Today I started reading on the history of the early church and on the historiography of the New Testament, as part of my first semester as a seminarian. I am very excited about both of these subjects and am already learning a lot. The most interesting aspect I have learned from the church history book is about the three different strands of early Christianity... a heavily Jewish sect centered itself in Jerusalem (which followed circumcision of the flesh), a strand which blended Jewish prophecy/law and Greek moral philosophy arose under Paul in Antioch in Syria (which followed circumcision of the spirit) and a third, more mystical strand arose in Ephesus, dedicated to the beautiful, esoteric Johannine writings (and which, like the Antiochan school, followed the circumcision of the spirit). This area, in Ephesus, was also where it is believed that Mary (mother of Jesus) died, and is where the first Marian cults arose and gained prominent in AD 600 or so. The Council of Ephesus, held in this area, is where it was promulgated that Mary was the 'Mother of God,' a decision which both promoted the divinity of Jesus and their own particular patron. Ephesus was also an area associated with Artemis, a pagan goddess associated with virginity and childbirth, and this could help to explain why a Marian emphasis arose in this area.
I also did a great deal of reading, tonight, on how the New Tesament developed as a canon over the years. Most interesting, probably, were the rigidly defined, medieval "levels of interpretation." One was supposed to read the book first literally, then tropologically, then morally and then analogically. In direct opposition to this was the Renaissance interpretation, which came from the Northern European Christian humanists like Erasmus, which held that the the other interpretations would flow out of the literal interpretation rather than existing as discrete entities. This reading also revealed a long tradition of critical theological reading which belies the notional that critical readings of the New Testament are a recent phenomenon. I look forward to reading more tomorrow!
Showing posts with label theology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label theology. Show all posts
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Friday, July 9, 2010
Spicy Spiritual Curry 1: Mahamaya and Time in Sanskrit
Another one of the topics about which I love to endlessly ramble is spirituality. Although I'm no cleric (or other religious, as the survey forms say), it's a subject to which I dedicate a lot of thought. My favorite fields inside this broad discipline are Hinduism, Buddhism, the more esoteric forms of Christianity and Judaism and epistemological ontology, or, how we know what we know (or what we think we know) about reality.
A topic which has sat heavily on my mind, lately, is the notion of alternative universes, movement between them, and how the way we apprehend time time determines the sort of cosmos that we'll live in. The Hopi language, for example, only talks about subjective and objective verbs, with no tense settings at all. Sanskrit, the language of the great Hindu theological works, doesn't use actions verbs very much. "Manu spoke with great wisdom," for example, would become, "Manu is speaking with great wisdom." Instead of the linear progression of time which Western languages, very action oriented, enforce on our patterns of thought, Sanskrit and it's associated derivatives promote a sense of unending "now"-ness and presence, an indelible and undeniable but equally untouchable solid "is-ness," as a teacher of mine once described it.
Hindu thought maintains that everything, from the lowliest atom to the greatest gods (and there's more commonality there than you'd think) is nothing but maya, commonly translated as "illusion," and that the universe is mahamaya, the Great Illusion, which flows out from, into and through the ineffable Brahman. A little story from the Vaishnavite tradition illustrates this principle perfectly.
"Once, long ago, a holy man, a seeker of truth, wanted to understand the meaning of maya. He traveled far and wide, trying to find the secret understanding that only study, meditation and deep awareness of the stillness of the universe can bring. Finally, frustrated that maya was eluding him, the holy man went to ask Vishnu, the great god himself. He found Vishnu asleep, and perched on the outer shell of the giant being's ear, shouting for him to wake up so that he could put him to the question.
After he had shouted for a little while, maybe two or three years, Krishna walked up alongside him and asked what on earth he was carrying on for. The holy man turned to Krishna and said, "I am seeking to know the meaning of maya. Can you tell me?"
Krishna thought about for a moment, maybe two or three years, and asked him, "Do you really want to know?"
"Yes," he said.
Krishna tapped the man's forehead, and he fell into a deep reverie. When he awoke, he found that he was a woman, about sixteen years old, with big brown eyes and a pretty smile. He loved life and his sisters and mother and father. A year or two later, his marriage was arranged to a handsome young man, the son of a wealthy merchant, and they fell deeply in love with each other.
Over the next fifty years they shared a good life. He had many children with this man he loved and they experienced all the pleasures and pains that families do. In some years business was good, and in others it was bad. When one of his children died shortly after being born, the holy man thought that he would die, and tore out his long, soft black hair in grief.
Finally, when he was an old man, the merchant's son, now a powerful merchant in charge of his later father's concern, died. It was not a painful death and he, as a good man who had always carried out his dharma, would have a good place on his next turn around life's wheel. The holy man was distraught when his husband died, unable to eat, sleep, drink or think of anything else but his agony, and performed the act of sutti by throwing himself upon the merchant's son's funeral pyre.
