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- [00:00]
Elle
Foreign.
- [00:06]
Brent Billings
This is the Bayma Podcast with Marty Solomon. I'm his co host, Brent Billings. Today I'm with Elle, Grover Fricks and Josh Bossay as we take a closer look at Jesus's teachings on desire.
- [00:16]
Elle
Okay, so last week, Reed got a featuring. Reed, like at the end, like he had his own rap first. So congratulations, Josh. You are a full collaborating artist, I guess.
- [00:30]
Josh Bossay
Nice.
- [00:31]
Brent Billings
You know, like I said, I'm just trying different things, trying to figure out what makes everybody happy.
- [00:35]
Elle
As long as, you know, you get harassed whatever way you go. That's the key. Okay, so what are we doing? What are we doing? Today Jesus has been talking to us about what it looks like to walk out Torah in the world. Right? Salt and light. What does that mean? What does it look like? So first we're going to read some text. Always a good way to start. Then we're going to spend some time in peshat because we want to honor the peshat. We want to enjoy Peshat. There's good stuff in here and we don't want to let any of it go to waste. And then we're going to get into the Talmud with that research question that we have for this whole series. How much is Jesus innovating? Is he laying on the gas in terms of the intensity of the Jewish teaching in his milieu? Or is he laying on the brakes in terms of intensity? Or is he doing something totally different beyond what we might even guess? So we're going to do that. We're going to use a Ramez, maybe a little Josh there at the end. So it's going to be a good time. I'm excited.
- [01:39]
Brent Billings
Okay, Matthew 5, starting in verse 27 in the RSV, you have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away. It is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.
- [02:12]
Elle
Okay, so we've probably heard this text preached before. Maybe not all of us have, but probably so if we think about that conversation we had with Marty at the beginning of the series and laying out columns. Right, that first column, we're not going to do the whole column thing again, but still helpful to start out with what? What have we heard about this passage? What are the ways that we've heard it taught? What kind of peshat teachings have we encountered before? And do they feel helpful or unhelpful or neutral?
- [02:46]
Brent Billings
It's the foundational text for the men's accountability groups in my church growing up.
- [02:51]
Elle
Oh, my. Was there like a bone saw at the accountability group?
- [02:58]
Brent Billings
No, but I'm sure we could have found one if we needed comforting.
- [03:02]
Josh Bossay
Yeah, luckily no one there was dealing with lust at all, so it was totally fine. No, yeah. This is something that comes up maybe. I'm curious, Brent. Maybe it comes up more for men in men centered groups. Because, yeah, I've heard this talked about a ton. But interestingly, on the peshat level, like you were talking about it. Definitely. I'd never heard anyone teach from this. No literalist readings of this in terms of like, you should actually cut it off. But I guess nothing really sticks out in terms of anything of particular note or particularly interesting in those teachings. But the gist that I always got was more or less like, that's like internally how severe you should be with yourself regarding your eyes. And so it was kind of a, like, well, you should be. You should be, you know, doing, you know, internal self mutilation.
- [04:07]
Elle
Got it.
- [04:07]
Josh Bossay
And you know, just, you know, the. The bone saw in this case is been made of shame.
- [04:12]
Elle
Right.
- [04:13]
Josh Bossay
That is kind of a DIY project.
- [04:16]
Elle
And here we have the bonesaw of shame.
- [04:18]
Josh Bossay
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [04:22]
Brent Billings
And all sorts of techniques taught to. To deal with this. Like the eye. Yeah, you just gotta bounce your eyes. It was like the thing. It's like you just gotta. You just gotta do that.
- [04:33]
Elle
It's like, okay, I am learning so much today.
- [04:37]
Josh Bossay
Oh, yeah, yeah. I did also hear that the. Actually, I guess the one teaching took this to mean like, well, if it was your eye or your hand causing you to stumble, then you should cut it off. But is it really your eye or your hand?
- [04:54]
Elle
Or is it that wily?
- [04:58]
Josh Bossay
Or is it usually it was. Or is it your. Your heart gotta cut that out. Yeah, you're a little. Exactly. Cut out. Cut out for your sinful little heart there, bud.
- [05:08]
Elle
A harrowing landscape is what I'm. What I'm apprehending here, what I'm coming to terms with. Well, we'll see. We'll see what the text has for us today. We'll see what kind of insight the talmudic conversation gives us. But I think hopefully peeking into the Greek right off the B might help us navigate some of those early messages that we may have received in our church background, or even lack thereof, about desire. So let's. Let's get kicking here on our. On our prashat observations. Also, if you don't remember what peshat is, it's part of the pardes. Hermeneutic. Pardes is a acronym, but it means paradise in, I believe, Babylonian. And it's a loan word over in the Hebrew, and that talks about what's on the surface, and that's the peshat level. And then you kind of dig through the archeology of the text into a ramez, which is a hint in drosh, which is the meaning of that. And then if the Holy Spirit shows up, you get a sot. So if it's been a long time and you don't know what I'm saying, I'm sorry. There you go. There's a reminder.
