Sheelah, thank you for clarifying those terms which were unfamiliar to me in your response. It would appear my guess at El-Shaddai was way off! I don’t actually know any Hebrew but sometimes, while studying the Bible, I try to connect Hebrew words to one of the smattering of Arabic roots I’ve learned. I did a little poking around in dictionaries…[Read more]

Which terms are familiar to you?
I have at least heard of all of each of these.

Which terms or dates are unfamiliar?
I would be hard pressed to distinguish between henotheism and monolatry. If I were to run across either term by itself, I would have thought it referred to the devotion to one god over and above all others. Now, seeing them side…[Read more]

In what ways is your understanding of what God requires from religious people changing? What does it mean to be a good religious person?
I am having a hard time using the word ‘religion’ because I am living in linguistic circles in which the connotative value of that word fluctuates wildly. Sometimes it is associated with perfunctory rep…[Read more]

Yes, Sheelah, thank you, your synopsis does indeed help. I was attempting to read the Akedah like Girard reads one of those stories which relate a founding murder. These are stories of violent encounters. When told by mythologers, the violence is obfuscated. When told by Biblical authors, the violence is brought into focus. I correctly understood…[Read more]

How has your understanding of the story of Abraham and Isaac changed?
Sheelah, James lost me on this one. You’ll need to help me sort it out. Do I understand this correctly? I’ve enumerated the steps I see James taking, so that you can pinpoint where I go wrong.

[1] James suspects that there are various ways to tell the story of Abraham sac…[Read more]

Were you aware that sacrifice of firstborn children was part of the religious practices of ancient Israel, as of the surrounding nations? How do you feel about that?
Yes, but I still find it very striking to be reminded just how matter of course the practice would have seemed.

–The stories about human sacrifice made Marcion so queasy that he…[Read more]

Share ways in which you have noticed the content, questions or insights from the previous Module showing up in your lives.
I’ve been thinking about a couple of billionaires who were being compared to one another recently in the news. Both claim to be “self-made” men with political aspirations, but I was initially led to see a clear demar…[Read more]

James explains that reading the texts through the eyes of the Forgiving Victim is a particular option for interpretation. What difference does this option make to how we interpret Scriptures?
Reading scripture doesn’t have to be a theological exercise. It does not have to be a matter of distinguishing two gods from one another or about o…[Read more]

Have you read, or do you know someone who reads, Scripture from a Marcionite perspective? What question does a Marcionite reading attempt to answer?
I suppose I have heard people talk about “God in the Old Testament” as if this were a distinct from what we read in the Gospels.

Why does James say a Marcionite reading of Scriptures is a mis…[Read more]

Share a favorite mystery or detective story. Describe what effect learning “who done it” at the end had on how you viewed certain characters or events from earlier in the story.
The first season of the British television series “Broadchurch” is perhaps the most gripping detective story I have ever been told. It isn’t about a crafty killer wh…[Read more]

Thank you for sharing these quotes, Sheelah. I found them to be quite fertile beginnings for meditation. I look forward to pausing to reread them in the future. These are my thoughts thus far. It’ll help if I enumerate the clauses of the first passage.

(1) Our challenge as Christians is not to try to convert people around us to our way of b…[Read more]

Yes, it has occurred to me that it is my neighbors and loved ones who have provided me with my desires, both profound and superficial. But I haven’t ever tried to catalogue precisely which desires come from who.

Yes, I’ve known resentment all too well on too many occasions. It occurred to me one night how much I hated a certain type of person. I…[Read more]

I’d like to publicly thank whoever had the foresight to sell these online subscriptions to the Forgiving Victim series in 2-year stints. It has been a very pleasant experience to think on a question for months, get nowhere with it, and know all the while there is still a supervised forum awaiting my return. Thank you, Sheelah, for your q…[Read more]

Yes, Sheelah, I believe you were correct to describe what I observed as an instantiation of how “The idea of the autonomous self really does die hard.” I was reviewing the first video of module one yesterday. In the introductory bit, before the lessons begin, James says, “What I hope you are going to get from this course is quite how far remov…[Read more]

Share ways in which you have noticed the content, questions or insights from the previous Module showing up in your lives.
Yesterday, I heard someone sharing one of those tell-all accounts of oneself, which certain evangelicals like to call ‘testimonies’. She lamented a former time in her life in which she “didn’t know who she was.” She recalls a…[Read more]

No doubt it will be quite an ordeal when I finally come to grips with a personal story as told by the purportedly “evil” characters against who I’d managed to concoct a semblance of “goodness” to ascribe to myself. I don’t know that I have attained the ‘converted’ position required to do that yet. It is much easier to think of oneself unveili…[Read more]

Imagine that the story you identified in Unit 2, “Reading Scripture through new eyes” was one of the stories that Jesus interpreted on the road to Emmaus. Where might you listen for the unheard voice of the Forgiving Victim in that story?
As for where we might listen for the unheard voice in 1 Samuel 18, it doesn’t seem possible to hear forgi…[Read more]

To begin this process of discovery, share an Old Testament story that has made you queasy or uncomfortable and explain why.
1 Samuel 17 is the story of David and Goliath. Chapter 18 begins with Saul’s son Jonathan being quite taken with David and his military exploits. Saul is galled and anxious that another should be more highly lauded in I…[Read more]

Yes, I do suppose that the single mediator who formulates Jesus’ desires at every turn is the one he calls Abba (and the creed calls Father almighty maker of heaven and earth).

And, yes, it is certainly worth pointing out that Jesus is never indifferent to the crowds—even if he is impervious to what Andrew Marr calls their “mimetic res…[Read more]

Share ways in which you have noticed the content, questions or insights from the previous Module showing up in your lives.
Someone was speaking persuasively at church this Sunday about how “The Triumphal Entry” might be bit of a misnomer for Christ’s arrival to Jerusalem before the Passion. The crowd had a triumphalist understanding of what Jesus…[Read more]