One For Israel

Dr. Erez Soref: Welcome, everybody, to another Pod for Israel. I think this episode can really change the way you read the Bible and understand it. I have with me Dr. Seth Postell, and I want to celebrate the publication of a new book that you've written about the subject of narrative analogy. What's the name of the book?

Dr. Seth Postell: The book is called *The Art of Narrative Analogy*, and it's a book that's dedicated to helping believers recognize and interpret parallel stories and passages in the Bible.

Parallel stories and analogies are crucial for the understanding of biblical literature. There are so many parallels, but let me start by an analogy. When I was eleven or twelve years old, we were invited to a conference of Jewish believers in Jesus. We weren't believers. My mother was, but my father wasn't. We pulled up to the parking lot, and I said, "Dad, they're all a bunch of losers." He asked, "How do you know?" I said, "Look, Dad, at all these old cars in the parking lot."

We were at this conference, and there was a youth group. They had us watch a movie I'd never heard of before. It was a cartoon movie, *The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe*. Growing up in a Jewish home, I had never read the New Testament. I knew nothing about Jesus, other than the fact that he had blond hair, blue eyes, and looked like a surfer from California. I knew nothing about Jesus.

I'm watching this story about Aslan, and I was just amazed at the love of Aslan that he would die. I was mortified when he was being killed by the witch, when they were plucking his beard. Then he laid down on the stone altar, and the altar breaks. I was shocked when the girls were crying and their backs were to the altar, and all of a sudden, the altar cracks, and there's Aslan standing there. I was completely shocked. How did he come back to life?

I loved the story. I fell in love with the lion, but I didn't understand the point of the book because I missed the analogy. I didn't know the Gospels, and it was only when I recognized that Aslan is an analogy to Jesus that I truly understood the meaning of Aslan and why he is there.

I would argue that these kinds of parallel stories are all throughout the New Testament, but they're also all throughout the Hebrew Bible. To understand Elijah and Elisha as a new Moses opens up the story. To understand Joshua as a new Moses, who splits the Jordan the way that he meets this divine messenger and takes his sandals off of his feet, understanding him in relationship to Moses opens up the storyline.

Of course, in the New Testament, seeing the parallels between Paul and Peter helps us understand that Paul is just as much of an apostle as Peter. Analogy is a crucial tool for not only understanding the Bible but, as we'll talk about, also to defend our faith as followers of Yeshua.

Dr. Erez Soref: How would you define, in the clearest, simplest way, what is narrative analogy?

Dr. Seth Postell: A narrative analogy is when a later biblical writer intentionally references an earlier story in such a way that he wants you to notice the parallels and interpret the passage he's written in light of those earlier parallels.

Dr. Erez Soref: You said a later writer, but most Jews believe that the Bible is one book. What do you mean by a later author? Isn't the Bible written by one person?

Dr. Seth Postell: In one sense, I would say amen. We believe that the Bible's written by God, but the Bible has many authors. We actually have examples of prophets studying Scripture. It is like a library. Daniel was studying Jeremiah. First Peter chapter 1, verse 10 talks about prophets that referenced and studied and searched. What were they searching? Prophets.

We know that the biblical authors were reading earlier books and commenting on earlier books. One of the things we see all throughout the Bible, both the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament, is that they're constantly referring to earlier stories in order to help us understand the importance of what they're writing and also to help us understand what God's going to do in the future.

I want to tell you a story because I think if you get the story, it will really help you. I'm going to tell a story about Irving and then a story about myself. Irving is a friend of mine who grew up in an ultra-religious Jewish family. He actually had a photographic memory. He was a Torah reader in the synagogue, and he not only memorized the Torah by heart, he knew all the cantillations and the vowels. He is a genius.

He started in these conversations with a young man who was about 16 years old. This young man started trying to share the Gospel with Irving. He said, "I could prove to you from the Old Testament, from the Hebrew Bible, that Jesus is the Messiah." He didn't know Hebrew, and every time he would come with a new Messianic prophecy, Irving would refute it because he knew the rabbinic commentary very well.

Every week, the kid would go back to the library and study. After a year, the kid called up Irving and said, "Listen, I feel like I need to read something to you from the New Testament. I told you I could prove to you from the Hebrew Bible, but I just feel like I need to read something from the New Testament to you." Irving was convinced that he had already refuted the New Testament faith.

