You've all read it, but I still think it's cute.
1: I had not, in fact, read that. It was cute.
I used to give it to my ESL students, who thought it was particularly hilarious.
I suddenly feel religious. Or perhaps I haven't gotten laid in a while, I'm not sure which.
The eggs represent God's love, concealed by the base nature of the creation of the demiurge.
It's related to the Church of Jesus Christ the Kidnapped.
For years my dad kept a picture I drew for him framed in his office. It was of Santa taking the eggs away from the Easter Bunny, who wasn't hiding them to Santa's satisfaction. Santa was relieving the Easter Bunny of his duties.
1 out of 1 twelve-year-olds appreciate this post.
Also, is this Jesus dude related to Helen Turley?
But how does the chocolate come in?
It's not rabbit poo, is it?!
It's not rabbit poo, is it?!
Doubt it. The chocolate's well established this side of the pond, but the rabbit never made the flight. Chickens.
important easter legend to promulgate: the word oestrogen has the same root as the world easter, and the link is eggs
You forgot where Jesus Bunny came out of the grave and saw his shadow, indicating 2000 more years of winter until Aslan arrives.
happy Easter!
today i'll finish my posters and go to the mall to exchange the dysfunctional phone to the functional one, i write this to make sure that i'll go actually to the mall, otherwise could skip that thinking still have time and then after sometime it's like too late and i need an umbrella too
MOST glorious Lord of Lyfe! that, on this day,
Didst make Thy triumph over death and sin;
And, having harrowd hell, didst bring away
Captivity thence captive, us to win:
This joyous day, deare Lord, with joy begin;
And grant that we, for whom thou diddest dye,
Being with Thy deare blood clene washt from sin,
May live for ever in felicity!
And that Thy love we weighing worthily,
May likewise love Thee for the same againe;
And for Thy sake, that all lyke deare didst buy,
With love may one another entertayne!
So let us love, deare Love, lyke as we ought,
--Fuck You, Jesus Bunny
He can't get through the chimneys because people close the dampers in the spring. duh.
He can't get through the chimneys because people close the dampers in the spring.
Before he ever gets far enough to hit a damper, the whole arms outstretched and nailed to a board thing is going to make chimneys pretty frustrating, even for the Messiah.
17: They took him off after he died. What kind of monsters do you think the Romans were?
I was always keen on this spooky hymn:
At the Lamb's high feast we sing,
Praise to our victorious King,
Who hath washed us in the tide
Flowing from his piercèd side;
Praise we Him, whose love divine
Gives His sacred blood for wine,
Gives His body for the feast,
Christ the Victim, Christ the Priest.
Where the Paschal blood is poured,
Death's dark angel sheathes his sword;
Israel's hosts triumphant go
Through the wave that drowns the foe.
Praise we Christ, whose blood was shed,
Paschal Victim, paschal Bread;
With sincerity and love
Eat we Manna from above.
when i first read about Jesus mentioned in books i used to think ah, it's their god, very abstract and never actually thought about him as a human being who actually existed
then i gathered from the bits of information here and there that he actually existed, though the fact of his virgin birth and resurrection seem very myth-legend like
perhaps he experienced clinical death and then woke up and people believed it was resurrection, a miracle, what happened after that i don't know, did he disappear after the revival, i think i should sit down and read the whole story once
21: Here it is lovingly told with Legos.
20: Blood and water.
as nearly everyone now accepts, jesus recovered nicely from his crucifixion, married mary magdalene and moved to france, where he founded the merovingian dynasty
(herod -- antipas, not "the great" -- also moved to france)
Read, the myth requires actual death, because by resurrection death is conquered for all eternity. (Among other benefits).
Oh we carried our Savior o'er the sea
Nailed to the cross for you and for me
To the garden of Eden where innocence dies
In the name of the God who crucifies
(No, I'm not one of those who buy the myth of North American innocence. Still, it's a pretty good image.)
"The following is a list of notable persons who have publicly claimed to be from a Jesus bloodline:
Basharat Saleem, the late Kashmiri caretaker of the Martyr's Tomb of Yuz Asaf in Srinagar.
Michel Roger Lafosse, a Belgian false pretender to the throne of the former Kingdom of Scotland.
Kathleen McGowan, an American author, lyricist, screenwriter."
("Notable" seems to be doing a lot of work in that sentence.)
