Comments on: New Testament Gospel Doctrine Lesson #8

By: Walter van Beek

Walter van Beek — Sat, 21 Feb 2015 19:40:16 +0000

Julie
Mark wrote to an audience inside the Roman Empire, and himself is associated with Rome anyway. So I might suggest to add a Roman connotation with salt: value, currency. We still have it in our vocabulary: your salary is still quite salty, as I would like my bank saldo to be. Salt was probably currency towards the South of Egypt; as africanist I have followed the salt trail – stone salt from the Sahara – through Mali. So behind the symbolic values you mention there is a solid exchange value.
Walter

By: Julie M. Smith

Julie M. Smith — Fri, 20 Feb 2015 13:12:13 +0000

After a quick scan, Kylie, I would say to avoid that source because s/he is making some unsustainable interpretive moves–like assuming that Moses wrote everything which is traditionally attributed to him and assuming that strictly literal fulfillment of prophecies should be assumed and collapsing all scriptures as if they were univocal.

By: Kylie

Kylie — Fri, 20 Feb 2015 12:47:31 +0000

http://www.torahclass.com/archived-articles/1036-featured-article-sp-940659465

I’m wondering what those who know much more than me think about this covenant of salt post/article.

(And, yes, I realize I’m addressing a very large group of people.)

By: Ben S

Ben S — Fri, 20 Feb 2015 01:14:15 +0000

Related to the above comment is Ezra 4:14, where (covenant?) loyalty to the king is expressed with the idiomatic phrase “we salt the salt of the palace.”

From the New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, 947-8-

Twice [melach or “salt”] is used with “covenant” in priestly texts, first in Lev 2:13 (“Do not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your grain offerings”), and then in Num 18:19 (“It is an everlasting covenant of salt before the LORD for both you and your offspring”)….

As a symbol of permanence, a salt covenant may be a way of expressing an unbreakable covenant. In Ezra 4:14 loyalty to the king of Persia is expressed by “we have tasted the salt of the palace”…, which is rendered by NIV, “Now since we are under obligation to the palace.” In Arab. milhat [“salt’] means “a treaty.” And a neo-Babylonian letter refers to a certain tribe’s covenanted allies by using the phrase “all who have tasted the salt of the Jakin tribe.”

By: Julie M. Smith

Julie M. Smith — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 22:38:42 +0000

Ellie, it may relate to the usage in 2 Chronicles 13:5, where the granting of the right to rule to the house of David is called a “covenant of salt” to emphasize its permanence (and, hence, God’s loyalty).

By: Ellie

Ellie — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 20:50:03 +0000

I’m starting to work through this – how is salt a sign of loyalty? Also, thank you thank you for this series. I want to give it to my teachers to help improve our conversations.

By: Terry H

Terry H — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 01:32:24 +0000

Now that RickH has entered the fray, Julie, you have my sincerest apologies for turning this serious topic into something less than serious (although a favorite french fry is pretty serious, but not from an eternal perspective.)

PS I also love the waffles from that “eat more chiken” place.

By: RickH

RickH — Wed, 18 Feb 2015 16:13:15 +0000

Oh, with Cajun seasoning. Don’t forget the Cajun seasoning. :)

By: RickH

RickH — Wed, 18 Feb 2015 16:12:28 +0000

You can have your McDonald’s “bonus fries”. I’ll stick with my Five Guys “entire paper bag full of fries with a paper cup of fries thrown in as well for some reason.”

By: Terry H

Terry H — Wed, 18 Feb 2015 03:59:54 +0000

Ha. If I could just stay away from the fries I’d lose a ton of something. Wendy’s doesn’t give the “bonus fries” that somehow always manage to find their way to the bottom of the bag. (Credit to the comedian my kids showed me on line whose name I can’t remember).

By: Julie M. Smith

Julie M. Smith — Tue, 17 Feb 2015 22:47:12 +0000

Terry H, seriously? I just lost a ton of respect for you.

Wendy’s has the best fries. That really isn’t debatable.

By: Terry H

Terry H — Tue, 17 Feb 2015 21:57:11 +0000

Julie, McDonalds. That is the only answer. They have the best fries. And thank goodness for the bonus fries :)

By: Jared vdH

Jared vdH — Tue, 17 Feb 2015 19:13:30 +0000

Perhaps the best question you can ask as a teacher is not “What could this mean?” but “And what else could this mean?”

This was one of my favorite strategies as a Gospel Doctrine teacher. Acknowledging and sometimes praising each response and following up with a “what else could this mean?”

Before doing this I also usually modeled it by coming up with two or three of my own possible meanings.

By: Naismith

Naismith — Tue, 17 Feb 2015 16:34:34 +0000

Can I just say, this is so profound: “I think one of the worst habits that we have as scripture readers is to be content with one answer.”