Having a fire lit underneath you can be uncomfortable: Judges

Before I get to the bible, lets talk about class. As Dr. Sexson reprimands us for our slowness in reading the bible, inability to be interesting and affinity for pursuing tv over friends, bible and reading, I look around the room and see legs start to shake. My own breathing speeds up, as I realize what a fool I have been, how I really should start getting up at 6, spend an hour reading the bible, then start my day. No more tv, no more breaks. I am an adult. I am a productive citizen, I AM an ENGLISH MAJOR (well, sort of). The class is really grooving on this idea. We can get it done, but gosh darnit we need to get going now. SO come on, let that bell ring so I can start reading that bible now, I have no time to smell the proverbial stew that Sexson is cooking, I gotta go get something done!!!!!!

Having this inspiration, this drive, is uncomfortable. Sometimes, it comes at all the wrong moments, like when I’m stuck in geography lecture. Other times, it slinks into the recesses of my mind, like when a new episode of The Office is aired. Shoot. What’s a girl to do? But then, when I finally get to the bible, I realize that this is a common problem. I come to realize, unlike Plotz, that the people of the bible struggle just like I do with that fire—they misplace it, misuse it, it gives them heart attacks and bad judgment. And that’s when I really start to appreciate it…

JUDGES

The Song of Deborah:

Two heroines in this Judges tale, as Plotz notes. My mom’s name is Deborah, I paid close attention to her story. Funny how, even hundreds of years later, removed from the religion, I can still have this attachment to a name?

Samson

“Although you are barren….you shall bear a son….the boy shall be a Nazarite to god from birth. It is he who shall deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines.” (Judges 13.2)

I did not know Jesus wasn’t the first or only child of god meant to be the savior of Israel. Samson, it turns out, is sort of crazy, and not so serene or compassionate, what with the killing and super-human strength, but there is still this theme. That makes me wonder about the idea of archetypes, and while this story appears over and over again in…well…stories, where is its base for real life? For human emotion or tendencies? Perhaps it is wishful thinking, or vanity, or worship. I don’t know, divine birth is very common in mythology, but where is its inspiration?

Judges was, well, repetitive. Which is the story of the world. We learn, we have peace, we forget. The lack of a reminder, no matter how strong a people may be, leads again and again to forgetfulness. Plotz is accusing of Israel and its transgressions, almost as if setting them apart, thinking that they are a special case for forgetting, for causing suffering, brutality, ect. Yet, isn’t history full of these sorts of things already? And even personal history. Again and again we forget the epiphanies we have, indeed sometimes the easy part is feeling divinely inspired—late at night, early in morning, everything becomes clear—its remembering those feelings, enacting those thoughts the rest of our day that is the hard part. We are so quick to forget.

The Bible provides a human side, a tale to tell of the tragedy of history, the downfall of man. It is archetypes, yes, but it is also a back ground, a narrative for any wrong committed and any right revealed.

How to Read the Bible

"She kept asking if the stories were true. I kept asking her if it mattered. We finally gave up. She was looking for a place to stand and I wanted a place to fly."

-Brian Andreas, Mostly True

If an allusion falls in the woods, and no one is around, does the Bible hear it?

This is the story of an allusion. It begins in the Apocrypha, in a book entitled Susanna. It climaxes as Peter Quince plays the Clavier, and returns, as dust to dust and ashes to ashes, with the book of Susanna.

So...what does it all mean? The story of Susanna, in the Bible, is really more of a story of Daniel, her saviour. Nonetheless, it tells the tale of a woman who is coveted by evil old men, that wish to lie with her. She denies them, and they lie with her anyways. They do this by telling a story of her consorting with a young man, thus ruining her and condemning her to death.

The poem by Wallace Stevens is a beautiful extended metaphor likening, perhaps, life to music and beauty to Frye's eternal myth. Stevens opens the poem strongly,

Music is feeling, then, not sound.
And thus it is that what I feel,
Here in this room, desiring you,

Leaving no doubt that, if nothing else, someone is feeling a desire so strong, it can almost be heard. Enter Susanna:

It is like the strain
Waked in the elders by Susanna;

And now Stevens uses the metaphor as bodies as instruments to portray music in about as perverted and deeply unnappealing way as I have ever seen:

The basses of their beings throb
In witching chords, and their thin blood
Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna

The poem continues, bewitching the senses, describing the world by sound, by soundtrack, by music by instrument, until we can hear, not read, the book of Susanna. But why? Why illustrate a story with sound?

Beauty is momentary in the mind As a sound, no matter how it echoes, finally fades

The body dies; the body's beauty lives.

Here we get into the meat of the matter. I believe that on some level this poem corresponds to Frye's idea of the importance of a metaphor. The archetype, the beauty, of the desire a woman inspires in a man, of their lecherous plotting, of her retaliation, lives on, even though her story, her music, may fade. The body of her tale lies in the instrument, in the repeating patterns and rythms we are capable, nay, prone, to repeating.

