Episode 1649
Behind the Veil of Pharaoh’s Power - Vincent Krivda
Behind the Veil of
Pharaoh’s Power
Vincent Krivda
This episode centers on a profound discussion with Vincent Krivda, who explores the intricate relationship between ancient Egypt's political landscape and the biblical narrative, particularly in his book "Pharaoh's Power." He delves into the concept that the biblical stories serve not merely as religious texts but as reflections of real socio-political dynamics, prompting listeners to reconsider the implications of these narratives in a contemporary context. With a wealth of knowledge drawn from his extensive background in both theology and contracts management, Vincent articulates how understanding the oral traditions and historical contexts can illuminate the motivations and actions of biblical figures. Pastor Bob Thibodeau engages Vincent in thought-provoking dialogue, navigating themes of leadership, authority, and the socio-economic systems that shaped the ancient world. The conversation invites the audience to reflect on how these ancient dynamics still resonate with today's societal structures, encouraging a deeper examination of faith and governance.
Takeaways:
- Pastor Bob Thibodeau's podcast, Kingdom Crossroads, showcases influential Christian figures impacting the world today.
- Vincent Krivda discusses the deep connection between oral traditions and the socio-political context of ancient Egypt.
- The podcast highlights the importance of understanding the historical backdrop of biblical narratives for contemporary relevance.
- Krivda's book, Pharaoh's Historical Fiction in the Bible, explores how ancient Egyptian culture informs modern faith practices.
- Listeners can gain insights into how the dynamics of leadership and faith intersect within historical contexts.
- The conversation emphasizes the need for a critical examination of religious texts to uncover deeper moral and ethical lessons.
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Email: Info@vincentkrivda.com
Website: https://vincentkrivda.com
Book: Pharaoh’s Power: Historical Fiction in the Bible – on Amazon
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Transcript
Welcome to the Kingdom Crossroads podcast with Pastor Bob Thibodeau.
Speaker A:Pastor Bob conducts personal interviews with Christian influencers from around the globe, helping Christian authors, recording artists, CEOs, entrepreneurs, non profit leaders, and yes, pastors and ministry leaders to get the word out about what they are doing to impact the world with the gospel.
Speaker A:Our podcast has been rated in the top 1/2% of all podcasts in the world by ListenNotes.com so you know your message will be heard.
Speaker A:Now, here is your host with today's interview, Pastor Bob Thibodeau.
Speaker B:Hello, everyone, everywhere.
Speaker B:Pastor Bob Thibodeau here.
Speaker B:Welcome to the Kingdom Crossroads podcast today.
Speaker B:We're so blessed that you're joining us.
Speaker B:You know, some people see the Bible just as an old book with ancient ideas.
Speaker B:But what if the stories in the Bible aren't just religious tales, but windows into, let's say, real political power plays, you know, human ambition, divine interventions with direct relevance to how you live, lead and believe today.
Speaker B:Well, that would make for an interesting conversation, wouldn't it?
Speaker B:Well, buckle your seatbelts, folks, because that's the type of conversation we're going to have with today's guest.
Speaker B:Today's guest is Vincent Krivda, an author, theologian, retired certified professional contracts manager with over 37 years of experience in national defense and intellectual property.
Speaker B:He holds advanced degrees in contracts management and theological studies.
Speaker B:And he's here today to talk about his powerful new book, Pharaoh's Historical Fiction in the Bible.
Speaker B:Help me welcome to the program Vincent Krivda.
Speaker B:Vincent, it is a blessing to have you join us today, brother.
Speaker C:Pastor Bob, thank you very much.
Speaker C:I've been excited ever since I was first invited a little bit over a month ago.
Speaker C:And I've just been chomping at the bit to be able to get once again to talk about the research I've done and the thoughts that I've put out in my book, Pharaoh's Power.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Well, the first question I always start with is this.
Speaker B:Other than that brief information I just presented, can you tell us in your own words who is Vincent Krimda?
Speaker C: ,: Speaker C:And ever since that day, I have been walking a path to try to figure out who is my creator, why is he mindful of me, and most importantly, who is Yahweh that I should obey and heed his voice.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:And your journey, you know, through the military, we talked about before the recording started and Then your, your journey through contract negotiations into theological studies.
Speaker B:I mean, that's a fascinating journey there.
Speaker B:Give us a quick overview of how path led you to writing a book like Pharaoh's Power.
Speaker C:Well, after I got out of the army, I went to Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee and could not get enough of the Bible courses.
Speaker C:Even though I was a history major.
