It seems to me that our approaches differ in this way: I am saying, Well, there's the story, I wonder what they were referring to; while you are saying, Well, there's the story, I wonder where I can take it from there in terms of other stories I find meaningful (as you say, leaving out and modifying what you like). A third approach would be literalist: that story is clear and self-interpreting; accepting it as historical is the same thing as having faith (and since justification is by faith alone...figure it out). A fourth would be doctrinal: Well, there's the story, now what do the church authorities say it means (or even dogmatic: what do church officials say I must believe it to mean)?Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
There are pros and cons to each of these approaches, although personally I don't find them benignly equal. As I said before, there is nothing simple about Biblical text, its history of redaction, or its historical context; and in practice Biblical literalism becomes a bogus litmus test for having faith. For me, faith in God is simply not the same as faith that every story in the Bible is literally true.
Your approach is called midrashic. It was popular among Jewish scholars in the Middle Ages, and still has some practitioners today. The Rabbis, of course, wouldn't have compared texts Hebrew and Tantric texts, but their attempt to generate further meaning by comparing texts was essentially the same as your approach.
The best known midrash in modern pop culture (because it was seized on by feminists a few years ago) is the story of Lilith, supposedly Adam's first wife, who would not submit to his authority. The texts in question were Genesis 1:24-1:27 (the P version of Creation); Genesis 2:18-2:23 (the J version, written down 400 years earlier, and likely even older); and Isaiah 34:14, which is difficult to date, but is centuries younger than J in any case. In the J version, God creates Adam by breathing into dust, and later creates Eve from his rib to act as his helper:
18 And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
19 And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22 And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
But in the P version, God creates the Eve and Adam simultaneously, presumably from the same original substance, and arguably coequal:
24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, lafter our likeness: mand let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
This apparent discrepancy (Medieval Jewish scholars had never heard of P or J) was resolved by going to a third text, in which Isaiah uses the Hebrew word lilit, perhaps a reference to Assyrian demon (or an owl--or perhaps the demon and the owl were the same creature). Modern translators have a difficult time with lilit, but Medieval Jewish scholars identified it with a female demon who, through midrashic speculation, became Adam's ex-wife, who had been created his equal not his helper, and who is never specifically identified as Eve. Some modern feminists have seen Lilith as cool and pagan (even through the midrash is, you know, pretty Jewish).
You are free to build bridges in this way, as you do here:
Midrash is not my approach, but I find it no less logical than the Frankenstein Bible that literalists concoct by, for example, pretending that Genesis 2:18-2:2 is just a continuation of Genesis 2:18-2:23, and not a different story representing a somewhat different perspective. And both approaches, whatever their flaws, can potentially produce meaning for those who employ them. As always, problems start when some try to push their interpretations (including "literalist" interpretation) as the only way to look at things. You will get no objection from me to your holding a more optimistic view than I do about the material world. But when you start telling me or others that our suffering does or did not exist, you have crossed the same literalists cross who cast those who do not accept Biblical literalism into hell: you are exporting your own dogma and expecting someone else to take it seriously.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
For me, the story of the Fall is a pessimistic one. Your "appeal to Bloom" (as it were) to try to turn it into a comedy is cute, by the way, but not very compelling. Wellhausen's Documentary Hypothesis (which Bloom was cribbing in The Book of J) is a historical-critical theory that has of been tweaked considerably in recent years. Nowadays not many historical-critical scholars see J, P, D, and E the products of individual writers or redactors. Rather, they are seen as theological tendencies or schools of thought identifiable to certain priestly, prophetic, or scholarly communities overseeing redaction of earlier sources, in close association with events in Israelite and Judaean history: the establishment of the monarchy and construction of the First Temple for J; the destruction of the northern kingdom for E; Josiah's (failed) attempt at the restoration of Judea as a regional power for D; and the Babylonian Captivity for P; and not comedy or tragedy in the Greek (much less the modern) sense. It is not surprising to find some humor in texts with oral antecedents (including funny stories), but that does not turn the story of the Fall into Ghost Busters. Nor is it surprising to find a pessimistic worldview in the ancient Levant: the predominant cultures and political empires from Mesopotamia had an even bleaker assessment of things
So for me, it is not a question of how to turn a pessimistic mythos into one that always looks on the bright side of life. It is an inquiry--both rational and spiritual--about why the story takes such a negative outlook (does it capture something about the human condition, independent of Mesopotamian pessimism? Does it offer a extra-material basis for Salvation (which Mesopotamian pessimism did not)? How do I understand any such Salvation in the light of Christian experience and my own life?
I could easily connect dots between stories I know to construct something new to cheer for a position I already hold. (That is essentially my problem with midrashic speculation and one of my many problems with Biblical literalism). But my approach (for me) has the integrity of a real investigation. I find I honor Scripture best when I treat it as a revered and challenging teacher, and not a magical book of things people want to hear. Even so, it is necessary for all of us to see these things in the light that God gives us to see them.
