You're listening to the Naked Bible Podcast to support this podcast with the NakedBiblePodcast.com and click on the support link in the upper right-hand corner. If you're new to the podcast and Dr. Heiser's approach to the Bible, click on New Start Here at NakedBiblePodcast.com. Welcome to the Naked Bible Podcast Episode 95, David Burnett, the Resurrection and the Death of the Gods. I'm your layman, Trey Strickland, and he's the scholar, Dr. Michael Heiser. Hey Mike, how are you? Very good. We're real happy to have David Burnett back. Dave, how are you doing? Good. How are you guys? Yeah, very good. Good to hear your voice. And thanks for taking the time to do this again with us, Trey. Yeah, we'll buy the name of the title, Resurrection and the Death of the Gods. I'm excited about this episode. Yeah, it's a good title. I can hardly wait to hear it. We all want to see the gods get what they deserve. Hey, Dave, why don't you, for those who may not have heard you before, David has been on the podcast before and he pastors a church in Arthur City, Texas. So, Dave, if you could give listeners a bit of an update, you know, since you were on the last time, you know, what's been going on with the church with you? I mean, how are things? Yeah, things are pretty good. The church is going pretty well. We've been, we've taken a break from Genesis and been going through some different passages. And I think things are going well there. And I've been continuing my research and just recently presented a paper two weeks ago at the Southwest Commission on Religious Studies, which is the regional meeting for the Society of Biblical Literature and the American Academy of Religion. And I presented a paper there called A Neglected Deuteronomic Scriptural Matrix for the Nature of the Resurrection Body in 1 Corinthians 1539-42. So this is an atrociously long title, I recognize. But the simple version is I'm challenging kind of the consensus and scholarship of what the background is to this list of creatures that Paul brings up in 1 Corinthians 15 in his conversation about the nature of the resurrection body. So you're going to give us, this is going to be the gist of what you're going to give us in this episode in non-academies. Yes, that's right. I'll pull it down and make it hopefully easy to understand. Yeah, well, scholars like those long, high-faluting titles, you know, we used to, I don't know if you remember this, but we used to give these little awards, you know, I had a small group of friends every year at ETS, you know, we'd give these invisible kind of after the evening or after the days, events, awards at ETS for who had the most obtuse paper title, you know, who had the funniest paper title. So your paper title would, you'd probably get one for obtuse. You'd get a nomination for that. Fair enough, fair enough. Yeah, we like those long, hard to figure out titles. So, well, I'm glad you're, you know, you're doing well. Now, you've gotten a paper accepted for the national. Is it this one or is it a different one? Yeah, it's this one. Okay, it's a national meeting in November. Mm-hmm, in San Antonio. So I'll actually be, this one's going to be very interesting. I'm actually participating in a seminar in 1 Corinthians 15 entitled Death, Resurrection, and Transformation in Scripture in 1 Corinthians 15. And so it's a, I think Roy Champa, Craig Keener, Linda Belleville, Raymond Collins, some other, David Litva, who we've spoke about before. Sure. We're all in this seminar together. So it's going to be, it's going to be really great. I'm going to submit the paper ahead of time and there'll be formal responses to the paper and open dialogue. So it'll be very similar to what I did in 2014 at SBL. But this one is a little bit, I think, a little bit more formalized. It's a part of a two-part seminar on 1 Corinthians 15. So we're the second part. So I'm really excited to be involved in that. And so the paper that I'll be presenting there is kind of an advanced version of the one I did just a couple of weeks ago. And so I'm still doing some more research on that. And hopefully, sometimes these seminars turn into edited books. I'm hoping that happens. If not, I'll submit it to a journal. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's good. And for those, again, who are listening to, I bring up the annual meetings with a good bit of frequency here. I mean, this next one, David's talking about is in San Antonio. So it's always the week before Thanksgiving.  We're planning on doing something related to the podcast in San Antonio next year. But anybody who lives in the neighborhood wants to check out, hey, what happens at these meetings? You know, I offered this at Atlanta last November and had a few people come.  And hey, this is what scholars do. And they get a chance to listen to some people, a lot of names that they know, a lot of names that they don't know. But, you know, if you're in the area, I'll be putting more information about it on the, on the blog, you know, as the time approaches, you know, toward November. So David, David, I'll have your play it. So if you have any questions you want me to ask you, I'll make you look good. If you just want to do your questions beforehand. I'll make you look good. Well, I appreciate that. But I try to keep it as honest as possible. Well, that's no fun.  Hey, why don't you jump in now that we can just get started and you jump in where you want to jump in and Trey and I will, with everybody else, we'll listen and, you know, have a conversation where we need to and the rest of the time is essentially yours. All right. Well, like I said, the premise of my paper is first Corinthians 15 is, as we all know, kind of the central text for resurrection, not just in Paul, but in the New Testament, really. I mean, it's the only very clear, well, relatively clear passage we have on that actually goes into detail, not only of kind of the narrative of what happens in resurrection, but goes even into the nature of the resurrection body itself. And so this, that's extremely significant in first Corinthians 15, because it's often used in kind of apologetic conversations about the proof of the resurrection and look at all the witnesses and this kind of thing. But that's not really what I'm tackling here. What I'm tackling here is the conversation that Paul has on the actual nature of the resurrection body. And the passage is coming from verse 35 through 42 in first Corinthians 15. And I'll just read that passage. And actually, I probably want to read down to verse 50, because it's all one solid unit here. So I'll read it in English and we'll get into it. Paul says, but someone will ask, how are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?  What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen and each kind of seed its own body. For not all flesh is the same. But there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind and the earthly another. There is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon and another glory of the stars, for star differs from star in glory. So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable. What is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, the first man Adam became a living being. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the natural and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust. The second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust. And as is the man of heaven, so also those who are of heaven. Just as we have been born, the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. So I tell you this, brothers, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. So that is the passage. It is a pretty long passage. But it focuses on this metaphor for the resurrection of the sowing of the seed, and the seed going into the ground and coming up different, the old body versus the new body in the resurrection. And right in the center of that conversation, we have this interesting list of creatures, this comparison between earthly bodies, like terrestrial bodies that are on the earth, and celestial bodies. And Paul uses language of flesh to describe the first group, and then he uses the language of glory to describe the second group. And the traditional background for this list, since obviously Paul's drawing on Adam language there, traditionally all scholars have said, oh, well, this is clearly Genesis 1 and 2 language. You know, you have the created animals, and you have the sun, moon, stars, and then you have a mention of Adam. And there's even the mention of seed and their types in the creation story in Genesis 1. So clearly this is drawing on Genesis 1 and 2, for sure. And so that's the consensus of the background of this creature list here in 1 Corinthians 15, 39 through 42. But there are some problems with this view. The actual list of the creatures, if Paul is drawing on Genesis 1, 11 through 28, which is the traditional background that's listed for this. They don't actually follow the same order. They're in reverse. It's backwards. And not only do they not follow the same order, but it actually doesn't follow the same pattern of naming the creatures either. So there's this assumed consensus in the secondary literature that doesn't see any need for any alternate model. And so they're overlooking a possible background that could actually provide a more robust reading of the passage in writer, literary, and narrative context. And so, when you actually see the list of creatures here, Paul starts with in verse 39 with the flesh, those are of flesh, and he says man, domestic animals, birds, and fish. Now this is the backwards order from Genesis 1, and there's verses in between them. But there is a list that follows the same order. And it's not in Genesis 1, it's actually found in Deuteronomy 4. Because Paul goes through, says man, animals, birds, and fish, and then he goes when he gets to the celestial bodies, because he separates them, the earthly from the celestial, and he says sun, moon, stars. There is actually in order that, there's actually text that follows that same order, Deuteronomy 4. And so in Deuteronomy 4, Deuteronomy 4 specifically the passage I'm drawing on is verse 15 through 19. And this text, or 15 through 20 actually. And in this text, this is the... For those who don't recall, maybe this is a Divine Council passage, Deuteronomy 32 worldview, and this is the Deuteronomy 4 passage for it. Yeah, so what I meant in this longer title, Deuteronomic Scriptural Matrix, all I mean is there's a group of texts throughout Deuteronomy that all refer to these celestial powers as the gods or angels of nations. And Deuteronomy 4 is one of these passages. And Deuteronomy 4 is actually incredibly important, because it's talking about the context is not to make any graven images. So this is an an iconic passage. This is a passage about idolatry and not worshiping the powers of the gods. And it actually narrates it has this list of creatures and then gives the reason for it, because Israel was exodus. They were elected and chosen from out the nations and they're not given to these powers. So I want to read this text, because it's very surprising for many who haven't considered it as a background for 1 Corinthians 15, but it actually follows the same list of creatures. I'll read it. It says closely guard your souls because you did not see a likeness on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horib in the mountain from the midst of the fire. Do not act lawlessly and make for yourselves a carved likeness of any image, a likeness of male or female, a likeness of any animal that's on the earth, a likeness of any winged bird that flies into the heaven, a likeness of any reptile that creeps on the ground, and a likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth. So here we see there's the same list in the same order of creatures in the earthly as Paul lists here. Now, there is the reptile included in Deuteronomy 4 passage, but that Paul does not include. And so someone might say, well, yeah, reptiles in that list. It's not in Paul's, but reptiles are in the list in Genesis 1 as well. So that's not a category to dismiss this. Yeah, it's not an impediment either way. Right, either way these reptiles are listed in Genesis 1 and in the Deuteronomy 4 passage, but Paul lists them in the same order and Deuteronomy also has this division between the earthly creatures and the celestial, because right after he lists those creatures, Deuteronomy says, and do not lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun, the moon and the stars and the author of Deuteronomy calls them all the hosts of heaven and be drawn away and worship them and serve them those which the Lord your God has allotted to all the nations under the whole heaven.  