All right, so we pray together as we start to the Lord. Well, Lord, we thank thee that thou art the faithful of God of the covenant. We thank thee that all of the good promises which were made of old time, which thou discommit thyself promises of salvation and eternal life of a kingdom of glory. All of these promises have been met and fulfilled and are ye and amen in Christ Jesus our Lord. He is the one who would be exalted in our hearts. We pray that as our study is directed through the pages of the Old Testament and our eyes directed unto his coming, that we shall behold him as the one who is the answer to our lives of problems, as the one to whom we should fall down and adore and ascribe all worth and honor and glory. And we thank thee that tonight as we gather about thy word that we may have confidence that as we look to thee for thy spirit, that thou will grant us that the spiritual be our instructor to take of the things of Christ and to reveal them to us. We would not just be edified ourselves, but we would be equipped for ministry. And we pray then that in all of our study that we might be learning from the description of those things which in turn, we may impart even the form of sound doctrine to others that I church that the lambs might be fed and that thy church might be built up to the ends of the earth. Be with us then to bless us this night and make us a blessing and days to come through Christ our Lord. And I keep losing my glasses, but here we are. OK, last time then we got going according to our outline on the subject of an overview of the covenants. And we began appropriately then with the discussion of the definition of covenant and got beyond that into at least the beginning of the survey of the overview of the covenants. In the process of talking about the definition of the covenant, which if you may recall, I ended up in terms somewhat like this that the covenant is essentially a matter of solemn commitments with the divine sanctions. And if you want to add a little bit to it in terms of its function, these are instruments whereby God administers his kingdom. So the essential idea that in biblical covenants is the idea of commitments, commitments made with divine sanctioning for God himself makes the commitments or where they are made in his presence with him as a witness and as the enforcer sanctioner of the arrangement. And especially the covenants that we're concerned about are those that accompany the ongoing history of God's kingdom. They are instruments whereby God defines the success of arrangements of his people through history. Now while I was developing that, I said that there was one area of evidence that throws light on what biblical covenants are. And I would get back to that and develop it a little more namely. The treaties that are available to us from all day they actually once were particularly interested in come from just about the very time of Moses. And so there were these treaties which in their general concept and remarkable detail in their legal literary form are comparable to what we're talking about in the Bible. Here in the Bible we have these covenantal arrangements between the Lord, the great king and this servant people. And now lo and behold we find that in the practice of Near Eastern diplomacy that there are documents which are very close to resemble the covenants that we have in the Bible. And the particular point there are many aspects of this that are interesting and we could take us in different directions. The central thing at the moment trying to bring out is that these Near Eastern treaty arrangements which are so close in their form to the biblical covenants were themselves known as olds and blondes. And that brings out what I was trying to bring out by definition that these are arrangements involving centrally thought that someone is taking an oath whereby obligations, bonds are assumed. It's not the idea of bond in the sense of a fellowship but a bond in the sense of an obligation that one is bound to do so. Now I'll come back to that point but first let's just take a look and those of you who have sat through courses with me before are more than familiar with what I'm about to say. Actually when I first got into this material of the ancient Near Eastern treaty some 30 odd years ago whatever it was brand new the parallelism that I'm talking about now between the biblical covenants and these ancient Near Eastern treaties had just come to light and I jumped into the thing right away and contributed a couple of articles to the subject which we'll be talking about. And since then everyone's not now on the bandwagon and it's quite quite common all over the place but what we're talking about is the situation was here's a great empire and let's say here's the Hittite empire up there in we now know is Asia Minor. And they would relate to surrounding smaller kingdoms and not just by conquering them and deposing the local king and placing some governor are so on in this place but through treaty diplomacy they would arrange for a suzerain vassal type of relationship where the local king maintained his throne and so on. But in a condition where he was tributary to the great king so the local kings kept their throne and their kingdoms but sort of as protector it's of the great king the the suzerain and the way that this arrangement then was provided for was by way of treaties and the treaties would involve documents. But on the occasion of their ratification there would be a ceremony, solemn holds and so on were taken and but especially then the documents at the moment that were interested in. In effect the great king would provide a constitution for the subordinate king for the lesser king that would define the nature of his relationship to the great king and so forth. And the form of well we're especially the interest has said in there are treaties from here and there all