Nativity Blog

The semester is coming to a close in which we have studied, questioned, and became enthralled by the bible as a volume of stories. As my final blog I will leave you with a familiar story found in Luke:

"In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register.
So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "'Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger'."
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.'"

The Christmas story, often called "The greatest story ever told" is the most famous story of the bible but also the most forgotten and most taken for granted by both those who don't believe it and those who feel themselves to be devout. I challenge you this Winter break to hold fast to whatever it is you do believe and to have a safe a rejuvenating holiday.

Side Efeects of LIT 240

Whether it was because I'm missing my family or my getting caught up in the atmosphere of the Christmas stroll on Saturday, I took the notion to try to visit the First Baptist Church here in Bozeman. I was comforted by the familiar wooden pues and the giant pipe organ from my childhood memories, along with the army of little old ladies that proceeded to maul me with friendship bread and sympathies for my living so far away from my family. I started to think about how much I've grown up just in this semester and how my opinions on alot of things have changed, especially concerning faith and the bible, but how I think I've managed to preserve my basic principles.

But then the sermon started.

The preacher was going on about John the Baptist and how the birth of Jesus was prophesied in the book of Luke and whatnot and the basis for alot of his message was based on the order in which the books are in the bible, and how because of it, there is a ton of evidence for Jesus's existence. The entire time I had this overwhelming urge to say "Actually sir, it was probably just a later redactor that put them in that order so that it makes more sense." or something like that. As he continued, Frye continued to run through my head whispering little bits of doubt and logic that made it impossible for me to be my old baptist believing self. I don't know if I would call this a crisis of faith, I'm just realizing now how much of an impact this class has had on me and how I think about the Bible.

