Lost Sabbaths

All this was to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: Until the land has retrieved its lost sabbaths, during all the time it lies waste it shall have rest while seventy years are fulfilled. (2 Chronicles 36:21)

Okay. Let me begin by saying that this is not a post about apocalyptic literature like I promised. I do intend to write another one, but I felt inspired to compose this first. I have been ruminating over this verse from Scripture for the last week or so and thought I would share a reflection on it.

In a short span of time schools, colleges, businesses, restaurants, theme parks, and even churches have all closed. Sports, concerts, and other large events have all been cancelled. Air travel is almost unthinkable at this point, and the cruise industry is practically kaput. People are encouraged to stay home as much as they can, and not just from work but from... well, everything. It seems like the whole world is being drawn into a massive, communal Lenten observance. You thought you were going to just give up chocolate and soda pop this Lent... Little did you know.

Occasionally, like in times of crisis such as this, we might ask ourselves, "What does this all mean? Is God trying to tell us something?" I believe our ancestors in faith, the people of Israel, contemplated these questions very intensely. They interpreted their history from a religious perspective, and this is what informed their sacred writings. The so-called "Historical Books" of the Hebrew Scriptures were more theological than historical annals. They were oftentimes (though not always) rooted in actual events that had taken place, yet the meaning they ascribed to their social and political experience was influenced by how they viewed their relationship with God.

For much of the Old Testament, a national disaster was usually interpreted as the result of Israel and Judah's infidelity to God and God's commandments. That was certainly the case for the Bablylonian Exile in 586 B.C.E. Why did the Babylonians conquer Judah, sack Jerusalem, destroy the Temple, and send us into exile? Because we had broken the covenant. The historical tradition of 1 & 2 Samuel and 1 & 2 Kings, tends to place the blame largely on Judah's faithless and corrupt rulers, especially king Manasseh. However, the Chronicler (as the author of 1 & 2 Chronicles is often called), retells their history a little differently. He was writing later than most of the Hebrew Scripture tradition, and his audience had already returned from exile and rebuilt a Temple. His was a community that was striving to move forward in faithfulness to the Law and the Prophets. Perhaps as a warning to them all, he extended responsibility for the exile to the sins of the whole people in his account of history (2 Chr. 36:14-16).¹ He and his audience weren't expecting a restored monarchy anytime soon, but they could at least keep the law and promote the ritual cult of the Temple.

The quotation from 2 Chronicles at the beginning of this post adds another layer of interpretation for the exile. The duration of the exile was seen as reparation for not keeping the sabbatical and jubilee years (see also Leviticus 26:34-35). Every seventh and fiftieth year the land itself was supposed to have rest from agricultural labor (as described in Leviticus 25:1-13). These were also years that debts were to be forgiven and slaves too were supposed to have rest from their labors. The Torah lists all sorts of punishments that would befall the people if they did not keep the commands of God, and losing the land was one of them. For the Chronicler, however, the removal from the land was not a permanent loss, like the end of the monarchy appeared to be. The exile was a hiatus in order to repay the land for the rest it was denied.² Throughout the time that it is desolate, it shall observe the rest that it did not observe in your sabbath years while you were dwelling upon it. (Lev. 26:25 JPS).

As I've said before, I am not a biblical fundamentalist or literalist, and I don't presume that the Bible foretells current events. More importantly, I'm not bringing up Israel's punitive interpretations of the exile in an attempt to suggest that Covid-19 is divine punishment for breaking a covenant with God or any other sort of social sin. That all being said, I believe the Word of God is living and active and that it resonates with the human experience across time and space. Wars, famines, plagues, economic breakdowns, natural disasters, and crises of all manner are perennial problems we face as people on this earth, so of course these things make their way into our sacred texts. One of the reasons why I love the Scriptures is because they're as much about the human condition as they are about God. Not surprisingly, there is a lot of practical wisdom in Scripture that should inform our conscience.

I imagine that the Chronicler looked back on his people's experience of the exile and, having prayed  with the Torah and the oracles of Jeremiah, gave it a meaning beyond the sheer devastation and humiliation that it appeared to be. Recognizing his ancestors' past failings, he gave his community of Jews a way forward from their apathy and an invigoration to heed the Law and Prophets.³ Among the commandments, sabbath rest was so central to who they were as a people. This was something they needed to be reminded of, but I'm sure it also just made good practical sense.