So this is very interesting, the conglomeration of language here in Deuteronomy 4, the language that's used in this list because the premise to not make any graven images of any of these creatures the fleshly creatures was you didn't see his likeness and it's the the Greek term here is omeoma now Paul uses this term elsewhere Paul uses this term of Christ when he takes on the likeness of sinful flesh, so that the body itself is referred to in this language so the likeness is of these fleshly creatures so when Paul is listing the differentiation of these bodies the earthly and the celestial it follows it not only the same pattern in Deuteronomy 4, but this second group in Deuteronomy 4 the sun moon stars are called the host of heaven that were allotted to all the nations and so this is part of the Deuteronomy 32 world view elsewhere you know in Deuteronomy 17 3 you have the language to come back up of this other gods language where it says if there is found in your midst any of your towns which the lord your god is giving you a man or woman who does what is evil on the side of the lord your god by transgressing his covenant and has gone and served other gods and worship them whether the sun the moon or any of the host of heaven which I have forbidden so in Deuteronomy 17 you already have this this type of language again repeating the same type of language from Deuteronomy 4 sun moon and host of heaven is kind of just a secondary for sun moon and stars and they're called the other gods and so later in Deuteronomy 29 the language pops back up of allotment in 29 26 and they went and served other gods and worshiped them gods whom they had not known whom he had not allotted to them so again we're drawing on that allotted language from 4 and of course it climaxes in the song of Moses and Deuteronomy 32 that your listeners are well aware of with the allotment of the sons of god or angels of god over the nations so what we're having here is if this list is the list that Paul's drawing on why is he drawing on this list instead of Genesis because this passage we might forget what it's actually about resurrection isn't just about hey there's a miracle you get to live eternally and get back up out of the grave it's an actual change of nature here and these celestial bodies are not just kind of inanimate objects for Paul that he's listing in the Jewish cosmology in the Jewish view of the cosmic order these creatures are these are actual creatures these are beings and not just beings creatures but specifically that language of sun moon stars is used for the gods of the nations for the ones who would rule over the FNA or the nations you know it's really interesting while you were going through that I ran a quick search here on the for the the quote on quote reptile or other translations would just have quadruped the thing that's omitted and one of the references is Romans 1 and it has the other elements there man birds animals you know with them and that's clearly idolatry it's actually in the verse that talks about exchanging the worship of the creator for the created thing you know making themselves images and so on and so forth so that's a pretty clear the idolatry is a pretty clear element here yeah and it's amazing because why scholars wouldn't recognize this list it is kind of boggling my mind because Paul in 1 Corinthians has already drawn on this list he's already drawn on the Deuteronomy language in earlier in 1 Corinthians because after 10 yeah and 8 through 12 is dealing with the idolatry issues and there even he even quotes from Deuteronomy 4 for example in the the famous Christology passage in 1 Corinthians 8 5 and 6 when he says therefore as to eating food offered to idols we know that an idol has no real existence that is there is no god but one which is coming from Deuteronomy 4 35 and 39 he says for although there may be so called gods in heaven and earth as indeed there are many gods and many lords yet for us there is one god the father and one lord you know that's the passage so what's interesting there is that's the passage of election from Deuteronomy that for us you know we've been exodus out we've been drawn out of Egypt which has their own gods allotted to them and we have one father one god it's Yahweh the god of Israel and so the same kind of complex of language he's already drawing on in 1 Corinthians and continues to draw and it's very interesting but back to the Deuteronomy 4 passage Paul's not wouldn't be the only one in Second Temple Judaism at his actual time to use Deuteronomy 4 this way to talk about these celestial bodies as actual rulers over the cosmos matter of fact and we've talked about this before Mike but Philo actually uses this same exact Deuteronomy 4 passage when he's describing the Jewish view of the cosmos when he describes the Jewish view of the cosmos and how the cosmos is ordered and set up the passages from special laws 1 13 and 19 I'm going to read that to you because this is fascinating and some people just have never made these connections so the passage reads like this Philo says some have supposed that the sun and moon and other stars were gods with absolute powers and the term here is autocratoras meaning they're just they have powers in and of themselves you know and in ascribed to them the causation of all events but Moses held that the cosmos this is the term in Greek for world that Paul uses all the time the cosmos was created and is in the sense the greatest of commonwealths having rulers and now this term for rulers here is Arkotas an excuse this is the term that Paul uses the terms that Paul uses for the powers and the principalities same terms so Philo is talking about the cosmos as this great government saying it has rulers these rulers and it has subjects now for the rulers the Arkotas all the celestial bodies the Orinupantas the all the celestial bodies he says fixed we're wondering for subjects such beings as exist below the moon in the air on the earth so you see the separation here just like Deuteronomy 4 sets out right you have the celestial bodies that rule everything under the moon which is air on the earth so we got birds the creatures under the dome and all that kind of stuff it's still part of the world as we know it now he goes on we'd experience it yeah he goes on and says the said rulers however in his view have not unconditional powers but they are rulers or lieutenants of the one father of all and it's by copying the example of his government exercised according to justice and law deacons so this is used for righteousness all the time in the New Testament over all created beings that they equip themselves the right but to those who do not describe the charioteer mounted above attribute the causation of all events in the cosmos to the team that draw the chariot as though they were the soul agents so he's picking on the Greeks you know he's like look these dumb Greeks they're attributing all the works of the creation to these little secondary rulers the ones who actually draw the chariot of the big boss guy on the chariot they're worshipping the flunkies yeah they're making he's making fun of them he goes on to say from this ignorance now this is where it gets interesting look at the passage he quotes here he says from this ignorance our most holy lawgiver would convert them to knowledge with these words quote do not when thou seest the sun moon and stars and all the host of heaven go astray and worship them Deuteronomy 419 quotes the same passage and he says well indeed Lee and aptly does he call the acceptance of the heavenly bodies as gods going astray and wandering and then later he says the other stars in accordance with their sympathetic affinity to things on earth acting and working in a thousand ways to preserve the all have wondered infinitely far and supposing that they alone are gods so all the gods which since describes in heaven must not suppose to possess absolute power but to have received the rank of coordinate rulers naturally liable to correction though in virtue of their excellence never destined to undergo it isn't that really interesting how phylo a Jew would use Deuteronomy 4 essentially for evangelism that you guys need to quit worshiping the lesser ones and turn your attention to the real to the true god the one that actually does run everything it's just kind of interesting very good point because what's going on here is he so he himself as a Jew so in his mind he's one of these chosen people and so he's not under those powers but in his mind all the other nations are and so and he's and even calls them the celestial bodies themselves are the Arkontas and excuse of the rulers and principalities now this is exact same language Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 15 he calls them the celestial bodies same terms that phylo is using and even calls them earlier in 1 Corinthians the rulers principalities and powers we're going to come back to that but there's something about phylo here that's very interesting in this passage he thinks that these powers are fine he's like all the gods that this cries in heaven they're not they don't possess absolute powers but they're subordinate rulers and they are naturally liable to correction but though in virtue of their excellence they're never destined to undergo it so he's not an apocalypticist phylo doesn't think there's anything wrong with these gods per se he just thinks Greeks are stupid to worship them he's like you should worship the one father of all you know why are you attributing all things to these secondary powers he doesn't really have a problem with them though as much now phylo is very platonic though he's very platonic he's very involved in platonic readings of the Old Testament he has all kinds of allegory that he uses platonic philosophy to describe Old Testament texts and Plato commonly has this that shares the same kind of a view that you have powers that are ruling over humans because they can't take care of themselves so a passage that talks about this in Plato is in Plato's laws in 4.713 and in 7.738 there's this conversation that goes on in Plato's laws and the Athenian says this when they're describing kind of the order of the cosmic government he says well then tradition tells us how blissful was the life of men in that age furnished with everything in abundance and of spontaneous growth and the cause thereof is said to have been this well so why is everything working so great why is everything in like this beautiful cosmic order he gives you the reason he says Chronos you know they're high god of time he says he was aware of