Lee Harmon's Blog, page 91
June 14, 2012
Acts 21:13, Paul, the second Jesus?
Then Paul answered, "Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus."
//Paul had to be about the most stubborn fella in the New Testament. One day, Paul had some money that he wanted to take and share with the Christians in Jerusalem, so he set his mind to making the trip. Everybody, even God, knew better. The Holy Spirit sent a prophet from Judea named Agabus, who came up to Paul and, with Paul's belt, bound him hand and foot, saying, "In this way the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles." Everyone pleaded with Paul not to go.
I wonder if perhaps Paul hadn’t been reading Zechariah, chapter 14. There, Zechariah predicts that Gentiles will come to Jerusalem to offer their praise and sacrifices to God. Paul intended to help that scripture along, and grew quite determined, announcing "I'm ready to go die in Jerusalem." As John Henson says in his book, Bad Acts of the Apostles, Paul wanted to "do a Jesus." As Jesus boldly set his face toward Jerusalem, the place where he would be bound and crucified, so did Paul.
But it didn't work. There would be no second Jesus. Paul was indeed arrested, but he couldn't pull off a Jesus. Instead of remaining silent like a lamb, he started claiming Roman citizenship and presenting his defense. So, they shipped him off to Rome, where he would eventually be put to death.
Now, here comes the kicker. The second century book The Acts of Peter finds Jesus telling Peter he will be sacrificed a second time in the City of Rome! Paul, the second Jesus?
[image error]
//Paul had to be about the most stubborn fella in the New Testament. One day, Paul had some money that he wanted to take and share with the Christians in Jerusalem, so he set his mind to making the trip. Everybody, even God, knew better. The Holy Spirit sent a prophet from Judea named Agabus, who came up to Paul and, with Paul's belt, bound him hand and foot, saying, "In this way the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles." Everyone pleaded with Paul not to go.
I wonder if perhaps Paul hadn’t been reading Zechariah, chapter 14. There, Zechariah predicts that Gentiles will come to Jerusalem to offer their praise and sacrifices to God. Paul intended to help that scripture along, and grew quite determined, announcing "I'm ready to go die in Jerusalem." As John Henson says in his book, Bad Acts of the Apostles, Paul wanted to "do a Jesus." As Jesus boldly set his face toward Jerusalem, the place where he would be bound and crucified, so did Paul.
But it didn't work. There would be no second Jesus. Paul was indeed arrested, but he couldn't pull off a Jesus. Instead of remaining silent like a lamb, he started claiming Roman citizenship and presenting his defense. So, they shipped him off to Rome, where he would eventually be put to death.
Now, here comes the kicker. The second century book The Acts of Peter finds Jesus telling Peter he will be sacrificed a second time in the City of Rome! Paul, the second Jesus?
[image error]
June 13, 2012
Revelation 19:13, Robes Dipped in Blood
He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.
//We should start our discussion of this topic back in the book of Isaiah. Chapter 63, verses 1-3, read as follows:
Who is this coming from Edom, from Bozrah, with his garments stained crimson? Who is this, robed in splendor, striding forward in the greatness of his strength? "It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save." Why are your garments red, like those of one treading the winepress? "I have trodden the winepress alone; from the nations no one was with me. I trampled them in my anger and trod them down in my wrath; their blood spattered my garments, and I stained all my clothing.”
There we read God’s promise of bloody revenge, verses that were clearly on John’s mind as he wrote Revelation. His robe is stained crimson. But where is Isaiah’s winepress? It’s in this verse:
They were trampled in the winepress outside the city, and blood flowed out of the press, rising as high as the horses' bridles for a distance of 1,600 stadia. –Revelation 14:20
1,600 stadia is 180 miles. Revelation has taken the Isaiac promise and made it even more bloody. But now the topic gets interesting, as we start looking at the Gospel story and Jesus’ victory on the cross. Here comes the crimson robe, which would be immediately saturated with Jesus' own blood:
They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him. –Matthew 27:28
… and here comes the blood flow outside the city.
