J for Judges, Jesus, Jessica and Jelly

2006-11-20T13:32:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure what has happened to most of my blogs, but if you want to read all of them, Dr. Sexson I'm talking to you, you can click on the option at the top of the page that says: Search this blog. There are two pages of listings. Okay? Thanks!!

2006-11-14T10:24:00.000-08:00

I missed the class on proverbial wisdom, but I have read a number of y'alls blogs defending conventional wisdom. I wish I had been in class that day. But the subject interests me a great deal. Like Andrew, I have so many stories that I treasure from my ancestors. My family likes puns and... what is this called:

A panther is like a leapard
But it isnt peppered.
If you should behold a panther crouched,
Prepare to say
Ouch.
But better yet,
When called by a panther,
Don't anther.

Anyways, tradition, as the song goes in the fiddler on the roof, is everywhere. Tradition dictates law, and law is neccisary in a society of human beings. The Slave is a commentary on tradition , law, revolution, and humanity. Frye points out in chapter 16 that law always follows revolution as an effort to "establish order out of an original chaos" (162). But in all cases, law becomes flawed by the very nature of trying to maintain tradition. In Fiddler on the Roof, Tevya looses his daughter because he remains loyal to the Jewish tradition. Jacob in the slave loses his wife, the community loses Jacob, and all of the pain seems extremely unnecissary. Yet the Jewish community is only trying to hold on to their tradition as God asked them to over and over again in the book of Judges. The bible has had immense power over communities since it was written. The crusades, the Middle East conflict, etc...yet the bible also says, turn a cheek, love thy neighbor, and let he who has not sinned cast the first stone. The Bible is full of internal contradictions, just like The Slave, and the very idea of creating order out of chaos. That is why, perhaps, people have been able to mold entirely diferent religions based off of the same book. That is why Jacob was so conflicted in his choices. His book of law was not cohesive. It mirrored original chaos. And as Frye points out, after law is instilled,inevitable conflict will follow.

It repeats itself over and over. Right now, the Senate has been revolutionized from republican to democratic. Now in Washington D.C., thousands of people are losing their jobs, while thousands more are being promoted to new jobs. There will be a new set of laws established and everything will change. Instead of murder, rape and torture, like what happened to the Jewish communities in The Slave, instead we have the shuting down of big corporations, money re-dispersed, and laws completely changing. The idea of tradition, however, will not change. Families will still celebrate Thanksgiving, grandpareents will still be called granparents and most lives will go on the same. A new revolution will happen soon enough. (I purposely stayed out of the present war in Iraq).

And then, if you are an English major, you have all sorts of Professors telling you that you need to experience an apocalypse. The veil needs to be removed from your eyes, and you need to see that there is no such thing as truth or history. They tell you that Thanksgiving is really a rememberance of European genocide, that Christmas is really a celebration of the Saturnelia festival, and that Jesus was make believe, and that No Child Left Behind really means No Child Left Untested. And read the bible, they tell you. Read for yourself to see that it makes no sense, that it is myth and parable, and metaphors, and after you celebrate your Thanksgiving vacation, we'll hear your presentation on it.

So you go home for the holiday, and you watch your family, and you try to make sense of it all. But after awhile, you start to forget about everything you have learned, and you start to enjoy yourself, caught up in your family traditions. And nothing matters anymore, because you are caught up in parataxis, childlike, breathless, immersed in your personal tradition. And that never changes.

I have a paper on history and literary criticism, if any one wants to read it, here it is:

It began with my Grandmother who got engaged. That’s what they did in those days: They met at innocent social gatherings, the girls feigned breeziness, the boys over-indulged, the boys proposed, and then, they married. Usually the engagement process took some time. I can’t quote directly or share the evidence with you, because it is a coveted treasure in the family. I belong to the fourth generation, one generation shy of the privilege of history. But I read it once; before it was ripped from my fingertips, I read the beginning of it. It started out with a letter from Mr. Arthur Hanford to Ms. Louise Gwinn. (My middle name is Gwinn by the way. I was named after my Aunt Gwinn who died of cancer last year, and she was named after her Grandmother Louise Gwinn Hanford. The name Gwinn is coveted also, mostly by my sister and I who secretly worshipped both namesakes.) But I’ll try to reenact it:

Dear Ms. Louise,

I saw you outside of the barn yesterday morning, and I couldn’t get the sight of you out of my mind. Now I truly hope that you find pleasure with this letter and oblige my desire to see you again. Is it possible that I may meet you? I have heard that you are promised to Mr.----------, but there was something between us yesterday, and I must have a chance to meet you in person.

Respectfully,
Arthur Hanford

Now, it has been ten years since I read those letters and writing this is very difficult because it is so vivid in my mind, yet I cannot possibly reproduce it correctly. The story has been told and retold. The story has shaped my identity. The romance has been the measure for all of my relationships. The Letters have inspired my love for language and history. The language was more descriptive, more revealing, more distinct, and more honest than anything I’ve read yet. That is how they wrote in those days. At least that is how Arthur and Louise wrote.

I think there were four or five letters of similar nature, different only in the exceedingly desperate pleading by Arthur, before Louise wrote her first and very short reply:

Dear Mr. Hanford:

Please stop writing me. You must accept that I am betrothed to Mr.-------, and it is highly inappropriate to carry on in such matters.

