I enjoyed it as well. I went with the other folks in the Classics Department of my university. The fact that it looked like the graphic novel come alive was great; the fact that it sounded like a graphic novel was unfortunate. The Battle of Thermopylae is a wonderful story: a small force, doomed to lose, against a greater; the rational West against the superstitious East; free men against slaves; treachery; sacrifice. The film does not add any new themes that the ancient Greeks did not talk about (except for the romance), but I fear that the story could be used to manipulate people politically: "All they needed was more troops. The West stands for beauty, health, rationality, freedom, but the East stands for people whose bodies mortify because of either neglect or decadence and who are enslaved to tyrants and a primitive faith."
veradico
JoinedPosts by veradico
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300 The Movie
by lonelysheep inanyone planning to see this one?
i enjoy that type of stuff (battles, greek/roman anything).
on another note [and my main reason for posting this.
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QFR: "Never has a woman given Jehovah perfect obedience"
by Inquisitor inquestions from readers w07 jan 15 p.30.
in what sense did the congregator find only "one man out of a thousand" but not "a woman among all these"?
- ecclesiastes 7:28. the answer is written out in 3 paragraphs.. paragraph 1: placatory remarks to show that jehovah god is not chief misogynist.. paragraph 2 & 3:.
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veradico
I was in a snack/break room in my university library the other day, talking on my cell. I happened to glance up at the magazine rack. Lo! and Behold! Some good little Jehovah's Witness had put the Watchtower and Awake! mags in with the others. Anyway, I now know what the title of the Wt with the QFR article on "Never has a woman..." is. The title is "Man and Woman: A Dignified Role for Each." I'm surprised the title didn't stay in my memory more accurately. The idea that people's roles should be determined by arbitrary biological factors that have nothing to do with their ability or desire to fill such "roles" is just silly.
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shun the non-believer!
by veradico inhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5im0ssyyus .
this is great!
can someone make this clickable?
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veradico
I love the way they nag him, shun him, promise him the world...and then give him the true reward for his faith.
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Has anyone ever submitted a "Question from Readers"?
by M.J. in...and had it printed, perhaps?.
just wondering.
what's the process on doing this anyway?
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veradico
When I first began questioning things, I sent in a few questions since the publications did not seem to address a lot of the things I was curious about. Most of my questions they refused to answer, but they advised the elders to speak to me because my questions indicated that I was in trouble spiritually.
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shun the non-believer!
by veradico inhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5im0ssyyus .
this is great!
can someone make this clickable?
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veradico
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5im0Ssyyus
This is great! Can someone make this clickable? -
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Asherah, the wife of YHWH
by veradico inas we all know, the bible tends to overlook and often look down on women.
the priests and scribes who were in charge of it did everything they could to emphasize the maleness of god, thus supporting the social organization in place.
however, we can also detect in their writings the obvious fact that most of the people and many of the nobles of israel liked to turn to goddesses like asherah, who they could expect to be more sympathetic and compassionate than yhwh, and that the jewish people, in their legendary past, had other gods and goddesses (think of rachel's teraphim, get a bible commentary that talks about how the ot interacts with near eastern myths in attempting to have yhwh absorb the characteristics and titles of other gods and goddesses, note the lateness of even the prophetic condemnation of asherah compared to the early condemnation of ba'al worship).