God's law and the prophets' warnings were not arbitrary rules to follow. Any farmer will tell you the importance of rest for the land and the need for crop rotation. A just economy, as dictated in the Law, protected the most vulnerable, like widows, orphans, slaves, and foreigners. Even the dietary restrictions and ritual washings had practical implications. With the Chronicler's hindsight, he could see that infidelity to the Law and the Prophets had consequences, and whether the calamities that befell them were divine punishment or not, it was clear that there was a reason why God wanted them to keep his commandments. Social sin is as real today as it was in the time of our biblical ancestors. It would be the fundamentalist's stance to suggest that God is punishing us with this virus, but it would not be impractical to see how our economic systems and self-indulgence have exacerbated the crisis at hand.

I cannot say if there is some objective meaning from on high for this global crisis. Frankly, I don't pay much thought to the possibility, and for now it's a philosophical position I'm unwilling to entertain. I do, however, believe that we can observe our experience and listen for the echoes from Sacred Scripture that resonate with it. Even when our lives are upended and everything seems irrational, we can imbue this period of time with meaning. I think about all of the closures and cancellations, the abrupt halt of the normal flow of daily life, the images of empty streets and vacant businesses. One biblical commandment that seems to haunt me in all this is that of sabbath rest.

I am not insinuating that Covid-19 is an act of God intended to impose upon us an involuntary sabbatical. I'm not suggesting that this period of crisis is even all that restful. For a lot of people its been an anxious, stressful time as they try to figure out how to work from home, or find daytime child-care, or take classes on-line. Some parents are thrust into home-schooling their kids. Many people are without jobs and are wondering where their next meal is coming from. Those in the medical field or who are working at grocery stores or for delivery services are experiencing anything but respite. The number of cases and deaths are rising around the world. These are extremely difficult times, and, as was the exile for the people of Judah, this is not a favorable event. In fact, quite the contrary.

But at the risk of sounding as if I'm seeking a silver lining, I do believe that, for those of us who are forced into self-quarantine, we can give this time a sacred meaning. Is God calling us to retrieve once again the rest and the silence, which has been denied us by obligations or superficial distractions of our own making? This can be an opportunity to explore our relationship with God, to break open the Word and commune with the Lord, especially since many of us cannot receive communion in the Eucharist. It's a chance to rediscover the value of relationships we've taken for granted, as we are compelled to be apart from friends or together with our families. This is a time in which our common humanity is felt most strongly as all across the globe we share in the same feelings of loss, fear, and isolation but also in the hope and desire for salvation. We are one human family, and we are in solidarity now more than ever with those who are isolated in prisons and hospitals, with those who are vulnerable, and those who long daily for the dignity of work.

Even the earth itself is finding rest from the pressures we have put on it from our consumerism. It seems that already the atmosphere can breathe just a little easier as we fast from carbon emissions. Apparently, the absence of boat traffic in Venice has made their usually opaque canals clearer as well.⁴ Who knows what other positive environmental impacts may be possible? It may be a good time to take a walk if you are able (or open up a window) just to listen to the sounds of nature that we have become immune to in the hustle of our busy lives.

But I believe there's something deeper and more solemn to be gleaned from all this. For the Chronicler, just because the exile would give back to the land the sabbaths it was denied did not mitigate the tragedy of Judah's destruction. It was not a "bright side." Rather, his interpretation gave his community reason to have remorse for their sins. Perhaps this is also time for us to have compunction for the good we've failed to do as we've gone about business as usual, noses pressed to the grindstone - or to our phones. It's a time of reckoning for the whole human race as we come face-to-face not just with our individual selves but with our global systems and social structures that fail us and crush the lives of the most vulnerable when a crisis strikes.

Without minimizing or disdaining the severity of this pandemic - all the deaths, confirmed diagnoses, loss of jobs - the biblical commandment for sabbath rest hovers over my view of some of what's happening. I feel a faint connection with the people of Judah who were sent into exile so that, as the Chronicler would say, the land would experience the lost sabbaths. There's cause for individual and communal reevaluation to see what we've ignored or failed to appreciate. If you are compelled into self-quarantine at this time, this recess from our daily activities can be a sobering period - a chance to examine our lives. When everything else around us is shutting down, what becomes truly important? When we're forced into social-distancing and limitations, what have we, individually or collectively, taken for granted? Have we turned futile things into idols? Have I failed to take the time to recognize God's presence? Have I appreciated God's creation, my family, my friends, my neighbors? Have I paused to even hear my own self think up until now? Have I taken time to rest and just be?