the fact that no human being as we have explained is capable of having irresponsible control of all human affairs without becoming filled with pride and injustice so pondering this fact he then appointed as kings and rulers for our cities not men but beings of a race that was nobler and more divine namely demons he acted as we now do in the case of sheep and herds of tame animals we do not set oxen as rulers over oxen or goats over goats but we who are of a nobler race ourselves rule over them in like manner the god in his love for humanity said over us at that time the nobler race of demons who with much comfort to themselves and much to us took charge of us and furnished peace for us and modesty and orderliness and justice without stint and thus made the tribes of men free from feud and happy so this is in Play-Doh yeah which which book was that in Play-Doh this is in Play-Doh's Laws okay well catch this this is really interesting not long ago you don't know him but the audience will Doug Vandoren sent me an email with a passage in Play-Doh about this about Deuteronomy 32 World View and this is at the end of his critics and I'll just read you a couple lines from it he says this is Play-Doh in the days of old the gods had the whole earth distributed among them by allotment there was no quarreling for you cannot rightly suppose that the gods did not know what was proper for each of them to have so you know obviously he has the gods deciding this distribution among themselves as opposed to the biblical version where these sorts of any such arrangement is at the behest you know of the most high you know to use biblical language Play-Doh says knowing this that they should seek to procure for themselves by contention that which more properly belong to others they all of them by just apportionment obtained what they wanted and people their own districts and when they had people them they tended us their clings and possessions as shepherds tend their flocks accepting only that they did not use blows or bodily force as shepherds do but governed us like pilots from the stern of a vessel which is an easy way of guiding animals holding our souls by the rudder of persuasion according to their own pleasure thus they did guide all mortal creatures different gods had their allotments in different places which they set in order I mean that is absent of the most high again which is obviously really important for biblical theology that's the same idea you know and so when Paul even when Paul I mean he's writing to the Corinthians he doesn't have to like educate them well you gotta get your Jewish theology in your heads and then I can talk to you people I mean he can address them on the same basis but this idea was very familiar you know what's missing of course again is again the biblical theological element of the most high and of course the most high in the incarnation and all that kind of stuff but you can see the framework for them is already there even as Gentiles yeah absolutely and Philo it's interesting because you know Philo Plato's writing hundreds of years before Philo and when Philo's a student he sees these kinds of worldviews he sees this very congenial this is what we've talked about in our scriptures you know this is and he uses Deuteronomy 4 to describe that setup of the cosmos that this is when and he even uses the language from the Septuagint of God's creation but he likens it to the election of Israel because Deuteronomy 4 is the grounds for not worshiping those beings is the election of Israel taken out from the power so they are not under them yeah and that's perfect with the whole disinheritance or divorce idea that happens back at Babel Deuteronomy 32 you know I'm distancing myself from you and I'm going to elect Israel I'm going to call Abraham yeah that yes the Abraham part is super important here because the language here in Deuteronomy 4 the same list of powers here the grounds to not worship those beings is because they were allotted to the ethnic they're allotted to the nations they're not one of them anymore they've come out from under them it's very interesting and so in where the Greeks can talk about them as demons because it's not all the time we think that's talked about all the time in the New Testament just demon demon demon but it's very specific passages that mention them because in 1 Corinthians Paul does mention these demons in the same an iconic passages in the against idolatry passages earlier in 1 Corinthians 10 20 verse 21 Paul says no I imply that what the ethne the nations sacrifice they offer to demonize the demons and not to God I do not want you to be participants with demons Deuteronomy 30 exactly verse 17 that's the passage there it is you cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons you cannot partake of the table Lord table of demons so what Paul's envisioning here is they've actually come out from under them they're not actually under their rule anymore and you see this pop up this language people read over this language and they're not catching the narrative there's a election narrative going on here where Paul talks later in 1 Corinthians 12 2 he says you know that when you were ethne when you were nations you were led astray to mute idols however you were led you see the language there he's drawing on the idolatry section still from this idea from Deuteronomy 4 that you were under them and that made you ethne right because those nations they have those celestial powers so you were allotted to them right so you were going after those idols however you were led to do so you know it's like you were led into doing that by the powers in Paul's mind so he calls them demons just like the Greeks do so that this whole idea is you were ethne but you've been taken out from under them now a lot of Paul scholars in recent scholarship you know as well as I do Mike that this debate over identity in Paul are they Jews are they is it a new thing called Christianity are they just practicing Judaism it's so these debates are so caught up in kind of the ethnic identity and modern Jewish Christian relations conversations that they sometimes become ah historical at times and you know and it's kind of straying away from the language that Paul's using because Paul when he's saying that you were pagans you were nations or ethnic you were Gentiles it's not meaning it's like all of a sudden you're becoming a Jew you know and so it's a theological it's a theological category not a ethnic category exactly it's theological you they were under these demons they were under these powers but now all the way back to 1 Corinthians 8 where the conversation began we don't we don't have those other gods anymore we have one god it's Yahweh so they picture themselves whatever's happened as a new exodus a new election which this is an Old Testament concept right I mean the idea of election is exodus in the Old Testament take take the language with Abraham right when Abraham's chosen out of the 70 nations that that's the Deuteronomy 32 worldview right there in Genesis 10 11 he's taken out he's not one of the 70 Israel or Jacob is not listed in the table of nations because they're not one of them they're not one of the ethnic they're taken out from them and by the time you get to Genesis 15 and you have the promise of star like seed the thing we talked about in my last interview what does he tell Moses or what does he tell Abraham right after that vision of star like seed he tells him that I delivered you Abraham out of the caledians I've purchased you I delivered you out of her the caledians to give you this land to inherit and that phrase in the Hebrew is kind of a stock phrase use all throughout Torah for the exodus where but you just change or the caledians for Egypt you know I am the God that delivered you out of Egypt to give you this land to inherit so he sees election as an exodus from under the powers you know you were under the powers I elect you I choose you out from the 70 who I had lauded powers over and you're mine you're my lauded inheritance it makes sense you know that the exodus event you know in the way that that's written about would you know would draw upon the earlier language of Abraham for that reason because again look at the way the whole exodus is set you know the Passover this night I will have victory over the gods of Egypt you know so you know he's it's this release you know from being under the dominion not just of Egyptians because that's the way we all think of the exodus you know the the physical bondage and slavery but the plagues are actually directed in the Passover you know the the last plague there specifically even though it's the death of the first born that that's where you get this language this night I will have victory over the gods of Egypt you know then you get the song of Moses in exodus 15 you know who is like you among the aleem yes just yeah I mean it's very consistent you know to have this this thinking that okay just as I rescued Abraham now I need to rescue you know my you know the children of Abraham because they're in Egypt they're in bondage I've heard their cries and so on and so forth but but you know the process of doing that is a release from bondage of the other gods that's that's that's it and and and those plagues are also a judgment of those gods right because so that's really important and and where you get now so the real question would become well then how's this all tied to resurrection but when we're thinking of resurrection with first Corinthians 15 we're not importing the narrative view of resurrection that actual Jews have so from their Old Testament because where do these ideas of resurrection start coming from it's Israel was dead they were alone you know they're beaten up and I delivered them I brought them to life it's it's always election language it's always exodus type language when you use when you get to Isaiah 24 through 27 the whole little apocalypse of Isaiah Mike you know this you're my thesis reader I wrote on this in my thesis but so that but everyone else hasn't heard it so in in in Isaiah 24 which 24 through 27 it's kind of like what scholars call the chaos comp you know is the is ordering the chaos and bringing you know ordering the chaos and creation bringing order it's seen as victory over the beast you know and there's the great celebration on the cosmic mountain and all that very very awesome passage too much to get into right now but an important part of that passage is when this thing goes down when this great new exodus goes down in the future the way it's talked about is all the nations are judged and in the judgment of all the nations in Isaiah 24 you have a judgment of the host of heaven and the kings of the earth and it went there yeah both so you have the so you have the gods of the nation idea and the king that rules under them because it's common in the ancient world this is not just a Jewish thing everybody thinks their god their kings are you know part of the family of the god that's over them because gods are territorial you know they have the territory they have a you know a tribe a family and so the king is a son of the god that's just a common notion kings are treated as gods that way they're venerated like gods for that reason so they're part of the divine family it's patriarchal language you know but so the kings of the earth or the host of heaven and the kings of the earth are judged and then there in Isaiah 40 we have this excuse me 24 we have this mention that the elders then will see the glory of god so he plays elders that's Isaiah 24 21 24 21 and what is that drawing on the exodus when did that when do we have elders beholding god exodus 24 