Bold Like Deborah: Rising Above Impossible Odds w/ Dr. Sandra Richter

Discover the inspiring journey of Deborah, one of the most fascinating leaders from the book of Judges, with the esteemed Dr. Sandra Richter. In today's episode, we will uncover the layers of Deborah's role as a prophet and judge, and how her courage and faith brought triumph and order to Israel during tumultuous times.

This episode promises to deepen your understanding of the Old Testament and its enduring relevance in our lives today. You will also learn about one of the most unexpected heroes of the Old Testament, a woman who defied all odds and defeated her enemy with a very unlikely tool.

Please join us as we examine how these stories of faith-filled women resonate with our modern-day call for spiritual renewal and courage.

Dr. Sandra's Links:
Deborah Bible Study
FB: sandralynrichter
Go-To Bible: NASB Version
Atlas of the Bible

Chapters

• 0:04 Powerful Leadership of Deborah in Judges
• 17:58 The Church's Cycle of Revival
• 26:00 Deborah and Jael

Transcript

Ellen Krause: 0:04

At the Coffee and Bible Time podcast,. Our goal is to help you delight in God's Word and thrive in Christian living. Each week we talk to subject matter experts who broaden your biblical understanding, encourage you in hard times and provide life-building tips to enhance your Christian walk. We are so glad you have joined us. Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast. I'm Ellen, your host, and today you will be inspired by the leadership and courage of one particular woman in the Bible.

Ellen Krause: 0:41

The book of Judges recalls one of the darkest and most chaotic periods of Israel's history, when the nation struggled with a lack of strong leadership, the people faced constant threats from their enemies and, without direction, chaos reigned. But into this uncertainty stepped an unlikely leader Deborah. She was not just a prophet, but also a wife, mother, priest and judge. Deborah responded to her calling and led Israel to one of its most pivotal victories bringing order out of chaos. Our guest today, Dr. Sandra Richter, has written a comprehensive Bible study on Deborah and is here to better acquaint us with the Old Testament account of her story and why it's essential to understand the era of the judges, delving into its archaeology, geography and cultural context. Learning more about the Old Testament is important because it greatly influences our understanding of key biblical teachings.

Ellen Krause: 1:51

Dr Sandra Richter is the chair of biblical studies at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, and a sought-after speaker. She earned her PhD in Hebrew Bible from Harvard University and her MA in Theological Studies from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. She is the author of the Epic of Eden, a Christian entry into the Old Testament. She has taught at Asbury Theological Seminary, Wesley Biblical Seminary and Wheaton College. She is a member of the new International Version Translation Committee. She has spent many years bringing student groups to Israel and in her technical work she often writes on the intersections between Syro-Palestinian archaeology, linguistics and the Bible.

Ellen Krause: 2:44

Sandy is married and has two daughters. Please welcome Dr. Sandra Richter.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 2:52

It is wonderful to be here, Ellen. Thank you so much for the invitation.

Ellen Krause: 2:57

I'm thrilled to have you, Sandy, because, as you know, our goal here at Coffee and Bible Time is to help people delight in God's Word, and I sometimes think maybe people tend to avoid the Old Testament as a whole, and certainly perhaps the book of Judges. So why don't we start out by telling us what was it that inspired you to take this deep dive into the life of Deborah and the book of Judges?

Dr. Sandra Richter: 3:29

Well, it's funny, people ask me all the time where do my Bible study curriculums come from and how do I go about choosing them? And honestly, I feel like they choose me more than I choose them, and with Deborah in particular. Well, I teach the Book of Judges every year in my intro to Old Testament class, because I have a day job. You know where I teach. I teach intro and have taught intro for going on 25 years two, three times a year. So every year I teach the Book of Judges and it's an encapsulated lesson plan because of course we have the rest of the Old Testament to do as well.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 4:09

