In every story you've ever heard, the action took place
Somewhere and that place is called the setting, and since we've been learning how to read biblical narratives
Let's talk about how settings work in the Bible
So settings are a crucially important tool in the hands of the biblical authors.
Really? Yeah, think of it this way
When you start a story everything is new, the plot, and the characters are a mystery until things unfold
Yeah
We have no idea what to expect
Except authors can use the setting of a story to prepare you for what's coming. How so?
Well let's say a story begins in a courtroom. What do you think it's gonna happen?
I expect a story about crime and justice.
Yeah or how about the setting of a dark old run-down house. Oh something scary is about to happen?
Exactly, so settings evoke memories and emotions because of other stories
You know that happened in similar places. The authors know this and they can use settings to generate
expectations about what could happen in this story and a good author will get creative with settings
And he'll mess with your expectations, in order to make a point. This happens in the Bible?
All over the place for example, think about the setting Egypt, in the Bible
Yeah, big Middle Eastern Empire on the Nile. Sure now think about the first Biblical story where someone ends up in Egypt
It's about Abraham
God calls him to journey by faith to a new land
And he promises to give him a huge family. So he sets out
But he arrives during a famine now, is he gonna trust God and stay in the Promised Land?
Or will he leave the land and go look for food on his own?
Yeah Abraham leaves and goes down to Egypt and there in Egypt things go downhill fast
Abraham denies that Sarah is his wife to save his own neck and then Pharaoh tries to marry her for himself
Okay, first impression of Egypt, not a great place to visit
But God then rescues them, he strikes Egypt with plagues and so Pharaoh relents and sends Abraham away with loads of wealth
So, what do we learn about Egypt as a setting from the story?
It's the place people end up because of stupid decisions, but it's also a place where God comes and rescues his people.
Yep and the next main story in Egypt follows the same pattern. Abraham's great grandsons make a bunch of stupid choices
And they eventually lead them to Egypt because of another famine, down in Egypt though
So generations pass and the family ends up as slaves in Egypt
And what do you think is gonna happen?
God's gonna send some plagues and rescue his people
It's like you saw it coming! After the Israelites get back to the Promised Land
God tells them to never go back to Egypt for any reason. It's the place of trouble and oppression
So when future biblical characters go to Egypt I'm supposed to cringe. Right, like Solomon at the peak of his wealth and power
He married the king of Egypt's daughter, and then he started sending Israelites there to import Egyptian stallion
And then a generation later that Alliance goes bad, Egypt oppresses Israel all over again
So biblical settings carry with them all these memories of previous stories, which create expectation
Yeah, it's a brilliant literary device to infuse stories with meaning now biblical authors
They're brilliant. They can build up your expectations, but also
Creatively mess with them. Like how? Egypt's a perfect example. In the Gospel of Matthew when Jesus is born his family flees
To Egypt. Uh oh, so this is a problem? And you would think so, but pay attention
instead of Egypt being the bad place
It's the place of safety, because who are they fleeing from?
King Herod, who is behaving exactly like Pharaoh did, but he rules Jerusalem
not Egypt. Matthew is messing with me to show how Jerusalem has become
Egypt. Exactly you can find these kinds of patterns in many different biblical settings: Babylon
Moab, The Wilderness
Bethlehem, the list goes on. Which is a big list and it gets bigger because
Sometimes the setting isn't just a place on a map. It's a type of
situation, but they work the same way that settings do. For example, when people move toward the east expect trouble. Adam and Eve
Were banished to the east, and then Cain wanders to the east
people move to the east to build Babylon, and all of these narratives are designed to point forward to when the
Israelites as a people will be exiled to the east in Babylon
Ah, nice. Which leads to one more type of setting in biblical narrative
And that's time or how long events take. Like time periods of forty are often associated with stories
Where people's faithfulness is tested. Noah in the boat for 40 days and 40 nights?
Then he gets off and gets totally drunk. The Israelites got impatient during their 40 days of waiting for Moses on Mount Sinai
So they made the golden calf. Or after the Israelite spies investigate the land for 40 days the people rebel
So they have to wander in the desert for 40 years
But then there's the story of Jesus who was tested in a desert for 40 days
And he reverses the expectation. He overcomes the test!
Exactly, across the whole Bible places
situations, and time periods become full of meaning by evoking memories and setting expectations. And the New Testament authors
reuse all of these settings to show how Jesus, is the one carrying our world from the garden, out of Egypt, and the wilderness and
into the new creation
Hey everyone, thanks for watching this video on how to understand setting and biblical narrative. We hope you enjoyed it
we make lots of other videos in this series how to read the Bible check them out here on YouTube. The Bible Project is a
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