THE RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE NEWSLETTER
Volume 8, Issue 2 -- March/April 2007
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The Religious Language Newsletter (available by e-mail only) is
written and published every other month by Suzette Haden Elgin,
Ph.D. (linguistics), from the Ozark Center for Language Studies
(OCLS), at PO Box 1137, Huntsville, AR 72740-1137. For additional
information, or to unsubscribe, please e-mail ocls@madisoncounty.net.
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In This Issue: Editor's Note; Network Input; Quotes &
Comments; Cyberspace
#Editor's Note
My thanks to all of you for your support and help, and for the excellent materials that you have been sending me.
#Network Input
1. In response to my note in the 9-10/06 issue about Bruce L. Flamm's article "One Big STEP: Another Major Study Confirms That Distant Prayers Do Not Heal the Sick," Margaret Carter wrote:
"I also read the _Skeptical Inquirer_ article about the research on healing prayer. All along I've thought that project was ill-conceived... not least because it's impossible to have a "control group". So I'm not surprised that closer analysis shows the experiments have failed to prove the effectiveness of healing prayer. What boggled my mind was the hostile tone of the article and the author's insistence that the experiments have _disproved_ the efficacy of prayer and therefore (not exaggerating his conclusion by much) all right-thinking people should publicize the uselessness and downright harmfulness of healing prayer."
**In my experience, articles from the _Skeptical Inquirer_ are always way over the top -- they're usually snarky and sarcastic and pompous polemics. That's unfortunate, because the writers (perhaps leaned on by the editors) go so far with their hostile language that I find it hard to have any confidence in what they're saying.
2. Also from Margaret Carter...
"The rector of our church preached on October 15 about that TIME magazine article, 'Does God Want You to Be Rich?' He said that, like the rich young ruler who came to Jesus, 'We are fine so long as being a Christian means being nice, doing good, and saying our prayers. We balk, however, when being a Christian makes economic claims on us. . . . most Christian people in America just shut down. They stop listening to a preacher who points out the uncomfortable aspects of living the gospel in such a prosperous setting.' "
**Yes. Cognitive dissonance is a powerful deterrent.
#Quotes & Comments
1. "What if we lived in a world where companies didn't measure their performance only in terms of revenue and profitability? What if pharmaceutical companies reported on their bottom lines, along with those familiar figures, the number of lives saved by their drugs every quarter, and food companies reported the number of children rescued from malnutrition? What if companies issued separate stock based on social returns, and people could buy the shares of those that saved more lives than others, or sell the shares of energy companies that polluted more than their competitors? What if, by raising 'social capital' and investing it in sustainable businesses without a profit motive, companies could reach into new markets, expanding their core businesses at the same time they improved lives?"
This is on page 98 of the 2/19/07 issue of _Fortune_, in "Saving The World One Cup Of Yoghurt At A Time," by Sheridan Prasso (pp. 97-103), and available online at http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/02/05/ 8399198/index.htm . I don't have words in my vocabulary that are adequate to express the enthusiasm with which I'm recommending that you read this article. Its subject is social justice, and a new model for tackling the problem of poverty in this world. Please do read it.
2. My thanks to Patricia Mathews for sending "Marine Answers Call as Medicine Man," by Felicia Fonseca, from the 1/27/07 _Albuquerque Journal_. It's about Marine private Ronnie Tallman, a young Navajo who is "part of a special group of certified medicine men [the Dine Hataalii Association] known as hand tremblers." When he enlisted in the Marines at 19 he hadn't yet discovered that he had the spiritual gift of hand trembling, and was not anticipating any problems. After that discovery, and after a sanctification ceremony, he applied for conscientious objector status and an honorable discharge based on his religious beliefs; both have now been granted. "Tallman said he believes the Holy People... were keeping watch over him during his yearlong struggle," Fonseca writes, and then quotes him as follows: "We're their children, and they know all of us as Navajos, individually, and I think they could sense I was suffering. I didn't know what to do, basically, and I kept praying, asking for an answer."
