Abide: Genesis 6-11 and Moses 8

Joseph Stuart: The world of the Old Testament, like our own day, is swimming in violence. From the direct and intimate violence of person to person interaction, to the structural violence that reinforces hunger, war and inequality. Each of us is affected by others’ use of force. Despite this reality, or perhaps because of it, the Lord commands us to proclaim peace to the world and to follow the Prince of Peace. In choosing peace, we are rejecting our own desires for results for others to bend to our will in order to align our will with the Lord's.

On today's episode of Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast, we discuss Noah, the Tower of Babel, and violence. Thinking broadly about what we can learn from violence in scripture.

My name is Joseph Stuart, I'm the Public Communication Specialist of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University. Kristian Heal is a Research Fellow at the Institute. And each week we will be discussing the week's block of reading from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints “Come, Follow Me” curriculum. We aren't here to present a lesson, but rather to hit on a few key themes from the scripture block so as to help fulfill the Maxwell Institute's mission to inspire and fortify Latter-day Saints in their testimonies of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, and engage the world of religious ideas. Today, we're joined by one of our research assistants, Truman Callens, an Ancient Near-Eastern Studies major here at BYU from Seattle, Washington. After he graduates he plans to go on to grad school and study theology and ancient texts. Welcome, Truman, to Abide.

Truman Callens: Thank you. It's good to be here.

Stuart: We are so glad to have you here. Now, Kristian, what's going on in Genesis 6 through 11, and Moses 8?

Kristian Heal: Genesis 6 opens with a description of humanity that does not inspire hope. In the space of a few generations, the world has descended into total, almost mythic depravity, God sees no other course of action than to destroy everything and start again. Then Noah finds grace in the eyes of the Lord. And we begin a new chapter of the story, “la Tala dot Noah,” –these are the generations of Noah. We have seen this formula before. And we will see it again throughout Genesis and elsewhere in the Bible. A new story is starting, but this time, it's an apocalyptic rescue story, actually, the archetypal apocalyptic rescue story. The Earth is about to be destroyed, and God is going to save one family so that He can start again. Noah and his family survived the flood by following God's instructions to build an ark, which becomes a potent symbol and metaphor in Jewish and Christian tradition. We're only given a single story of Noah's post apocalyptic life. And this is the devastating origin story of the curse of Canaan, the son of Ham. Devastating, especially for how it has been used and interpreted in the world to justify enslavement, exclusion, and racism. Between the long genealogical lists that connect Noah with Abraham and Sarai in Genesis chapters 10 and 11, we're told another strange story, that of the Tower of Babel. Moses, chapter 8 corresponds to Genesis 5:25 through 6:13. So it tells only a small part of the story that we cover in Genesis this week. Zion has fled, but Enoch’s son Methuselah is left behind to fulfill God's covenant with Enoch, that Noah would be one of his descendants. Noah is Enoch’s, great grandson through Methuselah and Lemech. And he is presented as the new hope. Noah and his sons hearken unto the Lord we were told, and give heed, and they were called the sons of God. This epithet, sons of God, not only resolves the problems of Genesis 6:2, but connects Noah with Adam, who was also declared a son of God, after his baptism in Moses 6:68. This rhetorical connection suggests that a new righteous branch of the Adamic family has been established with Noah. Echoes of a rebirth of primeval righteousness are heard again, when we read that Noah prophesied and taught the things of God, even as it was at the beginning. Even as this new hope is established, the end of the existing order is on the horizon. And Noah is told that the floods will come in just 120 years if the people do not repent. Noah then preaches repentance and baptism in the name of Jesus Christ, and even prophecies of a flood, but he's rejected and battled at every turn. The chapter ends with descriptions of the earth’s descent into corruption, and violence, and God declaring to Noah, “The end of all flesh is come before me, for the earth is filled with violence, and behold, I will destroy all flesh from off the Earth.”

Stuart: Truman, what do you think that we should learn from thinking about violence and the place of evil in the story of Noah and the flood?

