Monday, March 7, 2011
The Bible: The Book of Genesis Part One
Most everyone is familiar with the stories from the book of Genesis, it is where many of the traditional Bible stories come from. I'll go through the important parts and sum it up with some commentary and alternate translations here and there. Also, this is a big job so I'm breaking it up into parts.
The book starts with the creation of the world. Creation is said to have taken place in six days, however an interesting translation point is that the word for days can also be meant to mean generations. Here I think that rather than focusing on the time involved, the important point is that God thought His creation was good. Evolution is a fact of science, and I don't think that it is necessarily opposite to the teachings of creationism. It is possible that God created the world to evolve and that man evolved from whatever animal you wish to point to (monkeys, fish, etc). In the Bible it could say that God created man and woman on the sixth day (or generation) to point out that at the end of creating everything else, man had evolved to be what is thought of as modern man in the species. Here are the lists of what God made in each day:
1. Day and Night.
2. Earth's atmosphere.
3. Land and oceans are separated. Plants and trees are created.
4. Sun, moon and stars are created.
5. Sea creatures and birds.
6. Land animals and people are created.
7. Day of rest.
Now, skeptics may say that the Earth is not the oldest thing in the solar system, so it couldn't have happened this way. I agree that Earth is not the oldest thing in this universe and it must have happened in a different order. This doesn't disprove God, just that the people who wrote (or rather told, as the Bible was an oral tradition before it was written down) this creation story didn't understand science as we understand it now and wrote it in a way that they could understand. The message to take from this story isn't the days or generations, time period, specifics of the story - but the fact that God made the universe and He thought it was good. After each passage in the Bible describing the creation of each bit of the universe, God looks at what He has made and He says that it is good.
In the creation story, God is Elohim. When the story of Adam and Eve begins, God gives his more personal name - Yahweh Elohim. This to me says that God wants to be known personally by mankind where before he was the One High God, creator of all, now he is a personal God because he finally has made a being that is sentient enough to walk with Him.
God names his creations Adam and Eve. Adam in Hebrew means "mankind" and there are scholars who argue that at this point in the Bible, God creates a species of people not just one man. In this scenario, the story of the garden of Eden would be a metaphor for how the species fell, not a factually specific story. In the story, God makes Eve out of Adam's rib. Eve is described as a "helper" for Adam, which many people have in the past considered to mean Eve was to be inferior to Adam. I don't believe this is true as God Himself is described as a "helper" to mankind in the rest of the Old Testament. God is certainly not inferior to man, and Eve is not inferior to Adam.
God gives Adam and Eve the responsibility of respecting and caring for the Earth and all its inhabitants. In Hebrew, instead of the word till, the word that God uses is serve and keep. I think that this is especially important for today's people. Being that the Judaic people (Jews, Christians and Muslims) are the majority in most of the economically advanced countries, I assume that most people have forgotten that it is our job to preserve the earth instead of destroying it. Too many people remember the fact that God gave all of this to us, and forget that we're put in the position of servant to it - to keep the earth whole, unpolluted and as close to how it was at creation as possible. I think a great environmentalist action would be to remind the world's Christians (many of whom are at the highest positions in corporations that do the most polluting) that we have been tasked by God to take care of the earth.
Adam and Eve fall from the grace of God. God gives them Eden, where everything is always wonderful, no sin happens, lives are forever and all food and shelter is readily available. He lets them take from any tree or plant they want save one - the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If they eat from it, they will surely die. The serpent comes in and tells Eve that she won't die but will in fact be like the gods if she eats from that tree. Eve sees that the fruit looks good and she and Adam eat from it. They realize they are naked and sew clothing for their waists with fig leaves. God comes walking that evening to see Adam and Eve as He normally does daily and He can't find them. He calls out to them and they respond that they are hiding from Him. When He asks why they respond that they are hiding because they are naked. God realizes what they have done and ejects them from the Garden because now that they have knowledge of good and evil, He doesn't want them eating any more from the tree of life and living forever. In this way they would be like God. He ejects them and puts guards at the entrance so they can no longer enter Eden.
Now, if this is a metaphorical story, and Adam really did stand for mankind in that God created a species of people, this could be the point of history where man evolved into a creature sentient enough to know good from evil. The people creating the story use the tree of life to explain why their lives end. I don't know which I believe, but am open to both.
Adam and Eve become farmers and hunters and have two children Cain and Abel. Everyone knows the story. Cain was a farmer and Abel was a herder. They both brought offerings to God. God accepted Abel's offering of a lamb but rejected Cain's because his attitude towards offering to God was one of bitterness. It had nothing to do with the offering itself, but that God cannot be bought off with sacrifices and acts - God needs an attitude of faith as well. God sees what we do, but it is not enough to be a good person. We have to have faith and love for God in our minds and hearts. Cain, with his bad attitude, gets angry that God didn't accept his offering but did of Abel's, and kills his brother. When God asks him where his brother is, Cain says the famous words "I don't know, am I my brother's keeper?" Because of what Cain did, he is exiled and marked by God so that no one will kill him. In the next bit, it supports the idea that God created a species of people, because it says that Cain took a wife and his lineage created the first cities and music and the beginnings of civilized life. He couldn't have taken a wife if there weren't already people around the world for him to run into.
Adam and Eve had more children, and the begots begin in the Bible. There is a long passage about each first son, who their first son is and how old they were when they first had him, then how long they were alive before each died. The only exception is Enoch, who didn't die but was taken by God. This happens several times in the Bible and it usually means that a person was especially holy in their life.
Now we run into the story of Noah. But before Noah there is an interesting line. The sons of God saw that the daughters of man were beautiful and they took wives amongst them. Another name for the sons of God are Nephalim. They are also referred to as giants. This act is one of the things that makes God so angry that He wants to destroy the earth. Wikipedia puts forth that Nephalim's base in Hebrew is fallen and many scholars suggest that the giants refer to Angels. In my mind, this could be one of two things - that Angels (who are forbidden to marry in heaven) married women on earth and those women birthed half-angels "who were the heroes of old" (Genesis 6:4) or that fallen angels married women on earth and spread evil among man. I'm leaning toward the second, since the root of the word Nephalim is fallen.
Anyway, God sees that his creation has turned into a species so sinful that He is angry and decides that He wants to destroy it all because He wishes He had never created it. But there is one good, honest and faithful man on earth - Noah. So God tells Noah to build an ark, to take two (male and female) of every beast on land and bird in the sky, his sons and their wives and get on the ark when He tells him to. Something to note here is that it says nothing of Noah's neighbors laughing at him because of this. When I was in Sunday School we heard this story and it was said that everyone laughed at Noah for creating a boat but his faith was strong enough to get through that. I read nothing of the sort in my Bible. Perhaps it's in other Bibles, but its not in the New King James Bible or the version of the Tanakh that I've read.
The measurements in the Bible for the Ark makes it almost as big as a modern liner. Its bigger than a pilgrim ship and a clipper ship by alot. I suppose they needed the room for all those animals. Also there were three stories to this boat, and it was meant to float, not to sail.
