[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'd like to welcome all the listeners to another episode of the London LICM.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm one of your host, Jordan Stefaniac, and we're a podcast as dedicated series thinking for a series church.

[SPEAKER_00]: What does that look like if your first time listener will we try to prioritize certain intellectual virtues or habits of mind, things like charity, curiosity, critical thinking, cheerful, confessionalism?

[SPEAKER_00]: So it's not curiosity in the vicious sense.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's we're trying to capture with four seas, maybe five, if you count cheerful confessionalism as this two seas.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just this idea of we want to be both rigorous and our thinking, serious about the topics that we handle and treat everything with the utmost care, while also still respecting other people and their viewpoints and learning from people who disagree with us who differ with us in various ways.

[SPEAKER_00]: One of the values we think of being confessional is you know what you believe and it gives you a little bit of more flexibility to say like, now I want to understand what other people believe and why they believe it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so you can have these really nice discussions because then you find, look at all this common ground that we have that we can share in common, while also sticking out our differences and clarity, which I think when you have clarity around these things, it just helps [SPEAKER_00]: sort of disagreements actually develop into really useful conversations that are illuminating.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so when you listen to our podcast, what we try to do is just encourage those sorts of things, we're uncovering new ideas, learning about all sorts of topics, we talk philosophy, history, theology, everything in between, and it's a lot of fun.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, in today's episode, I am thrilled to introduce you all to Dr.

Charles Charles about Patricia Kexegesis.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to be talking, I think, a good about the background of it, what it looks like, as well as some of the practice and developments in diversity that we see there in that period.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Charles, before we get started, maybe give me a little bit of background about you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then what got you interested in petristic exegesis in particular?

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, thanks for having me on Jordan.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is excellent to be here.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm from St.

Louis, Missouri, where I was brought up.

[SPEAKER_01]: I went to my studies at the University of Michigan and in Arbor, an engineering for a little bit.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I heard God's call to be a pastor.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I transferred to Concordia in Ann Arbor, where I learned some of the languages and basic theology.

[SPEAKER_01]: Off I went to Concordia Seminary St.

Louis, Lutheran Seminary there, got an MDiv as to young, that's a master's sacred theology in systematic.

[SPEAKER_01]: At the same time, the master of arts in classical languages from nearby Washington University.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then off to the University of Virginia, where I studied under Dr.

Robert Wilken, not an MA, it is a great church historian, got my MA there in Christianity and Judaism in antiquity.

[SPEAKER_01]: My first call, [SPEAKER_01]: Fessorial position was to go back to Concordia in Anarbor and serve as the Greek professor.

[SPEAKER_01]: That was there for 23 years.

[SPEAKER_01]: They eventually enabled me to return to PhD studies where I went to Concordia St.

Louis again and there I brought together my background to get a new kind of PhD that put together history of exegesis.

[SPEAKER_01]: So just the interpretation of scripture, you're the church.

[SPEAKER_01]: And a couple of years ago, I received a new call to come to QWERTY as Chicago.

[SPEAKER_01]: So yet, another one of our QWERTY as in the QWERTY system, I had been the Peruseminary Director, guiding young men to become pastors at Ann Arbor.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now I'm the Director of the Classical Education Program, so helping to raise up [SPEAKER_01]: Christian men and women to teach in classical schools.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm the Latin professor here.

[SPEAKER_01]: They also brought me into teach Hebrew.

[SPEAKER_01]: So my Greeks on the back burner are a little bit but doing a lot of fun things.

[SPEAKER_00]: that is awesome.

[SPEAKER_00]: And history of exegesis, I feel like is an area that is of great interest to me and a lot of people.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know of a lot of programs that are dedicated to just history of exegesis.

[SPEAKER_00]: Are there other ones like that?

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know of them.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is the, uh, uh, for new at Concordia St.

Louis.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think I'm their first grad.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know, well, I'm their first PhD to be minted out of that program.

[SPEAKER_01]: from so what knew in that?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so, and how did I get interested in history back to Jesus?

[SPEAKER_01]: Shoot, I went to the University of Virginia thinking I was studying Pauline studies, but with Dr.

Robert Wilkid there, he has a certain kind of gravitational pull.

[SPEAKER_01]: The classes with him and Dr.