23 very illustrative, thanks, though all sound kinda prosaically explained especially the walking on the sea and reaching the shore immediately, i suspect it's the atheist cartoons
so the water was perhaps the lymph, the empty tomb also is kinda explainable, maybe his followers kidnapped the body as it is speculated in the cartoon or the romans hid it somewhere else to confuse his followers
what i can't understand is why the king nerod would want to kill the baby from the beginning, one would welcome any miracle if it's true, if it's untrue, then just don't pay any attention, i think i don't get fully why the christians were even persecuted in the Roman empire, seems it's nothing that severe teachings, but then again communism was also ideally a pretty attractive ideology and similar perhaps to christianity and that bloodshed followed
the other week i read Helena by Evelyn Waugh thought Evelyn sounds a nice feminine name
i didn't like Helena herself, her questioning is like pretty narrowing, when where exactly, the proof, any and then she believes, i sympathized more with her mentors saying like vague, symbolic things
next week i'm going to read Sienkiewicz's Quo vadis
hope it would clarify things about the early christians
Wow that's severe but I'm not good typing on the phone
Stupid me the mall is close should have lookedup before going
+d, and it's freezing cold, what a punishment
Does "Lo!" really equate to "Yo!"?
Read, Herod massacred the children because the Magi had told him about the birth of the King of the Jews, which represented a threat. Nasty piece of work, but we got a nice carol out of it.
I'm in a pissy mood on this blessed day because I went to church, which I'm not in the habit of doing these days. The music just sucks. Countless centuries of rich musical legacy, and they insist on singing the most dreary, unlistenable shit.
You mean like tunes about little tiny children?
No, I mean like the ghastly post-Vatican II crap that makes no sense for congregational singing, compared to which the Coventry Carol is as joyous as Messiah.
Now I don't know what stopped Jesus Christ
from turning every hungry stone into bread
and I don't remember hearing how Moses
reacted when the innocent first born sons lay dead
well I guess God was a lot more demonstrative back when he flamboyantly parted the sea,
now everybody's praying,
don't pray on me
not lupus is funny, and the bunny too, a bit looks like a kangaroo
We were having a general discussion about religious holidays today, and my 6 year old told me that Christmas is about Jesus, not presents. "Oh okay Buttercup, I won't give you any presents this Christmas then," did not go down well, even though it seemed logical to me. After a bit of arguing, she announced that I have to give her presents "to make Jesus happy". If I don't give her presents it will make Jesus angry with me.
Am feeling slightly sick from eating too much chocolate, and also a bit (guiltily) dissatisfied that my mother cooked (delicious) coq au vin for dinner rather than lamb.
Christmas is about Jesus, not presents
"No no, dear. Christmas is about ham."
41: Moses, Moses.
Six-foot-twenty, fucking killing for fun.
Spread, spread, Sea of Reeds.
He's coming, he's coming, he's coming.
He'll save children, but not the 'gyptian children.
He'll save children, but not the 'gyptian children.
He'll save children, but not the 'gyptian children.
He'll save children, but not the 'gyptian children.
He once held the Pharoah's wife's hand...in a jar of acid...at a party.
"No no, dear. Christmas is about ham."
'Don't forget the pork.'
max
['YOu want to go there, you know you do.']
One of the nice things about conservative Northern Virginians is on Easter day they all dress up nice and go to the races: the Loudoun Hunt holds its annual point-to-point at Oatlands. We have fallen into the tradition of going, bringing more than enough bubbly, betting lightly (there's a totally illegal bookie by the paddock) and generally enjoying what was today a glorious Spring day with just enough of a North wind to moderate the sun.
Sienkiewicz's Quo vadis
A favorite of Karol Wojtyła aka John Paul II.
Our kitchen sink stopped working for Easter. Thanks a lot, Jesus.
Is the ToS slowly turning into Gollum?
I kind of want to buy him a beer, get inside the mind of a troll, ya know? (I assume it's a him.) Yo, troll, if you're ever in Chicago, just holler, I'll buy you a beer.
Or, there should be some kind of troll convention. I don't know, I'm just spitballin' here.
60: That sounds like a threat. Prepare for the Obamajudeofascist stormtroopers at your door.
got that bookmarked, Miss Maxness O'Texass?