Speaker C:I took all the, the Bible courses and I was fascinated even then with this idea of oral tradition.
Speaker C:Now here's how oral tradition is typically taught in a seminary, in a college environment that the Bible was first given to us as the Word of God and these words were preserved.
Speaker C:And to the extent that these were God's words, they were preserved even more intact.
Speaker C:And so there's actually two schools of thought.
Speaker C:Now that you have the foundation that oral tradition is, is the backbone or the background of the Bible, which way do we go?
Speaker C:We either obey these words as if it were this tablet that we had to look at unilaterally and it was a compliance manual, or there's a second school that says, wait a minute, these words were given to us to prompt us to begin to think about our present condition.
Speaker C:Now what I've done is actually unique in this regard because what I've done is overlaid the idea of oral tradition along with what we know the genre of writing was in the ancient world, historical tradition.
Speaker C:Now Amen.
Speaker C:Why would we do that?
Speaker C:Because you have a 2% literacy rate in the ancient world.
Speaker C:And so the stories were told not to preserve the stories.
Speaker C:The stories were told in order to get people around the table to talk about morals, values, tradition and discipline so that we could teach the next generation.
Speaker C:And in doing that, the stories themselves weren't so much the topic, it was what kind of unique conversations would have been generated.
Speaker C:Let me use a good example.
Speaker C:If you're going to turn in, we're almost the same age, but if you're going to turn on Sunday evening, way back in the 80s and the 90s at 8 or 9 o'clock 8, CBS had a great show called Murder She Wrote.
Speaker C:Now you always knew that there was going to be a murder, so it was never about the murder.
Speaker C:So what was it about?
Speaker C:It was about the way you solved the murder and the way that you teach the messages of morality and how we should live in this present world.
Speaker C:And so I overlaid that idea with my first book, the Greatest Story Never Told, and asked if I heard the stories in Torah, the first five books of the Bible back at 450 BCE, what would that story have Meant to me.
Speaker C: fferent than if we read it in: Speaker C:Now, tell you what tickled my fancy, if you would.
Speaker C:I was reading in Hebrew, Genesis.
Speaker C:I think it's the 17th chapter where God is told to Abraham after he already has a 13 year old son, I'm going to give you a son that will be your heir.
Speaker C:Now Mose or Abraham is scratching his head and says, lord, what about Ishmael?
Speaker C:Now in English, the response is completely neutered and lost because God uses two words.
Speaker C:And by the way, they're the exact same words as for Ishmael.
Speaker C:I have heard you.
Speaker C:Now we take eight words or nine words to answer that question.
Speaker C:God took two words and Pastor Bob, I was sitting there reading it and I started to laugh because I began to think about on a play in New York City on the stage where you have someone telling a story and they nail that line with just two words.
Speaker C:And everybody around the table and in the audience would have laughed because it really wasn't about an adoption, it really wasn't about having a baby, but it was really about, are we going to listen to God's direction in our life when we plan one thing, but he also plans another?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:That's good.
Speaker B:And is that what inspired you to, to do this deep dive in your book, Pharaoh's Power?
Speaker C:I think so, because what I noticed that quite frankly was missing in seminary programs is this explanation of what Egypt really meant to Canaan.
Speaker C:And then I realized, my goodness, I don't know anything about Egypt.
Speaker C:And so I did what I really didn't want to do at first.
Speaker C:I went through and looked at 3,000 years of pharaonic history.
Speaker C:Now why is that important?
Speaker C:It actually is the foundation be for this reason.
Speaker C:Okay, when you're in seminary, for example, you're reading like the Psalms and the, the proverbs and you know, there's great proverbs.
Speaker C:For example, a man who findeth a wife findeth a good thing.
Speaker C:Okay?
Speaker C:And we understand, okay, that's a Jewish proverb.
Speaker C:So that is the word of God.
Speaker C:So it must be so important.
Speaker C:Now, we don't study Egyptian proverbs for some obvious reasons.
Speaker C:Does that mean that those proverbs are less stimulating or less important?
Speaker C:And I think that's also important because not only do we not study Egyptian history enough, when we read the book of Exodus, it was actually written looking to Egypt as an overlord, as a foreign country.
Speaker C:So hidden within the text, in plain sight, are meanings that escape us because we're reading it as if it were 20, 25, not listening to the story as if it were 450 BCE and those contexts are missed by our generation.
Speaker C:So what I wanted to do was break down Egyptian history in a very systematic way.
