Bread and Water: Keeping Our Hearts Open (thoughts on parashat Toledot) (original) (raw)
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The Biblical Well Encounters: Untangling a Crux Interpretum
(flyer, conference text, book promo) Conference @ Studium Biblicum Franciscanum 2/15/2022
What unites the episodes in Genesis 24 and 29, Exodus 2, and John 4 which depict a man and a woman meeting at a well? Well-known critical studies disagree. This research proposes that the four texts share a relationship which is three-dimensional (inter-, hyper-, and architextual) and embraces a recurring constellation of ten literary motifs.
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In the biblical book of genesis, sons of Adam and Eve are said to have been respectively farmer and shepherd whose relationship had something to do with their jobs. A row brewed between the brothers when God rejected Cain’s offering which was the fruit of soil, but Abel’s sacrifice – a sheep – was accepted. This story is an interesting metaphor to describe the situation of the Abarkooh basin whose upstream is occupied by nomads with an economy mostly based on animal husbandry, but its downstream is populated by sons of Cain, whose economy is dependent on agriculture. Before the advent of modernity, both communities were equally favored by God and they used to live in perfect harmony with each other. The different geographical conditions across the basin drove each to occupy a particular niche most suited to their livelihood. The upstream enjoys porous and highly permeable soil which does not favor irrigated farming, plus good pastures and abundance of water. This condition attracts ...
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place at the table in biblical and theological studies. Diane Sharon comments, "Eating and 9 drinking. .. . are all commonly performed human activities necessary to sustain life, but when they occur in biblical stories, their function moves beyond the mundane." For such a 10 study as this to move beyond the mundane it must be determined that the inclusion of eating and drinking Actions in the narratives of Genesis has literary purpose: whether they are intended by the author to advance, retard, or complicate the plot. We cannot talk about "plot" in relation to Genesis without asking, Is Genesis a work of literature? That is, are we dealing with the sort of text which has a plot? The remarkably intricate structure of Genesis, its wordplays, pace, and development of settings and characters all 11 12 points to a commonality with literature, namely that it is "self-consciously structured and expressed." This self-conscious artistry is another way of saying: this is a narrative work of 13 literature; the story has an author, with something to say and a particular way of saying it. Rolf Knierim suggests that the absence of attention to food in biblical theology is an oversight: "Despite 9 the biblical evidence, the issues of food has never received attention worthy of a chapter in a theology, let alone the issues of its function in the whole of biblical theology-as if it were theologically irrelevant!" (Knierim, "Food, Land and Justice," 226).
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Bread is the only "food" that has its unique symbolic and metaphorical meaning in Judaism and Christianity (in the sense of life and spiritual maintenance, as well as moral behavior). Religious breads are present in every period of human life, from birth to death, end even after death. The story about religions breads is a story about the ethical and symbolic life of humans which has always been actual. Everything that is written in the Bible has a depth of ambiguity, and the bread itself is mentioned in that context in more than 200 places.
The Open Well as Symbol of the Meeting of Heaven and Earth
Religions, 2022
As an Indian artist working in the field of cross-cultural visual theology, I have taken the open well as a common feature of the landscape where I live as a motif that I can connect with the biblical story of Jesus meeting the woman at the well. This leads to a discussion around the symbolic significance of the water of life. The landscape provides natural elements that are both particular and local but also universal in their cultural significance. The meeting between the thirsty traveler, who is Christ the teacher, and a socially marginalized woman who comes to draw water in the midday heat provides the occasion for a dialogue in the context of asking for water. There is a similar story in the Buddhist tradition where Ananda, the disciple of Buddha, meets with an ‘outcaste’ woman at a well. Water, which is always found at a lowly place, becomes a symbol for the socially depressed. What is below must be lifted if the living water is to renew and transform the searcher. The encount...
The" Moveable Well" in 1 Cor 10: 4: An Extrabiblical Tradition in an Apostolic Text
Bulletin for Biblical Research, 1996
The purpose of this study is to explore the presence and implications of a Jewish exegetical tradition in Paul's appeal to the exodus/wilderness episode in 1 Cor 10:4. The goal is threefold: (1) to establish that 1 Cor 10:4 is in fact an example of a ubiquitous exegetical tradition that understood the rock in the desert (Exodus 17; as being in some sense mobile: it "followed" the Israelites; (2) to explore briefly the exegetical process that gave rise to this tradition; and (3) to explore some of the implications raised by the presence of this tradition in Paul's letter, specifically concerning the nature of inspiration and scriptural authority, and to offer a time-honored suggestion toward a solution. Now he led his people out into the wilderness; for forty years he rained down for them bread from heaven and brought quail to them from the sea and brought forth a well of water to follow them.