257: John — Wells and Husbands

[Music] This is the Baymont podcast with Marty Solomon. I'm his co-host, Brent Billings. Today we are joined by El Grover Fricks to continue our journey through the Gospel of John, exploring who the Samaritans are, the place of women in Jewish and Christian practice around the first century, and a sprinkling of midrush to top it all off. Have I been ready to talk about this story? Boy, oh boy. It's one of my favorites and this, I mean, obviously we're doing it on the podcast, so now I gotta have my stuff together. Have you been ready or have you not? And that's why El's here. [Laughter] All right, all right, all right. Let's see how this is gonna go. That's okay. It's okay. I love this, I love this. This is gonna be an amazing episode. So I actually wrote El for multiple reasons, 'cause I got super nervous. I've seen some ideas that I really liked when I looked into them, and so I formed this opinion about this story. And you remember Brent, when we were interviewing Dallas Jenkins in part two of that interview, and he specifically asked me my thoughts on the Samaritan woman at the well. Do you remember this conversation? Oh yes. And I really did love that conversation, and I didn't mind the question nor how that conversation went. But, and he was gracious, and also at the same time his response was essentially like, well, I definitely not what would not have done the show that way, which I found to be a very gracious way of saying, like, I think that theory is crazy. Is that how you interpreted that? Oh yeah, and I think most people would probably agree with them. [Laughter] Probably. So I think I was nervous to actually, I mean, I've preached on it here and there. I've talked about it here and there, but I haven't done a podcast on this idea. And so I was getting more and more nervous because it's got closer because I was ready, but I didn't want to seem like a total idiot. This is the moment where Marty becomes an idiot. So I wrote L for multiple reasons. I said, L, I, I, A, this is a story about a woman, and I just don't want to like, non-chalantly, you know, just kind of be dumb and make some jerkish patriarchal statement. So I was running a couple things by her for that, but then I also wanted to see like, I'm going to make this theory in the episode and am I crazy with the archeology of seeing and studied on your time over in Israel and Hebrew University and I just float in an idea by to see what her response would be. And she responded like, oh man, well, if you make that case, then this and this and this and it was all positive and I was like, hmm, and then I wanted to know what she was going to say. And I just said, you should just join us because that way if I do say something stupid or hopefully unintentional about a story about another biblical woman character, she can be here and help and tell me all the additional goodies that she has. So I'm excited about the conversation. - I'm excited for the additional good stuff. And yeah, I'm always here to call you an idiot if you need one and over email, you know. - That is the strength of the team, right? - That is. - I don't think I've ever done that, just pointing out. I don't think I've ever called you an idiot. - No, she hasn't. Always been very gracious, but also very appropriately bold and helpful too. So that's part of the reason why I wanted to have all on the team. - Very kind. - Very clear. This is all very exaggerated. We're very respectful. We all have our own strengths and weaknesses and we help each other. We lift each other up. - That's right. - Speak for yourself. (laughs) - Oh dear. Unless we're in Israel, then it's too hot to be really, really keep it together and then things go down the drain. But okay, here we are, store. - Here we are, boys, it's gonna be fun, isn't it? Five minutes in. We're having a great time, Brent. How about you get us started with the passage and we'll see where this conversation goes. - Okay. Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John. Although in fact, it was not Jesus who baptized but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. Now we had to go through Samaria. So we came to a town in Samaria called Jesus. - Which, can I just interrupt you, Brent? I can't even let you get in there. - Is there anything, like that just, let me just say this out loud and you guys can tell me if I'm crazy here. So the Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing. There's a whole like, feels like this ecclesiological note, like just to make sure we know that Jesus never was baptized in anybody because that would definitely be, I'm sure a weird source of whatever you wanna call it. It's like ecclesiological competition if that were ever like, so there's like this note there. But then, so when the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to the Galilee. I always find it interesting that when Jesus hears that somebody is getting worked up about what he's doing. I mean, I don't know if this is always true, but most of the time, if not always, Jesus goes to the source of confrontation. So when he hears that Herod, for instance, is upset with him in the gospel of Luke, he goes and he sets up shop in cappernome and everybody thinks, like I've heard Bible teachers everywhere, be like, well, he knew that he was causing some tension, so he went away. He didn't go away. He set up right in the shadow of Tiberius where Herod was and like just started setting up work to do work there. Here he hears the Pharisees are upset and he goes to Galilee, which is the home base of the Pharisees. Am I crazy there or is that sound right? No, and that's exactly what he says to do in Matthew Vive in the sermon on the mountain. He says, if someone has a problem, what do you do? You go to the person who you believe you have offended and you speak to them about it. So he's just fallen his own advice. Wow, I love that. I didn't even see it that, but yeah, absolutely. Great. So here's a question. I think as it's portrayed in the chosen, when he meets the woman at the well, he's coming from Galilee on his way to Jerusalem, maybe. So is this order? Bum, bum, bum. And I guess this story isn't in the other gospels, but I'm just wondering, is this timeframe where he's going from Judea up to