A Bibliodrama approach to understanding the Bible
In Bibliodrama, you take a text such as Acts chapter 1 verses 1 to 10 (see link below) and ask questions of the characters. Normally this is done as a group with the hope that you bring out a fusion of ideas I have asked myself the questions as a backup in the event that it doesn't work in the group. Remember you use your imagination so the answers come from there. If you really want the facts you can research after.
To the writer — who are you?
I knew some of this guy’s students. I had heard of the guy himself his name was Jesus. I was interested in what I heard, he performed miracles and his teaching was inspiring. When I met some of his students they would tell stories of what happened with him. I felt that there needed to be a record of this for other people to benefit from, it was so powerful what he did and what he said.
What motivates you to write?
As I say I didn't want this to be lost it was too good so I felt I should write it down.
To Theophilus — who are you?
I am a friend of the writer. He shared with me what he knew about this guy called Jesus and I was hungry for more. I knew my religion and tried to honour the divine according to it but there was something about what I was hearing about this Jesus that was exciting me that I could know God as personally as I knew my father. There was something else he seemed to favour mercy over justice. He understood that religion could overburden and cause a competition for who was best he stripped it and left ‘a teaching’ largely in a form of stories based on the relationship you wouldn’t do something because it was neither good for you, God or another.
To the writer — why did you write the first book?
I wrote the first book for the same reason I wrote this one because it couldn't be lost. I mean some people may have wanted the story to be lost as if he never existed but through writing, it may be preserved. I am sure others had the same idea hoping that somehow one of our accounts would survive.
Who is Jesus?
Jesus is his name in English. In Aramaic it is Eashoa. He is the one that I am writing about. He was a teacher who emerged in Nazareth. It was the miracles that he performed that got him noticed. He was healing people of deafness, blindness, lameness. But it was also his teachings in the form of stories. There was as Theophilus was saying this relationship aspect to everything that he said and did. If you were to follow him you would be led by your heart more than your head.
The sort of man he was, was when they went to arrest him one of his students resisted and cut the ear of one of the attendants. What does he do he rebukes the student and heals the attendant. He says while healing him, “He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.”
What did he do?
I think we have already answered this but if you want more buy my first book it tells you everything.
What did he teach?
Again buy the book.
What is the Holy Spirit?
The Holy Spirit was a kind of unbottling of him. You know that saying, “If you could bottle it you would be rich” when he bottled the Holy Spirit and when he left he unbottled it which meant for as many who received it they became like him. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of God. Do you get that God through the Holy Spirit somehow, don’t ask me how can live in us just as it did in him? Not usurping us but more us aligning ourselves with the Holy Spirit.
Tell me an example of him appearing?
The story that comes to mind is when two of his students were walking to Emmaus after his death when this stranger started to walk with them. It was only as they were to go there separate ways that they recognised him.
He died?
Yes, he was put was to death. He became too much for the religious world. He was seen as a threat making it possible for the individual to have a personal relationship with God.
Who is the father?
The father is Jesus’s father what most people call God but there you go a Jesus thing he takes what could be an impersonal God and makes him personal.
The Kingdom of God?
It is the idea that the father (God) has an ideal about how life should be and that is his kingdom. Where that ideal exists or at least attempted his Kingdom comes.
Israel?
It was the name given to Jacob who had 12 sons who became the tribes that made up Israel, a people, a nation. Before you ask me who Jacob is we don't have time so it will have to wait for another time.
Two men in robes?
Well, use your imagination that’s what we do when we are not given a whole lot of details. They could be two men who knew more than the students often given the title Angels. Angels belong to God and while looking human aren’t.
Jerusalem , Judea, Samaria ?
Jerusalem the third oldest city in the world I believe which was the capital of the tribe of Judah.
Judea was this a title given by the Romans?
Samaria is the land of the Samaritans who represent 10 of 12 tribes of Israel.
End
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