- [06:22]
Brent Billings
Much, much talk of that in session three, but potentially a long time ago for some listeners.
- [06:26]
Elle
Right? Yeah. If you're listening along. My goodness. Okay, so the Greek. What do we find in the Greek that can be helpful? Well, that word lust, Right. It hangs heavy in church culture. Right. It's a. It's a pretty big deal. The word that we find here in the Greek is epithumeo. Epithumeo. And the root there is the name of this podcast episode. So if you're confused about that, there it is. And what that literally means is to pant after, to desire something, to covet versus. And that's what lust originally meant etymologically in the Old English. Right. You can read Shakespeare and he'd be like, oh, I lust after some rest or something. Right. But in our modern era, I identify with that. Right?
- [07:23]
Josh Bossay
Yeah. Like wanderlust or something.
- [07:26]
Elle
Yeah. So we still have fragments of it that way in our culture on our car bumper stickers, but mostly lust. Lust, dirty, gross, bad, terrible, shame. Right. Those are kind of the pieces of baggage that. That come with us. So if we step back for a second, if it means to pant after something. Right. It means to desire something in this embodied way we see is. Is that always a problem? You know, because if we hear the word less, that feels, like always bad 100 of the time. If we look at other uses of epithomeo, though, and we check over in the Septuagint, which everyone knows I love to do. If we check over in the Septuagint, his translation of the Ten Commandments, it translates, you shall not covet with the same word epithomo. And it's switching out for the word chamad, which also means to pant after. It's the exact same picture in the Hebrew. But it doesn't just say, you shall not epithumao, full stop. It says, you shall not epithumao the woman of your neighbor or his servant or his female slave or his plowing oxen or his donkey or anything that is for your neighbor. So as we kind of navigate this landscape that's full of obstacles for, again, if we grew up in purity culture, and maybe some people love what they were raised with, and that's awesome. But is desire always bad? Right. Sometimes that can be the takeaway that we pick up through that journey of growing up when we have whole scrolls like the Song of Songs, which is like, desire and enjoyment and delight are part of God's design. They're things God has given you, and they're great. So the difference then, between the commandments and our allowance to have desire. Right. Is that epithumao in that context is about coveting something which is not yours. Right. Your donkey or your female slave or your neighbor's wife is not in a sanctioned relationship with you. They haven't given you permission or consent to be panted after. Right. Like, hopefully a spouse is excited about two.
- [09:49]
Josh Bossay
One thing that jumped out at me is that word you said, chamad. Its first use is when God is creating the trees and he creates them to be desirable.
- [10:00]
Elle
Good point, Josh.
- [10:03]
Josh Bossay
Built into creation from God. And, you know, how can that be bad?
- [10:08]
Elle
The very beginning. I know. I love to hang out with you.
- [10:14]
Josh Bossay
Also to back you up on the Septuagint thing. If you're like, oh, Septuagint, septuagint. Literally, Paul, in Romans, talking about the commandment do not covet uses this exact Greek word. So both sides.
- [10:28]
Elle
Well, fine, Josh, I receive your exhortation to get over myself.
- [10:35]
Josh Bossay
What? No, not to get over yourself.
- [10:37]
Brent Billings
Al does not generally appreciate the septuagints connections.
- [10:43]
Elle
Right. So I'm stretching myself here. I'm growing in maturity. I'm making room for using the Septuagint. So here we are. What was our point? Our point was God designed desire. He put it in the garden. It's something to be enjoyed. Unless you are not in a sanctioned relationship. Right. So the person hasn't given consent to be desired in that way. Right. We don't want to covet people like objects. That's creepy. Transgresses, boundaries. It's not good for them, it's not good for you. It's harder to have healthy Relationship and community with someone and feel you're imaginating them or fixating on them as an object. So just adding in some nuance. Whenever we talk about a word that can feel triggering to some people just even hearing about lust again. Right. If it's been a while since they've been in a environment like it sounds like you guys got trained in lucky. You really going to have to Google that later.
- [11:45]
Brent Billings
The source text for my generation is probably every man's battle or Every young man's battle.
- [11:51]
Elle
Wow. Everyone, huh?
- [11:54]
Brent Billings
Every. Every man.
- [11:55]
Elle
That is a broad, sweeping generalization if I've ever heard one.
- [11:59]
Brent Billings
Yeah.
