Biblical eroticism
Came across this when I was browsing the BBC news page today...is this relevant or what? I don't know quite what to make of it, so I'll let you all be the judge. Comments welcome. Only in Europe, I say (what in God's name would our Religious Right make of this???).
from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4494938.stm:
Youths reveal racy Bible calendar
The creators said they wanted to appeal to a younger generation
A German Protestant youth group has put together a 2006 calendar illustrated with erotic scenes from the Bible.
The 12 re-enacted passages feature a bare-breasted Delilah cutting Samson's hair and a nude Eve offering an apple.
The Nuremberg-based group said they wanted to represent the Bible in a way that would entice young people.
Nuremberg pastor Bernd Grasser said: "It's just wonderful when teenagers commit themselves with their hair and their skin to the bible."
"There's a whole range of biblical scriptures simply bursting with eroticism," said Stefan Wiest, 32, who took the racy photographs.
Anne Rohmer, 21, wearing garters and stockings, posed on a doorstep as the prostitute Rahab.
"We wanted to represent the Bible in a different way and to interest young people," she told news agency Reuters.
"Anyway, it doesn't say anywhere in the Bible that you are forbidden to show yourself nude."
Bernd Grasser, pastor of the church in Nuremberg where the calendar is being sold, said he was supportive of the project.
Copyright BBC News International
My German isn't pefect, but I think the picture says, "Act as God created you. Erotic pictures from the Bible."
Post-exam euphoria? Depression?
Alright, exam #2 is out of the way. Let's hope I did better on this one than the first. During these last few weeks of test preparation, essay writing and scavenging through my disorganized notes, I've had some time to reflect.
An old family (we're certainly not the only ones to use it) proverb comes to mind: "You never have time to do it right, but you always have time to do it twice."
This is a painful realization, as I find myself procrastinating, losing my notes, depriving myself of sleep, just like always. Somehow, proper preparation is always too much work, but doing something at the last minute under enormous stress is somehow better. Similarly, I am realizing, as I always do at the end of every semester, that a bit more studying and effort earlier on would have saved me untold trouble at the end of the semester...This doesn't all exactly relate to the proverb, but it's close. Humans are creatures of habit; try as I may, I can never seem to change them. And with that in mind, I'm off to the library for some last-minute studying. Sigh...
Linda Sexson class visit, 16 November
Alright, these are my notes from Dr. Linda Sexson's visit to 212 this last Wednesday. She presented a wealth of information, of which I probably got less than half into my note, but I'll give this a shot anyway...
Notes:
The Parable:
-expectations disrupted
-familiar terms become unfamiliar, uncanny
New Testament v. Hebrew Scriptures (aka Christian Old Testament, aka "Tanak")
-Tanak: A combination of the words Torah, Prophets and Writings; not entirely secured in the Canon during Jesus's time (hadn't all "measured up")
-Jesus usually quotes from Prophets, specifically the Isaiah scroll
-Jesus understands himself as a Jew and Hebrew Scriptures are his sacred texts
-Jews, Gentiles saw him as the Messiah
-"Messiah" means "annoited"
-"Christ" is the Greek translation of Messiah; it is a title, not a name
New Testament parts: 1. Gospels (4); 2. Epistles, many written by Paul; 3. Apocalypse of St. John (Revelation, no s on end!)
-Gospel means "Good news"
And...
-What we know from the New Testament about early Christendom:
-Many communites being formed in Middle East
-Great effort underway to describe the life of Jesus
-These communities were all autonomous, Paul attempted to bring them together
-Difference between Prophets (Old Testament) and Book of Revelation:
-Prophets concerned about polytheism, idolatry, etc. Preached "Exclusive Yahwism" (Basis of Judaism,
Christianity and Islam), also concerned with social justice
-Birth, worship of Jesus caused tension for "Exclusive Yahwism"
-Decalogue (10 Commandments): 1st section - Worshipping God; 2nd section: How to treat others
-Apocalyptic thinking: "we are living in the end time, the curtain is about to fall"
-Cosmic forces of good and evil
-Discussed in highly symbolic and allegorical terms
-Christ was for some a political hope: Jews were without a leader and wanted another King David
-He is also seen as an apocalyptic figure, ushering in a new era; a combination of political and metaphysical
desires
-Gospels:
1. Mark (oldest)
2. Matthew
3. Luke
These three are known as they "synoptic Gospels" (syn = similar, optic = vision; similar vision) because of their similarities to eachother.
and the fourth Gospel: John, an otherworldly, spiritualized (different from spiritual, Dr. Michael Sexson points out) description of Jesus, probalby latest Gospel
Gospel of Thomas: rediscovered in the 20th century, placed by many in the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th centuries.
