Anna Chronism is perhaps my favorite student.
Yesterday, a girl called my office to ask about my Bible as Literature class in the fall. I explained that we take a historical perspective, discuss textual problems--that got a quick question, as in what do I mean by "textual problems." I explained that it had to do with authorship, origins, sources. She was afraid, she said, it might involve philosophy. In fact, her pastor had told her recently that Job and Moses lived at the same time. She seemed satisfied with my description of the course, but I'm not sure how she reacted when I illustrated the historical approach by separating Moses and Job by seven or eight centuries. Moses was a twelfth or thirteenth century BCE figure, the book of Job probably written in the fifth or sixth century. I added that, indeed, they might both be fictional characters. She said she would see me in the fall and hung up, rather quickly, I thought. I wonder what conversation she will be having with her pastor.
In another case, not biblically related, I had an ex-father-in-law who asked if Julius Caeser and Shakespeare didn't live about the same time. What do you say to your father in law? I believe I said, mildly, that Caesar was somewhat earlier.
Ah, Anna, you are one of the Princesses of Reason.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Prophesying the Past
This post could actually go in either "The Labyrinth or the Garden," since the subject is labyrinthine thinking, or it could be in "Adventures and Misadventures in Academe," since it is one of many misadventures. However, I put it here because the subject is Bible-related.
I am currently teaching an advanced composition/research course called "Visions of the End Times." The class readings include the Book of Daniel, the book of Revelation, selections from Isaiah, several films, and some other materials. The essential argument of the class is that the idea of an end times is a myth that has circulated in a variety of contexts where there has been political/social crisis that drove people to believe some supernatural solution would bring the only relief.
Along the way, I have pointed out that historically the Book of Isaiah was written cumulatively over some two centuries, not by a single person. The Book of Daniel, though it was set in the sixth century (just post-Destruction), was actually (by scholarly consensus) written in the second century: thus, its "prophecies" are actually an account of recent offenses by the mid-second-century ruler Antiochus Epiphanes, not prophecies made in the sixth century about abuses to come.
A student, who is clearly a Christian tending toward more literal interpretations of the Bible, proposed in the introduction to his research paper to demonstrate that the book of Isaiah really was written by one person and the Book of Daniel was really written in the sixth century, so its prophecies were true prophecies, not veiled political commentary on the recent past. The course, since it is a research course, has a requirement that the students cite legitimate, credible scholarly sources in carrying on their discussion.
When I asked the student about the scholarly support for his arguments about single-author Isaiah and the sixth-century Book of Daniel, the student cited John, who, the student claimed, refers to Isaiah as though he is the single author of the whole book. John takes Daniel's prophecies as genuine prophecies that came true several centuries later. I advised him to leave the dating and authorship claims out of his paper--they weren't really necessary to his overall argument. But more importantly, I said, the book of John could not be considered a scholarly source. It was neither objective nor authoritative. It felt odd to be saying this because, of course, for this student, since John is in the Bible, nothing could be more authoritative: it is "the word of God," as is everything else in the Bible.
I insisted, however, that modern scholars, limited as their knowledge is about this ancient world, know much more about such issues as authorship and textual development than John knew. We can say, on the basis of historical references alone, that Isaiah could not have been the sole author of the book attributed to him. One can only say that John believed Isaiah to be the sole author and the prophecies of Daniel to be sixth century. Modern scholars are more knowledgeable. I'm not sure how convincing my statement about John's lack of scholarly methodology and information was, but I suspect the student went away shaking his head at my ignorance. However, perhaps not--perhaps he went away thinking he had better re-evaluate his own ideas, or what he could expect by pursuing a degree in a secular institution. Though I told him also that any credible scholar in a theological institute would say the same thing: dating of Isaiah and the Book of Daniel is widely accepted.