When God told Noah, Noah gathered all the animals and his sons and their wives and boarded the ark. It rained for 40 days. The waters overcame the earth and raised the ark far above the mountains. Finally, God decided to stop the rain and eventually Noah's ark landed on top of a mountain. Noah does something a little weird now. He lets the raven out. There are no details as to why or to what purpose, but it states that he let a raven out of the ark. He also let out a dove and this was how he found out if it was dry outside. The dove came back a couple times with nothing, then one day the dove comes back with an olive leaf in it's mouth. Who knows what the raven did. Then God tells Noah to let everyone out of the ark and makes a covenant with them that He will never again destroy all of the world. And the covenant is remembered in the form of a rainbow.
Its interesting to note here that the Babylonian story of Gilgamesh incorporates almost the same story of a flood and a boat as Noah's story. Except in the Babylonian story, the Gods decide to destroy the world because human beings are being so noisy that they can't sleep. I feel that way about my dogs sometimes :)
Now there are a lot of begats again, and the descendants of Noah and his sons is traced. The one thing of note other than the different kingdoms is that Noah's son Cush begat Nimrod, who was a mighty hunter. He is referred to in some Biblical commentary to be the first king of in a kingdom on earth.
At this time the whole world spoke the same language. In Shinah, which is ancient Babylonia and in the kingdom of Nimrod the hunter, they decided to rebel against God and build a tower so tall that it reached the heavens. God saw this as the beginning of bigger rebellion and sin against him, so he divides the people up giving all people a different language so they can't plot against God anymore. This is where the different races and languages came from.
Abram was a decendant of Noah's son Shem. He went with Terah his father, Lot his nephew (whose parents had died earlier) and Sarai his wife to the land of Canaan. God spoke with Abram and told him to get out of his country and from his father's house and that he would be the father of nations and God would bless him and those that blessed him and curse those who cursed him. So Abram took his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot and went on his way into Canaan.
When they approached the land of Egypt, Abram was scared that men would kill him to get to his wife, Sarai, because she was so beautiful. So he had her tell everyone that she was his sister (which, actually, they were half siblings). The Pharaoh's princes saw that she was beautiful and suggested her to Pharaoh who followed their suggestions and took her into his harem. Abram was given great wealth in trade for her. But then God plagued Egypt and the Pharoah found out why and yelled at Abram and asked why he had brought this upon him; that he might have taken Sarai as one of his wives. He makes Abram and his party take their belongings and leave town.
Now, by this time Abram and Lot had both acquired many herd animals and servants and it came time for them to split because their men weren't getting along well with each other and the land couldn't support both of their herds. So Lot went down to Sodom and Abram went to Canaan. There was a war in the area that Lot went, and Lot was taken captive. When Abram heard that Lot had been taken, he brought up an army of over three hundred among his men and attacked the troops that had invaded and stolen away Lot. He won, and thusly won the war for the kingdom that Lot had lived in. Lot and his household was returned.
To be continued....
The book starts with the creation of the world. Creation is said to have taken place in six days, however an interesting translation point is that the word for days can also be meant to mean generations. Here I think that rather than focusing on the time involved, the important point is that God thought His creation was good. Evolution is a fact of science, and I don't think that it is necessarily opposite to the teachings of creationism. It is possible that God created the world to evolve and that man evolved from whatever animal you wish to point to (monkeys, fish, etc). In the Bible it could say that God created man and woman on the sixth day (or generation) to point out that at the end of creating everything else, man had evolved to be what is thought of as modern man in the species. Here are the lists of what God made in each day:
1. Day and Night.
2. Earth's atmosphere.
3. Land and oceans are separated. Plants and trees are created.
4. Sun, moon and stars are created.
5. Sea creatures and birds.
6. Land animals and people are created.
7. Day of rest.
Now, skeptics may say that the Earth is not the oldest thing in the solar system, so it couldn't have happened this way. I agree that Earth is not the oldest thing in this universe and it must have happened in a different order. This doesn't disprove God, just that the people who wrote (or rather told, as the Bible was an oral tradition before it was written down) this creation story didn't understand science as we understand it now and wrote it in a way that they could understand. The message to take from this story isn't the days or generations, time period, specifics of the story - but the fact that God made the universe and He thought it was good. After each passage in the Bible describing the creation of each bit of the universe, God looks at what He has made and He says that it is good.
In the creation story, God is Elohim. When the story of Adam and Eve begins, God gives his more personal name - Yahweh Elohim. This to me says that God wants to be known personally by mankind where before he was the One High God, creator of all, now he is a personal God because he finally has made a being that is sentient enough to walk with Him.
God names his creations Adam and Eve. Adam in Hebrew means "mankind" and there are scholars who argue that at this point in the Bible, God creates a species of people not just one man. In this scenario, the story of the garden of Eden would be a metaphor for how the species fell, not a factually specific story. In the story, God makes Eve out of Adam's rib. Eve is described as a "helper" for Adam, which many people have in the past considered to mean Eve was to be inferior to Adam. I don't believe this is true as God Himself is described as a "helper" to mankind in the rest of the Old Testament. God is certainly not inferior to man, and Eve is not inferior to Adam.
God gives Adam and Eve the responsibility of respecting and caring for the Earth and all its inhabitants. In Hebrew, instead of the word till, the word that God uses is serve and keep. I think that this is especially important for today's people. Being that the Judaic people (Jews, Christians and Muslims) are the majority in most of the economically advanced countries, I assume that most people have forgotten that it is our job to preserve the earth instead of destroying it. Too many people remember the fact that God gave all of this to us, and forget that we're put in the position of servant to it - to keep the earth whole, unpolluted and as close to how it was at creation as possible. I think a great environmentalist action would be to remind the world's Christians (many of whom are at the highest positions in corporations that do the most polluting) that we have been tasked by God to take care of the earth.
Adam and Eve fall from the grace of God. God gives them Eden, where everything is always wonderful, no sin happens, lives are forever and all food and shelter is readily available. He lets them take from any tree or plant they want save one - the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If they eat from it, they will surely die. The serpent comes in and tells Eve that she won't die but will in fact be like the gods if she eats from that tree. Eve sees that the fruit looks good and she and Adam eat from it. They realize they are naked and sew clothing for their waists with fig leaves. God comes walking that evening to see Adam and Eve as He normally does daily and He can't find them. He calls out to them and they respond that they are hiding from Him. When He asks why they respond that they are hiding because they are naked. God realizes what they have done and ejects them from the Garden because now that they have knowledge of good and evil, He doesn't want them eating any more from the tree of life and living forever. In this way they would be like God. He ejects them and puts guards at the entrance so they can no longer enter Eden.
Now, if this is a metaphorical story, and Adam really did stand for mankind in that God created a species of people, this could be the point of history where man evolved into a creature sentient enough to know good from evil. The people creating the story use the tree of life to explain why their lives end. I don't know which I believe, but am open to both.
Adam and Eve become farmers and hunters and have two children Cain and Abel. Everyone knows the story. Cain was a farmer and Abel was a herder. They both brought offerings to God. God accepted Abel's offering of a lamb but rejected Cain's because his attitude towards offering to God was one of bitterness. It had nothing to do with the offering itself, but that God cannot be bought off with sacrifices and acts - God needs an attitude of faith as well. God sees what we do, but it is not enough to be a good person. We have to have faith and love for God in our minds and hearts. Cain, with his bad attitude, gets angry that God didn't accept his offering but did of Abel's, and kills his brother. When God asks him where his brother is, Cain says the famous words "I don't know, am I my brother's keeper?" Because of what Cain did, he is exiled and marked by God so that no one will kill him. In the next bit, it supports the idea that God created a species of people, because it says that Cain took a wife and his lineage created the first cities and music and the beginnings of civilized life. He couldn't have taken a wife if there weren't already people around the world for him to run into.
