An Advent for the Cosmos, a Discussion with Jeffrey Pitts - Episode 039

Carey Griffel: [00:00:00] Welcome, and Merry Christmas from Genesis Marks the Spot, where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and maybe you're wondering why I'm wishing you Merry Christmas in September. Well, two reasons. For one, we're going to be talking a bit about the idea that Jesus was in fact born in September, September 11th of 3 BC, to be specific.

And also I have with me a special guest. I have Jeffrey Pitts here.

Jeffrey Pitts: Hey Carey, how are you doing?

Carey Griffel: Good, how are you doing Jeffrey?

Jeffrey Pitts: I'm doing good. , we had a baby on Saturday, and so I'm grateful that I have the time and, and, uh, everything went well, so , I'm super, super excited right now. [00:01:00]

Carey Griffel: That is exciting.

And what is his name?

Jeffrey Pitts: It's Judah Zadok, and, , the significance, , there's a verse in Genesis 29, 35. Where it talks about why they, uh, why Leah named Judah. 'cause she praised the Lord, and that's what we're doing. So that, that's where that came from. And uh, Zadok is actually a family name. It's my grandpa's, grandpa's grandpa, it's way back, but, uh, but he's a priest under David, so a couple different tie-ins.

Carey Griffel: that's awesome to have such a connection with your family as well. Yep, yep. All right. Well, Jeffrey, why don't you tell us a bit about yourself in general beyond the new baby.

Jeffrey Pitts: I, uh, grew up in the church. I've got a, a pretty lengthy heritage in my family , , with Bible. I have, uh, generations and, and so, you know, I, I, you know, grew up in the church, , knew kind of all the [00:02:00] basic stuff, uh, that you would normally know, growing up in a good theology, you know, all the Bible stories, uh, when I was first married, I even did some, um, you know, I'm a computer engineer by trade, but I've, you know, I've gone to college for, for Koine Greek. I did a couple of years with that. So, you know, I've, I've gone, gone pretty deep in, on a theology side.

And, uh, but some of the other things that I enjoy are, , maybe 10 or 15 years ago, I really got into permaculture. So I'm, I'm really connected into, , like building food forrests. Um, we own a 16 acre kind of hobby farm. And so I run sheep, and we have chickens and ducks and rabbits and all kinds of different things.

But, uh, it's unique cause we do agroforestry. Meaning we've planted like hundreds of trees that apples and hazelnuts and [00:03:00] oaks and pecans and all kinds of different things. And so I really enjoy that, you know, just as, as today, um, and people can't see it on the podcast, but in the background, I've got all my cider equipment, but we're making cider today, um, this afternoon.

So those are the kind of the things that I really enjoy doing.

Carey Griffel: You have a lot going on then. Yeah. All right. Well, I want to talk a little bit about your book, An Advent for the Cosmos. And this is like a devotional for Christmas time, but it has this kind of a certain focus , and we'll get into that in a little bit.

But first, I'd like to hear from you about how you have come across Dr. Heiser's work, because I've talked about him a lot on my podcast. And so my listeners should be fairly familiar with him, but I'd like to hear how you got into his content.

Jeffrey Pitts: Yeah. Yeah, [00:04:00] absolutely. Um, definitely was an answer to prayer.

Um, I'll go a little bit farther back, um, than I do kind of in the intro on the book, uh, I used to run a like young men's Bible study on Tuesday nights, and we, , really got into, I think one of the last years we did it, uh, maybe 2017 or 2018, we were, um, reading chronologically through the Bible, which I really enjoy, , growing up and reading through the Bible, just kind of how it's laid out.

Um, a lot of it just seemed random. And, uh, so reading through, you know, getting a good chronological plan where you can see like this prophet fits with this part of Israel. And, uh, really is, is super awesome. Um, one of the other things we were doing is we would like sit down and watch the Bible project videos to intro each book.

So, you know, we were doing a lot of extra things on the side, but there was a lot of, a lot of things in the old Testament [00:05:00] that still didn't really make sense to me. I know, like I have this vivid memory of, um, reading about idols and, you know, there's, there's all kinds of books about like how that applies to the modern Christian, you know, like don't have idols in your life.

And it just didn't really like click with me. It felt like we were like taking something and making it something else. And I remember like praying and saying, God, like, please just show me like, like, what is this idle thing? Like, it feels like, um, it doesn't make sense for modern life. Um, and you know, in, uh, Ecclesiastes, they say there's nothing new under the sun.

So, you know, it's, it's not like these people were totally crazy, different from us, you know, they were human beings with the same thoughts and, and, uh, you know, desires as, as modern humans. And, you know, they have different backgrounds and like, why, why this idol thing? And so, uh, that kind of simmered for a [00:06:00] while, I guess, didn't figure anything out on it for a while.

And then we went to Africa. , and so my wife and I were in Africa for maybe 10 days ish. And, um, going to Africa, as Christians, depending on where you're going, um, it feels for us, the, where we were going, it felt very oppressive, I guess. And part of that seemed like we were going to a place where, , like we weren't allowed to talk about being Christians and we were concerned about and, and, um, so it, like you could feel oppression and that felt like expected, I guess.

So like going in, it's like, yes, we know it's, it's, it's Muslim, it's going to feel oppressive. And, but what really like triggered me was coming back through the international airports, like the moment we landed and we're walking through the airport in the U S like. Like the oppression [00:07:00] was gone, but there, it was almost like a different oppression had kicked in palpable.

