October 8, 2025 • 17 mins
Big questions deserve straight answers—and a generous dose of wonder. We open the inbox and walk through listener questions about how the Bible took shape, whether the text changed over time, how God’s sovereignty meets real human choice, why the crucifixion lands exactly on Passover, and what archaeology adds to the story. Along the way, we keep returning to a word that refuses to fit inside English: chesed—God’s loyal, covenant love that doesn’t quit.
We start with canon and cut through the “secret council” myth. The Old Testament was already recognized within Judaism and affirmed by Jesus; the New Testament writings spread quickly, with early manuscripts like P52 and second-century collections showing how communities embraced these texts close to the events themselves. From there, we tackle reliability through the scribal world and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Qumran’s caves handed us ancient Isaiah and a trove of Hebrew texts that match what we read today with striking accuracy, turning a common objection into an anchor for confidence.
Then we pivot to the heart-work: sovereignty and free will. Love that matters can’t be coerced, and Scripture shows a God who reigns while people choose—nowhere more clearly than at the cross. Passover’s timing is no coincidence either; Jesus steps into the Exodus pattern as the spotless Lamb, reframing rescue with bread, cup, and blood that covers more than doorposts. We also talk language—Hebrew’s action and Greek’s reflection—as two lenses that sharpen both head and heart. Before we land, we explore the enduring mystery of the Ark of the Covenant and why its absence may signal a deeper presence: the Spirit within us. We close with chesed, the refrain that steadies a wavering soul: His faithful love endures forever.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:02):
Welcome to the Boundless Bible.
My name is David Shapiro.
Hey, I'm Javi Marquez.
And I'm Jason Holloway.
Welcome to the Boundless Bible.
I'm David.
Again, this week we don't haveJavier Jason, but I'm excited
because I went around and I hadsome of our listeners ask some
questions that they werethinking about that they wanted
(00:22):
to ask for our show and haven'thad a chance to.
So I'm just going to start toanswer some of those questions.
Again, it's not going to be acomprehensive answer.
This is just going to be mypoint of view, but I'm just
going to shoot into some ofthese questions you guys had.
So the first question (00:34):
were the books of the Bible chosen and
how were they chosen?
Well, it's very interestingbecause a lot of people think
that there was this council thathappened that picked the books
that were going to be in theBible.
And this comes from differentareas, movies, things like that.
But the truth of the matter is,if we break it into the Old
(00:54):
Testament and New Testament,first is if we look at the Old
Testament, there are some cluesas to how we know which of those
books are truly there and whythey're there.
And, you know, one of the thingsI always go to is Jesus and the
apostles themselves.
And they go and they mention alot of these books when they're
in the New Testament.
And for me, I'm going, if ifJesus mentioned it, it's
(01:15):
probably going to be true.
But even more than that is youhave the Pharisees, and the
Pharisees disagreed with Jesuson just about anything.
But you never heard them say,hey, wait a minute, that's not a
book that I believe in my Bible.
That's not the one that I followin the Old Testament.
So just so you understand, youknow, when you start looking at
the Old Testament, these are alot of things that were
(01:37):
confirmed already.
This was already believed by theJewish people that this existed.
These were the word of God.
This wasn't something that wasup for debate.
There were no councils thatdebated this.
These were things that wereknown.
When it comes to the NewTestament, though, again, you
have these people that say,well, you know, there was this
council that happened in 300 ADthat decided on these.
(01:58):
And that's just not true.
What we actually start to see isabout 30 to 50 years after the
death of Jesus, you start to seethat some of these documents are
actually showing up hundreds ofmiles away.
The most important one, we havethe Gospel of John, and this is
P52, Papyrus 52, and this hasbeen dated to around 100 AD.
(02:20):
So you're talking about onlyabout 30 years or so after it
might have been written.
So that this isn't a lot of timewhere hundreds of years
afterwards this was somethingthat came out.
This came out right away.
And then when you start lookingat between 100 and 200 AD, you
start to see the entire documentshowing up.
So it's really interestingbecause when we look at some
(02:42):
other documents out there, youknow, when you look at the Iliad
or uh if you look at Plato'sworks, you know, these sometimes
don't show up for severalhundred, if not a thousand years
later.
And it's it's something wherewhen anybody talks about why we
have the Bible, why we don'thave certain books in there,
there's a huge study in it, theapocryphal books.
