The Bible TI251 Fall 2020

Revisiting the role of archaeology in the Bible reminds me of how much information about the Bible was lost, and how important it is to make sense of what is left. For example, the site of Jericho being near fault lines that would have commonly caused seismic activity makes a lot of sense with the biblical story told about it. This, to me, doesn’t discredit any of the biblical meaning of the story, it just adds another layer to it. From a believer’s perspective, this shows the dependency of the natural world on God and his plan. In a literary sense, having this information alongside the story is a little ironic. This case is also thought-provoking, considering the amount of information gleaned from both modern archaeological sites and ancient writings handed down from the time period of their origin. So many buildings, artworks, and writings have been lost over time and we don’t even know it! There could be hundreds of stories or even pieces of pottery that alter entire religions, and there just hasn’t been a shard to wash up or a slip of paper to slide out from behind something. It’s amazing to think about how much hard work has gone into the Bible that we know today.  

Proverbs has an interesting set of sayings that I had never heard of, like “a stitch in time is worth nine” which we discussed in class that it could mean that fixing a small problem now rather than later saves you much time and headache in the future. The story of Job is rather demented in my opinion. God and Satan (a title rather than a name) put Job through trials of faith when he’s already a devoted man. Ecclesiastes is a strange section of the Bible. It’s very pessimistic in relation to other books we’ve read during the semester.

Last class, we discussed the term monotheism and what it means.  Monotheism is a term that to me has always meant the belief in one God.  However, the term “Trinity” was also mentioned.  Back in high school, I remember having the discussion of how the Trinity is constituted as one God and it brought up some really interesting questions. To start, defining the term Trinity is critical.  Trinity refers to one being, and three persons: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  This brings up the discussion of how can we say we are monotheists if there are three define persons that make up the Trinity?  Well together they work as one, but yet they are also each different “forms” of one being.  What can this be compared to?  One of the examples that stuck out to me that was a real life example of how we can demonstrate the relationship of the Trinity is water.  Water has three forms: steam, water and ice, however they all can be constituted as different types or forms of the same thing.  In this way, I think that the Trinity is still constituted as the belief in one Divine being that has different forms or types.  The Father is God, the Son is Jesus through whom God works, and the Holy Spirit, who also communicates to us through God.  God is present in all three persons and therefore, the Trinity supports this idea of monotheism.

David was always glorified in my experience of reading the Bible and hearing about him in church, but whether or not he deserved it is another question. I knew the story of how he married Bathsheba in the back of my head (perhaps mostly the Veggie Tales version) but I didn’t realize just how far David went and still maintained his popularity and kingship. He had multiple wives, killed multiple people, and committed adultery, but he took responsibility for it. This is a recurring theme in the Bible in a literary sense, because the main message of Jesus is to take ownership of sin and repent. The benefits of doing so are shown through David, as he won the spot of being in the holy bloodline and being a man after God’s own heart, as he is often called in Christianity. All sides of David’s life are important when understanding the themes of the Bible. 

In history class, the references to Confederates and anti-abolitionists using the Bible always made me shudder. Why would these people use my religion as a way to justify the torture of an entire race? The Israelites themselves were freed slaves at one point, right? The argument blew my mind, and I didn’t even know yet about the Slave Bible designed to suppress rebellion among unjustly enslaved Americans. 

The reality is that the Bible was, like in many other issues, manipulated to fit a certain value. Cherry-picking and selective hearing runs rampant with these hot-button issues. But the Bible’s view of slavery is much different than American slavery. It never hit me before that slavery wasn’t racially-charged like America, it was mostly a last-ditch effort to pay off debts. This idea reminds me of the child sacrifice topic from Genesis, where desperate times really do call for desperate measures (which vary through cultures and time periods). In the Americanized, revisionist view that pervades Bible study in churches, I sometimes forget to acknowledge these important cultural and historical considerations.

Gale A. Yee, a professor of biblical studies emerita at Episcopal Divinity School proposes the idea that “In order to become prophets ourselves, to critique the unrelenting drive for profits in capitalism and recover the positive ethics of tribal living, we must become educated in the systemic structures of the U.S. economy and of capitalism itself, and then through our God-given gifts, strive to create a more equitable, just society.” I certainly do not agree with this as it deviates from what I believe is the true path outlined by the Church. In her article, she relates King Solomon’s   monarchy to Panem from “The Hunger Games” since it is divided into 12 states with a central body receiving the bulk of the surrounding modes of production. I don’t doubt that the central state in which King Solomon resided received most of the means of production but I think to call the farmers “exploited” falls into a marxist interpretation. Yee focuses on the power dynamics once again to view the Bible through the lens of critical theory, “Its stories of exploitation are usually not discussed in studies that focus on “daily life” in ancient Israel and in seminary classes on the Old Testament.” Once again, I would like to point out that the vast majority of prophets and righteous individuals were peasant class.