The conversation reminds me of one I had with some Jehovah's Witnesses who came to the door and handed me one of their pamphlets, expecting me to contribute money in return. When I told them they had the date of the Book of Daniel incorrect, they asked what made me think so. I told them modern scholarship has figured this out. One man said, oh, that's the book he (meaning me) uses for information--we use a different, more authoritative book. I told him I'd love to see that book, since I want to be informed about all points of view. He promised to send me a copy, but I've never received it. It didn't sound like he was referring to the Bible. On the occasion of another JW visit, when I mentioned the Book of Daniel dating issue, a woman said quickly that it's not really very clear what the dates were that long ago. I said that no, scholars were quite certain about this from a variety of sources. She and her partner, and the cute child they had set in front of them as point-person, observed that it was a beautiful day and bid me adieu.
On another occasion, as I was discussing differences in the gospel accounts of Jesus' life, ministry, and crucifixion, I noticed a student becoming more and more alarmed. His girl friend, who had attended the whole class with him, noticed as well and asked, I thought, with great wisdom and sensitivity the crisis he was undergoing, whether, if he intended to study for the ministry--as he had indicated to me once in conversation was his goal--he would hear much of this same material in divinity school. I said yes, certainly, depending somewhat on which school he went to, but if he went to one of the more credible and scholarly institutions, he would certainly have to learn the scholarship of the discipline. I have never heard what his career has finally been.
I have observed to classes that when one studies the Bible, one must not study only the Bible. If there were ever a book that requires wide reading in scholarly literature--and I mean scholarly, not just inspirational commentaries--the Bible is it. One can read, understand, and enjoy Shakespeare because the text is not clouded with centuries of entrenched theological overlay, belief in which determines one's eternal destiny. Shakespeare, Milton, Faulkner, Pynchon, Grass, Marquez, Cortazar--they can be challenging, but you don't go to hell for misreading them. You can have disagreements with friends and acquaintances without jeopardizing your soul. The stakes in Biblical interpretation were established long ago, along with the fear of open-minded, non-theology-driven reading, or (God forbid!) of dismissing the Bible altogether as a guide to life. The scene in James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a good example of how religious teaching has been rooted in fear of damnation: a priest conveys the horrors of Hell in lurid and terrifying detail to a class of young boys. The obvious underlying message is: these horrible sufferings will be yours if you misbehave. It's worse than the worst beating you ever had or could imagine.
So I can see why someone like my student would be impervious to a scholarly approach. It means denying the very principles of salvation that have guided his life so far. It is to make an accomodation with the threat of damnation. Born-again Christians seem to emphasize the joy of their salvation--but underlying that joy is the fear of the opposite: the damnation they are relieved to have escaped. There is too much at stake to risk being scholarly and objective. Accomodation: that is not part of the tradition, going back to the rebellions of the Jews against their foreign occupiers and the martyrdom of Masada. Certain forms of Christianity inherit from their Hebrew Bible roots the determination to adhere to principle or die.
It is much easier not to be so determinedly religious. In fact, when you once start, you find that life is better and more relaxed, and you haven't lost anything essential. There is a great line about Rama from the Ramayana: he tried being good, and found it easier than he thought. Here is a book, speaking of Bibles, that is more gentle, charming, good-humored, wise and moral than the Hebrew/Christian texts.
I am currently teaching an advanced composition/research course called "Visions of the End Times." The class readings include the Book of Daniel, the book of Revelation, selections from Isaiah, several films, and some other materials. The essential argument of the class is that the idea of an end times is a myth that has circulated in a variety of contexts where there has been political/social crisis that drove people to believe some supernatural solution would bring the only relief.
Along the way, I have pointed out that historically the Book of Isaiah was written cumulatively over some two centuries, not by a single person. The Book of Daniel, though it was set in the sixth century (just post-Destruction), was actually (by scholarly consensus) written in the second century: thus, its "prophecies" are actually an account of recent offenses by the mid-second-century ruler Antiochus Epiphanes, not prophecies made in the sixth century about abuses to come.
A student, who is clearly a Christian tending toward more literal interpretations of the Bible, proposed in the introduction to his research paper to demonstrate that the book of Isaiah really was written by one person and the Book of Daniel was really written in the sixth century, so its prophecies were true prophecies, not veiled political commentary on the recent past. The course, since it is a research course, has a requirement that the students cite legitimate, credible scholarly sources in carrying on their discussion.