exodus 24 there it is and you have the 70 surprise surprise ascend the cosmic mountain and these are human beings so they're going where the gods go in the in the ba'al epic atirat ba'al's consort invites all the divine council which in other places in the ba'al epic are called the assembly of the stars or the sons of god or just the assembly of the gods and they're called there the 70 sons of atirat the 70 sons ascend the cosmic mountain to celebrate the parting of the sea or the slaying of the sea this is an archetypical thing going on in the Hebrew bible where you have in exodus 24 the elect ones the ones who are taken out from under the powers have now ascended the cosmic mountain and they now the 70 of them surprise surprise like the 70 nations are taking up their function or role as part of what ancient Near Eastern people would have seen only as a role of the divine council and so Isaiah is drawing on that stuff and saying look when these hosts of heaven are judged and the kings of the earth are judged the elders will behold the glory and there's going to be and you fast forward to through Isaiah 24 through 27 and what do you find you find the cosmic mountain you find a great feast because they ate with the Lord back in exodus 24 they're eating with them again but this time all the nations will come to the mountain I should jump in here just for listeners' sake this whole all this talk that you hear about in evangelical especially prophecy circles prophecy talk about the marriage supper of the lamb that has deep deep Old Testament roots and specifically divine council kind of stuff that's right this whole celebratory supper of the victory of the lamb I hope you're listening because that's actually what David is just talking about here but it goes back to this Deuteronomy Exodus 24 all this concatenation of ideas that when the gods are judged think of the exodus the gods are judged this night I will have victory over the gods of Egypt we have the crossing of the sea in other words passing through the waters untouched by the waters the waters of course being the chaos imagery common throughout the Old Testament so we have victory over chaos it was like you among the gods you know we go to Sinai we make it to Sinai and there the 70 ascend to the mountain top Sinai and have a meal with the God of Israel exodus 24 they saw the God of Israel and it couldn't be any clearer and the number is significant just like you're pointing out but all of this is backdrop backstory to this thing the marriage supper of the lamb but when we hear that taught in church if it's stripped of just about everything we just talked about yeah because none of that comes along right because what we'll do we're so piece mail with some of these texts where you can't just rip these out of this deep narrative context when Paul is drawing on say these creature lists this is part of a much deeper narrative that's going on and he believes this is an eschatological exodus out from under the powers you were FNA you're no longer FNA you know you were under the demons you're not under them anymore you have one God and ultimately I know where you're going with this now and ultimately again we have this creature list in 1 Corinthians 15 tied in with a resurrection because your ultimate deliverance out from under the gods is going to happen at the resurrection and oh by the way by the way your resurrection is also a key element to displacing them you know the gods of the nations and replacing them becoming the reconstituted divine council which is the true God right sons of God even the terms that Paul uses it's amazing how we can look over these terms and not know all their weighted meaning when Paul caused his congregation that have received the Numa the spirit or the Pnefema when they receive this he caused them holy ones and even caused them the assembly of the holy ones right the church that's right out of Psalm 89 where it's used who amongst the assembly of the holy ones is like you Yahweh the gods it's divine council term that's why I just it's one of the few things that I just really dislike across the board about English translations using a term like saints yes it's just you lose every attachment to the Old Testament imagery when you dump holy ones and use something like saints and you know it's not a coincidence that every time almost every time Paul uses that language like in the opening of the letter to the holy ones in Ephesus or to the holy ones in Corinth he's attaching it to God and they he'll say things like our God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ so they appeal to God his father meaning that them being holy ones are already counted as sons of God they're already functionally and ontologically because they have the Pnefema the spirit they're already sons of God in that sense and so that's very important so what why again back to the first Corinthians 15 thing with some of this background the list follows perfectly that list from Deuteronomy 4 so why that list because we saw in Philo that these powers there's not anything really wrong with them you know just don't worship them as God's alone right well that's Philo is not an apocalyptic he's a Platonist he doesn't think that these powers need to be judged he doesn't talk about it he never goes to these texts but is there another text though that would give us a narrative for these powers these same powers from Deuteronomy that I think Paul is drawing on here are actually judged in conjunction with a resurrection and the answer is yes there is a passage and it's the one we talk about all the time in Psalm 82 because in Psalm 82 that passage talking about the judgment of the gods ends in the last two verses this way he says I said you are gods, sons of the most high all of you but you are dying like men or you will die like men in the Hebrew and like one of the rulers in Greek the auto-konton the same term that Paul uses for the powers same term in the Septuagint now it gets better it gets better but wait there's more so god whoever this god figure is in Psalm 82 that's listed at the beginning the god stands in the assembly of the gods and in the midst of the gods he holds judgment whoever this is and by the way he's getting on to them because he says how long will you judge unjustly which is the whole point the way Philo talks about it the way Plato talks about it they're supposed to rule injustice they're supposed to copy the rule of the father of all they're supposed to rule injustice and law keep the order of things but the critique of Psalm 82 is Psalm 81 in the Septuagint is that they have not done this they have not judged rightly they have judged unjustly so that's where you get to this critique and he goes into describing the injustice they've done but that's where you get the critique at the end that I said you're gods sons of the most high all of you but you're dying like men so see like men they're gonna die this is very important so only men die the celestial bodies the celestial gods they don't die so they're immortals they're made of different stuff than man man dies but they're gonna die like men they're like one of the rulers the Archonton you will fall and now the psalmist comes in in the Greek this is very important in the Greek you actually have yeah I'm looking at it the term arise oh god so whoever this god figure is in Psalm 82 the psalmist now is speaking to close out the psalm and he says the cry of the psalmist is arise oh god and judge the earth because you will obtain inheritance in all the nations so the arising here surprise surprise is Anastas in Greek this is the resurrection term exactly this is the term in the New Testament every time it's used the Anastasis or the Anastas this is the term used for resurrection that's really interesting because you can see how Paul if he has this matrix of ideas in his head could very easily see a double entend in that verse in other words it's not just the psalmist pleading you know logically in Old Testament theology for God to take back the nations to inherit them but here because of the resurrection language you could see that Paul could be thinking of believers well and but he is specifically this god figure whoever it is you know you can you could put Chris you could see Christology in there very easily I think this is where Paul is getting the narrative in 1 Corinthians 15 that would be now let me show this to you when you read that at SPL that will be awesome now watch this this is going to blow your mind when you go to 1 Corinthians 15 but before the passage we're talking about the nature of resurrection body he has a little mini apocalyptic narrative of what the resurrection is about so if you want to know if you're asking the question man what does Paul think is happening with this resurrection thing what's the resurrection thing all about he gives you like a little narrative into kind of what's happening in this whole resurrection thing that's going on why is the resurrection such a big deal is it just some kind of miracle tacked on to the atonement that God received his sacrifice or is there way more than that well Paul thinks there's way more than that because he says in this is back in 1 Corinthians 15 verse 20 through 28 listen to this he says but in fact Christ has been raised from the dead now it's important here the language that Paul's using in 1 Corinthians 15 I have to note this because people look over this he doesn't always use the term anastasis he doesn't always use it when he use throughout the passage it's called the hero which is just to rise up to raise up but whenever he uses anastasis it's always like a title of the event this is the event it's called the anastasis necron so the act of the event the imagery of what happens is agarro raise up but the event itself is referenced as anastasis so the event every time Paul does it if you know Greek or you're looking at the Greek you can see this when he describes the event it names the event it's the resurrection and then when he uses raising up it's always that other term now that's significant because if he's drawing on Psalm 82 this means Psalm 82 has been around for a long time and people have developed a narrative with that where it becomes like this event waiting on when is this judgment of the gods going to happen when is God going to rise up and take control well so that's the event itself the anastasis or the anastas right so Paul is describing this event he says verse 21 for as by a man came death by a man also has come the resurrection of the dead so you see he sees this as a big event so in the first creation man brought death with him but in this event the resurrection the dead something has changed right so he's like verse 22 for as an atom all die so in Christ all shall or in Christ shall all be made alive now what we would think of this all being made alive passage is it's like oh well then they'll all get up from the grave too but we know Paul doesn't think everyone gets a resurrection unto life and we know that the language of being made alive is used more than just physically getting up out of the grave because it's used all the time of bringing nations back to life and delivering them from the grave you know they're an impression in Egypt and I've brought them to life so it's kind of a restoration language of bring making things alive you know Adams Adams rule when he welcomed the evil ones in it just brought death to everything but then the next rule comes in all shall be made alive so it brings life right because that's how they read those putting the powers over the nations that's how Plato understands it that's how Deuteronomy understands it this is supposed to