Episode 281: Madhavi Nevader – Biblical Models of Political Power

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Pete: Hey everybody, on today’s episode, I’ve got nerd in residence and now famous author Aaron Higashi with me as a co-host. Welcome, Aaron. Finally, you and I get to do a podcast together. 

Aaron: [Laughing] I’m very excited to be here. Now famous author of the only God ordained biblical commentary series on earth. 

Pete: The fame will last about 15 minutes, and then you’ll have to do it all over again. 

Aaron: I’m going to soak it up every second’s worth. I’m very excited to be here today. Very excited. 

Pete: I hope so. 

Aaron: Today, we are talking about biblical models of political power with Madhavi Navadar. 

Pete: Yeah, and she’s an associate dean and lecturer in Old Testament Hebrew Bible in St. Andrews University in Scotland, and she’s the author of an upcoming book, which is relevant for what we’re talking about today, Yahweh vs. David: Royal Reconfigurations in Deuteronomy and Ezekiel 40-48. It’s just a fascinating topic. And we just had a lot of fun talking with her. 

Aaron: All right, everybody, let’s get into this episode. 

Madhavi Nevader: When we got to the Dead Sea Scrolls and they’re talking about coming Messiahs, first of all, it’s interesting that there are multiple ones, but there’s a Davidic Messiah, there’s an Aaronic Messiah, and there’s a mosaic, a prophetic Messiah.

And so by the end of the first millennium, it seems that there is an understanding that there are kind of three ways, or three very important political figures: priest, prophet, and king.

Pete: Madhavi, welcome to the podcast. It is a pleasure to have you. 

Madhavi Nevader: It’s an absolute pleasure to be with you both. 

Pete: Well, listen, our topic, we’re talking about biblical models of political power. Let’s just start with the basics and talk about when does monarchy even begin? And, you know, there’s a biblical story and maybe a more complex story. So let’s just start with that. 

Madhavi Nevader: I think on the question of monarchy, there’s really two, at least two different stories to be told. There’s a really interesting, if sometimes confusing, story within the larger context of the Hebrew Bible, the kind of, oh I might say, the larger story of the corpus. And then there’s a very interesting historical story. Sometimes those two align and sometimes they don’t. 

So the Bible tells us that monarchy in Israel arose after the time of the Judges. If we want to put a date on that, and that sometime after, let’s say the 11th century BCE, and really to protect Israel from the threat of the Phoenicians. And this whole narrative is relayed in the early chapters of the Book of 1 Samuel.

Pete: Just remind us who the Phoenicians are too. 

Madhavi Nevader: Yeah, so the Phoenicians and also then the Sea Peoples were, in particular the Sea Peoples, who become known as the Philistines, were a kind of a group that came in from the Aegean at the end of the second millennium BC and really mix up political power throughout the ancient Levant.

And these are considered to be kind of political threats to the people of Israel, not yet a state, I should say, according to the Bible. And so they decide to ask for a king, according to one version of the story, or a king sort of emerges, who then protects them from the threat of these marauding foreigners.

Now, the other side of the story that is mainly the historical side of the story, is that it seems that monarchy throughout the ancient Levant, by which I mean that kind of strip of land, you know, on the eastern part of the Mediterranean, kind of after recovery from the collapse of the whole area at the end of the second millennium, something we still don’t have an answer for, but what we call the collapse of the Mediterranean, a number of small states just start to appear.

They’re interdependent polities, and they just begin to develop as networks and communities get larger. Largely based around certain cities, but sometimes multi-city nations, though I think the word is a little anachronistic here. And I suppose the time difference is a couple of centuries. And so we seem to have evidence of state formation sometime around the late 10th, early 9th century, even though this is debated by some scholars.

Pete: One thought here that I want to make sure that I’m getting this and for our listeners, I think this is fascinating. So historically speaking, the rise of Israel’s monarchy had factors beyond Israel. Things were happening in the world at that time, and others were doing similar things as the Israelites, where it just didn’t come out of nowhere. It’s almost like the time was right for this sort of thing. 

