Rabbi Benjamin Scolnic talks about “The Prophets and Social Justice”. He talks about how the Biblical prophets’ main message was justice. He brings up that Moses was sent to free the people. God wanted the people to be able to act freely like He did. God frees people through Moses and other prophets. The prophets urge others to help those in need, such as widows, orphans, and oppressed people. The prophets are pushed to “demand respect for every human life”.
Chapter 1 of William G. Dever’s book Beyond the Texts: An Archaeological Portrait of Ancient Israel and Judah discusses the idea of history-writing. He talks about distinguishing the difference between historians and antiquarians. He discusses whether the writers and interpreters of the Bible were historians or antiquarians. Dever goes through the different parts of the Bible that had to be interpreted and when they were written. Dever then discusses the idea that archaeologists are “a historian of things”.
Cheryl B. Anderson discusses law and the Bible. She talks about how you really have to look at what the Bible says when talking about biblical laws. She uses the example of adultery. A man is not considered to be participating in adultery if the woman is single. This proves that these laws are not meant for current context, and there is leeway in how they should be interpreted. Anderson also points to there being two versions of the Ten Commandments, and one is written later. This proves that these laws were meant to be amended and interpreted differently as time has passed.
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.