I assumed the response was primarily because of the title of the thread. If there is more to it than that sorry but I don’t have interest in going back and catching up. My post was entirely intended to recommend Prof Stavrakopoulou’s terrific book which i finished a couple of weeks ago. Prof S is a specialist on the Hebrew Bible in its Ancient Near Eastern (or in her terms , Ancient South-West Asian) context. I became fascinated with her subject right before the pandemic when I stumbled upon ** you do not have permission to see this link ** because one of the principals used it to hammer his Origenist opponents over the head. (We’re getting way down in the weeds here folks but the development of what we know of as Christianity was long and frequently quite funky.)
The astounding thing, to me at least, is that as late as the dawn of the Fifth century there were Christian sectarians who still held on to the idea that God was embodied. This is an old old idea in the Near East. But in the AC of 399 CE we see part of the long process of suppression of these ideas in the Church.
What Prof S has done brilliantly is to take the localized embodied conception of the divine, Yahweh of the Hebrews, examine his* divine body, part by part, and use these discussions to illustrate ancient thinking about God and how it influenced later thinking – our thinking. She translates Hebrew into clear English, something we must admit many translators over the years have been loath to do. If you’re at all interested in this kind of thing, read the book!
* Yahweh was definitely a male folks and possessed all the bodily accoutrements of maleness – need I say more?
I agree with your assessment of Dr. Stavrakopoulou’s book. I haven’t finished reading the article on the Anthropomorphite Controvery yet, but it occurs to me that fundamentalist Christianity still struggles with the integration of Genesis 1:26 in the context of an immaterial, totally transcendent deity … they just don’t realize the issue.
TTHorne56 said
Too bad they can’t drive that Legion into a herd of pigs and be done with it.
Well they don’t realize it yet but certain recent legal decisions in the US are simply hastening that process. Nothing makes Americans hate bible thumpers faster than putting them in charge.
Stephen said
Well they don’t realize it yet but certain recent legal decisions in the US are simply hastening that process. Nothing makes Americans hate bible thumpers faster than putting them in charge.
Unfortunately, they are very reliable voters, while many who dislike them are not. Plus, their party has so twisted the rules in their favor that they have undue advantages. We may end up literally ruled by a minority.
Robert said
TTHorne56 said
From that I will conclude that Dr. Stavrakopoulou’s translation is a fair one.
Of that I have no doubt whatsoever, but I am still curious exactly how Stavrakopoulou translates 1 Kings 18,27. You say above that her translation (on p 225) uses a euphemism. Would you or Stephen be so kind as to provide us with her translation?
The relevant sentences (from p. 225) reads: “Or perhaps, as the prophet suggests, Baal is answering a different sort of call: ‘Maybe he is defecating!.’ For Elijah, Baal is a hapless god, too busy straining at stool to attend to the needs of his people.” Her translation of the rest of 18:27 follows the usual translation as found, for example, in the NRSV.
Stephen said
TTHorne56 said
Too bad they can’t drive that Legion into a herd of pigs and be done with it.
Well they don’t realize it yet but certain recent legal decisions in the US are simply hastening that process. Nothing makes Americans hate bible thumpers faster than putting them in charge.
I made a very similar observation during the reign of Saint Ronny, and let’s just say I was mistaken … at least so fer. Nothing like a lack of success at their program, by which I mean they don’t get the results they expect, to drive them to double-down.
Well at the risk of being perceived as hypocritical, or waffling, since it was a comment by me that started it, perhaps we should take a pause here before we plunge ahead into areas that some might not consider exactly relevant to the purpose of this here site. I can be as hypocritical as the next punter but I would hate to be tagged as a waffler since anyone who considers my posts can intuit that I suffer from terminal logorrhea. I have opinions that I hope are well thought out but maybe this ain’t the place to express them.
In the past we’ve followed Prof Ehrman’s lead. A good example was when he began to explore his own faith journey, that became a subject of discussion over here. I think we can intuit some of his political views but as far as I am aware he has never explicitly discussed Current Events.
This is definitely not the subject of this particular thread. I’ve always favored the position that it is better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission but we are guests here. Do we need a contemporary politics/culture thread?
Да или нет? Oui ou non? ja oder Nein? Ja eller nei? Yes or no?
My view is that the God of the Bible is a narcissistic, paternalist autocrat. The Christian utopia is a world were everyone worships and obeys the authority figure in religious, political and family life. I think that worldview explains a lot.
That said, I am content to drop the subject.
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