Considering Other Voices

For my New Testement class, I am writing a midterm where I dare to consider the other voices that are related to the authentic Pauline letters.  Well it is fun to imagine what the women of Corinth might have said to Paul (Paul, take a hike we are done having bake sales for missions) or what Philemon might say to Paul (I’m troubled that you think that I would mistreat a salve).  It is important to think what our writings today also say and who’s voices we do not hear.

            I also just finished Sara and the author Marek Halter, dares to think in the first installment of a series what was Sara doing when she was still Sari. Why did she do the things she does in the Bible.  Well I was not pleased with how he handled some of the fillers for the parts of the story we do know (the Binding of Isaac, her death). I valued that he yes a he dared to take a listen to the text between the texts. He also writes about Zipporah, Wife of Moses Lilith and Mary mother of God.  I cannot wait to read the other ones in the series!

            He describes himself in the author interview as a storyteller and the Jewish faith has a long standing tradition of expanding the stories in the Hebrew Bible in a Midrash( Living with contradiction). They fills in many gaps left in the biblical narrative regarding events and personalities that are only hinted at  Do we dare to write the stories of those outside the written and accepted text? Do we even think about them, consider them and the impact they have on our understanding? 

           

      If we dare to think about the ‘other’ does this now mean that we must act differently towards the other. To think that these stories and letters are not just fables but rather discuss issues that our ancestors had then and we still have now. But maybe if we think about them we can find ways to solve some of the problems from the ways that it did not work out for our ancestors.