Scripture has a rather unique definition of fulfillment.  While it does follow the usual definition of looking forward to something, it can also refer to looking backward to something as well. The passage of Hosea, fulfilled in Matthew says “[w]hen Israel was a child I loved him, out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the farther they went from me, sacrificing to the Baals, and burning incense to idols” (Hos 11:1-2).  However, this passage looks backward, to the time of Exodus and not forward to the time of Jesus, so it seems as if Matthew is incorrect in thinking that the words of Hosea were fulfilled in the Jesus.  However, the definition of fulfillment in Scripture also includes fulfilling what has already happened.  The Exodus, a moment in the past, awaits fulfillment in a new and more perfect Exodus when Israel is freed from the slavery of sin and death. It is precisely this fulfillment of a past event that Jesus is bringing about.  Using this passage from Hosea, it becomes clear how fulfillment in Scripture can refer to both past and future events.

There are many places in which the Gospels of Matthew and Luke address the elements of the Old Testament narrative we discussed in class.  The entire first part of Matthew’s Gospel reconciles the question of how it was possible to have both a descendent of David and God Himself as king over the Israelites. By tracing Jesus’ lineage to David (and even further), Matthew lays out the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant and how there might be both a Davidic king and God as king over Israel.  Luke’s Gospel also refers to the Davidic covenant when the angel Gabriel tells Mary that Jesus will be given the throne of David and will rule forever.  

Based off of the excerpts from Numbers that we read, I would say that Israel’s distrust of and dissatisfaction with God and His plan for them is what leads to the wilderness generation’s condemnation.  This dissatisfaction can be seen in Numbers 11 as the Israelites complain about the manna God has given them, despite the rather appealing description it is given.  They insist that their life was better in Egypt and wish they could go back there.  Because they are dissatisfied with God and the fact that He has brought them out of slavery, God punishes them with an overabundance of meat and a plague.  In Numbers 13-14 the Israelites once again distrust God’s plan, believing that they cannot take the Promised Land, despite God’s ongoing promise that they would inhabit that land.  Because of this distrust, God once again punishes them by condemning them to wander for forty years just outside the Promised Land and then is not with them when they try to take the Promised Land on their own, leading to the deaths of many Israelites.

I think they might have closed the Pentateuch with the death of Israel to remind Israel that Moses was not God but was human, to give the law that Moses wrote down even more importance, and to show the Israelites how power should be transferred when one of their leaders dies.  Ever since Moses has come into the story, he has very much been a god-like figure, as he is often the only person who can talk to God Himself.  However, by closing the Pentateuch with Moses’ death it reminds Israel that although Moses was a great figure, in the end he was still mortal like any other person. Moses’ death also adds a little more weight to the law that he writes down at the very end of his life.  I feel that if one of his last actions while alive was to instruct the people one how to live their lives, it shows just how important these rules are.  Lastly, I think the death of Moses and his passing on of power to Joshua shows that power can be passed on peacefully and does not have to be fought over.

In the closing passages of Deuteronomy 34, it is said that never again was there a prophet as great as Moses.  This means that although in the Book of Joshua it seems as if the Israelites are experiencing great military conquests under Joshua and are much better off than they were in the desert under Moses, somehow Joshua does not compare with the greatness of Moses.  I think the text means to say that although the events of this generation seem to be ideal, there is something about them that is not as great as they might otherwise seem.

The difference between purity and impurity has to do with order and disorder. By trying to remove those things which are impure, an effort is being made to remove those things which are disorderly and destructive and instead focus on what brings us order and life. God requires the maintenance of purity because His ultimate goal is always to bring us into communion with Himself. However, we cannot be brought into communion with the One who is all good if there are parts of ourselves or our lives that are impure and disorderly.  This idea of requiring the maintenance of purity, which leads to the maintenance of order, recalls the story of Creation, where God created and ordered things and then handed on the task of ordering to humans.  If we are now responsible for the task of ordering creation, it would make sense that God would require the maintenance of purity and order in our own lives.  How can we be expected to create order in Creation when there is no order to things in our own life?  Therefore, God gives the Israelites the laws to help them maintain purity so that they might be able to be closer to God and better able to experience order.

The logic behind the food laws is that our bodies are a reflection of our spiritual life.  Because of this, God required that everything the Israelites consumed was pure.  By doing this, He helped them to purify their spiritual life so that they might be able to enter into communion with God. By following the food laws and purifying themselves, not only do they purify their spiritual lives, but they bring order and purity to their lives on Earthy as well.

The whole concept of who God is can never be fully grasped, as He is beyond our full knowing.  However, Ratzinger proposes three ways for us to consider who God is. He claims that God is a personal god, a powerful god, and a god of promise.  He first lays out the idea of a personal god saying, “the personal and person-centered God, who is to be thought of and found on the place of I and You, not primarily in holy places” (124).  I think the stories from Exodus reflect this, because, although there are places where God makes himself present, like the burning bush, God is seen most often through Moses and His chosen people Israel.

