Posted on 11/21/2020 5:48:09 AM PST by Hebrews 11:6
Hi Dan! Thanks for making me ‘featured’ in your excellent series on the Bible.
For this edition, I like picture #1 the best. It shows the widow as a young woman and draws in the viewer’s sympathy for her youth, beauty, and the young child with her.
I often fall into the fallacy of imagining the widow as old or middle-aged, but with the death rate in the ancient world, youthful widows were not unusual. The young child implies her youth.
Interesting, but the widow’s comment about Elijah calling her sin to remembrance is very puzzling unless she’s an Israelite refugee with an unspoken backstory.
I am perfectly happy to hear which pictures posters like the most, especially when they force themselves to articulate exactly why, as you just did. In this instance I’m especially glad, because Strozzi’s is my favorite too—indeed, that’s why it appears at the top. As editor and OP it’s not my role to poison the well by spouting off my preference, but I can certainly shout “Amen!”
Dan
Certainly the Old Testament, especially in the original Hebrew, has a lot of cryptic or ambiguous content that makes varying interpretations inevitable.
“Interesting, but the widow’s comment about Elijah calling her sin to remembrance is very puzzling unless she’s an Israelite refugee with an unspoken backstory.”
A good point which I hadn’t considered. Certainly, Gentiles knew about sin and the widow, in particular, living with Elijah would know a great deal about God. So she could be an Israelite widow or a Gentil widow on the brink of conversion.
Little is much when God is in it!
The Phoenicians weren’t really bad people, although the Romans might take issue with that statement................Carthago delenda est..............
I do not, however, suspect that you will be able to convince the rabbi. People must have open minds in order to be convinced. And as we know from 2 Timothy 2:24-26, our role is to be gentle with all. Ultimately, we win people to Jesus by love, not by convincing arguments. Vigorous arguments done in loving ways help keep us grounded in truth, but for those outside of Christ, such arguments can seem like attacks and arrogance. Accordingly, I would urge you not to use the information to take on the rabbi, but rather to guide your own thinking in truth. As for the rabbi, if you can show him the love of Christ, you will be doing what Jesus has called us to do.
Dr. Gary Habermas has an excellent video series making that point.
I am reminded that Paul in his travels used logic and reason in the synagogues to win over Jews to Christ...............
Habermas finds a substantial majority is impervious to logical and factual arguments, because emotional issues interfere.
That explains Democrats..................
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