Sincerely,
Ms. Louise Gwinn

Mr. Hanford was obviously a determined man. He wrote letters upon letters, wooing my Great Grandmother, and she finally relented by writing a reply in an effort to save her reputation. Her motivation was to convince Arthur to stop pursuing her. Eventually Arthur won Louise's heart and married her, but it wasn’t without a fight. And it was exactly that fight that made the letters irreplaceable. The Hanford Gwinn letters exposed the true character of my great grandparents, and the situations that they lived. The letters showed the expected and the unexpected. The letters between Arthur and Louise covered the beginning to the end. They started with Arthur who chased after an unavailable woman. Then they became a love story. The letters covered the making of a home, the life on a farm, raising children, World War I, changing times, politics, lost love, rekindled love, The Depression, World War II, lost children, grandchildren, great grandchildren. The letters were not limited to Arthur and Louise, but were collected from the whole family. My birth, for example, was mentioned somewhere in the letters. There were letters to and from the children, letters from soldiers, letters of heartbreak, letters telling of disease, and letters of survival; each letter told its own story.

The Hanford Gwinn Letters were compiled in a book the size of my Richter literary criticism book, hard cover and all. But unlike my Richter book, I do not have a copy of it, and am not capable of getting these letters. When my family decided to publish the Arthur and Louise letters, the children of Arthur and Louise felt a strong need to protect the privacy of their family. My family made the book and gave one copy to each child and each grandchild of Arthur and Louise Hanford with the guidelines that the letters were to remain within the family, and were not copied, republished, given away, or reenacted in any form. My mother (one of the grandchildren) was given a book, but my sister and I were not.

The situation of my great grandparent’s letters is a perfect example to use in the discussion of problematic themes in literary criticism. Michel Foucault and Linda Karell have written works about the following themes: authorship, collective authorship, copyright and history. Michel Foucault questioned what should be considered as an artist's work and how the author's reputation influenced the reading of the text. Karell asked her readers how much merit there was in protecting the privacy of historical characters in works and whether historical authenticity even existed. Both critics challenged the dominant idea of authorship: whether an author's work was an original work of art, or a collective product of the environment and the time.

Foucault Questioned what qualified as works. He focused on how people collected data, and then attributed all of the information to the writer as if the information was what the writer had intended to relate (Richter 911). For example, if a shopping list was found on the floor, it could be applied to the collection of works even if the author had not intended the shopping list to be related to the academic material that he was writing, and if the author’s name was revered, the public would regard the shopping list as something magical. Thus the author’s point could be totally misconstrued. The Hanford Gwinn letters were collected after the deaths of Arthur and Louise, and it is unknown to me whether they would have approved or disapproved of the material collected and added to the story of their lives. But since the book was in the form of letters, I am inclined to argue that they did not intentionally create the material as a form of literature, the letters were documented history. And to follow Foucault’s historical time period argument, the authority of an author depended on how their works were regarded at the time. In the beginning of the twentieth century, letters were not considered to have authors. Arthur and Louise were merely signers of letters, not authors (Richter 908).

Yet history was only a product of the works of the dominant story Karell would have argued, meaning that history was only a construct of an individual’s memory and perceptions. She would further her argument by saying that Arthur was not the original author of what he wrote in his letters, neither was he the historical truth. His story was just one version of a story told many times before, and one version of a story that involved many more people. The Arthur and Gwinn letters left out the version of Louise’s first fiancé, and if truth were to be told, the fiancé might have had a very different story than the one given in the letters. In fact, there was a considerable lacuna in the love letters regarding the broken engagement.

But more perversely, Karell would argue that Arthur’s letters were written years before Arthur was born. His letters were a plagiarism of a classic play called Romeo and Juliet (for example). Wasn’t Juliet already promised to her cousin even before she was pursued by the unrelenting Romeo? In Karol’s own work, The Postmodern Author on Stage, she concluded, “Fair Use refuses an authoritative interpretation of Foote’s life-and of Stegner’s appropriations of Foote’s life-in favor of complex and shifting (re) presentation of the richness of authorship” (Karell 87). Arthur and Louise, Karell would have said, were not the authors of the letters; they were part of a collective group of respected plagiarizers.

