[Name Redacted]’s Comments (group member since Jan 15, 2015)

[Name Redacted]’s comments from the On Paths Unknown group.

Traveller wrote: "^ True, dat, Name R. I love 'variations' like the one you mention, as long as they clearly state that it is a variation."

Well, the performance I saw wasn't so much a "variation" on the play itself as it was a choice on the part of the actor (and, presumably, the director, etc.). He changed the way he read the lines, moved, held himself, etc. from the stereotype/status quo, but the lines themselves, the narrative, etc. all remained the same. And honestly that is what happens in every single performance of anything ever. So, for instance, the 1993 Kenneth Branagh "Much Ado About Nothing" isn't a "variation" anymore than a high school production or an 18th century production in the Globe Theater itself. We ain't talkin' "Clueless" as a variation on "Emma," just a demonstration that the same text can be changed simply by reading it in a different way.

Though reading it in a "Donald Duck" voice would probably constitute a "variation" worth clearly stating from the outset. XD

Also worth noting that plays are meant to be performed and viewed, not read. And how they are performed can change everything about how the play is understood. I once saw a performance of Hamlet in which the actor played him as manic and it completely altered the entire production and tenor of the play.

Traveller wrote: "I was not too surprised at the idea of a Hindu and a Christian getting together, but a Hindu and a Baptist? That seemed a bit off-beat to me, because Baptists tend to be pretty observant of their r..."

Er...just chiming in to say that that particular characterization of Hindus is more a product of orientalisation and subsequent assimilation in the West than reality - the current waves of Hindu nationalist violence are under reported but in no way exceptional.

Also, my "Native American" friends and colleagues all personally prefer "Indian" and "American Indian" - which may explain why most Native rights organizations still use those terms. I am partial to the Canadian term "First Nations".

And I was irked by the casting too, but it felt like they were just trying to cram as many big names in there as possible. For what it's worth, I think Eijofor would have made a better leading man than Damon, but I suppose we're still a long way from that.

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "[Name Redacted] wrote: "Arabs. Romans. Greeks. "

Hmmm. Not what I would consider "ethnicities". Arabs, these days, are largely intolerant of other religions (even, or especially, when both religi..."

I suppose it depends on your definition of "ethnicity." But the standard one is: "any social group that shares a common and distinctive culture, religion, language, etc." And really, there are far, far, far more different cultural and religious groups under the "Arab" umbrella than the general "Muslim" and "Christian" categories indicate. And just because someone was a Roman citizen, that didn't mean they weren't regarded as "other" -- to be a citizen just gave you political rights, it did nothing to your ethnic identity as perceived from the "real" Romans. And "Hellenes" is the term used most commonly to refer to the larger category of people we now refer to as "Greeks."

Traveller wrote: "[Name Redacted] wrote: "Jan wrote: "The themes are not separated into the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. They are interwoven. You can't get the 'Jewish' themes out of the NT. There is a continuit..."

No...Okay, there's too much to respond to. But here's a point. Again, this gets to the problem of trying to read one thing into a text which says otherwise. There are actually several post-Torah verses (primarily but not entirely in the Neviim) in which the "eye-for-an-eye" thing is repudiated.

I'm actually writing a book on the Antique/Late Antique Mediterranean "pagan" approaches to foreign religion, and by comparison even the Torah was tolerant in its stances. To be "other" was generally to be dead in Greece and Rome. The Persian religion of the Achaemenid Empire might be the most tolerant from that epoch, but... even then we only really have evidence from outsiders who had been conquered, not from insiders.

Oh, here's a fun example of modern mythmaking (keeping in mind that to us scholars of antiquity, anything after the Medieval period is "modern").

