Religious Studies 001H

Philip Jenkins

Fall 2003

This is a selection of Biblical passages we will be dealing with, each in its way indicating the survival of some older concept of divinity than what we are familiar with in the Bible.

Genesis 1

25 And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the cattle according to their kinds, and everything that creeps upon the ground

according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and

over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Genesis 15

1 After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, "Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great."

2 But Abram said, "O Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Elie'zer of Damascus?"

3 And Abram said, "Behold, thou hast given me no offspring; and a slave born in my house will be my heir."

4 And behold, the word of the LORD came to him, "This man shall not be your heir; your own son shall be your heir."

5 And he brought him outside and said, "Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them." Then he said to him, "So shall your

descendants be."

6 And he believed the LORD; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness.

7 And he said to him, "I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chalde'ans, to give you this land to possess."

Deuteronomy 26

1 "When you come into the land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance, and have taken possession of it, and live in it,

2 you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from your land that the LORD your God gives you, and you shall put it in

a basket, and you shall go to the place which the LORD your God will choose, to make his name to dwell there.

3 And you shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, 'I declare this day to the LORD your God that I have come into the land which

the LORD swore to our fathers to give us.'

4 Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand, and set it down before the altar of the LORD your God.

5 "And you shall make response before the LORD your God, 'A wandering Aramean was my father; and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few

in number; and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous.

6 And the Egyptians treated us harshly, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage.

7 Then we cried to the LORD the God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our voice, and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression;

8 and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror, with signs and wonders;

9 and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

10 And behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground, which thou, O LORD, hast given me.' And you shall set it down before the LORD your God,

and worship before the LORD your God;

11 and you shall rejoice in all the good which the LORD your God has given to you and to your house, you, and the Levite, and the sojourner who is among you.

Exodus 3

1 Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Mid'ian; and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness, and came to

Horeb, the mountain of God.

2 And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and lo, the bush was burning, yet it was not

consumed.

3 And Moses said, "I will turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt."

4 When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here am I."

5 Then he said, "Do not come near; put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground."

6 And he said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to

look at God.

Exodus 6

1 But the LORD said to Moses, "Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand he will send them out, yea, with a strong hand he

will drive them out of his land."

2 And God said to Moses, "I am the LORD.

3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them.

4 I also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they dwelt as sojourners.

Deuteronomy 34

4 Then the LORD said to him, "This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, `I will give it to your descendants.' I have let

you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it."

5 And Moses the servant of the LORD died there in Moab, as the LORD had said.

6 He buried him in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is.

Judges. 11:29 - 11:40

Then the spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh. He passed on to Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed on to the Ammonites. And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD, and said, “If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the LORD’s, to be offered up by me as a burnt offering.” So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them; and the LORD gave them into his hand. He inflicted a massive defeat on them from Aroer to the neighborhood of Minnith, twenty towns, and as far as Abel-keramim. So the Ammonites were subdued before the people of Israel. Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah; and there was his daughter coming out to meet him with timbrels and with dancing. She was his only child; he had no son or daughter except her. When he saw her, he tore his clothes, and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low; you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the LORD, and I cannot take back my vow.” She said to him, “My father, if you have opened your mouth to the LORD, do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, now that the LORD has given you vengeance against your enemies, the Ammonites.” And she said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me: Grant me two months, so that I may go and wander on the mountains, and bewail my virginity, my companions and I.” “Go,” he said and sent her away for two months. So she departed, she and her companions, and bewailed her virginity on the mountains. At the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to the vow he had made. She had never slept with a man. So there arose an Israelite custom that for four days every year the daughters of Israel would go out to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.

Psalm 48

1 A Song. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah. Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised in the city of our God! His holy mountain,

2 beautiful in elevation, is the joy of all the earth, Mount Zion, in the far north, the city of the great King.