Callens: Yeah, looking at the flood story from the perspective of evil and violence is really interesting. And I think for a lot of readers, it's hard to find Christ in this story. We read the scriptures in order to find Christ, and many readers of the Old Testament find it really difficult here. And so, as I was studying about violence and about evil and about human nature, I was really also trying to look for Christ and see how he fits in. And I think it really… this theme of violence really gets kicked off in Genesis 6, when the Lord, he recognizes the wickedness. And Genesis 6:5 says, “And God saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” And this is kind of a, bit of a bleak, dark outlook. You know, this whole earth is filled with violence, and the imagination of man's heart is only evil continually. We get a plan, and the plan is flood the earth. And in order to get rid of this evil, we're kind of playing with this idea of how to get rid of this wickedness and how to get rid of this violence that has now infested the earth. And God's plan is then to, to flood the earth. And we leave Noah and his family, who are the perfect people that walk with God. But it's really interesting, because after the flood in chapter eight, we get a really similar statement to the one we just heard in chapter 6. When God says, “I will not again curse the ground anymore, for man sake, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth, neither will I again smite anymore, every living thing as I have done.” And I just think this is really curious that before the flood, the idea is that the whole earth is full of violence and evil, and so the plan is to flood it and get rid of the evil people. And then the exact opposite is reflected in verse 8, that the imaginations of man's heart are still evil, and they're still evil, and so we're not going to flood it anymore. And it's a little bit paradoxical. The question is, well, how do we deal with that? What are we supposed to learn from that? And I think the big thing in Genesis 8, it says that the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. And I think this plays into the idea of the natural man being an enemy to God, which we learn a lot about in the Book of Mormon. And I think when we speak of this evil in the human hearts, it's kind of this “natural man” tendency that everybody has. And the idea that just because we get rid of evil people doesn't mean that evil itself is going to leave. But what's super curious, is that in chapter 8, God says, there's this evil, the imagination of man's heart is evil from their youth. But unlike chapter 6, no plan is given on what to do about this evil, we're just left to think and to wonder, and to be like, “Well, now I know that there's this evil apparently in my heart, or this evil and violence in the world, but God hasn't told me what I'm going to do about it.” And I think that's kind of the beauty in the story is that we leave the flood story with this question of: what happens now? And I think that's really special because obviously, as Latter-day Saints, we know the answer to that question is Christ, we know that the answer is the Messiah. And oftentimes, we read the flood story as very isolated, we read the flood story, and we move on and we don't connect all the things in Genesis. But I think the flood story really puts us in the right mindset, prepares us for the need for a Messiah, the need for the Abrahamic covenant. And so as we learn about that, in the next few chapters, as Abraham creeps up in the, the idea of a Messiah, it all starts making sense.

Stuart: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me, especially that when we receive the Messiah, we receive the Atonement, that we do so without any ability to save ourselves, that God provides the plan for the art. That God provides the olive branch that the dove brings back. That God is constantly providing answer and feedback, but only in the course of his plan. Kristian, who was Noah? I'm familiar with Noah from seeing VeggieTales and listening to Scripture Scouts growing up, but who was he from an Ancient Near-Eastern perspective?

Heal: This is a fascinating question. I think in one sense, the answer is obvious. Noah is the person that seems described in these chapters that we're reading here, and everything about him is, as it's written in the text of scripture. But I think there are a couple of other ways to view the figure of Noah, and to see Noah in a broad and Ancient Near-Eastern context on the one hand, and to see him as an archetype, on the other hand. Which then allows Noah and the figure of Noah to be doing some kind of interesting work in our own theological vision, in our own sense of what the scriptures are doing. One approach of this is to see Noah as part of a broader Ancient Near -astern, pre-flood figures, and scholars today, connect the story of the flood, to, for example, the Gilgamesh epic in tablet 11, which tells of a figure called Napishtim, and how he is prepared by the gods to be saved from a flood that the gods are sending to destroy the Earth. This is a text which is, it’s a Mesopotamian text that survives in Akkadian, and other Babylonian versions, but it's well known and the most famous really of the ancient Mesopotamian texts. We have this lovely set of lines reading from Andrew George's translation. “Oh man,” it says in tablet 11, “Oh man of Shura pack, son of Uba Tu Tu, demolish the house and build a boat. Abandon wealth, and seek survival, spurn property, save life, take on board the boat, all living things seed. The boat, you will build her dimensions, all shall be equal length, her breadth shall all be the same. Cover her with a roof, like the ocean below.” And it carries on in this sort of way. And we hear air resonances with the Genesis story here, a call of a particular individual, this command to build a boat, this need to bring on it the seed of every kind, and animals so that we're saving sort of larger than just the individual and their family, and then some sense of what the dimensions of the boat are. So now we start to recognize that we'll see Noah as one of a number of brothers, who are all called by the gods to survive the flood. And so that presents us with a sort of a, an interesting situation. Because what we see is, as we saw with the creation accounts, is that often the Bible is drawing from Ancient Near-Eastern sources, and rewriting them for the covenant people. And what then becomes interesting is not so much that the Bible is drawing from Ancient Near-Eastern sources. This is something that is accepted by the academic community. What becomes interesting is what is the Bible doing with these sources? How are the stories being told?

