Resolution - to read the Bible

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BetteTheRed said:
Discovered last year during Ramadan how hard it is on the kids. It's enough that they fast from sun-up to sun-down, but when Ramadan happens in June in a northern country, it's a long, long day without food or water, surrounded by kids who are eating and drinking with abandon. It's quite different in a primarily Islamic country (a bonus is that many of them are closer to the equator, so fewer day-length fluctuations) where all of your classmates are in the same situation.
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That's environmental ... or as some mental cases would say falls Nous doesn't mark the sleepers ... "walking dead"?

Just imagine all the things you shouldn't know according to authority ...

Thus mindless sects comes to mind as metaphysical metaphor ... if in mind it couldn't be! Intelligence is too far out there ... yet beyond us ...
 
Ezra, chapters 1 to 6 - I picture a timeline. Jews have been living in Babylon for a generation or two - refugees, exiles. having been forcibly removed from their homeland in Judah, deported - longing to go home even though they have heard that their capital city of Jerusalem, with its temple, has been ransacked and laid to ruins. Cyrus, king of Persia, ascends to the throne and in the first year of his reign he issues an order that the Jews can return to their homeland and repair their city - particularly their temple. In fact, he will even provide means for the money and materials required..
But although Jerusalem lay in ruins, the countryside of Judah and the whole area of Israel, hadd been occupied by people of surrounding tribes who mixed with the original Jewish country people who had not been deported. Samaria became their capital and they worshiped God on the hills. Some of these original peeople welcomed the returning exiles others resented the rebuilding of Jerusalem and protested the rebuilding of the temple. Work proceeded at a slow pace.

We'll leave Ezra for a moment and read Haggai and Zecharaih, and Esther, which were apparently written at this time.
 
Haggai a short book, only 2 chapters. Haggai's message: the Lord requests that you rebuild the temple. And avoid anything or anybody that is unclean, with the implication being that the returning Jews were clean and must avoid contamination from those already living in the land.
 
Zechariah - another strange book by a prophet who experiences weird dreams and visions related to the call for the jews to return to Judah, rebuild the temple and return to worship God.
The people aare to practice true justice, mercy, compassion; care for the widow, the fatherless, the foreigner, the poor.
Jerusalem will be blessed and its enemies destroyed.
 
Mendalla said:
Don't "strange book" and "prophet" kind of go hand in hand? Most prophets are mystics and therefore tend to us metaphorical language to express those experiences.
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Recall commentary on strangers in de BOOK? Many don't wish to see or hear anything subtle ...
 
Esther - the book of Esther is set in the city of Susa during the time that Xerxes was king. Esther is a beautiful Jewish orphan living with her cousin Mordecai. When Queen Vashi is banished from the ccourt for refusing the king's order to dance naked before the male guests at a party, Esther replaces her as queen.
Therre follows a series of events of intrigue, over-heard conversations, suspicions, lies, trickery. The king's top adviser, Haman plots to have Mordecai and all the Jews in the area executed. Just a tricky as Haman, Esther plots to have the king reverse his orders, and she reveals that she is a Jew. Very brave of her to do so.
Then Esther persuades the king to execute Haman and his supporters.

Nothiing about God or about our relationship in this reading. Just a story of a minority group living in exile and going to great lengths to survive. From it we get the Jewwish observance of Purim.
 
Just to set some non-biblical historical context here, Xerxes was the Persian king who invaded Greece in 480BCE leading to famous story of the 300 Spartans withstanding the Persian army at Thermopylae (portrayed badly in the movie 300). This was the Persian Empire at its height and controlled, besides Persia (Iran) itself, most of the Middle and Near East including Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and Egypt.
 
Picking up where we left off in Ezra. Ezra is mentioned for the first time. He is a student and teacher of the Law, and his mission is to rebuild Jerusalem with its temple. He does not approve of intermarriage between Jews and Gentiles. For those already in such arrangements he urges (orders?) that they put aside their foreign wives and deny their heathen children. The book ends with most of the people agreeing with this cruel edict.
Now let's see what Nehemiah has to say.
 
There's a huge emphasis in the Hebrew Scriptures between clean/unclean, in and out. What is good about this drive to preserve culture by forced social rules? How does this contrast with some of the very "core" instructions to treat the foreigner amongst you as one of your own?
 
what many people cannot see is the tension in the Bible; the difference in points of view. United under a king as a powerful nation? or 12 tribes with judges appointed by God? Keep separate and apart (clean) and preserve the religion? or be a light to the gentiles? Justice as judgement and punishment? or justice as fairness and rightiusness? love or belief? grace or requirements?
 