Like it was just weird. It was so, it was so strange that on Tuesday mornings with my pastor, we were meeting at Cracker Barrel and I walked him through it. I was like, what's going on? This just seems odd. And, and he pointed me to Dr. Heiser and I don't know that he had really gone through a lot, but he was aware of Dr. Heiser. , and the divine council worldview and he said, you should look him up. And so I did, and I, you know, I went through the start here page on the podcast and it just captured me. And I was, you know, like a lot of people, it's just like a deep dive for, for like a whole year. Yeah. So that Christmas we were going through our normal, you know, Christmas traditions, and I have an aunt that made us this really cool , like felt Christmas tree and we have ornaments and every day we would [00:08:00] read with our kids and we, you know, we'd go over, you know, the root of Jesse and, you know, all different kinds of things like that. And so, and then you get an ornament and the kids would swap out who gets to put it up and, you know, they'd get their photo and stuff.

And so there's a big tradition, but after going through the unseen realm, it just felt shallow. It's not that like, and we've done a bunch of different advent books. We're not just doing one. And they all seemed very one dimensional, it's all very human focused, it's like God made people, people sinned, everything's bad, , and then after, you know, going through Dr. Heiser, it's like, well, this is like not even a tenth of the story, there's all this stuff happening in the background, um, and it applies to the rest of life, too, like, like, um, it's like, why is the world so bad? It's like, well, people are just bad. It's like, no, there's like a thousand other things going on, and, uh, So I, I looked and I was trying to figure out, you know, raising my kids, I wanted to [00:09:00] have something that's That's, , you know, , this is the whole story and that we didn't have it.

And so I just started putting it together and, you know, one thing led to another, and that's kind of how everything happened.

Carey Griffel: Wow. Do you think that somebody picking up your book, should they already have a context for the divine council worldview, or can just anyone pick this up and they're going to kind of get it along the way?

Jeffrey Pitts: No, no, I, I think probably the neatest thing about the book is that it's not going way off center from where people are usually, you know, it's using, what I tried to do is I tried to keep, um, not just center it on obscure verses that are like one thing, um, that that's like, Oh, you could take this a couple of different ways.

I tried to talk about it there and then like maybe reference the New Testament and be like. Everybody, everybody knew this. Um, you know, Paul talked about this. This is not weird stuff. Um, and that's what I've seen in [00:10:00] my life. Um, like when the book goes on sale and like, I'll, I'll buy as many as I can. And I give them out.

Um, I just ran sound for a biblical counseling conference. And so my thank you gift was like, you get honey and you get this book. And, uh, um, and like around Christmas, I'll give a lot of them away. And I've had people from all kinds of different, uh, perspectives, um, Catholic and Protestant come back and they'll like.

There's things in this book that I've never heard and it makes sense. And so I think it is a really good introduction to, to Dr. Heiser. Cause sometimes, um, I just had somebody today text me and say like, Hey, I heard you mentioned this podcast. Like I just finished, um, a CS Lewis book. Is this a good place to go?

And I said, well, go to the start here page. That's place to go. Um, but then from there, sometimes maybe it is made so deep for some people to jump into, um, [00:11:00] but. But I think the book leads that way.

Carey Griffel: Yeah, that's great that you've gotten feedback like that because when I picked up your book, I was already well aware of the divine council worldview.

So it's a little bit harder for me. To just take it as a, a fresh page, right, as I might have read it years before, but that is the sense that I have gotten from the book is that it's, it's very cut short. It's very concise. It's very, , just packed full of stuff so that you can take it and you can ask questions and then go to the text yourself, go to the context of the original authors and say, Hey, What's going on here?

And how can I find some new answers to things that I didn't even know I had questions for?

Jeffrey Pitts: Yeah. The reason why I like kind of the layout, one of the things I like the most about the book is that, um, one, it's a lot of scripture and I've gotten [00:12:00] feedback on that and, and like I did word counts whenever we were writing it.

And, uh, you know, there's almost more scripture than there is other stuff. So you're really just in the scripture and it's like asking you questions to go back to the scripture. And so that's what we want to do is we want to stay in the scripture. Um, one of the things that was difficult about that is that you'll know that like Dr. Heiser reads from like ESV or like he has specific versions. I went with NET for this book. Um, but he reads from specific versions to some versions may be good on almost everything, but there's, you know, instead of saying like divine counsel type, they're, they're, they're still referencing Israel.

Um, just randomly because that's what the, what the direction that they went. So I, I would really have liked to just say like, go read this in your Bible. And it, and whenever I do that for other versions that are pretty common, um, it got confusing. So, so like we had to go to [00:13:00] the NET, uh, people and get permission to use, use that, and so that was in there.

But in terms of like building on itself, um, I was thinking about it last night and there's a lot of visual connections that I like. Um, the, probably the biggest one is like the, the source source of power. So you have at the very beginning, you've got the mountain of God and Eden. And then you have like the false mountain of God, um, at the tower of Babel and, and there, and then Jacob seeing the angels go up and down.

And so there's all these like, uh, wise men are coming from Babylon and it shows kind of like the tower of Babel in the background. And, and, you know, some of it, it's maybe not, um, 100 percent on the, uh, like, I don't, I don't know if the Tower of Babel still existed when the, when the Magi were coming back, but it's making those meta narrative connections.[00:14:00]

Oh, like these, you know, we talked about these people and now they're being redeemed and then, you know, God's going to redeem the whole world and then establish, and, you know, he's got his new Jerusalem at the end. So. I like all that connection because I think for kids, um, it helps, it helps make, you know, you can say something, but if they see it and they see it kind of progress through, it makes more sense.