The kid read him the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapters five through seven. By the time this young man finished reading the Sermon on the Mount to Irving, Irving not only knew that Jesus is the Messiah, he knew that Jesus is God. He became a believer, and today he is a pastor of a Messianic congregation.

You ask, "What happened?" I think the point is that Irving got who Yeshua is within the context of the story of Moses and the story of God and the people of Israel. That's the story of Irving. Now let me tell you about myself, and this will help prepare the way for why I wrote this book.

I was reading through Matthew, and I had first started getting interested in narrative analogies in the Hebrew Bible. I started to notice the way certain stories parallel other stories. I'll never forget, I was reading through Matthew's Gospel, and all of a sudden, it dawned on me that in chapter two, Yeshua is brought out of Egypt. Then in chapter three, he was baptized; he goes through the waters. Then in chapter four, he goes out into the wilderness where he fasts for 40 days and 40 nights, like Moses, and is tempted. Then in chapter five, he goes up a mountain, brings his disciples, and he gives his law.

I almost fell off my seat because I realized in order to understand the Sermon on the Mount, I have to actually see and recognize that Yeshua is the promised prophet like Moses. Moses himself said, "God's going to raise up a prophet like me. When he comes, you have to listen to him."

How does the Sermon on the Mount end? Two ways. You can either listen to me and you've built your house on the stone, or you don't listen to me and you've built your house on the sand. I realized very quickly the power and the importance of intentional parallels between one story and an earlier story, between one text and an earlier story.

As I started to read the Bible more and more, I realized the Bible is filled with analogies, and yet so many believers don't see it. I decided that I had to write a book to help people see, notice, and have the skill set to interpret parallel passages in the Bible.

Dr. Erez Soref: How do you identify a narrative analogy? Is it enough that one word repeats itself?

Seth Postell: No. How do we know that an author intentionally looks at an earlier passage? He's going to do a couple of things. Number one, he's going to take very unique vocabulary, very unique clusters of vocabulary. He's going to take very unique themes and motifs, and he's going to write his story in such a way that it has all these elements, plus it's built on a shared sequence of events. When you say, "Wow, I've seen this before," you recognize that Abraham's exodus from Egypt reminds you of Israel's exodus from Egypt.

Dr. Erez Soref: We have a saying in Hebrew that the deeds of the fathers are a sign for the sons.

Dr. Seth Postell: That's something that's very common in the Hebrew Bible. Many times, the story of Joseph prepares you for the story of Moses. The story of Abraham prepares you for the story of Moses. If you look at the story of King David and how David rises to power, there are many elements where the writer of the story of David wants us to see David as a new Joseph.

Dr. Erez Soref: Why is it so important for those who love the Bible to identify narrative analogy in interpretation and getting the meaning?

Dr. Seth Postell: Many times, by missing parallels that are intended by the authors, we miss the point of the passage. Let me give you a classic example. The Gospel of Mark, chapter four, tells the story of Jesus calming the storm. I'm going to tell you the story of Jesus on the boat, and you tell me if it reminds you of another story that you're familiar with.

Jesus gets on the boat with experienced sailors, the disciples. He falls asleep in the boat. There's a sudden storm, and the boat starts to fill up with water. The sailors come and wake him up and say, "Don't you care that we're perishing?" Then suddenly, the storm is miraculously stilled.

Dr. Erez Soref: Are you referring to Jonah or to Jesus?

Dr. Seth Postell: The Gospel of Mark actually is the closest, in terms of the Greek, to the story of Jonah in the Greek chapter one. You notice the parallel, but why is that important? So what? Who cares? Well, how does that story end? It ends with a question: "Who then is this that even the wind and the waves obey him?"

I can't answer that question unless I know the fact that it's not Jonah that calms the storm in Jonah chapter one. It's God himself. When I start to recognize that Mark has thrown a twist in the plot, I was expecting Jesus to get up and to pray to God, "Dear God, stop the storm," or maybe the disciples would throw him in the water.

But what happens? Jesus stands on the boat, and he says, "Peace, be still. Hush, be still," and the wind and the waves stop. Anybody that knows the story of Jonah will fall on their faces and say, "This has to be God."

What's all the more ironic about this story in the Gospel of Mark is I constantly hear people say the Gospel of Mark really doesn't talk about the deity of Jesus; that's the Gospel of John. The moment you notice the analogy, you realize Jesus has to be God. Then you go to chapter two where he forgives sins, and the Pharisees say, "Who can forgive sins but God alone?"

