Reading The Bible and learning about ancient polytheism for my job. Great stuff!! I can see why people have based their lives on it for thousands of years.
The differences between Old and New Testament are fascinating in light of all that Julian Jaynes neuroscience/Iliad stuff I was telling you about awhile ago, remember, the ancient Greeks hearing voices of gods instead of having interiority, all that? The Old Testament is newer than all that, of course, but still certain things seem to apply. Like how it is not really a narrative, and there’s not really any point to it, in the modern sense of a “story” having a “point.” Genesis is just like “here is a bunch of vaguely related shit that happened.” To say nothing of Exodus, holy crap! The part where God tells Moses to go bring his people out of Egypt, and Moses says “ok,” and then starts toward Egypt, and then God comes and tries to kill him, but Moses’s wife quickly chops off their son’s foreskin and throws it on Moses’s feet, and God’s like “Cool, I’m out.” I think we can ALL learn a little something from this powerful tale.
It feels so much more like ancient Greek myth than like the New Testament. Disconnected bizarre tales. I guess that’s what people mean when they talk about reading the OT as “history?” It’s as good a version as any, if you want to know where the Israelites came from or what kinds of religious practices proliferated across the land in preliterate times. Myths pre-date historical record, so what are you gonna do? Maybe Moses did part the Red Sea, how should I know.
Growing up heathen, when I imagined some religious person with, like, a bible by their bed that they would read from to gain wisdom or solace (à la Lillian Gish in Night of the Hunter), I always imagined them reading Genesis, because that’s the only part of the Bible I was ever really familiar with, and it always struck me as bizarre. “Hmmm, a little bedtime lesson from my religious doctrine. Ah yes, the story of Judah’s daughter in law dressing up as a harlot and tricking Judah into getting her pregnant. THE END. Truly words to live by.”
But so really, your average Christian is using the NEW testament for this kind of thing. I mean, obviously, hence “Christian” and not “Jew.” Also hence Lillian Gish constantly talking about Jesus. The New Testament has all the morals and lessons, and gets way more narrative and bildungsromany. I just read the sermon on the mount and was really struck by how explicit and clear it is. Actually words to live by, even though most people don’t (live by them). I wish we all did, honestly.
It’s like in the Old Testament there isn’t really anything to DO. Get circumcised: check. Now what? Nobody knows! Not until Jesus are believers given SOMETHING TO DO. Proselytizing, living by a fairly vast and complex set of rules governing not only behavior but thoughts, etc. In the Old Testament it’s just like, kill a goat from time to time and then maybe God won’t kill you for no reason. Then a bit later, make sure and follow the 10 commandments, which, lets be honest, are really not that hard to follow, if you actually try. They mostly boil down to not stealing. Wives, property, the name of the Lord, human life. Don’t steal any of it! Also I don’t believe there is a heaven or hell or anything like that, in the OT. Right? Maybe vaguely referred to at some point…Judaism doesn’t really have a significant afterlife, right, in terms of moral judgment and burning for all eternity? So then this also makes the fundamental differences between Judaism and Christianity super clear—if your main sacred text is the OT, then of course your religion is going to be based on a lot of discussion and argument and inquiry, because only a crazy person would think that writing was straightforward at any point. Also the terror of hell is not going to be a major motivating factor, which makes your religion way mellower and open to interpretation and debate than a hell-based religious dogma, which encourages, like, witch burning. Seems like the very increased clarity of the NT means the religion’s valuation of debate and thought is diminished, sadly. It also becomes goal-driven, whereas the OT and, presumably, Judaism, is NOT. Or at least not in the same way. Just like greek religion doesn’t seem to have been that goal-driven. The gods don’t want much from humans–the gods are basically just like humans, themselves. They want wine and sex and presents, and they’re capricious and mean and jealous, and they might set you a daunting task for some reason but the task doesn’t really have any bearing on the rest of humanity or a moral code.
What do you think? I could be way off base because I am not a theologian nor did I grow up at all involved in any religion.
