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I can understand that in Ireland you have other things connected with religion and ethics on your minds at the moment, but i DO hope you are not giving up on the O T Yale course. I have been lurking for some weeks, having accidently discovered this blog when you were three weeks into the course. I am throughly enjoying participating especially now that i have my copy of the jewish study bible, have caught up with the lectures and read all your comments. Now, my young friends tell me that lurking is ok, but it still feels like rudely evesdropping to me.

So may i declare my presence by saying i am an american, brought up as a roman catholic. I have lived in England (in Berkshire, but i don't know those infamous b&b non-hosts) most of my adult life and have been a quaker for about 20 years. I am not nearly as learned as most of you seem to be - pretty much all i know of philosophy is from reading Sophie's World, and i am so i t phobic that i have only recently discovered that to interpret strange groups of excess punctuation, you need to tilt your head. (-; It has taken be the best part of a week to get registered to comment. i kept getting a webpage that told me i had to click on the link in the email, which being done took me back to the very same page!? Before i shut up and retire to the back of the class, could someone kindly tell me what asterixs *around phrases* or *words* mean. Is it a different sort of emphasis to JUST USING CAPS? And, has anyone found the other required reading on line? I am *very* pleased not to have to take the exams, but some of the reading sounds well worth a look, tho i have no access to an accademic library and can't afford to buy them all.

An irish welcome, Fatfriend. I hope all views are welcome here as we all need to talk and ....listen... more. BTW I have no idea what the funny marks beside the words mean. Look forward to hearing what you have to say about these excellent lectures.

Kind regards
DK
Anti thesist

Looks like it's just a choice between bible study and C&W!
Duh!

Now Ally - who said you have to choose? I keep telling people there's a better way to think than either/or! Reading Kaufman while listening to Hugo might be just the thing to bring on an epiphany.

Welcome Fatfriend. Glad you have joined us and made your presence known.

FF - you asked about asterixs - I believe they are indeed an alternative means of adding emphasis, many people use them to indicate that the text so enclosed should be read as if it were italicised.

Historically, *this would be a phrase in bold* while /this would be a phrase in italics/ and _this would be an underlined phrase_. Of course usage will vary with time and space.

Hi Will

Ref pubishment and Leviticus.. I once heard you highlight what you saw as the apparent contradiction between people who support the death penalty but oppose abortion. (I guess it might be argued that this view protects the innocent and punishes the guilty???).

But what about the opposite view. Do you see any contradiction between the opinion that opposes the death penalty but supports abortion (punishing the innocent and protecting the guilty????)

OT

Hi William just glad you posted the lecture I started to get worried you had gone AWOL.I had watched it but miss the comments.An Englishman living in Dublin

That Graham isn't me Graham. I haven't gone to Dublin. I've never been English. (I've French and Irsih blood apparently!)

But glad the OT course is still going, I'm really enjoying it. And learning a lot. (And actually, I personally feel a bit stronger in my Evangelical convictions for it.)

GV

Thats correct I am another Graham surname Corcoran.I have been following every ones your for the last few weeks,so its good be in contact with you all.Its all so good have our minds stretched.Even though it can take us out of comfort zone.GC

I found this lecture challenging. I did not enjoy it at all. I am struggling to identify the main points. Help!

DK

I am not the one to enlighten you, D K. i am very much struggling to get my head around the relationship between moral and ritual purity. so different from what i had understood judiasm and it's rules to be about.
I first came across leviticus when jeremy hardy played my local comedy club. Declaring himself to be the campest straight commedian there is, he did an extended rift on how the book of the bible that condems homosexuality also forbids eating clams, wearing polyester, and - this one sticks in my mind - rules that if a man has sex with a donkey: kill the DONKEY!
At the risk of setting off bluesberry (lecture 8 post2)on another epic, what strikes me about this lecture is what is not there. If we discount the notion that god dictated these books word for word to moses over 40 days, and he took it down without even the benefit of spellcheck, how did this strange, complex system evolve? Do we know anything about the development of the p source?

Thank you for your comments, FF.

Regards
DK

welcome FF!

Dont worry that you dont know much philosophy, it never stopped the rest of us. As I understand it philsophy asks excellent questions about making sense of the world and stretches us in thinking about this, but it has never come to any real conclusions.

:)

You will soon find that W&T is an education in itself, so long as you have a bit of a thick skin and dont take anything too personally, ie the questions you ask and feedback you get on comments you post should make you think and reflect on your views...

At least, that is what I have found.

OT

Thanks everyone for the welcome and information. O T, I will work on growing that thick skin, though I am getting the vibe that you may all go easy on me when I say something stupid, at least until you know me better.
Does anyone want to discuss the course? I would like to hear some thoughts on how the P source evolved. and is it out of the question to refer back to lecture 8 and try to provoke a discussion on God as Pharoh's puppetmaster? I am facinated by the Prof's concept of a God who is working things out and making adjustments to the design as he/she goes along but where does this business of giving Moses and Aaron orders while (sometimes) controling Pharoh's reaction. What does that say about the concepts of evil and of free will in the Bible?

FF - have read the lecture and hope to think about it and write about it over the weekend. I'm glad somebody wants to get discussion going again on this excellent course but I'm afraid I've scrambled my brain enough for tonight already so it's probably not entirely safe to post anything on purity just at the moment...

Hi FF

On reflection, if you consider the people from the no "room at the inn" story as "non-hosts" you probably will not need a thick skin at all here as you will fit right in.

It is just folks like me who need to develop a thick skin on this blog as we tend to ask awkward and unpopular questions during such debates.

:)

OT

BTW William

ref posts 7 & 8

Any chance of some feedback when you have a minute please?

I cant help but remember, with a cheeky grin here, that you charged the conservative Christian regulars here about this course, asking them if they were afraid to join it.

I'd have to agree with GV so far, I am not surprised, but everything this secular course has come up with so far as only strengthened my faith.


On the other hand, as you invited me to join and volunteered to be my tutor, I have to once again ask you to live up to your responsibilities and respond to my question in post 8.

You challenged us about being afraid to take a "secular" course on the bible, but to date it has been you who has been repeatedly shy about tackling difficult questions we have raised in tutorials.

Your answers have been quite evasive. For example, we never did hear any comment on Prof Hayes' mistake in claiming that Adam is only a term for mankind and not also a proper name in Genesis.

You've ignored that one to date tutor, so dont trouble yourself now.


But what about post 8?

You're not scared are you??

;-)


Many thanks
OT


BTW FF, no need to get just *too* hung up on all the supposed documentary sources. If you look back you will see Prof Hayes confessed that there is no actual evidence to prove the theory is correct and that it is "guesswork".

Oh and on final point FF, I expect that interest will fall off in the corse now because once you have destroyed the foundations of a house the rest soon caves in afterwards; that is why Genesis in particular is so "controversial" .