Galilee? Is it different? Well, you're gonna have a huge conversation about like what John is wanting to portray versus how you're going to be forced to harmonize the different accounts. Yeah, the harmony is the problem here. For like the historical drama of the chosen, like they have to root it in a historical linear timeline where John has the liberty and his gospel to move things around so the movement happens in the way that he wants to portray it. So that's gonna be your wrestling match there. Yep. Now, he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sikhar. Near the plot of ground, Jacob had given to his son, Joseph. Jacob's well was there and Jesus tired as he was from the journey sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? For Jews do not associate with Samaritans." Okay, this is probably a good spot to just dive on in to a little bit of context here. Here's the story. I think a lot of us have probably heard this story. We're very familiar with it. And I think we probably make some second nature assumptions about the story that throughout our journey today, we maybe want to call on the questions. So first of all, let's deal with the relationship. Like what is Jesus doing when he heads through this region into the region of Samaria with the Samaritans? Well, why don't you, you spent some time studying all of this. How about you tell us somewhat of, and I think if I heard you correctly, you've even had some experiences with the Samaritan worldview while you are over in the region of Palestine. Tell us more about who these Samaritans are. Absolutely. So when I was growing up in the church, I learned about them in the same way that sometimes our educational system just kind of glosses over the continued existence of the people. So I thought that they had, you know, died out ages ago and had ceased to be. But no, they're still there. The Samaritans are still an ethno-religious group of people who live in the land. A lot of them live in the West Bank, so it also carries all of those current connotations. But there are under 1,000 of them. And the name Samaritan comes from Hebrew Shamar, which we talked about when we looked at the different words for commandment. I think maybe in my very first episode that I did. And Shamar means to guard. Like it's a watchman word. Someone you stands on the wall and looks over. So their whole deal is that when the Jewish people went into exile, 587, while they're up in Babylon is when they were composing the Talmud, right? "The Khalaqah, how do we walk? How do we make sure we keep to our ass?" So this never happens again. All of how do we keep our identity in the face of an oppressive empire that's desperately trying to assimilate us, right? So that's where these extra mean haggim, these extra customs come into place. And the Samaritans are view themselves as people who guard what the original revelation of God was. So they say, "Do not add anything." anything anything anything to Torah. So there is actually a Samaritan Pentateuch which we look at when we're comparing what might be an evolution in Torah later from a redactor when you get on to all that all of that argument and stuff. The Samaritan Pentateuch is one of the places that you check because they have held on to what they believe is the original the original word. So they're still out there. They celebrate Pasach every year. It's insane. Pasach being for all of our listeners who wouldn't know. Right. Being Passover. Yes. So that is quite quite the ordeal and I think more people should be aware that there's still a people group and not talk about them is a mythical you know once upon a time there with these people who blah blah blah. And the ethnic portion of course is that they are supposedly the story goes half half original Yusra lights and half the Babylonian people who are sent down by the empire to you know to help assimilation happen and to make sure that Yusra and Yudah were were fully part of the empire. That's one the tactics that they would use and so that's where the racism piece comes into the story but also the religious animosity right because nobody likes to hear from another group. You guys have added to the gospel right. You guys have added to what we're supposed to be doing and we have the original thing. We have the heart of what God wants from us and you guys have added on all of this stuff. And so that's also what's going on which we can recognize some of that from the works of Jesus right and what he was teaching us about Shabbat and everything that I'm sure you'll touch on later. So I think it's interesting and poignant that early in his ministry at least in this telling of John he chooses to go there like he's choosing to honor the fact that they have sought to honor the the pure and single revelation of God. Oh okay hold on. I'll jump in with a quick note. We do have a we do have an image of a group of Samaritans cooking for Passover that we'll put in the show notes. Yes. Just so you can see what that operation is like it's not not a method that I've ever used for cooking personally. So it's pretty interesting to to see. Yeah. It's like a group group cooking project. They do not they do not to they do not scribe to the phrase too many cooks in the kitchen apparently. It's all about community Brent. Oh I love it. Okay so El said something that I feel like was a real cool instructive lesson I didn't want to let pass us by in the midst of towards the end of what she was saying there. And you can say to get if you want to El but you said nobody likes to be told that they've added to the gospel that they've added to the original thing but we have it and I thought right man if there's anything that even some of us that get really wound up about Baim on all the things that we learn and talk about here. May this be an instructive moment to like nobody nobody loves that and and rarely is anybody right when they take that position as well like nobody likes to hear it nor does nor is anybody right when they ever say like and I have the pure unadulterated thing like right it's pretty wildly arrogant posture to imagine that in all of the mysteries of God we've got it down. Yeah. May may we be better education. Yeah. May we be saved from that position and posture ourselves. Right. And so yes, so there is this there is there is this religious animosity that goes both ways because of how they have they have found ways to scapego and accuse each other for the Samaritans the Jews have added to they've they've they've laid all this additional stuff onto the real thing for the Jews the Samaritans were this inner married compromised a bunch of folks from the story of old. Right. And and this animosity was very real going both I've read books before that tried to make the case that there was no animosity between Jews and Samaritans and yet historical documents are full of this animosity be it racist and hatred at times. There's a story of the Samaritans coming in strueing human bones during a Passover in the Jewish temple which that's pretty metal. What's that? That's pretty metal. