{"id":426,"date":"2012-03-29T19:08:19","date_gmt":"2012-03-29T19:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/?p=426"},"modified":"2012-03-29T19:08:19","modified_gmt":"2012-03-29T19:08:19","slug":"var-_gaq-_gaq-_gaq-push_setaccount-ua-25646250-2-_gaq-push_trackpageview-function-var-ga-document-createelementscript-ga-type-textjava-35","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/?p=426","title":{"rendered":"<script type=\"text\/javascript\">    var _gaq = _gaq || [];   _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-25646250-2']);   _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);    (function() {     var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text\/javascript'; ga.async = true;     ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https:\/\/ssl' : 'http:\/\/www') + '.google-analytics.com\/ga.js';     var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);   })();  <\/script>  <\/heat> Session 23 \u2013 Held on Sunday, Mar 25, 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Abram and Lot Part &#8211; Gen. 13:1 &#8211; 18<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>After reading the notes but before reading the passage <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usccb.org\/bible\/genesis\/13\">http:\/\/www.usccb.org\/bible\/genesis\/13<\/a>, ask yourself our three basic questions: Who are the characters in this passage?\u00a0 When is the time in this story?\u00a0 [Do you remember the time of the author \/ editor?] What is the plot, the story line? Another thing to focus on might be who talks to whom and, of course, what do they say?\u00a0 Questions are the answers, or the questions are more important that the answers.<\/p>\n<p>Assuming that you have been faithful to some or all of the first paragraph, who are the characters in this story?\u00a0 Before we began though Heber asked, where did Lot get all his wealth? \u00a0He also observed the passage never tells us that Lot had a wife.\u00a0 Now here are a couple of other things to reflect on, the passage doesn\u2019t really answer Heber\u2019s question.\u00a0 So it is a real question for Heber in his world but it isn\u2019t a concern for the author in his world.\u00a0 This is history.\u00a0 Does this fact raise any questions, comments, thoughts for you?<\/p>\n<p>Ken asked a different kind of question, he wanted to know why the author included the reference to Sodom. \u00a0I reminded the group that Sodom and Gomorrah, even to this day, are symbols of wicked men doing evil things; however adequately we understand that story.\u00a0 The towns had a similar symbolic meaning for the audience of the editor, the Israelites of the 5<sup>th<\/sup> c BC.\u00a0 As Carol was to mention later in the discussion, Lot got the better real estate but in the words of Michael, Lot was moving into a bad neighborhood.\u00a0 Something of this type of meaning probably was being conveyed to the original audience as it did to us, the contemporary audiences of the text.<\/p>\n<p>Returning to our task at hand, Annette led the way by reminding us of the presence of the Lord but it will help also to recall when in the story does the Lord appear, to whom does he talk, and what does he have to say? [More questions.] In rapid succession the following characters were identified: Abram, Lot, Herdsmen, Canaanites and the Perizzites, the inhabitants ofSodom.\u00a0 (In some versions, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, occur within parenthesis.)\u00a0 It is quite clear that the original authors did not place these names in parentheses. The editors of our version did though.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Again evidence of history, the words were judged by a later person not to have been part of the original text. inserted later by someone else. \u00a0Why was this done? \u00a0How did we figure this out? \u00a0I raise these questions to help you realize the nature of the text you have in front of you; there&#8217;s more there than meets the eye.<\/p>\n<p>Before we move to the plot [next week] our group made some observations about the story itself.\u00a0 Mark made a keen observation that Abram, as he did in the previous passage, anticipated a problem developing and responded to it before it got out of hand; a clue to one of the many sides of Abraham\u2019s character.\u00a0 His observation also reveals the power of a group studying the bible together.\u00a0 You may not have observed that but Mark did.<\/p>\n<p>I suggested that in a nomadic culture land conflicts are common and separation is a common way to resolve them. \u00a0After all, they didn\u2019t have surveyors with GPS devices laying out the coordinates of their property, recording in at the county seat, etc.\u00a0 To state the obvious, they lived at a different time in a different world.\u00a0 We have to keep these facts in the forefront of our thinking so that we can more easily hear God\u2019s word\u00a0which emerges out of these concrete settings but transcends them to speak to us today.\u00a0 Such is the very power of the word of God.<\/p>\n<p>The question to confronted us next week will be what does this story say to us who are immersed in the 21<sup>st<\/sup> c., at least 25 centuries later than the audience to whom the story was originally written and maybe another 10 centuries more for the time of the story itself.\u00a0 History matters if we are\u00a0 to hear what is being spoken then and now.<\/p>\n<p>As always, our site is filled with questions but the real thing that matters are your questions, comments, etc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Abram and Lot Part &#8211; Gen. 13:1 &#8211; 18 After reading the notes but before reading the passage http:\/\/www.usccb.org\/bible\/genesis\/13, ask yourself our three basic questions: Who are the characters in this passage?\u00a0 When is the time in this story?\u00a0 [Do &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/?p=426\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,5],"tags":[15,7],"class_list":["post-426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-scripture","tag-historical-method","tag-modern-scripture-scholarship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=426"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":428,"href":"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426\/revisions\/428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}