Weekly Responses #2 – Qur’an: ‘The Newer Testament’/Bible as Literature

Denis Jekić

2^nd of February, 2013

Weekly Responses #2 – Qur’an: ‘The Newer Testament’/Bible as Literature

Discuss one difference observed between the Qur’an and the Bible:

            I have never read the Qur’an before, nor have I really taken a chance with the Bible. This is my first experience with both and from what I’ve read so far, it is completely different from what I thought. I have always viewed the Bible as a book that was fair and just and wrote of everything that is right and that may be so in the New Testament. This predisposed positive view of mine quite possibly may be due to the fact that I believe that the bible is associated with religion which I see as something positive but what I discovered in the Old Testament was shocking and slightly hard to grasp. There is so much inequality, which I understand may be due to the fact that this was written long ago, but either way it has been interpreted by people and conditioned into the values of people. People are blindly following these ideals and some of them are just too much to believe. Women are mostly viewed as something that helps populate the world. They are given away for the sake of others, no matter the ties they hold with those who give them away. This may be due to how devoted people are, but would one really be able to do something so horrid and live with them self? The Qur’an seemed to take an almost equal view but it had a more positive light. I felt as though it was a little more tolerable on some issues. Love is even mentioned within the book, which is something that I’ve yet to see in the Bible. Unless it is referencing towards the love one ought to have for God. Love is viewed in the Qur’an as the bond between two people. It is respected and much less harsh and logical than the viewpoints presented in the Bible. I understand that both can be interpreted in many different ways and it may not even be viewed this way by anyone else, but there is something more spiritual about the Qur’an.

Discuss one similarity observed between the Qur’an and the Bible:

            One noticeable similarity between the Qur’an and the Bible is the importance both place on having a “blind devotion” to this book and to the God and everything that is expected to be done by the believers to follow the righteous path of God. There are many examples the Bible provides that show us blind devotion to God. Lot, from the book of Genesis, shows his devotion when he offers his daughters up to be used so as to protect the men that he was hiding in his house. This shows that he would rather follow the plans that God has for him and give up his daughters to be used. In the Qur’an, an example of blind devotion that I observed was found in Surah 39 (Table Spread/The Throngs) and Surah 109 (The Disbelievers). I found it strange that the Qur’an had an answer to each disbelief or questioning of the ideas presented within it. For every question against the ideals of the Qur’an, there was something written as a guide for what to say back to defend the devotion people have for the religion. “Say” was often repeated throughout Surah 39 as a command for the believers to follow when someone or something presented itself as a hindrance to the devotion of the people. Each “say” was followed with what seemed to be a retort. Both the Bible and the Qur’an require its followers to have some form of blind devotion. Some form of giving themselves away to this religion and completely trusting what is behind it. It isn’t a bad thing per say, but it can be for those who do not believe and question because we don’t know what really happens until the end.

What kinds of characteristics are given to those who are non-believers?

            In Surah 107 (Common Kindness/Neighborly Needs), we have a Meccan surra who describes a man that is not accepting of the Judgment. A man such as this is seen as someone who “pushes aside the orphan and does not urge others to feed the needy.” This shows that there is no sympathy or empathy within a person who is a non-believer. This calls out non-believers and labels them as people who are almost without care or soul just for the fact that they do not follow. “…those who are all show and forbid common kindness,” is another characteristic given. It seems to imply that these people are all show and basically fake. There is nothing substantial there but a play put on to distract or manipulate. This reminds me a lot of the snake from the Bible. The snake was just a character there to taunt and manipulate. These people are viewed as just that. Since they are not followers, everything they believe in must be wrong.  I also personally see the usage of “common” to describe the act of kindness implies that even the most simple of acts or selflessness are viewed as unimportant and uninteresting. These people do not follow the correct way; therefore they are to be condemned.  

God in the Qur'an and the Bible

The most important difference that I noted in the Qur'an and the Bible was God's attitude. While both texts made me ask questions about intentions and actions of different characters, the Bible presents more questions about God than the Qur'an. The overarching character quality that is really emphasized about God is that he is an all-powerful, all-knowing, etc. character. There is nobody who is above God, as is frequently demonstrated all throughout books like Genesis, which is more or less one long torrent of God's wrath. However, other, more specific moments in the bible make me sort of double-take, and wonder about how all-knowing, etc. God can really be. Take, for example, the story of Noah in the bible. In the bible God regrets his creation of mankind, and decides to flood the world, killing everyone. In the Qur'an, however, God doesn't express any regret, despite the amounts of sinning in the world, and whatever else is going on, God still doesn't act as though this wasn't something that he expected, or anything like that. It seems odd that God should act as though he is surprised or something, and then act as though he needs to solve some kind of problem (i.e.: flood the world); if God knew that this problem was going to arise then wouldn't he have been able to solve it beforehand? Therefore making his all-knowing status actually something verifiable. In the Qur'an Noah is actually the one who expresses regret for the human race, not God. Even though God agrees with Noah in a sense, and goes through with his plan to flood the world, it's important that God doesn't contradict his position as an all-powerful being by somehow expressing such a human quality, like regret or something similar.

