In class Prof. Sexson paraphrased an essay he had written on the subject of Jacob's wrestling match with the mysterious being at Peniel. This being is traditionally identified as an angel, but the Revised Standard simply has it as "a man". A man? He obviously has some sort of power, evidenced by busting Jacob's thigh out of its socket *ouch* and by conveying the Blessing upon Jacob at daybreak--his name being changed to Isreal--. It obviously isn't a dualistic presentation of a divine being here, where good and evil exist in seperate categories. It rather is a combination of the two. It is simultaneously benign and terrifying. This is how we have been asked to consider the terms of "taboo" and "sublime". Something may be forbidden for one reason or another(abomination or holiness) but it is also extremely powerful, and in what way can this power be yielded?

And also the question of who gets the Blessing. In Genesis the Blessing doesn't necessarily go to those who are patient and righteous(who conventional wisdom seems to dictate should recieve it) but rather to those who are heroic vitalists, to employ Bloom's term for describing King David. It foes to who is most vital and heroic, like Herakles defeating the river god and recieving the cornucopia.
Interesting consideration.

I have heard of but never read The Red Tent; I am now a bit tempted to. Sounds like an imaginative interpretation of the baffling story of the Rape of Dinah. Was she actually raped? Or was there consent? There is contradiction and lacunae aplenty, here. As well as circumscion, which the J text leaves out of the story, which leads me to speculate on the possiblity of this element being included as a commentary on ancient tribal relations and the attempts of these various tribes to seperate themselves from one another, and to prevent integration from happening.

I don't know if that last sentance made any sense or not. But I hope it did. Somehow.

We recieved specific instruction never to use the word "just" in this class, due to it's limiting nature, which I think is fair. It is limiting, like someone saying "you can't do that, you're just a kid", or "you're just a woman." This is the same sort of logic that seemed to be operating for the author of a 1904 study on adolescent behaviour, which defined adolescence as a feminine phase, and that essentially women(as well as Indians, black people, Jews etc.)are "arrested adolescents". Yet another example of old-time science that we can look back and be horrified by.

In addition to learning this in class today(which I guess is mildly off-topic), I also was introduced(or perhaps re-introduced) to the notion of Jesus fitting into the archetype of the mythological hero: born under strange circumstances, someone attempting to kill him at birth, raised by foster parents, performs great acts with some sort of divine backup, and dies on top of a mountain--Golgatha in Jesus' case--. This concept is rather intriguing.

Also intriguing is the comparisons to be found in the between the Greek tradition of valorizing standing toe-to-toe with the gods(because of course in the Greek world the gods are capricious and not terribly trustworthy; as is Yahweh come to think of it) and Biblical examples of the same, such as Abram/Abraham haggling with Yahweh over how many righteous men Sodom and Gomorrah should be spared for and Job trying to put God on trial for the suffering that he as a righteous man has endured.

We also discussed the well motif employed by J in the book of Genesis. This is were the servent meets Rebecca, who is to be his master's son's wife, and also were Rebecca first sees Isaac from afar(their intimate impressions and ideas, alas, are not to be evidenced. Merely a matter of lacunae). And this is also where Jacob meets Rachel, his cousin(!) with whom he falls madly in love.

I do admit that I like the word "lacunae". Don't know why really; just do. It sounds vaguely magical. And indeed the Biblical world is loaded with the concept of word-magic. This is why the Blessing, once bestowed to one person, cannot be taken back. You perhaps didn't want it this way(Isaac sure as hell didn't want to bless Jacob instead of Esau), but this is the way it's going to be. Such is the power of the logos.

One thing I learned in today's class that I did not know previously is that Salman Rushdie has a children's book to his credit, Harud and the Sea of Stories(the protagonist's name may not be spelt correctly). It was also mentioned that Mr. Rushdie has something of an obsession with The Wizard of Oz, which I can believe; there is a scene in his novel Midnight's Children where the hero has a nightmare featuring a witch eating children, where all is black and green--the colors of the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film. Fascinating.

