FadeTheButcher
07-01-2004, 03:56 AM
This shall be a work in progress so stay with me here. :)
This chapter is the key to my entire argument, or, stated differently, the core of the narrative that constitutes my argument. Here I will discuss the understanding of reality and the human condition implied in the Bible and its implications for morality and social order. As the chapter title indicates, the Bible represents a revolution in human understanding, and by the end of this chapter, the read should have a substantial sense of both how modern societies came to their present crisis and how they might address that crisis, although some additional elaboration will be required to make this completely clear. Let us examine, them, what the Bible has to say.
8.1 Understanding the Bible
Before we begin to comprehend the cosmological and anthropological implications of the biblical narrative, we need to be sure that we do indeed understand the Bible. As we mentioned briefly in discussing the pagan worldview, it is a serious mistake to take documents from the ancient world strictly literally. The Bible, like the various pagan epics, is a product of an oral culture that thinks in poetic, imaginative terms and that uses a variety of narrative devices, such as miraculous occurences, as aids to memory. The critical question, therefore, when reading one of the biblical stories is not "Did it literally happen?" but rather "What does it mean and what can it tell us about the human situation?" Additionally, it is a serious mistake in interpreting the Bible to take isolated passages out of context. Again, as I mentioned in chapter 6, oral cultures use narratives to express ideas, and focusing only on isolated passages within a narrative can distort or even completely destroy the meaning of those passages. The Bible, like most other ancient literature, must be read as a collection of stories that convey certain ideas about God, the world, and humanity, and these ideas will be lost if the book is read as some kind of scientific report or instruction manual.
Before we begin discussing the key biblical stories, a bit of historical and literary background will be helpful. Let us begin with a brief chronology. The oldest biblical stories with a basis in historical occurences are the stories about Abraham and his descendants, which, biblical scholars have determined, deal with events taking place in the eighteenth century B.C. These stories appear to be derived from tribal migrations that took place at this time. As I have just mentioned, the important point of these stories is not whether they are literally true, but what they can tell us about the human response to God's call at this point in history. Notice, incidentally, that the time between Abraham and Christ is almost as great as the time between Christ and ourselves. The next major set of stories, those dealing with Moses and the Israelite exodus from Egypt, are derived from events during the thirteenth century B.C. After the exodus, Israel had what appears to have been a more or less republican type of government during what is referred to as the time of the judges in the twelfth century B.C., but during the eleventh and tenth century B.C. a monarchy was instituted by Saul, David, and Solomon - an event that many Israelites later came to see as their nation's fatal sin, since it made Israel like the surrounding pagan empires. Elijah, the first great prophet, lived and preached against the corruption and decadence of the monarchial system in the ninth century B.C.; his message was extended and elaborated by Isaiah in the eighth century B.C. In 721 B.C. Assyria conquered the northern part of Israel, leaving only the southern kingdom of Judah independent, and in 587 B.C. Babylon conquered Judah and deported part of the population. The books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel were written around the time of this second conquest, and modern biblical scholars think that it was also during this period, commonly referred to as the Exile, that chapters 40-55 of the book of Isaiah were written, presumably by a discipline of the original prophet. In 539 B.C. Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylon and allowed the exiled Israelites to return home. Jerusalem and its temple, which had been largely destroyed by the Babylonians, were then rebuilt, and in fact this period is generally regarded as the beginning of Judaism as we know it today. Jewish independence did not last long, however; in 331 B.C. the area was conquered by Greece, which precipitated a controversy within Judaism over how much to assimilate to the dominant Greek culture, and in 63 B.C. Rome gained control of Palestine, which led to a struggle to regain independence. It was in this context that Jesus of Nazareth was born, ministered, and died. Jesus was crucified in about 30 A.D., and in 70 A.D. the Jewish attempt to gain independence came to a very unhappy end, as Rome crushed an armed revolt and destroyed the temple. This led to what is referred to as the Diaspora, or dispersal of the Jewish people throughout the Roman Empire.
As literature, the Bible is a very complicated document; modern biblical scholars have determined that it is composed of a wide variety of literary genres and writing styles, and it was written, edited, and arranged into a unified book in a process that stretched out over many centuries. The literary structure of the Bible can be used to indicate another important feature of oral cultures. This has to do with the question of authorship, and is best illustrated in the case of the first five books of the Bible, commonly referred to as the Pentateuch, or Torah. The authorship of the Torah has been traditionally ascribed to Moses, partly because Moses is actually credited as the author in several places. Modern biblical scholars, however, have determined that these books were written by a number of people long after Moses lived. This certainly does not make them fraudulent, however. The authors attributed these writings to Moses because his life and deeds, as memoralized in stories passed down through oral tradition, inspired them, and this practice was quite common in the ancient world. The reason for this is that people in an oral culture do not have any sense of individual authorship, since they constantly drew on a common collection of stories passed down orally for generations; thus attributing a written document to someone who did not actually write it was not considered dishonest but was rather a perfectly legitimate way of venerating that person. Again we see that applying the conventions of a literate culture to documents derived from an oral culture can cause considerable confusion.
