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CLASS NOTES FOR BIBLE EXAM #1

66 books of the Bible (8-27-02)

- by different authors
- some books written by several authors
e.g. John 21:24: “We know this is true” - the “editorial committee” of
Gospel of John
- some have several editions
- John chapter 14 ends with “let’s get up and go” and they don’t go
until 3 chapters later; possibly 2-4 revisions
- OK that the Bible was edited, not canonical yet
- God still speaks through it
- some books written and rewritten over several centuries

Written in many genres

- narratives, letters, songs, poetry, apocalyptic
- you need to know what type of literature you are reading in order to understand
it

Writings were collected over several centuries

- it took a long time to decide what would be included
- as the community read and used them, they began to recognize that certain
documents stood out as speaking the Word of God

Canon = group of documents

- word comes from Greek for yardstick
- the authoritative texts

God speaks through other writings, but they are not necessarily authoritative,
telling us what to do and what to believe

Languages of the Bible

- OT: Hebrew and Aramaic (little section of Daniel is in Aramaic, similar to
a later version of Hebrew)
- most people in Jesus’ time spoke Aramaic
- it was like what Modern English is to Old English
- NT: Greek

Divisions of the Hebrew Bible:

Torah = 1st 5 books
Writings = Psalms, Proverbs, Job = Ketzuvim
Prophets = Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc. = Naviim
Abbreviation = Tanak

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Divisions of the NT:

Gospels
Acts
Letters
Apocalypse

Why have a canon?

1. Authority
- every community needs a guide for what it says and does, or else there’s no
group
- this is a sociological necessity

2. Identity
- forms identity of the group, who you are and who you are not
- to be a meaningful group, you must be able to determine who’s in and who’s
out
- all groups are exclusive in some way, even the most inclusive group because
it excludes all who think you shouldn’t be inclusive
- must have something to agree on, sets boundaries
- they chose these writings to do this

3. Fight heresy
- forced to choose writings because of heresies
- heresy is what those in charge think is wrong
- people began to believe many different things, some not compatible about one
God
- back then, there were different ideas of who Jesus was and different ideas about
God
- some fit how they should live their lives and some writings did not
- some of these ideas didn’t fit who the group was
- to have a meaningful existence, a group has to be able to say, “we aren’t that
thing, so if that’s who you are, you can’t be one of us”

In other ways, these things happened before authoritative writings, but ultimately, the
writings were necessary
- took a long time for the OT
- short time for NT because Christians knew how the OT was important to
Judaism

Development of the works within the Hebrew Bible

1. Stories developed over centuries
- books drew on all kinds of sources
- writers tried to figure out what they could, read other sources before writing
- early part of Hebrew Bible: stories developed over the centuries
- not written by a single person

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2. In 2 Kings 22 - King Josiah

- they find a book during Temple refurbishment
- it contained rules about how to live
- they weren’t following these rules, didn’t even know they existed
- Josiah saw it and said “we’re in trouble”
- took book to a prophet who authenticated it
- Josiah reformed Israel based on this book, lost in closet for who knows how long
- it was recognized as the word of the Lord
- some believe the book was the core of Deuteronomy
- Josiah lived a few years before the last kingdom of Israel was destroyed
- they still didn’t have all these books at that time
- they find parts of them and add to them
- pieces of the book were around and were later put together, using pieces of
other books
- the books have a rather complicated history
- some composed from other books – Numbers 21 is an example
- In Deut 17, a lost book is mentioned; Joshua mentions book of Jashar
- other lost books mentioned in the Bible
- information from these books incorporated into writings

3. Gave the stories a religious interpretation beyond the political stuff in them,
showing how God acted in all of the events
- not just political history
- Book of Solomon would contain all the great things Solomon did
- writers of Bible took all those stories and said they weren’t about the people
but about how God acted in all of those things
- tell stories from theological perspective
- how do you figure out who you are as a people and what your relationship to
God is, so you take stories from other sources and tell them from
perspective of a person of faith

4. Pentateuch composed by at least 4 different writers, and who knows how many else
- 4 different writers at least over 4 centuries

5. Prophets
- many times, another prophet comes along and speaks in that prophet’s name
- Isaiah, Isaiah Jr, Isaiah III
- drawing from same traditions
- prophets’ books were written after they were gone
- prophecies incorporated into narratives
- different hands involved
- God still speaks to us in them despite multiple authors
- writings come together in the books we have

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6. These books were authority for the Jews in first century

- remember that each individual book has a very complex history
- took a lot of time for the books to be developed

Books started to be collected around the time of the return from Exile

Development of OT canon **ESSAY QUESTION**

1. Assyrians took Israel - 8th century BCE

2. Babylon took Judah - 586 BCE

- up until then, no clear record of a collection of writings that Jews have to say
that these are the ones that really tell the story about faith
- when they returned from exile, this is the first time we know that they have a
collection of writings

3. Ezra read to the crowd from the writings

- here are the rules we’re going to live by
- an idealized account – they listened from early morning till noon!

4. Up until now, these books as far as we know did not exist as the Law
- for the first time, now we hear them as Law of the Land
- never before had scripture been used this way

5. Collection of books formed in Babylon

- they brought them home
- said this is how God wants us to live, for first time

6. By the 2nd century BCE, included the Torah, Writings and Prophets
- growing collection
- collection was referred to by book of Ecclesiasticus
- but canon NOT set yet
- still deciding what to include, not all in agreement about what to include
- they had the 3 main divisions

Our best information about what books were considered sacred and would form the
authoritative body of literature comes from 2 sources: Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls

7. Septuagint (LXX) - Greek version of Hebrew Bible

- translated 3rd century BCE
- most Jews lived outside Palestine, after the Exile
- they spoke Greek, the lingua franca of the day
- so Bible was translated into Greek
- legend of how it came about: a king in Egypt wanted to read Hebrew scriptures,
so he got 70 Hebrew scholars and had each one translate separately, and
when they finished, they all matched exactly, a miracle. Story told to give

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idea that it was really the Word of God, that God acted in this way. “70”
gives translation its name
- actually, it was not always a good translation
- it was the first Bible of the early Christians and for the Jews in that era
- important because it tells us what they thought was scripture
- included the current OT & Apocrypha (Apocrypha originally written in Greek)

8. Dead Sea Scrolls - found at Qumran, 1947

- from an ascetic community of 160 BCE - 70 CE
- contains pieces of all the OT books except Esther
- commentaries on OT books
- other writings there from the community leaders, some may have been seen
as authoritative writings

9. People were reading Septuagint for religious guidance, but no set canon yet for
Judaism at the time of Jesus
- there was a core of writings, such as Torah
- there was a book written 150 BCE that ended up included
- various books were on the edge

10. Canon set at the end of the 1st century CE

- list became more and more stable up to time it was set
- possibly set then because Christians were creating writings
- 1st century Jewish and Christian authors could refer to a collection of writings
that were recognized as authoritative in some sense, even though not
completely agreed upon
- rabbis and Pharisees wanted to exclude newer books
- Josephus mentioned 22 books - same # as # of letters in Hebrew alphabet
- some were combined, I & II Kings, for example, to get 22
- others said 24 books, probably same as Josephus’ 22 books

11. These books became accepted as THE books to be basis of the Jewish religion
- 39 books in OT

12. Christians had different canons in different branches

- Protestant OT has some books as Jewish Bible
- Catholics include Apocrypha (7 more books) – were in Septuagint
- Eastern Church includes that and 2 other ancient books
- Christians don’t all agree on what constitutes the OT

Why Christians needed a canon (8-29-02)

