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.

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

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

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..

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

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

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

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:

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

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

Jean Fouquet Job and his False Comforters 1452-60 Illumination Musée Condé, Chantilly

After some quite difficult books, suddenly a couple in a row that are easy. Job is full of humour, for all its dreadful topic and storyline, or perhaps because of them, almost every page sparkles with fun, or with sharp irony or more pointed sarcasm.

The big question, of whether the book as a whole is ironic and humorous, I’ll leave to you. For the purposes of this series I’ll just read a bit from Job’s first reply to his friends “comfortable words” (job 6:1ff.).

Here’s the audio:

Humour in the Bible: book 18: Job

BTW the classic article I refer to is:

E.A. Speiser, “The case of the obliging servant”, Journal of Cuneiform Studies 8, 1954, 98-105.

"The Banishment of Vashti" by Paolo Veronese, via Wikimedia Commons

I have argued before that Esther is full of sexual and/or gendered humour, but that was before I took the topic of humour in the Bible (documents from very different cultural contexts from ours) seriously. Now however I have nine criteria to measure whether it is likely that authors intended the humour we find. These are all present in Esther chapter 1:

1. incongruity
2. lighthearted mood
3. surprise
4. ingenuity (cleverness is often a mark of humour think of puns)
5. hyperbole
6. inferiority
7. disguise or something or someone pretending to be something else
8. “inelasticity” (following Bergson)
9. human pretension revealed in all its lack of glory!

So, enjoy

So, here’s the link to the audio: Humour in the Bible: book 17: Esther

This second look at the complaint psalms continues to focus on Psalm 22. Part three will return to Jeremiah…

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This post starts to talk about Psalm 22, mentioning Job 10 on the way, we will examine these passages as a way into understanding “complaint psalms”. Complaints are the commonest type of psalm in the book of psalms. You might like to listen to my earlier post “Arguing with God: Jer 12:1-4” first, it sets the scene for this one, and should probably have been called “Complaint psalms: Part One”!

I hope the next post – in a few days – will follow up looking some more at Psalm 22.

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The soldiers who obey the orders of the Generals who rule Burma/Myanmar regularly rape, kill and burn houses of villagers who are not of their ethnicity. The Free Burma Rangers provide documentation of these atrocities when they can.

As a counterbalance to Jonah I’ll take Psalm 69. I’m considering it as typifying many Bible passages where people pray imprecation on evil people (usually their own enemies, but sometimes the enemies of others).

Something deep in us wants to believe that God is just. Such prayers appeal to this.

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Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337), Cappella Scrovegni a Padova, Life of Christ, Nativity, Birth of Jesus - detail with midwife Salome. (Image from Wikipedia)

In this podcast I’ll briefly argue that since the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) regularly pictures Yahweh as intimately associated with both forming in the womb and birthing, and particularly since “his” role is often as midwife “he” cannot be thought of as a male god. Rather “he” is God and as later (though very early since several key Patristic fathers say it) in God there is no gender, God is not part of any group (gender).

The primary passage I’ll discuss is Psalm 22:9-10 (MT 10-11). This is discussed more fully in the section Yahweh and the womb of my online discussable book Not Only a Father.

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Gathering at First Presbyterian Church Bing (Photo by citizenactionny)

The flat out contradictions in Scripture make Bible readers jumpy.Conservatives seek to defend the “integrity” of Scripture by denying that there is any (even the slightest) disagreement, those on the other side delight in the “proof” that the Bible is merely a collection of venerable ancient texts of no relevance today. Both responses are dead wrong!

Contradictions in Scripture are real guides to how we should read. In Proverbs they reminded us how proverbs work, and how we have to select when to apply which proverb. In other places they are often reminders of the humanity of Scripture, that we have the thoughts of particular authors, in particular times and places, who were inspired by God not the words of God taken down as dictation.