Term Paper

The Faith of a Slave
Isaac Bashevis Singer’s novel The Slave follows the life of a Polish Jew named Jacob, who after surviving a Cossack massacre is sold into slavery and falls passionately in love with his owner’s daughter, Wanda. The retelling of Jacob’s struggles with God and his fellow man along with the string of horrifying events that mark his life set the stage for his intellectual and spiritual enlightenment. In his novel The Slave, Singer traces the evolution of Jacob’s faith with multiple allusions to the Bible, starting with his blind following of Jewish law, to the questioning of religion and God as a result of the acquisition of knowledge.
Rather than focusing his astonishing loyalty and faith on the God he fears and worships, Jacob at the beginning of the novel concentrates on the laws established by religious men to guide a Jew’s daily life. He begins each day with a prayer: “‘I thank thee’ a prayer not mentioning God’s name therefore utterable before cleaning oneself” (11). It is interesting that the narrator should mention that the prayer itself does not include the name of God, for Jacob’s morning routine is just that; a routine that is mindless and automatic, not necessarily glorifying the God that inspires the action. One would assume that faith is an internal phenomenon, not affected by a lack of outward symbols, but Jacob’s preoccupation with Jewish decorum during his life of slavery remains present throughout the narrator’s description of him: “He was without prayer shawl and phylacteries, fringed garment or holy book. Circumcision was the only sign on his body that he was a Jew. But heaven be thanked, he knew his prayers by heart, a few chapters of the Mishnah, some pages of the Gemara, a host of Psalms, as well as passages from various parts of the Bible” (13). Why is it that, while amongst pagans recently converted to Christianity, who know nothing of the Jewish faith, does Jacob remain so concerned with keeping up the appearance of a faithful Jew?
One of the most important laws in the Jewish faith are concerned with dietary laws and keeping the Sabbath day holy. Throughout the Bible in the books of Leviticus, Isaiah, Galatians, 1 Thessalonians, and Colossians the issue of cleanliness as it relates to holiness is addressed in dietary law, starting with God’s edicts to Moses about what makes an animal clean or unclean. Leviticus 3:17 states that "It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwellings, that you shall not eat either fat or blood." Jews are to eat only animals that have divided hooves, chew their cud, live in the sea and have scales, or fruits and vegetables. To Jacob, this means that he must live off of plants and bread because the farm he dwells in has only animals seen as unclean in the eyes of Jewish law, causing him to become emaciated in his state of bondage. Jacob did not think that God would understand the special circumstances or else he would have eaten what he could to keep his strength for when he was forced to work as a cowherd.
His determination to follow Jewish law extends to his obedience as a slave as well for he refuses to work on the Sabbath. The Talmud not only prohibits Jacob from completing his duties, but forbids him as a Jew to exert any kind of effort on the holy day. His owner’s daughter, Wanda, brings him food and milks the cows for him out of compassion for his situation. This compassion among other things causes Jacob to develop strong feelings for Wanda.
As time progresses, Jacob’s mind is free to wander. He thinks of Wanda, of his slaughtered community, and of his religion. Eventually he realizes that he is beginning to forget the laws and prayers he so firmly clung to at the beginning of his time as a slave. In an effort to retrieve them, he engraves them into a rock near his barn: “The Torah had not disappeared. It lay hidden in the nooks and crannies of his brain” (44). The exact words of the Talmud and the Gemara are not what define the Jewish faith, yet Jacob chooses to focus on remembering quotes and prayers rather than the God that spared his life when the Cossacks killed his entire village. He does all of this for fear of temptation and fear of corruption by the people he is surrounded by, but if he had confidence in his faith he would not be afraid for his God would help him regardless of how many psalms he can recite.
A majority of the plot of The Slave revolves around the relationship between Jacob and Wanda. Jacob believes than Wanda does not act on her own volition but is rather an agent of Satan sent to tempt him into fornication. Often Jacob quotes the Bible to himself in hopes of extinguishing his desire for her. Their love for each other is both passionate and intense. One could even say it is sent by God. But Jacob refuses to believe that his love for Wanda can possible be anything other than a disaster, for a Jewish man is forbidden to marry a Gentile. If not for this law that is enforced by men and organized religion, he is inhibited from marrying the woman he loves.
Wanda becomes interested in Judaism and seeks to understand the religion that is so important to her beloved Jacob as well as be converted in order to run away with him. Jacob attempts to explain the many laws that dictate his life and through Wanda’s questioning of the reasoning behind them, Jacob himself begins to wonder why these laws are so important. He explains that she must cleanse herself and that she is unclean and they must not touch anything when she menstruates as is stated in Leviticus. When they consummate their love, he forces her to immerse herself in freezing cold water in order to cleanse herself after their act. Wanda says that “I have done this for you.” But Jacob says “No, not for me. For God” (68). While Wanda understands that what they have just done is between the two of them and a product of their love, Jacob is still preoccupied with Jewish law and despairs over having had relations with a Gentile woman. He sees her immersion as compensation for their sin.
After completing all of the rituals necessary for conversion, Wanda changes her name to Sarah and goes with Jacob to a Jewish village where she must feign being a mute in order to keep the secret that she is a Gentile woman. The fact that she has gone through so much for Jacob, including leaving her home and family as well as learning about the Bible is not enough for the Jewish community. When Sarah dies in childbirth she reveals she is a Gentile and is denied burial rites. They would rather follow a law that excludes Sarah based on her heritage than let a devoted woman die with respect and dignity.
Ecclesiastes says that with much knowledge comes much vexation. This is true for Jacob because while in the Jewish village he and Sarah sought refuge in, he gains access to religious books and scholars. With the death of his beloved Sarah, his forced exile from the village and the birth of his son, Jacob is finally prepared to question his religion and his faith in a God that allows such horrible things to happen. Jacob’s theodicy leads him to the same crisis shared by many people of faith including Job and Hannah of the Bible. Why, if God is omnipotent and all-knowing, does he allow for innocent suffering? Jacob finds no comfort in the law books and religious texts but accepts that as a human he cannot possibly understand God’s reasoning. With this knowledge Jacob changes his perspective on life and the role of religion and law inspired by it.
The story of The Slave gains its power through its ability to relate to real life despite the extreme circumstances experienced by its characters. The process of following Jacob’s life allows for the reader to reflect on his or her own life and the aspects of faith in their lives. Jacob’s suffering and the suffering of the innocent villagers and Sarah is the root of basic crises of faith from which questions about God stem. This crisis is outlined by Jacob’s life and his progress from blindly following laws rather than the God who enforces them, to teaching the elements of his religion to an outsider, sparking his first curiosities concerning the logic behind its edicts, to finally questioning God himself, all the while quoting the Bible as means for credibility in his argument for Judaism. All of these factors make Isaac Bashevis Singer’s novel powerfully emotional while thought provoking and moving.

