Oh+My+God!

=Oh My God! =

media type="file" key="OH MY GOD.mp3" width="240" height="20" Audio Version of Dialogue

By L. Lantry
In so many cultures, a woman is married off to a man that she has never met. Why do the women put up with that? What motivates them to leave their own families and travel distances to live with their new husband? Possibly wealth or a hope to a better life. In Rebekah's case, from the Bible, we are not quite sure why she left, but the theory is that she went to Isaac's house for fame. This dialogue, although it s not written in the Bible, describes Rebekah's motivation to leave the world she knows. In the invented story, God goes to Rebekah and asks her personally to become Isaac's bride so he can gain worshipers, but her stubborn and pompous attitude, because of her need for control, almost spoils any hope for God's plans.

In order to make this unique dialogue, Lantry had to extract specific quotes from the Bible to discover traits, as well as analyze famous paintings for more depth into Rebekah and God's character. Lantry discovers personalities and motivations about Rebekah and God, and creates a riveting dialogue to explain the peculiar decision that Rebekah makes, Rebekah leaves her family to marry a man she has never met before.

= Dialogue =

 God: Rebekah! (pause) Rebekah! (longer pause) Rebekah! Come out now!

Rebekah: Oops sorry. I was just giving another man water out of my jar. They keep asking me if I want to get to know them. I already know them! Didn't I meet them just five seconds ago? (sigh) I wish people wouldn't walk through our town. Then I wouldn't have to take care of other people's camels!

God: Don't worry Rebekah. Your time will come to have other people feeding //your camels and people not wanting to know you. (short pause) Rebekah, listen to me. You have to go with the servant of Abraham, otherwise the followers I want will not exist because of // //your selfishness. I need worshipers Rebekah. In return I will bless you and your many descendents. //  Rebekah: So you, Lord God, are telling me to leave my beloveds behind, run off with this Isaac man who I have never met nor known before, and bless him and his offspring with my good fortune, talent, and beauty? Do you honestly think anyone is worth that? God: Rebekah. You will do as I ask. Rebekah: No, I will not! You can't make me do anything! I have the final say in my life!

God: Am I not the omnipotent God you pray to? Am I not the God //you want to have control of the world? //  Rebekah: Oh my God! I never asked for you to control me! I have control over the men in my life, and I will certainly not follow the future you want me to pursue. God: What if I told you that you will be able to create more deceit in your household than //Eve ? How would you like to disgrace not only men, but the //eldest son for the rest of eternity? You could humiliate (drag out humiliate) all the eldest sons that I have created, including your brother, by doing this. Think about all the torturous times your brother has put you through.  Rebekah: (Short Pause) I don't know. I'm just not sure if all the fame is worth it.

God: You will do as I say. Rebekah: (Annoyed now) That all knowing, controlling, all powerful thing may work on Noah, but it sure as //heck won't work on me. // God: I need you to! (Have urgency in voice) Go to him, earn his trust, and then break it. Do it stealthily or obviously, it’s your choice. I just need //you to help me, once. In return you can have more. By sacrificing yourself and leaving your family I will give you a husband who rules under you. Who needs your opinion before he makes any decision! He will do as you say forever! Then you can have Isaac's wealth aswell! Otherwise you will be a maiden for the rest of your life! //  Rebekah: (Pause)

God: Rebekah! Answer me!

Rebekah: For the rest of my life? (Pause) So. (Pause) He will listen to me? And care about what I have to say?

God: Of course. Its not such a bad deal. He's wealthy too. So on top of you controlling him, you can control the money as well. (Say last part of the sentence fast) Although, your eldest will be a failure.

Rebekah: (Confused) Wait what? (short silence) (Sigh) Oh whatever, deal. I'll run off with this Isaac man not because //you wish me to, but because the combination of my beauty, power, wealth will be more powerful than any woman could //ever imagine.

Dialogue Analysis
Lantry develops Rebekah's character throughout this imaginary dialogue through her complaining attitude, her want for more things including control and her conceited attitude. When God first tells Rebekah to leave her home, she responds with a self-obsessed attitude making it seem that she is everything a man could want. She does not want to "bless him and his offspring with [her] good fortune, talent, and beauty" because she does not want to leave her family behind. Her imperious and vain attitude advance the development of her character. Rebekah does not realize that Isaac's offspring would be her own offspring as well, so she should feel inclined to bless them with as much of her genes as possible, but she was so focused on the present and the fact that it would be tough for her to move when she began to argue.