- [11:59]
Elle
And no, women's didn't work for me.
- [12:01]
Brent Billings
Oh, no. There's an every woman's battle. Oh, they made a whole series out of it.
- [12:04]
Elle
Yeah. Yeah. Look at me knowing absolutely nothing. Okay. Fascinating. What. What a world, man.
- [12:12]
Josh Bossay
I mean, I feel like it's. It's just. It's a big. It's a big, big thing. It's a big. I don't say pill to swallow because that sounds like it's like a hard truth, but it's like a kind of liberatory truth that I feel like we have a lot of fear towards it being a slippery slope, but.
- [12:31]
Elle
Right.
- [12:31]
Josh Bossay
I don't know. I can definitely say in my experience that that fear is not really rooted in a full, healthy relationship with God. And as I've grown. Yeah. Desire has become less. Less scary and. Yeah. Especially seeing how it's part of the natural order of God's creation. You know, a mango looks juicy because it's freaking delicious. Can be as simple as that. You know, it doesn't have to be like, but what if I become a mango addict? And this. You know, it's like.
- [13:12]
Elle
Right. Which isn't to say that there are no boundaries and everything you want is good and, like, treat yourself all the time. Right. We. We know that that is not also part of God's design and a healthy and safe way to live either.
- [13:30]
Josh Bossay
Knowing when to say enough, I think is our phrase.
- [13:32]
Elle
Oh, yeah. Very bama y. Look at you.
- [13:35]
Brent Billings
The whole. The whole thing of the Sermon on the Mount, Taking the teachings of Torah and reinterpreting them or looking them through a different lens and other points in Jesus's teaching where he's saying like, oh, you know, you're so concerned with this tradition and these other things, like the fence. Built around the fence, built around the fence so you don't get anywhere close to doing the thing that you're not supposed to do. I think this Is one of those things that we've done in a modern context is we are so afraid of breaking whatever. The fundamental thing of this teaching is that we have built up fences around fences around fences.
- [14:11]
Elle
Right.
- [14:12]
Brent Billings
And so we don't know how to engage this in a healthy way at all.
- [14:15]
Elle
Which, I mean, if you're going to pick things to put fences up around, there are only a few things in life that have the ability to tank your life. Right. And this is one of them. So I have compassion for our spiritual ancestors who were trying to figure out ways to set up those fences, but at some point gotta be like, wow, these are. This is a lot. And is it reaping fruit and the marriages of people down the road? Mixed. Mixed results, I would say. And I believe the data says not just anecdotal. Anecdotal. Okay. Well, number two thing that I just like us to notice together before we set off on our merry way into Talmud, is that it's always worth taking the time to notice that at no point, zero point in this discussion, does Jesus say anything to the women that they ought to change their behavior or the way they dress or their posture or absolute anything. There is nothing there to change the way that someone else is looking at them. Zero. He demands that men take accountability for their own sin, in fact. So the opposite. When scripture does tell women to watch the way they dress, Right. It's. It does show up. But the primary concern is economic modesty. Right. In the epistles, we see, like, no braids, no pearls, no jewelry, which certainly we do not follow that injunction. And this time talking about, like, what's literal and what's cultural and how we cherry pick between those. Boy, oh, boy, is that one cherry picked. Although, of course, braids. Right. We don't have servants now, so it's not like, connected to that in the same way it was.
- [16:06]
Brent Billings
Braids were like a luxury item because you had to have somebody else do it for you.
- [16:11]
Elle
Well, if you look up some of these hairstyles, Brent, you watch any historical documentary, TV show situation, they're not just like two little sweet braids. They're like massive hairdos that are made out of braids.
- [16:24]
Brent Billings
Okay. Okay.
- [16:25]
Elle
Yes. So it took people being able to do that for you. But right today. So the things that the epistles have to speak to women for today and how they might dress, it's like, how am I wearing my different brands? Right. So that other people know that I'm not one of them. Right. I have my Lululemon or my aloe Yoga or whatever. You know, there's a million different things, ways that we establish social hierarchy or that women do. And that's what the epistles are worried about. Because there's supposed to be no division in the family of God. And so we're supposed to be aware of the ways that those social hierarchies develop, even if they're not on purpose. But when it comes to this kind of issue, this kind of desire, Jesus. Although there's women present at the Sermon on the Mount, it's not like, well, over on the other side the hill, there was a woman's gathering and they, like they sent somebody over to talk to them about their issues. No, they're all there, one body listening to, listening to Jesus. And Jesus puts all the onus on the looker, not the woman just wandering around, living her life. And I just think that it's worth taking space for that and seeing who, if there's a victim of abuse and there's a perpetrator of abuse, whose side is Jesus on? Who is he worried about? Who is he putting agency on? Jesus doesn't pin the victim with the whole list of excuses about, well, unless she looks like this, then that's totally on her. Then you should drag her to synagogue and have someone like whisper in her ear and give her a shawl or whatever. That doesn't come up.
