Just wanted to give everyone the chance to read my essay in case there were interest.

Adam Hicks

I was watching Kevin Smith’s Dogma the other night and because of this class I can fully appreciate how intelligent this movie is written. The movie deals with the fringe mythology and history surrounding the Christian religion within the Bible, similar to The Davinci Code, only with more humor involved. In the movie, the protagonist is the Great great (x10) grand niece of Jesus, with the explanation for this even being possible coming in the form of Joseph’s humanity, and just because Jesus was born to the Virgin Mother, doesn’t mean she stayed that way. The plot of the movie follows the protagonist as she tries to stop 2 fallen angels from circumventing God’s will (thus ending existence) by returning to Heaven. Along the way, the protagonist is joined by 2 prophets (Jay and Silent Bob), an Apostle (Chris Rock) and an ex-muse (Selma Hyak) who left Heaven in her attempt to strike rich on earth. As mentioned, the movie’s plot is on the fringes, but the ideas that it raises are surprisingly main stream. The major themes that the movie addresses are the perspective a person should have concerning religion and the consequences of taking that religion to literally.

The first issue that the movie raises is the perspective a person should hold towards their religion. Within the movie, the “Apostle” character explains how having an “Idea” about religion is 100 times better than having a “Belief” in it. His reasoning for this is that “a bunch of stupid stuff” has been done over people’s beliefs, from wars to mindless arguments, and people settled to have Ideas, there wouldn’t be as many problems. This actually makes a lot of sense, in considering what Frye says about the act of stating a belief. Frye says in his final chapter, Language of Love, that “if you state a thesis of belief, you have already stated its opposite; if you say, I believe in God, you have already suggested the possibility of not believing in him.” Frye is saying that by stating a belief, you already confirm the possibility that the opposite can be true as well, and because of this duality, when facing the decision of a belief, you only have 2 options in front of you: whether you believe or whether you don’t. By having an Idea towards your religion, you are able to escape that trap because ideas don’t limit you to only 2 options. With an idea, you can change how much stock you invest in it. For instance, if you have an idea about Jesus’ birth, such as he wasn’t born in a manger, he was born in a 711, and someone has a convincing argument against this particular idea, you are able to change that idea based on what this person has said, without relenting the original idea. This option isn’t available with a belief, because beliefs don’t vary by degrees in the same way that Ideas do. It is impossible to “kinda” believe in something, because when it comes down to it, you still believe in it. It’s the difference of a word, but when taken into context of the situation, this difference can mean a great deal.

The movie also addresses the consequences of taking religion (particularly Christianity and Catholicism) to seriously, and makes a satire out of these consequences. Throughout the movie, the characters point out different areas where the Bible is decidedly vague. The race of Jesus, the gender of God and the Catholic religion in general are all are brought under examination in the effort to draw a reaction from the audience. Essentially, if you are one of the people who are offended by the points the movie presents, then it’s obvious that you are one of those who the movie is directing its message toward. Satire isn’t the only method where the movie addresses the problem of taking the Bible too literally, it does so through the plot as well.

In the movie, these 2 exiled angles learn of the opportunity to circumvent God’s will, by attending a catholic church’s inauguration, where the bishop says that during that specific ceremony, anyone who passed under the arches of the church would have their sins cleared from them. So, the idea is that these angles will pass under the church, having their souls “cleansed” then immediately die afterwards in order to go to heaven. To make the long story short, the trouble in that the movie creates is from them reading the Bible too literally and taking the Word of God, outside the context of the Bible, trying to apply it to “real” world events. Frye touches on this issue as well within his final chapter by saying “it was never intended to be a replica of facts outside itself…” and to try and do otherwise is just going to lead to trouble. In the movie, the loophole that the renegade angles find is in the Catholic interpretation of the Biblical law, where they say any laws created on earth would be upheld in Heaven. Obviously this is a literal translation of what this means, while metaphorically this “law” could simply be seen as a sign of respect for the governments and the churches during the time that this was written. Either way, the meaning is taken from the context of the Bible, out of a metaphor and into something concrete and while in the movie, doing this leads to many people dying and an almost encounter with non-existence, in real life, it only leads people to confusion and arguments. This was one of my major problems that I had when reading the Bible while I was younger. I read the Bible thinking that it was a historical account of ages passed, and being the naturally born skeptic that I am, it led me to questioning the veracity of the text.