At this point she does not realize the positive outcome of being well protected, wealthy, and the joy of having children. Rebekah's pompous attitude is not the only thing that she thinks men want, she believes her controlling disposition is extremely appealing as well. After stating quite clearly that God, who is omnipotent, can not make her do anything, she continues acting childishly and she "will certainly not follow the future [God] want[s] [her] to pursue" even if it is the best decision. Lantry makes it clear that Rebekah is a stubborn women, because God obviously is trying to give Rebekah the best life she could get, while satisfying his obsession with having a lot of people worshiping him.

Rebekah would rather make her own decisions than follow God's wishes, although God's future for her will make her combination of beauty, power, wealth and fame come true. Rebekah finally listens to reason and follows God's wishes to become Isaac's bride, but she does this for her own wishes, not because she wants to follow the future God has set up for her, but because she believes that she is strong and an independent woman compared to the rest of her culture.

= Webspiration Chart = <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">

**<span style="background-color: #80f9b7; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 17px; text-align: center;">Character Analysis **
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> Through God’s imperious attitude towards humans he hides his fearfulness well. In the picture, “God the Father,” Leon Frederic paints God as an omnipotent leader holding the moon while looking forward into the future. While <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">the smaller figures at his massive feet are reaching out to him, he gives them no attention. The way God is painted looking forward with a strict determination suggests he believes himself to be greater than his creations because his perseverance for what he wants is far more important than the needs of his worshipers. The imperious attitude that God has towards humans develops throughout Genesis, and this attitude increases with Noah.

When God decided to flood the Earth, he showed his pomposity towards humans by destroying most of them because of their mistakes, although he should have realized he had created them, making it more his mistake than theirs. Because of God’s pompous attitude towards humans, most people would not expect him to fear them as well. Although, after Adam has eaten of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, God fears that Adam “might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life,” (Gen. 3.22) so God made Adam leave the Garden of Eden, therefore Adam can not eat and live forever.

When God says the word “might” he is using a modal-auxiliary, implying his fearful mood about Adam eating and living forever through a specific type of verb that expresses mood. God is intimidated about even the possibility of Adam being equal to God because if both can live forever with the same knowledge of good and evil, who will rule over the other? God realizes this and quickly throws Adam out of the garden so there is no possibility of being evenly matched.

This verb suggests God’s fearful attitude towards humans, and in later stories in Genesis, such as the story of Babel, the redactors include his terrified stand point against humans. In the story of Babel, humans build a tower to try to reach the heavens, and God gets scared because he believes his creations are capable of such a task. The redactors use his reoccurring fear to develop the withering relationships he has with humans because he makes drastic decisions against them, causing fear and distrust to build up on both sides of the relationship. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">

Much like God, Rebekah has problems with realizing her role in the world. Rebekah’s pompous attitude makes her feel that she should control others. In this image, “Rebekah at the Well,” Michael Deas shows Rebekah poring water for Abraham’s servant by the well in Paddam-Aram. Rebekah shows no emotion while interacting with this servant; she looks aloofly down upon a man who is suffering from thirst, and she shows no remorse for his pain.

Deas shows her pompous attitude towards the servant by her<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> passionless face, looking more despondent than pleased that she is helping the servant, who looks up at her gratefully. Her pompous attitude appears again when Esau is supposed to receive his blessing. She deceives her husband, who is more powerful than her by their societies ranking, and gives her favorite son, Jacob, to her husband to take the blessing. This act of deception suggests she believes that she is entitled to equal power compared to men, which is unrealistic given the gender structure in Genesis. Rebekah’s arrogant attitude lets her believe she has the right to control her household, therefore control which son gets the blessing from Isaac.

Right before Jacob steals Esau’s blessing, Rebekah tells her son to “only obey my word, and go, get them [Isaac’s favorite food] for me” (Gen. 27.13.). The redactors use the word “only” implying that Jacob should not obey Isaac, who reigned over Rebekah, but obey Rebekah. The adverb “only” makes Jacob's decision for choosing one of his parents side non-existent because he has to exclusively obey his mother. This not only gives the impression of deceit that occurred in this household, but it gives the impression that Rebekah has control over Isaac, which she does not because of the social structure in their society.