Carey Griffel: Well, and, I like that you mentioned the visual aspect because this book has really pretty pictures.

Jeffrey Pitts: Yeah, I was very, very excited to, I, I, I went online and I found an artist actually, um, in Southeast Asia. I went through a bunch of different people's artwork. I found somebody and then contracted it out and he did a phenomenal job.

Um, I have an artist friend who's done huge works and I was trying to work it out with him and [00:15:00] he just didn't have the time, but he helped me understand like how to explain to an artist what you want. And so I would like be in Microsoft paint and I'd be like taking pictures and like overlaying them and it looked horrendous.

I was like, do this, but make it look nice. And he did a good job.

Carey Griffel: Oh, that's awesome. I love that collaboration. That's great. Uh, and so as far as how people can use this, , it's, it's like, it's a family friendly book. It's great for introducing kids to difficult concepts and kids love strange and unique concepts, especially if they've not heard them every week at church.

Right?

Jeffrey Pitts: Yeah, absolutely. And I even tried to, um, like I've got a range of ages in our family. Um, and one of the, and, and, and a lot of the formatting I didn't come up with. There's the, you know, the, how, how it progresses, you know, the different parts of it, whether you're doing the Bible reading and then the discussion and there's a [00:16:00] song like that, that's a normal, um, Advent book, like that's just how they typically are laid out.

Um, and then one of the other things that I tried to incorporate is like on the verses for memory. Um, and this is more from, we used to have like an ABC memory book growing up and, uh, they would highlight the first half of the verse. So it's like, if you're young, you do this much of it and as you get older you add the rest of the verse so like that's incorporated in it And then also like even the memory verse repeats And it was a really cool thing What I tried to do is I tried to stay mostly in one part of the Bible and have it like outline The whole story and in this case it ended up being Hebrews.

I looked at like when Stephen and Acts is giving kind of the history of how they got to where they are and Um, that was, that was one option that we looked at, but I, but I ended up on Hebrews. Um, and then the, [00:17:00] in other Advent books that I've done before, you're doing a new memory verse every day, and you don't really let it sink in.

And in this case, I tried to group ideas... So I try to do like three to five days on the same memory verse to try to get it to sink in. So I think that helps out with smaller kids. They're not just kind of dumping it one time and then forgetting about it.

Carey Griffel: Right. Yeah. I don't think many people can memorize 25 verses in an entire month.

That's just too much. Yeah. So I think that the approach and the design, it's, it's just a beautiful little book and I'm glad to have you on now because people can get it for when they're celebrating Christmas as they traditionally do when it's going to be coming up in December. Um, but, but you know, it's like, I've always felt, even when I was little, just dumping [00:18:00] Christmas into December and leaving it there, that's never felt good to me, right?

, , and when I grew up, I didn't have an Advent, , tradition like I, like most Christians do. We didn't have Advent devotionals. We didn't have the weeks of Advent leading up to Christmas. I mean, we, we kind of did, like we had..... like, that, that's, that was the month we did Christmas songs, so there was that, but we didn't have this deep tradition that most Christians have, which once I really got into historical Christianity, that really was such a difference to me.

And it felt so deep and it felt so important. And so when I see people just kind of ignore Christmas the rest of the year, I'm like, Really? Come on. Um, but you mentioned the, this idea that people, at least when you come into these Advent books, they, it [00:19:00] seems too superficial, right? It has just the one narrative of what's wrong with the world.

And I, that's why I like Dr. Heiser's work is that he fleshes out so much more of the work of the Messiah. And once you start seeing it, it's everywhere.

Jeffrey Pitts: Yeah. Um, so it was 2018. We had gone to Africa. We came back and I think the beginning of 2019, the pastor, Pastor White, who started or who, you know, recommended Dr Heiser, like, I think he probably was getting into it right at the same time I was, um, maybe a little bit ahead of me and he did a five, um, a five series or five sermon series on, uh, like all the falls essentially. And that really helped shape the book a little bit. Um, because it, you know, like I was saying earlier, it's not just people that rebelled, you know, before people were [00:20:00] rebelled, you had, you had you know, whatever the divine being that rebelled in the, in the garden.

So, so somebody is already rebelling, um, and then humans rebel. And then you have, uh, the Genesis six where you're actually starting corrupt things and there's other spiritual beings that are corrupted. Then you have the tower of Babel. And, and it seems like, like, I, I feel God's heart more, I think. Going through the narrative because you can understand like I'm in Ezekiel right now reading through chronologically and You can really understand like God's exasperation with Israel.

He's like I gave you all this you messed it up and then and then you know, there's you did this and I sent the flood to fix that and then I Then then you made the Tower of Babel and then I Gathered you up and I made you what you are and you're supposed to be special. And now you're, you know, following all these [00:21:00] beings, uh, through idolatry, um, like, like it's a much deeper, um, rebellion and deeper hurt.

And it makes you like really anticipate like what can be done and it makes what Jesus did so much more powerful. You know, he's not just coming back and kind of, you know, doing paperwork. On, on fixing like, okay, you send, but I'm going to pay for it. Now we're all good. Like he's completely remaking the whole world.