Women in the Bible and the Qu'ran

Emma Jean Liberman

It is pretty fascinating that while the Western world is extraordinarly convinced of its moral superiority regarding how it treats women, the Qu'ran seems to be a bit more progressive towards the treatment of women than the Bible.

In the Bible, Lot offers his daughters as sacrifices to rapists, G-d punishes women far more than men (with pain and death in childbirth) for seeking knowledges in the Old Testament while in the Qu'ran Adam and Eve share the blame: partners, rather than placing men as masters. Allah creates men and women out of clay together as equals: Genesis in the Bible is a bit more murky about the subject

Americans today, even the liberals,  justify military intervention today in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan today by talking about freeing women in veils without asking how they relate to their religion, which does reek of neo-colonialism and paternalism in the very worst sense. 

The Bible vs. The Qur'an

Kelly Gilbert

HUMN 220

Professor B. Akmen

2/5/13

The Bible vs. The Qur’an

            After reading parts of The Qur’an, I felt as though it was very complex and hard to understand, making it much less interesting than The Bible. I feel that The Bible uses much simpler terms and puts concepts in clearer meanings than the Qur’an. The Qur’an is also not put in chronological order. The events are somewhat jumbled around, unlike in The Bible where they are put in specific order from when they occurred.

I personally did not like how events and characters were different in The Qur’an as compared to in The Bible. I feel that important things like the story of Adam and Eve and the creature known as Satan and events that occurred involving them should not be changed. They should stay consistent in every book that they’re included in. I realize some people may find it interesting that over time, these characters and their stories slightly change in books, I find it unethical. Our past is important and people shouldn’t go writing books that infringe on what really happened. It’s almost the same idea as someone just changing the laws that congress enacts. That is wrong and it should not happen. This is basically the same as people changing the ideas of what happened in The Bible and putting them in The Qur’an. Whether it’s a different belief or not, those are huge events that occurred in our past and they should stay the way they were originally put down onto paper.

After reading parts of both The Bible and The Qur’an, I’ve found that The Bible is much more interesting and easier to understand. I do not recommend The Qur’an to someone who would like to learn about the creation of the Earth with Adam and Eve and the idea of Satan, although Satan was much more typical in The Qur’an than in The Bible because he wasn’t referred to as a serpent. This may be a racist view, but I feel that only Christians should read and understand The Bible as their sacred text, and only the Muslims should consider The Qur'an their sacred and holy text. Being a Christian myself, I would much rather read The Bible than The Qur'an, but that's just my opinion, of course. 

Blog 3

The Bible and the Qur'an share many things, but, what about their numerous anomalies?

1) What are the differences of the idea of creation in the Qur'an versus the Bible?

Creation is common in both the Qur'an and the Bible. However, there are numerous differences between the two. Each book explains that creation occurred over the time period of six days, the difference being: the six days of the Bible were clearly, Earth rotation days, where as the six days of the Qur'an may easily be interpreted as millions of years. The Bible also clearly describes what was made on each of the six days of creation. The Qur'an, though, gives vague details. The Bible tells us that man was created on Earth, in the Garden of Eden. The Qur'an tells us that, rather than being created on Earth, man was created in Paradise and later banished to Earth.

2) How does the fall of man differ in the Bible from the Qur'an?

In Genesis, Adam and Eve were given free access to the "Tree of Life" and they were forbidden from eating the fruit of the "Tree of Knowledge." In the Qur'an, the "Tree of Eternity," which is equated with giving eternal life and therefore comparable to the "Tree of Life," is forbidden. In regard to actually eating the forbidden fruit, Genesis explains that Eve was enticed by a serpent, who tells her that she will not die, but, will in fact, "be like God, in knowing good and evil." In the Qur'an, though, it was Iblis(Satan) who enticed Adam and his wife. Satan whispered to them, "Your Lord only forbade you this tree, lest ye should become angels or such things that live forever." There were also consequences in the book of Genesis, such as man now having to work to eat, that were a result of man's disobedience. Where as, in the Qur'an, toil and sweat were an integral part of the original creation of Earth.

3) How does the story of Noah and his Ark contrast between the Bible and the Qur'an?

In the Bible, it rained on Earth for 40 days and 40 nights, the ark was afloat for 150 days, and the flood's total duration was 370 days. There were also specific dimensions given of the ark. In the Qur'an, there is no mention of the ark's size, nor any mention of the duration of the flood. In the Bible, eight people survived(Noah and his family) and man was granted permission to eat meat after the flood. In the Qur'an, though, it appears that one of Noah's sons drowned and possibly his wife, as well. Man also was able to eat meat on Earth from the beginning.

The Bible and the Qur'an may have much in common, yet, many crucial aberrations are quite apparent in the text.

Thoughts on the Qur'an and the Old & New Testament, their origins, and how they've transformed from the original text.

Chris Iorio

Thoughts on the Qur'an and the Old & New Testament, their origins, and how they've transformed from the original text.

