20Something 1-25-06 Genesis 3 and 4

The Old Testament for Progressive Christians – Lesson 3- Genesis 3 & 4. {This study asks us to consider Genesis as a myth, rather than history. Either way, truth can be extracted and valuable lessons learned.}

The implied audience of the origin stories in Genesis: a people in exile; an entire nation in need of God’s creative actions in the middle of their formerly ordered world, which was now in a state of collapse. Not only did they look for an explanation of why things were as they were, they needed hope for a future when their exile would be over. Many of the early narratives are about “life after exile.”

Genesis, Chapter 3.1-22 group reading; passing of the story stick.

What kind of a story is this? (history, myth, fable, legend?)
What elements setup this story in Chapter 2?
What have you been taught or how do you define “Original Sin?”
What is “The Fall?”
Is the word, “sin,” ever mentioned in Chapter 3?
What did the humans do that was wrong?

The snake is described as an animal of the field in this story. What are some later definitions that have been given as the identity of the snake?

Did the snake tell the truth or did it lie to the humans?

The snake does represent a metaphor of anything in God’s good Creation that could present options to distract or seduce human beings away from God. Name some others.

This “Primal Sin” can be described as a violation of trust. (-Trust in God and in God’s world.) Psalm 111.10 says,”The fear of the LORD is the beginning of all wisdom.” (“Fear” means total respect or absolute trust.) The problem with the path chosen by Adam and Eve is not the gaining of wisdom, but the way they went about it.

What does “trust in God” mean to you?

Why do you think God would withhold the “knowledge of good and evil” from the humans in this story?

The Blame Game; some story points to consider:

Who was present throughout the story?
Did the woman tempt the man?
How is God pictured in this story?
Who blamed who in the story?

Gen 3 14-19 is a description of the consequences of sin, not a divinely established list of the proper order of things for all the future of the human race.

What does this tell us about:
Humanity’s responsibility to the natural world.
The “rule of a man over a woman.”
How would the implied audience have related to the expulsion from Eden?

Cain Carries On: For private study, read Genesis, Chapter 4 and consider:

What elements indicate this story takes place in a world of greater population than just Adam, Eve, and their two sons?
How is the theme of the exile again mirrored?
How is this a story of the etiology of rivalry between shepherds and farmers?
How is this a story of the appropriate form of worship?
Gen 4.7 is the first mention of sin, personified as “lurking at the door.” What was Cain’s fatal flaw that he could not master?
God mercifully gives Cain a second chance. What does he do with the rest of his life?

Some thoughts to Ponder: Genesis 2 through 6 should be read in context as far as the mythic cosmic effects of human sin on all of Creation. Adam and Eve commit a single act of wordless disobedience, the next generation commits murder, and the generations after Cain are listed in a variety of states of being very creative to being vile and degraded, finally culminating in 6.5 as “every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was on evil continually.” The story significance to the audience in exile is that the further they go from Eden (In their case; their roots in the one true God, the greater their inclination to sink into sin.

20Something 1-18-06 Genesis 1 & 2

The Old Testament for Progressive Christians – Lesson 2- Genesis 1 & 2

Part 1. Exercise- Take your Playdough and CREATE SOMETHING in about 10 minutes. (A brief discussion will follow.)

Part 2. Introduction to Genesis: Some things to keep in mind when reading the First Book of the Old Testament:

Genesis consists of two types of literature:
Narratives- written by persons of faith to other persons of faith.
Genealogies- to track “pedigrees” of families for social or political purposes.
Genesis 1- 11 are about God’s relationship to and with all of Humankind. Chapters 12 to the end are about God’s purposes, promises and problems with Sarah and Abraham and their descendants. (called at various times Hebrews, Israelites, Jews.)

Part 3. In the Beginning: Large Group questions: What does the term “Intelligent Design” mean to you? How is the term used in the Creation vs. Evolution argument?

Read the Six days of Creation in Genesis 1. 1-31.

What are the most repeated phrases in these verses?
What are the similarities between this account of Creation and a story song, such as a ballad?
Consider the structure of modern “Country Western Ballads.”
Consider the “Rhyming of Thoughts” and repetitions of Hebrew poetry.
Did the writers of Genesis integrate their available data to incorporate the “scientific reflection” of their era into this theological writing?
Consider the “Dome of the Sky” and flat earth theory.
Consider the “sea monsters “at the edges of the earth.
What does this invite us to do in our era?
Why are we (and the ancient Israelites) so interested in the “how” of Creation or the origins of things?


Part 4. Group Reading: We will read aloud the second Genesis account of Creation, with the first reader reading one verse and passing the story stick to the next person to read. (If you don’t have a Bible, or don’t wish to read, pass the stick to the another person.) The reading begins with Genesis 2.4b (“in the day that the Lord made the Heavens and the earth…”) and ends with Genesis 2. 25.)


Part 5. Large Group Questions:

How many days does it take God to create the heavens and earth in this account?
Name some things that happen in a different order than in the Genesis 1 story.
What about this narrative lets us know it is a regional story?
What are some props and situations described in this story that are obvious set-ups for future plot twists?
What does the naming of the animals tell us about Humankind’s relationship with Creation?
Why is so much text devoted to the creation of Humankind?

Part 6. Some Thoughts to Ponder: The Creation stories are examples of Etiology which is the study of causation. ( the study of why things occur, or explanations of the way that people, animals or nature act the way they do). In the Bible, etiologies give theological explanations for everything from social customs to geological formations. For Example: the story of Lot's wife looking at the destruction of Sodom and turning into a pillar of salt in Genesis 19.26 is an explanation of why there are pillars of salt in the area of the Dead Sea.

