hrrmph discovered i'd posted and not published last entry (see below) - oh well! almost better just got a gippy (sp.?) back! enough of my aches and pains already!! (being v effectively soothed & challenged by mr marshall's excellent new album - if you haven't already you need to buy it!)

what i actually wanted to talk about is the beginning of my journey of discovery about the Old Testament which this week seems to have majored on (3 lectures), and I have an essay on the different portrayals of king Josiah in Kings and Chronicles to do! So much political intrigue! So many other things going on at the time that you don't really get to see in the Bible!

What I'm really having my eyes opened up to is that the Jewish religion was a 'work in progress' all the way through the Old Testament - as was the new Christian faith all the way through the New ... don't get me wrong, I don't suddenly think God was evolving, He is the same yesterday, today and forever - I'm just realising that many heroes of the faith didn't have as fuller picture as we do now ... which when type this out suddenly seems obvious! But when you grow up on the Bible (as I did) you don't necessarily see it as in disctinctive parts - you see as part of the whole... I guess it's just part of the continuing revelation that started when i twigged that Abraham didn't even have any part of the Bible (which makes the fact that By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going, Hebrews 11:8, even more amazing!), not even the 10 commandments - obvious and yet not often said!

All very challenging - especially when the tutors point out the differences between different accounts of the same event and difficulties in dating (they do explain how it could still be true!)... it's not rocking my faith, but deepening it - understanding the ways and whys of how the Bible was written down. God is merciful thankfully!

...right my brain hurts and I've still to make a decent start on my essay! ...Not got a handle on managing workload yet... there's also plenty of other things I need to attend to at the same time... !?