Adam and Eve had more children, and the begots begin in the Bible. There is a long passage about each first son, who their first son is and how old they were when they first had him, then how long they were alive before each died. The only exception is Enoch, who didn't die but was taken by God. This happens several times in the Bible and it usually means that a person was especially holy in their life.
Now we run into the story of Noah. But before Noah there is an interesting line. The sons of God saw that the daughters of man were beautiful and they took wives amongst them. Another name for the sons of God are Nephalim. They are also referred to as giants. This act is one of the things that makes God so angry that He wants to destroy the earth. Wikipedia puts forth that Nephalim's base in Hebrew is fallen and many scholars suggest that the giants refer to Angels. In my mind, this could be one of two things - that Angels (who are forbidden to marry in heaven) married women on earth and those women birthed half-angels "who were the heroes of old" (Genesis 6:4) or that fallen angels married women on earth and spread evil among man. I'm leaning toward the second, since the root of the word Nephalim is fallen.
Anyway, God sees that his creation has turned into a species so sinful that He is angry and decides that He wants to destroy it all because He wishes He had never created it. But there is one good, honest and faithful man on earth - Noah. So God tells Noah to build an ark, to take two (male and female) of every beast on land and bird in the sky, his sons and their wives and get on the ark when He tells him to. Something to note here is that it says nothing of Noah's neighbors laughing at him because of this. When I was in Sunday School we heard this story and it was said that everyone laughed at Noah for creating a boat but his faith was strong enough to get through that. I read nothing of the sort in my Bible. Perhaps it's in other Bibles, but its not in the New King James Bible or the version of the Tanakh that I've read.
The measurements in the Bible for the Ark makes it almost as big as a modern liner. Its bigger than a pilgrim ship and a clipper ship by alot. I suppose they needed the room for all those animals. Also there were three stories to this boat, and it was meant to float, not to sail.
When God told Noah, Noah gathered all the animals and his sons and their wives and boarded the ark. It rained for 40 days. The waters overcame the earth and raised the ark far above the mountains. Finally, God decided to stop the rain and eventually Noah's ark landed on top of a mountain. Noah does something a little weird now. He lets the raven out. There are no details as to why or to what purpose, but it states that he let a raven out of the ark. He also let out a dove and this was how he found out if it was dry outside. The dove came back a couple times with nothing, then one day the dove comes back with an olive leaf in it's mouth. Who knows what the raven did. Then God tells Noah to let everyone out of the ark and makes a covenant with them that He will never again destroy all of the world. And the covenant is remembered in the form of a rainbow.
Its interesting to note here that the Babylonian story of Gilgamesh incorporates almost the same story of a flood and a boat as Noah's story. Except in the Babylonian story, the Gods decide to destroy the world because human beings are being so noisy that they can't sleep. I feel that way about my dogs sometimes :)
Now there are a lot of begats again, and the descendants of Noah and his sons is traced. The one thing of note other than the different kingdoms is that Noah's son Cush begat Nimrod, who was a mighty hunter. He is referred to in some Biblical commentary to be the first king of in a kingdom on earth.
At this time the whole world spoke the same language. In Shinah, which is ancient Babylonia and in the kingdom of Nimrod the hunter, they decided to rebel against God and build a tower so tall that it reached the heavens. God saw this as the beginning of bigger rebellion and sin against him, so he divides the people up giving all people a different language so they can't plot against God anymore. This is where the different races and languages came from.
Abram was a decendant of Noah's son Shem. He went with Terah his father, Lot his nephew (whose parents had died earlier) and Sarai his wife to the land of Canaan. God spoke with Abram and told him to get out of his country and from his father's house and that he would be the father of nations and God would bless him and those that blessed him and curse those who cursed him. So Abram took his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot and went on his way into Canaan.
When they approached the land of Egypt, Abram was scared that men would kill him to get to his wife, Sarai, because she was so beautiful. So he had her tell everyone that she was his sister (which, actually, they were half siblings). The Pharaoh's princes saw that she was beautiful and suggested her to Pharaoh who followed their suggestions and took her into his harem. Abram was given great wealth in trade for her. But then God plagued Egypt and the Pharoah found out why and yelled at Abram and asked why he had brought this upon him; that he might have taken Sarai as one of his wives. He makes Abram and his party take their belongings and leave town.
Now, by this time Abram and Lot had both acquired many herd animals and servants and it came time for them to split because their men weren't getting along well with each other and the land couldn't support both of their herds. So Lot went down to Sodom and Abram went to Canaan. There was a war in the area that Lot went, and Lot was taken captive. When Abram heard that Lot had been taken, he brought up an army of over three hundred among his men and attacked the troops that had invaded and stolen away Lot. He won, and thusly won the war for the kingdom that Lot had lived in. Lot and his household was returned.
To be continued....
Sunday, March 6, 2011
The Bible Through Women's Eyes
Before I start writing my post about Genesis, I want to copy an essay in the Bible commentary book I'm reading so that you can read it too. The book is called Zondervan Handbook To The Bible, and the essay is written by Claire Powell.
"The 20th century saw great changes world-wide in attitudes to the status and role of women. Education of women was one of the keys to opening new spheres of opportunity in the workplace, and in giving greater respect to work traditionally done by women.
A change of perspective on the Bible was also needed, not because women relate to God or see the Bible differently from men, or that all women think the same way, but because, until recently, almost all Biblical interpretation has been by men.
In secular culture and in the church, masculinity had become the norm of what it means to be human, and it was an easy step to marginalize, however unconsciously, the contribution and significance of women. Theologians had focused mainly on God's dealings with men, including as of most importance in theology and Christian history the things which men do, while women, their roles, faith, experience and interests took a back seat. Both women and men grew used to learning about faith from Biblical examples of men like Peter, while examples of women like Mary were subconsciously labeled 'for women only.'
It therefore benefits the whole church, women and men, to value the experience of faith through women in scripture, to recover the forgotten importance of women in the history of the church's mission, and to redress an imbalance where women and the feminine have tended in the past to be marginalized in translations of the Bible, in theology and in the church.
Genesis begins with the fact that men and women are created equal in the sight of God and each other. The creation of both is pronounced 'very good' (Genesis 1:31). Woman is created out of man, not to show subordination,, but to show that she is like him rather than like the other created beings, and to show the interdependence which Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:11-12 says is forever characteristic of the human race: 'In our life in the Lord, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as woman was made from man, in the same way man is born of woman.'
Trouble between man and woman does not begin until disobedience brings about humanity's 'fall' in Genesis 3. Then, instead of the mutuality and complementarity of Eden, rivalry and competition begins. From Genesis 4 onwards, it is played out in fulfillment of the prediction that the man would rule over the woman (Genesis 3:16). This was not God's ideal, but part of the inevitable consequences of the fall.
If Genesis sets the scene, the drama is played out in the story of salvation in the rest of the Bible. there is no unequivocal command in the Old testament about the position of women, yet men are seend to prevail, assume power even in religious life, and the women seen rarely to be seen or heard. what is recorded is most often in the form of descriptive narrative. the question posed by this is whether the narrative asserts God's will for the roles and status of men and women in every culture for evermore, or simply describes what was happening at the time (in the same way as, for example, polygamy or slavery), which is for us to learn from , by emulating what was good, but correcting what was not. Scripture records many things that it does not advocate!