And one of the things I alwayswant people to remember is
(03:05):
having a book that has truth init doesn't make it scripture.
So you have great books thathave a lot of history in it.
If you look at the Maccabees,these are part of the apocryphal
books.
These are books that the theHebrews did not even accept into
their own scripture, but it doeshave some history in there.
So it's a great read.
Just don't mistake it for God'sword.
(03:25):
That's really important.
So when I start looking at it,again, this is just a really
brief overview, but I'm reallyconfident that we have the Bible
that we're supposed to have.
And then when you really look atit, I mean, for 2,000 years now,
God has preserved his word, atleast 2,000 years from the New
Testament.
When the Old Testament, you haveeven further, God has preserved
his root his word over the time.
(03:46):
And I think through that it alsoshows that we have his word.
Second question we have is howdo we know that the Bible wasn't
changed over time?
Now, this is really interestingbecause you have the Dead Sea
Scrolls, and that's somethingI'm actually going to talk about
later with a different question.
We start talking about, youknow, the scribal laws and what
these Jewish scribes did whenthey were writing down the
(04:09):
scriptures, when they werecopying it from scripture to
scripture, if they were off byone word, they would rip up and
destroy the document.
They ended up counting wordsafterwards.
They didn't just copy it, thenthey would count it.
This was a really delicate, andthis was something they took
very seriously.
Like I said, they could beworking on a document for months
at a time, and if they got onething wrong, they would destroy
(04:32):
it.
This is something where, again,if you start looking at some of
the old documents, also some ofthese ancient documents that are
written, they weren't taking asmuch care as with the Bible.
Somehow, because people use theword Bible, all of a sudden they
start to complain and say, hey,this had to been changed, this
was different.
And it's just not the case.
We start to see with tremendousaccuracy the different Bibles
(04:54):
that we have, whether we foundit a thousand years ago or two
thousand years ago, we start tosee that there's really a, you
know, uh there's a similaritybetween them that's just
uncanny.
They're almost identical inwords, and anything that changes
has nothing to do with thecentral themes of the Bible.
Uh, they could be a word here orthere, but it really doesn't
change anything from the beliefof Jesus.
(05:15):
So I just want you to understandthat what we have today is
absolutely what they had 2,000years ago.
Uh, and it's really amazing thatGod preserved it that way.
Another question we have is ifGod is sovereign, do we really
have free will?
And I want to just address thisfor a second because both things
could happen at the same time.
So, yes, God is sovereign, he iscontrol over everything.
(05:37):
When we're born, we're createdfrom God.
We are born with a reverence ofGod.
I see this in some of the oldercommunities that have happened,
some of the ancient communities,you know, they didn't really
have atheism.
They believed in multiple gods,they believed in gods, but
everyone was born with this sortof reverence for a higher power.
(05:58):
Uh, having atheism and havingthis belief that there was
nothing there is is more of arecent, you know, modern day
phenomenon.
Back then, you would believe inthe Greek gods, or you would
believe in the Egyptian gods, oryou would believe in Yahweh.
Uh, and this is really importantbecause what we start to see is
I think we're born with thisreverence from God.
(06:18):
That's that's what he gave us inour birth, but we have the free
will to choose what to do withthat.
And the free will of love, youknow, we we can choose to love
God back and to accept him,accept his gift that he gave us.
And that's really where, youknow, when somebody says to me,
hey, you know, if God issovereign and there's free will,
how what they're really sayingis, listen, if God is all
(06:40):
powerful, why do things happenthat we don't expect them to
happen or that are bad or evil?
And the truth is that yes, Godis all-powerful, but in his
all-powerful knowledge andwisdom, he also gave us the free
will.
He doesn't want a robot to loveyou.
Uh, he doesn't want a robot tolove him.
He doesn't want, you know, I'mmarried and I don't want my wife
(07:02):
to be a robot forced to love me.
Uh, it only means something whenshe chooses to love me.
And I think with his wisdom,that's what he did is we get the
choice to love each other, tolove him.
Um, and he gives us a choice andhe loves us as well.
And I just think it's it's abeautiful thing to have the free
will.
Uh, I would not replace it withhis sovereign power over me,
even though he has it.