The history of the Inquisition (as most Americans know it, anyway) is almost entirely the product of English & German Protestant anti-Catholic propaganda. The Inquistion was actually started to prevent witch & heretic burnings/beheadings/etc., since it was believed (fairly accurately in most cases) that the laity were murdering innocents accused of being witches/heretics/etc. out of fear, greed or misplaced zeal. Under Roman Catholic & Orthodox canon laws, "witchcraft" wasn't even punishable by death, merely a monetary fine -- this was derived from the fundamental belief that "magic" didn't exist and that at no point in the NT was anyone who practiced magic killed by Jesus or the Apostles. This was essentially the official stance of Christianity since the Council of Elvira ca. 305/306 C.E., reiterated in both the 7th and 14th centuries C.E. Heck, PAGAN ROMAN law was FAAAAAAAAR harsher to people who were perceived as practicing "magic" and/or foreign religions (just check out Paulus' "Sententiae" or the very first laws of the Roman republic). Even the Spanish Inquisition was a state-run, secularized entity divorced from the actual Inquistion (which itself was largely ineffectual due to laypeople's refusal to cooperate). The same goes for the attacks on Jews -- the official stance of all major Churches (the Roman Catholic, the various Orthodox denominations, etc.) had been that the Jews HAD to be protected and left alone because the OT & NT were interpreted as indicating that the Jews would be around during Christ's Second Coming, and that they would convert at that time.

I mention all of this also to indicate that trying to condemn "Christianity" for the crimes of some Christians, or even some branches of Christianity, is rather like trying to condemn all Caucasians for the crimes of the Third Reich.

(Also, because it's late and I've been lecturing today so there's a lot of information still bubbling up in my head)

Jan wrote: "The themes are not separated into the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. They are interwoven. You can't get the 'Jewish' themes out of the NT. There is a continuity of themes, not discontinuity. To come to the latter conclusion requires seeing Judaism through a biased eye. (At the dawn of Christianity, the only scripture was the OT. The early church needed it. Christianity couldn't exist without it.)"

Yep. This.

And it sounds like I misunderstood the intent of your defense of them as "Christian stories." You are absolutely right in that respect -- trying to excise TaNaKhic narratives & scriptures from Christianity is extremely difficult, if not impossible. Old attempts were made (*cough*Marcionism*cough*), but never had any real traction or lasting impact. That's really where the exegesis comes in. The fact of the matter is that Second Temple Judaism has about as much in common with Rabbinic Judaism as it does with Christianity: both are religious movements which began in the Second Temple period and rose to prominence in the post-Temple world.

As for the "evils of Christianity," we might not want to start down that road. Especially since most of the "evils" people start listing tend to be ahistorical, anachronistic, out of context, and/or just plain fictional. There are valid complaints to be made, but separating them from the myths, the slanders, the political acts mis-characterized as religious, etc. takes AGES. Just separating fact from fiction in that regard would take more time than I really have right now, especially since people can become very committed to their head-canon histories. Heck, if you believe what was written about Christians between the 2nd and 6th centuries C.E., they were a cult of incestuous, orgiastic cannibal baby-killing wizards who worshipped the golden donkey-headed barbarian Jewish god and his dead Egyptian wizard son. And that's just ONE of the popular accusations.

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "Traveller wrote: "I personally prefer to, as you rightly pointed out, to see "ethnicity" as a cultural group who identify together ITO language, customs and culture, (and -usually- religion too, th..."

Arabs. Romans. Greeks.

Uh, the "Jews" pre-date the Babylonian exile. It originated as a term for people of the Kingdom of Judah (aka: the Southern Kingdom), and was later applied to the returned Exiles because those were the ones taken to Babylon -- the Kingdom of Israel/Ephraim (aka: the Northern Kingdom) having been wiped out well beforehand by the Assyrians. This was why the Achaemenid Empire dubbed the resettled territory which the Exiles inhabited "Yehud," and the Romans eventually called it "Judaea."

And it sounds like Jan doesn't know what she's talking about. It's the same text, in various states of translation admittedly, but the only difference is exegesis. Even the Septuagint was translated and used by Greek-speaking Jews before Christians started using it. We have a copy of nearly every single TaNaKhic text in Hebrew/Aramaic from the Qumran scrolls, and they match pretty much perfectly with the Masoretic Text -- which is what most Jews have used for ages now and what Christians today read (in translation).

