Liberal Bible 101 (Old Testament)
Liberal Bible 201 (New Testament)
Are you frustrated by an inability to respond to contemporary arguments that cite Biblical authority? Laura Emerson is teaching a multi-session course to beef up liberal Biblical literacy for contemporary discourse. Each class addresses one key point, so you can attend one or all.
This fall the focus was on the Old Testament. This spring Laura will address issues in the New Testament. The quest for the historical Jesus is an effort to free the human person, Jesus, from the tangle of Christian overlay that has tended to obscure who Jesus was and what he said; to distinguish the religion of Jesus from the religion about Jesus. We may ask, how did the iconoclast become the icon?
Sessions will incorporate a brief lecture, small group work, and discussion. Please check back as we will be adding a list of recommended readings for interested persons. Classes will meet monthly on 2nd Sundays at 10am. Participants are encouraged to bring your own bible(BYOB) if possible.
Sept 23: Different Sources; Different Times Even in translation, readers can discern the different, often contradictory sources combined in the editing of the Bible. We'll analyze the creation and flood stories in Genesis as examples. Who may have a vested interest in one version or another?
Suggested Readings:
Genesis 1 – 2:4, Genesis 2:5 – 2:25 (the two separate
Creation stories) and Genesis 6:5 – 9:17 (the two Noah's flood
stories, braided together)
Note contradictions and differences. Examples: How is God depicted
(and named) differently in each Creation story? In which one is He
highly anthropomorphized? How does the order of creation differ? Which
one has a strong sense of orderliness? How do priorities and “pecking
order” differ?
The Noah story is trickier because two different stories have been
braided together. Two sentences in a row or two successive paragraphs
may contradict or repeat each other. Examples: Identify two different
lengths of time for the flood and two different sets of animals saved.
What do the differences mean? What do Noah and his family do when they
disembark (twice)? How are God's names and behaviors different? Do you
sense two different meanings of the flood(s)?
Oct 21: What Promised Land? The Old Testament is all about covenants, or promises, between God and the Jewish people. There are lots of them, which vary. Check out the geographic borders, if you can find them.
Suggested Readings: A Divine Covenant is a sovereign pronouncement of God by which He establishes a relationship of responsibility between himself and an individual or nation, or between Himself and mankind in general. There are conditional and unconditional covenants (see examples below). Some are very general and others very specific. The letters J, P, D, or E in parentheses after the verse reference indicates whether scholars believe it was part of the J, P, D, or E texts, with the period, location, and priorities that those text differences indicate.
I. Examples of Covenants
A. UNCONDITIONAL
1. Gen 9:11(P): I establish my Covenant with you; no thing of flesh shall be swept away again by the waters of the flood. There shall be no flood to destroy the earth again. “God said, “Here is the sign of the Covenant I make between myself and you and every living creature with you for all generations; I set my bow in the clouds and it shall be a sign of the Covenant between me and the earth. When I gather the clouds over the earth and the bow appears in the clouds, I will recall the Covenant between myself and you and every living creature of every kind. And so the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all things of flesh.“
2. Gen 9:9 (doublet) “And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you;
B. CONDITIONAL
Gen 17:2 (P) Abram bowed to the ground and God said this to him, “Here now is my covenant with you; you shall become the father of a multitude of nations. You shall no longer be called Abram; your name shall be Abraham, for I make you father of a multitude of nations. I will make you most fruitful. I will make you into nations and your issue shall be kings. I will establish my Covenant between myself and you, and your descendants after you, generation after generation, a Covenant in perpetuity, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land you are living in, the whole land of Canaan, to own in perpetuity, and I will be your God.
God said to Abraham, “You on your part shall maintain my Covenant yourself and your descendants after you, generation after generation. Now this is my Covenant which you are to maintain between myself and you and your descendants after you: all your males must be circumcised. You shall circumcise your foreskin, and this shall be the sign of the Covenant between myself and you. When they are eight days old, all your male children must be circumcised, generation after generation of them, no matter whether they are born within the household or bought from a foreigner not one of your descendants. The uncircumcised male, whose foreskin has not been circumcised, such a man shall be cut off from his people: he has violated my Covenant.”
C. SPECIFIC GEOGRAPHY(note similarities and differences in two geographical covenants, below)
1. Gen 15:17 (J) That day Yahweh made a Covenant with Abram in these terms: To your descendants I give this land, from the wadi of Egypt to the Great River, the river Euphrates, the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.
(Information about groups: Kenites: Negev Desert (Moses’s father in law); Kenizzites: Edom to the east; Kadmonites: northeastern; Hittites: Syria/Turkey power a long time ago; Perizzites: general term for people living in open villages, not towns; Raphaim: giants (tall people, but also mythical) SW of Jerusalem; Amorites: west of Euphrates (Babylonian term for anyone west of the river, in Syria or Canaan)with western looking features when depicted in Egyptian art; Girgashites: east of Sea of Galilee; Jebusites: no extra-Biblical references. Canaanites: called Phoenicians by later Greeks: merchants, seamen, sons of Ham, settled fertile lowlands by Mediterranean sea.
2. Num 34:1 – 15 (P) Yahweh spoke to Moses and said, Give the sons of Israel this order: “When you go into the land of Canaan, this is the territory that will be your inheritance. This is the land of Canaan defined by its boundaries. The southern part of your country will stretch from the wilderness of Zin, on the borders of Edom. Your southern boundary will start on the east at the end of the Salt Sea. It will then turn south toward the Ascent of the Scorpions and go by Zin to end in the south at Kadesh-barnea. Then it will go towards towards Hazar-addar, and pass through Azmon. From Azmon the boundary will turn towards the wadi of Egypt and end at the Sea. Your seaboard will be the Great Sea; this will be your western boundary, This will be your northern boundary. You will draw a line from the Great Sea to Mount Hor, then from Mount Hor you will draw a line to the Pass of Hamath and the boundary will end at Zedad. From there it will go on to Ziphron and end at Hazar-enan. This will be your northern boundary. You will then draw your eastern boundary from Hazar-enan to Shepham. The boundary will go down from Shpeham towards Riblah on the east side of Ain. Further down it will keep to the eastern shore of the Sea of Chinnereth. The frontier will then follow the Jordan and end at the Salt Sea. This will be your land with the boundaries surrounding it. (Then Moses apportions the land by lot to the nine and ½ tribes.)
