Academic
Entry for Class of January 14th, 2016
Response 1: General Context
The history of Western civilization—and thus, most traditions of
recorded history—root from the practical, political,
traditional, and spiritual applications of the Bible in its many
minutely altered forms. In this case, we are studying the “Genesis”
of the Bible in itself, through its beginnings as the early Jewish
holy book of the TaNaKh, long before a “New” Testament ever
claimed to supersede its revelations.
In this study, its intractable ties to Mesopotamian mythology are
made quite evident (for example: the uncanny parallels between the
Mesopotamian myth of “enuma elish” and Genesis). What is clear is
that most of the so-called Old Testament is a series of ancient
creation stories amalgamated and re-purposed to fit the theological
template of the ancient Israelites. This sort of cultural
re-appropriation is nothing new in history, but this observation as
applied to the Bible most certainly is. Until recently, the Bible had
always been studied as a book of literal fact as opposed to
allegorical myth. To question its authority was sacrosanct—or, at
the very least, any new findings of fact were forced to somehow
compromise with the TaNaKh as interpreted literally. Now, we have
reached a level either of required cultural maturity (if one is to
believe in progress) or cultural dissociation enough that we are able
to study the Bible as thoroughly as we have studied other ancient
texts. What one can find in exploring this subject themselves is akin
to the intellectual excitement one feels reading The Da Vinci Code
before realizing its horrible inaccuracy (though it never claimed to
be anything more than a work of fiction, so it's of more meaning to
critique Dan Brown's writing rather than his general plot points).
Response 2: From the Textbook
“You are attending a Sunday School class that happens to be
discussing the book of Genesis. Your teacher says that it was written
by Moses. You feel like showing off your newfound knowledge by
explaining the reasons some scholars think otherwise.”
The idea of a singular Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch—or the
Old Testament in general—is contested by scholars of the
Documentary Hypothesis. Though the dates of composition are relative
to educated estimates, there are too many asynchronous passages,
outright contradictions, and diverse terminology in the text for most
scholars to entertain the idea of singular authorship anymore; as it
stands, it's asserted there are at least four main sources: J,
E, D, and P.
J stands for Yahweh, as J makes a Yah sound in German, denoting the
Yahwist (or Jehovah) source, focused mainly on the bare-bones of the
Bible, and with a preference toward Yahweh or Jehovah as the name of
God. This is followed closely by (and, in the eyes of many scholars,
inseparable from) the E source, E denoting Elohim as the preferred
name for God. In the case of J and E, there is debate over whether
both sources were written or redacted apart from one another, as the
E source has nothing in the way of standalone text, and seems only to
supplement the J source. The D source is the clearest of them all, D
simply meaning Deuteronomy (or Deuteronomic), credited with the
entire book of Deuteronomy and all interjected references to it in
all the books prior and following.
Last, but not least, we have the P source. P standing for Priestly,
this source concerns the etiquette of old Jewish ritual practices on
purity, familial bonds, commandments, etc.
Still other Biblical scholars reject the JEDP hypothesis as they'd
rather think of the Bible as a mainly oral tradition that eventually
found its way to text; by this, they main to assert that both
authorship and particular redaction are too multifarious to condense
to only four sources.
Academic Entry for Class of January 21st,
2016
Response 1: General Context
Just as the Mesopotamian creation story of enuma elish is
mirrored in the start of Genesis, as is the Akkadian story of
Gilgamesh mirrored in the tale of Noah and the Flood. This is an
important point to bear in mind, as the Bible has often been seen as
the source of all archetypes, when in fact it is simply a rich
manifestation of archetypes which had already been in existence for
centuries—perhaps even millennia—prior. It is a series of
justifications (why did the people of Canaan deserve to be put to the
sword? Because of that strange episode in Noah's tent with his
Canaanite son), explanations (how did the world come to be? What is
the meaning of life?), and cautionary tales (if humans, instead of
God, try to decide what is good and what is evil, there is nothing
but disaster, as is depicted in the fall from the Garden of Eden
after Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge; this episode also
acts as an explanation for why humans must suffer and die). The story
of Noah is also where the narrative of the Bible shifts from the
story of the world, to the story of God's “chosen people,” the
Israelites, tracing in rather rushed detail the advance of
generations up to Abraham.
Response 2: From the Textbook
“You tell the teacher of your Sunday School class that you are
taking a course that studies the Bible from a historical and literary
perspective, rather than from the perspective of faith. Your teacher
thinks that this is a waste of time, since only someone with a
religious commitment to the Bible can understand it. Do you agree or
disagree? State your reasons why.”
