How to Study the Bible, Culture I: Old Testament Cultures
Vern Peterman · Nov 25, 2007
How to Study Bible (2007), No. 08
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492604526743

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Old Testament cultures. So, if you take a look at that, we'll talk and walk our way through it. One of the things that we've been doing from the outset is talking about, in order to study a passage, we need to look at things that fall under three categories. Language, history, culture. Those are the three categories to take a look at. So with this study, we're looking at that third one, culture. And we're going to start off with Old Testament cultures.

And this is going to be very much a brief intro. because obviously there's more to dig up and more resources to draw upon, but at least give the right perspective. And one of the key things here is as we look at cultures, what we find is a lot of seminaries and even what's available in Bible bookstores and things like that, You want to make sure you have a handout there. Seminaries, Bible bookstores, etc., a lot of them will focus on languages. A lot of seminaries will require, boy, you have this series of language studies and you just go on lots and lots of pounding languages into your head. And I certainly don't want to discredit that.

But what they oftentimes leave little to nothing left for is the history and especially the culture. A lot of schools are just a blank. People will frequently go through eight to ten courses in biblical languages and zero in culture. Nothing. Whereas the culture oftentimes is the tipping point in how well do I understand what the passage means. So it's an area where there's been a lot of lack. A lot of churches have not brought forth the cultural aspects.

So it's a real important one, I think, to bring out. So the question is, what difference does it make? So this week in the Old Testament and next week in the New Testament, we'll be kind of highlighting some of the differences that understanding the culture makes. So what we're going to do in order to bring that out is to give you some examples.

And we'll start off with this one, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We're going to be beginning next Sunday in the main service a study of the book of Genesis. And when we get to Genesis 12 and all the way to the end of the book, we're going to find that the book of Genesis after that, those initial 11 chapters, it centers on, certainly other people come to the fore, but Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Those three guys.

And one of the things you find out fairly quickly as you go through it is they lived in a different culture than we do. I have a question. What's culture? What's culture? Yeah, manner of living, okay, and that's true as a part of it. Pardon? The way we interact? Yes. Okay, what else? Yes, and that's the other part of it. It's our manner of living and also it's our perspective. One simple definition of culture I've heard that may not be all that technical, but it's very insightful. Culture is what we do without thinking. Of course we do this, right?

But it's not the same as instinct. No, very definitely different from instinct. It's kind of what other people expect. It's kind of controlled by the whole majority of what people Sure, now instinct is something that beings and frequently animals are the ones who operate substantially by instinct. Instinct is what comes out simply because it's programmed, usually genetically, right? When we talk about culture, we say we do it without thinking, but it is caught and taught from the culture around us. In some cultures, okay, you, you know, might go up to greet someone and put your hand out and they wouldn't know what you're doing.

That's an odd behavior. You know, they might just slap it or something, right? My brother years ago, he was involved in a skit. And we said, this skit is one that's pretty much impromptu. You've got three other guys, maybe four, And the other guys are from our culture." I said, I gave my brother the assignment, you need to go in there and behave like you're from an entirely different culture and you're sitting down to dinner.

And don't go in with the cultural assumptions. And so he went in there and everybody was cracking up because he would go and he'd see something on somebody else's plate that he wanted and he'd just grab it. And somebody else would start to grab the food back that he had taken and he figured that's what the fork was for. And so the whole meal was an outrage because we have assumptions about, oh, here's what you do.

And those assumptions are caught and taught from the culture. Well, that shows up in Genesis 12 through 50. And we find a number of indications there that their culture is very different from our own. And it's even different from the time of Moses and later on in the Old Testament. Here's some of the things, and we've got them in bullet form. How about Abraham was married to Sarah, who was half-sister. In our own culture, not only would there be a legal issue with that, but that's also where some of the redneck jokes come from. You know, where do you go to find a suitable life partner? At a family reunion.

That kind of thing. Okay? Yes? Is it illegal? Pardon? Is it actually illegal? It is different. It is actually different in different states as to how close a relationship is permitted. And just about everyone, a direct sibling is an illegality. In some, a direct sibling is illegal, but a cousin is OK. So it varies by state. I know it was not in the culture. Right. But I didn't know it was actually illegal. Oh, you're talking about illegal at this time? Yeah. Oh, no. It was definitely now. Yes, currently there are laws against it, and it varies by state.

