Chris Heard’s Million-Dollar Questions

    Chris Heard asks a number of excellent questions, not just of those of us who teach introductory classes in biblical literature to university students, but of anyone inclined to read the Bible as a corpus crisscrossed by common themes and recurrent answers to life’s fundamental questions - even if some of the answers come in the form of questions left open with great stubbornness. Here is Chris Heard’s first question: What are the seven most important Old Testament events/characters about which undergraduates (mostly first-year students) should learn in an introductory class? Below the fold, an off-the-cuff answer. I limit myself to three persons of interest.

(1) The first person of interest in the Bible is the one who is affirmed to have created all that exists, to raise up and cast down, the one who “gives courage to the orphan and the widow, but perverts the path of the wicked” (Ps 146:9); the same who chooses one nation out of many and covenants with its members, to their eternal dismay and gratitude. That same person of interest, after making Israel accountable to a higher standard than any other nation, “rebuilds Jerusalem” and “gathers in the exiles of Israel” (Ps 147:1). This is the person biologist Richard Dawkins speaks of as a “moral monster”:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty, ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. [The God Delusion (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006) 31]

(2) The second person of interest is the one the Bible understands to have been made in the image of the first. It might appear therefore that Dawkins is on the mark, since humanity exemplifies all of the character traits Dawkins ascribes to the first. Yet the Bible presents us with history (what “comes to pass”) and not just ontology (what “is”). God “is” the source of all that is true, good, and beautiful; he “is” all three; and is the creature made in his image. Both “become,” in the choices they make, party not only to redemption, healing, and palingenesis, but destruction, coercion, and structures of oppression.

    The first location in the Bible in which the first and second person of interest interact is in the beginning. God is for and “over against” Adam and Eve; the snake is “over against” Eve. God takes a stand, once his word is “co-authored” by the snake and Eve, against the snake, Eve, and Adam. Nonetheless he is still for Adam and Eve, at the same time. The same pattern is found in the next pericope: Cain against Abel; God against and for Cain. Topics: distortion of God’s word; the eternal blame-game; fratricide; originating sin; exile. Texts: Gen 2-3.

(3) The third person of interest is the one the first person of interest calls out of “Ur of the Chaldees,” - the anachronism is a patent hint to those in the Babylonian diaspora to consider themselves called out in the same way: Gen 11:27-12:3; compare Isa 48:17-21; Jer 51:45-58; and Zech 2:10-11. Again, God is for and “over against” Abraham; Sarah is “over against” Abraham for Isaac, and against Hagar and Ishmael; God is against Abraham, and Abraham against himself, before God is once again for Abraham and for Isaac. Topics: generation of personal and national identity; sacrifice in the name of a principle higher than the principle of care for one’s own offspring. Texts: Gen 12; 15; 21; 22.

Comments

[Steve Pable]

Hi John,

How do/would you distinguish for students the notions of "against", "over against", and even, for that matter, "for"?

Clearly you use the terms for a reason, but I'm not sure the understanding is at all a given among your audience. (One example-- how in our culture a stand against "sin" in a person's life is automatically construed as judgment, intolerance, or even hate, while it is instead fundamentally a stand "for" the one who sins.)

[Brian Mitchell]

Hello John,

Are, you finished with this post yet?
Or are you going to write a follow up with the next four of the seven of the most important Hebrew Bible/Tanach events/characters which undergraduates should learn in an introductory class.

This is a really tricky question! The book of Genesis alone in my opinion has more than 7 important characters that an introductory course should make mention of. I am a theist so it follows that I think there are more that 7, but even from the point of view of English literature I am sure there are for more than 7 themes/characters are alluded to or mentioned by English authors throughout history.

[JohnFH]

Hi Steve,

You ask the very questions I was trying to elicit. For example, when the snake approaches us (however one wants to conceptualize this coiled being, in terms of Freud's id, ego, and superego, or in some other way), are the questions we hear neutral or leading questions? Probably the latter, in which case temptation might be understood as always "against us," which is why Jesus taught his followers to pray, "do not lead us into temptation." On the other hand, in Scripture, "tests" are understood to come from God: how does one distinguish between the two?

Just an example.

Your comment in which you note that calling something someone does a sin is considered a human rights violation is spot on in my experience.

Brian,

I doubt I will have time to respond further to Heard's questions. I look forward to seeing his upcoming posts on the topic, and may respond at that time.

[Amelia]

I find it amazing that even today words that were written many years ago are still being analysed.