Women and the Bible

-Women, as a metaphor, not worried about biology, but metaphors of the feminine and the social conditions of women

Metaphor = literary condition; women = social condition; but porous and influences each other

-Aristotle’s definition of metaphor: “giving a name for one thing to something else.” 

-Eve: a feminine metaphor

-The Tanak as a library, compiled over thousands of years.

Attitude towards women in the Hebrew bible: patriarchal = patro(father) archy(rules)

            Women are women, and all men are women…. 

            -Gender asymmetry: culture is uneven, on top are metaphors of masculinity, on bottom are metaphors of femininity.

-Today, we are living in the disillusion of patriarchy.  

Lot and His daughters – in the cave on the mountain, another beginning, start of creation; women and the bible constantly worried about procreation. Both daughters sleep with father to continue their kin.  The most important thing, to preserve the father’s seed. 

-The feminine associated with sexuality in two ways: procreation and sin.  Feminine Metaphors vs. Women.   Control of women in order to control the babies.

-Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the founders, the focus of Genesis.  Yet the Women, Sarah, Leah, Rachel, are the pivotal characters in the stories.

-Husband and wife vs. Man and wife.  Contemporary labels vs. patriarchy labels. 

Genesis 29 – detail about the well, the stone covering the well, Laban and Jacob, masculine and feminine. Jacob’s smooth face. 

-Lynda’s rule #12; women in a patriarchy are not despised but feared because they are so powerful.

Teraphim: household gods, deeds to the property. Women… Laban angry that his daughters ran away with Jacob, Rachel had the household gods in her camel saddle, Laban wants to search her tent but she’s “in the way of women.” Men scared, worried about women’s menstruation.

New TESTament,  Old TESTament.  Circumcision, a vow, a man of hid word.

-Jeptha’s daughter, Judges 11

-Numbers 30 – if the men make a vow to the Lord they can never break it; if a woman makes a vow, it can be broken according to her father.  Patriarchy. 

-Prophets, writing begin in 8^th century BCE, pure Yahweh-ists, can’t have any outside contamination; believe the way to worship is to be good to one another. 

            -Yahweh to Amis: I hate and despise your feast days.  The way to worship is not to cut up and eat animals but to be good to one another.

                   1. social justice; 2. Cultic purity.

Hosea: Yahweh to Hosea: “Go take a wife of whoredom.” an unworthy woman.  Why?  Israel likened to a woman, which means she is unfaithful. Hosea then becomes the wronged, noble husband.

Unike Plotz who thinks biblical women are prostitutes; the Women are deviating sexually as a performance of Israel deviating Yahweh.

Jeremiah: 7:18 women kneading dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven. (vulva cakes) the essence of the body, the eating of the god. Yahweh is pissed.

44:15 – not everyone agrees with the Yahweh-ism.  Town doesn’t want to listen.

“One religion in the whole world: patriarchy” A biblical scholar, unfortunately didn’t catch her name.  

Posted by bmcycleski at 2:11 PM EDT

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Mandatory attendance Thursday Oct. 1!  Women in the BibleExam next Thursday, Fyre Chapters 1-3

Posted by bmcycleski at 7:11 PM EDT

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            As I slowly creep through the first books of The Hebrew Scriptures, the beginning books of the Torah, the law, I am constantly surprised, intrigued, and curious.  And I’ll be honest it’s not easy going.  I find it absolutely incredible how much information and the amount of stories that are crammed into two tiny columns, only a few pages.  The Bible, full of it’s little books, astonishes me now.  Rather than a religious text, it seems to me more of an encyclopedia of short stories and lists that pertain to the history of humans.  I guess I’ll never get over the whole absurdity of attributing the initial creation to one powerful, angelic man; and the fact that millions of people live their lives strictly by how the bible tells them too; however, as a text, a book of words, I have gained a little respect for the Bible with the little bit of reading I’ve done thus far – it is after all a BIG book.