We don't require anything do we? So the souls can be purged and cleaned out ... flush like authority?

I'm (re) reading Reading God Against the Gods ... Jonathan Kirsch (Jewish lawyer) ... on conceptons of God in everything and the illustration of control freaks on this side of reality wishing to control without decent awareness of what complexity is required of them. It is almost unreal or imaginary!

Then he also wrote a book on The Harlot By the Side of the Road ... a sense of psyche pushed out of the way by people operating on instinct alone ... without considerations of the gift of prescience ... seeing the consequences of action! The harlot appears to be psyche ... we don't need Hur ... tis an unknown and that's frightening ... could cause milieu ... and songs about dancing about it as Skip to Milieu my Darling ... that's enough to get the know it all's bouncing ... IT continues as light into the unknown (dark probes)? Could be unconscious .. a' kin to the stunned by what's observed out there ... beyond the thing within themselves --- Kant himself!

Thus tildes ... and drifting aside ... odd what can be learned ... thus gentile wanderers ... said to pass in the night! Dippy times ...

Then there is the concept of useless hoards ... and hoard Eire ... they resist the demons of Charon ... and thus kept much to themselves ...
 

Nehemiah is 13 chapters long. It covers the period similar to that of Ezra when the Exiles began to return to Judah. At his request he went to Jerusalem as governor. Over the protests of the original settlers but with the willing support of the returned exiles, he repaired the walls of the city for defense, and with Ezra repaired the temple. He had the people assemble and reminded them of their story; the story we’ve been reading from the time of Abraham. Then he reminded them of the Laws of Moses and the covenant to keep the law. Like Ezra he urged them to have nothing to do with non-Jews, even those who lived peaceably among them forgetting the law that required them to love their neighbour as themselves and to treat the alien in their midst as themselves.

Not everybody agreed with the institution of these harsh laws. This was a time of protest literature. Ie the story of Ruth reminded the people that their beloved king David was the grandson of a foreign woman.

Even in the Bible we find different points of view; hence the tension. People choose which they will give ascent to. Jesus seems to put the law of love first. I remember this whenever I am accused of ‘cherry picking’.

Perhaps that is the message of this otherwise boring book.

One more prophet and we will be ready to move to the New Testament.

 
Few people recognize that assimilation takes generations and are unwilling to allow the "waiting period" it takes. Of course visible minorities have it especially hard.
 
Malachi – the last book of the prophets, this litter book is only four chapters.

Much of it is in the form of a question and answer conversation between Judah and God. God assures the Jews that they are God’s chosen people and reminds them of the covenant they continue to break through withholding justice, not paying, and arrogance.

Nevertheless a remnant will be saved and the covenant renewed.
 
Many Christians seem to think that there is a break between the Hebrew scriptures and the Christian scripture; that the new replaces the old, the Jesus Christ is the new Covenant replacing the old covenant of the law: I don't think so. I think that the new is a continuation of the old; that the Hebrew scriptures laid the foundation for the new Christian scriptures. It is all there in both testaments; love (including love of neighbour and strange), forgiveness, justice, mercy, humility. Jesus was quoting the law from the time of Moses when he affirmed the greatest commandment was to love God and love neighbour, when he welcomed the alien; he quoted Isiah when he declared his purpose 'he sent me to preach good news, heal the sick, feed the hungry...' and Isaish and Micah when he spoke of justice, mercy and humility.
The scriptures tell the continuing story of our developing understanding of God and our relationship with God and each other.They also tell of the times we have misunderstood or misinterpretted; times of oppression, judgment, war. Perhaps hoping that we may learn from our mistakes, repent, and accept God,s grace.
 
Seeler said:
Like the Jews in exile in Babylon, and Jews ever since, and any minority group maintaining their identity and their belief system must have been difficult at times. I imagine that over the years many would give up and and alllow themselves to disappear into the majority culture to havve their roots disappear except in fairy tales and folk lore, if at all.
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thus the importance in some cultures of a special place that was seperate from the influencez of the World?

perhaps sombunall places of Worship can b thought of as that? a special place where practitioners of a certain belief can practice and recharge away from the World?
 
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