Available Now!

Well, the time has come for me to start promoting my new book: Birth and Rebirth Through Genesis: A Timeless Theological Conversation Part 1: Genesis 1-3.

You can purchase the book at a nice discount at Amazon.com

You can also get it at Barnes and Nobles. For me, writing a book is a lot like giving birth to a baby-for we create from the depths of our own being and essence. Creativity offers a remarkable pathway to discovering how God speaks and inspires our soul.

**HOLIDAY SPECIAL ** Buy it now, you can get it for $19.00 at the following link:

http://www.amazon.com/Birth-Rebirth-through-Genesis-Conversation/dp/1456301713/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309652244&sr=1-2

Reviews:

“. . . all who carefully read this book are in for a deeply rewarding experience. . . .”—Prof. Marvin R. Wilson, Author of Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith“

A fascinating, learned, and wide-ranging commentary that creatively blends the insights of ancients, medievals, moderns, and post-moderns. . .Readers will enjoy this book.”
—Prof. Warren Zev Harvey, [Chair, Department of Jewish Thought],The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

“ The book is a profound exploration of the important metaphors, symbols and archetypal structures of Genesis. . . . Most remarkable about this stunning array of insights is that it leaves space for personal discovery, and time to hear the beat of heart-thoughts behind the words.”
—Paul Pines, author of My Brother’s Madness

“ [Birth and Rebirth through Genesis: A Timeless Theological Conversation] is spiritually fresh and relevant for a new generation of readers regardless of their religious background and faith.”
—Rabbi Dr. Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, co-author of Jewish with Feeling

“While this is a book written by a rabbi well-versed in the rabbinic tradition, one cannot read more than a few pages to discover that his research, his interests, and his appreciation of critical thought span the centuries of both Jewish thought and Christian, while encompassing the best of the non-faith-bound philosophers of these same millennia. . . . Rabbi Samuel is fearless in drawing on their works and their thinking in order to provoke his reader to leap beyond the well-worn paths of the past.”
—Allan C. Emery III, PhD, Senior Editor of Hendrickson Publishers.

“. . . span[s] the centuries of both Jewish thought and Christian, while encompassing the best of the non-faith-bound philosophers of these same millennia. . . . Rabbi Samuel is fearless in drawing on their works and their thinking in order to provoke his reader to leap beyond the well-worn paths of the past.”
—Paul Borgman, author of David, Saul, and God: Rediscovering an Ancient Story

“Birth and Rebirth Through Genesis . . . adroitly moderates a virtual conver-sation between traditions and thinkers. This book is a wondrous springboard into a rewarding dialogue between biblical scholarship and the philosophical perspective.”
—Micah D. Halpern, author of THUGS, The Micah Report, and Jewish Legal Writings by Women

Get your copy today!

http://www.amazon.com/Birth-Rebirth-through-Genesis-Conversation/dp/1456301713/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309652244&sr=1-2

Biblical commentators love to portray Noah as a man who truly loved God for saving his family, even though the rest of the world perished. However, one could argue that Noah is not motivated by love, but by fear—and for good reason.

8:20 וַיִּבֶן נֹחַ מִזְבֵּחַ - Then Noah built an altar — Without delay, Noah immediately builds an altar after reaching dry-land. The Torah did not disclose what may have been the motivation behind Noah’s sacrifice.

Noah does not offer a sin offering, nor does he sacrifice a thanksgiving offering as one might expect. At this point, let us ask a relevant question: What is the psychology that prompts the desire to offer a sacrifice? The giving of a gift, even between human beings, is not a purely external transaction; at the same time it establishes a personal relationship between giver and recipient. Giving a gift creates a bond of friendship, which on some psychological level bounds the person receiving the gift to the giver.

Gift giving may be based on a desire to “buy” the affection of another. Anthropology teaches that archaic man often offered sacrifices as a bribe to the gods for personal enrichment or to placate the gods so they would not harm the worshiper.

