The Open: Abstract Images In The Hebrew Bible

Art and the Bible, written by Francis A. Schaefer, is a short, simple to the point book regarding how a Christian should approach art. The book is divided into two sections. Section one is title Art in the Bible and section two is titled Some Perspectives on Art.

Origen describes how Moses decrees that a goat-stag is the perfectly pure sacrifice animal (400), and that griffins should not be consumed (400). These creatures do not exist, but still they are mentioned in the text. This, therefore, takes upon layers of spiritual interpretation, wherein the goat-stag could be seen as a reference to the holiness of God’s creatures, even those that might appear abominable; while the griffin stands as a reminder that life contains things that have yet to be encountered, but still must be respected. Within the Origen perspective, Scripture always contains meaning, with some pieces of Scripture containing more layers of meaning than others. Origen proposes that in order to live and worship properly, these meanings must be discovered and interpreted fully, unlocking God’s true message and

The Heart of the Old Testament written by Ronald Youngblood is an informative and insightful book. Youngblood identifies the nine themes that form the foundation of the Old Testament. These themes show that the Old Testament is not any different from the New Testament and should not be consider irrelevant when compared to the New Testament. The nine themes include monotheism, sovereignty, election, covenant, theocracy, law, sacrifice, faith and redemption.

13) The Creation of the World; the Garden of Eden; Adam and Eve; Original Sin; the Fall

The Bible, one of the world’s most ancient works of literature established into a book several years ago, can be debated to be true or false. However, whether or not it is doesn’t matter because either way it is incredibly fascinating. There are some truths and mysterious secrets embedded within the Bible. I believe the Bible should be taken figuratively rather than literally. To think that a group of writers from the ancient past had integrated stories with important morals and philosophies. The Bible has remained relevant for centuries and unfortunately has been neglected by the ignorance by the generations of today. Believe it or not, languages and popular phrases have been passed from the Bible and they may not even realize it.

In the book A Separate Peace by John Knowles there are several biblical archetypes. These biblical archetypes give the reader an insight into the deeper meaning of the text. This adds a greater significance to the story, and gives the reader a greater understanding. Some examples of these biblical archetypes are the garden of Eden, baptism, and Judas and Jesus. The garden of Eden is a paradise, in which there is the tree of the knowledge of good in evil. Adam and Eve both live in Eden, and God tells them not to eat the apples that grow on the tree. In the beginning, Adam and Eve are innocent, but Eve is persuaded to eat an apple form the tree by a serpent, and Eve convinces Adam to eat the fruit too. This causes them both to gain knowledge and lose their innocence, this is known as the fall of man. Next, baptism is a ritual of sprinkling water onto a person’s forehead, or immersing them in water. This is supposed to purify the person getting baptized. It is also used for regeneration. Baptism’s are also used to initiate or admit someone into a church. Finally, Judas was one of the twelve disciples of Jesus, but he ended up betraying Jesus. While Jesus was pure and innocent, Judas was immoral and not innocent, and betrayed someone who he pretended was his friend. The connection between these stories and the book give the reader a better understanding of the book. The biblical archetypes in A Separate Peace include the garden of Eden, baptism, and Judas and Jesus.

While discussing the Biblical narrative metaphors in class, one that resonated with me was the metaphor of builder, as often the discussion in many of my engineering classes was that of unfolding and flourishing creation, and ensuring that the designs that we might make are shalom seeking as well as free of a negative bias. This brings up the Biblical image of Bezalel building the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25), or Huram-abi designing and building Solomon’s Temple (2 Chronicles 2). These men were skilled in metals, and could design and craft with a variety of other materials. They built the most important buildings for Israel, and used their gifts and desire to glorify God, turning gold and other precious metals from ores to decorations to demonstrate the riches that God blessed them with, both financially as well as spiritually.

