Dru Johnson (00:00)
Everybody’s got their ideas about scripture, but what does scripture think about scripture? Well, in this episode, we’re going to talk to Dr. Gary Schnittjer as I learned to pronounce his name correctly. He has written a new book called Connected, and in this book, it’s really for lay people, college freshmen, churches, but it essentially walks you through how the scripture guides us in the study of scripture, how the biblical authors actually think about the biblical literature itself.
Fascinating talk. Gary is a great guy. He has been thinking about these things for decades and teaching in the classroom. So you’ll get some insider baseball on what it’s what it’s like to teach college students, undergrads these days, and what’s different and what’s the same. and we’ll get into the content of book, how scripture thinks about scripture. Stay tuned. If you like what we do here at the Biblical Mind, you can give to us at thebiblicalmind.org/slash give.
You can also go give us one of those golden ratings, five stars at your local podcast outlet, or you can subscribe and like this video if you’re watching on YouTube. By the way, the fit for this outfit, we again, this is the second time this happened in the last month or two where we were wearing the same colors. so Gary and I did not coordinate black shirts for this podcast. It just happened to turn out that way. Stay tuned.
Gary Schnittjer (01:25)
I’ve been doing this for almost 30 years, maybe over 30 years, since 93. So my seminary classes are still loads of fun, and they’ve not changed too awful much in terms of the way I need to do them. That is…
changing as the cell phone generation
Dru Johnson (01:53)
Mm.
Gary Schnittjer (01:53)
is growing into seminary age now. But I think my work in the college classroom, still teach to pay my bills, I still have to teach one college class a year, excuse me, a year.
Dru Johnson (02:05)
Hm. Wow.
Gary Schnittjer (02:07)
They pay my bills that way. That has changed radically, but I think that only part of it, I’m not really bothered by the biblical illiteracy so much.
I mean, that has made it really fun to, in all honesty, to teach young people who are reading the Bible for the first time in
Dru Johnson (02:26)
Right. yeah.
Gary Schnittjer (02:28)
college, they’re Christian kids, but they’ve never read the Bible. They don’t have any idea what any of it’s about. So, I mean, it’s the joy of discovery is so fun. That part’s great. I think like everybody else in this line of work, somewhere about between, I guess about 05 and
You know, everybody just had a, it was a train wreck in the college
Dru Johnson (02:52)
Mm-hmm.
Gary Schnittjer (02:53)
classroom and I was determined not to dumb things down so I completely changed the way I teach and I came to an enlightenment one day. It dawned on me in conversation with some other colleagues and thinking through things. The college kids aren’t dumb.
And I was able to build off of that.
Dru Johnson (03:19)
This can be true.
Gary Schnittjer (03:21)
Once I realized that the new generation of college kids weren’t just sitting there because they were stupid, but they were actually just ill-prepared for
Dru Johnson (03:31)
Mm-hmm.
Gary Schnittjer (03:32)
the realities that we understand as college classroom, I was able to build off that. So I’ve completely changed the way I teach college, but that’s probably not important for here. But I think that the
For me, the content in the biblically illiterate college classroom has just been a lot of fun. It’s sad that we’re starting at ground zero, but at least where I’m at, I find a very willing and hungry crowd of college students. my main work is in the seminary classroom.
Dru Johnson (04:10)
Yeah. you know, I I I will watch a movie today, with one of my daughters has a degree in film studies, and so we she always picks the interesting movies that we watch. And many times I’m like, this is just th there’s a movie we watched recently, I can’t remember what it was called. I was like, This is almost shot for shot, full metal jacket, the movie, Stanley Kubrick, but with like twelve year old boys in a swimming summer camp. But
Gary Schnittjer (04:38)
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (04:39)
It was very intentionally, like you could tell some of the scenes were l were actually just almost identical to Full Metal Jacket
Gary Schnittjer (04:45)
Mmm
Dru Johnson (04:46)
the first half. So it was not accidental, right? It’s some of these illusions that we’ll talk about, the connections, you know, made between different films. She didn’t know Full Metal Jacket, so she had no idea. So in some ways it was almost like we were watching two different movies, you know, at the same time, sitting s shoulder to shoulder.
But it raises the issue of when we think about all of the things that we get excited about when we teach scripture, a lot of it is the interconnections. a lot of it is the do you see how they’re riffing off of this? You know, kind of like a, you know,
Gary Schnittjer (05:15)
Sure.
Dru Johnson (05:16)
one band riffing off of another. Riffing, not ripping off another. but that all presupposes that you know the source material, right? That, you know, I have
Gary Schnittjer (05:26)
Right.
Dru Johnson (05:26)
a large film, you know, collection in my head because I’m just
you know, I’m in my fifties, so I you know, I’ve s seen more things than she has. so I guess how do you ca I am actually interested in what you do in the classroom. What have you changed to help increase their understanding of the basic material?
Gary Schnittjer (05:46)
Well, I mean, the college classroom I’m addressing right now. Again,
Dru Johnson (05:48)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, the the new the newer generation, yeah.
Gary Schnittjer (05:51)
as far as my seminary classes, they’re at the same mercy of the old days. do
Dru Johnson (05:58)
Okay. That’s good to hear.
Gary Schnittjer (06:00)
lecture and normal stuff. I haven’t done any capitulation yet. But when I realized, like I told you my big insight, that college students today weren’t stupid, when I realized that,
I changed some basic dynamics. Basically, I broke up the, teach always in a Tuesday, Thursday format to undergraduates. So I break up the 75 minutes into five chunks. And so no matter how it’s going, at the 15 minute mark, bang, I’m on to the next chunk. And so a lot of times it’s going really well and the students want to stay in that chunk, but it doesn’t matter. So.
