Month: October 2020

Suffering happens to all of us, some of us suffer continuously, many even suffer for no reason. Now obviously something isn’t right here, how could an all-loving God let so much suffering happen to people who in no way deserve it? This is an exceptionally complicated problem, something no person could ever truly and completely understand, but suffering is often a symbol of true grace and can be used as a very powerful tool for repentance. Suffering is naturally occurring which means there is virtually no way around it, yes it can be delayed through engaging in vanity or “worldly pleasures” as many of the church fathers tell us. We see Job, he is a triumph of humility in the face of suffering and uses his suffering as a means of repentance, constantly turning away (the word for repentance in Hebrew means to turn) from evil and not losing sight of the will of God. I believe suffering happens to people who don’t deserve it is because God is perfectly aware of what one is able to handle, to push someone beyond their ability out of great love is what I think the Lord truly wants for us. It is imperative that we do not see suffering as a negative occurrence like much of the West has conditioned us to think. Suffering in and of itself is a test of our will to match God’s, a necessity for spiritual growth and to change one’s heart to something that serves beyond themselves.

One of the most striking parts about our discussion in class today was the universality of proverbs. Since my English teachers always taught me to avoid cliches and overused language (since that’s what they can easily become), I haven’t really thought about them much. Proverbs are meant to be universal, and that thought had never crossed my mind before. So many cultures have variations of other short sayings, and I vaguely remember that from Spanish class also. It makes sense that proverbs would be shared between different cultures around Israel. It’s amazing how distinct cultures can have shared values that can be communicated through similar epithets. 

I also thought a lot about how wisdom writings often contain at least part of stories like Job’s. In order to have wisdom to pass on, authors need the experience to make it more than just knowledge. This has a poetic meaning to me, and lots of people find encouragement from Job’s story and the tales of hardship and advice in Proverbs. 

Once again, my mind was blown in class discussion. I always thought of Christianity (and in my limited knowledge, Judaism) as monotheistic. What I was missing was the wording of “thou shalt have no other god before me.” Moses, by the inspiration of God, is telling the Israelites to forsake the worship of other gods. By doing this, he leaves open the possibility of other gods. 

In my personal opinion, this is a lesson on tolerance for believers of the Bible. This passage could mean that there are more gods, and that followers of the Bible should simply place God before them–not hate, not go to war, not start an argument in the comment section. His commandment is simply to place their own God first, and that’s all that’s necessary. This allows for tolerance of other religions by acknowledging their existence and simply saying to follow the one that you feel is almighty. 

There is also the possibility of interpreting this as forsaking other idols that humans commonly place before God (money, cars, other relationships, work, etc). This still fits the same meaning, in my interpretation, because the Commandments are effectively telling people to fix their eyes on what’s important and mind their business.

Revisiting the role of archaeology in the Bible reminds me of how much information about the Bible was lost, and how important it is to make sense of what is left. For example, the site of Jericho being near fault lines that would have commonly caused seismic activity makes a lot of sense with the biblical story told about it. This, to me, doesn’t discredit any of the biblical meaning of the story, it just adds another layer to it. From a believer’s perspective, this shows the dependency of the natural world on God and his plan. In a literary sense, having this information alongside the story is a little ironic. This case is also thought-provoking, considering the amount of information gleaned from both modern archaeological sites and ancient writings handed down from the time period of their origin. So many buildings, artworks, and writings have been lost over time and we don’t even know it! There could be hundreds of stories or even pieces of pottery that alter entire religions, and there just hasn’t been a shard to wash up or a slip of paper to slide out from behind something. It’s amazing to think about how much hard work has gone into the Bible that we know today.  

Proverbs has an interesting set of sayings that I had never heard of, like “a stitch in time is worth nine” which we discussed in class that it could mean that fixing a small problem now rather than later saves you much time and headache in the future. The story of Job is rather demented in my opinion. God and Satan (a title rather than a name) put Job through trials of faith when he’s already a devoted man. Ecclesiastes is a strange section of the Bible. It’s very pessimistic in relation to other books we’ve read during the semester.

