messing up the story.

I took an Old Testament class a couple of years ago to fulfill my humanities requirement. I don't get to take a lot of humanities, on account of the fact that only four are required for my major and I'd like to graduate within a reasonable amount of time. And I love humanities, so I am not free and easy with the classes I take. I pick things I really want to take.

My idea was that this Old Testament class was going to be in-depth and very scholarly. We'd go through some books verse by verse almost, talking about what each part means, the historical significance, the present significance. And that is exactly what I had, on the one day another professor substituted for my regular professor. The rest of the class was a wash.

My professor took a different approach. Rather than cover less material more thoroughly, we covered a whole lot of material by just glancing over it. And I suppose that's a valid way of doing it, but it wasn't what I wanted.

My professor was a former prison chaplain named Mr. Herbert Hash. His middle initial might have been 'H' as well. He made a lot of bad jokes about his last name, including burnt hash, canned hash, and hash pipe. He made a lot of bad jokes in general. He was a part time professor, which is why he wasn't Dr. Hash.

Though the class was a disappointment to the Sandra that actually likes to learn, the lazy Sandra was quite satisfied in that the course was tremendously easy. And it wasn't too awfully boring, what with the bad jokes thrown in. However, Mr. Hash's annoying habit of stopping and looking around for a reaction after every bad joke bothered me. I prefer the more dry form of bad humor, like you didn't even notice you said something that is kinda funny but not really.

But the thing that bothered me the most about Mr. Hash was the way he treated the Bible. The Bible is a book of faith, and in believing some or all of it, one must take some leaps of faith. Fine. The Bible is something that has been translated and distorted over thousands of years and probably isn't as accurate as it used to be, say when it was written. Again, fine. I have no problem with either of those things. I have a problem with the way Mr. Hash handled them.

Whenever someone asked a question that sort of challenged something within the Old Testament, be it a method of God's or perhaps what seemed like an inconsistency of a story, the only think Mr. Hash would say was, "You're messing up the story." It was sort of a joke, but it was the only explanation he ever really gave for any question we asked. And it bugged me. That's the answer you give to a little kid who has figured out that Little Red Riding Hood probably would've caught on to that whole wolf in drag thing. The Bible is not some silly little book.

You know, I would have been fine if he had just said he didn't know. Or if he said he would do a little research on it and came back the next time with some theories he found. Or if maybe he had actually given the reading more thought than just figuring out his lesson plan and told us what occurred to him as the question was asked. Anything but this.

I guess I realize now that Mr. Hash was just a man of faith, but not necessarily a scholar. He definitely wasn't a bad guy, just not what I wanted in an Old Testament professor. I have to kind of wonder what kind of chaplain he was, particularly if he always treated the Bible like it was a children's story. I guess inmates don't ask challenging questions.

I even seriously considered taking the New Testament class and specifically getting the professor that substituted for Mr. Hash that one glorious day of learning about twenty verses in Genesis. But I didn't remember his name, and was afraid of having another bad experience. Besides, I didn't want to waste my humanities.