Is the Bible itself more biased toward men than women? And is patriarchy (in its widest sense, the system of men in power) justified by the very text itself? Is God treating women this way? Much more likely, what we find described is how women's status, function and experience fall short of God's ideal of equality. there are sufficient indications in the text itself that this is so.
Although much of the history focuses on the activities of men, even so, the women are there and play important parts. Leadership is not restricted to men. Both Deborah the judge (Judges 4) and Huldah the prophet (2 Kings 22) take responsible roles of leadership which are not commented on in the text as exceptional in any way. Instead they are respected.
The fact that most leaders were men represents the developed patriarchal culture of the time. there is no divine mandate for it. Women were excluded from the Old testament priesthood, but so were many of the men! And the New Testament presents us with a priesthood of all believers, male and female.
In the Old Testament, circumcision was the sign of belonging to God's covenant people - a sign physically performed exclusively on men. But with the birth of the church came a new sign of belonging. Baptism was physically inclusive of men and women, Jew and Gentile.
In the New testament Letters there is every indication that any restrictions on women apply within a specific culture and context. Where the particular details of a 1st century situation differ from ours, it is the principle behind the teaching which is properly binding for the all time. Thus, when Paul indicates in 1 Timothy 2 that women should not teach or have authority over men, he is addressing a particular problem of false teaching and wrongful authority in Ephesus. In such a context the women were to stop what they were doing.
the abiding principle for today is that women are forbidden to teach what is wrong, but therefore not forbidden to teach what is right! In this they may function as an object lessen for men, too, just as examples of men are usually understood as applicable to women.
We know from Acts and the Letters that women were prominent among the leaders in almost all the earliest house-church groups. Lydia was a leader in Philippi; Phoebe was a deacon in Cenchrea (Romans 16:1); Junia (the majority manuscript evidence points to Junia as a woman) was an apostle (Romans 16:7).
Believers are told by Paul to teach one another (eg. Colossians 3:16) and no caveat here bars women from teaching men. Priscilla is on record as teaching Apollos (Acts 18:26).
The New Testament lists of giftings (eg. Romans 12; 1 Corinthians 12; Ephesians 4) do not specify gender at all. Given the patriarchal culture of the time, it is not surprising that men in leadership outnumbered women, but this is a description, not a blueprint.
One indication of this may be seen in 1 Timothy 3:2, where someone must be the 'husband of one wife' to qualify as a bishop. This could point to a necessity of being married, to a monogamous marriage or, most probably, to purity and faithfulness within marriage. Where the likelihood is that most leaders would have been men, and almost certainly married, this functions as a regulation for the known situation in Ephesus,, not a future prohibition for all women or single men! 1 Timothy 3:12 uses exactly the same stipulation about deacons, yet cannot mean that all deacons are to be men, since Paul calls Phoebe a deacon in Romans 16:1. Biblical leadership and responsibilities in the church are to be based on character, calling and Christian commitment, not gender.
Many people hold a mental image of God as male, or at least somehow more male than female. this is largely due to the images of God in early art, and to the description of God as 'He' and 'Father'.
Deuteronomy 4:15-16 reminds Israel that God is without form. they were not to make graven images (or presumably to form mental images) of God as either male or female. Male and female are biological differences in created humanity. Both sexes equally reflect an image of the Creator.
In languages which do not have an inclusive pronoun, either masculine or feminine must be used to reflect the fact that God's nature is personal, not impersonal. 'It' will not do. The use of 'He' for God points to god as a person. It is nothing to do with sex (that which is biologically determined) or gender (that which is socially described).
In recent years the female images of God in Scripture (such as birthing, or providing food) have been rediscovered. So too has the use of feminine terms for God, eg. the holy Spirit and wisdom in the Old Testament. Both masculine and feminine grammatical labels are used, but do not necessarily thereby convey being or essence.
There has also been progress in recognizing the social masculine bias inherent in many languages and the consequent marginalization of women - pushing them to the side, ignoring them, or regarding them as atypical of human experience. This is not the Biblical view. In the past, where God was seen as male, the fallacy lay in seeing male as more like God.
Jesus brought in no revolutionary movement to overturn the male dominated Jewish culture of his time. Yet he clearly broke with the norms of his day. He taught women; discussed theology with them; accepted worship from them; elevated their position in debates on divorce; and touches ritually 'unclean' women. these are not major by today's standards, but they were noticeable then, and they pushed out the boundaries of what was acceptable. This paved the way for his followers to do the same.
In the past, the fact that Jesus was born as a man was seen as giving greater status to men. If the point of the incarnation is 'God made male', then redemption of women is in doubt, or at least secondary, and jesus is better represented in the priesthood by men than by women.
But the Bible nowhere makes the maleness of Jesus a point of comparison,, only his humanity, which is common to both women and men. And the New Testament clearly teaches a priesthood of all believers; all believers; all are able to approach Jesus and all are able to represent him on earth.
In the incarnation Jesus represents a model of humanity, not of masculinity. Women, as much as men, may find their pattern in Him and follow His example in every respect."
"The 20th century saw great changes world-wide in attitudes to the status and role of women. Education of women was one of the keys to opening new spheres of opportunity in the workplace, and in giving greater respect to work traditionally done by women.
A change of perspective on the Bible was also needed, not because women relate to God or see the Bible differently from men, or that all women think the same way, but because, until recently, almost all Biblical interpretation has been by men.
In secular culture and in the church, masculinity had become the norm of what it means to be human, and it was an easy step to marginalize, however unconsciously, the contribution and significance of women. Theologians had focused mainly on God's dealings with men, including as of most importance in theology and Christian history the things which men do, while women, their roles, faith, experience and interests took a back seat. Both women and men grew used to learning about faith from Biblical examples of men like Peter, while examples of women like Mary were subconsciously labeled 'for women only.'
It therefore benefits the whole church, women and men, to value the experience of faith through women in scripture, to recover the forgotten importance of women in the history of the church's mission, and to redress an imbalance where women and the feminine have tended in the past to be marginalized in translations of the Bible, in theology and in the church.
Genesis begins with the fact that men and women are created equal in the sight of God and each other. The creation of both is pronounced 'very good' (Genesis 1:31). Woman is created out of man, not to show subordination,, but to show that she is like him rather than like the other created beings, and to show the interdependence which Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:11-12 says is forever characteristic of the human race: 'In our life in the Lord, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as woman was made from man, in the same way man is born of woman.'
Trouble between man and woman does not begin until disobedience brings about humanity's 'fall' in Genesis 3. Then, instead of the mutuality and complementarity of Eden, rivalry and competition begins. From Genesis 4 onwards, it is played out in fulfillment of the prediction that the man would rule over the woman (Genesis 3:16). This was not God's ideal, but part of the inevitable consequences of the fall.
If Genesis sets the scene, the drama is played out in the story of salvation in the rest of the Bible. there is no unequivocal command in the Old testament about the position of women, yet men are seend to prevail, assume power even in religious life, and the women seen rarely to be seen or heard. what is recorded is most often in the form of descriptive narrative. the question posed by this is whether the narrative asserts God's will for the roles and status of men and women in every culture for evermore, or simply describes what was happening at the time (in the same way as, for example, polygamy or slavery), which is for us to learn from , by emulating what was good, but correcting what was not. Scripture records many things that it does not advocate!
