Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?

[vovat]

In my ongoing reading of the Bible, I've now finished the Writings. Well, what Christians consider to be the Writings, anyway; the Tanakh includes a few other books in this category. Anyway, for a few brief thoughts:

Esther - The story is pretty similar to that of Daniel, with Jews gaining significant posts in an imperial government. I'd seen a theory that this book was actually based on earlier Babylonian mythology, drawing attention to some of the similar names (Esther/Ishtar, Mordecai/Marduk, etc.), but I don't know how likely this is. They appear to reject it at Wikipedia.

Job - God torments the title character for no apparent reason, then responds to his complaints by saying, essentially, "You're don't know what I do, so shut up." I guess that's fair enough, but the whole thing is lessened somewhat by the behind-the-scenes material saying that God basically did all of this on some sort of bet. It's interesting to note that Job says that God "hangs the Earth on nothing," yet God Himself claims it has foundations. Also of note to anyone interested in mythological monsters (and maybe none of you are, but I certainly am) is the introduction of Behemoth and Leviathan, whom modern Creationists have claimed were dinosaurs. I think I might have liked it better when they were saying Satan made fossils to trick us.

Psalms - These are pretty much the precursor to modern Christian music. 150 songs, all with pretty much the same message. Still, I think I can see why these are so popular, since there's some interesting poetic language, like the hand-clapping floods of Psalm 98, and the skin-cleaving bones of Psalm 102, and the snow and hoarfrost being compared to wool and ashes in Psalm 147. There's plenty of weirdly violent language as well. In Psalm 69, the author exhorts God to "make [his enemies'] loins continually to shake." Psalm 18 has God riding a cherub into battle and breathing smoke out of His nostrils. Leviathan makes two reappearances. But I think the craziest line in the entire book is Psalm 137, Verse 9: "Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."

Proverbs - The main lessons I got from these were to seek wisdom, tell the truth, take accurate measurements (I'm not sure whether those verses were meant to be taken literally), practice diligence, beat your kids, and avoid loose women (because, if the Bible has taught us nothing else, it's that a man going astray is pretty much always a woman's fault). Since this book values wisdom so highly (going so far as to personify the quality as a woman, whom I believe was known as Sophia in the Septuagint), what's with all of the so-called Christians looking down on intellectualism and science? Yes, I know wisdom and book-learning aren't the same thing, but still.

Ecclesiastes - Okay, maybe it's because the first chapter of this book says that wisdom brings sorrow? I really didn't know much about Ecclesiastes, but it's an interesting book. It's presumably the source of the expression "nothing new under the sun," as well as of that Byrds song. The advice in this book doesn't really fit too well with the idea of living for the next life instead of this one. According to Ecclesiastes 9:10 (New Revised Standard version), "[w]hatever your hand finds to do, do with your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going."

Song of Solomon (also known as Song of Songs, but not Song of Sixpence) - Attributed to Solomon, although part of it is from a woman's point of view. The king compares a woman's hair to a flock of goats, her teeth to ewes, her nose and neck to towers, her navel to a bowl of wine, and her breasts to fawns and date clusters. And then she probably says, "I'll bet you say that to all the other girls." And this is the guy who had 700 wives and 300 concubines, so it's not like there weren't plenty of other girls. I understand that the more prudish branch of Christianity has tried to claim that this book is symbolic of Christ's love for the church, which I guess must mean that Jesus can be compared to be a bag of myrrh that lies between the church's breasts.

Comments

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

The advice in this book doesn't really fit too well with the idea of living for the next life instead of this one.

Maybe that's why some denominations claim it's not a REAL book of the Bible. I think it's not in the King James Version? I'm not sure if it's that or not, but I know it's one of the argued-over books. I know it's a real book in the Catholic Bible because we get readings from it every so often. I've always liked Ecclesiastes, myself.

"Sophia" is not so much a name as the Greek word for "Wisdom." It IS interesting and important to note that Wisdom is referred to as a female. It helps to counterbalance the patriarchy. The pastor of my church actually pointed this out recently, that Wisdom is an aspect of God and is a FEMININE aspect of God because GOD AS A WHOLE IS NEITHER AND BOTH MALE AND/OR FEMALE.

All for you, Sophia

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Ecclesiastes is definitely in the King James Version, and the study Bible that I got in college says that Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant Bibles all include it. It's possible that there are some denominations that don't, though. The Wisdom of Solomon isn't in Protestant Bibles, but I haven't yet read that one.

