- Overview of the Book of Genesis
- Overview of the Gospel of Matthew
- Overview of the Psalms
- Overview of the book of Proverbs
Sarah dies today, at a ripe 127 years old, and Abraham buys a nice piece of land to bury her in. I am entertained by the reverse haggling process that Abraham and the Hittites go through.
- Abraham: Please sell me some land so I can bury my wife.
- Hittites: You're an awesome dude, bury her in one of our finest tombs.
- Abraham: Sweet! Will you ask Ephron to sell me his cave.
- Ephron: I'll give it to you!
- Abraham: No, I'll totally buy it from you. How much is it worth?
- Ephron: It's worth 400 pieces of silver, but who cares? Bury your wife there.
- Abraham: Here's your monies!
We also read today how Isaac gets his wife. Abraham sends his servant to his kin to find a wife for Isaac; he does not want him to marry one of the local Canaanite women. More fan fic opportunity: perhaps Abraham disapproved of a local sweetheart of Isaac's.Abraham's servant prays that when he asks for some water, the woman who gives him water and then offers to water his camels be the one destined to be Isaac's wife. Fortunately for him and his camels, that happens immediately. The woman at the well was Abraham's grandniece, Rebekah (which would make her Isaac's first cousin once removed? I always get confused by such things). If I had prayers that specific answered that quickly, I might reevaluate my position on God.
Rebekah, was "very beautiful and old enough to be married, but she was still a virgin". What was her actual age? Was she happy about being sent among strangers to marry someone she had never met? Did she have her own hopes and dreams about some young man near her home?
New Testament
Today, Jesus performs miraculous healings for the faithful. Jesus' touch heals a leper. Jesus remotely heals the servant of a faithful Roman officer. He heals Peter's mother-in-law and a bunch of demon-possessed people. Wait... demon-possessed people? Hmph, those do not exist. Rather lessens the impacts of the rest of the healings. I suppose we can be generous and say that Jesus healed what was called demon possession which we now recognize as something else.Since Peter's mother-in-law was healed, he must have been married. I wonder how his wife (and family?) felt about Peter wandering about with Jesus. Was she convinced because she had seen Jesus' ability to perform miracles? Was she upset because her husband abandoned her, leaving her in a weak position socially and economically? In any case, Jesus tells his disciples not to care about the loved ones they abandon, so I suppose we shouldn't either, right?
The reason the author of Matthew shared all these healings was to show that Jesus fulfilled Isaiah 53:4,
He took our sicknessesWhen I look up Isaiah 53:4, I see
and removed our diseases
Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;The first 1.5 lines alternately get translated as "Yet it was our sicknesses he carried; / it was our diseases". I have two quibbles with this this supposed fulfilled prophecy. Usually when a footnote gives an alternate translation, it is because the translators thought that the alternate was less likely than the original. By that logic, the author of Matthew seems to be misquoting Isaiah.
it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought he troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for our own sins
Now, suppose the alternate quote is correct. We still face the problem of context. The alternate version of the full first two lines would read
Yet it was our sicknesses he carried;Taking diseases burdens the one who takes them, at least according to the original content. This contradicts the image of Jesus and healing presented in the New Testament.
it was our diseases that weighed him down.
Psalms and Proverbs
Nice bit from today's Proverbs reading (well, once you edit it a bit):
Never let loyalty and kindness leave you!
Tie them around your neck as a reminder.
Write them deep within your heart.
Then you will find favor withboth God andpeople,
and you will earn a good reputation.
I think you're being too hard on the demon-possessed people. According to Carl Sagan's The Demon Haunted World, demons were a part of the culture at the time, as accepted to them as atoms are to us (most people have never seen one, but we probably all know someone who knows someone who has had first-hand experience with them; their existence is common knowledge).
ReplyDeleteWhen the bible describes the sun, planets, and firmament as revolving around a flat earth, you still understand what they meant. Just do the same with the demons (though I admit that from the limited context I can't tell what a modern description of these people would be). These are people with some sort of malady that could not be explained at the time but which had symptoms that were easy to observe.
That said, I doubt Jesus cured anyone of anything, and I suspect this story is unhistorical (I want to say "apocryphal," but that has extra connotations here :-P ).
I agree with you from the point of view of the Bible as a historical work produced in particular cultural contexts, but you forget that in this project I'm taking a semi-literal view and pretending that this is God's perfect word for all time. From that point of view, things like demon possession and things revolving around flat earth are problematic.
ReplyDelete