Episode 328: Vanessa Lovelace - Is Deuteronomy History?
In this week’s episode of The Bible for Normal People, Pete and Jared talk with Vanessa Lovelace about the Deuteronomistic history and why Deuteronomy plays such a central role in shaping Israel’s story. They explore how biblical writers interpreted Israel’s history through the lens of covenant, exile, and identity formation, and how these themes continue to influence modern readings of the Bible. Together, they invite listeners to see ancient texts not as a flat narrative, but as a rich conversation about God, justice, failure, and hope.
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Pete: You're listening to The Bible for Normal People, the only God-ordained podcast on the internet. I'm Pete Enns.
Jared: And I'm Jared Byas.
Pete: On today's episode, we're talking about why Deuteronomy is so central to reading the Bible with Dr. Vanessa Lovelace.
Jared: Vanessa earned her PhD from Chicago Theological Seminary, and is the executive director at the Louisville Institute. Let's dive in.
Jared: All right, Vanessa, welcome to the podcast. It's great to have you.
Vanessa: Thank you for the invitation. This is exciting.
Jared: Yeah, it is exciting, and I think most people agree when we're talking about the Deuteronomist, it's exciting stuff. So let's introduce people to this idea because in, in Biblical scholarship, this idea of the Deuteronomist or Deuteronom- Deuteronom- Deuteronom-
Pete: Deuteronomistic.
Jared: Deuteronomistic. Why can I not say it?
Pete: 'Cause you're from Texas.
Vanessa: It sounds like you should be singing it.
Jared: Deuteronomistic.
Pete: There you go.Yeah, that's it.
Jared: Um, Deuteronomistic history is, uh, new for some people. Apparently new to me right now, in this moment. Um, so this is gonna be hard to understand for a lot of people, if not also hard to say.
So if someone's never heard about the Deuteronomist, what, what are we talking about?
Vanessa: Sure. Uh, and again, thank you for this opportunity to, um, discuss something that I think is really timely, and I say that because, um, our listeners, and I don't know if I can say this in terms of, you know, you tend not to, um, talk about contemporary issues because these podcasts, these recordings are timeless.
Uh, but, uh, we are looking at the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States of America, and one of the projects are a group of Christians that are reading the Bible, um, from Genesis through, um, Revelation. America Reads the Bible is the project, and President Trump is going to read, uh, 2 Chronicles 7, and, uh, you know, we have other, uh, Bible pastors and, um, uh, influencer, Christian influencers, they're all Christian, are going to read the Bible from, again, beginning to end.
And so I just wonder and I hope that as the people are listening, the audience is listening to these readings of the scripture, especially when they get to places like the flood, as an example, to kind of pick up on some of those things that some of our earlier scholars picked up on.
That, huh, there are places where there are two different versions of the story, and I didn't realize there were two versions of the flood, and, or I didn't realize there were, um, two different, really three versions of the Ten Commandments. That they'll start to pick up on things which led to the theory, uh, or the calling the Book of Deuteronomy to say that there's this historian, or there's this biblical writer, and we'll say Moses.
Really, you know, in the second reading of the Commandments, the instructions to the Israelites before they, uh, prepare to go into the Promised Land. He concludes with this thought that if you keep these, if you faithfully follow these, this covenant relationship that this document or these, um, statutes and commandments represent between the God of Israel and the people of Israel, that you will be blessed.
You will be blessed in the land, and with fertility, and land, and protection. But if you don't, then you are going to be terribly cursed. You're going to be booted off the land, you're gonna lose the land, you're gonna be infertile, you're gonna be desolate. Um, and so in that telling of that expectation of the people, um, how they are supposed to be as the covenantal people, the theory that other scholars, uh, along the way kind of picked up on, huh, now that we've read through Genesis through Deuteronomy, and now we're reading Joshua, Judges, and Samuel, and Kings, there seems to be some of that same theology that if you keep the covenant, you'll be blessed, and if you don't, you'll be cursed.
Um, that there are, you know, serving and worshiping only the God of Israel in certain places that are authorized, and if you worship in these other places, then that's a bad thing. And so as they began to realize that there were themes that were continuous from the Book of Deuteronomy through Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, then they started to theorize, and they came up with, and it was Martin Noth, the German scholar, who actually coined the phrase, uh, Deuteronomistic history because it reflected the theology and the, um, certain language from the Book of Deuteronomy.