Early Christians used Hebrew scriptures as authoritative texts
- they had a built-in Bible to begin with
- early on Christians were Jewish
- they gave it new meanings because of the way God had acted in Christ

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- Paul said that this was scripture, but Gentiles not to keep Sabbath
- a different kind of authority that we might envision
- seen as Word of God at least in some sense
- through the 1st century, this was the only scripture they had

NT written 50 - 125 CE or so

By 100 CE, collections were circulating: Paul’s letters, 4 gospels were together and
circulating gaining some prominence

Why did they need these new writings if they already had scriptures?
1. Christian canon needed because the authorities were now dead (apostles)
- they needed a new source of authority
- apostles had said what to do and what to believe
- what they said was more important than what Jesus said
- because what he said could have many interpretations
- the apostles’ interpretation was authoritative, not what Jesus said
- actual acts and words of Jesus were never authoritative for the church
because they would have been misinterpreted
- the apostles started to die off
- so persons would ask others who knew the apostles to get answers
- eventually, these others began disagreeing
- so they needed writings that were authoritative, i.e. traceable to an apostle

2. To fight heresies
- these started early
- by 2nd century, there were many, including Marcion, Gnostics (salvation
through knowledge), Montanists (mid 2nd century – revival of spirit)
- which is authentic Christianity? Which would God approve of? Which of
these would Jesus have us be?
- needed a way to determine what proper Christian teaching & practice is
- had to have writings to know

3. Someone else came up with a canon:

- Marcion created a canon to which the church responded
- he felt that the OT God was not the God of Christ
- OT God too mean, we don’t need a God like that
- is not the father of the loving Jesus Christ
- so he threw out the OT
- he threw out Matthew, edited Luke to suit himself
- he added some of Paul’s letters
- said that was the Christian canon
- rest of church said that’s not quite enough and that OT can make sense in
relation to who Jesus is, writings of apostles need to be listened to

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There were also Gnostic writings were being read as authoritative

- so church had to decide what would be authoritative

Took centuries to determine the writings for the canon

- but began to select some writings

Criteria of canonicity
1. Apostolicity
- in order to be authoritative, it had to be related to an apostle
- related to an apostle who knew Jesus and could say what he meant and
what his life, death and resurrection meant
- apostles included the disciples and others (James, Jesus’ brother), plus Paul
- was not limited to the 12, but not much larger than 14
- these were THE authorities for the church, to say what it is to be Christian

Gospels were written anonymously, traditions attached them to apostles, showing

how important this is
- Matthew: tax collector, literate
- Mark: repeated Peter’s teachings, related to apostle
- Luke: accompanied Paul
- John: attributed to him in the book more or less
- none of these names are in the text
Most of the original 12 were illiterate
These traditions began to circulate in 2nd century
We hear about this for the first time from the 4th century, who said that a guy in
the 1st century said this
Gospels had to be attached to apostles in order to be authoritative

Jude, brother of James - who was Jesus’ brother

- claiming to be brother of James, an apostle, was better than being Jesus’ brother
- because apostles were THE authority because they tell you what Jesus means
- this connection necessary to get heard

Historical Jesus - nice, but has nothing to do with faith - irrelevant

- the meaning of the life of Jesus is most important
- the apostles give us the theology

2. Use in many regions

- the books that were widely read and attached to an apostle
- these books made them a common people

3. Agreement with the “rule of faith”

- conforms to what they already believed
- many books left out because of their theology
- they read those books and said, “it’s not us”

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- had to agree with what Christians said was true

NT books do not speak with a single voice, just because they passed these 3 tests
- understood action of Jesus in different ways
- all agreed God was present in the life of Jesus and that he was Son of God
- the meaning of his life, death and resurrection is interpreted in NT in different
ways, in the way it affected relationship between God & humans
- they don’t necessarily contradict each other

Some books were agreed upon early

- 10 Pauline letters
- 4 gospels

Some books questioned:

Hebrews, I & II Timothy, Titus and Revelation
The Shepherd of Hermas

By middle of 2nd century: 4 gospels and 10 letters of Paul

By 200: 4 gospels, Acts, 13 letters of Paul, I Peter & I John

Muratorian Canon: Book of Wisdom, Apocalypse of James, Apocalypse of Peter
– list from Rome in late 2nd century

By middle of 2nd century: Jude, 2 John

By 4th century, Eusebius claimed the gospel writers knew the apostles
- he said you can divide writings into different categories:
22 books everyone accepts: gospels, Acts, 13 Pauline letters, Hebrews,
1 John, 1 Peter, Revelation
disputed, but most recognize: James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 & 3 John
spurious: Acts of Paul, Shepherd of Hermas, Apocalypse of Peter, the
Epistle of Barnabas, the Teaching of the 12 Apostles, the Gospel
of the Hebrews, Revelation; some recognized these books

As time went on, more books were seen as authoritative

The first time all 27 books mentioned:

- by Athanasius, who lists them as the ones you can read in church
- in Festal Letter of Easter in 367
- these books contain true Christian doctrine, he said

Jerome, translator of the Vulgate, listed the same as Athanasius

- this became THE Bible of the church for several centuries
- he said the Romans didn’t accept Hebrews
- the Greeks (Eastern church) didn’t accept Revelation

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Council of Carthage, 397

- lists books allowed for reading in church
- left out Hebrews in some lists, some left it in

Nothing official comes up until time of Luther

Martin Luther
- questioned James, Jude, Hebrews and Revelation
- said they couldn’t be part of canon
- he saw things in them that he felt were not Christian theology

Council of Trent – 1546

- responded to what Luther said about these 4 books
- an article of faith that all 27 books were authoritative, the canon
- the first time the Catholic church had officially said this

There was a developing consensus of the believing community

- the OT comes from Judaism faith community
- the NT from the early, developing church
- understood these as the books through which God speaks clearly and
authoritatively
- although other books may have God speaking, they were not as clear nor
as authoritatively
- these 27 are where they heard the Word of God clearly
- Catholic Church says church law speaks too, but balanced with scripture
- Protestant church says Bible only
- no one sat down to write books for the NT, intending it to be scripture
- these books tell us what to believe and do in order to be Christian

Transmission of the Text

OT stories told, edited, retold, rewritten, etc.

1. All copying by hand

2. Textual Criticism
- to establish the original text, going back to the ancient manuscripts
- many NT documents exist from 200 - 300 CE; earliest is fragment of John
from 125
- these critics learn old languages and check for errors
- e.g. same word copied twice, lines omitted, words omitted, errors
in hearing - the scribes took dictation, misquotes, etc.
- old editors would write corrections in the margins
- others added comments to margins which made their way into the scripture
because of copyists who thought the comments were part of it

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- other scribes spelled words differently or corrected grammar and made

other changes to suit their favorite theology
- no punctuation in old manuscripts, so the meaning must be figured out
theologically; you need reasons for the punctuation if you’re putting
it in

Paul’s letters were sent with a reader who knew how to present it for the correct meaning

Critical Editions of the NT

- where they have gone through the texts, decided on punctuation, etc. & many
different manuscripts

King James Version is based on one Greek manuscript but is not accurate
- it read closest to the Vulgate
- based on the Textus Receptus - “received text” - used for KJV

Translations
1. Different types with a range
- Formal correspondence: literal, wooden sounding, word for word translation,
not good to read - confusing, using word order from another language
- Dynamic Equivalence: idiomatic, in the vernacular of the day; this is the other
extreme from Formal

