Out of the Mouths of Vampires
by peacefulpete 18 Replies latest watchtower bible
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KalebOutWest
I gave you the link to Mark's Prineston Seminary profile. He is a full-blood Roman Catholic, alright. But he is not an apologist. A Catholic apologist is a different sort of person, usually not an academic, but a religious (a member of a Catholic religious order), like a monk or nun, sometimes a layperson who is not even a scholar but assigned a ministry in the church to defend the faith. Smith is a professor. They don't do the work of a Catholic apologist as that requires a religious calling of some kind.
The problem is that you've never been exposed to Catholic theology. Just read the footnotes to the NABRE, the official Catholic Bible.
Or better yet, read the New Collegeville Bible Commentary.
You will find that Catholic theology is very hardline critical. There is no room for a Jesus that can foretell the future. There is no "Moses" who wrote the books of Moses. There is no prophet Daniel who prophesied about the coming of Jesus. Isaiah did not foretell the virgin birth, so who knows where Matthew got his quote. And none of the apostles wrote any of the books assigned to them.
This is just the beginning, the surface, and it is a hard and bumpy ride for many Catholics who have to do a balancing act between "faith" and data which Rome says each of the faithful must be exposed to.
Smith is mild by comparison to what you read in Collegeville and some of the footnotes of the NABRE. Some Catholics damn the NABRE as heretical, but it is what the USCCB and Rome have put their stamp of approval on.
Catholic apologists are people like Jimmy Akin and individuals associated with the ministry of Catholic Answers. These individuals are not necessarily academics, nor do they work in my profession. They generally do not speak or learn Biblical languages like me or like Smith.
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peacefulpete
We are saying the same thing. Perhaps I should have went with my first thought and said Mark was Catholic like you are Jewish. But wasn't sure if that was offensive.
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Halcon
Pete- We are saying the same thing.
I don't think so Pete. From what I understood from Kaleb, the allusion to a vampire or demon in the Psalm was incorrect. Rather, the words chosen for it were words that happened to rhyme or phonetically complement it without attempting to insinuate anything beyond what it says.
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peacefulpete
Halcon....typed communication has many drawbacks. I was referring to Mark's Catholicism in that last comment . I think we agreed his identifying as a Catholic hasn't obscured his objectivity. I do feel he is misreading Mark's article or not reading it at all. Mark is quite clear he sees a related parallel myth to the Ugaritic.
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KalebOutWest
I do feel he is misreading Mark's article or not reading it at all.
Either you are hurt somewhere by what I wrote or upset, because it is obviously apparent that I did read it. I quoted from it, remember?
Because of your "vampire" title and because of it's Catholic theme on creation, I had to even call someone who told me he was sure I knew Mark (we were in the same room at several events and he just never introduced me).
Mark is quite clear he sees a related parallel myth to the Ugaritic.
I also ended my comments on the article saying it was related to this myth, commenting on how after my discussion with my scholar/translator friend it was explained to me that the idea was that the Psalm might be advancing some inner hymn to a third cosmological creation mythology.
Like Judaism, Catholicism also holds that the Genesis story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is allegorical, so this makes these references equally so.
But since in Catholicism there is great richness in the Garden of Eden allegory, Psalm 8, being a Messianianic/Christological hymn in Catholic liturgy, the idea that it has cosmological creation allegory is important to Catholics. This last part is what I knew I was missing from the article, and was a central point. But being Jewish I needed help since I didn't get it.
The idea that you think Mark is a Catholic apologist like Jimmy Akin makes me realize why you would think I don't know what I don't know what I am talking about. You are still not outside the world of the Witnesses in some ways, despite how many years you have between them or what you have studied. You are thus working hard and perhaps struggling to create your own worldview, which I forget can be difficult to do. Sometimes we feel we can be there only to suddenly realize, no, not yet. Other times we feel like we will never make it to shore. It isn't our fault. We are cast out to see by a system controlled by the Governing Body and I don't think the outside world knows how hard it is to build a person from scratch afterwards.
