{"id":422,"date":"2006-11-16T19:37:51","date_gmt":"2006-11-16T19:37:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/planetmacneil.org\/blog\/?p=422"},"modified":"2021-01-10T20:06:03","modified_gmt":"2021-01-10T20:06:03","slug":"understanding-deuteronomy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetmacneil.org\/blog\/understanding-deuteronomy\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding Deuteronomy"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the hardest modules of my undergraduate theology studies was Old Testament studies.\u00a0 I did not like the lecturer (professor for US readers!) and had frequent clashes.\u00a0 He was, it seemed to me, weak on Christian ethics (joking about death for adulterers, “most of his friends would be dead”<\/em> ) and assigning some of the most boring, liberal reading about the Old Testament.\u00a0 Melchizedek was a fictional figure and the Bible window-dressed genocide of the original inhabitants of Palestine.\u00a0 He gave me the lowest mark I had ever received for an essay!\u00a0 It was a matter of considerable irony that we later became good friends and he supervised my eventual Masters dissertation though that was not because he had any expertise but because recent redundancies at the University meant there was no one else.<\/p>\n

This was an essay that may<\/em>\u00a0 have received that terrible mark but on reading it, it might have been a different essay that I deleted from my archive in embarrassment!\u00a0 This seems to have done a reasonable job at discussing one of the most important books of the Hebrew Scriptures\u00a0(Torah<\/em>,\u00a0 The Mosaic canon, the first five books of the Hebrew scriptures) that was a statement and exposition of the Law of God for the Israelites as they were about to pass into the promised land but also contains a call to inner spirituality that demonstrates why it is the most quoted book in the Christian scriptures.<\/p>\n

A PDF is found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the hardest modules of my undergraduate theology studies was Old Testament studies.\u00a0 I did not like the lecturer (professor for US readers!) and had frequent clashes.\u00a0 He was, it seemed to me, weak on Christian ethics (joking about death for adulterers, “most of his friends would be dead” ) and assigning some of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":423,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,12,33],"tags":[198,200,199,201],"class_list":["post-422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christianity","category-old-testament","category-theology","tag-genocide","tag-moses","tag-racism","tag-the-law"],"yoast_head":"\r\nUnderstanding Deuteronomy - Planet M Blog<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Understanding Deuteronomy - a brief look at the purpose and origin of one of the most important books of the Hebrew scriptures.\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/planetmacneil.org\/blog\/understanding-deuteronomy\/\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Understanding Deuteronomy - 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