-Other scholars say that Gospel of Thomas is the earliest, because unlike the other Gospels, it doesn't tell the life story of Jesus, but rather a collection of his sayings (makes sense because people during time of Jesus would be more interested in his sayings rather than his biography).
Thomas Jefferson: criticized by the "religious right" of the late 18th/early 19th centuries for not being religious enough
-He had created a Bible of strictly the sayings of Jesus; TJ was looking for a Jesus who was both reasonable and
compassionate, a "product of hte enlightenment" just like Jefferson.
Did Jesus speak in Parables?
-Complaints about this in the New Testament, e.g. Gospel of Matthew
-sense of the esoteric (just for insiders)
-is a parable a secret saying?
-Parables talk about something unnameable in regular language
-Parables also exist in Daoist, Buddhist and Hindu sacred texts, so not exclusively Christian
-Hebrew Bible: "Mashal" = Proverb
-Parable doesn't equal Proverb
-What is the unpleasant surprise in the parable of the "Good Samaritan?"
-Answer: that the Samaritan is the "good guy"
-A parable should push us to where we haven't been before; it should upset our expectations
And finally, my own parable, compiled from fellow classmates' topics (activity at end of class):
Ideas: Mike Tyson, Baking dessert, and Shoes
-Mike Tyson was baking dessert for the county fair when he spilled pudding on his shoes. Now he has to buy new Birkenstocks (it doesn't make sense - that's the point)
Excuse the randomness of this post, haphazard indentations, hyphen use, etc. It's very late...
You guessed it...
Class notes, 09.11.05
Important pages of Calasso: 243, 273, 337, 359, 383, 387
-I guess we're supposed to pay particular attention to these, but I can't exactly remember (the hazards of
e-journal posting procrastination)
Calasso: "Myth is hte precedent behind every action; mythology is the story of what we do"
Helen: "We suffer so that someone may sing about us in the future."
-My thoughts: I'd like to think my suffering has a bit more significance than that...I don't really want people
singing about me, either. Good thing I never suffer.
Shakespeare: "The worst is not so long as you can say 'this couldn't get worse'"
**note** Items in quotes are not necessarily direct quotes; most are paraphrased or mistranslated by me (I'm committing "misprisons!")
"Deus ex machina" - God in the machine; genuine tragedy doesn't have this aspect.
And an extra-credit opportunity: Memorize Ecc. 12 (famous passage)
...
Even more catch-up notes...
From November 7, 2005
Harold Bloom: Shakespear made us who we are today; he has entered into the cultural stream.
-says also that we live in a "God-centered government; we're living in a theocracy"
-agree/disagree?
-"Theo" = God, "Cracy" = government, hence, "Goverment by God," as opposed to Democracy, "government by people"
RIP John Fowles, British literary great
-Novel:
The Magus -Dr. Sexson recommends that you all read this, so what are you waiting for?
-http://www.fowlesbooks.com
And the primary topic of discussion during the class period: Wisdom Literature
Two types: Palonius (type A) v. Hamlet (type B)
-Type A examples: Proverbs
-Divides world into black and white, oversimplifies things
-Type B examples: Ecclesiastes, Book of Job
-Not as black and white, life might be a "tapestry"
-Futility is a general theme (e.g. Ch 1, verse 12 of Ecclesiastes)
-Doctrine of Retributive Justice: "No one suffers who doesn't deserve it; everyone does something wrong"
Class notes catch-up
Some class notes from November 4th...
Some notes on The Oresteia from class:
-Furies
-belong to nether region, shadow world; represent destructive aspect of Mother Nature. Apollo is the opposite of
this
-Apollo suggests an independent 3rd party overseer for the trial of Orestes, thereby instituting the modern
justice system and courts
-Orestes goes to Acropolis; clutches idol of Athena and begs for mercy
-Orestes: "I hae suffered into truth"
-Furies see his footprint; quote, pg. 245: "Come, Furies, dance! - link arms for the dancing hand-to-hand..."
-Alternate names for the Furies: Maends, Bacchae
-The Furies are a sisterhood of demonic females; one of the Maends decapitated her own son (Roman myth/tale of
Bacchus)
-Athena:
-Born from Zeus's head (gave him a headache); story of hte formation of Athens from the "seed" of Ephestus...)
-comes to the Acropolis, argues with furies, creates "courts" and acts as judge
-Engages the Furies in conversation of "Pietho" (translation: persuasion, the Greek way)
-Aeschylus suggests that this is the miracle of Greece: Blood revenge is replaced by persuasion
-The Oresteia is a large ideology - founding of legal system
-Beginning: Tantalus serves son Pelops in stew to the Gods
-Setting of the Oresteia changes from the Acropolis to Areopagus (hill of Aries) on page 255.