(07:22):
Remember, he created everything,so he has a sovereign power, but
in that wisdom, he gave us freewill to love throughout our
life.
Uh, another question we have iswas it what is the significance
of Jesus dying on the Passover?
This is a really interestingthing because Jesus could have
chosen any time period, any dayof the week, any month to
(07:45):
sacrifice, you know, for for hislove for us.
And he chose Passover, and Ithink there's a couple of
reasons for it.
One is during Passover, there'sa tremendous pilgrimage to
Jerusalem.
This would have meant that therewould have been hundreds of
thousands, if not millions, ofJews in Jerusalem.
And what that means to me is hewasn't hiding anything, he
(08:07):
wasn't trying to, you know, havehis life, you know, given to us
for free when nobody was around.
He was doing it when millions ofpeople could have attested to
it, which is even more amazing.
He did it while there was a lotof people in a pilgrimage in
Israel.
Um, so that right off the bat isamazing.
But then when you look atPassover, when you look at what
happened at the first Passoverat Exodus, this is when the
(08:30):
blood of the lamb, uh, you hadto have a spotless lamb not
break its bones.
And when you kill it, you smearthe blood over your doorpost.
And that was to show the fingerof God to pass over your house
so that way you would be safefrom the last plague.
And then while that washappening, the Jewish people
were eating unleavened bread andthey were eating the the roasted
(08:55):
lamb, the rest of the lamb.
It's it's really symbolic towhat happened with Jesus.
Jesus, who is the spotless lamb,he is the perfect lamb.
If you look at the way he waskilled and when he was
crucified, he was pierced, hewas not, no bones were broken,
uh, which is really interesting.
It actually says that.
So he is the perfect lamb who'swas spotless, bones were not
(09:16):
broken, and his blood, insteadof just covering the doorposts,
covers all of us.
Then the night right before hiscrucifixion, when he had this
Passover dinner with his uhapostles, again, breaking the
bread and and eating in in honorof him.
Um, you know, this is inremembrance of again that time
when they were eating the lamband remembering the blood that
(09:39):
covers.
And I just think it's reallybeautiful.
So it's not on, it's not anaccident that, you know, it was
chosen for Passover to have thisholiday and to have Jesus,
that's a time at which he hadhis crucifixion.
It really was God's plan andit's really beautiful.
Um, and I definitely suggest youlook into other holidays.
There are so many holidays in inGod's calendar that just really
(10:02):
show how beautiful God'snarration is of life.
Uh, another question we had wasdo I prefer Hebrew or Greek for
a translation?
It's really interesting becausewhen you look at Hebrew, uh,
we've talked about this beforeon the show.
These are verbs.
This is an action.
This is I am doing something,not just it's not a
(10:25):
philosophical thought, it'sdoing.
And then when you look at Greek,this is now becomes poetic and
philosoph philosophical.
And uh when you put them bothtogether, I really kind of think
of our show, and you havesomebody like Jason who really
looks at the symbology of thedifferent words in the Bible,
and then you have somebody likeJavi who's looking at the
(10:47):
literal translation, and evenme, I look at both of those
sides, but you look at us and wego, that that really is the
Hebrew and the Greek version.
You have the action and thebeautiful faith-filled words,
and then you also have thesymbolic and philosophical
journey as well through theBible.
So for me, you know, it's notone prefer over the other.
(11:07):
Obviously, born and raisedJewish, I have more familiarity
with Hebrew, uh, but they Ithink they both work really
beautifully together in theBible to explain this book that,
you know, some people can learnit really well by their head,
others can learn it really wellby the heart.
I think when you put them bothtogether, that's what you're
getting with the Hebrew and theGreek.
We have another question.
(11:27):
What is the most impactfulbiblical archaeological find?
This to me is uh definitely oneI told you I'd come back to.
It's the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Uh, the Dead Sea Scrolls werefound in 1947 uh in Qumran.
What's really cool, if you thinkabout it, is this was found not
by archaeologists.
(11:49):
This was found by a shepherd boywho was just looking for his
lost sheep.
I just think it's amazing.
It's such a beautiful way tofind it, as if God did this on
purpose and he sent thisshepherd out to find what I
believe is the most incrediblebiblical archaeological find
ever.
And what it does is you'reseeing, you know, I believe it's
(12:09):
500 different manuscripts andtens of thousands of fragments
that are collected together thatyou get to see.