My only scripture recommendation this week is that one verse, 2 Chr. 36:21, but feel free to click on the links to those other passages from Leviticus. If anything I've written resonates with you or your experience of going into self-quarantine, ponder those things. I should add, though, that it doesn't all have to be navel-gazing. There are certainly people in desperate need right now. Are you able to run an errand for an elderly neighbor? Do you need to check in with your co-workers to see if they need anything while they are home-bound too? Can you donate food or money to a soup kitchen or food pantry. And of course, this is also a wide open door to pray. Pray for our world, for the medical professionals, for those looking for a vaccine, for the elderly and at risk, for the infirmed, dying, and deceased, for their families, for those who have lost employment, and for an end to the global health crisis. If this be a time of sabbath rest for you - because it definitely isn't for everyone - make it mean something.

Until next time, be safe!

Peace and all good,
Bro. Ian

---

1 Stephen L. Harris and Robert L. Platzner, The Old Testament: An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2003), 328.^↩
2 Jewish Publication Society, study note on 2 Chronicles 36:21, in The Jewish Study Bible: Tanakh Translation, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 1825.^↩
3 Harris and Platzner, 328.^↩
4 Denise Chow, "Coronavirus Shutdowns Have Unintended Benefits: Cleaner Air, Clearer Water," NBC News Science 19 March, 2020, NBC News, Web, 20 March, 2020. ^↩

Where Did the Bible Come From? Part I

           In the fall I asked some friends and family what kinds of questions they had about the Bible, and one of the topics that came up the most frequently had to do with the composition, compilation, and canonization of the Bible (Yay, alliteration! I think I'll refer to these as the Three Cs). In short, people want to know how the Bible came to be. Most folks are well aware that it didn't just drop into the lap of some ancient religious leaders by the Holy Spirit. But a lot of people still aren't really sure about the Bible's actual origins.

            As I have insisted in my earliest posts, the Bible is not really a book, but more like a library of books. It is a whole corpus of literature composed over a period of a thousand plus years or so, and its content concerns events that range over two thousand years of history (delving into some undatable, legendary periods as well). The books of Bible are compiled somewhat according to the order of the over-arching narrative – where there is a narrative to follow – but certainly not according to when they were written. Some of the older books of the Hebrew Scriptures predate some of the books of the Torah (those first 5 books). Matthew's Gospel precedes Mark's in the New Testament, but Mark was almost certainly written first – not to mention the letters of Paul before any of the Gospels. And Romans is the first letter to appear among Paul's epistles, but it was likely one of his later letters. Basically, the ordering of the books in the Bible has little to do with the date of their composition.

            The who and when of biblical authorship is a rather complex issue. Regarding the Old Testament alone, most of the books were not composed by single authors but were more so the product of collaboration "– collaboration of a special kind because the various authors were widely separated in space and time, had no knowledge of one another, and certainly had no conception of the form that their work would finally take."[1] The Hebrew Scriptures had a slow development that included various authors, sources (both oral and written), editors, and compilers. This is especially true for the Torah, which brings me to source analysis and the "Documentary Hypothesis." (Exciting, right?) As technical as these sound, they're really just fancy terms for talking about how the Torah is a compilation of several sources with varying origins and points of view.

            Personally, I am a fan of the concept of the Documentary Hypothesis, and I have no problem believing that the Scriptures were developed from various sources. As with many things in academic disciplines however, it's a theory, and scholars continue to debate and dispute the dating and nature of the proposed sources. However, as Michael Coogan concedes, "the data must be explained, and almost all scholars agree with the general principle that underlying the present text of the first five books of the Bible are distinct sources."[2]

             One way we can think about the use of various sources in the formation of the Torah is to imagine writing a book on your family's ancestry. You might have heard family stories from your grandma Dorothy, but then you also have a diary written by your great-aunt Bertha. Maybe you find a few legal documents that have to do with your great-grandfather Robert on ancestry.com, so you decide to add those to the mix as well. And then there are always those family legends – the ones that have been passed down from generation to generation with a few variations here and there. You're not sure if they actually happened in the same way that they've been related, but they reflect an important part of your family's character and identity, so you put them in too. Some of the materials may seem to contradict each other. Perhaps Dorothy tells a story that disagrees with Bertha's diary, but you choose to put it all together anyway and try to make a somewhat homogenized story of your family.