God is also powerful, because, as Ratzinger explains, His power is not just present in some places, at sometimes, but instead is always present and “embraces in itself all power and stands above all individual powers” (124).  This can also be seen in the stories of Exodus, as virtually all the chapters from Ex 7-14 are accounts of God displaying his power over the Egyptians.  Repeatedly, God shows that His power is greater than anything the Egyptians could come up with, as he not only destroys their lands but kills their people as well.

Lastly, God can be seen as a god of promise. Ratzinger says, “He directs man’s attention to the coming events toward which his history marches, to a meaning and goal that have a final validity; he is regarded as the God of hope in the future” (124).  This view of God as a god of promise is also once again seen in the account of Exodus. God repeatedly promises that He will lead His people out of Israel and lead them to an abundant land.  Through these promises God shows that He is not just a powerful force of creation, but One who has a plan for His people, and all of humanity, and will lead them to the fulfillment of these promsies.

As Anderson explained in the article, Joseph planted the silver cup in Benjamin’s bag to determine if his brothers had truly changed.  By planting the cup and threatening to imprison Benjamin, Joseph is replicating the situation his brothers put him in years earlier.  Once again, their father’s beloved son will be taken away from him and will no longer be with the family.  Just like Joseph was wrongly imprisoned because of the incident with his master’s wife, Benjamin will be imprisoned for a crime he did not commit but has no way to disprove.  By replicated Joseph’s situation years ago with Benjamin, Joseph is offering his brothers a chance to show that they have changed.  When faced with an opportunity to easily rid themselves of Benjamin, yet another younger brother who once again has a monopoly on their father’s favor, they do not take it like they did with Joseph years ago.  Instead, through Judah’s actions, they show that they have changed. Instead of giving Benjamin up, Judah, who was a key player in the selling of Joseph into slavery, offers to give himself up instead of his younger brother, because Judah know that if Benjamin is imprisoned Jacob will never recover.  Through the planting of the silver cup, Joseph facilitates the death and resurrection of his brothers, as he makes them fully repent from their previous actions and prove that they have resurrected and changed for the better.

This incident relates to his status and the beloved son, because having the status of “beloved son” means that you must go through a death and resurrection.  As Anderson outlines, earlier in the story Joseph went through his “death” in multiple ways, including when his brothers faked his death and when he spent many years in jail. However, he was resurrected to a place of power in Egypt and is eventually revealed as alive to Jacob. The planning of the silver cup is Benjamin’s “death and resurrection” as Jacob’s new beloved son.  Just as Joseph was lost to his father, Benjamin is almost lost in a very similar way, coming close to going through a very similar death as Joseph.  However, Benjamin is saved and resurrected by his many other brothers, especially Judah, and completes the cycle of “death and resurrection” that every beloved son goes through.

In the scene of Jacob’s wrestling, it is not fully clear who he is wrestling or who might have won the altercation.  I think Jacob’s opponent is some kind of divine being meant to a representation of God Himself.  However, I think that Jacob’s struggle with this figure is also meant to recognize his struggle with his brother Esau.  Jacob repeatedly struggled with Esau to gain his birthright, but because Esau, just like every other human being, was created in the image and likeness of God, any struggle with Esau is also a struggle with the Divine.  As stated in the article, there are many textual similarities between Jacob’s struggle in chapter 32 and his struggle with Esau in earlier chapters of Genesis, especially when they were in the womb.  These similarities make me think that Jacob’s struggle with the mysterious opponent must in some way signify a connection between his struggle with his brother and a struggle with God.

I think both God and Jacob won in different ways. Just regarding the physical struggle, it seems as if Jacob wins the wrestling match.  Although he is left injury, he convinces his opponent to give up and even manages to get his opponent to give him a blessing.  When regarding these two aspects is seems as if Jacob is the winner. However, as discussed in the article, when the opponent, God, asks Jacob for his real name before He gives Jacob a blessing, Jacob tells him is real name and does not lie like he did to his father, Isaac.  In this moment Jacob owns the deceit and trickery he has employed in the past to gain a blessing and does not try to repeat this path.  In this moment both God and Jacob win as Jacob owns the mistakes he has made and becomes closer to God.  Jacob also wins as he receives a new name and blessing, but this is also a way in which God wins as He probably wants these things for Jacob.  Lastly, God wins by leaving a permanent mark on Jacob. By leaving him with a limp, Jacob is always reminded of the dependence he has on God and the ways in which he will always need assistance, both spiritually and physically.

When I think about what religion is, my first reaction is to give examples of the traditional ideas of religion such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and so on.  However, I found Marty’s five features of religion that he laid out very thought provoking, especially the first one which is that religion focuses on our ultimate concerns. His different examples of these ultimate concerns made me think about how the definition of religion could stretch beyond my instinctive reaction to the word.  While thinking about Marty’s five points and how he applies them to politics as well and religions in the traditional sense of the word, I began thinking that religion can really encompass anything.  There are so many different features of religion, even just among the tradition ideas of religion, that I think Marty’s features only begin to scratch the service of what religion is.  I think anything can be a religion if it is put into such a place of importance in our lives that it becomes one of the sole guiding principles of your life.

