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News & ArtsSunday, February 5, 2012
Religion Slog Bible Study: Nahum 1:2-6
Posted by Goldy on Sun, Feb 5, 2012 at 7:00 AM
Nahum 1:2-6
The Lord is a jealous God, filled with vengeance and rage. He takes revenge on all who oppose him and continues to rage against his enemies!The Lord is slow to get angry, but his power is great, and he never lets the guilty go unpunished. He displays his power in the whirlwind and the storm. The billowing clouds are the dust beneath his feet.
At his command the oceans dry up, and the rivers disappear. The lush pastures of Bashan and Carmel fade, and the green forests of Lebanon wither.
In his presence the mountains quake, and the hills melt away; the earth trembles, and its people are destroyed.
Who can stand before his fierce anger? Who can survive his burning fury? His rage blazes forth like fire, and the mountains crumble to dust in his presence.
Discuss.
2
Decent poetry. Terrifying theology.
("The billowing clouds are the dust beneath his feet" is pretty good for primitive people who thought the world was flat.)
("The billowing clouds are the dust beneath his feet" is pretty good for primitive people who thought the world was flat.)
12
@ 2, flat earth always been more a theological concept than an actual held believe, any sea-faring people always knew why on a clear day objects disappear behind the horizon.
14
@8 I assuming you're thinking THIS George Washington: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbRom1Rz8… Because I was!
15
In the old days it was "God" being angry, now it is Cliff Mass in a pissing contest with KUOW's Steve Scher over what Cliff can say in addition to atmospheric science explanation of a depression trough over Puget Sound causing intense winds from the east in the South Sound and through the Strait of Wanda Fuca.
Angry God has been replaced by a explainable mighty wind.
Mount Ranier should look great today from all over Puget Sound.
Angry God has been replaced by a explainable mighty wind.
Mount Ranier should look great today from all over Puget Sound.
17
@12 I don't think those ancient Hebrews were very good sailors. If they'ed had boats Moses wouldn't have had to part the Red Sea.
18
@10 -- You beat me to it! That was my first thought. Any god like that should be shunned until he learns how to behave around people. Of course, now he's just an absentee god...
19
@14 - That is the greatest thing I've seen all day. Granted, it's early, but I doubt this will be outdone.
21
"vision of Nahum". The name Nahum means "comfort". The author(s) speak of the fall of Thebes (663 BCE) and the fall of Ninevah (612 BCE). The book is a judgement oracle which stresses moral indignation towards injustice, written in poetic language. Descriptions are dramatic, vivid, and metaphorical. If I remember correctly it uses little phrases receptively and contains rhetorical questions.
In short Nineveh is pronounced guilty of oppression, cruelty, idolatry, wickedness, and being corrupt with injustice by the Lord.
In short Nineveh is pronounced guilty of oppression, cruelty, idolatry, wickedness, and being corrupt with injustice by the Lord.
25
What "Nahum" sounds like to me: If some American guy decided to invent his own religion vaguely based on Judeo-Christianity and write a sequel to The Bible—maybe devising some convoluted story about how he discovered and then lost the original—that's one of the biblical-ish words he would make up to go in it.
26
@23:
That's something I've never heard any Christian explain, the complete and utter 180-degree shift in personality between the Yahweh described in the Old Testament, and the one Yeshua refers to in the New Testament.
To me it just always sounded like he was flat-out screwy - today, I guess we'd describe him as "bi-polar". Perhaps God should just create himself an Antares-sized Xanax and see if that helps calm the mood-swings.
That's something I've never heard any Christian explain, the complete and utter 180-degree shift in personality between the Yahweh described in the Old Testament, and the one Yeshua refers to in the New Testament.
To me it just always sounded like he was flat-out screwy - today, I guess we'd describe him as "bi-polar". Perhaps God should just create himself an Antares-sized Xanax and see if that helps calm the mood-swings.
27
@ 17, the egyptians where sea faring though and anyway by around 300 bc Aristotle convinced about everyone (except the Chinese) that the earth was spherical.
So while maybe the old testamental Jew who wrote nahum in about 600 believed in a flat earth implying Christianity, Judeaism and Islam do is false... I think we have better, actual factual, shit to dislike about abrahamic religions.
So while maybe the old testamental Jew who wrote nahum in about 600 believed in a flat earth implying Christianity, Judeaism and Islam do is false... I think we have better, actual factual, shit to dislike about abrahamic religions.
28
Nahum 1:2-6 sounds just like Pat Robertson! God unleases His wrath via natural disasters (Hurricane Katrina, the earthquake in Haiti) toward those who oppose him (gays, liberals, pro-choicers, etc.).
29
I think my comment about believing the world is flat got taken a bit too...well, literally.
I was trying to get at the idea that being able to imagine the clouds being on a tiny scale compared to the vastness of what is beyond is a pretty sophisticated idea for people who had never been above the clouds (except maybe on a mountaintop and some particularly low clouds) and who had no way to understand just how deep the sky really is. Particularly (as I recall, anyway...someone with a deeper scholarly background may correct me) that the Hebrews regarded the "firmament" as a solid dome to which the stars were affixed. I.e., not infinite.