Speeches is another feature, you know, that they're, you know, the long speech of Moses at the end of the book, and then we get the speech at the beginning from Joshua, and we get the speech at the end from Joshua. And so, uh, throughout, in just recognizing that there were certain themes that just seemed to be familiar, um, and that he proposed that a single writer-editor, um, was responsible for assembling these stories from records.
You know, sometimes there's a reference to, you know, the annals of King So-and-So or, um, some other saga or tale of heroism, um, David and so on, that whatever were the, um, oral and written traditions, preserved traditions that this editor had access to, that they wrote this history of Israel, but not as we understand history as dates and facts, of things that, uh, we can document that happened, but as a theological, I don't wanna- maybe I'll just use manifestation, as a theological manifestation of what God expected from Israel once they entered the Promised Land.
Jared: Mm-hmm.
Vanessa: And what would happen if they didn't? And so it starts to tell the story that they didn't keep the covenant. Um, and so you get to the end of Joshua, you know, so a lot of people understand this, have heard the story about the conquest, and they entered, and they conquered the people, and they were supposed to wipe out everyone.
Um, and then we get to the end of, uh, Joshua, well, no, actually they didn't. Um, and so there's the excuse of, well, you know, it's because the people w- were unfaithful and didn't do as they were commanded. And then we get to Judges, and it starts off with they didn't do as they were commanded.
And so now, um, they, because of their interaction with these other people, because they didn't wipe them out, that they are worshiping other gods. And so there's this ongoing... So we start to get from the conquest period to the settlement period in, uh, the Promised Land. And you get this sense of they, the people that they did this evil thing, and God allows the people in the land to punish them.
They cry out, and God hears them and sends a deliverer or judges, um, usually military figures, who rescue them, and then they have a period of peace in the land. And then they do the thing again. They do the evil thing again. And not only do they do the evil thing again and then get conquered by the people and cry out, and God rescues them again.
But then it gets progressively worse in that it's like there's this downward spiral of their sin and their evil doing.
Jared: Mm-hmm.
Vanessa: And often the evil doing is described as worshiping other gods or, or marrying the women, the foreign women in the land. And so then we get to, uh, this period of Samuel, and we get into...
So now we're moving from the judges to the monarchy, and things were just so bad, that downward spiral, they're so bad that we now have, because there was no king in Israel. So we've gotta have a king in order to rescue us. But then it's framed as, "Well, we wanna be like the other people." Which is, Samuel doesn't see it as a good thing, God doesn't see it as a good thing.
But it's like, well, you know, let them have what they want, but just tell them that it won't be good for them. And so we get to, you know, as I'm telling this long way into the story of, the history of Israel is being told in this theological framework and not this historically accurate as we think of history.
That's where I had started off with this.
Pete: They're not trying to relay a blow-by-blow sort of videotape account of what's happening. They have a purpose, right? For-
Vanessa: Exactly ...
Pete: Right, for, for telling the history from that perspective. So-
Vanessa: Exactly ...
Pete: So I mean, what, could you just boil that down for us, what that
Jared: Hold on real quick, because I think what you just said is really important. Maybe when you say they have a purpose for writing the history in this way, they have a perspective.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Vanessa: Yes.
Jared: Is part of what you're saying that this, uh, um, the Deuteronomist’s history is that perspective? That's the lens through which we're seeing it. So when we talk about the Deuteronomist, we're talking about this editor who has, who has put these pieces of the story together to tell a certain kind of story that centers around some of the themes that you were talking about. And so we see these themes recurring because that's the story they're trying to tell.
They're trying to emphasize the parts of the story that help explain why they are where they are now.
Vanessa: Mm-hmm. Exactly. And where they end up is in, um, being removed from the land. You know, first the, um, the people and the, and the judges lead the people astray, and then they get a king, and then the kings lead the people astray.
Jared: Mm-hmm.
Vanessa: And the, again, the Deuteronomist, uh, we'll call the writer, is very critical of Israel, which was destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 BCE, and by the time we get to the destruction of Jerusalem, Judah and Jerusalem in, uh, 586, 87 BCE, we have this sense that this has happened because of our covenantal unfaithfulness.
And our, and, and our kings are the ones at fault that led us astray.
Jared: Mm-hmm.
