Author: ijordan

In class today we talked about the importance of archaeology to providing evidence to the historicity of the Bible. Archaeology provides concrete evidence, isn’t quite as impacted as bias as analysis of the text, and archaeological evidence is from the time period that the text was written whereas the texts are copies. We also analyzed the historicity of Exodus. In order for large numbers of people to cross the Red Sea, it would take at least a week. There are indications that the crossing of the Sea of Reeds may have been a less unusual if no less important event. Archaeological evidence confirms the settling of large numbers of people in previously uninhabited Canaan. This supports the idea of Exodus.

One very interesting thing I learned in class today was the idea that the Bible is not pro-slavery but it was taking something that existed in the time and providing legislation for it. Many people argue that because the Bible talks about slavery so much it must be pro-slavery, however, this is very untrue. The Bible was written during a time when indentured servitude was much more common than slavery as we in America know it from history books. Indentured servitude allowed servants to get out of their work once they repaid their debt by working. These people also weren’t mistreated like they were in American history. Therefore, I think it is very important for Christians and people who believe in the Bible to clearly understand that the Bible does not condone slavery, especially not on the basis of racism. I think very often people are under the impression that the Bible supports slavery and being able to explain that it does not is very important.

The book of Exodus begins the law of the Bible. The story within Exodus isn’t actually that long, but it is full of law. Within the story, God wrote the ten commandments and gave them to Moses, the plagues occurred in Egypt, and God parted the Red Sea through Moses. It was mentioned in the lecture that Pharaoh in the Exodus story is unnamed. This tends to be helpful to oppressed people as it allows them to put the things that are oppressing them into the spot of Pharaoh making the story of the Exodus more relatable. I was also surprised to learn that during early American history people took out the parts that mentioned liberation during. times when people had slaves to discourage slaves from trying to gain liberation. We also worked on making a list of commandments for a hypothetical society. This was a very interesting activity as it allowed me to think about what was important to me for my specific society and to compare them to the Ten Commandments.

I really appreciated this class section. I have had librarians come into some of my classes at Butler, but I still think this class section was very helpful because it specifically addressed the databases and LibGuides we would need to use for this class. I also would have had no idea how to find our LibGuide if she had not shown us, so I am very appreciative of that.

I also loved that Ms. French explained scholarship as a conversation. She explained very well that we are going to be taking pieces of these sources and putting them together in our own words to add on to the ongoing conversation. I think this was a very helpful class!

In this class period, I learned a lot about Genesis. I found this session very interesting because in the past I have only learned about the Bible from faith teachers at my school, so they taught me to think of the Bible in a very specific way and believe everything without question. I liked getting to talk about Genesis in this class because it allowed me to think of the book in a more critical light.

For example, in class, we talked about the Tower of Babel and what this could have meant. In high school, I was always taught that the Tower of Babel was a real tower in which people were trying to reach the Heavens because of their selfishness and greed. However, in class, we were told that the author is poking fun at an unfinished Zigguraut and is writing a form of fable to explain why this tower is unfinished and language. I appreciate this new view of the Biblical story as it allowed me to think differently about something that I have learned about for seven years of school.

Similarly, I appreciated the conversation we had about Abraham and why God told him to sacrifice Isaac. The story was meant to discourage people from sacrificing their children, so God tested Abraham’s belief and trust in Him and then gave him a sacrifice to offer in place of Isaac. I think this interpretation of the story makes God seem less like a puppet master and more in control because He is trying to show that He wants people of Abraham’s time to stop sacrificing their children. I am glad we took a critical understanding of Genesis today as it helped me better understand the book as a whole.

From the lecture by Dr. Hays, I was able to learn a lot about the story of the Fall by comparing it to the Epic of Gilgamesh. There are many parallels between the two stories. In both stories, as referenced by Dr. Hays, knowledge and wisdom seem to come at a high price. For Adam and Eve, this high price is being removed from the Garden of Eden, losing their immortality, and enduring pain in their lives. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Enkidu’s loss of innocence turns him into a god, but it causes him to lose things like the ability to run with animals and to live an innocent, peaceful life (much like the one Adam and Eve were living in the Garden). A difference between these two stories is the nature of the act that leads to the loss of innocence.  In the creation story in the Bible, Eve was tricked by the serpent and she and Adam ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They did this despite God’s direct orders to not eat of this tree and endured vast punishments for this behavior. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Enkidu’s loss of innocence comes from a seven-day sexual experience with a woman. These two stories are very different and yet they offer many interesting parallels.