over the nearest the ones that first caught the eyes of scholarship and the ones that have a particularly close bearing on the biblical covenant so the ones that come from the Hittite empire a couple dozen or so of these treaties and what we wanted to do first of all then is to see the pattern of these treaties. And then see how they are the explanation for what's going on in what we normally call attend commandments there next to this 20 the decalogue and also in the book of Deuteronomy and there were. So here are the the ancient year Eastern treaties the Hittite the Hittite treaties made with the various vassal kings in the neighborhood. We'll be pointing out that there were six standard divisions now there's a question of the evolution of this form and now we're talking about second millennium form because that's the form that Moses would have been acquainted with. Moses functioned in the third quarter of the second millennium BC and these treaties come from the third quarter of the second millennium BC so they would be a common currency in the diplomatic sphere of Moses day and they began with the two sections that I refer to as the establishing of the claims. So here's the great king and the bottom line here is that he is going to exact tribute support from this vassal it will be understood that in his own self interest that he will protect the vassal as well but what is explicit in the treaties would be the obligations of the vassal to the great king. So the great king has to establish his claims why should the vassal bring such an honor and support to the great king well first of all it was a matter of his identity the I am section. The preamble or the title section and by the way in the outside reading that we are doing what we're covering now here would be found in the structure of the biblical authority and in part two the first two essays that are there so what I will be going through now you can read on and supplement and clarify for yourself in your reading there. There is one thirteen and following in the structure of a biblical authority well he would start out then I am superlululum umah okay whatever his name was you know the son of the great gods the king of kings the king of all ads and so there would be a title section using all kinds of grandiose titles to impress so so the motivation here is that of awe and fear. I started to say that there was an evolution in the form by the time we come to the second millennium there are still these treaties but with some very significant changes in the form that we that are important when it comes to a question of higher criticism and dating the works of Moses and showing that there is an evolution. That there is support that these actually come from the second millennium in terms of the fact that they are related to second millennium forms of treaties rather than to first millennium treaties where modern criticism would date these of books that we would recognize as long to do Moses but in the second millennium form and the kind that comes from Moses they then it starts with the title the I am in Exodus 20 I am Lord your God. So that is not part of the first commandment you may in your Sunday worship be using some hymnal word it has the ten commandments that the back enough form that's to be used in reading or back and forth and I know of one where it starts off that the first commandment begins with I am Lord your God and so on this is not part of the first commandment it is the preamble to a treaty as a matter of fact that's part of the importance of what we're talking about now that it gives us a more genuine concept of what the ten commandments are and it has important implications. The ten commandments are not some law code like the code of Amir Abbey or something of that sort the ten commandments are a treaty they're a treaty between the Lord and the particular people they are not a general moral code that God gave to all men everywhere for all time they are a very special particular thing that that God gave to the people Israel and a certain juncture there in the history of God's covenanting of his kingdom and it begins then as treaties begin with an I am section I am the Lord your God. Well what more needy say if the motivation here is for fear and awe and honor I am the Lord your God enough said you need to elaborate on it. Now you come to the book of Deuteronomy and my contention was in the second of the early on articles I wrote that here was an area that the modern critics to the extent that they had gotten into this subject were ignoring the book of Deuteronomy because they date the book of Deuteronomy about the 7th century BC rather than back in the days of Moses in the 3rd quarter of the 2nd millennium BC and here the form of critical facts actually seem to be showing that the book of Deuteronomy fits beautifully hand in glove into the form of treaties that existed back in the 2nd millennium where we would expect to as Moses was that the author and of course contradicts the notion of the higher critics that he was produced in many centuries later. In the book of Deuteronomy then the same thing is true and it begins then with the equivalent of a preamble wherein Moses is set forth as the representative. These are authoritative words because they come from God's representative Moses and the outline if you have a kingdom prologue. I will help me here to one page 133 of the King of Prologue, the structure of biblical authority. On page 133 you'll have the whole outline and so as you see there it's the preamble is the first five verses, one, one, two, five. So the book of Deuteronomy turns out to be a treaty and then interestingly at the end as we'll notice it has the account of Moses's death because the particular character of this treaty was it was a succession treaty where the death of one of the principles to the treaty requires that the successor be appointed