And I watch my students' faces as they are stunned at the level of corruption that is inhabiting God's people during this particular in-between era. This particular in-between era In fact I talk a lot about that in the curriculum that this is liminal space, that space between who you know you're called to be and who you actually are supposed to become, that messy in-between, and I think we all can relate to that messy in-between, mm-hmm. So for Israel, that messy in-between results in the report of 12 cycles, and you know 12 is a pretty predictable number in the Bible. So our biblical authors have chosen 12 representatives to tell the story of the book of Judges, and it is a story of failure after failure, after failure, and it's a story of the people of God descending in their own sin until they are worse than the Canaanites.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 5:17

And so, by the time we get to the end of the book and that story about the Levite and his concubine and Judges 19, and that story about the Levite and his concubine and Judges 19, especially my undergrads are just stunned that that story is in there, like, oh my gosh, these people are worse than what I'm reading in People magazine. They're worse than the New York Times, they're worse than that documentary channel. And they are. And in that space, Yahweh is regularly rescuing his people by means of unlikely heroes who step forward in a time of crisis, and their only real qualifications are that they say yes. And I think that is a super powerful story for the church and for the church right now Stepping forward, saying yes in the middle of corruption and confusion and seeing what God can do. So that's how I wound up choosing Deborah.

Ellen Krause: 6:20

Oh my, and I think right from the get that, to me, is encouraging, just by recognizing that. You know, sometimes we question ourselves are we doing the right thing and just stepping forward and saying, yes, following God's call, he will direct our paths? Well, why don't you step the stage for our listeners about the book of Judges? What would be the essential things that we should take away from Judges?

Dr. Sandra Richter: 6:53

Well, that business about the liminal space. So my claim to fame when I do a Bible study and I don't do them as often as I might like to because I got this day job thing going but when I do a Bible study for the church, what I'm trying to do is to offer the regular person in the pew what is the regular fare of being an academic. I want to bring them archaeology, anthropology, linguistics in a fashion that they can actually access and honestly, I think that if the Holy Spirit has given me a particular niche, a particular calling, that's what it is. So we're going to do a lot of history maps. Who are these people in this particular study? And in doing that we enter into the settlement era of the story of Israel which, as we step into the book of Judges, that's where we are. We've got a tribal coalition that kind of sort of has control of Canaan. That's figuring out who they are. And in the midst of that we've kind of got the Wild West of ancient Israel, and by Wild West I mean that it's really hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys. You know, Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, shootout at the OK Corral exactly which of these gunslingers were the good guys.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 8:23

And we're going to have that experience over and over again as we deal with the 12 representative judges that our biblical authors have pulled in to explain the period to us. So we start off with Othniel. He's ideal great guy, offspring of Joshua. Everything's looking good. But as we move through Othniel, Sham, Shamgar, Ehud, Deborah, and then we start moving toward Gideon, Abimelech, Samson, you're like okay, um, these are our heroes, and uh, and, and we're kind of sitting there like the kid watching Mr. T and the Hulk. Right, good guys, bad guys. So that's one thing we need to take out of the book of Judges. And then the other thing, literally, is we need to recognize those 12 cycles. 12 has been chosen. It's a stylized number. There were many more Judges than 12. And there were probably Judges ruling at the same time in different territories. But each of the territories of Israel is represented, each of the time periods is represented and we've got these 12.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 9:34

And in this cycle that's being offered to us over and over again, we see the life cycle of the people of God, not just Israel, but we can totally export this to the church. And what does that life cycle look like? It looks like the people of God start off in a period of obedience and affirmation of covenant. That's going to start with Joshua, right, and as long as Joshua lives they're going to live in that space. But then Joshua's going to die and the people are going to start forgetting and they're going to start slipping away and disobedience specifically following after other gods. That's going to get repeated over and over again. And as they slip into that space, as is promised in the Mosaic covenant, God's going to send them a wake-up call. And that wake-up call is going to be foreign oppression the Amalekites, the Philistines, the Ammonites, the Moabites. They're going to start taking territory back from Israel, instead of Israel continuing to move forward and possessing the land.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 10:41

And again, the metaphor, the allegories abound with the church right now. When they get into that space and they realize, oh my gosh, we've blown it, we're disobeying the covenant, they cry out for help, they repent and God sends them another judge. That other judge steps in, leads them in military victory. Everything is hunky-dory as long as that judge lives, then the judge will pass and we'll enter the cycle again.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 11:08

