Category: Uncategorized

Dexter Callender talks about the flood stories and the Epic of Gilgamesh. The story goes that Noah is told to build a boat and to put all animals and his family on the boat. The flood then destroys everything left on Earth besides those on the boat. The Epic of Gilgamesh has a similar story, but it is a flood hero who does these tasks. This flood hero receives eternal life from the gods after giving them a sacrifice. Noah does not receive eternal life in his story. Another difference is the birds in each story. The flood hero from the Epic of Gilgamesh sends out a bird three times, and Noah also sends out a dove three times. However, in the Mesopotamian story, there are three different birds sent out. All of this information together makes it seem as though these are the same story, but they are told separately with minor differences.

Chapter 2 of Subversive Sequels in the Bible, it discusses the relationship between the Tower of Babel and the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt. The chapter discusses the many similarities in the two stories, for example, both are about building cities, both have the same building materials, and both have fear-inducing orations. The chapter talks about the story of the Tower of Babel and why the people were punished.

Phyliss Trible’s article on Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation discusses how the Hebrew Scriptures and the Women’s movement are related. It is argued that the way the Bible is translated makes it patriarchal. The article gives several examples of how the Bible condemns women. Paul considers women subordinate to men, and I Timothy states that women are responsible for sin in the world. This is an interesting to me because I had not read the Bible much before this class. After reading certain sections of the Bible, I noticed how sexist the Bible was. It is interesting to consider the possibility that this is not so much the Bible that is sexist, but the interpretation that is sexist. The people who would have been responsible for translating this document could have used their own bias to do so, resulting in a patriarchal Bible that we have read today.

It’s fairly obvious that even today, women are underrepresented in the church. In the catholic faith and in canon law, women still cannot hold the role of priests. Not to mention, the overwhelmingly low number of female pastors in the Christian faith. In the bible, there is a lot of arguably sexist statements and verses compared to our advancement of society here in 2020. However, as with everything in the Bible, it is all up to interpretation. I feel as if today, women are definitely slowly making their way up in authoritative roles in the church, as well as gaining the respect of their congregations and priors.

Honestly, this was definitely one of the more upsetting lectures to discuss and listen in on. I knew nothing of the existence of a “slave bible” prior to learning about it in this class, but with the time period, it sadly matches up with the time period of slavery being legal in the US. The proponents of slavery didn’t want their slaves to rebel by reading sections of the Bible that could justify why slavery is wrong and could cause them to rebel. Due to this, only about half of the New Testament remained, while the majority of the Old Testament was omitted.

In addition to the slave bible, slavery itself was debated in relations to the Bible over whether or not slavery is a sin. In the reading attached to the lecture, brothers “O.B. and J.B.” were at odds over slavery was sinful or not. Brother O.B. stated that yes indeed it was sinful because slavery itself goes against the Golden Rule of the Lord. While J.B. stated that nowhere in the Rule does it imply or state that slavery is wrong. Obviously, in modern times, this debate has long passed since the abolition of slavery. However, it’s very interesting to note all of the ties to religion over the issue of slavery,

After recently writing a research report on the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, I found out a lot of interesting information. Firstly, these Gospels are referred to as “synoptic” – meaning of or forming a general summary – because of their similarities in wording, content, sequences..etc. These Synoptic Gospels in the New Testament are easily identifiable as some of the most well-known and recognizable books of the Bible because they discuss the majority of Jesus’ life on Earth.

Because of the similarities, some scholars believe that the Synoptic Gospels could’ve been used as sources for one another. According to Douglas M. Beaumont, who has a Ph.D from North-West University, about 90% of Mark’s material is found in Matthew, and about 50% is found is Luke, with about 250 verses paralleled in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark. These issues in similarity is referred to as the “Synoptic Problem,” and has been studied for centuries. The issue was even pondered by Origen and Augustine.

Now, I don’t think there will ever be a clear solution for the Synoptic Problem, because the Gospels were written much prior to our time, it’s impossible to determine how they written and what sources the Evangelists used. However, it’s still very interesting to study all of the different perspectives and theories.

The book of Revelation gives its name to a category of literature that signifies a vision of heavenly things. The book of Revelation is John’s vision of the end of human history as we know it. It begins a new reality in the kingdom of God. Generally, people view Revelation as an apoplectic story, however, it does not necessarily reference the end of the world.

