Dru Johnson (00:00)
Were the Old Testament prophets doing philosophy? Well, join me today with Dr. Heath Thomas, the president of Oklahoma Baptist University, and an Old Testament scholar who specializes in the prophets. And we are going to talk about all the different ways in which prophets are doing political philosophy, ethics, of course, epistemology, how we know things, metaphysics, even how they do logic and rationalizing through poetic literature of all things. We’re gonna get into how poetry
can actually be used as a form of an argument in really interesting ways that you can’t do any other way outside of poetry. Heath is a great friend, he’s a great mind, he’s got a buttery, smooth southern voice. You’ll enjoy every minute, I promise.
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Now to doctor Heath Thomas.
Dru Johnson (01:46)
What do you find that most Christians in America misunderstand or misconstrue about the prophets in general?
Heath Thomas (01:55)
Well, what I see often is uh the Old Testament prophets in particular are viewed in such a way where it’s it’s one of two things. Number one, people are thinking about the prophets in terms of kind of quote unquote end time prophecy, the end
Dru Johnson (02:10)
Mm-hmm.
Heath Thomas (02:11)
of days, what what’s gonna happen way off in the future in some sort of distant reality. so that’s one kind of conception of the prophets. The other thing is uh
People are thinking about prophets in terms of what God knows versus what human beings know. So God knows this, this, and this, and He’s telling everybody what what they should know. Uh, human beings don’t have that s kind of divine knowledge. So really what prophecy does is it predicts the future, what God knows, as opposed to what human beings know, because we don’t know the future. So God’s knowledge is future oriented, human knowledge is not, prophets tell the future.
And actually what I would say is those two conceptions need a lot of rethinking in light of biblical prophecy.
Dru Johnson (02:58)
Yeah, and i and the worst version of it is well, prophets are at their best when they create the stepping stones that lead to Jesus ’cause that’s all we were it’s
Heath Thomas (03:05)
Yeah, right.
Dru Johnson (03:05)
all we were here for the whole time. You know, that’s the the main event.
Heath Thomas (03:07)
Yeah. And that that
goes to the the future orientation of the
Dru Johnson (03:11)
Mm-hmm.
Heath Thomas (03:12)
of biblical prophets. So for instance, early on in uh Christian tradition, uh in the first two centuries of the Christian uh church, um one of the things that emerged was proofs of prophecy from the Old Testament that
Dru Johnson (03:26)
Mm.
Heath Thomas (03:27)
gave rise to the reality of Jesus. And that language of proofs of prophecy shows up in Justin Martyr and some early uh apologists.
And uh, you know, the Old Testament prophets then just their their main function is just proof texting uh the early kind of understanding of who Jesus was from the Old Testament. So Zechariah and Micah, Micah five, two, he came from Bethlehem. So therefore Micah is really about Jesus coming from Bethlehem. Well, Micah’s doing a lot more than that, right? So
Yeah, you’re right. But it’s it’s a subset of the messianic future oriented prophecies is a subset really of um the prophets tell the future or predict the future.
Dru Johnson (04:09)
So then how do you lead them into I mean, because I always do the spiel in class, you know, where you you have to reveal that most of the prophetic literature is not about the future. It does turn very pointedly towards the future at point. Um, and then yeah, then I I do I do the old uh see how long I can wait out on silence. So what if it’s not really about the future as much, what what is it about, right? And you know, then then
Heath Thomas (04:33)
Yeah, yeah.
Dru Johnson (04:34)
you can hear the pins drop. Uh so where do you take people from there?
Heath Thomas (04:39)
You know, I one of the things that I think is really important when you’re teaching or helping others understand the prophets is uh recognize, yes, many texts are about the future, absolutely, what God is gonna be doing in the future, what the people of God are gonna be doing in the future, but that is always inextric inextricably linked to the past. So you
Dru Johnson (05:00)
Mm-hmm.
Heath Thomas (05:00)
gotta take them to the past because the prophets over and over and over and over and over again are not rehearsing new things.
They’re telling us about what God’s original purposes were with his people, Israel, and what he’s going to do to ensure that his purposes with Israel are um are are going to come to fruition. And so you take them to the past. So especially the Exodus, the book of Exodus, um, the book of Deuteronomy, all the Exodus and Deuteronomy are really founding documents for the prophets. And so when you when you read the prophets, the way of life.