and the treaty had that and might not come back to that. But the overall form, the overall form then of Deuteronomy is that it is such a treaty. Well, now the second claim is embodied in what is called the historical prologue. Along with the appeal to fear and honor and respect, there was an appeal to gratitude. And so by beans of an historical prologue, the great king would try to prompt some response of gratitude by reminding the vessel of all the good things that allegedly he had done for them or their fathers beforehand. So the great king might say here to the vessel king, look, I had a covenant relationship with your father didn't I when he was on the throne and things went well. And when your father died maybe there was a problem and I took your side so that you succeeded to the throne. And I gave one of my daughters to be your wife, all of the good things that he could think of in terms of their past relationship he would mention. And so here is a more winsome appeal, not just look, I have the strength to clobber you if you don't do what I say, that's there. But along with it there's more than that. And this is a matter of fact is one of the differences between second millennium treaties and first millennium treaties later on when the Assyrians were issuing treaties that they had only the raw power do this or else you know. And then the historical prologues are missing from the second millennium treaties. But then I find the first millennium treaties but in the ones that come from Moses day, that's a very significant part. So past benefits, all the past benefits are our appeal to Exodus 20 who have brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of bondage. That's not part of the first commandment, that's the historical prologue to a treaty. I am the Lord your God, historical prologue. I brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of bondage. The appeal to the awe, inspiring God, the appeal to his redemptive love and grace, what he has done for them. That's why they should be prepared then to do what he requires of them in the third section which would be the commandments themselves. Okay, meanwhile, so Exodus, the appeal to the Exodus redemption is the thing that follows. And then in the book of Deuteronomy you'll find the historical prologue in chapter 1, 6th through chapter 4. There are two, it's a recital of the good things that God had done. Now look, this is 40 years later. Exodus 20. Deuteronomy 40 years in the wilderness. They're in the plains of Moab on the banks of the Jordan. They're ready to go over and enter the conqueror of the land and settle there. There's been more recent history when Moses received this revelation back in Exodus 20 as Sinai. That was the most recent thing, the Exodus. Now God has led them through the wilderness, the beginnings of the conquest on the other side of the Jordan, Jordan, conquest have begun. And so the passage then in 1, 6th through chapter 4, the historical prologue in the book of Deuteronomy brings you up to date. God's most recent benefits to them are appeal to there, but definitely the pattern is repeating. It's the pattern of a treaty, not the pattern of a law code. Then as I say, I'm going to establish his claims, the claims of who he is and what he has done for them. Now this is what I expect of you. And by the way, it's in a 9th aisle form. It's the great king speaking, what I expect of you. The law codes are not in an aisle form. They are in a 3rd person form. You read through the code of Amir Abbi, the case laws begin with something like Shuma Awilim, if a man does this, if he does that, then this such will be the outcome. And if he deserves to die, then he shall die. But that's not the form here. This is now a type of arrangement. So now this is what I require of you. Now you get what we call them, the stipulations or the commandments, the obligations that the great king imposes upon the vessel. And usually then, sometimes these would be divided first into general requirements, and then the more specific requirements and the more general thing would be a basic statement of the relationship that will obtain. I am the great king, you are the vessel, and that will be our relationship, and you will be a friend to my friends, and you will be an enemy to my enemies. And by the same token, I will be your friend to your friends, and I will be an enemy to your enemy. So the fundamental relationship was then defined in this way, that from the one side indeed it was tributary, from the other side it wasn't indeed a protectorate arrangement. So that was the basic general relationship, and then that would be followed on by all the ancillary requirements for days of peace, and for time of war and days of peace. You will make your annual pilgrimages up to my palace, and bring your tribute, and that would be stipulated how much was required, and in a formal sense by the way that compares to the case of Israel where God is the great king and the temple is his palace. And the annual pilgrimages up there with the tribute is the formal equivalent there. Then days of war, of course you will be an enemy of my enemies, and you will contribute so many chariots, and so many troops, and so forth, and laws of extra addition, and so on. So there would be then the general requirements, and then also the specifics. Now then there you have, of course the next of this 20, the 10 commandments. And what I hope now you're beginning to see, however, is that although we call them, in fact the Bible itself on occasion, calls them the 10 words or the 10 commandments, that this is what we would call a par's prototo, it's only a part for the whole. The commandments are a very prominent part of these treaties, of course, but they are only a part of the treaty. And so we get a misconception of what's going on here at Exodus 20, if we think of them only in terms of the 10 commandments, we