Chapters 12-19 had some interesting information, to say the least. There was much confusion. First of all, where do all the other people come in after the flood? Such as the people of Sodom. I thought Abraham lived to be 900+ years old, and so far he's in his ninety's and it seems like he's about to die. When his daughters get him drunk and sleep with him, are they his daughters or are they his 'step' daughters? It almost sounds like they're his step daughters cause they do it to "preserve seed of our father."
I did like the part about Abraham trying to defend Sodom. It makes it seem like while god already believes in the inherit evil in humanity Abraham is trying to defend the hidden goodness. Which makes it seem as if god doesn't have a divine plan that can NOT be changed. Because he sort of haggled with god saying things like "Peradventure there by fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein?"
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Genesis 12-19
-I underlined the part in Genesis 12 where Abram tells his wife Sarai to say that she is his sister not his wife so that they will not kill his to have her. Then when Pharaoh finds out he just commands them away.
I thought that this was strange Abram mad such a big deal over it and when Pharaoh finds out it’s so anticlimactic
- I also underlined in Genesis 16 where it talks about Sarai bares him no children but she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar
This is just so strange and confusing
-Finally I underlined at the end of Genesis 19 there it says that both the daughters of Lot with child by their father
The fact that the father a daughter had a kid together is not right
I thought that this was strange Abram mad such a big deal over it and when Pharaoh finds out it’s so anticlimactic
- I also underlined in Genesis 16 where it talks about Sarai bares him no children but she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar
This is just so strange and confusing
-Finally I underlined at the end of Genesis 19 there it says that both the daughters of Lot with child by their father
The fact that the father a daughter had a kid together is not right
genesis 12-19
Genesis 13-16 And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. This is saying that I will make your descendants number the as large as the dust of the earth. Genesis 15-17 and it came to pass that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those peaces. In this the Lord is depicted as a smoking furnace and a torch, which seems weird. Genesis 18-25 he is saying to God how can you treat the inocent and the gilty the same.
बिबले क्रेप
In 12-19, I was lost. Not unlike the rest of this literature. From circumcision for 12 verses to incest and so on. What does Beth-el mean? Then out of nowhere there is a chapter that rambles on about battles and names that are nearly impossible to pernounce. God then tells Abraham that he can multiply and every child he has should be circumcized. Why would cutting off the skin on the end of your dick prove your loyalty and commitment to god. What does Peradventure mean? I liked the quote "That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not Judge of all the earth do right?" Other than that this seems to be a glorified biblical soap-opera that does not intrest me. (not to sound pessimistic and angry)
hmmm
Through out genesis we have been able to at least for the most part been able to understand why whoever wrote this, wrote this, yet here i am somewhat failing to see a purpose in what is in genesis 12-19. First of all , what the hell is brimstone? Clearly it is some destructive force of great magnitude that god has power over, yet throughout the bible there is not description of what it is just its effects. Why don't we know what brimstone is? What could it be based off of? How could this be lost in transition. Also what is the point of writing about incest? i would understand if the children that Lot has with his daughters were cursed but here it doesn't seem to have any reprimand to incest. Why isn't the bible condemning incest in this section, because it does condemn it in the bible. This passage almost seem to be promoting it, because if its in the bible without consequence how can some one argue against doing it. Wasn't salt considered valuable back then, so then why would god turn Lot's wife into a pillar of valuable resources? why not just regular Rock? I also kinda feel like women are never birthed in the bible, they appear but it never says and she birthed before him a woman, its always sons. I understand the benefit of having a son but the women have to come from somewhere
Settle Down Lord
Wow. It seems like just about every morally dubious thing that anyone has ever tried to justify using the Bible is right here in this section. This was a nice hot bath of condoned sin.
In 16-2 lies the passage in which Abram's wife encourages him to "go in unto my maid." I recognized it from "The Handmaid's Tale," so it was not surprising, but it was never the less weird. Is this a justification of adultery. Consensual adultery? Clearly it was for Margret Atwood's society. Either way, this seems like a odd way to make sure humanity does not dry up.
Continuing the maid theme the Lord speaks to Sarai in 16-6 and tells her, "thy maid is in thy hand; do to her as pleaseth thee." If this does not defend slavery, I do not know what does. It is pretty obvious. I always held so much respect for the christian led oppositions to slavery and segregation, but after reading this I have to wonder; were they illiterate?
In 16-9 the pro slavery rhetoric gets even more specific, taking a direct shot at Harriet Tubman. God is speaking to the runaway mad and says to her, "return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands." Sucks for you Frederick Douglass, you sinner. Kinda funny, won't Moses and his crew be escaped slaves? Whoops.
All in all this part of Genesis, which continues on to celebrate incest and prostitution was one big "score one" for societies degenerates. I think. No, wait. Yikes, I am really starting to loose grip on this good and evil thing. I mean, God destroyed a city. A city! Looks like he is no better at keeping his word than...me. Can I be God?
In 16-2 lies the passage in which Abram's wife encourages him to "go in unto my maid." I recognized it from "The Handmaid's Tale," so it was not surprising, but it was never the less weird. Is this a justification of adultery. Consensual adultery? Clearly it was for Margret Atwood's society. Either way, this seems like a odd way to make sure humanity does not dry up.
Continuing the maid theme the Lord speaks to Sarai in 16-6 and tells her, "thy maid is in thy hand; do to her as pleaseth thee." If this does not defend slavery, I do not know what does. It is pretty obvious. I always held so much respect for the christian led oppositions to slavery and segregation, but after reading this I have to wonder; were they illiterate?