Madhavi Nevader: That’s exactly right. To make a totally unequal analogy [laughing] it’s a bit like the revolutions in Europe at the end of the 18th century. I mean, all of a sudden, they were just revolutions everywhere. And it’s not like somebody pressed a “there should be revolutions” button, but the situation, including the United States, um, situation was right that this took place. And so I don’t think anybody decided that now Israel should become a monarchy. It’s just how the story turned, whether that’s the biblical story or the historical story. 

Aaron: Would you maybe compare and contrast the monarchy in Israel and Judah with some of its closest neighbors? Like, is there anything that stands out as particularly unique?

Madhavi Nevader: So again, I think here it’s the two different stories. According to the Bible, it is quite different insofar as the monarchies belong to God. And there’s only one to begin with, right? It’s the tragic monarchy with Saul, which is a tragedy of biblical proportions, and then also David’s, and then only after David’s son Solomon does this nation split into two kingdoms. 

In terms of their size, you know, David and Solomon enjoyed and experienced a certain amount of international prestige and had a rapport with the nations around them, but they seem again to be sort of in the same boat. When Solomon builds his temple, it’s the king of Tyre who comes to kind of provide him with materials. And so there’s a certain amount of small international diplomacy in that respect. 

Now, when we then turn to the historical perspective, I think Israel and Judah looked precisely like every other kingdom around. Small, relatively safe, but entirely at the whim of the empires that were around them. And indeed, going back to Peter’s question is, I mean, one of the reasons that people seem to identify the ability for states to develop is that there wasn’t an empire at that point.

The power of Egypt had waned, and it was before Assyria really rose to power. So from the ninth century, Assyria is starting to come into real domination of the area. And so in that respect, they are exactly the same as the nations all around. 

The other thing I might say about the biblical presentation is that the monarchy in Israel and Judah are held to a covenant, a relationship that they are in with Yahweh. And either that’s the covenant made by with Israel at Sinai, or it’s the covenant that Yahweh makes with David, and that is a very particular story, though the logic behind it that there is a deal between a god and a king itself isn’t unique, but the story that kind of motors history along, you know, the requirements of this covenant does, again, spin the story in a very particular way.

Pete: What’s the relationship between, and I hope this is the right word to use, royal sovereignty, right, kingship, and Israel, which is a theocracy, right? It’s, it’s, God is ruling, but we still have kings. So, that’s sort of an odd thing to think about, you know, at least from a modern context, but what examples do you have maybe from the Bible that will help us understand the relationship between these two?

Madhavi Nevader: So, let me say firstly, that the idea that a god can rule alongside a human king is simply the given in the ancient world. And so to say that Yahweh is king, but there’s also David, actually doesn’t make any sense because that is simply how everybody understood what we consider to be traditional royal theology in the ancient Near East or ancient West Asia, if you want to use that term.

And what I mean by that is that there was simply, uh, taken as given the assumption that there was a symbiotic relationship between divine rule and human rule, whereby the king was a representative of the god. 

Now, I think it’s really important in the Bible to realize that that story is in the Bible, it’s just hard to find because it’s in the Psalms, and it’s in other places where outside the supernarrative, we’re into the nitty gritty of old theology that gets reworked into songs or poems or gets, you know, kind of reworked into different ideas. And so, you know, in the Psalms, let’s take a psalm with which we are all familiar because of the work it needs to do in the New Testament, which is Psalm 2, right? Where the king is called by God, “my king on my holy mountain,” Zion, right? Where he takes ownership of that human ruler, and then a few verses later calls him “my son.” Where we have what’s termed a divine adoption. It’s precisely what happens to Jesus when he’s baptized. Now, the way that we tend to understand that, and we tend to de-theologize that, because it’s a little bit too weird, right?

