Biblical Musings

By Curt Koenders

This book is a collection of columns, initially written for a church magazine. From childhood in Sunday School the author has been fascinated by the stories in the bible and here in his Biblical Musings he shares that sense of wonder with the reader in a set of original, irreverent sketches. If you want to know what exactly went on with, for example, Moses in the basket or with Solomon’s judgement of the two prostitutes, this is the book for you. There is even an entertaining chapter on the book of Revelation.

The musings have reportedly been very helpful to preaching ministers, home groups and students of the bible. However, you don’t have to be a church-going Christian, or professional theologian to enjoy this collection, but keep a bible handy just in case you want to look something up.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Nov 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781326070939

Book preview

Biblical Musings

BIBLICAL MUSINGS

By

Curt Koenders

Copyright

Copyright © Curt Koenders 2014

eBook Design by Rossendale Books: www.rossendalebooks.co.uk

eBook ISBN:  978-1-326-07093-9

All rights reserved, Copyright under Berne Copyright Convention and Pan American Convention. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author. The author’s moral rights have been asserted.

Preface

This bundle of musings came into being as a series of articles for a monthly church magazine. The purpose of the articles was (and is) to stimulate an interest in the bible. The approach I have taken is to concentrate on the many stories. I retell them and comment on them from a modern, adult perspective.

The idea of gathering the articles in book form came from many requests from Christians and (I am happy to say) non-Christians, who find them ‘interesting’ or who want to use them in sermons and in bible studies. To accommodate the latter group I have also added a series of notes of bible studies I have led on the gospel of Matthew. These are a bit more technical, in that there are a lot of references to look up and discuss.

I have arranged the contributions by biblical book. Bearing in mind the character of the magazine, separate chapters for Christmas and Easter are obviously appropriate. My own background (Baptist of various hues) and main childhood influence is outlined in the chapter ‘And finally’.

The main purpose is then that people open their bibles and look and look again at the extraordinary literary treasure trove of narrative that is available. All you have to do is read.

I am grateful to the editor of the URC Salisbury magazine, who has been very flexible in his attitude to deadlines and word counts. I am also grateful to my wife Andrea, who has assiduously gone through the manuscripts and lovingly corrected any offences against that oh so difficult English language.

Curt Koenders

Genesis

The flood

It was shortly after the second world war. Colour pencils were scarce and of incredibly bad quality - if you pressed slightly too hard the tips would break. Despite the poor tools at our disposal we worked hard to colour paper cut-outs of various animals. These were put into two glued-together shoe boxes, which we were told was an ark – or in the words of the teacher 'a kind of boat'. When the ark was sufficiently full of goats, cows, robins, snow leopards, pussycats, ants, giraffes, gibbons and kangaroos the boxes were closed. Two windows with green and mauve coloured paper ensured that we could see what was inside and note the magnificence of God's diverse creation (I did not actually manage to look in, as I lacked the competitive skills to elbow my way to the front).

Then came the story.

Noah, the Sunday school teacher said, was the only one in the world who God could still care for; everybody else was rubbish in His eyes. He was going to destroy all living creatures. Once Noah and his family and the animals were safely inside the shoe boxes, it started to rain. It rained and it rained and it rained. We sang a song about the incessant rain. Everywhere flooded, everyone drowned. Noah was locked inside the ark where the stench of the animals was horrific. After many weeks of rain it cleared up. The ark dwellers ventured out; there was water everywhere and not a bit of dry land in sight. But by means of a pigeon Noah found out that the water had gone down (this bit of the story was somewhat unclear to me). So, they got out and released all the animals and they started again. There was also a rainbow. The teacher held up a coloured paper arc she had prepared earlier (where did she get colour pencils that worked?).

For many years I held on to this idea of the Lord ordaining a flood eliminating everything and everybody, in order to start again with a clean slate, a process that mysteriously involved pigeons and rainbows. I cannot now remember exactly when it happened, but at some point it dawned on me that floods are a common element in history and that any attempt to write an account of the development of humankind must contain a thoroughly wet experience. Nearly all civilisations have flood stories, as well as tales of miraculous salvation.

There is scientific evidence that horrific natural disasters did occur and probably will happen again. For example, some 70,000 years ago the super-volcano Mount Toba in Indonesia erupted, spewing so much dust into the global atmosphere that a 'nuclear winter' followed. This probably lasted a few years. At the same time the earthquakes that accompanied the event caused massive tsunamis (tidal waves) to traverse the oceans that inundated coastal areas. Only a handful of small groups of humans survived the cataclysm. All the seven billion people on earth are their descendants. Would it not be logical that such major natural events were to become part of the treasury of stories that is transmitted from one generation to the next?

