Class Notes: 10-15-09

-Stay Healthy!  Watch out for puking pigs.

-Blogs to check: Nick, Alex, Natalie, Ty, Jenna, and the rest of our class; lot of good insights and musings. 

-The battle between P and J, a never-ending one; The P writer and people who relate usually think of the bible as a book of rules, the Ten Commandments, Deuteronomy; The J writer and people who relate usually think of the bible as a book of stories, narratives, and images.

-The Book of Deuteronomy, not a narrative, but a book of form that still has unity, unity of thought, and doesn’t contain many lacunas.  The Selah, the opening prayer at religious services, pulled from Deuteronomy.  Commandments of all commandments: One Lord, you shall not worship any other Lord. 

-Law, a subset of literature, literature as the uses of language.  And so even the book of Deuteronomy can be read as literature; and stories can be read as rules to live by.

-Michelangelo’s sculpture of Moses with horns, mistranslated from radiant.  Bloom’s comment, “there is no correct reading of anything, only misreading.”

-And the way to correct our understanding of possible mistranslations is to, well, read, read the bible and see what it literally, letterally says.

-The Ten Commandments; do they even exist in the bible as a strict set of rules?  Or are they merely mistranslated or mistakenly thought to be laid-out in the bible?  Plotz recognizes the ambiguousness of the commandments, sometimes there are 10, in other places there’s 16, or even 6. 

-The Bozeman trial, from last year, of someone coveting their neighbors donkey, they were sentenced to death!!

-Check the website, Ask Dr. Laura and respond to the questions.  Also, get the book, “The Year of Living Biblically.”  Is it possible?  The first dilemma, are clothes Kosher? 

-Leviticus 18:22 the issue of homosexuality.  Biblically, it’s an abomination, that’s that.  But what about all the other rules… they must stand too! 

- Deuteronomy 22; the issue of the virgin wife; reminds me of “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the penalty of stoning.  Same penalty for a misbehaving child. 

-January 1965, Sexson began teaching, and he can remember the names of every student. Go! 

-Finding the boring fascinating; lists, names, reading the bible; Why is it so hard to transform from boring to fascinating?  What is the dilemma?  We’re not interesting enough; next assignment, become more interesting, and the bible will become less bored with you, and especially me.  The main problem: all of society has ADD; we can’t focus on one thing for more than a television commercial, less than a minute.

-Jenna’s blog:  God’s Backside, Moses witnesses God streaking.  Moses didn’t see God face to face, as people interpret.  She continues to discuss her experience in church when the pastor brought up the sin of divorce and remarriage.  A collision between what the bible says and personal experiences that contradict the bible.  The epiphany that it’s ok to question God. 

-epiphany: a sudden manifestation of the divine, divine thought or a supernatural being; not finding car keys. 

- The Job question –Theodicy: the vindication of divine goodness and providence in view of the existence of evil.

-We ask, “Why me?”  God answers, “because you pissed me off.” 

-Derrick’s scar story, getting hit by a car on the way to work. 

Posted by bmcycleski at 2:12 PM EDT

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Class Notes 10/13/09

 -Test average: 80.4% B-

 *One bible reader is already at the book of Job!  Nicely done Alesha!  Everyone better catch up!

 *Next blog assignment: make a connection between a biblical story and a modern poem or piece of literature. 

 The book of Susana, in the apocrypha, and the Wallace Stevens poem, Peter Quince at the Clavier; Blog about it, Stevens is connecting Shakespeare and the Bible, the Book of Susanna

 -Dialectic tradition means the old stories are the good stories, even the traditional biblical stories. 

 Have a Bad Day, instead of Good… blog about it.

 A 1940’s movie clip: a girl who’s not supposed to be in the family playing the piano, and a young man singing, then everybody joins in and she realizes the family does this often, without her.

 Plotz’s book on tape, about God’s continuation to keep the Egyptians suffering and continue afflicting plagues so that stories develop and people tell them for centuries and centuries.  Plotz criticizes God harshly without any consideration about the story, the importance of God’s role to the narrative, similar to gods controlling and afflicting people in mythology.  Plot’s bringing more of a modern sensibility (Nick’s blog) about the morality of God’s actions, rather than a more literary sensibility to the narrative and stories of the Bible. 

 Moses as a paradigm, a model, an archetype, a mythic character that the times talked about; How Moses Shaped America; Moses as superman, Obama; the people as the murmurers. 

 -Frye passage on page 49, “Exodus as the myth of deliverance of Israel from Egypt.”         

            -Moses as an archetypal, mythological character rather than an historical, real, true character – except by letterally being arranged in language.  “The symbolic Egypt  is not in history;” 

 Moses’ mythological elements, myth of the hero: birth circumstances important, conception circumstances unusual, threatened to be killed at birth, spirited away and raised in obscurity, meets an adversary, overcome it or is overcome, meets woman and marries her, becomes king and gains people loyalty, then people challenge king, and ultimately hero dies, usually on mountain. 

-Similar hero myths: Hercules, Superman, Jesus, Harry Potter, Ovid, and many many others.

