BIBLICAL FOUNDATIONS OF LITERATURE
LIT 240 - Fall 2009

Friday, December 18, 2009

Alpha and Omega

An "ouroboros" drawn by Theodoros Pelecanos, Synosius (1478)

One generation passeth away, and another cometh;
And the earth abideth for ever.
The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down,
And hasteth to his place where he ariseth.
The wind goeth toward the south,
And turneth about unto the north;
It turneth about continually in its circuit,
And the wind returneth again to its circuits.
All the rivers run into the sea,
Yet the sea is not full;
Unto the place whither the rivers go,
Thither they go again.
All things toil to weariness;
Man cannot utter it,
The eye is not satisfied with seeing,
Nor the ear filled with hearing.
That which hath been is that which shall be,
And that which hath been done is that which shall be done;
And there is nothing new under the sun.
(Ecclesiastes 1.4-9)

So, we've come to the end. We're due to take the final in a few hours, and our ecclesia will be no more. Or will it?

As my introductory blog post, a lifetime ago in August, lifted its title from the first chapter of Genesis ("...and there was light."), I thought it would be fitting to take a passage from the last chapter of Revelation for my official sign-off. Perhaps, just Omega - the end. The more I thought about it though, the more I realized that espousing such a point A to point B linearity would betray what we've learned in this class. And would lead the spirit of Northrop Frye to haunt me for my typological ineptitude.

Ironically enough, I found the above passage from Ecclesiastes as a preface to Telling It Again and Again: Repetition In Literature & Film, by Bruce F. Kawin (1972), while researching for my previously-mentioned Film Theory term paper on repetition and rhythm in the age of digital reproduction. It reminded me of the central reason, amongst many lesser ones, that the King James Version has continued to persist as the biblical English translation par excellence for the last four hundred years - its endearingly poetic language. I had already glossed over this passage in the NSRV, but it took seeing it rendered in the KJV's archaic, yet beautiful, mode for the message to strike me, causing a revelatory anamnesis. Right away, I knew I had to use it for my last post.

This is not the end, but simply the next step in a cycle. While the class may be drawing to a close, the learning and growth - an amazing amount for a 200-level course - I've undergone as part of our ecclesia lead by Dr. Sexson, will no doubt continue to expand and manifest itself throughout my life. As Amanda Jone's blog poignantly states, "Something has been planted." This end is only a beginning amongst many; an alpha and an omega.


Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Final Paper

Expressive Tribalism In The Bible:

What I Know Now That I Didn’t Know Before, and The Difference It Makes

Foreboding and ominous, oozing a dreaded sense of fallacious hypocrisy, legitimizing millennia of bloodshed and ignorance; I once feared the Bible. Or, rather, I feared the Bible’s misappropriation at the hand of fire-and-brimstone fundamentalists. Gravely mistaken, I misconstrued the Bible as a work of literature with its crude abuse in the hands of literalists. I am happy to inform, however, that my biblical phobia has fully receded into permanent remission, replaced by a newfound passion full of vigor and unbridled curiosity. “The Biblical Foundations of Literature” has corrected me, purging me of misunderstanding and resultant intimidation. No longer do I view the Bible as a big, bad singular volume full of contradictions, but as a varied library of shifting worldviews and narratives that pervade Western literature and thought. While it may be safe to assume that I will never regard the Bible as a revealed text, I nevertheless find comfort in its metaphorical and historical contexts. As a foundational work of literature, the Bible must be cherished for its expressive uniqueness as a manifestation of an originally tribal people’s anagogic prowess.

When first introduced to the notion of “tribal exclusivity” by our guest lecturer, a seed was planted into the back of my head. While tribal exclusivity operated within the lecture as an explanation of inter-familial (i.e. cousin) marriage, the anxiety of tribal preservation, cultic transgression, and modes of patriarchy, the term most importantly revealed an expanded way of encountering the Bible as a narrative. In essence, I underwent metanoia, reversing my “usual conceptions of time and space” (Frye 130). Serving as a powerful reminder of the negative implications of viewing ancient narrative through the lens of the present, tribal exclusivity as an analytical device fulfilled the definition of metanoia advanced by Northrop Frye in which such “a vision, amongst other things, detaches one from one’s primary community and attaches him to another” (130). Despite my realization concerning tribal exclusivity’s role as a mesocosm – a bridge to the past of the Hebrew Scriptures, primarily – it was only one of many such revelatory transformations I experienced throughout our course’s duration. Nevertheless, as a metanoic trigger and analytic lens, tribal exclusivity forms a perfect spine from which to expound upon the topic of “what I know now that I did not know before, and the difference it makes.”