The sense of control that Rebekah feels passes on through many generations of women. For instance, Rachel feels the same sense of power, like she can manipulate the situation of her stealing the household gods, but she used her womanly assets to sway the feelings he had about the stolen figurines. This power that women often have over men helps develop the theme of women using deceit and men always falling for their trickery.

<span style="background-color: #1fdde0; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: center;">About the Artists <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Leon Frederic : a site that explains Frederic's life story, and describes more of his art work. Frederic paints supra-realism and tries to tie in his spiritual views of life and nature to evolve his paintings. He painted during the Impressionistic Period and Post-Impressionistic period, causing his painting style to become unique. Frederic paints God as an all-powerful being, who acts as the sky, holding up the moon, and his hair turning into the clouds and wisps of the wind.

Michael Deas : a site that describes more of Michael's paintings. Deas shows Rebekah as a strong woman who unwillingly pours water for a traveling man. Deas, a well-known artist, paints versatile subjects, roaming from Benjamin Franklin to a painting of Marilyn Monroe. Deas has made logos for U.S. Postage and has painted for //Time Magazine// with his beautiful oils.

<span style="background-color: #55f65f; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: center;">Reflection <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">This assignment, making dialogue to tell a story that was never told in the Bible, has been exciting but strenuous to do. The end of the year always brings the most amount of stress for me because all of my classes are assigning projects and we have to take multiple tests, not to mention summer sports have started. This year I have finally been using the weekends to my advantage. For example, this past weekend I worked on this project non-stop, as well as completing other assignments for other classes as well.

Part of this assignment I completed with ease, partly because it was assigned a long time ago and we had months to revise and correct it, and partly because I enjoyed working on it, such as the dialogue, which I enjoyed writing very much. Writing dialogue is not my forte, but I think I completed it with creativity and enjoyment, which shows in the writing. Recording the dialogue was challenging, because everything had to be perfect. Even though it was difficult to record, recording and editing the dialogue was my favorite part of the assignment by far because switching the tones of my voice and adding back ground music made the project bearable. Editing my voice taught me new skills that do not have to do with grammar or writing analytical essays, which made the project have an interesting new twist. Recording the dialogue with my friend, who is the voice of God, was extremely fun because we laughed so much listening to ourselves. I also recorded the dialogue weeks before it was due, so the pressure of completing it was non-existent.

The hardest part of this project was finding time to complete the little details and writing the analysis and reflections that were part of the assignment. Even though they each take about half an hour to complete, editing and making them aesthetically pleasing took much longer than I had planned.

The most frustrating part of this project was uploading the dialogue and putting up the citations. My computer never cooperates with me to upload the audio, and it took way longer than I had planned. As for the citations, it was easy to complete, just extremely tedious.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Unlike most of my other projects, I have rather fond feelings towards "Oh My God!" It was spread out over a period of time, so I could plan out when I wanted to complete it, compared to other projects where I had to finish it in a matter of days. And even though it was an end of the year project, it had the aspect of adding voices and pictures to our analytical writing, making it far more amusing.

<span style="background-color: #000000; color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: center;">Citations
<span style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 11px; line-height: 18px; white-space: nowrap;"> The Bible <span style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 11px; line-height: 18px; white-space: nowrap;">. 1989. Ed. Michael D. Coogan, et al. Third Edition ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Print. The New Oxford Annotated Bible. New Revised Standard Version. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; white-space: nowrap;">

"The Bible Rewrite Project." Cartoon. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Manhattanite <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; white-space: nowrap;">. N.p., 31 July 2007. Web. 16 May 2010. <http://www.google.com/ imgres?imgurl=http://youngmanhattanite.com/uploaded_images/ rebekah-779972.jpg&imgrefurl=http://youngmanhattanite.com/2007/07/ bible-rewrite-project_31.html&usg=BJzfadWXkM3eHh39XH7tbN_VrjM=&h=357&w=274&sz=1 5&hl=en&start=3&sig2=vaDaFiDWlFskK14v40vxsg&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=RtPZM0NWV3SKwM:&tbn h=121&tbnw=93&prev=/ images%3Fq%3Drebekah%2Bbible%2Bcartoon%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls %3Den%26prmdo%3D1%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=0ZPwS_alNYfmtgPdw4DADw>.