Stuart: I think that's a really important point. It's something that we've discussed before, that the Ancient Israelites are taking forms of writing and narratives with which they're familiar and adapting them to their circumstances. I remember being eight or nine years old, and thinking about how exact the specifications were for the ark. And I remember trying to measure it out with my dad’s spelling tape in the backyard, and thinking what on earth is gopher wood? And that sort of thing? What do you think the significance is that such specific directions are given for the ark? It's not just some big boat. It's using exact measurements like qubits and specific materials to use. Does that stick out to you?

Heal: Yeah, I think reading and rereading the story, one of the things that strikes us, I think, is the details which give kind of verisimilitude, right? The sense that this is a real thing, we have exact dimensions, we know precise dates when rains started when the boat lifts off, when the boat is floating, how long, precise number of days. And I think this, this is part of how the authors of Genesis are creating a story that feels and is kind of relatable and connectable to us. We can imagine this in our mind, and they’ve given us enough of this, and we fill in the details that we see this as, then this sort of new beginning. In the same way that we have very precise, in the creation story, for example, we have a set of days, a set of periods, precise things happening, so that there is an order and a structure.

Stuart: It also sticks out to me that when I am in crisis, I want certainty. I want to know exactly when somebody is coming to help me out. And I wonder if there's a way that we could extend that to thinking about the ark, thinking about Israel, and thinking about eschatology, or what we expect at the end of the world.

Heal: Yeah, and I think this is very important. I think this is the other way to begin to see the art functioning in our lives. We now have, through the Book of Moses and through Genesis, two archetypal, apocalyptic stories. We have the figure of Enoch, and his preaching and the city of Zion being taken up, which kind of represents part of a kind of an apocalyptic narrative. And now we have the Ark itself. And so, they become these kind of archetypes, as far as the rest of them. So, the flood is an archetype of human catastrophe. With those in hand, we're sort of armed as a people to think about how we will prepare for our own sort of apocalyptic vision of the world. Joseph Smith is said to have responded to a person who asked, “Who are you?” by saying: “Noah came before the flood, I have come before the fire.” And this throws us as a Latter-day Saint community, into the middle of this kind of apocalyptic world of Noah and Enoch, which we spoke about Enoch in the last episode, it throws us into the middle of this in really kind of interesting ways. And so our eschatology, our vision of the end of the world is shaped by these images of the art of rescue, of the need to come together, to gather together in a city, to gather together into places of safety, to stay on the good ship Zion, to keep on the covenant path. The metaphor here is safety. And it's sort of withdrawing from a world filled with the unsafe and with different people. And I think this is one of the ways that the kind of apocalyptic vision can be useful to us as we kind of think about how we negotiate with the world and how we negotiate with that kind of endemic evil, which the Bible tells us is there. But I think there are a couple of other ways that we're also taught to sort of negotiate and to live in the world. I think it can be illustrated by other biblical stories, one, well perhaps the Jonah principle, which is that it's more important to be where God wants you to be, than to be where you think you're both safe. And I had a lovely example of this in my own life as a missionary, one of the things I did to sort of wile away P-days is read a lot of the Journal of Discourses and, and read a lot of this kind of early writings of people like Parley P. Pratt, and John Taylor and sort of others. And you can't read those things without being filled with the spirit of the gathering, of wanting to gather Zion. And so when I got back from my mission, I thought the best thing for me to do, the place I needed to be, to come to BYU and to gather with the saints. And to sort of be in the Promised Land. I wanted to sort of join these earlier saints who had left England and sort of come. And I felt really kind of drawn to this and came to BYU, applied, was accepted and was choosing my classes. When I had a conversation with a wise fellow who said to me, more or less this idea, it's more important to be where God wants you to be, than to be somewhere where you think you're going to be safe. And so my prayers changed from “God help me get into BYU, and to enjoy all that’s awesome in Provo and surrounded by these mountains” and everything that I kind of felt. Instead, I started asking, “Where do you want me to be?” And within months, I was back in England, accepted to a university course in London. And within a few months after that, I met my wife and this whole chain of events that started which, interestingly, led me back to BYU, but on a more sort of permanent basis. And what I learned from that is to ask this question periodically, that we have a vision, we formulate visions for ourselves, where we want to be, and we have goals. But every now and again, we have to stop and say, “Okay, God, what do you want from me? I'm happy to,” as President Benson has said, “to turn my life over to you, so you can make more out of it than I can.”