Vanessa: And so Noth and some others would argue that this history was put together that as they were taken, um, captive, some will say mostly the elites were taken captive to Babylon, that they took with them these records.
Jared: Mm-hmm.
Vanessa: Um, I like to start off with and say, um, if, when I'm teaching, if you had to, uh, suddenly just drop everything because of some natural force or an invading force or whatever, but what would you take?
So we would take our photographs. We would take our, um, marriage license. You would take your records. You would take your Bible. Uh, well, there wasn't the Bible at that time, but they carried those records that they had in store. And so this writer or writers who had access to these records began to retell the story of Israel from the, in exile is what scholars believe, is that this was someone who was in Babylon in exile, to try and understand and explain, how did we get here?
Pete: Mm-hmm. Right.
Vanessa: And we got here because it wasn't, because the first thought was, is God, um, not as powerful as the Babylonian gods?
Jared: Mm-hmm.
Vanessa: And so is our defeat because the other gods are more powerful?
And the response was, no. God is more powerful than their gods. God used their gods to punish us for not keeping the covenant.
Pete: It, it sounds, from what you're saying, it sounds like this Deuteronomistic history is, um... I mean, one word comes to mind is propaganda, and I- I'm trying to use that in a neutral sense. It's, it's trying to explain, maybe put a good face on something, that it's not God's weakness, it's our disobedience that landed us here.
Jared: Maybe an apologetic.
Pete: Yeah. I was thinking of the word theodicy, a defense of God. You know, well, God is, we got everything we deserved, and let me write all these books. You know, I don't know about you, but, you know, reading 1 and 2 Kings, once you get to the divided monarchy, it gets pretty slow for me.
You know? It's just, it's the same thing again and again. Okay, we get it, all the kings are horrible. Hezekiah's okay. Josiah's fantastic, but he dies. You know, but apart from that, it's like, what do you, you have to ask yourself, "What, what, why am I reading this? What's the point of it?" And it seems to be to explain, from what you're saying, right?
To explain why, why are, why are we here? What, what did we do to deserve this kind of thing, you know? And, um, you know. I think that's important to know, Jared. I think that's a very important thing to understand about this, and maybe not use it in a, um, 250th anniversary of America to read through it and say, "Let's do these things," you know?
Um, but that's another topic altogether.
Jared: Yeah. So I wanna make sure that we're, people are clear about this, because I think for a lot of people, and I maybe ask it a little bit more dramatically than I mean it, for, by way of conversation. 'Cause I think for a lot of people, this is upside down from what they would've thought, which is you kind of think of the Bible being written in the order in which you read it.
So it's like Genesis is old, and then Exodus, and then Deuteronomy happens, and so there's this thing. So what would keep scholars from thinking, "Well, no, it's because Moses laid this stuff out that this is what would happen if you obey, you stay in the land. If you don't obey, you don't stay in the land."
And so, sort of it's all there in Deuteronomy, and then it just sort of plays out that way in the history of Israel. What led scholars to say, "Eh, maybe that's, maybe that's not how it happened.” Maybe it happened in reverse, which is that there are, you know, are these scribes or others in the exile who have these compilations and writings and oral traditions, and they're starting to put it together.
And when they do that in exile, they are, uh, you know, using Deuteronomy as a way to kind of, uh, foreshadow everything that's, that's coming in that. And so it's, the story is told a little bit in reverse. So maybe you can say a little more to help people understand how the Bible was written through this lens, that it's not Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, that was written, and then history played out this way.
But actually, it was written well after the fact.
Pete: In light of history.
Jared: Yeah.
Vanessa: Yeah. Um, well, they did have, we would say, the Torah, the first five books, the Pentateuch, um, was available, I would, again, say in a portable fashion when I think of the, um, what would you carry with you-
Jared: Mm-hmm
Vanessa: Into captivity. Um, as it is written in 2 Kings, they found a Torah scroll that was, uh, understood as the Book of Deuteronomy, and that they, in reading it, again, that theology of the, this book has said that all the things that we have been doing, um, we've been sinning, we've been, have not been faithful to the covenant.
Um, let's have a revival. Let's renew the covenant and be faithful to the Book of Deuteronomy. So, I think that's part of why the Book of Deuteronomy is so foundational for the writing or, or why the writer found that that was the good starting place for explaining how the history should be put together.
Jared: Mm-hmm.
