Bible class etc.,
I’ve been way out of the loop the last week or two. Last week was a vacation from work, but with two dentist visits, a trip to the DMV and a host of other little errands, it didn’t seem much like a vacation at all. We did round everybody up for a trip to the Ocoee for some whitewater rafting (Buck, we were probably 80 miles north of ya’), so that was nice. Other than that - nada.
I realized how out of the loop I have been when I saw Buck’s latest about the Alison Krauss deal (rude people aside, I know that show kicked ass & I hope you had a good time), and realized that I was reading it four days behind. I don’t think I’ve ever been even a full day behind reading t-t-t. Same with my other regular reads. I’m behind actual months with some.
So, anyway, I managed to cobble together a second session of the Bible class for Sunday, by staying up all night Saturday night - after the rafting trip. This week was on the Apocalyptic Writings. The class covered definitions (apocalypse=revelation; eschatology=foretelling of an/the End), style & characteristics (poetic, employing allegory & symbolism, portraying violence/catastrophe, relaying extraordinary visions), and themes (”last call” to repentance, final judgment). We mentioned, in passing, the vast collection of non-canonical apocalyptic literature, and hit the high points of Isaiah, Ezekial, Daniel and Revelation. There was an extremely brief speculation about what needs the apocalyptic literature might have met in its original audiences. There was a brief discussion of why people are perennially fascinated by apocalyptic notions and literature - or rather of the fact that they are and why it was outside the scope of the class to speculate about such things. We closed it all out with an overview of interpretive schemes: Preterist vs. futurist and all the -millenialisms. You know, it came together kind of on a shoestring, but I think it was just about as good as it could have been, even if I had spent months on it. Ummm…. If I do say so myself.
Now I have to be ready to hold the next session next Sunday morning. This will be the least interesting by dint of subject matter so far, so wish me luck. Maybe I’ll just run through it Joe Pesci style (thanks RW). Anyway - that’s just one more thing to do instead of keeping up with the projects I started a year or two ago.
Peace out.
Man I am glad you are still alive. I was starting to worry. I had feared that maybe you were in a straight jacket and padded room somewhere desperate for a cigarette.
How was the water up in Ocoee? As little as it has rained here I would have imagined just a thin trickle but obviously that is not the case. I guess they just let everybody get on the starting line and then open up the floodgates. I love the winding road trip down by the Ocoee river. I used to go that way to Decatur, Tennessee regularly when my in-laws were still living in Tennessee. They have moved here and now only live about 4 miles from me. The ride just ain’t the same anymore not to mention the disappearance of the in-law buffer zone.
I love discussing the “end times” especially with a group that consists of numerous people with varying ideas.
You should throw in 12/21/2012. I know it is not biblical but it is another cultures take on things and the Mayan culture did base their prediction on science or at least the closest thing they had to science at the time. You can get away with something like that at a Universalist church. And I believe that as 12/21/2012 gets closer the interest in it by the public will increase to levels that will surpass all of the hoopla that surrounded Y2K. Somebody is gonna sell a hell of a lot of dried foods, guns and ammunition.
I think men are interested in the end because they assume if there was a beginning there has to be an end.
I am of the opinion that there was no beginning and there will be no end.
I can’t prove that. It is just a gut feeling I have