Year 7 RE homework

[mrsglowglow]

I'm trying to help my yr 7 child who is quickly turning off RE and says he Hates it and the teacher. Part of his h/w is This question - Is Gods full nature revealed in the Bible or is only part of God shown? Give biblical examples to support your points. He's expected to spend an hour doing this! Is it me or is this expecting too much of an 11 year old who in primary would have been given more structure to start from? I asked him if they had been discussing the question in lesson and he says no (possible he was away with the fairies at the time). Any ideas gratefully received.

[TwatteryFlowers]

I will preface this by saying that I haven't read the Bible from cover to cover and don't know much about it. I think though that in the old testament He was an angry and a vengeful God (the ark story for instance where He sent a massive Flood to destroy everyone who'd been bad) and in the new testament He was a forgiving and kind God (though I can't think of any examples). That shows two opposite sides to His personality.

[TwatteryFlowers]

When someone more knowledgeable comes along I'm happy to be corrected

[ReallyExhaustedLlama]

Are they looking for something about the holy trinity - God the father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit? Off the top of my head. Depends what they mean by God's full nature.

I agree that sounds very tricky for Y7.

[TansyVioletta]

Does googling the question come up with anything?

[TheNext]

I'm sitting here with a Y7 doing RS prep. We are looking at Genesis. Although I am browsing mumsnet, I'm occasionally offering helpful feminist critique of the story. Not sure how ds's teacher will react, but it's probably asking a lot to ask 11yos to create a Bible commentary.

[mrsglowglow]

He did come up with something along those lines Twattery and also that he sacrificed his own Son to save others sins.

Google search gives either quotes in the bible about nature or rather deep theological questions.

Seems more of a GCSE/a level question. Poor kids!!!

Thank you all.

[mrsglowglow]

Thenext

[semideponent]

I think the answer would be no. As pp said, there is nothing explicit about the trinitarian nature of God. Everything that is revealed about God's nature in the Bible still needs to be interpreted correctly in order to be truly revelatory. There is still disagreement between Christian churches about how to interpret Scripture.

Some aspects of God's nature were only established through the early Church councils in reaction to heresies such as Arianism, Nestorianism and Patripassianism. Nicaea was particularly important as it defined Jesus Christ as one divine Person with two natures, divine and human.

A schism between Eastern and Western churches happened in 1054 over the question of whether the Holy Spirit proceeded only from the Father or from the Father and Son.

Some of that might help or at least ring a bell if he was away with the fairies during the lesson.

[steppemum]

some thought he might like to use:

1. If God is all seeing, all powerful etc then his full nature can never be revealed to humans, let alone in a book, as we are finite and limited by our senses, and by time.
   
2. But God wants to communicate to humans so he reveals himself in ways that we will understand. In other words he gives us glimpses of who his is.
   

examples:
father son and holy spirit are the obvious ones, Genesis 1 shows Spirit hovering over waters, in old testament Spirit comes on people and they prophecy and then in book of Acts Spirit it given to people so spirit has always been around, but more and more of him shown.

Different aspects of God are shown in different ways at different times - God destroys nations, God speaks in still small voice to Elijah, God protects us like a mother hen protecting chicks under her wings (psalms) Gods wonder passes in front of Moses and Moses glows, God does miracles scary and healing (walls of jericho, then healing of blind man for example) God sacrifices his son for us.
So all through the Bible differetn aspects of God are being revealed so that overall we should have a fuller picture.

[mrsglowglow]

Thank you all. Much appreciated. I have a feeling this subject will be an ongoing challenge 🤔😁

[Yellowheart]

I'm head of RS

i wouldn't set that for my year 11s without guidance.

[ClashCityRocker]

That does sound a very erm, involved question for an eleven/twelve year old.

And a big expectation that they will be fairly familiar with the Bible...

There's that seeing-through-the-mirror-darkly quote which basically says that we'll understand after we die and join God (I think - no bible scholar!) which could be used to argue that we are not supposed to know the nature of God from the Bible, but to have faith in the nature of God...but I may be barking up the wrong tree completely.

[steppemum]

I'm glad you said that yellowheart, because I have a theology degree, and I would have to really sit and think about it.

It sounds like one of those wher ehe had a striaghtforward idea in mind for them to explain, but the question doesn't show that at all.

[Fffion]

Christianity is a revealed faith - revealed in the Bible (obviously) and also revealed in Creation.

[Perfectly1mperfect]

That's a huge question for anyone let alone a year 7 child. I bet most kids won't have a clue where to even begin so I wouldn't worry too much. Give him a few pointers but I think the teacher will just want to see what sorts of things the kids write and it was probably set just to get them thinking. They will probably talk more about it in the next few lessons.

[Yellowheart]

Do you think he copied the right homework down?? Sometimes my year 7s have blindly copied from my board something random for year 12s...

[EdMalarkey]

Away with the fairies whilst studying the nature of a god. Well,quite...

[EdMalarkey]

But I agree with the general consensus re: age appropriateness. It does seem a little too involved and,by the parameters of knowledge inherent in the question (the implication that the entire book needs to have been read in order to fully answer the question),unrealistic for any UK state school student studying RE. There simply isn't time for that in the curriculum,or day. It sounds more the sort of thing I'd expect either from a more hardline 'faith school' or one deep in the American Bible Belt. There's a worrying thought.

[EdMalarkey]

Seek clarification from the teacher,perhaps? Most would be only too glad to help a parent who,in turn,is actively trying to help their child extra-curricula.

[G1raffe]

Wow. When I was young year 7 was the last year of middle school and we were still retelling the Easter story and colouring in pictures....

[Bezm]

As a Year 6 teacher, I would say that the homework set is totally unreasonable.
The whole point of homework is that the student should be able to do it by themselves. Many adults would struggle with that question! You'd need to be familiar with a great deal of the bible to have any idea where to start with an answer.
As a parent, my response would be to write a note to the teacher telling em that the homework is ridiculous, what part of te RE curriculum is it linked to, have they got a WAGOLL to refer to and that actually there is no such thing as god so how can you possibly expect an answer 😂😂😂

[PotteringAlong]

I'm an RE teacher. That's not a piece of year 7 homework...

[mrsglowglow]

Thanks all and I'm glad you are of the opinion this is not suitable for year 7. I looked through his RE workbook and can see why he hates it. His last homework was 'do religious texts bind us or set us free?' He was told to answer in a PEE paragraph with bible quote so he found a quote about God sending his Son to free us and this was her comment. He is still none the wiser!
He's nowhere near ready for this level and I will ask the teacher where this fits in with the ks3 curriculum. It is a state faith school but not hardline.

[G1raffe]

I'd it a state school? Trained teacher?

[PotteringAlong]

Do religious texts bind us or set us free?! In the first four weeks of year 7?! Heck.