You're listening to the Bible for Normal People, the only God ordained podcast on the internet.

I'm Pete Ends. And I'm Jared Byas.

Welcome everyone to this episode of the Bible for Normal People. And our topic today is

reading the Bible in times of crisis. And we wanted to just make mention here at the front.

You know, we do talk about loss of children in the Bible and in the early church,

just to be sensitive to anyone as far as what you're going to be hearing. And we're talking

with assistant professor of religious studies at Yale University, Maria Dorfler.

Yeah, we don't just talk about that. It actually is a bigger conversation about how we read our Bible.

Yeah, and that's what's really was very fascinating and very apropos for our podcast

to talk about how Christians in the early centuries use certain texts in the Bible that talk about

children who die. And it's actually, you know, this could be a very hard topic for people to listen

to. We understand that. But the real focus of this is on hermeneutics. It's on the nature of

biblical interpretation. It's what people do all the time with their Bible. This is just one

example of people doing that very thing, engaging the Bible creatively, looking for little gaps

and little ends so they can commune with God at a time of crisis for themselves. And I think

everybody who's read the Bible has done that on someone. Yeah, that's well put.

All right, well, let's jump into this conversation then and hear from Maria.

Every child who passes is in a sense being offered up by the parents to God, not because the

parents, ideally, of course, have a hand in the killing of the child. But because the parents

must on some level ascend to despairing and must continue to put their faith in the divine, regardless.

Well, welcome, Maria, to the podcast. It's great to have you.

Thanks so much for having me. I'm delighted to be here.

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