-pg. 255-256: famous court-room scene (forefather of "Law and Order" and the like...)
-What is worse, killing the father (patricide) or killing the mother (matricide)?
-One must shift into mythic mode of thought to understand what is going on
Vocab: "Sticomythia" - a rapid exchange of one-liners, very fast-paced, seen in the Oresteia
-Pg. 258: Although Clytaemnestra killed Agammemnon, this isn't a "blood murder," so the furies can't pursue her
-Speech giving justification for a Patriarchal legal system is still used today (Apollo, end of pg. 260)
-"Chips are stacked" against the Furies
-ends up in a tie; Athena casts the deciding vote in favor of Orestes
-The Furies' speech is repeated on pg. 266-267
-The Furies are changed to Eumenides on pg. 274
An interesting question from class:
-Why wasn't Agamemnon hounded by the Furies for the "blood-crime" of sacrificing Iphigenia?
-Are the Furies a negative aspect of "the archetypal female?"
"Faster, Pussycat! Kill, Kill!"
Alright, I wasn't sure whether I'd find this, but sure enough, a movie was made in 1965, just as Dr. Sexson said (well, he said 70s, but close enough). I'm not sure whether it qualifies as "soft-core porn," though, at least by today's standards. I guess I'll have to see it sometime to verify. Or not.
The movie is about three strippers who go in search of some adventure and end up capturing a young couple in the desert, killing the guy, drugging the woman, and then going after some old guy and his son who apparently have lots of money. They end up living with the guy and trying to seduce him (and his son), but then the plot twists and it turns out the old man has something in store for the women. That's what I've read. Sounds...um, interesting, I guess.
Now I've totally forgotten what the point of this was...what significance did this movie have? Something to do with the Oresteia? Sigh...oh well.
Class notes plus miscellaneous, 02.11.05
Alright, I'll start with some of the class notes before I begin with the various assignments.
Notes, Wednesday, 02.11.05
-What tranformed the furies into eumenides?
-The Oresteia, pg. 200-202: Greek idea of "Blood revenge" (Bible: "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth...")
-First tenet of Greek religion: Revere only the Gods, ie. no idolotry (similar to Christian 1st commandment)
-Oresteia/tragedy general theme: "We suffer into the truth (Aeschylus)," or, in other words: "a mature human being must recognize the tragic sense of life, the universal aspect of suffering"
-Greek word for justice: Dike (sounds like dee-kay)
-examples of repetition in the Oresteia? E.g. the word "dog" or "hound"
Here, I got to wondering just what that phrase, "the dogs of war," actually means, so I did a bit of Google research. The song by Pink Floyd (The Dogs of War, no doubt) comes to my mind...Here's what I found:
Apparently, "dogs of war" refers to soldiers, and to "cry havoc" was a military order given in Britain as early as 1385 and would have brought forth the soldiers, or "dogs of war." Hence the phrase coined by Shakespeare and used in his play Julius Caesar: "cry 'havoc' and let slip the dogs of war.
ANTONY
O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,-
Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips,
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue-
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy ;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And dreadful objects so familiar
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:
And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice
Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war;
Source: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/105600.html
And some more class notes:
-In Greek tragedy, the audience never actually sees violent acts take place on stage, as opposed to more modern entertainment. The word "obscene" comes from Greek, meaning "off stage." Interesting.
I'll try to find some pictures of the Greek Furies and perhaps some other visual material later.
man this is frustrating...
I still don't understand why this post won't only shows up under "archives." Hence the reason I've posted it 2-3 times already...pardon the duplicates. I'd delete them, but that doesn't seem to be working either. Man, I am pissed off.
Class notes (Friday, 21.10.05), plus misc.
Mood: Perky! :-P
Music: Emo!
etc.
(Isn't that how "bloggers" often start their posts? Lame...)
In the Mountain chapter of Frye's book, he talks about time as a metaphorical construct consisting of four distinct stages: Heaven, Paradise, Earth and Hell. These stages are linked linearly and can be represented pictorially as such (see Frye's table, page 179). I'd rather not delve into Frye's more detailed description, so I'll relate Dr. Sexson's more abbrieviated version here.
Hell, naturally positioned at the bottom of the chart, is associated with time in the demonic and repetitious sense. In other words, time "stands still" in the "Demonic world cosmic level" (Frye's term, not mine).
In the Earth, or "Fallen world of experience" cosmic level, time is linear and cyclical.
The Heaven cosmic level represents the abolition of time, and I assume that the Paradise, or "Unfallen world" cosmic level is somewhere in between Earth and Heaven (astute, yes, but it's very late, and I'm very tired...). Heaven and Paradise consist of sacred time, whereas Earth and Hell contain profane time.
