I'm here to waffle about Isaiah's Commission, which is some biblical text about some dude called Isaiah getting a vision and becoming a prophet.
The text I'm supposed to study is on page 68 of my textbook, but here's a link to a slightly different version because I can't find the exact one.
Yeah, I know, what a loadddd of mumbo-jumbo. I can't believe I'm actually analysing the Bible on the internet. Oh the shame. Anyway, right.
Basically, the story starts off the same year some King called Uzziah died. God was sitting on a throne and the train of his robe was filling the whole temple (some people might argue that it was Solomon's Temple). Above God there were two Seraphs, which are these winged mythical creatures that appear in Hebrew and Christian texts. So these two Seraphs had six wings each, two covering their faces, two covering their feet and two they were using to fly.
These creatures are representative of praise and they were all "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty, the whole earth was full of his glory". Basically, they were bigging up God's ego even more than it already was.
And when these Seraphs started speaking, the door posts started shaking and the room was full of smoke. There's also a quotation in Exodus, which goes "for no man shall see me and live". So naturally, Isaiah started freaking out big time. He goes on about having unclean lips and that he lives among other people who have unclean lips. No, all of Isaiah's household don't need a good wash, apparently this 'unclean lips' is a metaphor for having sin, which everyone has.
So after Isaiah started freaking out, one of the Seraphs wanted to chill him out. But rather than give him a good pat on the shoulder, the Seraph grabbed a burning coal from some alter and shoved it on Isaiah's lips. To be honest, that would have freaked me out more, but it chilled Isaiah out, so that's all that matters. So then the Seraph tells Isaiah that his sin and guilt is gone.
Then God starts asking for a prophet, so Isaiah offers himself up. God then tells him to go and tell everyone to "be ever hearing, but never understand; be ever seeing, but never perceiving". Then God talks about how this will effect people and says stuff about their hearts being calloused and their ears dull and their eyes closed. Which all basically means that even though Isaiah is apparently preaching the truth, many people won't listen. But there will be the handful of headcases who will listen. And Jesus will deal with the ones who don't wanna listen and make some of them into headcases too.
Sounds like I just analysed God's plan for world domination and some poor guy with too much on his mind as it is, without some high-and-mighty-supernatural-being telling him to go preach to people who won't listen.
What a fucked up religion Christianity is. No offence, ofc.
Oh, I almost forgot.
^ That's the site I used to get my head around the whole extract :)
No comments:
Post a Comment
If you have a comment on what I write (not that I'm expecting many readers), I'd LOVE to hear from you, whether it's because you like my style or you think I've got my facts mixed up.
I will point out, however, that what I write is my opinion alone. I'm not an intentionally offensive person and write in a way I know will help me revise. If you do read or see anything which you feel is unacceptable, please let me know and I'll do my best to change or remove the offending post.