Rels 312 1st Edition Exam 2 Study Guide Lectures 4 8 Lecture 4 Biblical Judaism 2 4 Finis is a Western tendency The difference between time and space is that time is unrepeatable space is We ll either temporalize space or spatialize time Westerners tend to spatialize time In Judaism they tend to temporalize space Other animals take a cyclical approach to time Humans are the only organisms that try to find meaning in life In Judaism it s the relationship that God has with the word that renders time meaningful Eschatology the study of the last things the final things o Telos the goal toward which history is moving o Finis the last things in a sequence of events as a result of the beginning things happen for a reason and the reason is the found in the things to come For Jews the future is insecure which is scary All they know about the future is that it contains death The future does however contain promise The Promise is His Presence and His Presence is the fulfillment of the promise That is why they always wanted to go back to the security and captivity of Egypt For Jews creation isn t an act that happened a long time ago you don t know who you are until you stop becoming who you are We have a conservative tendency Those who are most resistant to change and the concept of Telos are those who are most invested in the status quo They re also most likely to reduce Telos into tribal monotheism God s overarching relation to the world is creating Kirkegaard there s no such thing as being a Christian just the process of becoming one That creation took 6 days shows how God works in and through time Truth endures through time like a promise It s temporal He s mentioned these two things quite a bit 1 Contingency of election Israel is temporal but God and His purpose aren t Israel isn t necessary for God s promise 2 Inclusivity of election Fretheim God s relationship in creation is the same as in the eschaton God s initially exclusive move is for the sake of a maximally inclusive end Initially God chose Abraham initial exclusivity The scandal of particularity leads to embarrassment and elitism History of Judaism Biblical Judaism 1700 B C E 70 C E 1 Pre history 1700 B C E 1000 B C E 2 United Israel 1000 B C E 722 B C E a The Kingdom 1000 B C E 586 B C E b Exiled Beyond 586 B C E present 3 Division destruction 722 B C E 70 C E Rabbinical Judaism 70 C E present 1 Pre Modern 70 C E c 1800 C E 2 Modern 1800 C E present 1 Two Creation Stories Genesis 1 1 2 4a Priestly narrative Genesis 2 4b Jahwist and Eloist narrative Disk and dome cosmology flat earth and above Adam first then vegetation Garden then Eve rib actually a penis Story to explain culture and life as it was i e to explain why only humans don t have a bone in the penis Original Sin Fall from Grace originally appeared in Helenistic Greece a culture that was extremely sexist blamed Eve for the Original Sin o There s no reference later in the Bible that associates anything negative with Eden o There s never a desire to go back to Eden i e it wasn t perfection utopia Jesus doesn t use Eden as an example of a sinful generation he references the days of Noah Lecture 5 Intro to Judaism 2 11 Etiological story put forth to explain an aspect of reality Alexander the Great and Greek culture introduced sexist view of creation Before it was just God asking the 3 individually why they were hiding and telling them they have to accept the consequences of their actions no blame 3 Parts to Our Inner Being Psychology The mind and will keep the irrational part of being human in check MIND rationality WILL choices with this EMOTIONS irrationality Greeks don t deal well In Greece men hold the power of rationality and the military is the source of power both working together to drive control dominate the irrational emotional women They also didn t like nature childbirth Eve s punishment sex Adam s sinfulness is spread through semen time change and particularities Mind Will Rationality Choices Emotions Irrational Men Rationality Military Power Women Irrational emotional Earliest writing in the Jewish Bible was probably The Song of Deborah She was a strong military general and had her name of coins The Jews were not sexist but the Greeks interpreted it in a sexist way Sexism was imported through the Genesis 3 story The Bible doesn t make negative reference to Adam and Eve i e hat the Fall was a transition from perfection to humanity There s also never a desire to return to Eden In Greece everyone had to worship the emperor s gods except the Jews because they had tradition on their side Christians were considered heretics heresy comes from the idea of newness because they weren t connected to any tradition or pedigree Christians only began to be persecuted after they separated from Judaism 2 Noah and the Ark Flood Narrative Cain and Abel is a story about class division Written from the perspective of the animal husbandry profession animal tending v crop tending We know this because Abel won The flood story came about because people were expressing concerns over overpopulation Gardens are built as defenses Adam and Eve probably weren t the only beings since they needed protection Supernatural beasts names Nephilim came to earth and had sex with women The flood came because humans were seen as a threat to the gods 3 Abraham and Sarai s sons Ham Shem and Jepeth Shem semite semitic people Jews Sarai didn t know if she was a ble to have a child so she gave Abraham her slave to conceive a child His name was Ishmeal All the leaders in the Hebrew faith are tragedy figures 4 Hagar names God A Roi when Abraham and Sarai kick Hagar to the curb This is the only place in the Bible where this name is used It means God who sees me who sees the mistreated When Dinah was raped it was an offense to the man to the clan very much how it is handled today The men sought revenge Kirkegaard says that faith suspends ethics Teleology is the suspension of ethics 3 stages of living Religious Ethical Aesthetic 5 Isaac s story can t suspend the ethical to get to the religious Abraham would kill his son and God would ask him to 6 Joseph is the youngest brother and the most favored of his father His brothers are jealous and sell him into slavery It s a story about positive relationships between Jews and other outside people basis of rational dialogue Joseph gets along really well He works his way into the confidence of leaders True reciprocity 7 Moses was the most important figure …