In theory, Foucault and Karell's ideas sound convincing. Yes, people are limited to their own experiences and perceptions, and yes, humanity deals with the same repetitive themes. But the truth is, Arthur was a real man and Louise was a real woman and their lives were far from typical. I know, because they were my great grandparents, and their legacy lives on. They might have had a one-sided version of an archetypal scenario, but through their correspondence, they did write a unique and riveting love story. If Arthur had copied the story of Romeo and Juliet, then I would not be here to write this paper. Karell mentioned in her article that “One test of plagiarism is transformation,” if the story in question is considerably different from the original story, then the copyright law had not been violated. In the case of the Hanford Gwinn letters, Hanford committed the first societal faupaux and transformed himself from societal norms by chasing after an engaged woman, but Louise committed an even greater scandal when she broke the engagement over an argument over wedding apparel. When her fiancé insisted that she wear a certain dress during the rehearsal dinner, Louise thought to herself, ‘If he is this insistent about what I wear before the wedding, then what will he be like after the wedding?’ Strong and independent women were not typical of the time of the letters, and neither were broken engagements. The letters revealed the families struggle with my Grandmother’s schizophrenia. Yet at the time, schizophrenia was a newly defined disease and no one knew how to handle it. But no one in my family would dare accuse Johnny Nash or the writer of A Beautiful Mind of plagiarism. The character of Johnny Nash was completely different than my grandmother. Karell and Foucault were both right and wrong in their extensive and layered reasoning. They took everything into account with their critiques of authorship except the two most important literary elements: words and scenarios. While a plot may be universal, all stories are distinctly unique. I proved the point, and possibly disinherited myself, in my haphazard rendition of the first letter by each great grandparent. My letters were a disgrace to the original letters, just because of the words I used; they were very different. And I also illustrated the example by explaining in more detail, the situation of the broken engagement. While I only gave Louise’s version, her version was enough. Arthur and Louise lived full and exciting lives, they cared enough to write about their lives and mold their story the way they saw fit. Their privacy should be respected and equally, their story should remain untouched. After all it was their artistic work, no one else’s.

2006-11-07T10:28:00.000-08:00

Judges

Historical context:
Starts with death of Joshua.
Irealites caught in reacurring pattern of disloyalty to God, followed by opression.
Isreal repents and God gives Judges.
Judges= National Military leaders.
In end, Idolatry, bloodshed and Civil war.
Throughout, harmony of Isreal is threatened by other tribal groups, and attempts for Kingship.

The book of Judges is a cyclical moral story. God tests the Israelites and every time they prosper, they forget god. To remind them of his power, God continually rewards them with success and then tortures them for forgetting him. The stories are so similar and repetitive that they become a little humorous, until the end. It is interesting how in the beginning of Judges, women are often the avengers, the ones who are able and willing to do the dirty work. But by the end of Judges, women are raped and cut up into little pieces. The pattern of the mythical creation stories seems to repeat itself within the book.

2006-10-31T10:59:00.000-08:00

The Slave

Why did we read this story for Biblical foundations?
The slave gave an insight into the Jewish tradition during the seventeenth century. The story is the story.

I'll admit it. I cried a little tear when Sarah's bones were discovered in Jacobs burial. This book was so pessimistic about faith, history and human nature, yet ended in a subtle moment of magical realism. I love authors who are unafraid to swim in the sea of mysticism and romance. Jacob and Sarah's bones united by an unknown force is poetic justice in its kindest form. Yet the force is indefinitely ambiguous. (I just wanted to use those two words together!) I wonder what Isaac B. Singer wanted to be said about The Slave, and I wonder why he wrote it. The book didn't make any absolute statements about ideas of faith or religion, it just illustrated a story. The story had many messages, but no final conclusion; it was left open to interpretation. Was Jacob foolish for holding on to his position as a Jew? I say no, after all, his faith provided him the most comfort throughout his life, although it also caused the most pain. Did Jacob change, grow, have an epiphany, conquer a quest, discover an answer, prove a point, etc...? The biggest epiphany Jacob had was his acknowledgement of the subjugation of Wanda. Because of her love for him, Wanda became a voiceless woman, a mute who lived the pain of hearing while being unable to speak. Yet, Wanda was also the character who experienced the most transformations, including a name change and childbirth.

The hypocrisy of every culture was exposed, and Singer was not dissolutioned to pretend that anything would change, making the book hauntingly transcendent.

It was heartbreaking when Wanda died, and how she died. Wanda's character was tragic. She was forced, her whole life, to pretend to be someone that she wasn't. Her first marriage was heavily flawed, she was an outsider in her family (with regards to her dying father), she wore a mask for her communities (in order to be left alone), she was not ever fully accepted by Jacob(he asked her to become Jewish and accepted her mute role), and even in death she spoke different languages with different accents while her body was possessed by another living body (Benjamin). Tom Cruise would have liked her silence during childbirth, but I was horrified at the thought. Perhaps the most revealing insight into Wanda's character was her hidden clairvoyance.

Mysticism was a very quiet theme throughout the story, but its very presence denied any simple moralistic construction of meaning. The pastoral beginning of Jacob in the barn, taking care of the animals and foliage around him set the scene. Wanda, the widowed but pure at heart flower child, appeared in all types of weather to save him from a cruel fate. Once Jacob went to the city, all romance was lost, and harsh city life hit. But soon, Jacob escaped back into the nature and when he was most lost, he ran into a tall man with a long white beard. Who was this man? Was it Jacob himself as an old man? Could it be God? An angel? Just an old man who lived in the nature alone, or nobody at all, a figure of his imagination? But no explanation was given. The man fit the wise, white beard archetype. Years later, when Jacob was again lost, afraid, and alone in the nature, he found another white bearded man who nourished and guided him. Could this be the same man or not? There was nothing to suggest so. And later, it was revealed that the man had unintentionally lead him towards a false prophet. The mystic, archetypal figure who Jacob was so reliant on, became flawed. But the wise, white bearded man appeared again at the end of the story. This time it was Jacob himself. Did Jacob turn into the man, or was he always there? Jacob, the wise and noble, but terribly flawed character himself.

