Judges is one Bible book where it has been common to recognise humour. Ehud killing the fat and oppressive king Eglon in the toilet has been a popular example, though I’ll pretty much leave the scatology to David and others who appreciate it I’d rather focus on gender. In Judges relationships between men and women [...]
Browsing Posts in Judges
It’s certainly hard to find a superhero in the Bible! Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and even Moses – all fail – though some of them look good the way we try to… by comparison with their neighbours, family or friends think of how Moses shines when compared to Aaron. But Samson! He’s super strong, has a [...]
This story is often used to support testing whether God really wants us to do something we are reluctant to do, just like Gideon. In this podcast, as well as drawing attention to some other thoroughly human characteristics of our hero, I’ll point to the censored Bible story (one we do not read in church) [...]
The story of Deborah, the prophetess and judge, is one of those biblical stories told to us twice, first in a prose narrative and then in a poetic celebration (the Exodus crossing of the sea in Ex 14 & 15 provides another example). In this case the details, what Western minds call “facts” and worship [...]
There’s a nasty cycle that repeats time and again in Judges, and that forms a theme of the history in the books of Samuel and Kings too: Israel forgets that Yhwh is the ONE who has given them everything they start to worship/serve other Gods God allows an enemy to oppress them they call to [...]
The book of Judges starts badly and gets worse. The end gets completely censored, never read in church, even the Sunday School stories get their naughty bits covered up! The book ends with a slogan in 21:25 “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.” Which neatly prepares for the [...]
Judges is definitely not suitable for Sunday School reading, the bits that are told are firmly censored, and few of us go back to notice what we are missing. But, if we do, what we find is a book chock full of horrid twisted tales, brutal, brutish and sadly not short. Why? Can such a [...]