We say, oh, he’s just adopted, he’s not really the son of God. But he’s the son of God! Upon taking up the throne, the king becomes the son of God. And in that sense, they share a sovereignty. And again, I think you can see this work out in some of the royal expectations, again, slightly burrowed into the biblical texts. The king as warrior who’s protecting Yahweh’s people, external threat. The king as guardian of justice and judge, and wise men, these kind of, you know, think of Solomon as the epitome of the wise king. And indeed, even the king as the most basic, the guardian of the temple, the provider of the sacrificial cult and making sure that everything goes on correctly at the temple. To, perhaps in some instances, even a priest himself. 

And so, something like Psalm 110, that speaks of the king being a priest according to the order of Melchizedek, which, you know, well, I can’t speak for the states, but living in the UK now, you know, we sing Zadok the priest all the time, and, and so you kind of, you lose the importance of what that, you know, what is going on there. But that psalm is addressed to a king, and all of those aspects I think are human manifestations of divine power. 

An even better example, which, again, you just kind of read by it. One is, you know, if you have your nose in the Psalms, go have a look at Psalm 45. Not only is the king presented in these very heightened terminology, he’s very hunky and a great warrior, and he has great hair, but he’s called a god, called an Elohim.

And there’s a lot of kind of special pleading that goes on, but the Hebrew is pretty straightforward. Now is that he is God? No. But the king inhabits this realm between fully divine and he certainly isn’t entirely human. This kind of transitional figure. Marginal, but marginal only insofar as he’s between two worlds, not because he’s not important.

And so another psalm, something like Psalm 89, which is just such a phenomenal text. It talks about, first there’s a hymn to Yahweh defeating the sea and Rahab. And then it turns to the king and speaks of him as being the firstborn and various things like that. And then again, it’s a great instance of where your Bible makes decisions for you. It says that the king has his hand on the river, or on the rivers, probably with a small r, but we know that river was considered kind of one of the cosmic not enemy, but cosmic opponents of the storm god in the ancient Near East. And so here’s the king kind of holding order in place. The king, just making sure that cosmic order is maintained in the nation.

Now, what’s particularly interesting about Psalm 89 is precisely that it is God, Yahweh is awesome, and so is His king, where there is like a very, very clear crossover between those two. And, again, in that respect, Israel and Judah, as I think both subscribe to this theology, are engaging with a well established royal theology in the ancient Near East, which of course has individual permeation, what it looks like in Egypt is very different from what it looks like in Anatolia, and it looks quite different from what it looks like in Mesopotamia, because you know, Mesopotamia has two rivers that it can’t control. Egypt has the Nile, which is this kind of lovely, kind of pretty dependable water source. Anatolia has only rain, and so it has disappearing god myths, you know. So, you know, of course there is going to be variation, but there is a very, very strong royal theology throughout, where it isn’t god versus king, but it’s god and king together.

And so, what becomes interesting about the Bible, and I, and this comes back a little bit to your first question, in 1 Samuel 8, the story that to ask for a king is a rejection of Yahweh’s kingship, is a profound move. And I think it’s a theological move, and I think it’s probably one that is the consequence of later history, rather than reflecting what happened when Israel or Judah first developed into a monarchy.

Aaron: Let’s talk a little bit about the later history, because you said, so Israel emerges as a monarchy, both at a time when it’s kind of convenient to do so, everybody’s doing it, other powers in the area are decreasing. But then eventually it comes to an end, this monarchy, and that requires a whole new set of theology that these authors are going to then invent to try and process that situation. Is that perhaps where some of this 1 Samuel 8 stuff is coming from? Or why does the monarchy come to an end? What kind of reaction does this provoke in biblical authors? 

Madhavi Nevader: So, my two stories, you know, story A and story B, Bible and history, they are unanimous on these two things: that the North falls to the Assyrians in 721, and that the South, Judah, falls to the Babylonians in 586 BCE.