For God’s people. Well, the prophets are holding God’s people to account for what they were already given in Deuteronomy and/or Exodus, in I their identity as the people of God, that founding vision from the book of Exodus and Deuteronomy then funds how God’s people are held to account by the prophets. So how do you know that you are unjust? Well, God’s already told you back in the past, and we’re just telling you now in the present.
This is where you’re falling short. So change your ways and repent and turn from your sin and those kinds of things. The prophets frame that up by language of the past. So if you’re going to just think about how do the prophets tell their story? How do they hold people to account? What kind of vision do do they really set before their audience? A lot of times it’s the past, not the future.
Dru Johnson (06:33)
Hm.
So is that an argument then um I mean prophets are have having to be very sharp critics of their own culture and because people are inventing new ways, you know, where the Torah doesn’t say you can’t, you know, necessarily do this. But um so it seems like an argument that to speak prophetically is actually to be a good interpreter of of one’s present culture.
Heath Thomas (06:55)
Yes, that’s right. And and there are a lot of different ways. You gotta remember the the biblical material of of prophetic texts, I mean, it’s hundreds of years, right? So this is not just a a one one off event. You’ve got Isaiah and Amos and Micah, you know, eighth century prophets, so seven hundreds B C all the way down to uh the Persian period, in in the fifth century. So we’re we’re talking about uh a a massive span.
of time. Um okay.
Dru Johnson (07:27)
Let well let’s relativise that. So that’s like
a Christian speaking prophetically to the pilgrims in Jamestown
Heath Thomas (07:32)
Yes.
Dru Johnson (07:34)
versus somebody speaking prophetically today in twenty first century America. Yeah.
Heath Thomas (07:37)
That’s right. And and
so, you know, each of these time periods and each of these kinds of prophets, whether we’re talking about uh, you know, Haggai or Malachi or Zechariah or Haggai, these are later prophets. Earlier prophets like Amos or Micah, for instance, they’re speaking hundreds of years earlier, by and large. So at every point in that hundreds of years of time.
They’re being very sharp interpreters of their reality and the text of scripture, right? So that’s really important to say. So, for instance, uh, Jeremiah would be a good example, right? Jeremiah uh is looking at uh the horizon of Babylonian invasion into the land of Israel. And some people are saying, hey, look, previous prophets told us uh 100 years ago, you know, we’ve got the temple of the Lord, God’s presence is with us. So
As long as the temple is here, there’s no problem. We’re safe. And Jeremiah says in the temple sermons in 16, you know, and or 717 and 26. He says essentially, that’s not true. You cannot lean on the temple of the Lord. And just suppose if we’re covered in sin, that God’s going to remain with his people. And actually, Jeremiah’s reading of the Old Testament is right on that count.
It it’s the other prophets that Jeremiah was prophesying against and the leadership that he was prophesying against, they were misreading earlier prophecy and earlier text. So you have to know what the text says from the past, but you also know uh need to understand what the moment is in the present. And the prophets, the successful prophets, do that well.
Dru Johnson (09:28)
It also reminds me, because I’m teaching this class on Jesus fairly regularly, so I’m grinding everything through the gospels these days. But in Luke 12, you know, when Jesus says, you know how to read the clouds and the skies and the winds, but you can’t interpret this present time, seems to be a similar critique. Or when Jesus says, you know, this the the parable of Lazarus and the rich man
Where he ends with, Well, they don’t listen to Moses or the prophets. What makes you think they’re gonna listen to a
Heath Thomas (09:53)
Yes, that’s right.
Dru Johnson (09:54)
dead man raised, right? It seems like a is that a similar critique? Is that does that put Jesus in the bucket of a prophet? Yeah.
Heath Thomas (09:59)
Yes.
Well, first of all, I think Jesus reads the prophets very well, for instance. And so he he yeah, but he’s
Dru Johnson (10:05)
I think so too, but I’m I might be biased.
Heath Thomas (10:08)
he’s very much in that tradition of an authentic prophet who understands the word of God and the time in which God’s people live very well. So I I I do think that there’s truth there, uh, in that characterization that Jesus is uh his kind of prophetic spirit, I guess you could say.
Dru Johnson (10:27)
Hm.
Heath Thomas (10:28)
Is authentic. It’s true. It coheres with what we see in the Old Testament. Um, and what does that look like? Well, you understand your times, you understand false religion very well, and false
Dru Johnson (10:41)
Hm.