While reading the Bible, one absolute constant seems to emerge: its kerygmatic, multi-source nature inherently allows for a varied multitude of interpretation and relevant experience. The Bible as a whole simultaneously serves those concerned with traditionalist theology, religionists seeking affirmations of their worldview, scholars searching for Levantine historicity, and our class – students of story and metaphor. In a way, the Bible operates as a metaphorical tree, from which various sustained meanings branch off, as Frye explains:

Suppose we thought of Plato’s myths, not as illustrating his dialogues but as the primary meaning of which the dialectic discussions form a commentary. This would lead us to the principle that metaphorical meaning has the same relation to discursive meaning that myth has to history: it is a universal or poetic meaning, and can sustain a number of varying and yet consistent renderings of its discursive meaning, just as a myth can sustain a number of historical exempla. (Frye 65)

The use of tribal exclusivity as a tool of analysis, to derive further meaning from scriptural text, inhabits the role of viewing the metaphorical universality of the Bible through a particularly discursive, historical context.

In Numbers 13, God orders Moses to send spies to Canaan, which he intends to give to the Israelites. The spies report back that the land “flows with milk and honey … Yet the people who live in the land are strong, and the towns are fortified and very large,” after which one of the spies, Caleb son of Jephunneh, insists, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.” (NRSV, Num. 13.27-30). From Numbers 13, a traditionalist would most likely interpret God’s command as a literal step in delivering his chosen people to the Promised Land, with Caleb’s insistence demonstrating righteous faith in the divine logos of God. While a critical interpretation would discount such a traditionalist notion, the passage resists a solely poetic reading. Instead, as Frye observes, the Bible presents “a historical myth that by-passes conventional historical criteria: it is neither a specific history nor a purely poetic vision, but presents the history of Israel, past and future, in a way that leaves conventional history free to do its own work” (Frye 65). A reading of Numbers 13 through the lens of tribal exclusivity resists being specifically historical or solely poetic, instead it reveals a metaphorically expressed validation of tribal preservation via hostile invasion throughout “the history of Israel, past and future.”

One may argue that Caleb is faithful to God, but he seems most loyal to God’s plan for his tribe, to the regenerative violence that will ensure the Israelites’ continued survival and establish their sovereignty. When the Israelites rebel in Numbers 14 after being deceived by false reports from the other spies who fear the strength of Canaan’s indigenous tribes, God declares, “According to the number of the days, for which you spied out the land, forty days, for every day a year, you shall bear your iniquity, forty years, and you shall know my displeasure” (14.34). Of all the adult Israelites, only Caleb and another, Joshua, are allowed to enter the Promised Land immediately. As further punishment, “the men who brought an unfavorable report about the land died by a plague before the Lord. But Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh alone remained alive, of those men who went to spy out the land” (Num. 14.37-38). Interestingly, Caleb is thought to be of an “old epic” source dominating the passage, while Joshua, who also gives a positive report of the Promised Land in Numbers 14:7, “is included only in verses that stem from the Priestly tradition” (Hackert 218). Ultimately, despite their originally disparate sources, the characters of Caleb and Joshua inhabit a consistent archetype of the ideal Jew willing to face adversity to ensure his people’s continued viability as a tribe, even when the rest of the tribe dissents. Caleb and Joshua enter the Promised Land, a space both metaphorical and historical, wherein the tribe will cement their identity through force and exclusivity. The Promised Land constitutes an ancient Israelite version of Manifest Destiny, simultaneously imagined and real, spiritually ordained and temporally sectarian.

Requisite to a greater understanding of how tribalism expresses itself through literature, particularly in the Bible, is an elaboration upon tribal exclusivity’s inherent relationship to marital practices. As our guest lecturer noted, the marriage of cousins was common and even encouraged up until recent history, all for the sake of preserving the tribe’s exclusive purity. Abraham bounds his servant by oath, telling him, “you will not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I live, but will go to my country and to my kindred and get a wife for my son Isaac” (Gen. 24.3-4). The servant, pleading with God for success, finds the perfect candidate in Rebekah, Isaac’s first cousin once removed. In essence, Abraham establishes the practice of endogamy – marrying within one’s own group – that becomes a central aspect of traditional Judaic culture and Biblical literature. Were the Israelites to endorse exogamy, or marriage with outsiders, one may safely assume that Judaism would not exist as a unique ethno-religious identity today.