For many I've met, leaving the Watchtower has meant seeing God as a monster. Why? Because that religion is controlled by monsters. It ruins people's lives. So anything in any form of academic paper that highlights a connection with God as something monstrous or grotesque becomes appealing in a way to sort of say: "See? Here's the proof! I was right. God is a monster."
In reality, Judaism and its writings are quite modern. It is just as much of a false story as what the Jehovah's Witnesses offer, but there was never a Governing Body or masters of one's faith. Instead of a monster at the head, there was status and reward. Instead of a visible idol, our God was invisible. There was no idol to care for in a shrine. The myths could not be verified. There were tons of laws, but they were designed to keep a person Jewish in a world where identity was valuable. God was in the stories of the past. There was no one looking over your shoulder. Judaism was practiced in our home where the doors were closed.
The reward for keeping the rules was eternal, true, but even better for now, there was a feeling of superiority over your Gentile neighbors who you could look down upon for being idol worshipers and stupid. A monster God could not be at the center of all this. Something more "human" had to be there.
The Levitical priesthood was intelligent enough to create a Deity unlike the gods of the nations. The stories may have been distant in time, but the character of the God of Abraham was definitely not. YHVH may have created us in his image, but the Levitical priesthood created God in the image of man. God feels, loves, gets jealous, debates, saves, gets angry, wages war, etc. YHVH is relatable unlike the gods before him. Still not a perfect "image-less" God, but monotheism was on its way.
This was late in the era of Babylon's existence. This is why there is a Babylonian Talmud. The Jewish sages took residence there even after most returned to Jerusalem and created a great center of learning. From the time of the Exile onward, the Levites began developing their system of cultural preservation, and at the center of it was a new and improved God, unlike anything seen before, even unlike anything they worshiped before the Exile.
You cannot recreate something that did not come from your culture and your language. You cannot tell Native American people that they got their myths wrong or Japanese that you know more about Shinto than they do, especially when you don't read or understand their languages or lived their lives or practiced their religions. Can you imagine what you must sound like to me?
But I understand that you are trying to make sense of things, struggling to find a path of knowledge. I will stop trying to convince you of something that you don't want to hear.
Along your way way in life, however, don't accuse people of not reading things they have. You don't know what they know. And especially when it's the works and mythology of their own culture in the native language that they speak in everyday. Especially right now when it's tough to go outside and just be who you are. The "vampire" comment right now isn't helping.
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peacefulpete
Either you are hurt somewhere by what I wrote or upset, because it is obviously apparent that I did read it. I quoted from it, remember?
Ah, no. I was not hurt or upset. I'm still processing your comments. I did read your statement...
This means that Psalm 8 has nothing to do with the myth even though a word evolved from the idea.
...to mean he has not made this connection, and as erroneously suggesting the whole argument is hinged upon the one word.
You seem to be saying: Mark as a scholar, raised as Catholic, has a colored take on the Psalm. He of theological necessity sees it as related to creation mythology involving ancient deities so as to reinterpret it as related to Catholic Christology. Would you also suppose his books have similarly imagined such a link for the same undelaying premise? I read them many years ago and never saw a hint of that.
If you do, do you interpret any attempt at form criticism of ancient poetry as a waste of time, perhaps even disingenuous? I'm guessing not but I'm, as I said, I'm processing your comments.
Have I understood your position correctly? And regards my naivety, I've been around enough to know a thing or two. Pretend you are having a discussion with a peer.
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peacefulpete
You cannot recreate something that did not come from your culture and your language. You cannot tell Native American people that they got their myths wrong or Japanese that you know more about Shinto than they do, especially when you don't read or understand their languages or lived their lives or practiced their religions. Can you imagine what you must sound like to me?
Surely you are not suggesting a modern Jew has a monopoly on researching thousands year old forms of Judaism. Can you imagine what you must sound like to me?
The idea that you think Mark is a Catholic apologist like Jimmy Akin makes me realize why you would think I don't know what I don't know what I am talking about.
I argued just the opposite. Mark is not an apologist as is evidenced by his work.
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peacefulpete
regarding the vampire in the title, there was no intention of any antisemitic allusion. It was a pop culture reference.
It didn't occur to me the possibility of it being interpreted that way. sorry if I offended.