And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. –Hebrews 13:20
Makes you wonder: have the promises of Isaiah and Revelation already been fulfilled?
//We should start our discussion of this topic back in the book of Isaiah. Chapter 63, verses 1-3, read as follows:
Who is this coming from Edom, from Bozrah, with his garments stained crimson? Who is this, robed in splendor, striding forward in the greatness of his strength? "It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save." Why are your garments red, like those of one treading the winepress? "I have trodden the winepress alone; from the nations no one was with me. I trampled them in my anger and trod them down in my wrath; their blood spattered my garments, and I stained all my clothing.”
There we read God’s promise of bloody revenge, verses that were clearly on John’s mind as he wrote Revelation. His robe is stained crimson. But where is Isaiah’s winepress? It’s in this verse:
They were trampled in the winepress outside the city, and blood flowed out of the press, rising as high as the horses' bridles for a distance of 1,600 stadia. –Revelation 14:20
1,600 stadia is 180 miles. Revelation has taken the Isaiac promise and made it even more bloody. But now the topic gets interesting, as we start looking at the Gospel story and Jesus’ victory on the cross. Here comes the crimson robe, which would be immediately saturated with Jesus' own blood:
They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him. –Matthew 27:28
… and here comes the blood flow outside the city.
And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. –Hebrews 13:20
Makes you wonder: have the promises of Isaiah and Revelation already been fulfilled?
June 12, 2012
Book review: Symbols, Meaning, and the Sacred Quest
by Andrew Cort
★★★★
How on earth do I rate this book? I had no idea what Cort was talking about most of the time, yet I loved the book. It's insightful and full of little anecdotes from oral tradition, definitely a flavorful way of reading the Bible.
I don't claim to be very "spiritual," so I'm hoping not to butcher an explanation of this book. But here's the gist: The Octave, do-si-la-sol-fa-mi-re-do, is an ancient and universal symbol, a blueprint for the sequential stages of change. "Do," for our purposes, may be thought of as God, the beginning of the journey and the end. The bottom of the scale and the top. The fully-enlightened and the fully-unenlightened. Each step up the scale, then, is a stage of the journey of enlightenment from God to God.
Cort instructs us how to read the Bible and the Qur'an in all their symbology, awakening our spiritual self. Over and over, through the stories of our sacred pages, Cort points out the steps to enlightenment until we are finally able to read the Bible for ourselves. The Law of the Octave hides in the plagues upon Egypt; in crossing the wilderness; in conquering the Promised Land, and much more. Indeed, it's the Old Testament stories in all their gory detail that I found Cort's manner of reading most interesting. Read literally, parts of the Bible can be distasteful, so it could use a little surface-scratching.
"Every time that you find in our books a tale the reality of which seems impossible, a story which is repugnant to both reason and common sense, then be sure that the text contains a profound allegory veiling a deeply mysterious truth; and the greater the absurdity of the latter, the deeper the wisdom of the spirit". --Moses Maimonides.
I confess, when I reached the New Testament I felt less need for a spiritual translation, since the stories there are generally beautiful enough without going in search of a deeper meaning. Cort plunges on, though, leaning heavily (as we would expect) on John's Gospel, the most mystical of the four Gospels, and when he gets through the N.T. he tackles the Qur'an.
Fascinating book, and while I don't yet feel very enlightened, I'm certain the book will hit the sweet spot for many.
★★★★
How on earth do I rate this book? I had no idea what Cort was talking about most of the time, yet I loved the book. It's insightful and full of little anecdotes from oral tradition, definitely a flavorful way of reading the Bible.
I don't claim to be very "spiritual," so I'm hoping not to butcher an explanation of this book. But here's the gist: The Octave, do-si-la-sol-fa-mi-re-do, is an ancient and universal symbol, a blueprint for the sequential stages of change. "Do," for our purposes, may be thought of as God, the beginning of the journey and the end. The bottom of the scale and the top. The fully-enlightened and the fully-unenlightened. Each step up the scale, then, is a stage of the journey of enlightenment from God to God.