So Is 56:6-8 stands in contrast in its welcoming approach to foreigners to the harsher attitude of Ezra’s prayer 9:5ff.
The debate between the two passages shows us Scripture as incarnate word, rooted in particular times and places, but then that is how the God of the Bible works: choosing the Jews, coming to earth in Jesus…

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Igorot Beggar photo by martiniko

Peter gets some powerful lines in these two great chapters Since I was a child I’ve loved his: “I don’t have silver and gold, but what I do have I’ll give you. Get up and walk!” So different from what we usually hear… And then when faced by the authorities he talks about his Master as the “Stone the builders rejected” quoting Ps 118:22. This superb Psalm all through contrasts human power and “protection” with God’s steadfast love that endures forever…

So in these chapters, two powerful reminders from Peter that Christian faith is NOT about human power, just the opposite. And the challenge of hearing how the first Christians lived. The Bible is perspicuous, we just wish we could remain blind and deaf!

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In this 5 minute recording I try to introduce Daniel, a book that has been placed among the prophets in Christian Bibles (following the tradition of the old Greek translation) but is not a “prophet” in the Hebrew Bible. The book contains two sorts of material, stories about Daniel, like this one “Daniel in the Lions’ Den”, and records of Daniel’s visions, which seem to speak in a half hidden coded language. The visions are rather like Revelation in the New Testament, and scholars class both as “apocalyptic” (from the Greek for uncover or reveal what is hidden). The stories are most like the stories of Joseph and Esther.

I also suggest that reading chapter 6 (Daniel in the Lions’ Den) with chapter 3 (The burning firey furnace) adds an important link between Daniel and the Christian message in the New Testament.

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Proverbs are pithy sayings. Short, thought-provoking, often using vivid imagery proverbs work by making you think. But they are often used as a source of quick simple answers. The book of Proverbs is a collkection of loads of such sayings with a long preface and short epilogue that encourage young men to meditate on this advice. The goal of Proverbs is lives lived well.

A proverb can be applied like a Band Aid to appropriate situations, BUT their greatest value is when you meditate them. So Proverbs 10-30 is the one part of the Bible that is better read verse-by-verse. This most secular of Bible books offers surface results (wealth, success…) but with under the radar spirituality.

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Most of Proverbs contains collections of proverbs (pithy sayings about life) but the book has a nine chapter prologue and a half chapter epilogue. The epilogue is a poem describing an ideal(ised) wife. The prologue seeks to motivate the student (a young male – notice all the “my son” language) to follow his mother’s advice and live a faithful, respectable, respectful, honest life.

The last chapters sex up this motivational speech by picturing Wisdom as a woman, who should become the young man’s fiancee and eventually bride.

The podcast though focuses on these chapters, with a short digression explaining what the Apocrypha is.

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There are some technical details to explain: what a “hymn” is (not a long old-fashioned worship song), what it means to “bless God” and the meaning of hesed. But mainly this podcast aims to encourage you to  hear the celebration of the creator God who is gracious, even to those who do not deserve it, merciful and above all faithful. It’s a beautiful psalm, that expresses how God is not “a god” clearly and sharply, and it just begs us to join in blessing Yahweh!

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The biblical text tells us how to read this psalm. Whether or not we agree with those who see the words “build the walls of Jerusalem” at the end as a reference to the need to (re)build after the destruction of 586, and so (perhaps along with other reasons) see the psalm as actually written later, we are told to read the psalm against the story of David’s sin and Nathan’s visit

NB: the headings like <To the leader. A Psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.> are often printed as if they had less authority than the big bold headings Bible publishers add – but they are part of the Bible and the publishers headings are NOT!

So that’s how I’ll read it. In doing so I’ll commont on details of wording, as well as on how this psalm fits into the big picture of the Bible.

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Wadi Qelt, Judean Desert, with St George's monastry by Ester Inbar, available from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:ST

Perhaps the best known and popular psalm among both Jews and Christians but not easy to categorise, except that it expresses trust in God. The imagery makes even better sense when some geography and culture is understood:

• sheep follow shepherds, they are not left on the hills and then driven
• green pastures, means land where there is some green vegetation, not just rocks and dust
• wadis: steep sided gorges, semi-desert little vegetation, quick run off from  hills = flash floods

For more on this see also my “Psalm 23 in context”

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This week’s 5 is a somewhat artificial collection, putting together two different things. Yet both Psalms and Proverbs work differently from the narrative/history and prophecy that comprise the bulk of the Old Testament, and both are used a lot by Christians along with Genesis and Isaiah (while most of the Old Testament lies unread the Two-Thirds Bible).

