January 1

How old were you when you realized that there were 2 creation stories and that they didn’t match up? For me, I was in the 5th grade. You may have remembered that year, it was the year that Chariots of the Gods was released. My mother took Alfred, Debbie and me to see that movie and I was fascinated. Even more so when Mother casually mentioned that there was a BOOK that the movie was based on and nothing would do until she would take me to Aardmore Books which used to be in the Whole Foods Shopping center at Hammond and Roswell Roads to get that book.
I devoured that book and was desperate to talk to someone about it. Unfortunately, the person I chose was Belle DuPont, my Sunday School teacher who was 109 years old. There is one section that describes Ezekiel’s vision of a wheel of light in the sky as an alien spaceship and I wanted to know what she thought about that. (You have to know, I was a HUGE know-it-all as a child. I now really feel sorry for the vast majorities of my teachers who had to suffer through life as my teachers.) Mrs. DuPont pointed one skinny finger at me and said I was a HERETIC and to get out and never come back. So I did. Church was the same time as Sunday School and I just stayed in church with my dad.
I started looking everywhere in the Bible for traces of alien visitation. And I found some but I also discovered the 2 creation stories. Which led me to the creation stories of other religions and ancient civilizations. Like the giant turtle of Thailand or the sky warriors of Native Americans.
And eventually, that quieted all my angst about the two stories in our Bible. It sounded like family arguing over the ‘real’ story and since that is ever present in my life, I was totally at peace with people being created on the sixth day or having just the man being created near the beginning of creation with the woman showing up way late. Everyone just wants to know where they come from
Which is really appropriate to today’s Matthew reading that lists Jesus’ genealogy. Nothing I have ever read has Jesus spouting off that he is the son of so and so other than to shut his disciples up for saying he is the Son of God. But the people in Matthew’s congregation really needed Jesus to be somebody and somebody special as in the direct descendant of David even if it came through the daddy that really wasn’t his daddy.
And as a feminist, it pains me to read the 5 women listed in the genealogy. We have Tamar, who disguised herself as a prostitute to Judah to get pregnant –finally! after 3 unsuccessful marriages to his sons. We have Rahab, who I get is an Israelite heroine but she gave up her city. And she was a prostitute. Ruth, well, she is supposed to be some sort of virtuous but I think we just don’t know what that little saying, ‘lie down at his feet’, really means. Sort of like someone reading a transcript of my teens talking about ‘doing the wild thing’ which is their code for having sex. Don’t get me started on Bathsheba and her bathing. Didn’t she know other people could see her? Like the king? And Mary, poor sweet Mary. Just give in. I hope she did not know that Jesus was going to die like he did. Hard enough having to raise the Son of God. Better not to know about the death scene.
But in truth, it really doesn’t matter who your daddy or great-great-great granddaddy was. Or, even where you come from. What matters, like today’s Proverb is that you “acquire a disciplined and prudent life, doing what is right and just and fair”. That is what we are attempting this year. To discipline ourselves to reading scripture in the hopes of learning what God would have us do to lead a better life.

The Gospel of Matthew

The Gospel of Matthew
First, what does “Gospel” mean? It comes from the Old English word god-spell, meaning good news or glad tidings. It is specific to the good news of Jesus Christ.
The Gospel of Matthew is one of four canonical gospels and one of three synoptic gospels. Canonical refers to the books that were approved by the Council of Rome in 382 CE and the Synod of Hippo in 393 CE. There are other gospels but they were excluded from the list due restrictions that were placed on what could and could not be included.
Synoptic gospels refer to Matthew, Mark and Luke for the main reason that so much of the material is the same (prefix –syn- meaning same, opt-related to eyes). This is as opposed to the Gospel of John which presents a different viewpoint of Jesus, his life and his ministry.
Most scholars do not believe that the apostle Matthew wrote the book. This is because of the dating of the book is usually placed between 75-90 CE. It is probable that Matthew did collect some sayings of Jesus and that these were included but most of Matthew is a direct copy of Mark. If Matthew was an eyewitness (and Mark was not), surely Matthew would have included more detail, more intimate knowledge, and really, more different material. The additional material in Matthew and also in Luke is called “Q” for quella meaning sayings. These are the sayings of Jesus that are common to both Luke and Matthew although they do appear in different places occasionally. An example would be the Beatitudes.
What we do know is that Matthew was written by someone who was immersed in Jewish history, story, legend, and prophesy. He was also writing to an audience of like-minded people since he almost never explained any of the customs or traditions that are so causally thrown in.
The background of his congregation is one that is experiencing severe financial stress. We talk of Jesus’ statements on money as prevalent over his statements on marriage simply because it was the focus of attention to what passed for middle class and definitely for the lower and bottom classes of society in the Roman world of 70-90 CE. If this is what you are experiencing, this is what you write about.
Rome burned twice during this period and the emperorship changed hands 8 times. Taxes were somewhere between 50 and 75% for any of the Roman provinces. Rome itself was exempt from taxation. Every time a new emperor came to power, the title came with extremely large payments to the Praetorian Guard and the troops. These funds came sometimes from booty from wars but by this period, mostly from taxation from the provinces.
Matthew was written in Koine Greek. This means “common Greek” especially the language that used for writing in and around Alexandria, Egypt. Our oldest piece of a manuscript containing Matthew’s gospel is from 250 CE and is called the Chester Beatty. It has parts of Matthew. The oldest intact manuscript of the Gospel of Matthew is from 325 CE and is called the Codex Vaticanus, closely followed by Codex Sinaiticus.
http://www.usefulcharts.com/religion/oldest-new-testament-manuscripts.html
The Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus form the bases from which our modern day translations arise.
What is unique about Matthew? Well, for one, which is extremely relevant to modern day America, Matthew is the only gospel with Magi, hence our extravagant gift buying at Christmastime. Actually, the whole of the infancy narrative is uniquely Matthew. While Luke does have parts of the birth story that is somewhat close to Matthew’s, there is none of the Magi nor the travel to Egypt.
Only in Matthew does Peter attempt the water walk. Don’t try that one on your own, folks. Wait for Jesus.
The Beatitudes are greatly expanded in Matthew but do not contain the woes of Luke.
Many of the unique teachings in Matthew are directed against the leadership of the Jewish rulers such as the Pharisees and the scribes as well as against oath making and hypocrisy in ritual activities. To some scholars this suggests and anti-Jewish slant.
Sources:
Wikipedia, Harper’s Bible Dictionary, the Catholic Encyclopedia http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/, list of Roman Emperors http://www.roman-emperors.org/impindex.htm, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, Palestine in the Time of Jesus by K.C. Hanson

