Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Washing Feet on Craigslist

First a little background: Rahab is a biblical prostitute mentioned in Joshua 2 and James 2:25, and biblical authors at times used the word "foot" as a euphemism for a penis (e.g. Isa 6:2; 7:20), and certain passages use the expression "Wash your feet" to describe sexual intercourse. Such appears to be the case in 2 Samuel 11, where David tells Uriah to go to Miss Bun in the Oven Bathsheba and "wash your feet" so he'll believe the ensuing pregnancy was caused by said "foot washing" and the real father David will be off the hook.

Fast forward 3000 years and we're in class today talking about the Letter of James chapter 3 which translates: "Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly." Some students took this further explaining that an education brings with it greater responsibility. I said "Yeah, like the media is having a field day with the fact that the Craigslist Killer suspect is supposed to be med student." Well one student didn't know what Craigslist was, amazingly, and so we talked about that, and even a little bit about the erotic section of Craigslist through which the killer found his female victims. Students explained that prostitutes couldn't advertise prostitution, instead they advertised legal things like massages. Then one of my best students said it was as if Rahab would advertise "foot washing."

I was so proud.

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