I was trying to get at the idea that being able to imagine the clouds being on a tiny scale compared to the vastness of what is beyond is a pretty sophisticated idea for people who had never been above the clouds (except maybe on a mountaintop and some particularly low clouds) and who had no way to understand just how deep the sky really is. Particularly (as I recall, anyway...someone with a deeper scholarly background may correct me) that the Hebrews regarded the "firmament" as a solid dome to which the stars were affixed. I.e., not infinite.
30
@6: He's one of the prophets in the Hebrew Bible. He's right between Micha and Habakkuk. Dude has some really disturbing, rape-y imagry in chapter 3, when he describes exactly what the city of Nineveh has coming.
@23: It's been a looong time since I've darkened the door of a Sunday school, but my best recollection of the explanation of the difference you describe is that God sent Jesus so he wouldn't have to be all Old Testament-y any more. He loved his creation, and all that smiting was exhausting and ineffective, so he tried a different approach. Like the parent who realizes that screaming and spanking aren't cutting it, and gives time outs and grounding a try.
@23: It's been a looong time since I've darkened the door of a Sunday school, but my best recollection of the explanation of the difference you describe is that God sent Jesus so he wouldn't have to be all Old Testament-y any more. He loved his creation, and all that smiting was exhausting and ineffective, so he tried a different approach. Like the parent who realizes that screaming and spanking aren't cutting it, and gives time outs and grounding a try.
31
26
actually Jehovah ached to be a good guy but the Jews were such total shits that he never got a chance to.
Once they were banished and the Gospel carried to the Gentiles he could be all warm and fuzzy.
actually Jehovah ached to be a good guy but the Jews were such total shits that he never got a chance to.
Once they were banished and the Gospel carried to the Gentiles he could be all warm and fuzzy.
32
interesting.
There are lots of weather calamities foretold for the end of days.
but here come the humanists
with their pagan deity
Global Warming
(or Whoops!...Climate Change;
or whatever the fuck they are calling it now)
and so anytime god smacks the planet around
the heathens squeal "Global Warming!...."
ironic.
There are lots of weather calamities foretold for the end of days.
but here come the humanists
with their pagan deity
Global Warming
(or Whoops!...Climate Change;
or whatever the fuck they are calling it now)
and so anytime god smacks the planet around
the heathens squeal "Global Warming!...."
ironic.
33
Oh, the poor troll. I can just imagine him, all alone in his room, masturbating to how his Jehovah God is going to smite all us heathens for daring to use our brains.
Just remember - We'll all go down together, troll dear. Saint and sinner alike.
Just remember - We'll all go down together, troll dear. Saint and sinner alike.
35
Ak: If the Lord is all-powerful, why does He care whether we worship Him or not? Ak just saying.
Homer: Well, Ak, it's because God is powerful, but also insecure, like Barbara Streisand before James Brolin. Oh, he's been a rock.
Homer: Well, Ak, it's because God is powerful, but also insecure, like Barbara Streisand before James Brolin. Oh, he's been a rock.
36
The Lord is slow to get angry, but his power is great, and he never lets the guilty go unpunished. He displays his power in the whirlwind and the storm (but not the sonics since they were sold by the devil.) The billowing clouds are the dust beneath his feet.
37
33
why don't you girls teach god a lesson and use those brains to get the AIDS rate down.....
actually, the coasts are going down alone.
bon voyage......
why don't you girls teach god a lesson and use those brains to get the AIDS rate down.....
actually, the coasts are going down alone.
bon voyage......
39
This seems like the Gaston song from Beauty and The Beast.
...no one spites like the lord,
no one fights like the lord,
no one's wrath's as incredibly vile as the lord's!
...no one spites like the lord,
no one fights like the lord,
no one's wrath's as incredibly vile as the lord's!
42
Religionists always sound like abused spouses when this kind of shit comes up. "Oh, yeah, I mean, he hits me sometimes, when he gets mad, but he's under so much stress, and, you know, he's always right in the end. And I just make him so mad! I'm such a fuck-up. I'm just glad he always takes me back after he punishes me if I don't have dinner ready on time or I say the wrong thing when he's had a hard day. He's so good to me, though! He promised to let me in to Heaven if I just stop being a, um... a stupid cunt, he said."
But yeah, worship away, guys. I'm sure that'll work out for you if you keep at it.
But yeah, worship away, guys. I'm sure that'll work out for you if you keep at it.
44
@30: As I alluded to in post #1, Jonah also had some nasty ideas about what should happen to Nineveh, and got all emo and pissy when God decided to accept the city's repentance.
@35: I always thought that tied in to Genesis 1:26
@35: I always thought that tied in to Genesis 1:26
And God said: 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.'Since God has created humanity in His likeness, He expects for us to behave in a Godly (just, righteous, merciful, and compassionate) manner.
45
@11, that's funny, the rest is a weather report but no, we do NOT want to see that little trick. Holy rotting seafood, man, can you imagine the stench?
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