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veradico
Leolaia, I just read your thread. I think the points you mention definitely tap into a lot of what is going on in the Eden myth. (I love how myths can be endlessly unpacked. For example, if I recall correctly, your thread on Sodom mentions another aspect of the Eden myth, namely, the way in which humans, by eating of the Tree of Knowledge, are attempting to become fully divine, having both immortality and divine knowledge. All of the ancients seem to have agreed that the natural result of such hubris should be dire. I think the myth also speaks to a basic intuition that when the world of life is divided into "good" and "evil" and all the other catagories, something precious is lost and humanity becomes alienated from its own world. Humanity already had immortality in a sense, and the image of the snake captures wonderfully the link between reproduction and immortality. It's a grand paradox of the story that in seeking what they already had, they lost what they had.) I agree with your identification of Zion with Zaphon, the mountain of the assembly of the gods in Ugaritic texts (cf. Isaiah 14:13). With regard to your comments about cherubim, I certainly can see your point about how their association with wind would evoke the "mountainous locale" of Eden and the temples/gardens found on high places. I tend to think the cherubim, like the Babylonian karibu, function as tutelary beings, the guards of the Temple/Eden and the palace of the gods. The fact that YHWH rides upon them suggests his dominion over the human and animal world and, of course, makes rather explicit his storm god aspect. As winged bulls with human faces, they evoke numerous and complex associations in the iconography of the East. I think it's Richard E. Friedman who suggests, and I'm sure you'll agree, that the evidence is very strong for interpreting the story in Exodus condemning the "worship" of the golden calf (which becomes plural in part of the account) is related to the Judean condemnation of the Israel's placing images of cherubim in the temples at Dan and Bethel in order to symbolize that YHWH resided over the whole nation. The use of the bull as a symbol of YHWH in the national temples would also relate to YHWH's taking over El's iconography. For El, the husband of Asherah, was represented by the image of a bull. Thanks for pointing out your delightful post. The subject is worthy of even fuller treatment. Have you ever thought of writing a book? One could explore the way the images of trees of life and death are translated in other myths into waters of life and waters of death/chaos and the cosmic battle between the high god and the water/dragon. As you know this often boils down to a battle between male and female priciples. Also, the conflict in Eden (i.e. on the mountain of the divine assembly) resulting in the casting out of Helel (Azazel) is interesting. Keep it up. I for one enjoy your posts.
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Latest Gospel scholarship supports the reliability of the oral tradition!
by yaddayadda inanother eminent new testament scholar has come out and declared that traditional form criticism is now obsolete.
richard bauckhams 2006 book jesus and the eyewitnesses the gospels as eyewitness testimony is the latest in the recent trend of contemporary british gospel scholarship to re-examine many long-held assumptions about the oral tradition behind the gospels which is coming up with some rather startling conclusions.
jesus remembered, grand rapids; eerdmans.
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veradico
I'll try to give you the sort of meaningful debate you desire. I don't think that those of us who are sceptical are Bible-bashing, anti-Christians. Often, we have more interest in and more of a willingness to learn all the details of the tradition than those bound by dogma. You began this thread by claiming "traditional form criticism is now obsolete." This just seemed silly to me. All the various forms of criticism approach the Bible from different perspectives and help to reveal different aspects of the texts. To study oral tradition is merely to study the first step in complex process that resulted in the NT texts. Form criticism is founded on the fact that texts are produced in a social context, by real authors with disticinct motivations, from a variety of sources--some oral, some already written. I questioned your claim that "ancient oral storytelling" is an "area of study that has not been adequately treated." That's why I pointed you towards Homeric studies. There are some great books and articles following on Milman Perry's and Albert Lord's influential studies of the South Slavic oral epic tradition and its application to the oral tradition behind Homer. I'm sure you are going to point out the difference in time that the Homeric tradition had to develop in compared to the gospel tradition, but that would be a defensive response. I'm not attacking. These studies are useful, not because they undermine the reliability of oral traditional material as objective history, but because they help us to better understand how people in these cultures viewed their oral traditions. As you point out, the variability permitted within the tradition could only be exercized in a given performance within certain bounds determined by the community. One of the questions becomes, How would a specific author as part of a specific community use the variability allowed him? This is precisely why it's important to look into the social context of the community (Is it made up of Jews or pagans? What are its relations with the larger communities surrounding it?), its motives, its literary background, etc. When the oral tradition (as well as literary sources) are