The four cosmic levels can also be related to Frye's and/or Vico's four levels of discourse. Heaven-Kerygmatic-Gods, Paradise-Ideological-Heroes, Earth-Conceptual-Men, and Hell-Descriptive-Chaos. I'm afraid my personal "discourse" in this post is very bottom-rung/hellish/descriptive at the moment.
And now for the assignment: Describe a personal experience in which I experienced time as pure Hell.
hmm...How about yesterday at work? I work at a ranch just west of the Hyalite canyon entrance (off Cottonwood street), and my default task consists of pulling weeds surrounding one of the ponds. Not as tiring as planting trees, digging ditches, etc., but very, very monotonous and repetitious, and thus "Hellish." No exaggeration here; time absolutely stands still while picking weeds. The agony is augmented when I wear a watch, since the temptation to check it every few minutes is overwhelming. I force myself to wait, and when I can stand it no longer, I glance at that ticking instrument of Satan himself, only to find, to my great disappointment, that only a couple of minutes have passed. When I realize that I still have 3, 4, 5, maybe 6 hours left to work, five to six minutes barely register as an increment of time. And that is my personal experience of time as Hell, at least one that comes to mind with minimal of effort...
And just the opposite is time as Heaven, which, if I understand correctly, means that time consists of exuberance and energy and thereby ceases to exist in the traditional sense. I suppose my lunch break counts for this...
Anyway, enough for one night.
If I ever get used to this whole "blogging" phenomenon, maybe then I can stop being so cynical towards it. I must be a Luddite.
Class notes - Weds, 14.9.05
Notes from Wednesday's class (in no particular order):
-Isaiah 63
-"composed," not written, which would imply a single author
-Revelation 14
-powerful, grotesque, suggests a similarity between the juice of grapes and the blood of man
-And something I had suspected all along: most prophets from the Old Testament were "mentally ill" or similar
-Vocabulary: Misprison
-means hearing something the wrong way; a mistake
-some examples:
1. The Hebrew word for "radiant" sounded like "horns" when translated (or something to that effect - correct me if I'm
wrong), hence Michaelangelo's painting with the depiction of God with horns
2. "Joseph's coat of many colors" was a misprison that first showed up in the King James Bible (again, not sure about this?)
3. And my personal favorite, that of Calvin (not the religious zealot) from the comic strip, misquoting (probably
intentionally) the US Pledge of Alliegance: "I pledge alliegance, to Queen Frag, and to her mighty state of hysteria."
(always wanted to try that one back in school when they forced the whole pledge thing down our throats...)
-More vocab: Prolix - means "abundant"
-Metaphor v. Simile: Both are comparisons between two unlikely things, but a simile makes the comparison using the words
"like" or "and" whereas a metaphor does without, eg. "Joseph is a fruitful bough" (Genesis 49:22).
-And finally, our homework:
-Google (is that really a verb? sigh...) "Biblical Literalism" - my findings:
-So, like, there's this dude named Conrad Hyers, and like (sorry, I'm done), in his excerpt called "Biblical Literalism:
Constricting the Cosmic Dance," he makes some interesting points. Basically, he argues that literalism pervades
contemporary culture, thanks in part to worthless TV broadcasts, and that people find it harder and harder to express
themselves symbolically as a result. Biblical literalism isn't conservative as its proponents would suggest; rather, it's
quite modern and simplistic as a result. Hyers continues, arguing that during its time, Genesis was centered squarely
amidst the polytheism vs. monotheism debate, and was intended to posit God as the one true ruler and creator. Hyers
puts it well in the following quote:
"The fundamental question at stake, then, could not have been the scientific question of how things achieved their present form and by what processes, nor even the historical question about time periods and chronological order. The issue was idolatry, not science; syncretism, not natural history; theology, not chronology; affirmation of faith in one transcendent God, not creationist or evolutionist theories of origin. Attempting to be loyal to the Bible by turning the creation accounts into a kind of science or history is like trying to be loyal to the teachings of Jesus by arguing that the parables are actual historical events, and only reliable and trustworthy when taken literally as such."
I couldn't agree more. And as Hyers says, some things can't be expressed in words, or at least my words (I haven't got a knack for "words with power"), so with that, I'm going to end this post and let all of you ponder all of my amazing thoughts that are just too deep for this lousy blog - indeed, I absolutely hate the way text scrolls on this thing; the tab button doesn't function like I'd expect, thus rendering indentations (which I use with great zeal) unnecessarily complicated. But that's a rant that I don't need to start here...
Bryan Kelly's 212 E-journal
Alright, about time already. Posts to follow as soon as I finish this weekend's reading.