- [18:08]
Brent Billings
But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman lustful should ask, but what was she wearing?
- [18:13]
Elle
Right? Yeah. Not there. Almost as if it slipped Jesus's mind that day that that would be part of the mandated curriculum.
- [18:23]
Brent Billings
Right? Right.
- [18:23]
Elle
Point number three, before we go on our little Talmud journey, and we already alluded to this with our merry little bonesaw jokes, but call me crazy, but I don't think I am tmi, not, not thinking that Jesus is a proponent of self mutilation. Right? And so the last bashat thing I want to pull out and sit with for a minute is the fact that Jesus seems to be saying that if there is something you and anybody doesn't appreciate that we're doing in our lives, Jesus says stop it by any means necessary. Right? If something is not helpful or actively harming you, get rid of it. And not just for lent. Right? Check it out. The ding ding window. You don't like how you feel after you spend a ton of time on social media, delete the apps. Right? Have your friend change your password. You don't like how your night feels. Not quite right. If you don't have alcohol, stop buying alcohol. Right? You don't like how much TV you watch, Give your TV away. You don't like how sometimes when you get tired, you have big spurts of anger. So instead of ranting to people or social media, worse, right? And entrenching those neural pathways and heart pathways and start practicing prayer, start breathing, right. Whenever those instincts show up. We have so much learned helplessness about how we could never just do this one thing. It's just who we are, right? Even when we feel bad about it, we have so much more power and self agency than so often we imagine. And so Jesus just says, stop it. Like don't self mutilate. But we can't act as if we're just victims of Circumstance in society 100% of the time if we actually do have the ability to change. Which isn't to say that it's not hard, right? Otherwise Jesus wouldn't suggest checking your eyeballs and your hands into Ghana. Yeah, but we can do them. And sometimes I have conversations with folks who are big innovators and idealists in a great way, and they have big dreams, but they end up saying, oh, but you know, we can't really do that because we live in today's world. Yeah, we can if you make a way. If we pull together some gumption and resources, let's throw this thing out the window and make a new, make a new way of living. So I love that about Jesus, that he's like, no, actually you can, you can fix this.
- [20:54]
Josh Bossay
And I think that the, the invocation of self mutilation kind of helps illustrate that difference because, you know, it's like we often act like, you know, getting rid of something is impossibly too big of an ask. And it's like, well, is it really, is it part of your body? If it is that important, then like, you know, we should respond to Jesus. I think, like he's prompting us to. It's like, well, I wouldn't, I'm not gonna cut out my eye because of that.
- [21:24]
Elle
Get off X. Because like sports Twitter is still there.
- [21:27]
Josh Bossay
It's like, well, yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly. If that's how. Like you said, if that's how, you know, whether it's alcohol, whether it's social media, whether it's tv, or even if it's just like, like I know for me at times in my life it's like, hey, I need to just stop paying attention to politics, just all together. And I can say there have been times in my life where I've tried to do the little kind of, oh, I can Compromise or just, I'll just try and do this less often. And then there have been times where I've just been like, chuck it out the window. And chucking it out the window for a lot of these things works. There are some things in our life that you can't chuck out the window. And I think that is the difference that Jesus is trying to highlight. If you, if you literally can't live without something, then there's probably like the, the conversation around where the sin is coming from gets more complex and, you know, you should look into it. But when it is something like, oh, I'm just on this app too much, like, it's, it's free, baby. You could just delete it.
- [22:32]
Elle
Right?
- [22:32]
Josh Bossay
You can be free today.
- [22:35]
Elle
Woo. Salvation is at hand. Kingdom of God lies in the uninstall button for sure. Yeah. And there are also treatment centers for all different kinds of stuff. Right. That makes our life worse. So we're also fans of professional help as well. Okay, Talmud time. I'm so excited because we've been asking this research question, right? Is Jesus innovating? Is he pulling from his milieu? Is he doing something new? Is he dialing it up? Is he dialing it back? Well, let's find out. So I have a collection here specifically about adultery, right? Because that's how Jesus starts this teaching. He says the, you have heard it said about adultery. And then he switches to like the quote unquote, lust of the eyes thing. So we're going to talk about the adultery passage first to lay the foundation of like, what was the general teaching? What was the general understanding about the. This topic? And we have to start at Leviticus 20. It says if a man commits adultery with another man's wife, with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death. How you ask? This part isn't in Leviticus. If she's a daughter of a priest, she gets hot liquid lead poured down her throat. If she's engaged but not married, she gets stoned. And we've talked about strangulation previously, so we don't have to read litigate that. But all pretty big bummers that also feel pretty clear.