Heath Thomas (10:41)
religion can have an air of piety, it can look good, it can be very uh impressive, but it may not be authentic. And going
Dru Johnson (10:50)
Yeah.
Heath Thomas (10:50)
back to the example of Jeremiah, the prophets who were actually lying to the people.
Uh lying to the leadership in Jerusalem were the people in power, the religious leaders in power. They looked good, they had the right kind of connection to the religious power of the day. Uh, they were in with the the powerful rulers of the day, and they were completely wrong. And uh one of the emerging themes we see in Jeremiah, for instance, is authentic.
prophets who preach the word of God well suffer as a result of this. And Jeremiah is a good pattern of the suffering prophet that serves as kind of the exemplar for what we see in the life and ministry of Jesus, the suffering, the suffering prophet.
Dru Johnson (11:39)
Yeah, I mean Jeremiah one is just a it’s a painfully delicious piece of poetry um about the suffering of the prophet. I strangely enough, I find that a lot of Christians are not familiar with like they they know bits of Jeremiah, but they’re not really in tune with what Jeremiah’s doing from the outset. So that’s your that’s your plug, go read Jeremiah and slowly,
Heath Thomas (12:03)
Yeah, that’s exactly right.
Dru Johnson (12:04)
slowly and carefully.
Um but that is
Heath Thomas (12:06)
But but
Dru Johnson (12:07)
yeah, go ahead.
Heath Thomas (12:08)
I I I was just gonna say I I do think there’s a reason for that. The prophets are very odd. I mean, reading them through, it’s not really a good read. It’s not like a narrative. It’s not like a gospel story. It’s not like you’re following the life and ministry of Jesus, not in a chronological way. So a lot of times they’re very strange and odd, and I think as readers of the of the Bible, we just need to own that and say, yeah, it feels very strange. But that’s why a
I like where you are pushing, the more that we can begin to read these texts slowly and ask good questions of them, like why is it why is the structure of the of the prophetic book structured the way that it is? Why are these things recurring in the ways that they are? Why does it seem like if we’re reading Jeremiah, why does it seem like he really doesn’t want to share the word of the Lord because it’s really painful and yet pain is exactly what he’s going to experience.
It’s because the life of the prophet mirrors the experience of the people of Israel. What he experiences, they’re going to experience. And
Dru Johnson (13:10)
Yeah.
Heath Thomas (13:10)
actually, that’s the point of the book. God’s people are going to suffer in exile just like the prophet will.
Dru Johnson (13:18)
But let’s just be straight honest. Like we would invite Jeremiah to our dinner parties, but we might might fake like we have to go to bed early after I mean he’s a
Heath Thomas (13:28)
Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. Th these
prophetic texts, boy, they’re they’re kind of like uh they’re the the weird person at the at the dinner party, you know. They’re sitting in the corner. Uh, you know, you think about some of the the actions that the the prophets do. You know, Jeremiah, he he he wears a dirty diaper, for goodness sake. That would never get through the the bouncer at the club. I mean, you just it’s not gonna happen, right?
Dru Johnson (13:51)
Yeah.
Heath Thomas (13:52)
Ezekiel has to lay on his side and
He’s got all sorts of weird things that he does. Uh Isaiah has to do some strange thing. So these
Dru Johnson (13:59)
Isaiah’s nakedness, yeah, yeah.
Heath Thomas (14:01)
prophets, boy, they’re weird. I mean, it’s it’s it’s a it’s a tough it’s tough to, you know, you you might look at them kind of like a a a science experiment, but I’m not sure that we would ever kind of willingly invite them to your your house for a dinner.
Dru Johnson (14:14)
Right.
I can just imagine, you know, Jeremiah offering like I I wrote a poem about my mother when she was pregnant with me.
Heath Thomas (14:26)
Yeah, everybody would be aghast.
Dru Johnson (14:27)
If you d if
yeah, if you don’t know how that poem goes, just read Jeremiah one to the very end of the chapter. Yep. Uh sorry.
Heath Thomas (14:31)
Uh Jeremiah One. Yeah, you got me choked up there, Drew.
Dru Johnson (14:38)
I’m I’m thinking of like Saturday night live skits with Jeremiah.
Heath Thomas (14:41)
yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Dru Johnson (14:45)
Okay. So this leads me kind of to my next question about the form of literature that we do find. Not not only that it’s strange, you know, that there’s kind of a a bricolage of overlapping patterns and and
Heath Thomas (14:56)
Yeah,
that’s right.
