Everyone, this is Patricia and this is Elisa. Welcome to The Exile Project. We're so glad you're here. Elisa, when was the moment that you felt like COVID was going to be real? Like it was going to be a big deal? Mm hmm. I feel like. I feel like I was later to the game probably the most. But it was March 15th. I was in a restaurant when the restaurant shut down. Oh, my gosh. It was sort of it's like met the moment. But, yeah, it was the last time I was in a restaurant for, well, I don't know, 18 months and and the that like the mayor was on the on the TV in there being like tonight. Is it. Yeah. Tomorrow nothing is open. Oh, my gosh. So crazy. Mm hmm. I sort of have two. One is my sister was living in Germany at the time, and Europe was experiencing COVID me four. Right. New York had. So she sent me this photo of this giant room filled with food, and I didn't have contacts where I was like, I think my sister just became a proper man. she kind of meets in reference to COVID. And I just was like, What are the coronavirus or something? And then and then I realized the photo was a joke. Like, it wasn't. It was like something somebody else had. So I was like, Oh hahaha, it's not going to be a big deal. It's fine. Right, right. Other people are going crazy about it, but it's not going to be real. And then I was visiting one of my best friends in Ohio and there was a basketball game on and, and they were like. Shutting down the NBA. Or maybe it wasn't even on. Maybe it was like there was going there should have like a basketball player had gotten sick and they were shutting it down. And then it was just this like, oh my gosh thing. It's happening in New York, like, and then I'm in Ohio and I was going to drive back to the epicenter of. What felt really crazy. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So March 12th, the governor issued a state of emergency for New York City. By March 20th, there were 5683 cases of COVID, and Cuomo issued the shelter in place or pods that would go into effect on March 22nd. I'm bringing that up because the amount of people who go into the Babylonian exile is 4600 people. It's less than had COVID in that first like 20 days in New York City. that's the beginning of COVID, right? the beginning of COVID is the amount of people who go into Babylon. So it's sort of a small amount of people who end up exiled. Mm hmm. But, you know, this means what we are in the exile project is actually talking about people biblical narrative. Here we go.

But like the exile is such a significant moment because it becomes the mouthpiece of the Jewish narrative. Mm hmm. And the groundwork of the Jewish faith system and it's specific. this story. The Hebrew Bible is shaped from Babylon. in 587, Jerusalem Falls. The city was under siege. That they're starving, Zedekiah, the last sort of puppet King of Judah, is led into captivity after trying to make an escape, and he gets caught and dragged back. and then his sons are murdered before his eyes. And then with that memory, with that image burned into his memory, his eyes are plucked out, and he's left to live the rest of his natural life in grief. in Babylon Yeah. In a foreign country, in a foreign city, in captivity. I mean, this is a awful moment in in Jewish history.