- [24:15]
Brent Billings
My goodness. Yeah.
- [24:17]
Elle
So let's look at our exceptions to that very black and white murder. You know, option exception number one. Because of that portion of Leviticus 20 that says with the wife of his neighbor, that means it doesn't count as adultery if the woman isn't Jewish. So if the woman is not Jewish, I quote it is not punishable. It's just frowned upon because you never know what those pesky gentiles are up to. She could turn out to be a slave, which you're not supposed to sleep with a slave, which is good. It could turn out she's a priest. Or worst of all, could turn out that she's menstruating. Right. Because those gentiles are crazy like that. So generally you're not supposed to, but. But not. Not punishable.
- [25:07]
Josh Bossay
Yeah. That's funny that it doesn't just say, well, it's not punishable by death, but that's just not punishable. Period. Not a lesser punishment, no punishment.
- [25:16]
Elle
Right. If you, if you think this is a lot, hold on to your horses and your socks while you're at it. Both at the same time. Okay. It's also okay if she's awaiting lever at marriage. So if her husband dies and she hasn't married her brother in law yet in that intermediate time intermediary time, it is free country, which is incredible in the literal sense of the word. I really hope you keep in that tiny O dear friend.
- [25:50]
Brent Billings
Yeah, so. Huh.
- [25:52]
Elle
Okay, we've got three more now.
- [25:54]
Brent Billings
Okay, jumping back to the first one though.
- [25:57]
Elle
Yeah.
- [25:57]
Brent Billings
If she's menstruating, then there is the. I mean, it's not a punishment, but there is the element of being unclean.
- [26:04]
Elle
Right, Right. So that's why it's frowned upon, because now you're unclean and you have to go deal with that. Yep.
- [26:12]
Brent Billings
Okay.
- [26:13]
Elle
Okay. Number three, it's okay. Adultery is okay if it's performed in the absence of witnesses and if you haven't had a previous warning. So I think this is giving space for people who haven't heard about like Torah law yet. That would be my guess. Or like kids, you know that you're looking teenagers that you're looking to give a pass. That would be my guess. Number four, as previously discussed on the Bama podcast, back in our Pricope of an Honor contest episode, women can't commit adultery. Even though she gets killed for it, it's never considered fully her fault. Riddle me that. I am not sure how that all works. It's not her fault ever. But she still has to die. And then finally, although a woman who participates in adultery is not culpable for it, she's still broken the marriage. But if a man commits adultery, he hasn't broken the marriage because technically polygamy is still on the table. Wild biblical world.
- [27:22]
Brent Billings
Yes.
- [27:23]
Elle
This all feels nebulous to me still. Because they're supposed to get killed. So I don't know, if you just, like, if you do commit adultery, then you just marry her and then it's okay. I have lots of. I have lots of question marks. So if other people do too, you're not alone. So worth noting, Jesus doesn't say any of this stuff, right? He doesn't perpetuate any of these norms. So in a way, he's pulling back rather than pulling forward. If that's our Talmudic background, right? In a way, when he brings up adultery and he doesn't, like, you know, lay the hammer down on. And you make sure that we go with team Liquid led, Like, we got to make sure that's happening, guys. He doesn't say that he raises the bar in a different way, or at least seemingly. And so is he innovating. If he talks about anyone looking at a woman to desire her to has already committed adultery, that exact line is in the Talmud. So now we can have a little debate that I don't think is super interesting. But that's fine to be like, did the Jewish. Jewish conversation steal that from Jesus if the dating ends up being after? Or did Jesus steal that from the community? I don't really like triumphalism in general, but it also just again, doesn't feel super interesting to me to be like.
- [28:42]
Brent Billings
Aha, yeah, Jesus taught it, so that's what we're dealing with, right?
- [28:47]
Josh Bossay
If other people agreed with him or said it first, it's still good teaching.
- [28:53]
Elle
Great day, Jesus follower. That's all that matters. But the quote that the full quote is, you should not say that only he who commits adultery with his body is called an adulterer. Also, he who commits adultery with his eyes is called an adulterer. To expand on that, then here are 10 Talmudic mitzvot about the lust of the eyes that is looking at women. 10 new commandments, as it were. And if you thought the last ones were great, buckle up.
- [29:27]
Brent Billings
I'm already buckled.
- [29:29]
Elle
You're still buckled from last time. Number one, one should not walk behind a woman on the road, even if it is his own wife.
- [29:41]
Josh Bossay
Okay. All right.