At the time, it was perfectly the norm. As a matter of fact, we find lots of cases, especially among royalty of the time, of directly incestuous relationships. Having an eligible male heir was considered an extremely high priority. If you don't have an eligible male heir as you start getting older, just panic. Extremely high priority. What are some of the things that they did during those times that seemed like rather desperate moves to us in order to make sure you had a male heir?

What are some of the things you find in the book of Genesis there? Pardon? Yeah, and there's making a servant. And you say, OK, I've got to grab a servant because I have to have a male heir. But even that, although it was allowable, was not considered preferable. Right? So at real high priority, and even to the point where, OK, that's the fallback. But even that is not the first choice.

So we have with Abraham here, Sarah doesn't seem to be getting pregnant. So what does Sarah do? Presents Hagar, the slave girl. So there's one desperation move. Another one we find with Lot. What did Lot's daughters do? Lot's daughters said, we're going to get our father drunk. And here's something.

It was high priority to have a male heir. It was still over the line for the daughters to have done what they did. but the priority of having a male heir was so high that they apparently felt justified in doing so. Even in the culture of the time, what the Locke daughters did would not have been considered acceptable. Yes?

That's under the Mosaic Law where the brother of the man that died would marry the wife in order to basically to make provision and lineage and all those things. But that was under the Mosaic Law which didn't come for five centuries at least later. But yeah, I mean, that's an instance where, again, it's a little revised from this, but there's actually the Old Testament law, at least under some forms, actually condoned, in that instance, polygamy.

Or it's actually polygyny is the more proper technical term, and that's the next point. Polygyny is multiple wives. We frequently hear the term polygamy. And that's actually a vague term because it just means multiple spouses. Multiple wives is polygyny. So just to be specific, because polygamy includes multiple husbands and most people don't mean that when they say that.

So anyway, but polygyny was a cultural norm at the time. So what these guys were doing, if we were to say in our culture, we'd say, well, that's kind of off the edge. At the time, that was the norm. They weren't doing anything that they perceived as wrong and the culture would not have seen them as doing anything wrong. A wife who apparently could not conceive would offer her slave to her husband. We mentioned that with Hagar. That would be a fairly common thing.

Receiving the blessing of the father had a great and lasting impact on the sons and their descendants for many generations. We're going to see that as we study the book of Genesis, especially towards the end. But they would be desperate for a blessing from the Father.

It wasn't just like, you know, make me feel good. It was, I must have this blessing from the Father. Yes. What exactly is the blessing? Yes, he would put his hand on the son and then say a blessing over them. And it wasn't simply perceived as, okay, he likes me or I'm considered acceptable. But it had to do with passing on a family lineage. A lot of times the blessings were looked on as having an impact on the family for centuries. And in fact, that's exactly what we'll see. It was, again, something that in our culture is like, well, that's nice. To them, it isn't just nice.

We're talking absolutely essential. Yes? Was it some type of big ceremony where they invited the family around? A big party or something? It's interesting. The descriptions are not necessarily big ceremonial things or large gatherings. But it was definitely like the immediate family being there and just that taking place. Yes, what's interesting, the witness to it aspect doesn't seem to be necessarily a big component. in their mind, but just having that was one of those things, boy, you know, it's like your next breath, you just better have it, you know. It was extremely important to them and I think that's something that in our culture, you know, we don't have that same thing and so just to realize, oh, that that is an important, you know, aspect of it and get that in our mind and to perceive how important it was to them is is a critical part of understanding what the passage is saying. Here's another one.

Covenants typically consisted of three things, a promise, a swearing by a deity, and a physical gesture. Those three things. Now, the promise might vary, and the promise could be either conditional or unilateral. By unilateral, I mean I make this promise and it doesn't depend on what you do. The swearing by a deity even includes what you see in Genesis as we go through it, God swearing by his own name, swearing by himself. And the physical gesture could vary as well. Sometimes there were sacrifices. In one instance, we'll see as we go through Genesis, it's putting the hand under the thigh.

Isn't that interesting? So, again, this is a cultural thing to us. It's like a big deal, you know? And probably if I made a contract with somebody today and put my hand under his thigh in order to confirm the agreement, he'd freak, right? So, you know, it's just understanding when we get into a different culture, understanding how they're looking at this. What does this mean? Things that for us, we would say, what's the big deal? They're in a different culture where things that to us wouldn't matter at all would to them be huge issues. Massive issues. You would be in a panic if things were not set up properly. So that's one of the reasons it's important to understand culture here.

