Naked Bible Podcast 103 - Moses and the Bronze Serpent

Many Bible students find the episode in Numbers 21:1-9 confusing. Why would God tell Moses to make a bronze serpent (nachash)? Did God forget about the serpent of Genesis 3? Why would Jesus compare his impending death on the cross to the bronze serpent? This episode asks whether these ideas are in fact connected and how the serpent in the wilderness episode should be interpreted.
• Transcript 103 - Moses and the Bronze Serpent: www.nakedbiblepodcast.com/wp-c...
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Пікірлер: 53

  • @chppayne
    @chppayne Жыл бұрын

    It is good to still hear Dr. Heiser's voice.😔

  • @mimishella4915
    @mimishella49152 жыл бұрын

    May God lift you from your sick bed, Dr. Praying for you.

  • @alaskadrifter
    @alaskadrifter4 жыл бұрын

    “You got a lot of fruit loops running around on the internet”, so true.

  • @busby777
    @busby7774 жыл бұрын

    the Israelites must have sat around the fire and told the stories of Genesis, even if they didn't read them

  • @johnrobinson9639
    @johnrobinson96393 жыл бұрын

    They looked to the Serpent as instructed and were saved. We have to look to Yeshua to be saved. Easy

  • @angelamc2923
    @angelamc29234 жыл бұрын

    Enjoying Dr. Heiser a lot, but like others said it's outrageous to think that the Hebrews had no origin story, no oral history of Gen 1-11 content especially since everyone around them did. And if you think they had carefully preserved orally history from the time of Abraham onward, why wouldn't they have earlier stuff as well? After all, that was Abraham's family and origin. Nor is it unlikely that Moses would have told them stories that they would have endlessly retold while hiking around-isn't that what all cultures do? Also it's possible that Gen 1-11 was passed down as written records that came to Moses and he included. There are words and phrases that are suggestive. Even if it was later edited in the exile period.

  • @JosephQPublic

    @JosephQPublic

    4 жыл бұрын

    Especially if one believes the biblical creation story is THE creation story that all the rest stem from. The Watchers could’ve revealed this information to their nations, thus the variations and gods.

  • @Victrola777
    @Victrola7776 ай бұрын

    I wonder when this podcast was recorded because the Cubs won the World Series in 2016 ! According to Michael, the end is near !

  • @kightsun
    @kightsun6 жыл бұрын

    If Genesis 2-11 Are Babylonian, why couldnt it be a part of Israel's (Abraham being of Chaldea) Oral Tradition?

  • @januddin8068

    @januddin8068

    5 жыл бұрын

    Exactly!

  • @deroconnor4621
    @deroconnor46213 жыл бұрын

    The placing of the stories in a wider context is very helpful. There is however a context of oral storytelling and the editing of earlier stories by Moses

  • @vanthawng154
    @vanthawng1545 ай бұрын

    Love this so much

  • @MrZadokthePriest
    @MrZadokthePriest3 жыл бұрын

    Echos back to an earlier incident of snakes in the story of Exodus. The Egyptian magicians throw their staffs to the ground & they become snakes. Moses throws his staff to the ground. It becomes a snake that swallows the other snakes. Jesus becomes snake - St. Paul says sin & death - to swallow up sin, death & idolatry.

  • @voidremoved

    @voidremoved

    2 жыл бұрын

    Aarons staff turned in to a lizard or an alligator though? And Jesus is a worm not a snake

  • @misseli1
    @misseli13 жыл бұрын

    I'm not disagreeing with the points on when or how the Torah was written, or how much of it Moses wrote or didn't wrote. But I do think it's possible that Moses read aloud some of the accounts he wrote down to the people, similar to how he spoke the commands of the Lord in the presence of the people. If I remember correctly, the pentateuch and the book of Joshua talk about the importance of reading the scripture in the ears of the people, and I think other books reference this practice too, although scripture would often go ignored for centuries.

