Week 1

Extra credit winners:

• Lorin
• Arelene 
•   Chelsea
• Aurianna (for creativity)

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Intros:

• Name
• Family, life, work
• Stress 1-10
• a favorite musical group or singer
• are you a saint?

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As you'll remember, when I took a version of this class at FPC (it wasn't a U yet), I had cool typewriter

I look forward this class..I think you'll' enjoy it, too..
 ...I did when I took it in 1983>>

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STRATEGY: 
BIB 314 asks, "Who is Jesus?"

and "What is Church?"







This class asks

• "1)How do I read a text of Scripture via a Three Worlds approach?"
• 2)"What does Scripture have to say about community?
• 3)What does Scripture have to say about my major?

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• Our devotional video:  Dan Nainan

"What race is that guy, anyway?":

Questions:

•  How was he able to get away with telling jokes on different cultures?
• Have you experienced racial prejuidice/racism?
• How is Jesus the definitive bicultural person?
• -For those who are African-American or Asian-American, how does it feel that "Jesus was Asian" and spent time on both continents?
• 
  

CULTURE: a way of thinking, feeling, valuing and acting by one or more persons.

Wow!  All communication is texting, and all communication is cross-cultural.
All marriages are cross-cultural.

What continent is Israel on?

"What continent is Israel on?"

How did you answer the question? 

Answer it in your mind, and then scroll down.

There is only one right answer, obviously. 

 But every time I ask the question--in Israel or in class--people stumble, and tentatatively give the wrong answers: Europe?  Africa?  Middle East?

The only right answer is:

 Asia.

Does that sound surprising or shocking?

Sooo..that means: Jesus was Asian.

People laugh when you say that.  But it's true...and important that Jesus lived in Asia;  born and died there. That was his home. In our contemporary world, we think Asian means only Chinese, Japanese etc.

Jesus was Asian! Note I didn't say He IS Asian, as I believe He is bigger than that now, but while on earth as a human he was ethnically  Jewish...and  Asian.  So He thought and lived an Eastern, Mediterranean, Hebrew, Occidental, ASIAN worldview.  This will become important later in class.

POST the phrase "Jesus was Asian" on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter..or text or say it to at least three people. Then post below some of the responses you got.  Some people will accuse you of being crazy.

But for now, have fun watching these two  funny videos, and then comment below in a paragraph to the idea of Jesus being Asian.  Include a reference to both videos.  Respond to the posts of at least two others. 
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TEXTS.
a TEXT is technically ":any message  in any medium, designed to communicate anything"
so obviously the Bible counts as a TEXT message. you



Thanks for texting me in class.  

Texts need contexts.

<i

Thanks for texting me (cell phone) random text messages during class to illustrate that texts need contexts.

GODISNOWHERE:  is it GOD IS NOWHERE  or GOD IS NOW HERE?

How you read the text changes as much as everything.

Spaces matter.

Like this:

Professor Ernest Brennecke of Columbia is credited with inventing a sentence that can be made to have eight different meanings by placing ONE WORD in all possible positions in the sentence: 

"I hit him in the eye yesterday."

The word is "ONLY".

The Message:

1.ONLY I hit him in the eye yesterday. (No one else did.)

2.I ONLY hit him in the eye yesterday. (Did not slap him.)

3.I hit ONLY him in the eye yesterday. (I did not hit others.)

4.I hit him ONLY in the eye yesterday. (I did not hit outside the eye.)

5.I hit him in ONLY the eye yesterday. (Not other organs.)

6.I hit him in the ONLY eye yesterday. (He doesn't have another eye..)

7.I hit him in the eye ONLY yesterday. (Not today.)

8.I hit him in the eye yesterday ONLY. (Did not wait for today.)

                              -link 

Like this 'text message' from Jesus:

I SAY TO YOU TODAY, "YOU WILL BE WITH ME IN PARADISE.'

or is it,

I SAY TO YOU, " TODAY YOU WILL BE WITH ME IN PARADISE."

The original manuscripts of the Bible not only run all letters, all caps, together, but include no punctuation.

Punctuation matters.

Everything is  context.


context      is everything.

