Unfortunately I have some serious problems with the literal interpretation of the Bible, especially the story of creation.  In very blunt terms, I think the completely literal interpretation of the creation story is a load of bologna.

Now of course, you say, “Chris, you better have some evidence to support your statement.”  Well, let’s look at the creation stories.  Yes, I said stories.  There are two creation stories in the book of Genesis.  Genesis 1:1 – 2:4 and Genesis 2:4b – 3:24.  Not only are there two stories of creation, he two stories in the Bible are markedly different.  In Genesis 1:9, there is all water and it was collected so that land could appear.  In Genesis 2: 4b-6 shows that the dry ground was there first, then a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground (Genesis 2:6).

Another major conflicting issue with these two stories is the creation of man.  In the first story (Genesis 1:27) God created man in his image, both male AND female; so technically, men and women were created on equal footing.  This would be tough for male chauvinists and a patriarchal society to handle, which may explain why it isn’t nearly as focused on as is the other version of this story, the one with Adam and Eve.  Adam and Eve come into the picture starting in Genesis 2:15 and runs through the end of Genesis 3.  In this version of the story, instead of men and women being created at the same time, Adam was created first, then God created Eve because Adam needed some company and a partner to go through life.  So God took one of his ribs and created Eve.

 Now those are just a couple of examples of the difference of the two creation stories and make it virtually impossible to think of these stories as that, simply stories.  I love the creation story just as much as anyone else does; I just don’t see them as literal truth.

Even though these books of the Bible are in many cases, the only historical documents we have of this time period (along with Marnepthe Stele, and other limited non Biblical sources scattered around) that give us any idea of what was going on in Israel and Judah at this time.

As you can probably guess, since Israel was destroyed in 722BCE, Judah and the Deuteronomistic Historians basically wrote the history of the people Israel.  Now, there is a scattering of sources from the Northern Kingdom, but generally the Southern Kingdom dominated the editing of the former prophets.  Case in point: The sin of Jeroboam in 1 Kings 12:25-13:10.  A “man of God came out of Judah by the word of the Lord to Bethel and proclaimed against the altar by the word of the Lord…(1 Kings 12:1-2).”  The passage goes on to condemn the altar and proclaim that Josiah, from the house of David, will make sacrifices “on you the priests of the high places who offer incense on you and human bones shall be burned on you.”  This is in hard line opposition of the cult worship centers at Dan and Bethel that were used by the Northern Kingdom and the golden calves that were the throne of God there. 

There was nothing truly wrong with worshiping at Dan and Bethel, but the historians based in Jerusalem felt that the only place to worship was in the temple at Jerusalem.  The Northern Kingdom’s fall in 722 was only proof to these historians that these action of the golden calves at Dan and Bethel angered God and he punished the Northern Kingdom.

The Southern Kingdom lasted longer than the Northern Kingdom, therefore, they got to write the history.  It makes perfect sense that these accounts are heavily sided with Judah.  I wonder how the books of the former prophets would have been different if Judah would have fallen first?

After reading Coogan and listening to Dr. Lester’s lectures, I also discovered something that I was suspicious of as I was reading. The book of Joshua is NOT a historical document and Joshua did not write it. You could categorize this book as a historical fiction novel. The characters and places are real but the events that reportedly took place actually didn’t happen that way.

The first thing I noticed about this book is the use of “to this day” used multiple times, especially in the first 12 chapters. This is considered by Coogan and Dr. Lester as etiological narrative. Not only is “to this day” an indication of an etiological narrative, it also is the key evidence in showing that Joshua did not write this book at all. “To this day” is a true indication to me the not only did someone else (or multiple people for that matter) write the book of Joshua, they wrote it many years later, well after Joshua had died.

Another interesting point made, especially by Michael Coogan, is that the archaeological evidence found at these ancient sites that are mentioned in Joshua does not match the accounts in the book of Joshua. One example of this is the city of Ai. In Joshua, Joshua and the Israelites destroy the city, but archaeological evidence and other non-biblical evidence states that Ai was not even inhabited at the time of Joshua.

 Even with its inaccuracies, and questionable story telling, I really enjoyed Joshua and the “historical facts” presented in the book were fascinating. If the writer was alive today, he/she could definitely win a Pulitzer Prize!

Coogan starts off stating that there are several factors that show Second Isaiah was most likely written in a later era than First Isaiah (Isaiah 1-39). He compares the principle enemies distinctly stated in the two parts of Isaiah: First Isaiah – Assyria, Second Isaiah – Babylon. In First Isaiah, we read that Jerusalem was under siege but was never destroyed (see Isaiah 7), while in Second Isaiah, the city has been destroyed and will be restored, and the exile to Babylon has already taken place. Also in Second Isaiah, Cyrus the king of Persia is mentioned twice while is never mentioned in First Isaiah. Not only is Cyrus mentioned in the text, he is mentioned in absolutely glowing terms.