So we So the reason why we're bringing COVID up is because what happens in the midst of cultural trauma is three things. Interpretation, reflection and anticipation. And we saw that as we're like, people are trying to figure out where coffee comes from. Right. Right. Some people said it was like Bill Gates. Some people thought it was 5G towers. Some people said it was a factory or something So there's like these different interpretations of where it's coming from. Right. Right. And there's there's also, like, different interpretations of how to prevent it. You know, like initially you didn't have to mask, then you did mask. Like I remember before masking someone at the coffee shop. in the early days, this woman leaning across the counter and I felt her breathe into my mouth, which would be gross in general. But I was just like, I am going to die. Right. So. You know, it made us reinterpret. Normal actions, right? Normal behaviors. How to be with people all of a sudden were distancing, right? Were six feet away from each other. Right. Right. Create a new language like pods. Right. Nobody was partying before this. No, I think there was. There were the people that started to talk about whether, you know, we deserved this or did we do this to ourselves or is it God's punishment, our country, right, or whatever. We stopped touching one another. I remember talking to someone and she she has like the exact moment she's walking with a little kid, and they almost slipped and she reached out and grabbed their hand. And this was after COVID, and she realized, I'm touching people again, you know? So it wildly disrupted human behavior, interaction, intimacy, grocery shopping. Right. Workflow. So many people were working at home. So you have this wild moment that people are responding to. And in the midst of that, you have reflection and you have, you know, how do we make sense of this? How do we how do we recenter ourselves? Like, how do we practice mindfulness or like we became hikers. Right. You know, like I was not I remember that it's like I watched spring come to this particular part of this mountain. We kept going back to Bear Mountain, and I loved it. I just loved that I never had a relationship with the mountain before. And then then it was. And then there's this anticipation of, like, longing for new normal, but wanting to hold on to hiking through the mountains again. Like, yes, we had experienced in a lot of ways this like being closed off from each other. And in New York City, where everyone is so busy, some of that was restful in a way that I don't think we had experienced before. So you have on one side radical isolation, which is awful, but on another side, maybe an introduction of rest, which is needed, right? So yeah, I mean, I was I was working in church at the time. And so, you know, this I was I was doing kids ministry, which is very much in person and on the ground and arts and crafts and storytelling and all this and all. Then we were like, What do we do to try to continue to serve our families, also engage our families, whatever? And we moved everything online, which ended up being amazing for me. Oh, you were amazing. Oh, I mean, it was amazing for all of us. Yeah. But for me, I was like, being creative, and my husband and I learned like, that we were good at, you know, at creating videos. You do like a masterclass on, like, popping popcorn and the idea of Portland, it was it was one of our very last ones. But we were doing we were doing like a series of like cooking shows because I think we were talking about the fruits of the spirit. And so we were talking, I don't know, I think popcorn's probably joy if I was guessing, but it was like or no with patience. Because if you wait for it to pop, that's what it was. And so yeah. I'm an actress by education and passion and so I had this opportunity to go and reengage those muscles. My husband and I learned we were really good at working together in children's production. I loved spending all of my time being creative and thinking about teaching the Bible instead of like having to spend tons of time on logistics and and team management and all that stuff. And so, it was this like, like a moment of reinvention. It was. And so it was really awesome. And also there was all this terrible stuff, you know, going on. But this wouldn't have happened without being forced into a new way of thinking. Which kind of then brings me into the anticipation part, because as we were looking at things opening up again and being able to meet in person again, I was like, Guys, we have the opportunity to completely think differently about church. Like, I've learned so much about, like, how to teach the Bible and how to, incorporate, feelings, learning and social emotional learning into teaching the Bible as well because of all this. And I was like, We could do it with, families were worshiping together. and I had this anticipation that church might look entirely different and I was excited for what it looked like. And at least in our context, it went back to looking very similar, which is a whole nother story for another time and what that led to. But you know, but all of this is a great metaphor for what 587 meant. Yes. To the to the people of Judah. Right. So 587 is the year that Jerusalem fell. Right. Right. So

take us through a a Israelite history 101 real fast, if you can, to get us up to 587 you don't use specific dates, okay? But like, you know, we've got let's go Abraham to 587 real fast. Real fast. Like real fast. Okay. I don't know if I could do it fast. Okay, well, here, I'll do. We have, you know, Abraham chosen by God to start his family. Abraham, Isaac. Jacob. You're familiar with that? Well, okay, so if I do this, it's not familiar at all. It's going to be, like, all the obscure, like, stuff about Manasa. Okay, well, let me get 2 minutes. I can get two minute and get us to Manasa and then you can. Yeah, we could do, like, maybe just land, milk and honey. Okay. Okay. All right, so. So 587 is the year the Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians. Right. Maybe you're right, though. It should be like, okay, so God brings the people of Israel, the Hebrew people out of Egypt, into this promised land for the purpose of Worshiping him. Mm hmm. Right. And then, in theory, you have this, like, microcosm of, like, the Garden of Eden and his glory and intimacy with his people covering the Earth. Like the goal being maybe like for this creation, this new creation, to cover the Earth. And now we have this chance again as the people of Israel in this new creation moment, to let that his glory recover the earth. And and then there's this the story of just the contested spaces, the tensions in the midst of that. But they're also like in a particular time in history,