Speaker C:And, and I, I think when I first looked at the process, I thought, well, you know, I've got a seminary degree, but I'm.
Speaker C:No one's gonna, you know, have a parade for me for being a seminarian or.
Speaker C:And then I thought, okay, I also have a business degree.
Speaker C:It's what I was doing for 40, 30, 37 years.
Speaker C:Over 37 years now, by the way.
Speaker C:So what I looked at was the Egyptian history and then looked at it as if I were a logistician to be able to draw together the economics that would have made Egypt the thriving country that it was, the prosperous country that it was, and then overlay that economic backdrop with the truths that we see in the book of Exodus.
Speaker C:And I think I've come up with something special in that regard.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:And, you know, I love how you're looking at, like, the socioeconomic systems that were in Egypt because just like, you know, right now here in the United States, that's the big talk is, you know, everything taking place here, and if this happens, what's going to happen to this and all the people to be affected.
Speaker B:And just think about, you know, if your working class just packed up and left, leaving the CEOs to run the companies, you know, there you go.
Speaker B:What are you going to do?
Speaker B:You know, and through the lens of Pharaoh and his court and all that, what themes of, of leadership and faith or misuse of authority did you want your readers to, to come away with?
Speaker C:So actually, that's an excellent question because I actually don't think that it's even a misuse of authority as opposed to a bias.
Speaker C:If you're writing in Canaan, looking to Egypt and coming up, remember, with historical fiction, a story that you want to proliferate in your own economy.
Speaker C:Now, here's what I found out.
Speaker C: For the first: Speaker C: the New kingdom time, around: Speaker C:And we can all appreciate policy changes in governments.
Speaker C:Okay, but think of it this way.
Speaker C:Here's what we have politically operating in Egypt at the time.
Speaker C:You have in the Goshen region, the Bible calls the Goshen region that northern Delta.
Speaker C: ng in Cake from Canaan around: Speaker C:So you have these Asiatic Semitic people living in the delta.
Speaker C:We know that, we have that archeology, we have that data.
Speaker C:300 miles south in the city of Thebes, you have the traditional regnal pharaoh who has for the past 100 to 150 years lost every war with the Hyksos pharaoh up in the delta region.
Speaker C:And he needed, after that much losing.
Speaker C:He, he needed a right, a divine right to rule because people are being undermined in their confidence with him as a leader.
Speaker C:Now I'm going to throw in this little, little twist.
Speaker C:You also have 19 other operating pharaohs at the same time in the various gnomes of Egypt.
Speaker C: So you easily, around: Speaker B:Okay, so there wasn't just one ruler.
Speaker C:Bingo.
Speaker B:It was like more like our governors here.
Speaker B:Like each governor has his own authority.
Speaker C:And that is actually an excellent way to look at it.
Speaker C:Now the traditional regnal pharaoh had a problem and he knew he had a problem.
Speaker C:So what they said was, we're going to have a policy change when the next pharaoh is born.
Speaker C:He's going to be deified at his birth, the incarnate Amun Ra.
Speaker C:Now follow the story here because this is going to get juicy.
Speaker C:And in order to make sure that we know he's pure, he's only going to be marrying his sisters.
Speaker C:By the way, it only lasted about two generations for some obvious reasons.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker C:But we're left with this story.
Speaker C:Why did he do that?
Speaker C:He did it because he was giving away his general officer corps positions to people who would marry into the family who really weren't.
Speaker C:Military stuff, if you will, by cutting off how you could get into the military as a general officer, he then promoted to general officers, some guys who could actually win wars.
Speaker C:And ultimately during the 17th Dynasty in Thebes, they were eventually able to expel the Hyksos pharaoh and the military of the Fixos Hyksos pharaohs up into Canaan, where by the way, the historian Josephus says those were the forefathers of the Jews who founded the city of Jerusalem.
Speaker C:Now, but let's get back to Egypt real quick because what you have now that we don't have in this day and age, what, but what you would have had in 450 BCE is the audience would have known exactly what I'm telling you, that the idea of pharaoh was the incarnate Amun Ra in the flesh.
Speaker C:Why is that important for the historical fiction which I say predominates not only the book of Exodus, but a lot of.
Speaker C:A lot of the Old Testament.
Speaker C:Well, let's just go over quickly.
Speaker C:In Exodus 1, by the first of all, let me just say this.
Speaker C:The name Exodus is not a Hebrew name.
Speaker C:It is a name given by other translators, but it's not the Hebrew name of the Bible.
Speaker C:The Hebrew name is Shemote, which means names.