- [29:42]
Elle
Whoever. This is the same commandment. Whoever traverses a river behind a woman has no part in the world to come.
- [29:49]
Josh Bossay
Wow. Wow. Even your own.
- [29:50]
Brent Billings
Because you might accidentally get in line behind a woman who's not your wife. And you think you're looking at your wife, but you're not. And so you're.
- [30:02]
Josh Bossay
Yeah. Like when you're a little kid and you're at the grocery store, do you think someone's your mom. You go, hi, Mom. And it's not. It's a strange.
- [30:10]
Elle
Maybe it's because, like, you can't fulfill any desire when you're traversing a river or walking on the road. And so you shouldn't, like, create room for desire, even if it's your own wife.
- [30:22]
Brent Billings
Okay. Okay.
- [30:23]
Elle
Commandment number two. Whoever counts money from his hand into a woman's hand, looking at her, even if he has Torah knowledge and good works, like our teacher Moshe, he will not go unpunished from the judgment of Gehenna.
- [30:39]
Josh Bossay
Man, this is rough.
- [30:41]
Brent Billings
What sort? Strangely specific. It's like, there's got to be some sort of underlying situation that this is speaking to, which I guess happens in the text a lot, where it's like, where'd that law come from? Oh, go back to Genesis, whatever.
- [30:56]
Elle
But, yeah, Akiva was in the market one day, and he saw this happen, like, in a rom com, and he was like, no, it shall not be.
- [31:04]
Brent Billings
Right.
- [31:07]
Elle
Number three. Whoever looks, looks at a woman's heel. Children with bodily disabilities will be given to him. Boo. We ate that for a lot of reasons. Right? Theology of disability come a long way, but who knew? Heels is where it's at. Number four, let's. Let's not be.
- [31:29]
Josh Bossay
Yeah, we got to go through these quickly.
- [31:32]
Elle
Let's not be limited to heels. Whoever looks at the little finger of a woman is as if he has looked at the place of shame.
- [31:40]
Brent Billings
Okay.
- [31:40]
Josh Bossay
Okay. All right.
- [31:41]
Elle
I need some mittens because I'm gesticulating on Zoom.
- [31:45]
Josh Bossay
Yeah. Oh, my gosh.
- [31:47]
Elle
Number five. Do not talk to a woman, for in the end, you'll fall into adultery. It's really opening up, though. When Harry Met Sally Proposition. You know, thesis friends. That's one question. Talking to number six. Do not look at a woman's colorful clothes or at mating animals, even if. As if you were as full of eyes as the angel of death.
- [32:18]
Josh Bossay
All right, man. Yeah. Feel like I'm missing a lot there, but I'm guessing the angel of death has a lot of eyes, and he.
- [32:24]
Elle
Loves to watch BBC and David Attenborough tells him about the last two seals or whatever.
- [32:33]
Brent Billings
Okay.
- [32:33]
Elle
Number seven, one does not allow oneself to be served by a woman, adult or minor. So Jesus definitely flies in the face of this one at Miriam and Martha's house. I mean, he flies in the face of a lot of this, right? With, like, touching, even just to hand off coins. He's healing women all the time. So little insight. But number eight, one does not greet a woman at all. Big bummer Number nine. Even with your own woman. I. E. Wife, I've put in parentheses, even with your own woman. Since the day the sanctuary was destroyed, the enjoyment of conjugal vows has been taken away and left transgressors.
- [33:13]
Josh Bossay
Whoa. What? I'm being left speechless in new ways. I don't even know what to make of this.
- [33:25]
Elle
We're Almost done. Number 10. Do not converse much with a woman, even your own wife. As often as a man converses with his wife, he causes mischief to himself, and he desists from the words of Torah and thereby inherits Gehenna.
- [33:45]
Brent Billings
Oh, man, that does ring a little bit true. There have definitely been times where I thought, the more I'm talking here, the more problems I'm causing. So I feel like there's some truth behind that.
- [33:58]
Elle
Wow.
- [33:59]
Josh Bossay
Yeah, but, you know, you didn't need it. Not that I should say that generally, you don't have to include your wife.
- [34:04]
Brent Billings
Well, yeah.
- [34:05]
Josh Bossay
Women in general.
- [34:05]
Brent Billings
Oh, yeah. No, I mean, specifically with my wife.
- [34:09]
Elle
Wow. Well, straight to hell you go. Because you talk to her. So.
- [34:13]
Brent Billings
No, yeah. See, I should talk, though.
- [34:15]
Josh Bossay
But I. I get what. I get what Brent's. I get what Brent's saying. He's flipping it around where he's saying, oh, I should have just. Right, I should have just stopped talking.