So each time we enter that cycle, you and I the reader are like, oh my gosh, when is Israel going to figure this out? When are they going to stop cycling? And then you and I look in the mirror and we say, oh my gosh, when am I going to figure this out? When am I going to stop cycling? So that literary structure is really important. And not only are we doing this over and over again, but we also start doing this, you know, heading down the drain, until we get to the very end of the book and the narrator cries out to us in this period, every man did what was right in his own eyes, because there was no king in Israel. So this is going to lead us into that fulfillment area with the coming of the king. So I've rambled on. I hope I've answered your question.

Ellen Krause: 11:54

Oh, that's fantastic. That's fantastic. That really does sort of set the stage for where we are at. So getting into the specifics, then, of Deborah what sets her apart from all of these other judges that you mentioned?

Dr. Sandra Richter: 12:20

Yeah, what a great question, Thank you. So first thing we want to notice is that Deborah is number four. So we're still in the era of reputable judges who stand as exemplars of how Israel ought to live. It's going to decline from there. The other thing we want to notice is that Deborah does not occupy any one of the symbolic spaces Meaning.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 12:44

Our biblical authors are very interested in stylized numbers. You know them. You might not have thought about them 3, 7, 10, 12, and 40. We hear those numbers all the time and if someone stands in one of those spots, it's shouting at us pay attention. So, like when we go through the 10 genealogies of Genesis, we see Enoch in is in number seven. Hmm Well, Deborah's in slot number four. There's nothing special about slot number four, which I love because there are a lot of folk out there that would say that Deborah, Because there are a lot of folk out there that would say that Deborah, being the only female judge, is somehow an affirmative action.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 13:42

Hire, you know she's the DEI effort of the book of Judges and, for those who aren't familiar diversity, equity and inclusion. Well, our biblical authors don't see her as as some sort of affirmative action. They are not at all interested in her gender, and I love that. What they're interested in is her character. So what is Deborah? She is a judge. So it's a charismatic office, meaning that the Holy Spirit chooses. She's not chosen by lineage, she's not chosen by gender, by birth order, none of the things that typically dominate the patriarchal, patrilineal, patrilocal culture of the Old Testament. She's just got character. So not only is she chosen to be a judge, but she's one of two that are identified as prophets, and that's a very big deal.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 14:37

In the Old Testament, the only other judge that gets the legislative title of prophet, and we're thinking prophet, priest and king, the three great officers of the Mosaic Covenant. She and Samuel the rock star, are the only two that get the name Navi prophet. So she's already way up there, yeah. And then, on top of that, our girl Deborah rules Israel for 40 years. So there's a stylized number An entire generation. She is the Margaret Thatcher, Ruth Bader Ginsburg of Israel's experience, and if you have ever seen Middle Eastern men argue about anything, including like a parking space, you know that by the time the argument is done, both extended families have gathered, everybody's yelling, things are being thrown and the car has not moved yet. Yeah, for hours. And yet this woman sits under her palm tree and adjudicates land rights, water rights whose livestock are in the wrong space for 40 years years. So she's a tough chick and full of character, full of leadership in a world and this is where the unlikely heroes comes in in the title in a world where women don't lead, and yet she's leading.

Ellen Krause: 17:10

She's leading and I think that that's really. I think what stood out to me as well is that she is an unlikely leader. From what we have read, you know, thus far into the book of Judges Pallas, you mentioned that in the book of Judges that they have these cycles of obedience, disobedience, calling out to God. How do you compare those cycles of the book of Judges to the life cycle of the church?