This entry will be somewhat random on purpose.  As I read I marked or underlined certain passages, ones I found interesting, weird, entertaining, and such.  So sit back, relax if you can, and enjoy some rather rambling reflections with Genesis.

Gen. 18:27 – “And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes:” Hmm, dust and ashes.  This seems to be mentioned only in passing at this point in the bible, when the Lord tells Abraham he will spare the city if so many righteous people live there.  But dust and ashes; this of course reminds me of Phillip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials.” In this trilogy the dust represents more or less the knowledge of good and evil.  Kids retain their pure, innocent dust until they reach adulthood and become sexually experienced. There’s much more to the dust in Pullman’s work, but for now I’m satisfied to have an idea of where it came from in the bible. 

Gen. 19 – For starters, I must say that it was in this chapter in Genesis that I discovered the name for my Inland Bearded Dragon (a pet reptile I have), and he will be now known as Zoar.  This is also the chapter that I realized that the women in the bible are unique, much more so than the man.  I’m looking forward to Thursday’s class when more will be discussed about biblical women.  In chapter 19, The Lot Girls are quite intriguing.  After God destroys the cities of the plain and sends ‘Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in the which lot dwelt.’ Lot runs to the mountains above Zoar with his two daughters.  And what happens next?  Yup, sex.  The Bible loves sex.  But interestingly enough, it’s not the man who initiates anything but the women, and in Lot’s case his daughters!! 

            Now, I guess there isn’t much else to do when you’re hiding out in the mountains, but this is a family, a father and his two daughters!  Yet the girls decide to get their father drunk and take advantage of him!!  Both of them!!  Earlier in the chapter Lot also acknowledges that his daughters are virgins; not only do they have their father’s children, but their father is their first sexual partner!  Whoa, I guess incest is a bit of an understatement, maybe this was some sort of fetish the women of Lot’s family had, I don’t know but it’s rather odd – though I’m sure Lot didn’t mind, his cities just got destroyed, he fled up onto a mountain, and now his two gorgeous virgin daughters want to have his babies.  But why?  “The firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth: 32 Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that he we may preserves seed of our father.”  It makes sense that the family wants their heritage to continue, but for the women to sleep with their father?  Perhaps this is where the phrase ‘daddy’s girl’ really originated.  Because it is certainly Lot’s daughters who take things into their own hands, literally, and who make a major decision that should probably be consulted with God. Yet God doesn’t intervene, interesting.    

            I’ll have to come back to this later.  The next passage I think I’ll examine is the story of Isaac, Jacob, and Esau, which takes up chapters 27 – 35 where there are many other women who display similar traits as that of The Lot Girls.    

Posted by bmcycleski at 12:39 PM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, 29 September 2009 12:43 PM EDT

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-For notes, this blog should be helpful, and Thomas' blog is exquisite.  Check his blog for interactive, linked material.  My class blog notes will focus on the in-class material, what we discuss and talk about in class, and Dr. Sexson's never-ending knowledge on literary terms from his century and ours.  

-Eric Auerbauch's essay "Odysseus's Scar" at http://www.westmont.edu/~fisk/Articles/OdysseusScar.html  -READ IT-

-Homer gives us all the information, the bibles leaves gaps, lacuna.  These gaps make it incredible difficult and ambiguous to interpret the bible, find meaning.

-Homer writes horizontally, the bible writes vertically.  

-Nick's Blog, "The Lonely God"  What are gods motives?  Why does he do all this? Maybe god is lonely, needs fellowship?  Or he just needs entertainment.  

Perhaps god's bored and lonely 

mythos:myths  stories and conflicts, the most important part of literature.  Without conflict, what would there be?

-ASSIGNMENT - Have a bad day and blog about it. Addition, and have a perfect day, tell us about it; think about the good day and the bad day, reflect and think, why me?   Song: "The End of a Perfect Day" 

-No where in the bible does it say, "God helps those who help themselves."

Heart of the Class, Bible:  Why is this happening to me? The book of JOB; why me?   