The Old Testament in general tends to bear out the idea that our rewards and punishments take place in our lives on Earth. From what I've learned, the Jewish concept of the afterlife at the time the Bible was written was Sheol, a place where nothing ever happens (which is, incidentally, how David Byrne describes Heaven, but that's beside the point {g}). The idea of reward or punishment in the afterlife seems to have been a later one. I know Greek mythology has the boring place (Asphodel), but also places of reward and punishment for the particularly good and bad. I'm not sure which came first, but I wouldn't be too surprised if Elysium and Tartarus were later creations.

If God is, loosely speaking, everything, then it would make sense that He would have some feminine aspects as well. I would imagine that patriarchal Christians aren't too keen on this idea, though.

Re: All for you, Sophia

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

From what I've learned, the Jewish concept of the afterlife at the time the Bible was written was Sheol, a place where nothing ever happens

And this seems to be Philip Pullman's idea of the afterlife in The Amber Spyglass, too, which further reinforces my belief that he based his ideas on the "Christianity" he so despises by starting with the Old Testament, getting bored, and quitting. But enough Pullman bashing, he got enough stupider and less-thought-out bashing a few months ago....

I'm not sure what's up with Ecclesiastes, then, but I do know it's a book that causes debate!

Yeah, I've heard some stuffy patriarchal types try to explain away any references to aspects of God as feminine, like maybe they're the "weaker" aspects or something else entirely, but these explanations are always pretty lame.

Re: All for you, Sophia

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I forget where I saw it, but I recently read an interview with Pullman where he said that he liked many, but not all, of the teachings of Jesus. He also admitted that it wasn't entirely fair to show his version of the Church as basically all bad. I'm not sure how old this interview was, but I think it was after he had finished writing the series, and was probably less intent on being controversial in order to sell books. But yeah, his afterlife was definitely Old Testament rather than New. Mind you, Sheol is probably preferable to the fundamentalist belief that Hell is the default afterlife for everybody, although I guess Hell is a lot more interesting.

[jenhime.livejournal.com]

When I studied Esther in college, a big theory was that the story was included to bring women back to Judaism. There was female/goddess-based cults in (I think) Egypt that were attracting large numbers of women. To counteract that and attract more women, the story of Esther was propagated.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

That makes sense. I believe it was the last book to be accepted into the Jewish canon, and wasn't found among the Dead Sea Scrolls at all. The idea of attracting women to Judaism might well explain why it was added so late. The fact that it encourages drunken revelry probably doesn't hurt, either. {g}

[onib.livejournal.com]

Esther: I remember reading a study that pointed out that the placement of books within the Christian "Old Testament" and the Jewish Bible spoke a great deal about the difference in focus between the groups. In the Christian Bible, the last things you read are prophesy, setting the stage for Christ to show up. It leaves the reader with the impression that everything is bracing for his arrival. In the Jewish Bible, Ether is among the last books included. You'll notice that it makes no direct mention of God in any way and has people working things out for themselves (with a little bit of luck). This fits into a reading that God was extremely involved in the activities of humans in the beginning and is steadily removing Himself, leaving the reader to understand that we are meant to take care of ourselves now.

Just an interesting thought.

Also, I've heard some commentaries suggest that Leviathan is the whale and Behemoth is the hippo.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

As you may have noticed, the order of the books is something that I mention in my most recent post, and I think much the same thing about why the Christian Old Testament ends with the Prophets. As for God taking less of a central role as time goes on, the enjoyable "Blogging the Bible" series mentions here (http://www.slate.com/id/2153944/entry/2154338/) that there might be both religious and historical components to that. Theologically, the idea is that God wants people to think and fend for themselves. Historically, it can be easier to see direct divine influence in things that happened in the distant past than in more recent events. A big flood in the distant past can be ascribed to the hand of the Almighty, but now we could probably see the more immediate causes. That's yet another reason aside from the obvious ones that I think saying Hurricane Katrina was the direct work of God doesn't really make sense. Surely any deity worth his ambrosia would know that we now have a pretty good idea as to how hurricanes form, and would choose a much more unequivocal method if he wanted to send a message. That trick with the seas turning to blood would probably work pretty well. I think the idea that God was more direct in His methods in the distant past is part of why it seems to be a common opinion that Job takes place back in the time of the patriarchs.

Also, I've heard some commentaries suggest that Leviathan is the whale and Behemoth is the hippo.

I've seen the crocodile as another possibility for the identity of Leviathan. I'm not sure you could say that a hippo "moveth his tail like a cedar," and whales and crocodiles obviously don't breathe fire. Still, if the Israelites had only briefly seen these animals, or heard about them in passing, they could easily have attributed supernatural qualities to them.