Jonah

Our group presentation is today so I figured I'd jot down some of my thoughts on Jonah since I've spent so much time with him.

While it makes little sense as far as where Jonah was to begin with that he needed to go to Nineveh, or why God was upset with Nineveh in the first place and setting issues like that, it acts as an effective Sunday school lesson.

Jonah is asked to go to Nineveh to proclaim the word of God but he just doesn't feel like it so he gets on a boat to flee from God, resulting in being thrown overboard to stop a storm and then being swallowed by a great fish. God lets Jonah sit in there for three days before he gets the fish to throw him up but Jonah still hasn't learned. God decides to spare Nineveh, so Jonah throws a fit about being a false prophet and wanders around the desert. God gives him a shrub to give him shade but it dies and Jonah whines some more about wishing he was dead.

You'd think that this would be when God gives Jonah the moral of the story as we hear it in Sunday school, with a lesson on obedience and doing what you're told but it just isn't there. God talks about how the shrub was like the city of Nineveh, created ad cared for by God, not Jonah, so he should quit whining. And that's the end of the story. It's really rather abrupt. But like many bible "Stories" the misconception is a better story than what is actually in the bible.

The Slave

What impressed me most about The Slave when I read it was the fact the Jacob remains so loyal and so faithful, but also the fact that he is faithful to a religion and laws rather than the God that supposedly enforces them. Even while he is in bondage, Jacob preforms rituals and fights to remember the prayers he is supposed to say. He falls in love with a gentile but fears the consequences of acting on his desires both from God and the Jewish laws. When he has access to books however, he seeks to understand the laws he follows. His need for knowledge is both admirable and confusing. While in the beginning of the novel he follows Jewish law blindly but once he realizes he has been wronged he goes to the source and begins to question God.

Ecclesiastes

Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

While many (including the preacher) interpret this as an explanation of the endless cycle of meaningless life on earth and the fact that because nothing you can possibly think or do is original and it all ends in the same inevitable death, it is all pointless. Everyone dies, and everything you do between now and then is in vain. For some this is justification for pursuing a life of sinful debauchery, indulging themselves for lack of anything meaningful to do, but as the third chapter explains, there is a time for every purpose under heaven. To me, this is God's reassurance that life on earth is not all that we are destined to see, that the meaninglessness seen by the preacher is really the triviality of life on earth compared to that of heaven.

The preacher prides himself on his wisdom, but also says that with much knowledge comes much vexation. He wishes to give advice and share the wisdom in a series of proverbs but at the same time it is hard to take him seriously with him constantly reminding you that all of it is meaningless.
Finally he decides that it is better to enjoy your vain life than dwell on its vanity. Very confusing.

"The Words of the Wise"

As we learned in class, the book of proverbs is an example of prudential wisdom. That is,wisdom that shows practicality and foresight. The reason I enjoy reading the book of Proverbs is because not only the content is practical and planned out but the format of the book itself is outlined in the first few verses, followed by very organized bits of fortune cookie wisdom.

Proverbs opens with giving the authorship to Solomon, son of David, King of Israel. It then explains the purpose of reading the proverbs, which is interesting because I don't recall any other book in the bible telling you the lesson or moral before you read it. Why is everything addressed to "my son?"

Proverbs is easy to read because it is made up of such short elements strung together, with each verse being a proverb.

This wasn't much of a blog but I will say that I intend to write my term paper on The Slave.