KJV & RSV tend toward Formal

NRSV & NIV tend toward Dynamic

The closer toward Dynamic, the closer you come to a commentary

All translations inherently include interpretation

For a detailed study of a passage - use Formal translation

RSV - you need to think “what does it mean?”
NRSV - will tell you what it means

2. Paraphrase
- this is more commentary
The Good News Bible, The Message
- not good for careful study because it reflects what the editors say

There are hundreds of translations

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Inspiration of Scripture - see handout

2 Timothy 3:16-17
Greek doesn’t include the word “is” a lot of the time

“Every scripture is inspired”

- the NT didn’t exist when this was written
- it only referred to the OT
- when the canon formed, people applied it to the NT, too

Inspired scripture
- teaches, reproofs, corrects and trains in righteousness
- nothing about history or science
- only that these scriptures are useful in helping Christians develop and
be equipped for every good work
- doesn’t guarantee anything else
This is what scripture says about itself

Two ways to translate (9-3-02)

1. “Every scripture is God-breathed”
2. “Every God-breathed scripture”

Purpose of inspiration:
- guidance in Christian discipleship and preparation to perform good works
- says nothing about anything else

Discussion about inspiration has been going on for a long time

Development of the Idea of Scripture, of Sacred Writings

1. In Exile (Babylon)
- before the Exile, they could go to the Temple to hear the Word of God
- they knew they were the people of God because they lived in the land God
promised them
- in Exile, no longer in the land
- during and after Exile, turned to Torah and synagogue (both of these came from
Exile)
- beginnings of Bible put together during Exile
- presence of God had been in people (priests, prophets) and places (Temple,
Mt. Sinai, the land) before the Exile
- now it had to be elsewhere, in writings - to hear the Word of God and where to \
go to find out God’s will
- this changed the way Israel thinks about how you know God’s will
- once the Temple was rebuilt, the writings retained their place as central way of
hearing what God wanted you to hear
- even the priests were reading the texts to know how to do sacrifices

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- they were reading what the prophets said

2. Revelation in early Christianity

- the average person felt God revealed things to them and all wanted to talk
about what they got
- the community would discern if it was really a word from God
- they had structures set up to deal with this, as everyone brought a revelation
- early Christians did not limit revelation to scripture
- they saw God’s presence and God’s word in their community
- they see God speaking to and through various people
- they did not distinguish between inspiration of scripture and what persons
in the community received
- saw inspiration of what people received as authoritative
- as time went on, scripture took special authority
- it needed to be infallible and unchanging
- these founding documents needed to be solid, just like it’s difficult to change the
U.S. constitution
- important for the community to have these documents such as this
- but they didn’t follow OT laws, even though seen as infallible
- it got confusing when Paul said you aren’t allowed to, if you’re a Gentile (even
though OT says you must)
- so they started reading the Bible as allegory

3. Origen (185 - 250)

- said OT laws were allegorical
- e.g. Sabbath means take a respite, OK to do work on that day
- come up with a way to read it that was relevant to Christian practice
- it was obvious that this wasn’t what the text said – he even said so
- the only ones who do what the text says are those who aren’t spiritual enough to
get the other meaning of the commandments
- he calls his understanding of scripture as plenary inspiration
- just full of inspiration
- the better reader you are, the more meanings you will derive out of it,
especially the ones he thought you could find out of it
- he says we keep the true meaning of those commandments, even if it’s not the
literal meaning of them
- many Christians did this

4. John Chrysostom (347 - 407) bishop of Constantinople

- began to notice discrepancies in scripture, e.g. directions to towns that were
wrong
- he said the Spirit of God had to work through human writers who made
mistakes
- God could only work with fallible human beings
- God’s will still works through scriptures despite mistakes

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As early as 3rd and 4th centuries, people were thinking about what it means for these
documents to be seen as infallible, and how to reason through the difficulties
when you begin to make those claims

Church still made claims of infallible scripture

- said God’s will still expressed perfectly despite human ignorance

Allegorical reading & interpretation can get bizarre

- can mean whatever you want it to mean

5. Luther talked about how you read scripture

- Luther and Calvin both rejected allegorical reading of scripture
- said that method is just too open to abuse
- look what it has done in the history of the church
- we must not have the kind of reading anymore
- you don’t find the Word of God through allegory

Calvin was a stickler on not using allegorical reading

Luther said that there were some passages that you sometimes need a spiritual reading

One slogan of Reformation is “sola scriptura”

- authority comes only from scripture, not tradition of the church
- so you need to agree about how to read it
- then it can function in an important way
- so they focused attention again on the importance of scripture as infallible and
unchangeable

Roman Catholics
– not such a big deal that scripture was infallible
- because tradition of church told you what it meant
- you saw God acting and speaking through these structures
- Protestants said no to this, said only look to scripture

It’s important to find the Word of God

- scripture can only be an authority if you agree on how to read it
- then it can function in an important way
- so they argued that scripture was infallible and unchanging

Calvin and reformers worked on infallibility of scriptures idea and the problem of human
authors’ mistakes
- Spirit accommodated the authors, did work through them
- Spirit works on the reader, that God helps you understand
- Calvin emphasized direct reading, literal, focus attention on
scripture, no allegorical or spiritual readings

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But there are difficulties if you believe God wrote the Bible and if you take it literally
- that it is wholly inspired and infallible

Subsequent scholars hardened Calvin’s approach

- Calvin weaseled around with the idea
- extensive doctrine of the nature of scripture, especially in Reformed churches
- Calvin pushed for a literal approach

17th century – this discussion influenced by:

- Scottish common sense philosophy:
- all people in all times and places think alike, despite culture
- we’re all human and have enough commonalities
- so don’t worry about differences between near-east culture and
culture of Europe at that time

Counter-Reformation in Roman Catholic church

- also talking about scripture

Scottish and Counter-Reformers

- wanted to establish the accuracy on scientific grounds
- they began to argue for inerrant literary form – words direct from God
- absolute literal view, that even the people who added the vowels to Hebrew
in 10th century wrote as God wanted

Enlightenment
- analysis in many different fields developed
- Textual Criticism came along - used for literary classics such as Homer, then
later the Bible
- they needed to get the oldest Biblical manuscripts and compare them
- none of them matched, so how can you say that God dictated every word?
- this was devastating in some way to the ways people viewed the Bible
- this made it difficult to say the Bible contained inerrant truth
- Literary Criticism and Source Criticism showed that many books had several
authors, which was disturbing to some
- also in Enlightenment, rationalists said there was no such thing as the
miraculous; but the miraculous is all over the Bible, so most of the Bible
- literary critics argued that what seems like history in Bible is really legend or
myth

There was a tension between Enlightenment thinking and literal, inerrant approach to the
Bible, which gave rise to early Fundamentalism

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Fundamentalism in America
- started at Princeton in the early 20th century by leading theologians
- saw criticism as undermining Christianity
- they read everything everyone had to say about inspiration
- Princeton is Presbyterian = Reformed, Calvinism, combined with Scottish
common sense
- leading scholars of the day, careful and thoughtful
- AA Hodge said the original manuscripts (autographs) were completely
inerrant in every way (geographically, psychologically, etc.)
- (unfortunately, we don’t have those) and that mistakes crept in
- can see this in all the different manuscripts
- the very wording of the autographs had no errors
- when God spoke to the writers, the mistakes were not there
- so you need to do better textual criticism

- other theologians included Charles Hodge & BB Warfield

- Warfield argued plenary inspiration, saying every word is fully inspired by God,
otherwise, you cannot say our religion is sola scriptura
- this idea goes back to Post-Reformation Protestantism

- others said Holy Spirit dictated every word to the original authors
- Warfield didn’t say this
- most modern theories don’t go that far

Hodge and Warfield wondered how God’s exact words are here, and yet human beings
wrote them without God violating their personalities
- they could tell that different people wrote in the Bible
- somehow the people’s personalities come through, and yet God speaks precisely
what God wants to say

LaGrange: Roman Catholic, French

- he said God is the ultimate author of scripture
- God spoke and people wrote freely in their own style
- at same time, expressed perfectly the truths God wanted presented
- early 20th century

Plenary inspiration - different definitions:

- Origen used this term to mean “many meanings”
- now means that God spoke, verbal inspiration, the words God wanted to say

Plenary inspiration:
- if the Bible is inspired by a perfect God, it must be perfect and therefore,
infallible because God is perfect
- how could a perfect God produce an imperfect Bible?