So,

Carey Griffel: yeah. Well, and you know, it's like you go into Christmas time and you think, well, this is the celebration of God coming into the world and yes, but if we're missing out the fact that from start to his ascension, all of that is part of the work of the Messiah. It's not just that he came just to die for people like there's so much [00:22:00] more involved in his work and the defeat of evil that he is working on.

Jeffrey Pitts: Yeah, my, my favorite verse on this that like everybody knows, everybody knows John 3, 16, it's for God's to love the world. And so they say the name, the world, and then subconsciously everybody thinks God loved all the people so he sent Jesus and then like in the book at the very end of the book, like we use the verse and we don't even quote the quote it from the NET. And we just put in cosmos got because that's the Greek word there. God. So love the cosmos and uh, it's just kind of, I think brings it together to show how, how much bigger it was.

And there's stuff about, you know, there's, there's reference to this all the time. The whole creation groans, you know, waiting for redemption. Um, So I love the, I, so, so kind of maybe going a little bit, um, back to, to Dr. Heiser, [00:23:00] the idea that people are imagers and that we were created as God's, you know, image on Earth is hugely impactful to me.

Um, on for, for all kinds of different things. Um, our farm, when we bought our land, we called it the Shire cause we're really into, uh, Lord of the Rings. And so that was like our Shire and we, we would do, you know, our kids, that's what they call it. And they just call it the Shire. Obviously, like when you, when you're starting like a farm business, you can't use that.

And, uh, you know, none of that is available online anymore. Um, so what we did when we named it is we named it Middle Eden. Because you've got this Eden that God created and, you know, he was having people actually, you know, plants and extend it out and, and, and make the world a better place. And, uh, and then, you know, it fell.[00:24:00]

And then you come back at the very end. It's not that, that, um, we're going to heaven and that's no, we're, we're destined for earth, that's our purpose. That's what we were made for. And so there's going to be a new Eden, new heavens and new earth. And, um, and so I really feel that like in, in life itself, like, like, like I want to, as part of living out um, God's God's command or God's purpose of being his image that connects to all parts of life, not just like when I'm going to church or when I'm talking about this type of stuff, it's, it's really everything.

Carey Griffel: That is great. Like you have a daily reminder of that when you go out to work and when you're doing the things that you do.

Jeffrey Pitts: Yeah, no, it's, it, it, it, it was one of those things that like, I felt, um, not like the call, but I could feel it like, like in my soul, like that's what we're for. And, [00:25:00] uh, and then to be able to see it in scripture oh like, Oh yeah, that's exactly what God did. God made you to. To work on the earth, you know, so it's made a big difference.

Carey Griffel: So do you have any other books planned? Are you writing anything? Are you planning anything that is going to follow this or anything?

Jeffrey Pitts: Back in 2019 and 2020, we all kind of got like a pause and a lot of extra time to do stuff. And it helped out a lot on getting this book out. Um, and anybody that writes books will tell you it's a lot of work.

I used to like, um, hear people, even like probably on the Naked Bible Podcast, and they'd ask you like, what's the next thing? And they're like, well, if I had time, I definitely feel that I do have another book that I'm writing. Um, it's maybe halfway done. And again, just out of like things that I think are extremely important.

And, and I think you'd kind of touched on it where [00:26:00] you said like this whole thing of Jesus coming to earth, um, like the Advent for the Cosmos is just like getting to the very edge of, like, Jesus is born, and then we finish up with the new heavens and new earth. There's a lot of stuff in between there.

Right? A lot of the coolest thing, um, that I learned on Acts was the whole idea that there was this plan, right? There's this plan of Paul, you know, or, um, Luke steps through, like, here's all the people that got saved, and then, like, every time they go meet somebody new in Acts, they're like, Almost like, it's like this whole map of going back through the table of nations and like there's purpose in it.

They're not just like finding random people and, and, uh, plugging it in. Um, so yeah, I definitely, like I have this vision for a, uh, like a 50 day lent or Passover [00:27:00] time. So it's, it's bigger, it's longer, um, lets you go in deeper, but kind of traces that, that, um, less of what the advent went over and more of New Testament.

A lot of things that Dr. Heiser went over in terms of, uh, the significance of where Jesus went, what he did, what, what the apostles did after Jesus went to heaven, you know, Bashan and, and, uh, all, all those stories of, of all the different places on earth that were affected in Acts.

Carey Griffel: Well, I am excited to hear that.

I am looking forward to whatever that ends up looking like, because judging by your previous work, it's going to be great.

Jeffrey Pitts: I appreciate it. I, I, I think it's, yeah, I, I'm even more excited about it, but time,

Carey Griffel: right? That's always the problem for all of us, I think. So [00:28:00] let's go ahead and switch gears and talk about this notion that Jesus might have been, or probably was, or likely was.

I don't know. Born in September. First of all, just what's your general opinion of, of the idea in general?

Jeffrey Pitts: I mean, I, I've, you know, listened to Dr. Heiser's, um, explanation of why September 11th makes sense from his birth. And, uh, it seems that every time that there was a big event that Jesus did on earth, even while he was here, you know, you know, being crucified near Passover.

Um, all of these big things, um, that don't necessarily stick out from the text, if you're just kind of reading it, um, there's, and I, I'm not gonna remember all, all the tie ins, but I know, um, he talks about being like the light of the world, like there's, you know, that there's, he's at a [00:29:00] feast, like there's things about these feasts that he's, there's a reason that God laid out this template.