- [34:22]
Elle
Because I'm causing mischief himself.
- [34:24]
Josh Bossay
Yeah. Not. Not like this. This woman is. Is erasing Torah from my brain.
- [34:33]
Brent Billings
Yeah, no, not like that.
- [34:34]
Josh Bossay
Okay, man. Yeah. This is where, like, I. I feel like. Like, I. I very rarely dig into the Talmud because so much of this, like, I feel like I'm missing 80% of the context. But then even on a surface level, like, it's just. It almost feels similar to what Jesus is saying in that, like, hey, if the problem was, you know, with your. With your eye or your hand, why don't you cut them off? And it's like, oh, well, if the problem was with women, why don't you just never interact with a woman in any way whatsoever in a society without women?
- [35:08]
Elle
Just like. Although people have started disputing this, but just like the Essenes, potentially. Yeah, this is a big problem. When I lived in Israel, George and I moved into the base cement of an Orthodox rabbi, and it sucked for lots of reasons. But one of the reasons was that I was the one who spoke Hebrew and George did not, but he wasn't allowed to speak with me, and George was. And so I would have to, like, stand around the corner so that I would not be beheld and then try to, like, stay say Stuff for George to say in Hebrew. It was a big mess.
- [35:45]
Josh Bossay
Gotta keep your heels and pinkies out of sight. Yeah, right.
- [35:49]
Elle
Putting new meaning on oversized clothing. It's got to cover your heels and your pinkies. Okay. Is there anything, though, in the Talmud about cutting off body parts? Is Jesus doing anything here? Like, clearly he's putting the brakes on in some way on this milieu, right? About, like, Jesus doesn't say, just never talk to a woman again. He doesn't say, go start a new society with no women.
- [36:21]
Josh Bossay
And I feel too, like the. The way that Jesus is, you know, connecting one commandment to another. Like, I. I don't want to pull us off track, so I won't get into it, but I feel like that is doing a lot more work in. In terms of simplifying this idea of, like, adultery is. Can happen before you've actually done the deed. You know, like there is a spiritual heart level at which it can occur. And like, it's definitely. Jesus's teaching is much simpler. But anyway, yeah, I'm excited to hear about if there's any bodily mutilation stuff to add to this, to this list teaching.
- [37:01]
Elle
Right. Or if not, if he's pulling it from somewhere else.
- [37:05]
Josh Bossay
Don't get me going.
- [37:09]
Elle
So it does have stuff about cutting off body parts, but it's limited to the hands and feet specifically when talking about adultery. So two little quotes. Number one, thou shalt not commit adultery with the hand or with the feet. I don't want to know what it means to commit adultery with the feet, by the way, but with me it will be cut off, says Talmud. And then another quote is, whoever puts his hand on the private member doesn't say whose that is. I think it's about their own. It says his hand shall be cut off on the navel. And it says that even if you accidentally split your belly while you're doing that. Worth it.
- [37:51]
Brent Billings
I think we'd all agree, right?
- [37:53]
Elle
It's the only thing to do. Okay, so we do see this idea of cutting off hands, but it's not paired with feet. So what does Jesus pair it with?
- [38:06]
Josh Bossay
The eyes.
- [38:06]
Elle
The eyes. Curious. Curious and curiouser. Because the eyes and Talmud always get paired. Paired with the heart. Talmud says the eyes and the heart are the mediators for the body, which brings the body into fornication. So Jesus doesn't say, cut off your hands and your feet, but he also doesn't say, pluck out your eyes and your heart, because then you would die. Right. I think we mentioned at the beginning of this episode. And if it's not literal. Literal, right. The heart is the seed of all sorts of things in the Hebrew imagination. But your dreams, right? If we are going to talk about desires, you can never dream something or desire something ever again. So it's like Jesus is potentially dialing it down a bit here, saying control what you have control over, change. Change what you can, but not unto death, not unto removing your own ability to desire anything anymore. So I'm of the open handed opinion that Jesus pairs those two together to make that point. Don't kill yourself over this issue. Don't like embed yourself so much in shame that you can't go out and function in society. Don't be so punitive with yourself that your heart has no ability to do these things ever again.
- [39:35]
Josh Bossay
Are you suggesting that maybe what I was taught in church missed the dang point here? What the heck, man?
- [39:41]
Elle
I'm sure they were doing the best they could with the tools that they had. Boy, it's.
- [39:48]
Josh Bossay
It's ironic though, isn't it?
