BCC needs some Old Testament-action, what with the nerds* and the permabores* already sharing their Hebrew love. Here’s the plan:
1. Crazy Stuff in the OT: a series. Talking donkeys, euphemistic language, doctrines that probably won’t get mentioned in Sunday School, etc.
2. The OT for (Mormon) Dummies: guest scholars denerdify themselves and give us the straight (or is it strait?) dope on Old Testament hot-button issues.
3. God: a biography. Based on Jack Miles’ interesting book, we will run through the different personalities of God described in the OT (Creator, Destroyer, Friend of the Family, etc.)
Bait your breath, Bible-kids, BCC’s going all Semitic.
*Just kidding, mateys. We love everyone. Look, we even have the MA logo!
January 12, 2006 at 3:55 pm
Darn. I thought the link said “The OC at BCC”. Thank heaven for Fox.
January 12, 2006 at 4:09 pm
Plenty of depravity in the OT too, you know.
January 12, 2006 at 6:28 pm
The New Order Mormon discussion board has a weekly Gospel Doctrine lesson that parallels the Real Gospel Doctrine Lessons, but with a NOMish twist. Last Year’s D&C lessons are linked on the NOM web site, and the OT lessons will be, too (but haven’t been yet). Feel free to lurk.
January 13, 2006 at 8:07 am
Are you going to include in the Crazy OT stuff the passage on Lot’s daughters ?
–Revenge of the Nerds*
January 13, 2006 at 8:19 am
FHL,
That’s funny! I must have overlooked that story the last time I read through it. No wonder the Israelites didn’t get along too good with the Ammonites (until king David, anyway).
For the REAL story behind the Ammonites and Moabites, cf. Peoples of the Old Testament World edited by A. Hoerth, G. Mattingly, and E. Yamauchi. It’s a must read.
January 13, 2006 at 12:14 pm
Good call on the Miles, matey (matey?). I love some of Miles’ thoughts on the OT (e.g., Abraham’s actions as a form of calling God’s bluff about Isaac).
January 13, 2006 at 1:53 pm
Spend all the time you need on the Song of Songs.
January 13, 2006 at 4:56 pm
Mark IV,
Do you mean the Illustrated Song of Solomon?
January 13, 2006 at 11:23 pm
For an OT curiosity look no further than the ten commandments.
“Thou shalt not covet”
What’s that about? Of all the vile things people might do in this world “thou shalt not covet” makes it into the top ten?
The verses clearly say something about the place of women in the society (no wonder we are pulling the Ten Commandments down from display in courthouses). There is no mention of coveting thy neighbor’s husband, because these comandments were not addressed to women. As we know, women at that time were considered property. This is very obvious from the listing of the neighbor’s wife after the mention of ‘house’ and along side ‘manservant’, ‘maidservant,’ ‘ox’ and ‘ass’. Nor is this about lust. The commandment is clearly about coveting other people’s property.
Given some of the unusual prohibitions found in the Levitical code, we might think that thou shalt not covet is a little progressive for its time. In fact, with the rampant over-spending and the epidemic amount of bankruptcies in modern society, perhaps the comandment was 3000 years ahead of its time.