. That is part of the challenge of living in a fallen 01:35:13.600 --> 01:35:17.680 world. As Christians, we know better and we must do better. 01:35:17.680 --> 01:35:19.440 These proverbs tell us how 01:35:20.720 --> 01:35:20.880 the 01:35:20.880 --> 01:35:24.800 next verse is one of those ones that some of the particularly 01:35:24.800 --> 01:35:30.880 male listeners perhaps enjoy and unfortunately as it were it is a 01:35:30.880 --> 01:35:32.960 very different verse in the Septuagint. 01:35:32.960 --> 01:35:36.080 You are going to lose a verse that lose, as it were, 01:35:36.080 --> 01:35:38.720 you're not really losing anything, but lose a verse that you may 01:35:38.720 --> 01:35:44.560 have memorized and like and so Proverbs five nineteen A lovely dear, 01:35:44.560 --> 01:35:48.560 a graceful doe, speaking of one's wife, let her breast fill you 01:35:48.560 --> 01:35:52.320 at all times with delight, be intoxicated always in her love. 01:35:52.320 --> 01:35:56.400 Then from the Septuagint, may the dear of affection and full of 01:35:56.400 --> 01:36:00.160 your favours converse with you, and let her be considered your own, 01:36:00.160 --> 01:36:03.520 and be with you at every time, for you will be great 01:36:03.600 --> 01:36:05.520 while you live life in this love 01:36:07.360 --> 01:36:09.840 These are not the same saying. 01:36:09.840 --> 01:36:14.560 They are similar, of course, because they are advancing the same general 01:36:14.560 --> 01:36:20.000 sentiment, which is to love your own wife, spend time with her 01:36:20.960 --> 01:36:23.760 and spend your life with her. 01:36:23.760 --> 01:36:28.560 Clearer in the Septuagint wording, perhaps more explicit as it were in 01:36:28.560 --> 01:36:33.600 the wording of the rabbinic text, and then related to that, of 01:36:33.600 --> 01:36:37.520 course, is verse 20, which has a key difference here. 01:36:37.520 --> 01:36:40.880 This is another one of those examples I mentioned earlier that plays 01:36:40.880 --> 01:36:44.080 on a theme the rabbis seem to enjoy. 01:36:44.080 --> 01:36:47.920 Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman, and 01:36:47.920 --> 01:36:50.240 embrace the bosom of an adulteress? 01:36:50.240 --> 01:36:53.920 And then from the Septuagint, do not be with a strange woman 01:36:53.920 --> 01:36:57.200 for long, or come together in the embraces of a woman who 01:36:57.200 --> 01:37:00.960 is not your own Now, of course, the second half of that 01:37:00.960 --> 01:37:04.720 verse is essentially the same sense as between the two. 01:37:04.720 --> 01:37:11.920 It is more literal, more blunt in the rabbinic text, perhaps, but 01:37:12.080 --> 01:37:14.880 come together in the embraces of a woman who is not your 01:37:14.880 --> 01:37:18.240 own is fairly straightforward for any man reading that. 01:37:18.240 --> 01:37:22.160 But that first part of the verse, in the Septuagint is a 01:37:22.160 --> 01:37:25.840 different prohibition from what you have in the Rabbinic text. 01:37:25.840 --> 01:37:29.760 Because the Rabbinic text says, Why should you be intoxicated my son 01:37:29.760 --> 01:37:31.600 with a forbidden woman? 01:37:31.920 --> 01:37:36.240 But the Septuagint says, Do not be with a strange woman for 01:37:36.240 --> 01:37:41.360 long. That is a broader prohibition, that is a prohibition on putting 01:37:41.360 --> 01:37:45.280 yourself in a position that may lead you to sin. 01:37:45.280 --> 01:37:48.240 And so do not be with a woman who is your own 01:37:48.240 --> 01:37:50.320 for a long period of time. 01:37:50.320 --> 01:37:53.280 You may think of some rules that certain men have advanced to 01:37:53.280 --> 01:37:59.680 keep themselves from falling into certain sins or certain appearances of impropriety. 01:37:59.680 --> 01:38:02.240 That's what is at play here in the Septuagint. 01:38:02.240 --> 01:38:04.240 It is a broader prohibition. 01:38:04.240 --> 01:38:04.880 It is 01:38:05.920 --> 01:38:11.200 admonishing you to keep yourself from a position, from a place, from 01:38:11.200 --> 01:38:15.200 a set of circumstances that could lead you to this particular kind 01:38:15.200 --> 01:38:16.320 of sin. 01:38:16.320 --> 01:38:20.800 Whereas the rabbinic text is just saying don't spend time with an 01:38:20.800 --> 01:38:25.760 adulteress, which is fairly straightforward and good advice, certainly, but it is 01:38:25.760 --> 01:38:29.360 a different sort of prohibition, a different admonition from what we have 01:38:29.360 --> 01:38:31.440 in the Septuagint. 01:38:31.440 --> 01:38:36.080 The next example is from Proverbs 6, and this is one of 01:38:36.080 --> 01:38:40.880 those examples again, dealing with wives and praising the good wife and 01:38:40.880 --> 01:38:42.400 the things that she does. 01:38:42.400 --> 01:38:46.640 I would read first from the rabbinic text, but these verses just 01:38:46.640 --> 01:38:49.520 simply do not appear in the Rabbinic text, and so I will 01:38:49.520 --> 01:38:54.240 read only from the Septuagint Proverbs six verses eight A through C 01:38:54.960 --> 01:38:57.520 or go to the B and learn what a worker she is, 01:38:57.520 --> 01:39:01.520 and how solemn she makes her work, whose toil kings and commoners 01:39:01.520 --> 01:39:06.080 consume for health, and it is desirable to all and glorious, although 01:39:06.080 --> 01:39:11.600 she has feeble bodily strength, because she honors wisdom, she is promoted. 