tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12895952714767663892024-03-05T12:26:16.152-05:00The Route AheadLiving a post-religious life with Jesus in the worldMarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873950253747580110noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289595271476766389.post-40939998285122200932021-02-01T16:42:00.007-05:002022-12-18T09:48:49.067-05:00 Desire, Despair, And Belonging<p>Advertisements often show very little of the product they're selling. Consider car commercials. The product itself is often almost background noise. They will show you stylish and chic men or women portraying all the trappings of success in a culture, and the car, well it's there, sort of. What is actually being presented to you is a certain quality of life to be desired it is subtly implied that you can have it if you only purchase the car. The aim is to make you unconsciously desire, not the car, but that quality of life, the quality of "being" it supposedly gets you. This is far more powerful and pervasive than a need for mere physical conveyance.</p>Whether or not you can afford a car the mechanism causes one to think that you may not attain the quality of life the world tells you you must possess to be accepted and successful. The inability to attain it can lead to anxiety, depression, or could simply lead to being enslaved to debt to possess it. Is it any wonder that consumer debt is wreaking havoc on so many people. Passions, borrowed from often unseen and unexamined sources, draw people into the abyss of crushing financial burden. But this only skims the surface.<br /><br />One root of this pull is a longing for validation that is often denied in a world of inequalities of every sort. It's not "do you possess" but do you possess that more, other thing or sense of being? There is no end of the objects or measures of meaning presented to us by others. The masses would deny this reality (even if it were told to them) because it creates disonance with the illusion of having a form of "individuality". Blindness to this further exacerbates internal conflict and rivalry with others.<br /><br />The Apostle Paul wrote in Phillipian 4:11 that in whatever state he found himself in to be content. This is one real way of contending with the problem of imitated human desire. Why are so many not content? Because there are models of desire everywhere around us promising fullfillment and meaning. We feel the draw and all to often either internalize this "lacking" or blame others for it. The first leads to anxiety and depression, the other to anger, discontent and ultimately violence either in word or deed. All the while consciously oblivious of the mechanism and how we are being pulled along like driftwood in a stream.<br /><br />Once we have what we need we don't know what we want; we want what our neighbor has because if he desires it it must have value. We always desire what we do not possess, once we possess it it soon loses value as it ceases to arouse desire in us and in those around us, which validates our choice and ourselves. It no longer "functions" for us and interest wanes.<br /><br />The Decalogue closes with what begins as an enumeration of desires to be avoided only to be realized by the writer, at the end, there is no end to the desires for "your neighbor's" anything. There is never an indication that desire originates anywhere else. This prohibition is problematic because we don't even understand the way in which our desires are not our own but are "modeled" for us by our neighbor and appropriated as our own. This dynamic invariably both puts us at enmity with some and binds us to others as our competition for objects of desire ultimately result in rivalry and hatred.<br /><br />We want, or more appropriately need, others to validate our choices or the pleasure of having the object of desire diminishes and we discard that which at an earlier place we would have fought over. Value is wholly dependent upon and subjective to whether or not somebody else desires it. Consider the adolescent ploy of "making someone jealous". There's a break up, the one who is rejected may seek out a partner, not because he/she desires the partner, but because it is a form of self-validation and that it will show the other that he/she is, in fact, desirable. If this fails the patsy will be discarded, or a pseudo-relationship will be formed but will be, in time, doomed as this false desire, a mere manipulation of another, has no real or lasting power.<br /><br />The dual purpose is both to reaffirm his or her value and to make the other desire anew. In repeated stories of crimes of passion someone kills the one they supposedly love. This is merely a way of possessing the other, and if one cannot gain possession of the object of their desire then possession is gained by taking that life; literally, possessing their life by a violent perversion of love. This is too often also a characature of the "love" of God; a god after our own image.<br /><br />The dynamic and pervasive nature of imitated desire does however play a crucial role in human advancement. We can and do pass on, through imitation, an incredible amount of knowledge and learned experience in a very compressed time frame from an evolutionary standpoint. Desire is a gift that has formed us and powers advancement. But it also holds the capacity to destroy us utterly and completely.<br /><br />Therefore, whatever state we find ourselves in we should be content or we may, in due course, find ourselves extinct.Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873950253747580110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289595271476766389.post-13218821779864234542021-01-28T17:43:00.003-05:002021-03-07T00:01:26.711-05:00Same World, Different Day<p>There was a conspiracy launched by one of the most capable and trustworthy voices in centuries that many people hardly remember. In spite of the profound credibility and penetration that this voice had in modern times the conspiracy failed to gain traction, failed to go "viral".</p><p>One might ask why?</p><p>I think for a conspiracy to be successful it must always play upon the zeitgeist of the times. It must tickle the ears that hear it and feed fear, distrust, suspicion, and hatred of one against another which is the spirit of every human age.</p><p>"With your values and formulae of good and evil, ye exercise power, ye valuing ones: and that is your secret love, and the sparkling, trembling, and overflowing of your souls..."(This Spoke Zarathustra, 34. Self-Surpassing)</p><p>You see here the keen observation of Nietzsche as he answers the question of why, in that ancient mythical garden, that the knowledge of good and evil was forbidden to man.Why the first conspiracy seems to have failed is that it started with ideas that are antithetical to the normal social ordering that follows on the theme further elucidated by Nietzsche:</p><p>"Let it be very justice for the world to become full of the storms of our vengeance"... "Vengeance will we use, and insult, against all who are not like us" (This Spoke Zarathustra, 29. The Tarantulas)</p><p>We can fully apprehend this logic as lived experience and every inclination formed by this logic becomes a god to rule over us. It takes shape as a manipulation of one's passions with the intellect in fast pursuit; Thought rarely precedes passion. We have been assured in accordance with the above mentioned failed conspiracy that the pathway to peace and truth is narrow and hard and few find it. I believe Nietzsche had grasp of the truth and understood the path only to reject it. He was honest, at least.</p><p>His reported last words before his death were: “Mutter, ich bin dumm (Mother, I am dumb).” The modern west is at a similar juncture as was Nietzsche in his time only not as sighted, nor honest, nor likely to meet a better end.</p><div><br /></div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873950253747580110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289595271476766389.post-68313690619448146402019-10-22T10:18:00.001-04:002019-10-22T10:20:44.951-04:00Girard's Individual?As I was reading a moderate rated review of Rene Girard's work' "Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World" I noted a few things. First even though the reviewer rated this work three stars this was his second book by Girard and had ordered two more.<br />
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Secondly, it was clear that in spite of some reservation he found the thoughts put forward in this magnum opus irresistibly compelling. Third, something that I found thought-provoking was the lament that there is an absence of the affirmation of the "individual" or the concept of "individuation" in Girard's work.<br />
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I've accepted the idea long ago that the concept of the individual is illusory. I've let this sit in my thoughts for a long time, occasionally tossing in other ideas and insights as they come along, sort of the way one would bake a cake. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, and bake at 350° for 30 minutes.<br />
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I'm stirring the batter a little this morning.<br />
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The writer was at odds with losing the category of being "individual" and was finding this unbearable. However I find an allusion to this expressed in literature with the repeated (twice in Matthew & Luke) statement by Jesus:<br />
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"Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." <br />
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I believe this is much more nuanced than what we've been able, or allowed, to see.<br />
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I am nothing but the aggregated influence of every unnamed and unnoticed desire put before me. The earliest words from and observation of my parents, friends, to the bullies in the school yard. They've all become part of what is collectively called me.<br />
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In social structure we call the VISIBLE manifestation of this dynamic peer pressure. The most energetic and affective elements of this are not so visible.What Girard expounds on are these hidden movements of desire, that which we cannot see, nor even search out until that first - and fatal to our preconceptions - unveiling.<br />
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Those hidden motives that always remain just beyond our cognition; Those - as a truth - that are addressed when Jesus, from the cross, repeatedly utters the words: "Father forgive them, for THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING." Lk 23:34<br />
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This not knowing is deeper and broader than our religious traditions have allowed any to see and it is in this realm that Girard shows his brilliance!<br />
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We always carry pieces of others around within us, as part OF us. We are not alone, because the truth is, we are, in this sense, in one-another, just as when we say of those who have passed on that we carry them in our hearts; No, it's much more than that. Part of them continues to literally live within you, for better or worse.<br />
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"...so that they may all be one. Just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be one in us..." Jn 17:21 <br />
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Our uniqueness is only and precisely a particular manifestation of all the "other" contained within us. To hate your neighbor is, by extension, to hate yourself. And if we fill the world with self-hate disguised as love what hope do we have?<br />
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What you have done to the least of these brothers of mine, you've done for me Matt 25:40<br />
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For when you pass judgment on another person, you condemn yourself, since you, the judge, practice the very same things. Rom 2:1<br />
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How can you say you love God and yet hate your neighbor? 1Jn 4:20<br />
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All these references function to remove the distance between us all, if we would let them.<br />
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Well, there's more ingredients for the bowl and another day.Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873950253747580110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289595271476766389.post-70081452988840582012018-09-20T19:21:00.000-04:002018-12-02T07:31:12.267-05:00Primary Mimeticism and The Apple or The Fruit And the Nexus of Human Being<br />
"[René] Girard breaks from traditional philosophical
conceptions branching from Plato to Hegel that view consciousness as preceding
any acquisitive behavior." <a href="file:///C:/0Data/0-GoogleDrive/Word/Primary%20Mimeticism%20and%20The%20Apple.doc#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[1]</span></span></a><br />
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Extant philosophical conceptions have already laid a
framework for our thinking about ourselves almost before we <i>are</i> actually
thinking about ourselves, our world, and our origins. It seems everything
follows on the supposition that we acquired consciousness and that this
acquisition of consciousness constitutes the beginning of all else; the
foundational moment, the beginning of human "being".</div>
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What these philosophical conceptions seem to lack in my
unlearned estimation is a coherent and plausible explanation of <i>how this
consciousness came to be.</i> Girard posits that acquisitive desire precedes
all consciousness, language, or symbols and has articulately shown how this can
be. As a Christian considering this idea I was moved to re-visit the narratives
of origins that we know as the book of the Genesis.</div>
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When considering the primary theme of one of these
originating stories in Genesis - I am convinced that there are more than one
story told in the book that have been woven together over time - in the light
of Girard's counter view a rather interesting picture of origins unfolded. Only
briefly, the creation narrative culminates in the introduction of a man and a
woman who lived in what appears to be an idyllic setting charged with subduing,
[kaw-bash'] literally to "bring into bondage", the created world.</div>
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From Genesis 1:26-31 we have what appears a synopsis of one
complete creation narrative. The man and woman are created in one act as an