Whether it’s, the other thing is, and this is more of a semester long thing. I learned that students don’t read the same way that they used to. So.
Dru Johnson (07:03)
You
could say that again.
Gary Schnittjer (07:05)
So I not only have them, you know, come in, they have their normal quiz, which a lot of them fail. And supposedly they’ve studied for it. Then after the quiz, and I tell them the answers, then I’ll put up questions that are like the quiz questions based on the reading, but they’re more open ended. Then the students have to look them up in the Bible in their textbook. I give them just that chunk is a flipped classroom, but it’s short. So they get like five minutes or whatever to do this question. Then
So this is September, I’m training the students. And I asked the student, I asked them the questions. So I learned their names. They don’t ask me questions anymore. I asked them questions, the student answers, I’ll say, okay, that might be the right answer, but what do you base that on? And the students at first just look at you. And so basically the month of September is me training them to say, no, no, here’s the evidence of
Dru Johnson (07:59)
Mm.
Gary Schnittjer (07:59)
what is going on. So it’s a matter of,
that part of it is training the students and they do learn so that by October, it almost seems like an old school college class except for I all semester change units every 15 minutes.
Dru Johnson (08:20)
Hmm. Gary, I’m flat out abusing my privilege on this podcast now, just learning some techniques from that’s that’s great because
Gary Schnittjer (08:27)
Ha
Dru Johnson (08:28)
I I don’t think, you know, it’s funny people people my age and older always say, has college teaching changed? You know, I’ve been doing it for 20 years. Like, has it changed? And I’m like, yeah, it’s changed. And what’s different? I’m like, it’s really hard to describe it without sounding dour, right? And cynical. but part of it is
Gary Schnittjer (08:47)
I think it
was in about 2010, I was meeting with a very well-known Old Testament scholar and I had all these questions and so I asked him, it was at the conferences, I forget what city we’re in, and then he stopped me after a few minutes he goes, I have a question for you. What are you doing different in your college classroom right now? Like, cause it’s not just, it’s endemic. I mean, it’s everywhere.
And I don’t want to be pejorative by calling him the cell phone generation. Maybe I do. I don’t know. But it’s, there really is a difference.
Dru Johnson (09:25)
Yeah. Well, and even calling them the cell phone generation, it’s not their fault. I mean, they didn’t,
Gary Schnittjer (09:29)
It’s not that…
Dru Johnson (09:30)
you know, they didn’t choose to allow themselves to have like we know who we know who to blame here.
Gary Schnittjer (09:37)
Yeah, right.
Dru Johnson (09:38)
and it it it is a I even taught I just now I just openly discuss these things with my class. So I’ll say, believe it or not, you know, just ten years ago, if you have an older brother or sister that in that age range,
You
know, in a class when a student didn’t understand something, they just raised their hand and said, I d excuse me, I don’t know what that word means that you just said. Or can you say that again, that thing you and they’re looking
Gary Schnittjer (10:02)
you
Dru Johnson (10:03)
at me like I’m cra like they do not even believe me that this is a thing. And it’s like, Can you imagine as a teacher, if you got that kind of feedback from your students, how much easier it would be to teach? And so I try to I try to puff up and get to do it. They they play along
Gary Schnittjer (10:17)
There you go.
Dru Johnson (10:18)
a little bit.
that’s good. I think people will be interested. It the classroom dynamics are very interesting these days and
Gary Schnittjer (10:24)
Yeah,
I think back in the 1990s, it was easy to just bait students, right, by saying these very outlandish things. And
Dru Johnson (10:32)
Yeah
Gary Schnittjer (10:34)
the students would be jumping out of their seats. right, since about, I don’t know, 2010, like I said, I don’t do a flip classroom in the sense of making them do their work elsewhere. I do a flip classroom where I’m
interrogating the students a lot during class in the
Dru Johnson (10:54)
Yeah. Yeah.
Gary Schnittjer (10:56)
different chunks. But the chunking is very important because the, I mean, 15 minutes is just about it to really, so I mean, to be able to do each chunk, but really hit the ground running and almost, you know, don’t worry about introductions or the whole chunk is an introduction. mean, it just has to get to brass tacks
Dru Johnson (11:17)
Well and I think it’s good for people to hear also that you just will not survive in college education if you think you can walk in and lecture and do old school techniques. you yeah. You you will not only survive
Gary Schnittjer (11:31)
You can’t!
Dru Johnson (11:32)
will not only the students not like you, but they will let you know and the administration will let you know and yeah.
Gary Schnittjer (11:37)
I want to make sure I give a disclaimer here. The students don’t like me, Seminary students are endeared by me, but college students
Dru Johnson (11:42)
I I’m sure they are frustrated at points. Yeah. Yeah.
Gary Schnittjer (11:49)
do not like me.
Dru Johnson (11:51)
Yeah. No, it’s it is painful for them. And I and I and I, you know, I try to be there emotionally for them. Like I know this is difficult because this is not what you’re used to. You weren’t prepared for this. But yeah, they c they come around. They they grow to like you. It’s great, you know, when you have a student who comes back ten or fifteen years later.
and tells you like how much they did not enjoy your class, but how much they needed it kind of a thing.
Gary Schnittjer (12:12)
Yeah, yeah.
Dru Johnson (12:13)
I would have quit long ago if I’d never gotten any of that feedback.
