Status Updates From Introduction to the Bible (...

A stunning summary of the book of Job, which "provides no answer in the sense of an explanation or a justification of suffering and injustice. What it does offer is a stern warning to avoid the Scylla of blaspheming against the victims by assuming their wickedness and the Charybdis of blaspheming against Yahweh by assuming his (Greenberg, “Job,” 301)."

"This insistence that the faithful person’s relationship with Yahweh was not broken even in an idolatrous land, when added to Jeremiah’s hope for a newcovenant and future restoration, provided the exiles with the ideas that would transform the nation of Israel into the religion of Judaism."

On page 180, Professor Hays shares how scholars of the last century or so have considered the purity laws (of the Torah) as "primitive and irrational taboos." It made me wonder what rituals we have today that future scholars will think of as irrational. What immediately jumped to mind was recycling, which serves no purpose except maybe to signal our devotion to the deity Mother Earth.

So interesting! We are reading it along with the classroom lectures from this teacher. A really interesting historical perspective of the Old Testament. I with everyone could get this understanding of religious texts.

History of the best kind. One feels like it gets to know the world better and it brings sense.