Last class, we discussed the term monotheism and what it means.  Monotheism is a term that to me has always meant the belief in one God.  However, the term “Trinity” was also mentioned.  Back in high school, I remember having the discussion of how the Trinity is constituted as one God and it brought up some really interesting questions. To start, defining the term Trinity is critical.  Trinity refers to one being, and three persons: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  This brings up the discussion of how can we say we are monotheists if there are three define persons that make up the Trinity?  Well together they work as one, but yet they are also each different “forms” of one being.  What can this be compared to?  One of the examples that stuck out to me that was a real life example of how we can demonstrate the relationship of the Trinity is water.  Water has three forms: steam, water and ice, however they all can be constituted as different types or forms of the same thing.  In this way, I think that the Trinity is still constituted as the belief in one Divine being that has different forms or types.  The Father is God, the Son is Jesus through whom God works, and the Holy Spirit, who also communicates to us through God.  God is present in all three persons and therefore, the Trinity supports this idea of monotheism.

David was always glorified in my experience of reading the Bible and hearing about him in church, but whether or not he deserved it is another question. I knew the story of how he married Bathsheba in the back of my head (perhaps mostly the Veggie Tales version) but I didn’t realize just how far David went and still maintained his popularity and kingship. He had multiple wives, killed multiple people, and committed adultery, but he took responsibility for it. This is a recurring theme in the Bible in a literary sense, because the main message of Jesus is to take ownership of sin and repent. The benefits of doing so are shown through David, as he won the spot of being in the holy bloodline and being a man after God’s own heart, as he is often called in Christianity. All sides of David’s life are important when understanding the themes of the Bible. 

In history class, the references to Confederates and anti-abolitionists using the Bible always made me shudder. Why would these people use my religion as a way to justify the torture of an entire race? The Israelites themselves were freed slaves at one point, right? The argument blew my mind, and I didn’t even know yet about the Slave Bible designed to suppress rebellion among unjustly enslaved Americans. 

The reality is that the Bible was, like in many other issues, manipulated to fit a certain value. Cherry-picking and selective hearing runs rampant with these hot-button issues. But the Bible’s view of slavery is much different than American slavery. It never hit me before that slavery wasn’t racially-charged like America, it was mostly a last-ditch effort to pay off debts. This idea reminds me of the child sacrifice topic from Genesis, where desperate times really do call for desperate measures (which vary through cultures and time periods). In the Americanized, revisionist view that pervades Bible study in churches, I sometimes forget to acknowledge these important cultural and historical considerations.

Gale A. Yee, a professor of biblical studies emerita at Episcopal Divinity School proposes the idea that “In order to become prophets ourselves, to critique the unrelenting drive for profits in capitalism and recover the positive ethics of tribal living, we must become educated in the systemic structures of the U.S. economy and of capitalism itself, and then through our God-given gifts, strive to create a more equitable, just society.” I certainly do not agree with this as it deviates from what I believe is the true path outlined by the Church. In her article, she relates King Solomon’s   monarchy to Panem from “The Hunger Games” since it is divided into 12 states with a central body receiving the bulk of the surrounding modes of production. I don’t doubt that the central state in which King Solomon resided received most of the means of production but I think to call the farmers “exploited” falls into a marxist interpretation. Yee focuses on the power dynamics once again to view the Bible through the lens of critical theory, “Its stories of exploitation are usually not discussed in studies that focus on “daily life” in ancient Israel and in seminary classes on the Old Testament.” Once again, I would like to point out that the vast majority of prophets and righteous individuals were peasant class.

Who are the prophets of today? How are these people selected. In class we discussed the idea that many people are a modern versions of prophets. These people are scientist who can help correct the harm done by other people and can help support and guide us through many issues. In addition to Scientist we mentioned politicians. These are people elected to serve the people who elect them. They serve the communities by attempting to improve the lives of people living within them.

In class we talked about a multitude of things regarding monotheism however the thing that struck me as most surprising was when talking about the ten commandments. The exact commandment was  “you shall have no other Gods above me”. What is the meaning of this? Does it propose we can worship other gods but have God almighty still be the most important? or does it mean there are multiple gods and different beliefs. Personally I think this is in reference to God being above all else but people have a right to believe in others. However that is the interpretation today I am not thinking about historical context. Back in ancient Israel there were many religions being practiced and  defining it back then was trickier. This gets into the idea of monotheism. Monotheism is the belief in one god, one religion. This topic of Monotheism eventually led us into the idea of the Trinity. The Holy Trinity is God: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. People argue that this is not monotheism as it encompasses three things not one God as monotheism requires. However the trinity represents 3 things that make up God and his presence. So I would consider the Trinity to be apart of the monotheistic belief.