Right. So, you know, whenever you see that September 11th is feast, you know, the first day of feast of the trumpets, it's Moses's birthday, it's the new year. Like, it just makes sense that that's, you know, I, you know, I'd be hard pressed to say that it's Jesus was born on a random day versus an actual, you know, feast that was laid out by God and that template out there.

Carey Griffel: Yeah, I agree. I think it's pretty convincing. like there's some things that you could say, well, maybe, you know, one of the biggest problems with it that people have is the date of Herod's death. Right? Like they, they think that he had to have died in, I think, 4 BC, which means that Jesus couldn't have been born in 3 BC because Herod is part of the story.

But, I subscribed to [00:30:00] Dr. Heiser's, newsletter and in that he was offering a protected folder, which gave some journal articles that defended the idea that Herod actually died in 1 BC. Like chronology, as Dr. Heisser says, and I love to quote him on this, it's a quagmire. When you're looking at the chronology of the ancient Near East and the ancient world at large, they didn't have one single calendar.

Nobody had Google calendars, so scholars today just have to compare one area and one document with another document, and that's really hard to do, so, but a lot of this idea, it's, it's complex , but what draws me to it is that it's so embedded into the text and the context of the time, like we don't have the, The idea of astral prophecy that they did at the time, and [00:31:00] it's all tied into that kind of thing where they were actively looking at the stars every night.

And it's not this idea of the horoscopes, like the stars are guiding your life or guiding things that are happening, but that God uses the stars kind of as a signpost to his people, and they understood that in a way that we don't today. So people like the Magi, they could study the stars and they could understand that the Messiah was going to be born.

Jeffrey Pitts: Yeah, I was gonna bring up the Magi, you know, that to me is, is a very, you know, convincing reason to, to, you know, prescribe, you know, September 11th, because, you know, if they. There's nothing in like Daniel where it says like this is when, you know, this is the day that, that, uh, you know, that he's going to be here.

And, [00:32:00] um, and so they, you know, there's a little bit of, it was just like all prophecy. You know, looking back, you can, it's a lot easier, but, um. You know, looking at it, it's like you can get a feel, but then you have like big gaps in, in the, uh, the timeframe and, um, and the fact that they were able to figure out like, Oh yeah, he's here. That makes sense. And it's like, they were something else was going on, you know, and, and, you know, from their background using, using the stars, it makes sense.

Carey Griffel: It does. And I think we don't have access to all the information they did. Like we have, we have revelation, but that doesn't mean that everything we have is everything that they had.

Like everything we have today is, is necessary for the church. Everything they had was necessary for their own time. Like we're not the ones prophesying the coming now because it's after the fact. So [00:33:00] . That's information we'd no longer need.

Jeffrey Pitts: Yeah. And that, I mean, that, that reminds me of, of one of the other things I remember Dr. Heiser saying about prophecy, like he would talk about, there's no one chapter. In the, or, or book in the Old Testament that says, like, Jesus is coming, he's going to be crucified, like, it does, like, looking back, you can piece it together, like, oh, okay, like, there's all these, you know, most, I think you'd say mosaic of, of prophecies, and the idea that I got growing up going through Advent books is that they, it was essentially a long list of prophecies that, like, you know, he was going to be from the root of Jesse, you know, there's all these things that, that they would, And so it's like, well, obviously, like, how did the Jews miss this?

This is like a total obvious thing. And, uh, and maybe, maybe it wasn't as obvious. And, uh, I think that even informs, uh, us going into how we view [00:34:00] revelation in terms of end times of like, if, if, if your view of the old testament is like, God laid out everything, it was completely wide open, like everybody should have known, like, like, no, um, one of the really cool verses, and I'm, I'm going to blank on the reference, I think it's in Corinthians, where it says like the, the powers that they had knew, knew that what Jesus was doing, they wouldn't have crucified him.

Like that is like a crazy, like you would maybe like read over that usually and not really think about it. That's crazy. Like even the spiritual beings that are like dialed in, this is what they're doing, this is their plan. They had no idea what was going on. And, uh, and so I think from, uh, from a way of that God does things, um, and how he interacts with humans, it makes, you know, it makes the confusion about end times a little bit more palpable. It's like, oh, okay. Like, like he's not, he's not showing all of his [00:35:00] cards. He's giving people hints and he wants you to understand that. He wants you to read into, you know, read it and study it. But, you know, he's, he's been a little vague in the past, purposefully.

Carey Griffel: Yeah, exactly. I remember entering into historical Christianity and being surrounded by people who were like, Okay, let's find all of the verses for the Messiah. And why couldn't the Jews understand this? Everybody understood that the Messiah was going to come and be born and suffer and die. Everyone knew that, right?

No, no, people did not know that. And understanding that really helps us to Get a better view of the birth of Christ himself, because if we can kind of get our heads in that mindset that this was a new, an unexpected thing, that's just a different kind of mental framework, in my [00:36:00] opinion.

Jeffrey Pitts: Yeah, yeah, it's like it was building and people knew something was coming, but, you know, if, if, if you're going back and looking at, you know, looking at it from like a normal modern day Advent book, it's like, they should all been hanging out at Bethlehem on this day because they knew it was going to happen. And that, that just wasn't the case.

Carey Griffel: It's really interesting to me how it was the shepherds who were actually the ones who are there and all of the meaning that just goes into that.

All of these little dot connections are just, they are unexpected, and we don't read the text as readers who think that it's unexpected, I think.

