Has anyone seen God? – Esther: a review

February 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Call me old-fashioned but surely, when it comes to the Bible, the main character should at least get a mention. I’ve just finished Esther and although I knew it before, once again it struck me that God doesn’t get a mention. There is celebration and praising so implicitly you could argue a case, but it would be a very weak one.

The girl who would be queen

A Queen at the right time

The story of Esther is that of a young Jewish girl who becomes Queen to Xerxes in Susa in Persia. When she is Queen she gets the King to reverse an order from Haman, who wants to kill the Jews. She then gets the King to go further and in the end Haman gets killed. And to round-up the story the Jews celebrate with the very first Feast of Purim.

Again, implicitly, you could read God into the events. Esther is placed into the royal household at just the right time to make an impact. Through Xerxes becoming distressed through a dream Mordecai, the other main character in the book, is brought to his attention. So looking back on the events you could say that God was working behind the scenes to make sure that the Jews weren’t destroyed as Haman wanted to.

Main character study

Once again though, I’m led to wonder who the main character of this book is. We can read God into it, and I have a little problem with that; if you believe in an interventionist God (as Nick Cave sings) then fine. However, it is very east to miss the other main character through this book and the rest of the bible… humanity! Esther suggests that life isn’t just about God getting on with things, but about humanity getting on with God’s things.

Oh and it’s a pretty good story to read, why not take a few minutes and try it yourself, it isn’t long.

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Thunder and brimstone lite – Zechariah: a review

February 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Do you get annoyed with adverts? I’m talking pop-ups on websites and applications. I do, but they are also quite useful. Software developers often off a free or lite version of a product for you to try, and this is often supported by ads. Either you like the software so much you pay for the full version or the ads are so annoying you remove the free version and wonder what the full version would have been like. Well here is the book of Zechariah, meet my most unfavourite prophet.

Your house is finished!

How cool is that? He’s a prophet and a priest

First of all a little bit of background and description. Zechariah was most likely a priest who was also a prophet. He spoke, and presumably priested, from 538 onwards, that’s BC not almost twenty to six. His message was to encourage the rebuilding of the Temple, as it seemed that this was lagging behind the rebuilding of the rest of the city, when the Jews returned to Jerusalem.

Ezekiel Lite

There were two things that left me polling Zechariah so low.

  1. Zechariah uses visions and powerful images and metaphors just like Ezekiel. The problem is he does it without the zest that I liked from the big E. Although perhaps my impression of Ezekiel is still too clouded by seeing him as Samuel L Jackson.
  2. I must admit that I really lost the flow of Zechariah. At times I had no idea what he was on about and where he was heading. Now this could be due to me being in a bad mood, a bit of a rush, or my own stupidity in prophetic hermeneutics.

Either way, I didn’t find Zechariah easy-going. If you’re looking for a prophet to read I think starting elsewhere would be helpful. Fortunately there are one or two to try. Now if only there was a book in the Bible that didn’t mention God every five minutes… Oh look, its Esther, the next stop in my trip through the Old Testament.

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Better, better, better, better – Jude: a review

February 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Sorry couldn’t resist that. Well here I am, the last little bit of the New Testament before the big one at the end. And it is nice and pleasant too, just like the Lennon and McCartney song. Well pleasant for those who are still holding on to the faith. For those who aren’t this little letter is a warning.

Flesh and blood

Flesh and blood

The letter concerns those who have rejected God’s grace. By that I mean the free gift of unconditional love, well I might be reading a little into this letter from elsewhere in the New Testament, but that is the thrust of things. This is something that is expected though, it comes as no surprise to the author that this will and has happened. The group that the letter is talking about are probably a sub-sect of the christian sect within Judaism (you can see how this begins to get complicated) who don’t take the body, or physical existence, as important. They were only concerned about the soul or spirit, therefore what you did with the body didn’t matter. But Jude points out that matter does matter.

Jude who?

So who was Jude? Well he says he is the brother of James, and the James he means is the brother of Jesus. What is interesting about this little letter is:

  1. It is very similar in language to 2 Peter, so there was likely some copying or adapting of either letter or an unknown common source.
  2. Jude quotes and makes allusions to non-biblical religious writings, using them to argue his point. Nothing wrong in that, but it is interesting. How often do we hear the Pope quoting the Dali Lama?

So, with Jude out of the way, onto the last book in the New Testament as my journey through the Bible nears its end.

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