Cort instructs us how to read the Bible and the Qur'an in all their symbology, awakening our spiritual self. Over and over, through the stories of our sacred pages, Cort points out the steps to enlightenment until we are finally able to read the Bible for ourselves. The Law of the Octave hides in the plagues upon Egypt; in crossing the wilderness; in conquering the Promised Land, and much more. Indeed, it's the Old Testament stories in all their gory detail that I found Cort's manner of reading most interesting. Read literally, parts of the Bible can be distasteful, so it could use a little surface-scratching.
"Every time that you find in our books a tale the reality of which seems impossible, a story which is repugnant to both reason and common sense, then be sure that the text contains a profound allegory veiling a deeply mysterious truth; and the greater the absurdity of the latter, the deeper the wisdom of the spirit". --Moses Maimonides.
I confess, when I reached the New Testament I felt less need for a spiritual translation, since the stories there are generally beautiful enough without going in search of a deeper meaning. Cort plunges on, though, leaning heavily (as we would expect) on John's Gospel, the most mystical of the four Gospels, and when he gets through the N.T. he tackles the Qur'an.
Fascinating book, and while I don't yet feel very enlightened, I'm certain the book will hit the sweet spot for many.
June 11, 2012
2 Corinthians 6:16-18, Paul Predicts The Second Exodus
For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people." "Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you." "I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty."
//In Paul's second letter to Corinth, he thrice quotes God directly, in verses lifted from various Old Testament books: Leviticus, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, 2 Samuel. These words were quoted by Paul himself in the 50s.
A decade and a half after Paul quoted these three verses, God destroyed Jerusalem, led the Christians out, and settled in spirit with them in a new land. Just as Paul predicted. You can read how this happened in Revelation, a book written a few years after the severance it describes, in words that sound too close to Paul's to be coincidence. Here are the three quotes, in the language of Revelation.
The promise of being their God: Revelation 21:7, He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son.
The call to come out: Revelation 18:4, Then I heard another voice from heaven say: “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues.”
God's promise to dwell with them: Revelation 21:3, And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.”
All this, Paul explains, is because the Christians are to be the new "temple of the living God." Shortly after he wrote, the Jerusalem Temple was so thoroughly leveled by the Romans that (according to legend) not one stone remained upon another.
Spooky stuff, right? How did Paul know?
//In Paul's second letter to Corinth, he thrice quotes God directly, in verses lifted from various Old Testament books: Leviticus, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, 2 Samuel. These words were quoted by Paul himself in the 50s.
A decade and a half after Paul quoted these three verses, God destroyed Jerusalem, led the Christians out, and settled in spirit with them in a new land. Just as Paul predicted. You can read how this happened in Revelation, a book written a few years after the severance it describes, in words that sound too close to Paul's to be coincidence. Here are the three quotes, in the language of Revelation.
The promise of being their God: Revelation 21:7, He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son.
The call to come out: Revelation 18:4, Then I heard another voice from heaven say: “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues.”
God's promise to dwell with them: Revelation 21:3, And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.”
All this, Paul explains, is because the Christians are to be the new "temple of the living God." Shortly after he wrote, the Jerusalem Temple was so thoroughly leveled by the Romans that (according to legend) not one stone remained upon another.
Spooky stuff, right? How did Paul know?
June 10, 2012
Isaiah 6:10-12, The Messianic Secret in Mark
“Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” Then I said, “For how long, O Lord?” And he answered: “Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left deserted and the fields ruined and ravaged, until the LORD has sent everyone far away and the land is utterly forsaken.”
//New Testament writers love to quote Isaiah, and Mark is no exception. With his eye on today's verses in Isaiah, the author of Mark wrote these words:
[Jesus] told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that, ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’” (Mark 4:11-12)
Why did Jesus speak in hidden parables? Why didn't Jesus want people to understand and be forgiven? The answer lies in the rest of the verse from Isaiah, in the commandment of God that they remain in the dark until the land is ravaged. I've often stated my belief that the war of 70 CE, when Jerusalem was attacked and the Temple destroyed, had an immense bearing on the development and direction of Christianity. The Gospel of Mark was written either during or immediately after this war. Perhaps he felt it was time to come out of the dark.