Why no, Yer Dicklessness! And why should I when you're slinging half-witted insults (I presume them to be insults - if they're not insults and instead are actually Sekrit Attack Plans for storming Fortress Huggy Bunny, please tell!) through a thick veil of spittle? I tell you what, if you get some windex and wipe off your screen maybe you can read whatever the hell it is you're twitching about and then maybe you could write an insult worth being vaguely troubled by.
max
['Anytime, dude.']
The music just sucks. Countless centuries of rich musical legacy, and they insist on singing the most dreary, unlistenable shit.
The inimitable Eddie Izzard (start at 3:30).
Now we will sing hymn number fourhundredandfive, "Oh God, What on Earth is My Head All About?"
[sings in flat, dull monotone]
There's something weird -- something phenomenally dreary about Christians singing. The gospel singers are the only singers that just go CRA-zy, going-- joyous.
And it's fuckin' amazing. And it's born out of kidnapping, imprisonment, slavery, murder... all of that, and this joyous singing --
--and the Church of England, well all those sort of Christian religions, which is mainly Caucasian white people, with power and money -- enough power and money to make Solomon blush. And they all sing: [monotone]
They're the only group of people who can sing Hallelujah without feeling like it's a Hallelujah thing [imitates].
Fortress Huggy Bunny
This made me laugh.
wow, what a curious development, an offer to meet coming from ToS although i gather it's a boxing match, sounds scary like, better to keep things imaginary, 200 kg means weight? isn't it overweight? i recalled a podcast, the podcaster always ends it with the words you all live well, very touching
so ToS lives in LA, do you have a family? my advise if you'd like to address someone why not refer neutrally without insulting words, just number of the comment is okay i believe
43, etc.: Read should start matchmaking the various progeny of the various Unfoggetariat. Presumably the next Unfoggetarian generation will have amazing levels of cunning and snark, and the third generation will rewrite the book of snarkitude.
I wonder whether the ToS believes that we all think of ourselves as important super-intellectuals who need to be taken down a peg or two, instead of the depressive 47 year-old balding men in basements that we are actually are.
Jackmormon, are you aware that you're a fat lesbian? And Jewish? You might want to kill yourself.
Jackmormon, are you aware that you're a fat lesbian? And Jewish?
I, uh...well. That certainly presents matters in a new light.
i mean i'm kinda worried now, like, slow down, ToS
i thought you are a mature left thinking, like lefter than BMcM, philosophy type, over at the Trollblog, now you sound that, delinquent
And yet, and yet, JM, I doubt that that's how you take important super-intellectuals down a peg or two. Worth a try, though!
Worth a try, though!
It's an effective way of annoying the everliving hell out of anyone, but I'm really not convinced that we-all are worthwhile targets. Unfogged is so passé that we didn't even discuss piracy this last week!
Unfogged is so passé
Like the judgment of a fat Jewish lesbian matters.
Like the judgment of a fat Jewish lesbian matters.
So much for the free flow of anonymous online conversation! Another ideal, shattered!
Ah guess that means you accept.
Yes. I accept the Academy Award in the spirit of humilty and rectitude with respect to whatever reason they gave it to me for. You like me! You really really like me!
Right on, Maxi-pad.
Original! Yet trite! Innovative, yet cliched! It's almost like it hasn't been done 2x1032 times previously. Keep pluggin' Spunky! You'll get something, even if it's due to random slamming your skull into the keyboard.
Set er up, legal and proper, schmutz. Links, rechts.
Set what up?
Better eat yr gefilte fish.
I can't eat spam? Damn.
Presumably this means I'M A JEW! Yay! Now anytime someone gets mad because I criticize some muckity-muck, I can say that on the internet, I'm a Jew, according to some nut somewhere. And that's should count as least as good as an endorsement from AEI!
max
['This is totally cool.']
Max, if you decide that the yellow star is an appealing fashion accessory, things will go better for you.
if you decide that the yellow star is an appealing fashion accessory, things will go better for you.
A tinfoil star, painted in gold paint! With shiny sparklies all over it.
And then, I can glue it to my forehead.
max
['It's a Disco Kosher Inferno!']
the depressive 47 year-old balding men in basements that we are actually are.
Hey! I finally turned 48 this year.
This weekend we have been mostly watching Jesusophile on YouTube. I am about 95% sure he's being satirical, but it took me a few videos to get that far. Fucking genius though, whichever.
I'm in a pissy mood on this blessed day because I went to church, which I'm not in the habit of doing these days. The music just sucks. Countless centuries of rich musical legacy, and they insist on singing the most dreary, unlistenable shit.
