2 Kings 6-7 tells one of the weirdest stories in the Bible. In this class, we will follow along with the biblical narrator’s stage directions in order to bring this tale to life. No prior acting experience required, but willingness to pretend to be a leper or a man who’s been trampled to death encouraged.
The cast of characters includes a leprous foreign commander, a neurotic king, a nameless Israelite girl, a pompous prophet, and a scheming servant. We’ll be following a tale of competing interests and political maneuvering, looking to uncover where the biblical narrator’s interests lie.
It’s hard to give good gifts. You have to really understand the other person and what it is they might want. We’ll be reading 2 Kings 4 through the lens of gender and gift giving, exploring the power dynamics involved with giving and receiving unexpected presents.
Sometimes it's the sort of day that starts with a lovely walk with your mentor in the Jordan Valley and ends with you getting bears to maul forty-two little kids to death. We'll be performing a close reading of 2 Kings 2, thinking about how we cope with loss and what it means to demonstrate competency.
How can we understand our own mortality? Is it possible to imagine a world in which we don't exist? Is it useful to? We'll explore our own impermanence through a close reading of the complicated metaphors in Hosea 13, contemplating what remains when we are gone.
Why do Rebecca, Rachel, and God question existence? We'll be looking at attitudes toward suicide in Genesis, paying attention to how self-destruction might work as a subversive act and what the healing process looks like.
Why does Cain kill Abel? What is God’s role in the death of Abel? We’ll look at Genesis 4 through the lens of sacrifice, comparing it to the near sacrifices of Isaac at the hands of his father and Joseph at the hands of his brothers, and skipping through some Levitical texts on how to sacrifice. We’ll consider what God the character wants and why we tell this story.
We’ll be following the story of the savviest storyteller in the Bible: Abrahams’s servant. Sent by his master to bring back a bride for the master’s son, Abraham’s servant journeys far into unfamiliar territory, armed only with his ability to weave words into compelling tales. We’ll look closely at how this masterful raconteur achieves his goals, noting the changes in the story he tells and what he might be trying to achieve.