A Reading Odyssey

March 2008 Old Testament - Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon - audio recording

Here's the audio recording for the Old Testament January call.  Listen online or download the mp3 file and listen to it as a podcast on your ipod.

Download Old-Testament-March2008-Ecclesiastes-Song-of-Solomon.mp3

Two love poems to ponder/enjoy

First poem:

"Astray or captured, all bear witness
to the consummate skill of this lady,
Shrewd at her craft and perfected by heaven.
Her hand has the feel of new-blown lotus,
Her breast the delicate scent of ripe berries
her arms twine like vine stems, and tangle,
And her face is a snare of fine-grained redwood.
And I? who am I in this recital? —
The proverbial goose
(and my love it lures me)
Tricked by her tasty bait
to this trap of my own ingenious imagining."

Sounds like song of songs, right?
Except it's not! It's from Egypt 1,000 years earlier than
Song of Songs writing.

Second poem. A bit more recent love lyric. Not so much related to the Bible but
written by one of my all-time favorites Frank O'Hara. From 1960. Wanted to share it with you all.

Having a Coke With You

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I'm with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o'clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles
and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them
I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it's in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven't gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn't pick the rider
as carefully as the horse
it seems they were all cheated of some marvellous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it

Song of Songs weekender

Hey guys, Thought you might like some food for thought for weekend reading of song of solomon.

Love. What a great idea! Glad the Bible finally took it up.

The more you love poetry the more you like this book. How does it stand up as a love poem? Is anyone willing to find an ancient or classical love poem that even through translation and transcription exceeds it for rhythm and flow? (I will look for some Islamic ones.)

Some of it reads so personal, yet it's meant for public consumption. So let's think about who is loving whom in this book: God and man? Man and Israel? "Man" and "woman"? Solomon and his BBW bride from egypt? If all of the above, why?

What about the structure, nothing like we've seen before in the Bible: Non-linear. Episodic. Call and response. Tightly focused, sensory moments and symbology that overlaps like rings. Is this product of several authors or poet's intention?

Before we get all hot and bothered about the soft-core nature of S of S ("open up to me, my sister, my love"), heed some cooler heads on the subject of what happens when you plunge into sexual or erotic love without having the spiritual component. Digging around on the Web, I noticed that our fellow reading group member Pope Benedict XVI delivered his first encyclical, the Vatican's first in many years, in Dec 2005 on the subject of love. It was called Deus Caritas Est (God Is Love). In it he draws on lots of sources, including the Song of Songs, to make his point that we all love along a continuum between eros (an ascending, possessive, sensual love) and agape (a descending giving love). But watch out, because eros is "at risk" of being downgraded to mere sex if it doesn't have that spiritual component. Do you all think the Song of Songs encourages love without a spiritual component? (NB: Besides condemning one-night-stands, Pope Benedict has also come out against "unscrupulous adults who, lying to themselves and to [their children], draw them into the dead-end streets of consumerism." Take that, Urban Outfitters.)

In chapt 2, why does the poetic address use so many nature references: flowers, birds, fig trees, grapes, foxes, lilies and harts. Intention?

Chap 3: The Lover wanders the streets at night looking for her beloved. Later, men around his bed "all hold swords, being expert in war: every man hath his sword upon his thigh because of fear in the night." Why the note of dread? Why the war footing?

What's going on in chapt 5? Why does the assignation fail?

Also, I thought you might love this line from corinthians:
"If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but do not have love, I gain nothing" (1 Cor 13:3).

More to come on second half of SofS over the weekend.

bruce

February 2008 Old Testament - 1/2 of Psalms, Proverbs - audio recording

Here's the audio recording for the Old Testament February call.  Listen online or download the mp3 file and listen to it as a podcast on your ipod.

Download Old-Testament-February2008-Psalms-Proverbs.mp3

Proverbs

I hope you are all enjoying the second half of Psalms and the book of Proverbs.