I went to the Vigil on Saturdcay night, and it was so horrid. The music itself wasn't bad, (we have great musicians at my church), but the liturgics were awful.
There's a new priest in charge of liturgy who grew up in a fundamentalist tradition, lost his faith and came back to Christianity through the Episcopal church. He grew up in the deep South, went to the lefty seminary here and then worked in Southern areas for a while. He has not lost the fire and brimstone qualities of his youth, which is irritating--even in the service of lefty goals. For example, he's gay and goes on and on about it, even when it's totally irrelevant to the text for the day. He's also been substituting readings---which is fine occasionally, but there's a reason that there's a lectionary.
So, for the Vigil he wrote his own stories based on various bits of the Bible. The Genesis one made God a she, which is fine, but it was otherwise dumb.
So yesterday, I went to the regular Eucharist at the Monastery and was soothed. (I'd have had to wait outside in the cold (sunny but very windy) for at least an hour to get into my own church anyway.)
I didn't go to church yesterday. I haven't been since last Easter, and I didn't want to be one of the parishioners who only shows up at Easter.
I did, however, read to my children last week the story of the Passover in Exodus (they had learned about Passover in school). This weekend, I read to them about the resurrection.
As I have written here before, I'm quite ambivalent about giving my children a religious education. On the one hand, I want them to know the Bible and appreciate their Christian heritage; on the other hand, I'm not religious enough myself to insist on inculcating Christian faith. So I read them all four Gospel accounts of the discovery of the empty tomb, and when they asked "Is that true?", I could tell them, "Many people believe that Jesus rose from the dead. But could all four of these stories as written be true?"
And of course, they had already picked up on the fact that the four Gospel accounts contradict one another on important details, so there's no way that all the Bible could be 100% true.
Saturday afternoon, I found the younger Ruprecht child hammering away on some weeds in the driveway. She looked up at me at said excitedly, "I'm killing Jesus!"
I didn't go to church yesterday. I haven't been since last Easter, and I didn't want to be one of the parishioners who only shows up at Easter.
I did, however, read to my children last week the story of the Passover in Exodus (they had learned about Passover in school). This weekend, I read to them about the resurrection.
As I have written here before, I'm quite ambivalent about giving my children a religious education. On the one hand, I want them to know the Bible and appreciate their Christian heritage; on the other hand, I'm not religious enough myself to insist on inculcating Christian faith. So I read them all four Gospel accounts of the discovery of the empty tomb, and when they asked "Is that true?", I could tell them, "Many people believe that Jesus rose from the dead. But could all four of these stories as written be true?"
And of course, they had already picked up on the fact that the four Gospel accounts contradict one another on important details, so there's no way that all the Bible could be 100% true.
Saturday afternoon, I found the younger Ruprecht child hammering away on some weeds in the driveway. She looked up at me at said excitedly, "I'm killing Jesus!"
And of course, they had already picked up on the fact that the four Gospel accounts contradict one another on important details, so there's no way that all the Bible could be 100% true.
You should probably tell her that the people who wrote those Gospels didn't think that they were supposed to be writing factual history as we moderns would call it.
They took him off after he died. What kind of monsters do you think the Romans were?
IIRC the Gospel of Luke says that Joseph of Arimathea, a Jew, took Jesus' body down from the cross. The other Gospel accounts are silent on who does the unnailing. In any event, the Gospel strongly suggests that it was an indulgence from Pilate that permitted Jesus to be buried properly, in contrast to the usual Roman custom of letting crucifixion victims rot on the cross pour encourager les autres.
Negotiating the personalities in my family reunion Easter was so grueling that when my sister and I came home from it at about 5:00 we immediately took long naps. Since my mother died there's no consensus about who's the family social organizer, and the sister who's appointed herself gets lots of passive resistance from one sister-in-law and one niece (who in turn is feuding with her husband-equivalent). My sister here and I just try to go along with the plan, but there usually is none.
To top it all off, there was a 17-year-old German HS exchange student there on her third day off the plane. She may never recover.
I suddenly feel religious. Or perhaps I haven't gotten laid in a while, I'm not sure which.
