Broken Covenants

Sometimes covenants are broken, as mine was with you, dear reader. I apologize. A number of factors including work, illness, software issues, and a computer that has lived past its planned obsolescence all contributed to the absence of a post last week, and the absence of a topic-specific one this week.

The book I am reading now is Chronicles, which follows Kings and is comprised of mostly edited material already covered in Samuel and Kings. If the material seems familiar, that is because it has been featured already in previous books (and posts). In fact, many portions reappear in Chronicles verbatim. However, there is a significant amount of editing by an editor who clearly lived during or after the composition of Judges and Kings. The editor (also called a "chronicler") tells mostly the same stories as these books, but adds or subtracts information so suit his purpose. One purpose he has (and it is almost certainly a he writing) is to portray David as a truly great king, and completely free of sin. In the chronicler's account, for instance, David does not steal Bathsheba from Uriah the Hittite and sleep with her. Likewise, before his death, David prepares his son Solomon for the building of the Lord's house. David thereby participates in the building of the temple, a fact that contributes to his overall greatness.

But we are not there yet. Right now (or as soon as I finish the post I intend) we are at the nine-chapter genealogy that extends from Adam to the generation of the Exile. The post I have been working on is a family tree of sorts, a graphical representation of the genealogies presented in the first nine chapters of the biblical book Chronicles.

 I should say that my idea for such a presentation is not original.

Last week was an important week for me in that I submitted my final application for graduate school in religious studies. It was a hectic process, but one that allowed for some reflection - which perhaps I will dig into deeper on this blog some day. Perhaps one of the reasons I chose to create this biblical infographic was the reflection and rereading of my undergraduate thesis, titled "Our Environmental Apocalypse." The paper treated the word "apocalypse" as a meme with shifting meaning (observable in words and phrases such as "snowpocalypse," "environmental apocalypse," and "apocalypse now"). I did a good amount of research on interpretations of the book of Revelation. One interpreter that continually drew me back was Joachim of Fiore.

Joachim of Fiore created figurae, ornate illustrations that attempt to explain his conception of the apocalypse.

Through illustrations of seven-headed dragons and ring diagrams representing dispensations of biblical time, Joachim sought to discover meaning in ordered historical events.

A beautiful arrangement of ideas: that is what I strive for in the upcoming post. I hope you enjoy it (when it is ready).