Jesus, uh, [SPEAKER_01]: Dr.

Judith Covax, as well as her husband and the Greek program, just excellent professors, helping me to see the value of learning from the church fathers and the delight of the variety of their spiritual insight into the scriptures that I wanted to follow that.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's awesome.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when you were in an arbor, did you know Joe Dunn, my friend?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, he comes on and he'll interview with me when I talk to other smart bioethically inclined people.

[SPEAKER_00]: He takes the show for me.

[SPEAKER_01]: How wonderful.

[SPEAKER_01]: Joe is a lovely friend.

[SPEAKER_01]: You came on toward the end of my time there at Ann Arbor and we became fast friends and he's so gracious and kind and also brilliant.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, that's awesome.

[SPEAKER_00]: when i'm thinking patristic exegesis when i think about it's roots in its background i mean you you were mentioning to me how there's some roots in jewish and pagan readings tell me a little bit about that what does that look like from sort of an origin story perspective i think i'm i'm gonna step back even a bit further to give the ten thousand foot view [SPEAKER_01]: of where this will all end up and some of the key things to see motivating it and directing it, especially as recent scholarship is bringing to light.

[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, the impetus at the beginning, the motivation of having an exagetical tradition in the Jesus movement, which became the Christian Church, was to relate the Old Testament to the New Testament in a positive way.

[SPEAKER_01]: We see already in the ministry of our Lord in the Apostolic Proclamation, the insistence that Jesus is the fulfillment of Old Testament hopes.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this was added another dimension in the second century as the church fathers needed to respond to the pagan critique that this Christian church was a new religion and therefore was false because everything that's true must be old and ancient and unchanging.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so if Christianity is a new religion, it must be false.

[SPEAKER_01]: But [SPEAKER_01]: The Trump card was to play the Old Testament.

[SPEAKER_01]: Last, the Old Testament is older than your Greek philosophers and it predicted the coming of Jesus Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it allowed Christianity to have a claim for an ancient heritage.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, relate the Old Testament to the New Testament proclamation, was one motivation.

[SPEAKER_01]: and then to read the Old Testament in a way that it served the Christian faith and its proclamation to show Christ within there and to benefit from it spiritually for the people.

[SPEAKER_01]: In the first century, Christians are gathering together and worship services after the Jewish Synagogue pattern and so they had received.

[SPEAKER_01]: the idea of praying the scriptures, reading the scriptures, proclaiming the scriptures, learning to live the scriptures, alakha to obey them, and that meant you had to interpret them.

[SPEAKER_01]: You had to understand how they would apply to life.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's some initial motivation.

[SPEAKER_01]: for the need for exegesis in the church.

[SPEAKER_01]: Boy, I'm gonna go on a lot.

[SPEAKER_01]: Where to go next?

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's go to some of those Jewish practices.

[SPEAKER_01]: We see in the seven laws of Hillel, the seven rules of Hillel.

[SPEAKER_01]: Some of the interpretive moves that were legitimized to draw a meaning out of the Old Testament and the Christians will pick up on some of these.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think it's coincidental.

[SPEAKER_01]: One of them, for example, was the reservoir shiva, if we put an ounce here of wow, this is these reservoir shiva, was to identify a word in a text that would connect it to another text by the use of the same word.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you could trace link texts together by common words, by common topics, by more general principles, more specific examples.

[SPEAKER_01]: arguments from the greater to the lesser, from the lesser to the greater, and you see this in the New Testament.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus, for example, in John's hand, says, if you, to whom the Word of God came, could be called to God's, how much more I, how much more I might get the title of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's countering the Jews who would like to stone him.

[SPEAKER_01]: And because he identified himself as equal to the father in a certain way, this is the son of the father.

[SPEAKER_01]: And his response was to show that they themselves could, in a certain way, be given the divine title.

[SPEAKER_01]: And therefore, it should be no offense if he himself gets that same title.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's an argument from the lesser to the greater.

[SPEAKER_01]: If it counts for you, counts for me all the more.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's an example of Jewish ex-Jesus coming into the New Testament and then that will launch some of the practices of the Christian church.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think this particular one of connecting Bible verses [SPEAKER_01]: in various ways becomes really powerful in the in the patristic ex-Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know if enough work has been done on this.