Psalms

The 150 poems contained in psalms act as the Bible's hymn book. These hymns include songs of praise, prayers to ask for help, and it just wouldn't be the bible if it didn't have some instructions on how to live, all of which are said to have been written by king David.

My favorite is Psalm 100:

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord,

all ye lands.

Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence of with singing.

Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he

that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are

his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and

into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him and bless his name.

For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting;

and his truth endureth to all generations.

If I am to look at the bible as literature alone, I will say that this psalm in itself is a good poem. It has the classic sheep metaphor, it has music, and it has a light and triumphant tone. However, if I am to blog what comes to mind I have to say that I enjoy this psalm because it covers all the bases as far as making faith easy. This psalm is reassuring to me. God is good, he enjoys it when you play music for him, and he is merciful and honest. When you read something like this in the bible, and it reaches out to you, you kind of forget all of the things God did to make you think he was cruel and petty. When you read something like this, you want to believe.

Job

When considering Job's suffering in the middle of his story, it is hard to fathom the motivation behind his patience in both the prologue and epilogue. How can he remain faithful to an omnipotent being that allows for everything in his life be destroyed when he has done nothing in his mind to deserve it?

I recently read a poem in my British Lit class that gives some insight about Job's patience called "Hap" by Thomas Hardy. In the poem, the speaker explains that he would be more willing to accept the pain and suffering in his life if he knew that there was some supreme being that willed it. He comes to the conclusion that there's no such thing, that all of life is left up to chance and that both happiness and pain are given to mortals at random by the forces of chance.

Perhaps it is the fact that Job knows that there is a God, and that that God is controlling his life that makes him patient. By understanding his place ion the universe in relation to God, Job is put in a position to accept what God is doing to him, trusting that he will make it right again or at least that what he is doing is right because of the fact that it is God doing it.



Thomas Hardy : Hap
If but some vengeful god would call to me
From up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing,
Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,
That thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting!”
Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die,
Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;
Half-eased in that a powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.
But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,
And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
—Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,
And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan. . . .
These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown
Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.

Esther

I've finally arrived at my favorite book of the bible. I love the book of Eshter not only because it revolves around a strong female character but because it has several characters that unlike some in the bible, are rewarded for their steadfastness in their principles and beliefs while those with wicked intent are also "rewarded" for their actions. It's the perfect Karma story.

After she refuses to display her beauty for everyone to see, Queen Vashti is more or less impeached from her duties as queen by her husband the King Ahasuerus. Curious that while women are often depicted as cunning and having a tendency to use their sexuality for manipulating men, Vahti is expelled for being modest.

Ahasuerus holds a kind of beauty pageant to find a new queen, a "Miss Shushan" contest if you will, and chooses Esther. Esther accepts, but doesn't reveal that she is a Jew. Until then, she was the ward of her cousin Mordechai, who after unveiling an assassination attempt to the king, is in good favor with the court.

Mordechai is a faithful man. When Haman the prime minister of Shushan demands that he bow to him, he refuses. This results in disaster as Haman discovers that Mordechai is a Jew, inspiring a plan to kill all of the Jews, not just Mordechai.

When Mordechai finds out about the plans he starts fasting. Mordechai tells Esther what happened and tells her to meet with the king and try to stop it. Esther is afraid to see the King uninvited because it is punishable by death but Mordechai insists that she has to. asks all of the jews to fast and pray with her for three days, and on the third day she goes to Ahasuerus, and he doesn't punish her.

She asks the King to feast with Haman, since the way to a mans heart is through his stomach, and the two men eat together. Haman has built gallows to hang Mordechai with.
That night, the king can't sleep so he asks that someone read to him. While listening to the records, he finds out that Mordechai once saved his life, and decides something should be done to reward him. He asks Haman for ideas, who assumes that the king is talking about him. Haman says the man should be honored by riding the king's horse. To his great disappointment, the King tells Haman to do just that to his favorite person, Mordechai.

Later that night, Esther has another feast for the men and she confesses that she is a jew and that Haman is planning on killing her people. Filled with rage, Ahasuerus orders that Haman be hanged in the gallows he built for Mordechai.