If I have learned anything in this class, aside from reading the Bible in metaphor and accepting it’s meaning as a type of lesson, where the meaning is presented by example, it is that I shouldn’t look for the “truth” within the Bible, because that isn’t the point. The Bible isn’t meant to be read with “truth” in mind, not at least in the same sense that we read a textbook for truth, or a teacher tells us facts, instead the Bible is meant to be read as a story, where we don’t look for the meaning concerning the outside world, instead we look to the value of the lesions learned within these stories and try to apply them to our lives. For being just a with the intention of being humorous and ironic, Dogma does an exceptionally good of presenting questions that just about anyone has while reading the Bible. Whether this movie intentionally called to question these issues, or just by sheer coincidence happened to include them in the script is moot point at this stage, as “I, like God, do not play with dice and do not believe in coincidence”(V for Vendetta).

My group was the first group, the original group, the old group. We were assigned the book of Judges for our presentations project and decided to do that presentation in the form of a news broadcast. The book of Judges is about the period of time after Moses frees the Jews from Egypt and their attempts to conquer the lands of Cannon. The Judges themselves are political, military leaders who, at the same time, are almost prophets in the eyes of Yahweh and are the ones turned to when the people of Israel want to be freed from whichever controller happens to be ruling them at the time. There are 12 judges in total, but their stories are more or less the same. The Jews forget about Yahweh and the things he has done for them, Yahweh then sells them into captivity, the Jews remember Yahweh, he anoints a leader to save them (a judge usually) and rinse and repeat.

The two major stories within the book of Judges are the song of Deborah and the story of Samson. In the Song of Deborah, Barak comes to Deborah and asks what he should do. She tells him he should go to war and he will win it, Barak doesn’t exactly believe her, so he asks that she accompany him. They both ride off into the sunset, towards the army of Sisera, the dreaded general of Jabin’s army. Barak and Sisera’s armies clash, Barak of course wins, but Sisera flees. As he’s fleeing, he comes across the tent of Jael, wife of Heber the Kenite. She offers him refuge within her tents, covers him with a rug and feeds him a glass of milk. Sisera, all snuggly warm under the tent, gluttoned on milk and exhausted from the battle, rightly falls immediately to sleep, only to have his sweet sugar-plum dreams suddenly interrupted by a tent peg being pleasantly pounded into his temple. Act one is over, Jael is praised and we move forward.

The next (well, not the next, there is some filler, but the NEXT thing WE care about) story is about Samson. I don’t really think I need go into to much detail here, because everyone should know the story of Samson. In the case you have been living in a small dark, wireless cave up till this class began, I’ll indulge you to some extent. Basically, the story of Samson is the classic hero story. Samson is this stud who kills thousands of philistines with nothing more than a jaw of an ass (where’s the metaphor there:P) and receives his power from his godly hair. Must be some hair. Anyway. He’s walking along one day, as ya do, when he sees this beautiful philistine women named Delilah (I actually had to look this name up… I must be tired) who he is absolutely smitten with and decides he just can’t live without. Well, Delilah being a philistine, is badgered (benefit of the doubt) into discovering what it is that gives Samson his power. There are no less than 4 attempts, FOUR, where Samson will spout out nonsense about his power source (because he doesn’t know, this man is a blockhead), Delilah will act upon that nonsense

(ie, Samson: uh, my power comes from that monkey over there…

Delilah: that monkey?

Samson: yah

Delilah: ooookay….hm…. (shuffles over and kills the monkey, in leap armed Philistines, Samson immediately kills them with like, his pillow)

Delilah: wrong monkey?

