The Dark Passages of Scripture as it Applies to the Divine Will of God - Book Report/Review Example

The Dark Passages of Scripture as it applies to the Divine Will of God The Dark Passages of the Bible is important for the education of mankind to understand the true revelation of God. Although the literal interpretation can confuse and shock the modern believers, the need is to interpret them according to their rightful historical context. The thesis statement of this paper is that the “dark passages” of scripture are necessary in order for man to fully understand the will of God and the consequences associated with not adhering to his divine will. Dark Passages The question that always arises in the minds of the believers is that how come same passages exist in the Bible. The answer to this question is always out of reach as most people get busy with the more urgent matters of their life and therefore find no time to search for relevant answers. Then there are others who show eagerness to understand and investigate, do so before setting it aside since no satisfactory answer can be achieved. There are even others who lose faith on the Bible. The justification of the truth and unity of the scripture are often accepted as true by the genuine believers of Christianity. However, the age old interpretations of the passages are often not believed by the modern believers. According to Psalm 37, “blessed (are) those who dash Babylonian infants against rocks” (Ramage, 1). The true interpretation is that the author obviously does not indicate that killing human infants are acts to be blessed. The term “infant” symbolized nascent sins, i.e. evil thoughts or actions that are just born in the minds of men should be nipped at the bud so that they do not flourish to become full-fledged evil. However, such interpretation is just not enough to understand the beauty and essence of this passage that portrays the love of God. There is a vast difference in such interpretations when the Old Testament is compared with Christ’s new commandment of love (Ramage, 2). “The Dark Passages of the Bible” is a section of Verbum Domini that brings forward the passages of immoral messages and violence that were narrated in the Bible. The author encourages scholars to deal with these problems keeping in mind the origin of the passages that are connected to the original message of God. The Dark Passages in the Bible exhibits how God had taken up the mission to instruct mankind of His will, and how in spite of man’s resistance God has conveyed his divine revelation. The Dark Passages in the Old Testament are replete with immorality and violence as a result of which for the modern believers they are difficult to fathom and incomprehensible to interpret. Therefore Ramage has explained, “Biblical revelation is deeply rooted in history. God’s plan is manifested progressively and it is accomplished slowly, in successive stages and despite human resistance” (Ramage, 4). It was God’s decision to choose mankind among all living beings to provide them with his teachings and guide them in the righteous ways. The divine revelation was a continuing process and each level of revelation was relevant to the then existing social and cultural values. Therefore, the Old Testament reveals the divine message by reflecting the laws and customs of those distant times. The Old Testament merely reflects the historical facts like cheating, violence and massacres. It does not provide judgement regarding the immorality of such actions. Such raw portrayal of apparent sins and wrongdoings in the Old Testament can prove to be shocking for the modern believers although the passages are relevant in their historical context. The modern readers, most of the times, fail to see actions of evil that have been performed through the ages since historical times to the current era. In the Old Testament, God has strongly reprimanded every action of evil nature, and thus has educated and trained humankind to become prepared for the Gospel. The author Ramage has advised that ignoring the Dark Passages will not do any good to mankind. He has instructed modern day scholars to make the effort to interpret the passages within their historical framework to understand the true meaning and essence of God’s message in the Old Testament. Only a certain level of expertise and understanding can help pastors to reveal the true meaning of the passages to the faithful so that man can be enlightened about the enigma which is God (Ramage, 4). According to the writing of Benedict, “God patiently and gradually revealed himself to his people in order to guide and educate them with the ultimate end of training his people in preparation for the Gospel” (Ramage, 4). Lot drunkenly impregnating his own daughters Genesis 19 tells the story of once holy man, Lot. Lot is one classic example of a man who became influenced by the evilness of the world. In an inebriated state Lot impregnated two of his daughters. It is said the daughters made him drink wine as a result of which he was not in conscious state when in consecutive two nights two of his daughters slept with him. The grandsons that were born as a result of this became the “progenitors of the Moabites and the Ammonites”. Both these tribes created terror for the Israelties in the subsequent centuries (Shoemaker; Suominen, 139). Since Lot was an old man, the justification given by the daughters was that the acts of incest were needed to protect the family line which would otherwise die out. However, the fact that the daughters believed that their father was the last man on earth does not hold ground since they had already seen plenty of men in nearby towns. Thus, for many believers it is concluded that Lot regularly performed incest with his daughters and the “pregnancies were result of repeated incestuous activity” (“The incestuous relations between Lot and his daughters”). St Paul talks about a man sleeping with his father’s wife In Corinthians 5 passage of the New Testament, St Paul states that “a man has his father’s wife”. Since present tense was used therefore it indicates that it was an ongoing activitiy during the time Paul made this statement. Moreover, the father’s wife was the man’s step-mother or else she would have been refereed to as his mother. Therefore, it was a sexual activity without entering into a marital relationship. Lev.18:7 considers sexual relationship between a man and his mother as a sin. Paul chides the Corinthians for not punishing the offender, and his judgement was that the incestuous man must be removed from the church for the benefit of the Corinthians. Two reasons were considered behind the sinful action. One was that the man was greedy for his father’s inheritance which he wanted to protect by stopping the step-mother from remarriage. Second is that he was physically attracted to his step-mothers since in that era step-mothers were most of the times closer to the son’s age than the father’s age. Greed and lust are both considered as immoral in the Bible (Rosner, 220). Moral lessons The Dark Passages in the Old and New Testaments very definitely shake the faith of the modern believers. Today, many believers are no more convinced by the traditional interpretations of God’s messages. Matthew J. Ramage instructs the modern day patrons to educate the faithful based on the historical context of the Dark Passages. The idea is to combine the historical approach with theological reading of the Scripture. God’s messenger is for every individual but it is upon the moral judgement of a man that allows him to interpret God’s message based on his own perspective. Moral lessons can be derived only by making proper interpretations of the passages. References Ramage, Matthew J. Dark Passages of the Bible, Catholic Univ. of America Press, 2013 Rosner, Brian. “Paul’s ethics.” 212-226, In The Cambridge Companion to St Paul, ed. James D.G. Dunn. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003 Shoemaker, Rick. Dissecting the Serpent, CrossBooks, 2012 Suominen, Edwin A. An Examination of the Pearl, Ed Suominen, 2012 “The incestuous relations between Lot and his daughters”. religioustolerance, retrieved on June 30, 2014 from: http://www.religioustolerance.org/chrincest.htm Read More