and with the household in particular you you bring up um something called the structures of grace from a theological level built into what we see in the archaeology can you explain what you mean by that because it's one of these topics that comes back in several of the other topics as well there really is a key component of israeli society

Yeah, and not just Israel society.

Some of these structures of grace are in other ancient Near Eastern law codes and cultural norms.

It's an expression I borrow from John Rogerson.

And these structures of grace are really for protection and flourishing of people who find themselves outside of the normal protection of the household.

So, you know, that triad of widows, orphans, immigrants, how to protect them, how to, you know, give them a means to live life.

So the Leveret marriage, the gleaning laws, a lot of these aren't unique to Israel, but what might be unique through the eyes of faith is that this was the way God wanted them to live their lives and reflect on his care, especially for outsiders and people who have found themselves on the margins of life.

and anything then kind of taking it to the next notch libby that you want to bring out so then where are you so if you take what we have in the biblical text and maybe also ancient eastern texts that will talk about certain rituals and feasts and things like that explain you kind of walk us through taking taking that connecting the the live material to that maybe inform or or help help interpret and then drawing the theological kind of realities or theological points out of it

and with the household in particular you you bring up um something called the structures of grace from a theological level built into what we see in the archaeology can you explain what you mean by that because it's one of these topics that comes back in several of the other topics as well there really is a key component of israeli society

Yeah, and not just Israel society.

Some of these structures of grace are in other ancient Near Eastern law codes and cultural norms.

It's an expression I borrow from John Rogerson.

And these structures of grace are really for protection and flourishing of people who find themselves outside of the normal protection of the household.

So, you know, that triad of widows, orphans, immigrants, how to protect them, how to, you know, give them a means to live life.

So the Leveret marriage, the gleaning laws, a lot of these aren't unique to Israel, but what might be unique through the eyes of faith is that this was the way God wanted them to live their lives and reflect on his care, especially for outsiders and people who have found themselves on the margins of life.

and anything then kind of taking it to the next notch libby that you want to bring out so then where are you so if we take what we have in the biblical text and maybe also ancient eastern texts that will talk about certain rituals and feasts and things like that explain you kind of walk us through taking taking that connecting the the live material to that maybe inform or or help help interpret and then drawing the theological kind of realities or theological points out of it

Visit the magazine at thebiblicalmind.org for articles and videos that explore the deep structures of scripture.

Yeah, so we were hoping that this textbook would really connect the dots and bridge the historical context and the theology, 'cause what we were finding is, as much as we try to emphasize both to our students, they would literally come out of Cynthia's Hebrew Bible World class into my theology class the next semester, and it's like their brains were trying to switch gears to the point-

Mm-hmm

... on him.

And it also, like, to Cynthia's point, it gives me a little bit of empathy.

It's so easy to judge Israel for their idolatry, but if they are struggling on a land that's failing to produce, and these other deities are claiming to be, you know, to be, um, providing for their people, that would be very tempting.