  • @BzudemE
    @BzudemE8 ай бұрын

    I think the more interesting question is not what the Israelites thought the snake on the staff means, but rather what the people who put the torah in its final shape wanted the reader to see in the passage. From Genesis 4 on we are looking for a snake crusher guy, Moses is a guy that at least has power over the snake (his staff occasionally becomes a nahash/snake or a sea serpent/tanin in front of pharaoh), he splits the sea with his staff (that was a sea serpent before). I think when Moses lifts up the staff with the bronze snake, it is another occasion where God uses a chaos/anti-eden/death thing to accomplish salvation from death. And I think that is what Jesus is referring to: He let chaos and death collapse in on himself so that everybody who believed that God can bring forth life through death would ultimately be saved from death and chaos.

  • @andrewlightbody4221
    @andrewlightbody42214 жыл бұрын

    Didnt the cubs win the world series less than 5 years ago lol?

  • @Victrola777
    @Victrola7776 ай бұрын

    Certainly the Israelites were aware of the Garden of Eden from oral tradition. Why would Michael say they didn't know about it because they had no scrolls?

  • @bandcampkid07
    @bandcampkid075 жыл бұрын

    I REALLY like this podcast. I just think you could make it much shorter. It was nearly 30 minutes of recap and restating the same point at the beginning... other than that, AMAZING

  • @suzannemoore6115
    @suzannemoore61152 ай бұрын

    The serpent represents sin and Jesus became sin on the cross. I didn’t hear that mentioned in this podcast.

  • @jessie.juxtapose
    @jessie.juxtapose4 жыл бұрын

    I have to finish watching your Melchizedek video first maybe you talk about it. ~1:02:30 you talk about him and the jebusites...I don't know if there a big symbology or reason, but I've always found it interesting the temple was built on the land David bought that was the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. Especially since apparently they where some that should have been killed or driven out coming into the promised land (or at least I think so). His countenance during the ordeal was he kept working and wasn't afraid though the two other men with Ornan were. Would love to hear you go through that whole story. Thanks again so much!!!

  • @busby777
    @busby7774 жыл бұрын

    Why would the Israelites in Egypt NOT remember the story of their ancestors, beginning with Abraham?

  • @shellieperreault6262

    @shellieperreault6262

    11 ай бұрын

    No kidding. They enter the wilderness already knowing the geography and family relationships/politics with the inhabiting tribes... Even bedouins today keep their lineage and history, going back hundreds of generations. It's nothing for them to keep track of their tribal history.

  • @jessie.juxtapose
    @jessie.juxtapose4 жыл бұрын

    Question: ~41:50 where does it say God gave Jacob the idea to use the sticks? Maybe I missed it, I just thought it was a superstition back then...Anyway, been watching a few of your videos and really like them, thanks! By the way, you said on another video you went through exodus on KZread too? Could you link it? I can't seem to find it. Will just watch the many others until I find it 🙂

  • @sevgibson
    @sevgibson Жыл бұрын

    The question isn't what Moses or the Israelites were thinking. The question is why God chose the serpent as the symbol for this episode considering he definitely knew about the serpent in the garden and that Jesus would later reference this episode in relation to the cross. Is there a reason God chose to use this serpent imagery? Is it because Satan is the great imposter of Jesus and would that also mean the serpent imagery is of the original (real) Savior and that Satan used that imagery as an imposter? Or is there some other reason?

  • @br.m
    @br.m6 ай бұрын

    When Mike compares Genesis to the exile, claiming that's when he thinks it was written. I want to suggest that can it be more like they had the KJV but around the time of the exile, the KJV was replaced with the ESV. This is a fair guess? My guess is as good as anybody's guess... By the way is it not possible that Moses spoke like a university professor and many Hebrews sat and took notes, resulting in many copies written and shared around.

  • @Jamie-Russell-CME
    @Jamie-Russell-CME5 жыл бұрын

    Are those a representation of every foul, and unclean bird crashing mid air? Revelation 18?

