From what I've read, I gather that it is the reader
and the listener who end up being the speaker in
this riddle (poem).
IDENTIFY who is speaking in this RIDDLE:
by Terry 31 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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recovering
No lalliv the poem is refering to that the speaker is the begining middle and end, it also refers to being the wisdom of all things great and small
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Sam Whiskey
Obama....LOL
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lalliv01
"Finally, by locating the divine in the "voice" and "hearing" of the text, it leads its hearers or readers to find the divine within the text and within themselves, and so to discover themselves within the divine. In such an interpretive movement of letting go and finding, of becoming sober and being found, the text's final words suggest, the reader "goes up" to the salvific "place of rest," "finds" the divine persona revealed in the text, and "enters into" a state of living and not dying again. "
Recovering, this quote is what prompted me to believe it might be the "reader",
but I admit, I can't understand what the writer had in mind when he wrote it. that
said, I don't yet know what Terry has in mind and why he thinks what he thinks. Terry?
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Blue Grass
I don't understand what this thread is about.
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recovering
I am a bit confused myself to be honest lalliv, and I can see how you came to your conclusion. I had to look it up myself. The feminine side of "god" is the "I am" that the Gnostic writers attribute to the narrator of the poem.
I think this is way to deep for me, a poor agnostic to grasp lol
Here is what the commentator says with regards this poem
Thunder, Perfect Mind (NHC VI,2) presents the revelation discourse of a female divinity who speaks alternately in first-person statements of identity ("I AM") and second-person address. The text's parallelism of structure, together with its extensive use of antithesis, paradox, and other literary devices, point clearly to its poetic or hymnic character. B. Layton has argued persuasively that the paradoxical and often outrageous pairing of antithetical terms in the "I AM" statements of Thunder can be read as a complex identity riddle to be solved by the knowing or "gnostic" reader. At the same time, attention to various features of the text as a whole suggests that it is not only the mystery of the speaker's identity, but the relationship between the divine speaker and her human hearers that forms the exegetical crux of the text.
Thunder focuses attention on the hearers' relationship to the divine speaker not only through its alternating structure of first-person proclamation and second-person address, but also through its metaphorical imagery of kinship and gender, its references to the audience's responses to the divine, and its claims about the speaker's role in the operations of language and intellect. Its persistent, uncompromising use of paradox pushes its hearers to relinquish the apparent sense of its words and to seek the hidden meaning of individual utterances and of the discourse as a whole. Finally, by locating the divine in the "voice" and "hearing" of the text, it leads its hearers or readers to find the divine within the text and within themselves, and so to discover themselves within the divine. In such an interpretive movement of letting go and finding, of becoming sober and being found, the text's final words suggest, the reader "goes up" to the salvific "place of rest," "finds" the divine persona revealed in the text, and "enters into" a state of living and not dying again.
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Scottiebear7
Your quote sounds like my soon-to-be ex-wife!!!!
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THE GLADIATOR
I have now read the whole poem. It ends with these words.
"For I am the one who alone exists,
and I have no one who will judge me.
For many are the pleasant forms which exist in numerous sins,
and incontinencies,
and disgraceful passions,
and fleeting pleasures,
which (men) embrace until they become sober
and go up to their resting place.
And they will find me there,
and they will live,
and they will not die again."It has been translated into English, so there is bound to be a degree of poets license. It would appear to be that which believers claim is in all living things and returns to its source at death. In other words a gnostics definition of God. Or as Terry said The I AM.
Are you becoming a believer Terry?
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BabaYaga
My favorite explanation of Sophia, from http://gnosticsanctuary.org/faq_gnosticism.html#fourteen
Q: Who is Sophia? A female deity?
A: Sophia is not a deity, but an aspect of the Divine Presence or Being (We don't often used the over-defined term "God"). She can be associated with Chokmah, the highest Sephiroth attainable in the Tree of Life. Her name means wisdom. I mostly associate her with the Shekinah, The Indwelling Presence. In the Kabbalah and other mystical works of medieval times, the Shekinah is often treated as the consort of God who can only be reunited with God through human fulfillment of the Great Work or Restoration.
Her benevolence embraces even the lowest creature. We see the Divine Presence in the face of all creation, but Being is neither male nor female. From Being proceeds all that is. In the Sophianic aspect there exists no judgment, so there can be no sexism, racism, or any of the other "isms" that people use to separate others from themselves. There is no homophobia, xenophobia or any of the other ignorant, chaotic ills that perpetuate fear and violence within self and others.
(Written by Rosamonde Miller) -
EndofMysteries
There is a whole lot more insight on Babylon then just in Revelation.................a lot more.