Is the Bible itself more biased toward men than women? And is patriarchy (in its widest sense, the system of men in power) justified by the very text itself? Is God treating women this way? Much more likely, what we find described is how women's status, function and experience fall short of God's ideal of equality. there are sufficient indications in the text itself that this is so.
Although much of the history focuses on the activities of men, even so, the women are there and play important parts. Leadership is not restricted to men. Both Deborah the judge (Judges 4) and Huldah the prophet (2 Kings 22) take responsible roles of leadership which are not commented on in the text as exceptional in any way. Instead they are respected.
The fact that most leaders were men represents the developed patriarchal culture of the time. there is no divine mandate for it. Women were excluded from the Old testament priesthood, but so were many of the men! And the New Testament presents us with a priesthood of all believers, male and female.
In the Old Testament, circumcision was the sign of belonging to God's covenant people - a sign physically performed exclusively on men. But with the birth of the church came a new sign of belonging. Baptism was physically inclusive of men and women, Jew and Gentile.
In the New testament Letters there is every indication that any restrictions on women apply within a specific culture and context. Where the particular details of a 1st century situation differ from ours, it is the principle behind the teaching which is properly binding for the all time. Thus, when Paul indicates in 1 Timothy 2 that women should not teach or have authority over men, he is addressing a particular problem of false teaching and wrongful authority in Ephesus. In such a context the women were to stop what they were doing.
the abiding principle for today is that women are forbidden to teach what is wrong, but therefore not forbidden to teach what is right! In this they may function as an object lessen for men, too, just as examples of men are usually understood as applicable to women.
We know from Acts and the Letters that women were prominent among the leaders in almost all the earliest house-church groups. Lydia was a leader in Philippi; Phoebe was a deacon in Cenchrea (Romans 16:1); Junia (the majority manuscript evidence points to Junia as a woman) was an apostle (Romans 16:7).
Believers are told by Paul to teach one another (eg. Colossians 3:16) and no caveat here bars women from teaching men. Priscilla is on record as teaching Apollos (Acts 18:26).
The New Testament lists of giftings (eg. Romans 12; 1 Corinthians 12; Ephesians 4) do not specify gender at all. Given the patriarchal culture of the time, it is not surprising that men in leadership outnumbered women, but this is a description, not a blueprint.
One indication of this may be seen in 1 Timothy 3:2, where someone must be the 'husband of one wife' to qualify as a bishop. This could point to a necessity of being married, to a monogamous marriage or, most probably, to purity and faithfulness within marriage. Where the likelihood is that most leaders would have been men, and almost certainly married, this functions as a regulation for the known situation in Ephesus,, not a future prohibition for all women or single men! 1 Timothy 3:12 uses exactly the same stipulation about deacons, yet cannot mean that all deacons are to be men, since Paul calls Phoebe a deacon in Romans 16:1. Biblical leadership and responsibilities in the church are to be based on character, calling and Christian commitment, not gender.
Many people hold a mental image of God as male, or at least somehow more male than female. this is largely due to the images of God in early art, and to the description of God as 'He' and 'Father'.
Deuteronomy 4:15-16 reminds Israel that God is without form. they were not to make graven images (or presumably to form mental images) of God as either male or female. Male and female are biological differences in created humanity. Both sexes equally reflect an image of the Creator.
In languages which do not have an inclusive pronoun, either masculine or feminine must be used to reflect the fact that God's nature is personal, not impersonal. 'It' will not do. The use of 'He' for God points to god as a person. It is nothing to do with sex (that which is biologically determined) or gender (that which is socially described).
In recent years the female images of God in Scripture (such as birthing, or providing food) have been rediscovered. So too has the use of feminine terms for God, eg. the holy Spirit and wisdom in the Old Testament. Both masculine and feminine grammatical labels are used, but do not necessarily thereby convey being or essence.
There has also been progress in recognizing the social masculine bias inherent in many languages and the consequent marginalization of women - pushing them to the side, ignoring them, or regarding them as atypical of human experience. This is not the Biblical view. In the past, where God was seen as male, the fallacy lay in seeing male as more like God.
Jesus brought in no revolutionary movement to overturn the male dominated Jewish culture of his time. Yet he clearly broke with the norms of his day. He taught women; discussed theology with them; accepted worship from them; elevated their position in debates on divorce; and touches ritually 'unclean' women. these are not major by today's standards, but they were noticeable then, and they pushed out the boundaries of what was acceptable. This paved the way for his followers to do the same.
In the past, the fact that Jesus was born as a man was seen as giving greater status to men. If the point of the incarnation is 'God made male', then redemption of women is in doubt, or at least secondary, and jesus is better represented in the priesthood by men than by women.
But the Bible nowhere makes the maleness of Jesus a point of comparison,, only his humanity, which is common to both women and men. And the New Testament clearly teaches a priesthood of all believers; all believers; all are able to approach Jesus and all are able to represent him on earth.
In the incarnation Jesus represents a model of humanity, not of masculinity. Women, as much as men, may find their pattern in Him and follow His example in every respect."
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Comparing the Hebrew Tanakh with the Bible
I've decided that instead of reading strictly the Christian Bible and posting my interests in it, that I would read the Hebrew Tanakh and the Bible at the same time and post both my interests in both and the differences between them. Most people believe that the Torah is the same as the Old Testament found in the Christian Bible. We'll soon find out if this is true.
The very first thing that caught my notice was the explanation of translation found in the preface of each holy book. The Tanakh starts with this:
"A court of the law relies on witnesses to establish the facts of a case. But for those who seek the "facts"of the original Biblical texts, no firsthand witnesses exist. We have only the testimony of various manuscripts, produced hundreds of years after the Bible's books were completed. And even if we had an autograph copy of, say, the Book of Ezra, it would not answer all our questions, for it was created at a time (2400 years ago) when writing was imprecise - even before the invention of punctuation.
Through the intervening centuries, scribes have figures out how to record the oral tradition more precisely. At the same time, during each transmission of the books from person to person, uncertainty has grown. For schools have sometimes disagreed on pronunciation. Handwriting has not always been legible. And eery scribe has occasionally made mistakes in copying.
Witnesses testifying in court often disagree. Little surprise, then, that the Bible's textual "witnesses" - father removed from the original "event" - differ from each other in a wide range of small ways: spelling, punctuation, layout of poetry, and so on. Sometimes entire verses appear in only a few manuscripts.
So which version is true? This was the first question we faces in preparing our Hebrew text."
They openly admit that throughout the transmitting of text throughout the ages things have been lost and things have been added. The next seventeen pages are dedicated to tracing the book's translation history, beginning in 930 AD. It also lists the changes they made in numbering, etc. It is a thorough history of the translation that they are presenting.
The Christian Bible lets me down a little in it's preface. I am reading a New King James Version Bible. It has half a page devoted to it's translation, which begins with this:
"The purpose of this most recent revision of the King James Version is in harmony with the purpose of the original King James Scholars. 'Not to make a new translation, but to make a good one better.' The New King James Version is a continuation of the labors of the King James translators, unlocking for today's readers the spiritual treasures found especially in the Authorized Version of the Holy Bible."