Allelujia, He is risen indeed!
at our school our RE teacher met the contradictions bit of the gospels head on: he said that if four of us in the class were to write an account of an event we'd all attended, the accounts would certainly differ and thus contradict one another. so do the gospels. this proves they are honest eye-witness accounts of what went on.
however he was an anglican -- albeit bells-and-incense style high anglican, where the priest (=him) wore a dress -- so "100% accurate" was never a claim. anglicans are above all englishmen (wherever they're from), bcz that's what god is: the bits of the bible that are "100% accurate" are the bits that are most english
i was still reeling from the declaration by my best friend (aged 11) that he didn't believe in god. i didn't either, but it astonished that someone my age should have the uninformed confidence to make the declaration. he was 11! how was he old enough to know what he was talking about...? (was how i felt at the time)
excitedly, "I'm killing Jesus!"
So, so funny.
I've never been able to understand the anti-literal interpretation of the Bible. I can see reading it as literature, and as a historical influence, but making it a text of central importance and truth while agreeing that it can't be literally true (or that it doesn't make any difference if it is) makes no sense to me.
This kind of belief reminds me, at worst, of the horrible authoritarian conservatives whose commitment to the death penalty is so strong that it overwhelms all questions about the guilt of the accused. At best it's a kind of urbane, status-quo, extreme cynicism.
John, I think the non-literal interpretation of the bible is the older, at least in the educated classes. If I understand it aright, Xtians do not believe that the Bible is the word of god, in the sense that the Quran and the Book of Mormon are believed to be the word of god. It includes quotations attributed to god, but they are always as it were reported speech. Most of it is human narrative. Xtians do believe that the biblical texts are divinely inspired, but in the final analysis they were written by men, who are fallible. And therefore they are open to interpretation.
It seems a lot less authoritarian than the alternative, to me.
Fundamentalism of the most literal type is new (since ca. 1800 A.D.?), but the figurative reading also is new (since ca. 1000 AD?) and involved a lot of fudging by Aristotelian or Platonists scholastics who realized that the Bible doesn't make sense. (Probably that's why the Church discouraged Bible-reading, and lay philosophy too.) But the outcome of giving real authority to something which must be read figuratively is pretty negative for attempts at understanding of anything.
Some of the people (Rod Dreyer) most attached to aesthetic smells-and-bells figurative Christianity go all the way over to Orthodoxy, which makes Catholicism look Voltairean, but from what I understand Orthodoxy is a horrible guide to reality. (Solzhenitsyn disageed, of course.)
isn't there a jewish tradition that righteousness was not come -- and the messiah he tarry -- bcz scripture, while absolutely the word of god and all, had indeed been mistranscribed by the fallible hand of man
(in my head i associate this with the phrase "jot and tittle"; possibly wrongly)
oh and as yr local lollard, i ought to point out that the protestant revolution depended for its moral and authoritative force on the quoting of scripture against the rule of men (king; state; scarlet whore of babylon etc etc)
The literary theory of the Bible is that it's a repository of metaphors, anecdotes, and sayings. I can still quote scripture better than most, but that doesn't make me a Christian or a believer -- "The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose". (That's Shakespeare, though, not the Bible).
Churches give the Bible some kind of importance beyond what I give it, and if it's not literal truth, what is it?
Aesop's fables aren't (also literally true), but that doesn't mean Aesop thought the morals appended were mere silly falsehoods (there's contradictions in Aesop as well). I don;t see there's intrinsically a problem with a church taking a God-as-Aesop line with God's word. Indeed (*puts lollard hat on again*) this was one of the puritan objections to the-church-as-institution, that it was just a vast rent-seeking project of ("literary") interpretation...
s/b Aesop's fables aren't literally true
but the figurative reading also is new
Well, up to a point Lord Copper. Unless you count people like Origen and Augustine.
"The Bible, he believed, had been veiled by God in order to exercise those seeking Him. He believed that the Bible's ambiguities provided people with ever-new facets of truth to be discovered."
Arguably Augustine was one those gosh darned Platonist scholars, but then...
I have never paid any attention to Solzhenitzyn's views on anything.
Yeah, I've read some of that stuff by Augustine. It didn't make any sense either. God is not an old man up in the sky with a long beard, but a spiritual substance. Whatever the fuck that is. And Augustine still talked personally to God, so God is a personal spiritual substance.
Getting the separation between the Bible and every other good book in the world is what I can't see. Not just another Aesop or Shakespeare or Montaigne.
Getting the separation between the Bible and every other good book in the world is what I can't see.
