Tag: Mount Sinai
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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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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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Jesus, Moses, Matthew and Literature
As I see it, it’s unsustainable to regard the Gospels as history or biography as currently understood. The writer of Matthew’s Gospel wasn’t a ‘disinterested’ professional, assembling, evaluating, and presenting a comprehensive, strictly chronological, balanced account. He was a believer, writing an extended religious tract, to buttress the faith of other believers, and persuade the…