And this is some people thinkthis might have been an area
where they were teaching peoplehow to become scribes, and you
have governmental letters andyou have policies, and you also
have about 40% of biblicalliterature in there as well.
(12:30):
And one of the greatest finds isthe great Isaiah scroll, and
they they have this datedbetween 125 and 100 BC.
Uh, this means this happenedbefore Jesus.
And when you look at theprophecy of the great Isaiah
scroll, when you look at theprophecy uh of Isaiah, you know,
where uh Jesus is going to be orthe Messiah is going to be
pierced for our transgressions,this is the prophecy that came
(12:53):
true through Jesus.
And this prophecy is showingthat it happened prior to him
even being here.
So it's not like it was writtenafterwards and somebody is is
filling in what he already did.
No, this was written beforehand.
We have proof of it.
It's absolutely amazing.
It also shows when we weretalking earlier about how do we
know the words that we havetoday are the same we had
before.
(13:14):
I mean, this is it.
This is now we get to see copiesbefore they found this.
The oldest copies were about athousand years from there, a
thousand years more modern.
So now this brings us back toBC.
It gives us an idea as to whatthe Bible said the Old Testament
had, the Tanakh at that point,um, was, and the words are
(13:34):
exactly the same that we havetoday.
Um, with I believe it's like a98 or 99 percent accuracy.
That's amazing.
And that's how I say, you know,the Bible is not changed, but
it's also the reason why I thinkwe have the greatest discovery
biblically ever.
I have two more great questions,and and I'll wrap up.
What happened, since I lovearchaeology, somebody asked,
(13:56):
what happened to the Ark of theCovenant?
So, first, what is the Ark ofthe Covenant?
This was a box overlaid withgold that God said to make that
held inside of it the tabletsfrom the commandments, Aaron's
staff, and a jar of manna.
And this was supposed to be thethrone place of God when he was
tabernacling, when he wascamping with the Israelites.
(14:19):
And, you know, everybody overthe period of you know thousands
of years have been looking forthe Ark of the Covenant and
where did it go?
If somebody had stolen it, wehaven't found it from that
place.
Uh it's just gone.
We have found so many differentartifacts, but this one seems to
be gone.
And I have two theories.
One is we haven't done enoughdigging yet to find it.
(14:42):
So it's always possible that wecan find it in the future.
And if we do, man, I would be soexcited.
But my other theory is a littlebit more faith-filled, and what
that is, is that God took itaway.
We didn't need it anymore.
We no longer need to tabernaclewith God in a tent.
There's no longer the throneplace that he needs to dwell
with us because he dwells in us.
(15:02):
That was the whole purpose ofJesus leaving, is he said, I'm
gonna leave a spirit.
He's gonna leave the Holy Spiritwith us, who is gonna be within
all of us.
So there's no need to tabernaclein a temple or in a tent.
There's no reason for the Ark ofthe Covenant.
What happened is God removedthat because what's happening
right now is God's spirit isinside each and every believer.
(15:24):
And I really believe thatbecause of that, we didn't need
the Ark of the Covenant anymore.
The last question is what Hebrewword holds the deepest meaning
to me that a translation justdoesn't do it justice?
And I'll tell you that's chesed.
Is a word that they just don'thave a uh a true translation in
(15:45):
English, but what it is, thisfaithful, loyal, covenantial
love.
It encompasses all thesedifferent words of faith and
love and loyalty andfaithfulness and covenant and
truth and integrity.
I mean, just all of it combinedinto one word.
(16:06):
If you can think about what thatultimate word would be, um, that
would be it.
So chesed and and this is uh youknow, I want to get this right.
It occurs 240 times in the oldtestament, but my favorite is in
Psalm 136, for his hand, I'msorry, for his chesed endures
(16:26):
forever, for his love enduresforever.
And it's so beautiful to me, tome to have that word meaning his
covenantal love, his his beliefin us, his love in us, his trust
in us, and our trust in him andbelief in him, that chesed will
be there forever.
Um, and anybody who who's outthere questioning whether or not
(16:46):
God truly loves them or whetherthey they accepted Christ and am
I still saved, you know.
Hey, I just sinned and am Istill saved?
This chesed, this is him beingfaithful through the covenant,
even when we're not.
