Lightning Round: Pearls, Daniel, Haman, and Jehoshaphat?!

Published Oct 8, 2024, 10:00 AM

Welcome to Season 7 of the Enter the Bible podcast! This season, we're diving deep into some of the Bible's most intriguing questions: Was Paul the true founder of Christianity? Is there a distinction between human and satanic evil? And who, if anyone, sits at God's left hand? Join hosts Kathryn Schifferdecker and Katie Langston and a lineup of new and returning guests as we tackle these tough topics and explore fresh perspectives on the Bible's most pressing inquiries.

We begin with a Lightning Round in which our hosts answer the listener-submitted questions:

1. Who wrote the book of Daniel? 
2. How do different Bible translations, such as the NIV, NKJV, and RSV, interpret Esther 7:7, and what is the Lutheran understanding of Haman's actions in this passage, particularly regarding the suggestion that he intended to assault the Queen?
3. How many kings attack King Jehoshaphat of Judah?
4. Were pearls common in Jesus' time, and would Israelites have been familiar with them given their scarcity in the Mediterranean?

Do you have Bible questions you would like answered? Go to our website at https://enterthebible.org/about to get started.

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/DvnWVM69rcQ.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the enter. The Bible podcast, where you can get answers or at least reflections on everything you wanted to know about the Bible but were afraid to ask. I'm Katie Langston and.

I'm Kathryn Schifferdecker, and today we're doing what we call the Lightning Round. So it's it's just us two. Instead of having a guest, as we usually do, because we, as you know, those those of you who listen to this podcast, we get questions from listeners. And if you want to submit a question, you can go to enter the Bible .org to submit a question. Uh, many of the questions are are big topics, and that's when we invite a guest to help us address them. But sometimes we get some pretty small questions. And so we, they, they don't really necessitate, you know, a full episode. So we kind of combine a number of those small questions into what we're calling a lightning round. So we've done these before. And so we have four questions we're going to address today. Yes. So the first one and we'll take turns uh stating those questions. So the first one is who wrote the book of Daniel.

Isn't it Daniel. Didn't Daniel write the book of Daniel?

Well.

Doesn't the book say that Daniel wrote the book of Daniel? May we start there? The book of Daniel, is it not? It doesn't say who wrote it. Yeah, it never says no, because it's not in the first person, is it? It's in the third person account.

Well, there are parts of it that are in the first person, right? Um, but the the majority of it is told and told in the third person. Uh, you know, this would be one of those questions. It would be it would be a good idea to go to enter the Bible.org. Imagine that, uh, we have lots of writing, lots of essays about every book of the Bible. And so when you go to enter the Bible.org, you can do the you can click on the tab that says books. Books of the Bible. And you can go down to Daniel. And there's always a summary of, uh, of each book with questions like, what's the what's the summary of the book? So what? Right. What's the relevance? Where do I find it? Who who wrote it, and when was it written? What's it about and how do I read it? So, uh, uh, our, uh, our friends Dick Nysse, Richard Nysse, who's now retired from Luther Seminary, a longtime Old Testament professor here wrote the original essays on Daniel, and they were revised just last year by a former professor here at Luther Seminary, Michael Chan. Still a friend of the podcast. And basically, um, they say that the book is attributed to Daniel, who was a Jewish exile who lived during the reigns of the Babylonian kings of Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar and the Persian kings Cyrus and Darius. So we're talking here. It's the first part of the book. Daniel one through six, uh, is set in that time period of the Babylonian exile, and then the diaspora, the time of the Persian Empire. Uh, and the second half of the book, though Daniel seven through 12, uh, speaks about historical events in apocalyptic terms, but historical events that actually go all the way to the second century BCE. So a few hundred years later than the Babylonian exile, because they talk specifically those chapters about the reign of Antiochus. For Epiphanes, who was a Hellenistic ruler, a Greek, um, ruler of uh, of, of Judah, of the, the, the land of Judah, and who greatly persecuted the Jews. So whoever wrote the first part of Daniel, it seems that, um, uh, the last part or the final, the form of the book we have it in now, uh, wasn't completed until the second century BCE.