By the way, that last statement was a chiasm 
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We talked about these 3 signs in  class: Three Worlds, Chiasm and "Venn it":

1)3WORLDS 

1)Three Worlds

We became familiar/reacquainted with the "Three Worlds"  concept .
Here  below is how one student summarized the worlds (she has more detail here)


Literary World--The literary world of the Bible is simply the text itself, apart from anything outside the text.  We mean the world (or, better, worlds) created by the text; the words on the page, by the stories, songs, letters and the myriad other types of literature that make up the Bible.  All good literature (and the Bible is, among other things, good literature) creates in readers' minds magnificent, mysterious, and often moving worlds that take on a reality of their own, whether or not they represent anything real outside the pages

Historical World--The historical world of the Bible isthe world "behind the text" or "outside the text".  It is the context in which the Bible came to be written, translated, and interpreted over time, until the present.  In studying the historical world of the Bible, we look for evidence outside the text that helps us answer questions such as, who wrote this text, when was it written, to whom was it written, and why was it written.  We also probe the text itself for evidence that links it to historical times, places, situations, and persons



Contemporary World--The contemporary world is the "world in front of the text" or the "world of the reader."  In one sense, there are as many contemporary worlds of the Bible as there are readers, for each of us brings our own particular concerns and questions to the text.  They inevitably shape our reading experience.  We are all interested in answering the questions of whether the Bible in general, or particular texts, have any relevance to our personal lives
-Brolin 

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We noted how careful we should be reading texts.


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2)CHIASM:
 

hiasm

From the ridiculous:

• "I am stuck on Band Aid..
• "Never let a kiss fool you..

To the sublime:

• "Ask not what your country can do for you..
• "God is good all the time.."
• "When the going gets tough.."
• "Accept rejection.."

To the biblical:

• The first shall be last...
• Whoever humbles themself will be exalted...
• You do unto others...

Chiasm(definition) ).. once you are attuned to seeing them in Scripture (and most ancient literature) it seems they are everywhere.

Sometimes they are.
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CHIASMs they can grow larger, and the parallelism can be more general, thematic.

And getting over VERSE-ITIS helps a lot in seeing chiasm in the big sweep.  This is Genesis 6:

Or the tower of Babel in Genesis 11:

link

And we're only in the FIRST book of the Bible (:

Sometimes chiasms  are are so large that they  almost become a genre..or encompass an entire book.

In fact, they can become as large as life,  See
James B. Jordan, “Chiasm and Life” in Biblical Theology Basics:

“Very much of human life is ‘there and back again,’ or chiastic. This is how God has designed human beings to live in the world. It is so obvious that we don’t notice it. But it is everywhere. This shape of human life arises ultimately from the give and take of the three Persons of God, as the Father sends the Spirit to the Son and the Son sends the Spirit back to the Father. We can see that literary chiasm is not a mere curiosity, a mere poetic device to structure the text. It arises from the very life of God, and is played out in the structure of the lives of the images of God in many ways and at many levels. It is because human beings live and move so often chiastically, that poets often find themselves drawn to chiastic writing. God creates chiasms out of His inner life, and so do the images of God.

Biblical chiasms are perfect. That is, they are perfectly matched to the human  chiasms they address and transform. As we become more and more sensitive to Biblical chiasms, we will become more and more sensitive to one aspect of the true nature of human life under God. We will be transformed from bad human chiasms into good human chiasms. In this way, becoming sensitive to chiasm can be of practical transformative value to human life, though in deep ways that probably cannot be explained or preached very well.

One further thought. We saw in our previous essay that chiasms often have a double climax, one in the middle and the greatest at the end. The food we bought at market is put away in the cupboard and refrigerator when we get back home. Moving forward to a final climax is what all literature does, whether it has a middle climax or not. (Shakespeare’s five-act plays always move to a climax in the third and in the fifth acts.) This is just another way that human life matches literary production, in the Bible as well as in uninspired human literature. Becoming familiar with the shape and flow of Biblical texts will have a transforming effect on human life.”

James B. Jordan, “Chiasm and Life” in Biblical Theology Basics.

-link, Michael Bull’s blog: Theology you can eat and drink

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Mike Rinaldi, a Visalian, and filmmaker (and Fresno Pacific grad) told this   story at the first "Gathering to Bless Christians in the Arts":
Blake Snyder, the screenwriter behind the classicSave The Cat"  book became a Christian not long before he died. 

Often at this point in such a story, folks ask "Who led him to Christ?" 

Go ahead and ask. 

The answer is: 

Chiasm. 

It happened in large part because Mike, not even knowing if such a well-known and busy writer would respond to his email,  asked him if he had heard about chiasm. 

Turns out Snyder was fascinated with it all, and Mike was able to point out chiastic structure and shape in scriptwriting....and one thing led to another...and then in Scripture. 

All roads, and all chiasms, lead to the Center and Source. 


Mike, of course, learned chiasm in THIS CLASS.

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3)VENN IT!!! VENN IT!  comparing/contrasting two texts: 

We did a "venn it" with
- a)Dave Matthews' "Bartender" (2 versions):

and with  the two stories of creation: 


the two stories of creation: Gen 1:1 – 2:3 and Gen. 2:4-25). 

