Religions of the Middle East
Wednesday October 2nd
We started class with the parallel between Yahweh stopping the building of the Tower of Babel and kicking Adam out of the Garden of Eden for disobeying him. It seems every time Yahweh's authority is challenged he puts a stop to it.
Professor Borrowdale made a point of having us notice Yahweh evolving from a human-like character into a sophisticated spiritual character throughout the course of the bible.
We spoke briefly about Yahweh being fallible or infallible. Why does Yahweh put the tree in the garden if they shouldn't eat from it? Why does he send Angels ahead to scout out the land? Shouldn't he know? He seems to speak on a man to man basis.
We then briefly reviewed Jacob tricking Esau out of his birthright and his blessing.
Then Yahweh changes Jacobs name to Israel(He who wrestles w/God). Jacob runs into a "man"(Yahweh) in the woods and wrestles with him. He's persistent(or stubborn) and Yahweh sees this as good quality. Thus, changing his name to Israel.
Jacob has 12 sons. (12 tribes of Israel)
We're then given a new reading assignment:
Read Exodus 3:13-15(God's name introduced)
12 (Passover)
15:11(Other Gods)
20 (The 10 Commandments)
We continue by going over Exodus(The Departure/Leaving) The Israelites are brought out of slavery in Egypt.
Important phrase in Judaism :I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of Egypt.
The Israelites go to Egypt for work and become slaves. They grow so large in number so the pharaoh orders all male hebrew to be killed.
Moses is put in the Nile by his mother, as a baby,to hopefully be saved,the pharaoh's daughter finds him and adopts him, Moses's mom cares for him, he grows, kills an Egyptian who is beating a hebrew slave, leaves town because they'll be after him.
Exodus 3 Yahweh appears as burning bush and chooses Moses to lead the Israelites out of slavery.
Next we go the the 10 plagues. Know what they are! The 10th plague(Angel of Death)says that all the 1st born of each family will be killed.
Pharaoh relents and sets Israelites free.< This is the origin of the Passover Festival. It celebrates freedom from slavery in Egypt.
It is the main Jewish festival of today.
The components are:
-slaughter lamb and eat it
*-smear lamb blood around the door
-eat bitter herbs
(represents bitterness of slavery)
-eat unleavened bread
(represents haste)
*-eat fast and ready to leave

*=not done today
We ended class with the questions:
Who was the pharaoh of the enslaving of the Israelites? And who was the pharaoh of the Exodus?