And I think the shock of the fall of the North, which was historically much more powerful than Judah was, will have sent reverberations to its sister nation. They are united in the worship of the same God. I think a lot of theological work will have begun at that point. Firstly, how does one explain the fall of the North? But then also a lot of kind of, “Oh, God liked us more.” Which you can see later in Kings, where it’s like, “Oh, you know, actually, God preferred Judah.” And I think some of the southern bias of the Bible comes out of that period. 

Why do the monarchies come to an end? Well, for historical reasons, because of political insurrection. Both nations failed to pay tribute first to Assyria and then to Babylon, um, tried to make deals with other nations around, particularly Egypt, in order to find a different master. But what’s interesting is that the way that the story is told is that they both come to an end because of religious infidelity.

In particular, the blame is laid at the feet of kings. And so for this historical narrative, which we call the Deuteronomistic history, it chooses to blame monarchy. It becomes the fall institution for the fall of both nations. And to one extent or another, that’s probably because it was the easiest institution to blame. Because the only alternative would have been God. And one could do that, but they wouldn’t have come back from exile if they’d done that. [Everybody laughing]

And it’s one of these odd theological consequences, but it comes to inform that real pivot in Bible that highlights the inherent disobedience of humans for the payoff of absolute divine sovereignty.

Pete: Although we do have Psalm 89, as you mentioned before, where I think the psalmist is basically calling God a liar for, for the exile coming out. Right? Cause it’s like, “Hey, David’s on the throne. That’s like the best thing you’ve ever done besides creating the cosmos. And you promise that no matter what we do, this will never end” and it ends. So he says—

Madhavi Nevader: That’s exactly right. 

Pete: Yeah, you had that alternate voice there in Psalm 89, which I think is a beautiful thing. 

Madhavi Nevader: Well, that’s right. And you know, what’s so extraordinary about the Psalter. I mean, it’s, I’m stealing a, a nice little line from a soon to be retired colleague of mine, Reinhard Kratz, in Göttingen. He said, in the Psalter, we have some of Israel’s earliest and latest poetry, and as a consequence, we have some of its earliest and latest iterations of theology. And I think that’s exactly right. 

But not only that, that’s where we have some of the Bible’s biggest protests against that bigger theological voice. Psalm 89 which is, “But you promised! You promised this guy. And he’s supposed to save us, so where are you now?” Or Psalm 44, which says, “We didn’t do any of these things. Where are you exactly?” And so it’s interesting that that minority report, if slightly buried, I’d say, you may have to commit to the Psalms to get there, but it’s still in there.

Now, where do we start to see these changes? And, and I think you’re exactly right. The exile is that moment. And the exile has always been considered a kind of a watershed for Israelite religion, which has kind of had stronger decades and less strong decades and we’re told not to overemphasize the exile and various things like that. But nonetheless, it still happened and the kind of pillars of nation-state theology simply disappeared. What’s interesting to me is that our biblical theologians neither could nor necessarily wanted to get rid of royal theology. And I think this is a question of they couldn’t. This is where we’re different. It was so woven into their understanding of the architecture of the cosmos, because gods were kings, that to reject the human king took a lot of theological work. I think we see some attempts to do that in the Bible, but we also see attempts to reconfigure and kind of salvage that royal theology so that it can do other work, sometimes for other people, or indeed for God.

And so it’s, it’s interesting to me that this becomes a really fascinating time where it’s a bit like if you’ve written a draft of an article that never quite goes anywhere, and so you’re like, I’ll use a third of it for this other article, and a third for another article, and a third for this. And I think that is precisely what happens with monarchy too.

Aaron: Could you maybe just give one example, just because I’m very curious, could you give one example of the “dump the king” strategy in the Bible versus the “reconfigure the king to serve somebody else?”

Madhavi Nevader: Yeah. Let’s start with reconfigure. I’m gonna give you two examples, if that’s okay. 

Aaron: Please. 