When I asked the student about the scholarly support for his arguments about single-author Isaiah and the sixth-century Book of Daniel, the student cited John, who, the student claimed, refers to Isaiah as though he is the single author of the whole book. John takes Daniel's prophecies as genuine prophecies that came true several centuries later. I advised him to leave the dating and authorship claims out of his paper--they weren't really necessary to his overall argument. But more importantly, I said, the book of John could not be considered a scholarly source. It was neither objective nor authoritative. It felt odd to be saying this because, of course, for this student, since John is in the Bible, nothing could be more authoritative: it is "the word of God," as is everything else in the Bible.
I insisted, however, that modern scholars, limited as their knowledge is about this ancient world, know much more about such issues as authorship and textual development than John knew. We can say, on the basis of historical references alone, that Isaiah could not have been the sole author of the book attributed to him. One can only say that John believed Isaiah to be the sole author and the prophecies of Daniel to be sixth century. Modern scholars are more knowledgeable. I'm not sure how convincing my statement about John's lack of scholarly methodology and information was, but I suspect the student went away shaking his head at my ignorance. However, perhaps not--perhaps he went away thinking he had better re-evaluate his own ideas, or what he could expect by pursuing a degree in a secular institution. Though I told him also that any credible scholar in a theological institute would say the same thing: dating of Isaiah and the Book of Daniel is widely accepted.
The conversation reminds me of one I had with some Jehovah's Witnesses who came to the door and handed me one of their pamphlets, expecting me to contribute money in return. When I told them they had the date of the Book of Daniel incorrect, they asked what made me think so. I told them modern scholarship has figured this out. One man said, oh, that's the book he (meaning me) uses for information--we use a different, more authoritative book. I told him I'd love to see that book, since I want to be informed about all points of view. He promised to send me a copy, but I've never received it. It didn't sound like he was referring to the Bible. On the occasion of another JW visit, when I mentioned the Book of Daniel dating issue, a woman said quickly that it's not really very clear what the dates were that long ago. I said that no, scholars were quite certain about this from a variety of sources. She and her partner, and the cute child they had set in front of them as point-person, observed that it was a beautiful day and bid me adieu.
On another occasion, as I was discussing differences in the gospel accounts of Jesus' life, ministry, and crucifixion, I noticed a student becoming more and more alarmed. His girl friend, who had attended the whole class with him, noticed as well and asked, I thought, with great wisdom and sensitivity the crisis he was undergoing, whether, if he intended to study for the ministry--as he had indicated to me once in conversation was his goal--he would hear much of this same material in divinity school. I said yes, certainly, depending somewhat on which school he went to, but if he went to one of the more credible and scholarly institutions, he would certainly have to learn the scholarship of the discipline. I have never heard what his career has finally been.
I have observed to classes that when one studies the Bible, one must not study only the Bible. If there were ever a book that requires wide reading in scholarly literature--and I mean scholarly, not just inspirational commentaries--the Bible is it. One can read, understand, and enjoy Shakespeare because the text is not clouded with centuries of entrenched theological overlay, belief in which determines one's eternal destiny. Shakespeare, Milton, Faulkner, Pynchon, Grass, Marquez, Cortazar--they can be challenging, but you don't go to hell for misreading them. You can have disagreements with friends and acquaintances without jeopardizing your soul. The stakes in Biblical interpretation were established long ago, along with the fear of open-minded, non-theology-driven reading, or (God forbid!) of dismissing the Bible altogether as a guide to life. The scene in James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a good example of how religious teaching has been rooted in fear of damnation: a priest conveys the horrors of Hell in lurid and terrifying detail to a class of young boys. The obvious underlying message is: these horrible sufferings will be yours if you misbehave. It's worse than the worst beating you ever had or could imagine.