Vanessa: I think what's one of the things that's really important about this perspective, again, I don't expect everyone to accept that the Bible just wasn't written by one single author continuously. Um, but this book really is about identity formation.
Jared: Mm-hmm.
Vanessa: And who are we as a nation? Who are we as a people?
And what are our founding, um, documents or, so what, what makes one, um, an Israelite? Um, what makes one, especially given that Israel's been destroyed, um, Judah is a shadow of itself, but you have this remnant of people, remnant of people who are exiled and preparing to return to the land. Then who are we if we're not the same people who left here?
Jared: Mm-hmm.
Vanessa: And who are we going to be going into the future?
Jared: Mm-hmm.
Vanessa: And who's going to tell our story?
Jared: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Vanessa: And how are we going to tell our story? And I think that is how the Deuteronomistic history comes about.
Jared: Ooh, maybe can I ask a clarifying question? Just to kinda clarify, so in, uh, kind of the, the scholarly consensus, or maybe there's a debate, maybe there's not, I'll leave that to you.
But that, you know, there's Deuteronomy and sort of it's, it's there, and then the Deuteronomist writes this history in light of Deuteronomy. Like, it's, it's already there. Everybody kinda knows about it. It's been part of it, and so we're gonna write this history of, you know, Joshua through Kings in light of what we know about Deuteronomy.
Or is it the other way around, that Deuteronomy gets shaped by and is part of this history-writing process? So then we're, we're sort of reverse engineering even Deuteronomy. Like, how does Deuteronomy fit in the Deuteronomist's theology, so to speak? Where did it come from? Is it coming first, or is it coming later in composition, like, when it was written?
Vanessa: Sure. That is a great question, and I'm gonna say that I'm more in the conservative camp, who would say that, uh, Deuteronomy was first.
Jared: Okay.
Vanessa: Um, and that there was the, if, um, some would say maybe a priestly school-
Jared: Mm-hmm ...
Vanessa: Was responsible for pulling the history together. But whether it was a single author or a group of scholars, scribes, priests, that they had a copy of what we would consider the Book of Deuteronomy, or most of it, and interpreted their history in light of that, and wrote it in light of that.
Pete: Yeah, maybe not the whole Book of Deuteronomy, but maybe a quarter of it or so. And it's hard to know. Like, we can't ask anybody what happened.
Vanessa: We do not have the original autographs.
Pete: No we don't.
Vanessa: We like to tell people, uh, when they talk about, um, the Bible as inerrant and infallible, uh, the original autographs, but they don't exist.
Pete: Not even close, right. Yeah.
Vanessa: We have this pulling together of resources. Uh, the Bible- provides us with nice little hints and crumbs of, again, when I say, you know, this is from the annals of such and such king, there was a tradition of, or at least that there is an assumed written record, um, or records, sources we should say, that the editor had access to.
Pete: Mm-hmm. Yeah, there's, there's something there. It isn't just, let's just tell a story from nothing.
Vanessa: Right.
Pete: Right? So there are some written sources that are-
Vanessa: They didn’t just sit down and make up a story.
Pete: Right. Right. Well, and, I mean, yeah, not making it up because it's also, like you said, did you use the term identity formation?
Vanessa: I did.
Pete: Yeah. Yeah. That seems really a vital thing to keep in mind, and I mean, just, you know, please feel free to riff on this, but I'm, I, I'm thinking of when the Ten Commandments are introduced in chapter five of Deuteronomy, Moses, who's the speaker, even though he didn't write it, 'cause it's all third person, but Moses is the speaker, and he says, "The covenant at Sinai was not made with them.
It was made with you, with all of you who are here today." Which is a patently false statement, 'cause 40 years have gone by, and the whole point of the 40-year desert wandering is for them to die. But you're still the Exodus generation. It still belongs to you. When I think of the Passover Seder that has been said now for over 2,000 years, yeah, we are the Exodus generation.
So it's, it's, it's an identity formation book that continues to form identity for people in a positive way. There's also negative ways, but in a positive way. And in my, I agree. In other words, I agree with you. If, if, if we miss that, the f- the role of it is not to recount bare bones historical knowledge, because modern people like that.
It's a book that is written for the purpose of forming people's identities. And even if it says weird things like we don't like, like you mentioned, if you obey it's gonna be great. If you disobey, oh, boy, go read chapter 28, you know? And it's like, you know, you're gonna be eating your own children. You're gonna become cannibals, you're gonna be so hungry.
