Colossians: The things that are above and
Ecclesiastes: Vanity and chasing after the wind then on to the Song of Songs...
Dear Bible Challenge participants,
Martha King shared her thoughts about our recent reading adventures, and gave me permission to share them:
Your questions: Yes, I definitely saw a difference in the writing of Ephesians and noted that it is different in personal style. It is more distant and deliberate. I can see real reasons to think that the author is not Paul, but I like to think that Paul is still there somewhere. But I really enjoyed reading Corinthians, Galatians, and Ephesians for the familiar prayer book words in a context. And, I enjoy ed finding most of my sorority ritual passages in these letters too. And I am reminded how legalistic Paul is as he works out his arguments. I am reminded of Martin Luther King's writing --- of the passionate and "teaching" need to explain, to justify the truth, to illuminate the unjust, to develop the hearts of a new, threatened, searching community.
As an English teacher, I'm always wondering about word choice and placement as I read. The world of Bible translations and scholars is a wonder to me, and I often get caught up in the annotation and have to pull back to the verses to move ahead.
Job was a pleasure again. I just marvel at the language. I love to read the poetry of this OT section. Ah, words are sweet to the imagination and tongue. (And I really enjoyed your use of "only a fraction" during the wedding homily in describing that Anne and Stan can know only fraction of the love that we hold for them.) At the end of Job, do I miss hearing from ha-satan again? Not at all. Done with that guy. I picture a heavenly courtroom where everyone, EVERYONE is totally silenced after God speaks.... and Job squeaks out his faint response "now my eye sees." I love the "Where were you...?" question after question from God --- beautiful seasons, creatures, clouds, storms, cosmos. Just think of all of the people through the ages who have read this.... and people of the ancient world who listened to stories like this. Wow! ( I never did see or read the play JB, did you? Wonder if it will re-surface with Mr JB as Rupert Murdoch or some other one percenter.)
Proverbs is fun. I read my annotated version's description of all of the angst over whether the poetry is synonymous or synthesized or antithetical parallelism -- scholars using too much prose to relate to poetry, for me. Your suggestion of side-bar stories again makes me picture a courtroom scene with proverb-axioms as sentences being handed down by a judge to the squabbling parties. I also have a memory of my grandmother, a staunch Missouri Synod German woman who cooked like a genius, sitting on a small chair, bent over her bible, whispering the words aloud as she read to herself. Wish I had been old enough to talk to her about what she was reading.... wonder if she was reading Proverbs.
Thank you, Martha!
Having en-joyed Paul's letter to the Philippians, we're now a good ways through Colossians. Colossians is another letter about which there is disagreement regarding authorship. As with Ephesians, some think this is a genuine Pauline letter written while imprisoned. Others think it was written by an early disciple. As with Ephesians, I welcome your thoughts... does this sound like Paul's voice?
Very soon we'll be reading I Thessalonians, a Pauline letter written to a community struggling under persecution. There is less agreement regarding the authorship of II Thessalonians, as well as I and II Timothy and Titus, though (the very very brief) Philemon is considered to be soundly Pauline in authorship. I'll be interested in your take on the messages of these letters, but also your sense of voice and authorship.
We've also left Proverbs for Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes, like Job, is a bit of a dissenting voice in Hebrew Scripture. While the Deuteronomistic theologians' writings were all about purpose: "follow the rules and everything will be ok." Quoheleth (the Hebrew title of Ecclesiastes, meaning "the Preacher,") counters with "all is vanity..." To be crass, one could say Ecclesiastes' message is "Stuff happens, but worship God anyway..." Or more elegantly, "There is a time for everything... the good, and the bad, and trying to avoid the bad is, well, vanity..."
While attributed to "David's Son," and traditionally thought to have been written by Solomon, many post-Enlightenment scholars have dated Ecclesiastes as a much later work, around the 3rd Century BCE, due in part to the language. Some have noted that the Israelite name for God (YHWH, or Adonai) is not used, and have wondered if perhaps the body of the text is from another neighboring tradition and language altogether, and was translated into Hebrew.
Very soon we'll be reading another text attributed to Solomon: The Song of Songs or Song of Solomon. As with Ecclesiastes, many scholars date the Song of Songs very late, to the 3rd or 2nd Century, in part due to genre. It is an idyl, a Greek genre, ergo dated to the time when Jewish writers were imitating Greek styles. Its inclusion was disputed in both the Jewish and Christian canon of scripture, those who argued for its inclusion doing so from an allegorical interpretation: that the Song sings of the love between God and Israel or God/Jesus and the Church. Some argued that it contains very little that is religious indeed, containing only the briefest reference to the Divine Name, in the word "Yah" (used for intensification) in 8:6, translated in the NRSV as "raging flame."
Whether originally intended as allegory, or simply a beautiful song to love, I imagine it will provide a nice respite from Quoheleth's "all is vanity and a chasing after the wind..."
And as ever, thank you for being on this journey!
Peace,
Paige+