There is no reference after that paragraph about where the "Authorized Version of the Holy Bible" came from, so I did some wikipedia searching and found out that the Church of England brought Catholic scholars together to create a King James Version to beat out the popular Protestant version called the Geneva Bible (but often referred to as the Great Bible). I think its very interesting that my church, which is a protestant church, and all my protestant friends read a Bible that was created by the Church of England in a Catholic tradition instead of the Protestant translation.
As far as an objective view of both prologues is concerned, I think the point belongs squarely in the Hebrew Tanakh's court. I, by the way, am a devoted Christian, but I like the way the Hebrew Bible tracks the changes made in its Bible from farther back and includes pages of how the translation was changed. The New King James Version Bible has half a page that basically says that it's based on the 'Authorized Version of the Bible' (capitalization is taken directly from the book, btw). I had to research what that meant. The Christian Bible also doesn't make any room for problems based on how the books and possibly the meanings were changed during the time of oral tradition as well as how scribes changed it when they each created their own translations. This may be blasphemous of me to say, but I often think that Christians don't spend enough time thinking about the Bible and it's actual history. We are taught to believe that the Bible is the Word of God completely and totally as it's written in whatever translation we are reading, making no room for trouble in translating, differing views on women and slaves and other subjects in the time in which it was written, etc. I've always had some trouble believing that women shouldn't be educated and should never preach - which is something that the Christian Bible (and maybe the Hebrew Tanakh - I haven't read it yet) says. So I've always had the opinion that some of the things written in the Bible were no longer relevant because of the difference in times. I guess that's blasphemous to some people. But I have read the Bible more times than most of the Christians I know and I like to think about my beliefs instead of just believing them.
But I'm getting off topic. Another change in the two documents are the way they order the books. They are as follows in the Tanakh:
The Torah ( The Five Books of Moses)
Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
Nevi'im (The Prophets)
Joshua
Judges
1 Samuel
2 Samuel
1 Kings
2 Kings
Isaiah
Jeremiah
Ezekiel
Hosea
Joel
Amos
Obadiah
Jonah
Micah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Haggai
Zechariah
Malachi
Kethuvim (The Writings)
Psalms
Proverbs
Job
The Song of Songs
Ruth
Lamentations
Ecclesiastes
Esther
Daniel
Ezra
Nehemiah
1 Chronicles
2 Chronicles
The Old Testament is ordered as follows:
Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
Joshua
Judges
Rush
1 Samuel
2 Samuel
1 Kings
2 Kings
1 Chronicles
2 Chronicles
Ezra
Nehemiah
Esther
job
Spalms
Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
Song of Solomon (Song of Songs in the Tanakh)
Isaiah
jeremiah
Lamentations
Ezekiel
Daniel
Hosea
Joel
Amos
Obadiah
Jonah
Micah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Haggai
Zechariah
Malachi
For the purpose of comparing the different translations and any other differences there are, I'll be reading each book at the same time in each book.
The very first thing that caught my notice was the explanation of translation found in the preface of each holy book. The Tanakh starts with this:
"A court of the law relies on witnesses to establish the facts of a case. But for those who seek the "facts"of the original Biblical texts, no firsthand witnesses exist. We have only the testimony of various manuscripts, produced hundreds of years after the Bible's books were completed. And even if we had an autograph copy of, say, the Book of Ezra, it would not answer all our questions, for it was created at a time (2400 years ago) when writing was imprecise - even before the invention of punctuation.
Through the intervening centuries, scribes have figures out how to record the oral tradition more precisely. At the same time, during each transmission of the books from person to person, uncertainty has grown. For schools have sometimes disagreed on pronunciation. Handwriting has not always been legible. And eery scribe has occasionally made mistakes in copying.
Witnesses testifying in court often disagree. Little surprise, then, that the Bible's textual "witnesses" - father removed from the original "event" - differ from each other in a wide range of small ways: spelling, punctuation, layout of poetry, and so on. Sometimes entire verses appear in only a few manuscripts.
So which version is true? This was the first question we faces in preparing our Hebrew text."
They openly admit that throughout the transmitting of text throughout the ages things have been lost and things have been added. The next seventeen pages are dedicated to tracing the book's translation history, beginning in 930 AD. It also lists the changes they made in numbering, etc. It is a thorough history of the translation that they are presenting.
The Christian Bible lets me down a little in it's preface. I am reading a New King James Version Bible. It has half a page devoted to it's translation, which begins with this:
"The purpose of this most recent revision of the King James Version is in harmony with the purpose of the original King James Scholars. 'Not to make a new translation, but to make a good one better.' The New King James Version is a continuation of the labors of the King James translators, unlocking for today's readers the spiritual treasures found especially in the Authorized Version of the Holy Bible."
There is no reference after that paragraph about where the "Authorized Version of the Holy Bible" came from, so I did some wikipedia searching and found out that the Church of England brought Catholic scholars together to create a King James Version to beat out the popular Protestant version called the Geneva Bible (but often referred to as the Great Bible). I think its very interesting that my church, which is a protestant church, and all my protestant friends read a Bible that was created by the Church of England in a Catholic tradition instead of the Protestant translation.
As far as an objective view of both prologues is concerned, I think the point belongs squarely in the Hebrew Tanakh's court. I, by the way, am a devoted Christian, but I like the way the Hebrew Bible tracks the changes made in its Bible from farther back and includes pages of how the translation was changed. The New King James Version Bible has half a page that basically says that it's based on the 'Authorized Version of the Bible' (capitalization is taken directly from the book, btw). I had to research what that meant. The Christian Bible also doesn't make any room for problems based on how the books and possibly the meanings were changed during the time of oral tradition as well as how scribes changed it when they each created their own translations. This may be blasphemous of me to say, but I often think that Christians don't spend enough time thinking about the Bible and it's actual history. We are taught to believe that the Bible is the Word of God completely and totally as it's written in whatever translation we are reading, making no room for trouble in translating, differing views on women and slaves and other subjects in the time in which it was written, etc. I've always had some trouble believing that women shouldn't be educated and should never preach - which is something that the Christian Bible (and maybe the Hebrew Tanakh - I haven't read it yet) says. So I've always had the opinion that some of the things written in the Bible were no longer relevant because of the difference in times. I guess that's blasphemous to some people. But I have read the Bible more times than most of the Christians I know and I like to think about my beliefs instead of just believing them.
But I'm getting off topic. Another change in the two documents are the way they order the books. They are as follows in the Tanakh:
The Torah ( The Five Books of Moses)
Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
Nevi'im (The Prophets)
Joshua
Judges
1 Samuel
2 Samuel
1 Kings
2 Kings
Isaiah
Jeremiah
Ezekiel
Hosea
Joel
Amos
Obadiah
Jonah
Micah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Haggai
Zechariah
Malachi
Kethuvim (The Writings)
Psalms
Proverbs
Job
The Song of Songs
Ruth
Lamentations
Ecclesiastes
Esther
Daniel
Ezra
Nehemiah
1 Chronicles
2 Chronicles
The Old Testament is ordered as follows:
Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
Joshua
Judges
Rush
1 Samuel
2 Samuel
1 Kings
2 Kings
1 Chronicles
2 Chronicles
Ezra
Nehemiah
Esther
job
Spalms
Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
Song of Solomon (Song of Songs in the Tanakh)
Isaiah
jeremiah
Lamentations
Ezekiel
Daniel
Hosea
Joel
Amos
Obadiah
Jonah
Micah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Haggai
Zechariah
Malachi
For the purpose of comparing the different translations and any other differences there are, I'll be reading each book at the same time in each book.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Approaching the Bible
For my next book I'm going to read the old and new testaments of the Bible. I'll post about each book.