The one aspect of Second Isaiah that is puzzling is the fact that we do not know who wrote it. Coogan and others think that the author was writing in Babylon around 540 BCE shortly before or after Cyrus’ of captures the capital city. The author’s audience was most likely the exiles themselves. This makes perfect sense when you read Second Isaiah. The author obviously knew that things were going down in the region and there was a shift of global power about to take place from the Babylonians back to the Assyrians. The author knows that this power shift will be of great benefit to the Jewish exiles and that they will most likely be able to go back to Jerusalem at any moment. The reference to Cyrus alone (Isaiah 45: 1-19) shows us that there is optimism in camp and that things are looking up for the oppressed people of Judah.

Coogan then goes on and examines the three principal themes of Second Isaiah: A New Exodus, The Servant of Yahweh, and Monotheism. The central theme, Coogan writes, is that of the imminent return to Jerusalem from Babylon. The author imagines this return as a ritual procession to Zion led by Yahweh himself (Coogan 333). Coogan also points out that this theme is pointed out at the beginning of Second Isaiah (40:3-5) and at the end (55:12-13). There is definitely relation between this “New Exodus” and the exodus of people out of Egypt. Coogan also discusses the “servant” of Yahweh, which I discussed in an earlier posting so I won’t go into this section of text.

The third theme Coogan writes about is the theme of Monotheism (Coogan 335). He claims that for the first time in Biblical literature we get a clear statement of monotheism, the belief that there is no god other than Yahweh (Coogan 335). His example of this concept in the text is Isaiah 44:6, I am the first and the last; besides me there is no god. He also recommends looking at 43:11, 44:8, and 55:5,21. Looking at these texts, they are similar in nature to 44:6. I found this portion of Coogan very interesting. I was able to gain a clearer understanding of not only that there is a 2nd Isaiah but what it contains and how it is relevant to our conversations in class and in lectures.

Our class discussion this morning was an interesting one and to be quite honest I did not quite understand what we were trying to discuss. We focused on chapters 52 and 53, which are usually the chapters where people find Jesus hiding under the proverbial Old Testament rock. As the conversation got started, we focused on places in the text that we thought the writer could have been referring to Jesus and which parts countered what Jesus was all about.

As we moved along, I kept coming back to a basic question, “Who is the servant?” Multiple times in Isaiah (40:8-9, 43:10, 44:1-2 just to name a few), the writer refers to Israel and Jacob as servants. What I am curious about is who is the writer referring to when he talks about the servant in chapters 52 and 53? I have a couple ideas that I am going to throw out there:

First off, I don’t think the servant in this instance is a foretelling of Jesus. Throughout the 2nd Isaiah, “the servant” explicitly references Israel or the house of Jacob (same difference really) (40:8-9; 44:1 and 21). There is no reason then, in my mind, that the servant reference in 52 and 53 deals with anyone else other than Israel. You could counter with the fact that the writer refers to the servant as a singular individual, but as it is easy to point out that Israel is referred to many times in the singular tense (just look at Hosea 2).

Also, if you read chapter 52:1-12, I think it explains who the author is referring to as the “servant”. This is where headings at the beginning of different sections are confusing. If you take away the heading in the NRSV version before verse 13 (“The Suffering Servant”), you could very easily, in my mind, conclude that the servant is indeed the people Israel because the heading “The Suffering Servant” could put Christian readers of this text in a Christological mind set before reading on.

Could he be referring to the Persian king Cyrus? 2nd Isaiah in chapter 45 refers to Cyrus as the “anointed” one that will save Israel and return those in exile back to Jerusalem. The writer referred to him once as anointed, there is no reason that he couldn’t also refer to Cyrus as a servant. This is a plausible thought but I don’t think it is reasonable in this context.

To be quite honest, we will probably never figure out who the writer was REALLY referring to without going back in time and asking him ourselves, which I doubt will ever happen.

For our research paper, we have to pick one chapter in the Uncensored Bible and write a 2500 word paper on it. I have the tough choice of deciding which chapter I want to spend writing on. I have great options in chapters like Did Abraham Pimp Sarah? Which “Bone” was Eve Made From? Was Moses Suicidal?

