Rub it in, Seminary students. You get two more weeks of freedom.
The undergrad program starts a week later, but somewhat enjoying pain - though not quite to masochist levels - I am taking a summer intensive the week before the semester starts.
Now, the trouble is that I am slightly hyperactive. Some part of me must be active at all times. I can count brain activity during road trips or long trans-Atlantic flights, however in a class, daydreaming is not permissible. Neither is jiggling one's foot or leg or tapping the desk. I haven't been told this, but I'm pretty sure I've got a decent read on all my professors and students so far where that is concerned.
Therefore, I take notes.
Not just notes,
POWER NOTES.
I wrote 32 1/2 single-sided pages of notes on Monday and 38 1/2 today.
My right hand is screaming.
So I thought I'd type. Hehe.
My professor is arguably brilliant, and has a wealth of knowledge, and has contributed to Old Testament dictionaries and articles and all sorts of impressive things like that. He also has a very very dry sense of humor. He also finds it absolutely necessary to take students on a guilt-trip to the orient about the lack of organized daily scripture readings. They would be far more convicting if his choice of words wouldn't strike my rather odd funny bone (I laugh at the darnedest things. Out loud. When no one else thinks they are funny. I would find it embarrassing except I'm too busy at the moment laughing at whatever struck me as funny). Don't worry, I'm not laughing at the professor in class. Just smiling with appreciation.
He also has very unique insights which I find thought-provoking.
Since most of my mental brain power has been used up absorbing profound tidbits from antiquity all day (and composing the above), I thought I'd share some of my notes and hopefully you will find them interesting and entertaining. No I don't expect you to read them all. I'll use quotation marks when I'm actually quoting him, the rest are paraphrases.
"The fragmentation of Christianity is in large part over disagreements over what the Scriptures mean, and over the dubious practice of giving our allegiance to what we have been taught about Scripture rather than going to Scriptures themselves."
From 586 BC there has never been a time when the entire Jewish People has been gathered back into their homeland. It has only ever been a small fraction that have relocated to Israel.
Archaeology as a science was not invented until 1798 AD. It was founded by Napoleon Bonaparte, who had an extremely difficult relationship with the Roman Catholic Church of France. While traveling in Egypt, he saw the ancient pyramids and reasoned that these ancient places in Egypt must have documentation of the TRUE history of the world, which would, in his opinion, quite obviously disprove Scripture. So he founded the Royal Archaeology Society for the purpose of disproving biblical accuracy. I don't suppose it would cause him a large amount of chagrine to discover that Archaeology has done the opposite of his intent.
"Meanwhile, back in Genesis..."
The days of creation can be put into pairs of form and fullness. Example:
Day 1, the form of light is created and separated from the darkness. Day four is when the great lights are created - sun, moon, stars.
Day 2 the sky and sea, or atmospheres are created. Day 5 the inhabitants of the sky and seas are created.
Day 3 the land and the vegetation are created. Day six the inhabitants of the land and eaters of the vegetation are created.
"No conclusion is superior to its underlying assumptions. If assumptions can be demonstrated to be without fact in their origins, conclusions drawn from them can be assumed to be false."
"Words do not have definitions, they have usages. Although our upbringing and education may lead us to assume a primary meaning for a word, a dictionary may tell us it is not so. A word in any language does not have a single meaning; it has rather a number of meanings which are determined by its usage in a specific location."
Three times in the text (Genesis 1) says the sun and moon determine the length of day. Days 1-3 predate a sun and moon. So we don't know how long days 1-3 were.
"So we have three options.
1. Moses and the Lord are trying to confuse us.
2. The fact is being made sun and moon determine the length of a day
3. Moses is a bad writer and the Lord is a sloppy editor.
Do you think other terms were available to Moses and the Lord? Personally I have high confidence in Moses and the Lord's capabilities. What we know the Scriptures say is that the length of a day happens after the Sun and Moon were created. The Lord chose to tell us about creation with words of His choice. So we don't know how long the pre-sun and moon days were. We just know that he did it."
"It is possible to say the shortest definition of sin is simply, "I will." It makes no difference who speaks the words. The will of God is a straight line of truth and goodness that is unbending. It moves straight and with certainty across the universe of space, time and thought. Any deviation of that will of God, be it in the slightest fraction of degree causes tangent of separation and deviation and sin." ~Donald Gray Barnhouse~
Professor: Anybody hear of 'The Sword of the Lord"?
Student: AMEN! I could tell you all about that!!
Professor: Well, I could tell you more.
"Even in the first generation of humanity, the Child of Promise was not the firstborn, Cain, but Abel. Abraham's second child was the child of promise. Not Ishmael but Isaac; not Esau, but Jacob. Not Reuben, but Judah."
"God is glorified by choosing, preserving, and protecting. As difficult as their existence was, there is continuity from Adam to Jesus of God providing and protecting miraculously for His purposes; from Sumerian paganism to the redemption of mankind."
"Patriarchs: regardless who, in any generation, is the child of the Promise, they often fail miserably and demonstrate their own unworthiness."
"It is not possible to understand the New Testament until you master the Old. This is illustrated by Moses, and where he stands in the minds and hearts of the Jewish people. One of the main things that led to Jesus' death was His claim of not only equality but superiority to Moses. The Sermon On The Mount is a presentation as a second Moses.
Moses came down from Mt. Sinai and preached the Law (see Deuteronomy). Jesus sat on the mountain and taught, comparing the law of Moses - old law - to His Self - new law, or the completion of the old law. The standard was elevated from the deed to the thought."
"The most significant literature in the Ancient World was wisdom literature. Wisdom literature is the oldest genre in the world."