 Camp and  Roberts (FPU faculty) note:

The two accounts are separate but complementary, like the four gospels. They can be read at different levels, from literal to figurative, with no bearing on the truth of it. Poetry is not less true than a newspaper, just a different kind or mode of truth. And, one must always ask the question what the implied author intended and what the implied audience would have understood. Ancient notions of history are very different from ours.

Genesis 1:

repetitious, tabular, formal

days of creation reported in the same way, formulaic

authority and brevity

style of ordering material into a series of similar solemn commands are unchallenged

content presents major divisions of creation known to writer

catalog or tabulation of events and commands

vocabulary = create (bara), humanity as likeness/image, male/fernale

God = Elohim, characterized as powerful cosmic organizer, speaks things into being, stands outside of cosmos and controls it

Humanity = created as vice regent, created in image gives representative status

polemic against mythical concepts of life and creation

Genesis 2:

relationship of characters emphasized

language is picturesque and flowing, poetic terms, colorful

God's actions more interrelated than separated by divisions of time or set expressions (idioms)

no two acts are alike and none are preceded by divine command

vocabulary = form (yasar), humanity as living being, man/woman

God = Yahweh, characterized by immanence, personal nearness, involvement on human scene, intimate master, depicted humanly (hands, walking, digging)

Humanity = ready contact with and immediate responsibility to God. Humanity's creation linked to ground (word play on adam = man and adamah = ground) and curse is alienation from the land, is distinctive because Yahweh personally addresses him

polemic against fertility cults in Canaan

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Compare Genesis accounts to Babylonian Creation story (read an excerpt here). Significant similarities – Genesis is not written in a vacuum. Significant differences – lack of violence, struggle, multiple gods, etc.

Enuma Elish:

a.     creation by word - Marduk has this power. They tell him to open his mouth. At the word of his mouth XXX vanishes or reappears.

b.    command over elements - Marduk enlists wind and storm to defeat Tiamat, but battles with elements too.

c.     Tiamat is split in two and body is used to retain waters and set firmament and ground.

d.    sets stars in their place, gives moon and sun jurisdiction, setting days 

e.     creation of man - "blood I will make and bones I will cause to be" new idea like Genesis but he creates out of a dead god's body and for the purpose of "the relief of the gods".

In Genesis, we see a carefully structured account, bringing order out of chaos. The sea and darkness are elements of chaos in the ancient world. No work can be done in the dark; salt water kills agriculture; unknown depths and sea creatures are in the sea. God has ability to control and limit these. Chaos is not eliminated or bounded. God creates out of nothing (vs. other creation myths of the day), and the verb used for "create" (bara) is something no human ever does in the Old Testament. Only God does this action. There are also no elements of struggle or battle to create, which is typical of other contemporary creation myths. God simply speaks or shapes things into being. There are also no birthing images, which are common in other myths, and quickly lead to a confusion between Creator and creature (vs. God as wholly other), and to fertility cults. Also, most other creation myths were a people’s story (how the Mesopotamians came to be, for instance). Genesis is not presented as Israel’s story, but as the story of the world. ( to really appreciate the beauty and brilliance of these chapters, one has to read Hebrew. These verses are packed with wordplays and puns. It may not immediately occur to one that puns are a good form of theological education, but…)

          -Camp and Roberts KKK 
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MYSTERY TO SOLVE FOR NEXT CLASS:

Which list of the Ten Commandments is the "real" list??

We joked you could win $100 by saying, :Let me read you a list of the Ten Commandments, the only list the Bible explicity calls the Ten Commandments.  Tell if this is the list.  A hundred bucks says I'm right.  Then read them the Ten Commandments from Exodus 34!!:

                      Exodus 20                                                                     Exodus 34: Note: this list, NOT THE 
                                                                                                       OTHER, is the one that says "THESE ARE    
                                                                                                        THE TEN COMMANDMENTS"                                                          

1. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.		1. Thou shalt worship no idol. (For the Lord is a jealous god).  Smash all idols,
2. You shall not make for yourself a graven image. You shall not bow down to them or serve them.		2. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.		3. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep in the month when the ear is on the corn.
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.		4. All the first-born are mine.
5. Honor your father and your mother.		5. Six days shalt thou work, but on the seventh thou shalt rest.
6. You shall not kill.		6. Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, even of the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.
7. You shall not commit adultery.		7. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread.
8. You shall not steal.		8. The fat of my feast shall not remain all night until the morning.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.		9. The first of the first fruits of thy ground thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy God.
10. You shall not covet.		10. Thou shalt not boil a kid in its mother's milk.

These look only loosely related to the list we've all heard from Exodust= 2O





Reminders that tone, emotion and contexture are important in interpreting a text:
Selective attention:
..

Remember:
From week 2 Bible reading, focus on Matthew
From  week 2 prep assignments:
 you can skip #2 (maps we will do in class)
simplify the letter assignment.  Just explain a tradition of any kind