Gary Schnittjer (12:17)
And I
think in fairness, I I was not a good college student myself. so when I look
Dru Johnson (12:22)
neither was I.
Gary Schnittjer (12:24)
back, it was my really hard teachers that just didn’t give me any room to breathe,
Dru Johnson (12:34)
Mm-hmm.
Gary Schnittjer (12:34)
so to speak. They changed my life. And so I’m so grateful that I went to school back in the day when college professors couldn’t care less about.
the problems of college students. I I needed that.
Dru Johnson (12:47)
Yeah. I I will tell one last story, ’cause it it’ll help people relativize what you and I are facing. the opportunities you and I have to flourish with these students is I tell my this is the shocker, this is another thing. They do not believe me when I say it. I say, look, I went to college I went to university thirty years ago. I was in university doing my undergrad, just like you. I do not remember ever having a conversation with anybody, student or otherwise, about whether a professor was nice or not.
Gary Schnittjer (13:16)
You
Dru Johnson (13:16)
And most
of them are like, What do you mean? What what did you what did you talk about with professors? Like they can’t even imagine a world where that’s not the first lens you
Gary Schnittjer (13:23)
you
Dru Johnson (13:24)
apply to a professor is whether they’re nice or not. So it I’m not saying
Gary Schnittjer (13:26)
You
Dru Johnson (13:29)
we’re doing things with our hands tied behind our back, but it w we’re learning new tricks here, right? So
Gary Schnittjer (13:34)
Yeah, and I think, though, and again, I’ll leave it at this too, but it’s those ghosts in the closet that are the problem. mean, in other words, it’s we remember we’re still of the generation. We remember what college and seminary are supposed to be like.
Dru Johnson (13:52)
Mm-hmm.
Gary Schnittjer (13:53)
And so that ghost haunts us and drives us to not be satisfied with this moment. it also, if we do just
take it from the student’s perspective and say, okay, this is what it is, but it can be something good in its own moment. It’s not the way it was. We’re not trying to do that. We’re not trying to create the 1980s anymore. But we’re looking at, okay, how do we in this moment embrace God’s will and his revelation that he’s granted to us?
Dru Johnson (14:31)
So on on that
note, I’m wondering how do you how do you see scripture doing things like this as well? Like, you know, New Testament or Old Testament, it is is the style of God’s education of his people through his prophets, is it more like the nineteen eighties, you know, teacher is the expert, pours out data and information and we just write it down as quickly as he can, or is it something else?
Gary Schnittjer (14:58)
Well, I I think the big number one that people just aren’t prepared for, no matter what they say, is Yahweh is not modern and nothing in the Bible is modern. So I think that the lack of fit between what we as moderns are a lot of times trying to do to the Bible and with the Bible and the Bible just doesn’t cooperate. It’s ancient. But I think that
It’s also artistic, I mean, from first to last. And so if there was such a thing as an American in the Bible, and I think there is one which we can come back to or not,
Dru Johnson (15:42)
yeah.
Gary Schnittjer (15:43)
but if there was an American in the Bible, the American would say, just say it. What are you trying to say? What’s the point here, right? Like, why are you going through all of this narrative and poems and lyrical?
things and parables and riddles, just dreams. Say it. And I think that we think we’re right about that as moderns. we think that, you know, if you can’t put it, it used to be a bumper sticker. know people don’t know what that is. So maybe do a historical analysis. People don’t even know what tweets are probably anymore. But if you can’t say it in that, like you feel like you don’t know it. And it’s like, well, yeah, but an elevator speech.
as important as they might be doesn’t have anything to do with the ancient Near East. mean, people didn’t live with all this stuff that we have, and so they had a different rhythm to life. And so I think that the Bible fits with its culture. you know, we were all like, a lot of times we talk about like the covenant, right? And it’s this big deal. Well, it is a big deal.
But it’s just a, it’s not anything. It’s just a normal ancient relationship. Go ahead.
Dru Johnson (17:05)
Okay, can I hold on, can I I w I
wanna I want to drill down on this the particular issue because I thought what was interesting about this book connect we’re talking about the book Connected, How Scripture Guides the Study of Scripture, which is a fascinating, you know, thesis to begin with, is you open up with all of this iconography and description of various I’m gonna call them treaties, just to get us out of the covenant language, because sometimes covenant sounds a little it it can be Christianese at some point, right? So
Gary Schnittjer (17:32)
I
Dru Johnson (17:34)
Yeah, and only for practical purposes so people can kind of hear what you’re doing. You you start with all this treaty talk about ancient Near Eastern treaties and how they work. Not what I would consider it would honestly it surprised me a little bit. I was like, he’s going straight in for the jugular on how things work. Why did you choose to open up with that of all things?
Gary Schnittjer (17:54)
I, boy, don’t tell my… Yeah, don’t tell my publisher this. But so I had a very
Dru Johnson (17:58)
Not that it didn’t work, I’m just saying it was it was it was it was a twist.
Gary Schnittjer (18:03)
mapped out plan of the book, but a lot of times what I’ll do, I knew I wanted to do Jesus the Connection Maker for the first chapter. So the larger issue was my priority that the main thesis of the book is studying the Bible.
according to what the Bible says about studying the Bible. I mean, that’s the book. But I think the other thing, and this relates to chapter one, I think that I became…
dissatisfied, I don’t know if that’s the right word, but disappointed when I realized this and it wasn’t until I was writing this book that I think virtually all of these Bible study books don’t bother folding it into the Christian life. And so I felt like it was so important to begin chapter one with a connection maker and say, you know, the first part of responsible interpretation
is a relationship with the Lord. And so that’s kind of what I went in to that chapter with. And so it just came out. And I think in retrospect I can say I did not at all have the catechisms in mind that Jesus has to be human to pay for sin. He has to be God.
to be able to pay the infinite debt. I didn’t have either of those things, I didn’t have the catechism in mind, but I guess it’s subliminally under there or whatever.