So I can see why someone like my student would be impervious to a scholarly approach. It means denying the very principles of salvation that have guided his life so far. It is to make an accomodation with the threat of damnation. Born-again Christians seem to emphasize the joy of their salvation--but underlying that joy is the fear of the opposite: the damnation they are relieved to have escaped. There is too much at stake to risk being scholarly and objective. Accomodation: that is not part of the tradition, going back to the rebellions of the Jews against their foreign occupiers and the martyrdom of Masada. Certain forms of Christianity inherit from their Hebrew Bible roots the determination to adhere to principle or die.
It is much easier not to be so determinedly religious. In fact, when you once start, you find that life is better and more relaxed, and you haven't lost anything essential. There is a great line about Rama from the Ramayana: he tried being good, and found it easier than he thought. Here is a book, speaking of Bibles, that is more gentle, charming, good-humored, wise and moral than the Hebrew/Christian texts.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Family Values
There's a lot of noise around about "family values," which seem to boil down to positions against abortion, drugs, and homosexuality that supposedly have Biblical foundations. There are explicit prohibitions against homosexuality; abortion is supposed to be covered under "Thou shalt not kill"; I'm not sure where the drugs come in. I am sometimes asked in my Literature of the Bible class whether Isaiah, or Ezekiel--especially Ezekial--were on some kind of mind-altering substance because of their really bizarre imagery.
But aside from all that, I almost always read The Ramayana (Buck translation) in my introduction to literature composition. At some point, I wonder out loud how the "family values" in The Ramayana compare with what we find in the bible. The students virtually always side with the Bible as the repository of values any moral person would want to live by.
But then, we go to specifics. In the Bible, in the first family, one brother murders the other. In The Ramayana, Rama's brother, Lakshamana, vows to accompany him into exile (though it is not necessary) and protect both Rama and his wife Sita, who, though Rama unselfishly tries to advise her against it, also vows to accompany him--on the grounds that she is his wife, and her place is by her husband. Eve is the instrument not only of Adam's ruin, but the ruin of all mankind; Sita is exemplary in her devotion to Rama, in her fidelity, and in every other way. Her only failure seems to be that she foolishly does not heed the good advice of her brother-in-law to leave a golden deer alone. The deer, unfortunately, is a Rakshasa in disguise, who has agreed (against his better judgment) to lure Rama away from Sita so the evil Ravana can kidnap her. Many examples can be brought in--I particularly like the father-son integrity of The Ramayana. One of Rama's father's wives is persuaded to force Rama's father into banishing his son from the kingdom. When Rama is advised to rebel, he refuses on the grounds that a son's duty to his father is absolute; and he cannot be angry with the wife who betrayed him. Compare that, for example, with Jacob's deception of his father, Isaac, who, though suspicious, is too old and blind to see through Jacob's claim to be Esau; Jacob thereby not only cheats his father but his brother as well, and is considered a hero for it.
And we haven't even started talking about the Hebrew Bible insistence that a rebellious son or a wife discovered not to be a virgin be stoned to death. Or the general agreement in the Bible, as in the ancient world generally, that slavery is perfectly acceptable.
The gods of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata (the two grand Hindu epics--both wonderful, amazing, thrilling works of literature) seem much more like gods I could relate to than the God of the Hebrew/Christian bibles. He is too punitive, too angry, too insistent that he be worshipped. Among the charming things the narrator relates about Rama, a god who has come to earth to save mankind, is that he knows how to take a vacation, and he never has a harsh word for anyone. (I must say, one should read more than the Buck version--Buck has amazing imagery and some comical renditions of what the gods say to each other; there is another translation, I think by Narayana, that is less exuberant. But Buck is fun, and I'm all for that.)
I realized finally that, if religion has much point, I go for the religion that has the most charming stories. The Ramayana and the Mahabharata win hands down on that. They also have so much more--they deserve extended separate blogs.
But aside from all that, I almost always read The Ramayana (Buck translation) in my introduction to literature composition. At some point, I wonder out loud how the "family values" in The Ramayana compare with what we find in the bible. The students virtually always side with the Bible as the repository of values any moral person would want to live by.