Probably it's because you're not in power, John.
the bible = dictated by god (written by men)
aesop = written by aesop
shakespeare = written by infinite monkeys on typewriters
so the (intra-xtian) distinction is that church A says "the author is god = every word is literally true" whereas church B says ""the author is god = it is a NOVEL by god, full of fiction and fable and vast poetic moral truth"
Threadjack! In re: the rescue of Captain Phillips:
1. What will the made-for-TV movie be called?
2. What song will play at the end of the movie as the captain is being reunited with his family and crew and the pirate is being hauled off to jail?
3. How would 1 and 2 have been if the captain hadn't survived?
Or to put it differently: we're not to read the Abraham and Isaac as a transaction between a horrible old man and an even more horrible God. We're not supposed to interpret the Amalekite massacre as genocidal. But why shouldn't we, and what better interpretations are there?
Because once the scripture is established, the literal interpretations are possible.
"the author is god = it is a NOVEL by god, full of fiction and fable and vast poetic moral truth"
Welcome to the Church of Tobias Smollett.
the literal interpretations are possible.
Not always. And not always while preserving the dignity of god. If you insist on a literal interpretation of the contradictory narratives in Genesis I and II, you are effectively insisting that the creator is an idiot who can't keep his story straight for three pages.
There's a passage in Exodus, which, read literally, appears to say that god followed Moses to a pub and picked a fight with him there. You can go with that. Or you can accept that there's a lacuna in the transmitted text and you deity isn't necessarily a bar brawler. You choose.
103, 78: Stoner outreach preacher, or satire?
not to get all stanley fish, but the earthly answer to the question of "better interpretation" is surely one of "whose rhetoric is the most fruitful" here and now (in ref to the here-and now's idea of the immediate as well as the infinite future)
hence a very wide range of versions of literalism, depending on whether you want to own a telephone or eat shrimp, or whatevs
the literal intepretation of the bible was/is very effective as a street-priest shout against the decadent fineries of the imperial metropole (which is what lollardry sorta kinda was); the bible was newly translated into english, without papal sanction (but, after a serious hitch or three, with local kingly sanction; henry needed a divorce)... the street-priest was preaching to the illiterate and the newly literate, and shared poetic interpretation was not yet a convenient option
come the civil war, and the restoration, and what remains of all the little sects defined themselves round their own shared poetic intepretation, frankly -- the quietist muggletonian version of what the bible meant is pretty far-out
these were communities huddled round a shared book but reading it for their own survival (and the endorsement of things they wanted to do: like share property, or wives, or etc etc)
One of the arguments for established churches is that they water down and co-opt faith enough that it more or less disappears. I actually contradict myself by wishing religion to be more intelligible, since I don't actually want it to be.
I think if people manage to get something out of Aesop's morals even though foxes don't eat grapes, people shouldn't be that concerned about non-literal Biblical interpretation.
The god of the Muggletonians was 5' 1". As a fellow short-arse, I think I'd have been quite attracted to Muggletonianism, in the 17th century.
No one anywhere is required or even asked to accept Aesop as authoritative, though. Aesop isn't used as a knock-down argument in political debates. And Aesop is pretty clearly tagged as fiction.
"The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose". (That's Shakespeare, though, not the Bible).
Doesn't a similar line occur in Matthew? During the temptation of Christ?
...Okay, no one says that, but the devil actually does quote scripture.
Contra 99: I understood the mainline view of the Bible to be that it's part of God's revelation to humans -- "part," because God is also revealed in Jesus, in history, in the workings of the Holy Spirit, and in fact in all of creation. And "revelation" in a rich sense -- God didn't give dictation but rather worked through imperfect human vessels, modes of transmission, etc.
110: is irrelevant to the issue of "the bible: non-literal but authoritative and true" though -- because "the bible: authoritative and true" is the defining belief of a christian church
your question was "but surely that means you have then to say the bible;s literally true?" and we're saying "of course, you don't" (and in fact, very few churches in history HAVE insisted this with full unselective rigour, if any)
i'm arguing that literality is largely a rebel tactic, of the marginalised and uneducated against the aged corrupt centre -- and that it's ephemeral, because if the rebel forces subsequently establish themselves, they do so round shared
interpretations (and procedures of education) much more likely to seem poetic (= bonkers) than literal to outsiders
112: yes he should have used monkeys on typewriters!
*nails lollard hat to wittenberg church door and goes and eats worms*
She looked up at me at said excitedly, "I'm killing Jesus!"
Then you might as well teach her the song.