Wanda, however, was the opposite of Jacob. She was the source of her own power from the beginning, and fully aware of it. Wanda confessed to her role in her husband death because of visions of Jacob in the future. She predicted the future, she was aware of her own frailty, and she committed witchcraft to summon Jacob. Twice, she convinced the Jewish population of a miracle, and once she convinced them of demonic posession. It is easy to mistake the power of Wanda as deception and circumstantial, until the end of the story, when even in her death Wanda gave another miracle and had her final say. Wanda truly was clairvoyant. And that was why Jacob loved her so.

The theme of rape and torture was Horrifying. Almost every mention of sex in the book became sinful; incest, beastiality, rape, revenge, public exposure, seduction, against religious code. Why did the Pollocks sew animals into their victims stomachs?

The laws obtaining to the wives of Jews were incredibly destructive, as were the laws against belonging to another culture. The most lucid statement in the book was that of human cruelty. The people never improved; human nature repeated itself in every form.

But there was tenderness. The love between Wanda and Jacob was beautiful, as was Jacobs devotion to Judaism. Jacob was a hero. He fought for his beliefs, he was self sacrificial, he was strong, wise, and intelligent.

2006-10-11T11:19:00.000-07:00

Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute. Not once in the bible has anyone ever stated that she was.

Pope Alexander II falsely named her as a prostitute.
Additional biblical information that has gained authenticity.
We do know that Magdalene was with Jesus during his most powerful moments: The crucifiction, the first encounter after the crucifiction, along side with the diciples.
Gnostic gospel of Mary Magdalene.
Hopefully I'll get back to this.

2006-10-04T13:59:00.000-07:00

Today I would like to talk about Jesus and his lineage. Jacob and Leah have Judah, who, with Tamar, Begin a family tree of fourteen generations that eventually give birth to Jesus. So, Christianity is based on the belief that Jesus is Gods son, and the example of a the perfect moral being. I'm on a branch here, but didn't Leah trick Jacob into marriage by sleeping with him? Didn't Rachel get Gods blessing by her hospitality of watering Jacobs property? Why then would God bless Leah with his son, Jesus? And wasn't Judah involved in the whole business with his brother Joseph? I am writing without thinking it through yet, and I havent read the whole bible, but it seems that lineage is worth looking at, especially in regards to Jesus.

I think i'll go do some more reading and come back to this.

2006-10-02T10:12:00.000-07:00

10-01-06
Test on Thursday. My notecard questions:
1.) What would Tevye (from Fiddler on the Roof) do if he had all the money in the world?

2.) Why, according to Justin and Dr. Sexson, do bad things happen to good people?

3.) J might be a secular storyteller. True or False?

So there are a few things that we know will be on the test:
Creation
Revelution
Law
Wisdom
Prophesy
(1st five-Old Testament)
Gospel
Apocalypse
(Last two-New Testament)

Use of Metaphors in bible.

Documentary hypothesis is an authorship theory of the first five books in the Pentatute, or the Torah.
-Author known as P for priestly, lists.
-Author known as J for Jahovah, Yaweh,storyteller, Lord God, personal, possibly
female. Secular storyteller. Ironic. Complex character developement.
-Author known as E plural gods.
-Author known as D for Deuderomenist.
-Author known as R for redactor, cannonized, collection of all revised, loved by
Rosenberg, hated by Bloom.

Name changes and angel stories= transformation. Oral voice: God spoke, woman spoke, She sang beyond...

Litany- repitition of names.
Archetypes. Myths.

Three great Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (Joseph possibly the fourth.)

Patriarchy. Isreal wife to God. Trickster figures. Why do the women have such interesting roles?

Taboo...Powerful.

2006-09-26T13:48:00.000-07:00

Notes for 09-26-06
Metephors.
Not logical.
Isreal is Gods wife.
Metephorical material has been revised, edited, changed.
Types and anti-types
"Your belly is like a heap of wheat"
J's writing full of repetition of plot, and psychologically rich character development.
Kings 14:10 "Those who piss against a wall" =Men.
J's Strong women: Sarah
Rebekah
Rachael
Ziporah
Hemar

Stories of The Well: Isaac and Rebekah
Jacob and Rachael

I have been thinking lately about the bible, and how it fits into the realm of literary criticism. since I am taking lit crit this semester, I am forced to see literature in those terms. But really, looking at the bible from a literary perspective is lit crit. So, if we are annoying Dr. Sexson by wanting to know facts, history, and rules, then clearly Sexson dosen't want to take a historical approach to the bible. Neither, may I add, should faith based religious people, since archeology proves that Noah's Arc couldn't have existed (Even though they do).

So how you recieve the bible depends on how you read it... And perhaps this class is jumping around in different literary theories.
So here are some questions we should be asking ourselves: How do I read the bible? What am I looking for? What do I take notice of? What bothers me? What interests me?

The following is the beginning of my own attempt to understand the different kinds of Literary criticism.

Strucuralism/Deconstructionism: the belief that texts work within certain structures. Structuralism emphasizes that elements of culture must be understood in terms of their relationship to the entire system
syntax and lexicon.