Dru Johnson (19:48)
Yeah.
Gary Schnittjer (19:48)
But then the most natural way when it came up to it was, this is the new covenant in my blood.
Dru Johnson (19:56)
Mm-hmm.
Gary Schnittjer (19:57)
And I thought that really is the nexus of Jesus as connection maker.
It’s how you would express relationship between God and humans. mean, how else would a teacher like Jesus express it to his students? This profound reality of what he’s about to do and as it’s retold in the Gospels, especially the Gospel according to Luke, it’s this moment. It’s at a meal.
It’s very extraordinary in retrospect to sit with Jesus’s students at that moment and hear him say, this is the new covenant in my blood.
Dru Johnson (20:49)
Hmm.
Gary Schnittjer (20:51)
And it’s just very powerful symbols. So I didn’t have as much of a plan, but once I got into it, I felt like I’m just going to go for it. So, you know, one of the premises of this book is
It is, I define everything. So if you’ve read from the beginning, you don’t have to have any knowledge of the Bible at all. You can be completely biblically illiterate. Hopefully they won’t put that on any of the advertisements. But a person can walk into this book and not know anything and every single thing is defined. And so it seemed to me that taking the time and it’s not on and on, it’s maybe four pages and it’s written in
layperson’s terms, but it’s how would an ancient treaty just be part of, it’s in the air, ancients understood that, to unpack Jesus as God, Jesus as human, Jesus as the fulfillment of the new covenant. So it seemed like it had to do that. And really the larger point again, this is…
I’m not a theologian, so this isn’t about Christology or anything. This is about…
Where do we come into our study of the Bible? You know, when we talk about responsible study of scripture,
Dru Johnson (22:24)
Mm.
Gary Schnittjer (22:24)
I think I wanted to start with our relationship with the Lord.
Dru Johnson (22:28)
Hm.
Yeah. And and also it has the advantage too of the discussion has lots of pictures. So so you get some sense of what these things are like. Now you started that before I interrupted you, you started saying like covenants aren’t anything special.
Gary Schnittjer (22:44)
yeah.
Dru Johnson (22:45)
Well, what what did you mean by that? I think we mean the same thing, but I’m interested to hear your take on that.
Gary Schnittjer (22:49)
Yeah,
I like that you said treaties and yeah, I don’t mean to be so
not trying to Christianize everything, but yeah, think ancient treaties are just, they’re so much a normal part of the life for so long that nobody’s ever thought about them. I mean, because before we got on the podcast here, we were talking about movies. Well, okay, we don’t have to explain that, but I mean, it’s so much a part of the world you and I grew up in in the 20th century until it peaked.
that, you know, it was the so much more influential than anything else on earth is these moving picture fictions. And
Dru Johnson (23:33)
Hm.
Gary Schnittjer (23:34)
so we don’t have to explain them. But if I would have ever taken my grandmother, who I don’t think she ever went to the movies, but I’ve imagined what would have happened if I took my dear grandmother to see The Matrix.
What would that have been like? I mean, the only television program I believe she’s ever seen is Lawrence Welk. So, and if you’re viewing this, that’s, I don’t even know how to explain it, a big band. There you go,
Dru Johnson (23:59)
Wow. Yes. go look on PBS archives.
Gary Schnittjer (24:07)
Archives. It’s a big band moment from back between the wars, the world wars in the 20th century. You know, so.
We get how the movies work and we can even live our lives as though they’re in a movie. And movies are just a part of our generation. Less so a part of the younger generation, right? Maybe they’re streaming and binging as they’re, I have no idea if there even is a center of gravity anymore. you know, I think treaties are in the ancient world what movies were in the 20th century.
Dru Johnson (24:46)
Mm. That’s a great analogy. And y you think even today we can casually say things about, you know, fantastical things that happen in our life, we say, it was it was like it was a mo like it was in a film or something, right? And and
Gary Schnittjer (24:59)
sure.
Dru Johnson (25:00)
then you try to explain what you mean by that and unless you grew up in that culture it might be impossible to comprehend.
Gary Schnittjer (25:07)
Yeah, and I think like, you know, if Pastor in Church this week says something about Indiana Jones, nobody’s going to freak out. Everybody knows what he’s talking about. But when we read in the New Testament, Paul says to Timothy, right, Janice and Jambreese. what? Wait, wait. Now, now, what do we do?
Dru Johnson (25:33)
Right.
Gary Schnittjer (25:34)
He just used a fictional character.
from traditional Jewish lore. How are we supposed to assimilate this into a true letter? And so we kind of have a disconnect when we come to the Bible. It’s so other.
Dru Johnson (25:49)
Hm.
Gary Schnittjer (25:50)
We don’t recognize kind of these transcendent human things that we really do share with the ancients. And so I don’t think that treaties are anything weird. They’re just, that’s part of the ancient world and everybody
Dru Johnson (26:04)
Yeah.
Gary Schnittjer (26:05)
knew it.