From the class lecture today I thought that comparing Adam and Eve’s Fall to maturing from childhood was very interesting. When in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were naked and they were unashamed. Toddlers are most commonly naked and they are very unfazed by their nakedness. So, when Adam and Eve ate the fruit and disobeyed God’s orders they became aware of their nakedness, very similar to the process of aging when people become aware of their nakedness and begin to mature. I have learned about the Fall in Genesis 3 for a very long time and have not heard of it being compared to maturing from childhood and I thought this comparison was very interesting.

What helped me the most from the reading was comparing the Enuma Elish to the creation story in Genesis and finding similarities and differences and then getting to talk about these in class. There are a ton of characters in the Enuma Elish who all play a role in the creation story. The main two characters are Marduk, the greatest god and avenger, and Tiamat. Tiamat is an evil, seven-headed dragon who is meant to represent water in the Enuma Elish. Marduk defeats Tiamat and splits her body in half to form the sky and the sea. This relates to the Genesis creation story as God also creates the sky and sea from the water on the second day. However,  the story in Genesis is far less exciting and contains less battle.

In class on the first day we talked about creation, we compared two translations of the Bible and their similarities and differences in the creation story. While the main points stayed the same there were some strange wording differences that altered parts of the creation story. Using words like “dome” to represent the sky really changed the way I read Genesis 1, which I found surprising.

On the second day of lecture when we focused on the creation, we focused on Genesis 1-3. The wording in Genesis 1 is highly repetitive. Phrases like “and there was evening and there was morning” and “and God said” were repeated throughout the passage. These repetitive phrases call into question the genre of Genesis as talked about in previous lectures. Very often repetitive language like this is used in poetry more than in prose.

Also, very often in Hebrew writing uses parallelism as opposed to word rhyming to focus on ideas. An example within the Genesis creation story is the way the days of creation are laid out. The first three days, God formed things (like the day and night, the sky, and the dry land) and then He filled the things that were formed in the last three days. This is an interesting parallel that we talked about in class that I remember learning about at my Lutheran high school, but it was fun to revisit.

From this class discussion, I learned that there are many different genres in the Bible which will impact the way the text is read. For example, some of the text in the Bible is historical, whereas books like Psalms and Proverbs are not historical but more closely resemble poetry. If someone tries to read these books as historical they will be largely confused and miss the point of the story. Another thing to consider about the Bible is that the text we are reading is not the original text the way it was written. The Bible has been translated from the original Hebrew and there is a potential that some of the original writings have been lost in translation.

In The Backdoor Introduction to the Bible, Kaltner and Mckenzie support both of these points we talked about in class. They have a section in the article where they focus on determining the genre of the Bible. Overall they decide that the Bible is entirely varied in genre and cannot be put into one box. One thing that is important to remember is that “the Bible is really a collection of different works of literature rather than a single book” (9). This accentuates the point that in order to read the Bible you must determine the genre of the book you are reading.  Also, the authors focus on the fact that the Bible was written for ancient audiences using their languages. So, biblical scholars have produced resources such as user guides and reader’s notes for reading the Bible to ensure that you can comprehend as close to the original text as possible.

Michael W. Holmes is a reliable source in his writing the book, The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies. He has received a BA, MA, and Ph.D. in theological studies and currently works as a professor of Biblical Studies at Bethel University. It was very easy to find out who he was and see all of his published works with a simple google search of his name. This makes me trust that he is a reliable source as he has the academic background and necessary exposure to write on the subject of ‘The Biblical Canon’. Just because Dr. Holmes is experienced in theological studies does not mean he had no biases on the matter. Especially with his current job at Bethel University, a Christian college, he may have opinions on the Bible that other doctors in theological studies do not agree with.

This book was published by Oxford University Press in 2008. This gives me more confidence in the book, as it has a reputable publisher which makes me trust in the sanctity of the information. According to the Oxford University Press website, authors must develop high-quality work and go through rigorous proposals before having their work accepted for publishing. This again proves that the work we are dealing with for class is reputable.

During this lesson, I learned a lot about reliable sources and how to tell if something is unreliable. This will be helpful both finding sources for this class, but in all my other classes as well. I learned that just because someone is a professor, or because they have received their Ph.D. does not mean they are a reliable source of information. In order to use reliable sources, I must be willing to put in the work by researching the authors I am using in my sources in order to determine what their biases might be and if their opinions are extremely against the norm. I have learned to become a more critical information gatherer in order to use the best sources possible from the most informed authors on specific subjects.