Esther remains Queen, and Mordechai is given a position in the King's court.

What goes around comes around, Haman. And women can do anything they set their mind to, if they have faith in God and a great sense of timing.

1 Chronicles

I don't understand why books like these are in the bible while legitimately entertaining and educational books like Susanna don't make the cut. Oh well.

Chronicles is more or less a history book full of lists and records.

First Chronicles, and most of second chronicles honestly, are basically all of the information found in Samuel and Kings only with a P spin. The first nine chapters of Chronicles is nothing but lists and geneologies, with a brief outline of David's rise to power following.

Solomon

David eventually grew old and died, leaving Israel without the greatest king it had ever seen. After alot of scandal and soap opera situations, Solomon becomes king.

The general perception of King Solomon is that he was the wisest man in the world, who appreciated logic, justice, and not having to cut babies in half. However, if you go further in the reading of Solomons life you find that even the wisest of men can be corrupted by wealth, and can lead to the destruction of the land they lead with such wisdom.

Solomon's reign began innocently enough; he gained respect as a wise and just ruler, and began to make some money off of it, and built a temple. This was no ordinary temple either, it was elaborate with a sturdy foundation, gold candlesticks and beautifully decorated walls. It even housed the Ark of the Covenant. Solomon prayed that God would be with him, which God agreed to...if Solomon followed the commandments. (Definite foreshadowing)

People started giving Solomon more and more gifts; be it the Pharaoh giving him his daughter, of the Queen of Sheba giving him enough gold that he made a navy with it. As time went on Solomon loved and "knew" many women, and had numerous wives and concubines, and under their influence began to worship other gods. (Those darn women, always leading men astray...)
God told Solomon that he would take the kingdom away from him for not keeping his end of their deal on obeying God's commandments and when Solomon died, the kingdom became divided into two parts, leading to all kinds of trouble later on.

I suppose the moral of this story is to be weary of wealth, or at least what comes with it. One cannot rely on one's wisdom alone to guide them in life because they are only human, and need to rely on God to keep them on the right path. If Solomon had kept the commandments, he would not have been blinded by his wealth, causing him to lose everything he built. At least, that's what I interpret it as.

Absalom Absalom

Ok, so my musical blogs are probably getting old, but this one is just too perfect.
I've made it as far as Samuel in the bible, and the story I have been thinking about this week was actually mentioned in class today, prompting me to share this song with you: http://www.archive.org/details/EricWhitacreWhenDavidHeard

Eric Whitacre is one of my favorite composers and I've played numerous pieces of his during my years as a band geek . The song is called When David Heard and it is a choral piece based on
2 Samuel 18:33

"When David heard that Absalom was slain He went up into his chamber over the gate and wept, and thus he said: my son, my son, O Absalom my son, would God I had died for thee!"

This story and song are the very essence of grief and suffering. I am a firm believer that in order to really succeed in being an effective storyteller you have to find a way to make yourself and your audience feel the emotions you wish to convey, whether through the use of a grown man weeping for his son or the haunting voices of a choir. That is exactly what Whitacre and Samuel do.

wherever you go, I will go.

So I've made it to Ruth.
I like this story because of the loyalty shared among women when women are so often depicted as deceitful and manipulative in the bible.
Long story short, a woman named Naomi has two sons that both married Moabites but then died. She told her daughter-in-laws that they can return to their homeland, since they really have no reason to stay anymore, and the other one (Orpah) does, but Ruth stays to help Naomi: "For wherever you go, I will go. Wherever you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die and be buried."
It turns out Naomi had a rich relative on her husband's side (Boaz), who heard about Ruth's loyalty to her mother-in-law Naomi, and in turn ensured that she would be safe while she worked in the fields. When Ruth tells Naomi about Boaz, she concocts a plan to set Ruth up with him to produce an heir in the stead of her dead son Ruth's husband. Ruth does as she's told, and Boaz ends up marrying her and acquiring the land that belonged to her husband.

