Speaking of whiny...

[cahn]

I've been reading the Old Testament in great gobs this week. My church (as opposed to D's, that is) is doing the OT in Sunday School this year. Between being completely bored by their take on Genesis (although it's kind of fun to see the sorts of contortions you have to go through to make the text support the belief that Eve was *right* to take the fruit, when it so clearly doesn't) and other events kicking in, they somehow got to 1 Samuel without me noticing. I'm doing something different and reading the Living Bible translation, which is frustratingly non-poetic (I've never seriously read through any translation but good old King James) but does bring out the amazingly rich story.

The story is good, but reading Genesis and Exodus in big gulps has really emphasized that those books are filled with obnoxious whiny and/or sneaky sorts, including God. The best part, I've always thought, is the "duel" between Rachel and Leah where they start naming their kids stuff like, "I have prevailed over my sister by claiming my maid and my husband's kid as my own!" Makes me crack up every time. They are seriously messed up.

I was reminded on Sunday, though, that by 1 Samuel, if I ever make it that far, there are some pretty cool sorts. Samuel, and later Nathan, are the kings of the snappy comeback. ("What then is this bleating of goats that I hear?") And I absolutely adore Jonathan. So I've got some incentive to keep going even though the beginning is slow. Also, I've made it to the shinies in Exodus, which unsurprisingly is my favorite part of the Pentateuch.

Comments

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

I've got a copy of that in NC from possibly high school years. I remember it being pretty disturbing to me at the time. Of course, I also didn't know anything about Biblical archaeology at the time. In fact, I still don't (and honestly, don't care so much about the OT), although I saw a really interesting video by Paul Maier on the current state of NT archaeology/documentation.

It's awfully interesting to compare it to the state of LDS archaeology, as well, which I didn't appreciate until seeing from the video the sorts of things that they've been able to find to back up NT statements, and how much of that they didn't have a hundred years ago. If one was a Mormon one could take this optimistically, in that they didn't have any of this evidence a hundred years ago, and who knows what may turn up in the next hundred years, or pessimistically, in the sense of, "why don't they have anything now when people are looking pretty actively?"

Maybe someday I'll feel brave enough to post publicly on my experiences with cognitive dissonance.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I'm not an expert on Biblical archaeology, but my dad's always been pretty in to it, and things come up now and again at church, or even in general. Like, for a long time, they thought writing was invented at one time, long after the time of Moses, which was the basis for some claims about the Pentateuch. But in more recent years, they've found evidence of much older writing, which destroys that argument, although it doesn't actually prove anything. (I don't have specifics off the top of my head, though I"m sure I could find them if I looked.) ANyway, that sort of thing is of interest not just to Bible scholars, but to anyone interested in the development of language and writing.