Tuesday 28 June 2011
Another Apology But No Promises
I'm afraid it looks like my blogging is still going to be rather sporadic. This week has been completely crazy so I've only managed half a blog in the last eight days and now I'm without internet for the next six. I'm sure once I've got back online and into a routine things will start to run a bit more smoothly, and then I will do my best to update when I can, but I won't make any promises because I don't want to break them. Please bear with me while I get myself sorted, and keep watching this space, because I do love this blog and I'm determined to see it through.
Monday 20 June 2011
Judges 1-3 - The Judges Appointed
So, my journey of discovery through the Bible begins once more. I'm picking up where I left off and I thought I'd start with a short passage to ease me in.
Judges begins with the declaration that "After the death of Joshua, the Israelites asked the Lord [and] the Lord answered". What is said is not nearly as interesting as the fact that it is said at all. Communication between God and his people has previously been through a leader. The Israelites have moaned and cried out, but I don't remember them asking a direct question before. It makes me wonder if the intervention of leaders somehow prevented the Israelites from forming a close relationship with God, and if the death of Joshua may prove to be a turning point in the Israelites' faith, as they begin to talk and listen to him for themselves.
Things get a bit messy timewise at the beginning of Judges, and the chronology is uncertain. Chapter 1 opens with Joshua already dead, but then goes on to tell of the possession of the land and the story of Ascah's requests, which had previously been recorded in Joshua and supposedly occurred while he was still alive. And to make things even more confusing, Joshua's death is then repeated in chapter 2. It is therefore unclear whether the possession of the land took place before or after Joshua's death. Such difficulties create great problems for historians and others who wish to read the Bible simply as a narrative and therefore except continuity and consistency, but they make little difference to those who believe that the Bible records far more than history and has meaning beyond story. Knowing exactly when Joshua died does not change what I understand of God, and so while the confusion may irritate, it need not be an obstacle to my reading or understanding of his word.
Chapter 1 acknowledges that the Israelites did not drive out all of the peoples living in the promised land because 'the Canaanites were determined to live there'. That seems a fair enough explanation, but much of chapter 2 is given over to more spiritual reasoning. God declares that the people have disobeyed him and so he will not drive out the remaining peoples but instead leave them to be thorns in Israel's side, and it is later repeated several times that God left these nations to test the Israelites. It feels like the author recognises the more prosaic reasons for the Israelites' failure, but is determined that that cannot be the whole story. God must be in that situation and there must be something he wants them to learn from it. The more cynical part of me questions the tendency to pin everything on God, as it sometimes feels like an evasion of personal responsibility. And yet at the same time, I admire the instinct to look for God in all situations and the surety of faith that says God must have this covered.
As a side note, the rather lengthy list of tribes who remained in the promised land is actually quite interesting. It often seems that the Israelites spend most of their time slaughtering people, but archaeology and other historical records suggests that this wasn't the case, and that it is far more likely that Israel conquered the land through a slow process of integration. The great victories are likely to have been exaggerations or propaganda created in an attempt to create a more glorious national history, and this passage may reveal something of the truth of the matter.
That God refuses to drive out the tribes as punishment for Israel's disobedience tells us that the hope of the first verse has failed. The loss of their leader has not done anything to improve the Israelites' relationship with God. Instead, they have violated the covenant, practising incest and idolatry, taking on the practices of the lands they now inhabit instead of obeying God's laws. God therefore decides to raise up judges to save them. It is said that God was with these judges, and that the Israelites were saved as long as the judge lived, but as soon as the judge died they reverted to their wicked ways. It seems that the Israelites do need a leader.
God speaks to his people, yet they do not appear to listen. God is their ultimate authority, yet they only obey when they have a human leader. It's sad, but perhaps not wholly unexpected. I fear we are guilty of similar behaviour. We obey the law as it is enforced by man, but ignore the more fundamental laws of God. We listen to the words of preachers and worship leaders, but do not listen to the word of God himself. It's a difficult balance to strike. There does appear to be a need for human authority in order for society to function effectively, and there is much we may learn through those whom God elects to teach us, but we must not become reliant on those people and those authorities. We must always come back to God, and we must have a relationship that still works when it is just us and him.
Having established the roles of the judges, we now begin to find out a little bit about them. Othniel, the guy that married Ascah, is first up. He is said to be Israel's deliverer, and the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him so that he leads the nation to a great victory and there is peace for forty years.
Next is Ehud, who achieves eighty years of peace by making Moab subject to Israel. This is a great story. He straps a sword to his thigh and goes to speak to the king of Moab. He manages to get him on his own, then whips the sword out and stabs him, but the king is so fat that the handle sinks in and is swallowed up by his belly. He then leaves and locks the door, so that when the king's servants return they think he is relieving himself and do not disturb him. They wait 'to the point of embarrassment' so that by the time they knock the door down and find him dead, Ehud has escaped and is leading Israel to attack Moab. I neither enjoy nor condone the violence, but the little details about the fat and the servants' embarrassment are brilliant, and you can almost hear the story being told. Sometimes I forget amid all the lists and complicated names just how alive the Bible is. I think it's also really interesting that Ehud leads from the front and is not afraid to get his hands dirty. I think he has a great deal to say about what good leadership looks like.
Last in this section is Shamgar, who barely gets a mention. All we are told is that 'he struck down six hundred Philistines with an ox-goad' and 'he too saved Israel'. Clearly his story wasn't as interesting as Ehud's, although I would like to know how you kill six hundred men with a cattle prod. Not for personal use, of course!