That's the meaning of that wordas well.
So even when we're falling, hestays secure.
(17:07):
Even when we're sinning, he'sgonna stay faithful.
And that's such a beautifulthing.
It's such a beautiful love toknow that God has us no matter
what.
So I really think you know,ending with that word chesed is
probably my favorite way to endthis episode.
I know these have been really,really quick.
I know I ran through some stuffreally quickly.
I really miss my co-hosts, and Ican't wait to do this with them.
(17:28):
What I would love is if you cango like and share this podcast,
but more importantly, comment onit.
Ask your questions.
I would love to do anotherepisode like this with my two
other co-hosts.
I think it'd be really excitingto see what their points of view
are on some of these questionsyou guys have.
Thanks so much and have ablessed week.
Bye.
Welcome to the Boundless Bible.
My name is David Shapiro.
Hey, I'm Javi Marquez.
And I'm Jason Holloway.
Welcome to the Boundless Bible.
I'm David.
Again, this week we don't haveJavier Jason, but I'm excited
because I went around and I hadsome of our listeners ask some
questions that they werethinking about that they wanted
(00:22):
to ask for our show and haven'thad a chance to.
So I'm just going to start toanswer some of those questions.
Again, it's not going to be acomprehensive answer.
This is just going to be mypoint of view, but I'm just
going to shoot into some ofthese questions you guys had.
So the first question (00:34):
were the books of the Bible chosen and
how were they chosen?
Well, it's very interestingbecause a lot of people think
that there was this council thathappened that picked the books
that were going to be in theBible.
And this comes from differentareas, movies, things like that.
But the truth of the matter is,if we break it into the Old
(00:54):
Testament and New Testament,first is if we look at the Old
Testament, there are some cluesas to how we know which of those
books are truly there and whythey're there.
And, you know, one of the thingsI always go to is Jesus and the
apostles themselves.
And they go and they mention alot of these books when they're
in the New Testament.
And for me, I'm going, if ifJesus mentioned it, it's
(01:15):
probably going to be true.
But even more than that is youhave the Pharisees, and the
Pharisees disagreed with Jesuson just about anything.
But you never heard them say,hey, wait a minute, that's not a
book that I believe in my Bible.
That's not the one that I followin the Old Testament.
So just so you understand, youknow, when you start looking at
the Old Testament, these are alot of things that were
(01:37):
confirmed already.
This was already believed by theJewish people that this existed.
These were the word of God.
This wasn't something that wasup for debate.
There were no councils thatdebated this.
These were things that wereknown.
When it comes to the NewTestament, though, again, you
have these people that say,well, you know, there was this
council that happened in 300 ADthat decided on these.
(01:58):
And that's just not true.
What we actually start to see isabout 30 to 50 years after the
death of Jesus, you start to seethat some of these documents are
actually showing up hundreds ofmiles away.
The most important one, we havethe Gospel of John, and this is
P52, Papyrus 52, and this hasbeen dated to around 100 AD.
(02:20):
So you're talking about onlyabout 30 years or so after it
might have been written.
So that this isn't a lot of timewhere hundreds of years
afterwards this was somethingthat came out.
This came out right away.
And then when you start lookingat between 100 and 200 AD, you
start to see the entire documentshowing up.
So it's really interestingbecause when we look at some
(02:42):
other documents out there, youknow, when you look at the Iliad
or uh if you look at Plato'sworks, you know, these sometimes
don't show up for severalhundred, if not a thousand years
later.
And it's it's something wherewhen anybody talks about why we
have the Bible, why we don'thave certain books in there,
there's a huge study in it, theapocryphal books.
And one of the things I alwayswant people to remember is
(03:05):
having a book that has truth init doesn't make it scripture.
So you have great books thathave a lot of history in it.
If you look at the Maccabees,these are part of the apocryphal
books.
These are books that the theHebrews did not even accept into
their own scripture, but it doeshave some history in there.
So it's a great read.
Just don't mistake it for God'sword.
(03:25):
That's really important.
So when I start looking at it,again, this is just a really
brief overview, but I'm reallyconfident that we have the Bible
that we're supposed to have.
And then when you really look atit, I mean, for 2,000 years now,
God has preserved his word, atleast 2,000 years from the New
Testament.
When the Old Testament, you haveeven further, God has preserved
his root his word over the time.
