Jonah the fish-prophet

Q: Where (in the Bible) is Second Isaiah found? List two reasons why scholars believe this material was not written by Isaiah of Jerusalem.
A: Towards the end of the Old Testament.
A: Second Isaiah is farther back in the Bible then Isaiah of Jerusalem.

Q: Name two ways in which the story of Jonah is an exaggeration of the typical prophetic story.
A: Jonah has a real concern for the Jews.
A: Jonah is not represented as a human being, but as a big fish.
A. Typical prophetic stories are bad this one involves acts of being cowardly.

Q: What was achieved in the Maccabeean Revolt?
A: They achieved there status (Jews) and were able to keep their religion.
A: Jews were no long persecuted.

Q: Who are Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar? Why are they condemned by God and in what story?
A: This guys are the friends of Job, and they are a influence on Job when satin is testing him.

Q: Who is Elisha? What two tasks does he have to perform?
A: The leader to stop fake worship of any one except for God himself.

Q: Who is Antiochus IV and how was he a unique threat to the Jewish people?
A: Antiochus IV was a Greek rule who forced the Jewish to worship a golden statue of the Greek gods, especially Zeus, and if they did not, then he would put them in a furnace. He was a threat to the Jews because he oppressed them from worshipping the Jewish Faith.

Something's brewing inside my mind

In ancient times, when people had not been living in settled civilizations, things began to change in several aspects of a person's life. Besides all of the obvious physical technological advancements that took place during these times, something was brewing inside the minds of the people. What was happening was that people were beginning to ask the big question; which was simply, "why?"

You don't say!

Many scholars believe that the completed book of Proverbs comes from the time period of Judaism.

This paper objected me to suffering.

In Proverbs the wise are rewarded with better and more things, while the foolish are punished and are objected to suffering.

In proverbs the story showed that in life of wise payed off.

In his earth life he had it made many life stock, healthy and multiple kids, and much land, so being wise did pay off and did not make him suffer, except the death aspect of life.

In Trad Wisdom the txt of Job is a example of the type of wisdom.

I feel like being wise and doing god things is important but suffering eventually is non avoidable, it just life things happen, we get sick, there's deaths, and so on.

From an essay on wisdom. I wish he was trying to be ironic.

Proverbs is a book in which it puts the people responsible for their actions of both good and bad, while wisdom was thought to be a divine gift at first changed.

In Job wisdom was still present but yet not as pursued as in Proverbs on account that wisdom would not guarantee the absence of suffering.

I believe that suffering is much like the story of Job, were things happen that we cant explain or happen to people that may not have done wrong. As implied from various religious text and Christian organizations "everything happens for a reason" even if we may not understand it or know why it happened. I also believe that we should use Ecclesiastes approach on enjoying what we have as humans on Earth while we have the opportunity to do so.

Mini-Samson: harasser of the Philistines.

Samson is a hero of the Hebrew people. How is he portrayed in this story?

Reminds me of Hercules from my highshool Latin class. He's very strong of course but he eventaully loses that strength after Delilah cuts his hair. He also enjoys prostitutes and harrassing Philistines.

Samson is portrayed as an extremely strong man, but also as a lier because he lied multiple times about his secret.

Samson is portrayed as someone who is pretty small. I think he is also portrayed as someone who makes people around him envious/hateful. I get that from the Philistines trying to kill him.

Student Knowledge on Abortion

I gave a survey to see what students already know about abortion in the U.S. and key ideas in the philosophical debate on abortion. I think the last answer on Roe v. Wade is my favorite.

Q: What was decided in Roe v. Wade?
A: That abortion is legal in certain instances like rape.
A: Abortion is fine.
A: That a person has rights to their self being.
A: Women rights.

Q: What is "personhood"?
A: The rights of a persons being.
A: It is your own, your personal beings and belonging

Q: Can beings that are not fully rational or self-aware have rights?
A: Yes unless they are harming others. They can drive a car but if they hit pedestrians constantly they should lose their license.
A: No, not if they are not born but yes because the people who created this person are responsible.

God is such a drama queen.

Q: Do you think Saul's punishment (of being cursed by God) is fair?

A: I think YHWH still needs to calm down but because Saul's curse could easily be relieved by lyre music, it couldn't have been that bad. 

Why Hobbes Was So Pessimistic About Human Nature

Q: Hobbes describes life in the state of nature as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Why?
A: because the decisions we have to make in everyday life and following moral standards can make decision making in life difficult. Everyone has different personailities and motives which takes a great affect on people around them because they migh have different standards than someone else.


(It should be noted that this answer is not even close.)

Genesis in one convoluted sentence

Q: Describe three differences between the Priestly and the Old Epic creation narratives.

A: In the differences are that in the Priestly versions Noah's ark is a difference, the forbidden fruit tree and the gathering of each animal.

God Hates Temples

Solomon was the third king and he completely ruined the nation by creating the temple.

Not what i was looking for...

Question:
Who is the Canaanite god of fertility and why were people tempted to worship him after the nation was settled?

Answer:
Baal is their god of fertility and they were tempted to worship him because the Canaanites were still in the region and to worship baal they had huge orgies and the hebrews were interested by that.

