The Bible TI251 Fall 2020

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.

The Slave Bible.  Until watching the video on it, I had never heard of such a thing.  It’s so sad that people took out parts of the Bible promoting inclusion to all in order to create a book that was directed to slaves and making them more submissive to their owners.  So, how does this connect with law?  Well, the Bible is full of laws and the laws that were included in the Slave Bible were the laws that promoted submissiveness and obedience to slave owners.  There are many books of the Bible that are filled with extensive laws, but the main laws of the Bible were of course the Ten Commandments.  I thought the video on who the Ten Commandments were intended for was very interesting.  I had always thought of the Ten Commandments as God’s guidance for all to become closer to Him, so hearing that the Commandments were not intended for all was quite shocking to me.  It also brought some questions to my mind, such as what does this mean for people who are not Israelite men with families or households?  Does this mean that the Commandments are not applicable to us? Well, I’ve always been taught of course not but maybe the Commandments and who they are intended for is a much deeper question than we have taken it all these years.

Women seem to be underrepresented in Christianity, even to this day.  In the Catholic Church, the fact that women can not be priests or authoritative figures in the Church has been controversial for many years.  When recalling discussions I have had on such issues, it has always been said that it’s not because women are subordinate to men, but more so because they are more representative of Jesus, who was a man.  I think its interesting that even in the Bible there is a more male dominant presence.  In the Bible, there are also quite a few women are merely mentioned and that’s the end of hearing about them.  To this day, we still haven’t worked out all the inequality between the genders in the Church.  But, is it really inequality?  Or is it more about carrying tradition?  This idea is something that occurred to me after having class.  I really don’t think it’s an equality issue, however, I can see how one might think that it is.  Because Jesus is viewed as the Son of God and the person administering mass is representative of Jesus, it makes sense that it would be encouraged for a man to fulfill the role of being a priest.  Having been in the Catholic Church my whole life, I think its also worth noting that the traditional view of women is that she stays home, does the housework, and tends to the children.  I believe this also could play a part in why women aren’t priests or of any power in the Catholic Church.

Romans 1:7 says, “To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.”  This is a greeting that is used to address groups of people quite a few times in the Bible, and it doesn’t end there.  Today, something similar to this greeting is used also during Catholic mass to address the congregation.  I never realized how many connections that are made with Paul.  Another thing I found interesting relating to Paul is in Galatians 3:28.  It says, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  This is a scripture verse that I find to be relevant today.  It discourages the recognition of peoples differences, racially and ethically, and encourages the recognition that we are all united through Jesus.  It shouldn’t matter what gender you are, what race you are, or where you are on the economic scale because we are all one with Jesus.  With all the tensions between people today, I think this verse is very prevalent and is also very encouraging of creating a more inclusive world today.  

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.

In Back Door Introduction to the Bible, John Kaltner and Steven L. McKenzie state that “The problems that have come from taking Genesis 1 as history are well known.” They were not so well known to me. I grew up thinking that Genesis was accepted by all Christians as plain historical fact. I was surprised when this book so confidently said that this theory isn’t supported by careful reading of the text. It really changed my perspective on the text. I had always gone into reading the bible as though everything written was historical fact. The possibility that Genesis could be fictional- more like a fable- had never crossed my mind.

I think this serves as an example of how perspective can deeply change people’s interpretations of things. In Back Door Introduction to the Bible, the authors talk about how differences in interpretation lead to the “fight over teaching creationism as science in public schools, and museums featuring Adam riding on a brachiosaurus.” Imagine if people had come in reading Genesis as possibly more of a fable. These kinds of things wouldn’t have been argued for so hard. Genre really changes the context of words and how people translate them.

Judges 19 left me speechless.  It is so disheartening to hear how the concubine was treated, despite the men’s desire to have intercourse with the male guest.  When reading this story, it is easy to understand why no one came running to welcome the three of them into their house.  However, this story also made me feel serious disrespect and objectification of the woman.  The old man practically offered the concubine up for her body  (as well as his VIRGIN daughter), and let the people of the town abuse her and do whatever they desired to her all night.  Then, when the master found her in the morning and she wasn’t moving, he chopped her up into 12 pieces, one for each of the tribes.  It’s interesting to see the similarities between the abuse that the concubine suffered to that of the slaves suffering.  Despite it being a different type of suffering, both types were physical and were objectifying of people.  When hearing these stories, the slaves and concubine suffered not only physical suffering but also mental trauma.  Despite talking about some suffering that leads us to a stronger relationship with God, I think that this type of suffering is hard to recover from or see the positive from.  The last part about how the people who saw what had been done to the concubine forgetting it, as if nothing happened, was absolutely terrible.  I don’t know how you can keep quiet when you see something so traumatic.

When it comes to suffering in the Bible, there are many stories of stronger faith developing from people’s suffering.  One of my favorite stories of suffering leading to great faith is Abraham.  Abraham and Sarah struggled for many years to have children.  However, in Sarah’s old age, she became pregnant, miraculously.  They named their son Isaac.  One day, Abraham was commanded by God to sacrifice his son, Isaac, and despite Abraham’s great amount of love for his son, he trusted God.  Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son, despite how much he didn’t understand why God was asking him to do such a thing.  This was God’s test of Abraham’s faith!  He wanted to see if Abraham’s love for Him was great enough that Abraham would even sacrifice his one and only son, and Abraham did.  He then was greatly rewarded by God as a result of his great faith.  Abraham believed that God had a greater plan despite how much suffering he was feeling from the thought of losing his son that he had strongly desired for so long.  So, he took his son and prepared for sacrificing his son.  However, God came just in time to stop Abraham from sacrificing Isaac to tell him that this was a test of Abraham’s faith.  This story is one of my favorite’s.  I often think about the suffering that I have been through and how God desires for it to bring out a stronger relationship with Him.  Today, I have come to accept that despite our many struggles we go through daily, God knows just how strong we are or can be and he wants to ensure that we use all of the strength that we have to continue to grow in our relationship with Him.

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  We hear from one of the four gospels every weekend at Mass.  I’ve been listening to them since before I was even baptized.  Three different perspectives of similar stories are told in Matthew, Mark and Luke, however John’s gospel seems to be an oddball.  The gospel of John is not so much focused on history as the other gospels.  It is however read throughout the liturgical year.  The gospel of Mark dates to be the oldest and shortest account of Jesus’ life and death.  However, it puts emphasis on who Jesus is.  It emphasizes Jesus’ miraculous work as the Son of God and the Messiah.  Toward the end of the Gospel, when Jesus is dying, it is officially declared that Jesus was the Son of God (read for Year B of liturgical cycle).  Matthew puts emphasis on the fact that Jesus was a descendent of King David and how he opposed the Pharisees (read for Year A of liturgical cycle).  Lastly, Luke (read for year C of liturgical year) is the only book to account for the story of the road to Emmaus, which is told every year on Easter.  Luke was likely written by a non- Jewish Christian to a non-Jewish audience.  Luke emphasizes the imminent return of Christ which is different from Matthew and Mark.  Matthew, Mark and Luke all tell similar stories from different perspectives, while also focusing on different things.  It is also interesting to note that when you read Year A, B and C, you have read the entirety of the first three gospels.

As a Catholic, I really enjoy hearing the Homilies that priests give throughout the year, reflecting and connecting the gospels with the given scriptures for the day.  Often times, priests will help put these stories into perspective by giving a real life example or giving tips on how to live out what we can learn from the gospel.  They are often very insightful and applicable to our everyday lives.  That is one thing that I really enjoy about the gospels.