Yeah, I think it's, um. I think it's always important to ask the question. What genre? Like what type of literature is this that we're looking at? And, um, was recently preaching on the Book of Daniel because it was a suggestion for a summer series in the narrative lectionary, which we use at my church. And it kind of occurred to me as I was reading through it. Um, I kind of like to think of it as like a comic book is sort of the genre. I mean, it's not a graphic novel, right? It doesn't have like, pictures and, and whatever, but like, sort of like a superhero tale. Um, meaning that, um, you know, Daniel is a character who's put in these, like, foreign places, uh, in the court of the king and in these different contexts. And, and the question, um, at least one of the questions the book is trying to, to ask is, how do we live faithfully in a foreign context? And Daniel and his friends, um, are, you know, are. Our faithful Jews. And at the same time, you know, they're deeply engaged in the life of the community where they're living, right? They're interpreting dreams. They're serving the king. They're, you know, but they're refusing to worship idols. So they're thrown into fires and lions dens and and then there's so there's sort of like the first half of the book that's kind of those more exciting stories, right? And then the second half of the book is a lot more, like you were saying, apocalyptic in nature, meaning that it uses a lot of, um, symbols and kind.

Of coded language, coded.

Language, right, to try to to make that, you.

Know, the point, the various beasts and figures on horseback and they and it's, it's coded language because, you know, if you were explicit about, you know, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, is a terrible man, right? You might. You might get in trouble. You might get in trouble. Yeah. Much like the Book of Revelation, which never refers to Rome but does refer a whole lot to Babylon, and it's pretty obvious that Babylon in the Book of Revelation means Rome, right? So. But yeah, I like that idea of the Book of Daniel as a, as a comic book, because there are some pretty heroic tales there and some, some humor too. Yeah, for sure. And some pretty wild, you know, images. Yeah. But the the point of the whole thing and this is true of apocalyptic literature in general, the the point of the whole thing seems to be to give hope to those who are in the midst of persecution. Right. To, to say, you know, no matter how bad things look now, remain faithful. God is faithful. God is powerful. God will defeat evil, including your enemies. So yeah.

It's a fun one. Um. and, uh, it's okay that the Bible has a book that is maybe a superhero tale in a way. Right? Like that doesn't make it. Yeah. Um, that doesn't make it. Not the word of God.

So. Right. And and and along the same lines, whoever wrote the book of Daniel and it could be a group of, you know, it could be a person. It could be Daniel. Right. Living in the exile, um, that a later author then added on in the second century BCE added on to the book. This is often the case, we think, with biblical books, that they kind of take their final form, the form we know that they that we know them in over the course of an extended period of time. So, you know, taking older traditions, maybe even oral traditions, these stories about Daniel and his friends and then finally writing them down, you know, they're passed down orally, right? And then you write them down. Um, so It. That's our best guess anyway.

Cool. Yeah. All right, here we go. I've got a question for you now. Next question. So how do different Bible translations interpret Esther seven seven and then the question asks specifically what the Lutheran understanding of Haman's actions are in this passage, particularly regarding the suggested that he suggestion that he intended to assault the Queen. So I don't know if if you, you know, want to give a definitive Lutheran answer, but like what's going on? What's going on in this passage?

Yeah, yeah. I'm not sure there's a Lutheran interpretation of this, though. I appreciate that question. Sure. I should have probably looked if Martin Luther ever actually wrote about this verse, but I did not do that. So I'm going to stick put my Old Testament hat on and just talk a bit about the verse itself. So, uh, so let me read it. One translation. Let's just pick the, um, the NIV. That's a popular translation. So the king got up in a rage, left his wine, and went out into the palace garden. But Haman, realizing that the King had already decided his fate, stayed behind to beg Queen Esther for his life. So just to remind you of the story very quickly, this is this is kind of the, the, the point at which this is Esther's second banquet, that she has invited her husband, the King, to, uh, this is in the Persian Empire. Uh, and she's invited Haman, who is referred to several times in the Book of Esther as the enemy of the Jews and Haman has tried to get or has gotten the king earlier in the book to issue this decree, basically condemning the Jews to slaughter, Mainly because his pride has been hurt. Because Mordecai, Esther's cousin, hasn't bowed down to to Haman. So? So Esther, trying to save her people, has invited the king and Haman to two different banquets. This is the second banquet and she has just revealed her. You know, the king has said several times. Tell me what you want, Esther. I'll give you anything. Up to half my kingdom. And Esther finally says, I'm asking you for my life and for the life of my people, because we have been marked for for slaughter, basically. And the king says, who would dare to do this? And she says, Haman, you know this, this Haman, this wicked Haman here. Uh, and you know, so Haman, who's thinking that he has this great honor to be dining with the king and queen, suddenly realizes that he's been trapped. Yeah. And so the king, who's kind of, um. Well, he's a buffoon. The best.