Also interesting is Islam, another Abrahamic religion with many of the same texts/central beliefs. They have Moses and the ten commandments and everything (hilarious that when people burn the Koran as a black magic devil text, they’re burning the ten commandments, among other things). But anyway, Mohammed didn’t come around until the late 6th century–so much later than Jesus, not to mention whoever(s) wrote the OT! So I wonder if the Koran is even more goal-driven and narrative than the New Testament.
It’s fascinating to think about humanity thousands of years ago not being goal-oriented in the way it is today. Sure they fought wars and whatever else, but it seems like (and again I’m referring back to Jayne’s work with neuroscience and philology) the conception of life was not narrative in the way it is today: a beginning, a growth period where you overcome obstacles and learn life lessons and attain self-actualization, a climax, a denoument, death. Jaynes argues that ancient peoples were more like “something’s happening now, I will deal with it. Now an unrelated thing is happening, I will deal with it also.” More like a series of anecdotes than a long-form narrative structure. And indeed the ancient sacred texts, in comparison with slightly less ancient sacred texts, seem to bear this out, at least a bit.
I love the part when Noah gets drunk and falls asleep naked, and then Canaan his son sees him and is like “holy shit” and tells his brothers, and the brothers cover Noah up with a blanket by walking backwards through the tent so they won’t see his shame, but when Noah wakes up he curses Canaan to a life of slavery forevermore. VERY INSTRUCTIVE
God does a lot of inexplicable things. I mean, I guess that’s an understatement, also kind of the point of religion. But the OT God is so much more like a human. He just sort of does whatever comes into his mind. He’s always slaying people for no reason and then blessing somebody else for no reason. Like, why is Jacob so blessed by the Lord, when he is such a huge asshole to basically everyone who knows him including his own father and brother??
It’s weird to think of Jesus as giving not only humanity but GOD HIMSELF some purpose in life. Until Jesus, God just kind of bums around. Although I haven’t read the book of Job–perhaps there are life lessons in there. But really, it’s not surprising if there aren’t, because ancient mythology has very few life lessons/lists of ways to live. It’s just not within the ancient world’s purview, so much. The Egyptians mostly thought of themselves as slaves who were in charge of getting food to the gods. The idea of those gods worrying about who you wanted to french or insisting you only eat certain foods on certain days, etc. etc., would have been pretty foreign. And actually this might be a helpful way to think about the Old Testament’s disconnected nature–some people read elements of the OT/Tanakh as evidence that ancient Judaism used to be a lot more polytheistic than it would one day become. Which makes sense when you think about the fact that monotheism came out of polytheism and not vice versa. So sure, there would still be elements of whatever cool Mesopotamian polytheistic cosmology these early monotheists grew up in and experienced as their culture. So like, cherubim and seraphim, angels, God having different names in different books (to say nothing of saints and the holy trinity, later), also the way God contradicts himself and does so much weird stuff in the Old Testament (sending Moses to Egypt and then trying to kill him)–some people think all this is evidence that these sacred tales used to involve SEVERAL gods or godlike entities, and then at some point somebody basically did a keyword search and replaced all the god-names with just “God,” and threw a few angels in there to replace other Gods That Once Were.
Also of course you have to wonder about translation. But I am even less qualified to muse upon that topic than upon the topic of narrative in the bible so I will leave it at that.
Sarai tells Abram to have babies with her maid. Abram: “Ok.” Then pregnant maid “looks with contempt” on Sarai and so Sarai “deals with her harshly,” and the maid flees and the angel of god tells her to go back: “just deal with it.” Then God tells the maid that she will have a son called Ishmael and that he will be “a wild ass of a man.” THANKS.
Then God changes Abram’s name to Abraham and tells him to cut all the tips of the penises off of all the boys, including Abraham’s slaves. Abraham: “Ok.” (Abraham’s slaves: “WTF”)
God: “Great, thanks. Sarah (I changed her name to Sarah) will give you a son this time next year.”
Sarah: [laughing because she’s post-menopausal and thus God must not understand female anatomy even though he invented it, which is admittedly pretty funny]
God: “Why did you laugh?”