Dr. Erez Soref: And even the beginning of the Gospel with John the Baptist, because he quotes Isaiah.

Dr. Seth Postell: Correct. And that's the name of God that in Israel we don't even pronounce. In other words, by citing an earlier passage, the Gospel of Mark identifies Yeshua as the Lord himself. Noticing these analogies is crucial. What would we lose by not noticing that Yeshua is a new Moses in the Gospel of Matthew? We would lose the impact of the Sermon on the Mount as the very words from the prophet like Moses that we have to listen to. We would miss the power of the making of the new covenant in Matthew chapter 26 as a parallel to the making of the Sinai covenant. We would miss so much of the punch of the Gospel of Matthew by not being sensitive to the ways in which the author presents Jesus as a new Moses.

Dr. Erez Soref: These are examples from the New Testament. Can you share an example only in the Hebrew Bible, where a later author is quoting an earlier author?

Dr. Seth Postell: Let's talk about the Book of Esther. It's one of my favorite books in the Bible. I think it's one of these books that often gets ignored or underrated. It's definitely a later book compared to the Torah, and we can say without any doubt that the author of the Book of Esther knows the story of Joseph very well.

What's interesting in the story of Joseph is the ways in which God's providence is at work to fulfill his covenant promises. By virtue of parallels to the story of Joseph, Esther doesn't have to explicitly mention the name of God to say, "Hey, God is at work."

Oftentimes, we see God at work in very humorous ways or funny ways. For instance, in the first half of the Book of Esther, you have Mordecai is parallel to Joseph, but so is Haman. Tragically, all the bad things that happened to Joseph happen to Mordecai: the humiliation, the refusal to yield to temptation like Joseph, the false blame. Joseph is thrown into prison; he's enslaved. Mordecai now has his whole people threatened with extinction.

In that very chapter, Haman receives the signet ring of the king and he's exalted, just like Joseph. You say, "What's going on here? This is a reversed world." How is it that we expect Mordecai to be rewarded for saving the king, but instead Haman is rewarded? Mordecai is treated badly like Joseph, and Haman is treated well like Joseph.

The second half of the book, there's an incredible reversal where, in the end, Mordecai is exalted like Joseph. He's the second in command. He's getting the ring. What happens to Haman? The king goes out when he finds out that Haman wants to kill all the Jews and kill his queen. When the king comes back, he assumes that Haman was trying to sleep with his wife.

What's so funny about that? It's a reversal. That's how Joseph was falsely accused, but only this time, even though it's a false accusation, Haman gets what he deserves. You want to be like Joseph? I'll make you like Joseph.

Dr. Erez Soref: The final question before we wrap it up: why should people read the book?

Dr. Seth Postell: Let me talk about my book of analogy by virtue of an analogy. I love the *Chronicles of Narnia* series. One of my favorite scenes in all the books is from *The Voyage of the Dawn Treader*, where Edmund and Lucy are looking at a picture. They're in England and they're looking at a picture of what they come to realize is a Narnian ship. They long to go back to Narnia to see Aslan.

As they're staring at the picture, their cousin walks in and starts mocking them. "Narnia, Narnia, it's a make-believe world." But they continue to look at the picture, and the picture becomes alive. It comes alive and the boat starts going up and down, and the breeze comes out of the painting. All of a sudden, waves come out of the painting and suck them into Narnia. Suddenly, the kids are dragged out of England into a different reality.

But this different reality becomes the reality that helps them understand all reality. In other words, it's not England that helps you understand Narnia; it's Narnia that helps you understand England. You have to know the lion.

I look at the Bible much like that painting. The more you stare at that painting, it starts to remind you of things you once knew and you know. The more you see it, it sucks you up and drags you into a storyline. You become a part of the story.

What I hope to accomplish with the book that I've written is to get people really excited for themselves of reading the Bible, staring at the Bible, noticing the ways in which the Bible has so many parallels, and realizing how all these parallels come together to help us understand life, to help us understand God's program of redemption, and to help us ultimately to recognize that Yeshua, Jesus, is our new Moses. He is our new Joseph. He is the one through whom God has created the world, and he wants a relationship with us.

Dr. Erez Soref: Amen. Seth, thank you so much. Thank you for writing the book and thank you for giving us your time.