Family Ties, Ancient Style

First off, I think I need this tee to wear to my OT class every Tuesday. (It's available at Think Geek.)

Now, some thoughts on the ancestors of Israel...

1. For years I have expressed the following motto to various Christians as a means to keep in check their spiritual commitment to their vow: Are you willing to give up Isaac? It's a beautiful example of the sacrifices we all have to make when being loyal to God. No doubt Abraham had regrets. I'm not sure it's possible to be human and not. Michael Coogan makes the point that "Abraham and Isaac never speak to each other again, and immediately after it Sarah, who has been absent from the narrative, dies." Abraham, in his immediate state, has been left by his wife, seemingly abandoned by his son, and is left alone because of his faithfulness. From a 21st century perspective, heck yeah I want some of that kind of treatment from my God! Yet, that's exactly what may be required of us: loosing those close to us in service to Him.

2. Circumcision. It seems like the Israelites were circumcised, in part, to distinguish themselves from the Babylonians while in Exile. Course, circumcision was also a right of passage not to mention a preparation for marriage in some cultures. But my 20th century mind cannot help but to get hooked on the idea that our ancients really dug the fact that they were circumcised and their Babylonian captors were not. This leaves me to imagine a number of smirks and chuckles not to mention innuendos that were likely to be available. What? Oh come on! You cannot tell me that our forefathers had no sense of humour!

3. One of the annoying things about a reading assignment when you are in 8th grade is when you get stuck with a book of the Bible that seems to contain nothing but genealogies. So and so begot so and so. Ya-a-a-wn. Any good 8th grader knows to read the first two lines of the list and the last two lines to realize that somehow, David and Jesus were actually connected. What they don't tell the average 12 year old is that these ancestral narratives are endogamy. (Yeah, I didn't get the term either.) Think of it as intermarriage for the purpose of preserving one's community, or more specifically, their identity and property. This is why later on, the people are going to look at Moses and wonder what the heck he was thinking marrying a Midian (never mind the fact that Abraham hooked up with an Egyptian and Esau got cozy with the Canaanites). In fact, it's something that kind of haunts his story among Jews even today as some Jews find it important that they marry other Jews simply to maintain the bloodline. "But Moooooom! Moses did it!" probably isn't a sound case for the average 20 something Jewish female.

4. Lastly, one of the most emotional things for me to come to understand about the Hebrew Bible is that God made some promises to the old folks, and he kept them, however, the old folks all had to die for the promises to be fulfilled. Granted, they brought it on themselves. Honestly, how often must God say, "Do it THIS way. No other way. Not that way. THIS way. Over here. Look. Right THERE. Yes, THIS way!" before we people get it? God promised land, descendants and blessings.

Abraham got land, but it was to bury his wife. Granted it was the right land. And God did eventually provide a lot more land to his descendants, but to Abraham, that's serious faith to stick with a God with not a whole lot of demonstration of fulfillment of his promise. Especially after the whole Isaac episode.

As for descendants, yes, there are some. Plenty actually. But a lot of the women were barren and had to hook up with God so that their wombs would kick in to service.

Lastly, the promise of blessing. Abraham was under the impression that other people out there would long for the kind of blessings he had. You can almost imagine Abraham, at some point in his life saying, "Riiiigggghhhhht." He experiences turmoil for Lot, watches cities rise and fall, has his wife taken into a harem, has turmoil in his house between his wife and household staff, is expected to obey God in sacrificing his own son, his wife dies, his son seemingly doesn't speak to him again, then takes a new wife and apparently concubines, only to die. And those are just the highlights. People did hope for blessings like his and continue to do so to this day. They hope for success for their children. They hope for God's favour. They hope for a better life. And it's God who provides that for them.

Before I go, I say forget the blogging tee. I want this one instead. And yes, it really does glow.

I shall write, but only cause he made me

When you are a blogger, as in, one who blogs for fun (in my case, under several pseudonyms), what happens when a professor of yours turns to you and says “You will be graded upon your weekly blog"?

Sorry Doc, but you just took the fun out of my fun palace!

This little number will probably not count as it covers not the topic at hand. For this I am grateful as I suspect he is an articulate man of grammar, language and precision. Of course, these said skills are in Hebrew. But I imagine some of that seeps out into the English language as well.

I must however admit that I was not looking forward to this gentleman’s class. Let me be clear that I am excited about the class content. I simply was not excited about him. I know you are dying to know exactly why.

Okay fine, I will tell you.

But only because you begged.

Preconceptions are lame things, especially in Biblical interpretation. When we bring something to the text and read into it what may or may not be there, we kinda risk missing the whole point of the author. I admit that I did this with his syllabus. The thing reads like a legal contract, establishing the grounds upon which we will proceed academically in the classroom, the agreements made between professor and student in this arrangement we call a learning atmosphere. This approach made me think this man was either a lawyer (or of a family of them) or a guy with a chip on his shoulder so big that it made him angry and forced him to take out his insecurities on the rest of us poor grad students with broken tipped pencils and loose leaf paper as spiral notebooks are a splurge on a grad-student budget.

I am not sure which is worse, lawyer or angry lawyer-like guy.

This is why I was so surprised to hear at lunch that this guy is actually liked. Really really liked.

This is also why I was absolutely not surprised to hear that I just entered into the most difficult class available but that I should be fine so long as I do what I am told. *staring blankly* Me. Do what I am told. That’s a funny one. This was obviously said by one who does no know me very well.

That all said, the Doc has a great sense of humour, appears to either have some theatrical passions or is the youngest in his family, is indeed articulate, thorough and most certainly passionate. All these traits I admire and I have a positive attitude towards my future learning experience with him. For the record, I say this earnestly and not just because he will likely read this within the next couple of days.

You know, just so long as he isn’t REALLY a lawyer.