01:39:11.760 --> 01:39:16.240 So again, this is something that we simply do not have in 01:39:16.880 --> 01:39:18.400 the Rabbinic text. 01:39:18.400 --> 01:39:23.680 This of course speaking of being dutiful in your work and pursuing 01:39:23.680 --> 01:39:27.840 your daily tasks and things like that, which is a frequent theme 01:39:27.920 --> 01:39:31.040 of course in the book of Proverbs, but we have an expansion 01:39:31.040 --> 01:39:34.640 of this, not even really an expansion, because it's just what God 01:39:34.640 --> 01:39:38.000 intended to be there, but as an expansion in terms of an 01:39:38.000 --> 01:39:42.400 additional commentary on things that we do not have in the rabbinic 01:39:42.480 --> 01:39:47.280 text because the rabbis did not preserve it or intentionally deleted it 01:39:47.280 --> 01:39:49.440 as the case may be. 01:39:49.440 --> 01:39:54.720 And then playing on the same sort of theme of being assiduous 01:39:54.720 --> 01:39:58.720 in your work, of being dutiful, Proverbs 6, 10 through 11, a 01:39:58.720 --> 01:40:02.560 little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to 01:40:02.560 --> 01:40:06.320 rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want 01:40:06.320 --> 01:40:07.920 like an armed man. 01:40:07.920 --> 01:40:12.000 And then from the Septuagint, a little sleeping and you slumber a 01:40:12.000 --> 01:40:15.840 little, and you doze briefly, and you might briefly fold your hands 01:40:15.840 --> 01:40:17.360 across your chest. 01:40:17.360 --> 01:40:21.360 Then poverty comes in upon you like an evil wayfarer, and need 01:40:21.520 --> 01:40:22.800 like a good runner. 01:40:22.800 --> 01:40:24.640 But if you would be resolute, your heart will 01:40:25.520 --> 01:40:29.120 come like a spring, while lack will desert you like an evil 01:40:29.120 --> 01:40:34.480 runner. You not only have the negative admonition, as it were, the 01:40:34.480 --> 01:40:39.760 admonition not to be a slothful man, not to be lack in 01:40:39.760 --> 01:40:42.720 your duties and in your tasks, but you also have 01:40:44.000 --> 01:40:48.000 the praise of being dutiful, you also have the inverse as it 01:40:48.000 --> 01:40:50.480 were, the proverb telling you what will come if you are a 01:40:50.480 --> 01:40:54.320 dutiful man, if you pursue your work as you should, but if 01:40:54.320 --> 01:40:58.160 you would be resolute, your harvest will come like a spring, while 01:40:58.160 --> 01:41:00.480 lack will desert you like an evil runner. 01:41:00.480 --> 01:41:02.960 It's not there in the Rabbinic text this is another example of 01:41:03.520 --> 01:41:07.440 where they have simply removed a verse. 01:41:07.520 --> 01:41:11.520 As I mentioned earlier, there are going to be numerous examples that 01:41:11.520 --> 01:41:16.080 you will find as well where passages just vanish or in other 01:41:16.080 --> 01:41:17.600 cases get a lot longer. 01:41:17.920 --> 01:41:22.240 It's frequently the case that just from looking at the English of 01:41:22.240 --> 01:41:26.320 these two passages in Proverbs 6, 10, 11, you can tell just 01:41:26.320 --> 01:41:29.600 by looking at them side by side, there's no possible way that 01:41:29.600 --> 01:41:31.760 the underlying Greek and the Hebrew could be the same. 01:41:31.760 --> 01:41:35.120 You got twice as many words on the screen at once or 01:41:35.120 --> 01:41:36.560 on the page. 01:41:36.560 --> 01:41:40.880 That's just a different thing, as Corey said earlier. 01:41:40.880 --> 01:41:44.000 That's a really good opportunity to make sure you're paying attention with 01:41:44.000 --> 01:41:45.120 fresh eyes. 01:41:45.120 --> 01:41:51.440 It's honestly a tremendous blessing to be seeing things anew when you 01:41:51.440 --> 01:41:54.800 understand that this is the Bible of Jesus and the Apostles in 01:41:54.800 --> 01:41:58.400 the early church This is not new in the sense of Book 01:41:58.400 --> 01:41:59.840 of Mormon new. 01:41:59.840 --> 01:42:03.280 This is new in the sense that it's ancient and we lost 01:42:03.280 --> 01:42:06.320 it in the rubble. 01:42:06.320 --> 01:42:06.400 The 01:42:06.560 --> 01:42:11.360 next example is Proverbs six, twenty four through twenty five. 01:42:11.360 --> 01:42:14.640 To preserve you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of 01:42:14.640 --> 01:42:18.640 the adulteress, do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do 01:42:18.640 --> 01:42:23.520 not let her capture you with her eyelashes Then from the Septuagint, 01:42:23.520 --> 01:42:26.960 to preserve you from a married woman, and from the slander of 01:42:26.960 --> 01:42:28.320 a strange tongue. 01:42:28.320 --> 01:42:32.080 Do not let desire of beauty overcome you, or be hunted by 01:42:32.080 --> 01:42:35.120 your eyes, or be captivated by her eyelashes. 01:42:35.840 --> 01:42:39.360 There is a great deal of similarity here, but you will notice 01:42:39.360 --> 01:42:42.560 this is again one of those cases where you have the smooth 01:42:42.560 --> 01:42:47.920 tongue of the adulteress and the adulteress simply disappears in the Septuagint, 01:42:47.920 --> 01:42:51.120 because it is the slander of a strange tongue. 