            All analogies fail at some point, of course, but I hope this kind helps to put in perspective what I mean by the use of sources in the Torah's composition. Just as the family stories were passed down orally before writing this book from the example, the oral traditions which influenced the biblical texts also had a long-standing history before they were committed to writing. But just like Bertha's diary or Robert's legal documents in the analogy, it wasn't only oral traditions that were used as sources in the development of the Torah. Some written material was produced as early as the monarchy, which began around the 10^th century BCE (the 900s).These sources, both oral and written, would eventually would lead to the formulation of parts of the Torah.

            With some confidence, scholars can point to the reign of Josiah of Judah (640-609 BCE) as a datable period for an early edition of what would become the book of Deuteronomy. At that time, a so-called "Book of the Law" was "found" in the Temple (see 2 Kings 22:1- 23:30). Later, with the experience of the Babylonian exile and the threat of their religious faith disappearing altogether, there was an unprecedented need "to fix [their] traditions permanently as canonical documents."[3] So by about the 4^th century, a good while after the exile, the material that made up the Torah was collected, compiled, and redacted to form more or less what we know as the Torah today.

            So, okay, by that time we pretty much have the Torah, and it evidently was an authoritative text for its readers (i.e. canonical), since the post-exilic Judahites needed to preserve and pass on their religious faith. But what were those sources that made up the Torah? Here is just a bird's-eye view of the four classical sources and some of their characteristics.

J (Jahwist): This source, pronounced YAH-wist (because them Germans have the market on biblical scholarship, and they pronounce Js like Ys, as in Jägermeister) is so named because when referring to God this source uses the Divine Name, YHWH. English Bibles typically never use the Divine Name, and rightly so out of respect. Instead, whenever the Divine Name appears it reads the LORD, and in fact, whenever Jewish people read from the Scriptures and encounter the Divine Name in Hebrew they instead say Adonai, which more or less means "Lord." J is probably the earliest of the traditions, and it likely developed in the southern Kingdom (Judah). God is depicted as more humanlike and speaks more directly to human beings rather than through messengers.

E (Elohist): This source is so named because it uses the Hebrew word elohim to refer to God – at least up to the revelation of the Divine Name in Exodus 3. Elohim is usually simply translated as "God" in English Bibles. In E, God is more distant and communicates through dreams and messengers (angels). Geographically it has a more northern perspective. The term "prophet" is favored in this source, for even Abraham is called a prophet. Also, the mountain known as "Sinai" in J is here called "Horeb" (as well as in the D source, but I'm not there yet). Since E is very fragmented and intertwined closely into the J source, the two are sometimes indistinguishable.

P (Priestly): The Priestly source gets its name because it deals so much with religious matters and instructions: rituals, sacrifices, Sabbaths, etc. It was likely the last of the four sources to develop – probably during 6^th century, given the need to preserve the traditions in the midst of the turmoil that occurred in that period (destruction of the Temple, exile, return and reconstruction; let's face it, the 500s were a trying and pivotal century). Almost all of Leviticus is from the P source, but P is interlaced in all of the books of the Torah. God is more remote in P than any other source. The light-filled cloud described in Exodus is an example of P's distant and transcendent depiction of God's glory.

            If you're wondering how all of these sources got pulled together, you can thank the P source for at least being the final editors of the source materials, which is why their contributions  are found in all five books. In fact, chapter 1 of Genesis and the last chapter of Deuteronomy are from P, so it basically bookends the  whole Torah. It may have been a later source, but the Johnny-come-latelies got the final say.

