Overarching themes
“Who am I?” “How did I arrive at this particular time, place, and situation?” These are questions that humans have pondered since humans could first think. They are asked in every age and in every society. They are answered based on the current state of human knowledge: secular knowledge and sacred knowledge. Secular knowledge generally relies on science and what it knows at the time: astronomy, geology, genetics, biology, chemistry, physics, psychology, medicine, etc. to answer many of the questions, and science continues to seek answers and processes for finding answers to unanswered questions. Some questions remain unanswered, such as what occurred before the Big Bang? What lies beyond our known universe? The number and nature of unanswered questions is often a function of the state of science and decrease as our scientific knowledge increases and expands. However, some questions still may be beyond our understanding and be beyond our ability to even imagine answers. Therefore, we often still resort to our faith in those instances. We simply have faith that something existed prior to the Big Bang or something exists beyond our known universe.
With regard to the second question of “How did I arrive at this particular time, place, and situation?”, as our scientific knowledge expands, the areas where we must rely on faith decreases. Given this theory, the people living in Biblical times had to rely on faith for a great deal of their explanations. They generally resorted to believing a “higher power” controlled the many things they could not explain using their primitive sciences. While they, at a basic level, understood that crops needed water and sunlight to grow, they were unsure of what caused the rain and sun. So they believed that some god controlled both rain and sun. They also had the same process for other events and phenomena that they could not explain.
Given this primitive view of the universe and its laws and operations, it is not surprising that these people had very strong beliefs in God (or gods) and went to great pains to stay on the good side of their god (or gods) so the rain would continue for example. They had specific rules for this. Any time there is a need such as this, there is always some people who will step in and set themselves up as experts to guide the people into doing the right thing (according to their definition of the “right thing” of course).
The question of “Who am I?” is much more difficult to answer in a general way because it is so personal. However, the answer to this question is often influenced by the answer to the other question of “How did I arrive at this particular time, place, and situation?”
The Biblical times answers to these questions often took the form of “you arrived here at this time, place and situation with the help of your god, and if you wish to continue receiving this help, there are rules you must follow.” And “you are who you are because your god has guided, and perhaps even controlled, your choices of life and lifestyle”.
Thus, the main, overarching theme of the Hebrew Bible is answering the questions of “Who am I?” and “How did I arrive at this particular time, place, and situation?” The answers in this Biblical text are provided in stories and laws that show the people how to remain on the good side of their god so he will continue to protect them and help them prosper.
There are many other themes in the Hebrew Bible, such as assimilation, chosenness, repentance, survival, which are subspecies of these overarching themes. They all are intended to show the reader or listener how they arrived at their time, place and situation in partnership with their god and to illustrate errors and the consequences of those errors.
More specifically, the answers in the Bible to these questions, “Who am I?” and “How did I arrive at this particular time, place, and situation?” are directed to Jews living in Judah and Babylonia during the Second Temple period. Therefore, since the guidance, rules and examples are directed to these people, some of this material is not applicable to today’s modern readers and listeners. Some of it is, and much of it is highly pertinent, especially the guidance directed to morality and ethics. But, care must be taken to differentiate between that material that is pertinent to biblical times and that material which is still pertinent and relevant today. It is when such distinction is not made that problems arise.
The themes must be viewed through the eyes of the people of Biblical Times – their level of scientific sophistication (regarding evolution, physics, genetics, psychology, medicine, astronomy, chemistry and the like) – and not through our eyes. Things that science has explained to us, were a total mystery to those people and things that we accept as completely understandable were total miracles to those people.
Many things that we understand, and even take for granted, seemed like miracles to these people and thus they attributed many things, especially those that they could not understand, to a higher power. Certain things simply could not happen on their own and had to be influenced, if not totally controlled by, a higher power. This higher power was given the name “God.” Thus, the people of Biblical times considered that their journey from the beginning of time and space was taken with a higher power at their side, behind them and leading them.
Of course, these people would want that higher power to stay with them, so they wanted to learn what to do to maintain this benevolent relationship between God and man. The stories are also intended to illustrate the basic rules necessary to achieve this objective. These rules cannot cover every possibility, but are intended to cover the basic outlines of behavior that is acceptable and not acceptable so humans could learn from the stories and then exercise their imaginations to apply those learned lessons to new situations which may not have been specifically covered in the Bible. This is a technique we can apply today, but judiciously to account for our greater scientific knowledge and better communications. As such, only the highlights of the most important behavior can be covered. Since we are not so reliant on “magic,” “miracles,” and a “higher power,” we can read the stories in the Bible accordingly. However, as mentioned above, the Bible stories still have important messages to convey to us today, particularly on morality, ethics, and how to live with each other.