Yes. Yes. Would that also somewhat like an inheritance? In other words, let's say they have more than one son. Yes. Doug asked the question, would this blessing be the equivalent of an inheritance? Is that a good way to say it? Yeah. There are aspects of the inheritance that are tied into the blessing.

And so that was one part of what the blessing involved. and what was the norm sometimes was reversed or thwarted. We'll see that at the very end of the book of Genesis with Joseph's sons. Inheritance, here's your future, here's your identity, here's who you are. Not to have a blessing or to not get a blessing that you thought was due you would be something just horrifying.

No, they did have multiple blessings and so the inheritance aspect wouldn't necessarily mean that only the one blessed got the inheritance. The first one, according to tradition, had a double portion inheritance. And that's, I think, what you're referring to. So the others had an inheritance, but not a double portion. It was a double portion that was included for the oldest son. It was the typical thing, and especially instituted in the Law of Moses. But the blessing might include other things that aren't involved in the physical inheritance.

And including, here's your future. Here is your identity. Here is what you will be considered as. Commonly, yes. Commonly when the father's elderly and it's looking like, OK, here's the here's the last day's kind of thing. Yeah, that was the common practice.

It would be a big example. Yes, Jacob and Esau was an example where, interestingly enough, the blessing was reversed, partly based on what Esau had done, sold his birthright, but also partly based on trickery. Yeah, and the mother's involvement. And interestingly enough, even though it was trickery, the blessing, the confused blessing, the switched blessing, still held. Real interesting.

Yeah, I mean, our understanding of that, in our culture, we just say, what? You know? Look, you couldn't correct it to what it should have been. You had to leave it. Yeah. Oddly enough, it also seems to have a sense of permanence. So yeah, and the intent doesn't seem to be the guiding point.

It's what actually took place. So very interesting. A couple other points to make. As you look, archaeologists look at the tablets and the artifacts that are behind this time, and these things that we put on the bullets, those are all in the tablets and artifacts. Those exact same things. So it wasn't like these guys did something unusual for the culture. It was perfectly the norm. So that's one thing. It isn't some sort of a proof of, you know, the Bible is proved by archaeology or something, but it is confirmation. It does archaeology in the Bible in these regards, just lines right up.

These names that we find here are all found in the literature of the times, although it would be difficult to say that the specific people are found in some of these other tablets. Let me figure, there's something like 500,000 clay tablets from, you know, earlier years that have been found.

Ninety percent of them have never been looked at, okay? So most of them have never been looked at. So somebody tells you, well, these, you know, there's no evidence that, oh, hey, we haven't even looked at most of the evidence, guys, okay? And that's only what we've found. There's probably more that's been destroyed and stuff that hasn't been found yet that's still there. Alright, now one other thing. As we read these, what is to tell us that we see, oh, I see that Abraham had multiple wives and when Sarah couldn't get pregnant, a servant wife was brought forward and that's in the Bible, so I guess that's what I should do.

Why do we not look at that as that's our moral standard or moral guidance? Culture. Culture? Yeah. We have to look at it and say, what's cultural and what is direct biblical guidance? We need to make that discernment, don't we? How would we know that what they practiced, even though we're going to study it, it's in the Bible, it's inspired. How would we know that that's not guidance for us on how we are to live? How would we know anything different?

We're under a different dispensation, we're under a different stewardship, under a different time frame. And so that's one thing. God deals differently with different people in different times. That's one point. Let me ask another question. Is there anything in the New Testament that indicates that some of the things that Abraham did are not for us? About the phrase when it's talking about the pastor or the deacon. We're talking about being the husband of one wife. Right. Dave brings up the point.

Here's 1 Timothy 3, verse 13, and the book of Titus 1, verses 5-9. For elders twice and for deacons once, the phrase a one-woman man, or it's translated often the husband of one wife, but literally a one-woman kind of man. That's not this, is it? And it's interesting, and if we take what 1 Peter 5, the first four verses says, that the elder is to be an example, then that should be typical of the church body as well.