Learning that the Torah, Old Testament of the Bible, and various parts of the Qur'an (such as The Heights, The Rocky Tract, Noah, etc.) are all translations and 'revisions' of the original Torah has raised great concern in regards to the validity of the latter texts. I greatly question the validity of the latter texts because not only are there modifications made to the texts, but they are also not in the original language, but are translations (and sometimes even translations of translations!).

The fact that they are translations raises the concern that the original meanings of various passages are lost in translations from Hebrew to Greek to Latin and then to English! There are many examples of how various passages in the Old and New Testament of the Bible have greatly changed from the original meanings. One example brought up in class multiple times is the Lucifer passage. In Isaiah 14:12 , the King James version (the most popular version of the Bible) states “O Lucifer, son of the morning!,” (1) while the original translation from the Hebrew version of the bible states “O day-star, son of the morning!” (2) Furthermore, with the usage of the name Lucifer in this passage, it has become a common misconception that Lucifer is a direct reference to Satan, when it in fact is not in this passage, but a reference to a Babylonian King (Isaiah 14:4). This is just one example of many where a difference in wording due to translations can greatly affect how a reader interprets the text.

The Qur'an raises some concerns with me because many passages that originated from the Torah have been 'revised.' While I do feel that many of these revisions of the stories make more sense, such as everything being created in 6 days as opposed to 7 days, as Allah does not need to rest on a seventh day like in the Biblical Genesis, this still raises great concerns to me. By what right or authority does anyone have to drastically modify the text of an original document and claim it to be a valid account? If the original Torah is supposed to be of divine origin, as all the Abrahamic religions profess, then why would such divine pieces of scripture need to be so drastically revised? Furthermore, how would this be any different or more or less valid if I were to go and make the “Chris Iorio version of the Old Testament” and make modifications to the stories as I please? I don't bring this up to try to tear down the Qur'an, but more so out of a genuine curiosity as how this is accepted as permissible? Again, I'll point out that from what I've read of all three version of the Old Testament that I actually like the Qur'an version the best from a literary perspective, as it flows a lot better and makes more sense. From a literal and historical perspective though, I have a hard time believing that it may be an accurate representation of the whole meaning and intent of the original texts due to so many modifications.

1.http://bible.cc/isaiah/14-12.htm

2.http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt1014.htm

A different approach to interpreting Genesis

Chris Iorio

A different approach to interpreting Genesis

We encounter the phrase in the “image of god” in the very first chapter of Genesis on page 1, where it is stated “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him.” There are many different ways this phrase can be interpreted. My way of interpreting this is in more of a symbolic way instead of a literal way such as that god might look like a human. I believe this saying is a veiled astrologically based idea. Vast majority of major religious traditions of antiquity (prior to Christianity) are deeply based in astrological principles, including Judaism (referring to the Kabbalistic tree of life for example). Considering Genesis is the Torah, a piece of Judaic scripture, it would not be implausible that this is indeed an astrologically based creationist reference, and it is actually quite probable when you consider how fundamental astrological ideas are to the Sefer Yetzira (The Book of Creation/Formation, the Kabbalah) and the core of the Jewish religion. With that said, to break down the phrase; God is usually associated with heaven, and heaven is commonly associated with the skies, or that which is above our earthly sphere. In the vast majority of cultures and religions of antiquity, the celestial bodies (planets and stars) are what composed the heavens where God, or Gods for polytheistic cultures, resided (many times the gods of various ancient pantheons actually represented said celestial bodies, such as in Greek and Roman paganism, to name a couple). Throughout these various religious traditions, it was commonly believed that man was composed of those heavenly bodies, or “gods,” as various organs and temperaments were of certain planetary or astrological influences. In other words, according to such astrological traditions, the formation of man's body and temperament are directly affected by those celestial bodies (“gods”). With that said, and the fact that Jewish mysticism is steeped in Astrology, it is highly probable that the phrase created in the “image of God” is a veiled astrological reference to man being created in the image of celestial influences.

On a different note, I did not bring this up in the class discussion, so I felt I would post it here in the blog. There is another way that some Jewish/Hebrew scholars approach reading the Old Testament, although this method is not a way of actually reading the outright text, but 'decoding it' so to speak to look for secret messages. This is not a literal way of reading it, but is an interesting topic which has yielded some interesting results, so I thought I would blog about it to bring it up to those who may not be familiar with this. Some people in this class may have heard of the “Bible Code” or the “Torah Code.” What those refer to are coded messages hidden within the original Hebrew Torah. It is important to understand that the Jews consider Hebrew to be a mystical language, with various unique aspects to the language (such as gematria, which means words of the same numeric value are directly related to each other (IE “god” and “love” in Hebrew have the same numeric value, so God would then be equal to love because of that connection). Also, the Torah is supposed to be given to humanity directly from God through Moses, which makes it a holy and mystical text to the Jews. Taking both of those points into context, it is believed that various secret messages and information can be extracted from the Torah using these methods. What they do is take the scripture, then form a grid using ELS, or equa-distant letter spacing, where they take a symbol at a given regular interval to form a grid just like a crossword puzzle. Then they search this grid for words and names to find secret messages within the grids. Many interesting results have been produced using this method, and there are many Rabbis who have dedicated their lives to this study. With that said, my post here does not do this topic justice, and for those who are interested in this topic, you should google for more in depth explanations.