Dru Johnson (26:06)
And you know, if my kid said I want to borrow five hundred dollars I and I said, Well, go get me a pen and paper and we’ll do this, they’ll know exactly what we’re getting
ready to do, right? so
Gary Schnittjer (26:14)
You
Dru Johnson (26:16)
you know, it’s not entirely foreign to us. Okay, great. So the book is called Connections, or sorry, connected. and it so in biblical studies there’s been a lot of talk over the last
generation or so of intertextuality. And so I think a lot of people, even people who listen to this podcast, are probably used to the idea that a lot of passages are pulling on other passages in kinds all kinds of interesting ways. but you’re doing something kind of way beyond just someone’s quoting, citing, or alluding to something in another passage. So I guess why is connected the the metaphor that is driving your thinking here for
F what you’re trying to do is basically just get people to understand the basics so they can enter this conversation in scripture. So why is connected the right metaphor for that?
Gary Schnittjer (27:08)
Well,
I think I have to give a disclaimer first, just to make sure, because in my other more technical writings, I’m very much kind of up to my neck in writings about technical intertextuality. So this book, I hate to say this, the title Connected has, it’s not really about that. So I think…
I think that somebody might pick it up and think, another book about intertextuality from
Dru Johnson (27:44)
Right, right.
Gary Schnittjer (27:46)
Gary Snedeker. Well, this book’s not about that. So it’s connected as in the Bible’s connected by the gospel message, if you will. So it’s, you know, one of the early chapters is welcome into the Bible unrolled. So welcome into the Bible unrolled. And so that chapter kind of makes pretend.
that the Bible was all in one scroll and in 30 pages that chapter walks through all of the books of the Bible and most of the major dates in the Bible and frames the large story, the Gospel story of the entire Bible in three smaller stories. But the starting point is actually different than this and the starting point is
Because every chapter of this book is about what the Bible teaches is about studying the Bible. So
Dru Johnson (28:43)
Mm-hmm.
Gary Schnittjer (28:43)
it actually began with the two long retrospectives in the Bible, Nehemiah 9 and Acts 13. So Nehemiah 9 is the Levitical intercessors leading the returned exiles in a prayer to sort of get right with God. And Acts 13 is Paul’s first recorded sermon.
If we put these two retrospectives together, between them they tell the story of the entire Bible. So that’s what the chapter is really about is those two retrospectives as framing the Gospel story of the entire Bible. And we can see that there’s sort of 12 pieces that come out of that. And those 12 pieces make up three stories, the Torah story, the Israel story, and the Jesus story. And those three stories together make the Gospel story.
of the entire Bible unrolled. And so what I’m trying to do, and this is where connected comes in, we’re connected because we’re in that story, right? The end of the scroll is not yet. So we’re in this already not yet between the two comings of the Messiah. And so we’re in this long story of these two retrospectives.
Dru Johnson (30:06)
That’s good visual actually. I never thought that should have been on the cover, is like w us
Gary Schnittjer (30:10)
Hahaha
Dru Johnson (30:11)
walking out the the rest of the scroll that’s going off into the over the horizon kind of a thing.
Gary Schnittjer (30:17)
Yeah, right. You try to get a designer to make the cover that you want them to make. Good luck.
Dru Johnson (30:19)
no, I know. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Or did you did you did w did the title come mainly from you, your working title, or did they come up with that out of the marketing department?
Gary Schnittjer (30:33)
I don’t know. In this particular case, my wife invested more in this book than any other so far because she knew I was really trying to actually write for general Christian readers. This book is framed for academics too, but anybody can read this book. And so she read each chapter and she usually gave me more feedback in red ink than what I had typed to begin with. And so was
Dru Johnson (31:02)
Wow.
Gary Schnittjer (31:03)
you know, often, you know, like saying, this doesn’t make any sense. I have no idea what you’re talking about. No one’s going to
Dru Johnson (31:10)
that’s wonderful.
Gary Schnittjer (31:11)
know what you’re talking about. And so it was so helpful. But anyway, coming back to the title, especially we got into several long, long conversation was really hard to come up with the title to this book. So it came out of a series of conversations. was a mouthful.
at first, which was a different version of the subtitle, but then eventually realized, well, the subtitle will have to carry it, but this
Dru Johnson (31:43)
Mm.
Gary Schnittjer (31:43)
is really the central theme, because all of the different titles we were talking through had the word connections in it.
Dru Johnson (31:51)
Yeah. The I and again I’m glad you clarified that because I do think of you as somebody who’s done a lot of work in intertextuality, how the scripture uses
other parts of scripture, how authors use other parts of scripture. I am curious I’ve got my own cold takes on these things, but I’m curious as to
How strongly you weight historical background information in an average Christian’s understanding of scripture? Because and I say this because you will find on YouTube and other places, you will find scholars or people doing popular level explanation of scripture who will say things like if you don’t understand the ancient historical, ancient Near Eastern background or whatever, then you you just can’t understand scripture at all. And I wonder where you register on that continuum of
need to know it or you don’t need to know any of it whatsoever.
Gary Schnittjer (32:47)
And that’s a really good question and I think that, you know, initially I had thought about framing this book in terms of over and against other approaches. For example, one of the most popular textbooks today and for the last generation and a half or so uses bridges, right? But
Dru Johnson (33:12)
Yeah.
Gary Schnittjer (33:13)
we’re here, the Bible’s there.
If you want to get there, you got to get on this bridge to get there. And so here’s the bridge. And so the whole book is a series, each chapter is a bridge to get to the Bible because it’s inaccessible to us without these bridges. And so you can hear my title’s exact opposite. Like you’re in the Bible, the Bible is connected, connected
Dru Johnson (33:35)
You’re here already. Yeah.
