Gener Rules, Roles?

The guest speaker today I thought was a refreshing change of pace, I liked the fact that while we did drift around to several parts of the Bible, we maintained one theme throughout. The specificity of the class topic I think allowed us to drive a bit deeper into the content and context of how women are depicted in the Bible. I thought the distinction between the Feminine and Women rolls to be an accurate one. Because the implications of each one are symbol and social respectively. This is important to consider because the Bible is to be looked at as stories and characters in stories. And sometimes they are to be taken at face value and sometimes not. Either way both of these types of women teach us something, a moral.

One idea that really stuck with me even after I left the classroom, was the notion that gender is about roles. The simplicity of this statement is in fact so complex. What confuses me first about this is that if gender is concerned our roles doesn't that make it about our places in society and not what distinguishes us as individuals? I'm not really sure where I'm going with this. Perhaps I'll blog again later.

Fryen' On Emerald Lake

Yesterday around eleven o'clock would find me sitting on the bank of Emerald Lake with my dog Bo by my side and Words With Power in my hands. I started reading the chapter entitled Identity and Metaphor and I was intrigued by his notions in regards to writing and reading. As far as I understand it Frye was looking at the relationships that exist between the reader and the text. Arguing that the writer unlike a painter, "must use the same words that everyone else does" it can complicated to, through poetry, get at the meaning you want all to experience. He writes, "The inference is that there may be something potentially unlimited of infinite in the response to poetry" He goes on to make this idea even more complex arguing, "What we 'see' when we try to comprehend the totality of a literary structure is a large number of juxtaposed images." In regards to the Bible I think these two ideas are inherent throughout given that we all try to get different meanings from the same words. And even when we do get a similar idea we have numerous different ideas we can relate it to. So what is a writer to say, is nothing concrete and static, does is world of literature a never ending cross reference? Probably

Nature/Self/Bible

I really look forward to getting my copy of Frye's book after reading Emily's latest post about the self and how nature is the content of art's form. This notion reminded me of some of the themes we are talking about in the capstone class with Dr. Morgan. As some of you may know the class's theme is Dark Romanticism and it deals with these ideas in regards to how we as people and artists are to feel about and sequentially describe nature in our lives and our art.

I am one to argue that, yes, most of what art is and means comes from the inside of us, obviouly the inside of us is influenced my numerous and diverse sets of stimuli. However, this notion of the self should not be diminished especially with a text as significant as the Bible. Again I think we all come to this text with, to say the least, different points of view, but we can all talk about it in a somewhat objective basis. This can be done it we wade through the overwhelming allusions we make when reading the Bible and get down to how each part of it is a story with a non-detachable moral. Here I think is the key to reading and enjoying the Bible in regards to nature. We must look at how the Bible speaks to us in the way that it is a story, and then we can take this point of view and apply it to our world which is the most worthy context.

Blog Reflection

After reading Trish's blog about the movie the Ten Commandments and her mention of The Prince of Egypt, I'm reminded of a notion I first encountered in high school. An English teacher I had for the first two years of my literary studies at the time, he is probably the reason I'm an English major, used to talk about the "Disneyfication" of Greek myths. He boasted that when Disney makes a movie about these topics, they dumb it down and do it a real injustice. In particular he mentioned the film Hercules in which his quest to do good through out the land was a journey to find his parents. However, the "real" story involves a journey educed by Hercules murdering of his family. Crazy right? I used to watch that movie all the time without knowing its real basis of reference.

In regards to how we approach the Bible I think a similar element is in play, this idea that we can't talk about certain parts in certain contexts, or we talk about these parts so they play to our liking. All the raping, murdering, and warfare chapters were left undiscussed in my confirmation classes. And in doing so we were presented with the "good" version of the Bible. Is this the right way to go about it? Maybe. I think that a lot of what makes the Bible, and literature in general, great is its subjective nature, the way we discover it for ourselves.

Frye 'n' Frazer

It's official I, within 4-14 business days, will have copies of Frye's and Frazer's books to help me read the Bible. I was able to find the cheap, used, paper back copies, totaling less than eight dollars from Amazon's online store.

