Savoring? Jeremiah, Lamentations and the Petrine Epistles
Dear Bible Challenge participants,
It's likely that we all have different ways of keeping track of our progress in the Bible Challenge. Rather than tracking via the One Year Bible Read plan, my practice has been to read merrily along at a 3-OT, 1 Psalm, 1 NT pace, and I admit I was caught a bit off guard when I saw the One Year Bible Read schedule this morning and noticed that plan has had us reading Jeremiah two chapters at a time these last few days. Oops! I read ahead, plowing through the prophecies against the nations, including Babylon getting serious payback... almost unfair, really, since Jeremiah argues that Babylon was merely doing God's bidding.
But maybe you're better at following directions than I, and you've been taking these chapters more slowly... Even at a two-chapter pace, we'll be finishing Jeremiah this week, and moving on to Lamentations, which we are also invited to read two chapters at a time. This is a kindness, really, as Lamentations, like much of Jeremiah, is pretty excruciating. Attributed to Jeremiah, most scholars think it unlikely that the prophet wrote it himself. This site has a very nice introduction to the book, in case the Bible you're reading does not have information on genre and literary quirks--of which there are several in Lamentations.
Although we continue our reading of James in worship for two more weeks, we've moved on to 1 Peter. Due to theological perspectives, and vocabulary, most modern scholars date this letter after our patron saint's death. Again, the same site has a nice intro to 1 Peter. Given the themes and content of 1 Peter, some think the book may be made up of sermons that were preached at early church baptisms. Our practice is to hear this epistle during Eastertide, especially in "Year A" (we're in Year B, currently).
By Friday we'll be on to 2 Peter. More fun here regarding dating and possible authorship. If you're a real puzzle enthusiast or enjoy mystery/detective novels (like many biblical scholars!) you might get a kick out of this commentator's riff on the "hapaxlegomena" occurring in 2 Peter. A hapaxlegomena is a word that appears in one place only-- ever. Because meaning is derived when we can see a word used in different contexts, hapaxlegomena are really quite difficult (if not impossible) to translate. 2 Peter has more hapaxlegomena than any other book of the New Testament.
It's pretty amazing to look at the One Year Bible Read, and see how far we've come... or to look at the bookmarks in our Bibles and see how much we've read (a benefit of reading a hard-copy!). Congratulations on making it this far! And...
As ever, thank you for being on this journey!
Peace,
Paige+
