Author: drewpeters

In class today, we talked about the importance of music in the Bible in the book of Psalms, and we even listened to some songs by artists that used a few verses from certain Psalms. I have always known that this book of the Bible were actually songs, which has always made me wonder what they would have sounded like when they were originally written. It was interesting to listen to the songs that used a Psalm, while the band was also using their own style and really made this song their own. What is interesting and something that I have never thought about is whether this is their own interpretation of this Psalm, or have they taken complete possession over the song they made and just added a few verses from a Psalm? It is fascinating how U2 used these verses, which have always meant to be music but are written in a book as text, and combining them with their own style and genre of music.

Something else that I was brought to my attention was how books and texts are not as subject to change in interpretation as music can be. In music, you can use lyrics as a base and really apply any genre or style of music or variance of pitch you want. In books and other texts, there is one less dimension, lacking the ability to change the sound or pitch like music can. I have never thought of music in this way, but it now makes sense why music can be so powerful: because it has this extra dimension that can be subject to change.

One of the main resources of wisdom we talked about in class were proverbs. Not just the book in the Bible, but also short sayings that are nonbiblical, which people still go by everyday. One of the main things that I learned or that has never really caught my eye is how wisdom can be used in a negative way if it is in the wrong hands. It is actually a proverb in of itself: “Like a thornbush in drunkard’s hand is a proverb said from a fool.” We see this in Job and how his friends try to use wisdom to help him in his suffering, but in reality they were only making the situation worse.

One of the most fascinating things about the story of Job and one of the biggest things to take away was, not how faithful he stayed after the first bout of suffering came his way, but after going through so much more and coming to a point where he wishes he was never born, then seeing so much growth when he ultimately reveals his unwavering faith in God after going through so much pain while being as impressive of a human being as possible. It is such a good lesson on how to handle suffering, which is to come to the realization that God is bigger, better, and more consistent than anything in the universe and that the suffering one is going through doesn’t even compare to the goodness of God.

We talked about monotheism in class today and what it has historically been defined as. From my perspective, I have always known monotheism to be the belief that there is only one God, one divine being. I have never thought what the meaning is past that, but today in class I learned that there could be multiple interpretations of what monotheism could be and whether it is displayed or not in the Bible. A different interpretation would be putting all one’s faith in one God, but believing that there are multiple gods and the one God that someone puts their faith into is supreme compared to the rest of the gods, but this seems to look more like polytheism considering people who think this also think that there are multiple gods. A lot of people derive their belief from the first commandment in the Bible: one must love the Lord our God more than any other Gods, which has also derived many interpretations. Many people take this commandment literally, which gives them a polytheistic belief that there are multiple gods that are not as important as the supreme God. Others dive deeper into the meaning and interpret the ‘other gods’ as idols of the world, like money, fame, success, etc. and still believe that the supreme God in the first commandment is the only god. It is very interesting to see all these different viewpoints and interpretations of the monotheistic belief and how it can be determined in the first commandment.

During the discussion today, something that crossed my mind was how people knew who the prophets were. Did they themselves proclaim to be called by God to be a prophet or did the majority of the people recognize the wisdom the prophets carried and they declare them as prophets? This also gets me thinking whether they knew during the time they were living in, before any of the prophets’ predictions came true or weren’t fulfilled, if they were false prophets or if they actually knew what was going to happen in the future because of what they were told by God. It’s easy to see who in the Bible were the prophets because we now see whether their predictions came true or not. How the people who were actually living with the prophets knew they were who they claimed to be, I still do not understand.

It was very interesting to look at the history of the Bible in the aspect of the line of kings, which starts with Saul, then David, then Solomon, and the list keeps going on until the Babylonian exile. Talking about the stories of David and Goliath and David and Bathsheba also fascinated me because they are stories that I know quite well of, but there were certain details I found out today or ways of looking at each story in which I never have before. In David and Goliath, I didn’t realize that there were different interpretations of the height of Goliath based on how one would convert the measurements of when this story was written to today’s measurements. In David and Bathsheba, I knew he committed adultery with her, but I never considered the fact that he may have raped her, which is quite frightening to think about, considering the man being David.

I also found interesting when we talked about how Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, and how his effect on the lives in his kingdom was so negative. When I think about the kings in the Bible, I think of the positive effects they had on Israel and how they did so much good, but in this case Rehoboam knew that Solomon had made life harder for the civilians, and instead of lightening the yoke on these people, he instead did the opposite by making this yoke they have to carry even heavier.