Speaker C:Okay, it does.
Speaker C:So why do we give it the book, the.
Speaker C:The book of Exodus, the name Exodus, That's a whole different story, a whole different time later.
Speaker C:Now, in Exodus 1, you're treated to well over 30 names or pronouns, but never the name of the Lord or the name of Pharaoh.
Speaker C:And I want to be clear because the word Elohim is used, and that's a plural for God.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:In Exodus, the second chapter, you have an unnamed Pharaoh and a daughter.
Speaker C:And she sees this basket, and instinctively she knows it's a Hebrew boy in a basket.
Speaker C:Now, I don't know how you would.
Speaker C:No.
Speaker C:Couldn't it have been an Egyptian boy who was abandoned or an Egyptian girl or a Hebrew girl?
Speaker C:But instinctively she knew as a Hebrew boy, she went to have the basket fetched, and then she decided she's going to raise the baby as the heir to her father.
Speaker C:Now, we already know in the New Kingdom that could never have happened.
Speaker C:But that point might have been lost on someone in Canaan who's writing the story.
Speaker C:In the third chapter, we go to the burning bush.
Speaker C:And let's just keep focused on names because this is a central tenet throughout these first six chapters.
Speaker C:Moses encounters the burning bush, and then he conveches.
Speaker C:Well, Lord, who am I?
Speaker C:I got things to do.
Speaker C:My.
Speaker C:My father in law is getting old.
Speaker C:Don't you see?
Speaker C:All these sheep and goats, why me?
Speaker C:And so finally he gets to the point in the third chapter, the 13th verse, where he says, all right, all right, all right, I'll go, but help me out here.
Speaker C:When I come to the children of Israel and they say to me, what is his name?
Speaker C:Which indicates that they didn't know who am I supposed to say sent me?
Speaker C:And that's where we have the infamous.
Speaker C:Where the verse 14, where in English it says, I am who I am.
Speaker C:Now, that word is actually based on the root word to be.
Speaker C:So we go to the fifth chapter, and I'm not going to get in the fourth chapter.
Speaker C:You got to read the book.
Speaker C:There's something very special about the fourth chapter in the rod that's in Jesus's hand.
Speaker C:But fifth chapter, Moses goes to Pharaoh and says, let my people go that they may hold a feast to me.
Speaker C:Now, this is Moses talking to the incarnate Amun Ra.
Speaker C:And the incarnate Amun Ra says, who is Yahweh?
Speaker C:That I should obey his voice and let Israel go.
Speaker C:I do not know him, nor will I let Israel go.
Speaker C:And I think the problem with reading this story is if we're telling the story, one of the kids in the audience or one of the adults would raise their hand and say, yeah, who is Yahweh?
Speaker C:That we should obey his voice.
Speaker C:Then you would have a discussion about who is Yahweh and why we should obey his voice.
Speaker C:And quite frankly, you may never get to the rest of the story, as stories go, that entire evening.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker C:Now, in the sixth chapter, this is just.
Speaker C:This is a.
Speaker C:A fascinating verse that has blown my mind away for.
Speaker C:For years and years.
Speaker C:In the second verse, the Lord appears to Moses and says, moses, when I first appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I only appeared to them as El Shaddai, which means warrior God, by my name, Yahweh.
Speaker C:I did not make myself known to them.
Speaker C:Now I've negotiated contracts.
Speaker C:If I'd have been in that meeting, I'd have been looking at God and say, lord.
Speaker C:That would have been nice to know before you sent me in to tell Pharaoh, because he didn't know who you were either.
Speaker C:But there's something unique about the word.
Speaker C:The name Yahweh, the yod, hey, vav.
Speaker C:Hey.
Speaker C:The name of the Lord.
Speaker C:It's also a derivation of that root word to be.
Speaker C:And more interestingly, these were the initial vowels that were, include, or that were inserted into the Hebrew language in order to make the writing a little bit more discernible.
Speaker C:And so there's even been some scholars who suggested not only was it not proper to say the name of Yahweh, but theoretically, you wouldn't be able to say the name of Yahweh because they're all vows.
Speaker C:We've kind of butchered it up a little bit in English with Jehovah and with Yahweh.
Speaker C:But I always get back to that infamous question that the incarnate Amun Ra posed to Moses.
Speaker C:Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice?
Speaker C:Almost like, dude, don't you know who I am?
Speaker C:And I would suggest that this was not a political meeting.
Speaker C:This was an ideological clash between cultures.