Friday, February 18, 2011
How To Read: The Egyptian Book Of The Dead Barry Kemp
Instead of reading the actual Egyptian Book Of The Dead I read a book that went through the spells and also explained them and their place in Egyptian communities. It describes itself as a Master's course to the book. I will go through and explain what I learned reading the book, which is not necessarily all from the Book of the Dead.
The author compares the Book of the Dead to the representation of the book in the movie The Mummy. In The Mummy the Book is used to bring the dead back to life. This is inaccurate. The Book, whose translated name is actually "Coming Forth By Day", is to guide and protect the dead through what they call the Otherworld. The Otherworld is the place that the sun god Ra travels through during the night. It is rife with dangers. The spells in the Egyptian Book of the Dead were written by many authors throughout the entire run of the ancient Egyptian community. In the Old Kingdom, the earliest segment of time in the Egyptian time, the spells weren't collected into a book - most of what we know comes from segments written on walls and coffins (referred to as coffin-texts). Most of the book was written and collected during the New Kingdom. It was written on scrolls and sold in stores for about the price of a bed. More elaborately illustrated Books were sold for more money to the richer community members. Some of the spells call for stylized and "fantasy" creations, which aren't to be found in the tombs that archaeologists have discovered. An example would be spell 137A:
"To be spoken over four torches of red linen smeared with the best quality Libyan oil in the hands of four men on whose arms are inscribed the names of the children of Horus..."
and spell 133 which calls for a 'sacred barque of four cubits made of pieces of Malachite..." Four cubits is two meters, and this was unlikely for a normal income family to be able to afford. So, not all of the spells were followed to the letter.
The Otherworld was said to be filled with mounds and caverns, but as the Egyptians were by and large a pre-cartographic society no map of the Otherworld is to be found. Egypt was largely ruled by scribes at this time, some of whom wrote spells for the Book, who ruled for the Kings and Pharaohs.
I'd like to talk about the relationship between the Egyptians and their God/s and Goddess/es and how it compares to Christianity. The author makes this comparison often in the book. The first thing about the Egyptian God/s is that they were actually all fragments of the same God. In the book the author says that this differs from Christianity and western religions, but it reminds me a little of the Holy Trinity in Christianity - the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They are distinct characters but all fragments of the same God. There are many more fragments in the ancient Egyptian religion and there are many more differences. Where faith is important in Western religions, in the ancient Egyptian religion acts were more important. When the soul was judged, in the often portrayed weighing against a feather, the actions of the soul were what lifted or dropped it not faith in the God/s. Faith was taken as a given and rarely thought about in ancient Egypt. Another interesting difference is that there was no concept of hell in ancient Egypt. If your soul was found lacking, or heavier than the feather, you would be eaten immediately by a waiting monster.
In the Book, it appears that there is a separate Otherworld for each person. There are no endpoints to the Otherworld except if your soul was found lacking. Many of the spells project the reader into a central position of authority - in fact replacing the God/s themselves in many cases (or more accurately, becoming the God/s). Ancient Egyptians believed in God/s much differently than Western religions because they imagined divinity to be present in all living things. So when they entered their personal Otherworld, they became Ra the sun god, who progressed through the Otherworld every night. In another spell, 79, they become the head of the tribunal of judgment of souls (although this didn't affect the judgment of their own soul), Atom, "Lord of All. Becoming a God did not mean that the reader could escape the judgment of his own soul nor did it mean he could act against the good of the living community. While he had the power of the God/s, he also had the serious responsibility.
Being a God also didn't protect the reader from the evil things that existed in the Otherworld. In fact it brought more enemies - the enemies of the reader and the God he or she became were now both after him/her. Many spells including 17 and 179 were for the protection of the reader from the evil that awaited them:
"Oh Kehpri, in the midst of your sacred Barque, primeval one whose body is eternity, save me from those who are in charge of those who are to be examined, to whom the Lord of All has given power to guard against his enemies, who put knives into the slaughter-houses, who do not leave their guardianship, their knives shall not cut into me, I shall not enter their slaughter-houses, I shall not sit down on their fish-traps, no harm shall be done to me from whom the gods detest.." Spell 17
Knives are a common fear for ancient Egyptians, which we can tell from their reoccurring mention in the spells. This is probably because a common punishment for live ancient Egyptians was having part of your face cut off - mainly the nose or the ears.
The spells cast the god/s in an interesting light. Instead of doing bodily harm when angered like the Gods of many other religions, the ancient Egyptian gods were more of bureaucrats, forming committees and writing angry letters to each other. I found that especially amusing. In the spells it seems as if the reader doesn't take them seriously. There are even spells to hide or obfuscate the wrong doings of the reader's soul from the god/s when their soul is weighed.
The final point I took from the book explained why bodies were mummified. It was because the Egyptians were terrified of the rot of death. There are several spells (89 and 122 among some of them) that tell how a body should be prepared.
The author compares the Book of the Dead to the representation of the book in the movie The Mummy. In The Mummy the Book is used to bring the dead back to life. This is inaccurate. The Book, whose translated name is actually "Coming Forth By Day", is to guide and protect the dead through what they call the Otherworld. The Otherworld is the place that the sun god Ra travels through during the night. It is rife with dangers. The spells in the Egyptian Book of the Dead were written by many authors throughout the entire run of the ancient Egyptian community. In the Old Kingdom, the earliest segment of time in the Egyptian time, the spells weren't collected into a book - most of what we know comes from segments written on walls and coffins (referred to as coffin-texts). Most of the book was written and collected during the New Kingdom. It was written on scrolls and sold in stores for about the price of a bed. More elaborately illustrated Books were sold for more money to the richer community members. Some of the spells call for stylized and "fantasy" creations, which aren't to be found in the tombs that archaeologists have discovered. An example would be spell 137A:
"To be spoken over four torches of red linen smeared with the best quality Libyan oil in the hands of four men on whose arms are inscribed the names of the children of Horus..."
and spell 133 which calls for a 'sacred barque of four cubits made of pieces of Malachite..." Four cubits is two meters, and this was unlikely for a normal income family to be able to afford. So, not all of the spells were followed to the letter.
The Otherworld was said to be filled with mounds and caverns, but as the Egyptians were by and large a pre-cartographic society no map of the Otherworld is to be found. Egypt was largely ruled by scribes at this time, some of whom wrote spells for the Book, who ruled for the Kings and Pharaohs.
I'd like to talk about the relationship between the Egyptians and their God/s and Goddess/es and how it compares to Christianity. The author makes this comparison often in the book. The first thing about the Egyptian God/s is that they were actually all fragments of the same God. In the book the author says that this differs from Christianity and western religions, but it reminds me a little of the Holy Trinity in Christianity - the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They are distinct characters but all fragments of the same God. There are many more fragments in the ancient Egyptian religion and there are many more differences. Where faith is important in Western religions, in the ancient Egyptian religion acts were more important. When the soul was judged, in the often portrayed weighing against a feather, the actions of the soul were what lifted or dropped it not faith in the God/s. Faith was taken as a given and rarely thought about in ancient Egypt. Another interesting difference is that there was no concept of hell in ancient Egypt. If your soul was found lacking, or heavier than the feather, you would be eaten immediately by a waiting monster.