Did Jesus really want his fellow Jews to remain calloused, confused, and unforgiven? I doubt it, but the point is they did remain so, and Mark, stumbling about for an explanation for the terrible war that ravaged his nation, finds this verse of explanation in Isaiah.
[image error]
//New Testament writers love to quote Isaiah, and Mark is no exception. With his eye on today's verses in Isaiah, the author of Mark wrote these words:
[Jesus] told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that, ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’” (Mark 4:11-12)
Why did Jesus speak in hidden parables? Why didn't Jesus want people to understand and be forgiven? The answer lies in the rest of the verse from Isaiah, in the commandment of God that they remain in the dark until the land is ravaged. I've often stated my belief that the war of 70 CE, when Jerusalem was attacked and the Temple destroyed, had an immense bearing on the development and direction of Christianity. The Gospel of Mark was written either during or immediately after this war. Perhaps he felt it was time to come out of the dark.
Did Jesus really want his fellow Jews to remain calloused, confused, and unforgiven? I doubt it, but the point is they did remain so, and Mark, stumbling about for an explanation for the terrible war that ravaged his nation, finds this verse of explanation in Isaiah.
[image error]
June 9, 2012
Book review: Jesus for the Non-Religious
by John Shelby Spong
★★★★★
The phrase "spiritual but not religious" has become such a common description that an acronym has developed: SBNR. Are you an SBNR?
I'm not. As much as I want to belong, it doesn't really describe me. I'm more of a JBNR guy (Jesus but not religious). Jesus' dream of a kingdom of heaven on earth, and his humanitarian solution for inaugurating that kingdom, is my inspiration. I love church buildings, I love music, and I especially love church music, but when it comes to the real Jesus, he's hardly limited to four stone walls, no matter how pretty the stained glass.
When Spong's book hit the shelves five years ago, I snapped it up. Yes, he repeats a lot of his Jesus scholarship from earlier books, but reading Spong has become for me a comfort as much as a learning experience. It's like coming home, digging down to the real Jesus, and lifting the weight off my shoulders of having to "believe" stuff. I'm not real good at believing, and religion seems to promote acceptance of the incredulous as some sort of Godly virtue, leaving me out in the cold.
Spong's Jesus wasn't born under a star, didn't walk on water, and never literally raised the dead. He points out that the first followers of Jesus were not called Christians, as if knowing Christ was their goal; rather, they called themselves "the followers of the way," as if Jesus was himself but part of the journey. Yet Spong's admiration for Jesus shines, and he embraces the "original images" of Jesus with their symbolism and honor. He just doesn't get hung up on literalism. Two hundred pages into the book, after discarding our unnecessary beliefs, Spong is ready to reintroduce Jesus for the non-religious, and he does so systematically:
Jesus really lived, and Jesus loved God. Jesus' dream of a God-controlled world turned him into a breaker of tribal boundaries, prejudices, stereotypes, even religious boundaries. Jesus embraced God's desire to heal the world. The cross became a human portrait of the love of God.
God, says Spong at the close of his book, is encountered in the "profoundly human Jesus."
★★★★★
The phrase "spiritual but not religious" has become such a common description that an acronym has developed: SBNR. Are you an SBNR?
I'm not. As much as I want to belong, it doesn't really describe me. I'm more of a JBNR guy (Jesus but not religious). Jesus' dream of a kingdom of heaven on earth, and his humanitarian solution for inaugurating that kingdom, is my inspiration. I love church buildings, I love music, and I especially love church music, but when it comes to the real Jesus, he's hardly limited to four stone walls, no matter how pretty the stained glass.
When Spong's book hit the shelves five years ago, I snapped it up. Yes, he repeats a lot of his Jesus scholarship from earlier books, but reading Spong has become for me a comfort as much as a learning experience. It's like coming home, digging down to the real Jesus, and lifting the weight off my shoulders of having to "believe" stuff. I'm not real good at believing, and religion seems to promote acceptance of the incredulous as some sort of Godly virtue, leaving me out in the cold.