lose a thought that this is a treaty, which is a very distinctive and meaningful thing. But there you have the 10 commandments, beginning with the general ones, the general relationship between the vassal people Israel and Yahweh, the God of Israel. You will have an exclusive whole soul devotion and commitment and worship to me. I am indeed the Lord your God, and this defines their relationship to God. And then you go on from there to the other related commandments which have to do with the way you are going to behave within my kingdom in relation to your neighbors who are my friends, and so you will be a friend to them. And the way, of course, it works out, or you will be an enemy to my enemies, and those bale worshipers in Canaan are my enemies, and you will be an enemy to them as the way people all work out eventually. But here then you have the commandments, and in the book of Deuteronomy, then you have that section extends from chapter 5 through 26. And once again, with the more general requirements going on about the first six of those chapters and then the more specific requirements of all kinds going on through the 26th chapter. But these are treaties we are dealing with, treaties and then the law codes. All right, now there are three other sections. And let me take the next one may be called the document clause.
As I said, documents were involved, it isn't just that the great king would send someone or he himself would come and orally deliver the contents of this treaty. The thing was written down in a text, and so the treaty expresses that idea, in fact if you are going to use the word treaty in covenant and distinguish between them, you might want to use the word treaty for the document and the covenant for the relationship or so on. And so there is a document that is available which is being read to the people on this occasion and what to do with this document and in the days to come. And just for the moment, let me say a little bit and I'll come back to that. But the document then was to be a witness of course to the covenant arrangement. It was to be preserved in the temple in the holy place of the gods, the gods periodically, you were to bring it forth and to read it to the people to keep them alert to what their obligations were. And of course, we're coming to the curses and the blessings and so they would be alerted not only to what their obligations were, but they would be discouraged from disobedience or rebellion by the curses they'd be encouraged to obedience by the blessings but periodically the document is brought forth and it is read to the people. Now, in that particular feature, do you find that in Exodus 20? No, why not? The document is to be brought to the temple and deposited there. Exodus 20, no temple, no tabernacle yet. And so in Exodus, you read in chapters 19 through 24 in the midst of which then we have this treaty we're talking about and this whole section then is dealing with the covenant ceremony. The reading of the document, the sacrifices and so on, that accompany. But no tabernacle, of course yet. Now you move on to chapter 25. Now you begin to get the instructions for the building of God's houses, the palace is temple. And the very first thing then that gets discussed at any length is the arc of the covenant. And immediately as it's discussing that and here's the first place where this idea could possibly come up in the text, it tells you you take those tables of the covenant and you put them in the art. So the equivalent of this fourth section while not right within Exodus 20 does emerge in the actual practice of Israel and in the fact that this document is deposited there in the temple. In fact, there's an even closer analogy because the language in the treaties say that you are to take the document, the treaty, and you are to put it under the feet of the God or the God, your ultimate God in that God's temple. Now where were the two tables of the covenant put? They were put in the arc. And how does the Bible conceptualize that the arc? That is God's footstool. That's his throne. He is in thrown between the cherry of them. The arc is the footstool and therefore to put the tables of the covenant in the arc is literally to put it under the feet of God which is an exact corresponds. To what was called for in the document clause over here. In the book of Deuteronomy, in the closing chapters, I don't know if I have the exact verse here, you have, again, the thought that that book of the covenant was to be laid up by the arc in the temple. And in the book of Deuteronomy, you get the further equivalent of the document clause because the book of Deuteronomy specifies that this treaty is to be brought forth and read to the people just as the international treaties required that the treaty be read periodically to the people. So the book of Deuteronomy every seventh year, the year of release, the connection with the Feast of Tabernacles. This book was to be brought forth, this treaty, and read to the people. So it's quite remarkable. The way this parallel continues across the board. Now, the fifth section of the treaties, yeah. Were those documents laid under the feet of the king? Of the God. Of the God. And I want to actually even go a little bit beyond that. In a moment, when I want to come back to it, you're actually dealing with two kings. There, you're dealing with the Great King, and you're dealing with the Vassal King. And anticipating that by point, each king has a copy. And each king puts it under the feet of his God in his temple. Okay, now I'll be coming back to it to that particular point. Now, the fifth point is in the international treaties, the invocation of the gods. See, these were not just secular contracts. This was all operating in the sacred sphere, the religious sphere. You know, superstitiously, and thinking of the true gods, but nevertheless, in their terms, it was