Madhavi Nevader: Now, one of them will be really obvious once you think about it. And it brings us right back to the very first chapter of the Bible, and it has to do with the creation of humanity. Finally, when God gets around to making humanity, he says, “Let us make,” in that odd plural, “na-‘ă-śeh ’ā-ḏām bə-ṣal-mê-nū”—in our image. And usually everybody’s really excited about the plural because, you know, what is that about? But I get really excited about the fact that humanity is made in an image. Because almost exclusively, by which I mean like 99.9999% percent of our attestations of that word outside the Bible refer to the king as the image of a god. 

And so two things have happened. One, our writer of Genesis 1 has taken a term from Akkadian tradition, he’s taken the theology with it, and instead of putting a king at the end of creation, which almost every other creation tradition does, he puts humanity. So that humanity becomes royal. And I say that very specifically, I think humanity is being raised to royalty here, not royalty being democratized. I understand that as two very different things, and the only reason I make a distinction is because I think about this sort of thing, you know, at two o’clock in the morning when I can’t sleep.

But if you look at what Moses does, everything about him is royal. He’s a shepherd. He judges. He founds a cult. He is our lawgiver, or at least our law distributor. And he is also a mighty warrior. And let us not forget that when he comes down the mountain, he is shining forth light. But in the Hebrew, it says he’s “horning” light, and the only things that have horns in the ancient world are gods. So, again, I think in the construction of the Moses character, we have a royal foil. That he’s been presented as royal without being called a king. I also think it’s important that all the really big stuff in the Bible story, you know, the giving of law, the founding of the nation, none of it happens with a king. That’s got to have some sort of meaning. 

Now, how do you get rid of the king entirely? Well, there are two ways. I think 1 Samuel 8 is a really good way of doing it. Saying that monarchy is foreign, it’s a rejection of God, and then telling a story of monarchy that proves that monarchy only leads to national collapse.

And that isn’t an injunction, “do not have a king,” because you can’t rewrite history. But it certainly says, “wow, that was a dumb idea, and you’re better off not doing that again.” Or, you create a lame duck. And that brings us to a bit of Bible that nobody reads other than me, and a few of my nerdy friends. And that’s the temple vision in Ezekiel, where there’s this prince, he’s called a Nasi, and all he does is provide things for the temple. And it’s very interesting because he’s not called the return of David, he’s not called anything. He’s just this guy who is there to essentially, like, hand out tickets.

And so I think there are a lot of different ways that the Bible starts to reconfigure this. But it’s also the case that they deal with the loss of monarchy by putting his return into the future. And this is where we get many of our kind of extraordinary messianic promises. Because kingship was part of the cosmic fabric of the ancient world, it was so hard to consider a world without one.

And also because of that promise of the eternal covenant, the Brit Olam, with David, that questioning in Psalm 89, “did you break this covenant?” The answer has to be, no, I didn’t. And so he’s coming back. And that’s what gives us the verses that we read and sing at Christmastime. And some of those magnificent messianic texts of the ideal king, of the prince of peace, the El Gibor, the mighty warrior, which actually means divine warrior in Hebrew, god of war. So there are also these kind of promises by pushing that farther and farther into the distant future, almost to the Eschaton.

Pete: All right. So, Madhavi, what, I mean, we’re talking a lot here about monarchy and changes and shifts and things like this. Are there other models besides monarchy for conceiving of political power in ancient Israel? 

Madhavi Nevader: For sure. Indeed, we’re talking of political power in the highest, most institutionalized form, we have to remember the importance of families, elders, cities, and the kind of autonomy that they will have had.

And the Bible really does present us with a number of kind of institutional figures to conceptualize the various ways that political power can be manifested. There’s a whole conversation to be had about priesthood. The rise of Aaron as a figure, I would say in the post exilic period, “we are a kingdom of priests.” That’s a huge move. I mean, I would say one in response to the loss of monarchy, but you know, also that’s me, but it does provide a different model, right? That Israel can exist as a kingdom of priests. Also, even just the notion of Israel as a nation, it is not one with a leader. We talked about Moses, but the promises made to Israel, “I will be your God and you will be my people.” That’s a refrain that’s often made to kings: “I will be your God and you will be my son” or, you know, something along those lines. And so there is this kind of national identity, which at times really does trump monarchic rule. 

