class right now. He does a general overview of the Hebrew Bible and
looks at the text from angles of relevant "hard" sciences and then
spends a couple chapters in talking about more subjective concerns
like what religious forms have contributed to and resulted from it
and different ways in which it has been read.
One thing that has stood out to me about his review is how often the
Hebrew Bible and the culture that it represents is described as not
being different than the culture of its neighbors in almost every
respect. I would have to cut and paste most of his book in order to
give a good idea of what that means. Suffice it so say that it is
the one way that Israel seems to stand out that is really interesting
to me. Prophets. There does not seem to be a comparable role in
other ANE religions. He says that the role of the person called a
prophet may be different than what we commonly consider a prophet to
be. What he believes that is meant by the word translated prophet is
never really spelled out. I think it is safe to say that this role
was someone who spoke for God.
I was surprised that Israel was the only people that seemed to have
had these people. I wonder if it is somewhat comparable to what we
might consider a mystic to be. Upon further consideration I think
that it is striking that all three Abrahamic religions recognize the
prophet as someone that God specifically speaks through.
What does that say then about the responsibility of the Christian
church? If one of our distinctive aspects is that we have people
through whom God speaks, or considered broadly, we are a people
through whom God speaks should that not be ... important? It doesn't
seem like it. Where is the prophetic message? The Church as a whole
has failed to make a single statement, or maybe that is the problem,
there have been thousands and thousands of single statements, all of
them adding up to white noise.
what is should the church be saying then? you're gonna have to read
my archives....
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