"Tallman told Marine officials that although he was still learning the rules of traditional practitioners, 'the most important ones are that I can't hurt other living things and I can't even think about hurting other living things or carry negative thoughts.' "
3. From "Mandala: A spiritual experience of Tibet," on page 2 of the Winter 2007 issue of _Fulbright Review_, about a sand mandala created at the University of Arkansas Fayetteville by Tibetan monks Rinzin Dorjee and Venerable Geshe Dorjee:
"Over 325 people gathered on November 17 to watch the closing ceremony of the completed mandala. After Rinzin and Geshe chanted, Geshe sprinkled rose petals on the mandala, which Rinzin had worked two weeks, up to eight hours a day, to create. In a moment few will forget, they brushed the sacred image away, believing that it remains in the minds of those who see it. They glimpse an image of the Buddha's purified mind, which in turn helps purify the world. They gave bags of consecrated sand to those who watched, and then spread the rest in Scull Creek in Wilson Park."
You can see the mandala in full color at http://dailyheadlines.uark.edu/9548.htm .
4. From "Somber services for 'Blue Christmas'," by Kristen Gelineau, _Albuquerque Journal_ for 12/23/07:
"Somber Blue Christmas services are being held at many churches around the country this year, in recognition of what psychologists have long known: that the contrived good cheer of the holiday season can make some people who are dealing with heartbreak feel worse. ... Some churches refer to such programs as 'Longest Night' services and hold them on the shortest day -- and therefore, the longest night -- of the year."
This article mentioned the services only in the context of those who are sorrowful at Christmas because they've lost loved ones to death, divorce, or "family dysfunction." That struck me as an unlikely limitation, so I went to Google to explore it a bit more. And found...
a. A webpage at http://tinyurl.com/3buley which has links to resources for these services, and says:
"Not everyone is up and cheery for the Christmas holidays. Dealing with the death of a loved one, facing life after divorce or separation, coping with the loss of a job, living with cancer or some other disease that puts a question mark over the future, and a number of other human situations make parties and joviality painful for many people in our congregations and communities. ... Increasing numbers of churches are creating sacred space for people living through dark times."
b. A webpage at http://www.geocities.com/grmorisse/ youngadultministry/longestnight.htm has a "Litany of Affirmation" based on Madeleine L'Engle's poem, "First Coming":
"Leader: God did not wait till the world was ready, till...nations
were at peace.
People: God came when the Heavens were unsteady and prisoners
cried out for release.
Leader: God did not wait for the perfect time.
People: God came when the need was deep and great. God dined with
sinners in all their grime, turned water into wine.
Leader: God did not wait till hearts were pure.
People: In joy God came to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame, God came and God's Light
would not go out.
Leader: God came to a world which did not mesh; to heal its tangles,
shield its scorn.
People: In the mystery of the Word made Flesh, the maker of the
stars was born.
Leader: We cannot wait till the world is sane to raise our songs
with joyful voice, or to share our grief, to touch our pain,
All: God came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!
[To read the poem as L'Engle wrote it, with the original line breaks, go to http://www.chapelhillsucc.org/yourti19688.html .]
5. From "The battle over Judas' betrayal: Scholars at odds over work depicting apostle as hero, not villain," by Louis Sahagun, in the 1/14/07 _Sunday Star-Ledger_:
"When the [_Gospel of Judas_] was released last spring, another book appeared, 'The Secrets of Judas,' which sneered at the notion that the new gospel was revolutionary or that it revealed anything new about Jesus. Author James M. Robinson, a giant in the world of early Christian studies, also accused National Geographic of sensationalizing the gospel 'in order to make as large a profit as possible.' "
And...
"Gnostic scholar John D. Turner says he has discovered numerous errors in National Geographic's English translation of the Judas Gospel. He argues the mistakes could have been avoided if the translation team had included a wider variety of experts."
The article also tells us that it took Robinson only one month to write _The Secrets of Judas_, that it was written without Robinson ever having seen the document, and that the book was "rushed into print." My thanks to Douglas Dee for the copy.