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- inspiration guarantees infallibility

- people are just a pipe for the Word of God to flow through

The discussion on inspiration was at this place by 3rd quarter of 20th century
- Harold Linzell, 1976: said the Bible was correct in all aspects (medicine,
chemistry, geography, etc.) and if you don’t believe this, you’re not
Christian
- he said God gave the exact words to the Bible’s authors
- book “Battle for the Bible”
- to purge Evangelicals of any belief beside plenary verbal inspiration
- if you see something wrong in the Bible, you’re wrong or you misread it
- again, enforcing idea of perfect God, perfect Bible
- he says God caused the writers to choose the very words
- he didn’t take into account the irregular spellings and bad grammar in
Bible

Two problems with Linzell’s theory

- Claim of no errors in geography, science, etc.
- Origen, Chrysostom and Warfield knew there were mistakes
- there are places where the text is absolutely wrong; this is why some
said the autographs were perfect
- if so, the only infallible scripture is lost to us, so this is useless to claim
- even if we did find it, we wouldn’t know it
- so why bother to claim this?

- It sees writers as conduits – plenary (verbal) inspiration

- works OK if you’re reading Amos, who says “thus says the Lord”
- what if there are multiple authors? What about different editions?
Did God change God’s mind?
- what if the writing is narrative, a story about something happening?
Does God care if you say the sky is blue, or azure?
- what about prayers in the Bible? why would God write psalms praising
God’s self? those have to be real people’s responses to God
- what about Job – God having an argument with God’s self
- doesn’t make sense to think of these books in the same way
- so God speaks in different ways through different kinds of literature in
the Bible
- verbal inspiration is not fair to what we find in the text

Need to come up with a way to conceive of inspiration in a way that fits what is in front
of us
- all of these folks were trying to do this
- rigid view as precise words of God does not work well

These two problems relate to plenary inspiration (modern, literal version of it)

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Modern Understandings of Inspiration

1. Scripture contains inspired CONTENT
a. Warfield said inspired doctrine - it’s the knowledge of God revealed
b. in recent times, others say contains distinctive concepts about God,
that God is able to reveal to you as you read
- this still talks about content: what is it that we learn about who God is
and what God would have us to do
c. others say inspired content is salvation history: reveals story of God interacting
with God’s people, who God is, and what God expects of God’s people,
reveals what God is
- doesn’t tell you the exact things to believe about God

2. Scripture is inspired when it FUNCTIONS to reveal God

- God acts in the reading in the reader
- scripture sets down a pattern of the intentions and actions of God, through those
actions, Jesus Christ is revealed
- when Christ is revealed in them, they function as scripture (not if you’re reading
for historical interest or as ancient literature because you don’t hear Word
of God when reading this way)
- they become an agent of revelation of God and how scriptures make God present
to the community, but not through content (what it says about God)
- scripture tells about a time in the past when God was revealed, and that allows
you to receive revelation about who God is
- don’t tell you exactly what to believe
- perhaps gives you a new understanding of God
- functions as a means to bring God into our presence, not directly from content
- scriptures also give us a new self-understanding through the images and material
that is there
- perhaps they give us a way to understanding God
- but something happens to us that happens through them functioning as a means
that brings God into our presence and not through what is in them as
content

What does it mean that the Bible is the inspired Word of God?
- does it mean every word is just what God wanted?
- does it mean that it contains content that we ought to know?
- does it mean that it functions now to reveal who God is by occasioning an
event that helps us understand God?
- or some combination of these things

How to get past literalism/plenary inspiration arguments:

- scripture is sufficient for faith and morals, but don’t turn to it for geography,
psychology, history, science, etc.
- how to live and be a Christian, how to believe

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Some say that inspiration is:

God is at work in the communities that read the text, that interpret it, canonized and apply
scripture
- God works in all of these things

One theory says to claim the scripture is inspired:

- is to affirm that through these writings, people who have encountered the God
who reveals God’s self to the people and communities that produced them
- as God reveals God’s self through scripture, we see God as well
- what can we get from scripture? What kind of relationship is going on here?:
- is God giving information to humans, or is it people writing about God, a
product of a community in touch with God? How much do people
contribute to the scriptures? How much does God contribute?

Through the Bible, God has chosen to be present to God’s people and only through this
book may we come into God’s presence and enter a relationship with God that our
forebears had

One of the best definitions of inspiration is:

Goldingay: “Scripture mediates divine revelation apprehended in human experience. It
does so by means of theological reflection on the part of its writers, whose theological
reflection provides models as well as resources for our own.”

Looking at what Goldingay says:

The Bible tells us an experience that people have had of God
- the way they come to understand God in the way God has acted in their lives
- it brings us divine revelation, brings info about who God is
- how do you get that info? Do you get it by saying, “OK God, what’s the next
word?” or do you get it through your experience of God
- Goldingay says through your experience of God
- how do you arrive at something that counts as divine revelation
- you don’t sit in dark and wait for God to say, make that a V and not an A

Instead, read the Bible and reflect on the experience you’ve had with God
- can be individual or community
- the community heard the voice of God in these books, that was why selected
- reflections resonated with community and were shaped by the community of
faith to which the writers belong
- how they understand God through God’s actions in their lives
- people have an experience of God and write about it - how Bible came to be
- they could be infallible reflections, but not dictated by God
- because they reflect genuine experiences of God that they can express through
words with the community

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How to think about God’s action in the world

How they responded and reflected, then wrote it

Provides models and resources on how to do theology and how to interpret the world
- theological reflection, how to think about God’s presence in world, a model of
how they did it
- OT is the reflection of the people of that time
- NT is a Christian interpretation of the world, not history
- provides resources for theological reflection

It’s both FUNCTION and CONTENT

- find the content, and:
- think about how they processed experiences with God
- shows us how to do this ourselves
- helps us know how to interpret our world
- this is precisely what Biblical writers were doing, giving them a Hebrew or
Christian interpretation, that makes sense given the God they believe in

The theological reflections they came up with were genuine knowledge of God
- brings ways to think and the resources to do the thinking with
- these speak a true word of God
- came up with genuine knowledge of God
- this is what Christian community has always said about scripture

(When Exodus was written down, the people really wanted a temple, so that’s why
it contains all the specific directions and instructions)

The Pentateuch (9-5-02)

First 5 books = Torah
Traditionally assigned to Moses but he didn’t write any of them
Long compositional history

Went through 4 different editions

1. J, the Yahwist (Y is J in German - they came up with theory)
- c. 10th century (time of David)
- translated as Jehovah in KJV
- today spelled as Yahweh, more English version
- NRSV translates as THE LORD
- ancient Hebrews didn’t want to take name of God in vain, so they would
read YHWH as THE LORD
- only the High Priest could say the name of God once a year in the Holy of
Holies
- many other phrases used, “Holy One,” etc.
- modern folks use “G-d”
- written down in the c. 10th century BCE - were oral before that