   

D (Deuteronomic): You can thank the Deuteronomists for a good chunk of the Hebrew Scriptures. A type of religious/intellectual movement which scholars refer to as the Deuteronomic School developed as early as the 8^th century in the northern Kingdom (Israel). That school later moved to Judah after the fall of Israel to the Assyrians. Surprise, surprise, the Deuteronomic source was responsible for most of the book of Deuteronomy (from which the D source gets its name). But the Deuteronomists were also the authors of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. These books make up what is known as the Deuteronomic History. They also edited and possibly collected material from a number of the earlier prophetic books, most particularly Jeremiah, who himself may have been part of the Deuteronomic School. Obviously this school of thought didn't have much to do with what we mean by "schools" today, but if it did and had I lived back then, I would have had a closet full of their T-shirts and gone to all their games with a big foam finger. I am that much of a fan of their accomplishments. Go Deuteronomists!

            This is merely a rough sketch of the four main hypothetical sources originally proposed by Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918).There were indeed other source traditions in existence. For example, chapters 17-26 of Leviticus probably derive from a separate source known as the "Holiness Code." And the book of Numbers is a patchwork of not just J, E, and P, but of other folklore, laws, lists and accounts that were passed down.[4] Some of the books of the Old Testament even refer to non-biblical textual sources (e.g. the Book of Jasher) which have since been lost to us.

            Lastly, we cannot pretend that the literature and oral traditions from the surrounding cultures and nations had no effect on biblical writings. The Israelites settled among Canaanites and were under Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, and Greek domination at different periods of their history. Naturally, some of the literature and lore of their neighbors and captors would have rubbed off on them. It's no surprise, for example, that multiple flood stories occur in ancient Near Eastern literature. But comparing biblical and other ancient Near Eastern texts is a topic for another day. The point is that the formation of biblical literature was a rather organic process and consisted of much more than just a handful of individual authors. Even the Documentary Hypothesis can be critiqued for oversimplifying what was certainly a complicated development.

     

            But why does any of this matter? What sort of effect will it have on our biblical reading? Why am I going into a whole rant about source analysis? One reason is simply because I find that people are hungry to know where the Bible comes from. How did this anthology of books come about that has had so much influence over history and our lives today. The best way I could think of to approach that question was to write a bit about the ever-enthralling Documentary Hypothesis. The other reason, however, is because I am edified and mystified by the wondrous way in which God communicates God's self. As I said in my previous post, the Truth has a way of making itself know to us. The fact that multiple sources and traditions – some of which differ greatly in perspective from one another – can all be brought together to proclaim the word of God says something about God's infinite greatness and inclusivity. We find that God is more "both/and" than "either/or." Some lament the apparent contradictions in Scripture. I prefer to see them as an example of the fine tension in which all things are held, tempering extremism and giving us the freedom to stretch our arms out wider to embrace even more of the mystery of our faith.

            For this week, I recommend reading chapters 1 & 2 of Genesis. They're a perfect example of two separate sources at work. If you compare these creation myths, you'll find distinctive and differing characteristics between them. Gen 1-2:3 is from the P source, and in it there is more of a sense of bringing order out of chaos. It orders creation with the perfect number, seven, and concludes with Sabbath rest. God is more distant in chapter one; God speaks, and creation is made. On the other hand, Gen 2:4-24 is from the J source. God is more humanlike, forming a man out of the earth like a potter, planting the garden like a gardener, building up a woman from the man's rib. The narrative is much more story-like with explanatory asides and a developing plot which will unfold in the following chapters. You don't have to try to pick out all the differences in the two accounts, but I would encourage you to see how each one is unique but at the same time speaks a truth about God, humanity, stewardship, the goodness of creation and the preeminence of relationship.

            Since this post is only Part One of a series of entries on the Bible's origins, I hope to go over other areas of the Three Cs in subsequent posts. Today's has only covered a tiny speck of what is certainly a topic best explored in a lecture series with an actual professor. Nevertheless, I welcome questions and comments via e-mail, Facebook, or this blog page. And now you can even follow the Codega on Twitter (@biblecodega). Come back next week for more about the origins of the Bible, and until then...

Peace and all good!

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[1] John B. Gabel and Charles B. Wheeler, The Bible as Literature: An Introduction, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 9.

[2] Michael D. Coogan, The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 28.

[3] Ibid., 76.

[4] Ibid., 145 & 153.