Interestingly enough, Gareth did get covered like a year or so out and he was like aimlessly wandering around the house. And we happen to be studying ancient civilizations. So I made him draw a map of ancient Israel and Egypt and the dining room while it was like, you need something to do. And I was like, Just try this map. it's still there and a I've had a lot of time to study the map. And one of the things that's very interesting to me when we begin to talk about them going into exile is like their part of the map You know, the Assyrians sort of have the north part of the map and then you have Israel sort of in the middle, and then you have Egypt sort of down below that. And then to the east is Babylon. And so you have Israel. And that's like obviously a very simplistic way of looking at it. you have these people, groups that try to become world powers. So at one point it's Egypt, then it's Assyria. And Assyria actually goes down into Egypt and they they actually wrote this down, if I can find which notebook I wrote it down. And you oh Eric shot in captures Memphis in 671 so before the exile you have a Syria coming down the map into Egypt. Yeah you know and then you have a Syria going over the map in capturing Babylon, the Assyrians, were the first to practice psychological warfare in the form of deportation dismantling people groups because they would be less likely to revolt if they're sort of intermixed. And then the Babylonians rise up and then they spread out and try to take over the map. Bhima says Israel is at at the crossroads of the earth is isn't it just like an arbitrary location in the Middle East? and God did that. because, the call of Israel's to become a blessing to all nations. So God isn't going to plant them out in the middle of nowhere. He's going to plant them in the center of the civilization. And so through Israel's history. they are surrounded by powers, So it's like it is interesting to kind of set it in its like geopolitical moment, because what this means is often as the kings of Israel are setting up high places for worship, what's happening is they're they're becoming vassals to whoever is in power. They're saying, we're going to pay you to not kill us, you know? You know, we're going to pay you to not to take our people into enslavement. And we will also worship your gods and by default, you. Right. So there's this back and forth of these acts as political action, even though they carry spiritual significance. And then you have these righteous kings who rise up and who pull that down. But it carries political consequence. They often will then get invaded. Hmm. So there's this interesting moment, which I never knew going into it.

I think COVID. is a great metaphor for just how we enter the exile, because what ends up happening is this culturally traumatic moment. And then you have the Old Testament is essentially interpretation, reflection and anticipation the perspective that the prophets are writing out of is sort of this Deuteronomy sort of calculus, which is if we keep the law, you know, we'll have blessing from God. Good things will happen, will prosper. And if we don't obey the law we get, calamity we get destroyed. So clearly if we're getting exiled there is some great sin. So now they're trying to find the sin or like, you know, the major ways they've fallen out of God's favor. Jeremiah is coming at it from that lens.

Samuel and Kings are written while in exile. So they're telling the story of like, how did we get here? Right. Chronicles is the post exhibit community reflecting. Now what do we do about it? Right. And you see that for example and Samuel David's sins are really highlighted in Chronicles. David's worship is really highlighted. So you have like there's no Bathsheba or him murdering Uriah in the Chronicles accounts. Instead, what you have is like this long multiple chapter section of this prescribed way that God wants to be worshiped as David's bringing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem.

So it's a different focus in some of our earlier episodes, we've talked about the importance of cultural context. Right. Personal context. And then, of course, the biblical narrative. And that's the lens through which we explore this, not just our cultural context as we're going back to the ancient text, but like what was the context then and how were people interpreting it? And, you know, a lot of this is difficult to to know because we're far away from the from the narrative. Right. But what's happening in the biblical writing isn't necessarily history in the way that we know history. we have these different perspectives in the prophets that are reflecting on this wildly traumatic experience, a small amount of people go. into exile. It's the scribes, it's the nobility. It's, the leading class. And most of the poor get left behind. Right. and this kind of makes me think about COVID. Not everybody goes back to normal. Like, not everybody goes when Cyrus comes and allows them to go back. Some people choose to stay in Babylon, which is right. Esther is writing from. Right. And so It's an interesting thing to consider that there isn't one narrative in this story, but there's a lot of different voices. Right, that are that are involved in this larger conversation about what it means to be a people of God. Yeah. And this is the whole idea of the exile project you know, just this invitation into conversation. Right? Realizing that when people are wildly just centered, our healing journeys differently. Right? For some people, you don't go back. Yeah. You know, but you find faith in a new way, right? how do we workshop or pathway out. Just a dissenting and then and then a radically recentering through compassion and love and community.