We can also find it, and we won't take time to go into it, we can also find it in the Gospels. Jesus Christ there actually puts the stamp of blessing on monogamy. And so it's interesting, although Paul will draw upon Abraham as being justified by faith, he won't draw upon Abraham as the example for here's how you carry out your marriages. OK, now let's take a look at the second page there. Yes.

With Adam, or that verse that says that man should be his parents and Yes, she brings up the Genesis 2.24, a man should leave his mother and father and be joined to his wife, that it's singular. There is implication in that, and that verse is quoted by Christ and twice by Paul. And so that also has strong implication of monogamy, one man, one woman. And there are other indications as well. 1 Corinthians 7, second verse I think it is, Paul says, each man should have his own wife, singular, and each wife her own husband, singular.

Yeah? This may be going down a longer path than you want, but with what Marian just said from Genesis, if that's the case, then how can the rest of what we're just talking about here with Abraham and Sarah and Agar, how can that be considered acceptable? Or was it? Was it just a cultural thing that they were going by? As opposed to what God's Word had already said? Right. It was cultural.

What's interesting is that there are things that you'd look at and you'd say, well, that doesn't seem right. And what it appears is the Lord over time increasingly revealed more and more truth and held people to that truth. that in earlier times there were things that he let go, the full truth had not been revealed. And also he was dealing with different people, and that brings up the issue of dispensations or stewardships.

And yeah, it's a rabbit trail we could chase easily. Yeah? I think Abraham had a consequence to that. It was like Solomon, he was always wise. Yeah, just one thing. Even though Abraham didn't get some loud, clear, you know, you better not do this, we do see consequences, don't we? We see, boy, this turned into a mess. As a matter of fact, we've got guys over in Iraq and Afghanistan now in part because of the mess. In part because of the mess. Because essentially the whole Middle East is one huge, 4,000-year-long family feud. Yeah, really? Yes. That's correct.

Yeah, if you look at it, you do find difficulty among the 12 tribes, even with the way they handled Joseph. And why was Joseph a favored son? Because of a favored wife. That was trickery too. Yeah, what you see is, and I think this is a principle that's good for us to keep in mind, it wasn't quite what I was intending to cover, but I think it's worth saying briefly, that often times the Lord will make use of graciously, out of His grace, what is not at all His perfect will.

Here's a, for instance, Nancy, when we were over in Carson City, was sitting down with a group of Christian ladies, a number of them, you know, they were all Christian ladies that had been in church and had proper teaching, but a number of them were justifying a marriage of a believer with an unbeliever on the basis of, oh look, somebody here did it, and the husband became a believer, and then that turned out okay. But that's not the picture that you get from Scripture. I would say this, that if you say, what does God's perfect will lay out, that a believer marry a believer only. If a believer marries an unbeliever and it turns out well, we'll credit God's grace, but that doesn't mean that the marriage was what God had in mind.

So there is an important distinction to make. The Lord has used those 12 tribes. As a matter of fact, that number 12 and the identity of those continue on into the book of Revelation, even into the new heavens and new earth. But that still doesn't make what happened back there right, including the way the brothers treated Joseph. Anyway, second page. This is page 30 and the title there and the whole page subject is Gates. This is an instance in our own culture, you know, we have gates.

We don't attach the same significance to gates that they did. Again, where they attached a great significance to something that to us is like, huh, we just don't get it. To them, gates had huge significance and we often overlook it. So as we read it, it's important for us not to simply read it, to look at it and say, well, you know, all right, it's a gate and move on. But what's the significance?

Most, I'll put it this way, there are hundreds of references to a gate or gates in the Bible, most of them by far in the Old Testament, and most of those, the gates have some significance beyond just a piece of hardware. If you read over it and only see a piece of hardware, you are most of the time going to miss the point. Here's some examples. To possess the gate, we're going to see this in Genesis, means to possess the whole city.

Many cities did not have a designated marketplace within the city. Instead, their marketplace was around the gates. And so the gates was a place of commerce. Official transactions were often done at city gates, transactions about property, marriage. Kings and royalty often addressed people of varying rank and status at the city gates. I've got several references to that. Legal cases and judgments were often brought before the officials and elders at the city gates. One of them that we brought out previously when we were in the Sermon on the Mount study was that if a Jewish wife was not receiving what was due her from her husband, she could go to the elders at the city gates to enforce her physical support and even affection. if he was not showing that.

