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God the Midwife: a repost with new format

May 1, 2012 No comments

With mothers’ day coming up it seems a good time to reissue an old post, with a new format and somewhat cleaned up audio. I briefly remind you of some of the passages that picture God as a midwife. The Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) regularly pictures Yahweh as intimately associated with forming in the womb and with birthing. In view of “his” role as midwife “he” can hardly have been thought of as a male god.

Remembering this stuff and celebrating motherly God (who is no god) is particularly appropriate as we approach mother’s day! Better for us than extra chocolate too ;) And it’s not un-topical here in NZ where the TV is showing a drama about Midwives just now, either.

God the Midwife [ 5:01 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
God the Midwife [ 5:01 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Gender, Genesis, Jeremiah, Job, OT, Psalms, Theology none

Humour in the Bible: book 27: Daniel

November 2, 2011 7 comments

Like Esther, Daniel is set in a foreign court and telling to the trials and triumphs of exiled Judeans and is packed with humour at the expense of the imperial overlords.

In this podcast I’m following an article by Hector Avalos from CBQ and focusing on the repeated lists of Dan 3. For his comparison text Avalos went to the early English Piers Ploughman but I’ll refer to “How the Whale got his throat” from the Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling (for obvious reasons ;)

Audio file: Humour in the Bible: book 27: Daniel the humour of lists

 

Avalos, Hector I. “The comedic function of the enumerations of officials and instruments in Daniel 3.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 53, no. 4 (October 1991): 580-9.
Daniel, Humour none

More on gendered text: Turning the tables

September 14, 2011 3 comments

When I searched for "my beloved among young men" (Song 2:3) this photo by Steve Punter turned up.

Gender is not (only) a Feminist issue!

I ended my double post Proverbs as a gendered text and Proverbs as a gendered text: Proverbs 31:10ff. with the question of where reading such (strongly) male texts left women readers. Sadly it has had little response, (though thank you Judy :)

So I’ll end this podcast with a reverse of the question with which I ended the one on Pr 31, and suggest there are parts of the Bible that heterosexual men can only read with the help of a little creative gender bending.

Let’s see what you make of my (literal) reading of Song 2:1ff.?!

More on gendered texts: Turning the tables

Gender, Reading, Song of Songs none

Proverbs as a gendered text: Proverbs 31:10ff.

September 6, 2011 4 comments

Proverbs 31-19 Weaving "She handles the distaff, and her hands support the spindle" (Proverbs 31-19) Work by Dvorit Ben-Shaul - Photo by zeevveez

The poem in Prov 31:10ff. has been read in various ways, by men and by women, as an oppressive and as a liberating text. I will suggest two clues to making sense of the poem. The first is to read it in the context of the book of Proverbs (and not as an isolated poem), and the second is to read it precisely as a gendered text.

This podcast was provoked by reading a short piece on this text by Ann Wansborough produced back in 1992 for the Uniting Church in Australia’s “Commission on Women and Men”. (Thank you Judy :)

BTW since Proverbs is a gendered text, and since I read it as a male, I offer an invitation to my women listeners to do a short (ideally 4-6 minute) female reflection on this text from a woman’s perspective to set alongside mine… Where/How do you find the Strong Woman?

Here’s the audio: Proverbs as a gendered text: Proverbs 31:10ff..

Gender, Proverbs none

Proverbs as a gendered text

September 3, 2011 3 comments

Old Babylonian Queen of the Night (Ishtar?) Photo by seriykotik1970

While it is quite clear that Proverbs is a gendered text, the way it speaks of women is interesting. For a text coming from an ancient patriarchal society human women who serve as aspirational models are a surprise.

No doubt any real Feminist would instantly switch into “pedestal” mode, but I think it’s worth pausing and noticing what’s going on, and maybe as I’ll suggest in a follow-up podcast finding inspiration for contemporary spiritualities…

Here is the audio: Proverbs as a gendered text

 

Gender, Proverbs none

Humour in the Bible: 22: Song of Songs

August 13, 2011 No comments

A literalist reads the Song of Songs (from Dean & Laura of Acts 17-11)

If you ever want to provoke laughter in church in the 21st century, just read a chunk of the Song of Songs, of course it works better if you get a couple to read to each other! The imagery is just so strange to our culture that almost any passage will achieve laughter in moments. But this does not mean that the book is intended to be funny.

So my difficult problem in this podcast is to try to convince you that there is humour, as well as poetry and sex, in this very best Song.

