A day in the life of an exegete
An exegete is apparently what you call someone who does or is doing exegesis.
Have a look at that previous post if you want to know what I'm on about.
Basically here's what I'm thinking so far.
Overall (so far), I think the Old Testament has two main points/themes:
1) God is the boss of everything
2) God keeps his promises
OK, so, 5 books into the bible we start to get the idea. God's picked his 'chosen people' (the nation of Israel) that he's going to 'bless all nations' through. All they have to do is live up to their side of the bargain and not worship any other 'gods'. (Whether any other 'gods' actually existed in the first place, I have no idea. If they do, the Bible says that the God of Israel (Yahweh) is the best one!)
Anyway, Bible book number 5, called Deuteronomy sets out all sorts of stuff that is supposed to keep Israel on the straight-and-narrow in obeying their covenant (promise) to God. The next however many books, taking us up to 1 Kings, which is the one I have to worry about, are all known as Deuteronomic History. That is, basically the Israelite historians wrote it as the history of the nation, while clearly trying to show that the stuff God laid out back in the old days was fulfilled as the leaders of Israel made different choices.
Enter King David. Basically David was, at least some of the time, God's posterboy for how to be an Israelite king. He is described as a 'man after God's own heart'. David was a pretty military-oriented sort of king. He took on the surrounding nations in battle and kicked quite a lot of butt, thus providing a bit of security for the nation of Israel in terms of having land to call their own. (Land for Israel is a BIG deal according to everything before Deuteronomy.)
God wasn't too impressed with old Dave when he saw some hot chick having a bath from his rooftop (re-read this sentence Kate), called her round, knocked her up and sent her husband off to the frontline to die at war. God didn't let the child live. But the woman in question became another of David's wives... and she 'bore him a son' ... (I always find it amusing to ponder the cultural contrast if I was to say that my mum bore me for my dad)... anyway... that son was Solomon... and he became the next king (there's a little bit of historical debate as to whether it was that son but probably not that big of a deal).
Anyway, thanks to big king D, Solomon got to take over at a pretty good peaceful time as far as Israel's land goes. This is where Solomon starts to be a bit of a wise guy. (Pun intended Bec). He asked God for wisdom to govern diligently and stuff. And God said righteo. God got Solomon to build him the temple (another early BIG deal)... this was the place where Israel was supposed to worship their one and only God.
The trouble is, Solomon was a bit of a ladies man like his dad, even if he didn't flog anyone else's wife. Most of the historians don't buy into the whole 1 Kings 11:3 thing about him having 1000 chicks on the go, he certainly would have had a fair few. One of his foreign policy tricks to make friends with neighbouring nations was to form marriage alliances. One of the neighbouring kings would give Solomon a daughter to take as a wife. Seeing as he was loaded, Solomon would look after her, and the other king would be happy and not want to invade Israel's turf.
Trouble was, these wifey characters weren't from Israel, so he had to be nice and multicultural and sort out "high places" for them to go to so that they could do whatever it was that they had to do as part of their religion. A lot of the 'gods' that they worshipped were really wacky in terms of what they actually believed and why... but then I'm sure a lot of Moabites in 690BC would probably say the same about Planet Shakers. I'm not saying it's a cult so don't panic kids, but if one of Solomon's wives gone to City Church, I'm sure she would have been able to convince him to get his praise on... coz essentially the wives got Solomon to join in with them.
Deuteronomistically (I'm so going to try and use that word in my essay Lance), the worshipping of other gods was a really bad idea. So God got cranky with Solomon and said his descendants (another BIG promise) were going to lose the kingdom... except being God, he kept his promise to David that his descendants wouldn't get wiped out... so Solomon's son ended up with one 'tribe' of Israel to look after. At this point as well, political climates shift in the neighbouring kingdoms and all of a sudden Israel's land isn't so secure any more. It turns out that God handles Solomon's silly behaviour exactly as he told David he would as part of their covenant in the book of 2 Samuel.
Anyway... in the end, God keeps his promise to Israel with the "bless all nations" and to David with the whole "descendants" thing because Jesus is a descendant of David.
Bored? Emily's doing the story of Noah for her exegesis, so Janelle if you want to read about the cute little animals in twos instead then maybe give her a call.
That's about 1000 words right there. I think I'll be OK getting to the 3000 word limit. I might change my writing style slightly though. Hehe.
Have a look at that previous post if you want to know what I'm on about.
Basically here's what I'm thinking so far.
