peter wrote: In case my progress should sound spectacularly good I must also emphasize that the text is abridged to remove much of what the editor [Ernest Sutherland Bates] saw as repetition that detracted from the flow of the narrative thus making it very difficult to read.
At the risk of being offensive, I will (with implied hyperbole) say: Burn that garbage!
It's a pet peeve of mine (that I shall go into in the appropriate thread) when editors decide to abridge works to make them "easier" and more "palatable" to the "masses". You always lose something: ALWAYS! Particularly in the Bible, where repetitions of various laws show a dynamic culture that actually changes over time. (Last part of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy)... and that's all lost because some pretentious scholar thinks some house wife can't be bothered?
But I best get off my soap box before I completely hijack this thread.
I hasten to add, he was at pains to say in his introduction that this 'abridgement' did not go so far as to remove the repetition and restatement that does so much to give Hebrew Poetry it's very distinctive and powerfull charachter,
I find that when reading the Prophets or psalms or what not, this characteristic is extremely useful in understanding what's being said. If a line is confusing, it's great the same idea/concept is repeated in a different way before or after it. Along with some historic commentary, this makes what could be a dense work incredibly understandable.
In respect of my thoughts as I read on [albeit in an intermitent way], I was rather saddened by the 'prohibition on mixed marriages' of The Book of Nehemiah, and again somewhat dispirited that we had gotten back into the 'fire and brimstone' mode in some of the Prophetical works
You've probably heard the term: product of its time. Most of the Prophets were written during violent war periods, usually during conflict with Assyria (Hosea and something like the first fifteen chapters of Isaiah), Babylon (Jeremiah, Ezekial, another portion of Isaiah, Habbukuk), and Persian occupation (Daniel, Ezra, Esther, Nehemiah, still another portion of Isaiah)... in other words, they write about fire and brimstone because
they are living in fire and brimstone. These writings reflect these conflicts, instructions to preserve their cultural heritage, and hope that their nation will rise again from their fallen condition.