REL 2240 Highlights and Lowlights
Fall 2009
Paper 1:
Remember, you are writing as a scholar for an audience that
contains a
mix of believers and non-believers, not as a preacher reaching
out to a
congregation. So avoid statements such as this:
In the Old Testament the
"covenant of
salt" (Numbers 18:19) is mentioned to show God's way of
creating a deal
or a contract with us Christians. Mark strengthens salt's role
in each
one of us Christians.
The reference to
Numbers
18:19 is good, but not the mention of "us Christians", which
immediately excludes a large part of your readership.
Consider the following conclusion:
There is no space for
hypocrisy in
people's lives. You are either supposed to listen, do and
keep on
doing, if not then you will be foolish. There is no easy
way to do
things and expect to have a good outcome. Overall Jesus
let his
disciples know that there was no easy way to follow him.
Of course, I
agree with the
sentiments: hypocrisy is bad. But you aren't trying to
leave the reader
with a moral to think about. The aim is to present
historical
conclusions.
Also, the word "either" is redundant. The sentence could have been
written as "Either
you listen, do and keep on doing, or you are foolish",
but "You are
either supposed to listen..." should be followed up with
"or else to
...", and something useful that you could do instead of
listening, e.g.
"You are either supposed to listen or else to sing a
song."
From the same essay, we have some historical thinking in
action:
Back in Jesus'
lifetime Palestine was
a very dry land. People were familiar with something
known as a
"wadis", these were aroused rivers that were very
powerful ... To build
a house on rock was quite common during Jesus'
lifetime in Palestine
since the land of Galilee from the Mediterranean Sea
to Upper Galilee
in the east was mainly made up of hills in mountainous
areas. Jesus
uses rock as a metaphor for a stable foundation and in
Jerusalem the
Temple was securely standing on a rock base.
Here we have
solid geographical facts used to cast light on the
Parable. These facts
can be used as evidence that Matthew's version (Matt
7:24-27) is older
than Luke's version (Luke 6: 46-49). Luke does not
contrast a house
built on sand with one built on rock, but a house
built with
foundations to a house built without foundations.
Matthew's version
makes sense in the kind of environment Jesus
actually lived in. We can
then suppose that Luke adapted that for different
geographical
conditions. That's the kind of thing you should be
looking out for.
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