Gary Schnittjer (33:38)
to your life and everything. So I’m taking the opposite imminent approach of that. Now I don’t
in the end disagree with this other very popular book by my friend Danny Hayes and his co-author. Yeah, right. was it? Grasping God’s Word.
Dru Johnson (33:54)
yeah, yeah. I know now I know exactly which book you’re talking about. Grasping God’s word, yeah.
Gary Schnittjer (34:01)
Yes, I mean, my interpretation and his are very close together in the end, but it’s a different metaphor for
Dru Johnson (34:09)
Mm-hmm.
Gary Schnittjer (34:09)
how to study the Bible. So my book doesn’t have any of that.
philosophical mumbo jumbo in this book. yeah, I think that though, it’s hard to say, mean, because, you know, when we talk English, it’s still, even though we’re post King James now, it’s the King James Bible for your viewers, hopefully they know what that King James Bible is. That translation was so…
Hebrew and Greek. I mean, it brought the Bible into the English language and it language shapes culture and it shapes thought. So we still really have a residual of at least a biblical idiom. Now, that’s not the same as your question about historical context and historical things, but we already have in the English language the biblical apparatus residual to be able to, you know, with pretty easily make the
connections to the ancient context. And we need to sometimes. It’s not that we don’t understand the Bible, it’s… the Bible makes a lot more sense when we read it in context than
Dru Johnson (35:28)
Mm-hmm.
Gary Schnittjer (35:28)
when we don’t read it in context.
Dru Johnson (35:31)
Yeah, when you you know, in small group I have, you know, people who again my age and older who’ve been reading the Bible their whole life and they’ll be like, Why are they so excited about this one thing or why do they make such a big deal out of this? And y you do see historical contextualization happening within the Bible, right? So like Ruth, you know, they took off the sandal and swore an oath and because because in those days, you know, y y y
Gary Schnittjer (35:56)
That’s right.
Dru Johnson (35:58)
Which I think you could have figured out from the story all on your own, but they want to make sure you know, like things have changed, I know, but in those days this happened this way.
Gary Schnittjer (36:05)
Yeah, this is an old-time yesteryear story in Ruth, and so the readers might not be prepared for some of the deals in there. yeah, you’re right. And the author of Ruth is brilliant in, you know, waiting till right there to say that and then put that gap,
Dru Johnson (36:27)
Right.
Gary Schnittjer (36:28)
like, back in the olden days it was like this. And so all of sudden realizing, okay, okay.
I don’t know where we’re going forward to, know, Drew, I know you know this, but in the ancient world, my students don’t realize a hundred years is just as long and just as complicated as
Dru Johnson (36:53)
Right. Right.
Gary Schnittjer (36:55)
a hundred years today. And so if the book of Ruth is jumping back hundreds of years to even explain this tradition that’s been lost, this small town.
City Gate tradition. You know, a lot’s happened. And so I think that we tend to, I draw charts on the board all the time and have them in my book and all this. So we tend to collapse together massive changes. But if an ancient person came to us and said, well, you know, what about so-and-so in the modern world?
And they’re just collapsing together everything for the past 500 years up to today to make sense of. we say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You can’t collapse together everything from, you know, 1526 to today and think that it’s all in a continuity. It’s not. It’s a mess. And we need to maybe, so I’m answering your question.
I guess it really does help us to have some sensitivity coming into Ruth as an exile or a post-exile story and how this ancient story that sounds like a holiday evening Hallmark Channel sort of story, you know, what is it saying in the exilic or post-exilic context, right? Why is it interesting to think about this?
young widow who’s returning to the homeland and she’s sort of available and unavailable at the
Dru Johnson (38:36)
Mm-hmm.
Gary Schnittjer (38:37)
same time and this old man falls in love with her. Why is that in the Bible even?
Dru Johnson (38:44)
Yeah. No, it’s it’s certainly you know, I ban in in student papers the phrase in Bible times because it was coming up so much. I was like, What is what is that even I can’t even like get my head around what you might even think that that means, right? but it is modern.
Gary Schnittjer (39:02)
Well, I
ban my students because, especially in Hebrew, my Hebrew class, we translate through Ruth a lot in the fall semester. I do not allow them to use the term, the expression, kinsman redeemer. Right? I say, no, no, no, I’m sorry.
Dru Johnson (39:20)
Yeah, yeah.
Gary Schnittjer (39:21)
It’s financially responsible, near relative or the like.
Dru Johnson (39:26)
yeah.
Gary Schnittjer (39:27)
Like, well, but, I said, look
Dru Johnson (39:30)
Yeah.
Gary Schnittjer (39:31)
it up, man.
Dru Johnson (39:32)
Yeah. Yeah.
Gary Schnittjer (39:32)
That’s what it is.
Don’t start with all this typology that you’re piling onto the Bible. Let’s start with it. Let’s start in kind of on their terms, so to speak.
Dru Johnson (39:45)
Yeah, so that’s one of the things that I I don’t think a lot of people realize they do when they say s even simple things like, Well, God’s omniscient, so i I’m confused as to why he’s going down and into a village to find something out, right? Like, and they don’t realize that they’re they’re reading that story through a very particular theological lens, a widely used theological lens, but still nonetheless. And I think a lot of students and I’m saying parishioners and students, because I think
students for me are kind of a l you know, like a a thermometer for what’s going on in the church more broadly, or what will be going on, is they don’t really have a sense that there are consonant ideas, there are concepts that are shaped and developed over time in scripture. And so for them, you know, grace just means grace, justice just means justice. It’s a you very flat, simple idea
Gary Schnittjer (40:38)
Mm-hmm.