What is The Holy Bible

First, thank you for your interest in The Bible in a Year (B-I-Y). I am really excited to share this journey with you. Second, there is NO GUILT in B-I-Y land. If you get the readings done, great. Some of the readings, well, that is good too. But even if you haven’t done anything, pop into the blog. Maybe someone will have words of wisdom meant just for you. And it will inspire you to get back on the path.
Before we start reading the actual Bible, I decided to take a fresh look at just what the Bible actually is.
Here is what I found out, along with my sources.
The actual name is The Holy Bible. It is the number 1 best selling book of all times with approximately 1.7 BILLION copies sold. It has also been translated into the most languages of any book.
The Bible is a collection of books. The word “bible” comes from the Latin meaning book. Which is why, when my sons Matthew (18) and Cole (15) took Spanish, the word biblia means book, any book. The Latin word is actually a derivation from the “Greek word βιβλίον . It had the literal meaning of "paper" or "scroll" and came to be used as the ordinary word for "book". It is the diminutive of βύβλος bublos, "Egyptian papyrus", possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician port Byblos (also known as Gebal) from whence Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece. “1
There are 66 books in the Protestant Bible. We will read each of these. The Catholic and some Episcopalian Bibles include additional books known as the Apocrypha. I have read these books and love them, particularly the additional Esther passages and for a really good feminist Bible book, read Judith. However, we will not be reading those this year.
Experts disagree (are you surprised??) on when the books of the Bible were written. Most of the current research dates the earliest sections of the Bible (the tales of the patriarchs, Exodus, Sinai, and the wilderness wanderings) to 1000 BCE. The last book to be written was either Hebrews or Revelation in the early second century CE. The literature that we will be reading is a translation, mostly from Hebrew in the OT and mostly from Greek in the NT. We do not have original sources for our translations for the most part.
Most of the OT comes from a 10th century compilation called the Masoretic Text. This was developed by rabbis and is considered the authoritative text on the Jewish scriptures. It is interesting to note that the Dead Sea scrolls do contain earlier versions of some of the Jewish scriptures but especially the Isaiah passages are virtually identical. This speaks to the incredible training that rabbinic students had in the oral traditions and scholarship in the Diaspora.
The NT is a bit different as we have lots of different manuscripts, translations, and traditions. I found 2 interesting YouTube videos that follow this post.
There are multiple different types of literature in the Bible. There is poetry, narratives, laws, wisdom literature, songs, erotica, letters, mystic writings and, everyone’s favorite, apocryphal literature. Some are easier to understand than others. Sometimes, you just have to keep plugging along and hoping that maybe, just maybe you will understand – like when God told Joshua to kill all the current inhabitants of Canaan….
No matter what, where, when, the most important questions to me are always WHY. And that, my fellow journeyers, is why we are reading this amazing collection this year. Why was God important to them and why is that important to me. I just about can’t wait for Jan 1!
Sources: 1:Wikipedia direct quote from Bible page, Harper’s Bible Dictionary copyright 1985 http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Masoretic.html

Where did the New Testament come from Part 1

Where did the New Testament come from Part 2

The Beginning

Beginning January 1, 2012, I am going to attempt to read the Bible in one year using The NIV version of The One Year Bible. My intention is to work on this for 30 minutes in the evening and 15 minutes in the morning every day. I hope to have followers who will pop in when they can or even to follow the journey with me.
I have thought about what my goals are. If you know me, you know I am a FlyBaby (www.flylady.net) and babysteps are a major key to anything I attempt if I want to be successful. So, my goals for January are simply to post the the reading, do it and then post further if something strikes me. If I do this, a gold star on my kitchen calendar. It may take me longer than a month to establish this habit but that is okay. Any amount of Bible reading is better than what I did this past year. If you are following me, feel free to add your comments to that day's reading.
I have also spent some time thinking about WHY I am doing this. What I have come up with is that I am at a lull in my faith life. There is a tremendous amount of change going on in my real life and I have allowed all the worldly stuff to push aside my Bible studies. Reading the Bible in a year will give me structure, something I desperately need in order to stay focused. The blog will help me stay accountable.
I hope you will join me.