Major Questions in Religion - Essay Example

Exam on Religion Is the Day-Age Theory of Creationism more feasible than the Young Earth Creationism Theory? Genesis is the story of the Earth’s creation. This story has been told in Genesis 1:1-31. According to the story, God made the world in six days. However, according to the Day-Age of Creationism, this six days were, in fact, ages as the name implies. In Young Earth Creationism Theory, the Earth was said to have been made in literally six 24 hour days. Because of this, the Young Earth Creationism Theory posits that the Earth is merely 6,000 years old. However, based on scientific findings, the Earth is 4.6 billion years old already. This puts it in a compromising stage, whereas the Day-Age Creationism can bridge both the scientific and religious data and that in fact, a single day (or yom in Hebrew) can mean an indefinite long period of time. This can be more accurate compared to the Young Earth Theory in a sense that a single day can be stretched into at least a thousand to a billion years, so theoretically, with six billion years allotted for creating the Earth, this is nearer that the actual age of the Earth. This means that the Day-Age Creationism is more feasible because there are also scientific results that support it. 2. Is the Book of Job a microcosm of the Book of Revelations? The Book of Revelations is seen as the go-to of apocalyptic literature. It states how Christ will return to the Earth, after chaos, war, pestilence, famine and persecution. It tells the story about the Wrath of god, against all the false prophets and their followers, and all this suffering is overseen by God. He, in fact, released Satan and defeated him too (20:7-9) and later resided with the rest of humanity in New Jerusalem (21:2-8). This story is parallel to the Story of Job, albeit in a small scale. Job is also undertaken a series of tests to affirm his loyalty with the Lord. In fact, he was “sold out” to Satan to test his faith, although we know that in the end, Satan failed to corrupt him and the Lord even made Job richer and better than he ever was before (42:1-17).. The pattern is the same. Job can symbolize humanity and he has been punished, and was being prepped for the coming of the Lord. Humanity, in the Book of Revelations is also punished and was being prepped for the coming of the Lord and at the end of the punishment, the Lord replaced the Old Earth with a New Earth and there is no more suffering or death, and the curse ended (22: 6-21). Yes, I think the Book of Revelations is an expanded version of the Book of Job. 3. What are the implications and parallelisms of Ruth’s and Esther’s story in the Bible? The story of Ruth in the Bible is seemingly put there to explain David’s ancestry and nothing else. Esther’s story, on the other hand, merely recounts of the Festival of Purim came to be. The reasons for their places in the bible appear trivial but they are, in fact, not. Ruth, with her familial relations to King David, may as well be the New Abraham and Esther’s story of saving her people can make her the female counterpart of Moses. Abraham and Ruth, both ancestors of the great character in the Bible, even shared the same experiences like barrenness and famine (Abraham went down… Gen 12:10 and There was famine in the land… Ruth 1:2 ) and they traveled the same sojourn too. Esther’s story of saving her people was similar to that of Moses’ story too. Both were leaders or at least people of power and both are liberators of their people in a foreign place and they also kept their faith a secret at first. Even the festivals are parallel: The Passover celebrates the deliverance of Israel through the Passover while the Purim celebrates the Israelite’s survival on Haman’s pogrom. This implies that the Bible puts importance to women, and is, in fact, a gender-sensitive book, especially in this respect. 4. Use form criticism to analyze 2 Samuel 12:1-4. Form criticism attempts to trace a scripture from its early days in oral literature. Now in 2 Samuel 12:1-4 (The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor…”). Remember this is also a story of David, and he is a King. In lavish feasts, the Kings use the lamb that was raised by the poor man. The poor man does not get to enjoy his sacrifices for his lamb, but the rich do, as reminders for them to be humble at all times. This parable was probably intended to say in front of Kings or other leader. This was also probably done at coronation ceremonies too. 5. The Book of Leviticus, which is generally a wide-ranging guideline for good behavior, ethics, morals, laws and rituals, still resonate today. Cite a specific verse and give a contemporary example on how it resonates today. In the Book of Leviticus 11:9-12, discusses a general guideline to avoid aquatic creatures, specifically the ones without scales and fins. This may be absurd but scientific evidence show that some mollusks and other crustaceans are indeed not safe to eat. Mollusks especially, are filter feeders and according to scientists, these filter feeders eat anything that they can on the sea floor and sometimes, when they live in polluted waters, they can eat toxins as well and they pose a threat to human lives. This proves that the Book of Leviticus is very insightful for it to preach that certain things, like the Red Tide can happen, making mollusks and other aquatic filter feeders without scales and fins, are not safe to eat. 6. What is the exegesis of the Book of Ecclesiastes and compare it to Proverbs 28:22. The Book of Ecclesiastes is basically a didactic book in the Bible. There is a Teacher, who is Solomon, and he laments on vanities of humanity (Ecclesiastes 1:2). He mourns over it throughout the book which lends a rather hopeless tone to it. We read about the pleasures of life as well as the excesses and we read the consequences of a hedonistic life. In the end, we see that the Teacher in the Book urges the people to be neither righteous nor too wicked, but rather be moderate. He also says that every experience in life is proper and appropriate (For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. . . Ecclesiastes 3:1–4), even if the experiences are bad. The vanities, therefore are part of life, and even if they are not very good, they are needed. Like in Proverbs 28:22, “A stingy man is eager to get rich and is unaware that poverty awaits him”, which also talks of vanity. This is similar to Ecclesiastes in a sense that it talks of vanity being a want, a pleasure being sought and an ambition. But since there is indeed time for everything, a greedy man who wants to get rich quick is being led to poverty as fast as he can (because they are unscrupulous), as The Teacher in Ecclesiastes also preached about the pleasures in life bringing him more sadness and hollowness, which is ironic for something to be always wanted. Reference: Holy Bible: The New King James Version: Containing the Old and New Testaments. Ed Arthur Farstad. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982. Print. Read More