[SPEAKER_01]: I suspect it hasn't that what the early church fathers would do, they would have an assembly of texts about a topic.

[SPEAKER_01]: It would [SPEAKER_01]: They would, these work gathered together, probably in the first century, definitely in the second century, in testimony lists.

[SPEAKER_01]: So if you wanted to talk about Jesus the Messiah, you would have your standard passages from Isaiah and so forth that you would spout off and they would connect to each other and they would make a logical progression.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you can memorize these, but a hundred years ago, there was some scholarly discussion of there being actual books, little pamphlets, tracks, that would gather together these Bible verses.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's been Google somewhat, but the fact that we see these repeated references to the same texts, texts connected to each other shows that this is part of the thinking, [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to go a little further than and say that as this exagetical tradition develops, this linkages of text, this intertextuality becomes characteristic of the tradition to guide it, to limit it, and to direct it.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I understand, rather Jordan, that you're a Baptist, and I'm a Lutheran.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this is one of my examples on this very topic is that when we want to talk to someone about baptism, I think a Baptist typically goes to what Bible passage.

[SPEAKER_01]: When you begin to talk to somebody about baptism, what's the thing that first comes up?

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, people call me a bad Baptist because they think that I sound more like a Presbyterian or something else.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I would personally go to a text that they probably would, they would probably say Matthew 28 or Roman 6.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would think, that's interesting.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I thought the Lutheran answer is, where would you go personally?

[SPEAKER_00]: Personally, I often end up going to a mixture of a couple of texts.

[SPEAKER_00]: I do think Colossians, too, should have a discussion or have an element of influence on it, and I would probably, I don't know what other to it, first Corinthians.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is it 10 or 11?

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Baptized.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_00]: All through the scene.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're a very creative analytical person.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, first being right.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's pause.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's back way up.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's say you're talking to somebody who knows nothing of Christian baptism.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is their tabula rosette.

[SPEAKER_01]: You want to introduce it blank slate.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's see if I get the answer.

[SPEAKER_01]: I want this one.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a good question.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'm tempted to, now that I'm thinking through all the text, I would might say first Peter three.

[SPEAKER_01]: My goodness, God bless you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you think that some Baptists would call to Jesus Baptists in the Charger?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know what?

[SPEAKER_00]: They would.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know why that text did not come to me as a forefront of my mind.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm giving you a long text.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, maybe in your heart of hearts, you're not all right.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know when Lutherans would get to the baptism of Jesus in talking to someone about baptism.

[SPEAKER_01]: They would just start Matthew 28, the Savior would become a disciple, they'd go to Romans 6, just like you said.

[SPEAKER_01]: If they would, they'd go on from there.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then it's some point, probably, or the first Sunday after Epiphany, they would preach a sermon on the baptism of Jesus and then we'd connect that somehow to these things.

[SPEAKER_01]: they Lutheran see the baptism of Jesus as something that's part of John the Baptist ministry rather than the beginning of Christian baptism.

[SPEAKER_01]: I see the beginning of Christian baptism is Matthew 28 and so that's where we started.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah yeah so Jesus isn't an example that's interesting at all.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah so so which texts that you apply?

[SPEAKER_01]: are kind of to wreck your confessional thinking, which I know you're interested in, and how that logic unfolds.

[SPEAKER_01]: So my suspicion, my observation in protistic studies is that as they're executing scripture, there are traditions of linking texts in certain ways.

[SPEAKER_01]: that guide them.

[SPEAKER_01]: And one hand really want to be tempted to think they're learning this from each other.

[SPEAKER_01]: And on the other hand, probably also true, that they have a common regulatory, they have a common rule of faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is drawn from the text, drawn from the proclamation.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then if you know that, kind of have the answer key in that, then you automatically go to certain text as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: But if we were to suspect, we'll eventually say the big guy who weighs in in petristic exegesis and impacts everyone is origin and origin was huge at drawing these textual linkages and he does so in multiple and various ways, he'll take one passage, one idea and they'll spin it off one way.

[SPEAKER_01]: That one time, he'll spin it off another way at another time.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he sort of explores creatively all the possibilities.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then some people pick up some ideas, some people pick up other ideas.

[SPEAKER_01]: Very few are as expansive as he is to say, yeah, all these things have to run.