Stuart: Yeah, I think that's actually kind of a terrifying prayer. Having experienced that myself, because you don't know what the answer is going to be. Oftentimes, I prefer to pray, “This is what I think the right thing is, will you please tell me if I should go forward with that.” But I think that it opens up a lot more vulnerability, but also opportunities for joy. I think that's what faith is, is stepping into the unknown and trusting that the Lord is going to put us in the best situation to succeed.

Callens: And I think it's interesting, because Noah kind of is the prime example of being where you're supposed to be, doing what you're supposed to do. But I also think it's interesting how, as we proceed, that all kind of comes crashing down. And we also get the flip side of it, where Adam is our protagonist, he's supposed to be the best. And then it's interesting that he falls. And he [Noah] kind of represents this new Adam, I think that's in all of us this redemption arc that we're not going to be perfect the first time.

Stuart: Yeah, I like that you say that he was in the right place at the right time. I think this leads to the second principle that you've been thinking about and thinking about the eschatology that we find in the story of Noah, which is “Lift where you stand.” What would you say about that Kristian?

Heal: And I think, Truman, you're exactly right. It's lovely to see Noah as examples of precisely, of being where he's supposed to be. And we're kind of lifting where you stand. And sometimes what we get kind of confused with is thinking that someone else was here, doing what they were supposed to be doing. So, we have to be there too. Or someone else lifted like this or served in that way, that's the only way to sort of do it. And I think lifting where you stand, this lovely kind of principle taught by Elder Uchtdorf, is precisely this sense of atomized nicely by Joseph in Egypt, by Esther, these are two biblical characters who did the work of God outside of the promised land. They did work which benefited and saved and blessed Israel, their own people, but right where they were. They didn't feel they had to be in the Promised Land before they could do something good. And so we have this principle of simply being where you are, and doing the work that is presented to you. I once heard a wonderful talk in a stake conference, that the message of it was see a need and give freely of yourself. This is the sort of idea of lifting where you stand.