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So this was far from like a light disagreement or they tossed some Facebook barbs back and forth like these are two groups of people that and I love what else said how telling is it that Jesus likely early in his ministry. Like this would have been a shaping moment that the disciples would have had to have wrestled with for months and years to come about who Jesus is and what he's trying to do and like why are what? No. So I love that point. That's that's great. Let's see here. Then I'm going to go back and just kind of point out maybe some of the assumptions maybe we make so he goes and he sits down by a well and it's a six hour and Samaritans woman comes out to draw water and we're always like oh it's the middle of the day and the only reason that she would be there in the middle of the day is because she's a social outcast. The only reason she would be there is because she's sexually immoral and based on the other details of the story she must be this social deviant and I just want to point out like how loaded with all kinds of assumptions that conclusion is because there could be all kinds of reasons she could be at the well in the middle of a day and I just have become and maybe I'm wrong with this L but I have become super aware of whenever there's a female character in the Bible story we are so quick to take any opportunity to make them a sexual deviant like they're obviously a prostitute right they're obviously like we're so quick to make that assumption and I feel like it screws up how we potentially could read the story am I crazy? You're not crazy it's definitely bizarre from my perspective but like a super clear historical pattern. Pope Gregory of course famously confused the different marries in the New Testament which is like come on man you're the Pope but so he said that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute when she is not there's no evidence that she was you got confused because Miriam was such a popular name at that time and so now we have everybody running around thinking that the apostle to the apostles this huge figure in the story is you know a recovered prostitute which okay cool great everyone well done and we'll spend some time before we're done with John talking about her I believe right now absolutely absolutely all right we'll come back to that okay Brent I think we're just want to point out that's an assumption I think we make it an almost every sermon I've ever heard about this she's in the middle of the day she must there must be a reason right we don't know if it's sexual promiscuity but she has five husbands and right and so right right I mean even if she is a social outcast which I think you're going to talk about I mean there's a million reasons to be a social outcast but women are defined often by everyone by their sexuality so okay so we want to just be aware of what the story does say right the story doesn't say right precisely Brent Millions take us back to the story Jesus answered her if you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink you would have asked him and he would have given you living water so the woman said you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep where can you get this living water are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us the well and drink from himself as did also his sons and his livestock okay so I'm going to jump in here again so Jesus says it well if you knew who I was you'd ask me I'd give you living water she she goes into this like weird little obviously she's just silly and stupid like goes into this crazy diet tribe about wells and buckets and water and obviously man silly silly women in their crazy ideas but one of the things that's so interesting Brent is that there's a midrush that predates this is in the Targums I would say there's a really good probability that this predates John's writing comes from Jerusalem Jerusalem Targum Jerusalem I think we're going to put a link to this in the show notes Brent Targum Jerusalem it's it's a commentary on Genesis 28 10 and the quote from the Targum says this five miracles were wrought for our father Jacob at the time he went forth from beer Shava and it goes to this list of signs the fourth sign so there's five miracles the fourth miracle according to the midrush was this the well overflowed speaking of Jacob's well so Jacob has this well and the fourth miracle that of these five miracles that talk about the place of Jacob the fourth miracle is that the well overflowed and the water would rise to the edge of it and continued to overflow all the time he was in Haran Jacob never needed a bucket to get to his well. Because every time he came to the well, the water rose right up to the top of the well and overflowed for him. So he never needed a bucket. So there's a midrash about this. And this isn't just a silly woman. This is a woman who knows the oral traditions and the stories and says to Jesus, well, I know somebody who doesn't need a bucket and you're here without a bucket. Do you really think you're as good as Jacob? Bumpa bumps throw down. Oh, this is this is quite interesting. And it's it's interesting to me that a social outcast would have such knowledge of the oral traditions and I mean, it's possible, but we always it's amazing. This is one of those stories. How little we know about the context and we ridicule the biblical characters who actually seem to know so much more than we give them credit