In any case, with this basic background established, let us examine the worldview of the Bible.
This chapter is the key to my entire argument, or, stated differently, the core of the narrative that constitutes my argument. Here I will discuss the understanding of reality and the human condition implied in the Bible and its implications for morality and social order. As the chapter title indicates, the Bible represents a revolution in human understanding, and by the end of this chapter, the read should have a substantial sense of both how modern societies came to their present crisis and how they might address that crisis, although some additional elaboration will be required to make this completely clear. Let us examine, them, what the Bible has to say.
8.1 Understanding the Bible
Before we begin to comprehend the cosmological and anthropological implications of the biblical narrative, we need to be sure that we do indeed understand the Bible. As we mentioned briefly in discussing the pagan worldview, it is a serious mistake to take documents from the ancient world strictly literally. The Bible, like the various pagan epics, is a product of an oral culture that thinks in poetic, imaginative terms and that uses a variety of narrative devices, such as miraculous occurences, as aids to memory. The critical question, therefore, when reading one of the biblical stories is not "Did it literally happen?" but rather "What does it mean and what can it tell us about the human situation?" Additionally, it is a serious mistake in interpreting the Bible to take isolated passages out of context. Again, as I mentioned in chapter 6, oral cultures use narratives to express ideas, and focusing only on isolated passages within a narrative can distort or even completely destroy the meaning of those passages. The Bible, like most other ancient literature, must be read as a collection of stories that convey certain ideas about God, the world, and humanity, and these ideas will be lost if the book is read as some kind of scientific report or instruction manual.
Before we begin discussing the key biblical stories, a bit of historical and literary background will be helpful. Let us begin with a brief chronology. The oldest biblical stories with a basis in historical occurences are the stories about Abraham and his descendants, which, biblical scholars have determined, deal with events taking place in the eighteenth century B.C. These stories appear to be derived from tribal migrations that took place at this time. As I have just mentioned, the important point of these stories is not whether they are literally true, but what they can tell us about the human response to God's call at this point in history. Notice, incidentally, that the time between Abraham and Christ is almost as great as the time between Christ and ourselves. The next major set of stories, those dealing with Moses and the Israelite exodus from Egypt, are derived from events during the thirteenth century B.C. After the exodus, Israel had what appears to have been a more or less republican type of government during what is referred to as the time of the judges in the twelfth century B.C., but during the eleventh and tenth century B.C. a monarchy was instituted by Saul, David, and Solomon - an event that many Israelites later came to see as their nation's fatal sin, since it made Israel like the surrounding pagan empires. Elijah, the first great prophet, lived and preached against the corruption and decadence of the monarchial system in the ninth century B.C.; his message was extended and elaborated by Isaiah in the eighth century B.C. In 721 B.C. Assyria conquered the northern part of Israel, leaving only the southern kingdom of Judah independent, and in 587 B.C. Babylon conquered Judah and deported part of the population. The books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel were written around the time of this second conquest, and modern biblical scholars think that it was also during this period, commonly referred to as the Exile, that chapters 40-55 of the book of Isaiah were written, presumably by a discipline of the original prophet. In 539 B.C. Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylon and allowed the exiled Israelites to return home. Jerusalem and its temple, which had been largely destroyed by the Babylonians, were then rebuilt, and in fact this period is generally regarded as the beginning of Judaism as we know it today. Jewish independence did not last long, however; in 331 B.C. the area was conquered by Greece, which precipitated a controversy within Judaism over how much to assimilate to the dominant Greek culture, and in 63 B.C. Rome gained control of Palestine, which led to a struggle to regain independence. It was in this context that Jesus of Nazareth was born, ministered, and died. Jesus was crucified in about 30 A.D., and in 70 A.D. the Jewish attempt to gain independence came to a very unhappy end, as Rome crushed an armed revolt and destroyed the temple. This led to what is referred to as the Diaspora, or dispersal of the Jewish people throughout the Roman Empire.
As literature, the Bible is a very complicated document; modern biblical scholars have determined that it is composed of a wide variety of literary genres and writing styles, and it was written, edited, and arranged into a unified book in a process that stretched out over many centuries. The literary structure of the Bible can be used to indicate another important feature of oral cultures. This has to do with the question of authorship, and is best illustrated in the case of the first five books of the Bible, commonly referred to as the Pentateuch, or Torah. The authorship of the Torah has been traditionally ascribed to Moses, partly because Moses is actually credited as the author in several places. Modern biblical scholars, however, have determined that these books were written by a number of people long after Moses lived. This certainly does not make them fraudulent, however. The authors attributed these writings to Moses because his life and deeds, as memoralized in stories passed down through oral tradition, inspired them, and this practice was quite common in the ancient world. The reason for this is that people in an oral culture do not have any sense of individual authorship, since they constantly drew on a common collection of stories passed down orally for generations; thus attributing a written document to someone who did not actually write it was not considered dishonest but was rather a perfectly legitimate way of venerating that person. Again we see that applying the conventions of a literate culture to documents derived from an oral culture can cause considerable confusion.
In any case, with this basic background established, let us examine the worldview of the Bible.