Well, I finally had that discussion with someone else about the Bible. Of course, I have been bringing it up to my roommate, especially when he suggests I clean up the place a little - the story about Mary, Martha, Jesus, and the one needful thing truly is a wondrous tale - but I actually sat down and had a conversation with someone. This someone also happened to be my mother.
I decided that I wanted to have a discussion with someone that I could actually learn something from, and I knew that my mother is very knowledgeable of the bible. Little did I know, she was actually very knowledgeable, and I definitely got taught a few things.
The first thing I learned was that for three years after she had my oldest sibling, she was a stay-at-home mom. Quite the turn around from today's Mom, for sure. But while she stayed at home, she decided to study the Bible. And that's it. She studied the Bible everyday (about)for three years. She had a Bible completely covered with little annotations in the margins. Once she ran out of margin space, she wrote everything down in notebooks. She had more notebooks on the Bible than I do for my 120 credits' worth of classes. It was crazy! And then she brought out a book entitled An Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible by James Strong, published 1894. A very old, very large book. It also had a Greek and Hebrew dictionary in it, which my mother exploited to the utmost. Every verb, noun, and phrase was looked up and translated back into Hebrew and Greek, then retranslated back into English to see how many different interpretations there were. And there were a lot. She told me that her favorite book, Daniel, was very different in Hebrew than it was in English. This intrigued me, so I asked if I could borrow her book. It is now currently sitting in my room. I'm somewhat afraid to touch the thing; it looks like it'll explode into a cloud of dust at any moment. But I'm sure I'll get over the fear soon and actually started really reading the Bible, as a multilingual facet of history.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Thursday, November 4, 2010
For the Test!
Assignment: Why didn't you finish the Bible in this semester?
What we will be focusing on for the New Testament: Book of Luke, the end of Book of John, the Book of Revelation, Book of Acts, two passages from Corinthians (2:9, and 13:, and 15:), Judges.
Read these chapters for Plotz as well
To know for the exam:
Parables for Book of Luke
How Bottom (From Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream), misread I Corinthians 2:9, and how he has been the only man to see, much less cohabit with, the queen of the fairies.
The Exam Questions:
1. What is temenos?
A - A holy precinct, the carving out of a sacred space within a secular landscape.
2. What does Sarah pretend to be so that she can be said to be Jewish?
A - A mute
3. According to Frye, what is the epiphanic moment in the Book of Job?
A - Chapter 38, when God speaks to Job out of the whirlwind.
Note: an epiphany is a manifestation of the divine.
4. According to Frye, the happy ending of the framed device is what?
A - The right one! Because the Bible is a comedy, and so must end on a high note.
5. What does "Islam" mean?
A - Submission to God
Note: Please read the Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie. It's not going to be on the test, though. Just a suggestion.
6. Why did Plotz think that Gideon was such an important character that he would name his child after the Judge?
A - Plotz considered Gideon one of the better people of the Bible, and because Gideon was one of the lowest people of the Bible that rises magnificently to the challenge God sets before him.
7. Of what tribe was Ruth?
A - The Moabites
8. What book of the bible has the most literary references?
A - Ecclesiastes
9. What Psalm inspired Allegri's misere?
A - Psalm 51
10. Define parataxis.
A - A literary form in which all clauses carry equal weight; e.g. they have no subordinate conjunctions.
11. What are the two types of Wisdom?
A - Conventional: proverbial literature; Speculative: dark, dooming philosophies, such as the Book of Ecclesiastes.
12. What book in the Bible never mentions God? (mentioned in Frye, Chapter 3)
A - The Book of Esther
13. Samson's act, after regrowing his hair, does what?
A - Pulls down the temple of the Phillistines, killing many people (and himself).
14.What is the metaphor comparing at the end of Ecclesiastes?
A - the metaphor is that of a decaying house to a human body
15. Ecclesiastes is a what?
A - A preacher
16. What is the central question of Job?
A - Theodicy, the attempt to justify the benevolence of a god that allows suffering of innocents.
A2 - Where shall wisdom be found?
17. What does Dr. Sexson's father warn him about when he traveled abroad?
A - Wine, women, and song.
18. In the parable that Jesus speaks in the book of Luke concerning Mary and Martha, Mary is encumbered by many things. However, Jesus says she should be concerned with what?