Spong's Jesus wasn't born under a star, didn't walk on water, and never literally raised the dead. He points out that the first followers of Jesus were not called Christians, as if knowing Christ was their goal; rather, they called themselves "the followers of the way," as if Jesus was himself but part of the journey. Yet Spong's admiration for Jesus shines, and he embraces the "original images" of Jesus with their symbolism and honor. He just doesn't get hung up on literalism. Two hundred pages into the book, after discarding our unnecessary beliefs, Spong is ready to reintroduce Jesus for the non-religious, and he does so systematically:
Jesus really lived, and Jesus loved God. Jesus' dream of a God-controlled world turned him into a breaker of tribal boundaries, prejudices, stereotypes, even religious boundaries. Jesus embraced God's desire to heal the world. The cross became a human portrait of the love of God.
God, says Spong at the close of his book, is encountered in the "profoundly human Jesus."
June 8, 2012
Leviticus 11:3, Chewing the Cud
Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat.
//A couple days ago, I blogged about the Old Testament rule prohibiting eating swine, and pondered whether the rule derived from the ease of contracting trichinosis. I was told in a comment that this old argument was "really, really weak." I still have no better explanation, though, so let's look at this again.
Perhaps the reason for the rule is simply "God said don't eat it." But that naturally raises two more questions: Why did God demand this, and how did God communicate his wishes? Is it enough to imagine God only wanted to set up an opportunity, centuries later, to dramatically change his mind?
Since the trichinosis theory satisfies both the why and the how as regards pork, we come to the complainant's main argument: Why the rules against other meat? They aren’t the only meats with parasites!
My experience in the corporate world has taught me a bit about how “group think” works, and besides, rules are fun. Start the ball rolling, and follow where it takes you. Yes, I know today’s post speculates a bit more than my usual, but how do you think religious ideas evolve?
Picture a still-tiny tribe of people trying to establish an identity around their chosen god. Picture a few Hebrew priests, the clan caretakers, sitting around a campfire poking at embers with sticks.
"Man, what's up with that chubby pink animal? Every time we eat it, somebody gets violently sick.""Yeah, but it tastes soooo good! Is Yahweh trying to tell us something, you think?""Yahweh's hard to figure. Remember when you were worried about forky-toed animals? You thought they looked like Pan and Yahweh wouldn't like us eating another god's animals, but it turned out He didn't seem to mind.""Yeah, good thing, no way our people were going to quit eating cattle! That was a good switch from whole-toed to forky-toed. Forky-toed critters are fine if they eat their cud, we figured out...Pan doesn't do that!""Hmmm, okay. That means no camel meat, though.""Yesterday, I ate some oysters, and caught a demon in my stomach. I spent the evening bent over the waste hole. Can we add oysters to the list?""Oh, no problem! Squishy, slimy things, ewww! Get rid of all shellfish, for all I care!""Can we outlaw bunnies, too? They’re so dang cute!"“We just did. No forky toes."
"What about birds?”
//A couple days ago, I blogged about the Old Testament rule prohibiting eating swine, and pondered whether the rule derived from the ease of contracting trichinosis. I was told in a comment that this old argument was "really, really weak." I still have no better explanation, though, so let's look at this again.
Perhaps the reason for the rule is simply "God said don't eat it." But that naturally raises two more questions: Why did God demand this, and how did God communicate his wishes? Is it enough to imagine God only wanted to set up an opportunity, centuries later, to dramatically change his mind?
Since the trichinosis theory satisfies both the why and the how as regards pork, we come to the complainant's main argument: Why the rules against other meat? They aren’t the only meats with parasites!
My experience in the corporate world has taught me a bit about how “group think” works, and besides, rules are fun. Start the ball rolling, and follow where it takes you. Yes, I know today’s post speculates a bit more than my usual, but how do you think religious ideas evolve?
