O.K. class I am the first to admit that the information dissected by Lester and Coogan go a step beyond the (hermeneutics and exegesis) of what I am used to in my previous Scripture studies to this point. I truly find myself trying to dig for a buried treasure in a very deep sand pit. The sands of my human experience and the knowing of “the rest of the story” fills back in every shovel full I grab! This for me is a very real and frustrating problem, it is not intentional but as I look at my blogs (which serve as course writings for this course) Dr. Lester is right I always divert to as he says what would make a good homily. I have sincerely tried to fight this temptation, as I know others of you have also by our conversations. So we must challenge each other here to dig a little deeper in these materials together so we can find the treasure not only faster but more of it.
Besides the very obvious human fact that I graduated in my theology B.A. with a 3.9 G.P.A. and my over whelming fear to receive a sub par grade in my first masters level class abhors me. Even more important than that is the reality that when I become stretched to the point of fear and the unknown I become very aware of the fact that God has a treasure waiting for me on the other side of the fear and doubt and sometimes my own laziness to do the extra hard digging in the sand that keeps filling in the hole that hides the true treasure.
I see it in Dr. Lester’s eyes and tone as we as a class meander through several weeks of this class falling prey to what we know and are familiar with and yes probably most comfortable with! Yes, we know that all of Scripture leads to the truth, which is found in Christ Jesus. But Dr. Lester’s passion and Coogan’s determination to help us dig a little harder and a little faster and if we proceed to this together we will reach the treasure that lies deeply hidden within the soft sands of our comfort levels. It is good that our comfort levels are rooted in Christ and the “Rest of the Story” this is truly why we were created to find such truth. That being said if God brought us here to this moment and this class then God has a hidden treasure of which Lester and Coogan want us to find so that we will truly become the ministers of God’s people that we were created to become. After all we all know no cross, no crown!
So let us all take something each week and dig beyond the soft sands of our realities to unveil the historical and literal function and purpose of the Hebrew Scriptures. We can do this by each taking one of the things presented to us in this course and dig beyond the surface. As with anything we can dig much deeper and farther if we accomplish this together through the use of our course tools such as blogging, class discussion etc.
I will now take the first spade full and attempt to uncover the true treasure of what Dr. Lester so passionately wants us to discover not for himself, but for ourselves and our future ministries. So here it goes: A separate blog will follow attempting to dig beyond the surface of this week’s assignment. Wish me luck and good luck to you all; remember anything worthwhile is usually hard to do!
God Bless,
Deacon Jim
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3 comments:
Thank your for bringing this up! We as a class need to forge ahead and actively pursue building a community that fosters fully intellectual (and in turn pastoral) growth through what we can learn in this class. We are all intelligent, capable, passionate people...but that can cause us to be a big stubborn about what and how we want to learn!
God bless as we continue to journey together
You beat me to the punch on this one.
I see this class as dealing with both hard and soft sciences, with the innate desire to find contemporary meaning in what we study muddying the water.
One aspect of the Hebrew Bible pertains to concrete facts, such as who led which army, which towns were burned, when did a particular group migrate from here to there, how was God understood, etc. These facts, although not always clear, seem to speak and stand for themselves in an historical context.
Another aspect entails what the Hebrew Bible meant to the people of the time. The story authors and editors had intended audiences and we are asked to understand their work in the relevant historical context. In particular I am thinking about Dtr 1 and 2, and how important it must have been to paint a coherent picture of the Jewish nation, especially at a time of Exile. I am forced to ask, “What were their social, economic and spiritual needs? What were the political realities? What were these people thinking?”
I, for one, feel an powerful desire to extrapolate meaning to the present day, bypassing contemporaneous intent for the authors, editors and audience. Frankly, I recoil from much of what I read, based almost entirely on my delicate modern sensibilities of right and wrong. But here’s the rub: How can I find an authentic message for the modern world when I don’t understand the original message?
Perhaps it would help to more thoroughly research what life was really like a few centuries on either side of the Babylonian Exile. Perhaps then I would more fully understand the gravity of what was being compiled and edited.
[PS: I graduated undergrad with straight Fs.]
Thank you for this post! I left class last week a bit discouraged wondering if I had wasted several weeks of my life moving backward. I guess it is time to remove the pastoral hat for a while and replace it with the scholar hat!
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