The Bible

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The Bible
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Timeline (approximate)
BCE

• 950 Solomon builds Yahwehs
  Temple in Jerusalem
• 922 Israel splits into rival kingdoms
  of Judah (south) and
  Israel (north)
• 850-750 Homer is active poet in Greece
• 587 The Babylonians under
  Nebuchadnezzar destroy
  Jerusalem
• 587-538 Jewish priests begin the final
  process of compiling
  Torah
• 563-483 In India, Siddhartha Gautama
  experiences mystical
  enlightenment, becoming the Buddha

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Timeline (approximate)

• BCE
• 551-579 Confucius enunciates a religious
  philosophy in China
• 336-323 Alexander the Great conquers most of
  the known world, bringing Greek
  culture and ideas to the ancient
  Near East
• CE
• 27-30 Jesus of Nazareth preaches Torah
  reforms and is executed by the Roman
  governor Pontius Pilate
• 66-70 The first narrative of Jesus life,
  the Gospel of Mark, is written

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Timeline (approximate)

• CE
• 70 Roman armies destroy Jerusalem and
  its Temple
• 80-90 The gospels of Matthew and Luke are
  written
• 570-632 The Prophet Mohammed dictates the
  Quran and founds Islam

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Biblical Analysis

• Historical Criticism
• Is this event likely to have occurred in the way
  the author presents it?
• What is the writers bias or agenda and how does
  it affect what he reports?
• Investigates authorship, date and place of
  composition

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Historical Analysis continued

• Form Criticism
• Recognizes that in addition to oral and
  documentary sources, longer accounts are made up
  of smaller units of narration folk tales,
  genealogies, anecdotes, war hymns, battle stories
  and formulas for priestly rituals
• Form criticism would look up the stories behind
  the stories (i.e. the oral narrative that became
  the written)

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Literary Criticism

• Literary criticism examines the literary genres
  in the text and any unifying theme. It explores
  the figurative language (poetry) of the story
  telling
• For instance, the Pentateuch could be seen as
  illustrating Gods promises and the delayed
  fulfillment of these promises
• Narratives illustrating how Yahwehs covenant
  brings national success while disobedience
  results in national annihilation
• How form connects to story-telling 21 of the New
  Testaments 27 books take the form of letters
  how the celebration of sexual love in the Song of
  Solomon differs from the content in other
  narratives

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Key Terms

• Bible little books
• Pentateuch Five scrolls / first 5 books of the
  Hebrew Bible/Torah (also Tanak)
• Torah Law or Teaching
• Religion linking back or binding
• Elohim plural for gods or divine powers
• Yahweh The 4 consonants comprising the sacred
  name of Israels God (YHWH). Revealed to
  Moses at the Burning Bush. Might translate to
  he is to be
• Transcendent That which goes beyond human
  knowledge. This may be the only way to
  think about Godan idea beyond language

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Key Terms for New Testament

• Synoptic Problem (seen together) This refers to
  scholarly attempts to unravel the literary
  dependence or connection among the three Gospels
  Matthew, Mark and Luke.
• Q Document (German Quelle meaning (source) a
  document thought to have been written around 50
  and 70 B.C.E. Because it does not survive,
  scholars reconstruct its contents from passages
  that Matthew and Luke have in common but did not
  derive from Mark (see attached)
• Gospel Good news
• Exegesis Critical interpretation of the Bible

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Terms Contiued

• Gnosticism/Gnostic Gospels Gnosticism was a
  movement in early Christianity which taught that
  salvation was gained though special knowledge
  (gnosis) revealed through a spiritual savior
  (presumably Jesus). Answers to questions are
  found within, not without. This was one reason
  the belief system became heretical. The gospels
  themselves are writings from around 2nd century
  about Jesus (Gospel of Mary, Thomas, Judas, among
  others). Question how does content from Gnostic
  texts change meaning of Bible (Old and New
  Test.)?
• Apocrypha means hidden books and refers to non
  canonical literature that parallel or supplement
  New Testament canon. There is much debate as to
  the importance of these texts (read intro from
  Oxford Annotated for more)

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• Apocalypse Unveiling of unseen realities
• Eschatological Dealing with final events (see
  Revelation)
• Matt, Mark and Luke
• All 3 begin with Jesus baptism in the river
  Jordan, followed by descriptions of his tours
  through villages of Galilee, where he heals sick,
  teaches and debates Torah. Jesus only makes one
  trip to Jerusalem in these three, but in John
  Jesus is going back and forth between Galilee and
  Jerusalem.
• In the synoptics Jesus teaches mostly in parables
  (fictional narratives comparing Gods kingdom to
  an object or action) or aphorisms (quotable
  statements that question conventional wisdom).
  In John, Jesus teaches using long, philosophical
  discourses about his divine nature, not the
  kingdom of God. Parable example Luke 6 39-42.
  John example 834-42

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Biblical Roles of God

• God as Divine Sovereign
• Yahweh, a God of tenderness and compassion, slow
  to anger, rich in kindness and faithfulness for
  thousands he maintains his kindness, forgives
  faultsyet he lets nothing go unchecked,
  punishing the fathers fault in the sons and in
  the grandsons to the third and fourth generations
  (Exodus 345-7)

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Biblical Roles of God

• God as Warrior
• Israelite poets sang of Yahwehs prowess on the
  battlefield, praising him as Yahweh Sabaoth.
  This translates to cosmic general or commander
  of invisible armies. Note the armies he
  unleashes against Israels Canaanite enemies
  (Joshua 513-15)

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Biblical Roles of God

• God as King / Lord of History
• Yahweh invisibly reigning over Israel as
  (heavens) king
• Genesis through Kings 2 present Yahweh as the
  Lord of historythe all-powerful director of
  human events. This differs from a god or gods
  meddling in human affairs

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Genesis

• (roughly) 3 Part Division
• Primeval history (chapters 1-11) shows the Deity
  manifesting a profound ambivalence toward his
  flawed human creation
• Ancestral Stories (chapters 12-36) God/human
  relations improve as the narrative focuses on a
  series of promises God makes to specific
  groupsstory telling becomes more complex?
• The story of Joseph (chapters 37-50) God makes
  Abrahams descendents a source of universal
  blessing. Genesis concludes with the chosen
  people settled in Egypt, far from their promised
  homeland

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• The Sacrifice of Isaac
• Caravaggio 1600
• The artist thrusts the action to the front of
  the picture frame. Abraham is intercepted in the
  act of slitting his son's throat by an angel who
  with his right hand prevents the murder and with
  his left points to the substitute victim. Light
  directs the viewer to scan the scene from left to
  right as it picks out the angel's shoulder and
  left hand, the quizzical face of Abraham, the
  right shoulder and terrified face of Isaac and
  finally the docile ram. A continuous movement
  links the back of the angel's neck to Isaac's
  profile and angel and boy have a family
  likeness.
• From Web Gallery of Art

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Michelangelo

• The Fall from the Sistine Chapel Ceiling

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