Even some translators of the text have problems with the fact that God appeared as a human being and lost the struggle to Jacob. Thus, some translations avoid making this point. Take for example the Douay-Rheims, which is a very literal translation of the Latin Vulgate.
via What Happens When God Loses? | Claude Mariottini – Professor of Old Testament.
Looks like it… good stuff… Oh the things we miss when we don’t know how to actually even read the Text….
Psst… Tony… I’m linking to you a lot that way you don’t have to an search through all my blog posts in order to take them out of context…
Joel L. Watts holds a Masters of Arts from United Theological Seminary with a focus in literary and rhetorical criticism of the New Testament. His interests include exploring the role of mimesis in human civilization, specifically in the study of religion and media, as well as science fiction and the way in which it has allowed mythology to be explored in light of scientific discoveries of the past century. He is the author of Mimetic Criticism of the Gospel of Mark: Introduction and Commentary (Wipf and Stock, 2013) and a co-editor and contributor to From Fear to Faith: Stories of Hitting Spiritual Walls (Energion, 2013).
Website: → Unsettled Christianity
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Isn’t the point of the story the appropriateness of Jacob losing through trickery because of his name and the fact that he was a tricky guy? It seems that Jacob almost besting God is a good element to the story simply for that fact. I suppose that part can be kept in tact replacing God with an angel, but not with changing it so that it doesn’t seem that Jacob had the upper hand.
Joe,
Thank you for the link. I have added your blog to my blogroll. I subscribe to your blog, but I never included your blog on my blogroll. I have corrected that today.
Claude Mariottini
Thank you, Dr. Mariottini! An honor indeed!