What does not kill me will only make me stronger!

A few weeks ago, Professor Sexton asked us to have one bad day. However, I was not able to accommodate the assignment at the time but I did make up for it by having a bad week last week. Last week, it felt like that anything that could go wrong in my life did go wrong. I would call my grandmother to visit and the first thing she would say was "What happened now?". I will not go into detail about all of the things that happened to me last week but most of the time I did not know whether to laugh or cry. I remember that Job often asked what he did to deserve the things that were happening in his life and I often did the same last week. Even now just a short time later looking back I realize that I learned nothing when I was questioning why things were happening and I started focusing on what bad thing was going to happen next. By focusing on the bad, I allowed myself to perpetuate the cycle. I might not have been able to change what things happened but I could have changed how I reacted. This was as close as I got to an epiphany. I don't think it was an actual epiphany but just a mere realization and affirmation of things that I had previously learned and forgotten. I think that everyone needs to have these realizations & affirmations because without setbacks in our life, no one can go forward. As humans we need to have failures in order to fully appreciate our successes. Job realized this when he said "he destroyeth the perfect and the wicked". This quote relates to many, if not all creation stories, because humans are not perfect and without these bad days or weeks, we would as a whole forget this concept. We would forget the concept of our own imperfections because we become so wrapped up in our own world and often try to place ourselves as gods of our environment. The bad days is the cosmos' way of giving us a reality check and as much as I hate my own bad days, I realize now that I need them.

The Creation Story: Seen in a New Light

While reading Folklore in the Old Testament, I came across an interesting passage that states that the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was truly the Tree of Death, the counterpart to the Tree of Life. I had never considered this before even though it was essentially the tree that did allow us to die. The author says that "that the forbidden tree was really a tree of death, not knowledge, and that the mere taste of its deadly fruit, quite apart  from any question of obedience or disobedience...sufficed to entail death to the eater" (Fraser 48). I personally have to disagree with some of the things that Fraser said. Why does it have to be one or the other? Isn't death a form of knowledge? I have no clue what people learn when they die but I do believe that they do learn something. I do not even particularly mean the afterlife but the moments leading up to a person's death, there must come some kind of epiphany about their life or life in general. Now I am definitely not in any hurry to experience this particular epiphany for myself but I do think that is how life works. So I believe that Fraser had some good points but was very mistaken when saying that the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was in all actuality a Tree of Death. These two things can be synonymous in the proper context, such as the Creation story in the Bible.
In the same area of his book, Fraser discussed how the Bible did not specify whether humans were immortal or mortal until after Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden tree. I had never truly considered this idea before either. If Adam and Eve had not eaten of the tree, would we still be immortal? Because if they had not eaten of the forbidden fruit they would have had to eat of the tree of life thus making them immortal. But didn't they probably eat of the tree of Life before eating the forbidden fruit, so did the forbidden fruit's effects out-weigh the effect of the Tree of Life. Obviously it did but isn't it interesting that even as immortals, humans were still destined to fall from God's grace. Depending on how a person is reading this story, whether literal or as a moral story, a person can get many different lessons from the creation story. The lesson that I am taking from this time's rereading of the Creation Story is that no matter how many good choices a person makes before making a bad one, those choices can never protect you from the consequences of the bad choice. I am sure that I could probably find a deeper meaning from this story but right now I am happy to have gained a little in-sight into Adam and Eve. By realizing that Adam & Eve probably did make good choices before messing up, makes me realize that I can't just consider Eve to be either a curious woman or a gullible woman but I have to realize that she was probably a bit of both and so many more things that I am not given enough background information about her to infer.

The Slave

I personally had a hard time reading The Slave at first. I literally had to force myself to read just a few pages in this novel; however, last night I flat out told myself that I needed to finish this book by Thursday. I do not know if it was my determination to finish this book or that after reading more of the Bible I could recognize various references to the Bible. This book is very inspiring to its readers as well as illuminating when considering the struggle of various religions that depend on the Bible for instructions. The fight between not only Judaism and Christianity but between all religions and atheism. Many of the questions that Sarah asked reminded me of questions that Atheists have asked me before when they learn that I am a Christian.
One of the things that puzzled me most about this book was that the character's name was Jacob. I understand the love story of Jacob and Sarah and how it related to Jacob and Wanda but I also felt that part of Jacob channeled the story of Job. I saw various quotes that come from Job and the questions that were often asked by many people were very reminiscent of questions Job asked God. I almost felt at time that this combing of characters from the Bible was like how Singer combined many different religions. They all somehow contradict and complement each other until it is hard to say what truly belongs to one religion or to one Biblical character. I think that this may have been the point of The Slave; there is no way to choose what religion is correct because they all are intertwined at fundamental levels and no matter which religion a person belongs to there are always going to be questions that haunt us that we will never be able to answer.

I & II Samuel: The story of Jerks & Mad Men

As I have been reading the books of Samuel, I have been trying to remember what I learned as a child about King David. I always thought that he was a great guy who saved his people all the time and was blessed by God. But now I am finding that he is a cheating jerk! He has more wives than he knows what to do with, is never happy with what he has and is very manipulative. I was completely disgusted at his actions towards Uriah. He had the man killed so he could sleep with his wife. What kind of guy is this?!? Why would God choose him to lead Israel?
In these two books, I am also the most disgusted with God than I have been with the rest of the Bible so far. I understood why God was so harsh before. You need rules to keep people in line but He is allowing mad men and jerkish polygamists to be kings of his chosen people. Also he is never punishing the people who actually deserve to be punished. Does He punish Saul for breaking all of his promises? No He does not. Does He punish David for killing Uriah? Yes he does by killing an innocent child. How is that even remotely fair? Another thing that greatly annoyed me was the treatment of Michal, David's wife and Saul's daughter. This woman seriously was cursed in life. First she had a mad man as her father then a jerk for a husband. She is punished for hating David when he has cheated on her, abandoned her, and basically treated her like crap. I would hate a man too if he treated me like that.
Needless to say that I am less than impressed with all of the men in I & II Samuel except for Samuel himself. He is the only one that shows any kind stability in his actions but even he could not control his people. I do not get why these books were put into the Bible. They are great narratives but seem to hold no moral values that would help inspire Christians or Hebrews. God is not consistent in punishments, leaders are crazy, and it shows Israel at some of its worst point with the various acts that they commit against each other.