Who are the prophets of today? How are these people selected. In class we discussed the idea that many people are a modern versions of prophets. These people are scientist who can help correct the harm done by other people and can help support and guide us through many issues. In addition to Scientist we mentioned politicians. These are people elected to serve the people who elect them. They serve the communities by attempting to improve the lives of people living within them.

In class we talked about a multitude of things regarding monotheism however the thing that struck me as most surprising was when talking about the ten commandments. The exact commandment was  “you shall have no other Gods above me”. What is the meaning of this? Does it propose we can worship other gods but have God almighty still be the most important? or does it mean there are multiple gods and different beliefs. Personally I think this is in reference to God being above all else but people have a right to believe in others. However that is the interpretation today I am not thinking about historical context. Back in ancient Israel there were many religions being practiced and  defining it back then was trickier. This gets into the idea of monotheism. Monotheism is the belief in one god, one religion. This topic of Monotheism eventually led us into the idea of the Trinity. The Holy Trinity is God: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. People argue that this is not monotheism as it encompasses three things not one God as monotheism requires. However the trinity represents 3 things that make up God and his presence. So I would consider the Trinity to be apart of the monotheistic belief.

When the first commandment is saying that you shall have no other Gods above me, the meaning is that if there are other gods, then don’t let them consume your life over God. I have always interpreted this commandment that the other things that we can worship are the distractions that we encounter in life. It could be your phone, social media, another person, or an object. When in the context of today, these things make sense. However, in the context of ancient Israel, this could mean other gods that people worshipped. As Christianity started forming, a monotheistic religion was forming and moving away from the polytheistic religions that dominated before. Why people believed in multiple gods were to have someone to access explicitly for one reason such as fertility, rain, or harvest. All major things that the ancient people relied on to make a good life for themselves, they had a god for. In the emergence of the prophets speaking of one God that would unite the world through sending his only son down to earth to live, teach, and ultimately die for the sins of all, people were scared, but also hopeful. Under one God, who loves us and cherishes each person for who they are, it can serve as a uniting factor for people. While each person goes through different things, they can rely on a uniting figure to follow and to pray to in their lives.

The Trinity is how I would describe God: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three in one consubstantial and coeternal essence. To get even more complicated, the Orthodox Church believes that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father unlike our Catholic brothers who believe that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. This is known as the Filioque clause which was added to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan creed in 1014,  filioque literally means “and the son,” in Latin which did not previously exist in the creed developed in 325 at the first council of Nicaea.

Does the Trinity fit within the typical definitions of monotheism? I would say that there is certainly a fine line between the Trinity and monotheism but a line nonetheless. Since monotheism calls for a singular God, many could interpret the Trinity as being three different modes of a singular God, like a three dimensional object which only truly occupies only one of the three or a combination at any given time. This is known as modalism, simply put it is the disintegration of the hypostatic  (the three divine persons) union of the Trinity, the Trinity has become delaminated. If there was no trinity and it was a singular God, it is at this point which we start to dabble in Monarchianism, the belief that there is a singular God and no division into the three hypostases. The Trinity is not monotheistic or three separate Gods by any means, the Orthodox worship the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as a singular God.

In my blog post I wanted to expand upon the question of what people or people groups are most like prophets today. I have two answers, I shared one answer that suggested politicians and activists are similar as they are moral leaders, who are trying to steer us towards what they perceive as what is morally correct. I would think that this answer is really good if it weren’t for the fact that often times politicians are corrupt and rather than serving the people, like the prophets, they are serving lobbyists, their party, or their own pocket. This is why activists may be a better analogy, as there is less opportunity for profit paired with the fact that prophets were often sent for a specific reason, like how activists usually have a specialty. Another analogy that I came up with is that prophets best shadow superheroes. As superheroes aren’t real I didn’t share in class, but I see even more parallels between them and prophets. They both have strength from higher or supernatural powers (I’m not sure if it’s acceptable to call God supernatural). They also generally have a specific evil that they are targeting, superheroes targeting supervillains and prophets targeting sins/sinners. Finally they both tend to have polarizing views about them in society and have large reputations before and after death.