The Bible Library: Torah

            When I was in junior high I began to read a chapter of the Bible almost every night, and by the time I was in my third or fourth year of high school I had read up to Isaiah. I didn't really understand prophetic literature, so I gave up on that whole endeavor for awhile. Interestingly enough, what initiated this nightly reading from Scripture wasn't so much youthful piety as it was a really odd sort of punishment. My parents saw that I was using a pencil on which I had written the words "Cupid sucks." Typical thirteen-year-old angst, though I think anyone would admit that I could have written a lot worse. Nevertheless, my parents thought that a good penance for my apparently shocking vulgarity was to read chapter 3 of Genesis (when Adam and Eve eat from the tree in the middle of the garden). Pubescent immaturity... a narrative of the fall of humankind and distortion of relationships. Hmm, it seems a little incongruent if you ask me, but that's what I was told to do.

            For the record, I do not advocate using religion to punish children – of course, I'm not well suited for giving parental advice either, having no children of my own. For me, however, it kind of worked out, and I had decided to keep reading the Bible even after my reprimand for juvenile nonsense. I doubt many other teens would follow suit, but if the worse your child can do is write the words "Cupid sucks," he or she might be the type that would run with it and end up pursuing a religious studies degree. As it turns out, I never returned my mother's Bible after that, and it is currently on my desk beside me as I type. Some lesson learned.

            Some people may be under the impression that in order to read the Bible they should start from Genesis chapter one and read straight through. That is a worthy and laudable endeavor, I suppose, and if you want to do that, that's great, but I personally wouldn't recommend it. Even though I had taken that route as a teenager, I still had not connected very deeply with the Scriptures until I began to learn more about them. In any case, the Bible isn't really a book. If you try to read even just the Old Testament from beginning to end you might start off reading a single narrative, but soon you'll begin reading repeated versions of some of the same stories. You'll also find that not everything in the Bible reads like a story. In fact, most of it doesn't at all. There is a lot more poetry than prose in the Old Testament, for example, and half of the New Testament is letters which are a whole other literary form in and of themselves.

            The Bible is a complex compilation of various literary genres and styles by numerous authors. And if there is anything you should know about the Bible, it is that it didn't just fall into human hands from on high. Not even all of the books in the Bible reflect the exact same theology. What!? I know, you'd think that the Word of God would have its act together, right? This is one of the reasons why we need to use caution and humility when using Scripture. We have to appreciate the fact that the Bible is not so simple. Nevertheless, you can read the Scriptures, and God does speak to us from them today. That's kind of why we listen to the Word proclaimed at our religious services, isn't it?

            For the next couple of weeks I just want to introduce some of the books of Scripture and how they are organized in the Bible. I like to think of the Bible not as a book but as a library. On the left side of the library there are shelves of books of the Old Testament (aka Hebrew Scriptures) and on the right there are bookshelves of the New Testament. Those shelves on the left of our library can be categorized by Torah, the historical books, wisdom or poetical books, and the prophets. That, in fact, is how the Catholic editions of the Bible order the Old Testament and why they are not organized in chronological order. The Jewish canon[1] of Scripture is known as the Tanak, and it is organized by the Torah, the prophets (Nevi'im), and the writings (Kethuvim). I point this out simply because the acronym, TNK, is just brilliant, and it makes me smile!

            For today, let's look at the Torah, also known as the Pentateuch – penta as in pentagon because there are five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is the most important of the Hebrew Scriptures for the Jewish peoples. It can be said that everything else in the Hebrew Scriptures, and arguably in the New Testament as well, is commentary on the Torah. The word Torah simply means teaching or instruction. Sometime before the Babylonian exile, the word Torah was associated with "the teaching or law of Moses," and by sometime after the exile it essentially referred to these first five books of the Bible.[2] As with all things, there is a lot more that can be said about the meaning of Torah, and it surely has a much deeper connotation in the Jewish faith, but for our purposes if you hear Torah, think Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.

            Oh, and if you are every perusing a shelf of movies and you come across Tora! Tora! Tora!, do not be fooled. It is not something akin to Fiddler on the Roof as I had thought. I was quite disappointed when I took it off the shelf only to find Japanese World War II aircraft on the cover and not cheerful Jewish elders dancing.

            By way of a brief and almost certainly over-simplified introduction into these five books, here is a little description about each one just to whet your appetite.