Right. And the other reason why it feels so important is, the communities that are created post exile, the people that stayed, the people that never left, like all like the re builders, the non re builders, all of those play a part in who Jesus is talking to. So then it gives you a more rich understanding of who the Samaritans are, who the scribes are, who the the priests are, who, you know, all of that. And so we can understand Jesus this context when we understand the exile. So that's why it feels so important, in my opinion, it makes the the Old Testament more palatable. Totally. And it deepens all the conversations we're about to have about the New Testament.

As someone who's always loved the Bible, spent her life devoted to theological thinking, it felt very important to me to give my kids a firm foundation, and I felt critical of a lot of the children's devotional material that I was seeing And so I decided to just kind of do my own thing. And my plan was to print out some beautiful Rembrandt paintings and turn them into coloring pages. And then the kids would be like coloring these beautiful masterworks while we would be sharing the story of God and just the prayer being that we would be masterworks of His love and His glory and that living pope and blah, blah, blah. So I'm sitting at the table, everything's ready, the coloring pages, crayons, small snacks, and they sit down and it's like as they're sitting and I'm about to start talking, I realize that this image I've printed out is the woman caught in adultery How old are your kid? Probably like for, you know, 14 to perfect. And I'm just like, oh, my gosh, there's so many parts of this story that I have to like. I have to explain adultery. I have discipline, you know, mob justice. so I'm like doing my best to, like, try to, like, you know, this girl does this bad thing, which feels reductive. But anyway, you know, and then these other people throw stones at her, which is not something we should ever do. Don't throw stones. So just like, it just was like I was just like, gosh. And then somehow back to God's article, love. And I'm sweating and I'm just like, Oh, so finally get to the end. Feel like maybe the gospel is in there. Honestly, it was like I think I probably nailed it. Like, yeah, I think and so, you know, Harrison's for at the time I'm like, All right, Harrison like, you know, like, I'd love to see your drawing. Can you tell me a little bit about the picture? And so he comes over and he points to different humans in the painting and he says, This is a cow, this is a pig, and this is a donkey. Which means he didn't even connect at all. Any of the things I was saying to the image that he was like, nothing connected. Nothing connected. And I think that honestly, that's a great metaphor for how we approach the Old Testament. I think it's just like there's so many things that we don't know going into it. We don't know about ancient Mesopotamian power struggle, we don't know about trade routes and the importance they play in terms of just like the economic strategy of Jerusalem's geographic location, like all these things we don't know, at least now we're talking yesterday about some 29 and how it's riffs on this other popular Canaanite song to Bill, and they take that song and they turn it into this worship song for Yahweh. But one of the things that is lost on us is this part about the wind, like where the wind blows from and in some 29, what's happening is the wind is being essentially rerouted around the Holy Land, around Jerusalem. And that's not something I would know because I don't know the wind patterns in the Middle East. So, you know, all of these things we don't know. I think that one question that anyone who kind of enters into the to the debate or entrance into the conversation about the Bible is do you believe in the inerrancy of Scripture? Like, what does that mean to you? What does that look like? Oof, I honestly don't love that is a question there. Now, do I feel like I feel like that sets up a particular kind of conversation, you know, and it's like, do I believe that the Bible is divinely inspired by God? 1,000%? I do. I also believe that it takes place in specific historical context and very much reflects a specific kind of knowing in a very particular context. I believe that to. So Peter Ends talks about how Jesus models being fully God and fully man. And in a way he says, like the Bible sort of does that too. We have like the divinely inspired word of God, but we also have people knowing in an ancient context, which is very different from our own. And he likes to make the point, too, that the Bible is confusing and complicated. And I think that there is this. Kind of nerve wracking is when we approach it sometimes where it's just like, wait, what? You know, and Stanley how are us? Rights that the Bible really shouldn't be read on your own. It's like a community endeavor. And I kind of love that. I love the idea of just wrestling through things together.