I understood the mainline view of the Bible to be...
Totally true. To have this understanding of the Bible is the only way a thinking person can remain a Christian. And yet, the self-congratulatory term "mainline" conceals more than it reveals: the largest and fastest growing denominations in the USA subscribe to a doctrine of Biblical inerrancy that explicitly rejects the "fallible mortal scriveners" view.
"God said it, I believe it, end of discussion" is ever so much more than a bumper sticker in this fair land.
The next question becomes, "I'f I'm going to have to interpret that much, why should I interpret this particular book?" I don't have any problem with the Bible as part of the cultural heritage or as a repository of anecdotes, proverbs, poems, etc. But to be a Christian I have to put it ahead of other books.
My interpretation of the Amalekite massacre is "On a bad day, God was Hitler" and "If I'm ever trying to convince some Christians to commit genocide, this passage will convenient".
On a bad day, God was Hitler
Our God(win) is an awesome God(win).
"God said it, I believe it, end of discussion" -- again, i think this is primarily used as a game-move by outsiders* when the field is not considered level; viz you so-called intellectuals/liberals/establishment clerics/courtiers blah blah, you have your fancy rules of discourse and logic and all these books you've read and etc, well there's only one book that counts and IT SAYS THIS! sometimes it wins (esp.tactically); sometimes it doesn't --- and the peril for bumpersticker nation is time, because to keep this special-interest polity together as a force, yr gnna have to develop all kinds of other, more immediately relevant material, and that leads you into the heart of the (book-learned) world yr defining yrself against
*and of course those who love to exploit them and profit from them
119: The odd thing for me is that a fair number of the people that tow the "God said it, I believe it, end of discussion" line haven't actually read that much of the Bible. For the most part though, I think this is a good thing -- generally, I think their image of the Bible is less dangerous than the actual book.
I've looked into it a tiny bit and my understanding is that the fundamentalists interpret all the time too, e.g. Revelation interpretation, or finding prophecies. What they reject is reinterpreting the Bible to make it consistent with science, liberal ideas, or modernity.
There are some thing that are pretty unambiguous, and once you try interpreting them away I get suspicious.
THE BALD LOCUST AFTER HIS KIND IS NUTRITIOUS AND TASTY
120: I've heard this a lot, and I don't doubt it, but I have to say it's completely foreign to me. Almost all the people I've known who were of the biblical-literalist, "God said it, I believe it, end of discussion" sort of mindset (NB: that set contains lots of people) understood that "reading the Bible is really fucking important" was a logical implication of this. Reading the Bible cover-to-cover every single year was incredibly common. Three-year or five-year reading plans were utilized by most of the rest.
123 is consistent with my experience. Of course stuff that is at odds with contemporary right wing evangelicalism is downplayed or argued away.
Reading the Bible cover-to-cover every single year was incredibly common.
Understanding it, however, not so much.
Evelyn Waugh's reaction to reading the bible seems so likely to happen that I can't understand the theocrats actually encouraging it.
Agree with 124. I'm not sure I buy 125. I believe they understood the words on the page, at least for the most part. They might not have drawn the same conclusions from them as you would, but that would be true of lots of things--a typical state of the union address, for example. The Bible isn't written like Kant or Hegel; it's not especially difficult to understand.
Based on what's we've been saying, there's no such thing as "understanding" the Bible. It's a fount of interpretations. And that's OK, but I can't see giving it authority.
it's not especially difficult to understand
There's no way to reconcile understanding it and believing it literally.
does leviticus have anything to say about easter eggs? all i have eaten today is one large chocolate egg -- i feel buzzed yet slightly nauseous, perhaps it's the coffee
It says you're supposed to be eating unleavened bread.
Isn't he supposed to have the blood of the fatted calf on his forehead, too, and a houseful of frogs?
Tierce, these are points nicely put. Thanks. John @117: I can think of two answers, neither of which are universal, nor could be.
One is that you are brought up in a culture where the Bible is taken that way. In which case, because the interpretations that stick with you are those which came from people you loved who took it seriously, you will have given them a much greater weight than eg the Koran (which, parenthetically, seems to me to be the book of mormon as imagined by a sixth-century Arab).
Two is that you have had some kind of violent personal experience of the truth or importance of somethign tht Jesus did or said.
126: It wasn't Waugh, it was Randolph Churchill, on a bet from Waugh, who was trying to shut him up when they were both in the mountains with Tito's partisans.