These chapters were all interesting and rolling on the floor funny, but the chapter I have decided I will write on is titled Did Abraham Pimp Sarah? This is an entertaining portion of the Bible where Abraham, apparently scared for his life, claims Sarah as his sister and lets her be taken as the Pharoah’s wife. Apparently this was a twisted form of self preservation on Abraham’s part and you would think that this was just a one shot deal right? Nope, he did it a SECOND time!! This time he did it to another foreign ruler, King Abimelech of Garar, apparently for the same reasons as he did it the first time with Pharaoh. In this incident, Abimelech caught wind that they were in fact married and not siblings. Not only did Abraham do this to Sarah, but Isaac did it once to Rebekah too! These events lead to J. Cheryl Exum coming up with the hypothesis that this was a psychological thing and in fact, this was a turn on for Abraham to have his wife taken by another man. I am in the beginning stages of researching for my paper but I do have a couple of beginning thoughts:

1. Obviously not ALL men are like this, or at least don’t have the guts to pull it off.

 2. If it is a psychological thing, it must run in the family because why would Isaac do the SAME THING to Rebekah later in Genesis? He knew God’s reactions to his dad’s shenanigans; I will definitely be doing some research on that.

I will definitely keep you all up to date and any suggestions or ideas or even questions that you may have, I will take it all!

In the book of Daniel, we have two genres, Court Legends and Apocalyptic. Court Legends are located in chapters 1-6 while the Apocalyptic Genre is located in chapters 7-12. The most fascinating aspect of these two genres is their views on foreign rulers over the land of Cannan. In chapters 1-6, the Court Legends, the theme you see is basically, live your lives under the hand of foreign rule but stay faithful to God. This theme is very evident in Daniel 1 where Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah had their names changed (Belshazzar, Shadrach, Mishach, Abednego) and actually worked in Nebuchadnezzar’s royal court, but refused to eat the food and wine that was offered as a sacrifice to Nebuchadnezzar’s gods. Then in Daniel 3, we have Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah refusing to bow down and worship Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image. Now, this got them in trouble and they were thrown into the “fiery furnace” for standing up with their faith in God.

The Apocalyptic genre in Daniel 7-12 takes a much more sinister view of foreign rulers. The writers of this portion of Daniel view foreign rulers as evil and God will punish them. You can tell in the way the writer views the foreign leaders in the way they refer to Antiochus IV as the “little horn” and that he will be the most evil of all the rulers but then they will be freed of evil, oppressive rulers. You can definitely see in this book that it is designed as a book of encouragement to those that were living in post exilic Jerusalem. I have really enjoyed the text of Daniel and all of the great adventures that he and his friends were on while under the rule of the foreign leaders.

At the end of both the book of Ezra and book of Nehemiah, they make major stands against mixed marriages. I was sort of surprised to see these writers make such a stand because there was no indication in previous chapters that mixed marriages would be a problem. Well, obviously I was gravely mistaken. Not only were Ezra and Nehemiah opposed to mixed marriages, they were militantly opposed to those kind marriages. Nehemiah even goes as far as beating people up and essentially forcing people to take an oath that they would never do that again (Nehemiah 13:25).

Reading these two passages of the Old Testament make me sort of sad because I know that these passages have been probably used to discourage mixed marriages in our modern culture. DC Talk even has a song where there is a line that says “Preacher shuns his brother, cause his bride’s a different color, and this is unacceptable, his papa told him so” (“What Have We Become?”, DC Talk). After reading this, I will bet you that this preacher’s father is referring to these two books in the Bible. But what do Ezra and Nehemiah mean when they argue so vehemently against mixed marriage? Is there definition of mixed marriage and our modern definition of mixed marriages the same?

I am going to contend that our definitions are not the same for one reason. Earlier this week, Dr. Papandrea discussed slavery and racism in the early centuries CE. We discussed that racism was not based on the color of a person’s skin but rather it was a person’s language that was being prejudiced against (Slavery was another topic with other issues altogether we might get to that at some point later). I will contend that these kinds of prejudices definitely existed at the time of Ezra and Nehemiah but if anyone can find information on the contrary, please let me know. As I was reading this text again more in depth, I noticed in Nehemiah that there is no mention of skin color BUT there were definitely issues with the children speaking languages other than Hebrew. Ezra is tougher to figure out because it does not mention skin color or language specifically as the reasons for Ezra’s denouncement. I can only assume and deduct that Ezra has the same view on “foreigners” as Nehemiah did because they are from the same time frame.

Ezra and Nehemiah speak about mixed marriages that seem to have a far reaching effect on societies throughout history and through today. I don’t agree with Ezra and Nehemiah on this issue. Marriages are supposed to be between two people that love each other, regardless of skin color or language barriers.