Dear Bible Challengers,
I had a moment yesterday, and created our listserve. Three of you are still awaiting invitation-- it was stingy with us and didn't want to let us add all of you at once. But hopefully it will let me once I finish this post to you!
The listserve works by essentially "replying to all" without having to put all those emails in the CC line. If you reply to a listserve email, it will email the entire group unless you manually go into your email browser and change the address to an individual.
You can post to the group either by replying to one of the existing emails, by going to the stpetersbiblechallenge yahoo group page:
Or by emailing stpetersbiblechallenge@yahoogroups.com after you have confirmed your membership of the group...
I am going to try and email *this* to the listserve, so that those who want to can reply with comments to this particular email. Fingers crossed!
Logistics covered, on with the adventure!
As we continue on our journey through the Bible, beginning our third week in this adventure, we've encountered some pretty... interesting characters...some more likable than others. Even our Lord Jesus seems more likable on some days than others. His encounter with the Canaanite woman today in Matthew chapter 15 is one such occasion. Why is he so rude to her? Why doesn't he just heal her daughter in the first place?
Folks have been wrestling with those questions for...ever. Some interpreters suggest he was simply testing the woman. Some that the author of Matthew's gospel needed to reinforce that Jesus' personal mission was about the Children of Israel--after all, his disciples would take the good news out into the gentile world. Others have said that Jesus was still human--but this story shows how he never strayed from the grace, mercy and love of God, and lets his mind be transformed.
It felt a bit ironic reading that Gospel passage right after reading Psalm 15, with it's strong language against using words to hurt...
What do you think? What was Jesus up to in that story? Or what was the Gospel writer up to?
Having read through the Abraham saga, and the Jacob/Israel story, we're now wrapping up the Joseph novella, or maybe, soap opera... Isn't Potiphar's Wife a piece of work? I have yet to find a published translation of the Bible that does justice to what she really said to Joseph...and all the drama that transpires between Joseph and is brothers. Joseph certainly got a good dose of his father's "trickster" qualities.
You may have noticed the different names used for God in the Old Testament so far... From The LORD, to GOD (Yahweh or Elohim, or varieties on Elohim, such as El Elyon, or El Shaddai)... and every so often we get LISTs... sometimes called The Begats because of how the King James Bible rendered them into English. If Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are our rascals (what's with passing their wives off as sisters, anyway?!) and Joseph's brothers who sold him to the Ishmaelites/Midianites are ruffians, then the Great Biblical Listmaker is the Redactor...
The Documentary Hypothesis is an idea that arose from Biblical Scholars during the 18th and 19th centuries, as they tried to make sense of the patchwork nature of the Pentateuch-- you know, the two creation stories, or different versions of a tale, right next to each other. There's some pretty good information on the Documentary Hypothesis
here. The idea is that a "Priestly Redactor" (editor) came along and put several traditions together, rather wove them together, or united them as a stained glass artist would... My Hebrew Bible professor likened the work of the Redactor to the lead between the colored glass. The Priestly Redactor is concerned with detail detail detail... covenant, ritual cleanliness.... and LISTS. So when you encounter those LISTS... that's our friend, the Priestly Redactor.
If you find this all intriguing and want to learn more, I encourage you to talk to Anne Iverson-Peltier, Pete Iverson, Sue Anderson or Mary Wavrik (please contact me for their emails) about taking
Education for Ministry (EfM). It's a great chance to spend time with scripture, and scholarship, a truly enriching spiritual journey.
And if you are interested in some daily meditations based on our daily readings, you can visit the Center for Biblical Studies Daily Meditations page
here or purchase the Bible Challenge book by Forward Movement
here.
Remember, if you have any questions, or want to start a conversation about some of the adventures of this Challenge, don't hesitate to email me at
pblair@stpetersdelmar.net . Or accept the invitation to join our new listserv and enjoy the conversation! It's likely that others on this journey have the same question you do!
Peace!
Paige+