[SPEAKER_00]: In your mind, is origin a good guy or bad guy or is he neither?

[SPEAKER_01]: Which is a good guy.

[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely a good guy.

[SPEAKER_00]: Alright, see, I like this.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've already got a flow, but we're on the same team here.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I have to sympathize with the poor man.

[SPEAKER_01]: One, he was probably a child prodigy.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's brilliant.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's memorizing the scripture.

[SPEAKER_01]: Two, he's in a very challenging situation.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's in the Alexandria hot intellectual milieu.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jews attacking on one side, pay against attacking on another side, not sticks, drawing people way on another side.

[SPEAKER_01]: How is he going to represent orthodox?

[SPEAKER_01]: Christianity in a way that's intelligent, wins some authentic, good look goal.

[SPEAKER_01]: How are you going to do that?

[SPEAKER_01]: And you just have to know there are no one has paved the road with guardrails or with lines yet.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's in an open field and there's a cross at the center and he's walking around trying to draw people to the cross, trying to draw people to Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes, at some point in the future, somebody's going to say, there's a boundary here and you shouldn't cross that.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a boundary over there and you shouldn't cross that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of what he gets heaped for is what he admits is speculative speculation in his on-first principles.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's drawing together some ideas.

[SPEAKER_01]: He says, well, maybe it's like this.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe this is how it works.

[SPEAKER_01]: Here's a way in which we can see our whole teaching systematically from the beginning to the eschaton and beyond, from the divine origins to bond into eternity.

[SPEAKER_01]: And posit this.

[SPEAKER_01]: But he doesn't insist upon it as some kind of dogma of the church.

[SPEAKER_01]: and he realized it before us.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he's responding to systematic efforts of the Nostics before them, the Nostics had this.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, in Thai, so he knew personal in that person, but he knew his system very well.

[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the polls of Elantinas and his Nostics theoretical system was that it was systematic.

[SPEAKER_01]: It had a full picture, so you need to offer people an alternative.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he's, in a certain way, trying to outnostic the Nostics, he gets, he gets flagged for that, but he loved the scriptures.

[SPEAKER_01]: You and I are Protestant.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to find a friend on a Protestant, there I say Lutheran interpretation of the book of Romans, you go to origin.

[SPEAKER_01]: Origins state is his understanding of his commentary on Romans, [SPEAKER_01]: He understands that it's faith, a long which saves, the works demonstrate salvation, but they do not.

[SPEAKER_01]: Give the salvation the hidden things belong to God.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's interpreting that Old Testament passage, the hidden things belong to God, but the visible things belong to you.

[SPEAKER_01]: The hidden thing is faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: Faith is what receives the things of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: Visible things, the works.

[SPEAKER_01]: I can look at people and say, oh, the tree is non-dites fruits.

[SPEAKER_00]: Love origin.

[SPEAKER_01]: Good God.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, I derailed you there a little bit.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll let you continue on in describing Patricia Gexegesis in the next topic that you wanted to discuss.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to be here for three hours the way I'm going.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think I'm going to get into my overriding principles and that'll be fine.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we talked about motivation, surveying the Christian faith with the Old Testament, seeing the Old Testament and the New Testament together in a positive way.

[SPEAKER_01]: But there were basic pre-suppositions.

[SPEAKER_01]: And here I'm looking for example at [SPEAKER_01]: O'Keefe and Reno Reno and O'Keefe sanctified vision, excellent book on, and depicting the basic principles of Petristic exegesis.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Bible is the inspired Word of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: It has one author, and therefore it is completely legitimate to have these intertextual linkages [SPEAKER_01]: by which you're taking the of store passages in say Isaiah and interpreting them from brighter passages say in Matthew that's that's easier in that case and that it's all centered in Christ so it's it's all one revelation all centered in Christ to be read in the community of the church.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that is, then allows the text to be read deeply and also intensively, you can look at the warp and wolf of specific words.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you can draw a meaning out of them.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's an expectation in patristic exegesis that every aspect of the text is divine and inspired and can carry meaning.

[SPEAKER_01]: in terms of how much meaning will you find everywhere?

[SPEAKER_01]: Origin finds lots of meaning everywhere in terms of the spiritual life, especially in things think are...

