Late, not Sleepy
Hey all. I've been working on a longish post on the Torah, and I am finding it difficult. Parts of that collection of books moves me with an ominous fear of a moral Divine...parts of that collection strike me as nothing more than very ancient, and painfully human, moral and ritual codes. I ordered two (cheapish) Intros to the OT and am reading Boadt. I like his approach so far. He notes what could only be expected: cultural similarities in the Torah what little we know of that region and time. I read much of the famous Code of Hammurabi, and do not find the regulations in the Torah any more humane; in fact, in at least one place, cursing a parent, the COH is more lenient. It also concludes expressing concern
"that the strong might not injure the weak, in order to protect the widows and orphans." Sure there are things in the COH that I find morally deficient; likewise the Torah. I really am trying to consider the fundamentalist viewpoint, the position the text itself takes in many places: that what we have in the Torah is close interaction with an utterly ominous and judging moral God; that may in fact be true, but I still can't believe all the ritual/moral/purity instruction is God-given even if the books themselves claim to be.
I know the Divine nature is whatever it is, and I do not want to bleed too much into the longer post I'm working on, but frankly I find all of this very frustrating. Personally discouraging.
Getting into the Episcopal war blogs again today a bit: they are almost all about homosexuality, though some deal with salvation questions. I have been reading the "conservative" side. For them, it all gets back to the book, the collection of texts we call the bible. It doesn't really matter, or doesn't seem to, if homosexuality turns out to be the deep seated orientation it seems to be, that gay relationships can be loving and committed...what matters to the conservatives are those verses in that book. And they are very creative, arguing that dietary laws were clearly set aside by the NT but not the moral laws of the Torah. Okay. So when do we start stoning people? Maybe the famous story of Jesus saying, "he who is without sin, cast the first stone" is apocryphal, showing up in some odd spots in the old manuscripts and missing in most that we have from John. But I just cannot believe that ALL biblical books are not culturally bound. That God is breaking through uniquely in Jesus, but that the composition of the books, whatever God was trying to say through them, was shunted through a very human author who made sense of his revelation and religious experience in light of his cultural norms.
Look, we didn't put women on juries or let them vote or hold public office for MILLENIA. Does that mean the civil rights movement for women and minority groups, newfangled as it is, should be discarded in favor of the "traditional faith." Oh, I know what the conservs would say; I don't even want to get into it here. But right now, the Torah is challenging my faith. The best solution really seems to be that God was expressing himself through various religions in the region, and that somehow the Jews got involved with him in a more direct way. But even the stele with the COH on it shows the King bowing to a god, maybe the god of justice, and it declares the King to be delivering the law at the behest of the gods. This, of course, is centuries before the Mosaic code. The Torah does not strike me as markedly more enlightened. Enlightened in passages, yes, concern for the alien and the poor and the oppressed figures largely in many places. But so much of it is culture dependent: death as punishment for crimes large and small, ritual sacrifice as atonement for sin, an extensive purity cultus, food restrictions which cannot be fully explained for health reasons and of course, the blatant marginalization of women...even if the social classes are compressed in at times remarkable fashion (the years of jubilee, lending without interest, etc). At least, if one was living among the Hebrews, there were some noble protections. But it seems to me law-writing, much of the ritual practice of ancient Israel, was drawn from surrounding phenomenon.
Now that in itself proves nothing. God could use any kind of ritual program for his work. Providing a written moral code must have been revolutionary for these societies (depending on the code, I guess). But again, reading these laws and histories as the Word of the Divine God...I just can't see it that way. Certainly, Jesus acted differently. But now I am well into my still in draft form entry here.
A long, long day at work. S is asleep and I'm couching it because I'm up so late and will be snoring likely...wonderful time to read and write, coveted time, but no clear focus tonight.
And on discernment: I'm 44 with a great job; my denomination is struggling within itself...a low point in the journey for me tonight. I visit the local seminary in Feb.; still looking forward to that. Would LOVE to talk over some of these questions with a professor of OT. Anyway, before I get incoherent with sleep, love to all.
:)
"that the strong might not injure the weak, in order to protect the widows and orphans." Sure there are things in the COH that I find morally deficient; likewise the Torah. I really am trying to consider the fundamentalist viewpoint, the position the text itself takes in many places: that what we have in the Torah is close interaction with an utterly ominous and judging moral God; that may in fact be true, but I still can't believe all the ritual/moral/purity instruction is God-given even if the books themselves claim to be.
I know the Divine nature is whatever it is, and I do not want to bleed too much into the longer post I'm working on, but frankly I find all of this very frustrating. Personally discouraging.
Getting into the Episcopal war blogs again today a bit: they are almost all about homosexuality, though some deal with salvation questions. I have been reading the "conservative" side. For them, it all gets back to the book, the collection of texts we call the bible. It doesn't really matter, or doesn't seem to, if homosexuality turns out to be the deep seated orientation it seems to be, that gay relationships can be loving and committed...what matters to the conservatives are those verses in that book. And they are very creative, arguing that dietary laws were clearly set aside by the NT but not the moral laws of the Torah. Okay. So when do we start stoning people? Maybe the famous story of Jesus saying, "he who is without sin, cast the first stone" is apocryphal, showing up in some odd spots in the old manuscripts and missing in most that we have from John. But I just cannot believe that ALL biblical books are not culturally bound. That God is breaking through uniquely in Jesus, but that the composition of the books, whatever God was trying to say through them, was shunted through a very human author who made sense of his revelation and religious experience in light of his cultural norms.
Look, we didn't put women on juries or let them vote or hold public office for MILLENIA. Does that mean the civil rights movement for women and minority groups, newfangled as it is, should be discarded in favor of the "traditional faith." Oh, I know what the conservs would say; I don't even want to get into it here. But right now, the Torah is challenging my faith. The best solution really seems to be that God was expressing himself through various religions in the region, and that somehow the Jews got involved with him in a more direct way. But even the stele with the COH on it shows the King bowing to a god, maybe the god of justice, and it declares the King to be delivering the law at the behest of the gods. This, of course, is centuries before the Mosaic code. The Torah does not strike me as markedly more enlightened. Enlightened in passages, yes, concern for the alien and the poor and the oppressed figures largely in many places. But so much of it is culture dependent: death as punishment for crimes large and small, ritual sacrifice as atonement for sin, an extensive purity cultus, food restrictions which cannot be fully explained for health reasons and of course, the blatant marginalization of women...even if the social classes are compressed in at times remarkable fashion (the years of jubilee, lending without interest, etc). At least, if one was living among the Hebrews, there were some noble protections. But it seems to me law-writing, much of the ritual practice of ancient Israel, was drawn from surrounding phenomenon.
Now that in itself proves nothing. God could use any kind of ritual program for his work. Providing a written moral code must have been revolutionary for these societies (depending on the code, I guess). But again, reading these laws and histories as the Word of the Divine God...I just can't see it that way. Certainly, Jesus acted differently. But now I am well into my still in draft form entry here.
A long, long day at work. S is asleep and I'm couching it because I'm up so late and will be snoring likely...wonderful time to read and write, coveted time, but no clear focus tonight.
And on discernment: I'm 44 with a great job; my denomination is struggling within itself...a low point in the journey for me tonight. I visit the local seminary in Feb.; still looking forward to that. Would LOVE to talk over some of these questions with a professor of OT. Anyway, before I get incoherent with sleep, love to all.
:)
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