But then, we go to specifics. In the Bible, in the first family, one brother murders the other. In The Ramayana, Rama's brother, Lakshamana, vows to accompany him into exile (though it is not necessary) and protect both Rama and his wife Sita, who, though Rama unselfishly tries to advise her against it, also vows to accompany him--on the grounds that she is his wife, and her place is by her husband. Eve is the instrument not only of Adam's ruin, but the ruin of all mankind; Sita is exemplary in her devotion to Rama, in her fidelity, and in every other way. Her only failure seems to be that she foolishly does not heed the good advice of her brother-in-law to leave a golden deer alone. The deer, unfortunately, is a Rakshasa in disguise, who has agreed (against his better judgment) to lure Rama away from Sita so the evil Ravana can kidnap her. Many examples can be brought in--I particularly like the father-son integrity of The Ramayana. One of Rama's father's wives is persuaded to force Rama's father into banishing his son from the kingdom. When Rama is advised to rebel, he refuses on the grounds that a son's duty to his father is absolute; and he cannot be angry with the wife who betrayed him. Compare that, for example, with Jacob's deception of his father, Isaac, who, though suspicious, is too old and blind to see through Jacob's claim to be Esau; Jacob thereby not only cheats his father but his brother as well, and is considered a hero for it.
And we haven't even started talking about the Hebrew Bible insistence that a rebellious son or a wife discovered not to be a virgin be stoned to death. Or the general agreement in the Bible, as in the ancient world generally, that slavery is perfectly acceptable.
The gods of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata (the two grand Hindu epics--both wonderful, amazing, thrilling works of literature) seem much more like gods I could relate to than the God of the Hebrew/Christian bibles. He is too punitive, too angry, too insistent that he be worshipped. Among the charming things the narrator relates about Rama, a god who has come to earth to save mankind, is that he knows how to take a vacation, and he never has a harsh word for anyone. (I must say, one should read more than the Buck version--Buck has amazing imagery and some comical renditions of what the gods say to each other; there is another translation, I think by Narayana, that is less exuberant. But Buck is fun, and I'm all for that.)
I realized finally that, if religion has much point, I go for the religion that has the most charming stories. The Ramayana and the Mahabharata win hands down on that. They also have so much more--they deserve extended separate blogs.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Hit the Ground Running
When I was in college at UC Santa Barbara, I heard of the Bible as Lit. professor. He started each semester by throwing the Bible on the floor. "See?" he said, "It's just a book."
I didn't get around to taking his class, only because I didn't think I'd care for the theatrics, though many people took it and were impressed.
Instead, I've taught Bible as Literature for many years and had many students of many persuasions. The ones I've liked best have been the ones who were willing to listen to new ideas, or to respect "the other side," i.e., the critical, literary-interpretive side, as opposed to the faith side.
I was remarking to a class once that we have virtually no objective information about Jesus--what we think we know about the historical figure (if, indeed, he was a historical figure) we have to extrapolate from hints and cross-references gospel by gospel, keeping in mind that each gospel was written as an individual entity for its own audience, even when the writers of the gospels attributed to Luke and Matthew may have had the gospel attributed to Mark right in front of them to copy nearly word for word.
A woman, a Catholic who had learned her lessons well from a priest and who had insisted on the literal and historical truth of every word in every gospel (regardless of the inconsistencies), raised her hand and reminded me that scholars forget about Jesus' sacred mother, Mary, who was alive to provide the information conveyed by the gospel writers. I had to pause a moment to digest this.
I finally pointed out that there is not a single shred of evidence to suggest that the gospel writers consulted with Mary on their varied accounts of Jesus' life and ministry. (The student apparently didn't remember the passage where Jesus outright rejects his family, who have come to see him.)
And where had she gotten her information?
From her friend, the priest. Where had he gotten his? I would like to know.
And this reminds me of another story: a Hindu friend insisted once that the "missing years" in Jesus' life had been passed in India, where he learned the lessons of that culture and brought them back into his Jewish culture. I heard this before I had much knowledge of Biblical matters and found it tremendously exciting to think that, at its source, Christianity might be a blend of cultures that lie outside the Judeo-Christian realm.
