The First Post

It seems as more blogs are added to the fold on a daily basis there has to be some sort of explanation in justifying yet another. I suppose that I look at this more as a tool for myself to aid in a running timeline of my theological understandings as well as having a place with my thoughts that I can use a search engine on as opposed to spending large amounts of time looking for it through a journal or other similar tool.

The title of my blog comes out of all the new findings lately that have stemmed from me understanding that if I am truly going to begin to learn anything then I must be willing to unlearn first to allow for a fresh understanding. This means that I need to unlearn both what I learned from growing up on the more conservative side and also more recently from the side that is more liberal. A true clean slate. In doing this I need to eliminate any presuppositions I have and allow those who have spent their entire lives studying these topics speak to me of the Scriptures.

Because of the context in which the scriptures were written I am unable to take them at face value because I can only do so within the framework of an American white 25 year old male. I must not make simple presuppositions of what something truly means unless I am willing to understand the culture in which I am reading about. I don't want to assume Jesus was simply concerned only with getting us into heaven or about social justice, lest I do to this central figure what our nation has done in attempting to spread democracy to places that want nothing to do with it. God deserves better than that and I truly believe this is the beginning of a new quest of which I am very excited and intimidated by it all.

This was first initiated by reading works by N.T. Wright and through his rabbit trail that are his bibliographies I have encountered a new world that is so vast and endless. While Wright and other's that he may mention are mostly New Testament scholars, they know that they are unable to fairly approach the New Testament by means of understanding and gleaning from the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible.

And this is where I find myself at this point. I learned that Fuller Theological Seminary had a few classes online and that two were on the Old Testament taught by a guy named John Goldingay. While I didn't know the name initially, I came to find out that he is going to be taking on the For Everyone popular commentary series for the OT that Wright has done for the NT. This was all I needed to hear and from there I decided I would get the books(for Christmas!) so that I could follow along like I am auditing the class. It has already been enlightening and I will actually do another post now to highlight what I have learned so far(to avoid this post stretching on into two browser windows!)

Here goes nothing!