for. But Brent, what do you think? I think I'm adding all this stuff to the show notes right now. I love it. Anything you doubt to that? No, it's great. I think it's compelling to imagine that she could be a social outcast to know the oral tradition. Yes, that's true. Are tied together in some way, because especially with her status. But I know you're going to give a different direction, which is also compelling. So I'll let you do that. Okay, right. Brent, take us away. Jesus answered everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water, welling up to eternal life. The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water. He told her, go call your husband and come back. I have no husband. She replied. Jesus said to her, you are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is you have had five husbands. And the man you now have is not your husband. Well, you have just said is quite true. Okay. So there you go, Marty. There's your proof that she was a sexual deviant. She's been married five times. And and and and it is true. I mean, it's absolutely plausible and possible that we're talking about five literal physical husbands here in this reference. That's absolutely plausible. In fact, you could probably speak to this. Women in in those days, whether it be because they were widowed or whether like they got stuck in a social cycle, where once you had kind of once that first initial marriage, if you were, if things weren't properly taken care of or if you didn't have children or all kinds of circumstances could push you into a cycle, where the more and more you got married and the more and more like social, like kind of shame, you became this social refuse that got pushed to the margins and the edges. Yeah, absolutely. And it could have started with something as simple as like maybe her husband, her first husband participated in the rebellion of the that came just before this. You know, so he was killed off by the empire. And so then she could have been seen as cursed, right? So then the divorces keep on coming, which was a completely one sided affair. And still is an orthodox Judaism. A woman has to be given a certificate of divorce by a man. She cannot request it for herself. So even if she was divorced that many times, it is not that is not out. It would be weird to put the focus on her for that. Sure. Okay, maybe she was wandering around flandering. And so she got all of those divorces, but it's much more condemnation upon the men in that society when the women are unable to procure them for themselves a huge justice issue right now in orthodox society. Yeah. So it's entirely plausible that what we have here is a woman who's had five literal husbands. I keep I'm just continued to be fascinated though by the details of the story. And we got some more coming that just don't seem to line up for me. They there are some parts of this story that make me go, man, that just doesn't seem right. If all these assumptions that I've made are true, I'm missing something. So I wonder if maybe we'll circle back to these five husbands, but we'll see. Let's see here. What does what does women say? Go ahead, Brent. I mean, yeah, looking at her response, like what? What is she talking about if if it is five literal husbands because she says, sir, I can see that you were a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claimed that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem. That is a weird response, Brent. Now it could be that she's just amazed by Jesus's god goggles. Like he just told me my secrets and he shouldn't know this Jew from Galilee. And so an immediate pivot to a theological issue, which is exactly what someone tells me out on my stuff, I guess. Absolutely. And like a deep theological like like pivot. Like and I there was a day like if I'm totally honest with myself, there was a day years ago where I even taught the idea that what she does here is she tries to distract the conversation and reroute it and change the topic with deep theological stuff because we do that all the time. And I've taught that before. That is not where I'm out with this story anymore, but good Galilee. It is very awkwardly odd that that's where the story goes. If this is if our assumptions that we've typically make are true, but Brent, give us some more. Woman Jesus replied, believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the father, and neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. Use the Americans' worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the father in the spirit and in truth. For they are the kind of worshipers the father seeks. God is spirit. And his worshipers must worship in the spirit and in truth. Okay, so Jesus engages this theological question, but redirects it not and not purely back to like the same Telmutical, rabbinical, holotic Judaism. He kind of pulls it to a hole and maybe you can pull this together with the context you're telling us about Samaritans. It seems like they've critiqued the Jews maybe even correctly at points because of how they're where they're headed with their faith, but they've also done their own things with their faith. And Jesus seems to be pulling the conversation to a, well, there's a whole another place that's for all of us. And neither neither, I don't know if I just want to say simply as neither one of us is right. Neither one neither the junior of the Samaritan has it nailed, but speak to that maybe just for a moment. Yeah, I think when we get really squirrely in our corners about we have the truth, we have the things and where the guardians of it and everyone else is wrong. That creates, like we just said earlier, a posture that doesn't lend itself towards unity or humility. And the word for worship is of course linked to bowing. And so that takes humility to do that. And he's pointing that to something bigger than their little stake that they've hammered out for themselves. I love that. All right, Brad, I'm going to, I think I'm going to try to let you read for a little while. We need to get some more details under our belt here before Marty gets too wound up. So let's keep going. Yeah, we'll see how that goes. The woman said, I know that Messiah called Christ is coming when he comes, he will explain everything to us. Then