I have my own stock of Bible quotations and examples, and I sometimes even use them with secular people because they're well put. The Bible is a good Bartlett's.
134. True.
which, parenthetically, seems to me to be the book of mormon as imagined by a sixth-century Arab
Pleased to see you say that. The parallel between the Mormon and Muslim foundation stories has for some time struck me as so extraordinary that I wondered whether Smith was familiar with Islam. But that seemed so improbable that I supposed I was missing something obvious.
135: Like, say, Deuteronomy 23:1.
Ecstatic believer: "Everything in the Bible is literally true!"
Mean unbeliever: "In that case pardon me while i WOUND YOU IN THE STONES"
137 provides a hilarious example of difference in translation. According to GOD'S WORD®, the testicles are crushed. CRUSHED!
139: Ignore the Papist idolater.
On a long car trip last night, I spent time marveling at the number of times in the Bible that God either kills children, or orders the killing of children. The Passover story really is just horrible if you stop to think about it for even a moment.
On the other hand, if there were an intelligent designer to the universe, it is clear that it would have no problem with killing children. It is a ubiquitous feature of creation! One value to reading these old, incredibly violent books is that they are far more blunt about the way the world works than anything produced today.
I've told it here before, I think, but this is my favorite Easter/kids-say-the-darndest anecdote. Several years ago, Rory had just learned the Easter story, more or less. A neighbor kid, about 4, came over to play as we were cleaning up dyed eggs. "What's Easter?" the child asks. Rory, always happy to know-it-all, explains that Easter is when Jesus died and then rose again. "Oh!" exclaims the neighbor, in a moment of deep, spiritual epiphany. "So Jesus is a zombie!"
Based on what's we've been saying, there's no such thing as "understanding" the Bible. It's a fount of interpretations. And that's OK, but I can't see giving it authority.
Maybe this is a function of reading alot of expert depositions, but it doesn't seem at all unusual to treat a text as authoritative while nevertheless accepting that out understanding of that text will be subject to different or evolving understandings.
Skimming more of the link I gave to "Christian-thinktank" reveals more classic genocide apologetic reasoning.
He summarizes his argument in 22 theses at the end, but this can be paired down further by eliminating irrelevancies and redundancies.
1. By some legalist standard, the killing of every Amelek, including the "suckling infants" is not genocide.
2. The Amaleks had to be annihilated, because they had proven themselves the irredeemable enemies of Israel over the last 200 years.
3. Killing children is acceptable in euthanasia situations.
4. Since the adult Amaleks have to be killed, the only alternative to killing the children is to let them starve to death.
5. Given that this is the only alternative, killing the suckling infants of the Amaleks is an acceptable form of euthanasia.
Dear god, I bet you see this exact chain of reasoning any time people have been called on to massacre infants. I bet the rationalization is always this verbose, too. As Orwell noted, it is the only way you can go about defending th indefensible.
Yeah, there's a lot of that coin-flipping authority in law and religion both. (And economics). You have an agreement to decide a certain question within a certain ill-formed system which you can try to redefine in the midst of the argument. There might not be enough there to decide the question, but as long as both sides firmly agree that there is and that they'll respect the outcome, you get a decision.
Something like this may be Scalia's legal philosophy: the important thing is not to execute only the guilty, but to decide legal cases expeditiously.
My extension of this is that while the social sciences claim to have replaced the Bible as authorities for policy and decision-making, they have done so only to a limited degree, and don't know what those limits are. (Nice try, social sciences! You're probably better than Bible scholars!)
In a way, killing the infants is less horrible than having the murderers adopt them, as happened in Argentina.
It's time for you to know who your birth mother was, _____. Her name was _________ _________, and the day after you were born I chained her up and threw her into the ocean from a helicopter into the ocean about 20 miles east of where we're standing right now.
Given that this is the only alternative, killing the suckling infants of the Amaleks is an acceptable form of euthanasia.
Hmmm... SOP in the ancient world was that anybody could pick up an orphaned or abandoned infant and raise them as a slave (the ones not picked died of course). The big guy specifically forbidding this in the case of the Amaleks would seem a bit strange.
146 is an interesting take: the genocide of the Amalekites as an act of mercy...
A resource, The Dark Bible.
At no time do I condone or authorize the use of the Dark Bible to support another religion like Islam (which has even worse dark verses in its Quran. See the Skeptic's Annotated Quran).