Dr. Sandra Richter: 17:48

Thank you for asking that question. It's so profound. That was one of the things that captured my attention and made me want to write this study. Years ago, when I was at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, garth Roselle was my church history professor and I got to tell you that studying the nuance of every name and every date running from the Reformation to oh I don't know the founding of the Emergent Church was not on my top 10 list of things to do as a 24-year-old seminarian. But what Dr Roselle did was he took all of these stories from Martin Luther to again the emergent church and he organized them around what he named the life cycle of the church, and what he showed us was a very similar cycle to what we see in the book of Judges that we'll have a mothership community of faith. We're going to start with the Catholic church and the mothership starts drifting indulgences, corruption, a bureaucracy that's choking out the life of revival, and what will happen every single season of the life of the church is someone from within who loves the mothership will stand up and challenge the current corruption and death cycle that's affecting the people of God. In this case it was Martin Luther, right? So the man is a priest, he's an insider. He loves the Catholic church but, as you and I both know, he winds up challenging the church with his 95 theses, not least of which is they're drifting into charging the average man to get into heaven, which we all know is error, right. So Luther challenges them. You know the story as well as I do. What happens when he comes up against the mothership the mothership pushes back. They don't want to be called into revival, they become comfortable in their assimilation and generally they become comfortable, and the end result is that Martin Luther comfortable, and the end result is that Martin Luther, whose heart generally was in the right place, winds up getting thrown out on his keister and he winds up founding a brand new expression of the community of faith. Right, that's going to happen over and over and over again.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 20:26

Whatever Protestant denomination your audience belongs to, they can look back on the story of who the mothership was, how their revivalists, their disruptors, stood up calling for reform, and every once in a while that reform is embraced by the mothership, but too often they get tossed out on their keisters. Yeah, so I'm a Wesleyan Story of John Wesley and the Episcopal Church and then the Assemblies of God and the Methodist Church Story just keeps repeating, right, ok, what does that cycle look like in the church's life? We? We are vulnerable to the exact same realities. We start off with revival. Compare that to our brand new judge, who's just stepped up, conquered the bad guys and we have this wonderful season of harvest. Yeah, then we need to organize because we need to disciple our new converts. Okay, go, team.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 21:25

Then our organization starts drifting into a bureaucracy whose primary goal is to keep itself alive.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 21:36

You've seen this, I've seen this. And as that bureaucracy starts drifting into decline and death, someone's going to stand up from the inside and say team, we're drifting, we're drifting. The question is, will we listen to that voice of revival or will we reject it? And if we reject it, we're going to wind up with the mothership drifting off into decline and death. If we embrace it, we will be revitalized, re-empowered and we'll head back into the battle to win new territory for the kingdom of God. So those are the two cycles that I'm comparing in the curriculum. Can I say that I made more than one pastor mad when I made that comparison, because we don't like being called on it. But reality is every church, every denomination, every individual believer, every Christian college, every seminary, every camp, every parachurch organization has faced this reality of mission drift. And the big question sitting before us is how are we going to respond to the disruptors in our midst who are calling us back to our founding mission? Scary stuff, yes.

Ellen Krause: 23:06

Well, let's look now, then, at Deborah's battle and see how she handled the situation that she was in.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 23:18

Yeah.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 23:20

So let's remember the fact that Deborah actually rules for 40 years. We have that in print. So by this point in time, she's part of the bureaucracy, yeah, and her response to her moment of crisis is not to stay comfortable. So let's hear it for Deborah and let's hear it for the leaders out there that are willing to embrace. Okay, we've gotten a little too comfortable. What is her crisis? Her crisis, specifically, is the battle for the Jezreel Valley, and your audience is probably thinking Jezreel Valley, what is that? But don't worry, we're going to explain all of that in the curriculum.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 23:57

The Jezreel is this big east-west valley that's up toward the northern part of Israel. New Testament readers probably know it as the Valley of Armageddon. Yeah, same valley. It's the breadbasket of Canaan. It's where the best farmland is and you're in Chicago, so I'm thinking everything outside the suburbs, going down to Springfield right, where all the corn and the soybean and all that stuff is being raised, where the best soil on the planet can be found. That's the Jezreel. So this land has been promised to the tribes of Naphtali, zebulun and Issachar a little bit of Asher. It's been promised to them.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 24:42