3 Within her citadels God has shown himself a sure defense.

Psalm 74

12 Yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth.

13 Thou didst divide the sea by thy might; thou didst break the heads of the dragons on the waters.

14 Thou didst crush the heads of Leviathan, thou didst give him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.

15 Thou didst cleave open springs and brooks; thou didst dry up ever-flowing streams.

16 Thine is the day, thine also the night; thou hast established the luminaries and the sun.

17 Thou hast fixed all the bounds of the earth; thou hast made summer and winter.

18 Remember this, O LORD, how the enemy scoffs, and an impious people reviles thy name.

19 Do not deliver the soul of thy dove to the wild beasts; do not forget the life of thy poor for ever.

20 Have regard for thy covenant; for the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence.

21 Let not the downtrodden be put to shame; let the poor and needy praise thy name.

22 Arise, O God, plead thy cause; remember how the impious scoff at thee all the day!

23 Do not forget the clamor of thy foes, the uproar of thy adversaries which goes up continually!

Numbers 33

51 "Say to the people of Israel, When you pass over the Jordan into the land of Canaan,

52 then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their figured stones, and destroy all their molten images, and

demolish all their high places;

53 and you shall take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given the land to you to possess it.

1 Kings 14

22 And Judah did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they committed, more than all that their

fathers had done.

23 For they also built for themselves high places, and pillars, and Ashe'rim on every high hill and under every green tree;

24 and there were also male cult prostitutes in the land. They did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD drove out before the

people of Israel.

1 KINGS 16

30 And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD more than all that were before him.

31 And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jerobo'am the son of Nebat, he took for wife Jez'ebel the daughter of Ethba'al king of

the Sido'nians, and went and served Ba'al, and worshiped him.

32 He erected an altar for Ba'al in the house of Ba'al, which he built in Sama'ria.

33 And Ahab made an Ashe'rah. Ahab did more to provoke the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him.

34 In his days Hi'el of Bethel built Jericho; he laid its foundation at the cost of Abi'ram his first-born, and set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son

Segub, according to the word of the LORD, which he spoke by Joshua the son of Nun.

2 Kings 14

3 And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, yet not like David his father; he did in all things as Jo'ash his father had done.

4 But the high places were not removed; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

5 And as soon as the royal power was firmly in his hand he killed his servants who had slain the king his father.

2 Chronicles 34

1 Josi'ah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem.

2 He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, and walked in the ways of David his father; and he did not turn aside to the right or to the left.

3 For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet a boy, he began to seek the God of David his father; and in the twelfth year he began to purge

Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Ashe'rim, and the graven and the molten images.

4 And they broke down the altars of the Ba'als in his presence; and he hewed down the incense altars which stood above them; and he broke in pieces the

Ashe'rim and the graven and the molten images, and he made dust of them and strewed it over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them.

Jeremiah 32

34 They set up their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it.

35 They built the high places of Ba'al in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though I did not command them,

nor did it enter into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.

36 "Now therefore thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning this city of which you say, 'It is given into the hand of the king of Babylon by

sword, by famine, and by pestilence':

Job 26

1 Then Job answered:

2 "How you have helped him who has no power! How you have saved the arm that has no strength!

3 How you have counseled him who has no wisdom, and plentifully declared sound knowledge!

4 With whose help have you uttered words, and whose spirit has come forth from you?

5 The shades below tremble, the waters and their inhabitants.

6 Sheol is naked before God, and Abaddon has no covering.

7 He stretches out the north over the void, and hangs the earth upon nothing.

8 He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not rent under them.

9 He covers the face of the moon, and spreads over it his cloud.

10 He has described a circle upon the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness.

11 The pillars of heaven tremble, and are astounded at his rebuke.

12 By his power he stilled the sea; by his understanding he smote Rahab.

13 By his wind the heavens were made fair; his hand pierced the fleeing serpent.

14 Lo, these are but the outskirts of his ways; and how small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power who can understand?"

Job 38

1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind:

2 "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?

3 Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.

4 "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.

5 Who determined its measurements--surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?

6 On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone,

7 when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

8 "Or who shut in the sea with doors, when it burst forth from the womb;

9 when I made clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band,

10 and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors,

11 and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed'?