However, going back to Marty’s first feature, I think religion cannot just be anything that you hold in an exalted position and center your life around.  I think it has to have some component of being larger than the individual who is subscribing to the religion.  This grander focus could one of the ultimate concerns that Marty lays out in his point or it could be a different question, but I think religion, ultimately, has to be focused on some concept or idea greater than the individual, whether this is a country, another person or figure, an idea, or anything else.  Ultimately, I do not think that religion is something that can be put in a box and easily defined.  Instead, it varies from person to person and is more of a description of the way to approach and interact with different ideas and beliefs than a concrete thing that we can pin down and define.

Faith is unavoidable because it is only through faith that we pursue knowledge.  St. Augustine said, “no one believes anything unless one first though it believable.” Here, Augustine is arguing that unless we have some sort of faith that something is believable there would be no reason for us to use reason to examine it and try to understand it.  In this way, it is impossible to separate faith from reason in religion, because without faith there is no need for reason.  Much of the study of religion also has to do with history and studying the historical events and figures of our faith.  However, history also relies much on faith, as it accepts the viewpoint of the one who is reporting an incident.  In this way, Augustine once again shows that faith is unavoidable, even if one wants to focus solely on religion, as history would be a major tool in this use of only religion.  However, history implicitly requires faith, making it unavoidable.

Augustine also says that faith is beneficial because it is what bonds us together as humans.  If we do not have trust in each other, there is no way we can live together as a human race. In this way faith is beneficial because it helps us trust those who know more than we do in a certain topic, in this case religion.  Faith helps us look to them to gain a deeper understanding of the religious truth we are pursuing.  Augustine also says that faith is beneficial because it helps us fall in love with our faith, especially the writings of our faith.  It is only through first finding this love that we can then begin to examine it and ask questions about it, thus using our reason to examine religion.

Abraham agrees to God’s request, because he trusts God fully.  God has promised Abraham that he will have many descendants, and Abraham trusts God that this promise will still be fulfilled even if he does sacrifice Isaac to God.  He so fully trusts and loves God that, even though he loves Isaac, he is willing to sacrifice him to show God how much he loves and trusts Him.  I don’t think Abraham is lying in Gen 22:5 and 22:8 by saying that both he and Isaac will return, and God will send a ram for them to sacrifice. While Abraham might not know these things for sure, his trust in God is so complete that he firmly believes that these things will happen.  God had previously promised that through Isaac Abraham would have numerous descendants, so how could that covenant come to completion if Abraham was really forced to sacrifice Isaac?  I think Abraham was able to have complete trust in God, believing that somehow God would make everything right, and he projected this belief in his statements in these verses.

God’s intention in making Abraham go through this ordeal is to reaffirm Abraham’s absolute trust in and love Him.  By asking Abraham to sacrifice is son, through whom the covenant would be fulfilled, God is asking him to trust that somehow God’s promises would still be kept.  He is also asking Abraham to reaffirm his love for God by asking him to sacrifice his only son, Isaac.  I think Abraham is praiseworthy, because, although he does not know what God’s plan is or why He is asking him to sacrifice his son, he trusts God, submits himself to His will, and completely believes.  I am probably just missing an interpretation of the story, but I cannot see how God’s actions praiseworthy in this story.  I don’t think God’s actions were wrong, but I don’t really understand how God could be praise for putting Abraham through this ordeal.

In Genesis 3, it is not the fruit itself that is objectively bad, as is commonly believed, but it is instead how Adam and Eve use that fruit.  Instead of waiting until they have developed the necessary virtues needed to possess the knowledge it gives, they eat the fruit of their own accord.  Therefore, they have taken something good and have and disfigured it by using the knowledge of good and evil purely for their own gain.  Through this action, Adam and Eve take something god-like, namely the knowledge of good and evil, and corrupt it with by mixing it with something human, namely their desire to benefit only themselves.

This theme of the mixing of the divine and human, leading to the corruption of each, is seen again in the lead up to account of Noah and the flood.  In Genesis 6, the sons of God are described as taking the daughters of men, whom they see as fair, to be their wives.  Kass asserts that through these marriages, the son of God, or the god-like, and the daughters of men, or humans, corrupt each other.  The men are taken in by the outward beauty of the women but fail to separate that beauty from what is morally good, and they pay no attention to moral goodness when choosing a wife.  Beauty and marriage, which by themselves are not bad things, are quickly corrupted through their misuse.  Through this description of what brought about the Great Flood, a parallel can be drawn back to Genesis 3.  The fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, by itself, was a good thing, but was corrupted by the humans’ use of it.  In both stories, humans take a morally and divinely good and, through their choices and use of the thing, manage to corrupt it into something bad.