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2. E, the Elohist
- 8th century BCE (time of Isaiah and Amos)
- names God “Elohim”
- translated as “God”

3. D, the Deuteronomist
- 6th century BCE (time of Josiah)
- writes like Deuteronomy
- concerned for regulations for society
- particular outlook on how history works
- pieces of it are interspersed throughout the OT

4. P, the Priestly source

- 6th - 4th century BCE (Exile and post-exile)
- written by priests who were concerned about rituals, sacrifices, etc.
- this group did D as well and put together the whole Pentateuch from the 3
sources listed above
- put final touches on Pentateuch so that they are what we have now

Took 600 years from first of stories written down in Genesis to the version we have now
- they kept incorporating new material
- only after they get finished with all of this that they finally said, that’s the Word
of God we’re going to base our lives on
- it was part of competition along the way, with other stories being told about
God and other gods
- finally came together in a single writing

People told all these stories about God and finally it all came together

J, E, P, D theory - 150 years ago

- We don’t know if others made edits or changes besides these

The community recognized the Torah as Word of God as they left Exile
as basis for their life as a nation and as people of God
When they went into Exile, they may have existed in some form, but the final form
came during or after Exile

Examples:
- Genesis 1 - Priestly source - “God”
- Genesis 2 - J source, “The LORD”

Different things are emphasized in the different materials

- different perspectives on God’s covenant with Israel, on the world, etc.
in each source

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When reading the Bible, recognize the genre of what you’re reading or else you will
misunderstand it
- if you think you have the front page and you really have the comics
- you can’t read poetry for scientific knowledge
- you can’t read scientific writing to learn how to feel
- coming with the material with the wrong expectations doesn’t work
- the Bible contains many genres of literature
- e.g. parables weren’t historical – there wasn’t really a sower or
Good Samaritan

GENESIS
Genre of Genesis
- not historical – a misreading of the genre
- it is poetic narrative material (stories, poems)
- doesn’t tell you what happened on a particular day
- these are more like poems - say unscientific and impossible things, yet speak a
truth about the world or about how we feel
- it is not a fairy tale, not falsehoods, but not historical
- intends to be true, but not factual – an important distinction – something can be
true, yet not be a fact
- gives you a means to understand and deal with the world as human beings
experience that world
- just like poetry, cannot evaluate it by whether it is historically or scientifically
correct but whether they tell you something true about the world
- speaks a broader truth, just as the parables do
- these stories can be scientifically and historically inaccurate, and yet true just
like poetry and parables do
- must bring the right expectation to the right literature

The message of truth here is more important than any scientific fact
- scientific facts have no meaning by themselves
- we have to assign meaning to them
- human beings assign meaning to everything that is, whether it is important or
not
- e.g. you might know color of George Washington’s eyes – so what – it doesn’t
matter

Genesis speaks a truth about who we are, who God is, how we act as individuals and
as a group
- Genesis interprets the world for us
- tells us stories about these and didn’t need history to do that
- it is a way to perceive reality, one of the most important things a writing can do
- these stories tell you what the world means, what you mean, what God wants for
you – doesn’t take history to do that, just as Jesus used parables
- they give us a way to perceive reality – a very important thing for text to do

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- use stories to do this

Material in first part of Genesis is technically myth

Myth is truth presented symbolically in order to escape the limitations of literal meanings
- myth is not untruth, as the everyday connotation of that word is
- stories draw in your whole being - just listing facts doesn’t do it
- stories help us see more richly who God is, how God cares for us, etc.
- e.g. You know, God loves us. Or, telling a moving story that lets you
know God loves us.
- stories convey more than propositions
- stories draw in your whole being
- they help us see more richly who God is, who we are, how God relates
to world and cares for world
- myth tells us what life means
- myth can be true or false rendering of reality
- you evaluate myths on whether they reveal truth about our existence
- has nothing to do with whether the story actually happened

Two kinds of myth:

1. Cosmological = why the world works as it does (seasons, why sun sets and
rises, etc.)
2. Cosmogonical = how the world got here, creation stories

Both kinds of myth in Genesis

- first 2 chapters are cosmogonical

All of Genesis, up to Abraham, is myth

At Abraham:
- theological stories – talk about God, not history
- what does it say about God? Our relationship with God, our life in the world?
- legend part starts here
- these are the kinds of stories the ancient people all told about their founders
- to reveal something true about who they are as a people
- not intended to be history

The stories do not intended to be historical or scientific

- the people who put the books together knew this
- you can tell because two creation stories don’t match
- each writer had good reasons for telling it as they did

1st creation story:

- 6 days were important because of other stories going around that said their
gods created the world in 6 days and then rested
- creation in Genesis 1 was made in the same order as pagan story

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- pagan story is Enuma Elish – based on this

- writer in Genesis 1 knew this story
- 1st creation story in Genesis is a polemic against polytheism and stated that
there was one God who made the whole thing - our God did it all
himself – the other stories get it wrong
- also a defense for belief in just one God
- not intended as scientific account
- writer of Genesis 1 knew that there was no day or night without the sun
- the story of Genesis 1 cannot be proved wrong by science because it doesn’t
speak a scientific truth
- even if world made in billions of years, what does that tell me about
the meaning of my life?
- don’t read it or confuse it as history!

Science and theology have been confused for a long time

Creation Science is bad science and bad religion

- science cannot tell us if God is responsible for creation of the world
- our culture says science has the answer to all questions, but it’s limited to
the empirical world
- science cannot prove or disprove existence of God - they don’t have the tools
to do it

The text wanted to give a different worldview from what people had when it was written
- to read it, we have to adopt the right frame of reference

Our cultural outlook is that science is the answer to everything

- but it isn’t
- it can only manipulate and measure the empirical world
- it can’t do anything about the rest of our existence

Science and theology are different universes of discourse

- have different rules
- can’t use rules of one in the other
- what counts as evidence is very different in each one
- texts do not have to be consistent with science – that is impossible
- scientist who says I can prove that creation started with the Big Bang, and that
no God is necessary
- the first part of statement is legitimate, but second part, they have
overstepped bounds of science – can’t prove it; they’ve become
theologians, and not good ones! They don’t know they’ve changed
fields, with different ways of understanding.
- there are holes in theory of evolution, but the theory says nothing about
Genesis 1

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The stories taken literally don’t work

- there are some ridiculous things in them
- they contradict each other
- different lengths of creation, woman created differently in each
- God and Adam sitting there and seeing which animal would be a good mate for
Adam – it’s silly! Surely God would know that an animal wouldn’t be a
good mate for Adam

Both creation stories have important things to say about who God is and who we are,
and how God relates to us in this world
- wouldn’t work to leave one out or to combine them
- so the writers left both in
- writers knew not to take them literally

Don’t ask, “Did it happen?” but ask “What does it mean?”