Despite the importance of tribal exclusivity through endogamy, important limits exist within the Hebrew Scriptures. In Leviticus, God makes a general statement, “None of you shall approach anyone near of kin to uncover nakedness: I am the Lord” (18.6). A laundry list of sexual restrictions follows, specifically declaring what constitutes incest, including relations with parents, your father’s wife, siblings, grandchildren, a daughter of your father’s wife, aunts, and so on. Of course, the list purposefully refrains from barring relations between cousins; as such practice was not considered incest but a valuable vanguard of tribal purity. When applied to Genesis, however, the restrictions against marrying your daughter-in-law (Lev. 18.15) or a woman and her sister (Lev. 18.17) conflict with the stories of Judah’s marriage to Tamar and Jacob’s marriage to his cousins Leah and Rachel, rival sisters. According to the HarperCollins Study Bible’s footnotes, such conflict between Levitical law and the sacred patriarchs is easily resolved by the fact that such discrepancies “occurred before the Sinaitic law code became operative” (Milgrom 178). Yet, interestingly enough, the restriction against marrying your brother’s wife in Leviticus 18:16 seemingly opposes “the institution of levirate marriage” (Milgrom 178). Outlawing levirate marriage directly conflicts with the early endogamic practices of Israelites, in which a male was mandated to marry his deceased brother’s wife should he leave behind no son (Deuteronomy 25.5-10). Consequently, the conflict between imagined law and social reality reveals a certain tension between the logos and praxis of tribal exclusivity. Before taking the “Biblical Foundations of Literature,” a discordant relationship between the written word and lived experience may have proved bothersome, but I now welcome such tension as a simple extension of our class’s ever-evident mantra, “God loves conflict.”

Indeed, were no conflict to arise from the endogamous practices of traditional Judaism, were the Israelites and their descendents to not engage in tribal exclusivity, Isaac Baashevis Singer would have been unable to write The Slave. Without opposition to his love for Wanda, a gentile, the Jewish protagonist in Jacob would only possibly face the adversity of being a slave to Jan Bzik. Most likely, Jacob would not even be a slave, as a great deal of the abuse perpetuated by European gentiles upon Jews stemmed from misunderstandings fostered by the insular tribalism of both groups. Even if Jacob were enslaved, it is fairly safe to postulate that he would have accepted the offer to marry Wanda and integrate himself into her village. Jacob and Wanda’s love would not be forbidden, would not warrant violent recourse by gentiles or excommunication by Jews, and, thus, would not generate conflict. Instead of driving the narrative to possess an engaging, constantly undulating parabolic shape, Jacob’s story would simply flounder as a boringly flat, demotic account. No conflict, no story.

As described by our guest lecturer, a persistent concern with procreation exists throughout the Torah, especially in Genesis. In the Priestly writer’s account of Creation, God’s first command to the newly created humans is to “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1.28). Immediately, the anxiety of tribal preservation emerges within the Hebrew Scriptures as a literary agent of paramount significance. The importance of preserving one’s tribe becomes most painfully evident through the story of Lot’s daughters. Fearing that their people are no more, the anathema of incest transforms into a viable last resort so that they “may preserve offspring through [their] father” (Gen 19.33). Getting Lot drunk on wine, both daughters proceed to rape him; a poetic retribution for previously offering them up for gang rape by the angry mob in Sodom. Nevertheless, the expositional intent of the unnamed daughters remains pure, not vengeful, even if its execution constitutes a shameful act. What may have otherwise been a grave transgression instead becomes a misguided act of tribal dedication. As a result of their mistaken incest, Lot’s daughters give birth to Moab and Ben-ammi, the eponymous ancestors of the Moabites and Ammonites, respectively. By utilizing a failure of tribal preservation as a shameful etiological account to mock their neighboring rivals, the Israelites metaphorically reassert their own tribal identity as a “pure” or chosen people.