[SPEAKER_01]: especially in things that you think are superfluous, and exactly because they're superfluous, and they don't seem to be necessary, things seem to be arbitrary, actually hide in me.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, they take etymologies, and he's learning this from phyllo, a value-exandry, other great Jewish philosophical ecstasy to the first century, etymologies of Hebrew words, the appearance of plants or animals, the spiritual significance of numbers, [SPEAKER_01]: and elements of Alexandria, who was in Alexandria before origin, during the same thing, learning from phyllo.

[SPEAKER_01]: So if there are any little details, the red core which Ray had puts on the door is the blood of Jesus, which saves us, which it puts it on the window.

[SPEAKER_01]: So where was that going?

[SPEAKER_01]: So all of the little details have significance intensive reading of the scripture, [SPEAKER_01]: Now, what was the larger thing, all serving the Christian faith, the pre-supposition that it's a divine inspired text, and that it is full of meaning, it's saturated with meaning.

[SPEAKER_01]: Over time, we're like in this very spiritual, very allegorical at times reading of the scriptures by origin, for example.

[SPEAKER_01]: that is countered in the originist controversies of late 4th century, 6th century, but already in the 4th century is a general movement toward reading the scriptures more literally, of appreciating the archaeology of it as a literal text of not emphasizing so much [SPEAKER_01]: And there, you're going back to the classical world where there were two contrasting educative movements, educational movements, pedagogical movements.

[SPEAKER_01]: One was philosophy and in trying into a way of life, in a shaping of the soul, and the other was the rhetoric, the rhetorical tradition, [SPEAKER_01]: in a way that required certain strategies of textual analysis and application.

[SPEAKER_01]: And even as part of that, the legal tradition, there's a relatively recent study in which the work of Eronius on the beginning of John seems to raw from the legal practices of making a case and understanding the law and applying.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll make sure I'm keeping my track here.

[SPEAKER_01]: Seeing the scriptures as full of meaning, reading it very allegorically, also very philologically, also looking into the details of the text.

[SPEAKER_01]: But then later in a four-century particular lily, a founder movement of moving more into the rhetorical tradition, thinks historically, and not being quite so willing to find Jesus under every rock.

[SPEAKER_01]: even though Cyril about Alexandria in the fifth century is in Alexandria.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's sensitive enough to the intervening criticisms that he is pulling back on reading everything in the Old Testament, crystallologically.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's being a little more circumspect, generally.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, when he really wants to, he has the glyphiera, which is willing to find a lot of typology in the Old Testament.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there's what is it?

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like the worship, the adoration, and the spirit, and the truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: where he feels like he needs to connect the old testament to the new testament again and to show the positive interaction and the positive harmony, and he does that full-board allegorical flick.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, it becomes a tool, but generally people become more circumspect about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I mean, when I think of the way you describe this today, a lot of Protestants probably don't read scripture with these thicker sort of presuppositions and categories.

[SPEAKER_00]: What happened and should we return?

[SPEAKER_00]: I know that's more of like a more of a normative question, but I am interested in your own opinion on that.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's wonderful for preaching.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think it preaches all very well.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think there was a little bit of a justification in my own training at the seminary, Reverend Rasseau, would talk about gospel handles.

[SPEAKER_01]: This was his way of getting around.

[SPEAKER_01]: preaching being just pure scholarly exegesis.

[SPEAKER_01]: That preaching would be proclamation.

[SPEAKER_01]: And in a certain way, he's in Augustine's tradition.

[SPEAKER_01]: That the point is to preach the truth, even if it's not exactly the truth of this text, that you can necessarily see that there's some absurdities, ambiguities in the text, [SPEAKER_01]: But the way the gospel handle would work would be here.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm faced with this narrative text of the Old Testament.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not exactly sure how I can legitimately find how it relates to New Testament Proclamation, but I see something in here that reminds me of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: I see someone acting like Jesus, I see some redemptive characteristic, I see something that shows grace or mercy or saving love.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then I can bounce from that analogy, from that example, and I can bounce into the proclamation of Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: So again, it kind of, it all preaches.

[SPEAKER_01]: It could all preach.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it's a very interesting question.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's about our worldview.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you believe that God is overall things?

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you believe that this book is God's book?

