Reading the Bible in a Progressive Community
Allen Davidson and I will be offering a class on John’s Gospel (A Spiritual Gospel: John and the New Testament Origins of Christian
Anti-Judaism) beginning in January. We would love to see you there.
Adult Church School begins on January 8 with a brief introduction to the classes being offered. Our class on John will begin the following Sunday (January 15) and run through Palm Sunday (March 9).
We will begin our discussion this Sunday morning by looking a chapter 25 of Matthew’s Gospel. There Jesus provides a view of the final judgment, but surprisingly does not even mention the issue of belief. Instead, he gives examples of caring for the oppressed.
We will then look at some examples of the Greek phrase πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, often translated as “faith in Jesus Christ”, and explore how our understanding of those passages would be different if we understood that key phrase in a way that numerous biblical scholars are currently saying would be more faithful to its ancient meaning.
This morning we took a rather playful look at the stories about Samson in the book of Judges. We began the morning by listening to a part of the Bacchanale by Saint Saens conducted by Dudamel.
Gustavo Adolfo Dudamel Ramírez (born January 26, 1981) is a Venezuelan conductor. He is the music director of the Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. For this piece, however, he conducted the Berliner Philharmoniker.
We entertained the question of comedy in the ancient world and in today’s church. I have uploaded the Keynote presentation I used. You can access it here.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QbkCfxnoY4A
This morning we began discussing the creation stories in Genesis. We focussed on the story in chapter two, sometimes called the Adam and Eve story. It begins in the second half of verse four and continues for the rest of the chapter.
We explored the ancient context of this story and what the story asserts about God, referred to as YHWH Elohim. In contrast to chapter 1, where God creates by speaking, here the LORD God forms man from the dirt of the ground and breaths life into his nostrils. The story implies a very intimate picture of God as one who touches the creation.
It is “not good” that the man is alone (2:18), so the LORD God first makes all the animals of the field and birds of the air, but none of them proves to be an adequate partner for the man. It is the creation of woman at the end of the story that solves the narrative problem that drives the story.
We looked at the narrative setting of the story, a place out of which a river flows that divides into four rivers (2:10-14), only two of which correspond with actual known rivers in ancient Mesopotamia and one in north Africa. What might be the purpose of giving this setting? How might it have affected ancient readers?
Finally we looked at the question of the tree of life and its implications for the author’s view of God and of humanity.
Next week we will look carefully at the seven-day creation story in chapter one. Come join us for a lively discussion.
On Sunday we will read the letter of Paul to Philemon. This letter has been read as supporting slavery (Paul sent Onesimus, a runaway slave, back to his master) and as an argument against slavery (Paul told Philemon not to treat Onesimus as a slave any longer, but as a brother).
Join us for a lively discussion.
Last week I read the flood story from the Gilgamesh Epic aloud to the class, then each of us with a partner read the Yahwist flood story that lies behind part of the biblical account. We then talked about the similarities and differences between these stories.
Tomorrow we will look again at the Yahwist version, then read the Priestly version of the story that is interwoven with it in the story that we find in the Bible. We will discuss how these stories are combined in the biblical text and what early Israel may have been asserting in this combined narrative. What key theological claims are being made? How does the combined story set Israel apart from its neighbors?
I look forward to seeing all of you at Binkley at 9:30 tomorrow morning.
I have uploaded the presentation I used this morning in the class on Hagar. You can access it here.
Some of you asked where you could get a copy of the poem we read. I have to acknowledge that I misspoke in attributing the poem to Edmond Lewis. It was written about her, inspired by her statue of Hagar. Tyehimba Jess published the ekphrastic poem under the title “Hagar in the Wilderness” in Poem A Day, a digital poetry series containing over 200 poems by contemporary poets. You can read “Hagar in the Wilderness” there (Just click the title of the poem to get there).
If you would like to read more about Edmonia Lewis, you can find short overviews at either biography.com or wikipedia.com. The Smithsonian also has a nice short article on her. Encyclopedia.com contains a slightly more detailed treatment.
I look forward to seeing all of you again next Sunday. Allen Davidson will be leading the discussion.
Genesis tells the extraordinary story of an Egyptian slave woman thrown out of the home of Abraham and Sarah. She encounters God in the wilderness and is the only character in all the Bible who gives a new name to God. Why? What is the significance of this story of mistreatment, grace, and deliverance?
On Sunday we will discuss the story of Peter and Cornelius in the tenth chapter of Acts. Who is the central character of this story? Peter? Cornelius? What did the author expect us to infer about the two?
You can read the text here.
I hope you can join us at 9:30 in the morning.
You may be familiar with the story in John 7:53-8:11 of a woman brought to Jesus by a group of “Scribes and Pharisees” who accused her saying she had “been caught in the very act of adultery.” We will discuss this story on Sunday in a way you may have not heard before. In addition to asking what the surface meaning of the story might be, we will examine it’s history in the development of the canon of the New Testament. What does it’s placement at this point in John’s story mean? How might it’s meaning change in a different context?
| Added February 21, 2016 |
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| I have uploaded the presentation I used this morning. You can find it here.
If you are interested in reading more on this topic, you can find related resources at bibleodyssey.org, a website created and maintained by the Society of Biblical Literature. |
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