- all kinds of theological material begins to surface when you study them this way
- this was the motivation of the writers
- to read them otherwise is to dishonor the writers and the book

Limits of science are the realm of God

- the more technology we develop, the more God gets moved into the corner
- but Bonhoeffer says God undergirds all things
- this is a totally different orientation from most of the world
- Genesis asks us to believe as Bonhoeffer said

Genesis gives interpretation and stories, not data

A coherent perspective on the world
- a faith way of perceiving the world
- theology, not history

Story of the Fall

The fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil
- tells us that the story is about the knowledge of good and evil
- human beings didn’t know good from evil
- it was an ideal world
- knowing good from evil puts a burden on us - guilty conscience
- this is necessary for us to be humans and somehow wish we could do without it
- envisions a time of these people, with God in God’s presence, no guilt or sin
- once they learned the difference between good and evil, there was no going back
- everything changes

You can’t take this story literally

- God taking a walk
- God couldn’t find Adam that day

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- what kind of God is that? wouldn’t God know where Adam was?
- even God doesn’t know how Adam discovered he was naked
- story doesn’t ask to be taken “literally”

Point of story is that God had wanted to spare us the pain of guilt
Does Genesis think a guilty conscience is a good thing? Maybe, but having a conscience
makes life tough
- part of being human to make those value judgments

Result of Adam and Eve’s transgression: often misunderstood

- immediately suffer guilt, run off and hide
- get punished
- in Genesis 1 & 2, they live in ideal world
- then everything changed - the whole world suffers
- the world is not what God intends it to be
- God put a curse on - Gen 3:14-19 - the world as it is as a result of sin, not how
God wanted it
- writer experienced the world like this
- weeds grow in your fields, have to sweat in the sun
- they said, that’s not how a good God would make a world
- all the things we do these days is a way to get back to the good world
(air conditioning, weed killer, labor-saving devices)
- the world doesn’t work as it should and we do everything we can to change that,
to get back to world as God intended it

Look at all of the curse:

- verse 15 is about humans and snakes not getting along
- Christians read this differently
- original reading was about snakes, not about Jesus
- an example of how humans and animals don’t get along
- a disruption in order of creation
- women suffering in childbirth and under rule of husband:
- part of the curse, not how God intended
- verse is descriptive, not prescriptive
- doesn’t say women can’t have epidurals or that men can boss them
around
- there were people not long ago who said women shouldn’t have
epidurals – but they were in favor of air conditioning
- if you try to push back one element of the curse, it all has to go
- we push back elements of it all the time
- in the Kingdom of God, there is no curse
- we get rid of those things God didn’t intend for the world and were
result of sin

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Primordial History (9-10-02)

Two creation stories
Story of the Fall

Not literal stories

- show why the world is as it is
- curse in Genesis 3 is NOT a prescription of how the world should be

Cain & Abel

- Abel’s sacrifice is more acceptable to God
- not sure why - Cain’s was grain and Abel’s was animals
- looks at tough relationship between shepherds and farmers (the same
animosity as was in the old American West)
- nomads were shepherds, not farmers
- Cain was sent away from the presence of God
- Cain finds a wife (don’t take the story literally - it doesn’t make sense)

Genealogies
- Genesis 6 - sons of gods go into human women and giants are born as a
result
- these are called Nephilim
- a symbol of how wicked the world has become
- builds up to the time of the Flood

Flood
- there are parallels in other cultures, very much like Genesis
- Epic of Gilgamesh
- but there are very important differences:
In Gilgamesh: gods make a capricious decision to flood the earth
In Genesis: God decides to flood because of wickedness
- God doesn’t kill the innocent
- has Noah rescue parts of creation
- God is holy, fair and merciful
- one God instead of many

In Gilgamesh: gods are dependent on human sacrifices, so they all were hungry
In Genesis: Noah builds an altar at the end of the flood and offers sacrifice, but
God didn’t need it

God made a covenant with the earth - rainbow as a sign, God will never flood the whole
earth again
Not a scientific account

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Genesis 6 - Noah took 2 of each animal

Genesis 7 - Noah took 7 pairs of each clean animal and 2 of unclean animals
- 1st time anyone mentions clean and unclean animals
- comes from Priestly source

Long ages
- an ideal time when people lived a long time
- eventually, lifespans shrunk because people got so wicked, so God had to do
this

There wasn’t really a Noah

- the story is to tell how God is
- documentaries about the finding the Ark are confused because these aren’t
literal stories

P writers added their version (Genesis 7) without changing the one in Genesis 6

Story says God cared about the world and recommits to it at the end

Curse of Ham after the flood

Noah plants a vineyard and makes wine, gets drunk
- son Ham sees him passed out naked in his tent and tries to get the other two sons
to look
- later Noah curses Ham and Canaan – makes no sense to curse Canaan
- this has been used as an excuse for slavery, that the curse caused the people to
turn dark
- this is not about Africans - instead it justifies the taking of the land of Canaan
- this story was written after Israel was already there, justifies their political
agenda and says the Canaanites deserve it
- somebody must have gotten squeamish about taking the land, so they wrote
this story
- the curse doesn’t come from God, but from Noah
- can see other places in the Bible where peoples’ ancestors are cursed, and so the
descendents get oppressed and dominated, they deserve it because of
what their ancestors did
- all ancient people did this, wanted to figure out the origins of peoples and things,
tracing characteristics back

The stories are designed to give a perspective

- they wanted to get rid of Canaanites to help Israel worship just one God
- hard to do that if your neighbors worshipped many gods
- a tiny minority of Israelites worshipped one God
- most were polytheists
- texts were edited in Exile – they wondered, how did we screw up so badly?
- the only way they could envision a way to worship just one God was
to get rid of those who didn’t

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- so they were willing to have stories like this one (curse of Ham, Canaan)

Genealogies:
- where nations and professions come from
- how did we end up with different nations and different kings?

Tower of Babel:
- confusion of languages explained, from folly and human pride
- God’s response is, God thinks they might actually build the tower to heaven!
- the distinction between God and humans must not be crossed
- they wanted to be like God
- made the world harder to live in with different languages

Why should we read these stories?

1. We’re able to read and develop faith that does not expect us to lose intellect, because
they are not historical stories
2. They clearly point to God’s care for the world and how God remains with it in spite of
wickedness; God still loves us greatly

3. They lead to a stronger kind of faith

- not based on historical fact or believing something ridiculous if taken literally
- tells us who God is
- helps us stand in difficult times
- how God cares for us
- helps God speak through the stories in all kinds of times
- 50 years of investigation shows there is no such thing as an objective history
- these are narratives that want to give you meaning
- historical data doesn’t give meaning to life and how God cares for us, but the
stories do and that’s why they were preserved

The Bible is all true, but not all history

- 95% of Biblical scholars see the stories as myth
- very few see as historical
- even Jewish scholars see as mythological and for them, it’s only scripture with
the explanatory comments included

Abraham
Legends - not mythological, not historical
A new kind of literature starts here in Genesis
- all cultures tell stories of ancestors, to tell you who you are and where you come
from

1. Ancestor of the Jews

- selected by God as the progenitor of these people - no reason given
- some traditions say he was a noble person in character, others that no one else
wanted to take on the job

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- his was not an inward looking call

- purpose of his call is given up front in Genesis 12: blessing all the families on
the earth through these people
- Abraham does some immoral things (makes Sarah pose as his sister) and the
the result is blessing in the form of riches
- he has great acts of faith and terrible actions, too
- how God continued to be faithful despite Israel’s character flaws
- helped Israel explain that God stayed with them despite their flaws

Abraham is a rich guy and has a huge entourage

2. Abraham vs. Lot

- Lot’s clan gets so big that they must part ways
- Lot chose the fertile land, but Abraham’s flocks grow bigger than Lot’s
- conflict between cities and rural life - Genesis shows rural life as better than
city life
- view is that cities are morally inferior

Story switches back to Abraham

- God will make him a great nation, but he has no children, no heir
- covenant ritual in chapter 15 where they go through split animals
- interpret that the promise is not suspended when slavery and exile occur
(as in the Babylonian Exile)
- narrative is to reassure readers that Exodus and conquest of land are part
of God’s plan and gives a typology of the return from Exile

