Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of theology in the raw. I have on the show today one of my favorite

biblical scholars. Dr. Sandra or she goes by Sandy Richter. Sandy Richter is just an absolute

brilliant biblical scholar. She was on the show last summer. I don't know if you remember the episode

where we talked about the so-called rape laws in Deuteronomy and Sandy just did a fantastic job

helping us understand the ancient Near East context and the actual biblical language surrounding

some of these difficult laws. And in this episode, we dig into her latest book, which is called

Stewards of Eden, what Scripture says about the environment and why it matters. This was a fantastic

episode just digging into the scriptural vision for creation, for why Christians should care for

the environment, not for out of political interest, per se, but out of theological reasons. And she

makes that distinction really clear. Sandy is a graduate of Valley Forge University of Gordon

Conwell, theological seminary. And she earned her doctorate from the Near Eastern Languages

and Civilizations Department of Harvard University in the Hebrew Bible. So no, she's a high-powered

scholar, a veteran of many years of leading student groups and archaeological excavation and

historical geography classes in Israel. She's also taught at Asbury Theological Seminary,

Wesley Biblical Seminary, Wheaton College, and she currently is a professor at Westmont

University or Westmont College out in California. One of my favorite Christian colleges, by the way,

partly because it's in Santa Barbara, one of my favorite cities on earth.

And I came across Sandy's name originally because she wrote a book called The Epic of Eden,

a Christian entry into the Old Testament, which I used to assign as a textbook for my Old

Testament survey class because it is hands down the best, accessible, somewhat short, easy to read,

incredibly thoughtful introduction and overview of the Old Testament that I've ever read.

It's so good. And we talked briefly about that book, but we do dig into a more recent work on

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