Yeah, not the best.

The best king. He gets so angry that he leaves his queen. Right. Leaves Esther in the company of heaven and goes out to the garden in a rage to cool off, I guess. Sure. So Haman gets up. He realizes as the translation just said, the NIV realizes that the King is really angry with him and so he falls. The Hebrew says he basically falls at Esther's feet and realizing a pleading with her for his life, and that is in the Hebrew pleading for his life as regards his life. So it seems. But the King then comes in and thinks that Heyman is assaulting the Queen right in front of him, and he says, you know, are you going to assault the Queen? Right in my presence. Like, how dare you! You know, do that. And then? And then they cover Haman's face with a veil. And he's basically a dead man walking, right? He's. He's taken out and hanged on the gallows that he had built for Mordecai. So this particular point. So is Hayman actually assaulting the Queen or is he doing something else? It seems pretty clear from the Hebrew, uh, especially since it says he's pleading for his life, that that's what he's doing. Right. He's not. He's not adding insult to injury and trying to assault the Queen. He's simply. Well, simply, he's he's begging for his life. He's begging for his life. But of course, it doesn't look good. Right.

I'm sure he's like, maybe at her feet.

Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. And she's probably, uh, in this period, you know, reclining, uh, that's how they dined. Right. The wealthy and the elites.

Yeah. So it doesn't look good, but.

But it doesn't seem like he. I mean, obviously he has a nefarious, you know, intentions towards her people, right? But he's he's more concerned about his own life than trying to assault her. So. All right. All right, so next question. Uh, three. Number three out of four, uh, how many kings attack King Jehoshaphat of Judah?

So we looked this up. This was a good question. We looked this up in Second Chronicles 20, and it appears the answer is three, right. The Moabites, the ammonites, and some of the Munites. Me. Yeah. Munites. Menu. Midianites m e u me unites m e u n I t e s. But then you said that in the Hebrew the munites was also.

From the ammonites. Ammonites? It says ammonites. Again it says ammonites twice with with a preposition meaning from or. So after the. In the Hebrew it's something like. After this the Moabites and Ammonites, and with them more of the ammonites, or more people from the ammonites. Okay. It came against Jehoshaphat for battle. Uh, but in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which is known as the Septuagint, it has this word Mennonites. Mennonites, which occurs later in the Book of Second Chronicles as well. Uh, and they don't they're not like that. We know a lot about the Moabites and Ammonites. Uh, the Mennonites are not, uh, I think they're only mentioned here in Second Chronicles. I could be wrong about that. Uh, but possibly from a, um, uh, the town of Mahon, which was eight and a half miles south of Hebron, so not really clear. Later in the chapter in verse ten, it says, see, now the Jehoshaphat is praying, and he says, see now the people of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, Seir, whom you would not let Israel invade when they came from the land of Egypt. They reward us by coming to drive us out of your possession. So Jehoshaphat himself, not the narrator, says, it's the ammonites, the Moabites, and people from Mount Seir, which are the Edomites, the people descended from Esau. So I assume that the listener had this question because they're wondering about this kind of discrepancy between verse one and verse ten. Yeah. And maybe the discrepancy between the Hebrew and the Greek, which is, of course, a larger question. Uh, it's as you said, it seems clear that there's three seem to be coming up against Jehoshaphat, whether it's the ammonites and the Maronites, or whether it's the Edomites and the ammonites and the Moabites, it's not completely clear.