List some examples of Etiology in both Chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis? Think about:
Social customs.
Relationships between Humankind and the rest of nature.
The “Order of things.”
The foundations for relations between the Deity and Humankind.
Things that will increase in importance in Humankind’s future.
Some illogical Etiology to consider: The tale of Woman being created from the rib of Man has been misused to define Woman as subservient to Man. Is Man, therefore, subservient to the dust of the Earth?

Next Week- SIN AND MURDER- Read Genesis, Chapters 3 and 4 to be prepared……………

20Something 1-11-06

The Hebrew Scriptures for Progressive Christians – Lesson 1

Part 1. Quiz- The Bible says…..(True or False)

___The Lord helps those who help themselves.
___If you obey the LORD, you won't go hungry.
___Money is the root of all evil.
___I am hungry for love! Put your left hand under my head and embrace me with your right arm.
___When you give to the poor, don't let anyone know about it.
___If we do not hang together, we will all be hanged separately.
___ Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?
___ All leaders are expected to reflect high moral standards established by customs, traditional values, and religious teachings.
___Put fifty loops of blue cloth along one of the wider sides of each curtain, then fasten the two curtains at the loops with fifty gold hooks.
___ These are powerful and valuable lessons about love and courage and the ultimate victory of good over evil.
___Six of the towns you give them will be Safe Towns where a person who has accidentally killed someone can run for protection.
___We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.

(Answers at the bottom.)

















Large Group question: What does the Bible mean in your life?

Reading the scriptures of the Hebrews involves more than just casual reading. We look at the writings in their original contexts and criticize (examine) them using the following considerations:

Is it Historical? (A story about or based on real people and situations)

What is it’s Form? (Poetry, myth, fable, legend, saying, proverb, parable, song, etc.)

Sociological, Cultural? (What were the attitudes and social customs popular at the time of its writing?)

Psychological? (What inner factors might have motivated the writer? What does it say to us today?)

Spiritual? (What does it say about the writer’s understand of the character of God? Where is God in the passage today?)


Group Questions:

What part do you think God played in the writing of the Bible?

What are your thoughts about interpreting the Bible literally? What does that term mean to you? How about the term inerrant? Discuss what you know about these terms, including experiences with people who believe this way.

Why should Progressive Christians understand the “Old Testament,” if we are indeed people of the “New Testament?” List ways in which the Hebrew Scriptures can be relevant:

What would (did) Jesus read?

Some Facts to Ponder:

Structure of the Hebrew Scriptures: When someone states, “The Bible says…” a good response would be “Which Bible?” Consider the following:

The Bible of Jewish tradition contains 24 books, called the Tanak (Hebrew Bible or Scriptures)

TaNaK is an acronym that stands for Torah (Books of Moses) N'vi-im (Prophets) and K'tuvim (Writings).

The Protestant church usually divides the Scriptures into 39 books, subdividing the Prophets into Major and Minor Prophets, as well as other books such as Kings into 1st and 2nd Kings.

They also sometimes switch categories, moving Daniel, for example, from The Writings to The Prophets.

The Roman Catholic Bible totals 46 books, including additions to the Protestant 39, plus 7 others that the Roman Catholics call the Deuterocanon and Protestants call The Apochrypha. The Latin Vulgate on which this structure is based was itself arranged more than 200 ways before the present version was created.

The Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, and other traditions further rearrange and subdivide the texts based on The Greek Septuagint, not the Latin version.

Sources/ Writers of the Hebrew Scriptures: When someone asks, “Who wrote the Bible?” remember that the whole Bible is a library of books, based on hundreds of years of oral tradition (story tellers), which were originally gathered and written on scrolls, some of which were pasted or sewn together with additions and in too many orders to count.

Even books such as Genesis had several different writers. The first five books of everyone’s Bible is called The Pentateuch (meaning: Five Scrolls) Most liberal scholars agree that these scrolls originated from at least four sources:

1. P - The Priestly Tradition, written after, but close to the time of the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE.[1]

2. J – Named after the German spelling of Yahweh, or Jahweh, The primary Hebrew name for God, written in Judah around 950 BCE.

3. E – A Northern Israelite source from around 850 BCE, named for Elohim, another name for God.

4. D – The Deuteronomic tradition, dating from the religious reforms of King Josiah, beginning in 621 BCE. Deuteronomy means the “Second Law,” the repeating and reinterpreting of the covenant laws of Israel, such as the Ten Commandments, for a contemporary audience, meaning people who lived around 600 years before the birth of Christ.

Recognizing that there were several traditions out of which the Bible of the Hebrews was finally compiled helps us to understand:

· Why the same story is told more than once. (For instance there are two accounts of Creation in Genesis 1 and 2.)

· Why the perspectives of passages that often follow each other in our modern translations are sometimes so different or conflicting.

· How the points of view of different historians, then as now, can drastically influence our definition of the truth.

· Leader’s Notes:




Part 1.
F. Often quoted, but found no where in the Bible.
T. Proverbs 10.3
F. (The Love of Money is the root of all kinds of evil.- 1Timothy 6.10)
T. from Chapter 2 of Song of Solomon
T. Matthew 6.3
F. Benjamin Franklin
F. Abraham Lincoln
F. From Boy Scouts of America Code
T. Instructions for the Tabernacle curtains in Exodus
F. Review of Harry Potter books
T. Law from the Book of Numbers
F. Aesop (550 BCE)

[1] BCE – Before the Common or Current era; also called BC- Before Christ. (CE refers to the current or common era after Jesus’ birth; also called AD- Anno Domini, “in the Year of our Lord” in Latin.)