Jesus declared, I the one speaking to you, I am he. Just then his disciples return and were surprised to find him talking with a woman, but no one asked what do you want or why are you talking with her. Then leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah? They came out of the town and made their way toward him, which by the way, sorry, here I am. That that verse about surprising no one. Marty can't contain himself, but it's good stuff. Go ahead. I just find it instructive that is disciples return and they're surprised to find Jesus talking to a woman. I want to say this correctly, I'm glad L's here. Oh boy. Jesus is willing to kind of like, shook off social norms and whatever you want to call that, this pseudo social decency or expectation in order to see and engage. Like I just find that instructive and I don't want to just like read over that. I think we read because I know how much we tend to do this in our culture. Like there's a right and a wrong. Men are allowed to do this. Women aren't allowed to do this. Like there are these like social norms that we, there's a normative, whatever. And Jesus is willing to, and I'm just saying like he kicks against the code every single time with every possible. But I'm saying he pushes against those when it's redemptive, when it's instructive, when it allows us to see a new way to be human and how to relate to one another. And in this case, when it comes to gender, am I crazy? L with that? You're not crazy. Especially he was alone with our right, which also could have endangered his whole ministry. If this particular piece of news had gotten out, you know, the stories that could happen. I think so often holding onto power is something that people in the clergy then don't want to take that step of showing someone else their humanity and giving them honor. Because well, what about my ministry? Surely what Jesus is doing was more important than this woman, right? Apparently not. Man, probably nothing there to see. I'm just keeping with me. Go ahead, Brent. Well, and I was thinking about the disciples reaction. Because I think normally our instinct is to look at the disciples as these, you know, idiots who have no idea what's going on and they're just like, they can't really keep up with Jesus, they just happen to be lucky enough to be out long for the ride. And they come back and they are surprised. But I think they recognize like, oh Jesus is up to something. We're not going to bother him, we're going to wait and see what he's doing before we jump in here. Yeah, sure, absolutely. And I find that next verse that you read too, I didn't interrupt you soon enough. She leaves her water jar, she goes into town, she tells everyone and they came out of the town and made their way, but I thought she was a social outcast. I thought she was this horrible deviant. I thought I thought she couldn't even go to the well at watering time, everybody, right? That's why she's there in the middle of the day, right? But now she runs into town and now everybody wants to listen to her. The whole town comes out because the social outcast who can't even be at the well with everyone told them to does that not seem odd to everybody. That seems incredibly odd to me. That seem odd here. All right, never less. And that little that little nugget will come back later too. So in the text, meanwhile his disciples urged him, "Rabbi eats something," but he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about." Yeah, does Jesus not know how to just talk about water and food? He keeps talking about his spiritual drink. They're never thirst. And I know food you have nothing about like this crazy, crazy rabbi. Then his disciples said to each other, "Could someone have brought him food?" My food said Jesus is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don't you have a saying it's still four months until harvest? Who has that saying I wonder? He's addressing. Don't you have a saying? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvest a crop for eternal life so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying, "One sows and another reaps is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work and you have reaped the benefits of their labor." Okay, so Jesus tells them quite directly that there was absolutely a rabbinical. He's a rabbi. He knows what his lessons are. He came here with a purpose and an opportunity to teach them something and he's trying to tell them, "I'm trying to teach you." What did he say right at the beginning of that? Let's see here. He says, "My food," so he makes all this stuff about water and food and they're like, "Oh, did he eat something?" And he's just like, "No, I'm not talking about that kind of food. The food I'm talking about is being obedient, doing the will of him who sent me to finish the work." What does this work look like? It looks like going through Samaria. Talking, breaking those social norms, to see people, to talk to people that need redemption, to engage the story, this is the kind of spiritual sustenance that I'm here trying to teach you about, trying to show you disciples very early in the ministry. Yummy. Okay, go ahead. Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony. He told me everything I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them and he stayed for two days. And because of his words, many more became believers. They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said. Now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the savior of the world." All right, so here's my, here's my, let's pull this together. Here's Marty's theory. This seems, and it's not just my theory. We're actually going to link in the show notes. Another article doesn't necessarily land exactly where I land or say all the exact same things, but we'll outline some of the exact same reasoning of what you're seeing in this story. El Tukluk, the article for me, as well, just to make sure I wasn't totally crazy. I actually had, let's see, the name of the author was Dr., can you give me the name, Brent? Remind me of the name of the, I'm going to make you say it out loud because I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing correctly. Dr Eli Lazzorkin Eisenberg. Now he's been referenced to me numerous times I really