Levi Strauss:
"A general theory of the way in wich the exchange and circulation of women between families is used to knit cultures together."
"Another aspect of culture is used for exchange and circulation: language."
"Cultures with complex kinship structures, which gave the individual a smaller number of marital choices,tended to speak languages with complex syntax and a small lexicon, while cultures(like our own)with simple kinship structures, which give the individual a vast number of marital choices, tend to speak languages with simple syntax and a large lexicon."
-Richter

Syntax: the study of the rules, or "patterned relations" that govern the way words combine to form phrases and phrases to form sentences.

Lexicon: When linguists study the lexicon, they study such things as what words are, how the vocabulary in a language is structured, how people use and store words, how they learn words, the history and evolution of words, types of relationships between words as well as how words were created.
(Wikipedia)

Strauss focused on myths to do his research, "Myths are the way of the 'Savage mind'-not the minds of savages, but the untamed mind within all of us-gives order to the world." (richter pg.823)

Classical criticism- Lots of old guys: Plato, Aristotle, Plontinus, Wordsworth, Kant, etc...
Plato believed in the world of ideals, and focused his philosopy on ideas of imitation. He thought poetry was worthless unless it was an ode to the Gods, or if it did something to help society. Plato believed people like Homer to be frauds since they wrote about things they didn't expirience. He thought the world lived as copies of copies.

New Criticism
Formal criticism
Reader response theory
Marxist criticism
psychoanalytical theory
New historicism and cultural studies
Feminist literary criticism
Gender studies and Queer theory
Post colonialism and ethnic studies

2006-09-21T13:29:00.000-07:00

Many things discussed today:
Why is Jeromiah adominable? Masogomist? Colorful punishments?
Contradictions
Incest
God's justice
Patriarch
Metaphors
The Book of Job
Hagglers
Does God admire people who stand up to him?
722 B.C.
Jewish people who kept a notion of beliefs while in exhile.
Rebuilding of the Temple
Exile...

And the idea of exile has lingered in my mind. First I'd like to point out that if hospitality is deeply valued in the time of the Old Testament, then exile must also be valued.

Exile: can be a form of punishment, or a self-imposed leaving of ones homeland. It means to be away from one's home (i.e. city, state or country) while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened by prison or death upon return.
-Wikipedia

-Adam and Eve are Exiled from the garden of Eden.
-Archetype of Cain: Exile.
-Tower of Babel, Exile from language?
-Noah and family exiled to Arc.
-Abraham and Sarah forced from land due to famine.
-Jacob forced to leave to escape Esau's revenge.
-Joseph sold as slave by brothers.
-Lot and daughters are sent away from hometown
-Hagar and Ishmael are sent off into the wilderness
-Moses' birth
-Moses and his people
-Lepers, "contaminated women"
-Jesus' birth
-Jesus' youth
-Jesus sent into the desert.
-Pilgramages to mecca
-Holocaust
-Foriegn Policy
-Refugees
-expulsion
-The U.S.
-Native Americans
-Chief Joseph
-Australia

-Archetype of hero:
The hero usually suffers a great loss, which makes him set off on a quest.
The hero generally has a mentor or helper who helps him on his quest.
The hero must face a set of trials, which allow him to overcome "evil".
The hero narrowly escapes death, usually more than once.
The hero escapes the "evil villain's" stronghold or destroys him.
The hero is then reintegrated into society with a new status, wealth, or marriage to the princess.
There has to be a happy ending.
(Recently a female hero or heroine has become accepted and very common.)

2006-09-21T11:06:00.000-07:00

Been thinking of the similarities that I see between two characters in class, J and Jesus (Besides starting with the same letter).
They are story tellers.
They use parables.
They use wit.
Prophesies.
Humor.
Rebelliousness.
They have feminine qualities.
Appreciate women.
They both work from the inside to reach the outside.
Forgiving of human flaws.

I saw an interview with Bloom right after he wrote the Book of J. I hadn't taken this clss yet or read the book, and I really didn't understand much of what he was talking about. I did, however; pay close attention to his views on Jesus. After defining and explaining the major religions in the world and the differences between them, he said that Jesus was one of the most intriguing men in history. While Jesus was rebellious and detrimental to both the Jewish population, and the Romans, he was also unique in his inclusiveness of the individual. There was never a person in history whose religion was open to anyone who would accept it. This idea, acording to Bloom, is the reason Christianity has been so successful.

I find it interesting that Bloom believes that J's writing in the bible is the reason the bible has been so sucessful, and that Jesus Christ is the reason Christianity has been thus accepted.

And while I'm at it, may I add Shakespeare to the list? Doesn't Shakespeare have the same elements in his writings: wit, humor, prophesies,human flaws, compassion, character...

2006-09-18T14:24:00.003-07:00

"She sang beyond the genius of the sea"
-Wallace Stevens

The voice of this poem reminds me one one of my favorite poets, Pablo Neruda.

The Saddest Poem

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.

Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.