01:42:51.120 --> 01:42:55.280 Now of course you could try to draw out some similarity between 01:42:55.280 --> 01:42:58.560 those two, but you would have to torture the text in order 01:42:58.560 --> 01:42:59.440 to do it. 01:42:59.600 --> 01:43:04.960 And you also have the very distinct difference of the rabbinic text 01:43:05.120 --> 01:43:11.840 saying, the evil woman, and the Septuagint saying, Do not commit adultery, 01:43:11.840 --> 01:43:17.920 because it says preserve you from a married woman. 01:43:17.920 --> 01:43:21.920 This is not the same saying in these two because preserving you 01:43:21.920 --> 01:43:23.840 from the evil okay, why is she evil? 01:43:23.840 --> 01:43:24.880 What does it mean? 01:43:24.880 --> 01:43:26.560 What is it saying about this woman? 01:43:27.600 --> 01:43:32.000 Sure, we want to avoid evil men and evil women, certainly, that 01:43:32.000 --> 01:43:34.560 is good advice. 01:43:34.560 --> 01:43:39.040 But it's not the same thing as saying avoid married women, don't 01:43:39.040 --> 01:43:40.480 commit adultery. 01:43:40.480 --> 01:43:44.320 Now, of course, it goes on in the second verse there, the 01:43:44.320 --> 01:43:46.640 second half of the first verse there in the rabbinic text say 01:43:46.880 --> 01:43:49.440 from the smooth tongue of the adulteress. 01:43:49.440 --> 01:43:54.160 But that is to some degree a separate thought, and it also 01:43:54.160 --> 01:43:58.080 loses what we have in the Septuagint from the slander of a 01:43:58.080 --> 01:43:59.120 strange tongue. 01:43:59.120 --> 01:44:01.920 These are related thoughts, but distinct. 01:44:01.920 --> 01:44:04.640 Whereas you have sort of a collapsing of them and you lose 01:44:04.640 --> 01:44:07.680 And you lose the sense in the rabbinic text. 01:44:07.680 --> 01:44:12.080 You lose what God is actually telling us here in the Septuagint. 01:44:13.280 --> 01:44:17.120 I think it's particularly notable that the one additional line that's added 01:44:17.360 --> 01:44:18.560 is right after this. 01:44:18.560 --> 01:44:22.720 Do not let desire for beauty overcome you, or be haunted by 01:44:22.720 --> 01:44:24.320 your eyes. 01:44:24.320 --> 01:44:28.400 This is basically what Jesus warned when he was talking about adultery. 01:44:28.400 --> 01:44:32.240 He says, forget committing adultery, don't lust. 01:44:32.240 --> 01:44:34.240 And this is telling you how not to lust. 01:44:34.240 --> 01:44:34.880 Don't look. 01:44:34.880 --> 01:44:38.240 Don't be hunted by your own eyes for the beauty that you 01:44:38.240 --> 01:44:39.600 naturally desire. 01:44:39.600 --> 01:44:42.880 Of course you're gonna desire a beautiful woman, so don't look. 01:44:42.880 --> 01:44:45.920 I mean this is wisdom that we've shared before and uh you 01:44:45.920 --> 01:44:47.200 don't need to hear from us. 01:44:47.200 --> 01:44:48.400 Everyone knows. 01:44:48.400 --> 01:44:52.320 If you see something that's desirable that's going to make you think 01:44:52.320 --> 01:44:55.040 things you shouldn't think, don't look. 01:44:55.040 --> 01:44:57.040 Literally don't physically look. 01:44:57.040 --> 01:44:59.920 You additionally try to put it out of your mind, but that 01:44:59.920 --> 01:45:05.360 is the necessary step that comes before avoiding the downstream sins that 01:45:05.360 --> 01:45:07.120 compound the first sin. 01:45:07.120 --> 01:45:10.880 So having omitted or be haunted by your own eyes, in a 01:45:10.880 --> 01:45:14.400 way this is just kind of gutted of the one step that's 01:45:14.400 --> 01:45:15.680 actually gonna matter. 01:45:15.680 --> 01:45:20.640 It takes it away from being a general admonition to here's a 01:45:20.640 --> 01:45:23.120 specific concrete thing you can do. 01:45:24.240 --> 01:45:24.400 The 01:45:24.400 --> 01:45:27.680 next example is another one of those examples that simply does not 01:45:27.680 --> 01:45:31.680 appear in the rabbinic text, and it is a very useful verse. 01:45:31.680 --> 01:45:34.960 Not saying that there are any useless verses of scripture, of course, 01:45:34.960 --> 01:45:38.560 but this is one that we should perhaps be memorizing. 01:45:38.560 --> 01:45:40.960 Proverbs seven one A. 01:45:41.120 --> 01:45:44.560 Son honor the Lord, and you will be strong, and do not 01:45:44.560 --> 01:45:46.480 fear any other than him. 01:45:46.480 --> 01:45:49.280 This is, of course, a sentiment that is echoed in many places 01:45:49.280 --> 01:45:52.560 in Scripture, but we have it here in a verse in the 01:45:52.560 --> 01:45:58.160 Septuagint that is simply not present in the rabbinic text. 01:45:58.160 --> 01:46:02.720 Then moving from there to verse ten, And behold the woman meets 01:46:02.720 --> 01:46:06.640 him, dressed as a prostitute, wily of heart. 01:46:06.640 --> 01:46:10.880 And then from the Septuagint, the woman meets him, having a prostitute's 01:46:10.880 --> 01:46:15.360 appearance, which causes the heart, the young to flutter. 01:46:15.440 --> 01:46:20.480 These of course are very similar sayings, but we have this sort 01:46:20.480 --> 01:46:25.920 of additional layer, additional level of admonishment for young men. 01:46:25.920 --> 01:46:27.200 Which makes perfect sense. 01:46:27.200 --> 01:46:30.880 We all understand that, particularly the men in the audience understand that. 01:46:30.880 --> 01:46:34.640 There are going to be sins to which young men are more 01:46:34.640 --> 01:46:36.240 inclined than older men. 01:46:36.240 --> 01:46:40.320 Older men are going to have greater self control in certain areas. 