[SPEAKER_01]: That it is there, is there chance?

[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things to get a funny reaction out of me is to wish me good luck.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll tell you, I don't believe in luck.

[SPEAKER_01]: I believe in God.

[SPEAKER_01]: So if there is something in the scriptures that in the Old Testament, that connects to the New Testament and you can preach it profitably.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm willing to say that the Holy Spirit has [SPEAKER_01]: place that in there for our advantage and for for our blessing.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm I'm open to its use yet the the critique is that allegory becomes a wax out.

[SPEAKER_01]: The critique is we've seen what happened in medieval allegory.

[SPEAKER_01]: and it went all over the place.

[SPEAKER_01]: We could also say that for someone like origin, and maybe even worse a bit, before him plumb at the BellExandria, allegory becomes a Trojan horse for bringing in platonic philosophy into the church.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're really just using the structures to proclaim a philosophical world.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's Middle Platonism.

[SPEAKER_01]: What did they have?

[SPEAKER_01]: That was their world view.

[SPEAKER_01]: They had the truth of their philosophical worldview, which they were finding in the scriptures, because they believed that the scriptures were true.

[SPEAKER_01]: I guess you could say it's...

[SPEAKER_01]: similar to someone today like a creation scientist, a creationist who believes they have certain truths of the natural world that they need to find in the scriptures.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then they draw the parallels and draw it out.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know that's been a project for some people, the last few generations.

[SPEAKER_01]: So given that Neil Platonic or Middle Platonic philosophy was true, given that the Bible was true as God's truth and all truth belongs to God.

[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, learning from phyllo, for example, you would say that the reality of the spiritual realms being over the the corporal realms is embedded in how you understand the scripture and the scriptures revealing that as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's somewhat problematic.

[SPEAKER_01]: However, the main point was Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: They were of all things in all best cases and in many, many, many cases they were guided by the rule of faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're an ESF at talk to them, as you're an ESF exemplified tax subscription, we're like pieces of a mosaic, and you knew that they were to shape.

[SPEAKER_01]: the face of the king and you would take the pieces of the scripture and you would lay them out and illustrate the face of the king.

[SPEAKER_01]: You would not like a nostic reorder them in some crazy order to do a dog picture.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's that's a bastardization of the text.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, when you're given the rule of faith, when you, when you, in a certain way, know the answer, you can work easily, use the text to be constantly pointing to the answer.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can, that's saying Augustine, in his day doctrine of Christiana, that they're, you wanted, you wanted to draw from the, the classical world, you want to draw from the knowledge of history [SPEAKER_01]: what you need to do is observe the central teaching of the Scripture as it is proclaimed by the church.

[SPEAKER_01]: The central teaching of the Scripture itself intrinsically is within the Scripture, so you can find it there.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then you have the support of the church confirming it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And saying yes, there's the creed.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is what we mean.

[SPEAKER_00]: In your mind, is there any tension between protistic reading of the Bible and the reformers reading of the Bible?

[SPEAKER_00]: When I go read Luther and Calvin and these other figures, are they intentionally or unintentionally in a different sort of bucket when we categorize how to read the Bible?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's a very good question.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's definitely in the Reformation, a damning of allegory, you can find that which they rejected, they complain about its excesses and problems, and yet at the same time they are celebrating the church fathers when the church fathers agree with them, and they are claiming to be within this great tradition within the great tradition, and they are [SPEAKER_01]: Also, depending on and standing on the conclusions of this exegesis.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a little challenging to say, agree with the patristic doctrine of the Trinity and its Christology.

[SPEAKER_01]: And yet, I'm not going to accept their exegetical method at all out.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you're going to come to these same conclusions in your own way.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that sure it's going to work all that well.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I think that given our common indebtedness to the doctrine of the church as it's been handed on to us as a proclamation of the scripture, we also have to be listening to how they approach the scripture.

[SPEAKER_00]: In your mind, who are sort of the key figures you would say, if you want to learn more about protistic exegesis, you need to go spend time with them.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know you mentioned origin, you mentioned some other figures, who are the key people in your mind that we need to be reading to get a better sense for how to understand it and also to practice it.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's sort of a schmurvy sport from beginning and sampler platter.