(03:46):
And I think through that it alsoshows that we have his word.
Second question we have is howdo we know that the Bible wasn't
changed over time?
Now, this is really interestingbecause you have the Dead Sea
Scrolls, and that's somethingI'm actually going to talk about
later with a different question.
We start talking about, youknow, the scribal laws and what
these Jewish scribes did whenthey were writing down the
(04:09):
scriptures, when they werecopying it from scripture to
scripture, if they were off byone word, they would rip up and
destroy the document.
They ended up counting wordsafterwards.
They didn't just copy it, thenthey would count it.
This was a really delicate, andthis was something they took
very seriously.
Like I said, they could beworking on a document for months
at a time, and if they got onething wrong, they would destroy
(04:32):
it.
This is something where, again,if you start looking at some of
the old documents, also some ofthese ancient documents that are
written, they weren't taking asmuch care as with the Bible.
Somehow, because people use theword Bible, all of a sudden they
start to complain and say, hey,this had to been changed, this
was different.
And it's just not the case.
We start to see with tremendousaccuracy the different Bibles
(04:54):
that we have, whether we foundit a thousand years ago or two
thousand years ago, we start tosee that there's really a, you
know, uh there's a similaritybetween them that's just
uncanny.
They're almost identical inwords, and anything that changes
has nothing to do with thecentral themes of the Bible.
Uh, they could be a word here orthere, but it really doesn't
change anything from the beliefof Jesus.
(05:15):
So I just want you to understandthat what we have today is
absolutely what they had 2,000years ago.
Uh, and it's really amazing thatGod preserved it that way.
Another question we have is ifGod is sovereign, do we really
have free will?
And I want to just address thisfor a second because both things
could happen at the same time.
So, yes, God is sovereign, he iscontrol over everything.
(05:37):
When we're born, we're createdfrom God.
We are born with a reverence ofGod.
I see this in some of the oldercommunities that have happened,
some of the ancient communities,you know, they didn't really
have atheism.
They believed in multiple gods,they believed in gods, but
everyone was born with this sortof reverence for a higher power.
(05:58):
Uh, having atheism and havingthis belief that there was
nothing there is is more of arecent, you know, modern day
phenomenon.
Back then, you would believe inthe Greek gods, or you would
believe in the Egyptian gods, oryou would believe in Yahweh.
Uh, and this is really importantbecause what we start to see is
I think we're born with thisreverence from God.
(06:18):
That's that's what he gave us inour birth, but we have the free
will to choose what to do withthat.
And the free will of love, youknow, we we can choose to love
God back and to accept him,accept his gift that he gave us.
And that's really where, youknow, when somebody says to me,
hey, you know, if God issovereign and there's free will,
how what they're really sayingis, listen, if God is all
(06:40):
powerful, why do things happenthat we don't expect them to
happen or that are bad or evil?
And the truth is that yes, Godis all-powerful, but in his
all-powerful knowledge andwisdom, he also gave us the free
will.
He doesn't want a robot to loveyou.
Uh, he doesn't want a robot tolove him.
He doesn't want, you know, I'mmarried and I don't want my wife
(07:02):
to be a robot forced to love me.
Uh, it only means something whenshe chooses to love me.
And I think with his wisdom,that's what he did is we get the
choice to love each other, tolove him.
Um, and he gives us a choice andhe loves us as well.
And I just think it's it's abeautiful thing to have the free
will.
Uh, I would not replace it withhis sovereign power over me,
even though he has it.
(07:22):
Remember, he created everything,so he has a sovereign power, but
in that wisdom, he gave us freewill to love throughout our
life.
Uh, another question we have iswas it what is the significance
of Jesus dying on the Passover?
This is a really interestingthing because Jesus could have
chosen any time period, any dayof the week, any month to
(07:45):
sacrifice, you know, for for hislove for us.
And he chose Passover, and Ithink there's a couple of
reasons for it.
One is during Passover, there'sa tremendous pilgrimage to
Jerusalem.
This would have meant that therewould have been hundreds of
thousands, if not millions, ofJews in Jerusalem.
And what that means to me is hewasn't hiding anything, he
(08:07):
wasn't trying to, you know, havehis life, you know, given to us
for free when nobody was around.
He was doing it when millions ofpeople could have attested to
it, which is even more amazing.