order the cosmos right this is supposed to set it all up you know balance everything out set up the order so that life can go on in God's world and so this is what's happening with the resurrection is all are going to be made alive right so in verse 23 he says but in each in his own order Christ the first fruits so there's our sewing metaphor that he's going to use in the nature of the resurrection body talk right so Christ the first fruits and then at his coming or at his Perusia those who belong to Christ now if if you studied New Testament before or if any listeners have studied the Perusia before the coming of Christ you may have come across this idea that Perusia is you have in the Greco-Roman world this is very common is common in the Semitic world too ancient ancient Hebrews will understand this concept as well when the when the king goes off to do warfare against the bad guys and all you all you guys are staying at home you don't know what's going on you don't know how the victory is going you're at home you're biting your nails you know is our king dead has our armies lost it's the deal he's gone off to fight for us you know and so you're waiting on that runner to come back right you're waiting that's that ancient thing you know if you studied Marathon you know they did that in Greece you know the runner comes back to tell how the victory is gone well that's when you first see the term gospel in Isaiah the first term the first time you see the term good news because this passage is about the good news is how he starts the whole thing is the gospel and he's like when you first see that being used it's the one how beautiful are the feet of the one bringing the good news saying our God reigns meaning the runner has run back and told us that God has secured the victory and so the Perusia is the coming is where you go out to meet him after he's coming back from conquest you have the messengers on the wall and they look and he's come he's come and there's a big parade and pomp and circumstance welcoming the God king back after he's conquered to the city to celebrate so at his Perusia Paul is saying all those who belong to Christ as well so it's picturing Christ in this kind of conquering king imagery of the one who's gone to do battle and that's how he understands the resurrection and if you don't believe me well let's keep reading Paul says in verse 24 then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the father after what? destroying every rule every authority and power and guess what the terms are he uses here the same terms used from Deuteronomy 4 when Philo reads it when others read it of the principalities and powers which are the celestial bodies who rule over the nations he's destroying them he is the conquering king and upon his resurrection the resurrection the dead is destroying the rulers and what did we have in Psalm 82 at the rising of God it's at the destruction of the rulers that's really interesting because there are several things here and I'm sure people are catching them at least if they're regular listeners here but it's another one of these already but not yet kinds of things if you're going to talk about the inauguration of the kingdom and you're going to connect that with the resurrection and even before that the kingdom being inaugurated by Jesus sending out drumroll please the 70 and giving them power over demonic forces you have all of these things that inaugurate the kingdom and again move it along kickstart it, kick it down the road keep it moving inexorably until the ultimate consummation of all these things when we are put over the nations to him that overcomes I will put over the nations to him that overcomes I will share the rod of iron that they will rule the nations with Revelation 2 and 3 where Jesus quotes a messianic Psalm and applies it to us just this crazy kind of talk but it's very consistent watch what Paul does with this though because his whole destroying every rule and power he has something in mind that he's drawing on he says in verse 25 for he Christ must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet and the last enemy to be destroyed is death so what passage is he drawing on here the enemies under his feet this is Psalm 110 putting the enemies under his feet now the question then becomes David is this really drawing on Psalm 22 any example in early Judaism where that actually happens where people are using Psalm 22 to talk about the judgment of the gods and all that is that really what he's talking about yes we do surprise surprise thanks to kumran when we dig up kumran we found this text 11Q Melchizedek about Melchizedek and it uses Psalm 22 in the same way and even makes the connection this is Melchizedek from Psalm 110 these connections these are the two passages exactly it's connecting Psalm 110 the Melchizedek figure to the person who comes in in Psalm 82 I'll read the passage from 11Q Melchizedek this is from kumran it says in the it's the time of the year of grace of Melchizedek and of his armies the nation of the holy ones of god surprise surprise here of the rule of judgment as it is written about him in the songs of David Psalm 82 it's interesting calls it a psalm of David in the Hebrew canon it's a psalm of Asa interesting who said Psalm 82 1 God will stand in the assembly of the gods in the midst of the gods he judges and about him Melchizedek he said from Psalm 7, 8 and 9 and above it to the heights return God will judge the peoples so this judgment figure is this Melchizedek figure this redeemer figure who comes and does it it's not Yahweh himself it's Melchizedek who's the agent of Yahweh going and destroying the powers and inheriting or judging the peoples he says as for what he said Psalm 82 2 how long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked and then the interpreter says it's interpretation concerns belial and the spirits of his lot so it's the allotted spirit there's the allotment language he says who turning aside from the commandments of God to commit evil but Melchizedek who will carry out the vengeance of God's judgments and on that day he will free them from the hand of belial and from the hand of all the spirits of his lot so already they're reading this as an eschatological event where you have the redeemer figure coming with his holy ones to judge the gods and to redeem them from those evil allotment using Psalm 82 in the same way for listeners this is a pre-christian text so Paul comes along and using the same language fixes this to what happened on the cross to the event of the cross and the resurrection and of course the inauguration of the kingdom that we read about in the New Testament you know what else the victory imagery reminds me of is Psalm 68 because and for those who have read Unseen Realm I talk about Psalm 68 Mount of Bishon and then you get this connection of Mount Bishon there's only one mountain in the region of Bishon way up north there and that was Hermon you get the whole Watchers thing going on and you know so there you have plural agents to the one big bad guy of the realm the gateways to the netherworld and Ed dry and the lord of the dead all of these things connect together and that's the passage of course Paul quotes about Christ ascending the resurrection then the coming of the spirit and the church who against whom the gates of hell will not be able to withstand you know they're the ones that in connection with this event they get the pastors the prophets and the apostles and the teachers and the whole grocery list there I mean all of these points I'm hoping listeners catch this basically nothing that David has talked about today works in isolation from any of the other points David has brought up today they're all interconnected in a matrix of ideas that's right it's an ongoing narrative and it's an expectation that this narrative has a climax in the resurrection that's how they're understanding it and by the way that this 11 q Melchizedek text it goes on immediately in the next line and says that to his aid to Melchizedek's aid shall come all the gods of justice and so these whoever they are are coming to aid Melchizedek in the destruction of Belial and the other spirits to redeem the people so there's already divine figures involved in this are you looking at the Hebrew text for the gods of justice there I'm wondering what the word justice is I can look at it you can continue I need to make this point he says there's a bunch of lacunas here and like lacunas are spaces where we don't have text and so there's these spaces here we don't have text it's like who blank blank blank all the sons of god blank blank this blank blank and then you have a mention of what I just mentioned earlier with Isaiah the author says is the day of peace about which he said and then there's a blank through Isaiah the prophet who said Isaiah 52 7 how beautiful upon the mountains the beat of the messenger who announces peace the messenger of good news who announces salvation saying to Zion your god reigns this is the idea so the narrative is already there in their minds and hundreds of years before Jesus we have this this this is developed for a while Psalm 82 is being used in an eschatological way so you have this redeemer figure who goes and judges the gods from the hands of Belial and the spirits of his lot he's going to deliver them in Paul's case the rulers the principalities the powers and as a result they're going to be destroyed and that's when that's the good news that's announced is that this is happening this is the good news it's salvation it's it's new exodus it's we're being delivered out from under the powers you know the powers are being destroyed that's the narrative that Paul is drawing on this is what's happening in Christ's resurrection this isn't just like hey good job on the cross you can come to heaven now and it's all done it's like you're ascending into heaven and cosmic warfare is going down you are destroying the principalities and powers and as a result others are going to join him at his coming those who belong to Christ so whatever has happened to Christ then in his resurrection will also happen to his and this is the point when he actually gets into the nature of the resurrection body in verse 35 through 50 there that we read and this is why he draws his list from Deuteronomy 4 instead because at this resurrection it's being seen as this new exodus this new election it's out from under the powers when you go to die the seed goes in the ground it does not come out the same thing the earthly body is made of flesh you've talked about this in the previous podcast and then the heavenly body is of glory now we see another connection with this language from Deuteronomy 4 you remember me mentioning that Deuteronomy 4 talks about the likeness right well we see that and you talked about this in your podcast and I was a little bit frustrated you already talked about it because I wanted to mention it but you beat me to it is the language from Ezekiel 1 when you see the heavenly one the glory of Yahweh it says he's in the likeness of a human being and it's the same term the Omeoma in Greek is the same term that's being used in Deuteronomy 4 and it's the same term used in Philippians so Paul's thinking in this general idea that it is the likeness of a human form but it is not the same stuff it is celestial it is like the gods that's what the body is like and we already have precedent for this in passages of course like Daniel 12 where the resurrection it's at the arising of Michael surprise surprise and in the Greek it's the same Anastas and they're reading and many commentators say Daniel 12 is reading Psalm 82's tradition of the arising and