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Friday 26 August 2011

What are the most important 7 events/people in the OT

This question comes from Higgaion who for some reason I did not have on my aggregator. That's why my blogs have been less interesting recently. I must have decommissioned him for some strange reason.

I thought I should add a 'why' to the things I listed off the top of my head.

Since I am late come to a detailed study of TNK, I have found the most important things to be the questions that are assumed and answered by translators that never come to the student’s attention until they decide to try it themselves. These questions once seen should undermine the assumptions that I have had myself - but this growth process may be inhibited by my own defense mechanisms.

So what are my defense mechanisms?

1. I do not have proof of nihilism so I cannot live with an assumption of the same.
2. Fear and pain are avoidance motivating factors in spite of my engagement with God. I do not hide this. Reading psalms does this for you.
3. Love is a positive force but I find myself regretting my own actions even though they were agents for my growth (see psalms 6 and 38).

Here was my first cut at the important things in TNK
1 The exile and the assurance of acceptance even when losing the promised land (proof text Lam 3:32 – just about dead centre)
2 Abraham – just what was his engagement with the Most High
2a Melchizedek – recognizing the foreign
3 Zippora
4 The elect – Psalm 18:1 (Hebrew numbering 2)
4b the anointed, the son, the many levels of application of this to ‘Israel’
4c Jacob
5 The temple – from Bethel to Ezekiel, the place of the Name
6 The Shulamite and the foxes, Song 2:15 and its frame
7 Leviathan and the eyelids of dawn
7b Job
7c the accuser

To reframe these in terms of NT doctrine about say - the second Adam - is to rethink all my shortcut answers to the 'meaning' of the OT.

E.g.
1 Exile - how does a Christian experience exile? What about the concerns expressed historically about sin after baptism and its consequences?  This would tie in of course with an allegorical interpretation of Israel's experience.
2 Abraham (and Melchizedek) - this is obviously a NT theme. But how do we live after the manner of Abraham's faith? The whole TNK is required reading for this.
3 Zippora - because she saves Moses from Hashem through the intervention of the circumcision of the sons of Moses and touching the foreskins 'to his feet'. Without Moses where would we be? How do Torah (Law, Teaching) and Faith interact?  (No obvious answer required).
4 The elect - the womb-like love expressed uniquely in TNK in Psalm 18:1, the ambiguity of the identity of the elect - Jacob's life as Israel - who strives with God, must be learned - but how?
5 The temple - whose name do we bear and how?
6 The love - catch the foxes - my email tagline for so long.
7 Leviathan - Creation and redemption through the eyes of Job.

One could spend some time on this.

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