converted by an author into a fixed literary text, redactional criticism becomes quite useful and valid. The author will choose to convey his message in a particular literary genre. Thus, one must look at how the author fits into the characteristics typical of that genre during his general time period. That's why I mentioned the biography of Apollonius of Tyana. In talking about how the impact of Jesus would have been interpreted (For, after all, the man only lived for a few years; then those who would claim him as their leader were free, without his guidance, to interpret his life and message however they wanted. I know you'll say Jesus' apostles were there to put a check on things, but, is it not a theme of Mark that Jesus was almost universally misunderstood? :-)) I could have also mentioned characters like Honi the "circle-drawer" or Hanina ben Dosa. Jesus himself admits that some of the followers ("sons") of the Pharisees could cast out demons (Matthew 12:27). (Note the anachronistic conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees. Stuff like this shows how the flexibility of the oral tradition is being used to make things relevant to the Christian community after the power and prominence of the Pharisees had grown.) The world Jesus lived in was full of Jewish prophets performing miracles. The gospels simply say that Jesus was better at it than the rest, and, to do so, they draw heavily on the OT stories. Furthermore, I can hardly begin to outline here the complex changes that could occur in the oral tradition as it was translated from its Semitic language and cultural context into the languages and social contexts of pagan Rome. You criticize Leolaia for for looking for intertextual relationships, and you attempt to place strict limits on which works can be consulted when looking for such intertextual relationships. For example, you say that the Mishnah and the Gnostic gospels can't be consulted because they were written down long after the canonical gospels. However, this does not mean that ancient material cannot be extracted from them, particularly in a world filled by people with the astounding oral memories you speak of! You say: "The hundreds of earliest disciples who knew Jesus were all Jews, and the Jewish mindset was against this kind of wholesale mythologizing and deifying of humans. This is one of the reasons why it is so remarkable that Christianity got a foothold in early first century Jewish Society; it is why many scholars find it incredulous [sic] to believe that Jesus was simply some kind of wise teacher – he must have done much more than just utter a few wise sayings to have such a profound impact on so many Jews." It's not hard at all to understand how this could have developed. Jesus was a charismatic apocalyptic prophet speaking to lowly people who wanted a Savior. His major prophecy, the destruction of the temple, happened to occur. Then he died, but others continued to lead the communities associated with his name. Within the community of the Beloved Disciple, we can see the way a group of Jewish Christians slowly became alienated from the Jewish community as a whole (cf. John 9:22) and developed an elevated Christology which explained the Jews' rejection of Jesus and his followers as a rejection of God Himself. Think of Russell. One of his prophecies happened to occur (sort of) in 1914. Then he died. Other leaders adapted his message and organized his movement along more authoritarian lines, and, to a large extent, the way they developed was influenced by their feelings of alienation from the world around them. I'm afraid I don't have the time right now to respond to your claim that "Paul received and in turn passed on to others the traditions he had himself received." Additionally, the subject lies outside of the scope of this thread. While I'm sympathetic to Ray Franz's desire to help people preserve their faith in Christ and the Bible after they leave the Organization, I think faith must only be given where it is deserved. And there is nothing wrong with people who have been burned once choosing to be cautious and critical before they have anything to do with religion again. I would prefer that people would trust their own experience and rational abilities, rather than turning from one authoritarian system of belief to another. To accept the tradition of a church or the text of a book wholesale strikes me as a dangerous gamble. The holy books of the world and the doctrines of the various faiths that produced them depend, very often, on authority, not reason, and speak of events that do not correspond to experience of most of us. There is much of value in these books, much wisdom, compassion, cleverness, and humor. But we can still have spiritual lives without them. And I say this as a devoted student of them, not as a Bible-basher.
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Asherah, the wife of YHWH
by veradico inas we all know, the bible tends to overlook and often look down on women.
the priests and scribes who were in charge of it did everything they could to emphasize the maleness of god, thus supporting the social organization in place.
however, we can also detect in their writings the obvious fact that most of the people and many of the nobles of israel liked to turn to goddesses like asherah, who they could expect to be more sympathetic and compassionate than yhwh, and that the jewish people, in their legendary past, had other gods and goddesses (think of rachel's teraphim, get a bible commentary that talks about how the ot interacts with near eastern myths in attempting to have yhwh absorb the characteristics and titles of other gods and goddesses, note the lateness of even the prophetic condemnation of asherah compared to the early condemnation of ba'al worship).