- [39:50]
Elle
Okay, is it possible that Jesus is telling it a little bit slant here, right? He's taking something that it's expected, turning it a little bit, not saying iron heart, not saying hand, advice, foot. And he's talking specifically about causing folks to stumble, right? He says he doesn't want people to trip and fall headlong into hell. So there is another place in scripture that talks about causing folks to stumble and it's not the way that the Evangelical church at least uses that. I want to read a little Excerpt from Malachi 2. And this passage was super important in the rabbinic conversation. Came up a lot reasons, I'm sure we will quickly ascertain. And it's just possible that Jesus had this passage in the back of his mind as he's teaching.
- [40:44]
Brent Billings
For the lips of the priest should guard knowledge and they should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of Adonai of Hosts. But you, you have turned from the way you have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have ruined the covenant of Levi, says Adonai of Hosts.
- [41:02]
Elle
Okay, so this particular passage in Malachi's diatribe is directed toward the priests specifically. That sounds pretty familiar, right? If we're used to Jesus and who he's often yelling at and who he's often giving a pass to, right? The religious authorities are not the people that he's giving a lot of get out of jail free cards. In this section it says that priests are supposed to be guarding knowledge and bringing instruction and that if your instruction is wrong, you're causing people to stumble and you're ruining the whole covenant. You can imagine why it's brought up a lot, right? Whenever people are yelling at each other about how to perform a mitzvot, this comes up, right? You're ruining everything, Jeremy. But what does Jesus say in this passage? He says, what actually causes stumbling that casts you into hell, right? Is not getting your teachings wrong wrong. It's your lack of integrity, lack of character, lack of self control. And we spend all this time getting our doctrine right, getting our political views, our theological hot button topics, or atonement theories, philosophical worldviews, whatever. How much time between figuring all that stuff do we spend figuring out our integrity, our faithfulness, our own uprightness, right? Thessalonians says the will of God for our lives is figuring out the answers to every theological question. Doesn't say that the will of God for our lives is sanctification, not stacking up the perfect hour of a babble of opinions, right? So what would it look like if we were to shift that focus whether we're in ministry or not, to be like, okay, I'm spending this many coffee dates talking with folks about this issue. How often am I talking to folks about integrity, how much time am I doing that within myself, etc. Etc.
- [42:59]
Josh Bossay
You know, this actually fits in really well with that, the short Ramez that I found. Okay, Zechariah 11. So I'll read the quote and we'll see if we hear anything that sticks out to us. It's at the very end of Zechariah 11. Woe to the worthless shepherd who abandons the flock. A sword will be on his arm and on his right eye, his arm will be totally withered and his right eye will be blind. And one of the things I like about this, aside from, you know, the shepherd thing, lining up with everything you're talking about, is that the whole conversation before this, about the worthless shepherd, is that it's a shepherd that is not taking care of the shepherd sheep, right? And specifically, it's like the shepherd is eating the sheep and doesn't care if, you know, you know, if there's a, you know, if a sheep breaks his leg, doesn't take care of it or anything like that, doesn't go after the sheep that's gotten lost. And I feel like that idea of the, that opening line of woe to the shepherd that's abandoned the sheep, like that doesn't necessarily mean abandoned literally. In the same way that like the Levites and Priests can be undoing the covenant, even as ostensibly on the surface, they're so zealous for the covenant, even in these tiny details about how you're counting money and all this sort of thing and that that abandonment of the actual life and well being of the sheep is the crucial fundamental abandonment. And but yeah, I wonder if this is also woven in there a little bit with that, maybe even part of why he chooses those two elements to single out, right?
- [44:49]
Elle
The eye and the hand. It's good stuff. How much do we care about integrity? How much do we care about actually taking care of people? How much do we care about being right? Which ones does God care about a.
- [45:04]
Brent Billings
Convicting lesson in one way or another, even if not the way way that we expected.
- [45:08]
Elle
Bom bom bom. Surprise, conviction. I think my main notes are the previous episodes. I don't think I I'm pulling from anything else today. Shocking. And no source episode from L. Who am I? How have I laid down my calling? How have I forgotten it or abandoned it?
- [45:34]
Brent Billings
You abolished the podcast.
- [45:36]
Elle
No. You want to watch the podcast. That's great.
- [45:41]
Brent Billings
All right, well, we are pointing back to your John episode recipe of an Honor contest. So there's, there's that if you want to review that episode. But yeah, generally you can find out more about the podcast@baymontstepship.com you can use that to get in touch with us. You can support the work that we do. Everything that we do is made possible by all of you listeners who contribute to our mission and our, our desire to learn more about God and learn more about the text and just dig into that together to develop community around that. So if you want to dig into more of those things, like check out the website, we have lots of resources, lots and lots of resources and it's all made possible by, by you guys. So thanks for joining us on the BMW podcast this week. We'll talk to you again soon.
- [46:28]
Elle
There.