Many of the tales in the Hebrew Scriptures concern an exploration of what God wants from His people, what they do and should do to maintain proper relations with God so He will remain at their side. The stories concerned the people, and individuals, to show what God wants. To make them relevant to the readers and listeners, the stories were written about real people. Sometimes they did what God wanted and sometimes they did not. In both the positive and negative, the stories were, and are, instructional. We learn from the mistakes of others as much as we learn from their triumphs. If we can glean teaching that is relevant to us today, these stories will still have impact today.
We need an imagination for this instruction. We must imagine the circumstances and forces acting on the individuals in the story and then we must use our imagination to translate the stories into something that will be meaningful and instructive to us.
While there may be others, the themes that have been identified and used in the essays of this work are mentioned below.
Monotheism. Of course, the basic theme of monotheism, the Jewish God is the only God, is at the heart of all stories, passages and teachings of the Hebrew Bible.
Theocentric history. The overarching theme of a theocentric history includes many sub-issues, and those sub-issues include other issues as would be expected of a work as complex and multi-layered as the Hebrew Bible. Reference is made to the definitions of “theocentric” and “theocentric history” in the Definitions Section.
As used in the blog posts, a theocentric history is is a presentation of stories intended to ilustrate how people arrived at a particular time, place and station in life in partnership with their god[1]: the story of a partnership’s journey through time and space with their God, with all the attributes associated with humans[2], as well as all the attributes they envision for their God[3], and with all the events and lessons associated with a partnership between God and man[4], its formation and development so that partnership can be continued and strengthened in the future.
Assimilation. Assimilation will doom the religion (In fact, it could be said that it was the gradual drifting away from Judaism’s core principles that caused early Judaism to gradually change and separate into early Christianity); therefore, the avoidance of assimilation, particularly in exile, was something that was, and is, of vital importance to the continued existence of the people as a nation. Thus, assimilation was a vitally important issue to the Bible. The concept of assimilation was explored in several ways to illustrate its danger to the people. Stories showing the extremely undesirable consequences associated with assimilation are presented and stories showing the rewards associated with avoiding assimilation are presented.
As discussed in the essay “Assimilation,” assimilation in the Bible is portrayed as perhaps being a sin more egregious than our “inclination to do evil, “because assimilation can be lethal to a religion. Assimilation is portrayed as being a sin against God so the audience will fully understand just how egregious it is and so they do not confuse it with a mere failing of character or of actions: assimilation is so dangerous that it is portrayed as a sin against God, and, indeed, perhaps the most mortal sin of all. Therefore, the dangers of assimilation are of utmost and urgent concern to the drafters of the Bible.
Survival. The Jewish people survived, and often prospered, throughout history, even in the face of terrible odds and events. The survival was generally based on trust in God, with God loving and protecting the people, but punishing them when necessary.
Repentance and Teshuvah. Since humans progress and learn through experiencing consequences of their actions so actions associated with undesired consequences can be avoided an actions associated with desirable consequences can be selected, the relationship between actions and consequences are illustrated in many stories. Furthermore, instructions on how, when and why to correct errors are presented and illustrated in the stories. Thus, the concept of repentance is a very strong theme in many of the stories as repentance shows that the person has identified, accepted and taken steps to correct an error. In fact, there are some stories in which God, prior to creating our Universe, created universes and destroyed them because they did not satisfy Him; and they did not satisfy God because there was no means for humans to repent. It was only after God created repentance that He was satisfied that the Universe He had created was proper for humans. Thus, there is some basis for saying that repentance existed even before our Universe.
Thus, there is a theme of transgression-warning-repent/ignore-spare/punish cycle that occurs many times throughout the Bible. For purposes of this blog, the concepts of repentance and teshuvah will be treated as being similar, but with teshuvah including a religious component in which the person reviews their entire life and their relationship with God in addition to the steps involved in repentance.
The way humans progress: action-consequences-error-recognition of the error (if the consequences are undesired)-correction of the error-learning not to repeat the error in the future. The correction process often includes some sort of punishment, either self-inflicted or God-inflicted if the humans fail to self administer. Many, if not all of God’s “punishments[5]“ might be viewed as teaching experiences so those punished or those in the audience will learn from the error associated with the punishment and not repeat that error. In this way, people will remember consequences associated with certain actions and use their imagination to envision such undesirable consequences, and possible punishment associated with the undesirable consequences, in the future if the situation arises again, and then take action which leads to desirable consequences. This pattern of error (transgression)-repentance/punishment occurs again and again in the Bible and the stories are used to teach others not to repeat the mistakes of the characters of the stories. As is discussed in several essays, this pattern can be used to explain several otherwise puzzling stories.