Jeffrey Pitts: Yeah, just like you were saying, like you knew Dr. Heiser's work and then reading the Advent book, it's like, okay, like all this makes sense and I kind of, you know, it flows with what I know, but like, how would I go into reading this book not knowing anything? Like it's [00:37:00] impossible. You can't just like start fresh and not.... and so, you know, us as Christians, knowing the whole story, going back and trying to figure out, like, it's really difficult to understand what the mindset was. Um, yeah. Coming from a second temple period what they knew what they didn't know what they were piecing together and you get feelings of That from like when the Apostles are like, let's go take him over we're gonna think you know, we're not we're gonna crush the Romans! It's like, well...not yet.

Carey Griffel: Yeah, and all of the expectations of him during the times of his miracles and people following him and all of that Even they didn't really get the full significance of everything. Like, we have the benefit of all of scripture so that we can pull out all of these pieces. And it's sad when we have people who , who are just [00:38:00] fine with reading the surface level and they're like, I understand this.

I don't know why you guys are getting all complex about it. Oh, but it's so beautiful. It's like this tapestry.

Jeffrey Pitts: Yeah. And, um, kind of going back to the multidimensional aspect of it, right. If it's just humans that fell and that's all that's being redeemed. It makes sense that maybe you care about like a part of Genesis and then the new Testament, it really matters.

But like, why does Israel matter? Well, you know what, there's what some of the prophets just seem crazy strange. Like, like they're just addressing Edom. It's like, we don't care about Edom. He was, he was the brother, you know, he's not important. Um, and, uh. It doesn't matter until you have like this whole divine council idea of like, this is what God expected.

And, and going back to, , kind of what[00:39:00] God's God's hurt on, on everything, you know, as so talking about having a new baby, um, we've gone through a lot of loss in the past. And we've had to deal with, um, like, why does this thing happen? And, you know, applying these aspects to real life, not just, you know, that we can talk about, but that we can actually apply to life.

Like, why, why is everything so bad? Why is there corruption? You can't unwind it. You can't figure out why things are happening. Um, you know, understanding divine council worldview. You can see that God was trying all throughout these steps. You know, he created the garden, you know, people fell. There were divine council members that fell.

Um, they, they corrupted the world on purpose in Genesis six. Um, and there's all kinds of things you get into Enoch, right? And, um. And so, [00:40:00] and then you get down into, , Israel being the chosen one, you know, given all of this revelation. And so by the time that you get into the prophets, God's like, I, you know, I gave you all this, this is, these were my expectations.

You're, you're still failing, you know, all right, now I'm going to actually send, send Jesus and he's going to, he's going to going to fix it, it just. It makes the whole Bible fit together, it makes it make sense, and it, you know, it makes it meaningful to actually, like, read through, and, and, because, because without that, it just seems like a big gap of interesting stories, but for a normal, everyday Christian, it doesn't apply in the least.

Carey Griffel: Yeah, that's a great way to approach this question that I see a lot, where people go.... Well, that's interesting. But why does it matter to me? Yeah. Do you get do you get that question from other people too?

Jeffrey Pitts: Oh, [00:41:00] absolutely. I've got You know, I've ministers and missionaries and stuff in my family and we've had this discussion.

They're like Jeff You're really interested in this but why and and that took me a long time to understand. I was like Because it's part of the Bible. I don't know. It's cool. But, uh, um, I, I think the most meaningful thing personally, besides knowing there's, there's so many reasons why it matters. The 1st 1, I kind of talked about of, , you know, God made us for the earth.

And whenever you tell little kids that like, Hey, you're going to go to heaven and you're just going to sing a lot. And like, we shouldn't, you know, think bad that they're like, that sounds like a horrible thing to do. Like, I don't want to do that because that's not what God made us for. Like, it's, it's something that it's going to happen.

And it's gonna, because we're going to be so enthralled and we're going to. Praise him. But like the actual reason that we exist is to take care of earth and to be God's [00:42:00] hands and feet and to image him on earth. And there's a lot of stuff that is in that. And I think it makes, you know, life and the things that we're doing today more meaningful.

Um, but then, you know, you get those questions of why is, you know, you get into like Calvinism versus Arminianism and what God controls and why are things so evil and, you know, why doesn't God just come and fix this? And, and it's, it's nice to be able to lay out like, here's all the things he's ever done.

Like, like people rebelled, um, they rebelled at Babel. And so like, why wouldn't he just send, send somebody to tell them like, Hey guys, this is how you should be living. Don't do this. He did. He did. He said he made a whole divine council and he applied, you know, he separated people out so they wouldn't. You know, rebel the same way they had, he, you know, assigned them somebody that was supposed to tell them what was, you know, what, this is what to do.

This is how to follow, this is how to get back to [00:43:00] God. And, and then the divine council members rebelled, people maybe didn't follow. Um, and it's super, you know, I, I would never, you know, be a writer on this, but I think there's a big space for, um, for alternative, um, like fiction. Like Divine Council Fiction on all the different Divine Council members and their, you know, like, like the German, German gods and the, you know, the Norse gods, you know, there's all kinds of like places that you could, you could do a lot of interesting stuff just from a fiction perspective, but, um, but being able to explain to people like, like, this is a lot deeper than you would think, and, uh, there's a lot more of a need for, for, .Redemption. Yeah. Yeah. And then it really just goes to show the miracle that there are Christians that are living and following God in amongst this, this [00:44:00] mass chaos and multiple levels of, of things that are working against them.