-Pablo Neruda

Okay, so maybe they are very different. One talks about love, while the other talks about...Whay do you guys think? I found the following which I thought very interesting and relevant to this class thus far and our focus on perceptions. Marie Rose Napierkowsi wrote the following:

While the poem remains too complex to be easily explicated or paraphrased here, it is accurate to say that the poem dramatizes important conflicts for Stevens: imagination and reality, presence and absence, order and chaos, nature and civilization, the mind and the body. While readers never see the female singer or actually hear what it is the woman is singing, they experience what the speaker of the poem experiences: transformation. The woman’s song transforms the speaker’s experience of walking along the beach, and, what’s more, when he returns to town, he discovers that his perception of Key West has also been altered. Early critics cite the poem as an example of Stevens championing the creative process, but that is inaccurate, according to most recent criticism. These critics believe that the poem is about the need for poetry and the need for art. Thus, the emphasis of the poem is not so much on the song itself but what the song does to the listener. One can extend that, of course, to Stevens’ hope for his own poetry—that it has the same effect on his readers as the song does on the speaker of the poem

Read this, it is a colorful interpretation of Wallace Steven's poem!

2006-09-18T14:24:00.002-07:00

What Sexson says:
written works, from many authors.
Prior creation stories to the Bible:
Babylonian creation story
Epic of Gildamesh
womans voice
woman with snake
dimembered body of godess
voice of male
Garden of Eden in Iraq (?)
Trojan war historically known at the same time as Exodus from Egypt
1200-1100 B.C. Goliath armor similar to armor worn by Trojan warriors
"Isrealites were never very lucky at the game of empire"

2006-09-18T14:24:00.001-07:00

Extra Biblical material that has gained authenticity:
Lilith.
Mary Magdalene
Mark of Cain

2006-09-18T14:24:00.000-07:00

Names (Author P)
Name change and Identity:
Adama- Earth
Abram- Contraction of Abraham
Abraham- Father of many-Patriarch
Jacob-Holder of heel, or, God protect- Patriarch
Esau- Hairy
Isreal-God contended
Ishmael- God will hear
Sarai
Sarah
Isaac- She laughed/He laughed. Patriarch.
Simon
Peter-Rock
Rachel- Ewe (sheep)
Repitition of names: Litany (List of things)
YHWH
Yaweh
Jahovah
Elojist
Logos- Divine, great power of voice to create a world.
God
Lord God
Jesus
Father
Son
Holy Spirit

2006-09-07T14:58:00.000-07:00

Today we discussed Bloom's idea of misreading the bible. Bloom appreciates strong misreadings, but disproves weak misreadings.

Is J writing in Irony? Well let's see...I guess I am trying to understand J's sense of Irony. After Dr. Sexson's class on gender and the bible, I see the irony a little differently than I saw it before. I was stuck on words and meanings (a horrible thing to base any opinion on from the bible) and also morality from a modern perspective. But now I see differently. It is hard for people of this generation to avoid applying our own moral codes as universal rules. But if you really want to understand the Bible, you have to own the cultural beliefs of the time.

I thought I'd start with Solomon's Court, knowing nothing of it, but always hearing about it...The Songs of Solomon in the bible, refrences to Solomon's Court, and one of my favorite books, Song of Solomon (for example). But mainly, because Bloom believes that J resided in King Solomons Court. To understand J, dont we need to know what her life was like?

My questions were: Was King Solomon a real person, or a biblical character? Do we have evidence that any one individual from the Old Testament truly existed? What was life like in King Solomons Court? What were womens' lives like in the court?

after a bit of googling, I realised that I hit a controversial topic. The next link is authored by ADL, which seems a little dangerous to use in class, although it is a group claiming to protect all human rights (The Anti-Defamation League (or ADL) is an organization founded by B'nai B'rith in the United States whose stated aim is "to stop, by appeals to reason and conscience and, if necessary, by appeals to law, the defamation of the Jewish people. Its ultimate purpose is to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike and to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens.") so I think it is okay. Please let me know it it's inapropriate. Thanks.

The Temple Mount

King Solomon's Court

Archeologist site on Washington Post

The myth of Solomon entails a wise King, who was blessed by God, who built a magnificient Temple, who had many lovers. But I haven't found what life was like in his courts. I need to read more of the bible, perhaps the answers are in there.

THE LAWS OF YIBBUM.
The Torah describes the practice of Yibbum in the Parsha of Ki Setzei (Devarim 25:5,7,9):

"If there are brothers, and one of them dies without children, the wife of the deceased man may not marry out to another man. Her brother-in-law (her deceased husband's brother) must marry her and thus perform Yibbum on her ... If the man does not want to marry her, she shall approach the elders and declare 'My brother-in-law refuses to establish his brother's name in Israel; he does not consent to perform Yibbum on me'

... Then she shall approach him in the presence of the elders and remove his shoe from his foot, and spit in front of him and proclaim "Such should be done to a man who would not build up his brother's house!"

Yibbum is a Halachic rite which must be performed when a man who has a living brother dies childless. If this uncommon situation occurs, the widow must not remarry unless one of two actions are taken - either she must marry the brother of the deceased or she must be released from the obligation of marrying her brother-in-law by having him perform the Chalitzah ("removing" of the shoe) ceremony.

It is obviously uncomfortable for a woman to be trapped in this situation, wherein she would be subject to the will of another man. Her brother-in-law may not be locatable, compliant or appealing.