Samson just shrugs)

But despite that it’s OBVIOUS she’s trying to get him killed, Samson continues to tell her these things, continues to sleep with her and what not. Eventually, he gets it right, saying that it’s his hair (seven locks by the way), she shaves him in his sleep, philistines burst in and gouge his eyes out. Well, now they got him, so they decide to humiliate him and make him do women’s work. Years (or months, doesn’t matter really) down the road, the bring Samson to perform parlor tricks (curse of the monkey!). His hair has grown back (imagine that) enough by this time that he pulls the pillars out from under the temple/house/barn (wherever the raving philistine party was located) and kills everyone (including himself) within. (Interesting ending, wonder if exceptions will be made…)

Anyway, That is the book of Judges. There of course is more (like my favorite judge, Shamgar, who has a whole 4 lines dedicated to him, yet still manages to tell the exact same story as everyone else AND kill 600 philistines with an oaxgoad, a feat far more impressive than the jaw of an ass. I mean, anyone can do that, and this guy didn’t even need the hair.).

Perhaps I’ll blog more later. Off to continue revisions on my paper.

Just finished Frye’s section of Biblical and Classical Myths and I found that his final chapter was definitely one of his best. He does a re-cap of basically everything he has covered this session, and still manages to throw some new insights into the mix. I found what he had to say about the “arguing” the Bible particularly interesting, as it reminded me of the movie Dogma. In the movie, the Chris Rock character tells the protagonist at the final scenes of the movie not to believe in god, but to have an idea. This seems to be exactly what Frye is saying in his final words. The Bible doesn’t end in answers, it only shows you what it’s saying, and the tricky part is in realizing that the Bible isn’t asking you to believe in its truthfulness. Personally, I would have to read more of the Bible, but I am willing to take Frye’s word on it that the Bible doesn’t make any arguments, only carefully concealed proclamations.

Just as a small side note before getting on with whatever it is I’ll talk about next, but I really liked this chapter because of its discussion about language and the use of language within the bible. It would seem that his discussion about words is simply another way of saying that the bible need be read metaphorically and not literally, but I think there is more to it this second time around. He doesn’t actually mention the word metaphor in this chapter, and that is why I think there is more to it. Instead he discusses how the Bible should be read.

Picking up a few days later, I have kinda lost my train of thought, but I wanted to mention that this will probably be my research paper for this class. I really like discussion of the use of language, as linguistics and language are 2 things that I find incredibly fascinating. Essentially what Frye starts out saying is that the Bible must be read metaphorically, because to read it otherwise simply would lead the reader to trouble. There will be no literal meaning to discover within the Bible, because the Bible is so full of contradictions that whatever meaning (or arguments to support it) could be contradicted in a later passage (or, to say it in another way, by the same source). So, a reader must read metaphorically in order to obtain the meaning that they are searching for. That’s where the final chapter’s lesson comes into this discussion, in that Frye switches his lecture from metaphorical reading, to well, we have meaning…now what. He uses his final chapter to discuss how that meaning should be accepted within the mind of the reader and what exactly that meaning is.

Okay, I know that was a little vague, but right now (2 days before it’s due, procrastination poster child right here) my thoughts on the subject are a little vague and I need to go reread the chapters where Frye discusses the language of the Bible to perhaps solidify them. Ciao.