Dru Johnson (40:40)
where it’s a very sophisticated, moving target in scripture.
And I and I think in this book you’re doing some biblical theology. So I wonder what you do like, you know, what are the nodes for you that create the concepts they need to know? So treaty would be one of them, that you know, that God treaties with humans is a radical idea. What else do you kind of throw in the bucket of here, you’re gonna need these as we go forward?
Gary Schnittjer (41:07)
Well, I think in the main chapters of the book, genre by genre on what the Bible teaches us about studying the Bible. So I tried as best as I could to select the centerpiece passage for each chapter. So I used a oracle message about prophecy to kind of show how to read prophecy.
I used a story in the Bible about stories to learn how to interpret biblical stories and so on. So I think two of the places that are the most difficult for us today, one only seems more difficult. One is the Old Testament prophets. And so one of the things I tried to do without getting into anything complicated,
There’s a chart that goes on for a couple of pages that just lists the prophets and
Dru Johnson (42:10)
yeah. Yeah.
Gary Schnittjer (42:12)
that lists next to it what biblical narratives tell the historical story of what’s going on during that prophet’s life. And so there’s a contextualization that people can do since they don’t know the prophet’s context. If you read this biblical passage in the Book of Kings, that’ll open up right away.
for you what’s going on when this prophet is preaching. The other concept that’s kind of like that, but it’s different for us, is in the New Testament, Paul’s letters, they’re so familiar and preached so often in Christian circles that we don’t realize that they’re only part of the story. And
Dru Johnson (42:54)
Mm-hmm.
Gary Schnittjer (42:54)
so did the same thing in that chapter. There’s a chart, especially from the book of Acts, but also from Paul’s letters and other places in the New Testament where
Here is, in your Bible, a way to contextualize and get a sense of how to, you know, make sense of this half of a conversation, this half of an underlying story that Paul and his co-authors assume that the readers are sharing with them. So those are,
Dru Johnson (43:29)
Yeah. That’s a good
Gary Schnittjer (43:30)
they’re not concepts exactly, but they’re both
Dru Johnson (43:32)
Right. It’s technique.
Gary Schnittjer (43:36)
Yeah, it’s something that’s right there in the Bible. This book about studying the Bible is very much about studying the Bible from the Bible’s perspective. Now, there is a chapter on historical connections, so I’m not at all thumbing my nose at historical context. And I think probably every chapter in the book contextualizes things in a historical context for readers.
It really does mean to me, here’s a starting place. This is an on-ramp to studying the Bible, and here’s how the Bible would teach us how to do it.
Dru Johnson (44:19)
That’s great. and y you can disagree if you think I’ve got it wonky here, but going back to that issue of why doesn’t it just say it straightforward, I’ve been kind of selling the idea that that’s a very fragile way to think that you understand things. Like I have a question and you go, Okay, well here’s the answer to that question, and okay, I have your answer now. Now I know, right?
Like,
well, but that doesn’t help you when a slightly different question comes up on the same topic that you haven’t really thought through, right? So this kind of saying it in many different ways through many different genres, and repeating it in different contexts is actually a very sturdy way or I don’t know, unfragile, sturdy, I guess is the word we use there. It develops what we I think what the biblical authors would just call chokma, right? Just some the kind of discerning wisdom so that you can see this for yourself. But
You said you thought there was one American in the Bible and so I I’ve been like in the background puzzling through, like, wait, what which one is he? What who’s he talking about? So I I don’t know. You stumped me. I was I was trying to buy time though, yeah and I couldn’t figure it out, so go ahead.
Gary Schnittjer (45:25)
He’s not really an American.
But Nehemiah is very close to how he acts like an American sometimes. So, no, no, no, the whole book of Nehemiah.
Dru Johnson (45:36)
You mean at the end of Nehemiah? Okay.
Gary Schnittjer (45:42)
He very much, when he first gets to
Jerusalem. He shares, because this is his first person journals, I guess, or whatever, and he’s kind of a drama king, know, very dramatic and all that.
Dru Johnson (46:01)
That he is, yeah.
Gary Schnittjer (46:02)
But he shares repeatedly, like, I didn’t ask anyone. I just went out and inspected the wall myself.
And later when he’s going to confront
There’s a big food crisis, there’s a famine, and people have sold their kids into slavery, and he does some social reforms. That’s in Nehemiah chapter five. He pauses in the middle of his sort of narrative drama where he’s speaking about being very angry, and he says, took counsel with myself, and
Dru Johnson (46:32)
Yeah.
Gary Schnittjer (46:33)
then I called a meeting. So when I say he’s American, he’s very committed to individualism. He’s very not part of…
There’s no committee meetings in me and my
Dru Johnson (46:44)
Yeah.
Gary Schnittjer (46:45)
own life. And yeah, and you are right. mean, so there’s the bad part too. Like on his second term as governor of post-exilic Jerusalem, there’s all these one line prayers, right? He’s like, remember me, God, for the good that I have done. Right?
Dru Johnson (47:08)
Screw these people. Remember me.