image or "phantom" [tseh-lem'] of God. They were, in some way, instructed
to multiply (have unbridled sex) and fill and subdue the earth, and they were
given all "grain bearing plants and fruit trees" for food. This
concisely completes the creation story of man from beginning to end. The story
concludes that "everything was good" and marks the end of the sixth
day of creation. We then have an intermission with the seventh day where God
rested from his work.</div>
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In Genesis 2:4-25 we have a different and more embellished
account of the creation myth. Here there are at least two significant thematic
divergences from the first story. We have the introduction of prohibition,
which appears before the creation of the woman, then, of course is the
divergence of the later advent of the woman; whereas in the first narrative man
and woman were created simultaneously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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In this idyllic setting the couple were free to wander
around naked - if we splice this information in from the second story - and to
do as they pleased. Food was plentiful and wild for the taking as needed with
not a care in the world. As a matter of fact such an existence seems to
parallel all the other creatures; free to roam, eat, drink, live, and sexually
procreate shamelessly; having their place in the created order. There is a single
element in the second narrative, that of prohibition, that seems incongruent
with such a setting and I think it appropriate to ask why is it there? </div>
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One thing missing in both of these narratives up to this
point is <i>desire</i>. The storytellers of the second and more colorful
narrative also tell us that the couple were naked and not ashamed. This seems
at least a very interesting piece of information. Generally this condition
exists in observable creation in every form of life; To live, eat, drink, roam,
and reproduce so why is it that the writer finds it necessary to mention the
absence of shame?</div>
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This appears to me that the writer is maybe intuiting
something that he might not be fully cognizant of himself. I propose that these
first two representatives of humanity weren't exactly, or yet completely <i>human</i>
as contemporarily understood. Following this interesting statement regarding
shame, the story takes a dramatic turn. What we find in chapter 3 verses 1
through 5 can easily be framed as an <i>evolution of desire</i>. We have the
requisite object, in the fruit, we have the model combined with prohibition,
and we have the subject.</div>
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The triangular structure of desire as Girard discovered has
all its elements.</div>
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I have for some time viewed the sequence in verses 1-5 as an
internal dialectic going on within the mind of one of these participants in the
story. This seems to be made clear by "the tell" within the story
that the woman ate the fruit "<i>then gave it to her husband<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>who was with her." </i>Here we have two
very telling pieces of information contained it one phrase: "Husband"
and "was with her". The use of the term "husband" should
tell us that this is a very late piece of writing, as the establishment of
anything resembling marriage would have been quite far in the future. </div>
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Secondly, "her husband" was <i>with her.</i> If
this were in fact something like a real event then surely the "husband,
who was with her", aware of the risks, would have intervened in this
discourse between his woman and the serpent. Desire appears, the husband
desires also, according to the desire of his "wife" and desiring to
have the knowledge she would now possess and the first cycle of imitation is
complete. We have become human. They become as "one accord" yet very
shortly in the story we see that a specific type of division has manifest
itself that is unique in all creation; that of the <i>accusation.</i></div>
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Never-the-less near the end of this part of the story in
verse 6 we have <i>desire</i> winning the day. What I find interesting is that desire
had not yet existed in creation - as far as the story reveals. Whether the
creation had been in six days or six million years is of no consequence. Desire
is appearing as something uniquely human, or conversely something unique-called
humans-appeared subsequent to desire!</div>
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And what might we think of that original desire? What was it
for? I posit that it was for autonomy. Autonomy from God, and each other. To gain identity apart from, independent of, the other. The story tells us this
in verse 5: </div>
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"Even God knows that on the day you eat from it, your
eyes will be opened and you'll become like God, knowing good and evil."</div>
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If we "become like" another then we are no longer
in need of nor are <i>related</i> to this other; we have assumed him in
ourselves. Now, these freshly "minted" humans have their autonomy,
their individuality, which is <i>separation</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is something we were never created to function within. We
have this striving to be, without the other, yet we are bound by imitated
desires according to the other. We would annihilate the other so we would
become primary, yet empty, without the other, only to endlessly repeat the
pattern.</div>
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We desire to be like some other without the other; without
neighbor, without spouse, friends, brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers,
subsuming their lives into us. The only thing we can't seem to function without
are enemies and we make them continually to stamp our identity over and against
them and the more we do this the more we become like them, bondage to them
frustrating our longing to be. The great "romantic lie" of modernity
according to Girard is that we are autonomous individuals.</div>
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So how does good and evil function in our hands? It is used
as a line of demarcation that separates ourselves from the other. It promises
to temper our desires, yet this is a lie and it repeatedly fails. The taboo
sets us at enmity with all others who are "not like us" yet the
binding that it provides to those "like us" is founded in death as we
strive within "our camp" for identity and autonomy at the expense of
those closest to and most like us. The more we become like the other, the more we
hate them for "stealing" our identity as we strive harder for
differentiation, by stealing theirs. This "individuality",<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is forever fleeting because it is not in our
nature, it is a false god.</div>
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Only God knows the truth and has taken great pains to show
us.</div>
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1Jn_3:14<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We know
that we have passed from death to life, because we love one another. The person
who does not love remains spiritually dead.</div>
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1Jn_4:7<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dear
friends, let us continually love one another, because love comes from God.
Everyone who loves has been born from God and knows God.</div>
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1Jn_4:12<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one has
ever seen God. If we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is
perfected in us.</div>
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<span lang="X-NONE" style="color: red; font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 10.0pt;">"This
is my commandment: that you love one another as I have loved you."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/0Data/0-GoogleDrive/Word/Primary%20Mimeticism%20and%20The%20Apple.doc#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> See Girard ,
To Double Business Bound, 203; Girard and Müeller, "Interview", 11</div>
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<br />Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873950253747580110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289595271476766389.post-92087488364514776502016-10-04T08:29:00.002-04:002021-01-14T17:37:12.646-05:00Teaching Our Children to Sin<div class="MsoNormal">
Reading. Or at least I was. Maybe it's adult ADHD or maybe,
since embarking on what has now become a nearly ten year journey of discovery,
the reading across disciplines of theology, history, anthropology, and others I
find that interconnected tones lead off into reflection.</div>
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Still reading "The Age of Reform 1250-1550" and
Ozment is now looking at the life and work of Martin Luther. The consensus of
the scholarship seems to show that Luther's earlier religious life before and
after monastic life were marked by anxiety and neurosis. Of course in the
middle ages the religious method of clergy (which was thrust in lesser measure
to the laity) was marked by a deeply penitential structure; i.e. "paying
your way" toward salvation through structured forms of self-loathing and
penitential, ascetic practices.</div>
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From where does this derive? It isn't Ozment's purpose to
answer that question, and it's probably there in the writing if I'd read with
an eye to find it. But it isn't a leap to take this all the way back to the
myth of a garden called Eden. </div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
James Alison writes<a href="file:///C:/0Data/Word/My%20Research%20And%20Writing/2016-Oct4-2016.doc#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]--></span></a>:
<i>"One of the first fruits of the fall was the knowledge of good and
evil, does it not suggest that that knowledge, at least in its current form, is
inappropriate to us?"<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Reflection on this can reveal much about not only Luther's
life and times but our own. There is so much anxiety and neuroses in our
culture and this anxiety seems to be behind much of the hatred and vilification
of "the other". So just how deep do these roots go?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It would be foolish to argue that there is no difference
between good and evil, there is. But it seems we are not supposed to know that
there is! This is surely a complex arrangement. But in the story when it
connects the knowledge of these two states to death is where a larger panorama
opens up. The fact that we know the difference leads to death. Death has two
players, one is the dead, the other is the killer. When we teach others the
difference between good and evil are we in fact instructing them in a
methodology of how they may die or, even more disconcertingly, to kill and be
justified in doing so?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This obviously creates a huge problem. There is also,
biblically, this other connection made throughout. "Sin" = death. So
then we have this: knowledge of good and evil = death; sin = death; knowledge
of good and evil = sin. This is no mere syllogism.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So then in this way "sin" (whatever it is) is not
connected with "evil" in a strict sense but with knowing the
difference between it and "good" and that this leads us, or others, to
death. We, as a species, use this knowledge as a method of justification for
just about every type of evil one could imagine. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Alison continues<a href="file:///C:/0Data/Word/My%20Research%20And%20Writing/2016-Oct4-2016.doc#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[2]<!--[endif]--></span></a>:
<i>"Any <b>accusatory</b> knowledge of sin has a particular propensity to
blindness about complicity and that only forgiveness enables us to see."</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br /></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="MsoNormal">For when you pass judgment on another person, you condemn yourself, since you, the judge, practice the very same things. Rom 2:1</div><div><br /></div></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In light of this what should we teach others? What should we
relate to our children, our neighbors, our friends, or maybe more importantly,
our enemies if not some sense of moral certitude if our moral certitude is a
part of this pattern of sin and death as told us by the Christian scriptures?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am assured that Jesus gave plenty of clues for those who
have ears, and eyes to at least begin working this out.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div>
<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<br />
<div id="ftn1">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/0Data/Word/My%20Research%20And%20Writing/2016-Oct4-2016.doc#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]--></span></a> Alison:
"The Joy of Being Wrong, Original Sin through Easter Eyes" pp 263,
Crossroad Publishing Co. New York.</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/0Data/Word/My%20Research%20And%20Writing/2016-Oct4-2016.doc#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[2]<!--[endif]--></span></a> Ibid. pp 265</div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div id="ftn1">
</div>
</div>
Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873950253747580110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289595271476766389.post-77699133355531668562016-03-04T07:14:00.002-05:002021-01-14T17:44:35.165-05:00The Desire of Nature and The Nature of Desire<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I woke up a few days ago with the following axiom on my mind:</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">
"It is our preconceptions that give us the insight that we have into
something but paradoxically they are also the source of our blindness for what
is right in front of us." </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">One example of this is contained in my<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://therouteahead.blogspot.com/2016/01/reimagining-sacrifice.html">exposition of 1Kings</a></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">. Language that
is taken uncritically hides the patterns of preconceived notions of meaning.