I've come to read the creation story in light of the egg. Totally. in Babylon. there was a day in the beginning of the year where the high priest and the king would stand together, and there was this ritual where the priest would slap the king really, really hard. And if he cried, it meant they were going to have a good, bountiful agricultural year or something like that. But then in the midst of this moment, they would read their creation story. And you have the waters of the deep, like salt water versus fresh water, these gods warring against each other and out of their warring and chaos and bodies being ripped apart. You had the creation of the earth and Humans are created sort of as an afterthought to do the dirty work of the gods. and on top of that. Nebuchadnezzar marries this woman from a place that had a lot of gardens and plants and trees and it was mountainous. And She's all upset about it. And he's like, Girl, I got you. He apparently was a very great builder. I think most likely the thing he's remembered for is building. But because we know him from the Jewish narrative. Right. You know, the thing that's highlighted is his bloodlust. But anyway, he creates the hanging garden of Babylon, right? This crazy architectural wonder of the world. And it needs a new word. It and it requires a new word because nobody's ever seen this before. And so they create this word, which means paradise, which is where the Garden of Eden of Eden the Genesis account starts. So that word, that idea of like this paradise, this garden the Genesis story of creation almost is like subversive literature. in this moment as they're beginning to write their own stories. You have God creating with his word. Right. Right. It's this very like scribal sort of moment, God, not in the midst of chaos, singular. God alone in the Trinitarian community. But like there's no warring gods, there's no pantheon, right? God in his word is speaking. Goodness and humanity is the is the top of his creation. Not the worst, not the bottom, not the afterthought. So what it does is it gives you an entirely different anthropology for what it means to be human. the creation story set in its Babylonian context tells a different kind of story to write about it. Right. Yeah.

I think we tend to interpret the Bible with the Bible and kind of brush over the pieces that feel complicated. Yeah. You know, and I think that if we learn to put it in its own historical context, it will free us. To see God in our own historical context will understand that there is like a relevancy there, that the Bible postured in its own context is incredibly relevant to the issues in its own specific world. Mm. Which makes me think about testicle grabbing. So, you know, in Deuteronomy 25, it talks about how if two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand and show her no pity. And I mean, like, apparently testicle grabbing was an issue in Legion in the ancient world. And I'm going to be honest, if I'm helping my husband out in the fight, that feels like my best move. I just don't I just have not been involved in a lot of physical. Neither have I. So the thought of, like, if if let's just say Gareth is fighting someone else. Right. Like, I can't picture somehow managing to put myself into the middle of it and then be dexterous enough to know how to just grab the other person's testicles. Like, how do you know? Yeah, it's true. And I do feel like, though, that it's the most, like, the most useful move, though, True. True. I give little effort. I mean, part of me is thinking like the fights I see now that I've seen a lot, but I would assume would be like a fist fight So maybe even a cause like picture, like a fist fight. You jump in the middle and grab the other person. It just feels like, I don't know. And it could be in a way, maybe it's emasculating your own husband by grabbing somebody else's testicles. Well, yeah, that. That makes sense. You hunching someone else's or just touching sexual organs, maybe? I mean, I guess the reality, though, is that this was an issue in the ancient world and there was legal code that was very similar. Middle Assyrian law, civil code. If a woman has crushed a man's testicles in a in a in an affray, in a fight, one of her fingers shall be cut off. And if the second testicles affected and becomes inflamed or if she has crushed the second testicle she loses. Unfortunately, part of the documents don't last, so it just says both of her blank shall be torn out. So people have been arguing for 2000 years, 3000 years over what what that breakage is in her eyes. Is it her breasts? We don't know. But I think the point here, though, is that the Bible is not silent. About issues in the world that it lives in. Right. You know, if testicle grabbing is an issue, then the Bible has something to say about it. Right. Then the biblical writers have something to say about it. And I think in a way, that's the point. Right. Right. That we wouldn't be silent about the issues in our own day, but that we would with love and compassion and grace. Right. Right. Be relevant to the world around us. I think that is what? The Bible model. Yeah. I and I think, like, while it can seem violent and strange and hard to understand, it's not something that we say, okay, now this is like a moral code for me to apply now to my own way of living. We think, Wow, it was so relevant then and God as the living word wants to in flash a community to be very relevant living out the the ethic of the kingdom. Yeah. So what then? I think what to do with this book now? Like, how do we how do we move forward? How do we read this as empowered people? And I think for me, one of the things that's really helped is to get into the story. Like, you know, while we don't share a lot of the ancient context now, like no Tesco grabbing, thankfully no Assyrians knocking at our door, we still have these full range of emotional experiences. And that's that's the same as the biblical characters, right? They're in relationship with others. They're there, they're having full emotional experiences. And so get into the story and be like, what is this person like? What is this person facing? What are the questions they're asking? Like sort of doing that kind of, you know, really kind of looking at and looking at it from different characters. Perspectives don't only look at it through David's perspective, like, look at what was Goliath bringing to the table? What is King Saul bringing to the table? You know? Mm hmm. things that have changed for me over the years is one I almost always read a chronological Bible because now, instead of it being history narratives and then the wisdom narratives and then the prophets, now it's all interspersed. So now you have the prophets prophesying before Israel falls and you have this kind of real time feel to it. Yeah, one of the things that's helped me is just unashamedly reading simpler translations, you know, like I feel like we look down our nose sometimes in Christian circles about the message or the living translation and and listen, whatever gets you into the story to write, to read it, and to feel like it's approachable, go there or just at least read multiple, you know, versions, get into the story in whatever way feels approachable to you. Don't don't feel like you have to have the the most perfect translation, you know. No, no, no. Yeah. We, we're big on collecting the translations, which is super fun. And and then the other thing I was thinking about, if you're looking at more instructional passages like the epistles, reading them in chronological order, like you were saying, look at them interspersed with the. The moment they're living in But also looking at them like a journalist, like ask questions like who, what, where, when and how.