If I were being brutally honest, I would tell my Sunday School
teacher this: from the perspective of faith—or, at least from a
perspective of faith upon which it is presupposed that studying the
Bible from any other perspective other than faith is a
waste of time—it is a cultish obsession that does not
investigate the work in context, but in and of itself for personal
reasons. Sort of like reading Harry Potter as nonfiction or
self-help.
In all honesty, the only real way to truly adsorb the lessons of the
Bible may be through a reading of the text complimented with as deep
an understanding of its context as one can possibly garner through
academic study and personal investigation. If one is honest about
where these books came from, and reads them not on an elevated
pedestal, but eye to eye, the wisdom of the allegory becomes
accessible, readily integrated on many different levels. First of
all, one comes to understand the anthropological significance of the
Bible, as the opening of Genesis spells out clearly the ancient
three-tiered worldview (water above, in the firmament, and water
below, with land floating precariously in between, though free of the
burdens of our modern laws of physics so it may be less precarious
than my intuition will allow me to acknowledge). Second, within the
many tales of God's almighty (though at times petty) wrath, there
really are stories with interesting, rather spiritually
nuanced lessons to teach. One of my personal favorites is when God
has decided to destroy Sodom and Gommorah, announcing these plans to
Abraham during one of his appearances. Abraham's nephew, Lot, along
with his daughters, are living in Sodom at the time, prompting
Abraham to try and bargain with God. He asks, in numbered increments
starting at 50 and going down, if God found however many innocent
people within the city, would he spare it, to which God always
replies with yes. In the end, angels come to warn Lot of the
impending destruction, but the story finishes on a rather twisted
note when Lot has sex with his two daughters after escaping Sodom,
driving the point that the evil of Sodom has infected all three of
them irredeemably (they are impure).
Academic Entry for Class of January 28th,
2016
Response 1: General Context
Throughout the last half of Genesis, the format is reasonably
compressed enough as to make one wonder if these stories were once
larger at some point, connected as in a saga, but still
self-contained in enough aspects as to warrant them standing alone.
It gives the impression, at times, of being a series of rundown
synopsis with the most essential excerpts injected or interjecting,
sometimes entirely out of the blue, and at other times very fluidly.
Perhaps the book of Genesis in itself was once comprised of more than
one book—or, considering the age of the story, more than one
self-contained oral tradition—which were integrated and amalgamated
into the asynchronous format we have today. Some evidence for this
comes in the form of the Documentary Hypothesis itself, with or
without which one can still see God arbitrarily decide to rename
Abram and Sarai to Abraham and Sarah, with God himself going by
different names throughout the text: Yahweh, Elohim, or El Shaddai.
This is not to mention the two separate accounts of Genesis in
Genesis 1 and 2, or the rest of the otherwise non-sensical
contradictions within the text. Some argue these contradictions are
not separate sources, however, and instead the result of deliberate
chiastic structure. In some regards, they may be right; but so far,
the only Biblical scholars I've seen pushing this interpretation as a
uniform standard are those who cannot let go of creationism (see, for
example, the Biblical scholarship critiquing the Documentary
Hypothesis on creation.com).
Response 2: From the Textbook
“Your roommate says that if the world was not created in six
days, then there is nothing to learn from the Bible. What do you
say?”
That's like saying “if Star Wars didn't actually happen a
long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, then there is nothing
to learn from Star Wars.” Perhaps this hypothetical roommate
is a bit of an ideological scientific reductionist, and thus would
agree with my statement on Star Wars, calling it a wonderful
work of escapism, and nothing more. Though I too would call it a
wonderful work of escapism, I wouldn't round this observation off
with “and nothing more.” This would be a classic case of someone
discounting the value and importance of myth in all regards; in the
past, present, future, and general contexts. Star Wars has
much to teach in the way of inherited archetypes, as well as
illustrating a clear divide between 'good' and 'evil,' while still
immersed in shades of gray, illustrating that humanity is capable of
horror for what it may truly believe is a good reason. Both Star
Wars and the Bible are myths of the highest order, and not in the
derogatory “this is nothing but a silly myth” sense, but in the
literary sense. One need only read Joseph Campbell's “The Hero
With a Thousand Faces” to understand the mutual thread running
through all myth, regardless of its place, date, or person(s) of
origin. There are universal themes of failure and redemption,
creation and destruction, heroes and villains, etc. all of which are
of immense value when exploring the nature of the human condition,
the history of human perception (both external and self-perception),
and, in the case of the Bible and all other holy books, understanding
a text that acts as a bedrock or precedent for three of the worlds
largest religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam).
PLEASE NOTE: THIS WAS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN AS A SERIES OF ACADEMIC JOURNAL ENTRIES RESPONDING TO EACH 3-HOUR CLASS ON CRITICALLY READING THE OLD TESTAMENT / TANAKH.
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