Comments Off on For those who do not take numbers in the Old Testament symbolically … at least part of the time, I wonder what they do with this:
The Sumerian king list: translation
Should one take the numbers in all Ancient Near Eastern texts literally? … I doubt they’d agree to that.
Okay, I can’t be the only Christian who thinks parts of the Bible are boring, can I? I’m listening through the Old Testament currently. And, I thought I was going to slip into a coma this morning because I was listening to the beginning of the Book of Numbers. I understand the whole “the Bible is not boring, Avatar is boring thing,” though for the life of me I can’t stomach listening to John Piper anymore (BTW, isn’t it possible that both the scripture and Avatar could be interesting? Not an either or thing in my opinion. Avatar was one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time). People are trying to say that the scripture is really interesting. And I agree, or else I wouldn’t have invested a significant portion of my life studying the Bible both as an individual and in a formal academic setting. But, I think we have to at least be honest that there are parts of the Bible are BORING.* A list of my top three are:
What do you think? What parts of the scripture do you read to put yourself to sleep at night? Or, am I just being impious?
* By “boring” I do not mean unimportant. Certainly genealogies are not my cup of tea, but I understand that they would have been of the utmost importance to an Ancient Israelite.
Yesterday there was a post on the Desiring God blog about “boring” passages in the Bible (why they put boring in quotes I don’t know; I would just call them boring), especially the Pentateuch. There is so much wrong with the particular details of this post that it is difficult to really know where to go with this. Do you deal with the fundamentalism or the anachronism or both? I’ll try both. I’ll just say a brief word about the fundamentalism. Moses wrote the Pentateuch? Really? I’ll provide two quotes from the post, though there are a number:
For example, when listing out the instructions for how to build the tabernacle, Moses goes into great detail about all the materials and measurements. Did he intend for the reader of Exodus to actually build a tabernacle? No! That was Bezalel and Oholiab’s job (Exodus 31:1-11).
Rather, it appears that Moses included the full set of blueprints in order to convey to us, as we literally labor to read them, a greater sense of the weight and worth of God.
I thought that even the most conservative scholars that I respect were past this. If you still think this, I recommend you read all of Introduction to Reading the Pentateuchby Jean-Louis Ska. Or, you should at the very, very least read chapter 3 of the book free HERE (or as much as you can free it’s probably my favorite book on the Pentateuch). This is the best advice that I can give since most people who still believe Moses wrote the Pentateuch may take a lot of convincing otherwise.
Okay. Now, for anachronism. How about this quote:
Consider this: Why does the Pentateuch contain so much material that describes the old covenant and its laws? One reason is that Moses wanted to increase our anticipation and appreciation of a new covenant.
Really? Moses wanted to do that. The covenant wasn’t even “old” yet; It was just the covenant. Unless “Moses” was going 007, I really, really doubt this is what was going on. “Okay I’m going to write down these laws, so that these people will think they are for them. But, what I’m really doing is writing them to increase the anticipation and appreciation of some people over 3000 years from now.” Maybe that’s being a little unfair, but that is literally what the post says is one thing that “Moses” wanted to do. Do you truly think that “Moses” had anything to do with a “new” covenant in mind before the covenant was even “old.”
It’s been a busy day; we are starting confirmation preparation in our parish tonight. But, I noticed we had an Old Testament reading for the day – Numbers 21.4b-9. Not a very pleasant one. The people of Israel complain against God and Moses. God proceeds to send snakes among the people to bite them and kill them. The people are only rescued when Moses prays and makes a bronze serpent for them to look at.
This passage of course gets picked up in the New Testament; however, I didn’t have a lot of time to comment. I thought to myself “If there was one quick thing I could say about this passage in the brief time I have to write, what would it be?” And, what I came up with was “I’m glad God doesn’t send snakes at people anymore.” Or, at least I don’t hear about frequent snake attacks at churches or synagogues or anywhere else for that matter. Frankly, I complain against God sometimes. I’m not proud of that, but I might as well be honest. Yet I am deathly afraid of snakes. I’m not even sure it would take a snake bite to kill me, just seeing enough of them at one time might do the trick. (Never could have starred in Raiders of the Lost Ark I guess, even though I have Harrison Ford good looks). I know according to the story this didn’t permanently get Israel in line, but I think this might have done it for me, that is if I wasn’t one of those that initially died from snake bite.