And they had a graduated series of fines. And that was the first time you get fined this much. And then the fines got stiffer and stiffer and stiffer. At the end of the fines, if you still came back with complaints, he's not showing affection or he is not supporting me physically, then the next was a series of beatings with a whip. and the law allowed them to go up to 39. Actually, the law says 40, but they went one less in case they miscounted. And so up to 39 lashes with a whip every day she brought the complaint before the city elders.

And where would she go? The gates. And so she might go to her husband with a threat, if you don't, I'm going to go to the gates. And in our culture, we might think, OK, go stand by the gate. I don't care. But in that culture, that was like, uh-oh, I'm going to get whipped this time.

Could the husband go to the wife? Pardon? Could the husband go to the elders? What is interesting is that there is little record of that, that primarily the obligation was heavy upon the husband to carry this out. And matter of fact, his continued insistence required that he issue her a certificate of divorce. In earlier times, this changed by New Testament times, but in earlier times, only the husband could give the certificate of divorce.

And you might think, well that's pretty sexist. However, they could make him really wish he had. Because this is going to hurt. And they're going to keep beating him And matter of fact, some of those, if he continues, he may not survive. It may kill him. So it was a serious thing, and the wife actually had quite a bit of leverage from that.

Okay. Here we have judgments were commonly carried out at the city gates. Where would the beating take place? At the gates. Mr. Husband, you know, Get up against the wall, because you're going to get yours. Some larger cities had temporary prisons at the gates, but they didn't have jail sentences as the judgment.

To sit at the city gate meant to be honored. And to enter the city gates often meant, not always, but often meant citizenship. It was a figure of speech for citizenship. To lift up the heads of the gates was an expression of rejoicing and welcome. of someone great. Conversely, gates that sink are an expression of hopelessness, despair, and the defeat of the city.

Isn't that interesting? So that's another point where as you read through the whole Bible, but especially the Old Testament, that's going to be key. In the New Testament, Of course, we're not covering that yet, but the Book of Matthew and the Book of Revelation have multiple references to gates, and in both of those cases, the usage of gates is significant, not just a piece of hardware. Just being aware of the significance of gates, that cultural background gives you an insight into basically hundreds of passages. So that's just an example of where, you know, getting the additional insight. It is not just a piece of hardware. In all but a very few of the instances in the Bible where you see the word gate, it has some other significance in the context is what's going to tell you. Okay, let's look at the last page. Yeah, Doug? Okay. Yes. Yeah. Yes, oh yeah, and Doug brings up the point, militarily, gates, that's the entry place. They would ram the gates, they would try to burn the gates, they would do various things to try to get in the gates. That's the entry point, and so it's the place of power. Do you control the city? How are the gates doing? Yeah, yeah, good point. Did all cities have walls? Oh no, no, no, no. There were walled cities and there were unwalled cities. That's right. And the unwalled cities would do things differently because they didn't have gates.

Let's take a New Testament that goes back into the Old Testament era example. Bethsaida. You hear about that in the New Testament. Bethsaida was an ancient city. It actually was a walled city with gates that was defeated by the Assyrians. And the evidence of the Assyrian attack was picked up by archaeologists as they excavated Bethsaida. It was a walled city.

Nearby, other cities were not walled and not gated. Capernaum, which you read about in the New Testament, not walled, not gated, so different. So yeah, your questions are appropriate. Some were walled, some were not. What they would do is typically in a region there would be at least one walled city and the people who were in the unwalled areas, if they didn't find someplace to hide, would run to the walled city in case of an attack.

The City of Refuge is a different thing and that has to do with the city that's home base you know, I can be free. And so it was a different thing set up. So it was not a military protection in the same way. Jericho was a walled city. Jerusalem was a walled city.

That's right, yeah. In some cases, because the gates were so important, the gates would oftentimes be heavily armed, heavily, heavily armored with iron and everything else that they could put in front of it, and oftentimes other kinds of protections. So yeah, gates are a big issue. Alright, let's look at the third page. It's page 31 on your handout there.

The philosophy of Old Testament empires, and we have a chart there below that's from our Bible backgrounds series, and what we have is the six major biblical era empires. And we include Greece, which is between the Old and New Testaments, and Rome, which is obviously a New Testament empire. But what we put there is kind of a summary of that empire's philosophy approach to conquered peoples. To Egypt, Their idea was not so much to build this empire and make it bigger and bigger and bigger, but we just we want to have our own territory where nobody bothers us and they would capture slaves as needed and then set up defense areas.

