THEO

• Exegesis


  To lead out or draw out the intended meaning of the text
• Eisegesis


  An interpretation that is placed into the text which the text itself did not mean
• Literary traditions of the Pentateuch

  • Yahwist source
  • Elohist source
  • Deuteronomic source
  • Priestly source
• Yahwist source


  • Originated from Judah around 950 BC
  • Portrays God as a gratuitous, provident, compassionate, personal God who directly deals with His creation and intervenes in human affairs & history
  • Even when man continues to fall away from Him, God's final word is always the consolation of compassion and grace
• Elohist source


  • Portrays God as remote and distant from man, disclosing His revelation through visions and dreams
  • Reflects on problems of sin, guilt, and emphasizes the "Fear of God" among the people
  • Emphasizes "Covenant values of obedient and loyalty embodied in the fear of God"
• Deuteronomic source


  • Considers the covenant as its central theme
  • Prohibits sacrifice outside of the central sanctuary
• Priestly source


  • Concept of a monotheistic God and the imperative component of holiness on the conduct of life of Israel
  • There can never be a co-equal god
  • Addresses the abuse of freedom by human beings
  • Strong interest in genealogies, in date and in the ritual observance
• The Bible is the product of numerous editing by various authors and tradition
• The writings in the Bible can be possibly paraphrased, and can be inattentively repeat words, and because of the continuing learning of the people to discover vowels, the Bible has been revised from time to time
• Textual criticism


  Seeks to find the closest translation of the Biblical text to the original manuscript by investigating and comparing the numerous variations and modifications of the Biblical texts through time and tradition
• Literary criticism


  Strives to know the literary genre of a Biblical story or account "because every genre has its own interpretation"
• Historical criticism


  Examines the historical information and value that the text expressed and/or implied and the background of its emergence, development and transmission
• New literary criticism


  Advocates a return to the study of the text itself, perceiving the biblical text to contain an intrinsic or immanent meaning that can be found through close examination of the text itself, without extensive research into questions of social, historical, and literary context
• The discovery of the four literary traditions of the Pentateuch is a milestone in biblical scholarship
• Moses was not the sole author of the entire Pentateuch, as further investigation into the origin, authorship, and style of the Biblical texts found compelling reasons to conclude the differences necessarily point to various authors and sources
• All tools of exegesis have the same mission: to understand the Bible. The goal is an informed understanding of the text, without resorting to the error of eisegesis or ignorant proceeding
• More than a list of names and books, the Bible is a legacy of a people, a rich testimony of cultures from the past and a way of life different from our own. To appreciate the Bible is to discover such past, and to find the crucial nexus between experiences and universal meanings which both bind the past and the present.
• Fertile crescent


  Canaan, the promised land to Abraham and his descendants, was a country located at the heart of the ancient Near East
• Regions of the ancient Near East

  • Canaan
  • Egypt
  • Assyria
  • Babylon
  • Sumer
• Fertile crescent


  The route termed as the Fertile Crescent, enriched by the twin rivers of Mesopotamia in the east: the EUPHRATES, and the TIGRIS river, as well as the NILE of Egypt in the western part
• Mesopotamia


  The land between two rivers - the Tigris, and the Euphrates
• Amorites


  A Semitic people who had been pressing in on the Fertile Crescent since late in the 3d millennium and had overrun Palestine and turned Upper Mesopotamia into an Amorite land
• Mesopotamians


  • They knew how to drain the marshes for agriculture, developed trade and industries, including weaving, leatherwork, metalwork, masonry, and pottery
• Ubaid people


  The pre-Sumerian people
• Sumerians


  • They developed city-state government providing a model of harmony, and order in ancient societies but shifted to the way of the ruler
  • They developed a legal system, and the invention of pictographic (cuneiform) writing...the lunar calendar; water clock; sundial; the chariot and military phalanx; the potter's wheel; the use of the vault, arch, dome, column, and tower in architecture, plus a highly developed polytheistic religion that had an enormous influence on all the later civilizations of the ancient world
• Ziggurat


  A temple dedicated to the chief god or goddess of a Sumerian city
• Sumerian religion


  The concept of man and his relationship to the gods - a great contrast between Abraham, and YHWH
• Sumerian myth


  • Epic of Gilgamesh
• The story of Gilgamesh, a powerful king and hero, two-thirds divine, without a peer in the world, became arrogant in his rule, and displeased the gods and goddesses, who eventually decided to terminate him by creating a wild and innocent man named Enkidu equal to him in strength
• Gilgamesh used his cunning strategy, and sent whores to seduce Enkidu, and after six days and seven nights of lovemaking, Enkidu was tamed
• Gilgamesh fought Enkidu, defeated him, and in an unexpected turn of fate, became his only friend and ally
• Enkidu killed the bull sent by the goddess Ishtar but met the inevitable consequence of death, which was revealed to him in a dream
• After realizing that death awaits all men as an inescapable end like Enkidu's, Gilgamesh undertook an epic journey of finding the fruit of immortality and seek Utnapishtim, the only survivor, along with his family, of the Flood, and the only man to whom the gods had granted everlasting life
• Akkadians


  • Sargon managed to subdue all the Sumerian city-states, and put an end to Sumer as a major political power, and took over the entire Tigris-Euphrates basin and expanded into neighbouring countries
  • The Akkadian language became the common medium of Mesopotamia, and took over Sumerian cuneiform writing
• Babylon


  Its rulers forged lasting legacies to human civilizations
• King Hammurabi


  • He conquered Isin, Larsa, Eshnunna, and Mari and created an empire which extended the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean
• The Law of Hammurabi


  Received from the Babylonian god of justice, Shamash, in order to further the well-being of mankind, particularly those who are vulnerable to exploitation
• The Mosaic Law


  Moses received the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments from YHWH who heard the cries of his people... and [intended] to bring the Israelites out of Egypt
• Assyria


  Derived from Ashur which referred to the warrior-god of the city, and was most remembered as a military empire with its army as the backbone of the nation, giving its structure and hierarchy
• The prophets-Isaiah, Micah, Zephaniah and Nahum in the southern kingdom warned Israel of the danger posed by the Assyrian army, and interpreted it as the instrument of divine wrath due to Israel's sinfulness