the conquering of the foes because Daniel 8 you have that falling language that Psalm 82 uses of the stars or that are the hosts of heaven and then you have the mention of those princes of heaven who are cosmically fighting in the heavens against Israel's messenger Michael against the messenger that comes and against Michael Israel's chief prince so when that chief figure that chief heavenly figure defeats the other princes and arises that's in Daniel 12 when the resurrection takes place once Michael has arise victorious so to the resurrection happens and you all shine as the stars of heaven you know what's really interesting about this again we're not well I'll just say it this way if you think in all of this rising Michael talk if listeners sort of just try at least for this moment to not think of their own resurrection in other words to not think of the the end times the ultimate consummation of this if you think about Jesus you see this combination you see it in Revelation 12 the war in heaven passage and I've spent a lot of commentary you know unlike look again this has nothing to do with some prime evil rebellion that comes from Milton's Paradise Lost or the 19th century the gap theory or all this kind of stuff if you look at the passage this war in heaven happens in conjunction with again I'm not alone here but you have the birth you have astral signage of the birth of the Messiah you have the war in heaven and then you also have him being caught up you have the resurrection language and so it would be another indicator that all of this the kingdom, the resurrection the defeat again of the powers has already been launched it's already in motion it's already happening it's not something completely wait until the end it's right now so again you have this whole matrix of ideas and the reason I there's a specific reason I'm bringing this up because a number of our listeners especially those who were you know touched in some way by the Fern and Audrey episode and their ministry to survivors of ritual trauma a lot of which involves very bad theological enslaved by thoughts of being owned by Satan they can't have victory their God hates them because of what happened to them all this kind of stuff and it's all tied into this this notion that they are abandoned and that they there's no sort of recourse to defeat the powers you're just going to die like you are and all this kind of stuff it's just a lot of bad thinking and one of the reasons why that Fern and Audrey have found the Divine Council stuff so helpful is because it focuses on the enactment of the already present victory and another way of saying that is the already present defeat of the powers so here we go again here we go again it's the same again set of ideas drawing in it here we are starting in 1st Corinthians 15 back in Deuteronomy and you get the whole matrix of ideas again so I just wanted to point that out yeah and so I guess to wrap up this nature of the body thing when we go back to the original passage we're talking about this 1st Corinthians 15 passage the whole question in verse 35 is how are the dead raised what kind of body do they come so it's what kind of bodies are these we talked about that in your previous podcast but the important part here is those fleshly creatures are the ones from Deuteronomy 4 that are ruled over by the celestial creatures and so yeah this is not just a question of the nature and the kind of stuff the body's made out of this is also talking about their actual roles because these fleshly creatures the humans, animals, birds, fish that's all the 1st order from Deuteronomy 4 and then the next order is the glorious ones the sun, moon and other stars do you realize, I mean I know you do but folks you gotta listen to this because what David's describing is the return to the correct Edenic relationship where the sons of God the family of God instead of worshiping the creature dominated by other gods everything is corrected it is brought back into proper order in this consummated new earth this eternal existence with us ruling over the nations there's a global Eden all this concatenation of ideas again I'll try not to interrupt you again that's just so cool it's amazing really and there's a lot of scholars who unfortunately I think get this wrong and I want to be humble because you know I'm still a young guy in all this but there's this when we when we're so quick to rush to apologetic answers for the resurrection like well let me prove it to you here's 1st Corinthians 15 right here you know and you'll miss all of the Jewish background to this all of the Old Testament background to this this is an incredibly carefully put together passage and this is where it connects with the Abrahamic promise thing because the Abrahamic promise thing that we talked about in my previous interview and my articles finally come out after all this time it's finally in print it's in libraries of major that has good biblical studies resources journal for study of Paul in his letters volume 5.2 it's on their website if you like it's $15 I don't get a dime so don't think I'm getting money out of this you know the publisher make sure of that the publisher make sure I don't get nothing out of that but it's a journal I don't blame them so the point is I've talked about this before that this is how early Jews are understanding the promise to Abraham in the end is that the promise to Abraham in the end is that his seed come like the stars that is how they understand this and the Abrahamic promise the promise the fangelia is close to what we understand as fangelion the good news or gospel when Paul says this in Galatians you know the gospel was preached to Abraham when he was told that the nations would be blessed by his seed right that was the gospel and this again 1 Corinthians 15 is about the gospel and when we don't read this in its proper narrative context you're not going to understand the nature of the body passage because already it's framed Paul even gives us like a little parentheses to frame this whole discussion in and it's the kingdom of God that's the language that he's drawing on in the 2028 passage where he narrates to you what's happening in the resurrection he says he must deliver the kingdom to God after destroying the powers and so then God will be all in all once it's all done and everything's in subjection to him in Galatians 3 the gospel preached beforehand to Abraham what does he say he quotes the covenant exactly you're going to be set free from these powers it's freedom it's election it's the seed of Abraham you're chosen out from the nations it's happening on a cosmic scale it's cosmic election it's cosmic exodus this is a huge event the resurrection that he's talking about the event he's getting from that Psalm 82 Deuteronomy world view that's how he understands it is that no longer you're not just nations anymore because if you're nations you're under the demons you're still eating with the demons you're not eating this great supper when we get together with the one God and one Lord and how does he talk about that if he's drawing on the exodus we should see it if that's what he's talking about and that's exactly what you see in 1 Corinthians 10 of this whole long section on idolatry he says hey it was our fathers that were baptized into Moses in the cloud and the fire and they ate the spiritual food and drank from the same spiritual drink from the rock which followed them which was Christ so Paul is already narrating their whole experience of baptism, receipt of the spirit as going down into the waters going through the waters coming out the other side in exodus death raised to walk a newness of life, you see the same stuff in Romans, you see the same stuff in Colossians, transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of his beloved son this is the big narrative this happens the new exodus you go into baptism unto death and you're raised to newness of life, you're no longer under the powers look at the baptism in imagery it's very important this just leaks into all sorts of New Testament theological elements but the important part is lots of scholars have missed this language of saying well Paul doesn't think they're actually going to become celestial bodies, well yes he does because we have a misunderstanding of what Paul means by that, normally when apologists are saying no no no he's not saying they become stars, he understands them to be the gods these are the powers from Deuteronomy these are the ones that have Debenion and authority, he even uses the language like we pointed out yes this is a deification passage resurrection is not just hey you get back up and you got the look of another little human body just like you had before, no it is a different thing and if you listen carefully you can hear the language and when he's describing the polarization there's a good book on polarity and change in 1 Corinthians by Asher about this where he's like so too is it with the resurrection of the dead, what is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable, these are terms used by Philo and other Jews to describe the powers, they're imperishable the Stoics use that language to talk about the pneumatic beings, the spirit beings they're imperishable whatever that body is made of it's made of stuff that's imperishable just like those beings who are imperishable and it's sown and dishonor so here's the sowing metaphor coming back the seed, it's sown and dishonor so you put the seed in the ground and it dies and it's raised in glory glory is the language he's used for the celestial creatures they are of glory and a lot of English translations will mess up is in verse 40 where he says when he splits the celestial and the earthly you know and he says there are celestial bodies and there's terrestrial bodies but the glory of the celestial is one and of the earthly is another is how it should read but they always add another glory in there they say but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind and the glory of the earthly is another but he doesn't use the term glory for the earthly right he never does he says the glory of the celestial is of one kind and of the earthly is another it's a good example of English translator trying to help and not messing it up they mess it up the same with the whole promise to Abraham thing when people try to interpret that they add the term numerous in there and they're like and so numerous shall your seed be even though he doesn't ever say numerous he says so shall your seed be like the stars so this is where this is coming from I think this is the climax of the promise because in the resurrection out of Daniel 12 and a host of other traditions in 2nd temple period you can find it in 1 Enoch 104 2 through 6 you can find it in 2 Baruch 51 1 through 12 you can find in 4th Ezra 797 you can find it in Testament of Moses on and on the second an important one you can look up later is 4 Maccabees 17 5 through 6 that retells the resurrection of the of the sons of the hope for the resurrection of the sons from 2nd Maccabees 7 it retells the story and and climaxes with how August is the this faithful mother she's like the moon she out shines the moon and and your your like stars and truly are they sons of Abraham so it's it's it's so obvious this is how the Jews interpret apocalyptically like the the climax of this narrative the promise of Abraham they become like the stars and what was the promise the seed it's the seed and this is exactly why Paul is using the metaphor here this is because in his mind is this promise of becoming like the stars in the resurrection and he understands that as the seed of Abraham and so that seed of the