It's not just the words in one's bucket but it is also the size and shape and
color of the bucket that counts too. Similar to a wineskin as I've written
about<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://therouteahead.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-wineskin.html">here.</a></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br />
A phrase such as "old nature" is already layered with centuries of
meaning provided by a particular notion of that nature being something distinct
to individuals. What if it can be shown to be of a completely other thing? One
that can only be properly understood in a cultural or sociological way related
to origins. It would seem that Jesus' counter-revolution is structured not
around individuals but around community and this sense of community is to
contain a very distinct counter-culture and type of sociology.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br />
Are our natures bounded and shaped by a world<span class="apple-converted-space"><i> </i></span><i>which
we have shaped in a way that serves our nature? </i>Kosmos, which is
translated world, means an "orderly arrangement" and can refer to a
completely naturalistic structure, a hypostasis, of purely human origin. I propose
it is this orderly arrangement that is the container for and shape in which any
sense of "old nature" is derived. It sets the very boundaries of what
we can know about this<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>kosmos<span class="apple-converted-space"><i> </i></span>at all! It is the very human
way that societies are ordered around creating and maintaining
"peace" by giving and receiving death in the making of enemy others
and by sacrificing those others <i>summum bonum.</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Jesus is found everywhere juxtaposing
the kingdom of God/heaven against the kings/kingdoms, i.e.
principalities/powers of this world; the "orderly arrangement" of
human being. God's orderly arrangement falls along certain ethical-though not
only ethical-lines and the content of Jesus' teachings seem to flow from this
understanding as they appear as subversive and anti-normal from a human
perspective. It goes against our "natures" to even imagine ordering a
society around a notion of enemy love and forgiveness or justice<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>as mercy.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>But is this not exactly what
the community project that began from his work is called to be and do in stark
contrast to the principalities/powers and kings/kingdoms of earth as a sign to
the world, a lamp on a stand, a message of hope in the midst of despair?<br />
<br />
"What if I told you that the Matrix is the world that is pulled over our
eyes to blind us to the truth?"<span class="apple-converted-space"> Morpheus.</span><br />
<br />
What if there was no such thing as an "individual"? That the idea of
autonomous being is merely a romantic illusion? This would constitute a change
in perspective that changes everything else. This can precisely be a way that
we are "joined" with the Adamic narrative in scripture. Not by some
sense of individual genetic progeny, nor in some mysterious metaphysical
attribution of sin, but by means of a certain form of sociality and
culturalization, something structuring and functional, and none could even see
it much less escape it, because from the moment we're born we enter into this
human predicament. This is a<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>part<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>of Alison's<a href="file:///C:/0Data/Word/My%20Research%20And%20Writing/2016-Jan-31_OldNatureBlog.doc#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]--></span></a> thesis
as he has built upon the insight of the interdividual psychology of Rene'
Girard. I am continually being formed by my imitation of the desires of
another, I exist only in my relationship with others. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">This is what Girard has so keenly
observed and systematized over a lifetime of study and it has very deep
explanatory power by which to see the world and ourselves. View the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://youtu.be/qA-gbpt7Ts8"><span class="apple-converted-space">Asch experiment</span></a> on YouTube to see how
early researchers in the 50's had already had a basic view into this without
fully recognizing it's significance or the scope of its influence. Reinhold
Niebuhr, an American theologian, in "Moral Man, Immoral Society"
dances all around this in 1932 but was never able to grasp the insight into it
that Girard later did.<br />
<br />
The biblical "creation" narrative of Adam and Eve's temptation is not
toward disobedience but toward desire-I am aware that Paul uses this story in a
different way but, on a close reading, to make a similar point-though this is
not just about desire per se but about how it is <i>acquired</i>. It
appears from the story that desire to be like God (whatever that means) was
original and good. God is portrayed as a completely gratuitous giver, man the
grateful receiver, every desire always gratuitously fulfilled and therefore <i>seeking
and desiring for nothing</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The break that occurs is when the
serpent "tempted" or caused Eve <i>to desire</i>, but not just to
desire but TAKE for herself what had been previously gratuitously given;
likeness to God. Were they not, after all, created in his image and therefore
already "like" him? This doesn't just represent a single action but
presents itself as a model of being malformed by acquisitive desire. She
"received" ,or took as in "taking a cue from", her desire
from the serpent, likewise Adam "received" his desire from Eve.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
<br />
What happens next is an amazing reversal. In the tale Adam and Eve both hide
from God; who has no nefarious intention. When confronted over this peculiar
behavior Adam blames, is willing to sacrifice, i.e. scapegoats, Eve for his
desire. Eve likewise deflects blame, is willing to sacrifice<span class="apple-converted-space"><b><sup> </sup></b></span>the serpent who is
the final scapegoat in this story, one through whom Adam and Eve can regain
unity. What we have is a rupture within the structure of human relationship
where it now requires an <i>enemy other </i>to be sustained! In much later
writings this "serpent" becomes referred to by the moniker
"accuser", that is to say the principle of accusation, and it
functions precisely as a force though which we can identify scapegoats in order
to create social order.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Of necessary importance to this
mechanism's functioning is our blindness to it. Jesus gives us some insight
into this unconsciousness from the cross when he prays: "forgive them
Father for they do not know what they are doing." Quoting Girard<a href="file:///C:/0Data/Word/My%20Research%20And%20Writing/2016-Jan-31_OldNatureBlog.doc#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[2]<!--[endif]--></span></a>:
"To have a scapegoat is precisely to not know that you have one, you think
that you have a culprit." He would say in an interview [paraphrased]:
"In the 17th century nobody would have made the claim to be a witch. We
have that now but not then. In the seventeenth century the term witch was
merely an<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>accusation".</i>
As such it served to ameliorate social crisis at that time by the expulsion and
murder of <i>others accused as being responsible for the crisis.</i> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br />
So within the Adamic narrative it is only after eviction from the garden,
essentially being "given over to their own desires"<a href="file:///C:/0Data/Word/My%20Research%20And%20Writing/2016-Jan-31_OldNatureBlog.doc#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[3]<!--[endif]--></span></a>,
do we see any working of death (of which God has nothing to do with) in the
story of the murder of Abel. This being given over to our own desires is
something that requires a much deeper discussion of its own on the nature and
shape of judgment or punishment.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br />
Now addressing the continuity and discontinuity of "natures" old and new. The writings of James Alison, N.
T. Wright, and others show that there is a certain continuity between the here
and hereafter; what we<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>are</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and what we are<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>to become</i>. Would that we desire
to be the kind of people who would "be at home" within a world, a
Kingdom, such as Jesus describes, this continuity already would exist and might
allow one to make a more-or-less seamless transition while for others "it
would be like going through fire"<a href="file:///C:/0Data/Word/My%20Research%20And%20Writing/2016-Jan-31_OldNatureBlog.doc#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[4]<!--[endif]--></span></a>.
Now as to the manner in which we are constituted as human beings. If we are
constituted as being formed by desiring of the desire of another then this
continuity can remain. Only the manner in which desire is appropriated need be
transformed. Psalm 37:4 should probably be taken quite literally on this point:</span><b><i><span style="color: #333399; font-size: 14pt;"> Delight
yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart</span></i></b><i><span style="color: #333399; font-size: 14pt;">.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">This giving of desires is
frequently misunderstood in a self-appropriative manner i.e. If <i>I delight</i>;
<i>Lord gives me things<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>I desire</i>.
This might instead be understood as desires <i>will be established</i> within
one in a non-appropriative way. This correction of origination of desire
could happen in an<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>apokalypic-as
unveiling- </i>way to us within mind and spirit simultaneous and inseparable.
