Comments on: The Bible: Rated “R”

By: Prophets, Priests and Poets » Blog Archive » another gospel

Prophets, Priests and Poets » Blog Archive » another gospel — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:29:18 +0000

[...] ran across a post on another blog today about some truly horrific people — murderers, drunkards, adulterers, pimps, prostitutes [...]

By: Kaci

Kaci — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:58:23 +0000

Heya. New reader, enjoying Internet Monk so far. Good article – at the risk of coming off impertinent, though, I think you meant Jacob’s daughter Dinah, not Leah. Anyway. You made me think of my pastor’s version of Noah’s Ark. 0=)

By: Brendt Waters

Brendt Waters — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 23:50:53 +0000

Mike, whence cometh the Buechner quote?

By: heather

heather — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:46:41 +0000

i completely agree with you, john. kids can handle more than parents give them credit for. it was my students’ parents who didn’t appreciate that their sons were reading Judges. and it was my students’ parents who didn’t appreciate their daughters reading about zelophehad’s daughters, who today would have been labelled “godless, raging feminists”. God loves us the way we are. addictions, mood swings, raging hormones, impulsive acts, outspokenness… He understands, and He is patient and gentle, and doesn’t wait to use us until His good work in us is complete. He loves us and uses us NOW, just as we are, because ultimately, it’s not us doing anything, but Him doing it through us.

By: heather

heather — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:36:46 +0000

i used to teach a grade 6 sunday school class. i decided to give the kids a bible reading assignment. over 12 weeks, they had specific passages to read, and their parents had to initial a sheet saying the kids had, indeed, read it (can you tell i knew some of the kids pretty well? lol). and ok, i bribed them and told them they’d get a prize if they did, whch is what sunday school teachers do. with one minor difference:

the boys read Judges. and i mean, the whole book. they read about ehud, who smuggled a weapon into the king’s palace, interrupted the king while he was on the toilet, and ran a sword through the guy’s stomach before jumping out the window. they read about jael, who hammered a tent peg through a man’s skull and was then celebrated by deborah, the leader of the people. they read about the levite who chopped his concubine into a dozen pieces and sent one piece to each tribe. i could go on, but you get the idea.

only one set of parents appreciated this assignment.

for the girls, i made a different assignment. knowing that too often, girls are told only of the men in the bible, and only at christmas is there a woman in the spotlight (and even then, it’s just her uterus, not really her as a whole), i wanted the girls to see that women are just as valuable to God as men, and that women as expected to be exactly who they are. sure, meek and mild like elizabeth, generous and kind like tabitha, loyal like ruth… you know, good christian girls. but…. i also included esther, who was part of a harem and stood up to the king and saved her people. pricilla, who is always named before her husband and did most of the teaching. deborah, who led the israelites and celebrated jael who murdered a king. miriam, who danced!! (sorry, i was raised baptist. LOL) zelophehad’s daughters, who stood up for women’s rights and as a result, God changed the rules to be more fair to women.

you can imagine, these assignments weren’t overly popular with the mennonite parents in the class, especially, ironically, the girls’ assignment, which was definitely the tamer of the two. it saddened me a bit…. but on the other hand…. the kids loved it.

By: Tim

Tim — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 23:03:20 +0000

LOL.
So true.

By: Michael Krahn : The Ascent to Truth » The Bible: Rated R?

Michael Krahn : The Ascent to Truth » The Bible: Rated R? — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 18:05:50 +0000

[...] There’s a good post over at iMonk.com by Chaplain Mike about Bible stories. This is timely since I just finished reading Genesis again this morning. Some excerpts below… read the whole thing here. [...]

By: Christopher Lake

Christopher Lake — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 11:12:57 +0000

Sometimes, I wonder if this (by which I mean, the sexiness) is why, throughout Church history, the Song of Solomon has so often been read allegorically. Or perhaps, it was *meant* to be read allegorically, and it is difficult for us to understand because we don’t tend to think as much in that way as earlier Christians did? I dunno… just thinking out loud here.

Even if the Song *is* an allegory though, God definitely has no problem with using sexual metaphors in poetry…. wouldn’t most of the edgy poetry slam fans be surprised at that?

By: Headless Unicorn Guy

Headless Unicorn Guy — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 22:59:52 +0000

Even if you gotta fake it.

By: Headless Unicorn Guy

Headless Unicorn Guy — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 22:57:50 +0000

I heard from somewhere from a well-known Reformed scholar (I think it was O. Palmer Robertson) that when the Bible says that Ham uncovered Noahâ€™s nakedness that it meant he sodomized his father for power purposes.

In other words, a Primate Forced-Dominance Display. Penetrator and Penetrated, Dom and Sub. What prison slang calls “Makin’ a Woman out of Ya”.

In his book Gifts of the Jews, Thomas Cahill points out (through the device of a pre-Torah Sumerian fertility ritual, with two-legged animals howling in rut on the steps of the ziggurat) that Torah was about Transcending the Animal.