Subatomic Particles Discovered in Utilitarianism

Even though it is the complete opposite there are still some quarks in this theory that make it unique and not simply the opposite of Kant's theory.

Hell tastes bad.

Edwards' goal is to instill terror into listeners to motivate them to behave morally in order to avoid the nearly inedible eternal hell.

We as humans can never overgeneralize too much in this life.

Morality can be used to define every single action and inaction that humans have made since the dawn of our time.

Worldwide destruction: no fuss, no muss!

How can the gods and YHWH destroy all of humankind in one shot? They can flood the whole Earth! It is simple and it does not create a mess.

Human nature, for humans.

Humans can never be completely sinless they must sin to be human that is their flaw and what makes them as close to perfect as they can possibly be.

Do all thing good in the Lords eyes, no!

1.  Describe the divine-human relationship and the character of the gods in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

In the Epic of Gilgamesh the divine-human relationship differs in ways butalso shares some common thoughts also.

Ea is a god that has a tendered heart and feels very trustworthy towards Gilgamesh and that he can carry out life.

During the Epic when death occurs the hero of the story is spun into a disbelief and mis-understanding.

While in the other story the Gods seem to have there own thing going on an they have human characteristics too, to me when they talk about having more Gods it seems to have more human characteristics, like “round my neck”.

2. Describe the divine-human relationship and the character of God in Genesis.

Other than Noah the relationship between the LORD and all other mankind is not as well or even be seen as an un-godly like relationship.

There is only one Lord, thus all communication between him and Noah is direct between the two.

Now that the Lord was to be the judge of your behavior would feel as if you had done all thing good in the Lords eyes, no.

Now with Noah God takes a more direct approach and comes to him directly telling him that he is the most riotous of all man kind and for this he and his family will be spared.

Even though in both stories the Gods say there will very exterminate mankind with flood again there is still the reason why they did it in the fist place.

3. Define “primeval history” and describe the universal or primeval questions that each text is written to answer.


Primeval questions can be defined as questions that answer universal questions.

Questions like these have continuously been asked throughout history by every race or, region of people and more times than not people, so where do they get their answers from.

Throughout all the tales that Gilgamesh encounters there are small and discreet answers to these questions, all of which I found to be more consist and easier to understand from my viewpoint.

After God say this it seems to me a primeval questions occurs, Like in the long run How does God feel about what he created, he gets frustrated with us but is learning to accept what we have become he needs to set rules and regulations but you cannot just wipe out humankind and just start all over.

Primeval History is supposed to be history that tells us something over time. Primeval questions can be anything aslong as it tells a long term affect on whatever point it is trying to get across. In the book of Genesis questions I came up with was what will become of humans and the earth we live? We know how it turns out but when reading this story your mind could wonder and you can imagine if something happened differently what the outcome could have been.

In the book of Genesis, the main primeval questions that are answered are, “why do we die?” and “why do we have good and bad people, animals, and critters?”

Primeval question arise through the story because it makes you wonder why is this story important, why are we reading it, it has to be for some reason.

4. Miscellaneous funny sentences

Death is a mysterious part of every living creature on this earth.

Over many centuries there have been stories pasted down from generation to generation.

Just a taste of what's to come

I am presently grading papers written by my Old Testament class. The students were to discuss the Epic of Gilgamesh and Genesis flood narratives as examples of "primeval history", defined as stories meant to address questions universal to all humanity such as "what is the meaning of life?" I plan to present a master work of all the wonderful excerpts I'm amassing, but I couldn't resist sharing this student's confused reflection upon the texts.

“How can I rest, how can I be at peace” suggest that all humans have hearts that shows compassion for there loves ones and remorse for the ones lost. This also helps us us understand why life is so difficult and hard to comprehend at times but do you get a different answer. Maybe so, this primeval question has been and will still continue to be view and interpreted in different manners but still have a consist theme.

John Stuart Mill, simplified and misconstrued.

When happiness exists, pleasure does too, and the absence of pain makes things desirable in the end.

Relativism and Toleration

My Ethics students were given an in-class writing on ethical relativism and the limits of toleration. They were asked to explain relativism, then discuss what behaviors they find intolerable and what they think the best response to these should be.

• For example if people in china consider eating dog as a norm. We in the United States can’t say it is wrong to eat dog. In China it may be a custom. We eat duck and other animals. Food is needed for survival, so eating dog is not moraly wrong. It is a form of meat and we as a society should not judge.
•  Yet lying is also intolerable but we can tolerate it.
  
  
• I become intolerable when someone does’nt support gay marriage because I have a very strong opinion about it and I become very closed minded.
  
  
• I think that “non-violent interference” or civil disobedience would be the right way to act in this case. When dealing with emotional women I find it best to take a non violent rout.
   
• Laws that are not correct should be intolerated an challenged. Without challenging things nothing would get changed.
   
• Now it will always depend on the circumstance but for the most part things such as rape and murder will always be wrong.

Welcome to my blog!

This blog is dedicated to sharing the ridiculousness I get from students on exams, essays, and in other forums as well.  The blog's title comes from the following response to a short-answer question on an Old Testament final exam. The question pertained to the Proverbs' explanation of suffering.

"We talked in class that if a person becomes handicap, for example becomes blind, deaf, or lost in body parts; it is because they are being punished for not following the wisdom in the proverbs."