Joshua came in during the conquest and broke the back of Canaanite power, but our tribes don't fully possess this land. They've set up some farms, they've been living there, but by the time we get to Deborah's story, the Canaanites have taken it back, and that territory is another allegory for what's going on in the church. What territory should belong to the kingdom of God? But we've let it slip through our fingers? Yeah, so that territory should belong to those tribes, and it doesn't. Rather, jabin, the great villain of the story, has taken it over. He's defending it with the troops of Sisera, a warlord who's in the city of Megiddo, and our team, instead of gaining from that territory, our team has wind up serving as slave labor in the Jezreel Valley, and so we can only imagine the agonies that are going on in those small farming families that have lost their territory and are now selling their sons to the Canaanites to keep food on the table, their sons to the Canaanites to keep food on the table. So it's a great crisis, and it's the one story of Deborah's leadership that winds up in the canon. So, 40 years, this woman has done a lot in those 40 years.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 26:01

It's this story that the biblical writers say okay, this one needs to become a paradigm, this one goes in the canon, she receives the word from the Lord that, okay, it's time, it is time to fight back. She summons her clan commander, barak, who, by the way, travels a hundred miles and crosses enemy lines to step into her conference room and says yes, ma'am, what do you want from me? So there are people out there that think that Barak is a coward Heck. No, there are people out there that will argue that the only reason Deborah is leading is because Barak won't Hogwash.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 26:44

He comes when he's summoned.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 26:46

He is the clan commander of the tribe of Naphtali.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 26:50

And she says all right, Barak, it's time.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 26:53

I've received the word from the Lord. I am the prophet. You're going to gather 10,000 men from Naphtali. We're going against Sisera. And his response is yes, ma'am, but you do realize that this is impossible and we're all going to die. And she says is there a problem, captain? And he says no, ma'am, just, you're the prophet. Come with me so that the men can see that Yahweh is in this. And she says let me get my bag, we're heading out. So, in this great battle, what we see is the judge, who's been ruling for over 40 years, who hears the word of Yahweh and says this is the moment she calls her clan commander. They summon a significant force from the tribe of Naftali, but this is a volunteer army that is facing down a professional army. It is a volunteer army of farmers turned warriors who are facing down a battalion of 900 chariots. Um, this is an impossible battle, and yet all of these people of God say if Yahweh says so, we're doing it. And it's that great battle that envelops Deborah's story.

Ellen Krause: 28:20

Hmm, One of the interesting parts of that story I know is when Barak wants Deborah to go with yes and he says okay, if you go, and then she comments because of his agreement to go, then he doesn't really get sort of credit for the battle and it goes to this other woman. Tell us a little bit about that, because I think it's such a fascinating part of this story.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 29:02

Yes, well, and again, I'm sure you've heard the commentary where folks read that as Barack being afraid to go, and that is not the language. We'll deal with that passage in depth. What Barak is doing is the exact same thing that Joshua does when Joshua goes up against the Amalekites. So it's Joshua and Moses right? So Moses has become the commander in chief. Joshua is the actual battalion leader.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 29:36

So Moses is too old to go on the battlefield at this point in time and, like any commander in chief, we can't lose him in battle. He needs to stay up on the hill and shout directives. So what does Joshua have Moses do? He has Moses stand up on the hill and Moses stands where the actual men on the battlefield can see him, which communicates to them that Yahweh is in this. And he raises up his hands, which is this ancient symbol of we're winning. In fact, if you read the Exodus accounts really carefully, you'll hear that Yahweh says over and over again that he delivered Israel by his strong, outstretched right hand. And if you look at the iconography of Egypt, every time you see Pharaoh going into battle, he's got his right arm extended, because it is the icon, the visual aid of we're winning. God is in this we're winning. So you know the story. Moses stands up on the hill. They bring him a rock to sit on because it's a long battle, and Aaron and Hur hold up his hands. So for Joshua to need Moses up on the hill to communicate to his men that Yahweh's in this is not an act of cowardice, it's a strategy, it is a recognition that the battle belongs to the Lord.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 30:57

