Hebrew Rocks!

So far, so good! I started getting a few papers and quizzes back this week, and I'm doing well.

Church History has it's first paper due this Tuesday, and I'm writing on the Montantist influences on early Christian martyrs, particularly those mentioned in The Martyrs from Lyons and The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity. Amazing stuff. You can find links to the text of Perpetua's martyrdom here: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/perpetua.html. Basically, Perpetua's story is interesting because it's mostly a first-person account of her time spent in the prison while awaiting martyrdom in the arena, and then a narration of what happened. Very cool stuff. I quite enjoyed reading about it; I could definitely write more than a 4 page paper on it.

And Hebrew is good too! There are so many rules to the ancient, dead language, but I think our professor has the right idea: she's insistent that we learn the hard stuff first (instead of later) because HEBREW IS ALL HARD STUFF, and if we want to be able to read it (thank goodness! Not write it or speak it, just read and translate it) then we need to know the hard stuff up front and spend the semester practicing it. Tonight's homework was to translate Genesis 1:1-6 from the original(ish) Hebrew, and here's what I got (and no, I didn't look up the answer!) The italics are words I had to add, as Hebrew doesn't always have the words "is, are, was" in the sentence; they're often implied by the context. And there isn't much natural punctuation either...in fact I added some periods because I just couldn't stand it.

"God created with the heavens and with the earth and the earth was formless and emptiness and darkness was upon the face murmuring and the wind of God swooping upon the face of the seas.
Then God said let there become light and there was become light and God saw with the light that it was good and God made a separation between the light and the darkness and God called the light day and for the darkness he called night and let there be exchange and let there be morning day one.
And God saw let there be solid expanse in the midst of the seas and let there be a separation between the seas to seas." ~Neato! That only took two hours...

As for my Old Testament course, I'm enjoying that too, but it's hard to explain all that we're learning without making terribly general statements like "the Bible was written by a lot of anonymous people--but some known folks, but probably not Moses, maybe his scribe or someone who knew him--over a great deal of time as oral traditions from around the region were eventually written down by scribes (many of which may-or-may-not have had agendas in mind) but that's ok because it's still the inspired word of God that speaks to us in our present condition, today. But that inerrancy thing will have to be answered by your own tradition." See, that sounds so awkward, and I still didn't get it right.

Needless to say, it's very edifying, and I'm learning a lot. Many of my questions are being answered, most in challenging ways that I can't even articulate well at this point. BUT if you, like me, really hadn't read the Old Testament yet (honestly, no, I had not. I HAVE not, as I'm still not yet done with it) because you too got bogged down in the drudgery of Numbers or Leviticus or some other early book--then read this: The Chalice Introduction to the Old Testament by Marti J. Steussy. It's an EXCELLENT read, very easy and thorough without being too scholarly, and gives all kinds of good context and background for the scriptures you're reading. I realized why I never "got" the Old Testament before: I didn't know where it was coming from! But be warned: this book may challenge your traditions, which is fine, because we all need to know where the text stops and our traditions begin.

And finally, for Intro to Church Ministry, all I'm going to say at the present is this: There is an intensive, 2 credit course offered in the winter term: a ten day trip to South Africa to learn about post-apartheid theology. AND MY STUDENT LOAN CHECK JUST ARRIVED. We shall see.

Ah, but now it is truly late, and I must to bed, or I won't be able to awaken for church in the morning!

Much love and please say a little prayer for me!
Marie