As I began to teach the course, I kept my eye out for some scholarly work that would develop this aspect of Jesus' life. Finally, a student mentioned a book that told the history of Jesus in India, and I jumped at the chance to verify what I had heard from my Hindu friend. I bought the book and discovered, to my chagrin, that it was not a scholarly book at all, but an act of the creative imagination, a "what-if" poem of some kind, speculating about Jesus in India during those lost years.
Since then, I have run across another book--very interesting, but entirely circumstantial--about Jesus having been sent to Egypt (there is the gospel detail about Jesus' family fleeing with him to Egypt to avoid Herod's persecution), where he was trained as a Buddhist monk. What's interesting about the book is its documentation of the extent to which Buddhism had spread throughout the ancient near east by the time of Jesus. But, as I say, the "evidence" is all circumstantial. There is nothing definite that enables one to connect Jesus to Buddhism, whatever the books showing philosophic parallels might suggest.
Is there a final conclusion? Jesus was probably a historical figure, but we can't tell for certain what he said, and what writers with agendas related to their own historical circumstances scripted for him. The same with the Biblical God--God is a character in a narrative. He represents various political/ideological/philosophic propositions, depending on which book one reads. The God of Job, for example, is nothing like the God proposed to us in the gospels, or by Christian tradition. This is only one example, but it must suggest why so many Christian websites are perplexed about the place of the Hebrew Bible ("Old Testament") in Christian thinking. Many passages are plain embarrassments.
I didn't get around to taking his class, only because I didn't think I'd care for the theatrics, though many people took it and were impressed.
Instead, I've taught Bible as Literature for many years and had many students of many persuasions. The ones I've liked best have been the ones who were willing to listen to new ideas, or to respect "the other side," i.e., the critical, literary-interpretive side, as opposed to the faith side.
I was remarking to a class once that we have virtually no objective information about Jesus--what we think we know about the historical figure (if, indeed, he was a historical figure) we have to extrapolate from hints and cross-references gospel by gospel, keeping in mind that each gospel was written as an individual entity for its own audience, even when the writers of the gospels attributed to Luke and Matthew may have had the gospel attributed to Mark right in front of them to copy nearly word for word.
A woman, a Catholic who had learned her lessons well from a priest and who had insisted on the literal and historical truth of every word in every gospel (regardless of the inconsistencies), raised her hand and reminded me that scholars forget about Jesus' sacred mother, Mary, who was alive to provide the information conveyed by the gospel writers. I had to pause a moment to digest this.
I finally pointed out that there is not a single shred of evidence to suggest that the gospel writers consulted with Mary on their varied accounts of Jesus' life and ministry. (The student apparently didn't remember the passage where Jesus outright rejects his family, who have come to see him.)
And where had she gotten her information?
From her friend, the priest. Where had he gotten his? I would like to know.
And this reminds me of another story: a Hindu friend insisted once that the "missing years" in Jesus' life had been passed in India, where he learned the lessons of that culture and brought them back into his Jewish culture. I heard this before I had much knowledge of Biblical matters and found it tremendously exciting to think that, at its source, Christianity might be a blend of cultures that lie outside the Judeo-Christian realm.
As I began to teach the course, I kept my eye out for some scholarly work that would develop this aspect of Jesus' life. Finally, a student mentioned a book that told the history of Jesus in India, and I jumped at the chance to verify what I had heard from my Hindu friend. I bought the book and discovered, to my chagrin, that it was not a scholarly book at all, but an act of the creative imagination, a "what-if" poem of some kind, speculating about Jesus in India during those lost years.
Since then, I have run across another book--very interesting, but entirely circumstantial--about Jesus having been sent to Egypt (there is the gospel detail about Jesus' family fleeing with him to Egypt to avoid Herod's persecution), where he was trained as a Buddhist monk. What's interesting about the book is its documentation of the extent to which Buddhism had spread throughout the ancient near east by the time of Jesus. But, as I say, the "evidence" is all circumstantial. There is nothing definite that enables one to connect Jesus to Buddhism, whatever the books showing philosophic parallels might suggest.