In this podcast we’ll look at how different genres (see the posts here, especially: Genre matters: 1- Why genre matters) work. This will help understanding and applying the week’s readings. In doing this we’ll learn for example why so often proverbs contradict each other!

Incidentally in the Bible the commonest genre of psalm are complaints, but there are no complaints among the three readings chosen, to lpearn more about them see the podcasts here.

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For the second part of this “A text without contexts is dumb” series we’ll think about cotext, the text that surrounds a text, providing context. The biblical examples come from Psalms and Ephesians. You might want to listen to Part 1 here first

At the end of the book of Ezra there a horrid account of Ezra and the “officials” gang up to force Judeans who have married foreign women to divorce them and send away them and their children. What do we do with passages like this? And as part of our thinking on this, where DO our values come from? If they don’t come from the Bible, then do we have to use values established elsewhere to “judge” Scripture? Many people today do just that. But I’m a Baptist, Scripture is my final authority in matters of faith and practice, or is it?

]]> http://5minutebible.com/ezra-and-the-foreign-wives/feed/ 2 0:05:31 At the end of the book of Ezra there a horrid account of Ezra and the “officials” gang up to force Judeans who have married foreign women to divorce them and send away them and their children. What do we do with passages like this? And a[...] At the end of the book of Ezra there a horrid account of Ezra and the “officials” gang up to force Judeans who have married foreign women to divorce them and send away them and their children. What do we do with passages like this? And as part of our thinking on this, where DO our values come from? If they don’t come from the Bible, then do we have to use values established elsewhere to “judge” Scripture? Many people today do just that. But I’m a Baptist, Scripture is my final authority in matters of faith and practice, or is it? Ezra, Reading Dr Tim Bulkeley clean no http://5minutebible.com/what-is-the-bible-part-2-a-hologram/ http://5minutebible.com/what-is-the-bible-part-2-a-hologram/#comments Fri, 26 Oct 2007 15:03:00 +0000 tim http://5minutebible.com/?p=46

Many people think the Bible is like a hologram, any part of which shows the truth. The practice of scholars, preachers and teachers, of citing single verses or lists of verses to demonstrate something, encourages this view. The claim that the Bible is “inerrant” in all its parts seems to seal the idea. Yet in the Bible God itself told us in the Bible that it is false!

]]> http://5minutebible.com/what-is-the-bible-part-2-a-hologram/feed/ 0 0:05:38 Many people think the Bible is like a hologram, any part of which shows the truth. The practice of scholars, preachers and teachers, of citing single verses or lists of verses to demonstrate something, encourages this view. The claim that the Bible [...] Many people think the Bible is like a hologram, any part of which shows the truth. The practice of scholars, preachers and teachers, of citing single verses or lists of verses to demonstrate something, encourages this view. The claim that the Bible is “inerrant” in all its parts seems to seal the idea. Yet in the Bible God itself told us in the Bible that it is false! Job, Reading Dr Tim Bulkeley clean no http://5minutebible.com/sexual-humour-in-esther/ http://5minutebible.com/sexual-humour-in-esther/#comments Thu, 14 Jun 2007 09:45:00 +0000 tim http://5minutebible.com/?p=6

The book of Esther tells a terrible story, of attempted genocide averted. Too often Christian readers miss the humour in the story, of course some of it is sex related, and/or poking fun at gender expectations, so perhaps there are reasons for the blindness.

This ‘cast continues the theme of Jesus as the “fulfilment” of Scripture, looking at one topic that’s been settled for decades, and another that’s as hot as today’s headlines. (At least here in NZ where a bill to criminalise parents spanking children is set to become law

This latest one is aimed at real beginners in biblical study and addresses why multiple contexts are important for reading/hearing texts, particularly the Bible.