Abraham, Sarah and my reversion journey
Through happy coincidence, our reading in Genesis just happens to be something I was intending to touch on in my continuing reversion story at my own blog. I don't think I would have had as much to say about it if I had not just read about Abraham and Sarah as it all dovetails nicely with where I am in my tale, and also I think with some of the things we have been grappling with as 21st century readers of the text. Instead of repeating myself here, I'll direct you to my journal entry.I'm looking forward to Exodus!
6 Comments:
I'm really pleased that you're undertaking the 90 day Bible Plan.
I just want to let you know that I've been having trouble posting a comment on your site for a while.
I keep getting an error message that says something like;
"Error, this file can sent/used on it's own"
God Bless.
Hmmm. That's really weird. I'll have to see if anyone else is having problems. What browser are you using?
Speaking as someone who made my own journey from Christianity to feminist neopaganism to Christianity again, I think it is unwise to, after being disillusioned by one ideological extreme, to careen to the opposite end of the continuum.
I was a little concerned about your comments regarding Sarah that seemed to suggest that the Abrahamic story was not about her. Well, of course it's about her, as well as about Abraham; she's one of the few women who actually enjoy the dignity of being named and having their stories told in these texts. The solution to an overemphasis on one subtext in the text at the expense of a bigger picture is not to dismiss the subtext as nonexistent or unimportant. I think that a critical discussion of the social structures in these ancient stories -- not only issues of gender but also of class, of ethnicity, of political structure -- is important, because these texts have in part helped shape our Western society. And from a theological standpoint -- one of the running subtexts in all of Scripture is God's solidarity with "the least of these" -- the most marginalized and dismepowered. Recognizing this subtext, again by critically examining it in Scripture, is the standard by which we measure our own personal and collective thoughts and actions regarding "the least of these."
The story in full is about Abraham and Sarah and Isaac and everyone else, but the specific excerpt that I was discussing in relation to my reversion journey is about Abraham and Isaac. Sarah does not play a part in that piece of the tale. The point I was making though, is that -- having previously ONLY read that part -- I did not realize that she was more of a prime mover in other parts of the story than my Classics class would have led me to believe. I don't see how I was unclear on that point, so I'm not sure what your concern is with my post.
As for the rest, at the moment all I'm seeing is an emphasis on one particular subtext at the expense of the bigger picture, and little more than kneejerk reaction to it, rather than critical discussion. I would be happy to see some evidence of the latter because the former is making me seriously regret not just carrying on by myself. I'm really having a hard time imagining how we are going to unpack the text on such a fast reading schedule and do it any justice. I was under the impression that such a reading schedule was designed in order to allow one to get a look at the "bigger picture", which I thought was the reason behind most of us doing this and yet, here we are getting caught up in the subtext.
I'm using Firefox. I'll try again later in IE and see if there is a problem when using that.
I'll let you know how I get on.
God Bless.
I still can't leave a comment at Wayard Catholic. I tried with IE and with Firefox it made no difference:(
I can comment on your other blogs, however, I left a comment on one of them. Do you have an email address on your main blog, I haven't seen one...but then I'm not terribly observant!....I was just thinking that if there was anything I felt I wanted to comment upon, I could do so that way instead.
God Bless.
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