If such disasters are the underlying source of the stories of the floods then the world before the flood should look quite different from the one after it. The bible tells us that this is indeed the case.

Before the account of Noah begins we are introduced to some extraordinary characters. Ge 6:1-4 mentions irresistible 'sons of God' who saw that the human daughters were beautiful 'and they married any of them they chose'. Who were these strange figures who obviously had such supernatural powers that they are described as ‘sons of God’?

The same section notes the existence of the enigmatic Nephilim. Ge 4:4 states: 'they were the heroes of old, men of renown.' At this point anybody with a little imagination will start speculating. Did they survive the flood? Are they related to the Neanderthals? Perhaps they were relatives of the legendary Yetis, who may have been sighted high up in the Himalayas, where they survived the terrible darkness and the flood waves. Did they help Noah build his ark, which was a substantial boat, 450 feet long and possibly a bit beyond the technological capabilities of that time?

The story of Noah, however, is told for a reason and the reason is this. First, it is clear that human survival is closely associated with care and stewardship of the natural world. Secondly, one property above all set Noah apart from his contemporaries - he had an unshakeable faith.

Noah was by no means a godly superman. He loved his wine. The bible says so: Ge 9:21. Perhaps God felt that after the ordeal he had deserved a drink.

Genesis chapters 13-14

The background to these chapters is largely economic and geographical. Abram lived somewhere between 2000 BC and 1850 BC. Economically, socially and geographically speaking these were interesting times. I quote from Bronowski's 'Ascent of man'. Speaking about this period of time he says

"And man, who had come through incredible hardships, had wandered up from Africa over the last million years, had battled through the ice ages, suddenly found the ground flowering and the animals surrounding him, and moved into a different kind of life.

It is usually called the 'agricultural revolution'. But I think of it as something much wider, the biological revolution. There was intertwined in it the cultivation of plants and the domestication of animals in a kind of leap-frog. And under this ran the crucial realisation that man dominates his environment in its most important aspect, not physically but at the level of living things - plants and animals. With that comes an equally powerful social revolution. Because now it became possible - more than that, it became necessary - for man to settle. And this creature that had roamed and marched for a million years had to make a crucial decision: whether he would cease to be a nomad and become a villager. We have the anthropological record of the struggle of conscience of a people who make this decision: the record is the bible, the Old Testament.

The extraordinary natural events that lead to this are to do with … grass. Round about 8000 BC a wild wheat crossed with a goat grass and formed a fertile hybrid. The hybrid is called Emmer and has double the number of chromosomes of its parents and as a result it was a much heavier plant. This hybrid was able to scatter its seeds by means of the wind. But then, roughly at the time when Abram lived, another amazing thing happened: Emmer crossed with another goat grass and produced a larger hybrid with forty-two chromosomes, which is bread wheat. The fertility of this new plant was ensured by a genetic mutation on one of its chromosomes (had this not happened then there would not have been any wheat today). The wheat grains are too heavy to be carried by the wind however, they fall where they are dropped. And now a symbiosis springs up between man and plant: the plant lives, because it is sown by man and man lives, because he has bread. What all this leads to is a settled life in which industry, knowledge and civilisation can flourish - for example, the pottery wheel was invented around this time, written texts come into being, the law is codified."

This extraordinary, miraculous tale of plant genetics informs the passage in the bible. The people in the valley of the Jordan were prosperous farmers; they lived in well-watered lands (Ge 13:10-12). And this is where Lot settles. The prosperity of the Cities of the Plain brings with it a hyper-decadent lifestyle and instead of being thankful the people forget God: Ge 13:13.

And then the question arises: what - in this new economy - will happen to the herdsmen, the nomads? And here Abram trusts in the Lord and there is extensive communication between God and the believer. It must be realised that Abram was pioneering. Scripture was not yet written, prophets were not around and religious worship took place in obscure small towns only, for example in Jerusalem. There is, for example, no psalm by Abram; yet the God of Abraham (Isaac and Jacob), the invisible God of the Patriarchs, could build on the relationship He had forged throughout biblical history - even well into the New Testament. So what old Hebrew texts do we have from Abram's time? The answer is blessings. These were delivered to Abram in exchange for obedience. It is as if the Lord is saying 'this new economic order is all well and good, but do not forget that it will only work if you keep my commands'. Abram was unique in his time in that he listened to the Lord; he takes his experience of the Lord seriously, he is a man with a conscience, a righteous man. He is the first one to realise the concept of salvation, which is a massive intellectual step.