There are several fundamental laws concerning the childless nature of the deceased and the age of the bother that control whether Yibbum applies:

LAWS CONCERNING THE CHILDLESS NATURE OF THE DECEASED
1. Rule #1: The man must die childless. According to the Talmud Yevamos 87b, Dying childless includes instances where a man once had children, but these children were already dead at the time of his own death.
2. Rule #2: Grandchildren: According to the Talmud Yevamos 70a, if the deceased man has no living children but he does have living grandchildren, he is not considered to be childless, and therefore, there is no Yibbum obligation.
3. Rule #3: Offspring: According to Talmud Yevamos 11 lb and Shabbos 136a, if the deceased left behind any offspring at all, there is no Yibbum - even if the offspring is only one day old. Even if the offspring is still a viable fetus at the time of the husband's death, its mother is exempted from being bound to the living brother. If the fetus is a stillborn or is aborted, or dies, or is killed before it lived for thirty days, it is not considered to have ever been a viable offspring, and Yibbum would be required.

LAWS CONCERNING THE AGE OF THE DECEASED'S BROTHER
4. Rule #4: Brother-In-Law: According to the Talmud Yevamos 17b, the widow is obligated to marry her deceased husband's brother. If the deceased husband does not leave a living brother, his wife is free to marry whoever she pleases.
5. Rule #5: Minor: According to the Talmud Yevamos 1 05b, if the brother of the deceased is a minor, the widow is still bound to him, and does not have the option of freeing herself through Chalitzah since a minor lacks capacity to perform the ceremony. Instead she must wait until the brother reaches the age of majority (Bar Mitzvah 13) in order for him to render Chalitzah at that time. Only then may she remarry. According to the Talmud Niddah 45a if she wants to marry him, she must wait until he reaches 9 years of age.

This information was taken from: Law Office of
Baruch C. Cohen, Esq.
A Professional Law Corporation

These were my first attempts at understanding irony:
Genesis 3:6
"but God said 'you should not eat of the fruit .... and he ate."

Genesis 10:6
"And the Lord said, "Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the begginning of what they will do; nothing that they will propose to do will now be impossible to them . Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another's speech."

Genesis 16:3
"So, after Abraham had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her slave-girl, and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife. He went in to Hagar, and she concieved; and when she saw that she had concieved, she looked with contempt on her mistress. Then Sarai said to Abram, "May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my slave-girl to your embrace, and when she saw that she had concieved, she looked on me with contempt....Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she ran away from her."

2006-09-07T14:00:00.000-07:00

Perhaps I should outline the major stories so far in Genesis.

Creation story

Second creation story

First sin and punishment
Very sexual
woman as trickster character.
Snake becomes smooth.

Cain murders Abel (God puts a mark on Cain)
?What is the mark of Cain?
?Why does God reward Cain with generations, after he murders his own bro?
A: God condemns Cain to generations of exhile.
Archetype of fugative

Noah’s Arc
Many flood myths.
Myths prevail until Abraham's story begins in Genesis.

Tower of Babel
Why does God divide all people?
Speaking in tongues?

Abram sacrifices animals to God, Lord gives land to Abram. (Land of Caanan).
?Why does God prefer blood sacrifices?
A:BBQ?

Sarai can’t have children.
Barreness is worst curse for women in bible.

Sarai gives slave girl to Abram, and then beats her when she concieves.
?Why is Hagar punished?
?Is Hagar giving Sarai a look of contempt because she was raped?
?Can this be read as ironic?
?Why does God support Sarai's vengence.
A:Sarai takes matters into own hands to ensure future generations. Surrogate mother.T
A:Hagar is vulva only.
A:Ishmael represents treachery of Sarai in the Koran.
A:Sacred well in Iraq where Hagar escaped dehydration.
A:Isrealites viewed themselves as the second child. Isaac had to be the second child who preveiled, so Ishmael had to be second best.

Angel names Ishmael and prophesizes his heavy hand.

Hagar gives birth to Ishmael.

Abram is named Abraham (ancestor of multitudes of nations).
God gives Abraham the rules: Males must be circumcised at eight days old “So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant” Genesis 17:13
A:Phallocentricism.
A:Isrealites as woman, or wife, to father: Yaweh.
A:What is more demasculating than circumcision?

Sarai is named Sarah and is promised a son: Isaac. Sarah laughs.
Sarah chuckles with wit, or Abraham laughs with praise.
Trickster eavesdropping.

God blesses both Ishmael and Isaac, but establishes covenent with Isaac only.
?Is God Calvanistic, blessing only the chosen ones?

Hagar and Ishmael are sent away into the wilderness.
Patriarchial God hostile to women, nature, and snakes.

Abraham circumcises the men.
Abraham questions God about sweeping the righteous with the wicked.
Sentimental me likes this alot. "For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it." Genesis 18:32 It implies that for the sake of one, God will be merciful.

Angels test town of Sodom?Okay, the town of Sodom is mentioned, but what about the town of Gomorrah? It never explains where, what...anything about it. Is Gomorrah even a town? Just a little lacuna.
?Does this passage, as right wing christians claim, speak against homosexuality? Or is it sex crimes in general? Lot was punished for offering his daughters instead of the men. But, the problem with sexual promiscuity in bible, is that of ownership of future generations.

