Reading Questions

1)  General

What do you find shocking about this text?

2)  Exodus

(Parts of the text, especially after chapter 25 or so, are eminently skimmable...)  What do we learn about ruler in this text?   What is the nature of law/justice? What is the relationship between the individual and the community?  What is the basis of the social order created? Is Egypt Plato’s cave and Moses the philosopher king?  What is the point of the stylistic/substantive shift at Exodus 12 and following?  (What is the stylistic/substantive shift at Exodus 12 and following?  What is text about up to this point, what is it increasingly about thereafter?)

3)  I Samuel

How many points of view on kingship are set forth in I Sam. (esp. 8–15?). Can you explain the existence of these different perspectives?  What are they?  How are kings chosen?  What is their role?  What is the relationship between God and king?  Priest and king?  Prophet and king?  What are the alternatives to kingship?  What would Plato have said about Saul? About David?