Frye; teachers and students, answers and question.  Teachers ask questions because they don't want to "consolidate the mental level on which the question is asked."

 BIBLE TIME

-the TNK (tanak): torah= law, N'vi-im=prophets, K'tuvim=writings; three letter acronym.  Think about license plates "FTHRS" or one of my favorites "W8N4SNO" on my forth grade teachers motorcycle :)

NEVER USE THE WORD: JUST said GOD, err SEXSON.

Mythology of human hubris: pride and arrogance, Aristotle's story of man and woman as one entity until they're sliced apart by Zeus to keep them from fighting.  

The Tower of Babel:                                                                                 

Posted by bmcycleski at 12:57 PM EDT

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It's nearly impossible to "read" the entire bible, -even Dr. Sexson admits he hasn't read the whole thing - or so I'm saying he said.  

Patriarch - from pater - or the head of the family.  Notable biblical patriarchs thus far include: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The role of women in the bible, not as Plotz says they are prostitutes, but women are subtle and deceptive in the bible, mysterious and hard to decipher.  

The Hidden Book in the Bible = Book of J

The Sabbath Sunday, rest for god's work on the seventh day; tradition, and repetition; it's mythology

The snake isn't satan, isn't the devil, just bad.  He tempted people to do what they shouldn't.  In the beginning the serpent had legs too, until god cursed the serpent to slither on its belly.  -this is a late myth of the understanding of the snake.  

-In The Epic of Gilgamesh, (oldest literary work in the world)  the search for immortality; it contains a flood story, Gilgamesh finds lake and pulls plant and is tempted to eat from the fruit.  But he falls asleep, zzzzz, and the snake comes by and eats the plant.  The snake sheds it's skin and then becomes younger.

-Interestingly the snake is wise, and knows the knowledge of good and evil, which he tempt adam and eve with.  So mythologically the snake was good, and wise; through stories and myths the snakes been given a bad reputation.  

-The buddy movie has been around forever, it's just been made worse and worse into bromances though.

-The gnostic snake on the cross, a symbol of wisdom.  gnostic=knowledge

-Cain and Abel 

KNOW = SEX  "Now the man knew his wife Eve.."  And babies are made!

lacuna are gaps in the text, such as the question, where id Cain's wife come from? (Lilla, who's not in the bible)  How tall was eve? What color were her eyes?

-Abel was a keeper of sheep; Cain was a tiller of the earth.  Abel gives the lord animals, Cain gives him veggies and fruit.  And God favors Abel.  God loves meat, he ain't no vegan!      

-For some reason Cain's offering is not as equal as Abel's and so jealousy is born.  Cain slays Abel and tells god he doesn't know what happened to him, 'is he his brother's keeper?'  He lied.  Jealousy and lies go hand in hand.  Cain's punishment: the inability to till the ground and he becomes a fugitive and wanderer on earth.

-The mark of Cain - is certainly not black people, whoever says so deserves to be kicked in the nuts, and read the bible!! 

-The Fugitive - an archetype, a model narrative, something that happens again and again, the archetype of the fugitive and the wanderer.    

-Harold Bloom says there is no such thing as a correct reading of a text, only incorrect reading, it's impossible to read the text correctly.  

*[if you don't know the work of Shakespeare and the Bible then you've shorted yourself of the most influential literature, ever]*

-Notice the repetitive parallelism in the poetry passage in Genesis 4:23

-Read some Thomas Mann

Enoch's walk with god, and kidnapping.  Is he the only one? Why him? Genesis 5:21

-Hyperbole - the exaggeration of something on purpose for emphasis.  Examples in the bible are everywhere, when so and so lives for three hundred years.   

-Angelology - theological dogma or speculation concerning angels.

God's divine entourage.  Angels? Demons? Snakes? You and I?  the earth?