  • @danielnosuke
    @danielnosuke3 жыл бұрын

    Says it is logistically absurd for the millions of Israelites to hear what Moses wrote with Genesis 3. So... it is absurd for the Israelites to hear what God told Moses to tell them with Exodus 20 on? And why assume the earliest extant copies of ANE lit we have are the earliest those works were first composed or written? Why assume Moses didn't write Torah and later editors tweaked the stylistic edges?

  • @voidremoved

    @voidremoved

    2 жыл бұрын

    More like the material the story is written on could become worn out and need to be recopied. You are right though it says right in the Bible that God met with Moses a lot and could tell him everything to explain to the people.

  • @ronaldschoolcraft8654
    @ronaldschoolcraft86543 ай бұрын

    Jesus referred to Mosaic authorship of Genesis 1 through 11. Was Jesus wrong?

  • @stragglesman8479
    @stragglesman84796 жыл бұрын

    Well.. Michael Heiser gets to the passage at about 29 minutes in

  • @paradisecityX0

    @paradisecityX0

    5 жыл бұрын

    Lol

  • @ronaldschoolcraft8654
    @ronaldschoolcraft86543 ай бұрын

    Moses wrote Genesis. He probably relied on written records from earlier. These written records recorded oral tradition. This sounds sketchy until you consider the genealogy from Adam to Abraham and the overlapping life spans. For instance, Adam was contemporary with Methuselah. Methuselah is the grandfather of, and was contemporary with, Noah. He was also contemporary with his great-grandson, Shem. Shem was contemporary with Abraham. So, there is only the need for three transmissions of the antideluvial narrative including the Garden to get to Abraham. We know that writing had been developed by Abraham's time because of archaeological evidence (Hamurabi's Code, for instance). Abraham likely recorded some or all of this history. God clearly inspired Moses' authorship, but he did not have to "download" all the information into Moses' head. Moses had resources to draw upon.

  • @DrJacquesCOULARDEAU
    @DrJacquesCOULARDEAU3 жыл бұрын

    LOVE IS A REAL ADORABLE CURSE AN UNTELLABLE STORY A dramatic Confession THE NINETEEN STATIONS OF SARAPHIC LOVE James Crittle, a famous pilot of the French Air Force, later turned university professor, on February 18, 2015, was found dead in full uniform Rue Montmartre in Paris. He had used some cyanide to put an end to his life. The French Air Force took over his funeral in Bordeaux, but Joseph and Magdalena Seth, two young people who had been his friends up to three years before when James Crittle stepped out of their life without any explanation, hearing the news on the radio decided to claim his body since he had no known direct relatives. They are entrusted then with an important envelope addressed to them and that contains the manuscript of this “Untellable Story” and my name and contact. I had been James Crittle’s friend some fifty years earlier when I was going to the university and met him then. He had obviously kept track of me over these years. I here try to give you his confession, since he calls it a confession, about his first twenty years in this life and I just try to put, as far as I can, this text into perspective with an introduction. Joseph and Magdalena Seth added a short conclusion. Most of the pictures and illustrations were in the initial envelope. We decided to use them, with some prudence though because some of the people on these pictures are totally unknown to us and they were not identified. We also retained some documents from East Germany and the USA and his military papers, considering they had nothing to do with this “Untellable Story.” Jacques COULARDEAU Olliergues, France March 14, 2015 Format: Format Kindle, 201 pages Editeur: Éditions La Dondaine, 13 mars 2015 Langue : Anglais ASIN: B00UP4CX88 $ 8.50 - € 7,84

  • @ronaldschoolcraft8654
    @ronaldschoolcraft86543 ай бұрын

    The Mesopotamian texts most likely are corruptions of the Biblical narrative. That makes the most sense.

  • @strappymasksalesman2819
    @strappymasksalesman28192 жыл бұрын

    i agree with this but is there a sort of symbolism with the snake being held up besides it being related to egyptian culture? i just find it hard to write it off as a coincidence when the bible constantly uses the image of snakes and dragons as things of chaos and evil. i just think theres something more to the picture here, maybe not that it relates to the serpent of eden but this idea, this “characteristic” of chaos

  • @shellieperreault6262

    @shellieperreault6262

    11 ай бұрын

    The Hebrews just spent 400 years in Egypt, I am pretty sure they understood Egyptian culture and symbols.