This is gonna be my blog on The Slave by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Let me start by saying that I liked the book. It isn’t usually a genre that I read, but it held my interest straight through and it wasn’t difficult to convince myself to read it in my spare time. Some of my favorite moments in the book were when Jacob came back the first time for Sarah, and there escape through the forest, when Jacob flees from the guards and his following encounter with the ferry worker and when Jacob returns for the bones of Sarah. My favorite of these scenes were the last two and largely because of the imagery that they conjure with it. The first of these, when he encounters the ferryman, reminded me of Siddartha when he encounters the ferryman in his own journey. The plot lines of these two books are similar, except that in Siddartha, he is looking for his own path and Jacob is merely trying to understand what is going on within his chosen path. There is a slight different between the 2 ferrymen in these stories, where the one in Siddartha is more of an interpreter while the guy in The Slave seems more like a watcher. Another similarity though, is that these ferrymen are used within context of the stories to introduce both Jacob and Siddartha to the “people” that will guide them to along. The second instance, when Jacob comes back for Sarah’s bones at the end of the book is another instance where I liked the imagery of the book. I liked how Jacob changed, and kind of became something outside of the Jewish religion that had been known to him while living in that town. While reading this book, I noticed that there were a lot of politics involved with the Jews around Jacob and when he returned for Sarah’s bones, he seemed completely separate of these politics.

This leads nicely to my next point, which is that while reading this book I couldn’t help but think of how petty and arrogant the Jewish religion is. I realize that this is true for (probably) all religions but before reading this book, I didn’t know much about the Hebrew religion, so it came as a mild surprise for me. Anyway, as I was saying, while reading, I found it interesting that Jacob’s views towards the peasants at the beginning of the book were turned towards him at the middle section. I liked the path this book followed largely because of this reason. It was interesting to watch Jacob’s prejudices turned against him, then watch as Jacob himself moved outside of those prejudice, beyond casting judgment on the people themselves and instead just finding sanctuary in his beliefs and the teachings. It kinda brings me back to thinking about what Frye says concerning the Innocent world that the Commandments represent and the Experience world that the laws represent.

Oh, just wanted to give the ol fyi, but this week will be blogabonaza, where I'll be posting a blog or two nearly every day to get caught up. Most of these I have written a few weeks ago, but just couldn't find the time to post them. Well now I am making that time, and will be doing so. I apologize for the inconvenience, but i think you will learn something:)

Just reflecting on my last post, I remembered that Frye mentions William Blake in that chapter and although I’m not surprised (for reasons I’ll go into later) but I find it to be a good segway into discussing Blake in terms of this class. I am also taking Marvin Lansverks 431 Studies into a Major Author class and this semester the author has been William Blake. I already made a post before and I may have mentioned this already, but where I am write now, I don’t have internet available and am writing into a word processor to make a copy and paste later. Hopefully I am not being too redundant and you’ll bear with me. Anyway, in this chapter Frye mentions Blake in regards to his poem Auguries of Innocence and explains Blake’s ideas about states of Innocence and states of Experience. Frye makes the connection that the commandments may be the laws of innocence where the actual laws from the bible are those of experience. This isn’t exactly my point or where I want to go with this blog, just thought it worth mentioning. My real point is that Frye mentions that Jesus says that “heaven is within you” and while this drew my thoughts towards the Eastern Religions and comparisons between these last blog, it also draws me to think about William Blake, because he held a very similar belief. Blake’s idea was that divinity is within the human as well, because Blake thought that the human form was divine. Blake, among other very different religious ideas that went away from what was considered “normal” during his time, held that God was within every human and that Jesus was kind of the example of this. Blake wrote a poem on this subject called The Divine Image where his ideas are expressed. He later goes to write another poem in the Experience section which he calls The Human Abstract , and it is really interesting to see how he contrasts these two images. The Human Abstract is the Experience version of what Blake believes to be the Divine Image. In the Divine Image, we have what Blake would ideally want to happen, but The Human Abstract is (in Blake's mind) the reality of things.

Well, this is all I really wanted to say on this note… I can’t recall any other bits about Blake without having the poems available to read over, so I might add something later.

Just my thoughts about the 21^st chapter of Frye’s book. He covers a lot of material in this chapter, but 2 things stood out to me. The first were his comments about the commandments. I thought it interesting that he says “there may be a difference in level between a law and a commandment” as though the commandment was taken less seriously by the people. I find this interesting because I have always been under the impression that the commandments were the words of God and should be above the laws of man, because they will decided whether a person is allowed entrance to heaven or not.