Toledot. The term toledot means “begettings” and is often used to provide a framework for various stories in the Hebrew Bible, especially Genesis. With the exception of Genesis 2:4, where the story of the heaven and earth are presented prior to presenting the story of the Garden of Eden, Toledot recounts the progenitors and progeny of a character, generally the main character or characters of a particular section. Toledot is used to frame the lives of the patriarchs and the cycle presented illustrates and emphasizes an overriding theme of the Bible: life-survival-offspring-fertility-continuity (of the nation and of the covenant), all within the framework of the God/human partnership in which humans successfully complete and repeat the cycle with the help and guidance of their god so they can move from the primeval event in the Garden of Eden to the present time and location of the audience[6]. Toledot is also used to summarize important events such as Gen 4:21 which details players of the lyre and the pipe and Gen 4:22 which shows who applied the science of metallurgy to weapons development; and to contrast societies: Gen 4:23 where Lamech admits slaying a man (and hence showing lawlessness) and Gen 4:26 where Seth’s son re-establishes contact with God. Comparing the members of the Cain family to those of Seth’s family further illustrates this contrast where Cain’s Lamech is a murderer and Seth’s Lamech produced Noah. Toledot is also used to reinforce other themes such as Gen 11:27 which states “this is the line of Terah” which signifies that a new direction is being set: from general (all people of which Noah is a representative) to specific (of which Abram is a representative). These lists emphasize and cement the narratives of the Bible, brings them together and acts as a shorthand method to summarize stories and events which might take many chapters to recount and, in doing so, would distract from the overall narrative of the Bible. These lists emphasize and cement the narratives of the Bible, brings them together and acts as a shorthand method to summarize stories and events which might take many chapters to recount and, in doing so, would distract from the overall narrative of the Bible. Furthermore, the recitation of genealogy is a means of showing linkage and solidarity, creating social, political, defensive and economic ties and links between tribes and clans. The links are formed by merging the genealogies and family trees of one clan or family to another, or others. This linkage can be taken to show a solidarity among the people making up the single nation of Israel.
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[1] The covenant between God and humans is repeated, emphasized and strengthened throughout the Bible: God’s promise of protection, offspring, land, and nationhood in return for the fidelity of humans to both God and His commandments and teachings. The repetition, emphasizing and strengthening of the covenant emphasizes the God/human partnership.
[2] Success, failure, overachievement, underachievement, honesty, prevarication, blame, love, hate, agreement, disagreement, plotting, deception (especially self-deception), belief, trust, responsibility, communication, miscommunication, estrangement, separation, alienation, abandonment, companionship, enmity, rebellion, arrogance, hubris, backsliding, regret, hope, celebration, learning, commitment, struggle, loyalty, duty, character and ethics, acts/consequences, repentance, punishment, reconciliation, perseverance, duty, humor, sadness, action, drama, obligations, community, worship, hope, salvation and deliverance, transformation, disappointment, temptation, narcissism, solipsism, guilt, wisdom, and the like.
[3] Justice, patience, teaching, guidance, hesed, benevolence, compassion, protection, commitment, loyalty, laws, obligations, promises, grace, and the like.
[4] Another way of looking at this is that the Bible stories sought to answer questions that are nearly eternal: How did the world come to be? Where did humans come from? Where did the nations come from? What is human nature and how can we understand it? How should humans act towards themselves and toward each other? Who or what is God, and how does He interact with humans? How can humans act to ensure that God continues to bless and protect them?
[5] Consequences are often illustrated in the Bible by God punishing the transgressors who did not repent and learn from their mistakes. If the transgressors learned from their mistakes and punished themselves, God did not administer His punishment as there was no need: the lesson had been learned and thus the slate was clean. God’s great patience is illustrated by His willingness to allow a repeat transgressor to repent again and again – just so long as the transgressor repents and learns from the experience. Thus, the theme of transgression/repentance/punishment recurs again and again throughout the Hebrew Bible.
[6] Genesis 2:4 (“Such is the story of heaven and earth when they were created”) seems to avoid this pattern because this section of Genesis concerns God’s creation of heaven and earth; whereas, toledot refers to human reproduction. If toledot had been used to close this section (e.g., “these are the descendants….”), it might imply that the heavens and earth were somehow created in a manner similar to human reproduction thereby implying that God had a partner/mate (see the introductory essay in the section on women, also see Gen 1:26: “And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image’” again seemingly implying that God had a partner/mate, at least for the creation of humans) . However, even the just-stated phasing seems to hint at toledot as applied to a non-human entity heaven and earth.