You would think this soap opera would be an allegory for loyalty and taking care of your family, and it is in a way, but at the end P steps in and turns it into a lesson on David's family tree.

Ruth and Boaz have a son named Obed who has a son named Jesse, who is the father of David.

It is interesting to see such a mixture of authors and writing styles within a single story. While the tale of Ruth and Naomi is unified and constructed like a myth, the lineage of David is a tell tale P list. I prefer the story.

Susanna & Peter at the Clavier

I had never heard of the book of Susanna until today but having looked it up, I don't understand why it isn't included in the bible, its a great story. Well, maybe I do.

Instead of using a woman as a metaphor for infidelity, Susanna is an honest, God-fearing woman, raised by righteous parents, who is falsely accused of a sexually scandalous crime. It is instead the elders that are perverted, conflicting perhaps with the public view of men in such positions. Other than that, it's a great story. It's like a John Grisham courtroom drama the way Daniel interrogates the elders. I also liked the fact that he found them guilty with legitimate evidence rather than knee-jerk assumptions or arbitrary leviticusesque laws.

As for the Wallace poem, its as if he is narrating the thoughts of both Susanna and the peeping Tom elders, relating their emotions to music. Susanna's are a calm melody and recollections of love, while the elders are a driving, throbbing beat urging them to act on their lust.

The final stanza speaks of irony and the nature of beauty. While Susanna was beautiful and tempted the elders, her beauty was impermanent. The story of the elders' dishonesty and perversion will live on forever. All because they couldn't leave her alone.

Lift a Joyful Noise.

The bible's influence on music that we talked about today in class made me think of one of my favorite bands, mewithoutyou. Just as the bible uses metaphors and myths to record history or teach a lesson, mewithoutyou often incorporates brief allusions to biblical stories that act as metaphors for their modern lives.

The song that came to mind was In a Sweater Poorly Knit:
"in a sweater poorly knit and an unsuspecting smile little moses drifts downstream in the Nile a fumbling reply, an awkward rigid laugh I'm carried helpless by my floating basket raft..."

Other bible allusions on this album include:
"Daniel broke the king's decree,Peter stepped from the ship to the sea there was hope for Job like a cut down tree,I hope that there's such hope for me..." (Sun and Moon)

Lost in Translation

While visiting Great Falls this past weekend I attended a church that was drastically different from my own, we'll call it field research. (By the way I don't mean to sound critical if you go to a church like this I just felt awkward.)
Like any contemporary church this one had both a worship band complete with drum set and electric keyboard and a large projector screen. During the sermon, the speaker (I'm not sure what to call him. A minister? certainly not a preacher.) Quoted both the NLV and NIV of the bible coupled with a powerpoint. As I do in our Bible as Lit class, I used my King James Version of the bible and couldn't help but think about the Age of Men, moreso the Age of Chaos. This Bible they used was so informal, so close to modern day language that I no longer felt like I was reading a sacred text, but a dentist office magazine. Is this a tool to make religion more accessible to the masses or is this the degeneration of language?
Two people were baptized that day and communion was taken by the congregation, both without the reading of scripture as I was raised with. It seems that the Bible has had more influence on literature as our curriculum suggests than it has had on modern day religion.

Jericho

"Now Jericho was shut up from within and from without because of the people of Israel; none went out, and none came in. And The Lord said to Joshua, "See, I have given into your hand Jericho, with its king and mighty men of valor. You shall march around the city, all the men of war going around the city once. Thus shall you do for six days. And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark; and on the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, the priests blowing the trumpets. And when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, as soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people shall go up every man straight before him." (Joshua 6:1-5)


Shortly before Moses died, having led the Jews to the promise land, he told Joshua to take everyone across the Jordan river because they own all of the land there. So Joshua sent two men ahead to spy on the people of Jericho where they met a woman named Rahab who had heard about the Hebrew God and asked that when they take over Jericho, they do not harm her family. When they returned God told Joshua the specific instructions for breaking down the way of Jericho:
1. Gather an army of men, priests, some guys to carry the ark of the covenant. All armed with ram horns.
2. March around the city once a day for six days and keep quiet while the priests blow the horns.
3. On the seventh day, march around it seven times and yell really lound on the seventh turn.