Genesis

Kyle Mardon

Humm 220

Genesis

            The book of Genesis focusses on the creation of man and of the expansion of man under God’s covenant. Genesis begins with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The chapter focuses on how Eve is tricked by the snake to eat fruit from the Tree of Knowledge and then give some to Adam. The two realize they are naked and immediately hasten to clothe themselves before God arrives. When God learns that they have disobeyed him he makes it so childbirth would be a painful process for Eve and all women and banishes Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. In this section Adam and Eve demonstrate the human thirst for knowledge and the curiosity to defy the rules in the quest for that knowledge. In some ways this section demonstrates some common qualities that all humans share.

            After their banishment from the Garden of Eden they gave birth to their son Cain followed by Abel. One day in anger Cain killed Abel and makes him “a fugitive and a wanderer of the earth”. Cain went forth married and produced offspring, including Noah (pg.4). When God saw how wicked man had become he decided to flood the earth sparing only Noah and his descendants. In this section the violence that Cain demonstrated when he jealously murdered his brother was shone in most of his descendants requiring God to annihilate their evil from the world.

            Of Noah’s descendants were Abram, who went with his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot in following God’s orders to the land of Canaan. While in Canaan, Abram ventured to Egypt and angered the Pharaoh after it was revealed that the woman he claimed was his sister was really his wife Sarai. After he left Egypt as a very rich man, Abram and Sarai settled in the area. However Abram’s wife, Sarai, could not provide him any children so instead she had her Egyptian maid, Hagar, conceive her husband child instead. Later after Abram spoke with God his name became Abraham and Sarai became Sarah. God allowed Sarah to conceive a child, who would be called Isaac as God had instructed. This chapter was surprising since Abraham and Sarah were always portrayed to me as being good and the qualities I have seen in this section, such as infidelity and jealousy, are not exactly what I would call good.

            Further away in Sodom two angels arrive, whose mission is to destroy the city for its outcry. But before this is done the angels spare Lot, Noah’s nephew, and his daughters and take them away from the city. After fleeing  Zoar Lot went up into the hills with his daughter where both of them got their father to consume wine and impregnate them, resulting in them giving birth to their fathers children. In this section; I wondered why did the city need to be destroyed, surely there was another solution to get these men to change their ways instead of simply killing them.

Meanwhile Sarah gave birth to Abraham’s son Isaac, after which she had her maid, Hagar, banished since Sarah now had her own child and had no further need of hers. God decided to test Abraham and ordered him to take his son Isaac up to the Land of Moriah and sacrifice him. Abraham passed the test when he was willing to sacrifice his son, whom he did not have to sacrifice on the order of an Angel. In exchange for passing his test God blessed Abraham and multiplied his descendants.

After Sarah died Abraham decided that he needed to find a wife for his son Isaac and sent out his servant to his homeland to find and wife for his son and bring her back to Canaan. So the servant left and after arriving in his master’s homeland prayed to God to assist him in his quest. God answered his prayer and the servant found Rebekah and brought her back to Canaan to become wife to Isaac. In the final sections I found it unnerving that Rebekah would so willingly go with a strange man to a land she had never been to be married to someone she had never met. In today’s society such an occurrence is unheard of. While I find it hard to believe that such events that were told in Genesis actually happened, I am not yet prepared to declare that it is false.

Blog 2

Zech Nelson

Professor Akman

Blog 2

         Before I get into the core issues that trouble me about this first book of the bible I would 

like to inform all who read this that above all other point of view I critique it with a scientific 

approach and it is not my intuition to offend anyone. 

         The problem with viewing the bible as literature is that spiritual interpretations that were 

suppose to be found are no where to be seen and the problem with reading the bible as a 

religious text fails to answer logical questions that arise. Reading it with both perspectives in 

mind is the only way to interpret any of the text legitimately. It is not a wonder the bible is the 

best sold book of all time. Out of all the interests that lie within the individuals of our species 

the one that will never get old is how we were created. At the end of the day when the 

interruptions of life fade away people have need to answer that age old question, "why am I 

here"  and the bible comes into the picture. Considering that all the revisions are sold with a 

common name(Bible) it is obvious it stands out amongst all others. 

The first half of genesis touches base on a good amount of mortal issues. Most of those 

creation questions we trouble ourselves with are answered. The first of which is the creation 

of everything and how life originated. Already in the first few lines skepticism is present for 

the literary reader. Genesis 1:6, And God said "let there be light and there was light"…right, 

Red flags immediately popped up in my head, light is one of the great wonders of our 

universe and the evolution of the sensory perception that is present within humans(the eye 

ball) is one of the greatest wonders of the scientific world. The reason why I interpret it as a 

work of fiction is because the lack of explanation. I can walk outside and tell a stranger that I 

made the car he is driving but without at least a little explanation he just considers me a liar. 

