Talk:The Ancient World (HUM 124 - UNC Asheville)/Texts/Genesis - texts about covenant

Comments on first draft
-Joey Cross (discuss • contribs) 15:06, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Lots of ideas, or seeds of ideas, all throughout this page! Take some time to think about organization. Separate out different topics (i.e. summaries, discussion of characters, major themes).
 * Someone should take a stab at writing about what covenant is in more detail!
 * I'm dubious about the "Judaism" section." I'm not sure exactly what the purpose is, so I'd be happy to see some discussion here...

Editing Questions For The Group
Hey guys quick few comments or I guess questions for the group. For the theme section should we pull ideas or citations from the text that allude to the themes we pulled out? or maybe explain our reasoning for the themes instead of just listing them? If that makes sense or do you just want to leave that section alone? I am happy to try and find examples of where the theme is conveyed if we wanted to do that. also do we want to try and find more examples for imagery or did anyone find any other examples of imagery? and my last question is does anyone have ideas for symbolism or should we remove that section since it is blank currently?

-Madison Olson --Mads2047 (discuss • contribs) 02:04, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Thoughts as I was reading
In a very short summary this is how I interpreted Covenant: God promised to bless Noah and his sons (all men) with a lot of different things like plenty to eat and protection and in return they obey him and remain loyal to him. He promises Abraham kids but towards the end of the story Abraham and his wife Sarai, who God said shall be called Sarah, still don't have a child. They are really old, Abraham is a hundred years old and Sarah is ninety, so they don't think they are going to get to have one even though God told him they would. Somehow they do end up having a child whose name is Issac. God promises to keep the covenant with him and his family as well. He also promises to do the same to Sarah.

I'm not exactly sure what to write about so I'm just going to talk about my thoughts as I read this.

The first thing I noticed was a difference between this genesis story and the first one with Adam and Eve. In the first one God tells Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit off the tree, but in this one he tells Noah and his sons everything is theirs to eat. There was no real point to that, just something I noticed.

In covenant I also noticed how God says everything is theirs to eat except “flesh with its lifeblood in it”. I was a little confused as to what this meant, I can assume it might mean while it is still alive but I could be wrong. If someone wants to answer this question I would be interested to hear your thoughts.

In covenant God says “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed” This reminded me of the saying “an eye for an eye”, this could also mean something completely different but that is just how I interpret it. If someone would like to share their thought on this as well, feel free.

I read that genesis means beginning in Hebrew, and the story of the beginning I was always taught was the Adam and Eve story. I don't think I had ever really heard this story so I was a little taken aback by the end of it about circumcision. I did not expect that.

I am not an overly religious person, I used to go to church when I was little but I have not been in a long time, so I find it a little hard to read stories from the bible or understand them sometimes. I am saying this because some of the things i mentioned or questions i asked could be very obvious to some, but not to me.

Comments and Thoughts
Hey guys the wiki is looking really good! I saw the new edits that were made after I made my previous comments and it has come a long way and looks much better. I am not sure of what else to add to the page everyone did such a good job with the details, citations, and references back to the text. I saw someone else added to the discussion page about their thoughts and I decided to do the same. I am also not a religious person, I don't believe nor do I disbelieve in any religion so getting to read this text and discussing it in my group was extremely interesting for me. It was also a good learning moment for me since I don't know to much about religion and found this text rather confusing at first. I took away a lot from this wiki and text and now developed a deeper understanding for covenant. In my own viewpoint from this text I can see covenant as some sort of agreement or understanding between the people and God. as long as nobody minds I am going to try and add a photo or two to help the page look a little more appealing if I can figure out how to add them and if I can and you feel as though it doesn't fit the page feel free to edit them out or swap the pictures for different ones, I won't mind. And if I can't figure out how to add them or if I can't find a good picture I will leave it alone. The one comment I still have is about the last section "The Birth Of Judaism" I saw our professor made a comment seeming unsure about it and wanting us to explain it's relevance more. I know it was referenced in the text and I like it on the wiki but was unsure if we should keep it as is, take it out, or explain its importance more in depth. I don't know much about the birth of Judaism so I don't know how to explain it or what to add but if we wanted to add more I don't think it would hurt. Overall I feel good about the wiki and wanted to say good job to everyone!

Madison Olson --Mads2047 (discuss • contribs) 06:20, 7 September 2020 (UTC)