In order to engender a well-rounded portrayal of tribal exclusivity as it relates to marriage and procreation in the Hebrew Scriptures, exceptions to the theme must be explored. Amongst ta biblia, The Book of Ruth presents a particularly moving and well-crafted short work of literature. The story of Ruth, a widowed Moabite, remaining steadfastly loyal to her Israelite mother-in-law Naomi, and vice versa, allows for the temporary reversal of tribal exclusivity should an outsider demonstrate sufficient reverence towards their adopted kinsfolk. After marrying Boaz, Ruth ensures the continuation of Naomi’s family through the birth of a son:

Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without next-of-kin; and may his name be renowned in Israel! He shall be to you a restorer of life and nourisher of your old age; for you daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has borne him.” (4.14-15)

While Ruth’s child may not be Naomi’s biological grandson, he presents a solution to the anxiety of tribal preservation. Instead of being simply a family tale, The Book of Ruth may very well be an allegory for “the continuity of the nation, an extension of the idea of family continuity. The Judeans, like the family of Naomi, returned from exile and rebuilt their community” (Berlin 213). By marrying Boaz, Ruth allows for a surrogate genealogical line to flourish in her deceased husband’s stead, and enables the eventual birth of King David (4.21). Cultivating the future of Israel through conception, it seems only fitting that much of the story “is linked to the imagery of harvest” (Frye 155). Ruth, if anything, becomes an integral agent of tribal preservation and a key player in Israel’s establishment of exclusive sovereignty through the mythically unifying kingship of David.

When viewed through the lens of the present, the presence of divinely ordained genocide in the Hebrew Scriptures conflicts with modern-day, traditional notions of a merciful God. By thinking of genocidal narrative as an expression of tribal exclusivity and preservation, however, the obscuring veil of modernity may be lifted so as to attain a metanoic realization. As punishment for “opposing the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt,” God promises to blot out the Amalekites (I Sam 15.2). The prophet Samuel orders King Saul to “utterly destroy” the Amalekites, and to “not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey” (I Sam 15.2-3). Sauls spares the Amalek king, Agag, and the choicest livestock, ostensibly to be used as burnt offerings, consequently incurring the wrath of Samuel. Declaring that “rebellion is no less a sin than divination,” Samuel and God reject Saul “from being king” (I Sam 15.23). Under a literalist scope, Saul’s harsh punishment results from being disobediently merciful, however slightly, in committing genocide. Considering, however, that the Amalekites continue to reemerge throughout the narrative, with David resuming their slaughter, a superficial reading of the text fosters obvious inadequacies. By applying Occam’s Razor, we come to the simplest solution: the story of Saul’s destruction of Amalek is a metaphor. Rather than being an endorsement of genocide, Saul’s rebellion and ultimate punishment serves the dual purpose of reiterating the authority of God’s logos and the need for a competent king to protect Israel from its rivals. Yet again, we are reminded that God loves conflict, God loves mythos, as do the Israelites. Through regenerative violence against a common enemy, Israel reinforces its identity as a cohesive, uniquely exclusive tribe that continues to persevere in the enactment of its own story. In our age of melting-pot multiculturalism, the idea of erecting and constantly rebuffing boundaries of tribal identity (i.e. “We are Israel. You are Amalek.”) may seem foreign or backwards, yet such sectarianism was – and still is – an integral function of community-cohesion and self-identification in the Levant. Certainly the ancient Israelites and Amalekites of "actual history" engaged in countless bloody conflicts, committing what may be viewed today as horrible atrocities against one another, but the biblical or kerygmatic portrayal of such events serves primarily as an allegorical proponent of tribal exclusivity, of communal identity, of solidarity.

Representing a crucial paradigmatic shift in the tribal identity of Israel, the development of Judaic monarchy arouses unique literary tensions. The total transition from the relatively anarchic and decentralized system of judges to the centralized, monarchial authority of kings was not instantaneous or without resistance. Constituting the central arc of First and Second Samuel, the authorship of text pertaining to the emergence of Judaic monarchy is composed of “a group of early narrative sources upon which later editors and compilers drew” (McCarter 390). Amongst these sources, some express suspicions of the institution of kingship, while others support it (McCarter 390-1). Thus, a tense narrative of differing mores and attitudes emerges. In a particularly anti-monarchal verse, God tells Samuel that in their insistent requests to be given a monarch, the Israelites “have rejected me from being king over them” (1 Sam. 8.7). The differing biases of First Samuel’s sources seemingly originate from a larger debate on the merits of a king’s temporal authority versus the spiritual authority of God and his “divinely appointed” representatives. A sectarian worldview, stemming from an intrinsic sense of sacred exclusiveness, alongside Judaic monotheism, with its central tenet of exclusive devotion to one supreme “Lord,” combine in resistance against a powerful desire to raise a king and be “like other nations” (1 Sam. 8.5). As Frye notes, a new sense of typology develops touting a forward-directed vision of Israel’s place in history:

The most important single historical fact about the Old Testament is that the people who produced it were never lucky at the game of empire. Temporal power was in heathen hands; consequently history became reshaped into a future-directed history, in which the overthrow of the heathen empires and the eventual recognition of Israel’s unique historical importance are the main events. (Frye 83)

The wish for temporal success and a forward idealization of Israel’s exclusive position in history contributes to the perceived need for a strong, central government. Ultimately, the Israelites’ demand for a king who "may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles" (1 Sam. 8:20) wins out. The transformation of Israel into a monarchy only reflects the surface of a larger, evolving societal dynamic, as the expression of tribal identity manifests in an increasingly nationalistic, broader level. Exit the Twelve Tribes of Israel, enter the Jewish People.

Tribal exclusivity obviously exists independently of monotheism or polytheism, but not of mythos, through which it is expressed. Nevertheless, the exclusive monotheism of the Israelites played a major role in the formation of their own unique brand of expressive tribalism. Throughout much of the Hebrew Scriptures, the prophets, judges, and God constantly occupy themselves with dragging the ancient Israelites kicking and screaming into monotheism. God commands Hosea to take for himself “a wife of whoredom” (Hosea 1:2), serving as an allegory for God’s own relationship with his unfaithful bride, Israel, who keeps straying to the comfort of Canaanite and Mesopotamian gods. Born in a polytheistic environment, surviving millennia of discrimination and violence; the Jewish identity places great emphasis upon the adversity through which it has persevered. Without a doubt, the Yahweh of the Hebrew Scriptures gives cause on multiple occasions to believe that he is not a particularly easy god to follow. For instance, in First Samuel, God slaughters at least seventy people for not celebrating the Ark of the Covenant’s arrival in Beth-Semesh, leading the rest of the town to cry out, "Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God? To whom shall he go so that we may be rid of him?" (6:20). Without conflict, Yahweh would not be Yahweh, and neither would the Israelites be Israelites. As scars serve as physical testimony of what one has endured, the Hebrew Bible operates as a metaphorical testimony of a Semitic people’s struggle to coalesce into a single, communal whole, to carve out a tribally exclusive identity.

Unfortunately, the Bible aptly demonstrates that justified violence, bigotry, and oppression can manifest as dark by-products of a tribally exclusive worldview. Yet, tribal exclusivity in itself is not necessarily evil or wrong, but a facet of humanity as metaphor is a facet of storytelling. We still engage in exclusion to define who we are, but on a more multidimensional scale, from ethnic blocs to nation states to sub-cultures to social cliques. Shaping the mythos through which it was expressed, ancient Israelite tribalism in turn continues to reinforce Judeo-Christian and Western identities through the legacy of biblical narrative. Narratives inform us of whom we are not literally, but metaphorically. Therefore, everyone should love the Bible, believers and non-believers alike, as a monumental library of literature with the anagogic potential to help shape your own story. Respect the creative power of logos.



Work Cited

Frye, Northrop. The Great Code: The Bible and Literature. New York: Harvesy/HBJ , 1982.

Hackert, JoAnn “Numbers Introduction and Annotations.” The HarperCollins Study Bible. New Revised Standard Version, Including the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books With Concordance. Eds. Harold W. Attridge, et al. Revised Edition. New York: HarperCollins, 2006. 194-254.

McCarter, Kyle “1st & 2nd Samuel Introduction and Annotations.” The HarperCollins Study Bible. New Revised Standard Version, Including the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books With Concordance. Eds. Harold W. Attridge, et al. Revised Edition. New York: HarperCollins, 2006. 389-473.

Milgrom, Jacob “Leviticus Introduction and Annotations.” The HarperCollins Study Bible. New Revised Standard Version, Including the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books With Concordance. Eds. Harold W. Attridge, et al. Revised Edition. New York: HarperCollins, 2006. 150-193.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Video Update

Even though our last class period has come and gone, I still intend to compile the picture and video elements from the Samuel presentation's semi-botched slideshow into a simple video. I should be able to post it by Sunday, Monday at the latest. (EDIT 12/18: Unfortunately, the madness of finals week won out. In retrospect, I was a little naive thinking I could make the video while already being over-extended and sleep-deprived.) Ideally, I wish I could just turn back the clock and not automatically assume the projector would operate as a separate display, like most, instead of only mirroring the desktop and thus preventing the software (Livid Union) from working. Ah, well. A video-nerd can only dream.