Remind me again why the Jews own Jericho?

Voila! Deconstruction. The population of Jericho evacuates, Joshua and his buddies get the city, and Rahab's family stays in safety.

We've all heard the saying about God working in mysterious ways, but I can't see the benefit of this exercise other than testing how well Joshua and the Jews can follow instructions. Is this simply another case of the bible teaching obedience through narratives, or is there a significance to what just happened?

Father Abraham

Although we had to cram it into the last few minutes of class today, the story of Abraham and Isaac really got me thinking , especially with my never having heard the word lacuna, or at least its definition (I'm chosing to block the memory of that death metal band).

At my church, the story of God asking Abraham to kill his only son for a burnt offering is one used to teach faithfulness and obedience. Abraham is taught as being a great man of faith because he was willing to give up his miracle-born son that he so long wished for without complaint or question unlike someone like Moses who would probably just say "why? you said I could have a son?" Because of this interpretation I always saw the fact that God spares Isaac was because he was just testing Abraham's faith since I was also taught that the consequences of Ishmael's birth and his consequential exile were the product of Abraham and Sarah's pride and disobedience. Abraham didn't trust God enough to give him a son the first time, so God was just testing that Abraham would do as he was told this time with the son he was originally promised.

It never occurred to me that the lack of kicking and screaming on Abraham's part could simply be a gap in the story (a lacuna) and not a profound faith in God's judgement. If what was said in class today is true, and God loves conflict, then why was that part left out? A showdown between the 99 year old Abraham and God over the life of a small boy would definitely give the story conflict, and possibly an awesome fight scene, or at least a divine shouting match. Abraham haggled for the lives of those living in Sodom and Gomorrah, why not his son?

The only conclusion I can come up with is that the author of this story wanted to portray a benevolent God, and like the good people of the Southern Baptist Church, give a narrative of the benefits of obedience.

Living here in the cracks between The Age of Men and The Age of Chaos, it is hard for us scientific minded fact gatherers to fathom a time when the world was explained through fables and myths. Where with the power of words rather that mechanics an entire universe can be created. We've sucked out every ounce of subjectivity while creating our logic, leaving virtually no wiggle room for creativity, but I can't help but wonder that if this is all one big circle, some cyclical system of language giving us the potential to return to the Age of the Gods, that we haven't already. What if our explanations of disease, birth, death, evolution, how oceans and mountains came to be, everything is just a modern day flood myth created by man to give him peace of mind? What if our science is just like the bible,? What if every non-believer is relying on just another brand of mythology.
Personally, I would love to return to the Age of the Gods, because then I wouldn't have to have any answers that I couldn't make true with my faith.

1577

The Bible is an antique Volume-
Written by faded Men
At the suggestion of Holy Spectres-
Subjects-Bethlehem-
Eden-the ancient Homestead-
Satan- The Brigadier-
Judas- the Great Defaulter-
David- tthe Troubadour-
Sin- a distinguished Precipice
Others must resist-
Boys that "believe" are very lonesome-
Other boys are "lost"-Had but the Tale a warbling Teller-
All the Boys would come-
Orpheu's Sermon captivated-
It did not condemn-

Emily Dickinson

First Rule of Leviticus, Don't Talk About Leviticus.

