REL 2240 Highlights and Lowlights Fall 2009

Paper 1:

Remember, you are writing as a scholar for an audience that contains a mix of believers and non-believers, not as a preacher reaching out to a congregation. So avoid statements such as this:

In the Old Testament the "covenant of salt" (Numbers 18:19) is mentioned to show God's way of creating a deal or a contract with us Christians. Mark strengthens salt's role in each one of us Christians.

The reference to Numbers 18:19 is good, but not the mention of "us Christians", which immediately excludes a large part of your readership.

Consider the following conclusion:

There is no space for hypocrisy in people's lives. You are either supposed to listen, do and keep on doing, if not then you will be foolish. There is no easy way to do things and expect to have a good outcome. Overall Jesus let his disciples know that there was no easy way to follow him.

Of course, I agree with the sentiments: hypocrisy is bad. But you aren't trying to leave the reader with a moral to think about. The aim is to present historical conclusions.

Also, the word "either" is redundant. The sentence could have been written as "Either you listen, do and keep on doing, or you are foolish", but "You are either supposed to listen..." should be followed up with "or else to ...", and something useful that you could do instead of listening, e.g. "You are either supposed to listen or else to sing a song."

From the same essay, we have some historical thinking in action:

Back in Jesus' lifetime Palestine was a very dry land. People were familiar with something known as a "wadis", these were aroused rivers that were very powerful ... To build a house on rock was quite common during Jesus' lifetime in Palestine since the land of Galilee from the Mediterranean Sea to Upper Galilee in the east was mainly made up of hills in mountainous areas. Jesus uses rock as a metaphor for a stable foundation and in Jerusalem the Temple was securely standing on a rock base.

Here we have solid geographical facts used to cast light on the Parable. These facts can be used as evidence that Matthew's version (Matt 7:24-27) is older than Luke's version (Luke 6: 46-49). Luke does not contrast a house built on sand with one built on rock, but a house built with foundations to a house built without foundations. Matthew's version makes sense in the kind of environment Jesus actually lived in. We can then suppose that Luke adapted that for different geographical conditions. That's the kind of thing you should be looking out for.

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