This would represent a type of undoing the effect of the original distortion of
desire; original sin if you can accept it.<br />
<br />
In the Revelation of John we have an image of the way this<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>apocalypsis</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>might appear:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><b><i><span style="color: #000099; font-size: 14pt;">Rev 1:7 Look! He is
coming in the clouds. Every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and
all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of him.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></i></b><span style="font-size: 14pt;">This rich symbolism seems to
represent a mass 'repentance' or a simultaneous re-ordering in which 'all the
tribes of the earth' have a fundamental cognitive shift. This mourning or
grieving, not in fear of some retributive act, but because of the sudden
recognition in which all creation at once and finally sees its complicity in a
culture of death and death dealing, victim making, and violence. It includes
the tacit recognition of <i>not</i> <i>knowing
what we were doing</i> that is now being revealed not only in what we have done
but also how we have reconstituted ourselves from the beginning. So who is this
group of "those who pierced him" except all humanity? Matthew<a href="file:///C:/0Data/Word/My%20Research%20And%20Writing/2016-Jan-31_OldNatureBlog.doc#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[5]<!--[endif]--></span></a>
records this fact yet the one who is pierced still calls us friends.<a href="file:///C:/0Data/Word/My%20Research%20And%20Writing/2016-Jan-31_OldNatureBlog.doc#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[6]<!--[endif]--></span></a>
But thankfully all who mourn will be comforted.<br />
<br />
I close with the following citation which refers back to my original
observation on preconceptions: </span><u><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Paul Ricoeur:
The Intersection Between Solitude and Connection</span></u><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">by Kathleen O'Dwyer<br />
<br />
</span><i><span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;">Freud,
Marx and Nietzsche… All three recognized that meaning, far from being
transparent to itself, is an enigmatic process which conceals at the same time
as it reveals. Kearney, in his introduction to Ricoeur's short thesis, "On
Translation", explains that for Ricoeur, translation "indicates the
everyday act of speaking as a way not only of translating oneself to
another…but also and more explicitly of translating oneself to oneself".
(Kearney, 2004: 7, 8).<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div>
<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<br />
<div id="ftn1">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/0Data/Word/My%20Research%20And%20Writing/2016-Jan-31_OldNatureBlog.doc#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]--></span></a>James Alison,
The Joy of Being Wrong. Original Sin through Easter Eyes.</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/0Data/Word/My%20Research%20And%20Writing/2016-Jan-31_OldNatureBlog.doc#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[2]<!--[endif]--></span></a> Rene Girard
from an interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8Y8dVVV4To</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn3">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/0Data/Word/My%20Research%20And%20Writing/2016-Jan-31_OldNatureBlog.doc#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[3]<!--[endif]--></span></a> See also
Romans 1;24 for an instance of judgment
shaped as a "giving over" to our desires.</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn4">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/0Data/Word/My%20Research%20And%20Writing/2016-Jan-31_OldNatureBlog.doc#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[4]<!--[endif]--></span></a> 1Co
3:15 If his work is burned up, he will
suffer loss. However, he himself will be saved, but it will be like going
through fire.</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn5">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/0Data/Word/My%20Research%20And%20Writing/2016-Jan-31_OldNatureBlog.doc#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[5]<!--[endif]--></span></a> Matt 26:31
Then Jesus told them, "All of you will turn against me this very night,
because it is written, "I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the
flock will be scattered." (quoting Zech 13:7)</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn6">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/0Data/Word/My%20Research%20And%20Writing/2016-Jan-31_OldNatureBlog.doc#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[6]<!--[endif]--></span></a> Zech 13:6
"Someone will say to him, "What are these injuries to your
hands?" He will reply, "They're what I received at my friend's
house."</div>
</div>
</div>
Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873950253747580110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289595271476766389.post-47699439839383678342016-01-25T12:31:00.002-05:002016-01-31T09:13:59.662-05:00Reimagining Sacrifice<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">An exposition of 1 Kings 3:2-28</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">How do we understand sacrifice? </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">As Rene´ Girard was developing mimetic theory he was confronted with the challenge from his critics over the use of the word "sacrifice". He understood the scriptures throughout to reveal an anti-sacrificial message but he was still hemmed in by having to use the word "sacrifice". He stated that he believed "the answer to everything" was somehow within the story of Solomon's Judgment and he carried that story in his mind continually.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Therefore the primary insight here I have borrowed from Girard but in pursuing a better understanding of this I observed other meaningful interpretive elements in the texts cited above. Here is the first scene as I examine some of these elements.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">After two introductory verses we come to verse 3:</span></div>
<div>
<i><b><span style="font-size: large;">Solomon loved the LORD, and lived according to the statutes that his father David obeyed, except that he sacrificed and burned offerings at the high places.</span></b></i></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">It seems clear from this text that this sacrificing by Solomon was regarded as a negative attribute in his appraisal as king. The word rendered sacrifice could as well be translated "slaughtered" as every meaning of the word zaw-bakh includes slaughter; brutal or violent killing. Further it is to be noted that this "slaughtering" is not connected by the writer with any form of idolatry. Too much should not be made of the allusion to high places as it previously states in verse two that sacrifice was occurring throughout the land at "high places" simply because there was, as of yet, no temple.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Verse 4 cites one such location, in Gibeon, where Solomon sacrificed 1,000 burnt offerings. So we have here birthed a nascent awareness that there is something amiss with this sacrificial behavior and or orientation.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Verses 5 through 8 recount the dream that Solomon has where God makes an offer for Solomon to "ask for whatever you want" and this results in Solomon wisely asking for the following in verse 9a:</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">"So give your servant an understanding mind to govern your people, so I can discern between good and evil..."</span></i></b></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">The specificity of Solomon's request should not be overlooked: "so I can discern between good and evil." This point and the discussion of sacrifice above taken together provide the interpretive key that unlocks the fuller meaning of what follows in the text.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">This scene in the narrative closes with God being pleased by such a request and the granting of riches, etc., in consideration for such a humble request. Now we move on to scene two.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Scene one closes with Solomon waking up and realizing he's "dreamed a dream" and sacrifices and throws a party for all his servants. Scene two begins with this: "Right about then". It almost seems as if the writer doesn't want you to forget the previous keys before you get to the door that needs unlocking. I reproduce the text of the second scene here for reference:</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<i><b><span style="font-size: large;">1Ki 3:16 Right about then, two prostitutes approached the king and requested an audience with him. 17 One woman said, "Your majesty, this woman and I live in the same house. I gave birth to a child while she was in the house. 18Three days later, this woman also gave birth. We lived alone there. There was nobody else with us in the house. It was just the two of us. </span></b></i></div>
<div>
<i><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></i></div>
<div>
<i><b><span style="font-size: large;">19This woman's son died overnight because she laid on top of him. 20She got up in the middle of the night, took my son from me while your servant was asleep, and laid him to her breast after laying her dead son next to me. 21The next morning, I got up to nurse my son, and he was dead. But when I examined him carefully in the light of day, he turned out not to be my son whom I had borne!" 22"Not so," claimed the other woman. "The living child is my son, and the dead one is yours." But the first woman said, "Not so! The dead child is your son and the living one is my son." This is what they testified before the king. </span></b></i></div>
<div>
<i><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></i></div>
<div>
<i><b><span style="font-size: large;">23The king said, "One of them claims, 'This living son is mine, and your son is the dead one' and the other claims 'No. Your son is the dead one and my son is the living one.' 24"Somebody get me a sword." So they brought a sword to the king. 25"Divide the living child in two!" he ordered. "Give half to the one and half to the other."</span></b></i></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">From verse 23 it is clear that Solomon cannot make a just determination from this as he recognizes their competing claims and the impossibility of being able to discern the truth of the matter between them. As brilliant as the tact he applies is to this situation in verse 24-25 this really only leads us to the true revelatory structure of the text itself, leveraging the prior interpretive keys a) the explicit leaning against the idea of sacrificial slaughter and b) the longing for discernment between good and evil.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Now we come to the point in the story where is the revealing of a distinction in our language of "sacrifice".</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>1Ki 3:26 The woman whose child was still alive cried out to the king, because her heart yearned for her son. "Oh no, your majesty!" she said. "Give her the living child. Please don't kill him." But the other woman said, "Cut him in half! That way, he'll belong to neither one of us."</b></i> </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">What we should be led to here is the fact that both women were willing to "sacrifice" the child. But the nature and understanding of that sacrifice is completely subverted away from slaughter and toward a form that is a redemptive self-giving, non-retributive, and non-violent. It is in fact an anti-sacrificial sacrifice. So then if we are to consider that Solomon received the ability to "discern good from evil" then we should ourselves make a distinction here. But exactly where or how should we do this? </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Referencing the interpretive keys above and one other detail from verse 16 we should be able to rightly divide this text. Verse 16 tells us that these two women are prostitutes. It seems significant that the writer includes this detail. At minimum their moral status as prostitutes has no bearing on a judgment here regarding the issue of good or evil. That one of the women, in her obviously grief stricken state would have no regard for a child that is not hers and would see it killed rather than suffer a second loss of a child doesn't seem to quite fit either. There is no corresponding good with which to juxtapose this understanding.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Therefore I propose, and think this is supported by the textual arrangement here, that what is really being judged by Solomon is, in fact, sacrifice. One is a "good" or "acceptable" sacrifice, and the other an "evil" or "unacceptable" sacrifice. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">There is here in both instances the same object of sacrifice, the child, yet the manner and at least as importantly is that the motivation for sacrifice is completely different. The woman who would see the child slaughtered was moved by grief and brokenness; unable to escape from the pain and fear that dominates her moment. Wanting that some other would "know" her suffering. The true mother of the child is willing to surrender all claims to the child, giving it over completely to the other so that the child could live.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">It is in this second woman, a prostitute no less, that we find, in a christological reading of the text, the image of God and the only acceptable sacrifice that is a self-giving one following Christ's self-giving to us to become our victim and open our eyes to the fact the we are all, at the end of this story, portrayed as the one who says: "cut him in half" or more contemporarily: Crucify him! There is here a clue to the secret of living out a life that begins to mimic God and it is revealed in the prostitute/mother who would abandon all claims so that another-or others-might live.</span></div>
Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873950253747580110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289595271476766389.post-37229925874529143472015-09-19T10:07:00.000-04:002015-09-19T10:46:12.649-04:00The Wineskin<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">In the beginning was the God concept. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">And that concept was
wrong because "no one has ever seen God."<a href="file:///C:/0Data/Word/My%20Research%20And%20Writing/The%20Wineskin.doc#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]--></span></a> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">And the God concept became like a wineskin and was filled