Suddenly, as the flames began to eat him and the smoke began to choke him, the holy man felt a bucket of water splash him in the face. Krishna was standing beside him, smiling inscrutably, the same smile that played on the great god Vishnu's face slumbering stories above them. "Ah," Krishna said, "good. I thought I might have tapped you on the head too hard; you were knocked out for nearly ten minutes!" The holy man was speechless. "Do you have any more questions of me?" He still could not form his thoughts, which now ranged the depths and breadth of the cosmos, into words, the mysteries were too great. Krisha laughed, unable to contain his mirth any longer. "It is good," he said, "that we had this discussion. Now you will go from this holy place and understand maya!"
I have always particularly liked that story, for whatever reason. For more on the subject of time and perception, look into http://www.amazon.com/There-Life-After-Death-Afterlife/dp/184837299X/ref=sr_1_17?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1278700251&sr=1-17
For more information on the Hindu myths, check out http://www.amazon.com/Ganesha-Goes-Lunch-Classics-Mandala/dp/1601091028/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278700358&sr=1-2
A topic which has sat heavily on my mind, lately, is the notion of alternative universes, movement between them, and how the way we apprehend time time determines the sort of cosmos that we'll live in. The Hopi language, for example, only talks about subjective and objective verbs, with no tense settings at all. Sanskrit, the language of the great Hindu theological works, doesn't use actions verbs very much. "Manu spoke with great wisdom," for example, would become, "Manu is speaking with great wisdom." Instead of the linear progression of time which Western languages, very action oriented, enforce on our patterns of thought, Sanskrit and it's associated derivatives promote a sense of unending "now"-ness and presence, an indelible and undeniable but equally untouchable solid "is-ness," as a teacher of mine once described it.
Hindu thought maintains that everything, from the lowliest atom to the greatest gods (and there's more commonality there than you'd think) is nothing but maya, commonly translated as "illusion," and that the universe is mahamaya, the Great Illusion, which flows out from, into and through the ineffable Brahman. A little story from the Vaishnavite tradition illustrates this principle perfectly.
"Once, long ago, a holy man, a seeker of truth, wanted to understand the meaning of maya. He traveled far and wide, trying to find the secret understanding that only study, meditation and deep awareness of the stillness of the universe can bring. Finally, frustrated that maya was eluding him, the holy man went to ask Vishnu, the great god himself. He found Vishnu asleep, and perched on the outer shell of the giant being's ear, shouting for him to wake up so that he could put him to the question.
After he had shouted for a little while, maybe two or three years, Krishna walked up alongside him and asked what on earth he was carrying on for. The holy man turned to Krishna and said, "I am seeking to know the meaning of maya. Can you tell me?"
Krishna thought about for a moment, maybe two or three years, and asked him, "Do you really want to know?"
"Yes," he said.
Krishna tapped the man's forehead, and he fell into a deep reverie. When he awoke, he found that he was a woman, about sixteen years old, with big brown eyes and a pretty smile. He loved life and his sisters and mother and father. A year or two later, his marriage was arranged to a handsome young man, the son of a wealthy merchant, and they fell deeply in love with each other.
Over the next fifty years they shared a good life. He had many children with this man he loved and they experienced all the pleasures and pains that families do. In some years business was good, and in others it was bad. When one of his children died shortly after being born, the holy man thought that he would die, and tore out his long, soft black hair in grief.
Finally, when he was an old man, the merchant's son, now a powerful merchant in charge of his later father's concern, died. It was not a painful death and he, as a good man who had always carried out his dharma, would have a good place on his next turn around life's wheel. The holy man was distraught when his husband died, unable to eat, sleep, drink or think of anything else but his agony, and performed the act of sutti by throwing himself upon the merchant's son's funeral pyre.
Suddenly, as the flames began to eat him and the smoke began to choke him, the holy man felt a bucket of water splash him in the face. Krishna was standing beside him, smiling inscrutably, the same smile that played on the great god Vishnu's face slumbering stories above them. "Ah," Krishna said, "good. I thought I might have tapped you on the head too hard; you were knocked out for nearly ten minutes!" The holy man was speechless. "Do you have any more questions of me?" He still could not form his thoughts, which now ranged the depths and breadth of the cosmos, into words, the mysteries were too great. Krisha laughed, unable to contain his mirth any longer. "It is good," he said, "that we had this discussion. Now you will go from this holy place and understand maya!"
I have always particularly liked that story, for whatever reason. For more on the subject of time and perception, look into http://www.amazon.com/There-Life-After-Death-Afterlife/dp/184837299X/ref=sr_1_17?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1278700251&sr=1-17
For more information on the Hindu myths, check out http://www.amazon.com/Ganesha-Goes-Lunch-Classics-Mandala/dp/1601091028/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278700358&sr=1-2
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