Inconclusive.

It's inconclusive. And this brings up, I think the larger point, of course, is that sometimes the details of the Bible, um, well, sometimes the text, the Hebrew text may be slightly, uh, uh, might have come down to us, uh, we say corrupted, you know, in the process of copying down all these many texts, sometimes there's, there's slight discrepancies, uh, say like here between verse one and verse ten, uh, you know, and it can be the difference of just 1 or 2 letters, right? It's usually, uh, usually. Well, pretty much always a very small detail like this. Like who? Who, besides the ammonites and the Moabites, came up against King Jehoshaphat. Uh, so. And in those cases, when it seems like the Hebrew isn't completely clear, when the Hebrew is not completely clear, uh, then, uh, translators will go to other to, to the Septuagint mostly, which is the.

Greek translation of which is.

The Greek translation of the Old Testament of the Hebrew. Yeah. Uh, and so they'll, you know, they'll fill in from the, the Greek text. Yeah. Uh, or and always, always, uh, at least in the, in study Bibles. Uh, I think most, most good modern translations, uh, they'll, they'll do a little footnote just to note the Hebrew says this, but the Greek says that. So, um.

Fun, fun bonus. Fun fact. Uh, lightning fun fact is that the phrase jump in Jehoshaphat is a is a 19th century invention. Um, it's seen in the 1865 novel Paul Peabody by Percy Bolingbroke, Saint John, in which it says by the shaken jumping ghost of Jehoshaphat. So that's where that comes from. So there you have it. Okay.

We do not know that the biblical Jehoshaphat was particularly prone to jumping.

Right? We. There's no it doesn't say.

No, it it seems it seems to be just an alliteration jumping. Jehoshaphat.

He was not the inventor of the trampoline, we're saying.

No, not not that we're aware of that. Yes.

I love it. All right, last question. Okay. So, um, were pearls common in Jesus's time? And would Israelites have been familiar with them, given their scarcity in the Mediterranean. And I'm certain that this is, um, coming from the, uh, the verse where Jesus tells people not to cast their pearls before swine. Um, so how did Jesus even know about pearls?

Catherine, that's that's a really interesting question. And I have to admit, I had to do some research on this. I never, never really thought about pearls in the Bible. I will mention that they they come up, uh, in, uh, in Matthew a couple of times. So the, the passage that you mentioned, Katie in Matthew seven, do not give what is holy to dogs and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them underfoot and turn and maul you. Uh, and then again in Matthew 13, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. And on finding one pearl of great price. He went and sold all that he had and bought it. It does occur. The the, the word for pearls occurs a few other passages in the New Testament. First Timothy doesn't want women to braid their hair, uh, or to wear gold or pearls or expensive clothes. And then in revelation, uh, the uh, woman, uh, representing Rome is clothed in purple and scarlet, uh, and is adorned with gold and jewels and pearls. Um, and then it's mentioned a few other times, probably most famously in revelation 21, the 12 gates of the New Jerusalem are 12 pearls. Each of the gates is a single pearl, and the street of the city is pure gold, transparent as glass.

So that's that's where we get the sort of trope of the pearly gates.

Exactly. Yeah.

Right.

Exactly. Right. Right. Yeah. So, uh, interestingly, uh, well, first of all, it seems clear that, um, Israel or in this case, the Jews did know what pearls were, because.

Here it is several times.

Several times in the New Testament, uh, pearls are apparently found in the Red sea even today. So, you know, the the sea between, uh, well, on the coast of Sinai. So between Israel and Egypt or now within Egypt, I suppose. Uh, and they're found in the Persian Gulf. So it's true that they that they're rare in the Mediterranean, apparently naturally occurring pearls. Um, but the in these other two bodies of water that are not that far from, uh, from Judah. And you have to remember, all of this region is part of the Roman Empire, and there's lots of trade going back and forth, particularly between Egypt and Mesopotamia and between all, you know, and they have to go through Israel or through Judah in order to do those, those trade routes. This was true in Old Testament times as well as New Testament times. And obviously trade over to Rome as well. And and to Greece. And I mean, we see this in the book of acts, right? Paul. Right.