And interestingly, in Isaiah, later in Isaiah and 2 Isaiah that we call, the covenant to David is given to Israel. I don’t spend a lot of time in Ezra and Nehemiah. I try not to [chuckling] though they’re interesting books, but other people can do that work. But there, there’s a real focus on scribes and the power that scribes can wield, which we must never underestimate in cultures with very low literacy and where writing was divine. It was magical. The power of a scribe, I don’t think we could say that a scribe could topple a government, but he could have a good go, [Pete laughs] and we don’t see it in Hebrew Bible so much, but you can see it in Assyrian sources. So we must remember that. 

Pete: I mean, they gave us the Bible, right? I mean, from a particular angle, there’s tremendous power, even in a production of the Bible by certain scribes who compiled this and gave their slack.

Madhavi Nevader: Tremendous power. There’s absolute power in that, because they have decided what the story is. And then finally, I talked about Moses as a prophet. I mean, prophecy is such an odd institution, because on the one hand, it’s also one that they promise, but then the Bible also kills off prophecy. It’s a funny little thing, because it becomes too unwieldy, and, you know, and so there’s that odd little passage at the end of Zechariah where it talks, it’s a great quote of Amos. “I’m not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet,” and it speaks about how there will never be any more prophets. 

But nonetheless, you know, but when we get to the Dead Sea Scrolls and they’re talking about coming messiahs, first of all, it’s interesting that there are multiple ones, but there is a Davidic messiah, there is an Aaronic messiah, and there is a Mosaic, a prophetic messiah. And so by the end of the first millennium, it seems that within, let’s call it nascent Judaism at this point, there is an understanding that there are kind of three ways, or three very important political figures: priest, prophet, and king. But gosh, that’s a promotion for prophecy. If we think about its historical place as an institution, prophets were a little bit like civil servants. Sorry, it’s a very British term, but kind of like consultants. And even for priests, that’s a big promotion as well. 

Aaron: So we have these alternatives to political power. What about like, if we remove all limitations on the imagination and we’re thinking as big as we can possibly be, we want a utopian vision for the future, an idealized state. What might power look like then? Do we have any texts in the Hebrew Bible that are utopian in this way? 

Madhavi Nevader: So unfortunately for you, I am currently working on utopias. And so my immediate response is it depends on what kind of utopia we’re talking about. [Laughing] You know, cause I think we tend to assume utopias are just perfect and, and they actually never are. But that doesn’t mean that the Bible doesn’t present us with some ideal ways of how it might be. And in terms of ideal societies, oddly, the probably the clearest place to go is Chronicles. That’s where people have gone, um, the most because it’s a rewriting of history, not entirely without its kinks, but in terms of kind of creating some ideal relationships, history’s a little bit neater. I mean, obviously the exile still needs to happen, but it’s gone about retelling history in a very particular way. 

And of course, we do have these promises of sort of the peaceable kingdom, where everything’s a bit fluffy—lions and lambs and donkeys and things like that. You know, usually, again, in prophetic texts, what I would say about both of those, which is really interesting to me, is, again, how fundamentally royal both of them are. And so, a lot of the Bible’s utopias pivot back to kingship, which I find very interesting. Again, they just can’t quite give this up. 

Pete: Woven into the cosmic fabric, as you put it. 

Madhavi Nevader: Yeah, well, indeed. And I, there might be an argument to be made, I’m, in fact, trying to make it in an article that’s due in about two weeks [chuckles] that we should maybe start to read Deuteronomy as a utopian text because it’s laying out what Israel should look like when it goes into the land. Now, what’s really interesting about Deuteronomy is, while it’s our only piece of law about the king in the entire Bible, it’s not a very good one.