Picture a still-tiny tribe of people trying to establish an identity around their chosen god. Picture a few Hebrew priests, the clan caretakers, sitting around a campfire poking at embers with sticks.
"Man, what's up with that chubby pink animal? Every time we eat it, somebody gets violently sick.""Yeah, but it tastes soooo good! Is Yahweh trying to tell us something, you think?""Yahweh's hard to figure. Remember when you were worried about forky-toed animals? You thought they looked like Pan and Yahweh wouldn't like us eating another god's animals, but it turned out He didn't seem to mind.""Yeah, good thing, no way our people were going to quit eating cattle! That was a good switch from whole-toed to forky-toed. Forky-toed critters are fine if they eat their cud, we figured out...Pan doesn't do that!""Hmmm, okay. That means no camel meat, though.""Yesterday, I ate some oysters, and caught a demon in my stomach. I spent the evening bent over the waste hole. Can we add oysters to the list?""Oh, no problem! Squishy, slimy things, ewww! Get rid of all shellfish, for all I care!""Can we outlaw bunnies, too? They’re so dang cute!"“We just did. No forky toes."
"What about birds?”
June 7, 2012
Revelation 4:6-7, The Throne of God
Also before the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal. In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back. The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle.
//In John's vision while on the isle of Patmos, he visits heaven and spies the throne of God. Revelation mentions this throne 46 times! Jewish literature, for perhaps 300 years before Revelation, showed a great fascination with the throne of God. We don't see this trend so much in canonical scriptures, but we do in other popular writings of that day, such as material from the Dead Sea scrolls. This fascination may have originated with the book of 1 Enoch, much of which was written in the third century B.C. or even earlier.
Carved animals of various forms customarily supported the thrones of monarchs in that day. John animates these carvings using imagery already familiar to his readers. His beasts blend together Isaiah's seraphim (Isaiah 6:2) and Ezekiel's cherubim (Ezekiel 1:5-14). He divides these two images into four creatures--matching the four faces of the cherubim--the lion, the ox, the eagle, and the man.
These symbols, of course, are seen in the four corners of the zodiac. Abraham's contemporaries visualized the constellation Scorpio as an eagle, according to the Chaldean system then in vogue. Thus, God rules over the entire heavens.
Revelation falls back on astronomy a surprising number of times, but if you aren't paying attention, they go unnoticed.
//In John's vision while on the isle of Patmos, he visits heaven and spies the throne of God. Revelation mentions this throne 46 times! Jewish literature, for perhaps 300 years before Revelation, showed a great fascination with the throne of God. We don't see this trend so much in canonical scriptures, but we do in other popular writings of that day, such as material from the Dead Sea scrolls. This fascination may have originated with the book of 1 Enoch, much of which was written in the third century B.C. or even earlier.
Carved animals of various forms customarily supported the thrones of monarchs in that day. John animates these carvings using imagery already familiar to his readers. His beasts blend together Isaiah's seraphim (Isaiah 6:2) and Ezekiel's cherubim (Ezekiel 1:5-14). He divides these two images into four creatures--matching the four faces of the cherubim--the lion, the ox, the eagle, and the man.
These symbols, of course, are seen in the four corners of the zodiac. Abraham's contemporaries visualized the constellation Scorpio as an eagle, according to the Chaldean system then in vogue. Thus, God rules over the entire heavens.
Revelation falls back on astronomy a surprising number of times, but if you aren't paying attention, they go unnoticed.
June 6, 2012
Deuteronomy 14:8, No Pig On Your Plate!
Also the swine is unclean for you, because it has cloven hooves, yet does not chew the cud; you shall not eat their flesh or touch their dead carcasses.
//Of all the 613 laws in the Torah, one wonders why this one receives so much press. No pork on the plates of Jews. But why? Where do these bizarre culinary rules originate? Not only should pigs not be eaten, their carcasses should not even be touched!
Many scholars deduce the reason pigs were considered unclean was because of the ease in which people could become sick and die after eating. If pork isn’t cooked properly, one can easily contract trichinosis. Enough of these deaths, and uncomprehending ancient eaters naturally would conclude that the gods were punishing anyone who liked pork.