Judges begins with the declaration that "After the death of Joshua, the Israelites asked the Lord [and] the Lord answered". What is said is not nearly as interesting as the fact that it is said at all. Communication between God and his people has previously been through a leader. The Israelites have moaned and cried out, but I don't remember them asking a direct question before. It makes me wonder if the intervention of leaders somehow prevented the Israelites from forming a close relationship with God, and if the death of Joshua may prove to be a turning point in the Israelites' faith, as they begin to talk and listen to him for themselves.
Things get a bit messy timewise at the beginning of Judges, and the chronology is uncertain. Chapter 1 opens with Joshua already dead, but then goes on to tell of the possession of the land and the story of Ascah's requests, which had previously been recorded in Joshua and supposedly occurred while he was still alive. And to make things even more confusing, Joshua's death is then repeated in chapter 2. It is therefore unclear whether the possession of the land took place before or after Joshua's death. Such difficulties create great problems for historians and others who wish to read the Bible simply as a narrative and therefore except continuity and consistency, but they make little difference to those who believe that the Bible records far more than history and has meaning beyond story. Knowing exactly when Joshua died does not change what I understand of God, and so while the confusion may irritate, it need not be an obstacle to my reading or understanding of his word.
Chapter 1 acknowledges that the Israelites did not drive out all of the peoples living in the promised land because 'the Canaanites were determined to live there'. That seems a fair enough explanation, but much of chapter 2 is given over to more spiritual reasoning. God declares that the people have disobeyed him and so he will not drive out the remaining peoples but instead leave them to be thorns in Israel's side, and it is later repeated several times that God left these nations to test the Israelites. It feels like the author recognises the more prosaic reasons for the Israelites' failure, but is determined that that cannot be the whole story. God must be in that situation and there must be something he wants them to learn from it. The more cynical part of me questions the tendency to pin everything on God, as it sometimes feels like an evasion of personal responsibility. And yet at the same time, I admire the instinct to look for God in all situations and the surety of faith that says God must have this covered.
As a side note, the rather lengthy list of tribes who remained in the promised land is actually quite interesting. It often seems that the Israelites spend most of their time slaughtering people, but archaeology and other historical records suggests that this wasn't the case, and that it is far more likely that Israel conquered the land through a slow process of integration. The great victories are likely to have been exaggerations or propaganda created in an attempt to create a more glorious national history, and this passage may reveal something of the truth of the matter.
That God refuses to drive out the tribes as punishment for Israel's disobedience tells us that the hope of the first verse has failed. The loss of their leader has not done anything to improve the Israelites' relationship with God. Instead, they have violated the covenant, practising incest and idolatry, taking on the practices of the lands they now inhabit instead of obeying God's laws. God therefore decides to raise up judges to save them. It is said that God was with these judges, and that the Israelites were saved as long as the judge lived, but as soon as the judge died they reverted to their wicked ways. It seems that the Israelites do need a leader.
God speaks to his people, yet they do not appear to listen. God is their ultimate authority, yet they only obey when they have a human leader. It's sad, but perhaps not wholly unexpected. I fear we are guilty of similar behaviour. We obey the law as it is enforced by man, but ignore the more fundamental laws of God. We listen to the words of preachers and worship leaders, but do not listen to the word of God himself. It's a difficult balance to strike. There does appear to be a need for human authority in order for society to function effectively, and there is much we may learn through those whom God elects to teach us, but we must not become reliant on those people and those authorities. We must always come back to God, and we must have a relationship that still works when it is just us and him.
Having established the roles of the judges, we now begin to find out a little bit about them. Othniel, the guy that married Ascah, is first up. He is said to be Israel's deliverer, and the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him so that he leads the nation to a great victory and there is peace for forty years.
Next is Ehud, who achieves eighty years of peace by making Moab subject to Israel. This is a great story. He straps a sword to his thigh and goes to speak to the king of Moab. He manages to get him on his own, then whips the sword out and stabs him, but the king is so fat that the handle sinks in and is swallowed up by his belly. He then leaves and locks the door, so that when the king's servants return they think he is relieving himself and do not disturb him. They wait 'to the point of embarrassment' so that by the time they knock the door down and find him dead, Ehud has escaped and is leading Israel to attack Moab. I neither enjoy nor condone the violence, but the little details about the fat and the servants' embarrassment are brilliant, and you can almost hear the story being told. Sometimes I forget amid all the lists and complicated names just how alive the Bible is. I think it's also really interesting that Ehud leads from the front and is not afraid to get his hands dirty. I think he has a great deal to say about what good leadership looks like.
Last in this section is Shamgar, who barely gets a mention. All we are told is that 'he struck down six hundred Philistines with an ox-goad' and 'he too saved Israel'. Clearly his story wasn't as interesting as Ehud's, although I would like to know how you kill six hundred men with a cattle prod. Not for personal use, of course!
Friday 17 June 2011
An Apology And A Promise
Firstly, I'm sorry it's been so long since I last blogged. Juggling the demands of a part time job and a part time degree proved to be even trickier than I expected and I quite simply couldn't have done this justice.
However, my exams are out of the way and I've had a few weeks to get over them, so I plan to start blogging again on Monday, although there may be another brief hiatus in August as I will be away with a volunteer programme and don't know if I will have access to the internet. I start studying again in the autumn, but I know what I'm letting myself in for this time so I should be able to organise myself better and I hope to be able to keep blogging.
So, we'll start again with Judges on Monday. Hope to see you there!
Blessings,
Leigh
However, my exams are out of the way and I've had a few weeks to get over them, so I plan to start blogging again on Monday, although there may be another brief hiatus in August as I will be away with a volunteer programme and don't know if I will have access to the internet. I start studying again in the autumn, but I know what I'm letting myself in for this time so I should be able to organise myself better and I hope to be able to keep blogging.
So, we'll start again with Judges on Monday. Hope to see you there!
Blessings,
Leigh
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