Carey Griffel: Yes. It's like if the simplistic idea is that God should just zap us all to make us all perfect or something and .And that's not what history shows us. So if that's what you're expecting, I'm sorry, that's not what's happening. That's not what God does. And so obviously we need to be thinking about this a little bit differently. To me, getting into all of this material, it's like you're, you're actually seeing all of these little pieces of that mosaic.

And I'm really not sure, like if you're following Christ, , why would you not want to get into all of that and understand all of that? And all of it applies to the church just as much as anything because we are Christ's body, right? So he came he conquered he vanquished But it's still an ongoing process and we're part of [00:45:00] that like that's shocking to me

Jeffrey Pitts: It applies to everything and I could go on like a million tangents, but like just what we see happening in America with inflation and You know people are struggling And, uh, like that is clearly written out in the prophets of, uh, Israel left God, you know, they were, you know, the first you see the spiritual decline of Israel and what comes out of that is your silver's full of dross, you know, your wine's full of water, there's, there's meaningful things that are going on in the world that are repercussions and the natural out coming of, of people not following You know, bringing justice and showing mercy and, and all the, you know, loving God, all those things matter to the real world and for real people, you know, in, in normal, normal things that even non Christians , can [00:46:00] understand.

Right.

Carey Griffel: Yeah, absolutely. Well, , I don't want to keep you too late today, Jeffrey. , were there any other points that you wanted to bring out today for us?

Jeffrey Pitts: , I'm just, I really appreciate being, on your podcast. Um, I was already, I've, I was, I enjoyed last night. I was telling you before we got on, um, with Jon Dillon about the two trees.

And, uh, I plant a lot of trees. I love trees. That's, that's hundreds and hundreds of trees. And so I'm, I'm very into, into food forrest and things like that. So, and so I really appreciate your podcast and already what it's, what, what I've kind of been learning from it. And so just thank you for doing what you're doing and, uh, thank you for, for the invite.

Carey Griffel: I appreciate it. Thank you so much I appreciate that you came on. I wish you the best of luck with your new baby and your farm and your new writing as well.[00:47:00]

I hope you guys enjoyed that conversation with Jeffrey. He was kind enough to really come on at very short notice, and especially with a new baby.

That was awesome. Now, if you guys haven't been to my website, on my website I have a page that is just for the guests, and you can find guest profiles and links to the other places that you can find them. Those guest profiles can also be found at the bottom of the episode pages that they appear on as well.

So you guys can go to my website and you can click on all of the links that he has given me so that you can find his website. You can check out what he does on his cool little farm, Middle Eden, which is an awesome name for that. You can find links to the page for his book and where to buy it. And also, there are coloring pages that go along with the book.

So, for those of you who are gearing up for Christmas, [00:48:00] as I know we all are, the Christmas that actually happens in December.... That should all be pretty useful and helpful to you, I think.

And I also wanted to make sure that I pointed you all in the direction to find more information on the topic of Jesus being born in September.

First of all, if you just go to YouTube and search Heiser Jesus birthday, you will find a number of places where he has kind of laid out the argument in large parts or in pieces. You can also go to the Naked Bible Podcast episode 138, where he talks about it there. And you can find the information in his book, Reversing Hermon.

And also, I'll put a plug in for his second novel, which is a sequel to the first novel, so you have to read the facade first, but in the portent, he has characters who are talking about this concept.[00:49:00] So, those are all good places you can go. And probably in December this year, I will bring up the topic again, and we will get into some of that astral prophecy idea that comes out of Revelation 12.

And just a brief word about this whole idea of astral prophecy, because this is something that we have a different context for normally speaking in our everyday culture. I mentioned horoscopes, and that's kind of where our minds tend to go when we think about the stars and their influence on things, right?

That's not what we're talking about at all here. The concept of the zodiac is very prevalent in the ancient world. And I don't think that we could suggest that they didn't have any kind of concept for something like a horoscope with the stars influencing society and daily life. But what we need to realize is [00:50:00] that to them, the stars were the realm of the gods.

So it wasn't that these planetary physical bodies were somehow influencing things on earth. It's that the gods in the heavens were influencing things on the earth. There was a very real idea that there was an actual mirroring going on with heaven and earth. So things that happen on the earth would be reflected in the heavens, that that's just how things worked.

And to some degree there could be an influence of the heavens on the earth. And that just corresponds with the idea that the gods were in charge of the world. And this is kind of what we've lost in our ideas of the horoscope. I mean, I'm not going to say that that's the case for everyone who looks at these things.

You have plenty of people in New Age, I'm sure, who are still associating these things with the powers of spiritual beings of some sort. [00:51:00] But I would dare say that a lot of people have taken these ideas and they've kind of materialized them. As if the physical planets are exuding some force, or some spiritual energy of some sort.

I don't know. And I'm not into this, so maybe I'm misrepresenting it. It's entirely possible. But when I talk to people who are really into horoscopes and things, the idea really seems to be, to me, that These physical planets and stars somehow have an influence, like, it's kind of like gravity or magnetism.

And that's very materialistic. That's not the way the ancient people were thinking. And not to get into critiques of any of that kind of stuff right here. Like I said, I don't really hardly even know anything about it. I just sometimes talk to people who are into it. And these are the kinds of things that I am personally taking away from those conversations.