6. The 12/06 issue of _Reason_, pp. 59-66, had an interview (by Nick Gillespie and Jesse Walker) with Trey Parker and Matt Stone, co-creators of the television show _South Park_, titled "South Park Libertarians." On page 66, Trey Parker says:
"To some degree, _South Park_ has a simple formula that came from the very first episode ['The Spirit of Christmas,' which featured Jesus and Santa fighting over who owned the holiday.] There was Jesus on this side and there was Santa on this side, there's Christianity here and there's Christmas commercialism here, and they're duking it out. And there are these four boys in the middle going, 'Dude, chill out.' ... The show is saying that there is a middle ground, that most of us actually live in this middle ground... and there's something to be worked out here."
7. "Hip-Hop Group Takes Crunk to Church," by Jonathan Landrum Jr. (_Albuquerque Journal_ for 12/30/06), tells us that crunk music -- a subgenre of Southern hip-hop -- "isn't always a hit" in a church setting. But Bennie "Precha" Foster, group leader of the crunk gospel sextet "Dem Unknown WarriorZ," argues that "new strategies are needed to reach the unchurched." And he says, "We represent harder than any other person. We are born-again, sanctified, delivered in Jesus' name. Some people have a problem with the way we represent. It's time for some ... Christians to stand up and represent in the industry and the media."
Landrum quotes Tracy Brown, a father in the Atlanta congregation where the WarriorZ have been performing: "For me to hear my kids sing the songs and understand, it helps me. Rather than talking about shooting someone or drugs, I know for my children I want to hear them say something positive."
8. From "The God Experiments," by John Horgan, pp. 52-57 of the 12/06 _Discover_ (sent by Sally Lloyd); on page 57:
"Science cannot tell us if God exists only in our imaginations or as an entity beyond our comprehension. So why do some scientists continue the search for the roots of religious experience? Researchers may persist at these efforts because such studies offer the potential to alter our lives. In principle, these findings could lead to methods -- call them 'mystical technologies' -- that reliably induce the state of spiritual insight that Christians call grace and Buddhists, enlightenment. ... Suppose scientists found a way to give us permanent, blissful, mystical self-transcendence. Would you want that power? ... [Michael] Persinger warns that in the wrong hands, a truly precise, powerful God machine, capable of implanting beliefs or signals that seem to come straight from the Almighty, could be the ultimate mind-control device.' "
9. From "Is There Room for the Soul?", by Jay Tolson, in _U.S. News & World Report_ for 10/23/06, pp. 57-63; on page 63:
"Within religion itself there is also fresh thought about the implications of the new science of the mind for core religious principles and beliefs. ... As many Christian theologians now say, human beings do not have souls; they _are_ souls. But [Malcolm] Jeeves is realistic in thinking that it will take decades for many of his fellow Christians to accept this way of viewing the soul."
And on the same page...
"Here Christians and others might turn to the wisdom of Buddhism, in which the self is correctly understood not as an entity or substance but as a dynamic process. As [David] Galin writes in a collection of essays on Buddhism and science, this process is 'a shifting web of relations among evanescent aspects of the person such as perceptions, ideas, and desires. The Self is only misperceived as a fixed entity because of the distortions of the human point of view.' The experience of spirit, he argues, is itself part of the human capacity to experience implicit organization, hidden order, deeper and ineffable connectedness in what we see or otherwise encounter... Galin suggests that we view the self as spirit in that sense: the organization -- or even the emergent property -- of all of a person's subsystems, not just one more subsystem."
When I was a small (Baptist) child, I had a vividly clear idea of what "the soul" -- including my own personal soul -- looked like. It was identical to the image I had of a generic ghost -- the white-bedsheet sort of ghost -- and you would be able to see right through it. I thought of my own soul as sort of fluttering in the wind, following along close behind me.
You can read the complete article online at http://www.usnews.com/ usnews/health/articles/061015/23soul.htm . Recommended.
10. Thanks to Patricia Mathews for a copy of "A challenge for the ages: One country, many faiths," by Oliver "Buzz" Thomas, from the 1/8/07 _USA Today_. Thomas writes:
"Don't get me wrong. Our 'tribes' are important to us. It matters whether we are Baptists or Buddhists, male or female, Democrat or Republican. But remember, as Catholic theologian John Courtney Murray once reminded us, the Constitution does not begin, 'We the tribe.' We are more than a tribe. Much more. We are a people. ... In a word, the American consensus is civic, not religious. Within this civic framework, there is indeed a common vision for the common good. When it comes to religion, that vision means that persons of all faiths, or no faith, will be treated with fairness and respect."