This is slighly besides the point perhaps. But it does tie in with what could be called archetypal stories and the power and influence they derive from metaphor. As was mentioned on Tuesday's lecture, and I believe also today, God is metaphor. And this in all liklihood how the Bible would best be read; through metaphorical image. Some of the most imaged of all metaphors are those which are parental. For instance, how Noah curses the progeny of his son Ham(Canaan)because Ham came upon his father naked. And this is why Israel has every moral right to conquer the inhabitants of the land of Canaan.

I suppose a great many weak misreadings of the Bible(to use Bloom's phrase) are done by those who are metaphorically deficent. Perhaps it is simply easier to read the Bible literally as opposed to metaphorically. I would submit that the latter option is much more challenging, but also in the long run more helpful and rewarding.

Today was our guest lecuture on women and the Bible. There is some information which I did know in some shape or form before(ie. that phallocentrism is central to patriarchal cultures), but that is unimportant given what I was not aware of before.

In this category falls the stories of the Prophets, which begin whith Amos in roughly 750 BCE. All of them are concerned with social conditons, meaning of course the state of the people's morality. Jeremiah(around 586 BCE) complains particularly about the woman, who are worshipping a Godess, and prepare special vulva-cookies in Her honor. Jeremiah insists to the men that they must control their wives. I wonder if this offers a key to why Harold Bloom continually places "the abominable" in front of his name whenever Jeremiah is mentioned?

And there is also the Prophet Hosea(coming between Amos and Jeremiah in 720 BCE)who is ordered by Yahweh to get a "wife of harlotry", with whom he has children who are named in such a way as represents everything which displeases Yahweh. Interpreting the situation metaphorically, it comes down to this: Hosea is Yaweh and his wife of harlotry is Isreal. How interesting.

There is also some scholarly opinion that the oldest piece of poetry in the Hebrew Bible is the Song of Deborah, which dates to roughly 1100 BCE. It can be broken down into three sections, which serve as a representation of the course of how women are defined.

1. Deborah as Judge, who knows what Yahweh wants, and who the general Barach(sp?) will only go to battle if accompanied by.
2. Jael, who nails the enemy general Sisrera through the head with a tent peg when he falls asleep in her tent.
3.Sisera's mother and the wise women, anticipating that he will bring home the spoils of victory: clothing and "wombs"(for the sake of being polite).

Whoa.

A great deal of reading has been done in the span of time since I last posted, but I'll see what I can do.

I finished Genesis, and have nearly finished with Samuel(1 and 2). I debated reading the book my group was assigned at the same time as the rest, but I decided I'd finish Samuel and then return to reading the Bible straight through.

I'm now to Bloom's commentary on Joeseph in The Book of J, which I am finding very piquant. Mr. Bloom's style takes a little getting used to(a bit dense or esoteric, at first glance) but once you do, you realize he has some very astute critical observations. He says in this book that J had no heros, only heroines. There's a very similar claim in his Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human; that Shakespeare for the most part prefers his heroines to his heros. Hm.

And this is definitely a belated commentary, but I'd like to do it anyway. I read Singer's The Slave over Labor Day weekend. I meant only to start it, reading a chapter or so at a time, but it was just so involving I couldn't put it down. Mr. Singer has a lovely, intensely visual prose style(if that makes any sense). Being a person who cares deeply for movies, I was struck again and again by moments that made me think "Now this would be a great movie scene."
But great care would have to be taken if it were to be made into a film if you wanted all the layers of religous meaning and questions to be preserved, and this would be essential. I don't really want to get into discussion of the plot yet--I don't want to spoil anything for those who haven't started--but I will say confidently that it is a good novel to be reading in a Biblical Lit class. Not only because of the multitudinous Biblical references, but because the structure of the story itself is so much like the Bible. There is the irony of delayed punishmnet for evil, or achievement of happiness, there is a change of name for one of the characters as with a great many Biblical characters(ie. Abram to Abraham, Jacob to Isreal etc.). A central point of difference, of course, would be that in the Bible(at least with J) God is present and involved, perhaps too much so. The characters in The Slave often have a tangible sense of God's distance, if not outright absence. The issue of theodicy would certainly be one of this novel's key themes.