01:46:40.320 --> 01:46:44.960 And so And so this additional level of admonishment, which causes the 01:46:44.960 --> 01:46:47.920 heart of the young to flutter, is vitally important. 01:46:47.920 --> 01:46:51.120 It's something that we have here in the Septuagint that is simply 01:46:51.120 --> 01:46:53.520 not there in the rabbinic text. 01:46:53.520 --> 01:46:58.240 And in fact, it is a fundamentally different saying, because it's saying 01:46:58.240 --> 01:47:02.480 that this prostitute, this woman, is wily of heart. 01:47:02.480 --> 01:47:06.320 Sure, perhaps that's true of the prostitute, but that's not what we 01:47:06.320 --> 01:47:07.920 have in the Septuagint. 01:47:08.080 --> 01:47:10.960 It is which causes the heart of the young to flutter. 01:47:10.960 --> 01:47:14.480 It is a warning for men who would have any sort of 01:47:14.480 --> 01:47:16.880 dealings with this sort of woman. 01:47:16.880 --> 01:47:19.600 It is warning them to stay away from her because she will 01:47:19.600 --> 01:47:23.200 lead him astray. 01:47:23.200 --> 01:47:26.880 So largely in the interests of time, we are not going to 01:47:26.880 --> 01:47:29.120 go through all of the potential examples. 01:47:29.120 --> 01:47:32.240 We were never intending to go through all of them, certainly, but 01:47:32.240 --> 01:47:33.840 we are not going to go through even all of the ones 01:47:34.240 --> 01:47:37.200 for which we have notes for this episode. 01:47:37.200 --> 01:47:42.880 So jumping to chapter thirteen before we move on to Ecclesiastes or 01:47:42.880 --> 01:47:46.720 rather jumping to Proverbs twenty nine verse thirteen before we move on 01:47:47.120 --> 01:47:51.840 to Ecclesiastes The poor man and the oppressor meet together, the Lord 01:47:51.840 --> 01:47:54.240 gives light to the eyes of both. 01:47:54.240 --> 01:47:59.040 And then from the Septuagint, when money lender and debtor gather together, 01:47:59.040 --> 01:48:03.200 the Lord makes examination of them both. 01:48:03.200 --> 01:48:06.800 Just seems somewhat interesting to me that the rabbis would want to 01:48:06.800 --> 01:48:11.120 remove the word money lender from their version of what they would 01:48:11.120 --> 01:48:12.640 like to call scripture 01:48:13.840 --> 01:48:14.080 I 01:48:14.080 --> 01:48:18.000 think it's also notable that it includes a warning that the Lord 01:48:18.160 --> 01:48:22.960 will make an examination of them both, meaning that both the debtor 01:48:23.040 --> 01:48:26.560 and the creditor may have sinned. 01:48:27.040 --> 01:48:27.280 So 01:48:27.360 --> 01:48:31.120 moving then to the book of Ecclesiastes, and we will again start 01:48:31.120 --> 01:48:35.760 with the first chapter, verses seventeen through eighteen. 01:48:35.760 --> 01:48:39.200 And I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness 01:48:39.200 --> 01:48:43.120 and folly, I perceived that this also is but a striving after 01:48:43.120 --> 01:48:47.600 wind, for in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases 01:48:47.600 --> 01:48:49.760 knowledge increases sorrow. 01:48:49.760 --> 01:48:52.000 And then from the Septuagint. 01:48:52.160 --> 01:48:56.240 And my heart saw many things, wisdom and knowledge, and I set 01:48:56.240 --> 01:49:00.720 my heart to know wisdom and knowledge, I knew parables and understanding, 01:49:00.640 --> 01:49:03.600 For even this too is the preference of the wind. 01:49:03.600 --> 01:49:07.600 For an abundance of wisdom there is an abundance of knowledge, and 01:49:07.600 --> 01:49:11.680 the one who increases knowledge will increase pain. 01:49:11.680 --> 01:49:17.120 Fairly significant difference in diction, and of course the Septuagint is also 01:49:17.120 --> 01:49:19.920 longer, there are parts that have been removed again. 01:49:19.920 --> 01:49:22.640 You may have noticed a theme here. 01:49:22.640 --> 01:49:27.280 But you see a different sort of nuance in terms of the 01:49:27.280 --> 01:49:33.040 understanding of this relationship of wisdom and knowledge as you're moving into 01:49:33.040 --> 01:49:37.760 the book of Ecclesiastes, which is indeed about wisdom, it is treated 01:49:37.760 --> 01:49:43.600 differently in the Septuagint versus how it is treated by the rabbis 01:49:43.600 --> 01:49:44.320 in their text. 01:49:47.120 --> 01:49:51.760 I think regardless of the underlying textual source, it's important for th 01:49:52.000 --> 01:49:54.560 especially many of the type of men who would be listening to 01:49:54.560 --> 01:49:58.080 Stone Choir to bearley's words in mind. 01:49:58.080 --> 01:50:02.160 The more you learn, the more pain you're gonna have. 01:50:02.160 --> 01:50:06.080 This is something that people figure out naturally without scripture. 01:50:06.080 --> 01:50:10.000 But don't think it's not true even when you're learning about these 01:50:10.000 --> 01:50:15.280 things. Even if all you ever do is study everything that God 01:50:15.280 --> 01:50:18.800 has said and God wants us to hear, that's going to increase 01:50:18.800 --> 01:50:19.520 your pain. 01:50:19.520 --> 01:50:22.400 The more you know about what God says and what God wants, 01:50:22.400 --> 01:50:25.040 the more you realize how much of a sinner you are. 01:50:25.040 --> 01:50:27.440 And that's why the gospel is there. 01:50:27.440 --> 01:50:31.360 Because without Jesus as the answer to the question of how do 01:50:31.360 --> 01:50:34.000 I get out of this hole, there's nothing I can possibly do 01:50:34.000 --> 01:50:35.360 to save myself. 