He goes on to propose the following "civic" Golden Rule: "My rights are best protected by protecting your rights." (Which should, if the editors had been paying any attention to their task, have been set with "my" and "your" in italics.)
[This story is available online, but not compatible with my browser; the URL is (as best I can determine) http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/free_speech_forum/ index.html.]
11. I'd like to recommend an essay by Bill Gates titled "The Way We Give," on pp. 41-46 of the 1/22/07 issue of _Fortune_. On page 44 he notes that although a Nobel Prize was awarded roughly 100 years ago for the discovery of the malaria parasite and how the disease was transmitted, malaria still kills more than a million people every year. And he goes on...
"This same basic story extends to tuberculosis, yellow fever, acute diarrheal illnesses, and respiratory illnesses. Millions of children die from these diseases every year, and yet the advances we have in biology have not been applied, because rich countries don't have these diseases. ... So more than 90% of the money devoted to health research is spent on those who are the healthiest. About $1 billion is spent each year to combat baldness. That's great for some people, but if we're setting priorities, perhaps baldness should rank behind malaria."
Amen. Nowhere in the Bible does it say, "I was bald, and you restored my hair."
12. From "American Ancestors: Invoking the Founding Fathers to guard our religious freedoms," by Diana L. Paxson, pp. 17-23 in the 11/06 to 1/07 issue of _PanGaia_; on page 19:
"For the past decade, the Religious Right has been making a concerted effort to reshape America in its own image, using prayer as a tactic to influence the American psyche, perhaps forgetting that the law that protects their faith in only strong because it protects the faith of others as well. ... I contend that, as Pagans, we have a 'spiritual technology' which is surely the equal of the tools of the Christian Right. It is time for those of us who understand the technology of visualization and affirmation to use our skills to return this country to a balanced center, dominated by neither Left nor Right."
My thanks to Anne Newkirk Niven for the copy. _PanGaia_'s website is at http://www.pangaia.com .
Pleased to see the phrase "spiritual technology" in a sequence of religious discourse, I went to Google to see what using it as a search term might turn up, and found many interesting links. Those of you who are interested in terminology from this semantic domain might want to look at "Spiritual Technology: Tools for Material Transcendence," a three-day workshop outline by Don Estes, at http://www.vibrasound.com/SpiritualTechnologyWorkshop.htm . It's very New Age, as would be anticipated, but it provides a large and interesting set of religious-language terms.
13. The provocatively-titled "George Washington, 'Infidel'," by Jonathan W. Rowe, is on pp. 48-52 of the 12/06 issue of _Liberty_. It's a review of Michael and Jana Novak's book _Washington's God_ (Basic Books 2006). Rowe explains that the book has as its thesis the claim that George Washington's belief system was orthodox traditional Christianity. Rowe disagrees, and offers this alternative claim on page 50:
"It is a form of theological unitarianism, which Gregg Frazer... has dubbed 'theistic rationalism.' This sytem has certain basic tenets that distinguish it: 1) that there is a warm, intervening Providence whom men ought to worship and invoke; 2) that Jesus was not God, but rather a great moral teacher; 3) that most, perhaps all, religions contain the same basic truth as Christianity and are thus valid ways to God; 4) that salvation is universal, that good people go to Heaven when they die, and bad people are punished temporarily; 5) that although some revelation is legitimate, some is not; in other words, that the Bible is errant; and 6) that man's reason supersedes biblical revelation and determines what revelation is legitimately from God."
Rowe goes on to say that although this set of beliefs is not strictly deism, "the orthodox Christians of the day still dubbed it 'heresy' or 'infidelity'."
The Gregg Frazer source Rowe refers to in the quote is his doctoral dissertation, "The Political Theology of the American Founding"; Rowe discusses it further in his blog, at http://jonrowe.blogspot.com/2006/06/theistic-rationalist-thesis-gregg.html .
