IMT
New member
Dear JPP Reader:
I didn’t realize we had theologians in our midst.
Looking at these citations, what I find interesting is that they group rather easily into several classes. I don’t see that the affirmation of labor is at issue. That – and the call to extend care for weaker members of society – doesn’t appear to me as antithetical.
That said, I have to add that while the recitation of specific texts may have significance for those who study such things, it seems to me that reading the Judeo-Christian narrative as a whole produces something very different.
The Genesis prologue presents the story of two brothers, Cain and Abel. On being confronted by the deity for fratricide, Cain replies, ‘am I my brother’s keeper.’ If you can read the rest of the Genesis story including that of Joseph and his brothers, and still not connect these details, how much insight will you gain however many texts you muster to your side?
Moreover, the Exodus narrative presents a picture of an Egyptian economy which is driven by slave labor – and foreign slaves at that. As conditions deteriorate, more hardship is put on the slave laborers. Entering misery, they begin to cry out in distress. What I find intriguing is that Egypt’s king attributes this crying to laziness [Ex 5:8]. It also strikes me as curious that the earlier narrative shows the deity, presumably Yahweh, as telling Cain, ‘your brother’s blood is “crying” out to me from the ground’ [Ge 4:10].
These are but two texts; yet they function at the heart of a much larger narrative. There are Marxists who contend that these narratives were invented to bring people into bondage to their rulers. I don’t. I think these details preserved from antiquity collective insights that the community believed too important to be lost. And given the emphasis that the Mid Eastern community gives to hospitality to this very day, I have to say that this gives me cause for reflection.
Yes, someone who is called ‘Paul’ said that people must work to eat. So by the way did someone called Marx. But it seems to me that texts cited stand as necessary corollaries to prevent a lopsided reading of the narrative. As for the grand movement OF the narrative ITSELF, that I believe is undoubtedly slanted toward the care of others [especially the weak and oppressed] and the necessity of forsaking unjust systems of exploitation which intentionally subjugate peoples into perpetuity.
Another theme comes to us from antiquity which also gives me cause for reflection. It is the fact that in addition to the practice of hospitality and care of others, we also hear the same interpretation placed over the cries of those who come into misery and hardship. ‘They’re lazy.’ I will leave it for those with greater moral character than I have to explain how it is fine, moral Christians persistently use isolated texts to silence the import of the grand narrative while reciting the very words of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, to those in distress today. ‘They’re lazy; they just don’t want to work.’
http://tinyurl.com/hxmkyn2
IMT
I didn’t realize we had theologians in our midst.
Looking at these citations, what I find interesting is that they group rather easily into several classes. I don’t see that the affirmation of labor is at issue. That – and the call to extend care for weaker members of society – doesn’t appear to me as antithetical.
That said, I have to add that while the recitation of specific texts may have significance for those who study such things, it seems to me that reading the Judeo-Christian narrative as a whole produces something very different.
The Genesis prologue presents the story of two brothers, Cain and Abel. On being confronted by the deity for fratricide, Cain replies, ‘am I my brother’s keeper.’ If you can read the rest of the Genesis story including that of Joseph and his brothers, and still not connect these details, how much insight will you gain however many texts you muster to your side?
Moreover, the Exodus narrative presents a picture of an Egyptian economy which is driven by slave labor – and foreign slaves at that. As conditions deteriorate, more hardship is put on the slave laborers. Entering misery, they begin to cry out in distress. What I find intriguing is that Egypt’s king attributes this crying to laziness [Ex 5:8]. It also strikes me as curious that the earlier narrative shows the deity, presumably Yahweh, as telling Cain, ‘your brother’s blood is “crying” out to me from the ground’ [Ge 4:10].
These are but two texts; yet they function at the heart of a much larger narrative. There are Marxists who contend that these narratives were invented to bring people into bondage to their rulers. I don’t. I think these details preserved from antiquity collective insights that the community believed too important to be lost. And given the emphasis that the Mid Eastern community gives to hospitality to this very day, I have to say that this gives me cause for reflection.
Yes, someone who is called ‘Paul’ said that people must work to eat. So by the way did someone called Marx. But it seems to me that texts cited stand as necessary corollaries to prevent a lopsided reading of the narrative. As for the grand movement OF the narrative ITSELF, that I believe is undoubtedly slanted toward the care of others [especially the weak and oppressed] and the necessity of forsaking unjust systems of exploitation which intentionally subjugate peoples into perpetuity.
Another theme comes to us from antiquity which also gives me cause for reflection. It is the fact that in addition to the practice of hospitality and care of others, we also hear the same interpretation placed over the cries of those who come into misery and hardship. ‘They’re lazy.’ I will leave it for those with greater moral character than I have to explain how it is fine, moral Christians persistently use isolated texts to silence the import of the grand narrative while reciting the very words of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, to those in distress today. ‘They’re lazy; they just don’t want to work.’
http://tinyurl.com/hxmkyn2
IMT