He goes on to talk about how the commandments are the negative to what the “sermon on the mount” is the positive. I liked this comparison and it leads nicely to the discussion of Jesus’ remarks concerning the location of heaven. Frye mentions how Jesus says that “heaven is within you” and this got me to thinking about the Eastern Religions and there philosophies concerning the reward being within you. I like the philosophies of the Eastern Religions, as they seem more concerned with the welfare of humans as compared to the opinions of whatever god you are currently paying respects towards. I like finding that the bible has elements of these philosophies within it, and it further gets me to thinking about what would happen if God (Yahweh) were to be removed from the bible? Would removing Yahweh from the bible completely defeat the purpose of the religions built around it? I speculate that no, it would not. I think that for whatever reason, while Yahweh is the source and inspiration for a lot of good that occurs within the stories of the bible, he also seems to be (and in a more powerful sense at times) the source of evil within the bible, and to remove him, I don’t think the good would actually disappear. To clarify a little bit, God always seems to be the reason for good things that occur, like…well actually I am having some difficulty thinking of an instance where someone did something good in the name of God (besides the actual construction of the bible. Though I think that’s barbed to say the least). Regardless, I can think of plenty of instances where violence has been enacted in his name, the whole invasion of Israel stands as an example. Anyway, my whole point is, that if you removed Yahweh as the center to this religion…would everything crumble with his removal? I don’t think so. Instead, I get the idea that it would fall into something like the eastern religions, where people would continue to follow the tenants, but to find that heaven within themselves.

One more time....

Had to start a new post because the last one was getting a bit to long and was afraid it wouldn't load. Where were we...

9/21

Side thoughts before notes of this day: The identity in the bible is an important theme. These can be seen (and I do hope to discuss this later) in the metaphors represented by Abraham, Jacob and several other characters in the bible.

Why doesn't Herald Bloom like the prophet Jeramiah? perhaps it has to do with his masogonistic personality... or it may be something else. who knows! (google has once again failed me)

Review of the Feminine and the topics of the prior class.

Israel becomes the wife of Yahweh
people of Israel are like wives turned to harlotry

mentions covenant, it's gonna be provoking.

Women as property in the Bible, and in some traditions even today (wedding rights for example)

Joyce Carol Oates - Where were you going where have you been? (based on a Bob Dylan song...perhaps? which was is based on the myth of Persephone and Hades)

everyone should go read Rosanna's blog. (really. I mean that. )

we are required to have a bad day for (tuesday)

JOB vS ABRAHAM dun dun duh show down of argumentative skills.

Sodamy comes from the city Sodam

Hospitality -

rules are not just biblical, but ancient. Rules of hospitality were very important during these times, a guest was someone you protected because they were under your roof.

Stories of Masogony (sp?)

Jeptha's Daughter

Lot's Daughters

Hagar & Abraham

(possibly...Jacob w/ his 2 wives...similar to Hagar and Abraham anyway)

Tanmar - Judah's daughter inlaw

Taboo = [tuh-boo, ta-] , adjective, noun, plural -boos, verb, -booed, -boo‧ing.
–adjective
1.
proscribed by society as improper or unacceptable: taboo words.
2.
(among the Polynesians and other peoples of the South Pacific) separated or set apart as sacred; forbidden for general use; placed under a prohibition or ban. –noun
3.
a prohibition or interdiction of anything; exclusion from use or practice.
4.
(among the Polynesians and other peoples of the South Pacific)
a.
the system, practice, or act whereby things are set apart as sacred, forbidden for general use, or placed under a prohibition or interdiction.
b.
the condition of being so set apart, forbidden, or interdicted.
5.
exclusion from social relations; ostracism. –verb (used with object)
6.
to put under a taboo; prohibit or forbid.
7.
to ostracize (a person, group, etc.).

What is taboo also gains(gives) power and in some ways can be considered holy.

The Ocean's a stream of Stories

Hirun and the sea of stories (Indian story collections (sp on name?)

