Big Barn's Corner Spot

The stories of Samson are found in Judges 13-16.  Chapter 13 begins with a formula that is found in most of the stories in Judges.  The formula uses language from the Book of Deuteronomy, so it is speculated that the collection of stories were edited by a Deuteronomic redactor.  The redactor sees history going in cycles--the Israelites do evil in the eyes of God (worship other gods), God gives them over to another people, the Israelites cry out to God, and God sends a judge to save them.  In the case of Samson, the Israelites are subdued by the Philistines. Samson is one of the most colorful characters in the Hebrew Bible.  Even though he is sent by God to save Israel, his battles with the Philistines are all personal, and usually involve women.  His name is derived from the Hebrew word for sun, שמש, sheh-mesh.  Is he meant to be portrayed as the son of the sun god, like Apollo the son of Zeus, or Osiris the sun of Ra?  It is clear to me that our ...

I requested a book from my library on humor in the Bible.  It is nice to know that I am not the only one who thinks that the Bible contains humor.  I am not an expert in the New Testament.  I have read it, but not recently enough to make the claim that I think Jesus had a sense of humor.  The notion that Jesus is the biological son of God could be seen in a humorous way.  Again, we must suspend our disbelief to accept this.  Having a divine parent did not start with Jesus.  One of the oldest stories in history, the Epic of Gilgamesh tells us that Gilgamesh is two-third god and one-third human.  I never quite figured out how that works mathematically. Jesus as the son of God seems to be based on the idea that David and Solomon were the sons of God.  For example, II Samuel 7:14, אֲנִי֙ אֶֽהְיֶה־לּ֣וֹ לְאָ֔ב וְה֖וּא יִֽהְיֶה־לִּ֣י לְבֵ֑ן אֲשֶׁר֙ בְּהַ֣עֲות֔וֹ וְהֹֽכַחְתִּיו֙ בְּשֵׁ֣בֶט אֲנָשִׁ֔ים וּבְנִגְעֵ֖י בְּנֵ֥י אָדָֽם׃ I will be a father t...

My father is from Bangor, Maine.  His obituary in the Bangor paper said he was the best Jewish basketball player to come out of the state of Maine.  He was forty when I was born, so his athletic prime was mostly over by the time I stated to show an interest in sports.  He did teach me the game of basketball.  He taught me that I always had to focus on fundamentals, and that I had to practice them over and over.  We watched games together and he would always point out what was going on.  I learned enough from him to coach basketball. As I indicated in an earlier blog,  I played high school basketball.  That was the highest I got.  I played in men's leagues, but they don't count.  I did not try out for basketball at Rutgers.  Again, I played in the band.  I would like to play in leagues now for old people (over 70), but after a hip replacement, my doctor said basketball was the worst thing I could do, so I stopped.  I miss i...

 I acknowledged early on in these blogs that I try to write about things I know.  One of them is sports.  I am not a sport's fanatic.  I am a fan of the Philly sport's teams, but I only watch the Eagles.   I was a Phillies fan, but baseball lost me when the players went on strike.  I love the game of basketball, but I do not like where college and professional basketball is now.  I was not in Philadelphia when the Flyers won their Stanley Cups, so I never got into the game.  It is like soccer on skates.  I appreciate their athleticism, but I do not know the fundamentals of the games.   I wanted to play football in high school.  I was not big by any standard.  But I was strong and athletic.  I think I would have been a good football player.  I went out for my freshmen team.  A few weeks into training, I was in synagogue and brushed up against a table that was only on three legs.  It was hold the boi...

Sorry for being late, but I guess I should not be, because no one is paying any attention anyway.   But here goes. I was watching a video of Robin Williams.  In it, he claims that God must smoke marijuana to create a Platypus.  If we are created in the image of God, and we have a sense of humor, so must God. My favorite scene in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" is when Roger and the private detective are handcuffed together.  The detective is using a hacksaw to cut through them, but the box is shaking.  Roger removes his hand to steady the box.  When the detective sees this, Roger immediately puts his hand back into the handcuff.  The detective is angry at Roger and says, "do you mean you could have removed your hand at any time?"  Roger responded, "no, only when it is funny". Since I seemed to be focused on suspension of disbelief, I will look at humor that way.  Is it too difficult for some to do that with the Bible, since, if it is the word...