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veradico
I figured I should track down the reference for the argument that Asherah was, like her husband El ("god, divinity") demoted from a proper name to mean "goddess, divine consort." (It can be found at http://cc.usu.edu/~fath6/bible.htm) This would resolve the grammatical problem of the pronominal suffix on the inscriptions at Kuntillet 'Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom and does not require a (for me at least) less-intuitive (particularly in the context of the use of the preposition l with the verb brk) common noun meaning for asherah like "sacred pole." Thus, the inscription would mean "by Yehowah of Samaria and by his consort." Vetus Testamentum, Vol. 40, Fasc. 3 (1990), p. 269 argues the reverse, namely, that the word originally meant "divine consort" and then became a personal name. (Perhaps the personal name became a common noun and then was revived to the status of a divine name again? I'd have to look more closely into the chronology.) Vetus Testamentum, Vol. 49, Fasc. 3 (199), pp. 319ff. argues against all of the interpretations that would make asherah in the inscriptions a personal noun, but, in doing so, it summarizes many of the opposing arguments. It's worth reading. I find the "divine consort" interpretation compelling for the following reason. El's wife was Asherah. Ba'al's wife was Ashtoreth (Ishtar, Astarte). Later, as Narkissos mentions, Ba'al took his father's wife (as well as most of his divine functions), and, just as Ba'al had little trouble absorbing El, YHWH easily becomes identified with El. There is a clear conflict between Ba'al and YHWH in the OT. Ba'al remains a potent personality, rarely meaning merely "lord." On the other hand, there are only a few passages in Deut. and the Psalms where El manages to survive as a personal god. I would argue that the fates of Asherah and Ashtoreth mirrored the fates of their divine spouses. Asherah was easily defeated and became a generic title for the divine consort and her icons, but Ashtoreth remained the name of the goddess.
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Latest Gospel scholarship supports the reliability of the oral tradition!
by yaddayadda inanother eminent new testament scholar has come out and declared that traditional form criticism is now obsolete.
richard bauckhams 2006 book jesus and the eyewitnesses the gospels as eyewitness testimony is the latest in the recent trend of contemporary british gospel scholarship to re-examine many long-held assumptions about the oral tradition behind the gospels which is coming up with some rather startling conclusions.
jesus remembered, grand rapids; eerdmans.
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veradico
Leolaia, thanks! I'll stick around. I think you provide a very valid example of one of the ways these authors interacted with their tradition (the exegetical) and adapted the way they expressed their tradition to fit their beliefs. Some of the so-called fulfilled prophecies in the NT are similar. For example, it's just as hard to believe that Ps. 69:25 and 109:8 were prophecies about Judas and Matthias (Acts 1:12-26)) as it is to believe that the prophecies of Isaiah, Daniel, Revelation, etc. are fulfilled in the history of the Jehovah's Witnesses. The question of miracles has been raised by frankiespeakin. I have to agree. I don't know whether miracles can occur or not, but they are by definition unlikely events. Thus, since history has to do with determining what is most likely to have occured in the past, the faithful can hardly be upset with those of us who, in talking about history, are sceptical of accounts of miracles.
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Latest Gospel scholarship supports the reliability of the oral tradition!
by yaddayadda inanother eminent new testament scholar has come out and declared that traditional form criticism is now obsolete.
richard bauckhams 2006 book jesus and the eyewitnesses the gospels as eyewitness testimony is the latest in the recent trend of contemporary british gospel scholarship to re-examine many long-held assumptions about the oral tradition behind the gospels which is coming up with some rather startling conclusions.
jesus remembered, grand rapids; eerdmans.
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veradico
I would like to know what you mean by "incoherent." If you simply would like some blank space between major thought divisions, I'd love to help you out, but I'm afraid that even though I divide things into paragraphs somehow the formating gets lost when I post. I am essentially saying that, while Dunn has a point about the impressive ability of people in oral traditional societies to memorize things (a point I don't think anyone contests), the people in these societies did not feel that it's "wrong" to modify the tradition to make it relevant to their changing context. A lot of neat work has been done in this area in connection with Homeric studies. On top of the oral traditional origin of the material, the genre of the gospels cannot be neglected. Ancient biographers felt it was perfectly legitimate to arrange (and even manufacture) their facts to create the impression they wanted (cf. Plutarch's intro to his Life of Alexander). Their goal was not to tell what "actually" happened but to reveal the essential character of their subject. They did not believe in anything like what we would call "character development." If they did not have the exact words of a speech and especially if they were working with a whole oral tradition that had been translated from another language, they would have no problem with the task of writing the sort of speech that would best reveal their subject's essential character. The literary inter-dependence of the synoptics is obvious; therefore, while the oral traditional nature of the gospels can't be ignored, they should also be studied from a literary perspective. Various sources (the "signs" source, the source(s) of Jesus speeches, and a Passion narrative) can even be detected in John.