It seems to me that almost every story in the Bible is incomplete (except, possibly, the crazy quilt that is Job) in many and various ways, some which you described here. Maybe we need to "fill in the blanks" ourselves to help us more fully understand.
Even if we interrogate economic injustice (and gender injustice, here), we still are confronted with the injustice of Nature: one child lives, another dies. A flood washes away one town, spares another. One sex is given the risks and vulnerabilities of childbearing; the other isn’t. We can’t get away from confronting the cruelty to the point of malice (from our human POV) in the very design. We can ameliorate it with laws, science, kindness. But isn’t that a human face of the heresy that the Son comes to save us from the Father? (Not that we should *stop* our efforts!) I have zero answers. Good homily!
It seems to me that almost every story in the Bible is incomplete (except, possibly, the crazy quilt that is Job) in many and various ways, some which you described here. Maybe we need to "fill in the blanks" ourselves to help us more fully understand.
Even if we interrogate economic injustice (and gender injustice, here), we still are confronted with the injustice of Nature: one child lives, another dies. A flood washes away one town, spares another. One sex is given the risks and vulnerabilities of childbearing; the other isn’t. We can’t get away from confronting the cruelty to the point of malice (from our human POV) in the very design. We can ameliorate it with laws, science, kindness. But isn’t that a human face of the heresy that the Son comes to save us from the Father? (Not that we should *stop* our efforts!) I have zero answers. Good homily!