Dru Johnson (14:57)
pieces to
it. But um you get a lot of parallel Hebrew parallel uh poetry in the prophets as well. I’m wondering, you know, I wanna say that poetry can be a form of an argument, but I I I say that naively. I wonder how do you believe that and if s if so, how would you see that being true?
Heath Thomas (15:16)
Yes, I do actually think that uh the poetry is uh a form a certain kind of argument. Now, is it what we would typically think of in terms of a philosophical argument? Well, maybe, uh or maybe not. What I think the poetry is doing is it’s presenting its argument oftentimes, and I’m gonna set aside certain texts for for a moment, because there are some texts that we would
traditionally or technically call them disputation texts. They actually very form a precise kind of argument. And Isaiah has them and Jeremiah has them, Micah has them, they’re disputation texts, where a case is being brought uh against God’s people. Yeah, that’s right. A Reeve text. Yeah, that’s right.
Dru Johnson (16:00)
Like a Reeve, right? Yeah, yeah. So a a form of yeah, a
formal like a legal case being brought against people. Yep. Okay. I’m with ya.
Heath Thomas (16:07)
That’s exactly right. Where God
is both prosecutor and judge. And I don’t know if you’ve ever been in court, Drew, but if your accuser is also the judge, it’s it’s gonna go badly. Yeah, that’s right. So so I’m setting those texts to the side. Yeah.
Dru Johnson (16:15)
Right. Yeah. You’re screwed, yeah. okay. So we set those aside because those are pretty easy. That’s low hanging fruit, as it were. Yeah.
Heath Thomas (16:23)
Right. So but there are I mean, when you look at the the poetry of the prophets, uh one of the most beautiful things is the way that they present their argument is through imagery, metaphor.
And they evoke responses. So I’ll give you a good example of this. it’s almost like um you have more extended images. Isaiah chapter five. You have God saying, Okay, let’s just imagine that there was a gardener who planted a vineyard. And the vineyard, um, he took such great care to to to create this vineyard. And all this is in poetry, right? And it’s beautiful. So you have this
gardener who cultivates the vineyard, he protects the vineyard, he sets a watchtower so somebody can protect the vineyard. He sets a wall around the vineyard. And the vineyard is supposed to produce these beautiful grapes. And it’s supposed to be beautiful and wonderful. And everybody’s supposed to enjoy this. And yet he lowers the boom and it comes in uh the language of poetry. The groups the grapes were supposed to produce fruits of justice and righteousness.
But instead, the grapes were fruit of injustice and outcry. And I don’t have to explain the the the word play there in the Hebrew.
Dru Johnson (17:45)
Mm-hmm.
Heath Thomas (17:46)
Uh you know, it it is absolutely dynamite. Well, that inversion of what was expected to what they actually got, injustice and outcry as opposed to um justice and
And and righteousness. I mean, these are the kinds of things that you would expect. they didn’t get that, they got terribleness. And that is through an extended metaphor. And that becomes the rationale for woe oracles or judgment oracles that follow. So that when you begin to understand what God is doing, it’s actually almost like a parable. Hey, could you imagine uh a uh this vineyard?
And it was supposed to produce good grapes. And the things were so bad that uh instead of you know, something that would give life, it brings death. I also think about another one where it’s a future vision of God’s um restoration of his people, and this is repeated twice in Isaiah and in Micah, and it’s this picture of a future uh where God’s people and pilgrims come to Zion.
And they they live there and they hear the instruction of God. And you have the very famous text where uh swords and uh spears are transformed into um instruments of cultivation. And it’s in our world today we would think of the casing of a bomb now become feeding troughs for animals, right?
Dru Johnson (19:26)
Mm-hmm.
Heath Thomas (19:26)
So something that was meant for death is now transformed.
Into life. All that’s poetry. And so, you know, poetry is the language of argumentation. It just does it in a in a d a way different than what we would think of of straightforward speech or direct speech. And there’s a reason for that. The poetry
Dru Johnson (19:45)
Yeah.
Heath Thomas (19:45)
is designed to elicit response and reflection, not just fill our mind with knowledge.
Dru Johnson (19:52)
Yeah, there and the reason for that too, I mean, ca obviously I I’m sure a lot of people are listening to this going, Well, that sounds a lot like what Jesus was doing, in a lot of his parables and his indirect speech
Heath Thomas (20:02)
That’s right.