In the Book, it appears that there is a separate Otherworld for each person. There are no endpoints to the Otherworld except if your soul was found lacking. Many of the spells project the reader into a central position of authority - in fact replacing the God/s themselves in many cases (or more accurately, becoming the God/s). Ancient Egyptians believed in God/s much differently than Western religions because they imagined divinity to be present in all living things. So when they entered their personal Otherworld, they became Ra the sun god, who progressed through the Otherworld every night. In another spell, 79, they become the head of the tribunal of judgment of souls (although this didn't affect the judgment of their own soul), Atom, "Lord of All. Becoming a God did not mean that the reader could escape the judgment of his own soul nor did it mean he could act against the good of the living community. While he had the power of the God/s, he also had the serious responsibility.
Being a God also didn't protect the reader from the evil things that existed in the Otherworld. In fact it brought more enemies - the enemies of the reader and the God he or she became were now both after him/her. Many spells including 17 and 179 were for the protection of the reader from the evil that awaited them:
"Oh Kehpri, in the midst of your sacred Barque, primeval one whose body is eternity, save me from those who are in charge of those who are to be examined, to whom the Lord of All has given power to guard against his enemies, who put knives into the slaughter-houses, who do not leave their guardianship, their knives shall not cut into me, I shall not enter their slaughter-houses, I shall not sit down on their fish-traps, no harm shall be done to me from whom the gods detest.." Spell 17
Knives are a common fear for ancient Egyptians, which we can tell from their reoccurring mention in the spells. This is probably because a common punishment for live ancient Egyptians was having part of your face cut off - mainly the nose or the ears.
The spells cast the god/s in an interesting light. Instead of doing bodily harm when angered like the Gods of many other religions, the ancient Egyptian gods were more of bureaucrats, forming committees and writing angry letters to each other. I found that especially amusing. In the spells it seems as if the reader doesn't take them seriously. There are even spells to hide or obfuscate the wrong doings of the reader's soul from the god/s when their soul is weighed.
The final point I took from the book explained why bodies were mummified. It was because the Egyptians were terrified of the rot of death. There are several spells (89 and 122 among some of them) that tell how a body should be prepared.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
The Book of Dead Philosophers
This book is called The Book of Dead Philosophers and it is by Simon Critchley. In his rather lengthy introduction he explains two main points:
1. That he believes philosophers have death on their minds all the time and spend most of their time reconciling themselves with their own annihilation. He has put together this book of 190 deaths of philosophers because he believes that the way in which a person's dies can illuminate their personal philosophy. He also writes about each philosopher's vision of death in the cases in which they have been written upon.
2. That religion and it's version of an afterlife is in fact an escapist way of running away from death. He believes that true happiness can be found only by embracing death because only then can you experience freedom in life.
The book starts in antiquity and follows on through modern philosophers with the only requirement of whom he includes in the book being that they interest him and that they have died. Some of the entries include lengthy explanations of what the particular philosopher believed and some are very brief - just a sentence or two about how they died. The ones that he goes into more in depth are the ones that are historically believed to have more significance (Socrates, Plato, Nietzsche, etc) and those that have written texts on death.
I took special interest in the following philosophers:
Jean-Francois Lyotard, who translated and wrote a book called The Confessions of Augustine, referring to the saint. Lyotard, in my mind, must have been a spiritual man. It quotes a passage from the book:
"But do you, Oh Lord my God, graciously hear me and turn your gaze upon me, and see me, and have mercy upon me, and heal me. For in your sight I have become a question to myself, and that is my langour."
He says that translated the word for languor means limp - the kind of weakness of spirit and physicality that one would expect with old age. Lyotard died of leukemia, and shortly before dying he wrote:
"...that is my langour. Here lies the whole advantage of faith; to become an enigma to oneself, to grow old, hoping for the solution, the resolution from the Other. Have mercy upon me Yahweh, for I am languishing. Heal me, for my bones are worn."
Michel Faucault, who was active in the GLBT movement. He criticized Christianity versus being a pagan and said that the difference between being late antiquity and early Christianity could be reduced to the following: "The Pagan asks: 'Given that I am who I am, who can I fuck?' The Christian says 'Given that I can fuck no one, who am I?" He is pointing out that the Christian's identity begins with their knowledge of their own sinful nature and continues under that "bad conscience". Faucault was an early sufferer of AIDS, and died of that in 1984.
Jacques Derrida, who refuses that "to philosophize is to know how to die", thinks of death from the other end. He writes about the survivors of death and how the loss of a loved one means to them the loss of a piece of themselves.
At the end of the book is a fantastic bibliography that recounts some of the books from which Critchley found his information. I intend to use this bibliography as a "To Read" list.
1. That he believes philosophers have death on their minds all the time and spend most of their time reconciling themselves with their own annihilation. He has put together this book of 190 deaths of philosophers because he believes that the way in which a person's dies can illuminate their personal philosophy. He also writes about each philosopher's vision of death in the cases in which they have been written upon.
2. That religion and it's version of an afterlife is in fact an escapist way of running away from death. He believes that true happiness can be found only by embracing death because only then can you experience freedom in life.
The book starts in antiquity and follows on through modern philosophers with the only requirement of whom he includes in the book being that they interest him and that they have died. Some of the entries include lengthy explanations of what the particular philosopher believed and some are very brief - just a sentence or two about how they died. The ones that he goes into more in depth are the ones that are historically believed to have more significance (Socrates, Plato, Nietzsche, etc) and those that have written texts on death.
I took special interest in the following philosophers:
Jean-Francois Lyotard, who translated and wrote a book called The Confessions of Augustine, referring to the saint. Lyotard, in my mind, must have been a spiritual man. It quotes a passage from the book:
"But do you, Oh Lord my God, graciously hear me and turn your gaze upon me, and see me, and have mercy upon me, and heal me. For in your sight I have become a question to myself, and that is my langour."
He says that translated the word for languor means limp - the kind of weakness of spirit and physicality that one would expect with old age. Lyotard died of leukemia, and shortly before dying he wrote:
"...that is my langour. Here lies the whole advantage of faith; to become an enigma to oneself, to grow old, hoping for the solution, the resolution from the Other. Have mercy upon me Yahweh, for I am languishing. Heal me, for my bones are worn."
Michel Faucault, who was active in the GLBT movement. He criticized Christianity versus being a pagan and said that the difference between being late antiquity and early Christianity could be reduced to the following: "The Pagan asks: 'Given that I am who I am, who can I fuck?' The Christian says 'Given that I can fuck no one, who am I?" He is pointing out that the Christian's identity begins with their knowledge of their own sinful nature and continues under that "bad conscience". Faucault was an early sufferer of AIDS, and died of that in 1984.
Jacques Derrida, who refuses that "to philosophize is to know how to die", thinks of death from the other end. He writes about the survivors of death and how the loss of a loved one means to them the loss of a piece of themselves.
At the end of the book is a fantastic bibliography that recounts some of the books from which Critchley found his information. I intend to use this bibliography as a "To Read" list.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)