14. There's another interesting review in the Spring 2005 _Bible Review_, pp. 40-43. This one comes from Jack Riemer, and the book reviewed is Pamela Tamarkin Reis' _Reading the Lines: A Fresh Look at the Hebrew Bible_ (Hendrickson Publishers 2003). On page 40:
"I confess I am not sure what to make of Reis and these essays. All of them are innovative and original. Some are really insightful. Some, I suspect, are completely off base. But even when she is wrong, her boldness deserves respect. Her ability to see things in the stories that apparently no one else has seen is impressive."
Riemer's assessment is based on two factors. First, Reis has chosen to write a book in which she claims that the Bible is "the work of a literary genius" -- just one literary genius -- rather than a collection of materials from various sources. "If Pamela Tamarkin Reis is right," Riemer says on page 40, "then the great majority of scientific Bible scholars of our time are wrong." Secondly, he goes on to tell us that Reis "has no union card." That is, she has no Ph.D., no scholarly credentials, didn't learn Hebrew till she was 50 -- and yet she has written "a dozen essays deemed good enough for publication in the field's major scholarly journals." Those essays are collected in the book under review, with introductions.
Riemer (who is himself a rabbi) says on pp. 42-43 that this is what the example of Reis tells us: "...[T]hat the Bible is not the private property of scholars, that each and every one of us, no matter what our age, and no matter how much formal training we have had, has the right to confront the text and see what it means to us here and now."
15. Sometimes science fiction does intriguing things with the topic of religion and religious language. For example, in "Locus Looks at Short Fiction," on page 12 of the 7/06 _Locus_, Nick Gevers, on page 12, has this to say about Christopher Rowe's short story "Another Word for Map is Faith":
"A party of graduate students is on a field trip near Louisville, and behaves much as expected for such a grouping, but it emerges that they are cartographers of a pious bent in an America dominated by theocrats and reverted in large part to wilderness, and that they are aiming to correct topographical features not in conformity with old maps regarded as Holy Writ. If a ridge or a lake violates this bizarre order of propriety, it must be prayed out of existence."
["Another Word for Map is Faith" was in the 8/06 issue of _Fantasy & Science Fiction_.]
#Cyberspace
1. From the 11/24/06 _Internet Scout Report_'s brief review
of the "Holy Image, Hallowed Ground" website at
http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/icons_sinai/index.html :
"This Web exhibition created by the Getty allows visitors
to view Byzantine icons from the remote Holy Monastery of Saint
Catherine in Sinai, the world's oldest continuously operating
Christian monastery, and also the largest repository of Byzantine
icons. Tools provided on the Web site allow you to zoom in on
the icons... The section entitled "Holy Space" provides
a virtual tour of the church, going both forward and backward
in time... There is also a video tour that runs a little over
9 minutes, that begins with chanting monks celebrating Christ's
resurrection."
2. _Religion BookLine_ for 1/31/07 [at http://www. publishersweekly.com/eNewsletter/CA6411726/2287.html
], had a brief review of Margaret Kim Peterson's _Keeping House:
The Litany of Everyday Life_ (Jossey-Bass 2007). Here's a sample:
"In this deeply theological, welcome book, Peterson... argues in favor of the idea-no longer fashionable-that Christian service and spiritual growth are inherent in the acts of keeping people fed, clean, housed and comfortable. Housekeeping, she says, is akin to a litany... Addressing such topics as laundry, cleaning, shopping, and cooking, Peterson offers persuasive biblical interpretations and incisive theological and cultural commentary."
My own best-beloved book in this unfashionable vein is _Being Home: A Book of Meditations_, by Gunilla Norris, published in 1991 by Bell Tower/Crown, ISBN 0-517-58159-0. Norris provides wonderful and useful meditations for "Making the Bed" and "Dusting" and "Paying Bills" and "Folding Clothes" and "Doing the Dishes" and many more of the daily and nightly tasks that have to go on in every household.