  • @justfloat1
    @justfloat13 жыл бұрын

    Not sure why i find the picture used with all the bird wings as being stressful, it reminds me when 2 birds are fighting. It doesn’t happen often. It looks like they are really trying to hurt each other.......just saying😜

  • @shellieperreault6262

    @shellieperreault6262

    11 ай бұрын

    The seraph?

  • @alicewaidelich5468

    @alicewaidelich5468

    6 ай бұрын

    It’s an angel

  • @busseat8396
    @busseat83962 жыл бұрын

    Maybe these other things copied the Bible, and not vice-verse.

  • @jeremygreen6084
    @jeremygreen60843 жыл бұрын

    The highest is always under assault, so has to maintain, so he took an aspect of ordinance back from a family member to give right to the new....... All spectatedulated............

  • @busseat8396
    @busseat83962 жыл бұрын

    You sound a little hostile about this Mr Heiser.

  • @therealkillerb7643
    @therealkillerb76433 жыл бұрын

    Dr. Heiser, Dr. Welhausen on line two... ;-)

  • @danielquesada2405

    @danielquesada2405

    3 жыл бұрын

    The only problem with this idea is that oral tradition as you Michael are describing is limited to the few and select, also it is probable that the Iraelites may have not heard of the Serpent story of Genesis, however the writers of Numbers probably and most likely understand and heard the Genesis 3 story and trying to tie the Deuteronomy 32 and Psalms 82 of the table of nations...lesser power, not just any serpents but FIERY SERPENTS (seraph, and nachash) on the people.... Oral tradition is very superior...let's see how the text say what it says...also the geographical area where they were is where copper smith's associated their craft (image, demons)... But I am just a laymen and expressing my view...I really truly enjoy your ability to open up the scriptures in the way that you do....truly grateful for God in you...

  • @shellieperreault6262

    @shellieperreault6262

    11 ай бұрын

    Why do you think the oral tradition was for the few and select? Tent dwelling cultures of the Middle East have very rich oral traditions. Like, there was nothing else to do in the evening and it's not like anyone wanted to drag books around. Until modern times, it was incredibly common for Muslims in Arabia to have the entire Quran memorized, even if they were completely illiterate. Why is it so not possible for the Hebrews to memorize the Torah? Today in some Jewish communities boys are sent to school to do just that- memorize the entire Torah before they are 13. Do you think this is new?

  • @radovanradovanovic2755
    @radovanradovanovic27556 жыл бұрын

    Well.. fiery serpent is a symbol of principality a son of GOD.(deut 32 wordview) It was prophetic but cryptic. Satanic principalities toth that it was GOD's prophetic statment about their destiny but it was actually about the destiny of the SON of GOD - the first ONE of creation - ChohmaEl who came as a Yashua of Nazareth - Jesus. And Paul said that HE put to shame all the principalities with the Jesus project plus HE saved all those who recognised and recived Jesus as a salvation. It was the greatest event in whole extence. One greater is still to come.

  • @radovanradovanovic2755

    @radovanradovanovic2755

    6 жыл бұрын

    CHOHMA means wisdome in Hebrew. HIS name can also be DVAREL .. Dvar means Logos or as it was badlly translated 'the word' but it actually means 'concept' or 'idea'.

  • @fzs695

    @fzs695

    5 жыл бұрын

    Jesus is not creation, but the CREATOR

  • @JosephQPublic

    @JosephQPublic

    4 жыл бұрын

    Farhat Siddiqui - perhaps creation meaning mankind

  • @kightsun
    @kightsun6 жыл бұрын

    Genesis 1 is almost a direct parallel to ancient egyptian creation myths tho

  • @voidremoved

    @voidremoved

    2 жыл бұрын

    Thats why God punished Egypt and used Moses to set the record straight