It won’t be easy or quick, indeed this is the longest ever “5 minutes” at way over 6 minutes :( on the other hand, I’m convinced that looking seriously at the topic of humour in the Song is a great way to get closer to its heart…

Here is the audio: Humour in the Bible: 22: Song of Songs

Humour, Imagery, Song of Songs none

Humour in the Bible: 21B: Ecclesiastes (again)

July 23, 2011 4 comments

Photo (again) by Abode of Chaos

Never one reluctant to ask for more, David Ker has rightly pointed out that I did not explain how/why Ecclesiastes 10:5-15 is (and was meant to be) funny. So here goes…1

Oh, don’t worry, this won’t be a dull dissection or a boring breakdown, I’ll just show you how several of the signs of humour are present, and in doing so hopefully reveal (without analysing to death) the humour in this passage!

So, here’s the audio: Humour in the Bible: 21B: Ecclesiastes (again)

  1. If I had the hubris I’d title this podcast: “An artist’s reply to just criticism”, but that would be most unfair to poor David ;) [↩]
Ecclesiastes/Qohelet, Humour none

Humour in the Bible: book 21: Ecclesiastes

July 22, 2011 2 comments

Avatar de Abode of Chaos "Vanité des vanités, dit l'Ecclésiaste" (Photo by Abode of Chaos)

This series is just getting more and more interesting :) For Ecclesiastes I came across:

Levine, Étan. “The Humor in Qohelet.” Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 109, no. 1 (January 1997): 71-83.
As well as all its other strengths Levine begins with a nice catalogue of the stupid scholars who have pompously declaimed the absence of humour from Scripture. No, not raging Fundy Americans, but proper dignified European scholars, I enjoyed reading some of their wise words at the start of this podcast. In fact for humour in Ecclesiastes I’ll basically just read a short extract of Qohelet’s words (Ecclesiastes 10:5-15) and almost let them speak for themselves.
For Qohelet it is the absence of sense that raises a laugh.
Here’s the link to the audio: Humour in the Bible: book 21: Ecclesiastes
PS: for more explanation hear: Humour in the Bible: 21B: Ecclesiastes (again)
Ecclesiastes/Qohelet, Humour none

Humour in the Bible: book 20 Proverbs

July 12, 2011 No comments

Ouch! (Photo by By Paul Garland)

There certainly should certainly be humour in Proverbs, after all the books says:

A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength. (Proverbs 17:22)

And sure enough when I went humour-hunting Google quickly fitted me up with Hershey H. Friedman, he used to be Bernard H. Stern Professor of Humor so you know he’s a serious humour scholar, and he wrote on “Humor in the Bible” with lots of examples from Proverbs. The article is in the journal Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, (Vol. 13:3, Sept. 2000, 258-285) so again we know this is pukka academic stuff.

The trouble is what Hershey found funny, often left me un-moved, and worse he seemed to have an affinity for nagging wife jokes, and Barbara is no nag! But he did prompt me to look at Proverbs 26 (lots of his examples came from there) and boy is that right, as you’ll see nearly every line is funny. I only get up to verse 10.

Though the humour does sometimes raise questions, like those Randal raised about ethnic sterotyping in Paul’s comments about Cretans.

Here’s the audio: Humour in the Bible: book 20 Proverbs

Humour, Proverbs none

Humour in the Bible: book 19: Psalms

July 8, 2011 1 comment

In the Thai border town of Mae Aw, people from the nearby Burmese Shan province drop by to shop. They brave a rough trek of couple of hours - over the mountains - hiding from the Burmese army. Once here, they buy, pack their merchandise, have lunch and rest a little. Then loading the packs on their back they march off again. (Photo by Preetam Rai)

When looking for humour in Psalms, towards the end of the marking season, when teachers are always at a low ebb, I again cheated, asking Bob MacDonald (who has been studying the psalms closely for years now).

I’ll repeat some of his general insights about the book, and then take up his suggestion about Psalm 94 (his rendering of the psalm is here). I invited him to do a guest post, but for a mix of reasons he declined. So please do not blame Bob for what follows, it’s my reading of the psalm suggested by his idea… This psalm works for me because I hear in it the sort of overt dialogue between God and speaker that I often hear in the prophets, and like in Jeremiah’s confessions I think here God is gently leading his servant on and educating them :)

The audio is here: Humour in the Bible: book 19: Psalms

Humour, Psalms none
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