(Information about identifications above: locations unknown for Zin and Kadesh-Barnea, but south). Unknown Azmon, Hazar-addar, contradictory location of Mt. Hor (named 5 times), Shepham uncertain, Zedad may be the same as Sedad, east of Lebanon.
II. Miscellaneous Samples of Other Covenant Passages
A. Gen 26:3 (J) (God told Isaac...) "Dwell in this land (Canaan), and I will be with you and bless you; for to you and your descendants I give all these lands, and I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham your father." Gen 26.3
B. Gen 28:13 (J) (God told Jacob...) "I am the Lord God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. Gen 28.13b
C. Ex 3:7 (J) And the Lord said (to Moses): "I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. Exod 3.7-8
D. Num 34:1 (P) Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "Command the children of Israel, and say to them: `When you come into the land of Canaan, this is the land that shall fall to you as an inheritance - the land of Canaan to its boundaries.' " Num 34.1-2
E. Ex 19:4-6 (P): (Yahweh to Moses) From this you know that now, if you obey my voice and hold fast to my covenant, you of all the nations shall be my very own for the all the earth is mine. I will count you a kingdom of priests, a consecrated nation.
F. Ex 24:7 (E): And taking the Book of the Covenant he read it to the listening people and they said, We will observe all that Yahweh has decreed; we will obey. “Then Moses took the blood (of the sacrifice) and cast it towards the people. This he said is the blood of the Covenant that Yahweh has made with you, containing all these rules.”
G. Jer 31:31 (D): See, the days are coming – it is Yahweh who speaks – when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel (and the House of Judah), but not a covenant to bring them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant of mine, so I had to show them who was master. It is Yahweh who speaks. No this is the covenant I will make with the House of Israel when those days arrive – it is Yahweh who speaks. Deep within them I will plant my Law, writing it on their hearts. Then I will be their God and they shall be my people.
H. 2nd Samuel 7:8 (D): (That very night the word of Yahweh came to Nathan: “This is what you must say to my servant David, “Yahweh Sabaoth says this: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, to be leader of my people Israel; I have been with you on all your expeditions; I have cut off all your enemies before you. I will give you fame as great as the fame of the greatest on earth. I will provide a place for my people Israel; I will plant them there and they shall dwell in that place and never be disturbed again; nor shall the wicked continue to oppress them as they did in the days when I appointed judges over my people Israel; I will give them rest from all their enemies. Yahweh will make you great; Yahweh will make you a House. And when your days are ended and you are laid to rest with your ancestors, I will preserve the offspring of your body after you and make his sovereignty secure. It is he who shall build a house for my name and I will make his royal throne secure for ever. I will be a father to him and he a son to me; if he does evil, I will punish him with the rod such as men use, with strokes such as mankind gives. Yet I will not withdraw my favor from him, as I withdrew it from your predecessor. Your House and your sovereignty will always stand secure before me and your throne will be established for ever.
I. Numbers 25 (P): 7 When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, saw this, he left the assembly, took a spear in his hand 8 and followed the Israelite into the tent. He drove the spear through both of them-through the Israelite and into the woman's body. Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped; 9 but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000. J. Num.25:7-10 (P)The LORD said to Moses, 11 "Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites; for he was as zealous as I am for my honor among them, so that in my zeal I did not put an end to them. 12 Therefore tell him I am making my covenant of peace with him. 13 He and his descendants will have a covenant of a lasting priesthood, because he was zealous for the honor of his God and made atonement for the Israelites."
K. Lev 25:33 (P): (God commanded Israel...) "The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with Me."
L. The book of Deuteronomy says at least twenty-five times that the land is a gift to the people of Israel from the Lord (Deut. 1:20, 25; 2:29; 3:20; 4:40; 5:16, etc.). Old Testament scholar, Walter Kaiser notes that, "sixty-nine times the writer of Deuteronomy repeated the pledge that Israel would one day 'possess' and 'inherit' the land promised to her."
Nov. 18: How many Commandments??? There are actually three versions of the Ten Commandments. Together they include 19 different commands and prohibitions. Maybe Mel Brooks wasn't so wrong. And, by special request: Where did the Jews come from?
Dec. 16: Abominations Leviticus may seem like the most boring book in the Bible, but among its 65 abominations, the one about homosexuality gets a lot of press, while most of the others (such as those regarding clothes, money, and animal sacrifice) seem to be ignored. We'll review the scope and context.
Suggested Readings: Leviticus, chapters 18-20
Jan. 13: The Gospels: Rabbi or Rebel—What did Jesus Actually Teach?
Feb. 10: The Gospels: Jesus as Hero—Miraculous Births, Deaths, Cures, and Resurrections
Mar 9: The Gospels: Paulianity—Religious Entrepreneurship in the Letters Written by (and Attributed to) Paul
Apr 13: The Apocalypse of John: Anti-Roman Rhetoric or End-of-the World Revelation? The quest for the historical Jesus is an effort to free the human person, Jesus, from the tangle of Christian overlay that has tended to obscure who Jesus was and what he said; to distinguish the religion of Jesus from the religion about Jesus. We may ask, how did the iconoclast become the icon? You won’t want to miss the final session in this Bible series.
