OT Notes on Gen. 15

I just noticed that I am going back over lectionary material handled in the last cycle. I think that one can return to those. I was hit by both the similarities and difference sin my approach to studying the passages, but i do think this one is better than the older one, except for a mention of the Michael Jinkins book to young people and the struggle with doubts.

1) I find this a deeply mysterious passage. One of the better angles on it for me is Gerald Janzen's  ITC book on Genesis, Abraham and All the Families of the Earth. He explores it with some psychological depth and acuity.He uses Erikson stage theory to speak of the fundamental basis of trust, and that word is at the root of we call faith in Hebrew Scriptures. He does a fine job speaking of the vision/dream state as a descent into the abyss of one's consciousness or psyche.

2) I really struggle with getting a handle on the  vision of the ritual  in the passage. I cannot pin it down, but I do get a sense that I am in the presence of an ancient ritual, and an ancient story, as if I would be a field anthropologist  Some take it as a sort of self-curse, may we be split in half, if we depart from our pledge, our bond. we could read it positively, only together are we whole.If either would be correct, note the depth of the divine promise here. I have a suspicion tha the animals chosen have some symbolic import, butI do not have a handle on that either.I note

3) I always like to emphasize that righteousness here seem to be much closer to right relations than following a list of rules.

4) Why does the NRSV keep the word, reckon, as to me it sounds like Jethro talking to Uncle Jed in the Beverley Hillbillies.  In Hebrew, it has a wide semantic field: to think, plan, discern, devise,to intend, to mean something, to value. The important v. 6 then takes on different shades of meaning, no different meaning entirely on how one reads this small phrase.

5) The incisive, elegant writer Patricia Tull just gave us a look at this passage in her new thoughtful christian series for Lent.She turns the story into one of time perspectives, as indicating a different type of Lenten discipline, of living within the long view.It is part of her general theme, an acceptable fast from Is. 58.The virtue of patience gets wrapped around her ocncern that as Abram is given a vision of the future of his progency in 400 years, so  we make deicisons that affect future generations four hundred years hence.