-Noah's Arc - The Great Flood - The Sign, the bow in the clouds, rainbows -  

Posted by bmcycleski at 1:04 PM EDT

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I have no class notes from 9-17 because as was apparent I didn't make it.  I did check out thomas' exquisite notes and am eagerly waiting for the audio from Rio's blog.  

Already running - and sleeping - late on thursday, on my bike ride to school I ran over something my tire didn't cooperate with and I heard the worst sound a biker can hear, whadthsssssssssssssss.  Flat tire.  To make a long story short, I then had to walk to the bank, walk to the bike shop, get the tire fixed, and then make it to campus.  And I didn't feel like barging into class thirty minutes late.

I'm bummed I missed the first discussion of Frye, always an apocalyptic guy; although I'm still waiting for my copy of "The Great Code" (I think Amazon got a flood of orders after Dr. Sexson told us to get the book, now they're backed up to their ears in Frye orders and deliveries, can't figure out why all of 'em are going to some small town in Montana - don't they study cows there? - and also someone in the order department shredded half the orders because he thought they were accidentally copied too many times - "they all said Bozeman on 'em, legitimate excuse right?").  

This is a, somewhat, brief blog for now - I had to include a rant of some sort after my flat tire frustrations yesterday.  But I've had some other ideas I want to blog about soon; Frye reminded me of Don Quixote, which I began thinking about in comparison to the Bible, all of it inspired by my new favorite musician, FZ, the one and only.  

Check back later for imaginative intellectual perusals and notes.... 

Posted by bmcycleski at 4:36 PM EDT

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Ty's graphic novel blog

Powerpoint presentation by Sexson: Sources of Pentateuch, aka Torah

Documentary Hypothesis: by Julius Wellhousen.

Blooms alphabet soup, also suggest is wasn't until 18th century that people read the bible with documentary hypothesis;   the bible has gone through thousands of years of editing and redaction.  Bloom's "Book of J" hit the best readers list.

The Four Writers of the Bible 

J (yahwist) the story teller, uses yahweh for god, vivd concrete style; anthropomorphic view of diety; begins at Genesis 2:4b; uses term Mount Sinai where Mosaic covenent 

E (elohist) uses elohim (plural form of divine powers) more abstract; 

D (deuteronomist) responsible for deuteronomy. out of sync with time of moses; reflects literary style and religious attitudes of Josiah's reform, alos edits histories of Joshua through 2nd kings

P (priestly) best shot at writing is in Genesis 1, not to influential, emphasizes priestly concerns, legalistic and cultic aspects of religion, dry precise lists, 

Bloom Points of J: 

- essentially a comic writer; - an ironist (dissembler); - K. James Version is "one of the handful of truly sublime styles in English." (27); - Stories not holy tales, she was not a religious writer, shows no fear of Yahweh.  He is a lively fellow, with little in common with dog of P or the Prophet Jeremiah; - she had no heroes, only heroines; - talking animals, lustful Elohim, deceitful Patriarchs, ambitious women anxious to break into blessing, murderous founders of the tribes of Isreal, a drunken Noah, a raging Yahweh out of control even by himself - these were shrugged of by rabbis; - When script becomes scripture, reading is numbed by taboo and inhibition.

Blogs: check each other's blogs; chances are one in three you'll find something you were thinking about or wanted to say and other fascinating, enjoyable information.  

-Jason and Bloom discussing the divine fist-fight.  An origin of circumcision and the place that made Bloom believe that Yahweh is a woman.  "There is and can be none."     

Don't be Boring, find the interest. Overcome the Anxiety of Influence! 

Genesis 2.4b   Anything before is P. from 2.4b on is J giving her account of creation.  Notice the usage of Lord God, not just God.  Adam, from adama which means earth.  Everything can be traced back to an explanation.  Garden of Eden in Iraq.  Adam names all the animals. God takes a rib from Adam and creates woman, Eve  

 Etiology = an explanation of how something came to be.  

Never really an original Bible because it's been translated so much.  