01:50:35.360 --> 01:50:38.080 The more you learn, the more it hurts. 01:50:38.080 --> 01:50:41.280 Even the better you act, yeah, the more you learn, the greater 01:50:41.280 --> 01:50:43.040 you increase in the faith. 01:50:43.040 --> 01:50:46.640 You will sin less, and yet you will still sin, and you 01:50:46.640 --> 01:50:49.200 will find more ways that you were sinning that you didn't even 01:50:49.200 --> 01:50:50.000 know before. 01:50:50.000 --> 01:50:53.280 So there's no end to the suffering and the sorrow that come 01:50:53.280 --> 01:50:56.720 from knowing even God's wisdom and his love. 01:50:56.720 --> 01:50:59.520 And that's something to rejoice in. 01:50:59.520 --> 01:51:01.520 Because why do we need God? 01:51:01.520 --> 01:51:05.920 Why do we need God's love if there's not some downside looming 01:51:05.920 --> 01:51:07.040 without it? 01:51:07.040 --> 01:51:11.680 The notion today that we have of this buddy Christ that has 01:51:11.680 --> 01:51:18.240 no teeth, has nothing but friendly soft voices and gentle words, and 01:51:18.240 --> 01:51:20.640 no destruction and no anger and no wrath. 01:51:20.640 --> 01:51:21.520 That's not God. 01:51:21.520 --> 01:51:22.720 That's that old Testament thing. 01:51:22.720 --> 01:51:24.000 That's a demiurge. 01:51:24.000 --> 01:51:25.840 Our God is loving, He's kind. 01:51:25.840 --> 01:51:29.600 He never breaks anything, he doesn't flip tables, he doesn't raise his 01:51:29.600 --> 01:51:31.680 voice, he doesn't kill everybody. 01:51:31.680 --> 01:51:35.600 Well, the thing that you need to understand is that our God 01:51:35.600 --> 01:51:37.120 does all of those things. 01:51:37.120 --> 01:51:38.480 He is all of those things. 01:51:38.960 --> 01:51:42.400 And when he acts in such ways, he is always just. 01:51:42.400 --> 01:51:43.680 Unlike us. 01:51:43.680 --> 01:51:45.680 We can never perfectly do anything. 01:51:45.680 --> 01:51:48.560 We can never perfectly love, we can never perfectly hate. 01:51:48.560 --> 01:51:50.560 We can never perfectly donate. 01:51:50.560 --> 01:51:54.080 We can't do perfection, and yet we're supposed to try. 01:51:54.080 --> 01:51:57.920 And the more we learn of God's wisdom and his knowledge, the 01:51:57.920 --> 01:52:01.360 more it hurts to realize how far we fall short. 01:52:01.360 --> 01:52:04.400 And nevertheless, it's still beneficial for us to do it. 01:52:04.400 --> 01:52:07.280 But don't do it and think it's just gonna be honky dory 01:52:07.520 --> 01:52:10.880 that you sort of just wander in not knowing what's gonna happen 01:52:11.200 --> 01:52:14.800 and you come out hours later after the movie's over. 01:52:14.800 --> 01:52:16.400 You're gonna be a bit dazed. 01:52:16.400 --> 01:52:19.280 You're gonna be improved in many ways, but you are going to 01:52:20.080 --> 01:52:23.680 have new burdens that you didn't have when you went in. 01:52:23.680 --> 01:52:27.280 Because learning about what God says and who he is and what 01:52:27.280 --> 01:52:30.960 he desires is not a bed of roses. 01:52:30.960 --> 01:52:32.240 And that's a good thing. 01:52:32.240 --> 01:52:35.360 Part of the wisdom literature is the saying, look, this is what 01:52:35.360 --> 01:52:36.800 manhood looks like. 01:52:36.800 --> 01:52:40.960 You set aside childish things and childish learning, and you replace it 01:52:40.960 --> 01:52:44.160 with godly wisdom, and you're going to increase your burdens and you're 01:52:44.080 --> 01:52:45.360 going to increase your sorrow. 01:52:45.360 --> 01:52:48.080 You're going to increase the amount of work that you have to 01:52:48.080 --> 01:52:51.360 do. And in the end you will faithfully run the race, and 01:52:51.360 --> 01:52:53.840 you'll be united with God in eternity. 01:52:54.640 --> 01:52:58.640 This next example I'm going to read, but not really comment on 01:52:58.640 --> 01:53:03.040 it. And the reason I want to read it is because there's 01:53:03.040 --> 01:53:05.040 an interesting note here. 01:53:05.040 --> 01:53:10.400 The rabbinic text and the translations following it Do not treat this 01:53:10.400 --> 01:53:12.400 as poetry. 01:53:12.400 --> 01:53:13.920 But the Greek does. 01:53:13.920 --> 01:53:18.800 The Septuagint treats this as poetry, and so reading from Ecclesiastes two, 01:53:18.800 --> 01:53:21.520 verses two through three. 01:53:21.520 --> 01:53:25.440 I said of laughter, it is mad, and of pleasure, what use 01:53:25.440 --> 01:53:26.160 is it? 01:53:26.160 --> 01:53:29.600 I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine, 01:53:29.600 --> 01:53:33.120 my heart still guiding me with wisdom, and how to lay hold 01:53:33.120 --> 01:53:35.840 on folly, till I might see what was good for the children 01:53:35.840 --> 01:53:39.680 of man to do under heaven during the few days of their 01:53:39.680 --> 01:53:45.120 life. And then from the Septuagint, to laughter I said madness, and 01:53:45.120 --> 01:53:47.360 to merriment, why do you do this? 01:53:47.360 --> 01:53:51.600 And I surveyed whether my heart would draw my flesh as wine, 01:53:51.600 --> 01:53:55.760 and my heart guided me in wisdom, and to seize upon merriment, 01:53:55.760 --> 01:53:58.800 until I should see what the good thing does for the sons 01:53:58.800 --> 01:54:02.000 of humans, that they would do under the sun, in the number 01:54:02.000 --> 01:54:06.080 of their days of life. 01:54:06.080 --> 01:54:06.320 The 01:54:06.320 --> 01:54:08.160 only note I'll add there is that this is one of the 01:54:08.160 --> 01:54:13.040 places where Cory's quoting the Lexum where it translate man as humans, 01:54:13.040 --> 01:54:14.960 which I find detestable. 