October 26, 2010 Class Notes

• The Slave
• should relate to final presentation & final paper
• keep list of unfamiliar terms
• keep list of how the novel relates to the Bible
• Clash of Jewish & Christian Cultures
• Final Paper
• Theme Suggestions:
• Why is it called the Slave?
• Bible & The Slave: Compare and Contrast
• Any instance in the novel that sparks interest
• Greek Influence
• Bible
• OT written in Hebrew translated into Greek to make more accessible
• NT written in both Greek and Hebrew
• Job:
• Wisdom Literature
• three friends: "you are responsible for your fate"
• 4th friend
• young
• probably added by a redactor later on
• tries to explain why bad things have happened to Job
• Dramatic Structure
• Drama
• Acts
• Characters with Dialogue
• 5 Acts
• 1st act: Introduction to Job & God & Satan's Competition
• 2nd/3rd Act: Dialogue with 3 friends
• 4th Act: Appearance of God/ Epiphany
• 5th Act: Conclusion/ Job is rewarded again
• Compared with Prometheus Bound
• gets eaten by a vulture
• also a drama
• torture until Hercules
• Static figure as is Job
• Some people suspect that Job is not Hebrew but is Greek
• Dr. Sexton does NOT agree
• not truly a drama
• too static
• Views of Human Responsibility
• Greek
• secular
• challenge gods
• tragedy promotes standing up to the gods
• Hebrew
• religion
• obey God
• Fear
• Respect & Submission
• Islam means Submission
• Job 42
• Joni Mitchell
• The Sire of Sorrow
• Based on Job
• antagonists-question-words in parenthesis- different voice
• tireless watcher
• Blake
• torture me with visions
• She understands Job raises Greek notion of tragic view of world
• comedy
• http://jonimitchell.com/music/song.cfm?id=55
• Ecclesiastes
• pessimistic
• The Answer to Job
• Carl Gustav Jung
• answers God should have made to Job
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Answer_to_Job
• The Slave
• page 54
• Jacob searching for meaning of existence
• faith not knowledge
• not sustained by pain & agony
• Job 3
• Conflict of wisdom traditions
• Hamlet
• no conventions
• How can I live in this world?
• To be or not to be...
• deep mysteries of wisdom
• Polonists
• advice to sons
• Wine, Women, & Song
• Proverbs
• Domestic
• Harold Bloom
• Where should wisdom be found?
• Turn Turn Turn
• The Birds
• Ecclesiastes 3

October 21, 2010 Class Notes

• Flannery O'Connor
• Parker's Back
• every part of his body is tattooed except his back
• gets a tattoo on his back of Jesus to impress his wife
• O.E. Parker
• Has an Epiphany that leads him to get the tattoo of Jesus
• Like Moses
• loses his shoes
• burning tree
• "A good man is hard to find"
• Horror to some is beauty to others
• Exodus 24
• Picnic by the Mountain
• James' Blog on Susanna
• The Slave
• live according to the Bible
• everyone should be reading this by now
• Ruth
• Moabite
• characters:
• faithful but make their own faith
• appeals to agnostics
• not sure what to believe but do believe in some higher being
• marriage saying
• only said to mother-in-law not husband/wife
• Wisdom
• Job, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs
• Types of wisdom
• conventional
• parents
• Don't Question God
• He has mysterious ways
• Proverbs
• Based on Egyptian book of father giving advice to his son
• 3 Evils
• Wine
• Women
• Song
• Speculative
• Everything Sucks!
• Samuel Beckett
• Breathe (a play)
• Ecclesiastes
• Job
• 2nd best things is to die
• 1st best thing is to never have been born

Not understanding is understanding

 When assigned to write about theodicy, I did not have any clue about how I felt on this subject. Since Tuesday, I have talked to my grandmother, my mother, some of my sisters, and read the entire book of Job, trying to figure out what I thought about God's Justice. I am no closer to gaining any understanding of why God allows the innocent to die along with the wicked, at least in the spiritual sense. I have experienced as I am sure everyone else has personal tragedy that no can understand why it happened. My personal faith has allowed me to trust blindly that God had a plan for His actions. As I said before, I have no idea if God's justice is right or wrong and probably will never know.
In the literary sense, I understand the reasoning for having Job suffer to make a point in the Bible. Allowing one of his faithful servants to suffer as no other man had before made an example of him and tried not only his faith but the faith of others around him. I believe that this story was about being true to oneself, just as much as it was about loyalty to God. One verse that I found to be extraordinarily insightful "till I die I will not remove my integrity from me. My righteousness I hold  fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as live." Throughout Job I did not find a satisfactory answer to the question of God's justice, but instead I found the answer to wisdom. To be wise it to stay true to oneself and to admit that we know nothing; that is the key to true wisdom. Thus to understand theodicy, one must say that I do not understand why God did as he did and then one would be truly wise in the theory of theodicy, as Job was.