nefma the seed of the spirit comes in it's planted and that sucker dies and what comes out is the spiritual body it is the resurrection and the promise is fulfilled and they take up the dominion and if if you think well what this is all there in 1 Corinthians well if you go back to 1 Corinthians 6 this is the giveaway in 1 Corinthians 6 he uses the same language that connects all this dots from this kind of matrix of text that we're talking about if you remember the passage he says when one of you has a grievance against another does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the holy ones or do you know that the holy ones will judge the cosmos and the language is the exact same language of judging that's from Psalm 82 the judgment is connected to the inheritance the inheritance language of the nations is from Abrahamic promise and it's all the angels in the next line in the very next line and if the cosmos is to be judged by you are you incompetent to try trivial cases do you not know that we are to judge angels so this is he's already drawing on this narrative on this understanding long before you get to 1 Corinthians 15 so it should by that time if we know these texts if we know this complex of thinking it should become obvious but see what started out as man we're just getting the background text wrong develops into it's not just the background text we're getting wrong it's when we get that background text wrong we're not seeing the whole narrative that Paul's drawing on and how he actually understands what is taking place in the resurrection and the last thing I'll say about that is well David what about the Adam stuff because he says the first Adam and the last Adam isn't that from Genesis well if you know your Old Testament like a Jew knows is you know Adam isn't only about Genesis 1 and 2 Adam and the sons of Adam go all the way up into Genesis 11 so when you're thinking Adam as a Jew you're not you're elected out from under those guys you know all those nations they're the sons of Adam we're not part of them anymore we're not part of the nations anymore we're a whole another thing we're a kingdom of priests they're all the sons of Adam they're all the ones that have gone astray from a Jewish perspective you could say well all those nations they're still in Adam in that sense they're still the effnate they're still divided amongst the gods yeah but believers are united to the new Adam the second Adam again back to a global Eden everything is brought back full circle and corrected and made as it should have been and he's using Adam as a extremely powerful metaphor because he's playing on the dust language from Genesis from Genesis 2 of being made from the dust but what is he talking about he's talking about the seed that that old humanity that used to be enslaved to the powers when that goes in the ground once it's been planted from heaven because you're of heaven you're from the man of heaven which is the life-giving spirit that's life-giving that's the seed and when that old humanity goes back to the dust to dust you will return death that's the whole issue is death they go down and die the seed's planted and what comes out the other side this is the celestial this is a whole new humanity fine humanity who would you rather be united to the first Adam or the second one right but Paul's rhetoric is so brilliant here I mean connecting the seed to the man of dust to all the nations to the deliverance out from under the powers this is all his big epic apocalyptic narrative of the resurrection it's so much bigger than just getting up out of grave wow well I you know just to wrap up here I will I'm not going to give a name here I don't know who it is but don't spill the beans here but just an Old Testament scholar and friend who I can just remember several years ago getting into a little discussion about Divine Council what he actually said was I don't really know what any of that has to do with the New Testament I don't know if you remember that oh well I'm going to keep the guilty parties from being revealed from being revealed boy just sure be warmed and filled you know for their sake look it's really sad because a lot of New Testament scholars and I don't blame them there is just droves and droves of literature being published all the time and New Testament scholars are up to their ears I mean no it's like they just can't and some of them in their early education it didn't do a lot of ancient Near Eastern studies you know they didn't do a lot of contextual study of the Old Testament so they missed some of that images and some of the language that frames the whole stinking meta-narrative and so when you miss those key parts like early on and you're trying to piece together these narratives in their original context you're not actually reading the whole context well thanks for that I mean that was great that was a long episode here well yeah it was but I mean that just has so much good stuff in it again just this matrix of ideas and that's what I'm hoping people see that these things that we talk about Divine Council stuff it's not just in isolation these aren't just sort of arcane observations these are real curiosities I mean this stuff filters down into New Testament theology in really really significant ways so I'm glad you were able to come back on and you know give us the gist of the paper and I can hardly wait for the Q&A at SPL I mean in a good way because I'm always I'm just going to be curious because it's basically going to be a group of New Testament people and I'm willing to bet 90% of the scholars in that room will just be kind of looking around like what in the world just hit us you know like they just won't have the framework but I it's always interesting to see what surfaces in the Q&A and who's kind of who's got the framework and who doesn't and you know what you need to what you need to work on it it's actually good direction you know for what needs to be worked on well I'm curious when you talk to other scholars about the framework what kind of reaction do you get do they seem open to it or do they just shut you down or do they go back and process it and come back I mean what's the feedback you get yeah that's a great question I'll give you an example two weeks ago when I gave the paper at the regional SPL there is about you know 15 people in the room it's a small room and I asked when I was done with the paper the chair of the session was like okay open for questions and answers and it was just kind of like everyone's mouth is kind of like what just happened and looking at me like what and I'm like so I've convinced all of you you know and I got a lot of nods like well yeah I mean they didn't know what to say and I got a couple of good questions toward the end and some scholars who are really open to it some young scholars that were really open to it I know Michael Thompson from Erdmans had come in and listened to my paper and from Erdmans publishing and he's he's been interested and he's been following my work and I think he's tracking with me now I've had to explain some of this stuff to him but so some of them are catching on to this and I think some of them like Mike says are just deer but I'll tell you what I mentioned them before but Matthew Teeson who was teaching at St. Louis University who's now moving to McMaster in his book Paul and the Gentile Problem he nails it with the Abrahamic promise we basically say the same thing so but I have all the Divine Council background in mind but he gets the New Testament appropriation of the promise right he even connects it to the resurrection but and he cites my article a couple times in there so he gets it I think the newer generation let's just say the past 10, 15, 20 years of New Testament scholars I think this is fair to say have been forced to do more work in Second Temple material and on the one hand that's great but it only gets you halfway so they run into the matrix of ideas but they can't necessarily ask the question where did the Second Temple Jews, what were they thinking why were they looking at this passage this way they can see that the New Testament is part of that whole mix but it just puts them in touch with people living at the same time as the New Testament writers and everybody's sort of dealing with again the same set of ideas and New Testament is often a little bit different because of Christology and Jesus and all that but it doesn't take them back into okay why would they think of it this way and so somebody like you who has more of the Old Testament background under their belt I think we'll be actually able to contribute to solving that problem or at least that might be too optimistic of a word I wouldn't use that word. At least contributing to okay here's why they're looking at this this way but a lot of it for decades and decades if you're going to be a New Testament scholar what you did was you learned your languages really well and you did New Testament and then you did Greco-Roman stuff well again in the last few decades and NT Wright has had a big role to play in this because of his insistence really of taking New Testament material in its Second Temple context so that has really ramped up the insistence in doctoral programs and in New Testament scholarship generally to situate what we're thinking not just in Greco-Roman stuff but to go back to the Second Temple Jewish material but again they only go they only make half the trip because that material is informed by you know lo and behold the Old Testament and the Old Testament is informed by its wider ancient Near Eastern context so they get halfway but they're further than they were they're tracking on the right trajectories and so I think your generation David and you know as more of this effort to take an original context for the material at each sort of stage you know of the transmission of ideas the flow of ideas to take the original context seriously at each stage I think you know you and others like you will play a role in taking it back one more step to where it needs to go and so that that's my hope I mean that people who would bother to read Unseen World they if they read the footnotes they will notice that I'm talking about Second Temple stuff and ancient Near Eastern stuff and basically saying it all needs to get talked about but that's not the norm okay that has not been the norm but it is starting to shift well you know just a word of encouragement on my end I mean I come from small biblical studies college, Criswell College in Dallas and you know we had a great Septuagint seminar a few years ago with Kevin Wursler my thesis reader that you're on the committee with and in that class we talked a lot about and I think some students are getting interested in seeing like oh man there's lots of interesting developments when you get to Septuagint and how to how Greeks are translating these ancient Hebrew ideas into the Hellenistic culture and I think the trajectory thing is really important here that people are getting that younger guys are getting interested in is like well man maybe Septuagint is way more important than I thought it was and maybe we need to look at how these Greek scriptures are receiving the Old Testament and how they're translating it into language that makes sense in the Hellenistic world and that's we have to do that and see that this is all coming through those ancient Semitic trajectories into the Greek world and not try to do the Greek world back because it's more of a trying to what we see in Septuagint and in Paul in particular is trying to communicate these hard deep seeded and deep rooted no pun intended deep rooted Old Testament tradition and Jewish tradition and how do