Looking at the world from a literary or scientific stand point is the only logical way to go about 

interpreting any work of literature that you are trying to prove. All living things seek the truth, 

there is nobody in the common wealth of learning, who does not profess himself a lover of 

the truth. For he that loves it not, will not take much pains to obtain it, nor be much concerned 

when he misses it. (John Locke). NOT to get carried away, but interpreting it spiritually offers 

little help as well. I could not quite wrap my head around the fact that people are willing to 

preach this teaching because it is in the bible. I mean, Constantine decided so many years 

ago which books will and will not be included in the bible and to embrace the text so freely is 

just foolishness. The only way it can be interpreted logically is by understanding all of the 

text of the bible and reflecting the idea that is presented to understand a more hypothetical 

meaning.

Genesis, God, and Humanity

Austin Stone

Humanities 1

Dr. Akman

Throughout most of the assigned section of Genesis the text seems to follow a particular structural pattern. First, a story is narrated and characters are introduced; then, a genealogy often comes after. What is the effect of this pattern, both on understanding the themes of the text and as a critical reading of this specific section?   

To begin I found this pattern to be easily noticeable, if not obvious, in my reading of these chapters. It begins shortly after Cain and Abel are introduced, as shortly after learning of Cain’s crimes the reader learns of his offspring. Also worth noting is the type of story placed in between this seemingly out-of-place family trees. Many of these stories are larger-than-life stories: Cain killing Abel, Noah and his Arc, the Tower of Babel, and the Abram’s relationship with God. There are multiple instances in the chapters discussing Abram where the story actually stops to explain where some of the characters and their extended families end up. This pattern, then, was influential in my analysis of this text. When it comes to the themes of the text, the breaks to discuss family lines made it more difficult to see the different stories as pieces of a whole. While these different tales are not meant to line up perfectly with each other, it would be easier to see the connections between them without the lists of names that follow each one. Also most of the names are not even mentioned in the preceding stories, and in the cases where the names might be familiar with the reader, the genealogy goes into much deeper detail than necessary to offer background information. It causes the text to lose the sense of fluidity. Looking at Genesis from a critical perspective, these genealogies make it difficult to take the text serious. Unless the reader is familiar with the people mentioned in these lists, and I certainly am not, they appear unrelated and basically nonsensical. It is very difficult to pull some meaning out of these portions of Genesis, and therefore they are useless when looking from a critical perspective.     

Early in Genesis, God establishes interaction with humanity. This changes throughout the text, however, as it seems that God treats each group/generation differently. What are some of the qualities of God’s relationship with humanity?

Throughout God’s interactions with specific people in the text, one thing stays constant: God is always treated as an all-powerful, all-knowing individual that must be feared. God even tests Abraham to make sure he fears him, requiring him to sacrifice his son. Before Abraham is successful an angel steps in, stating, “…now I know that you fear God.” (Genesis 22.12) While the people’s perspective of God stays constant, God seems to change his mind frequently when dealing with humanity. Beginning with Adam and Eve and the tree of knowledge, God creates this idea of limiting humanity. This continues with the Tower of Babel as God states, “Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” (Genesis 11.7) In between these two narratives, God destroys all of humanity with a giant flood. But, as the reader sees after the flood with Noah and later on with Abraham and Isaac, God is also willing to make covenants with individuals. At times it seems God is almost hasty to do so, promising many ancestors and great nations to some men. The bottom line is that I found God’s treatment of humanity to be inconsistent. I had never questioned it before because, in my previous readings of Genesis, I held the assumption that God was omnipotent and unquestionable. But, when God is understood as another character in the story, this inconsistency becomes harder to justify.   

Genesis 19

You'll have to excuse my French, and take my word for it when I say I'm not trying to be offensive, but rarely in the course of literature has the term 'total f**king insanity' enjoyed such a literal meaning as in Genesis 19. It's a Hollywood movie of a chapter, total madness; sex, explosions, drugs... it's hard to believe it's actually in the bible (it's pretty much the beginning of the bible!). Right off the bat it seems shocking that a post-diluvian god could find it in himself to be so wrathful just all of a sudden. God has decided that he's going to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, as they are completely full of sinners. In the chapter right before this Abraham is talking to God asking him why he would do this, because what if there were just 40, or 30, or even 10 pious people living there. God agrees and says that if there are even 10 good people living there that he won't destroy the cities, although, nothing seems to come of this and right at the beginning of the next chapter God sends 3 angles to earth with the full intention of destroying the cities. The angels are greeted by Lot (who how did he end up here?). The thing that struck me when I was reading Genesis 19 was that none of the characters who did something even relatively important, not one, were somehow redeemable, or had good qualities. Lot offers his two daughters to a whole hormonally-crazed mob of rapists just so they won't attack the angles that were sent down to him. Then, after the cities are destroyed, Lot's two daughters get him drunk and rape him. Incest. Incest re-populates a whole new city of people. How is this moral? Genesis 19 doesn't offer a redeeming quality other than the notion that God is petty, and if he doesn't get his way, or is somehow displeased even just a little bit, then he will just destroy you. Even Lot's wife gets turned into a pillar of salt just for looking back at her burning home. What lesson does this teach, other than God is just a little bit petty?