Stuart: Switching tack a little bit, I’d like to talk about the myth of Ham. And the myth of Ham or the curse of Ham. Often the curse of Cain, or the myth of Cain has also folded into this as well, is a story that comes from Genesis chapter 9. And it's the only story that we have of Noah post-flood, at least we have in significant detail. In verse 20, it starts, “Noah began being husbandman and planted a vineyard, and he drink of the wine was drunk and was uncovered within his tent, and Ham, the brother of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brethren.Aand Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon their shoulders and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father, and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan a servant of servants, shall he be on to his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Jabeth, and he shall dwell on the tents of Shem and Canaan shall be his servant.” You may be like every student I've ever taught, where I read this passage and say, so how does this justify one race being better than another? And no student ever being able to tell me how that worked. To begin with, believers, scholars and believer-scholars have debated what Hams actual sin was, for at least 2000 years. No one can agree what Ham’s sin was in seeing Noah naked. It seems that Noah was the drunken one. Noah was the naked one, not Ham. However, most agree that it had something to do with immorality, although the only person whose body is discussed is, the only naked body is Noah's and you may wonder like my students, how does this speak to race? Abrahamic faiths, meaning Judaism, Christianity and Islam have taught that Ham was the forerunner of black Africans, that Shem was the father of Asian races, and that Jabeth was the father of European races, and that Ham was the father of the black African race, tying Ham's marriage to Aegyptus, who they imagined to be a black woman. And then Canaan who we know was cursed would have been mixed race, but his mother would have been a black African descent. I do want us to take a step back here, though, and say that, first of all, there's no single for-runner of a particular race. It was a way of explaining racial and human difference between pale Europeans and people of black African descent. There is nowhere in the scripture that God is saying, “This is what's going to happen”, or saying that one races above another. And furthermore, it stands to reason that Ham looked a whole lot like Noah's other sons. I'm not sure why there would be a huge amount of racial difference. And even the name Aegyptus could be tied to Egypt. But that doesn't necessarily mean that Aegyptus had black skin. Furthermore, it wasn't God who curses Canaan in the Bible, but Noah when he's hung-over. As historian Tim Tyson wrote, in his memoir, thinking about religion and race, “In Noah’s intoxicated state, he hardly seemed the most likely vehicle for eternal proclamations about the social or racial order.” And I think about this all the time, which is to say, how did this story, which seemingly has nothing to do with race, become used and become popularly known, in that it was even cited in a state court decision affirming that interracial marriage should be illegal in the state of Virginia. We have to remember that the myth of Ham though it had been around for many hundreds of years, more than 1000 years, it becomes more popular during the Age of Enlightenment or age of European discovery, which coincided with the rise of global capitalism and African chattel slavery. Slavery was already happening, this story from the Bible was used to justify the enslavement of Africans as the seed of Canaan or seed of Ham, to serve, as it says in the text, those that were the children of Jabeth. We have to remember that the justification came after the practice. No one happened upon Genesis 9 and was like, "You know what, let's practice some slavery!” Slavery was already happening. And this was used as an authoritative text to justify it. As human beings we’re all too willing to justify violence against others for our benefit or comfort. This is certainly true in thinking about why humans create reasons to distinguish racial differences between one another. We ache for the certainty of knowing why things are different for certain people. But that doesn't mean that the reasons we create are accurate. As Elder Holland has said, as well as the First Presidency and the Gospel Topics Essays that are approved by the First Presidency, we have a responsibility to root out this pernicious teaching. The myth of Ham, that black people are inferior to any other race. It was taught in the church, it's true, but we are a church that is led by revelation, and we have further light knowledge. We can say collectively, “These teachings which caused violence to others and with me because I am willing to stand up and say that they're wrong.” Now, after that, soliloquy, let's move forward and think about the Tower of Babel. Kristian, what is this tower and why is it important to the narrative in Genesis?

Heal: This is another strange story, it feels like. And also another story which fits in these first 11 chapters of Genesis, which seem to be doing the work of explaining why the world is, as we find it in later Israel, as we find it in the world in which these texts are being first read. And this process of explaining, in this case, the division of languages, has at its heart, this really fascinating story of a tower being built to ascend into heaven, as it were. There are some interesting ways that this story can be read, particular Latter-day Saint reading, which I find to be particularly interesting, is found in a saying of Joseph Smith, recorded in the autobiography of George Laub. And it goes as follows, “Now, I will tell the story of the designs of building the Tower of Babel, it was designed to go to the city of Enoch, for the veil was not yet so great that it hid it from their site. So they concluded to go to the city of Enoch, for God gave him place above the impure air, but he could breathe a pure air and him and his city was taken for God provided a better place for him.” And so what we find is a group of people looking up into heaven and seeing sort of shimmering, just beyond a thinning veil, this beautiful city that they've heard about, perhaps their ancestors have been invited to- but did not accept that invitation. And so we can imagine these people trying to build this tower to sort of force their way, to get their way up to this city so that they can join the city of Zion. That's one way to see it. Another useful way to see this is as a warning against hubris, the kind of hubris that was exemplified by the Babylonian civilization of the exile, with its mighty rich ziggurats, dotting the land. Listen, for example, to how Isaiah marks the king of Babylon, because he says in his heart: “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the cloud, I will be like the Most High.” So this idea of sort of building a tower to heaven belongs within this sort of Mesopotamian world of these kings who want to aggrandize themselves to be like God. This was a dangerous aspiration.

Stuart: It also makes me think about the Ramayana, in the book of Alma and the Book of Mormon, where people are creating a tower to literally stand above others to proclaim their superiority to others. This is just a reminder to me of the violence of saying “I am better than somebody else.” And from what I remember, the early Christians talked about this as well, that the Tower of Babel was a warning against the accumulation of wealth.

