The blog is based on essays written by the blogger which analyze Bible stories and teachings based on those stories. The essays are written to engage a 21st-Century lay audience and encourage them to think about a story and engage in thought and discussion about that story. The essays are broken down into “bite-size” posts which are posted from time to time on the blog. Ultimately, each essay will be presented in its entirety when all the posts associated with that essay have been made.
Each essay presents one or more questions about a story such as might occur to such an audience based on the story itself, and then proposes possible answers which are arrived at by a reasoning process which is plausible to and understandable by that audience, and which will engender further questions and discussion about the story.
To further this objective, discussion questions are included with each essay and are presented in a “Discussion Question” Section. The discussion questions associated with an essay will be posted when all of the posts included in the essay have been posted. The analysis of the story remains within the confines of the story and its place within overarching themes of the Bible. Hence, the title of the work: “Terry’s Torah Musings,” with a subtitle of “speculations by a modern congregant on teachings from the pulpit and Jewish Literature.” If a particular inquiry had not occurred to the reader, it is hoped that it will prove interesting to the reader after it is posed on the Blog. The material is written with the hope that a reader will read the material and have a reaction of “hmm, that is interesting, I had not thought about it that way.”
In addition to the above-mentioned approach, the stories are analyzed using materials which will be familiar to a modern audience (such as basic modern scientific concepts, literature, arts and the like). Furthermore, the characters of the Bible stories are viewed as human beings, specifically as human beings who may be familiar to the modern audience.
It is strongly recommended that the reader read the Definitions Section and the Overarching Themes Section of the blog before reading any of the posts. The Definitions section specifies exactly what the blogger means when certain terms are used in the blog. This will avoid confusion caused by the reader and the blogger attributing different meanings to a term. The Overarching Themes Section will assist the reader in understanding what the blogger has in mind when certain points are made and certain stories are explained.