REL 199 Notes Week 1

Great discussion this week everyone!

I was very pleased with everyone’s participation and overall interest in the topics discussed.  I was also very pleased with how all of you are retaining and understanding the concepts covered in your 303 course.  Below are my notes, as promised, from our first week.  They’re cleaned up and may have some additional information that we didn’t discuss during class.

If you find any errors or would like to see additions made to the notes, please leave a comment at the bottom of the post.  By doing this, we can create a better collective of notes and references.  This is GREAT for upcoming quizzes or midterms

Judges 4-5

Who was Deborah?

• Prophetess
• 4^th and only female Judge during pre-monarchial Israel
• Name means to bee (feminine noun)
• Husband to Lappidoth (meaning torches) – speculation arises on her husband’s name as it doesn’t appear outside of Judges, could be used to describe a “fiery” personality

Who was Jael and what was her role in Judges 4?

• Heroine that killed Sisera by running a tent pin through his temple
• Name is a given name (no formal translation)
• Wife of Heber the Kenite

Who was Sisera?

• Leader of the Canaanite military under Jabin’s rule
• Lost battle to Barak’s army
• Fled to Jael’s tent and was killed by Jael;
• Name is said to be philistine, Hittite, or Hurrian… sometimes Egyptian (Ses-ra = Servant of Ra)

Who was Barak and what was his demand?

• Military general who defeated Sisera’s army
• Demand was that Deborah join him or else he wouldn’t fight Sisera’s army

What is the title synonymous with Judges 5?

• The Song of Deborah

What does the Song of Deborah depict and what makes this chapter interesting?

• The Song of Deborah depicts the events in Judges 4 in the form of a poem or psalm.  What’s particularly interesting is the fact that it is one of the oldest portions of the Hebrew Bible.  Coogan dates the text all the way back to the 12^th century BCE (Coogan 216).

Judges 11

Who was Jephthah? What were his circumstances? What did he do to conquer the Ammonites?

• Jephtah was a Judge who reigned for 6 years
• Father was Gilead; came from the town Gilead
• Tribe of Manasseh
• Sacrificed his daughter to YHWH as a result of a vow he made to conquer the Ammonites

Judges 13-17

Who was Samson? What were some of his traits?

• Name derived from shemesh, meaning sun (noun masculine)
• Samson was the third to last reigning Judge of Israel
• Samson was like Hercules, known for his superhuman strength
• Source of strength came from his long hair
• Miracle birth, barren mother
• Defeats a lion
• Defeats an army using the jawbone of a donkey
• Nazirite
  • One who abstains from alcohol
  • One who does not cut the hair on their head
  • One who abstains from graves and the dead
• Falls in love with Delilah, who deceives him
• Captured by Philistines and has eyes burned out
• Hair grew back and strength returned
• Taken to a temple and destroyed central pillars, killing those in the temple and himself
• Body was recovered by family and buried in hometown

Who was Delilah?

• Name means one who weakened or impoverished (noun feminine)
• From the Valley of Sorek
• Samson falls in love with her
• Deceives Samson for large sum of money
• Finds Samson’s weakness and has a servant shave his locks of hair
• Her fate after deceiving Samson is unknown

Book of Ruth

What is a levirate marriage or levirate law?

• A levirate marriage, in general, is the act of a widow marrying the deceased husband’s brother or closest male relative.
• In Judaism, it is known as the yibbum and can be found in Deuteronomy 25:5-10

What is the purpose of a levirate marriage, and what is the significance of this marriage in Ruth?

• To carry on family lineage, but in Ruth, Boaz was a close relative and not first in line for the marriage.  The other relative is unwilling to marry due to jeopardizing an estate.  Obed is the son born of Ruth and Boaz and is the grandfather of King David.  Jesse is the father of David and son of Obed.

Source

Coogan, Michael D. The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures. N.p.: Oxford University Press, USA, 2005. Print.