[SPEAKER_01]: You could look at Justin Martyr's dialogue with trifle to see how he's citing the Old Testament's proof text, how he's reading it crystallologically, finding Jesus there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Uranus against Pharisees, especially though four.

[SPEAKER_01]: He also with his interpretation of the scripture and seeing technology, the types in the Old Testament, pointing forward to Christ, seeing Christ as the sum, the recapitulation, and there's also another principle that gets introduced here, and that's the divine pedagogy, and that's it, over [SPEAKER_01]: ruling metaphor overriding metaphor for the whole period that the scriptures that teaching is arranged in a pedagogical curriculum, that is a progressive revelation, and you need to be in school.

[SPEAKER_01]: You need to be schooled by the text with the simple texts and grow into the more spiritual texts, and you cannot [SPEAKER_01]: Attain to the full truths of the scripture without first being formed by the scripture and learning the simple lessons to the harder one.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the pedagogy, and the pedagogy is also historical.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, God begins by teaching Abraham, he goes on to teach Israel, and he reveals himself fully in his son, and then the coming of the Holy Spirit.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a way in which there's a growth in the revelation of fruit.

[SPEAKER_01]: So erroneous against Pharisees, divine pedagogy, patterns of typology.

[SPEAKER_01]: A Clement of Alexandria is really fun.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's hard to read because he is esoteric.

[SPEAKER_01]: his highest truths, and he is also reaching out to the intelligentsia with these so many quotations of the classical world.

[SPEAKER_01]: But book six of his or book five of his stromatase talks about the revelation of the mysteries of the scripture in Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: Or the Christian to become the true [SPEAKER_01]: not the heretical plastic but the real guy in the know who really grasp the truth of the gospel.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he thinks claims that from them.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's really bold.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's gut-seed.

[SPEAKER_01]: You want to be nostics?

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll show you Jesus in the scriptures.

[SPEAKER_01]: And through a process of your life patterning to this, you'll be in life.

[SPEAKER_01]: Malito of Sardis, on the Pasca, as well as Cyril of Jerusalem, and his ketocatical lecture or homilies, well, they will typologically see the Passover at Jerusalem, the subtle testament, Passover, fulfilled in Christ, and they find all of these wonderful details.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is, as you said, a thick, rich reading of the passage to find Jesus there.

[SPEAKER_01]: A good introduction is Gregory of Nezianzus, as five theological operations.

[SPEAKER_01]: begins with the task of theology.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you mill it requires a pedagogy, again, you're not preaching everything to everyone at all times.

[SPEAKER_01]: You need to be formed by this and grow into it.

[SPEAKER_01]: You share things with the appropriate time, the appropriate place to be appropriate people.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you're humbly recognized, you don't know everything.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you're dealing with spiritual things which are beyond us.

[SPEAKER_01]: spiritual things which we cannot fully grasp during nature of God and it's what a certain way we need to stand in awe and silence and receive humbly whatever truths we can.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then he goes on to talk about the nature of the sun and to [SPEAKER_01]: affirm the deity of the sun, and there he's got, for example, some illustrations of how textural studies and the rhetorical tradition come in, he'll go on for a few pages about what the word until means, in all the possible meanings of the word until.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, why would he do that?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because in Corinthians it says that the sun will reign until, [SPEAKER_01]: He lays the kingdom at the feet of the Father, and the variants of that time were saying that Jesus is not going to reign forever.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's only going to reign until He gives the kingdom over to the Father.

[SPEAKER_01]: And as he ends this, has to go through all the meanings of a till and and he points out the one that says, until does not necessarily mean that something has stopped it can continue after that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think he uses the example of the version married that Joseph did not [SPEAKER_01]: You said, you know, you didn't even know her after that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that perpetual virginity of Mary that it gets caught up into that argument a little bit.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you could see how he's interpreting text crystallologically to defend against heresies, which is another aspect of the tristic interrecognation and what guides the tradition.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then the fifth theological operation shows a greater awareness of the economy of salvation of God's laying out his plan of salvation through history.

[SPEAKER_01]: And those who were denying the deity of the Holy Spirit were saying, the full deity of the Holy Spirit isn't really seen in the New Testament in the Bible.

[SPEAKER_01]: Where are you getting this?

[SPEAKER_01]: How can we affirm that?