3. Ishmael
- Hagar is a slave and must have sex with Abraham to produce a son
- Abraham and Sarah took matters into their own hands
- God said, he’s not the one
- Arabs trace their ancestry back to Ishmael

Before the birth of Isaac, God calls Abraham to be circumcized, so

Isaac is born into a covenant setting
Reason why Abraham and Sarah are so old was to show it was God’s doing, through
the power of God that the nation of Israel was created
- children seen as a blessing from God
- infertility was grounds for divorce

Abraham wasn’t always faithful, but God fulfills the promise (9-10-02)
Genesis 17 - circumcision instituted

3 men show up at Abraham’s tent

- he invites them in and fixes dinner
- they said you will have a child
- Sarah laughs because she’s old and then denies laughing

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Sodom and Gomorrah

Contrast between good rural folks and bad city folks
Lot had moved to the city, while Abraham was in the hinterlands

Many believe the story is about homosexuality

- Genesis 18:19
- story is about righteousness and justice
- God tells Abraham so he will live in this way

Abraham argues with God

- If there are 50 good people, you aren’t going to wipe out the righteous and
the wicked?
- Will it look like you are just if you do that?

Messengers get to the gate of the city

- Lot takes them in for the night
- it’s a dangerous city
- law enforcement didn’t exist - your clan protected you and would avenge any
wrongs done to you
- if you weren’t in your clan, you’d be nothing
- strangers had no protection

Lot himself is safe because Abraham is out there with a big army, so no one will mess
with him

People could steal from you, kill you if you don’t have clan protection

These cities were destroyed because of how they treated strangers

Lot takes the messengers under his protection

- the crowd knew Lot was newcomer and gave him heck about it

Genesis 19:12-13 - “outcry against its people”

- these words are used for social justice issues
- Israel developed laws that protected outsiders
- prophets used these words against social injustice

People of Sodom surround house and want to rape the men

- Lot offers his daughters to them
- it’s a crime to rape daughters of men you know
- the men would have faced consequences if they had taken daughters
- no crime to rape strangers
- they wanted to rape the strangers - no consequences
- because of lack of concern for people, not homosexuality

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A parallel story at the end of Judges - very similar situation

- same story and set up, only a woman gets raped
- so sexual orientation has nothing to do with it

Rape is a dominance issue and is not permissible regardless of lack of legal recourse,
God was saying

Abraham’s talking to God

- raises status of Abraham
- shows God as anthropomorphic
- shows who God is - God is just
- the conversation is included for the reader’s benefit

Many ancient cultures wanted to trace their beginnings and what a noble people they
were

The Israelites looked down on the descendents of Ishmael because he came from a slave

Abraham was not presented as an ideal person

- this says God doesn’t expect us to be perfect
- God stuck with the Israelites even though they complained and whined

Sodom & Gomorrah, continued

Lot doesn’t want to leave the city to live in the country
- he tries one city and ends up in a cave
- there are no suitable mates for his daughters, so they get him drunk and
have sex with him and conceive
- they have 2 kids, Moab and Ben-Ammi, who are products of incest
- story says they can look down on Moabites and Ammonites
- (but later, Ruth is a Moabite)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Isaac “Laughter” is born

Hagar and Ishmael are thrown out
- God took care of them and said he’d make a great nation
Abraham is tested by God - asked to sacrifice Isaac
- this is the only place in the Bible where human sacrifice is mentioned
- Isaac is saved by a ram showing up

Abraham sends for a wife for Isaac

- none of the patriarch’s wives come from Canaan
- servant finds Rebekah through divine intervention
- she is a relative - must be the will of God
- Isaac marries her
Sarah dies and finally, Abraham dies

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Isaac and Rebekah have trouble with fertility, but then have twins
- Esau and Jacob
- Esau is firstborn, but Jacob has a hold on Esau’s heels - a trickster
- Jacob is always tricking someone out of something
- Esau’s birthright
- blessing from Isaac
- Esau plans to kill Isaac, but Isaac flees

Rebekah had been told Jacob would be a leader

Esau married Canaanite women, so the promise couldn’t come to him
Jacob gets a wife outside Canaan
He has a dream with a ladder, God’s promise given

Running theme of “wrong son gets promise”

- subverts the usual expectation of the law
Jacob, despite being a liar and a cheat, gets God’s promise

Jacob goes to his old homeland

- falls in love with Rachel
- works 7 years for her
- there is a trick at the wedding and he get Leah
- works another 7 years for Rachel

The 2 women give him a concubine and in all, they bear him 12 sons, who became the
heads of the 12 tribes

He decides to go back to Canaan, but Laban doesn’t want them to leave

- Jacob wants payment for 20 years’ work and asks for all the spotted animals
- Jacob puts a stick in the stream and this makes all the baby animals be born
with marks - magical thinking
- so Jacob takes away a lot of animals

They leave in darkness and Rachel takes the household gods

- no one was monotheist
- she took them because she worshipped them
Laban comes after them, but doesn’t find the gods
- God tells Laban to leave Jacob alone
Jacob has a dream and wrestles with God
- his name is changed to Israel - “strives with God”
Esau comes out to meet Jacob
- Jacob is afraid so he sends his wives and children out first - coward
Everything is OK and they move back to Canaan

Jacob has favorite children because of who their mother is

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Polygamy turns out bad in these stories - causes trouble

- eventually, monogamy came in

It was a dysfunctional family

Joseph has a dream and said the brothers would serve him
- they sell him into slavery and he goes to Egypt
- Potiphar’s wife accuses him of rape
- Joseph is thrown in jail
- 2 prisoners have dreams and he interprets them
- he interprets Pharaoh’s dream of cows and he puts Joseph 2nd in charge
- famine comes and Egypt has plenty of food to sell
- his family comes for food
- Joseph kind of plays with them
- they are reconciled
- the family moves to Egypt and Joseph’s dream happens - they owe him their
lives

By the end of Genesis - the people are in Egypt

EXODUS
12th - 10th century BCE

Hebrews are a large ethnic group

- new Pharaoh doesn’t trust them
Moses is born and rescued
At 40, he kills an Egyptian
- flees to Midian and marries Zipporah
At 80, burning bush episode
- God introduces himself as God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
- Moses didn’t know who God was
God’s will to free them from slavery and put them in Canaan
- Moses is the one to lead
Moses asks God what his name is
- your name reveals your character
- gives anyone who knows it has power over you
God’s willingness to reveal name shows his readiness to be in relationship with Hebrews
- name is “I AM” = the one
- signs given
Aaron to be spokesperson
Moses asks Pharaoh if they can go to worship God and he says no and increases their
workload
Egypt goes through plagues - each time Pharaoh says OK but changes his mind
10th plague - Pharaoh is not swayed by the thought of firstborns being killed
Those with blood on doorframe passed over
Pharaoh tells Hebrews to leave and neighbors give them $

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Pharaoh pursues them and the sea drowns his army

- this is related to the myth of the chaos of the sea
- shows God taming it to fulfill his purposes
God’s presence has always been with Israel - pillar of cloud and fire
Songs of Moses and Miriam: God helps the lowly

Exodus 7:3 – God hardens Pharaoh’s heart to multiply the signs and show God’s power
Israel felt justice was being done – so some retribution happens in the form of plagues
When Paul later talked about God, he mentions this

God didn’t take over Pharaoh’s will, but has bigger fish to fry
- community and lesson for Israel is the main point ******