So Barak is doing the exact same thing. If I'm going to head into this impossible battle, if I'm going to actually manage to muster the volunteer army of Naphtali, I'm going to need the prophet with me and Deborah's like. Absolutely I understand. But on top of that, brock, I need to tell you something, and that is that, in this form of warfare, we all know that the great moment of victory and glory is when our warlord kills the commanding warlord of the opposing army. We all know that in their world. That's why, when David manages to knock Goliath on the ground, he sprints over, grabs Goliath's sword and cuts off his head. Why does he do that? Because he's announcing himself. This is the great moment of victory, and and I am the representative of Israel's army and I've just taken the life of the representative of the Philistine army.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 31:56

Okay, so Deborah's talking to Barak and she says I know that is the moment you're looking for, when you actually cut down Sisera, the commanding captain of the Canaanite army.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 32:10

But you need to know before we head out that that honor is not going to go to you, it's going to go to a woman and of course, you and I are reading that story and we're thinking Deborah's going to head down on the battlefield, deborah's going to take the life of Sisera. That's what we're thinking. But that is not what's going to happen, and our narrator knows what he's doing. He's keeping us on the edge of our seats because what's going to happen and our narrator knows what he's doing he's keeping us on the edge of our seats Because what's going to happen is the most unlikely hero of all time is going to step into this story and she is going to take the life of Sisera and her name is Jael. If you want an unlikely hero, you can't get a better one than Jael, the Bedouin stay-at-home mom who's married to a turncoat, who sees her moment of opportunity and takes the life of a warlord in the woman's tent under a rug in her kitchen Rock star.

Ellen Krause: 33:09

Yes, I love that, there's so many different elements of courage that you know that the Holy Spirit had to be at work, because I can't imagine driving a state through someone's temple. But it's an incredible story. How do we take this story of Deborah and Jael and the conflict and use it to encourage us right now as we wrap things up, and use it to encourage us right now as we wrap things up?

Dr. Sandra Richter: 33:53

Yeah, that is a great question and the primary answer to that, I think. Well, there are several answers. One I want your listeners to know that these stories, first of all, they're not just stories. These are historical narratives that certainly are told in a particular slant, but the era of judges is a real era in Israel's history. We've got real archaeological data for maybe not the specific characters, because it's a long, long time ago, but certainly for the settlement era and the type of battle that's going on, and I'll do a whole section in the study on ancient chariotry and why Cicero was indefeatable as far as everybody could tell.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 34:40

So these stories are given to us intentionally as a paradigm for our own faith. They are, in the words of Sam Gamgee, standing on the side of Mount Doom. They're a story that matters. They are our inheritance, a gift to us. So as we look at these narratives, especially the story of Deborah, we've got impossible odds. First of all, who out there doesn't have impossible odds? We have an opponent that we cannot defeat. This one is bigger than we are. When Barak says yes, he's signing his own death warrant If Yahweh doesn't show up this man and the 10,000 men who have trusted him are going down, and they're going down in a bloody slaughter that will cripple the northern reaches of the tribal confederation of Israel for a generation. He knows that he's not stupid and yet the man, based on the word of God and the leadership of Deborah, he says yes. Deborah says yes. Deborah says yes. In a world that did not expect women to lead, she steps forward and gives a message that everyone thinks is crazy. And then JL says yes.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 36:05

And one of the things I love about Jael's story is she is indeed she's the most unlikely leader in the entire scenario. She has no social status at all. She is a pastoralist in an agricultural community. She is the wife of a turncoat. She is a stay-at-home mom with only domestic tools at her disposal.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 36:32

When she comes out of that tent and sees the hammer and peg lying by the side of the tent she used that hammer and peg to set the tent up a month ago she basically takes out Sisera with the ancient equivalent of a cast iron frying pan. And in fact I think of Tangled when I think of her story. You know the Disney clip where Rapunzel knocks out our guy with a frying pan. She uses the tools at her disposal to win the day when an entire army couldn't, when an entire army couldn't. So if that is not a word of encouragement to us in our everyday contexts to trust the word of the Lord, to step forward in impossible circumstances, to have confidence that the battle actually is the Lord's yeah, I don't know what is, so that's how I would apply it.