First Experiences with The Bible

Coming into Humanities, I have never read the Bible; I barely even laid a hand on a Bible before in my life. I have only stepped into a Church three times, once to watch a friend perform in a choir, and the other two times with my girlfriend and her family when they went to Sunday mass on the days I stayed over. So as you can see, my exposure to the Christian religion, let alone religion in it of itself, is minimal, to say the least. So seeing both the Bible and the Qur’an on the book list was a challenge I was willing to accept. I have wanted to test the waters, and see what everyone has been talking about, and this class has given me a reason to pick these books up.

            Reading Genesis, and the Bible itself, as a work of literature, was not as hard as I had thought it was going to be. Before opening up the Bible, I had expected something along the lines of reading Shakespeare, language that I could barely make out. But the Bible was a surprisingly easy read. This may be the immense popularity of the book, as it is the most sold book of all time. In order to have this success, translators must have had translated the book not just word for word, but in a way that would have the average reader come back to the book. But that comes with a trade-off, as much of the Bible’s meaning is lost due to the many times it has been translated, whether sections were reworded to help the public better understand, or whole sections were removed due to distinct tastes. And not only did the translators change the meaning behind many sections in the Bible, but the many parts of the Bible seem to have many inconsistencies. Many sections seem to speak of one thing, but the section after may just disregard what was just said. This is evident very early on, when Genesis speaks of the creation of Adam and Eve. It was said God created both male and female in his own image, but later on in Genesis it was depicted that female was created from the rib of Adam, therefore stating that female was created in the image of male.

            When I finished reading Genesis, the God that was depicted was not the God that I had heard about from many of my religious friends, nor the God that my uncle, who is a pastor at his own church, speaks of. The God they all speak of is a benevolent God, one who forgives man when they sin, as long as they confess and recognize the harms they have done. The God depicted in Genesis comes across to me as a very spiteful and vengeful God, one who has no tolerance for sinning. This God would destroy cities that are filled with humans who have sinned, and would even destroy every form of life because evil has grown in the world. If this God were present in our life, all sinners would be evaporated on the spot, and there would be no need for jails. This God also comes across to me as bias. He picks his favorites among the human race. He chose Noah to lead the arc which saved all things of flesh on the Earth. He also choose Abraham as his favorite, and even allowed for him to trick him at times. God also made promises of infinite lands and riches to the followers who did as he said. These traits are not traits that I would envision God having. He should be non-partial, omnipotent, and forgiving, as he is depicted today.

Decoupling Genesis from It's Cultural Baggage

1. Why do the characters God favors seem like bad people?

Although a myriad of names and family lines can be found in the first 26 chapters of Genesis, the text focuses on a specific, notable few to whom God seems to give favor and with whom he communicates. These men include Noah, Abraham and Lot. However, the actions of these three characters specifically do not paint them in a favorable light. Noah and his family are the only human beings on Earth allowed to survive the great flood in Genesis 6 and 7, because Noah was "a righteous man, blameless in his generation" (Genesis 6:9). Yet in Genesis 9, Noah gets drunk and proceeds to get naked, and when his son Ham sees him naked, he doesn't just curse Ham, he curses Ham's son Canaan and condemns him to slavery and all his descendants to slavery (9:25), which seems like a shockingly cruel punishment for such a minor infraction. Abraham, the man to whom God says "I will make of you a great nation" (12:2), is a slave owner, which is considered a pretty odious thing to be in contemporary society. Lot, a man singled out by God as being the only man worthy of surviving the destruction of Sodom and Gomor'rah in Genesis 19, offers to allow an angry mob of Sodomites to rape his two daughters in place of two strangers (19:8), which seems like a bizarrely callous thing to do by modern standards. So why does God favor these people with such horrible, ugly character traits? The answer to me seems to be that these characters' actions only seem so hideous to me because of my post enlightenment values and ideals. The idea of slavery being morally acceptable is a hard pill to swallow today, but slavery, based on how casually Abraham's slave ownership is addressed in Genesis, was pretty widely accepted in the time period in which that story was written. Similarly, doing such things to one's family as offering to let strangers rape them and cursing their entire family line because they accidentally saw one naked seems bizarre and unnecessarily cruel, but since Lot and Noah are both treated by the text as if they are righteous in their actions, I believe these actions would have been more culturally acceptible when Genesis was being composed by its various authors. In order to understand why God favors apparently rancid people in Genesis, we must understand that our perspective is inherently tainted by the culture in which we live.