Deas, Michael. Rebekah at the Well. 1999. Women in the Bible. Web. 16 May 2010. <http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">www.womeninthebible.net/images/ 1.9A-6_REBEKAH_Rebekah_at_the_well.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.womeninthebible.net/ 1.3.Rebecca.htm&usg= ////<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">0L4PxHw9oMCRIR_tqG075hy_tsg=&h=800&w=600&sz=39&hl=en&start= 1&sig2=EwfzCHGxo6YZ9ZS8V2NfTg&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=GZZpxkuQPC4G7M:&tbnh=143&tbnw=107 &prev=/ images%3Fq%3Drebekah%2Bbible%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DX%26rls% 3Den%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=1pDwS_urDZ_stQPg3KnFDw>.

Frederic, Leon. // //<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">God the Father ////<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">. N.d. ////<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">LilyBase ////<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">. Web. 16 May 2010. <http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http: //<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">www.artinthepicture.com/artists/ Leon_Frederic/god.jpeg&imgrefurl=http://liliblue.eklablog.com/ &usg=V0YeqPvvZLsOlNKXvoJ3MRJMUQU=&h=500&w=378&sz=39&hl=en&start=28&sig2=am01j1c ATQlrbDXQZLWkQg&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=zPCWCNgyNvW1PM:&tbnh=130&tbnw=98&prev=/ images%3Fq%3D%25E2%2580%259CGod%2Bthe%2BFather,%25E2%2580%259D%2BLeon%2BFrederic% 26start%3D20%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Den%26ndsp%3D20 %26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=9pXwS6bVMZH4sgPLqOmuDw>.

"Frustration Ahead." Cartoon. KMG Blog <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; white-space: nowrap;">. N.p., 27 Feb. 2010. Web. 16 May 2010. <http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">activerain.com/image_store/ uploads/4/0/4/9/4/ar12337040149404.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.kmgmortgagegroup.com/ Keep%2BYour%2BGoals%2Bin%2BMind%2BWhen%2BRefinancing!&usg= // //<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">k-8rdpjR5IlQ6ucroVBQ0 pT4ox0=&h=336&w=337&sz=17&hl=en&start=2&sig2=NXlIA1ASahQL4JZghPC4gQ&itbs=1&tbnid= z04TXKuKvC3KtM:&tbnh=119&tbnw=119&prev=/ images%3Fq%3Dfrustration%2Bahead%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26tbs%3Di sch:1&ei=WZLwS-rKEITUsAOm-_DIDw>.

"God." Cartoon. // //<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">BBC ////<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">. N.p., 5 May 2010. Web. 16 May 2010. <http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http: //<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/ God.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/2009/02/ does_god_exist_1.html&usg=Jau7Bsp-HS6a340VsgXUpXjzWRw=&h=421&w=300&sz=22&hl=en& start=9&sig2=5ZDEYBaKzWbc3nLlyouKRA&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=TNjxyuPFUXcOoM:&tbnh=125&tb nw=89&prev=/ images%3Fq%3Dgod%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26tbs%3Disch:1&e i=FZPwS-KSHYeMswO94_jCDw>.

"Rebekah." Cartoon. A Pictorial Bible Commentary. N.p., 1 Jan. 2001. Web. 16 May 2010. <http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.bibleview.org/ en/Bible/Genesis/Rebekah/normal.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.bibleview.org/en/Bible/ Genesis/Rebekah/ &usg=u-RThUEsEilCJA4N-Fj79F6iEPo=&h=390&w=210&sz=15&hl=en&start=5&sig2=4gV7SZa4 ZAknWh3Z1hCuoQ&itbs=1&tbnid=uMmRRnds92WohM:&tbnh=123&tbnw=66&prev=/ images%3Fq%3Drebekah%2Bbible%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DX%26rls%3Den%26nd sp%3D20%26tbs%3Disch:1,itp:clipart&ei=4Y_wS8P5NZLcsgPdwZzIDw>.