In my reading, this poem fits so nicely into Frye's metaphor I am struck by the beauty and congruency. The bible is an endless source of metaphors of human behaviour, of repeating action and reaction, of eternal tendencies. Though the reality, the truth, the MIND of this may fade, the archetype is always present. The music can always be replayed, the tune must always be re-sounded.

Yet, as we like to repeat, one can only misread something. I am eager to see what else this poem means to people, what they take from it, as my experience is only so small, so dependent.

“The land lay subdued before them.” (Joshua 18.0)

Rahab the prostitute: very concrete example of Mrs. Sexson’s metaphorical scheming feminine ‘winner.’ The role of her being a prostitute is thrown in second hand, and while this is not very important to her story of giving the spies asylum in exchange for life when they come to take the city, it does play a role in the idea of womanhood, and the successful deceptions these characters weave in the bible. Also comes the idea that even a whore, if she fears the Lord, may be saved

“The sun stopped in midheaven, and did not hurry to set about for about a whole day. There has been no day like it before or since, when the Lord heeded a human voice; for the Lord fought for Israel.” (Joshua 10.14)

Powerful scenes, like a fantasy battle scene almost. Actually, very like a fantasy novel describing old world wars. The sense is very otherworldly, even farther removed than an Arthurian scene.

Two thoughts come to my mind reading Joshua:

Remarkable change in tone, content, ideas from the Torah. I can see why the first five books are set apart as they are. The whole attitude changes, this is now a conquest book, a story of tribes and territory

2. City of Refuge. This is a concept that has come up before in the Torah, and it is interesting to think about: this is a recognization of the shift from blood paybacks of old times to a court system. The city of refuge is put in place so the murderer will have a place to hide from the blood relatives seeking revenge until a trial may be held

Plotz: disagree with alot of what he said, but he mentions two interesting things:

1. Lacuna!! (last chapter of his commentary on Joshua)

2.The idea, that as soon as the tribes on the other side of Jordan build a copy of the altar, Judaism becomes a religion no longer rooted to place. Now symbols can stand in for the Lord, and one can practice wherever he can remember the way. As a non-practicing anything, I would not have picked up this meaning, but it is an important step for any religion. To stop being a tribe and start being a theology

So

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Dd

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Deuteronomy: Moses's sweet tune, patriarchs ruling and buddha

Auerbach’s Odysseus’ Scar

Homer’s concrete world. That which is, is. No set perspective, not of place or person. Not omnipotent, but no personal accounts either. Is it what it is.

“The personages speak in the Bible story too; but their speech does not serve, as does speech in Homer, to manifest, to externalize thoughts—on the contrary, it serves to indicate thoughts which remain unexpressed.” The people of Israel are an internally (eternally) suffering one. A few pages of history, or of The Slave can detail that.

“Doctrine and the search for enlightenment are inextricably connected with the physical side of the narrative—the latter being more than simple “reality”; indeed they are in constant danger of losing their own reality, as very soon happened when interpretation reached such proportions that the real vanished.” Nuff said.

Do-do-do do Deuteronomy

Its in first person. Now I hear Moses

6.5. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead…”

10.16 “Circumcise, then, the foreskin of your heart, and do not be stubborn any longer.”

This is possibly one of the strongest books in the bible I have read so far. Sure, very repetitive, but the formal use of the word ‘YOU’ and the firm first person Moses lend to the commencement-like tone and overall impact of the words. One can picture the audience, Israel, clinging to each word and marveling in it.

15.11 “Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.”

So many poetic lines, commandments. No narrative, except for the secondary setting in which this is taking place, which is far more relatable than the twisting plots in previous chapters. The reader can picture the Israelite audience, the sacred time.

Moses Song. Beautiful. And the end of an era? Or the beginning of a people.

Today, guest speaker in class. We talked about women in the bible. Side note: I now need to take a class from Mrs. Sexton. I have been pondering all day the patriarchal emphasis in the bible. If one wanted to, they could extrapolate all presently followed laws from the bible (chosen, it seems, at random) and relate them to ‘keeping women down.’ EX: Abortion, Birth Control, Procreation…. Some hot topics. This is something I might want to pursue. Pretty far-fetched, but I think there is a kernel of truth somewhere.

Rules rules rules….all of the Torah.

They are more of societal rules, of ways to make the new nation stand on its own two feet, without god always being present. Sabbatical coming up oh Lord? But, some of these laws we don’t follow. They are ‘obsolete.’ ….why? Some would argue with some sort of eugenics philosophy that we are cutting out the arbitrary and focusing on the better. But our perception of better is formed by such random coincidences that I don’t think it can be trusted.

…….Damn Buddhism. It ruins everything.