But they needed slaves. Why? Because all the thousands and thousands of slaves were there for the afterlife of the Pharaoh and the Pharaoh's court. That's what it was all about. So in terms of how do you deal with captured peoples, you capture people and make them work because you want the Pharaoh to have a good afterlife. Really good. Building the pyramids, pickling their innards, everything else that they did. It's crazy. What's really strange is every time they mummified somebody, they'd suck the brains out. So I don't know what they thought they were going to do. But anyway.

So what you see, and here's Assyria. Assyria had the idea of scramble the people, relocate them randomly, just move everybody around into everybody else's neighborhoods and get them confused and don't let them talk to each other. Babylon had a similar idea, only their thing was if there's anybody you don't trust, bring them to Babylon. Start with the royalty and then continue on until you've moved everybody if you need to. but move them to Babylon where you can keep a close eye on them. That was their philosophy.

The next one you see and the last one in the Old Testament was Persia. Persia, interestingly enough, remember how Assyria and Babylon moved people away from their present place? A fundamental tenet of the religion behind Persia was that you must not ever, ever, ever move people from the land that they're from. Isn't that interesting?

And if you find people that have been moved from the land that they're from, do everything you can to send them back. So that's what happened. When Persia came in, send the Jews back. Every Jew that wants to go, send them with money, send them with papers, give them support.

But, I mean, you know how we would have a doctrinal statement at Holly Hills, and you can get one in there in the coffee room, and we'd say, this is what's important to us. That was on their doctrinal statement for Persia. We believe this, and we believe this, and we believe that you never move people away from the land they're from, and if they are moved away, that you send them back. Isn't that interesting?

So that's how the Jews got back. This is God's sovereignty, and how He made them return. Some points that we bring out here, Assyria and Babylon were extraordinarily cruel. They were profoundly cruel. They were so cruel that the Assyrians had, and this is on their palace walls where the kids are walking around, on their palace walls they had murals of the enemies having their skin stripped off while they're alive and then pouring salt on the wounds. No wonder Jonah didn't want God to have mercy on Nineveh, the capital of Assyria.

Here's something else. They would grind the bones. No, let me back up. The Assyrians would force people that they had captured to grind the bones of their ancestors in the belief that if you grind up the bones of the ancestors, they can't be resurrected into an afterlife. All right, Persia as a policy sent the relocated people back to the lands where they came from. Not only do we find that in the Bible, we find that in documents from the Persians themselves that are marked in clay.

Babylon revered lions but not fire. So in Daniel 3, right, put them in the fire because we don't throw people to the lions because we worship the lions. So throw them in the fire because we don't care about fire. But in Daniel chapter 6, where the Persians came in, the Persians revered fire, but not lions. So what did they do? They threw Daniel not into the fire, but to the lions. So the change in cultures, because of the change in empires, ended up explaining why Daniel chapter 3 and Daniel chapter 6 have different capital punishments.

It fits. It fits what's in the Bible. It fits what archaeologists have. As you read through the Old Testament from one end to the other, you're going to find multiple interactions with these particularly first four nations. And what you see described here will fit what you see in the Bible and it will make sense. And even some of the why they do this and not that, it has to do with what's the philosophy of empire and what are the other cultural characteristics of each of those empires.

Okay. Recommended resources. The first thing I recommend is scripture itself. About the gates, what do we say? There are several hundred references to a gate or gates in the New Testament and the Old, especially the Old. So where can you find out about the biblical background about gates, the cultural background about gates? In the Bible itself.

Okay? So first look in the Bible. It's got all kinds of cultural background insights. And then you can begin to identify just from the Bible itself what a lot of these points and facts are. There is an additional resource or two that I'd point you to. One of them I highly recommend. InterVarsity Press has the IVP Bible Background Commentary Old Testament. It's by four authors there. And that is quite good.

There is a New Testament volume that goes along with that, and that I don't recommend. So as much as I can recommend the Old Testament one and say, that's great, I have the New Testament volume, Boy, I keep looking through it and get disappointed. So anyway, Old Testament volume, highly recommended. New Testament one, not so much. The Archaeological Study Bible.

I have a copy of it. I could wish that it were in a different translation. It's not awful, but it's not the best. It's NIV. But the notes in it are very good. And they've got notes, pictures, etc. Very good. And you can feel free to come up and take a look at that.