Heal: Yeah, I think there’s this moral aspect to this story. John Chrysostom, that golden mouth preacher of fourth-century Constantinople, took the Tower of Babel as this warning against the wealth in his day, against those who are similarly trying to make a name for themselves by building these splendid homes with baths and porches and avenues. But if you are anxious, he says, “for undying reputation, I will show you the way to succeed in being remembered for every achievement, and also along with an excellent name, to provide yourself with great confidence in the age to come.” Chrysostom’s promise here seems to be everything that these people wanted, and his solution is a simple one. And it's the same as the one that Jesus offered the rich young man; give all you have to the poor. That's how you build a great name for yourself. That's how you deserve remembrance. That's how you achieve this thing which you're trying to do by your own power, and receive something which can really only be given to you by God. The antidote to Babylon is always Zion, where such generosity ensures that there's no poor among us.

Stuart: Now, as we close this week, we're also closing the book of Moses, as we discuss it on the Abide podcast as a primary text. It sticks out to me that scripture is not a text that is static. It's constantly changing, and Truman, what does that mean to you as someone who studies the Ancient Near-East, that scripture is continually rewritten?

Callens: That's a really interesting idea. Because I think with the Book of Moses, we often rely on it as kind of an end all be all, like this is what was revealed to Joseph Smith, so this is what we have. The Bible is a little different. The Bible is a little more shifty. It's a little harder to pin down. It's just been edited and revised over time. Whoever is presenting it has a different purpose to a different audience. And so built within the Bible is all of these different layers that you kind of have to peel back and look at, depending on what redactor is saying what, or what time period you're looking at. And I think the Tower of Babel is kind of an interesting story because you have these very kind of spiritual principles that we've been talking about. But at the same time, other biblical writers are trying to deal with, why are there so many languages? If we came from one person, why are there languages? And so they're kind of using this to answer that question. And so I think it's just remembering that the Bible has changed depending on the audience, and depending on, on who's influencing the creation of it, and that every story is going to have a lot of layers and a lot of different meanings.

Stuart: Personally, I like that the Bible and other sacred texts have no definitive one way of reading, that it's up to us to receive inspiration for how to interpret it.

Heal: Yeah, I think this is a really kind of interesting set of questions that we’re being invited to to consider now. I like to begin thinking about scripture by recognizing and affirming that the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, these are the Word of God. And part of what that means to me is that, that God is speaking to his children, and God's voice doesn't stop. This is one of the things that we affirm as Latter-day Saints in particular, we believe in continuing revelation, what we believe is that, that God is constantly speaking to his children. And when God speaks, he often uses, and the people’s mouths he speaks through, use the words of existing scripture. And so one of the ways in which we hear God's speaking is through this constant echoing of pre-existing texts. And God speaks scripture, and God speaks through scripture. And God re-speaks through scripture, I think. And so what we find in every sort of age and dispensation, and in our own lives, scripture becomes alive through its rewriting, and through its retelling. And these are… scripture demands, I think, to be retold and to be rewritten so that it is constantly relevant. One of the ways that we retell scripture is through commentaries, for example, or through renarrating them in sacrament talks, or talking about them in our lives, or rewriting our lives in the image of scripture, as Janiece Johnson has shown us that Lucy Mack Smith was doing. And so the scriptures become this kind of living part of us and become both seeds that bear fruit within us. And sometimes that's, that fruit is our own writings. Sometimes it's the things that we hear at church, it's other things, sometimes it's new texts entirely. And we see this through all of the history, I think of God's engagement with his people, is this rewriting, retelling and reliving into these stories.

Callens: For anyone out there listening, that's like me, I sometimes forget that. As much as I studied the Bible, as much as I love the Bible, sometimes I get sucked into this idea that it's an ancient text. And that's all it is. And I think it's always a good reminder for me that this is more than just an ancient text that I'm interested in for, for literary reasons, or for historical reasons, that it does live and breathe and that it does influence our lives and that we can get a lot out of it for our own lives. And I think it's important to not forget it is still the Word of God and that it still has a beating heart that still works today.

Stuart: I think that's the perfect place to end this week. Have a blessed week, y'all. Thank you for listening to this episode of Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast. Head on over to iTunes or your preferred podcast provider to subscribe, rate and leave a review, each of which are worth their weight in podcast gold. You can receive Show Notes including references to the sermons and articles referenced in this episode by signing up for the Maxwell Institute newsletter at mi.byu.edu. Please also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube for more content from the Neal A Maxwell Institute for religious scholarship. Thank you!