Hey gang:
I forgot to review the homework for next week. Most of it should be pretty self-explanatory from here on in. For the questions on the chapter readings, they are usually asking your opinion. So I am not necessarily looking for "right" answers, but your thoughts. Just show me you engaged the material.
But the "Letter" homework for next week might be confusing. First of all, you can ignore the comment about Passover. Basically, write a short letter (half a page to a page) addressed to your cohort-mates where you explain a family, work, or church tradition: how you celebrate Christmas/any holiday, how your family shares chores,what your work environment is like...anything. Then bring it to class, and you'll read them to your neighbor. Don't stress about doing it right, just explain a tradition.
-----------
Great first class tonight. I appreciated your engagement.
After each night's class, I will post some of the videos we showed, follow-up links and articles related to things we talked about..
-----------
Like comedian Dan Nainan:
---------------------
The three worlds : Literary (the world created by the text)
Historical (the world behind the text)
Contemporary (the world in front of the text
We looked at the literary world of Matt. 2:1a, and the historical world image of the Herodian fortress, in whose shadow is baby Jesus). YOU CAN WATCH THE "In the Shadow of Herod" video HERE in two parts:
-- --------------
THE MASTER BUILDER There was another side to Herod. His visionary building programs, his ingenious development of trade with the rest of the world, and his advancement of the interests of his nation are legendary. Many of his building projects were designed to strengthen the loyalty of his subjects, a goal he never achieved. Most seem to have been built to strengthen his relationship with Rome and to establish himself as the greatest king the Jews had ever had. Herod built on a magnificent and grandiose scale. His building projects included:
The Herodion: This mountain fortress overlooked the town of Bethlehem. Standing on a high hill, the upper fortress was round and more than 200 feet in diameter. Originally, it was seven stories high, with an eastern tower that stood more than 40 feet higher. Packed dirt covered the first four stories, giving the upper fortress a cone shape. Inside were a peristyle garden, reception hall, Roman baths, and countless apartments. The lower palace included an enormous pool, a colonnaded garden, a 600-foot-long terrace, and a building more than 400 feet long. The Herodion was the third-largest palace in the ancient world....
....The visitor cannot help being impressed with Herod's vision and ingenuity. However, all that remain are spectacular ruins, because Herod lived for Herod. By contrast, another builder, a humble carpenter born in Bethlehem, used a different material than did Herod (Matt. 16:18; 1 Peter 2:4-8). Jesus' buildings continue to grow because He built for the glory of God. Like David (1 Sam. 17:46), Elijah (1 Kings 18:36), and Hezekiah (Isa. 37:20), He lived so that the world may know that Yahweh, the God of Israel, is truly God. His construction projects will last forever because He built for the glory of God the Father. -link
The five teaching sections of Matthew:
----
CHIASM AND INCLUSIO, as "literary world" devices:
Chiasm(definition) and inclusio (definition).. once you are attuned to seeing them in Scripture (and most ancient literature) it seems they are everywhere.
Sometimes they are.
Who can argue that "the first
shall belast/the last shall be first" is a chiasm?
A-B-B-A, X pattern.
(and this one, because it's in Matthew [20:16], will be important
for our class.
But often the chiasm is wide enough to spotlight and intended embedded theme in between the endpoints.
And to really help us get what the Spirit is saying...structurally.
People remember how to perform a piece of music by using musical notations on scale. A similar solution to the problem of remembering how to perform a piece of dance has been solved with the use of Labonotation. In antiquity, it seems most written documents were intended to be read aloud, hence to be performed. The purpose of writing was to facilitate remembering how the document went when one read it aloud. But how did one make paragraphs or mark off units in a document read aloud? It seems that the main way to mark off a unit was to use repetition of words and/or phrases at the beginning and end of a unit, either alone (as in Matt 5:3, 10,"...for theirs is teh kingdom of heaven) or in parallel bracketing fashion (as John 1:18). The Greeks called such parallel brackets a chiasm, after one half of the letter "chi" (our 'X"), thus ">."-Social Science Commentary on the Gospel of John, p. 295, emphasis mine.. a free read online here.
here are some links to these literary devices we talked about:
- Chiasm and inclusio: an intro
"Chiasm led me to Christ"
(a great story from a recent FPU grad)- Detecting chiasm
- Inclusio
- Chiasm in the Bible
We also looked at other structural ways to interpret a text.
In the weeks to come, we'll look at several ways to chart out, or "see" Matthew.
We started with this one:
he five teaching sections of Matthew:
Jewish people reading Matthew would say
"Oh, I get it. Matthew is trying to tell us that Jesus is the New Moses (or the fulfillment of Moses)!"
Why? The answer has to to with the obvious intentionality of the 5
"teaching blocks" in Matthew..Five being a hugely significant number for Jews...it's the number of books in the Torah, AKA the Five Books of Moses, AKA The Pentateuch "(Five Books in One.") See page 269 of Hauer and Young See more
Matthew could have said that, but instead he embedded it in the literay structure of his book;
See page 269 of your Hauer/Young textbook (the three paragraphs underneath the "Higher Righteousness" section) .
- Who is Jesus in Matthew?
- He is the "WITH YOU" God.
-- --------------
---------------------------------------
Tonight's theme was "Creation and Community". Diagram:
The video on The Exodus and the "Dance Party on the Beach" points to what was the seminal/foundational/formative microcosmic event of (perhaps all) Scripture, in that:
1)It presents a pattern and prototype of any deliverance from bondage/slavery; and every "way out" (Ex-Odus)
from an old way/world to a new way/world. We had some good discussion about "in-between times" in our lives that we recognized (maybe only in retrospect) as pivotal and formative. Crossing the sea is often meant to call to mind crossing a barrier into a while new world, creation or order; from allegiance to forbidden gods to The One God.
2)It is really the first time God's people are formed/forged into a community; they have "been through stuff together" and are inevitably bonded and changed through a corporate "cohortness" experience of community.
- "The Lord is reigning from this point onward."
- "The Lord is King from this point onward."
--------------------------
---
QUIZ terms to study for Week 5 (this replaces page 9 of syllabus):
- MOSES
- TORAH
- PHARISEES
- SADDUCEES
- ZEALOTS
- ESSENES
- CHIASM
- INCLUSIO
- BOUNDED SET
- CENTERED SET
Last but not least...here are the adapted Bible reading assignments for each week
(you can cross out the other Bible readings on the syllabus):
Week 2: Exodus 18-34, Matthew 5-7
Week 3: Matthew 18
Week 4: Proverbs 10-15,
Week 5:Psalms 18, 30, 32, 33, 51, 80, 104, 113, 117, 118, Exodus 25-31, 35-40, Philemon
Week 6: Reread Philemon
-----------------------------
You are welcome to leave comments or questions below, in the comments section any time..
No comments:
Post a Comment