2. What's up with that part about the Nephilim in Genesis 6?

 From Genesis 6:1 to 6:4, there is a particularly baffling and cryptic passage about...well, it's not entirely clear when read within the vacuum of Genesis, without any outside context. Genesis 6:4 mentions that "the sons of God came in to the daughters of men" and that "the Nephilim were on the earth in those days" (Nephilim being another word for giants), but these events are never referenced ever again in Genesis and never elaborated upon, so what do they mean and what is the point of their inclusion? The answer lies in an apocryphal text: The Book of Enoch. The Book of Enoch gives an expanded recounting of the events of Genesis 6:1 to 6:4, explaining that some of the sons of God (Angels) became tempted by human women and had sex with them, which produced giant, destructive Nephilim offspring. Without this information, though, the story fragment in Genesis 6 has no real meaning or purpose, which indicates to me either that 6:1 to 6:4 are a reference to the Book of Enoch, or the Book of Enoch was meant as a supplement to an incomplete text. Either way, this supports a theory of the Bible having multiple authors. I happened to be aware of the Book of Enoch and its contents while reading 6:4 to 6:5. Even though the contents of the Book of Enoch might not be common cultural knowledge, it is outside baggage I brought to my reading of Genesis and it would have been very easy for me to assume that 6:4 to 6:9 make sense in this context by assuming the Book of Enoch to be a part of the same text, but what it is important to realize is that even though the Book of Enoch is a related text, it was not chosen as a part of the Biblical continuity, and for all intents and purposes it's events never happened in the exclusive context of Genesis. In leaving my outside suppositions about the Genesis story behind, the reality of the multiple authorship of the Bible was more distinctly defined.

Cain and Abel

Why did God praise Abel and not Cain?
Why was God confused over Cain's reaction of sadness and killing his brother Abel?
Why did Eve say Cain was of the Lord and not of Adam?

Many people so far have mentioned learning about Christianity, growing up with it, and living by the church's ideals. What they haven't said is that they had read the bible. I, like most people learned these religious stories orally first. The Bible is very much an oral epic, like The Book of Gilgamesh and The Iliad. For most of European tradition of the Bible. it was told orally because people were illiterate and the Bible was written in unpopular languages like Aramaic, Hebrew or Latin. This means that the stories didn't stay true. All children who have played the telephone game know, when a phrase is passed on by word of mouth it changes to reflect the person who speaks it and will continue to change because the previous person's changes.

I learned the stories of the Bible at night. They were my child hood bed time fables. I was sung the Our Father at nap time. The Bible was a strong presence in my family, like many children across the globe. I always thought I knew them well, but I had never read the Bible until ninth grade. I learned quickly that I had no understanding of any of the stories that I thought I knew by heart. The rereading of the story of Cain and Abel was confusing because I never pondered why Abel was so much more loved by God, or why he received praise and why Cain didn't and was driven to sin. Small sentences are used a lot for emphasis, and this short story is no exception. The problem with this is that so much detail is left out and there is too much room for interpretation.

When I first heard the story of Cain and Abel, I was told God loved Abel more because Abel was more devout and that Cain was too prideful. It doesn't say that anywhere in the story. It does say that Cain grew crops and Abel tended to the sheep. God is many times referred to as a shepard and I have to wonder if it is because there is something better about a shepard than a farmer. shepards make more money, but otherwise I wouldn't say there is anything inherently bad about farming, or good about shepards. I do like shepards, especially the adorable yodelers.

Cain and Abel both gave offerings to God. Cain gave produce and Abel gave some of the first born of his flock. Abel was rewarded by God and when Cain was not, he became downcast. This is a sign of favoritism and I have to believe that the reason Cain was so sad was because he could see this in God. That he was less loved. I have to wonder if God drove Cain to kill Abel. God is an omniscient all encompassing power and is deliberately involving himself with this new civilization that has little knowledge and very little experience of the world. These people must have been very sheltered and completely ignorant of the repercussions of their actions. It doesn't seem like they would know of death or what a tragedy it would be. If God knew that Cain would be jealous and would attack his brother like many children do because of jealously, why would he have done it. To teach a lesson? What lesson could demand such a sacrifice?

Many times in the Bible the first born is more sacred. Why is that? Is it because God have Eve the ability to give birth? But then isn't the first born supposed to be a punishment because birth is a punishment. Is then Cain a punishment to Even and Adam and Abel a bystander? I couldn't understand the necessity to dub one child better by birth than the other but Eve does say the Cain is born of God and doesn't say the same for Abel. I have to wonder is Eve the reason God doesn't love Cain as much? When Eve said what she did about Cain was that inciting wrath from God onto him?

There are too many possibilities to interpret the Bible correctly. Any implications are only guesses and will only ever be perceived that way because the writers of the Bible are long dead and will never be able to explain their word choice. I wish they were because then there wouldn't be a need to ponder the possibilities so much and our homework would have been much easier.

Week 2 - The Bible

Questions to be considered: Does the Bible's status as a religious text mean that criticism should be withheld? What lessons, as a non-believer, can be drawn from the text in a non-literal sense? How do these lessons stand up to modern life and humanist ideals? 

Who's up for a game of hypotheticals?  Let's say we have a book -- not just any book, but a best-selling book. Any will do - just picture it in your head, full of engaging story lines and relatable characters who are just so easy to cheer for. Now, lets say that this book has scores of devoted fans - more numerous than Randian objectivists and more personally enamored than any Tolkien fan. Would you, as a individual with an interest in thinking critically about the literature before you, consider the (undoubtedly strong) feelings of that particular group of fanatics? No! No you would not, shrieking hordes of incorrigible lunatics be damned. It could be said that those who view the work as so thoroughly faultless are probably not interested in good-natured discussion, and instead just pointless adulation. It is here where I draw my stance on the Bible as literature: the idea that the Bible can escape real pointed criticism simply because of it's exalted position as holy scripture is, to me, the very antithesis of literary critique.  I recognize that the people who would consider the Bible as a piece of literature would in all likelihood agree, and those who don't probably view it as unimpeachable direction from big-g God himself. I suppose this  rather brash treatment of the text comes easy to me, a self-described secular humanist with no real concept of divinity outside of "someone said God did it". Without meaningful critique, how can unique and personal meaning (and as such, salvation) be found? Or is that not the point of the soi-disant "personal savior" which Christianity (and other Abrahamic religions) prides itself on? 