I’m really enjoying Proverbs. Most of the lessons seem as relevant today as they must have been thousands of years ago.  I laughed out loud when I read 18.2: “A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing personal opinion.”  I was in a business meeting earlier this week that proved the point.  I hope you will pick a couple of your favorites to share with the group on Tuesday.

I’m struck by the difference between the teaching of Proverbs and the laws stated in early books in the OT.  These lessons and the method of instruction are much more compelling, because they are not simply commandments.  Almost all explain the inherent benefit of the desired behavior – linking wise and righteous actions to joy and long life, and foolish and wicked actions to misery and death. 

Bruce asked if others felt Provers was used to teach children.  I think it is for teens and adults. The difference between the commandments and proverbs reminds me how parenting skills have to evolve as a child grows.  I remember the first time I actually said “Because I said so!” to my 2 year old son. It probably wasn’t effective then, but it certainly wouldn’t work now that he’s 19.

I also hope you’ll give some thought to why Wisdom is personified as female. This isn’t unique to the Old Testament, and I find it very interesting indeed.

I’m looking forward to our call on Tuesday!

Kendall

Proverbs

Phil sees customer councils everywhere he looks and Frank sees heaven and hell. We all read into the bible what we need, right? Very interesting. $275 an hour, please.

I was thinking about what phil said about Proverbs mentioning the help of advisors. There's a lot of advice to go around in this book. Don't lie, deceive, cheat, steal; be humble, charitable, listen carefully.

Proverbs' central theme is clear: wisdom begins and ends with fear of and submission to god's will ("A king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will." 21.1)

But didn't Job show us it's impossible to understand god's will?

Little is said in Proverbs about the necessary role of experience in gaining wisdom. Isn't that where we learn how to read context, feel our way through situations to what's right?

I like this fragment: "To show partiality is not good----yet for a piece of bread a person may do wrong." (28.21)

(btw, Does anyone else feel like Proverbs must have been written for use in teaching children?)

Bruce

Psalms

I had 2 related thoughts/observations to share. I find it interesting that Sheol, the Pit is frequently mentioned as something from which people want to be protected and which seems to approximate modern concept of hell, but that there is no heaven or paradise alluded to. It seems that the reward is a painufree earthly existence, which is guaranteed if you fear and praise God. I wonder where the concept of heaven originates. On a related note, in Psalm 106.28, the people are reprimanded for making sacrifices to the dead as part of a Baal worship ritual. I wonder if the fear of Sheol/death is meant to repudiate veneration of the dead and, hence, Baal worship.

Anyway, just something to kick around.

Frank

Fear of God theme continued

I saw this post a while back and thought it was another angle on our fear of God thread last night.

It got me thinking... why were they preaching so much about fearing God and not as much about fearing Satan? Why not use God to represent love and compassion, but if you do not do good, you align yourself with evil Satan who will bring death and destruction to your life. Maybe they didn't want Satan to be that powerful. Let God have all the power. Reduce the seductiveness of the dark side...

I'm sure there's many scholars that have commented on this, but it's seems more fun to let it swirl around my head for the moment.

This post is about how many people God killed in the Bible vs. how many Satan killed.
http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/rook_hawkins/biblical_errancy/3582

Thanks, next for Feb call

Folks,

Great call last night about Job and Psalms.

Thanks to Kendall for volunteering to:

- lead the February call (Tues, Feb 5 at 8pm) on the other half of Psalms and Proverbs!
- and to send at least one e-mail out between now and then with a question or comment about the reading (Kendall asked that we use the e-mail and website more)

And thanks to Bruce for volunteering to lead the March call (Tues, Mar 4 at 8pm) on Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon. Also congrats to Bruce for getting on Jeopardy (he was on the Dec 26, 2007 episode and came in second - missing the final question about Hadrian's Wall - sorry, Bruce that we weren't up to Roman history yet!)

Happy new year!

Phil

January 2008 Old Testament - Job, 1/2 of Psalms - audio recording

Here's the audio recording for the Old Testament January call.  Listen online or download the mp3 file and listen to it as a podcast on your ipod.

Download Old-Testament-January2008-Job-Psalms.mp3