like this. I don't know a whole lot about the institute. Did you ever encounter the institute over there in Israel? You were there. El, do you know anything about that? I'm trying to scroll back through my messages to look at the site again. Which institute? Oh, Israel biblical studies. No, but you know, I did kind of stay in my corner up there, so that doesn't say a lot. Yeah, I have not been able to vet the institute or get a good sense. I sent some messages out today because I actually got an email this morning from pure coincidence, quote unquote, not connected to quoting his article today. His team reached out and contacted me this morning. I don't know what I'm going to do with it at this point, but I have not been able to like vet the institute, institute a whole lot, but I have received numerous emails from people that are connected there and whatever, whatever. So I really like this article. It doesn't seem crazy or wacky and actually there are these beautiful connections that I'm not even going to deal with today that El saw as well and loved too. So we're going to link to article in there. Do some further reading and some further research on that if you want to dig into that. But here's it seems odd to me that this woman is this social outcast in the middle of the day out of well. The conversations they have are unbelievably like they're practically on par with the conversation that Jesus has with Nicodemus. Like you can argue with that, but I'm going to say they're not far off like the depth and the level of conversation they're having on a theological level. Like she's going toe to toe with a Jewish rabbi talking about midrash, talking about theology and practice, talking about the story and history. Is there another reason that she could be at the well in the middle of the day? Well, wells were seen as very sacred places, almost spiritual places, in a more pagan society. There was often where idolatry was associated with the well, not necessarily that way in the culture of Israel when they were doing things appropriately. But wells were seen as communal spaces, sacred spaces. Holy spaces, could it be that this is where she could she be a spiritual leader? Could she be a Samaritan priestess? It would explain at least why she goes back into the city and everybody listens to her and why she would say, "Hey, come check this guy out." And they would and they would say, "We don't just believe him because you told us to. We believe because we've heard him for ourselves. Could it be that the five husbands?" You said L that they still adhered to very, very strongly. There were keepers of what? Torah. Torah. How many books were in Torah? If I haven't lost count? Wow, five. Five. Could it be that she as a priestess is actually married and wed to Torah and these aren't five literal physical husbands, but that she has a calling to Torah, which is good and their real husbands, but she has this other thing that she's living out that may not be a legitimate spiritual marriage, if you will. Could there be that conversation taking place? Could this be that's my when I read this story, I don't see this woman who's been married five times. I see a spiritual leader in the Samaritan community and Jesus purposely sets up a conversation to engage in a dialogue between these two worldviews and ends up bringing, we'll call it the gospel to the message of Sikhar in Samaria. Would there be L? Again, I'll ask you, am I crazy? Would there be any other historical conversation that might even lend to this way of viewing the story? Or am I just nuts? Well, you know, it's always fun to tell you that you're just nuts, but we actually do have some very exciting archaeological evidence that came out in 2020, just proving that not everything that happened in 2020 was bad, right? Give us something good out of the calendar year, please. Right. So from Brown, they have an amazing religions of the ancient Mediterranean program. And they. Brown University, that is right. Brown University, yes. Ivy League top of top of the game over there. Dr. Bruton compiled a bunch of inscripional evidence that informed us and illuminated new things for us about the place of women in Jewish Christian religious Jewish and Christian, excuse me, religious practice during the first century and before that as well. So inscripional evidence, what does that mean? So all the time and no crepillices, no crepoli, synagogues, etc. Sometimes you have inscriptions on pillars, sometimes it's on tiles, sometimes it's on the sides or over the doors. There's a really famous inscription in the city of David just south of the old city that says just as an example, the auditus, son of vettiness, priest and head of the synagogue, son of a head of the synagogue, grandson of a head of a synagogue built this synagogue for the reading of the law and the teaching of the commandments as well as the gastro-m, the chambers and the water fittings as an inn for those in need from abroad. This synagogue which is father-sfunded with the elders and Simone des. So just like if you go into a big auditorium it'll be called like the Mary J. Johnson Auditorium. It's that, but for back then. So we have all these inscriptions all over the Mediterranean of this kind of thing. And Dr. Bruton went through all these, you know, the field notes, the archaeological records of the old school archaeologists who, you know, platwist were a whole bunch of white dudes. And noted that they had written things like, "Oh, must be a misspelling," or, "Oh, that can't be right," or, "Oh, she must have been the daughter of this title." And so she went and, you know, ran a thorough investigation and came out with the following findings, what you're just so exciting. From these different inscriptions, we now know that before Jesus and during the time of Jesus and after the time of Jesus, women were the heads of synagogues, just like theodotus there, it says, "Preston had of the synagogues, "Archus and Agagos." They were the heads of synagogues, the senior leaders that were women. Women were elders, Prisbyteros, if you wanna know the Greek, right? And we know that it's not just that they were old revered figures in their community because we have their death dates on there and some of them were still in their late 20s