We're all gonna die!  Because in the beginning people died and babies were either blue-light specials, flown in by the stork, or found under a cabbage patch. 

There is nothing original, everything has happened before, the past possesses the present,

We all ran around naked as children!!!  Just like Adam and Eve.  Is the bible children's literature.

The etiology of the snake, what did they look like with legs, before God made them slither on their belly?   

Mythos = story;  stories don't teach fundamentally but by providing a net of experience. 

Posted by bmcycleski at 1:05 PM EDT

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Repetitive Parallelism is a feature of hebrew poetry in which one term is balanced by another term that creates a rhythm and makes it easier to remember.    The way Shakespeare writes, the same thing twice, once for the idiots, once for the intellectuals.

*Google wanted to change repetitive parallelism to repetition parallelism, so I never found an exact definition but what's below may be helpful, possibly boring, or interesting.    

-other R.P. Definitions: "One of those is repetition, technically termed repetitive parallelism, a characteristic of poetry visible as far back in time as the Sumerians. In its simplest form, this involves speaking the same words twice; More often, repetitive parallelism involves changes and additions in the second half of the verse. 

-Parallelism is one of the most useful and flexible rhetorical techniques. It refers to any structure which brings together parallel elements, be these nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, or larger structures. Done well, parallelism imparts grace and power to passage. -Repetition is one of the most useful tools available to writers. Repetition allows a writer or speaker to hammer home an idea, image, or relationship, to force the reader or listener to pay attention." 

Maybe theses are less boring: "Parallelism is not simply repetition. The Hebrews used a wide variety of techniques to enable the final member of the verse to complete, intensify or give additional meaning to the earlier members. Biblical scholars have compiled extensive analysis of the grammatical, phonological, lexical and semantic changes used in moving from one line to the next. We will briefly look at some of the more common types.

                              he is the King of glory" (Psalm 24:7-10)."

Posted by bmcycleski at 2:03 PM EDT

Updated: Thursday, 10 September 2009 2:20 PM EDT

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Get your Northrop Frye, "The Great Code."  -Northrop Frye is an amazing literary critic and writer, and writes in a manner thats is much more friendly than other literary critics.

Carl Eats Little Whiny Pets w/ Gravy Asparagus!

 Check out website www.bartleby.com/108 for an entire online version of The King James Bible.

Psalms 51;  Prayer for Cleansing and Pardon.

Repetitive Parallelism is a feature of hebrew poetry in which one term is balanced by another term that creates a rhythm and makes it easier to remember.    The way Shakespeare writes, the same thing twice, once for the idiots, once for the intellectuals.  

Great Commentary by Roy Goodman about his 12-year-old solo

Vico's stages of language: 1. Metaphorical (age of gods) 2. Metonymy (age of aristocrats)  3. Demotic (age of men);  

Ovid's Myth of declining ages: 1. Gold 2. Silver 3. Bronze - where we're at now. 

 Roy became metaphorical when he said he was transformed into an angel.

 Keyword of the class:  Myth  The bible is full of mythological material, especially Genesis. 

 Documentary Hypothesis: the first five books were not written by Moses, but by four editors/writers using different literary techniques. They are J (Jawist), E (Elohist), D (Deuteronomist), and P (Priest).

Logos = words, but does not necessarily mean 'the study of;' Jon uses logos - the divinity that is in the speaking of the thing that causes it to come into being.  

When we're children we understand the power of words, that when we speak we are creating.  Children purposefully don't say words because they fear it might come true.  

Posted by bmcycleski at 1:14 PM EDT

Updated: Thursday, 10 September 2009 2:17 PM EDT

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Well I finally did it, it took some coercing, but I finally made my self sit down and start the bible.  And it was a pretty decent reading session, I made it through about 20 chapters or so of Genesis, and then fell asleep.  It's funny how a new beginning can put you to sleep.  