So it goes. I've reached the point in the bible that is supposed to be the stumbling block to my untrained eye, consuming me with boredom. Seeing as there are no boring books, only boring people, I feel obligated to give it a shot. Honestly, it isn't that bad once you figure out it is just a big rule book like any other. Leviticus was written by Moses as a kind of handbook for priests. It has rules for holy days, sacrifices, priest conduct, and generally just day to day "how to live" rules, including rules on sexuality and diet.
I don't know what it indicates about my character as a person, but when I read this giant list of rules my initial response was to question them and to think about the four phases of language described in The Great Code. Are they really concrete(discriptive) rules or just general (metaphoric) guidlines? Are there loopholes?
Apparently not when it comes to offerings. This large portion of Leviticus reads like a cookbook, giving specific intructions on how God likes his meat: "And if thy oblation be a meat offering baken in a pan, it shall be of fine flour unleavened, mingled with oil. Thou shalt part it in pieces, and pour oil thereon: it is a meat offering. And if thy oblation be a meat offering baken in the fryingpan, it shall be made of fine flour with oil."(Leviticus 2:5-7) There are several other rules on offerings including the use of unleavened bread and hiney, leading one to wonder if it was God or the priests making such specific food requests.
Perhaps the most potentially contriversial chapter of Leviticus is the 18th, in which God lays out the guidlines for sexuality. While some dance around the bible's view on homosexuality, I regretably found that the verse concerning it is quite concrete in its language. "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." I had never actually looked it up, assuming God would love someone regardless. On the bright side, this is the only verse about homosexuality in the chapter that I found.
While Leviticus is at times redundant and boring, it is an interesting historical account of the laws of the time.

Exodus after the Exodus

When I continued reading the book of' Exodus following the isrealite's journey across the Red Sea and the issuing of the ten commandments I became confused about the nature of God as a character in the plot.
While he claims himself to be a compassionate and patient diety, he continues to have these volitile fits of rage where he threatens to kill all of the Jews. Why is it that an omnipotent being capable of creating the universe is subject to such a human flaw as irrational emotion?
I thought that perhaps it had something to do with the author of this particular book, and upon closer reading I guessed that it is the "J" author. She does not fear God, but rather is inclined to give him humanlike traits, leading me to believe that these outbursts are included for a particular reason.
These exibitions of humanlike behavior support the idea introduced through the fact that God shares diologue face to face with Moses that God is not unlike his creation, making him easier to understand. This seems to me to fulfill the J agenda.

Let My People Go

Being raised in a Southern Baptist family like I was definitely gives you a different perspective when reading the old testament. (If you've ever read Jonathan Edwards' Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God you know exactly what I'm talking about.) All of the plagues, fire and brimstone, wiping out all of humanity is perfectly normal behavior for an omnipotent power like God and is not to be questioned. Human beings are inherantly bad and should be punished fpr their lack of potential to ever be enough to earn God's love. So I was told from a very young age.

The reason I mention this is because there were alot of things I found while reading the book of Exodus that made the remaining Southern Baptist in me cringe.

I thought I knew the story of Moses, but I was shocked upon reading how very little of the story in my head is actually in the bible. The things that he did that are in the bible confuse me and downright frustrate me. Here is a man saved from an imminent death as a baby, chosen by God to deliver his people out of bondage, actually having a conversation with God, and all he does is question him. Personally, if a flaming bush told me through the voice of God to do something, I'd do it, however crazy that makes me. It is Moses' audacity to stand there and argue with God, the great I Am, the alpha and omega and all that jazz.

Another audacious lot is the Jews that were delivered out of Egypt. I just don't understand how you could be saved from bondage, witness God parting the sea, and still be dumb enough to make a false idol, let alone complain the whole way to the promise land. As a southern Baptist, this absolutely blows me away. People want a benevolent God, but how can he be that when the even his chosen people blow it?

In the beginning...

While the details of the creation are thorough and easy to follow, the way in which the human race came about is a bit hazy to me. Adam was created from the dust of the Earth, and Eve was created from one of his ribs. They had children, but how was it that their children had children of their own? With no other women mentioned in the beginning of the book of Genesis, how did Cain have children? Where did Noah and Jacob come from? Perhaps the Bible has gaps in history and concentrates on those involved most in the "plot."

Speaking of Noah, I agree with Plotz in that I can't understand how the human race could become so awful in such a short time that they had to be eliminated or why the animals had to die for the mistakes made by humans. Reading it now certainly raises the question of when God will decide to flood the Earth again, wipe everything out and start over.