religious, and they conceived of the gods as the ones who were going to witness this arrangement and who were to be the enforcers of it. And so there would be the invocation of the gods to be witnesses, so however you want to express that, divine witnesses. And they would go through all the list of the gods, the ones that are active in the cult, and the others, and comprehensively cover them, and they would end up with sort of general classifications like the gods of the mountains and the hills, and then heaven and earth, and that kind of language is found. Okay, now, in Exodus, are you going to find Yahweh, the god who in the Ten Commandments part here has already identified himself, you know, as the one and true, and only living gods with whom they alone, they must have relations, is he about now to invoke a bunch of other gods to be witnesses to, obviously not. Here you run into a big theological difference between what's going on in the two situations that will not allow gods 3D with his people to include a section where they, and he would be appealing to any other gods because he alone, so you can understand why you wouldn't have the equivalent to that either in Exodus 20 or in Deuteronomy. Okay, what is interesting, however, is that in spite of the theological tension involved, that elsewhere at various places, places which I, if you read in these chapters here in structure, you can find the details, but at various places in Deuteronomy, and in the prophets elsewhere in God's lawsuit, you'll find that when God is appealing to his people, he invokes heaven and earth. He invokes heaven and earth to be witnesses between him and his people. Now it's just a rhetorical device, of course, but it happens in this rhetorical device where God personifies heaven and earth that he uses the language that is found in the appeal to the divine witnesses in the international treaties because as I said they end up with a general mention of the gods of heaven and earth. Even there, there's something of an echo of that section in spite of the theological differences. Then finally, the gods are called to be witnesses just before the sanctions. They are the ones who are to keep an eye, you see, on the people to make sure that they do not stray, and they will then be in a position you see to enforce the curses and the blessings. This is what will happen to you if you break the covenant, curses, spelled out all kinds of curses, and these are the blessings that will follow and the gods then are the ones who would actually be thought of as enforcing these. Now then, are there any curses in blessings in Exodus 20? Not as a section at the end, but as a matter of fact, even in the extrobiblical treaties, this was not always just a section at the end, sometimes these curses and blessings would be interwoven with commandments along the way, and that's the way we find it in Exodus 20. So you think through the language of Exodus 20 and here and there, you see there are promises, and there are threats, and the Lord will not hold him guiltless, that takes his name in vain. There's the promise that the children of obedience to their parents of long life and the language of the Lord, your God, gives you. So here and there, it disperse among the ten commandments here among the stipulations, we do find the blessings and the curses of the covenant, and then in a big way, in the book of Deuteronomy, you have a very extensive detailed section of saints. So these are the functions of chapters 27 through 30, and as you read through those chapters, you find yourself with a sort of a preview of the whole ongoing history of Israel, leading down to their constant covenant breaking, their failures, the whole history of Israel is the tale of God is faithful and Israel is unfaithful, that's the whole story. Not so, all the books, in fact, that's why a lot of these history books were written, they were written by the prophets themselves, to provide sort of a brief so that when it came time to conduct God's lawsuit against Israel, here would be the record right in hand in the history books that had been prepared. God had not broken the covenant, Israel has broken the covenant, that's why now this is what's going to happen to you, you're going to go into exile, and so forth, but that's what you get then in the book of Deuteronomy. Now then, there's this extensive pattern, let me now just back up to that fourth section and fill in one further detail about it. As we were saying, then there's the Great King and the Vassal, and each one gets a copy of this treaty, and they put it under the feet of their respective gods. Now that feature is then reflected here in Exodus 20 as well, but it's been missed because we have misunderstood the whole business about the two tables of the covenant. Traditionally, when people think of the two tables of the covenant, they think table one, commandments one, let's say, through four, and of course this already has lost track of the fact that there's an historical prologue and there's a preamble, and it isn't just ten commandments, but for getting that for a moment, but we usually get the end of the thought that there are two tables, the first one has these commandments on it, and the second table has this, and so the first table is equated with our duty to God. Now Jesus, of course, distinguishes among the laws and the requirements, the first law, the ultimate primary law is our duty to God, and he distinguishes that then from secondly our duty to our neighbor, love the Lord of God, love your neighbor, but what we have falsely done with Jesus didn't do, but what we have done is we have taken what he says about these two areas, our duty to God and our duty to man, and we have equated them with the first table and the second table, and Jesus didn't do that, and that's completely phony and false, if you can get it out of your head, please do. But