I wanted to go through and give a detailed account of what I underlined, thought, and found interesting, but I don't have my bible with me.  Those bible books are so damn huge they weigh me down on my bike ride to school.  So, I have two bible, one for school and one

 for home.  However there's a catch: there not the same bible.  At first I thought this might be a big deal, now I don't think it'll matter; either one is some sort of holy scripture right?  I have the HC Study Bible on campus, but at home I'm reading Oxford Worlds Classics, "The Bible: Authorized King James Version with Apocrypha," I believe from the 1611 translation.  It's edited by Robert Carroll and Stephen Prickett and contains lengthy intros from each.  

 What I've already found I like more about my home bible - it sounds so weird saying "my ___ bible", I've only been to church twice in my life! - than the study bible is the simplicity of the print on the page.  Rather than cram a ton of extra, distracting information in teeny tiny print on the bottom half of each page, the oxford bible is nothing but, bible.  Each page still has two columns but there is no footnotes.  Which I understand is valuable, interesting information; however, I'm an extreme bible newbie and so the simpler the better for my w'ittle bible brain.

Of what I read, I was actually surprised at how much I was familiar with already: the creation, adam and eve, fruit of knowledge, the snake, the flood and Noah's arc, and cain and abel.  The hardest sections to read are definitely the "begot" sections. "Djvfsj begot fjffjsnjd, and he lived for 600 years, Ybfisskvns begot Jnfbshvsdvf, who begot Bdfbhebf and he begot Lmfninvfsdin, and their generation lived for 900 years." Ok! I get it! There's been a ton of people in this world since day one, but I'm not gonna remember all their names, at least right now anyways.  I'll admit I was a little bored with the begot sections, which makes me the boring one at that time, but if I don't get thrilled and interested by genealogies until I'm a grandfather, that's fine by me.  

As for the narratives and images, the bible is full of 'em: drunken people, naked people, angry people, floods that cover mountains, birds flying; and my favorite thus far: the image of god confusing the language of the people at Babel and scattering them all over the place.  Imagine it, a group of people all talking amongst themselves and them wham! everyone's speaking a different language and has no idea what everyone else is saying; chaos, entropy, hilarious.  And I can see the puppet master laughing from the clouds.  

And now, a personal story; I've really only ever been to church twice in my life, never with my own parents always with friend's families.  Reading the bible reminded me of this so I must share.  I think it was the HUGE, and I mean HUGE church out south 19th just past Kagy that I went to. And when I went, their complex was only about half as big, hmmm interesting.  So my fiends parents made us dress up and look nice, do our hair and everything, and get up way earlier than I ever do on sunday, except when I cook.  I remember we arrived at the church and I immediately felt out of place: no one knew me, I didn't know anyone, I was probably 13, 14, or 15 at the time and completely oblivious to the church experience.  

We found our seats and the preaching got started, on a big screen.  Yup that's right, even when I was ten years younger the church was rich enough to have the highest tech tvs and projectors and sound systems.  All this was in perfect sync with the priest and all I could think was how badass the new bond movie would be on their massive television.  After only god knows how long of preaching, they finally handed out snacks, or at least that's what I thought.  And so when my cracker reached me, munch, I had that sucker between my teeth before the basket reached the next person.  My friend leaned over and said, "dude, you're not supposed to eat that yet, it's a sacrifice, everyone eats together."  Sure enough, I looked around and no one else had put the tiny cracker in their mouth yet.  So I carefully spit it out into my hand, embarrassed though no one really noticed me.  I remember looking at the half-eaten cracker in my hand, now mushy and falling apart with no salt left on it - a horrible cracker and even worse sacrifice when I think back on it now.  When it came time for everyone to eat their crackers mine looked so unappetizing that I pretended to eat it and then stealthily smeared it on the bottom of my seat, like gum under the desk.  

Looking back the whole experience seems absolutely absurd and hilarious.  Luckily no one from my friend's family noticed and I doubt really cared; but still, it was a morning I'll never forget.     

Posted by bmcycleski at 10:35 AM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, 8 September 2009 11:30 AM EDT

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