with ideas about what God was like. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">And the wineskin was ancient and deeply
held and human beings hated and killed the "other" to protect it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">The wineskin was not God but instead was full of the lies we
tell about him. But we only lie because we live in darkness but oh how we love
our wineskin.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">But suddenly someone saw God<a href="file:///C:/0Data/Word/My%20Research%20And%20Writing/The%20Wineskin.doc#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[2]<!--[endif]--></span></a>
and he knew that the wineskins were dry, rotting, and worthless. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">And many of good intent tried to put this One into the
wineskin, and thought we succeeded. But in so doing only spread the lies now to
the One lest the wineskin should burst as it could only contain lies and not
The Truth.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">And we poured wrath from our wineskins and said:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">"Away with the foreigner, let's build a wall."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">And the One said: " I was a stranger, and you welcomed
me."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">And we poured wrath from our wineskins and said:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">"Death and vengeance to our enemies!"</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">And the one said: "But I say to you, love your enemies,
and pray for those who persecute you"</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">And our wineskins, which should now be strained, we only
held more tightly.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">And we poured wrath from our wineskins and said:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">"God will judge us because of those 'others' and we
must stand against them!"</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">And the one said: "the way that you judge others will
be the way that you will be judged, and you will be evaluated by the standard
with which you evaluate others." "Let the person among you who is
without sin be the first to throw a stone..."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">" the people of Sodom and its nearby villages were
never as sinful as you. They were arrogant and spoiled; they had everything
they needed and still refused to help the poor and needy. They thought they
were better than everyone else..."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">And we poured wrath from our wineskins and said:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">"Crucify HIM!"</span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">And the One said:</span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">"Father forgive them; they don't know what they are doing!"</span></div>
<br />
<div>
<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;"><br clear="all" />
</span><br />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<br />
<div id="ftn1">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;"><a href="file:///C:/0Data/Word/My%20Research%20And%20Writing/The%20Wineskin.doc#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]--></span></a> John 1:18</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;"><a href="file:///C:/0Data/Word/My%20Research%20And%20Writing/The%20Wineskin.doc#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[2]<!--[endif]--></span></a> John 1:18b</span></div>
</div>
</div>
Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873950253747580110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289595271476766389.post-38697229030401109832015-07-04T21:02:00.000-04:002015-07-05T17:59:06.863-04:00Those Gay Romans<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">What follows is
rooted in a distillation of some insights put forward by Douglas Campbell
in his thesis: <u>The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of
Justification in Paul</u>. I believe Campbell's work will overturn the tables
of post reformation theology much as Jesus overturned the tables of the money
lenders in the temple.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Recently Romans 1:18-32 has been a commonly sited verse within the new
testament used to attack gays (as it were) and "Christians" are
jumping all over it to justify their condemnation of same-sex attraction,
marriage and resistance to extending to them constitutional rights.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />
When you look at how these texts are structured this is all the more tragic because
these brothers and sisters are in fact falling for a false gospel being
promoted by a false teacher and this is the problem Paul is attacking and that
is what I intend to show here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />
Preliminary points:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">a) The letter to the
Romans is not a doctrinal letter but an occasional letter as are all of Paul's
authentic works. This excludes 1 & 2 Timothy as they are of unknown origin
but are certainly not of Pauline authorship, a point undisputed by scholars.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">b) Paul has
proclaimed his calling as "the apostle to the gentiles".<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">c) Paul finds
himself (in many of his letters) having to either defend his gospel against or
otherwise refute false teachers preaching false "gospels".<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">d) Many believe
these false teachers to be from the Jerusalem church and we should NOT downplay
Paul's bitter dispute with Peter in Antioch. This was a sign of significant
divisions between Jewish believers and church leadership and their gentile
counterparts. These are divisions in the early church that should not be
dismissed or taken lightly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />
Twice in Romans (1:18-32 & 3:1-9) Paul uses the Greek rhetorical device of
prosopopeia. This is where he accurately, lest his argument against it be
discredited, lays out his adversary's position in relative detail in order to
appropriately address it in rebuttal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The reason Paul
sends letters with a "carrier" (aside from the fact of very low
literacy rate at the time) is that this person was with Paul when he wrote the
letter and upon arrival performed the letter as a lector so that the change in voice
would be clear. Even without this benefit it is still discernible in
this text. I personally found it more difficult to notice the beginning of
the division precisely because of the fact the incorrect reading of the text
had become "normalized" from having spent 25 years within the
protestant tradition where Paul is understood by reformation era justification
theories. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />
This distinction becomes very clear when Paul begins his rebuttal in Romans 2:1
of the false teachers argument put forward in Ch1 vs. 18-32. If ever one has
gone away from reading Paul and thought; "He just might have some sort of
personality disorder" it is because his use of these grammatical
structures and diatribe go unrecognized.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Paul's rebuttal beginning in Rom. 2:1: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />
"So do you think that you can judge those other people? You are wrong. You
too are guilty of sin. You judge them, but you do the same things they do. So
when you judge them, you are really condemning yourself.2 God judges all who do
such things, and we know his judgment is right.3 And since you do the same
things as those people you judge, surely you understand that God will punish
you too. How could you think you would be able to escape his judgment?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />
In 3:9 he is again turning the false teacher's accusing finger around
addressing the false apostle's next argument, laid out in 3:1-9. I'm taking a
bit of liberty here for the sake of making a contemporary connection. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />
Rom 3:9 So are we Jews [heterosexual American Christians] better than other
people? No, we have already said that those who are Jews [heterosexual American
Christians], as well as those who are not [heterosexual American Christians]
Jews, are the same. They are all guilty of sin. 10 As the Scriptures say,
"There is no one doing what is right, not even one. 11 There is no one who
understands. There is no one who is trying to be with God. 12 They have all
turned away from him, and now they are of no use to anyone. There is no one who
does good, not even one." 13 "Their words come from mouths that are
like open graves. They use their lying tongues to deceive others."
"Their words are like the poison of snakes." 14 "Their mouths
are full of cursing and angry words." 15 "They are always ready to
kill someone. 16 Everywhere they go they cause trouble and ruin. 17 They don't
know how to live in peace." 18 "They have no fear or respect for
God." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />
If anything describes how fundamentalist Christians have positioned themselves
in our culture today it is verses 13-18.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />
Paul was the consummate egalitarian in regard to his gospel. With Jesus he
views the only law that has meaning is the law of faith expressed through love.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />
Further, the arguments in 1:18-32 can be found in the apocryphal work Wisdom of
Solomon books 12 and 13 and is a form of standard anti-gentile discourse. Paul,
being educated in both classical Greek and the Jewish rabbinic tradition, does
not hesitate at tearing apart this assault as a false gospel. So even if
the grammatical construction wasn't here (which it is) as the "apostle to
the gentiles" it would make little sense for him to go against his own
gospel and beat his Greek hearers over the head.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />
Many have claimed that those who champion grace and "tolerance" are
suffering from "itching ears" syndrome. Just hearing what their
itching ears what to hear and ignoring rectitude but that argument is empty.
Grace, peace, love, acceptance, "tolerance" are decidedly NOT what we
want to hear as self-righteous human beings. We want to hear is exactly what
Jesus DENIED his hearers in his first public sermon in Nazareth when quoting
from the book of Isaiah everything BUT the final part of Ch 61 verses 1&2.
This enraged his hearers as these passages were a well known statement of the
hope of Israel. These passages might have been held up a football games much
like John 3:16 is today and it is also why they tried to throw him off a cliff.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />
Isa 61:1 "The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed
me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed and to bind up the
brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, and release from darkness
for the prisoners; 2 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />
Jesus conveniently (and deliberately I propose) leaves out: "and the day
of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn;" Notice the connection
between the day of vengeance (against our enemies-whoever "they" are)
as being a "comfort" to the mourners. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">
This is the sickness of human sin and this is what itching ears really want to
hear!</span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873950253747580110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289595271476766389.post-36764386458745106532015-06-02T19:01:00.004-04:002015-07-05T07:52:38.300-04:00Apocalypse How<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">With this morning's study I was skimming the surface of
apocalyptic as worldview and the concomitant historical and social context. The
apocalyptic rose in the period beginning around the Babylonian exile of the
Jewish elite around 570BCE to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans around
70CE. This directly influences the thought, language, and literature throughout
this era. The cultural zeitgeist of apocalypticism and subsequent literature is
one marked by the themes of crisis, secret knowledge, and a dispensational or
periodized perspective.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">What I find particularly interesting is that within rabbinic
tradition following the destruction of Jerusalem the apocalyptic view fell out
of favor and was rejected as a way of continued framing of cultural identity
and understanding of their world. It only survived and proliferated because of
the fledgling movement known then as "the way" which was the early
followers of the ethic of Jesus. They
had taken interest in and appropriated it, obviously modified using more
ethereal elements as it continued to frame their worldview. It is in this sense
these ideas never had a true "Christian" origin. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">Recently, within the stream of a seven year long theological
discourse, and before beginning this overview, I had put forward the idea that
the only reason that the strange language and beliefs unique to the ancient
apocalyptic era still exist within the sub-culture of religion is because of it
being mishandled by the reformers. So this is only partly true in that its roots
go back much further. The hope within the second temple era seemed to be
inextricably linked to an apocalyptic expression of messiah as a deus ex
machina of violent redemption. That simply never was to be and was subversively redefined by the ethic and self-giving life and death of Jesus. The destruction
of Jerusalem brought with it the deconstruction of the apocalyptic worldview
from within Jewish rabbinical thought.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">This new movement-followers of the way-was able to
grasp-albeit in limited ways-the subversive aspect of the hope yet they did not
critique and leave behind the apocalyptic cultural bias as did the more
scholarly rabbinical groups. So apparently it seems then that those deeply
knowledgeable of and acculturated to the Jewish "way" missed the subversive
appearing of messiah while the multicultural-and largely illiterate-adopters of
"the way" of Jesus were able to grasp this subversity yet were still
adrift within a world of cultural ideas and hopes framed almost entirely by
folklore and superstition. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">This simply shows why there is need for a fully orbed faith.