[SPEAKER_01]: And as the answers will say, in the Old Testament, here's the pedagogy, again, in the Old Testament, the world needed to know there was only one God.

[SPEAKER_01]: So only the Father was revealed, and there were hints that there was a son.

[SPEAKER_01]: When we were ready for more, the son steps into the world, and he reveals himself as fully God.

[SPEAKER_01]: and there were hints about the Holy Spirit, and then with Pentecost and with the birth of the church and the life of the church, the full deity of the Holy Spirit, who reveals God to us and have for must be God, who makes us, God's, like God, God's, God's children, God's people.

[SPEAKER_01]: He must lead there for God.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so he's got this economy of salvation that explains that the Trinity is [SPEAKER_01]: after the Old Testament reveals the Father, the coming of Jesus reveals the Son and the Light of the Church reveals the Spirit.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that broader scope is essential.

[SPEAKER_01]: I wrap this up, Augusta Nunkristen, Dr.

and begins with the creed, creed old knowledge that's going to guide you in the basic teachings of the Bible, but then goes on to how to deal with the obscurities of the Bible through textual study.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he legitimizes the study of history, the study of language, classical studies, and he legitimizes that for the whole medieval tradition, that the seven of the Brahlarts, [SPEAKER_01]: the permanent collection size of the church and Cassie Doris will affirm that that's part of the Lexi of Dina.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, yes, know your stuff, know scientific knowledge, know worldly knowledge, secular knowledge to a human scripture.

[SPEAKER_01]: But then, the next book, if there are yet absurdities, [SPEAKER_01]: You can pull out the allegories and the spiritual readings.

[SPEAKER_01]: If that results, the problems.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then finally, Dr.

Scott Proclamation, which we brought forward, how do you teach them material?

[SPEAKER_01]: And just for an overall endorsement, I'd recommend Wiles and Sansur, I brought one along, a document's in early Christian thought.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a nice little summary book, Wiles, Maurice Wiles, Mark Sainter, I just got, I sometimes have signed that to undergraduates, a little challenging for undergraduates, perhaps had it in graduate school at one point, a nice survey of nice introduction of Patricia Kthock broadly, and there's a section in there specifically [SPEAKER_01]: There are more things to say, but it's an introduction.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, that makes sense.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's excellent.

[SPEAKER_00]: So tell me, I know you mentioned you teach undergraduates, some masters.

[SPEAKER_00]: What sort of masters degrees are you offering at the concordia you're at?

[SPEAKER_00]: This point.

[SPEAKER_01]: We have no masters degrees in theology.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we are looking at in the next year or two, laying out a master's degree in my program.

[SPEAKER_01]: classification program.

[SPEAKER_01]: So anyone who's involved in classical education across the country and this is this is a hot and growing movement as you may know.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, there are a lot of a lot of people in it who are just trying to get on the learning curve and climb that learning curve up.

[SPEAKER_01]: If someone is in that situation, or just has an undergraduate in classical education, I want to go further, they can, it's going to be an online program.

[SPEAKER_01]: It'll be a year.

[SPEAKER_01]: I imagine I'm actually not the one spearheading this project, but please, the courty of Chicago, check us out in six months, a year, see what we've got to offer in terms of a classic classical education degree, relept two versions, classical Lutheran education and classical education.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Charles, this has been a delight.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll have to have you back on to talk to your dissertation here soon.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I think everybody will be emailing me clamoring to say, we need to hear more about that, especially if they Google it and find out what it's on.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it'll be very hot topic for us.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was Clement of Alexandria, I gave you a little secret.

[SPEAKER_01]: What do they call it?

[SPEAKER_01]: And egg, what did they call it?

[SPEAKER_01]: And Easter egg.

[SPEAKER_01]: I gave you an Easter egg.

[SPEAKER_01]: So see if you could find it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well Charles, this has been really, really great.

[SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate you taking the time here to talk with us about this.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's a fascinating topic.

[SPEAKER_00]: And obviously we could probably talk for a couple of hours on it.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, thanks for your time, and I look forward to talking with you soon in the future.

[SPEAKER_00]: And for everybody who's been listening, we appreciate you tuning in to the only analytic Baptist and confessional podcast on the planet, and we'll talk to you guys soon.