While Noah may have felt compelled to offer thanksgiving for his miraculous deliverance from danger, it is also possible that Noah chose to “bribe” God because of his anxiety. Would God someday unleash another disaster to destroy the world and his future descendants?

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Birth and Rebirth Through Genesis: A Timeless Theological Conversation — Vol. 2 Genesis 4-11.

The material of all my articles are copyrighted and send me an email if you wish to print any of the material.

The story of Noah disturbs me for many reasons . . .

For now, I will focus on the passage, “I will never again curse the ground for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth. . .” (Gen. 8:21).

Is evil something innate to the human condition? Theologians have been debating this for over 1700 years. After everything has been said and done, one may still wonder: Was Augustine’s cynical view of human nature accurate? Are the traits of ruthlessness, selfishness, and cruelty an inherited condition? The history of genocide in the 20^th century alone might give one pause to wonder whether Pelagius and Kant might have been overly optimistic about the human condition. The verse would seem to intimate, that to some degree, it is. Are we to assume that children are prenatally programmed with some of these less-than-desirable traits? What about God’s role in a world that suffers from evil? Is God also responsible to some degree?

As the biologist Lyall Watson strikes at the heart of our problem:

• I am conscious at this delicate point of circumventing all the long arguments of theodicy in a somewhat cavalier way. Saint Augustine, Irenaeus the Bishop of Lyons, and more recently the theologian John Hick, have all labored to produce a standard Christian answer to the existence of evil in a universe designed and presided over by a good God. Their musings, to my mind, have been superseded by events in Nazi Germany, Chile, Cambodia, Uganda, Vietnam, Serbia, and Rwanda, to mention but a few: which makes it clear that we, and we alone, bear the blame. History, even in this century, has confronted us squarely with our own demonic capacities. We have, like Faust finally coming face to face with Mephistopheles, been forced to concede that the mask he wears bears features very much like our own. He is us, and neither evil nor can we be redeemed. We just are; and we clearly are the products, for good and evil, of our biological evolution.[1][1]

While these ignoble traits are what our species began with, this does not necessarily mean that human beings cannot learn to transcend their natural tendencies for mere biological survival. The Torah itself will later attest to a profound theological and psychological truth that has withstood the test of time: “[O]ne does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deut. 8:3). If a man was nothing more than an animal, the product of blind and relentless evolutionary forces that are beyond his control, bread would satisfy his fundamental needs, but this is not the case.

For reasons we believe to be rooted in the divine ontology and mystery of our being, we hunger for something more fulfilling than bread alone can provide. Our individual and collective capacity for discovering spiritual meaning and purpose beckons us and allows us to re-design our moral nature anew. As Maslow has forcefully argued, human beings require certain “meta-needs” that enable the spirit to thrive and expand. When these spiritual impulses are frustrated, the deprivation of these spiritual needs leads us to developing unhealthy states such as alienation, anguish, apathy, and cynicism.[2]

The psychologist Victor Frankl arrives at the same conclusion based on his experiences in the concentration camps. He discovers that whenever a person fails to find meaning to one’s life, or the purpose to life, “a person will tend to drift aimlessly like a ship without a rudder.” Frankl believes that people need something to live for, something to look forward to, something that transcends themselves to which they can give themselves. Discovering meaning to life must be found in cultivating creative values (such as experiencing the achievement of a task that establishes a person in the world), experiential values (experienced through the appreciation of the good and beautiful in the world and in the loving of another person), and in attitudinal values (experienced through dealing with one’s suffering).

In biblical terms, nature does not have the final say; humankind can rise above its destructive impulses.

The presence of evil may be seen as a deficiency disease. When people fail to instill the values of compassion and respect for life, children can develop into monstrous adults. Thoughtfulness, consideration, empathy are some of the important values that enabled our prehistoric ancestors to survive as a species. Living with a reverence for life can enable people to rise above any situation. Religion can play an important role in the healing of the human spirit-provided people embrace and emulate a God that loves and respects life.

This may well be the most important message of the Flood story as well.