A faith that never turns its eyes and mind from reality in favor of embracing
cultural or religious sub-cultural delusions. What is sometimes obvious to
those who make a habit of broad study is missed by those who merely do
devotions-by definition the antithesis of study-and participate in religious
culture at large. Yet those participants can if not careful find themselves
first on the margins, then at the center, of irrelevancy by not getting the
mind in the game and working things out.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">It doesn't require much thought to question whether
something is true or not. An entirely more engaging question is to ask:
"How is it true?"</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873950253747580110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289595271476766389.post-44746686454255801842015-05-27T19:47:00.002-04:002015-08-10T18:04:52.785-04:00God Has a Face<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I came across this phrase while reading <a href="http://brianzahnd.com/">Brian Zahnd's</a> book
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Farewell-Mars-Evangelical-Pastors-Biblical-ebook/dp/B00I65455C/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1439244251&sr=1-1&keywords=A+Farewell+to+Mars">"A Farewell to Mars."</a> God has a face. Later the next day that phrase
came rushing back into my mind as a string of thoughts on just what that might
mean from several perspectives.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Anyone who has been within a Christian religious subculture
for any significant time may be familiar with the verse from Hebrews, 1:3 where
it states: "...[Jesus] is the reflection of God's glory and the exact
likeness of his being..." I think we may really miss the absolute depth of
this statement <i>about God. </i>Too often we get caught up in
"religious-ese" and somehow mystify this simple statement that, in
plain terms, puts a face on God. And that face is Jesus.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">God has a face. I was thinking about a new crew member
scheduled to come on the boat. All I had was a name from the crew dispatch
email sent earlier in the day. The name seemed familiar. When mentioning it to
other crew members they were like: "Yea, you remember, he used to ride
with us a few years ago. Well that still didn't help my comprehension and I
said, "Yea, the name seems familiar but <i>I can't put a face to it.</i>"</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I propose that it is in this sense that the <i>entirety </i>of
the scriptures need to be viewed. The email - old testament writings - are part
of a message that something or someone is coming, but as we know the message is
not a complete communication, and in this case not a clear one either. Then we
have the testimony of other crew who "remember" him i.e. the new
testament. But there is something strikingly <i>more</i> about the <i>face</i>.
It is here that we recognize and can then begin to join those things that are
connected or belong to this person's story and reject or critique those
that are part of some other story even if unsure what that other story is we
know that it does not belong to or is a reflection upon the one with the <i>face</i>.
It is in the growing cognition of that <i>face</i> that guides us in this
process.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Well of course we don't know what the physical face of Jesus
looked like so instead we must connect the one with the face with <i>his own</i>
words and actions that define him. Those things that by his words and actions
most clearly show what he thought important and valuable. There is plenty
enough there to critique the content of the original message and also begin to
see a mosaic portrait appear that gets us much closer to seeing the God which
many of the original messengers all too frequently missed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">We shouldn't blame those early writers for missing the <i>face</i>.
There was a great deal of competition. Even if inspired they were still trapped
within a world that was primitive, deeply violent and superstitious. A world of
ubiquitous fear and death. A world culture filled with sacrificial gods,
malevolent to a one, running amok over humanity; if even only in their minds. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">There was simply was no one able to represent the <i>face</i>.
Humanity wasn't yet capable of grasping... of beholding, such a face in such a
world. In spite of all these handicaps we still can find those elements that <i>belong</i>
to the story that goes with the <i>face </i>but we must start with the <i>face </i>not
the ancient story. It is not anachronistic to read the story this way because the
point of the story leads to the climax wherein is revealed <i>the face</i>. It is the <i>Face </i>which brings some
elements together and reveals others as merely false and fallen human
imaginings.</span></div>
</div>
Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873950253747580110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289595271476766389.post-84361456263641294392015-01-22T08:57:00.003-05:002023-02-12T21:55:26.479-05:00A Galileo Moment<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">About a year ago I briefly referenced the story of Galileo's
confrontation with the church 'pillars' of his time. In 1633 he was called to
account by the Roman Catholic Inquisition. His crime? Science. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Armed with a new telescope Galileo, observing the planets,
began to promote with evidence the much earlier theory of Copernicus that the
earth and other planets orbited the sun. This was a huge problem because the
official church position based on the understanding of the sacred scripture at
the time dictated that world and cosmos be understood differently. This
inquisition declared such a view of a heliocentric solar system to be heresy.
Thus a collision between science and religion.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">This inquisition found Galileo suspect of heresy and it was
only through a carefully reasoned argument and probably a bit of luck that he
wasn't condemned. He was bid his leave with the admonition not to write of or
teach his 'heresy'. Of course the church could not be seen as wavering but must
have been at least a bit convicted that they could be <i>wrong.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">It doesn't take much imagination to observe a principle from
this of what I'll call 'A Galileo Moment'. It might state: "Whenever
religion and real observable science come into conflict religion must necessarily
give way." You might be thinking this is the talk of a crazy person or
even a heretic. One reason, among many others, some may feel that way is
because of the falsehood that <i>one's understanding</i> of scripture and
therefore God is the same as the actual truth concerning God and scripture. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Let's face it, Galileo was right, the church <i>eventually
accepted the truth</i>. This problem
required a new way of viewing the sacred texts. Their methods of reading
and comprehending the scriptures were <i>fundamentally</i> wrong. Adjustments
were made and were applied to this new knowledge. The danger of not doing this
work is to become objectively irrelevant in a world of real things. Then any claim to having "truth" becomes a parody. The position of
immovability is really fearful and willful ignorance disguised as a faith.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">There are rich contributions from scientist-clerics prior to
Galileo's time. Copernicus was one. One wonders why the very
religious tradition within which such great thinking was produced would turn
against those conclusions? I'll leave that question for someone else to think
about.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Consider the following juxtaposition:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">a) The sheer volume and mass of scientific discovery and
progress since the time of these men from at least the early 1600's is mind
boggling. Though amazingly much of it has occurred in our lifetimes and is
continuing at an exponential rate.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">b) The <i>relative</i> non-progress of religious thought
over the same time frame. With only few and limited exceptions and no
substantive <i>fundamental</i> shifts, or what would most accurately be called
'repentance'. (Some traditions are even retreating back into archaic
religion-just check the news from the middle east and in fact all of
Europe-though for different reasons).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I believe that in light of the exponential pace in the
growth of scientific knowledge, and the relative retardation of religious
thought we are fast approaching a Galileo Moment in our own time. There will be
a crumbling of walls once thought impregnable. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">What is the response of much of our religion in the face of
this rapid change? Acquire sand-insert head. We must be able to move away from
believing certain <i>ideas about religion and our sacred texts</i> that may
ultimately turn out to be, as in the minds of Galileo's interlocutors,
superstition. Two primary ways I see this evolution of knowledge working out
are:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">1) Those who will not repent (change their thinking) will
find they have become completely irrelevant to the world and the Kingdom of God
within it all the while being deluded into thinking they are part of some sort
of remnant or other foolishness. Simultaneously being marginalized while
marginalizing the rest of humanity; Failing Jesus' call.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">2) Others will concede the reality of what is, i.e. pull
their head out of the sand, but they will forsake their faith lamenting that
they were all along lied to by their self-proclaimed shepherds; Those who
employ "Old MacDonald" theology: <i>Here a verse, There a verse,
Everywhere a verse, verse</i> and foolishly try to construct some sort of
reasoned model for life. If life's problems were nails this sort of theological
thinking would not be a hammer, but a banana. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">So what to do? Own your faith. Use your mind. Fear not! It
is not thought and reason, but certainty, that is the enemy of faith. Don't be
afraid of the journey turned adventure. God is good.</span></div>
</div>
</div>
Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873950253747580110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289595271476766389.post-19890830150788870132014-12-03T09:19:00.002-05:002016-01-29T22:20:37.318-05:00Reflections for December 3rd, 2014<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">If
you've never watched "Sons Of Anarchy" I would encourage you NOT to
(Though I've watched several seasons, hypocrite that I am). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It
is rife with unfiltered violence, power manipulation, posturing, intrigue,
unwaveringly blind though misguided loyalties, retribution, revenge, and death.
As a matter of fact it is remarkably similar to the ancient story surrounding
the "unification" of Israel & Judah after Saul's death which
reminded me of the series in the first place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">One
thing I was struck with is that in "Sons" as in Kings and Samuel the
violence is, in a word, "un-redemptive". What does that mean? We all
are often guilty of justifying violence (in fact "redeeming" it) if
in the end it serves a "higher purpose" or that there is a dichotomy
of perceived good versus evil (though scripture reveals to us that "no one
is good, not one"). But in the end Jesus words come home to roost
"those who pick up the sword perish by the sword" (Matt 26:52) which
has a most striking object lesson in 2nd Samuel 2: 13-17 where 12 soldiers
under Joab's command (David's general) and 12 soldiers under Abner's command
(Ishbosheth's general) met in a field, later called the "Field of
Daggers", and grabbed each other by the hair and stabbed one another. All
twenty-four died right then and there. There are no winners under this model of conflictual mimesis.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We
have a tendency to think that our world is "going to hell" but in
reality it really isn't going anywhere. The same themes; the same mechanisms of
control, the same mentality as the David's and their Joabs, Isbosheth's and
Abners, Jackson Teller and his makers of mayhem, world leaders and their armies
of which none are righteous, not one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The
power of God. What is that in this kind of world? When the mother of James and
John asked Jesus: "When you come into your kingdom, please let one of my
sons sit at your right side and the other at your left." She was, along
with her sons, thinking along the above described lines. The language of
messiah was understood in context with militant, zealous, nationalistic, patriotism and violence. What Jesus
says next is extraordinarily subversive of this idea: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">"Not
one of you knows what you are asking. Are you able to drink from the cup that I
must soon drink from?" James and John said, "Yes, we are!"