but were being called Prisbyteros, and obviously that's not old. Women were matresas, so that's a Roman, Greco-Roman idea, they're the senior leaders, board members patron mother of Jewish and Christian spaces. We also, which is the part that's very much pertinent to our conversation here, see women as priests. So the word there is hyreza, I don't speak Greek, particularly at all, I speak Hebrew, but it's the Hebrew Cahenn, this is the Greek equivalent of that. So we have three records that we found so far, one in the Egyptian necropolis, one in Rome on a Torah shrine. Her name was Gadencia and she was only 24 years old. And then one in Bethchelle-Ryum, by Haifa, painted and read, says Miriam and she's from the 300s actually, so going on post-Jesus. So what's particularly interesting is it says just like the one that I read as an example earlier, I'll just say Miriam, priest of this community. And there's words for daughter of priest, there's words for husband of a priest and those aren't the ones used. So Mr. Shloma, Mr. Solomon, you're not completely off your rocker because we do know that women were present in all of these titles, heads of synagogues, elders, senior leaders, mother of patron, board member, and priests. They were there, might not have been the norm, but they existed. Well, and I'll just reiterate, I love all that. That was fantastic. I was taking good notes over here. The reason we bring that up here is just to simply say, this is not a crazy far-fetched idea to see that, especially in a Samaritan culture. There'd be no reason why that wouldn't be true. Those aren't bad assumptions to make. I know a ton of our listeners are probably wondering, like, are you also trying to say a bunch of other things about other things? Not necessarily, we purposely don't get into those conversations 'cause those should be left for our local communities and assemblies to wrestle through all of that, but those things are relevant. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've been told, like, we don't have any historical evidence for the female Presbyteros, and that was from the same group that decided that those pieces of evidence were just misspelled or something, right now, if I heard you correctly. - Precisely, precise. - Convenient. So I don't know what you do with that, or what we feel like we're called to do with that. That's, we'll leave that up to our own faith movements and traditions, but is it relevant, sure, does that why we're bringing it up? No, we're bringing it up because it's relevant to the story of John. - It's in the text, we're looking at the text. - We're looking at it in the story of John, so that's why we bring that up. - Yep. - Yeah, I think regardless of where you land on the idea of whether the husbands were literal or not, you can't call this woman a social outcast because the text itself clearly states that they believed because of her testimony. And that just not work. So, we have that at a minimum. - Yeah, no, that's a great point. Now, El, before we close, there are some beautiful midrashic connections and you were talking about all the stuff you continued to look at when you looked at Sarah and tell me more to close, give me some closing thoughts before we close. - Oh my gosh, closing thoughts. Okay, if they're gonna be closed. - You can just summarize this huge idea. Could you just do that? - Okay, well, put on your midrash seat belts then because we're gonna go like 70 miles an hour to get all this good stuff. Okay, so there is this connection and it comes up in the article that Marty shared with me, which is why I brought it up with this well in Shachem. What's the biblical significance of Shachem, Marty Orbrent? Whoever presses the buzzer first. - Well, it's the story where the assault of Dina happens. - That's true. Ma'od, what else? It's the place buzzer went off to Tislow. It's a place that 70 miles an hour, we don't have time for such things. Okay, it's a place that Yosef's bones are buried. - Oh, yes, yes. - So you're gonna have those two associations. The first, that's a whole different podcast episode, but has some pretty immediate connections if you want to make them write about the significance of women and the way that they get overlooked or not. But we're gonna make camp on that the second one, just for a minute here. So it's a place where Joseph's bones are buried. And when they thought Yosef's bones, there is this key midrash, which explained a singular question in the text. In Genesis 46, it says that Jacob's family went into Egypt and it's a big list of all the people who went in and each of the 12 tribes or the 12 sons had their kids at that point and a list of them and in the middle of all of that is this woman named Serach and she's described as the daughter of Asher and sister to her brothers. So that's unusual, right, for a woman to be included in genealogy, although we see Matthew, of course, do that in Jesus' genealogy, but I digress. So why is she there? And then our second question that comes out of that is in Numbers chapter 26, Serach, Bat Asher, daughter of Asher is listed again as their standing on the barren plains of Moab about to come into the land. So how on earth did she live from the time that they went into Egypt to then? So the midrash has, of course, as it always does, a wonderful story that answers other questions in the text. And there's a lot of midrashim. I can send Brent a safaria link so that everybody can scroll through them if they want, but there's wonderful stories about Serach. We should resurrect her name for our babies, perhaps. So Asher married Serach's mom when Serach was three years old, but her character so impressed him that they adopted her. This kind of immediately speaks to this American conversation, at least to me, in that Jesus goes to this ethno-religious group that is not included and is not even thought of by the main family of Jewish people, right? They're the side people. So her being an adopted stepdaughter who's brought into the fold in the beginning of Jesus' ministry, I immediately feel a link there. But-- Would this be like a geographical remezz in a sense because of where the story's taking place or are there other links I'm missing? It's what you'll see. Oh, right. Just a minute. So Sepharah