Chapter 12: Israel interested in establishing a community faithful to God, not necessarily
an ethnically pure group
- “a mixed crowd” = not just Israelites left Egypt – many who had nothing left
went, too
- isolation and separateness was necessary in order to stay faithful to God *****

600,000 men, plus women & children, plus mixed crowd – so it would have been over a
million people
- the numbers are exaggerated to show what a great event this was
- no way a million people could move like this or live in desert
- Egypt could not have sustained this loss

The people could be called “Israelites” at the beginning of the Exodus

No archaeological evidence of them being in Egypt except one writing that mentions
“Habiru”

Importance of the Exodus: (REMEMBER THIS)

- it became the central story talked about in the TO
- tells who God is – the one who led us out of Egypt
- the God who helps the oppressed, remembers ancestors, gracious, just
- the prophets always harken back to it

“How do we know we’ll get back from Exile?” (when they were in Babylon later)
- because God brought us out of Egypt
God acts in favor of Israel over against others
Many, many allusion throughout the Bible to the Exodus
Laws are based on this story
- treat widows, orphans, aliens right
The formative story – THE story of Israel upon which all else is based
Story of guy picking up sticks on Sabbath and was killed for it
- probably didn’t happen

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-just to show importance of keeping Sabbath

Exodus sets out the character of God and how God wants you to live 9-17-02
- foundational story

Wilderness murmuring
- big bunch of whiners!
- 1,000,000 of them – need water – instead of asking God for what they need,
they whine about it
- manna comes for food, water from rock

Mt. Sinai – God offers them opportunity to enter covenant – was not forced
- covenant is contract – what is going to be the basis for our relationship
- Judaism is not legalistic – before there is even a command, God has done things
for them
- Exodus 20:1-2 – I have already brought you out of Egypt
- gracious act is presupposition of the 10 Commandments
- not a “do this and God will do that” kind of deal
But the people are expected to live right – they are to do it IN RESPONSE to God
- similar to Christian ethics
- God gives grace and we respond

Israelites accept covenant – the question is, are you going to remain people of God?

Exodus 32:
Moses is 80 years old – goes up mountain and doesn’t return – the people figure he died

The people have no extensive experience of God – they worshipped other gods in Egypt
So they needed a god to worship
- Aaron makes a golden calf, a standard Egyptian god
God tells Moses the people have become wicked and sends Moses back
- God says he will kill them all
Moses talks with God to convince God not to do this
- appeals to God’s character as Abraham did at Sodom
- what kind of God would you look like
- this argument is made more for the reader than anything

Moses grinds up the calf and makes them drink it

Moses asks who will worship God and who won’t
- to those who will worship God, Moses gives a sword and tells them to kill the
others

Can’t be faithful to God if associating with those who aren’t – this is a MAJOR THEME

Moses goes back to the mountain, gets the commandments again, comes back down with
a shining face

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- “you can trust Moses” – he speaks directly with God

Leviticus
Specific instructions for priests
- detailed at points because the Temple had been destroyed when these were
written down
- instructional manual for a Temple that didn’t exist

Says who are priests, how to carry out duties

Priests and purity

- unclean does not mean sinful – means you are in a state where you are not
supposed to enter the presence of God
- many ancient cultures had idea of unclean and clean
- lots of unclean around death and reproduction
- power of life and death
- beyond human limits
- gods might be jealous of us, because in these things we come close
to what gods do
- being unclean was not as big a deal as we think
- couldn’t go to Temple – not a big deal because you didn’t go often anyway
- becoming clean was not difficult
- only priests were mainly concerned with it

Chapters 1-16 deal with how priests can be ready to enter the presence of God
- the rules they had were not oppressive – it was just part of their culture
- how you prepare to worship – being clean

Chapter 17-26 are the Holiness Code

- from the Priestly writer
- for everybody in Israel
- common features: “You be holy because I am holy”
Holy = 1. moral 2. distinct, different from everyone else
- God is distinct, God is moral being and says the same for the people of God
- they are to reflect who God is
- God’s morality itself is distinct
- importance of being distinct*****
- “You do this because I am the Lord your God”
- do as God says because you belong to God

Chapters 18-20 within Holiness Code set out social morality

- marriage made the cornerstone of society
- very important chapters
- 18:1-5 gives interpretive context for these chapters:
- you should act different from Egyptians or Canaanites
- Israel will stand out

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-sets out what you cannot do

- no incest – Egyptian king marries sister
- no licentious practices as Canaanites do
- you will be so different that you can’t live among them
- they won’t want you around
- therefore you will not worship their gods

Molech worship – featured homoerotic relations

- Canaanites do this, so don’t you do it, in order to be distinct from them
(Don’t try to fit this situation into the modern day – it was concerned about keeping Israel
separate)

Leviticus 20:22-26 – food laws mentioned

- Canaanites eat unclean animals, so don’t eat them – makes you different
- “I have separated you from other people to be mine”

This is to set up atmosphere where people can worship one God

Leviticus written down during Exile

- how are we going to be faithful to God as a people?
- answer was to be odd and so no one would want to be around them
- to draw a bold line around themselves

Food laws not for health reasons

- Gentiles ate pigs and didn’t get sick from trichinosis
- if you eat differently, it’s hard to eat at a Canaanite friend’s house

Israel saw its call to be unique and a blessing to world

- they lost everything and went into Exile
- so they wondered why they failed
- they didn’t say God failed us **********
- they realized that they had never been faithful and what they got was Exile
- how can we do differently when we get home? was their question
They connected unfaithfulness with this national tragedy

Kings and Chronicles – the latter fixes problems with the story in Kings

Describing how to be God’s people when they have no land or temple

Leviticus 11:44 – “Be holy because I am holy.”

- basic principle of ethics, especially Christian
Basic level is whether it corresponds with character of God – most important thing to
consider

Live by who God is, as God intended, live out character of God

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1 Peter harkens back to Lev 11:44

Love, power, holiness, justice of God and how we live these out

God takes initiative in the covenant

Ways given for them to make up for sins – sacrifices, ways to say I’m sorry
Relationship with God is not over if you do wrong

Numbers
Mostly about Israel’s time in the wilderness, esp their complaining
- God supplies them with food and they complain instead of asking

Joshua and Caleb go to border and spy out land

Other spies say no way we can go in
Joshua and Caleb say we can do it because God is with us
A whole generation must die because of their lack of faith

Korah’s revolt
- why some Levites are priests and other are helpers
- God chose Aaron’s family to lead worship
- Korah felt cheated and had a stand-off
- the walking stick that buds is God’s priest
- ground swallows up dissenters
- the practice of priests is justified in Israel

Meribah
- where Moses hit rock instead of speaking to it as God instructed
- perhaps did it as magic rather than as God doing it
- Aaron says, must we bring water out of the rock – instead of God doing it
- consequence is that Moses didn’t get to take them into the land
**NOTE – there are 2 instances of this in Bible – be sure to mention both if asked
on exam

Balaam
- hired to come curse Israel and he can’t
- weird part is that he talks to God the whole time and he’s a Canaanite
- he worships other gods, yet God talks to him

Phineas
- Israelites begin to marry Midianites and worship other gods
- so a plague comes and kills
- Phineas wants to marry a Midianite, bring her to his tent and priest kills them
- Moses was married to a Midianite before this rule was made
- today, white supremist group, Phineas Priesthood, takes story out of context

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Cities of refuge
- if you accidentally kill someone, their clan comes after you
- place to go so you’ll be safe

“Eye for eye” limited retribution because if you did wrong, your whole clan could be
punished, so they saw this idea as limiting to them

Trying to put together a new world which was more kindly than the one they were in

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