Is there a final conclusion? Jesus was probably a historical figure, but we can't tell for certain what he said, and what writers with agendas related to their own historical circumstances scripted for him. The same with the Biblical God--God is a character in a narrative. He represents various political/ideological/philosophic propositions, depending on which book one reads. The God of Job, for example, is nothing like the God proposed to us in the gospels, or by Christian tradition. This is only one example, but it must suggest why so many Christian websites are perplexed about the place of the Hebrew Bible ("Old Testament") in Christian thinking. Many passages are plain embarrassments.
The Untold Day
The Bible says God created the universe in six days and rested on the seventh. This is one proof that not everything the Bible says can be true. All sites of magnificent natural beauty in the world--from Yosemite on--must have taken an eighth, ninth, even a tenth day. You can't, in just six days, do everything else (including the mosquito and the black widow) and also get in scenic wonders complete with tourist overlooks. And the architectural plans for the Taj Mahal? That's at least a day at the drafting desk right there. This is God at play, when he forgets about tormenting us with hurricanes, brush fires, earthquakes, rickets, pebbles in our sandals, root canals, and exceedingly hot peppers.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
A Long Way from the Garden
Here we are, 6-10,000 years later if you think Adam and Eve really existed and Moses wrote the Torah. I've been reading some smart stuff at www.thejewishatheist.com, which I recommend.
Adam and Eve were kicked out into the world, and we're still struggling to figure out the book that recorded their story. Milton gave it a try and wrote Paradise Lost to "justify the ways of God to man." Why did Milton think God's ways needed justifying? Mark Twain hadn't even written Letters from the Earth yet. But someone had written the Book of Job, and it wasn't Moses--at least, no one has ever claimed that Moses was the author. Which is a good thing, since most dating I've seen puts the Job story in the fifth or sixth century BCE, and Moses, if he lived at all, probably dates to some seven or eight hundred years earlier.
You'd think if God had a clear plan for us all, he wouldn't have made it so easy to disagree about. I'm reminded of the Native Americans who rejected the arguments of Christian missionaries that they (the Native Americans) ought to accept a new religion. The Native Americans wanted to know why, if God so wanted everyone to believe in Him, He didn't provide them with a copy of the Bible. They had also observed that Christian belief had not made the Europeans any more kind, honest, or open-hearted.
This is just the beginning of the puzzles.
Milton felt he had to justify the ways of God to man, because on the face of it, to anyone who thought about the story, God's ways (the whole human history) could seem pretty a) far-fetched b) mind-boggling.
So, Milton came up with a long, long, long poem to explain a short, short, short story.
Adam and Eve were kicked out into the world, and we're still struggling to figure out the book that recorded their story. Milton gave it a try and wrote Paradise Lost to "justify the ways of God to man." Why did Milton think God's ways needed justifying? Mark Twain hadn't even written Letters from the Earth yet. But someone had written the Book of Job, and it wasn't Moses--at least, no one has ever claimed that Moses was the author. Which is a good thing, since most dating I've seen puts the Job story in the fifth or sixth century BCE, and Moses, if he lived at all, probably dates to some seven or eight hundred years earlier.
You'd think if God had a clear plan for us all, he wouldn't have made it so easy to disagree about. I'm reminded of the Native Americans who rejected the arguments of Christian missionaries that they (the Native Americans) ought to accept a new religion. The Native Americans wanted to know why, if God so wanted everyone to believe in Him, He didn't provide them with a copy of the Bible. They had also observed that Christian belief had not made the Europeans any more kind, honest, or open-hearted.
This is just the beginning of the puzzles.
Milton felt he had to justify the ways of God to man, because on the face of it, to anyone who thought about the story, God's ways (the whole human history) could seem pretty a) far-fetched b) mind-boggling.
So, Milton came up with a long, long, long poem to explain a short, short, short story.
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