Dru Johnson (20:02)
and how he often says things where you’re not quite sure where he’s going with it. And I
Heath Thomas (20:07)
Yes.
Dru Johnson (20:07)
I love it when people you know, when Jewish leaders pick up like, Wait, he’s talking about he’s talking about us.
Heath Thomas (20:12)
That’s right. Yeah.
Dru Johnson (20:13)
Um, and I’ve I’ve been puzzling through this myself recently that that actually there is a philosophical so a
If you say, um, swords into plowshares is what you were referring to, um, from weapons
Heath Thomas (20:25)
Yes, that’s right.
Dru Johnson (20:26)
to uh agriculture, that is a particular metaphysical view of the world. That that things
Heath Thomas (20:32)
Yes.
Dru Johnson (20:33)
can be, you know, the same stuff can be used for different ways. Um, and the same people, Israel, could have been for the benefit of the world or
Heath Thomas (20:41)
Yes.
Dru Johnson (20:41)
that and they become the detriment to the world, right? Um
Heath Thomas (20:43)
Yes, that’s right.
Dru Johnson (20:45)
I I wonder if that rhetoric though is is a little bit of um
the only line I know from Emily Dickinson, you know, tell the truth but tell it slant, lest every man be blind or something like that.
Heath Thomas (20:54)
Right. Yeah. It’s good.
Dru Johnson (20:57)
Um, if that’s the only way you can get certain arguments in is by coming in through the metaphor, the imagery, or coming in sideways.
Heath Thomas (21:06)
Yes, I I I hear that. I actually take the point. Uh so I I was an English major in my undergraduate. That got me on the the train of poetry. And if people don’t like poetry, I understand that. But if you’re interested in reading the Bible, you better like poetry because most of it is, right? Yeah, get used to it at
Dru Johnson (21:23)
Hm. Yeah. Or get used to it.
Heath Thomas (21:28)
least. Get comfortable with it. But the the reason I say that is because I actually believe
There are certain things that can only be told and the way that they’re communicated is through art. And I actually think we we’ve got to wrestle with this idea of biblical poetry as being literary art.
Dru Johnson (21:50)
Mm-hmm.
Heath Thomas (21:51)
And what is that artwork or what is that art designed to do? Well, it’s to present a vision of reality that is familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.
So that the familiar connects with us, but the unfamiliar draws us to say, Well, wait, I don’t quite understand that. Maybe I need to rethink that. And the biblical prophets do this really well by telling the same story again differently. And Jesus did this too, actually. Again, thinking about Jesus, the major metaphors that he uses, the two houses, the two ways, right? All of this is the two youths, all of this is proverbs told over again.
So
Dru Johnson (22:32)
Hm.
Heath Thomas (22:32)
he’s telling it slightly differently. There was a man who built his house on the sand. There was a man who built his house on the rock. This is the story of wisdom and folly, the house of wisdom and the house of folly retold. he’s a good, he’s a good wise teacher at that point, right? He’s a good philosopher. But all of that is is is part of this poetic vision, this artistic vision. And uh actually my reading of scripture was really helped. This is a personal story. Um
when I began to read it as exquisite art rather than just a text.
Dru Johnson (23:08)
Yeah, and I think yeah, and this is even coming out of classroom teaching or teaching in the church. You could just go back to Lady Folly and Lady Wisdom, uh, that are well worn analogies, even though maybe people don’t read those as closely as we should sometimes. Um
Heath Thomas (23:25)
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (23:26)
but it’s very easy when you’re teaching, you can just go through those and people are like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, I I yeah, I know this one. And it never causes any cognitive duress.
like you d we’re not wrestling with it. So the twist into a different style of story or different uh poetic attack on the issue, you know, I have to believe that in some way it’s just causing some um I was just talking to a psychologist on last week’s episode about it’s actually like a metabolic cognitive disruption that creates deeper learning that simply can’t happen apart from that. Like if if it’s something you’re familiar with, the the cognitive ruts are already there, it means you’re
le much less likely to think about it more deeply.
Heath Thomas (24:08)
Yeah, and poetry in the Hebrew tradition is very much um designed for turning over again and again and even the form of poetry of this kind of recurrent return back to an idea through lineation is really it it it forces us to kind of chew on ideas or concepts uh in kind of repetitive ways. This would be, you know, a line is repeated twice, but
In a slightly different way,
Dru Johnson (24:37)
Mm-hmm.