"You certainly will drink from my cup! But it isn't for me to say who will
sit at my right side and at my left. That is for my Father to say."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We
do in fact find out who is at Jesus right and left when he comes into his
kingdom and ascends to the throne. Jesus then launches into a teaching about how the
structures of the world operate; and juxtaposes this with his Father's kingdom.
Now the solution requires us to discern what his throne and kingdom look like and how Jesus "comes into his kingdom". Well, it looks like a Roman cross. And now we know who is at his right and his left.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873950253747580110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289595271476766389.post-6263953652116102032014-01-07T19:33:00.001-05:002015-07-05T07:36:05.168-04:00Satan In The Old Testament<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">This is a brief survey on the occurrence
and usage of the word “satan” in the Old Testament writings with the hope of
showing that its common usage as a noun need be reevaluated to allow new
illumination of the texts in which it occurs and develop a paradigm for
reading, and asking questions of, other segments of scripture from a fresh and
more meaningful perspective.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">From the outset my assessment of these
passages is informed by what I understand of the work of Rene Girard<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1289595271476766389#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[1]</span></span></a>
and as further developed by Michael Hardin.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1289595271476766389#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[2]</span></span></a>
A part of this view considers that all ancient writings are first
anthropological and therefore have inherently more to say about humanity making
sense of its world and origins, and only while being mindful of this can they
be evaluated theologically. Congruent to this I hold that there are multiple
voices within scripture. Not all of the voices are God even when so attributed.
Revelation is found throughout the texts but not all is revelation of God,
often it reveals merely the perception of the world through ancient and
primitive eyes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">In the Hebrew </span><span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="color: black; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: HE; mso-bidi-language: HE;">שׂטן</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;"><span dir="LTR"></span> translated satan means “an opponent or adversary.” Omitting the
allegorical story of Job the usage of the word satan occurs in only three
verses in the Old Testament: 1 Chronicles 21:1 and Zechariah 3:1-2. I hope to
probe how a theological interpretive matrix that has been generated by
religious and cultural traditions has altered our understanding and creates
difficulties for later readers of the text. I believe it important to question
interpretive models as they orient the questions we ask of the text and the
right questions are necessary to have any hope of meaningful understanding.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">Briefly, the book of Job belongs to the
genre of poetry within the bible. There is scholarly disagreement as to
authorship, date, and the differing questions that the book addresses. Many
scholars agree that the prologue and epilogue are based on ancient folk tale.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1289595271476766389#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[3]</span></span></a>
One important question seems to be “how are the righteous to suffer?” Job amply
departs from the pagan idea that suffering is connected to our actions as
related to divine recompense though as of this writing my understanding of this
still being challenged by the work of Girard. Obviously certain actions and
choices have consequences but this is not the idea at issue. Ecclesiastes
places an exclamation point on Job’s position.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1289595271476766389#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[4]</span></span></a>
His friends continually persuade him to accept that he is or has committed some
evil and to accept his punishment, curse god and die! Job’s interlocutors
reveal their belief about <i>the gods</i> in that they connect cursing with the
supposition of the retributive imposition of death.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">In the approximate chronology of the cited
books the oldest is arguably Zechariah, originating approximately 8<sup>th</sup>
to 6<sup>th</sup> century BCE. First Chronicles has a correlative story in the
earlier book 2<sup>nd</sup> Samuel<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1289595271476766389#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[5]</span></span></a>
though it reads ironically different which we’ll see shortly and this
difference should raise other questions. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">I will begin this examination with 1<sup>st</sup>
Chronicles 21:1; <i>And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to
number Israel. </i></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The name Israel, while symbolically understood as Jacob,
has its translation here and elsewhere, as “he will rule as God” I render it
here with the understanding “he will rule <i>like </i>God”. This is interesting
especially in light of the story under examination. A summary review of the
teachings of Jesus appears to lend credibility here as much of his teaching
involved parables about what the world would look like if God were in charge<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1289595271476766389#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[6]</span></span></a>
and if we, even in a limited sense, view the older testament as “shadows of
things to come”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1289595271476766389#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[7]</span></span></a> then this
understanding comes full circle.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Let us look at a valid and alternate way of reading the text.</span></div>
<h1>
<span style="color: black; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></h1>
<h1>
<i><span style="color: black; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">An opponent stood against he will
rule as [like] God, and enticed David to weigh out his self</span></i></h1>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This variable
reading of the text indicates that there was certainly something “opposing”
David and what that may be is clarified both by </span><i><span style="color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">sooth+ayth</span></i><span style="color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;"> translated here as enticed or seduced to
“weighing out his self.” Significant to understanding this is what David was
enticed to do, which doesn’t seem particularly evil; how do we frame this
“weighing out his self?” The whole passage here makes me </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">think of the
phrase: “He is his own worst enemy.”</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">David is attempting to “measure up”, to compare
himself-weigh himself against other kings. Imitating the cultural paradigm for
perceiving and measuring power and influence in a numbers game. This gives a
clue to why Joab counseled David against such an act as bringing guilt upon
Israel (he will rule as [or like] God) because God’s leadership was whom David
and the nation were to imitate. David, imitating and deriving his desire for
notoriety from the surrounding peoples and kings, is an affront to that. This
is mimetic realism working itself out and therefore in this case a reasonable
understanding of this “opponent” to David can be identified as imitated carnal
desire. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In 2<sup>nd</sup>
Samuel 24:1 we find a correlative account of this same record: </span><i><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">And again the anger of Jehovah was kindled against
Israel, and he moved David against them, saying; Go, number Israel and Judah.<span style="color: black;"></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Notice
that the variation here in the earlier text of Samuel credits or blames Jehovah
with “pricking” or “seducing” David to depart from “ruling as [or like] God” or
to sin. Later writers apparently recognized this contradiction, or even the
absurdity, of attributing the origination of this particular evil to Jehovah
and reoriented this desire to David. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Zechariah poses a unique challenge in that the text is occurring
within a series of dreams.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText2">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Zec
3:1 Then I saw Joshua the High Priest standing in the presence of the angel of
the lord, with Satan standing at his right to oppose him. 2 The lord told
Satan, "The lord rebuke you, Satan—in fact, may the lord who has chosen
Jerusalem rebuke you! This man is a burning brand plucked from the fire, is he
not?"</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">As in parable there is a message in these visions though, as is
often the case, the message must be worked out and not always clear at the
surface. The above passages are denser than explained by a simplistic
exposition on the work of a <i>person</i> named satan. The passage appears to
present a mystical struggle but how do we make sense of it?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The seer here reports that he sees in his vision the High Priest
Joshua who<i> </i>is standing in front of a messenger of the lord<i> </i>and
standing at Joshua’s right is a <i>diablos </i>from the LXX.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1289595271476766389#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[8]</span></span></a>
Diablos in the Greek is defined as a traducer, to speak maliciously and falsely
of; slander; defame. </span>That <i>diablos</i> was standing at Joshua’s right
signifies a place of counsel or confidence.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1289595271476766389#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[9]</span></span></a>
This can be understood as Joshua’s interpretive framework.<span style="color: black; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> The messenger
is <i>epitimao</i> or expressing censure, a strong expression of disapproval,
at this <i>diablos,</i> or of the slander and defamation of this orientation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Verses 3 & 4 from the LXX render in the
following manner: Joshua was <i>invested (enduo)</i> with <i>cheap or shabby</i>
<i>(rhuparos)</i> garments referring to this interpretive method. What follows
gives the clue to what or who is slandered. The messenger responded to those
present: “remove the cheap, shabby garment from him.” Followed by: “Behold I <i>tore
out (exaireo)</i> your <i>injustice or wrongfulness (adikia)</i>. Within this
context the messenger, addressing Joshua, in a unilateral act removes the
wrong-headedness of believing the slander of the “traducer.” Who might be the
object of the “traducer?” Verse 5 continues with the messenger instructing
[Zechariah] to place a clean or <i>pure</i> <i>turban (kibotos</i>) a
box-translated everywhere else as ark presuming the sacred ark of the
covenant-upon Joshua’s head. This I propose signifies that the slander or
falsehood that is being corrected was toward God. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText3">
Resisting the import of later theological conceptions
when reviewing the text it is fitting that the messenger, through the prophet,
was addressing something that was within Joshua. The messenger lets Zechariah
know he is <i>tearing out the wrongfulness of this counsel</i> and replaces it
with a clean, pure turban exchanging the wrong-headedness of Joshua’s thinking
about and orientation toward God.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText3">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText3">
Therefore the earliest biblical texts can be shown not to
provide the origin of later theological conceptions of a supra-human evil
personality. The New Testament mentions <i>diablos</i> or <i>satan </i>in
various contexts nearly sixty times, though many are duplicate accounts, and
this begs the question, from where is it derived? </div>
<div class="MsoBodyText3">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText3">
In order to begin to understand this we must turn to the
Apocrypha and the book of 1 Enoch.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1289595271476766389#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[10]</span></span></a>
The book itself is a pseudo-epigraph and is dated during the inter-testamental
period at around mid 2<sup>nd</sup> century BCE and appears to have had
widespread cultural influence by Jesus time. Many of the New Testament authors
quoted or very nearly quoted<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1289595271476766389#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[11]</span></span></a>
many sayings and writings that are found nowhere else but in the book of Enoch.