Sarah: “I didn’t.”
God: “No, you did.”
END OF EXCHANGE.
Then the whole Soddom and Gomorrah part, which is so good. I love the detailed conversations that are transcribed.
Abraham: “if you find 50 righteous men in Soddom will you spare the city?”
God: “Ok, for 50 I will spare it.”
A: “What about 45?”
G: “Ok.”
A: “What about 40?”
G: “Ok.”
A: “What about 35?”
G: “Ok.”
A: “What about 30?”
G: “Ok.”
A: “What about 25?”
G: “Ok.”
A: “What about 20?”
G: “Ok.”
A: “What about 15?”
G: “Ok.”
A: “What about 10?”
G: “Ok but THAT’S IT!”
A: “Ok.”
Then all the men of Soddom demand that Lot give them the two angels of the Lord so they can rape them. Lot: “Rape my virgin daughters instead!” Men: “No.”
Lot to sons in law: “Get out, angels are going to destroy the city!”
sons in law: “I think he was joking, don’t you?” “yes”
Lot/daughters escape to cave; daughters get Lot drunk and seduce him and have his babies. God: “cool.”
END OF STORY. What are we to learn from this? I think nothing. Is this where the entire Christian tenet about homosexuality being a sin comes from? It’s pretty unclear, also seems totally fine with incest. But again, to be fair, the Greek myths aren’t instructive either, unless it’s as cautionary tales about never being alone with Zeus when he’s been drinking.
It’s the specifics that are so charming and enjoyable, in reading the OT. For example, the illuminating story of the mandrakes:
Jacob marries Rachel and Leah, but hates Leah (?), so God gives Leah sons and not Rachel (?). Then Rachel tells Jacob to get sons on yet another maid, so Leah’s like “take my maid too!” even though she already had sons (this is getting suspicious). Then Rachel’s son brings home some mandrakes, and Leah asks if she can have some, and Rachel says quote: “Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son’s mandrakes also?” So Leah says Rachel can have Jacob for a night in exchange for some mandrakes. Rachel to Jacob: “I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.” Jacob: “Ok.”
Then there’s a weird thing with speckled and spotted cattle, and Jacob doing something else really douchey to whoever owns the cattle, involving striped rods that make the cattle who breed there give birth to only speckled and spotted cattle…? Then he flees Rachel’s and Leah’s father because the father is mad about the speckled cattle, and on the way out Rachel steals all her father’s stuff, and he chases after them but she sits on the stuff and tells him she can’t get up because she has her period. Father: “sorry for accusing you like that. Have a nice life.” END OF STORY. And thus have generations of middle school girls found biblical precedent for getting out of gym class.
GREEK STUFF
Right before this I was reading Euripides and a lot of history about ancient Greek religion, and it’s pretty similarly inexplicable, which makes sense along the Jaynesian lines. Like Zeus rapes a human and she gives birth to the god Dionysus, but Zeus’s wife is jealous and smites her (the human), but Zeus protects Dionysus by sewing him up inside his own thigh with golden thread, and gives Hera a piece of the sky instead, for her to keep an eye on, and tells her it’s Dionysus. Then Dionysus invents wine.
I’m trying to figure out what Euripides is trying to say in The Bacchae. Scholars disagree heatedly on this point; we may never know. It is a VERY CONFUSING AND AMBIGUOUS PLAY. Because it seems like at first it’s a cautionary tale about not believing in the gods. Then it gets SUPER CREEPY, with Pentheus revealing a weird obsession with sex and women and wanting to dress in women’s clothing, and being like “no way, that’s disgusting I could never” but then in the very next line being like “and how shall I dress in women’s clothing? OH MY GOD I COULDN’T. I’ll go do it right now.” Then he comes out in women’s clothing, wearing a wig, and Dionysus (in disguise as a human) is like “your hair’s all messed up and your skirts are crooked,” and Pentheus says it must be because he was practicing Bacchanalian dancing alone in secret and must have gotten mussed while he was jumping up and down and looking at himself. And Dionysus is like “great, you’ll fit right in,” and sends him up to where his mother and his aunts are dancing in a bacchanalian frenzy, to spy on them.
