Category: Hebrew Bible
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God’s Life Story (ii)
A previous post noted that the first Israelites were Canaanites, and so their chief god was called El or Elohim (as in the name Isra-el). How many other gods and goddesses did they follow? The answer is, lots! Unsurprisingly, the Hebrew Bible doesn’t go into details, but frequently denounces Israelites who followed the weather/fertility god…
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God’s Life Story
When people give thought to the word ‘God’, they may well have sophisticated notions about its meaning, and might use such words as infinite, eternal, all-powerful and so on. But let’s step back a bit, and focus on the Jewish-Christian God. If we journey back in time, we discover that he has a ‘life history’…
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The things that you’re liable to read in the Bible …
Apparently, there are still some people who believe that the Earth is flat and, presumably, at least some of them are not joking. Equally unreal (at least to me) is that there are also people who believe the entire Bible to be literally true and historically accurate, all without errors of any kind. It’s unquestionably…
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Jesus on the Sea of Galilee
Following on from my previous posts about the Feeding of the 5000 being a parable rather than historical, the same can be said about Jesus on the Sea of Galilee. He’s said to have instantly calmed its stormy waves – “a windstorm arose on the sea, so great that the boat was being swamped”. Normally,…
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Food for Thought (ii)
Rather than being dismissive because of disbelief in ‘miracles’, my previous post suggested understanding gospel accounts, like the feeding of the 5000, as ‘story-parables’ rather than historical facts. But if this is a story, where might the idea originally have come from? The early followers of Jesus, being Jews, were well versed in the Hebrew…
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The Exodus times Three
In its final form, Exodus, like the Bible’s other opening books, was a well-crafted compilation using a variety of oral and written source materials. These had originated, and then been expanded upon, for at least five centuries, in different locations, at diverse times, by numberless story tellers and writers. The final editors had exemplary respect…
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The Enigmatic Moses
Was there a Moses? The most likely answer is, yes ! All the Hebrew Bible sources, from the earliest onwards, while often reflecting different perspectives, are in agreement here. Since there are details in their contributions which are rather ‘awkward’, this makes it unlikely that Moses was ‘custom built’ by the writers/editors, and more likely…
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Exodus – the Burning Bush
In these Exodus blogs, I’m exploring some of the ways in which the writers/editors crafted their work. In my view, they were writing neither straightforward history, nor fiction, but what might be called ‘religious literature’, which they shaped into an inspiring eye, ear and imagination catching, ‘national epic’. I think of it as being mythicised…
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