01:54:15.120 --> 01:54:18.720 The use of humans is virtually never appropriate, but what do you 01:54:18.720 --> 01:54:19.360 gonna do? 01:54:19.360 --> 01:54:25.120 As we've said many times, the reason we're not solidly exclusively endorsing 01:54:25.120 --> 01:54:28.720 any of the existing translations is none of them are fit. 01:54:28.720 --> 01:54:33.120 They're good enough for now to help us understand, but we need 01:54:33.120 --> 01:54:37.600 a new translation, particularly one unencumbered by copyright. 01:54:38.160 --> 01:54:38.320 The 01:54:38.320 --> 01:54:42.640 underlying Greek word there is anthropos, which would traditionally be translated into 01:54:42.640 --> 01:54:47.760 English as mankind, so in this context anyway. 01:54:47.760 --> 01:54:51.040 But yes, the the Lexim does tend to translate that one as 01:54:51.040 --> 01:54:52.480 humans. 01:54:53.440 --> 01:54:57.920 The next example is verse 8, same chapter, and I really want 01:54:57.920 --> 01:55:01.120 this one for just one word here because there's an interesting note 01:55:01.200 --> 01:55:04.400 that you will see in the footnotes of your own Bible, perhaps. 01:55:04.400 --> 01:55:08.000 I also gathered for myself silver and gold, and the treasure of 01:55:08.000 --> 01:55:09.520 kings and provinces. 01:55:09.520 --> 01:55:13.680 I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight 01:55:13.840 --> 01:55:15.520 of the sons of man. 01:55:15.520 --> 01:55:18.480 And then from the Septuagint, again this is treated as poetry in 01:55:18.480 --> 01:55:21.280 the Septuagint not in the Rabbinic. 01:55:21.280 --> 01:55:25.440 I also gathered for myself silver and gold too, and the abundance 01:55:25.440 --> 01:55:27.360 of kings and of territories. 01:55:27.360 --> 01:55:31.280 I made for myself male and female singers, the delights of the 01:55:31.280 --> 01:55:34.880 sons of humans, male and female cupbearers. 01:55:34.880 --> 01:55:39.680 And so you'll see that that modifier is moved there, but one 01:55:39.680 --> 01:55:42.560 of the things that's interesting is that if you look at the 01:55:42.560 --> 01:55:47.360 notes in your translation, the word that is translated concubines, it says 01:55:47.520 --> 01:55:50.480 the meaning of the Hebrew word is uncertain. 01:55:50.480 --> 01:55:53.360 We don't even know what this Hebrew word is. 01:55:53.360 --> 01:55:56.560 The translations have just decided to translate it, in this case the 01:55:56.560 --> 01:55:58.960 ESV, as concubines. 01:55:58.960 --> 01:56:02.960 And And it says the concubines are the delight of the sons 01:56:02.960 --> 01:56:07.200 of man, whereas in the Septuagint it is saying male and female 01:56:07.200 --> 01:56:11.760 singers are part of the delights of the sons of mankind, and 01:56:11.760 --> 01:56:16.480 then male and female cupbearers is the word translated there that the 01:56:16.480 --> 01:56:21.840 analogous word is translated as concubines, but again the Hebrew is uncertain 01:56:22.080 --> 01:56:25.360 one of those instances. 01:56:25.440 --> 01:56:30.400 Interestingly, the King James Bible says for that as musical instruments and 01:56:30.400 --> 01:56:31.920 that of all sorts. 01:56:31.920 --> 01:56:35.600 It's like as as we said, one of the common complaints that 01:56:35.600 --> 01:56:40.400 we have in contrast to the Greek is how often we find 01:56:40.400 --> 01:56:44.400 nonsense. I don't mean that disparagingly against the word of God. 01:56:44.400 --> 01:56:46.800 I mean we look as course it we literally don't understand what 01:56:46.800 --> 01:56:47.680 it means. 01:56:47.680 --> 01:56:49.760 That's a problem. 01:56:49.760 --> 01:56:54.080 That's not a good thing for Christianity, where we're told that not 01:56:54.080 --> 01:56:58.000 one iota will be lost, and yet we have words and phrases 01:56:58.000 --> 01:56:59.760 that are incomprehensible. 01:56:59.760 --> 01:57:02.960 That should concern us a little bit more than it does And 01:57:02.960 --> 01:57:06.000 when we've had this decoder ring sitting here for two thousand years 01:57:06.000 --> 01:57:10.720 in the Septuagint, and everyone just after Latin just sort of forgot 01:57:10.720 --> 01:57:12.160 it was there in the West. 01:57:12.160 --> 01:57:15.280 And in the East, they had the Greek and they just forgot 01:57:15.280 --> 01:57:16.560 how to read altogether. 01:57:17.760 --> 01:57:18.080 The 01:57:18.080 --> 01:57:21.680 next example is verse 16, and this is one of those cases 01:57:21.680 --> 01:57:26.880 where it's a fundamentally different set of sayings, although they sound very 01:57:26.880 --> 01:57:30.800 similar, because the same words are used, but not in the same 01:57:30.800 --> 01:57:34.880 sense. For of the wise as of the foolish there is no 01:57:34.880 --> 01:57:38.880 enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have 01:57:38.880 --> 01:57:43.040 been long forgotten, how the wise dies just like the fool. 01:57:43.040 --> 01:57:47.040 And then the Septuagint for there is no memory of the wise 01:57:47.360 --> 01:57:52.400 among the foolish for eternity as already the days are coming, everything 01:57:52.400 --> 01:57:57.600 is forgotten, and how shall the wise die among the fools? 