-Alice and wonderland

-Wizard of Oz

Story rhetoric and metaphorical rhetoric

Important: 722BCE Asyrian war machine destroys Israel, and eventually Judah.

will update with tuesday's notes and todays notes when i get back from class....till then. paper writing. oh. i'll also add some speculative bloggin concerning the bible either thurdsay (today) or friday afternoon. ciao

Okay, Returning to the updating the notes....

9/19

I believe these are the notes from the guest speaker.

Bloom suggests J was a woman, because the women have such interesting rolls

Patriarchy - Ruled by Fathers, not necessarily men.
Almost all women, most men, the inferm and "others" are women (in the bible).

Phallocentrism: Images, metaphors or symbols of the phallos are central to the myth.

Woman/Men Femenine/Masculine

Social Conditions imagery/metaphor

Support that J is a woman is that she portrays women as tricksters.

All the people in the Ancient Middle East had families of Gods, except the Hebrews.

Hosea (Prophet)

750 BCE - Amos

~722 BCE - Hosea

576 BCE Jeremiah

God (Yahweh) = Metaphor (well, everything in the bible is a metaphor, fits with the current trend).

God is the Father or Husband metaphor in the relationship with Israel, who plays the wife or at one point is refered to as the "son". (can't find the passage right now, but I swear it exists...)

Sins of the women are almost always sins of sexuality or deceit (hasn't changed has it)

Fathers: Abraham, Jacob (Isaac doesn't count, I really only see Isaac as a place holder to bring Jacob into being....)
sons, land of canaanites
Isaac = Laughter (she laughed)
Rachel = sheep?(I think I made this note that Jacob saw Rachel when she was sheparding the sheep)

side note: God makes deals (verbal, mind you), therefore words are very important in the bible

Esau & Jacob

Joseph marries both Rachel and Leah

Jumping elsewhere....
Deborah = Bee
song of deborah (Judges 5)= oldest poetry
1. you go, or we don't (Can't remember the name, but he calls deborah to be their "battle mistress", a role played by a woman, apparently carried into battle and ment to inspire men's courage and um. ferocity? (can't find reference to this over the internet)
2. Jael kills Sisera, the enemy warlord, by tricking him and pounding a tent stake through his head.
3. ...

Jephthah and his nameless daughter.
The story of Jephthah and his daughter is akin to the supposed sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham, only there is no ram caught in the vines.

Feminine is either infertal or treacherous
9/14

Frye - You need all of them (different authors), real experience isn't just J, it is everyone.
Bloom - Real sublime genius is J, everything else can simply be cast aside.

J - is a story, human characters, a narrative and emotion.

J seems to me like the tenderloin of the bible (if the bible can really be compared to a cow... or maybe it can? In some heretical sense), having less material but of finer quality.

U shape Curve - the mythical narrative of the Bible, follows a "u" shape curve in it's plot line. Starting at Genesis (where else?) the bible dips into a type of pattern, with peace sinking into revolt then returning to peace.

MS told a Pike parrabel which alluded to the good samaratin story

We talked about the Divine Comedy (Dante...do I really need to say this?) this day in class and why it is a comedy. It's ending is happy, therefore it must be a comedy.

There are six major stories ~ From Creation to Noah.

Theodicy -the-od-i-cy[thee-od-uh-see] Pronunciation Key –noun, plural -cies.
a vindication of the divine attributes, particularly holiness and justice, in establishing or allowing the existence of physical and moral evil

Story of Israel is a history of falls and rises (u shaped curve)
first stories of the bible are based in myth
later stories........(dunno, seemed to miss this point, but i think a suitable answer to this is that as the J story gets closer and closer to her/his own time, the people she/he is writing about start to actually represent actual people, instead of simply metaphors of different identities....i'll talk about this in my next blog)

Kafka in his parabels - MS said that Kafka in his parables (and to some extent Dostoyevsky) believes that "we never left The Garden of Eden.

Everything in the bible is metaphor, let myth be myth and don't over analyse it. (you will only end up hurting yourself)

Cain becomes an archetype (of the fugitive)