Today, we’ve gotten over the superstition. Or, at least, Terry Bradshaw thinks we have. Jesus may have been a Jew, but that didn’t prevent Bradshaw from feeding the poor with his Pigs for Jesus Foundation.
Kudos, Terry!
//Of all the 613 laws in the Torah, one wonders why this one receives so much press. No pork on the plates of Jews. But why? Where do these bizarre culinary rules originate? Not only should pigs not be eaten, their carcasses should not even be touched!
Many scholars deduce the reason pigs were considered unclean was because of the ease in which people could become sick and die after eating. If pork isn’t cooked properly, one can easily contract trichinosis. Enough of these deaths, and uncomprehending ancient eaters naturally would conclude that the gods were punishing anyone who liked pork.
Today, we’ve gotten over the superstition. Or, at least, Terry Bradshaw thinks we have. Jesus may have been a Jew, but that didn’t prevent Bradshaw from feeding the poor with his Pigs for Jesus Foundation.
Kudos, Terry!
June 5, 2012
Book review: Life of Pi
by Yann Martel
★★★★★
Piscine Molitor Patel (nickname: Pi) grows up as an impressionable young son of a zookeeper in India. When the family decides to sell the zoo animals and relocate to Canada, they board a cargo ship with the caged animals and set off. Tragedy strikes, the ship sinks, and young Pi (now sixteen, I think) finds himself on a 20-foot lifeboat with a wounded zebra, a hyperactive hyena, a likeable orangutan and a waiting tiger as his only companions. Soon, as you can imagine, it’s just he and the tiger.
Let’s back up. Pi’s passion is Christ. Well, and Muhammed. And Krishna. As a practicing Christian, Muslim, and Hindu in India, he sees no reason to choose between the three, but this drives his three spiritual advisors batty. Only one of the three can be right, right? The stage is set for a journey which will uncover God, for that is the book’s promise: to deliver a story that will make you believe in God.
But in the middle of the shark-infested Pacific ocean, with a ferocious Bengal tiger filling most of the lifeboat, God seems to slip out of the story. Where has God gone? Why bother introducing Pi’s triune confusion, if only to let God slide by the wayside? Most readers, I’m convinced, will never find Him again. You won’t find God either, if you don’t keep your eyes open, or if you point those eyes only up to heaven. Even those who imagine they have uncovered Martel’s postmodern message may be unwilling to probe inside the fanciful tale atop the banal story wherein God dwells.
Martel, by the way, is a great storyteller.
★★★★★
Piscine Molitor Patel (nickname: Pi) grows up as an impressionable young son of a zookeeper in India. When the family decides to sell the zoo animals and relocate to Canada, they board a cargo ship with the caged animals and set off. Tragedy strikes, the ship sinks, and young Pi (now sixteen, I think) finds himself on a 20-foot lifeboat with a wounded zebra, a hyperactive hyena, a likeable orangutan and a waiting tiger as his only companions. Soon, as you can imagine, it’s just he and the tiger.
Let’s back up. Pi’s passion is Christ. Well, and Muhammed. And Krishna. As a practicing Christian, Muslim, and Hindu in India, he sees no reason to choose between the three, but this drives his three spiritual advisors batty. Only one of the three can be right, right? The stage is set for a journey which will uncover God, for that is the book’s promise: to deliver a story that will make you believe in God.
But in the middle of the shark-infested Pacific ocean, with a ferocious Bengal tiger filling most of the lifeboat, God seems to slip out of the story. Where has God gone? Why bother introducing Pi’s triune confusion, if only to let God slide by the wayside? Most readers, I’m convinced, will never find Him again. You won’t find God either, if you don’t keep your eyes open, or if you point those eyes only up to heaven. Even those who imagine they have uncovered Martel’s postmodern message may be unwilling to probe inside the fanciful tale atop the banal story wherein God dwells.
Martel, by the way, is a great storyteller.