 -“Go Down Moses” African American spiritual, straight from Exodus; two songs by Louie Armstrong and Paul Robeson.  Armstrong’s version: blends of spiritual chant, blues, and swing music, with chorale backup singers.  Robinson’s version: very deep, dark, powerful voice accompanied by piano music.  Then a bluegrass version, Ralph Stanley, of the encounter of Moses at the burning bush, “I spoke to Moses at the Burning Bush, Take you’re shoes off Moses, you’re on Holy Ground.

 -Ten commandments: no other gods before God, you shall not make any graven images, don’t use the lords name in vain, remember the Sabbath and keep it holy, honor your father and mother, No stealing, no killing, no coveting neighbors wives, do not commit adultery, do not bear false witness on neighbors.   

*What justifies Literature?  According to Frye: narrative, story, and image. 

 -Iconoclasm: Greek for ‘image-breaking’; rejection or destruction of religious images as heretical. 

GOD STREAKS!!

Posted by bmcycleski at 2:16 PM EDT

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Test Material: Test, Thursday 10-8,

-The Bible: Genesis

-Classroom Discussions: Check Blogs, Tom and this one

-Frye: Chapters 1 & 2

-Women and Bible lecture, Dr. Lynda Sexson

-David Plotz: Genesis

-Peer Blogs

 Genesis: Chapter 38

-Lacuna, why did the lord slay Er, Judah’s firstborn.  Judah’s other son must go unto Er’s wife, but Onan doesn’t want to – Wuss.  And so the Lord slays him too.  What’s Er’s wife gonna do?  She pretends to be a temple prostitute, sacred prostitute.

 Kugal and Berlinerb, call the bible junk sculpture and pastisch

 Frye: bricolage: borrowing something here, borrowing something there. But that isn’t a bad thing, perhaps better, showing the unifying forces of these archetypes and mythos.  Plotz thinks otherwise. 

 Genesis 42, 43: Joseph’s Brothers go to Egypt, Benjamin

-Benjamin getting handed around, keeping the game going, very narrative language, the J writer at her best.

 Repetition in the bible is necessary, mandatory, deal with it.

Literature- to keep the game going

 *Shift to a novel, Thomas Mann, a big novel that fills in the lacunas. *   What’s better? The Lacunas or the details? Both?

 Remember for Frye, ch. 3, Joseph is a fruitful Bow

 Test Question/Material:

1.    The two authors of creation stories in genesis, J, P; God in his PJ’s

2.    JEDPR

3.    First five books of the bible: Torah, Pentateuch.  Genesis, Exodus, Levitucus, numbers Deuteronoy,

4.    Torah, Nebahim, Ketuvim, Torah, Law, prophets, writing

5.    Abraham, Isaac, Jacob; three patriarchs. 

6.    How many sons did Jacob have? 12; which two are by the wife he wanted, Rachel, Joe and Ben.

7.    What did Lynda think of Plotz? She hated him.  Plotz thinks women are prostitutes, Lynda says they’re feminine metaphors of power, deception

8.    Hosea: married a harlot, Israel is a harlot.

9.    Lynda’s view of Lots daughters, passion and respect to procreate father’s seed.

10. Carl Eats Little Whinny Puppies with Gravy Asparagus:  Creation, Exodus, Law, Wisdom, Prophecy, Gospel, Apocalypse

11. Vico’s ages: gods, heroes, men; Frye’s correlating stages of language: metaphor, metonymic, descriptive (demotic).   *Frye says we should read the bible literally, as a child, what the text says is what it means, believe it for the sake or mythos, narrative

12. Mythos; Greek for “story”

13.  Repetitive Parallelism, ex. Handsome and good looking.

14. Psalm 51, the boy hitting the high note.

15. Circumcision, biblical meaning, physical reminder of the covenant, sacrifice to God.  Dr. Sexson’s mutilation of student’s earlobes,

16. Lacuna: Gaps in the text

17. Difference between Homer (not Simpson) and the bible: Homer describes everything, the bible leaves lacunas

18.  Kerygma: revelation, a kind of language that blends revelation and proclamation. 

19. Logos: story, words; has come to mean fact, truth; perhaps a true story about a talking snake. 

20. Psyche: today means mind, back then meant “soul”.

21. Example of etiology: how did the elephant get its trunk, why do women give birth in pain? She listened to the snake.  Why do snakes crawl on their bellies? Because the snake tempted, tricked Adam and Eve.

22. Archetype: a model narrative.   Cain: archetype of fugitive. 

23. Gnosticism: theology of philosophy, which locates salvation in knowledge. –Great definition Dr. Sexson.  Movie: “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” See it. 

24. Critical approach vs. traditional approach to the bible; critical = literary, scholarly approach; traditional = faith

25. Hubris: Tower of Babel, people who are to arrogant, excessive pride, so God jumbles their language.

26. Documentary Hypothesis: the first five books of the bile written by multiple authors.  In a nutshell: that there were multiple authors of the bible.

27. Blogs: check the ones that have been brought up in class.  Jason’s blog: colorful and inventive strategies to deal with hyperboles of bibles, but Jason explains that it’s metaphorical language; Occam’s Razor: the most likely answer is the simplest one.  Nick’s blog on “The Lonely God”

28. Women in the bible, what were the writers worried about? Social Justice, Cultic purity, False Gods

29. Archetypes of Eve and Mary of women in the bible.       

Posted by bmcycleski at 2:11 PM EDT

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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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