> From: Kenneth MacKendrick <kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca>
> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 11:04:48 -0700
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject: Re: Tee Vee
>
> At 01:53 AM 10/10/01 -0700, you wrote:
>
>> That's funny Ken. I am reading Genesis for the first time, and it
>> makes sense to me. It sounds like the news, exactly like the news as a
>> matter of fact. And, its subtext, which doesn't actually rise to the
>> level of moral questions, but remains hovering in a netherworld that
>> asks, from whence does the authority of action in the world issue?
wait til you get to deuteronomy and leviticus, nevermind, say, jerome. now that i think about it, i'm a little bit surprised that we haven't seen invocations of job in the context of 9/11, but then traditional interpretations of job would not gibe with war fever . . .
>
>
> There are two stories, the water story and the garden story... I don't know
> how much you know about this. I did a redaction as an undergrad, I
> separated the stories out line by line. I received a good mark so I must
> have been not mad. The thesis goes, there are three sources for the first
> five books: J (Yahwist), E (Elohist), P (priestly). If one sharpens up on
> mythology and history of religion, both stories have earlier versions in
> different traditions. Chapter one is thought to emerge out of captivity,
> since the narrative has its origin(?) in Babylonian narratives... something
> about Tiamat and the slaying of the dragon, tossing the carcass up into the
> sky to form a dome.
the epic of gilgamesh is the place to go, here.
>
> For instance, chapter 1, the six days of creation, was thought to be the
> story of a water-faring people. It makes sense, if you live near the water,
> then creation comes out of the deep, the formless void. Chapter 2, however,
> is thought to be a nomadic people, a desert tribe or collective - a story
> about creation in an oasis. The authors of the text decided to include
> both, since they likely ended up with a kind of mythological synthesis when
> they came together. YHWH became synonymous with Elohim, 'God.' The text
> isn't monotheistic. I should note, some translations don't make apparent
> the distinction between YHWH and Elohim, there is a difference between
> 'God' and 'Lord' for instance. I'd have to look it up to clarify this.
nb: elohim is a plural noun, el being almost generic as a term for (a) god. thus, iirc (and i'm quite rusty at the moment) you would have el-shaddai (god of the mountain shaddai), etc. it's worth noting (and ken gestures toward this) that ancient judaism was really more "henotheistic" than "monotheistic." that is, they didn't believe there was only one god. they believed their god was most powerful and lined up on his side, so to speak. thus you see in any number of the books of the prophets, competitions with other people's gods, which yahweh wins, natch. there's one particularly well-known episode, but it's slippping my mind, at the moment.
>
> If you read the text carefully, really carefully - with some tips from
> biblical criticism, it is a pretty easy task to separate out the lines and
> speculate their origins. The lines stick out like thumbs where they don't
> belong. I used pink, yellow and blue highlighter to specify the difference
> sources.
>
>> Anyway, as I found out some religious works are cheap so I can afford
>> to buy a new revised standard version (NRSV?) used, since I saw one at
>> Moe's.
>> Chuck Grimes
yeah, these things are often cheap second hand.
>
>
> It's a nice translation... I don't exactly carry it with me, but it is
> always nearby on the bookshelf, usually beside Anti-Oedipus (which doesn't
> get much action I'm afraid).
>
> Oh yeah, there is this website, bible-gate I think, all the texts are
> on-line and 100% searchable. Keyword 'grapes' for instance, it will give
> you the passage, or surrounding passage, of each and every time the word is
> used in whatever translation you want. Methinks this encourages laziness...
> but it is worth looking up and toying around with.
>
i'm not sure it encourages laziness, but i think it is the sort of thing that is more useful for scholars (or for devout prooftexting) than for the average reader.
in grad school, i took (and taught) a couple of classes at the div school. there was one great patristics/anglican theology professor there, an anglican priest with a great sense of perspective and of humor. in the several classes in which i worked with him, i discovered that he had a handful of lines that he pulled out for every course. one of these was:
"You can prove anything you want from the Bible. Two thousand years of church history have proven that."
jeff