Genesis: I think this is a great book to start with if you are new to reading the Old Testament. It's one of my favorite books in the Bible, because it is such a human story. It's got everything: myth, legend, blood, sex, and betrayals, family drama, beautiful struggles and witnesses of faith, and dastardly deeds of human folly. It's like Game of Thrones without the dragons. I'm kidding;  I have never even seen Game of Thrones. The bulk of the narrative, beginning just before chapter 12 through the rest of the book, tells the story of the great Hebrew patriarchs and matriarchs: Abraham & Sarah, Isaac & Rebekah, Jacob (aka Israel) & his two wives, Rachel & Leah, and finally all of Jacob's sons.

Exodus: Another must read! Some of this story we are familiar with from popular culture, but just as with Harry Potter, the book is always better than the movie. Exodus is the story of a saving God, who hears the cry of his people – a people who aren't even all that grateful sometimes. Not only is God a saving God, but he also makes a covenant with his people at Sinai and gives them the law. This was a hallmark of ancient Israelite theology – the salvation from slavery in Egypt, the covenant, the law. The ancient Israelites defined themselves as a people and their relationship with God based on the narratives found in Exodus. Always remember, the God of the Torah is a saving God.

Leviticus: This is one reason why I don't recommend reading the Bible from cover to cover. That isn't to say Leviticus is a bad book; it's mostly a book of laws though. Many of the laws contained within it might seem tedious or unusual for our senses, but essentially many of the laws have to do with holiness. As it says repeatedly "You shall be holy, for I the LORD am holy." Holiness was a technical term, however. It didn't mean piety like we often think of holiness; it meant separation from what was ordinary, and the people of Israel were called not to be ordinary, but extraordinary – a people set apart. That vocation to holiness still remains in the Judeo-Christian tradition, by the way. One last thing I love to point out about the book of Leviticus is that it is in this oft-dismissed book of the Bible that we find that beautiful teaching which so many mistakenly think originated in the New Testament: You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Lev 19:18).

Numbers: To quote biblical scholar Michael Coogan, "Numbers is the most complicated of the entire Pentateuch, in terms of both its content and its sources."[3] Essentially, Numbers is about the Israelites wandering in the desert for forty years. It gets its name from the various censuses of the tribes of Israel that are included in the book. There are some more laws and some interesting narratives in Numbers – even one with a talking donkey (Num 22). Among the things we can take with us from this book is the analogy of wrestling with God. The Israelites do a lot of whining in this book, and while God often chastises, God also always saves.

And finally, Deuteronomy: I love this book. A biblical professor I once had said that Deuteronomy and Isaiah are like the bread and butter of the Hebrew Scriptures. Deuteronomy, whose name means "second law," is more or less Moses' fair-well speech before his death and the Israelites' entry into the promised land. Indeed, a lot of it reiterates many of the laws and narratives found in other parts of the Torah, but with a slightly different theological perspective. My favorite part of Deuteronomy is 7:6-11. The thing to keep in mind with Deuteronomy is covenant and that "the LORD, your God, is God indeed, the faithful God who keeps his merciful covenant... (7:9)." It is God who is faithful, even when we are not.

            So as you can see, the Torah has a lot of laws, but it also has a lot of stories – stories about a people and their intimate relationship with God. Consider for this week some of the stories in your own life about your relationship with God or with the Scriptures. As you can see, my teenage encounter with the Word had some offbeat origins, but sometimes our experiences with the Divine can be a bit humorous. For this week, I recommend reading Exodus 15:1-18. This is one of the oldest passages in Scripture, and it really gives you a sense of how the ancient Israelites thought of and related to their God. One of their earliest recognitions of the character of God was that God saves his people. In reading this passage, think about your image of God. What is your earliest experience with the Divine? Who has God been for you in your life? When you hear how God saves his people, how does that affect you? Do you think God cares about you, or do you think God is aloof and distant?

            As always, I encourage questions and comments, and don't forget to subscribe. Just type your e-mail in the "Follow the codega" box. Tune in next week for a brief introduction to the historical books.

May the Lord bless you and keep you!

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[1] Canon is the word used to designate the list of authoritative books of the Bible by a religious institution.

[2] Michael D. Coogan, The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 184.

[3] Coogan, 153.