Not that I want to be "that video guy," but here's two more short experimental pieces I worked on, for the same class as my Peter Quince video. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to create a "final version" of the Peter Quince video - it'll have to wait until break. Only reason I'm sharing these two projects is because they, however loosely, yet again borrow from concepts discussed in class.



-Frontierspace Ricorso (a.k.a. "Space Cowboy")


Password: spacecowboy

An abstract genre-response project inspired by the connections between Sci-fi and the Western and the "ricorso" of their recycled themes and tropes, as well as the individual's relationship with technology and the supposed frontier. Not happy with some of the found footage we used, but it had to be abandoned at some point.

Props to Vico for the name.


-Three Whys for Voltaire (a.k.a. "Questions")


Password: questions

The first version of our final project. Required to be based on a quote. Went for a slowly flowing, meditative feel. Currently working on a second, finer cut/composite to be turned in today.

On the off-chance anyone's interested, both of these will shown at the Multimedia Concert this Sunday at 7:30pm, in Howard Hall, along with other Music Tech/Film major collaborations.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

An Absalomic Poem and Random Bitterness


Digging through old files on my computer, attempting to mine some documents saved previously with information relevant to my seminar term paper for Film & Doc Theory (MTA 469), I stumbled upon a poem written on a whim last year.

Late night
Alive with manic pulses
Two halcyon weddings
Thrice removed
Sit we here in Absalom
A family bereft of new
One dead
Three more to come
In the light so faint
A moon

What exactly was running through my mind eludes memory. I only vaguely remember impulsively writing it in the wee hours, when I should have been rewriting a screenplay, evidenced by the first two lines. Makes sense, traditional screenwriting is a bastardized form of logos, sucked dry of creativity by an overabundance of conventions, strict formatting, and narrative formulae. Certainly, there exists numerous talented artists who got their start writing for the screen, i.e. Charlie Kaufman, but the majority of "great film scripts" seem to be generated by people who first gain autonomy as a filmmaker. Once you're P.T. Anderson, you're able to exert a lot of creative control over your own writing, but this isn't so for John Q. Screenwriter. Selling a "spec script" as an unknown usually requires strict adherence to the bastardized form mentioned above or it'll be thrown out by a studio's script reader. Of course, there exists solid, tried and true reasons for this - following those "formulae" helps create a tightly constructed, active story that can be easily read and analyzed quickly by prospective producers. A story that comfortably operates within our mainstream mythos. And, very important to note, despite many commonalities and an abundance of intertext, film and literature are two considerably different beasts, with distinctively separate strengths and weaknesses. So, my assessment of screenwriting from a literary standpoint is somewhat unfair.

Wow, I've gone way off tangent. Fallen off the cliff. Missed the original target completely. I guess the memory of writing that poem dredged up my loss of romance with the previously sacred "film script." Coincidentally, my experiences with film often cause me to feel like Absalom in the painting above, routed and strung up by my hair. At least I checked myself by the end of it. No more disillusioned rants, I promise.

Anyways. Before this class, I was vaguely aware of Absalom, in other words I assumed I knew his story. I'm not sure what the "two halcyon weddings" reference, or what I assumed they were referencing. At least "A family bereft of new / One dead" coincides with the murder of Amnon (for raping Tamar) and David's later grief following Absalom's death at his own command.

Paper Notes and Blogflooding

First off: I should have published this post last Thursday (12/3).

By and large my blog-activity has slowed down considerably; I never seem to have a "dead week" before finals, but rather a "dead month". Researching and stressing over my 20 page film seminar paper, amongst other projects and studying, has left me intellectually drained. Then again, I think I tend to place these blogs on a pedestal too often. Once I'm writing, everything's fine, getting over the anxiety of what to write is the difficult part. That being said, I have a lot of ideas and unfinished blogs I still want, or compulsively feel a need, to complete and post. If only I had enough time to unleash a biblical blogflood. There's never enough time.