He did it while there was a lotof people in a pilgrimage in
Israel.
Um, so that right off the bat isamazing.
But then when you look atPassover, when you look at what
happened at the first Passoverat Exodus, this is when the
(08:30):
blood of the lamb, uh, you hadto have a spotless lamb not
break its bones.
And when you kill it, you smearthe blood over your doorpost.
And that was to show the fingerof God to pass over your house
so that way you would be safefrom the last plague.
And then while that washappening, the Jewish people
were eating unleavened bread andthey were eating the the roasted
(08:55):
lamb, the rest of the lamb.
It's it's really symbolic towhat happened with Jesus.
Jesus, who is the spotless lamb,he is the perfect lamb.
If you look at the way he waskilled and when he was
crucified, he was pierced, hewas not, no bones were broken,
uh, which is really interesting.
It actually says that.
So he is the perfect lamb who'swas spotless, bones were not
(09:16):
broken, and his blood, insteadof just covering the doorposts,
covers all of us.
Then the night right before hiscrucifixion, when he had this
Passover dinner with his uhapostles, again, breaking the
bread and and eating in in honorof him.
Um, you know, this is inremembrance of again that time
when they were eating the lamband remembering the blood that
(09:39):
covers.
And I just think it's reallybeautiful.
So it's not on, it's not anaccident that, you know, it was
chosen for Passover to have thisholiday and to have Jesus,
that's a time at which he hadhis crucifixion.
It really was God's plan andit's really beautiful.
Um, and I definitely suggest youlook into other holidays.
There are so many holidays in inGod's calendar that just really
(10:02):
show how beautiful God'snarration is of life.
Uh, another question we had wasdo I prefer Hebrew or Greek for
a translation?
It's really interesting becausewhen you look at Hebrew, uh,
we've talked about this beforeon the show.
These are verbs.
This is an action.
This is I am doing something,not just it's not a
(10:25):
philosophical thought, it'sdoing.
And then when you look at Greek,this is now becomes poetic and
philosoph philosophical.
And uh when you put them bothtogether, I really kind of think
of our show, and you havesomebody like Jason who really
looks at the symbology of thedifferent words in the Bible,
and then you have somebody likeJavi who's looking at the
(10:47):
literal translation, and evenme, I look at both of those
sides, but you look at us and wego, that that really is the
Hebrew and the Greek version.
You have the action and thebeautiful faith-filled words,
and then you also have thesymbolic and philosophical
journey as well through theBible.
So for me, you know, it's notone prefer over the other.
(11:07):
Obviously, born and raisedJewish, I have more familiarity
with Hebrew, uh, but they Ithink they both work really
beautifully together in theBible to explain this book that,
you know, some people can learnit really well by their head,
others can learn it really wellby the heart.
I think when you put them bothtogether, that's what you're
getting with the Hebrew and theGreek.
We have another question.
(11:27):
What is the most impactfulbiblical archaeological find?
This to me is uh definitely oneI told you I'd come back to.
It's the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Uh, the Dead Sea Scrolls werefound in 1947 uh in Qumran.
What's really cool, if you thinkabout it, is this was found not
by archaeologists.
(11:49):
This was found by a shepherd boywho was just looking for his
lost sheep.
I just think it's amazing.
It's such a beautiful way tofind it, as if God did this on
purpose and he sent thisshepherd out to find what I
believe is the most incrediblebiblical archaeological find
ever.
And what it does is you'reseeing, you know, I believe it's
(12:09):
500 different manuscripts andtens of thousands of fragments
that are collected together thatyou get to see.
And this is some people thinkthis might have been an area
where they were teaching peoplehow to become scribes, and you
have governmental letters andyou have policies, and you also
have about 40% of biblicalliterature in there as well.
(12:30):
And one of the greatest finds isthe great Isaiah scroll, and
they they have this datedbetween 125 and 100 BC.
Uh, this means this happenedbefore Jesus.
And when you look at theprophecy of the great Isaiah
scroll, when you look at theprophecy uh of Isaiah, you know,
where uh Jesus is going to be orthe Messiah is going to be
pierced for our transgressions,this is the prophecy that came
(12:53):
true through Jesus.
And this prophecy is showingthat it happened prior to him
even being here.