That, that's, it's, which is, like, really over the top, I think. It's, like, a whole chapter and a half of these things. But, um, the point is that it's still identity formation, even if through an ancient lens, through how people thought about reality and the nature of God a very long time ago. And if, if we forget that, I think we're actually losing something of the text itself.
Jared: With that, I mean, I think when we think about the, uh, we can think about the history from the Deuteronomist, but there's also this theology from the Deuteronomist, and we talked about some of these themes. And I think that's really important for people to see that, because I do think that has framed a lot, at least for me in my upbringing I was raised on a Christianity that had a lot of Deuteronomic theology built in, which was whether it was explicit or implicit, this idea if you do good, good things happen to you.
If you do bad, bad things happen to you. So it is still, I still feel like there is a theological trajectory even in a lot of theology that's preached today. So can you talk about that theological influence and just your assessment of, you know, the- that's part of our text, but it's also this perspective that one of the writers or editors have put on the text, and there are other parts of the, of the Hebrew Bible that would, would maybe be in tension with that theology.
Um, so can you talk about that, uh, kind of the theology that we find there in its place amongst other theologies we find in the Hebrew Bible?
Vanessa: Yes. Thank you for raising that. I think the idea that their punishment is justifica- that there's justification for their punishment. That God is justified in punishing them because they have broken the covenant.
And so the suffering, um, that happens to them is justified. The retributive justice, um, is one of the themes. And so I think there is a sense for some people that you must have done something wrong that justified God in punishing you.
Jared: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Vanessa: And so if you ask forgiveness or correct what you've done or make amends, then you can get back in God's good graces.
Jared: Mm-hmm.
Vanessa: Um, and some of that is even evident in, um, post, um, as we get into the, um, post-exilic, uh, period, we are going to, uh, renew the covenant, and we're gonna celebrate it, and we're gonna be the covenant people again, and then God is going to bless us again and allow us to return to the land.
Jared: Mm-hmm.
Vanessa: Um, you have, whereas as you've mentioned, Job is one of those books that counters that, where it's like, "I did not do anything," when his friends say, "You must have done something to have all these bad things happen to you." And it's like, well, no, um, I unfortunately was caught up in this terrible bet, gamble between ha-satan and God, and, you know, and I had nothing to do. Uh, there, there was absolutely nothing that I did wrong, and he's proven in the end that that's the case. But there, so his friends are still operating on what we would call that retributive justice of you must have done something wrong, and this is why you're, you're suffering.
Jared: Mm-hmm.
Vanessa: And then even the idea that some of that suffering was because of worshiping, um, idols. Uh, and again, so not being faithful to worshiping only God. I think one of the more troubling parts of that is the, uh, marriage, uh, to foreign women.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Vanessa: And that foreign women are the ones who are responsible for leading them astray.
Pete: Right. Yeah.
Vanessa: Um, to worship other gods, and so they're being punished for that.
Pete: That's an old story, isn't it? Blaming the women, right? Very old. It is. It's a very old story.
Vanessa: And indeed it is. Um, and so I think, so theologically, we don't, we don't teach, um, in part because, you know, we don't teach the Bible in schools, even if it's as, uh, literature or just an introduction as a classic work as part of the Western culture, um, that this is a largely theological, how do we understand God, who is God in our lives, than a literal book that was penned by God from beginning to end, and that, and then just given to humans as a rule book for us to follow.
Pete: Yeah.
Jared: Mm-hmm. But I think that's important because, again, I think for the average reader, they sort of see the Bible as this monolithic thing, and it says the same thing about God.
It's sort of repeating the same thing. So it's helpful to carve out this, uh, this Deuteronomic theology that is pretty foundational, influential in the Hebrew Bible. You see it in a lot of places, primarily in these Deuteronomy through the Kings narrative, that reinforces the idea that if you do good things, good things happen to you, if you do bad things, bad, that you'll be cursed.
And then to see that there are, you know, counter-narratives like Job and others, it really helps to frame the Bible as this conversation around, what kind of God do we have? Um, where does justice fit in? What kind of justice do we have? Or is, you know, God behind what kind of justice? And so I just think it, it helps to frame that as a conversation when we can lift this section out and say, well, that was a, uh, an editor or a group of editors who have, who've come together and put the history together this way to explain that God is this kind of God and does these kinds of things.