Which brings me to my paper. Despite devoting a considerable amount of time preparing it, giving it a lot of thought, and even presenting it, the paper itself remains incomplete - a jumble of ideas lacking connective tissue. Apologies if the presentation also seemed a bit shaky and disjointed; I can usually manage my stage fright, except when caffeine and sleep deprivation are thrown into the mix. Jittery, to say the least. As a sort of cathartic exercise, and to make up for not previously writing a "paper topic" blog, I've transcribed an elaborated outline from my index cards.

-INTRO: Beginning from the end. How what I've learned has personally affected me.
  • Before taking this class, I feared the Bible as an ominous, single volume.
  • Now I realize my bible-phobia really stemmed from fundamentalist literal interpretations and misappropriations, not the book itself.
  • I've come to no longer view the Bible as a big, bad book full of contradictions, but to love it as a varied library of shifting worldviews and narratives that pervade Western literature and thought. Foundational text(s).
  • I think everyone should love the Bible, believers and non-believers alike. While I don't regard it as a revealed text, I nevertheless find comfort in its metaphorical and historical contexts.
  • Respect the power of logos, especially in this Age of Chaos.

-TRIBAL EXCLUSIVITY: implications thereof
  • How it reinforces and perpetuates the worldviews and subsequent stories of the ancient Israelites. How it manifests in their mythos.

-GENOCIDAL NARRATIVE: an expression of tribal exclusivity
  • Within the Hebrew Scriptures exists numerous accounts of genocides commanded or ordained by God
  • Conflicts with modern-day notions of a merciful God when viewed through the lens of the present.
  • Example: Samuel, on behalf of God, commands Saul to destroy the Amalekites - including women, children, even animals - in First Samuel.
  • God/Samuel rebukes Saul for sparing King Agag and the best livestock (ostensibly to be used for burnt offerings).
  • God originally promised to blot out the Amalekites in Exodus, after their raids upon the Israelites returning from Egypt.
  • Despite being supposedly killed off by Saul, the Amalekites continually reemerge in the narrative - often only briefly. David continues to slaughter them.
  • Apply Occam's Razor - the simplest solution: it's a metaphor!
  • God loves mythos, God loves conflict.
  • No doubt, both the ancient Israelites and Amalekites/Agagites of "actual history" engaged in bloody conflicts, committing what would be viewed today as horrible atrocities against one another, but the biblical or "kerygmatic" portrayal of such events serves primarily as an allegorical proponent of tribal exclusivity, of communal identity, of solidarity.

-EXCLUSIVE MONOTHEISM: more conflict, more mythos
  • Tribal exclusivity obviously exists independently of monotheism or polytheism, but not of mythos, through which it is expressed.
  • Nevertheless, the exclusive monotheism of the Israelites contributes uniquely to their own brand of tribal exclusivity.
  • In much of the Hebrew Scriptures, the prophets/judges/God constantly seem to be dragging the Israelites kicking and screaming into exclusive monotheism. God wouldn't be God without conflict, neither would the Israelites be the Israelites. They attempt to resist the paradigmatic shifts of tribal identity and mythos, failing ultimately and serving to deter the contemporaries of the authors and/or redactors of such books from transgressing against the tribe.
  • Example: Women resisting the patriarchy and exclusive monotheism in Jeremiah 7, making offerings to Ishtar, the "Queen of Heaven."

-DEVELOPMENT OF JUDAIC MONARCHY: transformation of tribal exclusivity
  • Throughout First Samuel, there exists stories and passages with a prevalent anti-monarchy bias, often referred to as the "Republican source" (as opposed to the pro-kingship "Monarchial source").
  • Example: God saying, "...they have rejected me from being king over them." (I Samuel 8:7).
  • Conflicts of exclusive monotheism with monarchy and of Hebrew tribal exclusivity with the desire to be like neighboring nations, who have kings to "protect" and represent them.
  • Expression of tribal exclusivity on an increasingly nationalistic, larger level. Exit the Twelve Tribes of Israel, enter The Jewish People.

-A NOTE ON QUOTES/SUPPORTING EVIDENCE:
  • The events of Samuel act only as a spine in my exploration of tribal exclusivity's expression(s) in the Bible.
  • Includes several quotes integrated from other books (Genesis, Numbers, Leviticus, etc.) in the Hebrew Scriptures, and a liberal dose of Frye.
-CONCLUSION: in outline form
  • Exclusivity is not necessarily an evil or wrong, but a facet of humanity.
  • We still engage in it, but on a larger scale: nation states, subcultures, etc.
  • Narratives inform us of who we are not literally, but metaphorically.