3. My thanks to Cindy Brown and Patricia Mathews for alerting me to Jeff Sharlet's very interesting and informative article titled "Through a Glass, Darkly: How the Christian right is reimagining U.S. history," from the 12/06 issue of _Harper's_. Here are three quotes; choosing them wasn't easy.
a. "Is 'fundamentalism too limited a word...? Lately, some scholars prefer 'maximalism,' a term meant to convey the movement's ambition to confirm every aspect of society to God. In contemporary America... that means a culture born again in the image of a Jesus straong but tender, a warrior who hates the carnage he must cause, a man-god ordinary men will follow. These are days of the sword, literally... But I think 'fundamentalism' ... still strikes closest to the movement's desire for a story that never changes, a story to redeem all that seems random, a rock upon which history can rise."
b. "The first pillar of American fundamentalism is Jesus Christ; the second is history; and in the fundamentalist mind the two are converging. Fundamentalism considers itself a faith of basic truths unaltered... since their transmission from Heaven, first through the Bible and second through what they see as American scripture, divinely inspired, devoutly intended -- the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the often overlooked Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which declared 'religion' necessary to 'good governmnet' and thus to be encouraged through schools."
c. "In the pantheon of fundamentalist history, the man revered above all others is General Stonewall Jackson of the Confederacy, perhaps the most brilliant military commander in American history and certainly the most pious. ... _Practical Homeschooling_ magazine offers instructions for making Stonewall costumes out of gray sweatsuits with which one can celebrate his birthday, a homeschooling 'fun day.' "
I learned many things from this article that I had been totally ignorant of before I read it. For example, I learned that the fundamentalist position is that Christian history doesn't include a requirement for _great_ men, "only willing men, ready to be anointed." That explains a number of mysteries.
You can read the entire article online at http://www.harpers.org/ ThroughAGlassDarkly-12838838.html . Highly recommended.
4. In "The Trials, and Blessings, of Peacework" [at http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views07/0123-30.htm ], John Dear writes that just _complaining_ about this "era of permanent war" is "not an authentic Christian response." And he goes on:
"The Christian response to a 'surge of war' is a counter surge of peace, a swell of peacemakers and nonviolent resisters. All of us need to stand up.... And we show ourselves disciples of the nonviolent Christ. ... Paying up is part and parcel of the Christian's job description. We're supposed to take up the cross of nonviolent resistance to the empire of war, and to accept the consequences. After all, the person we follow suffered arrest, suffered an abusive stint in jail, brutality and torture, and finally execution. Such is the path for his followers, the way of daring nonviolence with all its risks."
5. "The English-language media's use of 'Allah' rather than 'God', when talking about Islam falsely implies that there is some theological distinction. Also, more importantly, it provides yet another example of the subtle ways that news organisations can influence people's attitudes... "
This is Brian Whitaker, writing in "In God's name," at http:// commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/brian_whitaker/2007/01/allah_versus_got.html . He goes on to quote Umar Abd-Allah: "Muslims, Christians and Jews should have no difficulty agreeing that they all turn to the God of Abraham, despite their theological and ritual differences. Historical arguments between their faiths have never been over what name to call Abraham's God."
This is an extremely interesting religious language phenomenon, and one that's difficult to write about with clarity. For many Christians, it creates severe cognitive dissonance; they find it almost impossible to accept the idea that the correct translation of "Allah" into English is "God." They know, intellectually, that the God of the Jews, Christians, and Muslims is the same God, but _managing_ that information, intellectually and emotionally, is extremely difficult. [My thanks to LiveJournaler "daegaer" for sending me the copy.]
6. "Today's _New York Times_ has a report on a new documentary by a team that claims to have found the graves of Jesus and his family and that they show that he was married to Mary Magdalene and was not bodily resurrected. ... Unfortunately, the _New York Times_ article is confused about the languages of Israel in the first century C.E., characterizing Aramaic as 'an ancient dialect of Hebrew'. Actually, Aramaic is a sister language of Hebrew and is not limited to ancient times."
This is a serious gaffe, and should not have gotten past the NYT's fact-checker. Perhaps in the circus atmosphere now surrounding this story -- linking it with the "Da Vinci Code" commotion, which seriously undercuts the idea that it's a biblical archeology story -- nobody bothered to check for facts.
7. My enthusiastic recommendations for Anthony Grafton's fine review of _In the Beginning: Bibles Before the Year 1000_, by Michelle P. Brown and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, published by Smithsonian Books. It's at http://www.powells.com/tnr/review/2007_01_18, and the review is titled "Getting the Word Out." Samples...