Revelation could be placed into three categories: an apocalypse, prophecy, and a letter. Apocalyptic stories typically contain symbolism, heavenly journies, and angels. Revelation can be categorized as a prophecy as it is telling of what will happen in the future. It can also be categorized as a letter because it is written to a specific group of people. Revelation is written as one letter to seven different churches however, each of them is singled out at one time within the story.

Revelation is about the future, however, it is not determined whose future it is referencing. It could only be the future of these specific churches or it could be the future of all of Christianity. It also references the present. People have many different approaches to interpreting the book of Revelation.

In today’s class, we focused on the letter of James. According to the Bible, Jesus did not have brothers and sisters, so reference to James the brother of Jesus is more figurative. The use of the word “brother” is meant to reference either cousin or they could be half-brothers and sisters from his father’s side. James’ real name was Jacob and it was changed to James in the translation of the Bible.

James plays a leadership role in the Jerusalem church, who comes to know Paul. Paul was one of the earliest sources of Jesus, although he was not an eyewitness. This, however, is not surprising for the time as there were no pictures of people, not seeing someone was not an indication that they did not exist. Josephus mentions James the brother of Jesus with this specific title and also Paul mentions him in this way. These examples make it seem possible that he could have been a biological brother to Jesus or some form of a family member.

I was not in class on November 5 for personal reasons, so I will be talking about some class notes from the previous class I attended in which we talked about the synoptic gospels because this is a topic that I am greatly interested in.

We began by addressing why we need to explain how the gospels overlap. From a literary perspective, understanding how the gospels overlap allows one to see how the author takes an earlier text and rearranges it. It also allows us to get a clearer sense of the author’s creativity and allows the reader to gain more context.

The synoptic gospels overlap greatly. Some problems that arise when trying to explain which of the gospels came first are as follows. Luke using Matthew to write his gospel seems unlikely because the information in Matthew is nicely laid out and easy to follow and the information in Luke is scattered throughout the book. The overwhelming consensus is that Matthew and Luke used Mark’s gospel, so therefore Mark was the earliest gospel written. However, it is also understood that Matthew and Luke did not know of each other’s gospels. Some people explain the synoptic gospels by adding in a fourth source, Q, which all of the gospels depend on. Some people claim that source Q was a collection of Jesus’ teachings, but not gospel.

The gospel of John is distinctive from the rest. It references the beloved disciple and the end refers to another party reading this gospel and supporting it. It describes events such as dialogue with Nicodemus and the wedding in Cana. It also has a different setting, in Jerusalem rather than Galilee. It takes on a different chronology of visits to Jerusalem and cleansing the temple at the start of public ministry. It also has a very distinct language and style from the other gospels.

We began the lecture by talking about Jesus and politics. Jesus’ historical life ended with a political execution, a crucifixion, which was typically used for people who rejected imperial authority. Typically, people who were crucified were defiant slaves or people who gathered a following. Mark was defined as the earliest gospel and he defined “kingdom” as a political term. Jesus wanted to use the kingdom of God for a political purpose while on earth. In all of the gospels, but especially Mark Jesus used political means. He preplanned his entry to Jerusalem on a doney, which symbolized peace. He also referred to the temple as a ‘den of robbers’.

We then talked in the lecture about the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount was the first of Jesus’ five long speeches outlined in the gospel of Matthew. It is a controversial speech because at face value it seems to claim that followers of Jesus should still obey the entirety of the law. However, it removes itself from several parts of the law.

We then began to address ways in which the gospels differ. Mark comments that Jesus declares all food clean, whereas Matthew says nothing of the sort. Also, in Mark Jesus told his followers to pray that tribulation did not overtake them and in Matthew, the Sabbath is mentioned in this passage and still meant to be followed by Matthew’s readers.  One of the major differences in the gospels is the characterization of Jesus and the rhetorical devices. Matthew characterizes Jesus as the embodiment of Jewish wisdom, whereas John portrays Jesus as the Passover Lamb. Mark portrays the theme of fear through repetition and Matthew portrays Jesus’ presence through his placement at the beginning and end of the book.

I enjoyed getting to learn about the similarities and differences of the Bible and how they are interrelated through the readings for class.