In 16-9 the pro slavery rhetoric gets even more specific, taking a direct shot at Harriet Tubman. God is speaking to the runaway mad and says to her, "return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands." Sucks for you Frederick Douglass, you sinner. Kinda funny, won't Moses and his crew be escaped slaves? Whoops.
All in all this part of Genesis, which continues on to celebrate incest and prostitution was one big "score one" for societies degenerates. I think. No, wait. Yikes, I am really starting to loose grip on this good and evil thing. I mean, God destroyed a city. A city! Looks like he is no better at keeping his word than...me. Can I be God?
Monday, September 13, 2010
I believe what St. Augustine was attempting to say through the City of God, is that the human condition is one of peril; that we are all essentially "bound by the necessity of dying". At first glance, the reader might not grasp this kind of abstract notion. I thought about it for a while... and a little longer... and now i realize, that the author is right! Perhaps the real reason that the apple was taken and eaten, is that Adam and Eve felt they had to take it. They had a human instinct driving them forward. Death, is a necessary part of life. Does this mean that subconsciously they wanted to die? Or perhaps they wanted only a purpose to live.... im not sure. What i see it as, St. Augustine feels that by giving these people the knowledge of good and evil, perhaps God was really giving them their own consciousness, and bringing them to the intellectual level of Gods... ready to command the creatures in the world...hmmmm i dont know. Maybe though.
थे तरी ऑफ़ क्नोव्लेगे
Abraham Cowley’s ‘The Tree of Knowledge’ is somewhat of a poetic form of the Garden of Eden story. Honestly I do not see the point of giving a poetic form of this story. It uses similar words and does not differ from any part of the story. So what is the idea behind it? Cowley uses no extreme poetic form that could drastically change the story and help him illustrate it in his own way. He does not add or take away from the original story itself. In what way does he make this story his own? But I did like the way he ended the story ended with ‘Instead of mounting high, shall creep upon the dust” because it takes a phrase from the bible and makes it poetic.
Golding's Original Sin
In this passage from the book "Free Fall," William Golding discusses the idea of original sin in the context of the narrator Samuel Mountjoy. Mountjoy has, "lost his freedom," in a way that is an unmistakable reference to "the fall" in the book of genesis.
The passage really revolves around the idea of free will. Free will is described as possessing, "no guilt." Initially it is discussed in the benign context of a day in the park, and the simple, albeit enlightening experience of choosing between two paths. It is the choosing of one of the paths that sets Mountjoy free, yet ironically, his pre-possession of free will was required to do so.
This is innocence, an innocence reflective of Adam and Eve before the fall. They possessed the free will to do as they pleased, but did not make any decisions that had any negative effect, therefore leaving them in a childlike state of invincibility. Here it is interesting to recall that in Golding's most famous book, "Lord of the Flies," a central theme is that childhood is not so innocent as we should presume." Free will only sets us free until it imprisons us.
The second piece of free will in the passage, the choice of a hat, seems and is as random as the choice of two paths in the park. Yet in this one the free will that he relished steals his freedom. Here Golding introduces a strong piece of irony prevalent in the Bible and the world as a whole: the idea that through our inerrant free will we are given the tools to loose our freedom. This is what happened to Adam and Eve. It was their CHOICE to eat the apple, and they are according kicked out of Eden. As Golding says, "we are dumb and blind, but must eat." We are free to do as we choose, but must restrain our free will from getting too lofty, for there will always be a will freer than our own.
Choosing a hat also reflects on the arbitrary nature of the fall. Just a Mountjoy did not have his freedom taken for murder or theft, Adam and Eve lost theirs to a mundane and seemingly random act. What is most dangerous about our free will is that, even when constraining it, we can still make choices that seem unimportant in the present, but become disastrous in the future. This is the human error and even human evil that religion has spent its history tripping over itself to explain.
The passage really revolves around the idea of free will. Free will is described as possessing, "no guilt." Initially it is discussed in the benign context of a day in the park, and the simple, albeit enlightening experience of choosing between two paths. It is the choosing of one of the paths that sets Mountjoy free, yet ironically, his pre-possession of free will was required to do so.
This is innocence, an innocence reflective of Adam and Eve before the fall. They possessed the free will to do as they pleased, but did not make any decisions that had any negative effect, therefore leaving them in a childlike state of invincibility. Here it is interesting to recall that in Golding's most famous book, "Lord of the Flies," a central theme is that childhood is not so innocent as we should presume." Free will only sets us free until it imprisons us.
The second piece of free will in the passage, the choice of a hat, seems and is as random as the choice of two paths in the park. Yet in this one the free will that he relished steals his freedom. Here Golding introduces a strong piece of irony prevalent in the Bible and the world as a whole: the idea that through our inerrant free will we are given the tools to loose our freedom. This is what happened to Adam and Eve. It was their CHOICE to eat the apple, and they are according kicked out of Eden. As Golding says, "we are dumb and blind, but must eat." We are free to do as we choose, but must restrain our free will from getting too lofty, for there will always be a will freer than our own.
Choosing a hat also reflects on the arbitrary nature of the fall. Just a Mountjoy did not have his freedom taken for murder or theft, Adam and Eve lost theirs to a mundane and seemingly random act. What is most dangerous about our free will is that, even when constraining it, we can still make choices that seem unimportant in the present, but become disastrous in the future. This is the human error and even human evil that religion has spent its history tripping over itself to explain.
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