Author: emefroym

When I think about women in the Bible, the first woman I think of is Eve. It always bothered me how Eve was made from Adam. I wonder if how women are portrayed in the Bible is the reason there is so much misogyny in the world today. With a book like the Bible being passed around from generation to generation, it is no wonder women are still treated the way they are today. Reading the Old Testament for the first time, all I could think about was how objectified women were in the chapters I was reading. The constant use of women as objects to be given away was shocking. There were several stories of men giving away their “virgin daughters” as payment. Since this is occurs so much in the Bible, it makes me wonder the affect it has on people who read the Bible everyday.

In The Blackwell Companion to the New Testament, David Aune talks about the “synoptic problem”. This is the idea that the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are all connected in some way. There are similarities in the books that have led to this conclusion. Scholars have tried to dissect this idea and determine if the books were written by the same author, or which book was written first. In The New Testament: A Literary History, Gerd Theissen also discusses this idea. He talks about how there is a source “Q” which connects Matthew, Mark, and Luke. This source is explained in detail and by a drawing as well. All the books are connected when “Q” is included.

I was never familiar with the infancy stories before. All I had heard of was that Jesus was born by the virgin Mary. I also heard the Christmas was celebrating the birth of Jesus. I also knew that he was a carpenter. Other than this, however, I did not know anything else. It is interesting to think of the Bible as a biography of Jesus. Thinking of the infancy of Jesus is an interesting concept. When I think of Jesus, I think of him as an adult. I can’t even picture Jesus growing up and being a child. One part of the reading that was interesting was the Jesus supposedly performed exorcisms on sick and disabled people. It is a bizarre concept to think about Jesus performing exorcisms. I see how it would make sense that a sick person has an evil spirit that is making them ill. This was a new idea to me, however.

It is interesting how many psalms I have heard of before. I did not grow up reading psalms, but I am familiar with some of the lines in parts of different psalms. For example, Psalm 23 starts with “The Lord is my shepherd”. I have heard this line before although I cannot place where I heard it. It is interesting dissecting the psalms and looking for the deeper meanings behind them. When comparing translations, it is odd that there are so many different interpretations of the psalms.

In class we discussed the difference between monotheism and polytheism. Monotheism is believing in one God whereas polytheism is believing in multiple Gods. In a paper I previously wrote, it discussed the idea that the Exodus from Egypt started the trend of Monotheism. Moses’ ideas from God about believing in solely one God started the movement. They took away from Egypt and went on their own to believe in their own religion. They moved away from Egypt’s ideas of multiple Gods to worship. Moses lead the trend in beginning to focus on one God with Judaism, with Christianity and Islam to follow in his footsteps.

In class we discussed if King David really existed or not. I enjoyed being able to explore this idea and whether or not he was a real king or a fictional character. From what I read, it seemed there is not much physical evidence to suggest King David existed. There is some new evidence coming into play, however. There were a couple stones found that supposedly had information about King David on them. There have also been a few discoveries about where King David lived. However, most of these sites seem to have a strong bias towards wanting King David to be real. Therefore, it does not seem like there is currently any physical proof that King David was a real person.

Today in class we discussed the idea of slavery in the Bible. We talked about how the idea of slavery in the Bible was different than the US slavery that we have been taught about in school. I thought it was interesting that slavery when discussed in the Bible is something that people offered to pay off debts. I also thought the conversation of a world without slavery was interesting as well. We talked about how if there is no slavery, how would these people pay off their debts they cannot pay? These are questions I have never thought about before. I had never thought much about the idea of indentured servitude. With this in mind, I wonder how many other people think about indentured servitude when reading the Bible as opposed to US slavery.

After reading Genesis 19 and Judges 19, I was shocked. I never knew the Bible had such gruesome and graphic stories in it. It was interesting to read very explicit acts occurring in something as sacred as the Bible. I always thought of the Bible being a happy book with stories and tales of good deeds and other similar things. After reading the brutal gang rape and murder of an innocent woman, I was in shock and disbelief. I also noticed how much sexism is in the Bible as well. They want to protect the men in these stories so badly, they sacrifice their “virgin daughters”. While I am not necessarily shocked that there is obvious objectification of women in the Bible, it is still disappointing. There are so many people that have read the Bible, it is no wonder the objectification of women still exists today.

Having not read the Bible before, Genesis 12-23 was very bizarre to read. There are many questions I have from reading these sections. Since I had not read this part of the Bible before, I had no prior notion of believing Hagar was a black woman until reading Reimagining Hagar. It is odd that Sarai was so adamant on having a child that she allowed her husband to have sex with another woman to have a child. It is also interesting that Sarah not only gave Hagar to Abram as a slave, she gave Hagar to him as a wife. Reimagining Hagar discusses how Hagar is only referred to as Abram’s wife when they are talking about sex. In all other instances, Hagar is a “slave-woman”, or another similar term. The Bible does not explicitly say that Hagar is black, it only mentions that she is from Egypt, which is a different area than where Sarai and Abram are from. I am curious as to how the interpretations have made Hagar a black woman instead of just an Egyptian woman. I also wonder why the divine messenger tells Hagar to go back after being “dealt with” by Sarai. Why would the messenger want Hagar to return to a place she was abused at? I have many more questions as to why certain things are said in this section of the Bible.

There are some major differences in the Babylonian Epic of Creation and Genesis. Enuma elish has more of a story aspect to it since there are so many characters involved. There are multiple gods in this story. There is also an evil villain, Tiamut, who is killed and the remains of Tiamut are turned into the sky and sea. This is a similarity to Genesis since in Genesis the sky and the sea are one thing split into two. Genesis is a much easier story to follow since there is really only one character, God. It makes sense to me why more people are familiar with Genesis than with the Babylonian Epic of Creation since Genesis makes more sense and is easier to understand.