Pentheus: “pant pant, I can’t wait to see the women in a lewd frenzy, it’s going to be so disgusting, I will have to put them all in prison!”
Dionysus: “they aren’t being lewd. they’re just dancing.”
Pentheus: “Oh I bet it’s SO LEWD, with them sneaking off into the bushes–”
Dionysus: “they’re not sneaking into the bu–”
Pentheus: “FOR SEX!”
So, is this a parable about men’s fear of women, etc. etc.? But then all the women see Pentheus and rip him to shreds, scattering his ribs and bones and flesh all around the forest, and picking up handfuls of the meat of his body and playing catch with them, and his own mother puts her foot in his armpit and rips off his arm and then rips off his head and puts it on her spike and parades it down into Thebes to show off what she’s done. So I guess he was right to be scared of women.
Cadmus: “holy shit woman, what do you have there?”
Agave: “it’s a lion I killed with my bare hands! HOW BADASS IS THAT”
Cadmus: “that’s your son, Pentheus.”
Agave: “NOOOOOOOO!!!!!”
Then Dionysus curses everybody and sends them into exile. Even the people who spent the entire play trying to convince everybody that he really was a god! So now I don’t know what the point of the play is, perhaps there is no point. I’m reading a bunch of articles about it (jstor keyword search: “Euripides Bacchae Freud Civilization Repression Political.” Search Results: 63)
HALF-ASSED GOOGLING REVEALS:
There are ex nihilo creation myths, which is where a single dude makes everything or spits/bleeds/shits/barfs everything out all at once.
There are creation myths where there is a dude or dudes, and then they get dismembered and the universe is made up of their dismembered parts. Is Egyptian religion this way? I seem to remember somebody’s body getting ripped to shreds and scattered across the sky and that became the stars.
Lots of Native American creation myths involve humans emerging into an already-existing world from some other world. Allegory for childbirth. Female-oriented vs. male-oriented Creation. Leading to matriarchy vs. patriarchy.
Makes me think of Frankenstein and how that’s a horrible allegory for male-oriented creation (a.k.a. “science”).
The Greeks also had fairly evolved conceptions of afterlives and underworlds, seemingly unlike the early Abrahamic religions. One thing I’ve learned is that “ancient greek religion” was not at all monolithic; in fact, each independent city-state had a pretty different version of religion. Rituals, rules, creation myths, who is a god and who isn’t, what the gods want us to do, etc. All different! Each city had its own god that was seen as preeminent–Athens/Athena, Olympia/Zeus, etc.–and its own accepted civic religion with established rites and sacred days, etc., but then each city-state ALSO had a smattering of “mystery religions,” which were basically cults to various other gods, which had initiation rites and secrets, and were open to everybody (women, poor people), as opposed to the civic religions which were just for rich men basically. Mystery religions were like freemasonry?! Also the gods were always at war with one another, which is how Socrates knew there was no such thing as objective truth. I may have made that up.
This is why “ancient greece” wasn’t really a unified thing. Sharing a religion is a big deal when it comes to national identity-building! Just ask Charlemagne–he’s the reason we have musical notation. So that everyone would sing the same chants in church, thus feel kinship and community with one another all across the land! Such a crazy nationalist undertaking, yet it worked, sort of. Ancient Greece was more like, people in Athens being like “the people of Thebes are SAVAGES” and vice versa.
There are also creation myths where a supreme being sends an animal out into the…..not the world, where does the animal go if nothing’s there yet? Anyway, into the mud and guts of some conceptual pre-world, and tells the animal to find the bits and pieces that will create earth and humans.
Then there’s the creation myth that one day the universe just exploded out of nothing, and all the exploded bits formed into planets and stars and black holes and whatever else, and one day fish crawled out of the ocean and turned into dinosaurs and monkeys and birds and then some of the monkeys turned into humans and then humans invented the internal combustion engine.
To quote my dog, who is a philosopher: “What’s ‘born?'”
Maybe THIS will help:
