Author: gnbutler

Learning about the book of Revelation was very interesting to me. I had never read it before, and my only prior knowledge of it was that it described the end of times and what would happen. What was interesting to learn was the different kinds of interpretation of the book: preterits, historicist, futurist, and idealist. Personally, I feel like my interpretation would be idealist, that the book references to specific ideas and principles which can be related to any time in history. Another topic we covered in class was the…number. I don’t want to type it out. I never knew much about it other than it was a demonic number, but it was cool to see how different people’s names could somehow end up as the number. It was also cool to see that Dr. McGrath was not the antichrist, which gives me a sigh of relief.

When Dr. McGrath asked us the question if Jesus had brothers and sisters, my immediate thought was of course not. I had never even considered the question if Jesus had siblings, because it always seemed that he was an only child. It surprised me when he showed us Bible verses that appear to mention that he has siblings. It’s debated, however, if these are just half siblings since Joseph had been married before, or maybe they are just cousins. Then this led to the discussion of the bone box that is inscribed with “Jesus brother of Joseph son of James” and the importance of having the proper credentials and documentation in order to take something like this into consideration. This goes with the major theme of the whole class: not just taking information at face value, but really digging into the legitimacy and expertise of the person giving you this information.

Discussing the letters of Paul led to many new discoveries for me. Firstly, I never realized that Saul and Paul were actually the same person. Paul has a very important role in Christianity by spreading the word and teachings of Jesus. What was really interesting to me, however, was reading about the relationship between Paul’s letters and race relations. Apparently in the arguments over slavery in the 1800s, those who were for slavery used the letters of Paul to emphasize the submitting of slaves to their masters. However, most people seem to look at Galatians 3:28—“There is neither Jew nor Greek, male and female, slave or free, but we are all one—you are all one in Christ Jesus.” I think that is one of the best things in the Bible, and something I think all Christians need to remember.

Women for all of history have been disadvantaged and oppressed. Many people day use the Bible to explain or prove that this is how God intended it to be: men first, and women second. Of course one of the most notable women in the Bible begins with Eve and how she was made from Adam, and made the mistake of falling into temptation, and then convincing Adam to do the same. Of course, this story of Eve doesn’t create a good look for women. In the Old Testament, women are often abused and treated badly, which was hard to read personally. However, we can’t forget about Mary who was the mother of Jesus. She is an extremely important figure in the Bible, and in Catholicism we even dedicate the month of May to her devotion. Overall, many people see the Bible as supporting the unequal rights of women, but personally I don’t believe that. Jesus died for everyone’s sins, equally.

The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are interesting to think about and how they relate to each other. I never even realized that there has been so much research, study, and opinions about what order they are in chronologically, and also how they basically copied information from each other. What was particularly interesting to me was how the Gospel of John is so different from the others: from the difference in setting, chronology, and even the dialogue and wording. The book uses words like “Father”, “I” and “The Father” significantly more times than the other gospels, except for “Kingdom”, which he uses much less. Learning about all of this in the readings and in class amazes me that there is so much scholarly dissection of the Bible, which I never realized before taking this class.

The infancy story of Jesus is one that I am very family with. In Catholic school we always had an Advent program, where we acted out the Christmas story of Jesus’ birth. I think the story is incredible, how he was born by the Virgin Mary in a stable. While reading the other blogs, I found what someone said very interesting: that the birth of Jesus is why they believe in the power of him, because why would a powerful king be so determined to kill a baby and to go as far as to kill all male babies under two years old? I really like that reasoning, because it shows just how important that little baby was.

Mark Allan Powell describes how historians evaluate the life of Jesus apart from religious interpretation. They do this by putting the Gospel’s through the same analysis as any other ancient writings about historical people. They also look at other ancient writings that are not from the Bible in order to gain new information. I think it is very good that historians do this, in order to show what can be deemed as reliable about Jesus in the Gospels.

In class, we discussed the book of Psalms and how it related to music, especially in popular culture. I actually never fully realized that these passages were meant to be put to song. It’s quite frustrating that we don’t, and probably never will, know how they were originally put to sound. I’m mad at myself for not knowing that they were supposed to be songs, but then I remembered that it’s kind of hard to tell since they don’t rhyme. In class I learned that they do in fact rhyme, but since it’s translated to English, it looses that rhyming scheme. Personally, I really enjoyed the songs that we listened to in class and hearing the different interpretations that the bands put on the psalms. I really enjoyed the “Rivers of Babylon” song by both The Melodians and Boney M.—I actually added both to my music playlist and have been listening to them a lot ever since.

In class on Thursday, we talked about proverbs and the story of Job. God put forth awful things on Job’s life to prove to Satan that he will still worship and love him. We thought about how God and Satan were basically making bets with each other on Job, which feels weird to me, but I also think that it’s just to help get the message across and help tell the story. Dr. McGrath called it a “philosophical thought experiment” which I think describes it very well. In the end even with bad wisdom from his friends, Job chooses to continue to worship God. In class we questioned if good things only happen to good people and vise versa. Obviously we know from our everyday lives that this isn’t the case, but why? Why do bad things happen to good people? It is more complex than what we think. Personally, I think the story of Job is trying to convey that we might have to struggle a bit in order to prove ourselves to God.

The concept of monotheism relating to the first commandment was very interesting to think about. The Bible shows monotheism, but also monolatry, which is the belief that there may be more than one God, but only one should be worshipped. Is this what the first commandment is saying? You could interpret that the first commandment says that there may be more than one deity, but you should only worship the Lord. Or, it could be saying that there is only one God and no others. Now that I have questioned this, personally I think the commandment is saying that there may be other “Gods” out there, but there is only one true one. These “Gods” may be referring to other deities, or simply things like idols or superficial things. I know that Catholics are criticized for worshiping other people like Mary and the saints. Overall, the term of monolatry was something I’ve never heard before, and I’m going to start looking out for it when reading the Bible.

In class, we started out with the topic of David and Goliath. This story is definitely one of the more notable stories from the Bible, and many learned about it from a young age. As the Israelites and the Phillistines were at war, they sent their greatest warrior, Goliath, to fight. As a kid, I imagined that he was this huge giant up against a little kid, David. I remember how cool it was that David killed Goliath with simply a stone (and also beheading him, but obviously they never taught us that) and then he later become King. It was an inspiring story of an “underdog” rising up and defeating a great big warrior. “He’s big, but God’s bigger!” I remember the Veggie Tales episode of the story. It’s interesting to think that we’re not sure if the reign of David happened, or if he even existed. I have never questioned this before, but being in this class has presented many other things that we question the historicity of, like the Exodus. It’s good that we have the tools to research and find evidence to find whether these things actually happened or not.