Gary Schnittjer (47:10)
He doesn’t say screw these people, but he’s just like, it’s a very, like if you’re used to the Bible, all of us should be saying, wait, wait, man. Right. It’s a good thing the Lord didn’t ask you to write any Psalms because you, this is not how you pray, Nehemiah. This is not a biblical prayer. But he prays that way altogether. And probably the quintessential American moment is right there at the end of the book where
He confronts these people who he can’t believe they’re in apostasy marriages again. They’re married to unbelievers. And so, I mean, he’s saying this. He beats these guys up. He rips the hair out of their face. He’s calling down curses upon them. I mean, if there’s ever a passage in the Bible that’s like the dream of most pastors, like, like, like,
He actually has the power to fulfill what we can only dream about when we have to say all these nice things like
Dru Johnson (48:12)
The
dream of most mobsters, I think you meant to say.
Gary Schnittjer (48:16)
So anyway, I say he’s American because he, and I really like Nehemiah, I mean, because he very much resembles, if an American went back and got stuck in post-exilic Jerusalem, somebody with power and affluence and sort of a different outlook.
Dru Johnson (48:34)
And also somebody who sees a problem
who’s just like, We’re gonna fix this.
Gary Schnittjer (48:38)
We’re going to fix it.
I’m going to hire people. I’m going to send my… He has his own militia that serves him. mean, he’s exceptionally wealthy. When people complain about money, he says, okay, I won’t take a salary. And then he goes on to explain how he has 150 people eat a feast at his table every night of the week. And we’re like, whoa, whoa, If you have that kind of…
silver, why were you taking loans to profit yourself from the poorest Judeans, as he admits a few verses earlier? so, you know, right, right, we’re so, I guess, it’s easy to be like Nehemiah and to be blind to just a little bit more and to
Dru Johnson (49:31)
Hmm.
Gary Schnittjer (49:33)
not recognize the ridiculousness, I suppose you would say, of
some of the things that we crave. Now, I want to hand it to Nehemiah. He actually did, you know, he’s a one percenter in the Persian Empire. I he’s one of the most powerful men of the Persian Empire, friends with the king and so forth, and he has tremendous wealth. But he really does become more generous, even though he continues to have these outbursts from time to time, which are just…
A real delight to readers.
Dru Johnson (50:10)
He’s very real,
you know. He he tells on him he probably says more about himself than he should, right? To a fault. So
Gary Schnittjer (50:16)
But mean, yeah, but he’s proud of it. I mean, he’s not, I mean, and he doesn’t get into all the details. Like he just stays on the very dramatic moments. Like he doesn’t say who people are. doesn’t
Dru Johnson (50:30)
Mm-hmm.
Gary Schnittjer (50:30)
say what’s going on, but he’s very dramatic. So it’s fun to read Nehemiah’s take on everything.
Dru Johnson (50:37)
Yeah, that’s a fun one to read out loud with students who really who said they read it up for that day’s class but didn’t. And you
Gary Schnittjer (50:44)
You
Dru Johnson (50:45)
you can shock a little bit with the end. Well, Gary
Gary Schnittjer (50:47)
Yeah, so it’s possible
that he’s the first American.
Dru Johnson (50:50)
Possibly. He’s our Proto American ancestor.
Gary Schnittjer (50:52)
Proto America.
Dru Johnson (50:53)
Yeah. Gary Snicker, thank you very much for this book called Connected, How Scripture Guides the Study of Scripture. you’ve got a lot of other books out there. I your what’s your your first big popular book? Is it Torah, a story, or s story of
Gary Schnittjer (51:10)
I have
a textbook called Torah Story.
Dru Johnson (51:13)
Hora story. Okay, yeah. That was the first thing I ran
into and I was like, Who is this guy? He gets it. So that was amazing.
Gary Schnittjer (51:21)
Yeah, thanks. Well, that’s in its second edition now, and I’m just really grateful. mean, because when I put it out there, it was a lone voice. I mean, really.
Dru Johnson (51:35)
Yeah.
Gary Schnittjer (51:37)
And as it turned out, mean, things have gone that direction. so.
Dru Johnson (51:42)
Right.
It’s become a chorus now. Yeah.
Gary Schnittjer (51:44)
Yeah, yeah, so it might seem to somebody that just picks it up now, passe, but in its context, I mean, was kind of, it was fun. I remember I met with a, he’s not passed on yet. He’s older, but an older Pentateuch scholar for breakfast. And he had heard that I was writing a textbook and he says, well, what historical context do you put the author of the Pentateuch in?
I said, well, I’m not really focused on that. And he was like, well, how can you write a book? How can you write a
Dru Johnson (52:23)
What are you even gonna say?
Gary Schnittjer (52:26)
book about the Pentateuch if you’re not talking about the literary sources, if you’re not talking about the date of the authorship? And he was just beside himself and he changed his subject to be polite. He was a very gracious man. Well, anyway, back in those days, I got to pick
a couple of people that the publisher would seek out for endorsement and then they picked some that they didn’t ask me about. Well, they picked this scholar and he gave me a great endorsement on the book and it’s one that they put on the back cover. And so I saw him at the conferences that November and I just, I said, thank you.
so much for this endorsement. goes, he just like grabbed my hand like a handshake but with both of his hands he goes, I want to thank you for this book. He said, I kind of had the wrong idea from our conversation but you really showed the coherence and unity of the Pentateuch in the way that is refreshing and that really needs to be seen by today’s students. He says, thank you. I was like, wow, I can’t believe that this man, because
I was mortified when I heard that the publisher had reached out to him for an endorsement.
Dru Johnson (53:47)
Yeah, the blessing of due diligence. well, Gary, thank you very much for your wisdom and your guidance.
Gary Schnittjer (53:55)
Thank you.