Lot offers his daughters in place of Angels.?Footnotes explain that Lot pleased God by protecting the angels, but also in trouble for not respecting his role as protector to his daughters. And that is why Lot is saved but exhiled. But Abraham and Isaac sacrifice Sarah and Rebekah by calling them their sisters, and they are favored by god.
? Is the difference: Abraham and Isaac rewarded for their tricksterness?

God makes men of Sodom blind.

Sodom and Gommorah destroyed, but Lot and daughters saved.

Lot’s wife looks back and turns into a pillar of salt.

Lot’s two daughters revenge father by raping him. (Sons: Moabites, and Ammonites).Female tricksters.

Abraham claims Sarah as sister, loses her, until God intervenes.God rewards trickster.

100 year old Abraham (and Sarah) bear son Isaac.Second Patriarch born.

Sarah forces Hagar and son to exile into the wilderness.
Abraham makes a covenant with Abimelech as an alien on Philistinian Land.

God tests Abraham.
Written by P.
Angel saves Patriarch's (Isaac) life.

Abraham buries Sarah at 127 years old.

Slave of Abraham finds Isaac a wife: Rebekah.
Isaac marries Rebekah.
Isaac in mourning over mother, Sarah.
Isaac consumates marriage with Rebekah in dead mother's tent.
First Well narrative.

Abraham remarries Keturah, and dies at 175 years old.Rebekah is with twins “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger.” Genesis:25:23
Twins fought even in the womb.

Esau and Jacob are born. Isaac loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob.
Jacob: smooth, feminine, favored by Yaweh.
Esau: hairy, masculine, not favored by Yaweh.

Esau sells Jacob his birthright for stew.
Jacob and Rebekah as tricksters.
Archetype of mother and son plotting against father.

Famine sends Isaac to foriegn lands.

Isaac pretends Rebekah as sister, God protects them.Why theme of claiming wife as sister?
Crafty. Insult done to property is a very bad thing. Cleverness of tricking their way into new territory is favored by Yaweh.

Esau marries two Hittite wives, and makes life hard for parents: Isaac and Rebekah.

Rebekah tricks Isaac by having Jacob steal Isaacs blessing from Esau,
"By your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother; but when you break loose, you shall break his yoke from your neck" Genesis 27:40.
?: Why does God favor the trickster?
?: What does this response mean?
A: Prophesy. Later, Esau vies to kill Jacob.
Myth: Once blessing is given, can't be taken away.
Archetype of brother conflict.

Rebekah sends Jacob away to escape Esau's vengence

Esau marries Mahalath, Ishmael's daughter.

Jacob dreams of God promising him land.
Jacob makes vow to give one-tenth back to the Lord.
pillar of stone

Jacob meets Rachael at the well.
Character developement by asking of Laban, again.
second well story
Love at first site archetype

Laban makes deal with Jacob
Leah has exquisite, or weak, eyes.
Rivalry between wives.

Jacob serves seven years, and is tricked into consumation with Leah.
Laban, Rachael, Leah trickster figures.
Shakespeare's bed trick.
Leah is given maid: Zilpah.

Jacob serves seven more years and weds Rachael and her maid, Bilhah.

Rachael is barren, but Leah is furtile because she is unloved.
Leah's sons: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah.

Rachel gives maid, Bilhah to Jacob as a third wife.
Son for Rachel is named Dan and second son is named Naphtali.
Rachel see's Bilhah's births as winning a competetion with Leah.

Leah cannot procreate anymore, so she gives her maid Zilpah as a fourth wife.
Zilpah has Gad, Asher,

Leah again is blessed with two more, Zebulun and Dinah.

Finally God has mercy and gives Rachel a son named Joseph.

Jacob wishes to take family and leave, makes deal with Laban.
Jacob as magician.
Jacob as trickster.
household god figures idolized and stolen from Laban.

Rachael sits on figure
Bleeding woman.
Rachael's cunningness.

Jacob stands up to Laban and deal is made.
Jacob can take no more wives, and neither party can intend to do harm to eachother.
pillar of stone

Jacob wrestles angel and prevails.
Jacob is named Israel, "For you have striven with God and with humans, and have preveiled." Genesis 32:22.
?As Jesus did?

Jacob and Esau meet and make-up.

Rape of Dinah
Dinahs brothers demand circumcision from Shechem and every male among them before giving her to them.

Jacob and two sons, Simeon and Levi murdered all Hivite males.

"A terror from God fell upon the cities of all around them," in order for Jacob's family to flee to Canaan.
God, again, promises blessings.
pillar of stone.

Rachel dies in childbirth; Benjamin is born.

2006-09-07T13:56:00.000-07:00

Two major questions:
1.) What do I know that I didn’t know before?
2.) What difference does it make?

1.) peanut butter and Jelly. peas, prayers, practical. Jesus, journal, jovial, jazzy, and Jessica who is my sister who tells fabulous up close and personal stories. As we all know, it does not end with peanut butter and jelly, there are also E D and R.

2.) It makes a difference if Bloom’s hypothesis is correct and J is actually a woman. That makes a huge difference. But it is noteworthy also that if the documentary hypothesis is true, then the Bible cannot be expected to be read as “literal” which eliminates the option of blind faith.