And Abram also settles; he gives up the nomadic lifestyle and finds a home by the great trees of Mamre, where he builds an altar to the Lord. He makes his settled home the Lord's home!

Politically things are happening and Abram finds himself involved. There is war. The four kings Amraphel, Arioch, Tidal and Kedorlaomer suppress (probably raise unreasonable taxes) from the Cities of the Plain (Ge 14:4). The four kings win and take all that is in Sodom (spare a thought for the women and children), including Lot. Abram decides to take action to liberate his relative. He raises a small army and rides out. He succeeds in recovering Lot and his possessions. The king of Sodom then meets him - surely Abram is on Sodom's side? But Abram will have nothing to do with him.

Abram knows a few things about the Lord. This is at the heart of all his actions. The knowledge can be summed up in the words of Psalm 127: 'Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labour in vain'. (Was Solomon thinking about Abram when he wrote it?) Abram knew that the Lord had won the battle, that the Lord grants fertility, the Lord blesses our creative ventures and the Lord saves.

The bread and wine are symbolic for these facts. The mysterious Melchizedek – a name which means ‘the king is righteous’ – was there to celebrate this with Abram. Bread and wine are mysterious substances, testimony to God's transforming power. While this is probably obvious for wine, I thought that it would be good to tell the genetic story above to show that it is true for bread as well.

Genesis 16 & 21

The story of Abram, Sarah and Hagar is an emotional piece of family history worthy of a modern television soap opera. Though it took place some 4000 years ago, the elements of guilt, hatred and domestic unhappiness are as actual as they are now. Unlike a TV soap opera, however, there is another character in the wings: God.

The account begins - verse 1 - with the observation that Sarah and Abram are childless. One can speculate on the implications of infertility for a couple such as this. Abram needed an heir, obviously, to continue the tribe he was head of. In a polygamous culture he could easily have found another wife[1], but was devoted to Sarah. The absolute phraseology of verses 1 and 2 implies that the events described here took place after her menopause could be reasonably expected to be over. Her feeling is that Abram should have a child, one that is in some sense hers, and Hagar - her personal property - is prevailed upon to deliver. Note that she says '… perhaps I can build a family through her'[2]. She envisages surrogate-motherhood. Hagar did not have much choice in the matter.

The union is a success! Hagar falls pregnant. Now the story really begins.

The central phrase in the story is verse 4 'when she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress'. This verse is central in three ways:

    Because of what it actually says; had Sarah and Hagar remained friends, there would have been no story.

    Because of what the phrase implies for human nature. While Hagar was simply Sarah's servant, it was impossible - for economic and social reasons - to express any feelings for her mistress, positive or negative. Now that she is pregnant her status has changed: she belongs to Abram, the boss. She is a little more equal to Sarah than before, which enables her to explore emotional space, that up to now had been a no-go area. A similar thing happens to Amnon after raping Tamar: 2 Sa 13:15.

    Because of what the phrase literally says: 'and her mistress seemed slight in her eyes'. The whole chapter is about seeing. It tells about how Hagar perceives Sarah (perhaps she looked down on Sarah because of her now-proven infertility). Later in the story divine vision is reported.

The domestic crisis that follows is narrated in verses 5-6. Abram - choosing domestic peace over intervention - lets Sarah's anger run rampant and pregnant Hagar flees into the desert. There she has an encounter with God.

The encounter has a peculiar element in that first there is the angel of God (verse 7, 9, 10, 11, but in verse 13 it is God Himself who spoke to her). A parallel transformation takes place elsewhere in Genesis; chapter 18 - the three men (angels) transform into God: verses 9-10. Various scholars have speculated on the reason for this way of portraying the deity, but nobody really knows how the Hebrews viewed God.

The angel finds Hagar on the way to Shur, which means 'wall', but - when used as a verb - it (poetically) means 'to see' (Alter[3] translates 'to espy'). The story then has a subtext which goes something like this: Hagar sees her mistress as inferior, but on the way to seeing properly she meets the One who really sees.

The angel enquires why this pregnant girl should be in the middle of the wilderness. Hagar explains and then the angel tells her to go back to her mistress 'and suffer harassment at her hand'. The instruction itself is insufficient to persuade Hagar to obey and more is said. 'I will surely multiply your seed (too numerous to count)' - more reassurance is needed. 'The Lord has heard your misery' and therefore name your child 'God hears'. Further prophecy is made, possibly implying that in the end the son will defend her on the Lord's behalf. He will certainly redeem her. And she decides to go back - this is probably the wisest course of action, because a birth on her own in the desert is not such