After class the other day, and reading Alexa's blog I'm hopeful that these works will aid in making sense of the Bible as I read it this semester. I like the notion Alexa advocated in her recent post saying that collectively the Bible seems a mess of words with little coherent meaning. But by focusing on one book even one line it seems to become clear. This in a sense gives it a literal meaning one, again, I hope will come through via Frye and Frazer. Because after all that's the idea of this class to read the Bible like just another book.

Ready for Judgement

My plan thus far this semester has been to read complete chapters of the Bible in a seemingly random order. First I read most of Genesis, then all of Revelation, and last night I committed myself to the books of Judges and Ruth. I find that by reading the Bible in this manner I'm able to focus more clearly and really get a lot out of the individual books than if I were to keep reading chronologically. Plus After reading Plotz's chapter on Leviticus I thought it best to skip that one, for now.

Judges contains much warfare and seizing of land, and taking control of slaves. I thought about Plotz's comment that God is like a real-estate king, and it showed in this book. As there were several occasions in which God either rewarded or took land from people. One thing I noticed consistently through out were the lists and the repeated lines. "And the children of Isreal again did evil in the sight of the Lord" and "In those days there was no king in Isreal" start of many books in
Judges. I found a certain rhythm to it almost as if this was the chorus and all the other actions were verses.

Although I'm still very fuzzy about who is in command of what, and who killed who to get it, and the reasons for it all, I did find several little, "Oh shit" instances of literary excitement. Book 3 around verse 20 goes, "And he arose out of his seat. and Ehud put forth his left hand, and took the dagger from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly. And the haft also went in after the blade; and the fat closed upon the blade, so that eh could not draw the dagger out of his belly; and the dirt came out" It reminded me of something you might see while watching an action film, but certainly not the Bible. The other thing that surprised me was the quickness to anger of God, he seemed more like an irritated mother trying to get the kids to behave more than a deity. The story of Samson and Delilah was one of the more interesting parts of this book. Again I found it a little hard to follow but I think that Samson was getting tricked and Delilah was bait, to get a hold of his land, maybe. Anyway I found this line particularly enticing, "And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death." She sounds like an earful. I'm puzzled by the end of this book, considering all the vengeance for wrong doings previously discussed it seems odd that, "In those days there was no king in Isreal: every man did that which was right in his own eyes" should be that line. The word "right" what context does that have after all this death and betrayal?

The Laws Of Leviticus

I rather like the notion of Plotz being an additional classmate to this endeavor of reading the bible. I see him as that kid who does all the reading and you can just read his notes for a general idea of any particular chapter. I'm very glad I read his notes on Leviticus, because I doubt I could have made it through on my own without some basic sense of what was happening. Throughout this reading I was constantly reminded of an episode of "The Simpsons" in which Marge asks Rev. Lovejoy if she should get a divorce from Homer. To which he responds with a simple, "Get a Divorce" a nervous Marge inquires, isn't that against the Bible. The Reverend then pick up his own copy asking, "Have you ever read this thing, technically we're not even allowed to go to the bathroom." This I think is the same attitude with which Plotz approaches his reading of the Bible. In this respect are we to have a bowl of salt next to us as we read this thing. Or should we take it literally, because it sound like it might be impossible to do, especially with all these contradictions.

One quote from Plotz's chapter three really spoke to me it goes, "We talk about the Bible as if there is only one. But if there's anything I've learned from these months with the Good Book, it's that we all have our own Bible. We linger on the passages we love and blot out, or argue, or skim the verses that repel us." You think of the extremeists who insist the Bible hates gays. You think of the exteremists who disragard the whole thing and live by thier own codes. Which is right, is there a right? Probably not, but maybe, who are we to decide. I think if anything is right, it has to be right in our own heads first, and then see if it fits into the world, cause we are all in this together. I'll leave you with a quote from a Steppenwolf song called "Rock Me"

"I don't know where we come from
Don't know where we're goin' to
But if all this should have a reason
We would be the last to know
So let's just hope there is a promised land
Hang on 'til then
As best as you can"

I know I will, will you?