It is in this book that the personhood of the satan seems to come of age. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyText3">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText3">
Additionally the LXX having been translated since around
250 BCE signifies that the Jewish people had been exposed to and influenced by
Hellenistic culture and thought for almost three centuries before Jesus
time. It is within Greek mythology where we find Hades, being both the name of
the king of the underworld, god of death and the dead, and his abode. This was
the world within which the New Testament came into being and should not be
divorced from consideration when examining the metaphorical nature of parable
and other unique challenges of reading the texts from within a perspective
twenty-centuries in their future. </div>
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
<br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1289595271476766389#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[1]</span></span></a> The
Scapegoat by Girard, René and Freccero, Yvonne (Jan 8, 1989)</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1289595271476766389#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[2]</span></span></a> The Jesus
Driven Life: Reconnecting Humanity With Jesus, 2nd Edition by Michael Hardin
(2010)</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn3" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1289595271476766389#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[3]</span></span></a> Fohrer G. <i>Introduction
to the Old Testament </i>(Nashville: Abingdon Press; 1958) 325. Fohrer says,
“It is almost universally accepted that the framework was originally an
independent narrative, a legend whose point was didactic and paraenetic.”</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn4" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1289595271476766389#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[4]</span></span></a> Eccl 7:15 In
my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in
his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his
evildoing.</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn5" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1289595271476766389#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[5]</span></span></a> It seems
best to place the writing of Samuel sometime after the divided monarchy (913
B.C.) but before the fall of Samaria (7:22 B.C.)
https://bible.org/article/introduction-book-second-samuel</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn6" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1289595271476766389#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[6]</span></span></a> The point of
the parables…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is what it will look like
when God is in charge! And unless we read the book of Acts in this way we will
never understand what’s going on. <span style="font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">When the Spirit Comes</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">, </span></b>a sermon for Pentecost (May 23) 2010; Bishop of Durham, Dr
N. T. Wright</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn7" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1289595271476766389#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[7]</span></span></a> Colossians
2:17</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn8" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1289595271476766389#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[8]</span></span></a> LXX –
Septuagint, Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. Refers to the legendary
seventy Jewish scholars who completed the translation as early as the late 2nd
century BCE</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn9" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1289595271476766389#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[9]</span></span></a> For further
treatment of the significance in Jewish thought on right/left see the Jewish
Virtual Library at: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0017_0_16755.html</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn10" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1289595271476766389#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[10]</span></span></a> You can
download the translation of the book of Enoch free from <a href="http://book-ofenoch.com/download-pdf/">http://book-ofenoch.com/download-pdf/</a>
in Acrobat *.pdf or Kindle format provided by Princeton Theological Seminary
Library. I recommend reading the introduction (around 60 pages) followed
immediately by a parallel listing of passages from the book correlated with
their New Testament counterparts.</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn11" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1289595271476766389#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[11]</span></span></a> Laurence,
Richard LL.D. In the introduction from “The Book of Enoch” translated from an
Ethiopia MS in the Bodleian Library Dr. Laurence collates dozens of the more
striking occurrences of this “borrowing”</div>
</div>
</div>
<br />Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873950253747580110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289595271476766389.post-38801442972227380912013-11-21T15:16:00.000-05:002020-01-22T10:07:39.078-05:00Inescapable Interpretation<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I wanted to expand a theme
that I have been pursuing earnestly. The idea that a
significant aspect of discipleship is interpretation so as to "rightly
dividing the truth [about God]". Interpretation, the way we understand
anything, forms a controlling framework for how we live our lives. Just look at
the enormous damage fundamentalist evangelicals have done to the cause of
Christ who’s work is, in every case, redemptive. Those whose double-minded
view of God drags out the spewing hatred, judgment, and retributive
attitude that only a human mind could conceive, (1 Jn 1:5b God is light,
and there is no darkness at all in him), and foisting it upon other human
beings in the most damnable ways.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I want to share a bit
concerning a recent post put on social media. My tongue is still
bleeding from biting in avoidance of comment regarding the passages in James 1:
22-24.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<i>Jas 1:22 Obey God's message! Don't fool yourselves by just listening to it. 23 If you hear the message and don't obey it, you are like people who stare at themselves in a mirror 24 and forget what they look like as soon as they leave. </i></span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The underlying point of view in this individual's mind (interpretive framework) was that one should certainly be fearful and
under bondage to insure that you are quite busy... with something. Apparently
with something other than whatever James is talking about such as is on the
average evangelical's activity chart all the while looking over your shoulder to see if God is about to crush you. The important point James makes is
found in 2:8 and is part of Jesus' greatest commandment. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<i>Jas 2:8 You will do all right, if you obey the most important law in the Scriptures. It is the law that commands us to love others as much as we love ourselves. 9 But if you treat some people better than others, you have done wrong, and the Scriptures teach that you have sinned. </i></span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">James bookends
this "commandment" with practical examples but the message is still
the same: love your neighbor as yourself. They will know you by your love. If
taken as a list of do's <i>or else,</i> as it was in this person's view, it violates the spirit of the message
and brings once again the commandment and death.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I mourned in my soul that
after all Jesus showed us of the Father that a brother would put himself under
a yoke of bondage, narcissistic bondage, to "hoping" he's doing
"enough" hoping one is doing "the right work", in essence saying
"look at me [facebook] Jesus I'm doing the stuff!" I rather wanted to
retort with Paul in Galatians 5:1 <i><span style="color: black;">Stand fast
therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not
entangled again with the yoke of bondage.</span></i><i><span style="color: black;"> </span></i><span style="color: black;">Additionally
this brings into consideration words as thought buckets. James uses the
word: "word", be doers not merely hearers. There are many places in the NT where the phrase is used "the word of the Lord." We
just <i>assume we know what that meant!</i> It is clear in this passage
that the "word" James is speaking of is revealed in 2:8. I propose
that we've probably filled our buckets with something other than what was
is really there more often than not.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Double mindedness in
James is precisely <i><b>not</b> </i>one whose faith vacillates from weak to strong
but one whose view of God vacillates from the ultimate giver of good, loving
and faithful to man to the withholder of good and harbinger of punishment.<i>
</i>The content of the preceding verses provides the context that shows this;
v6 uses <i>pistis, persuaded + without wavering [</i>diakrinō<i>] separate
thoroughly </i>and is connected with the asking. It is precisely
because the world Jesus walked in and James wrote in still
maintained a paganistic view of <i>el-o-heem,</i> (the gods) that this is so. The "gods"
since antiquity were malevolent and punitive without the "right"
sacrifices, This describes the world many Christians
still live in and it would be appropriate to term that thinking
as pagan. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">This approach then enables us to read the Old Testament and distinguish between religion and
revelation. Revelation is shown whenever the testimony about God aligns
with Jesus' testimony about God; we find religion, idolatry, myth,
or a projection of humanity when it does not. I think it
is a serious error to pluck the sacred texts, any of them, from
the world within which they came to be. To look at these texts divorced
from that context is to risk missing the point in colossal ways. So what
is James saying? Jesus' Abba is not like the other gods. He is good and gives
good gifts to those who ask without reservation and that upon hearing of this
we should do likewise. All of this is part of what makes Jesus message so
remarkable and revolutionary. If Abba was just like the other gods we're
wasting our breath and should eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>El-o-heem</i> is, by the way, the name
used in the first creation narrative from Genesis 1:1-2:3. The
name used in the second creation narrative beginning in
2:4 (yes I see them as two separate stories) the writers now add the
unpronounceable name YHWH which demonstrates to me that between the two
narratives, however long that was, a shift of significant theological
understanding and anthropological development has occurred. This also sets in
motion the much later shift from henotheism to monotheism. At the time
of Jesus and Paul the henotheist view is still prevalent otherwise why would
there be any talk at all about food sacrificed to idols and the need to
disregard their importance? Now we begin to see the gradual but relentless
unveiling of God to humanity. The story of humanity's descent into
sacrificial violence is held in juxtaposition to the revelation of
the one true God which is completed in Jesus.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Regarding interpretation I offer this excerpt from "The Jesus Driven Life":</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><span style="color: maroon; font-size: large;">Jesus’
parables fall into exactly the same two categories as his understanding of what
constitutes the greatest commandment, what it means to love God and love our
neighbor. The parables then are an invitation to participate in this new way of
being and living and loving in the world which reflects the authentic character
of who God is, not as abstract, but specifically who God is in Jesus, the True
Human. </span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><span style="color: maroon; font-size: large;">From
this observation on the parables and the greatest commandment I want to draw a
conclusion: Life is all about interpretation, about the way we interpret our
sacred texts, our experience and the world around us. There is no life without
interpretation. As we saw in 1.2, the context for the greatest commandment in
all three Synoptic Gospels had to do with interpretation; likewise the parables
have to do with the way we interpret God and ourselves in relation to each
other. It is not a question of whether or not we interpret. We do. We are not
automatons who simply live a program; we humans seek meaning and significance
in all of life, from the smallest thing to the biggest event. Jesus’ intention
is to draw us out of the box of our pagan sacrificial logic, out of our
idolatry, and into the wonderful mystery of his compassionate Abba.</span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b><span style="color: maroon;">Hardin,
Michael (2010-04-02). The Jesus Driven Life: Reconnecting Humanity With Jesus
(Kindle Locations 2227-2231). JDL Press. Kindle Edition</span></b></i><b>.</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873950253747580110noreply@blogger.com0