But there are other perspectives as well in our Bible, and that's part of this work is to think through and wrestle with these different voices and different parts. But you wouldn't be able to do that if you weren't able to see that this is a kind of theology, this is a perspective that particular authors have, and we find that baked into our Bible.
How do you help people grasp that idea to kind of break down that monolithic one voice idea to see, I think, how scholars see, and I think throughout the history of Judaism and Christianity, people of faith have seen this multi-voice perspective?
Vanessa: I think that's one of the opportunities, I'm gonna use that word, um, of the, the reading of the Bible over this week-long reading from Genesis to Revelation, because it, it implies that this is a single book that is this history that is moving from Genesis to Revelation and, and it is the literal history from beginning to end, and so that there's this one through-line instead of helping to, um, demonstrate through conversations that there's different literature, there's different types of literature in here.
There are songs and there's poetry. There are imprecations. You know, we can get into some of the Psalms where people are cursed. And there are sagas, and there are the prophetic books. I mean, it's like a library.
Jared: Mm-hmm.
Vanessa: Um, and there are all kinds of, or, you know, the other example, it's like a newspaper.
You have the cover story, but you also have ads, and you have editorials and opinions. It's more like reading, opening up something and expecting the same thing throughout. The same message, the same God throughout. When it's actually different perspectives of God.
This is a, I don't wanna say a richer God. What's the word I'm looking for? That there are some- the images of God to be comfortable with and some to be squeamish about. Um, and that they were comfortable in writing about and sharing those different perspectives of God.
Pete: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Well, um, there's a lot more to talk about, but I think just coming to the end here, I, I wanted to ask if, if you can think, maybe for people who haven't ever really read this stuff, right? Maybe just something, maybe a couple of guideposts for them, and maybe I'll put it this way. Um, what is it about Deuteronomy or the Deuteronomistic history that could be harmful for people if they don't read it well?
And is there something about this that is, like, let's say, a theological just knock-down positive for people to take away with them?
Vanessa: Yeah. I think one of the things that's, um, troubling, uh, that we don't want people to take away from this book, but certainly we've seen it play out in the more, uh, recent, uh, contemporary history, is the notion that the entire population of the Promised Land, Canaan, uh, Israel/Palestine in contemporary terms, that there are certain groups of people that are expendable.
Pete: Yeah.
Vanessa: Mm-hmm. And that God ordains it.
Pete: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Vanessa: And that we can just wipe out whole civilizations.
Pete: Yeah.
Vanessa: Um, and so, and to justify that, um, based on, um, the Book of Deuteronomy or the Deuteronomistic history, especially the Book of Joshua.
Pete: Right.
Jared: What about the flip side? Is there anything that's, that kind of we could take away, even theologically from these texts that point us in a direction or give us some kind of trajectory?
Vanessa: God's patience.
Jared: Hmm.
Vanessa: God's faithfulness. That it took as long as it did for the people to finally get on God's last nerve. I mean, you read over and over, um, as I'd mentioned the downward spiral, how just everything that they did, it wasn't just cyclical, but it was downward. It was just worse and worse, at least in the Deuteronomist perspective.
Um, but that God held back wiping them out or allowing the land to be destroyed and allowing them to be, uh, taken captive.
Jared: Mm-hmm.
Vanessa: Um, and so that doesn't help that nonetheless, that's what happened in terms of them being taken captive and the land destroyed. Um, I like to say that, uh, the empire strikes back, Judah when it became a vassal of Babylon, and, um, and they struck back and tried to fight back against this powerful empire.
And the empire said, "Well, you know, if you don't wanna behave like a good vassal, then I will just destroy you and destroy the land and take you captive." And so even through that, there was still this understanding that God would never totally abandon the people,and would not allow them to be completely destroyed. I think that is the takeaway.
Jared: Well, thank you so much for, yeah, jumping on and tackling this thing that could be so abstract. I think we joked about it when we started, like what an exciting thing to talk about. But I think this does have these practical implications of how people read their Bible or understand what it means for us today and what we should be doing with it.
So thanks for that.
Vanessa: Thank you.
Pete: Thank you.
Vanessa: I appreciate the conversation.
Jared: 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.
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Jared: And lastly, it 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.