Ellen Krause: 37:31

Oh, that's incredible, and it's certainly, it's certainly. I find great encouragement in that, Sandy. Well, how can people find out more? I mean, you've set the stage here for everybody. Listening to this. I'm thinking I've got to learn more. So how can they find out more and be able to do this study?

Dr. Sandra Richter: 37:56

Well, I would be so honored if your folk pick up this study. It is part of a series, so there is the Epic of Eden series. It's the most recent one. It is available at HarperCollins. It is available at Seedbed I'm assuming you're going to link it into your notes page. So thank you very much for that. It's also just available on Amazon. Your folks can go on Amazon, search my name, Sandra Richter, Deborah and it will pop up. That's a very easy way to find it and and make use of it. I've also got a public-facing Facebook page. I'd be honored if your people would find me, Sandra L Richter, and pop in. That public-facing page has got all my speaking engagements and publications, which you know I'm kind of over here in the academic world. I'm over here in the church world, so they can double dip if they want. All of those are ways to get hold of me.

Ellen Krause: 38:58

With HarperCollins I seem to see my face everywhere, so yeah, all right, fantastic, it will not be hard to find, but we will definitely put the links in our show notes. Before we go. I just want to ask you a couple questions. The first one is what Bible is your go-to Bible and which translation is it? Yeah?

Dr. Sandra Richter: 39:23

So it's so funny. As you said in my introduction, I'm on the NIV Translation Committee, which I love, and I have wonderful things to say about the NIV Translation Committee, which I love, and I have wonderful things to say about the NIV translation. I encourage all of your readers to read it and to use it. But, honestly, my go-to is the New American Standard, and the reason it's my go-to is because I work in the original languages and it's a wooden translation, meaning a word for word translation, so I can see the languages behind it, and with the dynamic equivalent, which is the NIV translation, I can't see the original languages as clearly. So if I were to encourage your listeners, I would encourage them to have more than one have a word-for-word translation, have a dynamic equivalent, have a good paraphrase and do the circuit as you're doing your own Bible studies, and you'll be able to see what the translators are struggling with as they try to put the Bible into our hands in a modern language.

Ellen Krause: 40:29

That's a really, really great suggestion. Yeah, absolutely. Using multiple translations helps tremendously. All right, one more question Tell us about what is your favorite tool for studying the Bible.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 40:47

Okay, yeah, great stuff. Well, I use a slew of things. I use, you know, an array of commentaries which it is rare that a single series will have all my favorite commentaries. I will often bounce from series to series. Probably my most used tool is going to be my atlases, which might surprise your audience. What do I love about atlases? A, they have tons of pictures. I love pictures and graphs, but what an atlas will do will condense, like the period of the patriarchs and all the historical anthropological stuff I can't figure out on my own, and they'll do that in two or three pages so that I can read those two or three pages and then I can go read the book of Genesis and I can make some of my own translation decisions. So I use a lot of atlases, I bounce around with commentaries, I do, you know, a good bit of Google searching myself, as I want different data and, yeah, and I use the original languages as well. So that's what.

Ellen Krause: 42:04

I do. All right, fantastic. You know I was thinking Dr Barry Beitzel. He does a lot of the maps and has some great tools that we'll make sure we put in the links as well. He has gone to our church for a number of years and was a professor at Trinity. Oh, trinity, evangelical, yes.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 42:29

Yes.

Ellen Krause: 42:30

So those are all fantastic suggestions. Sandy, thank you so much for being here to share, you know, you just make us feel like we are in the New Testament what we're experiencing. You have a beautiful way of teaching and explaining.

Ellen Krause: 42:48

Oh, thank you and your incredible wisdom just gives so much depth. So I really hope for our listeners that you will get a copy of Sandy's study, because it really is incredible, and we just thank you again, sandy, for being here and for those of you that are listening. We appreciate you so much joining us on our podcast. We hope you have a blessed day.

Dr. Sandra Richter: 43:20

Thank you so much for the invitation and thanks to your listeners.