And, , I just want you to be [00:52:00] aware that that's not how we should see astral prophecy in the Bible. It shouldn't surprise us, once again, that the people of the Bible were using their concepts of things and God was using these cultural concepts as well to communicate his truth. So the signs in the stars and all of that kind of thing, we have to acknowledge that this is a thing because we have the story of the Magi with the birth of Christ, right?

They followed the signs in the stars to find him. And how would that work out? How is that even possible? It's only possible because this is a system that God was using for this purpose. And I'd say we're probably not using this system now because we're totally out of that context. That's just not our day to day life, so we don't understand it.

We, we can't read the stars because that's just not us today. That [00:53:00] doesn't explain away the idea that this could have been a thing in the past. And this is also not God changing somehow. It's just the fact that humanity has changed. Our culture has changed. As I said when I was talking to Jeffrey, I think it's the case that there has been much more revelation in the world than what we have in the pages of our bibles. But all that other kind of revelation was for specific purposes. Like, it's not for the church at large. The Bible is what we need for the church at large. This is the knowledge for the body of Christ today. That doesn't rule out the possibility that in past times God has given other revelation, but it's embedded in those times and for those needs and it's not for us.

Like Dr. Walton says, the Bible was written for us, but the Bible was not written to us. So that suggests that what [00:54:00] we have, everything that we have, that is what we have for us. That doesn't mean that there wasn't revelation that was to other people that was not also for us. It's just out of date now. It's not necessary.

We don't have what the Magi had. Apparently, we don't need it, because we have what we need. I realize that's frustrating to a lot of people. We want things to be so clear cut, and just handed to us, and we want things to be the same all the time. But that's just not what we have.

Oh, but before I wrap up here, I wanted to address a couple of points that I think some people might be wondering about.

Number one, is it a problem to celebrate Christmas in December? Why is the church celebrating Christmas in December if we ought to be celebrating it in September? First of all, I will say that I think it [00:55:00] is hogwash to suggest that the church came up with the celebration of December just to cover up pagan rituals, right?

If you want a good defense of how the major holidays are not pagan in origin, I suggest going to the YouTube channel Inspiring Philosophy and checking out his videos on those. I think they're pretty darn comprehensive and definitive. The holidays we celebrate now, they're not pagan holidays. They weren't derived from pagan cultures or ideas.

And even if they were, it wouldn't matter because Christianity redeems things. God is absolutely in the business of taking what is common and profane and switching it back and making it something that we can use to glorify Him. So, these yearly scares of, Oh, this holiday is really pagan. It doesn't matter, even if [00:56:00] it was.

But they're not.

So, I don't have time to get into any of the information here, but I do think that the church had reason for establishing it when they did. And here's another interesting idea. What month is it when we subtract nine months from September? Oh, we have December. So, if Jesus was born in September, guess when the conception happened?

It was in December. So, there you go. We can celebrate two Christmases. And I know that at least some of my listeners are of the persuasion that you don't celebrate any Christmas at all. And I can respect that. You don't have to. I'm not saying that this is a necessary part of Christian life and belief.

This is one of those things where we need to follow what's in our heart. And no, it really doesn't matter [00:57:00] what month Jesus was actually born in. The point of celebrations and feasts is that we're able to come together as a body and celebrate as one. Just a personal opinion, but I think that a lot of our celebrations really ought to be focused on our children and promoting their natural joy and happiness.

Because holidays and celebrations are also places where we teach foundational things. And if you want to teach a child something, you need to get on their level of play and story and excitement, right? I think more than anything, that's what we should be kind of focusing our celebrations on, is teaching our children in the way that they naturally learn.

And we know how excited kids get about Christmas. And so I think we really need to take the opportunity to dig into truth during that time of [00:58:00] Advent. So maybe this year you will have a chance to use this book in your own family or in your church context and share it with others. And maybe do a second Advent in August and September.

At any rate, I hope you guys have enjoyed this episode. I'd love to hear if you guys already have the book or if you choose to use the book in the future. I'm fairly certain that at least some of my listeners have already queued in to the September 11th date, and maybe you have something planned to commemorate it yourselves, or something.

So, to those of you who are doing that, Merry Christmas. If you are one of those people and you happen to be on Facebook, I would absolutely love it if you would come and share what you do on that day with us. Or if you don't yet do anything, I would also love to have ideas of what we could do to honor this [00:59:00] day.

If you want to use the Advent for the Cosmos next year, starting in August, in my calculations that would start on August 18th, just in case anybody wanted to know how you could use that next year this time of year.

But thank you for listening. Thank you to those who share my episodes, that is so incredibly helpful.

And a special shout out to my Patreons and also those who support me through PayPal. Thank you guys so very much. Thank you also to those who have rated my podcast wherever you listen, or you can also do so directly on my website. That really helps other people to find the podcast as it might be recommended to them.

I will once again mention my Facebook group and my newsletter so that you can stay more in touch. And be more involved in the conversation. If you've [01:00:00] signed up for my newsletter and you haven't gotten it, check your spam folders. And I do send out special graphics and some other things in the newsletter that you don't find elsewhere.

At least that you don't find elsewhere yet. And also, I don't want to forget to mention that you can also email me if you have any questions that you'd like to see me address in a Q& A, if you'd like to recommend topics for entire episodes, I would love to hear it. You can email me at genesismarksthespot at gmail dot com.

And I'd also like to say a special thank you just to the people who reach out to me and say that you appreciate what I do. That brightens my day, and I thank you guys for that. So that's it for this episode, and I wish you all a blessed week. And we'll see you later.