Heath Thomas (24:38)
or strange combinations of ideas brought together through the poetic form, force you to say, now what is this about? I don’t understand how those concepts are, or those ideas, or those those images are they cohere. The prophets do this beautifully. I mean, uh,
Dru Johnson (24:55)
Hm.
Heath Thomas (24:57)
but that’s that’s poetry, you know, and that’s that’s uh it’s it’s designed not to just give us information, but lead to a kind of
Transformative encounter with God through this text.
Dru Johnson (25:09)
I I want to talk in one second about where this our our view of poetry, where it’s kind of like a fluffy expression uh
Heath Thomas (25:16)
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (25:17)
of inner inner whatever. Um
Heath Thomas (25:19)
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (25:20)
I want to come back to that but before I lose my thought. Is there a way in which the prophet’s poetic expression is more true than if they tried to say it uh straight propositionally, as a series of facts that were put in some kind of logical way?
Heath Thomas (25:38)
Yeah, I think that’s a great question. Some people would object to uh kind of wisdom or poetry or prophecy, that prophetic text as well, you’ve gotta break that down into the truth statement, right? Uh what is this actually saying? And you have to use these kind of adjectives. Well, what is it, you know, saying truth? Uh how is it speaking truth, you know, or as if somehow the the text itself
Dru Johnson (26:05)
Which the is yeah, I was gonna say the s
Heath Thomas (26:07)
is deficient.
Dru Johnson (26:08)
okay, I was gonna say the assumption there is that it’s it’s not on its own speaking truth. Yeah.
Heath Thomas (26:11)
It’s it’s not communicating clearly.
Dru Johnson (26:13)
Yeah.
Heath Thomas (26:13)
Well, what if the deficiency is not the quote unquote unclear communication? What if the deficiency is how we’re approaching the text?
Dru Johnson (26:21)
Mm.
Heath Thomas (26:22)
And I think that’s where we’ve got to uh habituate ourselves or get more familiar with uh the the the poetic quality of the biblical text. And again, if the text is designed, um if if if
These prophetic texts are written predominantly, not exclusively, but in many cases, right? These texts are uh more pieces of art than they are just kind of straightforward propositional declarations of X, Y, and Z. Or else that’s what God would have given, but He didn’t. He gave us poetry. We have to familiarize ourselves with this and say, okay, this is what God wanted us to hear. And I’m gonna use the language, and I hope people don’t get
uh sad about this, right? We have to experience the text. Uh and and not just hear it, but the experience of the language, the experience of the ambiguity, the experience of uh something that seems to be said again and again and again. And you’re thinking, well I’ve heard this before. Why are we why are we experiencing this text or this this idea again? Why is why is the author or the poet
bringing us back to this of the prophet. Why they bring us back to this idea again and again and again. That’s the purpose of this text. And that’s not an efficient witness to the triune God. That’s actually the witness to the triune God that we need to hear.
Dru Johnson (27:56)
Yeah, and there’s also baked into this, you know, it gets it’s funny, it’s very efficient in some ways, ’cause it also gets at the naive um notion that we all kind of carry around that if you just said it in fact statements, then I would understand. I would g I’d
Heath Thomas (28:11)
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (28:12)
be able to domesticate it, get my head around it, and then I could play with it like a cat with a ball of yarn. And what you what you seem to be saying, correct me if I’m wrong, is this style of reasoning with the audience is i you know, in some ways, uh it does
It it doesn’t allow them to be the only investigator here. The text investigates them a little bit, uh,
Heath Thomas (28:31)
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (28:31)
while they’re trying to investigate the idea the poet is saying speaking.
Heath Thomas (28:35)
Yeah. So, you know, the English uh author C. S. Lewis has this kind of idea that uh in the biblical text, the biblical text, it’s almost like you’re trying to peek through the the keyhole of the text only to find that there’s an eye looking back at you.
Dru Johnson (28:53)
Hm. Yeah.
Heath Thomas (28:54)
And uh you that that’s exactly right. Uh the biblical text is investigating us, trying to reform our practices, not just our
um ethics or behavior, certainly doing that. But our vision of what is important, our vision of
Dru Johnson (29:10)
Hm.
Heath Thomas (29:11)
reality, and the so the poetry is actually forcing us to do that so that we begin to see God in and through this text. God is speaking. And that’s really, really scary stuff, actually. Because then if that’s true, then I can’t just domesticate this text and make it mine. It’s always
ex exerting a kind of control over me. And
Dru Johnson (29:37)
Hm.