Overall (so far), I think the Old Testament has two main points/themes:
1) God is the boss of everything
2) God keeps his promises
OK, so, 5 books into the bible we start to get the idea. God's picked his 'chosen people' (the nation of Israel) that he's going to 'bless all nations' through. All they have to do is live up to their side of the bargain and not worship any other 'gods'. (Whether any other 'gods' actually existed in the first place, I have no idea. If they do, the Bible says that the God of Israel (Yahweh) is the best one!)
Anyway, Bible book number 5, called Deuteronomy sets out all sorts of stuff that is supposed to keep Israel on the straight-and-narrow in obeying their covenant (promise) to God. The next however many books, taking us up to 1 Kings, which is the one I have to worry about, are all known as Deuteronomic History. That is, basically the Israelite historians wrote it as the history of the nation, while clearly trying to show that the stuff God laid out back in the old days was fulfilled as the leaders of Israel made different choices.
Enter King David. Basically David was, at least some of the time, God's posterboy for how to be an Israelite king. He is described as a 'man after God's own heart'. David was a pretty military-oriented sort of king. He took on the surrounding nations in battle and kicked quite a lot of butt, thus providing a bit of security for the nation of Israel in terms of having land to call their own. (Land for Israel is a BIG deal according to everything before Deuteronomy.)
God wasn't too impressed with old Dave when he saw some hot chick having a bath from his rooftop (re-read this sentence Kate), called her round, knocked her up and sent her husband off to the frontline to die at war. God didn't let the child live. But the woman in question became another of David's wives... and she 'bore him a son' ... (I always find it amusing to ponder the cultural contrast if I was to say that my mum bore me for my dad)... anyway... that son was Solomon... and he became the next king (there's a little bit of historical debate as to whether it was that son but probably not that big of a deal).
Anyway, thanks to big king D, Solomon got to take over at a pretty good peaceful time as far as Israel's land goes. This is where Solomon starts to be a bit of a wise guy. (Pun intended Bec). He asked God for wisdom to govern diligently and stuff. And God said righteo. God got Solomon to build him the temple (another early BIG deal)... this was the place where Israel was supposed to worship their one and only God.
The trouble is, Solomon was a bit of a ladies man like his dad, even if he didn't flog anyone else's wife. Most of the historians don't buy into the whole 1 Kings 11:3 thing about him having 1000 chicks on the go, he certainly would have had a fair few. One of his foreign policy tricks to make friends with neighbouring nations was to form marriage alliances. One of the neighbouring kings would give Solomon a daughter to take as a wife. Seeing as he was loaded, Solomon would look after her, and the other king would be happy and not want to invade Israel's turf.
Trouble was, these wifey characters weren't from Israel, so he had to be nice and multicultural and sort out "high places" for them to go to so that they could do whatever it was that they had to do as part of their religion. A lot of the 'gods' that they worshipped were really wacky in terms of what they actually believed and why... but then I'm sure a lot of Moabites in 690BC would probably say the same about Planet Shakers. I'm not saying it's a cult so don't panic kids, but if one of Solomon's wives gone to City Church, I'm sure she would have been able to convince him to get his praise on... coz essentially the wives got Solomon to join in with them.
Deuteronomistically (I'm so going to try and use that word in my essay Lance), the worshipping of other gods was a really bad idea. So God got cranky with Solomon and said his descendants (another BIG promise) were going to lose the kingdom... except being God, he kept his promise to David that his descendants wouldn't get wiped out... so Solomon's son ended up with one 'tribe' of Israel to look after. At this point as well, political climates shift in the neighbouring kingdoms and all of a sudden Israel's land isn't so secure any more. It turns out that God handles Solomon's silly behaviour exactly as he told David he would as part of their covenant in the book of 2 Samuel.
Anyway... in the end, God keeps his promise to Israel with the "bless all nations" and to David with the whole "descendants" thing because Jesus is a descendant of David.
Bored? Emily's doing the story of Noah for her exegesis, so Janelle if you want to read about the cute little animals in twos instead then maybe give her a call.
That's about 1000 words right there. I think I'll be OK getting to the 3000 word limit. I might change my writing style slightly though. Hehe.
3 Comments:
Well, I guess I can stop wondering why everyone at church thinks I'm a bimbo...Thanks Pauly.
Paulio!
that was fantasic!!
It had me smiling from ear to ear. More people should tell the stories that way.
I leave you having very much been entertained.
Thanks Paul, you made my day :)
good old old dave..... *grin*
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