Monday, June 13, 2011

Gen. 1-2:4a
I'm fairly certain I've posted some questions on this before,, but here's hoping we also get some new material.
1) If you wish to link this to Trinity Sunday consider the Triune Creator by Colin Gunton.
Sophisticated but accessible if you have some background. How would you link trinity, creation and redemption, say? Where does logos come in? Will you link it to Wisdom as in Prov. 8?
2) Do you consider creation finished or is it an ongoing project?
3) How do you look at creation and science? See the clergy letter project of Dr. Zimmerman at Butler for some fine resources.
4) What is your opinion of process theology? Much of it is unreadable, but it does come up with some intriguing proposals.
5) I am convinced by the argument that this account is a direct assault by Israel against the conflict creation stories of  Babylon. It is a sterling piece of cultural defense.
6) In that sense, then, it describes a god of order. At the same time, this is concerned with the abundance of life in a world beset with death.
7) How do you understand image and likeness of god. See Imaging God by the great Douglas John Hall. Why is this creation account of men and women at the same time not as familiar as the account of ch.2? Does it then promote a sense of equality? How do you understand the plural pronoun here for God?
8)This is already paired with Ps. 8. One could go past the lectionary and compare it to other OT creation material as in Brown's book 7 Pillars of Creation. 
9) I think v. 1 leaves an open question for creation from nothing. v.2 does point to a chaos myth with the formless and void phrase (tohu/bohu) Look to B. Anderson in a collection on creation for a good discussion of chaos, as well as J. Levenson on its persistent power. I think sea monsters on v.21 should not be equated to natural things but to a symbolic form of chaos, such as the Leviathan of Job or the great fish who swallows Jonah or the serpent of Is.27.
10) I don't think these were stupid people. They obviously know where light emerges, as they indicate in v.16. So I like this as a theological statement of God making light  as a sign of divine presence, or alternately making room for creation (see Moltmann on zimsum).
11) Some maintain that the bringing forth of v.20,24 is a maternal one.
12) Don't rush to the end and forget abut sabbath as built into the very fabric of creation.
13) Summertime and the living is easy. Maybe this is a good time to make an attack on the attempt to impose a wooden reading of this chapter as a science text on  students and religious folks in general.

Ps.8
1) Ps. 8 is on a disk left on the moon by Apollo 8.
2) Note that God does crafts here. the work of fingers and the work of hands.
3) We have the best sense of the scale of the expanding universe ever. Do a bit of research to speak of a light year and a picutre from Hubble
4) In the midst of this immensity, we are charged wiht taking care (dominion)  of htis corner of creation
5) Job makes a parody of these words of god being mindful of us.


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