Heath Thomas (29:38)
I think the prophets do that extraordinarily.
Dru Johnson (29:42)
I mean, I it it’s it’s overwhelmingly clear now to me th the way you’ve put this is that the prophets have their own view of what it means anthropology, what it means to be a human, what humans are like. They have their own view of epistemology, what it how do you know things and how do you best know things and maybe less well. Logic th I mean there’s certainly some internal logic to all of this. Um
Heath Thomas (30:04)
Yes.
Dru Johnson (30:04)
so we talk about prophets and their philosophy or their philosophical program, I’m starting to see some things.
Uh mesh, is there anything else I’m missing? I mean obviously morality and and ethics would be
Heath Thomas (30:11)
Yes. Yeah. I
think ethics, if you were to use the classical categories, I think epistemology is often how we think about how prophets what is biblical knowing according to the prophets. That’s gives this idea that well, there it’s about revelation about the future, right? So
Dru Johnson (30:31)
Right.
Heath Thomas (30:32)
epistemology is divinely given about the future, or whether we’re talking about the Messiah or whatever. I actually think the prophets
Have an extraordinary uh vision of how we know what we know, what counts as true knowledge. And yes, that is integrated with the Word of God, but it’s extraordinarily complex. So the prophets have a particular way of thinking about epistemology. they have a very particular understanding of what counts as authentic anthropology and then misdirected or inauthentic.
Anthropology uh and you know that may be very different than what Israel might have understood themselves
Dru Johnson (31:20)
Mm-hmm.
Heath Thomas (31:20)
to be. So there’s an anthropological, if we’re talking about ethics, I mean I think the the prophets uh have so much to say about ethics. What counts as the good life
Dru Johnson (31:32)
Mm.
Heath Thomas (31:32)
and what counts as uh authentic and good flourishing citizenship?
I mean, all of that is is a kind of uh way of of visioning the good life. And especially in prophets in the eighth century and then the the sixth century, you have prophets saying, if we’re talking about the polis or the city or the st the
Dru Johnson (31:55)
Right. Yeah.
Heath Thomas (31:57)
city, what counts as a a good thriving community? And uh they they contrast empire versus
The authentic city. So ethics has something really important to say to communal life, um, and a word against empire. So there’s all things, all kinds of things that the prophets are doing. I think we’re resistant to philosophy or philosophical thought as it relates to the prophets, because we don’t think of them as being systematic.
Dru Johnson (32:32)
Mm-hmm.
Heath Thomas (32:33)
They are episodic, that’s true. Uh, but that’s part of the
the nature of how prophets tell their story and make their arguments.
Dru Johnson (32:43)
Now I I I think even in my own thinking I had never really thought enough about the the political philosophy of the prophets, even though it now
Heath Thomas (32:52)
man.
Dru Johnson (32:52)
seems dead obvious, you know, as soon as you said it, I was like, yeah, it’s everywhere. it’s
Heath Thomas (32:57)
Yeah. I mean in my own
work, I’ve been uh working a lot in uh the minor prophets. And you see this certainly uh in a very short prophetic book called uh Habakkuk. You you you have um a contrasting vision of the city. And in the the minor prophets, you know, Hosea through Malachi, you have contrasting visions of uh the healthy or the thriving community.
Dru Johnson (33:25)
Mm-hmm.
Heath Thomas (33:26)
And
the unhealthy community, or the the the city that is uh you know corrupt is actually a city of bloodshed. Now that the scary thing is in the prophets, the city of bloodshed could be uh Babylon, but it also could be Jerusalem. So there’s a a robust kind of uh political philosophy on thriving community, injustice, unethical behavior.
in leadership, in communal life, or in individual life. It’s it’s extraordinary.
Dru Johnson (34:01)
I and you know, okay, I’ll just get my dig in here while we’re talking about it, but it it does make me flinch when people run to Augustine’s, you know, two cities, the city of God and city of man. I’m not
Heath Thomas (34:12)
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (34:13)
saying that’s not a noble work that we should be engaging,
Heath Thomas (34:16)
Right.
Dru Johnson (34:16)
but it may it makes me think we need to put him in conversation with the the philosophical discourse that’s already going on from Genesis forward, but specifically in the prophets as well. Um okay, final thing
Heath Thomas (34:28)
Yeah, absolutely.
