Selected Reading of the Bible Lecture Three

1. Selected Reading of the BibleLecture Three Fall 2013 By SU, Xiaoxiang

2. Quiz 1 • See Word File

3. Question on Genesis 10-36 • 1. Why did Abraham sleep with his wife’s servant, Hagar? • 2. When God tested Abraham, He commanded him to sacrifice his only son, named? • 3. What sacrifice did Abraham offer his son to God and what replaced as the sacrifice instead?

4. 4. What great covenant did God make with Abraham? • 5. What led to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah? • 6. Who became a pillar of salt? And why? • 7. Compare the story of Cain and Abel and the story of Esau and Jacob? • 8. What name did God give to Jacob and why?

5. Lord’s Covenant with Abram

6. Lord’s Covenant with Abram • In Genesis 12 and 15, God grants Abram land and descendants but does not place any stipulations (unconditional). By contrast, Gen. 17 contains the covenant of circumcision (conditional).

7. To make of Abraham a great nation and to bless those who bless him and curse those who curse him and all peoples on earth would be blessed through Abraham. • To give Abraham's descendants all the land from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates.[Gen 15:18–21] Later, this land came to be referred to as the Promised Land or the Land of Israel, however the land specified by the Abrahamic covenant also includes the modern nations of Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, UAE, and several other nations in the Middle East. • To make Abraham the father of many nations and of many descendants and give "the whole land of Canaan" to his descendants.[Gen 17:2–9] • Circumcision is to be the permanent sign of this everlasting covenant with Abraham and his male descendants and is known as the britmilah.[Gen 17:9–14]

8. The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

9. Bane is a mercenary and terrorist who sees Gotham as the epitome of decadence and depravity, a contemporary Sodom and Gomorrah that must be brought to heel. ---Review of Dark Knight Rises • What do they mean by such wickedness? We shall be destroyed like the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. ---Thomas Hardy

10. Pillar of Salt

12. Who and Why? • The reason that Lot's wife turned back to Sodom, was that she was a lost woman, and saw only the material -- only the hear-and-now.  Her mind was not on God, her sinfulness, or on the things of Eternity.  She therefore was not afraid of God, because God was not in her thoughts.  It was the physical, the sensual, the emotional pleasures of this world that she was after.  She wanted sin, not God.

13. Abraham Tested

14. The Parable of the Old Man and the Young • So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went, • And took the fire with him, and a knife. • And as they sojourned both of them together, • Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father, • Behold the preparations, fire and iron, • But where the lamb for this burnt-offering? • Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps, • and builded parapets and trenches there, • And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son. • When lo! an angel called him out of heaven, • Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad, • Neither do anything to him. Behold, • A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns; • Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him. • But the old man would not so, but slew his son, • And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

15. A poem by Wilfred Owen • It is an allusion to Abraham Tested. “Then Abraham bound the youth with belts and straps” suggests imagery relation to a young soldier being sent, possibly against his will, in a uniform to fight in World War I. • The last two lines diverge from the Biblical account and set apart for greater effect.

16. Discussion • Why Abraham has been styled the “Father of the Faithful”?

17. This test came through the Divine command that Abraham should take his son, his only son, Isaac, in whom was centered the promises, and should offer him a sacrifice to God on Mount Moriah. To appreciate the situation, we must remember that Abraham at this time was 125 years old, and that Isaac was the son whom the Lord had indicated would be the channel for all the blessings promised. • We must go back of this, and remember the long years before Isaac's birth, when for fourteen years Abraham had been thinking that possibly Ishmael might be the channel of God's blessings. We must go still further back, and remember the long period before Ishmael's birth, in which Abraham wandered as a stranger and waited for the fulfilment of God's Promise, only to realize that his wife was absolutely sterile, barren. Now after half a century of waiting and trusting, could it be that God wished him to sacrifice all this to demonstrate his loyalty, his faith? It was so. He had positive assurance of the command. It was no imagination. It was no whispering of witches or wizards. It was no dream.

18. Jacob and Esau (Genesis 25-28) • Who are they? • Why do they get the name? • Esau: red hairy body • Jacob: grasps the heel, a Hebrew idiom for he deceives • How do their parents love them?

19. Esau Sells His Birthright

20. Jacob Takes Esau’s Blessing

21. When the time came for Isaac to bestow his blessing on his sons, Jacob and his mother contrived to deceive Isaac into blessing Jacob in Esau’s place. When Esau found that his blessing had been given to Jacob, he threatened to kill his brother, and Jacob fled (Genesis 27:1 - 28:7). Years later, Jacob and Esau met and were reconciled (Genesis 33).

22. Jacob Wrestles with God

23. The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob's hip on the sinew of the thigh.

24. Homework • Genesis 37-50