In the scholarly article we read, written by Mark S. Smith of New York University, titled "The Three Bodies of God in the Hebrew Bible" he introduces an accumulation of evidence, from himself and other scholars to whom he gave credit, of various forms God takes at certain points in the Old Testament. In his essay, Smith is looking to discuss what he, as well as other scholars, believes to be the three forms of God in the Hebrew Bible and classify them in what he calls a "typology of God's body according to size or scale, which can be correlated to location and material" (Smith 472). In Smith's thesis, he claims that there are these three forms of God, the first of which "involves a human-scale body manifest on earth". He describes this as being

Vivid images, from visions, to detailed explanation and accounts of places and events, to symbolic imagery used to explain parables, or teach and encourage the first century churches are driving forces within the Biblical text. Metaphorical language, by virtue of the fact that it preserves the literal meaning of the symbol, while intending an analogical secondary meaning, is able to communicate profound truths about reality, mainly by creating an alternative, symbolic way of seeing and understanding the world. (Liubinskas, Susann. 404) Throughout the New Testament of the Bible the most commonly used images are the: body of Christ, and vine imagery. These images work together to create a powerful example of the necessity for unity among individual believers, and that unity tying them Christ.

Men, Hebrews 4:14-5:10. Americans are a bit fast and loose with assigning roles or positions. For high level employment there is a multilevel interview process, background check, and various degrees of vetting. Lineage seldom comes into the equation. For most church roles we plug people into places where "they have the heart for it." We've all heard it, wether they're qualified or not. But for the role of priest in the time of Hebrews the requirements were a little less casual. Priests then were appointed. No one assumed the role, but were called to the role by God. Jesus is called to be high priest on our behalf. But in the time of Hebrews a priest was generally selected from a particular line of priests dating back ages. In Jesus's case,

This term is employed literally of man’s hand which does normal work functions (Gen 5:29), good or bad (Gen 4:11).

Idioms:

The Old Testament consisted of a set of documentations of religious scriptures, which were written by different people at various times for a different audience. Most of the Old Testament contains short stories of traditional stories and those stories of distinguished ways God established mankind. These stories are often told to the people in narrative form, which are guidelines often referred to as laws, songs, genealogies, and a list from these authors that composed the Old Testaments. The pressing of set documentation is essential because it is the framework for the lives of God 's followers. The term “Old Testament” originated as a means to express spoken traditions and God 's creation of that particular era. It is an method of philosophical investigation was designed to answer the why questions within these spiritual text documentations. These religious documentations consisted of four parts. These four sections retrieved from the Old Testaments are the laws, history, wisdom and prophecy. The laws are a rule of behavior enforced within the community. The rules are sometimes called “Torah.” When analyzing this Torah, these rules viewed within the first five spiritual books of the Bible. For example, in the first Torah in Genesis, it explains the creation, Noah’s Flood, Abraham and Isaac, and Joseph’s coats of many colors. However, the laws in Exodus were in regards to the going out. The going out took about 40 plus years, until the people led to

Created by Johannes Gutenberg, The Gutenberg Bible was the first mass produced book through the use of a moveable printer. Known for its artistic Latin writing, the Bible only has forty-nine copies remaining, one residing at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin. The Gutenberg Bible exhibits religious qualities from the message, directly from God, and the original purpose of the creation of the Bible.

Throughout the bible, and reading it once more by Marcus Borg, a common idea as it relates to a religious experience, is that the Bible is a human product. Throughout chapter two, Borg continuously describes the Bible as being a product of humans. He explains on page 22 that he sees scripture through the lens of the Bible being a human product, meaning that it is the “product of two ancient communities” (22). He believed that what the Bible explains things to be are words from the communities of ancient Israel and the early Christian movement. “We cannot talk about God (or anything else) except with the words, symbols, stories, concepts, and categories known to us, for they are the only language we have”, made me think about the idea that

One of the most important books in the history of design is The Gutenberg Bible, also known as the Mazarin Bible and the 42-Line Bible. It is often considered one of the first notable books to have been printed because unlike early books, this book was printed with movable type. Invented by Johann Gutenberg, his invention changed the course of technology and the way people gained knowledge forever.