we express this in its Hellenistic world it used to be I can remember 30 years ago the first time I was contemplating I'm going to have to go through doctoral work here but I remember picking up catalogs and for New Testament programs what you had to do were things like you had to be able they wanted to basically try to make you a site reader you had to have translated at least once through the entire New Testament you had to take advanced Greek grammar you had to be good at and you had to be able to understand the actual criticism in other words it was all New Testament focused and the only thing you really did outside was you might get a little exposure to rabbinics which is actually post New Testament but you didn't have any emphasis on Second Temple Jewish material and so again I think this is something that we can really thank NT right for because he's had such an impact they're saying hey there's this whole 400 years of material here that you're kind of skipping you know that preceded the New Testament that has ties back into the old so why are we looking at just the New Testament and rabbinic material the later material it did you know it's really quite a different orientation and it's why it's one of the reasons why there's been a shift in scholarship to what you know as I would put it I think that's what has to happen we always have to be contextualized in what came before and what was going on during during and before and if you don't do that you are going to miss connections you're going to miss a lot of things yeah I think our listeners have a front row seat to this change you know through you Mike and David and it's interesting to watch as a layman this kind of shift in more knowledge is power so why it's logical why would you not go further back and get a bigger picture of what you're learning it's common sense I mean why would you not do that why would you not want to have floating around in your head what was floating around in Paul's okay or Peters or Jews you know because we've talked about Enoch I mean they were very familiar with Enochian you know the Enochian corpus the Enochian material why not read it because it's going to help you understand oh okay now I know why he's doing this over here and he's connecting this to that because I'm familiar with that material all right David why we appreciate that I look forward to meeting you at SBL and San Antonio this year and is there anything you would like to mention as far as your blog or paper or how the listeners can get a hold of you anything like that yeah sure that you can contact me via email at D Burnett five one at yahoo.com that's D B U R N E T T five one at yahoo.com the first current 15 papers not ready yet for publication after in November once I get feedback from the scholars at the seminar then it'll be publish worthy you can also I have a blog that I sometimes use I have a current series going right now at just D Burnett .com so those are ways to get in touch with me if you'd like and I'm happy of my article from the last interview if you're interested in it just you can email me at that at that email okay well great and I'll put a link to that email on the website as well David we appreciate it thanks Ben hey thanks a lot try and thanks Mike yeah thanks a lot David we're all right Mike that was a good one yeah a lot of good stuff absolutely so tell me about the study guides they're finally available yeah and that is the right word finally for those who maybe missed it on the blog or don't follow the blog you should follow the blog drmsh.com or follow me on Twitter at MS Hyzer the study guide for Unseen Realm as far as the Q&A companion it's a companion book written by Doug van Dorn set in question and answer format that tracks through the ideas presented in Unseen Realm that is finally available in print so you can actually get a print copy of that you can go to Amazon you'll find it just put in Unseen Realm companion or just Unseen Realm and scroll down through the things that Amazon will return to you so that's available in print and so is the leaders guide for small groups for supernatural again supernatural is the little version the light version of Unseen Realm and that has had a digital leader's guide but now that as well is finally available in print so you can find them on Amazon you can go up to again my website drmsh.com and search for them there but Amazon's probably the quicker trip do you know the difference of the two I mean could you speak on yeah I mean they don't really look anything like each other I mean that the deliberately designed the covers to correspond to the respective covers of the books so the companion for Unseen Realm will look a lot like the Unseen Realm covers you know the same colors that sort of Aqua greenish kind of thing and then the other one is that red color but the companion for Unseen Realm is like a catechism it's questions with answers and then the answers have footnotes and scripture references to them basically it distills the content of Unseen Realm into sort of a you know pithy Q&A kind of format and then the leader's guide for Supernatural again that we imagine people would use in small groups but you know people could use it for self study too that has just like summaries content summaries of sections of the book there I think I'm trying to remember how many chapters there are in Supernatural the little one I think it's 16 something like that and I think the leader's guide has either six or eight chapters so what each chapter is is a summary of a few chapters in Supernatural and then it has questions you know following that that people could use to facilitate small groups so they don't really look you know internally or externally with the cover like each other but they are meant to correspond to the other books in different ways all right and then also you're giving have a giveaway yeah tell me about that yeah there's still as of today anyway there's still I think it'll extend through the weekend a one yeah I think it will extend through the weekend but I'm giving away a copy of the translation of first Enoch the book of Enoch that I recommend and this giveaway has been going for a while on the blog Amazon lets you run them for seven days and I think the seventh day will go through the weekend if not you know I'm planning to do other days but it's random I don't determine who the winner is you can get the link on my website drmsh.com I also put it out on Twitter and I also put it on Facebook in the last day or two again just about the deadline for that so take a look up up there and I gotta do is click through a link and follow my Amazon page and then it'll tell you if you want or not but I'm going to do more of these so if you don't get in on this one you know follow the blog follow me on Twitter and you'll get the heads up you know about other giveaways to other books sweet good deal and you've got some more details about your LA trip yeah it on April 23rd I'm going to be in what is it called now San Juan Capistrano like I didn't even know there was such a place San Juan Capistrano it's about an hour from Los Angeles proper I think it's still in Orange County I'm not quite sure but April 23rd I'm going to be there the whole day it's an unseen realm event so we'll have about four hours of talking about unseen realm topics we'll probably have at least an hour and a half of Q&A and if people want books signed you know we'll do that so this I think is the ninth this will be the ninth unseen realm event but people can go up to drmsh.com slash events and you will see a link to the event on April 23rd so if you're in that area show up I do have to say that the space that they're giving for this event is small I've been told that only 50 people can fit in the room so it's not a whole lot of seating so you're going to need to get there early the doors will open at 8.30 in the morning the actual event will start at 9 and go until about 3 so in view of the space accommodations you want to take that into consideration and be there at the beginning so with that caveat hope to see you there well maybe we can pack it maybe if we get big enough we can move to the cafeteria or something it's in a Christian school there so they probably have a bigger area but I haven't been there so I don't know for sure but just go up to drmsh.com slash events you click on the event you'll get the address and all the details all right that sounds good all right Mike well next week we're going to do our 11th Q&A and then after that we'll do another Q&A so we're going to double down on our questions and answers to try to chip away and make some headway with our questions I've been getting a lot more questions here lightly so we really want to try to answer all of our questions so look forward to that next week Mike is there anything else you would like to add to the show no I think that's it I think we're all done all right well I just want to say thank you to David Burnett for the interview and thank everybody for listening to the Naked Bible Podcast God Bless thanks for listening to the Naked Bible Podcast to support this podcast visit www.nakedbibleblog.com to learn more about Jesus other websites and blogs go to www.brmsh.com


As of October 7, 2021, the Ministry of Health, Wellness and Elderly Affairs has recorded a total of 11,890 confirmed cases of COVID-19. The commencement of the current fourth wave has been approximated to be around July 25, 2021, and since then over 6,000 cases have been diagnosed with an average of 87 cases daily. There are currently 1,159 active cases. An estimated 35% of infections are asymptomatic and this is not always possible to determine who is infected. It is therefore important that we do not drop our guard and continue to make safe choices. As contact tracing efforts continue, the Ministry of Health appeals to the public to adhere to the established protocols in order to reduce further transmission to family, friends and other loved ones. Individuals who present signs and symptoms of COVID-19, as well as those who have been identified as contacts, are asked to get tested at the nearest respiratory clinic and to remain in quarantine until receipt of your results. Once someone tests positive for COVID-19, a contact tracer is assigned to that individual. Contact will be made with the individual to inform of the positive results and to collect data on exposure and contacts, as well as to provide guidance on testing and ways to keep your family safe. Please note that contact is made based on the information provided at the testing site. It is therefore imperative that persons accessing testing services provide the healthcare provider with active telephone numbers and in the case where a telephone number of a next-of-kin is provided, that the individual is informed of this and has means of making contact with you. The contact tracing team continues to encounter difficulties in reaching persons as they have provided telephone numbers that are inactive or have provided that of a next-of-kin who has no means of contacting them. As we continue to work together to address this pandemic, the Ministry of Health, Wellness and Elderly Affairs ask the public to continue practicing the standard recommendations to prevent the spread of infection. These include regular hand washing with soap and water, use of alcohol-based hand sanitizer if soap and water are unavailable, proper use of face masks, cleaning and disinfecting frequently touched surfaces, and maintaining physical distance. The Ministry of Health, Wellness and Elderly Affairs thanks the public for its continued support and will continue to provide updates on the COVID-19 situation on Island.