01:57:58.160 --> 01:58:02.160 This is a different saying, as I said before reading it, because 01:58:02.160 --> 01:58:05.680 it is saying there's no memory of the wise among the foolish, 01:58:05.680 --> 01:58:10.080 whereas the rabbinic renders it, as there's no enduring remembrance of the 01:58:10.080 --> 01:58:15.120 wise or of the foolish, and then it also laments at the 01:58:15.120 --> 01:58:19.120 end of this section in the Septuagint, how shall the wise die 01:58:19.120 --> 01:58:20.480 among the fools? 01:58:20.480 --> 01:58:25.280 Whereas the rest of the rabbinic simply reiterates what it already said, 01:58:25.280 --> 01:58:28.320 how the wise dies just like the fool, the same fate comes 01:58:28.320 --> 01:58:29.040 to both. 01:58:29.040 --> 01:58:32.320 Now, of course, it's not wrong to say the same fate comes 01:58:32.320 --> 01:58:34.720 to both the wise man and the fool, for of course it 01:58:34.720 --> 01:58:37.120 does. We all die. 01:58:37.120 --> 01:58:40.320 But that's not what's being said in this section. 01:58:40.320 --> 01:58:41.600 It is a different thing. 01:58:41.600 --> 01:58:46.080 It is lamenting the fate of the wise, because even those who 01:58:46.080 --> 01:58:49.680 seek after wisdom and gain these things that do have value because 01:58:49.760 --> 01:58:54.080 of course we are again reading wisdom literature in this episode. 01:58:54.080 --> 01:58:57.520 These books of scripture are wisdom literature, they are meant to make 01:58:57.520 --> 01:58:58.320 you wise. 01:58:58.320 --> 01:59:01.120 There is profit in learning these things. 01:59:01.120 --> 01:59:04.400 But the wise still dies, just like the fool. 01:59:04.800 --> 01:59:08.080 The difference of course being the fool does not understand that fact. 01:59:08.080 --> 01:59:12.080 This is going back to there being pain and suffering in learning 01:59:12.080 --> 01:59:14.480 and understanding some of these things. 01:59:14.560 --> 01:59:19.680 And so the next example is from Ecclesiastes three, and this is 01:59:19.680 --> 01:59:25.280 perhaps one of the more egregious examples in the wisdom literature of 01:59:25.280 --> 01:59:27.440 an alteration made by the rabbis. 01:59:27.440 --> 01:59:30.640 And so I will read first from the ESV, this is verse 01:59:30.640 --> 01:59:34.480 sixteen. Moreover I saw under the sun that in the place of 01:59:34.480 --> 01:59:37.840 justice even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness 01:59:38.800 --> 01:59:41.360 even there was wickedness. 01:59:41.360 --> 01:59:46.000 And so then from the Septuagint, and still I saw the place 01:59:46.000 --> 01:59:47.920 of judgment under the sun. 01:59:47.920 --> 01:59:51.360 There was the wicked, and the place of righteousness, there was the 01:59:51.360 --> 01:59:55.040 pious Pious. 01:59:55.040 --> 01:59:59.840 This almost goes without saying that these are not the same saying. 01:59:59.840 --> 02:00:02.560 It is not the same thing to say that there is basically 02:00:02.560 --> 02:00:04.080 just wickedness everywhere. 02:00:04.160 --> 02:00:07.040 Which is what the rabbis are saying, it's what the rabbinic text 02:00:07.040 --> 02:00:12.400 is saying, and discerning between the wicked and the pious, the righteous 02:00:12.400 --> 02:00:16.480 and the unrighteous, with regard to the place of judgment, which is 02:00:16.480 --> 02:00:18.320 what we have in the Septuagint. 02:00:18.320 --> 02:00:22.400 And there's a great deal of irony here, in that it is 02:00:22.400 --> 02:00:26.160 speaking of wickedness, and what the rabbis have done is indeed wicked 02:00:26.160 --> 02:00:28.880 in this case. 02:00:28.880 --> 02:00:32.720 And so the last example that we will be pulling in here 02:00:32.720 --> 02:00:37.200 from Ecclesiastes, in the interest of not having this episode run overly 02:00:37.520 --> 02:00:42.160 long, is Ecclesiastes 9:2, first from the ESV. 02:00:42.320 --> 02:00:45.760 It is the same for all, since the same event happens to 02:00:45.760 --> 02:00:49.920 the righteous and the wicked, to the good, to the clean and 02:00:49.920 --> 02:00:55.120 the unclean, to him who sacrifices, and him who does not sacrifice. 02:00:55.120 --> 02:00:58.480 As the good one is, so is the sinner, and he who 02:00:58.480 --> 02:01:01.760 swears is as he who shuns an oath. 02:01:01.760 --> 02:01:04.080 And then from the Septuagint. 02:01:04.080 --> 02:01:07.840 There is one fate for the righteous and the ungodly, for the 02:01:07.840 --> 02:01:10.720 good and for the evil, and for the pure and for the 02:01:10.720 --> 02:01:14.320 impure, and for the one who sacrifices and for the one who 02:01:14.320 --> 02:01:18.880 does not sacrifice, as is the good person, so is the sinner, 02:01:18.880 --> 02:01:21.600 as is the one who swears, so is the one who is 02:01:21.600 --> 02:01:25.040 afraid of the oath. 02:01:25.040 --> 02:01:30.320 This is worth noting because on the one hand the rabbis decided 02:01:30.320 --> 02:01:36.160 to drop and the evil from their version, and yet on the 02:01:36.160 --> 02:01:40.880 other hand, the ESV and other modern translations decided to take that 02:01:40.880 --> 02:01:45.680 from the Septuagint and stick it back in. 02:01:45.680 --> 02:01:49.600 It's yet another one of those instances where they recognize that the 02:01:49.600 --> 02:01:53.600 Septuagint is in fact the Word of God, it is the text 02:01:53.600 --> 02:01:55.520 upon which we should be relying. 