Seeing as asking questions into the great faceless aether of the internet seldom results in concrete answers, I shall move on to what can be drawn from the scriptures, even as an atheist. The most evident thing to me was, that at its very heart, the Bible is all about knowledge -- both the proliferation, and control thereof. The first chapters of Genesis address the most common conundrum in man's history: creation. The desire to know  just who we are and where we came from is very base, yet still admirable from the standpoint of those living in antiquity. It demonstrates that, just as so many other religions before it, Judaism (and later Christianity) is primarily based in the pursuit of explaining the world around us, by whatever means are apparent. This is heartening to someone like me, who can so easily fall into a wholly cynical view of religion and its trappings and more easily illustrates that religion is about attempting to more wholly understand each other, and not simply a means of mass control, a popular notion amongst jaded atheists. Another big time lesson put forth is the importance of reverence towards figures of authority as a facet of piousness-- be it parents, a slave's master, or God himself, those who follow are infinitely more likely to prosper, and those who deviate are swiftly punished. These examples are probably where non-believers draw their cynicism from -- rightfully so, if you are not keen on annihilating cities, or pillars of salt. 

Taking a stance as a humanist, this is where I take the greatest umbrage with what is contained within the scripture. It is central to my worldview that humanity, and not a divine force, is wholly responsible for the good and evil present in the world today. So, every time that a figure is reprimanded for being, well, HUMAN, I am reminded why I, nor anyone in my family can be described as "devout". Adam and Eve are expelled from Eden for stumbling upon knowledge of good and evil -- a moral dichotomy that every human is aware of today. In a world like today, where information is so essential to being part of society, this initial lesson taught by God seems not only tyrannical, but outright cruel. Why offer the temptation of knowledge if you were just going to use it as an excuse for expulsion? Unless, of course, the plan was to have humanity leave the garden in the first place, at which point you begin to question whether this God fellow really is all that kind. Questioning and curiosity are two of the most important parts of the human condition, and the suppression of such pursuits is indicative to me that somewhere along the line, someone became very insecure about the ability of religion to actually keep its adherents. 

Genesis

The Bible is noteworthy, in part, because it has arguably influenced more literature than any other single work. This includes everything from classics like Beowulf and the Canterbury Tales to modern fantasy such as the Chronicles of Narnia. However, what I find interesting is not comparing the Bible to later works, but to stories that precede it or are otherwise separated from it.

            The Epic of Gilgamesh predates the Bible, and it includes a story of a flood created by a deity meant to cleanse the Earth of the human civilization. What can be inferred from this? Was Noah’s story adapted from the Epic of Gilgamesh? Are these two historical documents indicating an actual flood occurred? Does this speak to the fear of water the river valley civilizations of the time had? Knowing that other cultures have stories of floods, I infer that the people who populated the river valley civilizations throughout history viewed them as destructive and unpredictable, which made stories of apocalyptic deluges very believable.

            The creation story in Genesis is very similar to other creation stories. The Greeks believed that after a man was created he was given a woman as companion. Furthermore, she ruined the perfect home they had been given by the gods when she was tempted to disobey the gods, opening Pandora’s Box against their explicit instructions. In the Iroquois’s creation myth, there was a civilization of people who lived in the sky where everyone was happy and a tree that gave them all light. A woman living on this island in the sky became pregnant with twins, which infuriated her husband. He ripped up the tree that gave them light, and the woman, curious, peered down the hole where the tree used to be. She was then pushed down it, falling to Earth, where she gave birth to a good twin and a bad twin.

The consistency with which women caused humans to lose their position in a perfect society is very telling as to who wrote the stories. I infer from association with trees and light and knowledge that trees were known for their age in previous civilizations, and associated their age with wisdom. The story of the two brothers fighting reminds me of Cain and Abel. I wonder why seeking knowledge and being curious was seen as a dangerous character trait.
            Just like viewing the Bible alone, viewing many creation stories at once can be interpreted spiritually. Some believe that all religions have some truth to them, and use the similarities between religions that were never in contact with one another as evidence to support the idea that they creators of these stories were divinely inspired. Personally, I try to look for insight into human nature. I think we all want to belong to something, and we like blaming others for not having what we want. I think we fear what we don’t understand, and want to makes sense of tragedies.
            In a world where religions are known for the problems they cause, reading Genesis and thinking about why people may have liked these teachings was a good reminder for me. I forget that there is a reason why religions were created. People needed something to believe in when surrounded by uncertainty. I can’t say whether or not religion has been a positive influence the world, but it seems that people all across the world have been drawn to similar beliefs, and I like to think it has served them well, even if I can’t find any comfort in it myself.