And it promises, or it says, you can have a king when you get into the land, but he can’t have horses, he can’t have wives, he can’t have money. And all he can do is read a copy of this law. Now that is not a very powerful cane. And it’s interesting and kind of creating the society where everything works and everybody is obedient, except for the people who aren’t, who then get stoned by their parents—um, that again, monarchy is there. They can’t get rid of it, but they’re just trying to kind of take the rug out from under it. And kind of assign these traditional roles to other institutions. 

So I think there’s a lot of utopian thinking in the Bible that’s trying to understand how should we organize ourselves. Much of it is traditional, but some of it is wildly revolutionary. 

Pete: Well, as we’re approaching the end of our time together, which has been wonderful, let me, let me get to another kind of question that maybe people listening are thinking about too. And that is who the heck cares? What difference does any of this make in just people reading their Bible? How does this, I almost said, how does this help them? That’s not the right—I’m not trying to ask a question like that. It’s more, what benefit does this knowledge, what does it do for them? 

Madhavi Nevader: There is a real tendency to read the U.S. Constitution back into the Bible. I see it in my work on Deuteronomy all the time, trying to make it democracy. And I think it’s just fundamentally misguided. I think the one thing after God that the Bible is most concerned with, and wrestles with most often, is monarchy, either explicitly or kind of behind the scenes in terms of trying to understand to do with it and what to do with its perceived failure, and then indeed what to do with the fact that the promises didn’t come true.

And maybe I might just remind our listeners that Jews are still waiting for the return of David, and Christians are waiting for Jesus (David) to come back, right? So that resolution has not been resolved. I would say we are still dealing with the Bible’s kingship problems. But what I would say in terms of what that might mean for how we read our Bibles, how we think about these issues, I don’t think the Bible has one clear perspective on any subject whatsoever.

It is the most infuriating and yet brilliant shade of gray. It puts one creation story at the beginning and follows it with one that basically contradicts it on every front, right off the bat. And I think that should inspire us to profound humility when reading. So why should we care about kingship? Well, I think we should care about kingship, because if we go looking for it, it will make us better readers of the Bible. If only to see the Bible at its theological brilliance, constantly changing, constantly trying to figure out two, three, four different sides of any issue. And anybody who says, well, “the Bible says this” about subject whatever, just good luck. Please stop. 

Pete: Or keep reading, one or the other. 

Madhavi Nevader: I mean, we just can’t talk about the Bible that way. It will always, always outmaneuver us. And it’s such a humbling text in that respect. 

Pete: Well, yeah, that’s actually, I think, a very adult way of looking at this text, right, and that it’s, historically, it’s complex, and I think this is a great point to end on, because it really, it gives us, “Do you want to dig into this text, or don’t you?” You know? And if you do, you’re going to see things that everybody else sees, and put the pieces together as best as we can and not have—what I’m hearing you say, not having a simplistic approach to this text, but appreciating its difficulties. So, so thank you for bringing that to our attention and this has been wonderful and we appreciate you being here with us.

Madhavi Nevader: Well, thank you so much! It’s been a pleasure. 

Jared: Well, thanks to everyone who supports the show. If you wanna support what we do, there are three ways you can do it. One, if you just wanna give a little money, go to thebiblefornormalpeople.com/give. 

Pete: And if you want to support us and want a community, classes, and other great resources, go to thebiblefornormalpeople.com/join. 

Jared: And lastly, it always goes a long way if you just wanted to rate the podcast, leave a review, and tell others about our show. In addition, you can let us know what you thought about the episode by emailing us at info@thebiblefornormalpeople.com. 

Outro: You’ve just made it through another episode of the Bible for Normal People! Don’t forget you can catch our other show, Faith for Normal People, in the same feed wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was brought to you by the Bible for Normal People team: Brittany Hodge, Stephen Henning, Wesley Duckworth, Savannah Locke, Tessa Stultz, Danny Wong, Natalie Weyand, Lauren O’Connell, Jessica Shao, and Naiomi Gonzalez.