One other recommendation I'd make, the first author in the InterVarsity Bible Background Commentary, John H. Walton, he's written several other things, and basically everything I've seen that he's written, I have no problem recommending. So that would be another suggestion.

No, there's another author, Keener, is the name of the New Testament volume, and like I said, every time I open it up, I'm disappointed. Yeah, different authors and different approaches to it. And so it seems like the Old Testament authors did a great job. I can't say the same for the New Testament author.

Anyway, that's what I'd suggest. The other thing is, while all these resources we recommend are great, don't spend money you don't have and don't spend money you don't have to. First of all, just start off with the Bible itself. That's going to be one of your best references. What are you doing? You're going to use the Bible to look for cultural patterns that you see.

Just this thing of gates is one case in point. Because it doesn't take much to look into concordance, either gate or gates, and boy, you find hundreds of references. You start looking at them, and by the way, the bullets we have on gates, that's not the whole list of everything that's relevant about gates, but it's just a good start. There's a great deal that you can observe just by looking at scripture itself and looking at the patterns that are there.

Thoughts, questions, consternations? Gates of Heaven, yes. And you'll find that in the very last part of Revelation. As a matter of fact, most of the New Testament references to gates are in the last couple chapters of Revelation, especially chapter 21. Yeah, Marilyn?

At the gate, do they have some sort of control of people coming in and out, or is it mostly just coming in? Let me clarify that. Entering the gates was sometimes used as a sign of citizenship, but it was more a figure of speech. It is not that only citizens may enter. That wasn't the case at all. It was more a figure of speech. that someone entering the gates would be looked upon as a citizen. So what you have to do is look at it as context. What's the context point to? Well, here's the thing.

Obviously, and Doug made this point, that basically you have a military issue with gates. And that's one of the reasons why they have the gates. The military issue is that there's a time when we want to close this gate and there's a time when we don't want to let people in, right? And so gates in a major city would oftentimes have people posted there, soldiers posted there to check who's coming in and who's coming out. And depending on what they saw as a threat and depending on the level of alarm that they would have, they would just kind of like, we've got a system of colors that we talk about our security, you know, code. They had a similar kind of thing where, you know, we're really concerned about who comes in here. Well, and see, that's a difficult thing. The ID, I mean, they didn't have ID cards and things of that sort, so it would be more like, you know, how do you talk?

Where are you dressed? You know, kind of the saying you keep hearing in the Hollywood, you know, who goes there? You know, identify yourself. And you can find instances, even in the Old Testament, of listening to accents, you know. Yeah, there'd be family names, even types of cloth that you wear. But even now, we can identify people by accents. If someone says, oh, I'm from Germany, you'd say, well, wait a minute. I was over in Germany and heard a guy talk like that, but anyway, there was a good reason. They didn't have an ID system, but they had other things to rely upon. Here's an instance. Let me give you a quick for instance.

The Parthians, which is an empire to the east of the Roman Empire, they were in power in that area and in 40 BC they actually thrust into, made a military thrust into the area that the Jews were in and actually captured Jerusalem in 40 BC, pushed the Romans out. The Romans were of course very upset with this and shoved them back out and then after that they put Herod the Great in place because they knew he'd be nasty and they said, you know, you go ahead and do whatever you want there just don't let the Parthians back in. So guess where the wise men come from? From the land of the Parthians.

So he wants to talk to them and ask them questions. And when they go asking about who's the king of the Jews, that really gets his attention. So he's questioning them. Both the wise men had questions and Herod had questions for them. And his way of dealing with it was to try to play naive and come back and tell me when you find him. So these are issues where, okay, how do you find out who's from the place that you're worried about? Those issues mattered. How about when the Jews, before they went into the Promised Land, what did they do?

They sent in spies, right? The spies were to go in. Well, obviously they were able to get there and get back without losing any spies. Whatever security system was there didn't catch them. But that was something that they were supposed to be doing at these city gates. We've got somebody coming in here who shouldn't be. And in that case, stop them. OK, we're out of time. Let's pray. Lord, we do thank you. As we look at these things, you've given us guidance. You've given us insights. You've given us understanding. You provided resources. And we thank you for that. And we thank you for the understanding we can have of your word. In Jesus' name, amen.