BIBLIOGRAFIA

Every Scriptural passage has a message and meaning (what it meant) to the original recipients and the significance (what it means) for future believers because it carries the inspirational signature of God who remains the same yesterday, today and forever. The challenge faced by preachers and religious leaders is how to appreciate the intended message of the text based on the location and period of authorship and as well make the moral lessons understandable and relevant to the modern believer; this is the work of historical criticism. It requires a lot of diligence and discipline to figure it out otherwise many interpreters often go the easy way of assigning anyhow meaning to texts.

Wuthwein (1979) said:

Certainly it is important to establish the time, place, events, persons, general milieu, and sources. All of this is necessary in order to help the reader understand the literary document. Sometimes historical reasoning has been used in a negative way to argue that humankind’s contemporary experience of reality should be the plumb line to establish the meaning and significance of ancient texts, even though these ancient texts

recognized a worldview different from that of the modern world. Clearly, this does not allow a manifold witness of the OT to challenge us seriously or speak to our contemporary worldviews (p.2).

In Genesis 32:1-2 Jacob remembers the similar encounter with divinity at Bethel and how God promised to bring him back to the land and how he also vowed to worship God and pay his tithe. It is remarkable that Jacob’s final statement at Bethel, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven” (Gen. 28:17) is replicated here in Mahanai’m thus, “This is God’s camp”. Jacob was already camped and that helped him to confirm that God’s presence was in that place. In the usual editorial manner, he named the former ‘Bethel and the latter ‘Mahanaim’ signifying aetiology to explain the monumental locations that serve as colouration to the entire Jacobean narrative. The names were assigned to suit the intention of the picture painted by the author and not just an example to be emulated at random.

Bethel as a place is significant for being the house of God where God would dwell by way of a location where the temple (the house of God) would be built as juxtaposed to Mahanai’m which is located outside the land of promise as a temporary camp. So that life outside the place of God is temporary and transient, it is only in Yahweh that man has a home which offers a permanent rest and peace.

Jacob therefore saw the place outside the Promised Land as a mere camp just as the tabernacle in the wilderness. God knows how to prepare a man to face his own fears as he camps with Christians in Abia state, in the present fearful and

horrific economic and political situation. Patience, unshakable faith and absolute trust in God is required, so that people do not end up in nets of religious peddlers or mediocre in form of preachers. Like Jacob God camps with the faithful and assures them protection against the fears emitted by the activities of militants, kidnappers, and terrorism by Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen. It is all temporary and a passing phase, all amount to a temporary camp. God offers us the chance as to Jacob to look up to him, not only to promise but to be faithful to him by being just in our attitude and to frankly seek to reconcile to each other through a resolve for sincere dialogue for a better and peaceful Nigerian society of Abia state extraction where we can only enjoy a permanent peace of our dream.

The story of Jacob cuts across the socio-political, religious and cultural life of the people of Abia state-Nigeria and the entire globe at large. Whatever you call your dog becomes the name is a common saying. The saying also has some limitations and variables when the behavioural attitude of the dog is placed on a prism of observation. Igbo people believe that “Ihe is n’aha eme” which means that ‘events are influenced by a name’. The religious preachers with particular reference to Abia state Christians couch on this ideology to interpret Jacob’s mysterious change of name in Genesis 32 as a yardstick to show that a name can change destiny and attract material prosperity. This could be true based on the platform of faith. If it is referred to as superstition it is not intended to be derogatory but as a facet of religious belief, or something that cannot be explained

by reason. The influence of name on events or destiny is not only relative but subjective. When it is placed under verification, the result is not obtainable in all cases. But based on common sense, mere answering or changing of name could guarantee fortune then hard work will be relegated to the background and wishes would have become horses.

4.4.2 Resolve for peaceful reconciliation in Jacobean narrative: a better