Are we defining the Bible as the Old Testament? "Imperialistic" isn't the first word that comes to mind when I think of the Sermon on the Mount. . . Miles
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I haven't got to the Jesus part yet, only up to Samuel 1, OT. I could be persuaded to degrade the attribution of imperialism back down to mere limitless expansionistic messianic nationalism bent on blood, pilage, and conquest, though---for the sake of accuracy.
It's pretty amazingly nasty stuff whatever you want to call it. I had to put it down for awhile. It was just too much like the blather we are fed daily by emperor George the Simple, and the greater Imperium. But I try to read it with multiple views.
If I read the text within the context of how I think it was compiled and written, as the work of late first and second century scribes and scholars trying desperately to make a record out of what remained after the Romans sacked Jerusalem and the Temple, then it takes on a kind of scrapbook quality. The long tracks on the decor of the temple, the litany of names and ceremonies, the constant references back into time, with all its confused genealogies begin to sound like a tragic exercise of desperation and nostalgia---a text of dispora.
While I was reading some passages, I was also hearing old blues records and gospel music. For example, while I was reading Deuteronomy, Mosses' big farewell, I thought of Martin Luther King's famous I Have a Dream speech. Not because of its content, although there is some---after all Mosses was not going to cross the Jordan, and get to the Promised land. But, there is also, even a slight concordance of rhythm and cadence between the two. So, it has its moments. Or rather MLK was a damned good preacher.
I actually had to go to church every Sunday (Hollywood-Beverly Christian Church), dressed up, with teeth brushed, hair combed, shoes shined, on my best behavior or else. Sometimes, the old reverend would work himself up to a fever pitch of conviction that was awe inspiring. It didn't happen that often, but when it did, it was great to watch and hear. His old face would turn beet red, his knuckles would turn white griping the pulpit and his black ropes would fly around in the air as he waved his fists and banged on the wood behind the ornate stone work of the pulpit. Then you felt like you were in Church. If we were sitting up front, close, which I preferred, I could see the spittle form white on the corners of his mouth and watch the little flecks of it fly off when he started yelling and waving his head back and forth.
At that time (40s-50s) this particular church was attended by the lower ranks of the Hollywood set (which is probably why my father picked it). You'll never guess who was married there---Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman, by the same old pastor, the very upright, Reverend C. Kleihauer. This was the same old guy I had to steel myself to refuse to be baptized by, and risk everlasting hell, fire and damnation.
This is from Ronald Reagan's autobiography on the web:
``...One day after giving one of my speeches to the men's club at the Hollywood Beverly Christian Church where I worshipped, our pastor came up to me and said he agreed with what I'd said about the rise of neofascism. But he said: `I think your speech would be even better if you also mentioned that if Communism ever looked like a threat, you'd be just as opposed to it as you are to fascism.' I told the minister I hadn't given much thought to the threat of Communism but the suggestion seemed like a good one and that I'd begin saying if the day came when it also posed a threat to American values, I'd be just as strongly opposed to it as I was to fascism...''
So, that gives you some idea of what I was up against at twelve. I mean it didn't quiet reach the heights of internal conflict it should have, but it was close enough to make a lot of literature and philosophy accessible later on.
Chuck Grimes