Download The Bible and the Origins of Judaism

The Bible and the Scriptural
Origins of Judaism
Introduction to Judaism: Lecture 5
Lecture
• New Interpretations of Israel:”Which
Law, Whose Rationality: Forces that
Shape Israel and Palestine.”
• Thursday, January 24, 2008 at 7pm
• Kane 220
Goals for Today’s Class
• Consider relationship between scripture
and the interpretive tradition
• Identify key themes in the Hebrew Bible
• Discuss the motivating factors
influencing these themes
How to Approach Scripture
• What is Scripture?
• Analyzing a Historical document
– Composed and Redacted much later
– Record of community imagining the past
• What is the Limitation of Scripture?
Scripture and Interpretive
Tradition
• “Fluid literary traditions solidify into
unchangeable scripture; scripture in turn
generates new forms of fluid literary
tradition through interpretation.” (JCM p. 5)
• Scripture=Fixed
• Tradition/Interpretation=Dynamic
The TaNaKh
• Torah (5 Books of Moses)
– Establishment of covenant
– Promise (land, seed) and Warnings
• Nevi’im (Prophets)
– Covenant Broken
– Exile, Loss of Land
• Ketuvim (writings)
– Covenant restored
Key Themes
• Creation
• Revelation/Covenant With People
– Abraham Model in Genesis
– Moses Model in Exodus
• Exile and Redemption
– Focus on exile, slavery
The Creation Story(ies)
• Read page 2-3 from “Then God said…and
were not ashamed”
• Do you see evidence of multiple stories of the
creation of man/woman? Where?
• What differences in content or language to
you note between the two stories? Are they
conflicting?
• What challenges and possibilities do multiple
narratives have for a religious tradition?
The End of the Garden of
Eden
• How does the expulsion from the
Garden of Eden already contain in a
universal form some of the central
themes in the relationship between God
and the Jewish people?
The Covenant with Abram
“Go from your country and your kindred and
your father’s house to the land that I will show
you. I will make of you a great nation, and I
will bles you, and make your name great, so
that you will be a blessing. I will bless those
who bless you, and the one who curses you I
will curse; and in you all the families of the
earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 11)
“I am who I am”
• But Moses said the God, “If I come to the
Israelites and say to them, ‘The god of your
ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask
me ‘what is his name?’ what shall I say to
them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.”
He said further, “Thus shall you say to the
Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you…The
LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob.” (Exodus 2:23-3:20)
I AM WHO I AM
• What do we know about God
• Why the emphasis on forefathers?
• The Conditional Covenant of Exodus (p.
9)
The Conditional Covenant
• What do we learn about God in Exodus
narratives?
– God as lawgiver
– “I am who I am”
• Relationship between God and Israel
• Commandment
Deuteronomy 30
• Clear expression of conditional
covenant
• Covenant and destruction of the Second
Temple