Yashir says that Serach is a musician. And so her brothers give her the task of telling Yakov that his son is still alive, right? That Yosef hasn't been killed because in Genesis 45, he doesn't believe it at first. And he says, no, you guys are cray, right? So it says that they see that she is both beautiful and wise and skilled. And so she tells him that Joseph is still alive through this song that she plays on the harp, because women have always had to become skilled in how to speak truth to power in a way that can be received by stubborn, closed ears that don't want to hear it, right? So women have had to make that skill. And so they ask her to do it. And it says that the spirit is in the things that she's singing. And so the spirit of God comes upon Jacob and enables him to rejoice so that in the next verse when the carts are pulled up, he is able to believe that Joseph is really alive and it's not just that Shema on the levee had gone and plentered a town again, right? So because she did that work for him, he then "Blesses are and says may you never die." Which a different midrash says that she's won the few people that's taken alive into the Garden of Eden, like Enoch, right? But here's the critical part of this list of midrashim. So she is the one who knew where Josef's bones are buried, right? Moshe wasn't alive, he wouldn't know. And they're leaving the land and as they're like packing up and they're alluding or being given the jewelry and everything that they need to do, making their matza getting ready to hit the road, Moshe goes, "Oh my gosh, we've made this oath. Where's Josef's bones?" And so they tell him, go ask this wise honored women in our community. And he finds her and Tom Woods-Sotas says that she tells him and takes him to the Nile where he's been buried in a metal casket inside the Nile underneath the water, which side note let us live in such a way amongst our communities that when we die they want us to be buried in their community so that we can continue blessing the community, even in death, not like, "Oh gosh, Christians, there they are again." That's a side note. Okay, so he's in the Nile. Stop it with your side notes, oh my goodness. (laughs) He's buried in the Nile so he can bless the Nile. And Moshe shows up and says, "Okay, look, we swore in oath, you're in the bottom of this deep river and buried in some metal." So if you want to come up, awesome, and we'll take your bones back, but if you don't do this miracle, the oath is over and we're teaching you. And so the casket comes out and he brings the bones and buries them in Shechem because of her and she's praised and lauded. It says that she's in the Zohar so much later in Medieval era, but it says that she's the leader of the women's section of heaven leading worship, which I don't think will be segregated, but I still like the idea. So here we are. Oh my goodness gracious. You say that it's linked to the story that would make them immediately think of our Joseph's bones. Why do we have them? Because of the work and the wisdom of this honored woman, Sarach, and then we have this woman whose mysterious apparently a leader of her community who knows these things, who might have been like the Samaritans could be thought of as the step kid of Judaism, right? Jesus still goes to her and honors her with his time. And then she is at the crux of this miracle that's happening as the gospel is brought forward as just like Joseph's bones are brought out with a nail she goes and which is also a water image by the way, Nile, water, well, et cetera. So it all makes sense to me. Hopefully I don't look like I have too much red thread all over the place, but to me it makes sense that they would say, oh, of course he finds a woman here because Sarach, Betach of course. And what does he tell her? He tells her he speaks to her about worship. He says true worshipers will worship him in spirit and in truth. There to see that's why we're a team. Oh, man. Whew. Yeah, oh, oh, oh, and with the with Yacob right, she's the only one who can get the good news to him, right? She's able to open the ears of the Samaritans that they are gonna have eternal life when Sarach was given eternal life and was able to use her words to give that joy to Jacob, right? That his son was alive. Oh, my goodness gracious. Wow. And we've said this before, Brent, this multimodal teaching of, well, maybe multimodal is a wrong word, but multi-faceted teaching of John to speak to different groups of pagan group, the Jewish group. And man, you get these flashes in John, probably happening more than I even realize where John grabs anybody that's like a nicodemous character that really knows and knows the tradition and knows the oral teaching and just buries these treasures that are exactly what you're reading on a Peshot level. You know, the Ramesh, the Drosh, but man, just it feels like John is speaking to all kinds of different groups all at the same time, inviting them into becoming people from above rather than people of the earth, as we said in the last episode. But man, that's good. Yeah. Good stuff. Also good was you being in the hot seat as L was quizzing you. That was very enjoyable for me personally. So I was just waiting for you, Brent. That's all I was doing. I was just waiting for Brent. Yeah, sure, sure, sure. Okay. Giving an opportunity to honor you that was missed, Brent. Yeah. Well, oh well. I miss lots of opportunities. It's just the thing that gets for me. It did, it did serve me right. I don't know if I'll set myself up like that too many more times. Excellent. All right. Well, are we good for this episode? We're coming up on an hour. I think, and there's some stuff in there you're going to have to go back and like, listen to a second time. That's that's what I was thinking. Wow. Man. Yeah, for sure. Okay. Well, if you want to get a hold of Marty, you can find him on Twitter at Marty Solomon. I am at EIBCB. L continues to be at her website. [email protected] or email. Yes. Not on Slack yet. Not yet. I'm a bastion of solitude. Anyway, it was good, and I'm sure people will reach out if they have more thoughts or questions. Absolutely. All right. Well, thanks for joining us on the Baymont podcast. This week, we will talk to you again soon with more on the book of John.