what's really going on here, and here's just another point, throughout this amazingly detailed correspondence between what God is doing to Israel, and what's going on over there, and it's perfectly obvious as it's not that here again, but what we're dealing with is God has a copy, and the people have a copy, and so the first table is the treaty with the title of historical prologue, the commandments, the sanctions, the whole thing, and the second table is the same thing, it's the duplicate, Israel has a copy, God has a copy, and so if you're looking for historical authenticity in genuineness, then you're going to have to throw this whole tradition out, and I hope you have more success than I've had in 30 years of trying to do it, to just can't get the idea. So in planting people's heads is that the first table of the law is the second table is this, and it's just no doubt about it, that these are complete duplicate copies, and I can't get the idea through, I'm not quite sure, I guess it's just the inertia of a tradition. Okay, but okay, now then what does this tell us then about the nature of covenants? These arrangements, which are so remarkably like the treaty arrangements that God makes, for example, with Israel through Moses, these arrangements were known as Mitu and Rick, which means old and bonds, and that's what a treaty was. Or whether the people would have to commit themselves by a solemn oath, because that's what happened next, the treaty would be read, this is what I require of you, now will you do this, and the proper response was, amen, we will do that, that's what Israel does, it's Sinai, this material is read to them. Israel, you've heard what God requires, and Israel says, all of the Lord has spoken, we will do there in the presence of God, it is a terrible theology, they make this solemn affirmation of allegiance to him, and that is certainly tantamount to an oath, and then there are the actual ceremonies that accompany that, which at least in part are symbolizing the curse that would befall them, if they break that arrangement. So in terms of definition, this parallelism, I think, on underscores the basic point we try to make, involve, of course, in this whole thing, there may be something that I don't know, if any of you are disturbed by the very fact that here in the Bible, it seems that God in order to define his relationship to his own people is borrowing something from the common purpose, the common profane world out there, does that disturb your thought about the inspiration of scripture, it all really shouldn't, I think, if you think properly of who God is, and how he controls all things in his sovereign will, then the way to see it is this, that look, in the third quarter of the Second Millennium, when he wanted a nice legal diplomatic form that would meaningfully convey to the Israelites how he related to them, that he was a Lord, and they were, he was a Lord, and they were a servant people, and so he had in his sovereign providence arranged that such a legal form was available and was something that was commonly known to people because it wasn't the language that they were of international diplomacy, so there's nothing that would call and question the inspiration of this process, or the sovereignty of the greatness of God could rather have emphasized us in. So no different is that then when God wanted to reveal himself in scripture, he used languages that were there and alive, he didn't invent new languages to speak to the people, he used languages that were available, and in general he didn't invent all kinds of new literary genres of forms to speak to the people, but the Bible, you can analyze in terms of its various forms, and so you have laws, and you have narratives, and you have Psalms, and you have proverbs, and you have love songs, and you have prophecies, and on and on lamentations, and all of these literary forms that God uses to convey his revelation in the Bible were forms that existed before and around Israel in their date, so in his providence he has means of communication, language, literary forms, and so on, which he then uses to convey his revelation, and here's another, three views, just one of many such, so I hope that doesn't disturb your thought about, but it's fresh, yes. So if that's all covered in ideas, it would seem to come to the other way around, come in the garden, and see after Adam and his cell we saw, I talked about that God closed them with coats of scenes to find that, and there was a sacrifice as well as King and Abel before the sacrifice. So here we are in the days of Moses, and at this point God is making use of this pagan form that exists over here, but now the question is where does all of this come from, and as you rightly point out, covenants begin back in the garden of Eden, so the original covenants and the realities of that began back there, and Moses of course stands in that tradition of covenant organizations and so on. Now meanwhile in the city of man that's developing here after the fall in the realm of common grace, meanwhile the influence I would assume is coming, they were acquainted with covenantal arrangements, and so they embody them into their techniques of diplomacy and so on, and so that kind of thing is available in the days of Moses, and Moses, the Lord through Moses happens to make use of the particular legal form that exists there, but then you're quite right to bring out that the ultimate origins of the covenant idea with the Lord himself, and this is sort of a perversion of the thing, it's the same sort of problem that comes up when we were discussing some things back here in one section of the course that I sort of jumped over that we didn't have time for was the the question of the historicity of the biblical narratives, especially in something like Genesis 1 through 11. And let me just say this in Genesis 1 through 11 you have an outline.