Something that I’ve never really thought of when it comes to the Bible is how its history can actually be attempted to be proven. I have always had the mindset that the Bible is divine and everything that takes place in the Bible, no matter how you interpret it, seems quite untouchable physically because of how many years have passed since events from the Bible have taken place, which is between about 3500-2000 years. To uncover and discover physical documents or other physically attainable things from that time period is mind-blowing to me, and to actually interpret these artifacts and compare these interpretations to the Bible and what it says is so fascinating.

One of the biggest things I have taken away from these readings is how differently people interpret certain parts of the Bible. Just like how there were different interpretations and views of the story of Sodom that influenced and still influences people’s opinions of homosexuals, there are many passages in the Bible that has influenced people’s views of slavery in the past in America based on how they interpret certain parts of the Bible. Some people take certain areas of the Bible in a literal sense, which then influences their ideas about that certain area of the Bible, which then influences their perspective on a certain idea of society or an idea about humanity. Others may use different areas of the Bible to try to interpret a certain story or passage in another area of the Bible, and this also influences people’s ideas and perspectives in different ways. It has always amazed me how many different perspectives have been made about the Bible, even though it is considered to be one cohesive book and story.

It was very interesting how these readings portrayed different views of how homosexuality is portrayed in the Bible, if it is even portrayed at all. In “Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19 1-29) on the Internet,” I found very fascinating how they talked about the different viewpoints on Sodom and Gomorrah that can be found on the Internet. There were some sources that viewed this story in a literal sense and some of those claimed how being gay is a sin based on what they were accused of in the story, and other sources that viewed the story in a literal sense claimed that what they were accused of wasn’t because they were gay, but because they were idolatrous and inhospitable. It is fascinating to me how this one story carries such a big importance on how people view the whole Bible regarding homosexuality. If someone interprets the story as the city of Sodom being destroyed because the people of Sodom were gay, then they interpret the Bible as anti-homosexual, and whoever interprets this story like this and believes that the Bible is the true Word of God, then they many homophobic themselves. If someone interprets the story as the city of Sodom being destroyed because of the inhospitality and idolatry the people of Sodom have, then there is no connection to homosexuality in this story, and the people who interpret it this way most likely don’t believe the Bible doesn’t advocate anti-homosexuality. It’s amazing how this one story has influenced so many people’s views of the Bible so strongly when it is not even proven to be calling homosexuality a sin.

I found the stories of Hagar in the Bible quite interesting, and the way Reimagining Hagar gives insight also fascinated me. When I first learned that she was the slave of Sarah, Abraham’s wife, and that Sarah allowed her to conceive a child with Abraham because was not able to, I was very surprised. I would not expect a woman to allow another woman who is viewed as inferior to have sex with and conceive a child with her husband, and I would not expect the husband to want have a child with anyone else but his wife. What the article showed me was how they were using Hagar’s body as a source for having a child, and Abraham wasn’t necessarily making an emotional connection, but instead he raped her in order to have a child because his wife wasn’t able to. Sarah had a similar mindset, where she saw Hagar’s body as a place where her husband could have a child.

I also found it fascinating how the author connects Hagar as being Black, even though this was not her skin color or ethnicity. Hagar was Egyptian, but the author was comparing how Egyptians in the days when these parts of the Bible were written were viewed similarly to how Blacks have been viewed in American history. They both are seen as inferior, looked down upon, and possibly even less than human.

This is the first time I heard that there were two different flood stories. I have always had this idea that in the story, when I thought of it to be a singular story, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights and Noah 2 of every animal on the earth came aboard the ark with Noah and his family. I just learned, not only that there are two different stories of the flood within each other in a few chapters of Genesis, but also that these two ideas I previously had of the flood were actually from different stories and not the same one. There are also many other differences between the two stories, but it was so fascinating to me how the two stories have been tied together in my own mind for most of my life into one, where that is surely not the case.

It is also very interesting how the two stories coincide with each other within Genesis 6-9. It’s amazing how there are obvious differences that seem to be in one story, even though it is really two. I am not sure how this happened, where two stories got woven together, but I would assume that there were two authors within these chapters that disagreed on some details, so they decided to put both interpretations in.

Not only are these two stories with similarities and differences, but there is another flood story that is in the Epic of Gilgamesh that shows many similarities compared to the two stories in Genesis 6-9. Although the characters and other details may be different, the idea of a flood that kills every aspect of life besides the living things on the boat is the same as the flood stories in the Bible stories of the flood. This is astounding, as this is a completely different viewpoint, from a Mesopotamian view, compared to the viewpoint in the Bible. Again, I don’t how they are so similar in structure, but I would assume that there was this general idea in this period of time where there was a flood that wiped out all life, and the viewpoints of the stories are just from different people and areas.