Dru Johnson (34:29)
before I let you go.
Heath Thomas (34:31)
Okay.
Dru Johnson (34:31)
Uh,
and that is uh what how did we get to this idea? I mean, when I say poetry in class, I can see some people some people get really excited for all the wrong reasons. Um
Heath Thomas (34:41)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dru Johnson (34:43)
because they think we’re gonna review Taylor Swift lyrics or something like that. And then and then yeah, and then some people get
Heath Thomas (34:47)
Please no. I mean I’m not a Swifty.
Dru Johnson (34:51)
yeah, most people get really like, oh, poetry, blue. How do we get to this point where poetry just feels so um
Flimsy for us rather than these robust arguments you’ve been talking.
Heath Thomas (35:04)
Well, I think in some ways we’ve domesticated poetry. I I in my view. Um we we’ve kind of in in some ways uh dumbed down poetry to lyrics,
Dru Johnson (35:17)
Mm.
Heath Thomas (35:17)
I think in the modern world. So if but but actually I think if we can turn that around, entrance liturgies, we have those in pop culture and pop pop music. love poetry, we have that in pop culture and pop pop.
Dru Johnson (35:31)
Hold hold on a second.
Entrance liturgy, is this w like are you referring to like the baseball game where or when the walk on song? Yeah, okay. Okay.
Heath Thomas (35:38)
Maybe. Maybe. Absolutely.
So I mean, we have cultural references that actually we can latch on to to open eyes to the reality. The other thing that I would just say is it’s it’s people like us. It’s our fault. We’ve made uh these poetry this poetry a problem that we have to overcome to actually
Dru Johnson (35:58)
Mm.
Heath Thomas (35:58)
get to the real stuff, whether it’s historical arguments about who wrote what what when or
What was the socioeconomic background of this text?
Dru Johnson (36:06)
Mm-hmm.
Heath Thomas (36:07)
And it the the actual text itself, we get lost, uh i it it’s just occluded in a kind of way. And that’s that’s actually not really helpful. I think good teachers who uh help their learners delight in poetry and the extraordinary evocative way poetry lays us bare.
If people can experience that, I think the experience of poetry opens people to be more open to it and less reticent to ex to to the experience of reading it. Um, but that that’s a lot of work and it you can’t it’s that’s not a TikTok kind of ad. Yeah, you have to work through a text and that that
Dru Johnson (36:53)
Yeah. Yes.
Heath Thomas (36:55)
takes a little bit of time.
Dru Johnson (36:58)
nothing is handed to you from the biblical
Heath Thomas (37:00)
No.
Dru Johnson (37:00)
philosophical point of view. Yeah. Um you’re the president of Oklahoma Baptist University there in Shawnee, Oklahoma,
Heath Thomas (37:07)
Yes.
Dru Johnson (37:09)
um, where there is a Brahms, you know, that you can walk to from your campus, I believe. Um,
Heath Thomas (37:12)
Yes, that’s right.
Dru Johnson (37:14)
yeah, the God God bless Brahms.
Heath Thomas (37:17)
That’s right.
Dru Johnson (37:19)
the uh so if I send my kid to Oklahoma Baptist University, am I gonna get to learn this kind of stuff? Okay.
Heath Thomas (37:24)
Yes, absolutely.
Because not only am I president, but I’m also a professor of old testament at OBU. So
Dru Johnson (37:30)
Oh, there you go.
Heath Thomas (37:31)
I I’m really passionate about this. But no, we actually uh we have uh a priority of unpacking the great texts. Of course, scripture is one of those great texts. We want our students to engage texts and help their minds develop critically, uh, ask good questions, because actually in our world today.
Uh of course, you know, part of the educational journey is to uh prepare you for jobs. That’s true. But goodness, it’s so much more than that. We
Dru Johnson (38:02)
Mm.
Heath Thomas (38:02)
we’re longing for and striving for education at OBU. And education is growing into that wisdom that God has available for us in all of life. And uh part of that is is growing in texts that matter, especially the old and new testaments.
And so we want our our learners, uh, regardless of if they’re gonna be an engineer or a doctor or whatever, to read the right texts and fall in love with particularly biblical reasoning.
Dru Johnson (38:34)
Well, Doctor Heath Thomas, thank you so much for your wisdom.
Heath Thomas (38:38)
thank you for the time. I’m grateful for you and grateful for the work.