"Most electrifying of all is a fragment of the Aleppo codex of the Hebrew Bible. Known as HaKeter, or 'the crown,' this manuscript was copied in the tenth century... by Solomon ben Buya'a. Aaron ben Moshe ben Asher, the last member of a distinguished family, added the commentary, vowel points, and accent marks. The oldest Hebrew Bible in one volume, this may also have been the first one ever made as a single, coherent book, by a scribe and a scholar working together from start to finish. So the oldest Tanakh we have was written and corrected by two men whose names we know. And this, in our land of ferocious biblical literalists, matters a great deal."
And...
"Ancient texts were written continuously, without separation between words or punctuation. In the course of the first millenium of the Common Era, scribes learned to divide Hebrew and Greek and Latin words, as printers do now. But doing this required the scribe to make many hard decisions. The problem is easy to illustrate. How would you divide GODISNOWHERE? As GOD IS NOW HERE, or as GOD IS NOWHERE? Much depends on your presuppositions. And much depended on the presuppositions of those who wrote and rewrote and corrected the biblical manuscripts."
"Interpretation," Grafton writes, "also took place at thousands of points in every version." And "The sons and daughters of men have given us the Word of God, and kept it for us, in many forms, always believing that they were capturing the highest of truths as they did so."
8. This review of _The Godfile: Ten Approaches to Personalizing Prayer_, by Aryah Ben David, from the _Religion BookLine_ for 2/7/07, is only moderately positive; still, I want to quote from it here for the religious metaphor...
"Rabbi Ben David's goal -- to encourage readers to develop a relationship with God -- unfolds in computer jargon in this guide to Jewish prayer. 'Click on the mouse of life,' he writes, '[and] bring up the Godfile.' ... His self-created terminology gets in the way of otherwise valuable practice advice instead of elucidating it, but the book really shines in his description of 10 paradigms for prayer, each based on the view of various Jewish thinkers and suited to different personalities. He guides readers to experiment with prayer as an opportunity for self-reflection...."
9. The more we learn about the human brain/mind, the harder it becomes to determine human responsibility for human actions -- which has alarming consequences for religious discourse. There are now scientists who are prepared to say their research demonstrates that free will is an illusion; there are other scientists who say that although free will is less free than classical thought would have indicated, we do have its most important component: _veto power_. As psychologist Benjamin Libet points out, "Most of the Ten Commandments are 'do not' orders." For an article discussing both sides of this argument, see "Free Will: Now You Have It, Now You Don't," at http://tinyurl.com/2j4hoe. My thanks to Wib Smith for sending the URL.
10. Thanks to Cindy Brown for sending "The Christian Paradox: How a faithful nation gets Jesus wrong," by Bill McKibben, online at http://www.harpers.org/ExcerptTheChristianParadox.html . Here are two samples:
"Three quarters of Americans believe the Bible teaches that 'God helps those who help themselves.' That is, three out of four Americans believe that this uber-American idea, a notion at the core of our current individualist politics and culture, which was in fact uttered by Ben Franklin, actually appears in Holy Scripture. The thing is, not only is Franklin's wisdom not biblical; it's counter-biblical. Few ideas could be further from the gospel message, with its radical summons to love of neighbor. ... And therein is the paradox. America is simultaneously the most professedly Christian of the developed nations and the least Christian in its behavior."
"Despite the Sixth Commandment, we are, of course, the most violent rich nation on earth, with a murder rate four or five times that of our European peers. We have prison populations greater by a factor of six or seven than other rich nations (which at least should give us plenty of opportunity for visiting the prisoners). Having been told to turn the other cheek, we're the only Western democracy left that executes its citizens... Despite Jesus' strong declarations against divorce, our marriages break up at a rate -- just over half -- that compares poorly with the European Union's average of about four in ten."
Most Americans, McKibben says, "have replaced the Christianity of the Bible, with its call for deep sharing and personal sacrifice" with several competing creeds, focused on the End Times, and on what he describes as "comfort-the comfortable" and "personal-empowerment" faith.
