An Experiment

Here’s the thing – I am taking a class at Wesley on biblical interpretation (how to take texts from the Bible and peel back their layers to see a fuller, more historically contextualized picture, at the same time we come to understand better how our own histories influence how we read scripture).

I’ve been writing papers all semester (and have a great group of friends who have read these passages with me, to help broaden my view of the passages we’ve analyzed), but we’re doing it differently for the final project. We can come up with any method we want to engage the text, and I want to use a combination of this blog and a series of podcasts that I will link to the blog.

Can I get you guys to help me? Here’s how it will work:

• starting next Monday, I will post the text and a series of questions for you to think about (all trying to gather your initial reactions to the passage). If you will please read them, and post your responses to the questions (you can post anonymously if you’re nervous about posting with your real names!), I would appreciate it.
• Then, next Wednesday, I’ll post the first podcast with some background information on the text, when it was written, the author’s motives for writing it.
• On April 17th, I’ll follow up with the responses you guys post, add some more questions for you all to think about.
• On the 19th, I’ll post another podcast that talks about main textual themes, engaging any translation issues (it’s tricky to move from ancient Hebrew to modern English!) and how any imagery is thought to have been viewed by the original audience.
• Finally, on April 24th, I’ll try to bring our reading of the text with its historical context, and we’ll see what we get!
  

Pretty please with sugar on top?! I promise it will be painless and fun. And hey, we’ll all learn something!

Okay, I hope you guys will come along. Now, I want to leave you with something I just heard:

Happiness is an emotion; joy is a disposition (happiness is the weather; joy is the climate), so don’t lose your joy, even when your happiness is gone.

Love you,

Becky