Yesterday I was in a kindergarten class. I'm a substitute teacher in a syndicated garden class, and one of our assignments was a writing assignment. and they were supposed to kind of ruminate on the W questions who, what, where when, why. And so the the sentence that they started with was the mom sat on the log and we read that a bunch of times. and then they were supposed to just discuss. Okay, well, who is in the sentence? The mom. Yeah, that's great. Good job. The mom. The mom is the who. And then what? Well, she sat the. What is that? She sat the. What is the log? Great. Okay. When when kid was like 730 and I was like, totally could be a great idea. Another one was like, 230, and I was like, fantastic. That one was like 50 o'clock. And I was like, probably not that one. And then I was like, Well, what about evening? What about morning? What about winter? What about summer? So we, we started to kind of be like, Oh, well, the when could be a lot of different things. It doesn't have to be this exact time. And then we got to the why why did mom sit on the log? And the first kid was like, because she was tired and I was like, absolutely, probably great guess. Moms are often tired because she needed a rest. And I was like, Yeah. And I was like, What if you wanted to take a picture? She sat to have a portrait made and they were like, Oh! And then one kid goes, because she was roasting marshmallows. And I was like, Oh, and all of a sudden the scene changed. I was like, in my mind, in my mom sitting on the log scene, it was like a random hike through the woods. This was just a random log with nothing else around. Yeah. And in his imagination, she was sitting around a campfire with a tent. That makes me think about how, like, the promised land is described as flowing with milk and honey. And I always thought it meant literal milk and honey. So today, you know, for like, so long. And I was like, great, awesome. Like, honestly thinking, like, the chocolate room and Willy Wonka. Yeah, I was like, they. And then they get the flowers wrapped up in Willy Wonka chocolate. And there's a river of honey. Yeah. I did not know that that was code for the good life. Right? If you're an agro pastoralist. Right, right. Right. Now, what we would say is a white picket fence. Right. That's not nobody actually has the white picket fence. What it is, is it's code for you have your house, you have your kids, you have your car in your garage. You have arrived at like a good life. It's a cultural code. And I think like, you know, it's so interesting how the log like if you know well that log situated at a campfire you're going to read the narrative differently than if she's like alone, lost in the woods. Right.

So I think sometimes when we're looking at the Bible, it's like I'm trying to think of a next an instructional epistle passage. It's like, well, wives submit to your husband, right? How what does that look like? What is the context? Who are they talking to? What was happening in that moment? You know, unpack that. Don't just try to try to slap that on a modern context or a modern marriage or a modern, you know, whatever. It's not there. There's more to unpack that to ask. We we've already said this, but like ask really good questions of of the text to try to dig in some more meaning. Mm hmm. Multi-layered meaning from it. Yeah. I think it's so good. And I also think, dude, in community, right? I think that the invitation is to be a people who are formed together by the living word of God. And that when we reflect back on the biblical narrative and we question the parts that feel hard rather than feel ashamed that we feel like they're hard, right? We all grow and we all learn from each other. bring your questions, bring your perspective. You know, I think there's so much room to find God in the questions.