So it's not like it was writtenafterwards and somebody is is
filling in what he already did.
No, this was written beforehand.
We have proof of it.
It's absolutely amazing.
It also shows when we weretalking earlier about how do we
know the words that we havetoday are the same we had
before.
(13:14):
I mean, this is it.
This is now we get to see copiesbefore they found this.
The oldest copies were about athousand years from there, a
thousand years more modern.
So now this brings us back toBC.
It gives us an idea as to whatthe Bible said the Old Testament
had, the Tanakh at that point,um, was, and the words are
(13:34):
exactly the same that we havetoday.
Um, with I believe it's like a98 or 99 percent accuracy.
That's amazing.
And that's how I say, you know,the Bible is not changed, but
it's also the reason why I thinkwe have the greatest discovery
biblically ever.
I have two more great questions,and and I'll wrap up.
What happened, since I lovearchaeology, somebody asked,
(13:56):
what happened to the Ark of theCovenant?
So, first, what is the Ark ofthe Covenant?
This was a box overlaid withgold that God said to make that
held inside of it the tabletsfrom the commandments, Aaron's
staff, and a jar of manna.
And this was supposed to be thethrone place of God when he was
tabernacling, when he wascamping with the Israelites.
(14:19):
And, you know, everybody overthe period of you know thousands
of years have been looking forthe Ark of the Covenant and
where did it go?
If somebody had stolen it, wehaven't found it from that
place.
Uh it's just gone.
We have found so many differentartifacts, but this one seems to
be gone.
And I have two theories.
One is we haven't done enoughdigging yet to find it.
(14:42):
So it's always possible that wecan find it in the future.
And if we do, man, I would be soexcited.
But my other theory is a littlebit more faith-filled, and what
that is, is that God took itaway.
We didn't need it anymore.
We no longer need to tabernaclewith God in a tent.
There's no longer the throneplace that he needs to dwell
with us because he dwells in us.
(15:02):
That was the whole purpose ofJesus leaving, is he said, I'm
gonna leave a spirit.
He's gonna leave the Holy Spiritwith us, who is gonna be within
all of us.
So there's no need to tabernaclein a temple or in a tent.
There's no reason for the Ark ofthe Covenant.
What happened is God removedthat because what's happening
right now is God's spirit isinside each and every believer.
(15:24):
And I really believe thatbecause of that, we didn't need
the Ark of the Covenant anymore.
The last question is what Hebrewword holds the deepest meaning
to me that a translation justdoesn't do it justice?
And I'll tell you that's chesed.
Is a word that they just don'thave a uh a true translation in
(15:45):
English, but what it is, thisfaithful, loyal, covenantial
love.
It encompasses all thesedifferent words of faith and
love and loyalty andfaithfulness and covenant and
truth and integrity.
I mean, just all of it combinedinto one word.
(16:06):
If you can think about what thatultimate word would be, um, that
would be it.
So chesed and and this is uh youknow, I want to get this right.
It occurs 240 times in the oldtestament, but my favorite is in
Psalm 136, for his hand, I'msorry, for his chesed endures
(16:26):
forever, for his love enduresforever.
And it's so beautiful to me, tome to have that word meaning his
covenantal love, his his beliefin us, his love in us, his trust
in us, and our trust in him andbelief in him, that chesed will
be there forever.
Um, and anybody who who's outthere questioning whether or not
(16:46):
God truly loves them or whetherthey they accepted Christ and am
I still saved, you know.
Hey, I just sinned and am Istill saved?
This chesed, this is him beingfaithful through the covenant,
even when we're not.
That's the meaning of that wordas well.
So even when we're falling, hestays secure.
(17:07):
Even when we're sinning, he'sgonna stay faithful.
And that's such a beautifulthing.
It's such a beautiful love toknow that God has us no matter
what.
So I really think you know,ending with that word chesed is
probably my favorite way to endthis episode.
I know these have been really,really quick.
I know I ran through some stuffreally quickly.
I really miss my co-hosts, and Ican't wait to do this with them.
(17:28):
What I would love is if you cango like and share this podcast,
but more importantly, comment onit.
Ask your questions.
I would love to do anotherepisode like this with my two
other co-hosts.
I think it'd be really excitingto see what their points of view
are on some of these questionsyou guys have.
Thanks so much and have ablessed week.
Bye.
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