"I apologize for being late. I have a refrigerator that, when I opened it this morning, was flooded. And, in case you haven't noticed, our paper towels here are not that wonderful."
"The dominant motif of all of Scripture is the motif of Exodus: the phenomenon of GOING OUT. This concept surfaces even before the book of Exodus. Abraham was called to go out of his father's house and into the Land of Promise. Both Abraham and Isaac went into the land of Egypt and came out, into the Promised Land. The Children of Israel were in Egypt but God brought them out into the Land of Promise. David went into exile and returned to his promised kingdom. Christ left His home in Glory and came into this world so that His people could go into their Land of Promise."
Both Exodus and the Gospels:
~Proclaim God as the only redemptive solution to the human problem
~Both anchor God's revelation of Himself in actual historical events
~Both focus on covenant mediator who focuses his life on selfless service
~Both portray the sealing of God's covenant with His people by the shedding of innocent blood
~Both reveal God's will for the character conduct of His people
~Both demonstrate the absolute sovereignty of God over history, nature and humankind.
The Egyptians were the most obsessively religious people in the world. They had battalions of deities for every different facet and purpose of life, the total deity population coming to over 3,500. The ten plagues God sent to Egypt each (often humorously) targeted a specific deity (group)
Nile into blood: Assault on goddess Hapi, giver of life to the land. Hapi had a relative named Khnum - the creator of all life and the creator of water. The Nile is one of the most fertile regions on the earth and one of the few rivers that flows North.
Plague of Frogs: targeted the goddess Hekt, also spelled Heket. Her image was that of a shapely woman with the head of a frog. She was entreated for the safety of mother and child during childbirth.
Plague of gnats or lice: against the goddess Hathor. She was one of the many bovine Egyptian dieties. Her murals in Egyptian art show her standing guard over the earth, protecting it from any atmospheric-borne dangers.
Plague of flies: assault on the most important female deity, Isis. She was the goddess of the heavens and superior to any other Egyptian deity that dealt with the heavens (such as Hathor). She and her husband, Osiris, were the couple in Egyptian mythology that took the place Zeus and Hera have in Grecian mythology.
Plague disease on the cattle: Assault on Apis. The form of Apis is the sacred bull. The fertility of the earth and humanity had been assaulted, so now it was the animal's turn. The Apis bull in Egyptian religion was so significant that there was often one found around the palace, treated like a deity. When it died it was mummified and buried like a powerful ruler.
Plague of boils: Against the goddess Sekhmet, the goddess of any dermatological problem.
Plague of hail: associated with Seb, god of the earth or planet, as well as Seth, god of the storm.
Plague of locusts: attacked the god Serapis. His sole function was to protect Egyptian harvests from locusts.
Plague of darkness: Attack on Ammun ra, the sun god.
The Nile and the Sun were the two poles of Egyptian religion. The sun could not be defeated at all. For darkness to conceal the sun shook the foundation of their beliefs. Pharaoh's claimed lineage from the sun.
Plague of the firstborn: Assault on Osiris, husband of Isis, judge of the dead, patron deity of Pharaoh.
"The (Levitical) laws about purity conrtol and restrict access to God. They are designed to create a 'holiness zone' where those who come in close proximity of the Lord will be in a state of ceremonial purity, so that their access to God will not result in death. A worthy objective, I would think."
"God demands that the character and conduct of His people be consistent reflections of the character and conduct of God Himself. The ultimate reality that the Spirit of God now dwells in Believers, is it not mandatory that we, in our character and conduct, that we do what He demands? Could anything be more foolish than to presume immunity to the Lord's demands?"
The law of Deuteronomy contained the following:
"1. Personhood.
Every person had rights, dignity, courtesy, respect, safety, and security.
This was radical and revolutionary. In antiquity, life was cheap. Ordinary people usually had virtually NO individual rights. Deuteronomy specifically states all people are equal before God. It states even the king is subject to the law. That was found no where else in the world!
2. Due process
Deuteronomy provides harsh punishment for false witness. If the person was found guilty of falsehood, the punishment of the accusee was placed on the accuser. The punishments were also designed to meet the crime, also revolutionary.
3. Women's rights
In antiquity, women and children were property, not persons. But in Deuteronomy, women had legal standing, land ownership rights, ineritance provisions. These rights existed NO WHERE before Moses.
4. Private ownership of land
Every family owned land. The law stated that land could never permanently leave that family.
5. Fair wages, and guarantee payment for work.
6. Care of the poor and destitute.
Harvests of crops were specifically designed so that there would be food left in the field for the poor and needy to gather enough food to keep from starving. Laws of Moses also forbade the exploitation of the poor. No one was so insignificant that they could be legally exploited or oppressed. That could be found nowhere in antiquity.
7. Sabbath rest
A genuinely revolutionary idea. In Antiquity, if you had work you worked. If you didn't have work you were looking for it. To not work one day of the week was an act of faith and trust on the Lord.
8. Marriage
Designed to be legally monogamous and permanent. Unheard of in the ancient world.
9. Animal rights
This was a brand new concept at that time. Unless animals were revered as deities, they were disposable and used in any way.
Deuteronomy was preoccupied with things all related to the LOVING relationship between God and His people - and the necessity that His people be like reflections of God in their attitudes and interactions."
"The argument for that theory is a guaranteed cure for insomnia."
"The way you make your way in the world of scholarship is throw everything against the wall and hope it sticks, and hope you said it first; 'cause that way you'll get your name to stick too. It doesn't matter how bizarre the idea is, you'll be remembered."
"That view of Jesus makes Him look like a faculty-lounge lizard of an eighteenth-century theological school."
"That historians findings are highly entertaining fiction."