02:01:55.520 --> 02:01:59.760 They use it to correct an issue with the Hebrew, with the 02:01:59.760 --> 02:02:04.880 Rabbinic text, and then simply do not follow through the logic of 02:02:04.880 --> 02:02:07.040 what they've done. 02:02:07.040 --> 02:02:10.240 That is quite frankly a worse position to be in than simply 02:02:10.240 --> 02:02:11.600 using the Hebrew. 02:02:11.600 --> 02:02:16.240 Because when you recognize the existence of the actual Old Testament, of 02:02:16.240 --> 02:02:20.800 the Septuagint, of the Greek, of the Word that God preserved for 02:02:20.800 --> 02:02:24.720 us, and you use it to correct problems in what you've been 02:02:24.720 --> 02:02:30.000 using and pretending is the Old Testament, and don't simply adopt the 02:02:30.000 --> 02:02:33.760 actual Old Testament, that is a worse position. 02:02:33.760 --> 02:02:37.200 Because it is of course a worse sin to engage in something 02:02:37.200 --> 02:02:41.440 knowingly or negligently, however it happens to be in this case than 02:02:41.440 --> 02:02:44.000 in complete and utter ignorance. 02:02:44.000 --> 02:02:48.720 The knowing sin is worse than the unknowing sin, because of course 02:02:48.800 --> 02:02:52.560 not all sins are equal, you can see the literal words of 02:02:52.560 --> 02:02:54.880 Christ for that in the New Testament. 02:02:54.880 --> 02:02:54.960 M 02:02:56.480 --> 02:03:00.720 I think that as Christian readers, one of our greatest desires at 02:03:00.720 --> 02:03:05.280 this point really needs to be that we must simply set aside 02:03:05.280 --> 02:03:10.320 the rabbinic text and focus on whatever is present in the Septuagint. 02:03:10.320 --> 02:03:13.200 Some of these changes are small, some of them are great. 02:03:13.200 --> 02:03:18.080 Rather than worrying about what has changed, our goal in this overarching 02:03:18.080 --> 02:03:20.720 series is to get to the point as a church that we 02:03:20.720 --> 02:03:23.920 will stop worrying about the changes and simply start worrying about what 02:03:23.920 --> 02:03:25.280 is there. 02:03:25.280 --> 02:03:29.760 Because great or small, as you parse these differences, it needs to 02:03:29.760 --> 02:03:34.080 be for the conclusion that there's enough here to realize that this 02:03:34.080 --> 02:03:37.600 is not simply a different translation. 02:03:37.600 --> 02:03:40.960 This is in many ways a different book entirely. 02:03:40.960 --> 02:03:45.200 And the Christian response, once we make the case in our closing 02:03:45.200 --> 02:03:49.280 arguments from the New Testament is okay, I want the Septuagint and 02:03:49.280 --> 02:03:50.800 I'm done with the other stuff. 02:03:50.800 --> 02:03:56.560 As I said at the beginning, the perpetual aggravating impulse to continually 02:03:56.560 --> 02:03:59.120 go back to what the rabbis said and try to keep arguing 02:03:59.120 --> 02:04:04.080 with them forever is literally the satanic trap that was laid thousands 02:04:04.080 --> 02:04:05.200 of years ago. 02:04:05.200 --> 02:04:07.840 Satan laid the trap knowing that there would be guys who just 02:04:07.840 --> 02:04:09.840 love to argue and argue and argue. 02:04:09.840 --> 02:04:13.040 In fact that appears several times in scripture. 02:04:13.040 --> 02:04:16.000 It's one of the types of men among us. 02:04:16.000 --> 02:04:18.880 Some of the men who are listening right now, you're really good 02:04:18.880 --> 02:04:21.040 at arguing, you like nothing more than doing it. 02:04:21.040 --> 02:04:22.800 It's your happy place. 02:04:22.800 --> 02:04:27.600 The hard part for you is going to be telling yourself the 02:04:27.600 --> 02:04:31.520 wise thing, the Christian thing, is to be done arguing. 02:04:31.520 --> 02:04:35.520 I'm finished looking what the rabbis wanted us to believe, and I'm 02:04:35.520 --> 02:04:38.000 going to look at the scripture that God gave us. 02:04:38.000 --> 02:04:39.840 That is what I'm going to believe. 02:04:39.840 --> 02:04:42.720 And then all this analysis gets a whole lot simpler. 02:04:42.720 --> 02:04:46.240 Then it's simply how do we exegete the Greek scripture? 02:04:46.240 --> 02:04:53.440 One language, translating into one language, very simple, single voice, single 02:04:53.440 --> 02:04:56.160 God, single result. 02:04:56.160 --> 02:04:59.440 For us to get from here to there is going to involve 02:04:59.440 --> 02:05:04.240 a period of transition, a period of pain and aggravation and confusion. 02:05:04.240 --> 02:05:06.960 But part of the reason for laying this stuff out is there 02:05:06.960 --> 02:05:09.440 shouldn't really be all that much of any of that. 02:05:09.440 --> 02:05:14.720 It should be easy for us to realize, okay, a mess was 02:05:14.720 --> 02:05:16.320 made, what's next? 02:05:16.720 --> 02:05:20.560 We should have the repentant heart of King Josiah to say, Lord 02:05:20.560 --> 02:05:22.320 have mercy, what do I have to do? 02:05:22.320 --> 02:05:26.080 And start cleaning up the mess, and repent of everything that we 02:05:26.080 --> 02:05:28.720 got wrong and fix everything that we can. 02:05:29.520 --> 02:05:38.960 When we have nothing left but Greek, we will be there.