A - The needful thing.
19. In the book of Job, Job says: Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark, let it look for light, but have none, neither let it see the dawning of the day: because it shut not up the doors of my mother's ___, nor hid sorrow from my eyes. Why died I not from the ____?
A - womb
20. What Apocryphal Book was the inspiration for Peter Quince at the Clavier?
A - Susanna
21. What story by Flannery O'Connor was about the burning bush?
A - Parker's Back
22 What was the conventional wisdom of Job's three friends?
A - Anybody who suffers must have done something wrong to deserve such suffering.
23. What does Job's wife suggest to Job?
A - That Job curse God and die.
24. Pages 116-190 for Frye; know them. They cover the fifth level of reading called the Kerygmatic.
A - The Kerygmatic answers the questions: How do I live a fuller life?
What we will be focusing on for the New Testament: Book of Luke, the end of Book of John, the Book of Revelation, Book of Acts, two passages from Corinthians (2:9, and 13:, and 15:), Judges.
Read these chapters for Plotz as well
To know for the exam:
Parables for Book of Luke
How Bottom (From Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream), misread I Corinthians 2:9, and how he has been the only man to see, much less cohabit with, the queen of the fairies.
The Exam Questions:
1. What is temenos?
A - A holy precinct, the carving out of a sacred space within a secular landscape.
2. What does Sarah pretend to be so that she can be said to be Jewish?
A - A mute
3. According to Frye, what is the epiphanic moment in the Book of Job?
A - Chapter 38, when God speaks to Job out of the whirlwind.
Note: an epiphany is a manifestation of the divine.
4. According to Frye, the happy ending of the framed device is what?
A - The right one! Because the Bible is a comedy, and so must end on a high note.
5. What does "Islam" mean?
A - Submission to God
Note: Please read the Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie. It's not going to be on the test, though. Just a suggestion.
6. Why did Plotz think that Gideon was such an important character that he would name his child after the Judge?
A - Plotz considered Gideon one of the better people of the Bible, and because Gideon was one of the lowest people of the Bible that rises magnificently to the challenge God sets before him.
7. Of what tribe was Ruth?
A - The Moabites
8. What book of the bible has the most literary references?
A - Ecclesiastes
9. What Psalm inspired Allegri's misere?
A - Psalm 51
10. Define parataxis.
A - A literary form in which all clauses carry equal weight; e.g. they have no subordinate conjunctions.
11. What are the two types of Wisdom?
A - Conventional: proverbial literature; Speculative: dark, dooming philosophies, such as the Book of Ecclesiastes.
12. What book in the Bible never mentions God? (mentioned in Frye, Chapter 3)
A - The Book of Esther
13. Samson's act, after regrowing his hair, does what?
A - Pulls down the temple of the Phillistines, killing many people (and himself).
14.What is the metaphor comparing at the end of Ecclesiastes?
A - the metaphor is that of a decaying house to a human body
15. Ecclesiastes is a what?
A - A preacher
16. What is the central question of Job?
A - Theodicy, the attempt to justify the benevolence of a god that allows suffering of innocents.
A2 - Where shall wisdom be found?
17. What does Dr. Sexson's father warn him about when he traveled abroad?
A - Wine, women, and song.
18. In the parable that Jesus speaks in the book of Luke concerning Mary and Martha, Mary is encumbered by many things. However, Jesus says she should be concerned with what?
A - The needful thing.
19. In the book of Job, Job says: Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark, let it look for light, but have none, neither let it see the dawning of the day: because it shut not up the doors of my mother's ___, nor hid sorrow from my eyes. Why died I not from the ____?
A - womb
20. What Apocryphal Book was the inspiration for Peter Quince at the Clavier?
A - Susanna
21. What story by Flannery O'Connor was about the burning bush?
A - Parker's Back
22 What was the conventional wisdom of Job's three friends?
A - Anybody who suffers must have done something wrong to deserve such suffering.
23. What does Job's wife suggest to Job?
A - That Job curse God and die.
24. Pages 116-190 for Frye; know them. They cover the fifth level of reading called the Kerygmatic.
A - The Kerygmatic answers the questions: How do I live a fuller life?
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