Speaker C:Which religion would dominate the culture of Amun Ra in Egypt or In Canaan, the name of Yahweh, and every one of those plagues you see has significance.
Speaker C:And it culminates in what?
Speaker C:The death of the firstborn.
Speaker C:But not only the death of the firstborn son of Pharaoh, which would have been the incarnate Amun Ra.
Speaker C:It was a clean sweep, the death of every Egyptian male.
Speaker C:And I don't know, because the, the, the ultimate question I always get is, well, if this is historical fiction, does that mean that it's not true?
Speaker C:No, on the contrary, we had to have a mechanism back when there wasn't reading to be able to tell stories, but to tell them in such a way that people wouldn't fall asleep and get bored to death.
Speaker C:And what we've done, I think illogically is we've taken, we've taken the Old Testament stories and we try to justify those stories, when in fact what we should be looking for in the Old Testament is not the arch types, because as Christians we look for the archetypes, you know, that, you know, give us an idea of Jesus in the future.
Speaker C:I, not that that's not relevant.
Speaker C:Don't get me wrong, it's not my shtick.
Speaker C:What we need to be looking for are the questions.
Speaker C:Because that's what our ancient forefathers would have done.
Speaker C:They would have stopped and said, who is Yahweh?
Speaker C:That I should obey him.
Speaker C:What if I've got better things to do?
Speaker C:What if I have to care for my father in law?
Speaker C:What if I got 50 sheeps and goats that need to be fed daily and watered?
Speaker C:What should we do when God calls us to do something?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:That's, that's good, man.
Speaker B:I could talk to you for hours, man, because this is stuff that I've, I've read and preached on, of course, and, but this perspective is, is really great.
Speaker B:Oh man, this has been so interesting.
Speaker B:How can someone get a copy of your book Pharaoh's Power?
Speaker B:I take it it's on Amazon?
Speaker C:It's on Amazon.
Speaker C:You can visit vincentcripta.com and get some more information on oral tradition.
Speaker C:It's on Amazon and quite a few other book sites, but it's on Amazon.
Speaker C:And I was told about a week or two ago that in three of the categories that it went to number one for a short period of time on the Ancient Egyptian history, which by the way, that to me was like icing on the cake because I wanted to have an interesting history book that actually made sense.
Speaker C:But then it also in Old Testament criticism and Old Testament studies, for a short period of time.
Speaker C:So Amazon.com or vincentcrypta.com will direct you where to go to.
Speaker B:Maybe soon it'll be required reading in seminaries.
Speaker B:Eh?
Speaker C:Well, you know, I'm a teacher, so it's already required in my classes.
Speaker B:In a particular class.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Well, someone has a question for you, or they'd like more information, maybe do an interview like this.
Speaker B:How can they contact you?
Speaker B:How can they reach out and get.
Speaker C:In touch with you easily?
Speaker C:@vincentcrypta.com There's a button for contacting me at info@vincentcript.com and if you send with a question, I will respond.
Speaker C:I promise.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:I'll put links all this in the show notes below.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Okay, folks, today Vincent Krimna took us deep into the ancient world through his book Pharaoh's Power.
Speaker B:I mean, revealing how ancient Egypt's political and spiritual dynamics, really, they're still speaking to us today.
Speaker B:We didn't even have time to go into how this affects what we're looking at in our political atmosphere today.
Speaker B:But we learned how the power of oral traditions, when combined with historical fiction.
Speaker B:Oh, that can bring relevance to biblical messages that we study today as well.
Speaker B:Praise God.
Speaker B:Drop down the show notes, click the links right there.
Speaker B:Get in touch with Vincent.
Speaker B:Check out the book website and be sure to click the links and get your own very own copy of Pharaoh's Power historical fiction in the Bible.
Speaker B:Praise God.
Speaker B:Get it right now before you forget.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Vincent, I want to thank you again for coming on the program today.
Speaker B:Man, this has been good, really.
Speaker B:Reach out anytime you want to come back on, brother.
Speaker C:All right, Pastor Bob, I will.
Speaker B:Amen, folks.
Speaker B:That's all the time we have for today for Vincent Cribdon.
Speaker B:Myself passed by reminding you to be blessed in all that you do.
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Speaker A:Please subscribe to our podcast so you can be notified when another episode is published.
Speaker A: interviews than: Speaker A:To share their messages with the world, please visit our website@www.podcastersforchrist.com.
Speaker A:that web address again is www.podcastersforchrist.Com.
Speaker A:for more information, until next time, be blessed in all that you do.
