Monday, October 20, 2014

Battlestar Galactica Bible Study Week 2: "Kobol's Last Gleaming Part 1"



Season 1, Episode: “Kobol’s Last Gleaming Part 1”

Song of Songs 3:1-5
All night long on my bed
    I looked for the one my heart loves;
    I looked for him but did not find him.
I will get up now and go about the city,
    through its streets and squares;
I will search for the one my heart loves.
    So I looked for him but did not find him.
The watchmen found me
    as they made their rounds in the city.
    “Have you seen the one my heart loves?”
Scarcely had I passed them
    when I found the one my heart loves.
I held him and would not let him go
    till I had brought him to my mother’s house,
    to the room of the one who conceived me.
Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you
    by the gazelles and by the does of the field:
Do not arouse or awaken love
    until it so desires.

Reflect on the Bible passage in light of the episode.

What do all the opening scenes have in common?

What do you think of the way Cara deals with her pain?

What choice do both Sharon (Boomer) and Helo face?

What do you think it would be like to be Sharon (Boomer), knowing you are the enemy?

What do you think of Captain Adama’s advice to his son to ‘lose control’?

How has the ‘wife’ in Song of Songs been arrested by passion?

What is her response?

What is the danger in this kind of passion and where do we see that danger in the film?

Whose response to lost love do you find most constructive, in the episode?

Genesis 29:31-30:1
When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he enabled her to conceive, but Rachel remained childless. 32 Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, for she said, “It is because the Lord has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now.”
33 She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, “Because the Lord heard that I am not loved, he gave me this one too.” So she named him Simeon.
34 Again she conceived, and when she gave birth to a son she said, “Now at last my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.” So he was named Levi.
35 She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, “This time I will praise the Lord.” So she named him Judah. Then she stopped having children.
30 When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister. So she said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I’ll die!”

Reflect on the Bible passages in light of the episode.

Reflect on this quote: “You made a true believer out of me. I know you are the one to bring us to our salvation.’

What do you think of President Laura taking cammala for religious visions?

Why did Cara’s behavior in bed hurt Gaius so badly?

Do you think Gaius loves Cara? Why or why not?

Reflect on this quote: “I’m tired of being push and prodded around.”

What do you think of the way Gaius turns on Cylon “Six”?

Why is “Six” so hurt by Gaius’ actions?

Why, then does she help him, do you think?

What do you think of God’s reasons, in the context of scripture, for favoring Leah over Rachel?

How does this affect the family dynamic?

What do you think of Jacob’s response to all this?

How might Rachel’s situation parallel that of “Six” in the episode?

What do you think of God ‘prodding’ someone like this?

Jeremiah 2:1-4, 35b-37
The word of the Lord came to me: “Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem:
“This is what the Lord says:
“‘I remember the devotion of your youth,
    how as a bride you loved me
and followed me through the wilderness,
    through a land not sown.
Israel was holy to the Lord,
    the firstfruits of his harvest;
all who devoured her were held guilty,
    and disaster overtook them,’”
declares the Lord.
But I will pass judgment on you
    because you say, ‘I have not sinned.’
36 Why do you go about so much,
    changing your ways?
You will be disappointed by Egypt
    as you were by Assyria.
37 You will also leave that place
    with your hands on your head,
for the Lord has rejected those you trust;
    you will not be helped by them.

Reflect on the Bible passages in light of the episode.

What do you think of Lee’s response to Cara’s indiscretion with Gaius?

Does the physical altercation bother you? Why or why not?

What is the significance of the planet the humans have found?

What ‘vision’ did the president have concerning the planet?

What various Bible stories do we see paralleled in this episode?

How does the “exodus” from Kobol differ from the Biblical “exodus”?

What Biblical event does it more parallel?

How does God describe His relationship with Israel before the Exile?

What is it that causes the Exile?

Reflect on this quote: “It’s all real…the scriptures, the myths, the prophecies…they’re all real.”

What do you think it would’ve been like for those who heard or read Jeremiah’s warnings about the coming exile be like after the exile actually happened?

What does Sharon “Boomer” say about her predicament to Gaius?

What does “Six” say about it?

What do you think of Gaius’ advice to Boomer?

Reflect on this quote: “What I say is meaningless…listen to your heart, and what you know to be the right decision.”

Ecclesiastes 1:3-11
What do people gain from all their labors
    at which they toil under the sun?
Generations come and generations go,
    but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises and the sun sets,
    and hurries back to where it rises.
The wind blows to the south
    and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
    ever returning on its course.
All streams flow into the sea,
    yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
    there they return again.
All things are wearisome,
    more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
    nor the ear its fill of hearing.
What has been will be again,
    what has been done will be done again;
    there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
    “Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
    it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
    and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
    by those who follow them.

Isaiah 11:1-9
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
    from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
    the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
    the Spirit of counsel and of might,
    the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord
and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
    or decide by what he hears with his ears;
but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
    with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
    with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
Righteousness will be his belt
    and faithfulness the sash around his waist.
The wolf will live with the lamb,
    the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
    and a little child will lead them.
The cow will feed with the bear,
    their young will lie down together,
    and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
The infant will play near the cobra’s den,
    and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.
They will neither harm nor destroy
    on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord
    as the waters cover the sea.

Reflect on the Bible passages in light of the episode?

What reason does Sharon give to the Chief for her suicide attempt?

What do we learn about Laura and Captain Adama when they have the discussion about Kobol and the arrow?

What kind of conversations do the people start to have over all of this?

What do you think of the President’s choice to follow the visions of herself and the various people and Cylons they have been encountering?

Do you agree with her decision to go to Cara with her plan and the truth about Adama?

What is the cosmological picture that the President says underlies the humans’ polytheistic religion?

What do you think of this?

Why do you think Ecclesiastes puts forth the same picture?

How does this picture contrast with the rest of scripture?

How does Isaiah 11 put forth this contrasting picture?

Why did Cara make the decisions she did?

Why does Laura believe in the scriptures now, and why does she think she is the one to lead the people to Earth?

What aspects of scripture do you think led Jesus to believe He was the Messiah?

What role do Messianic prophecies play in your own Christian life?

Do you think they are important? Do they matter? Why or why not?

How does the very existence or concept of Messiah problematize the belief in a cyclical nature of the universe?

Given this, how do we fit Ecclesiastes in the larger context of a progressive movement of history, which predominates in scripture especially for Christians?

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