I'm certain that most devout Christian adults are aware of the vast gulf between Christianity as presented in the New Testament and Christianity as presented in mainstream American culture today. The cognitive gymnastics required in order to avoid thinking about that gulf, in my opinion, guarantee constant emotional stress. It's one thing to acknowledge that -- like every other human being -- you're not perfect. It's quite another thing to have to distract yourself from the possibility that your life is the antithesis of what you profess to believe.
11. This is the opening paragraph of an article sent to me by Hillevi M. Wyman; the title is "The Language of Leadership: Defining the Environment," and the writer is Roger Kruger.
"The conversation you are hearing sounds violent. People are talking about 'bringing in the big guns' and 'rallying the troops.' You hear that people got 'shot down' or 'blown away,' and now there is talk about the need to 'fall back' or to 'retreat.' And these people are not talking about a recent engagement in Iraq. They are describing what has taken place at a recent church council meeting or some other gathering of church people."
Kruger goes on to discuss a claim by Geoff Crinean that framing a discussion as a battle "creates a culture of blame and establishes the rules by which the group or organization will function" -- and that those rules are inevitably going to be the rules of combat.
The article is available online only to subscribers, at the Alban Institute [http://www.alban.org ]. The Crinean reference is: "Transforming Aggression into Creativity: An Ancient Practice for Solving Problems," from _Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time_, edited by Margaret J. Wheatley (Berrett-Koehler Publishers 2005), pp. 180-181.
12. Thanks to Patricia Mathews for sending me an article about Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel titled "Profiting from the Prophets," by Sean Gonsalves. Gonsalves tells us that Heschel defines "a prophet" as "a witness to the divine pathos, one who bears testimony to God's concern for human beings." He goes on to say:
"You have to know the books of the prophets to fully appreciate what Heschel is saying because, as he points out, 'in the course of listening to their words one cannot long retain the security of a prudent, impartial observer. The prophets do not offer reflections about ideas in general. Their words are onslaughts, scuttling illusions of false security, challenging evasions, calling faith to account, questioning prudence and impartiality.' "
Prophets are mysterious and their utterances are appropriately mystifying -- and inconvenient. It must be worse to have a prophet in your family than to have a saint, since saints do quite often remain silent. I went looking to see what Rabbi Joseph Telushkin -- whose book _Biblical Literacy_ I find indispensable -- might have to say on the subject, and found this useful item on page 299:
"The true prophet is in conflict with his times. When things are going well _materially_, he notes what is wrong _morally_. In the Bible's view, false prophets, such as Hananiah (Jeremiah, chapter 28), tell the people optimistic lies rather than the hard truths that they need to hear."
We have an overabundance of false prophets at the moment, it seems to me. You can read the Gonsalves article at http://www.alternet.org/story/46422.
13. From a brief review [at http://www. publishersweekly.com/article/CA6347937.html?nid=2287] in the 6/28/06 _Religion BookLine_ by Donna Freitas, of Bob Edgar's _Blessed Is the Middle Way_:
"Edgar is an evangelical Christian, but decidedly not a member of the religious right. His book is an appeal not only to Christians who make up the 'middle church' -- a vast swath of the faithful who are neither extreme left nor extreme right -- but also to those who form what he calls the 'middle synagogue' and 'middle mosque.' Together, Christians, Muslims and Jews have a responsibility to care about key issues -- peace, poverty, and being good stewards to the earth. ... In his conclusion, Edgar also offers alternative beatitudes for our time, including 'blessed are those who read the whole Bible.' "
14. Cyberplaces to visit: "God and gorillas: Anthropologist Barbara J. King explains what our distant cousins can tell us about religion..." at http://www. salon.com/books/int/2007/01/31/king/print.html, suggested by Cindy Brown; an extraordinary discussion of the Apostle Paul between Elaine Pagels and Ben Witherington III at http://www.beliefnet.com/story/143/story_14376_1.html , suggested by Stephen Marsh; "Desperation Time At Left Behind Games?", at http://www.talk2action.org/story/2007/1/20/11438/7309 .
Copyright © 2007 Suzette Haden Elgin
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Contact: ocls@madisoncounty.net