Once a year I fast.  I go without eating at times, but the fast of Yom Kippur is set on the calendar for me.  Since the age of 13, I have observed this fast.  There are other fast days on the Jewish calendar, but they are minor fasts, and are not part of my usual observance.  Fasting is in fulfillment of the command "to inflict our souls" in Leviticus 16:19..  Of the two Hebrew words, the first, תענות, tih-ah-nu , inflict, is the same verb that describes Sarah's actions against Hagar that caused her to run away.  So the verb seems to imply a painful, physical blow.  The next work, "your souls", is ambiguous, obviously.   The word for soul, נפש, ne-fesh ,is not the same word that was used to describe the breath of life in Genesis .  That words is נשמה, nih-sha-mah m which means breathing.  As a result of God breathing a נשמה, the man became a נפש, a "souled" being.  The rabbis distinguish the two.  A נפש is shared by all a...

If we accept the concept of spirit, which could be our intellect, our conscious mind, or just our life energy, then must we tie it just to living things in our the physical, sensory world?  Must the spirit be combined with a physical object?  Can there be spirits, sources of energy that exist but are not part of our sensory world?  I am asking again for a suspension of disbelief.  Magic, so much a part of the ancient world and its beliefs in spirits, has been delegated to the realm of entertainment.  It still has a tremendous draw.  The phenomenon that is Harry Potter testifies to that.   If these spirits exist, and are independent of the body, but just join with it for the live span of the body, are they benevolent or malevolent?  Are they our protectors or our persecutors, or both?  Is there a system behind them that guides the actions of the spirit, or are they free agents.  Are those who claim to see them telling the truth?...

I have to confess that there are many terms and concepts that I think I know, but I am not sure I completely understand.  Spirituality is one of them.  One of the tenets of religious observance is the enhancement of the spiritual.    My confusion begins with how to define spirit, especially in contrast to the physical.  There is the assumption that we are dual beings, made of physical and spiritual.  The physical come from the Earth, the lump of clay that became the body, and the spirit, the breath of life breathed into the clay, which gave it life. Does that mean I can understand the role of the spirit by equating it with life.  Something within us is keeping us alive.  We, meaning our conscious mind, do not control our organs.  It is unconscious brain activity that directs those functions.  This pattern of life has been programmed into us by our DNA from our parents.  Part of this programming is an aging process and ultimately, de...

A Jew is riding on a train in Russia.  The man next to him keeps staring at him.  The Jews asks him why he is staring at him.  The Russian responds, "I want to know why Jews are so smart."  The Jew says, "because we eat herring."  The Russian says, "you've got to be kidding."  The Jew says, "no, it is the truth.  I have some I will sell you for ten rubles."  The Russian pays him and eats the herring.  He says, "I could have gotten that same amount of herring in a store for 5 rubles."  The Jew says, "see, it's working." Another biblical incident that I take as humorous is in Genesis 23 when Abraham is attempting to purchase a cave to bury his wife Sarah.  Since Abraham is a foreigner to the area of Hebron, he is not permitted to own land.  He is offered a plot to bury Sarah for free, but Abraham is insistent that he own the cave.  The negotiation between Abraham and Ephron the Hittite to me are both amusing and indicati...

As I stated in a previous blog, the evolution of civilization is depicted in the early chapters of Genesis.  I wonder if someone in that time, the early moments of the dawn of civilization, around 5,500 years ago, would, first, have been able to write down their account of it.  Second, time, as we measure it in periods today, moved very slower then.  The Bronze Age, the early historical period depicted in most of Genesis through Judges, was over 2,000 years.  The stories from those books fit, according to some, me included, into this period, the Bronze Age, perfectly.  So whoever began the stories' traditions was either from that period, or new it very well. In the book of Samuel, iron replaces bronze, and a new age and a new era begins.  The kingdoms of Judah and Israel emerge in this period, the Iron Age.  If the early stories in Genesis were written in this period, their originator was from the Iron Age and knew the Bronze Age well, probably through...

It was originally my intention to use my Friday humor blog for what I consider to be humor in the Hebrew Bible.  Instead, last week, I inserted a joke.  A number of years ago, I had to sharpen my joke skills, because in one of my classes, we established a joke a day.  It was a fun way to begin class.  So, I will attempt both.  A joke, and then an analysis. Here's the joke: A traveling salesman's car breaks down in front of a farm.  He asks the farmer if he can use his phone to call a towing service (this was before cell phones).  As he is waiting for the tow truck, he sees a pig with three wooden legs.  He asks the farmer about it. The farmer explains that one day his daughter was at the pond and fell in.  The pig jumped in and saved her.  Another day the baby was playing with a ball that rolled into the road and the baby went onto the road after it.  A truck was coming and the pig pulled the baby back.  Another time, the barn ...