He's all around world traveler.

Yeah, he's all around the Mediterranean, or at least the eastern side of the Mediterranean. So even though the Mediterranean doesn't have many pearls, both the Red sea and the Persian Gulf do have naturally occurring pearls. So it does seem that they would have been aware of that. What I found really interesting, though, as I was doing this research, is pearls in the Roman Empire, particularly in the first century, the first century BC and the first century BCE, they were highly, highly valued, valued. They were considered more valuable than diamonds, apparently because they were so rare. Huh. And, uh, apparently Julius Caesar, you know, uh, in the first century BC, he had a law or a decreed a law that only the upper classes could wear pearls. Huh. Uh, within the borders of Rome, uh, there was a Pliny the Elder, uh, Roman, um, Roman writer of the first century CE. Uh, he doesn't like women wearing pearls or rich people displaying their pearls. He thought it was vulgar and, uh, to to display your wealth that way. Interesting. But he. So he has quite a long, uh, kind of essay about pearls. And he says that pearls occupied the very, very highest position among valuables. Huh. So I didn't realize that, um, I had no idea pearls were valued more than diamonds and any other jewel, and even gold and silver in the Roman Empire. But it kind of. I mean, it makes these mentions of pearls in the New Testament really interesting, particularly that, you know, don't the the kingdom of heaven is like a pearl of great price, right? A really valuable pearl. Yeah. In order to possess that pearl of great price, you know, the.

It would be worth everything. The merchant.

Will. Yeah. Would sell everything you own in order to get that right. Most precious pearl and the kingdom of heaven is like that. So that's lovely. So, one other funny story, apparently. So first century BC, Cleopatra and Mark Antony. The that that tragic love story. Apparently Cleopatra made a bet with Mark Antony that she could host the most expensive banquet in history. So they're sitting at the banquet. She takes off her pearl earring, dissolves it in vinegar, and then drinks it.

Oh my gosh.

That sounds.

They were a little extra.

Sound appetizing.

Those guys were extra. You know, Mark Antony and Cleopatra. I saw that movie. There was a lot going on there.

Yeah. There was. But, uh, kind of a move of of decadence, really.

Right. Like, I'm so rich. This super valuable thing. I'm just gonna. Yeah. Drink it. Huh? Yeah.

It reminds me I had the privilege of traveling to London last year just for a for a visit. My daughter was studying over in England, and I went to Harrods. This very wealthy department or upper class, upscale department store. Yeah. Only thing I could afford was tea.

Right.

And and biscuits. So. But they had this display of loose leaf tea and one of one of these, you know, one of these, uh, collections of tea or kinds of tea had actual gold leaf in it. Yeah.

Wow. I've seen that in, like, certain foods, like super high, like high class foods. Doesn't sound good to me, but why.

Would you eat gold? Yeah, I think it's that to show how. Yeah, how wealthy you are. I don't know if.

We have any chefs listening. And you have used gold. Write in and tell us. Gold leafing. How does it taste? Um, yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's really interesting. Yeah. I've somehow gotten.

Kingdom of Heaven is as valuable as as pearls as.

That, right? Yeah.

For which you should sell all that you have. Give up all that you have. Yeah. Uh, in order to to enter into the kingdom of heaven.

That sounds hard, but. But good. Hard teaching. But a good one.

Yeah.

Well, thank you so much, Kathryn, and thank you to our listeners who submitted these questions. We hope that that that was helpful and interesting and enlightening. Um, and if you have a desire to go deeper into the Bible, we invite you to our website, enter the Bible. Org. And there you can find more podcast episodes like this, a bunch of videos, um, courses and outlines of every book of the Bible, maps, uh, glossaries, um, anything you could need to sort of, um, dive in and get more out of your Bible study. So thank you so much for for being with us today. Uh, and as always, if you enjoyed this podcast, please, um, rate and review us on your favorite podcast app or on YouTube. And as always, the very best compliment you can pay us is to share the podcast with a friend. Until next time.