And yes, the judgments against the Canaanites are as a result of their having descended into what we today would call "paganism" and other practices considered "wrong." That's explicitly stated throughout the Torah. That's the point of the narrative -- if they hadn't sinned, then the land wouldn't have been given to the Israelites. And if you read the TaNaKh as a holistic text, it presages the eventual judgments against the Northern & Southern Kingdoms (and the post-Exile communities as well). The text as a whole is usually read as saying "God judged the Canaanites for their sins and used us as the instrument of his vengeance; now he is judging us for committing the same sins, and he is using the Goyim as his instruments against us." One of the overarching themes of the Torah and the rest of the TaNaKh is the consequences of the Israelites' refusal to obey such instructions -- eg: "Completely eradicate the Canaanites! If you don't, you'll adopt their religious and cultural practices and I will have to wipe you out too!" "Meh...We'll get around to it." [Decades Later] "Hey, those Canaanites are still around because we didn't wipe them out! Let's adopt some of their religious and cultural practices!" "Well, you can't say I didn't warn you..."

Another similar command/disobedience/consequence dynamic which seems to be a consistent theme in a holistic reading is that of Kingship. The Sinai Covenant involved the Israelites promising to accept their god as their king; no kingship is permitted, just tribal councils, priests, prophets and periodic emergency leaders. They are warned of the horrible things a human king can do. But in Samuel they insist upon having a human king, and even after the consequences are rehearsed to them again, they keep insisting, so they are granted a human kingship...and what follows is a list of kings who invariably demonstrate the weakness of human leaders (since even the best ones usually screw up BIG TIME) and very nearly cause the Israelites to be eradicated repeatedly.

A holistic reading, it should be noted, does not require that one assume it was all written at once or by the same author -- only that the authors of subsequent texts in the tradition were responding to the earlier ones -- perhaps continuing themes they noticed or believed they noticed in the earlier texts.

In any event, the purpose of the commands should not be seen as simply a matter of ethnic cleansing -- there's more to them. It's not just a matter of "We're better, so we get the land!" It's a matter of "This is what happens to peoples who fail to listen to God, and it can happen to us too." Within the text the commands are presented as something which will happen to the "cleansers" as well if they fail to honor the Covenant. This is, in part, the reasoning behind the creation of the Qumran Community, the Pharisees, the Talmud, etc. -- fear that failure to abide by the Covenant will result in God permitting or causing the wholesale destruction of the People because they wound up doing exactly what their "pagan" predecessors did. The idea that one should not see oneself as superior or protected simply because one was used as an instrument of judgment. Read in context (even simply the context of the Torah), the commands to wipe out the Canaanites are as much a warning to the Israelites as a judgment against the Canaanites.

I'm not saying you're wrong to condemn the practice divorced from all context, just that within the text there's a lot more involved than simply "Kill the others and take their land."

...I clearly missed the original discussion, but the Christian "Old Testament" IS the Hebrew TaNaKh. "Old Testament" is just the Christian name for it. We are hampered in our study of it today by the fact that what we call "biblical Hebrew" was a dead language, limited solely to religious literature, for nearly two millennia (which is why when Modern Hebrew was created it had to be rebuilt from the ground up using the basic structures of Arabic & words from other languages), so there are a lot of ancient Hebrew words of which even the most rigorous scholars can only guess at the meaning (not that most of us will admit it). But...yeah, calling the OT mere "Christian Stories" is rather like calling the works of Xenophon "German stories" just because they have been studied by Germans and translated into German.

I'm willing to answer any questions, since I'm a professor of religious studies and ancient history specializing in both the ancient Mediterranean and the periods in which Christianity emerged and Rabbinic Judaism became its own post-Temple entity.

I've been pretty negative, so here's a book that I loved and which challenged me: La danse de Gengis Cohn by Romain Gary.

It's pretty hard to get a copy of it now, as it's out of print. It was also made into a movie (starring Diana Rigg and featuring a very young Daniel Craig) which is likewise out of print but available in pieces on Youtube).

It's set in post-WWII Germany and revolves around a murder investigation conducted by an inspector who was, years before, a Nazi. In that capacity he oversaw the execution of many, many Jews, but the parting words of one Jew, a comedian who called himself "Genghis Cohn", haunt him -- as does the comedian himself eventually! Plagued by the apparition of a man he had executed, the inspector slowly begins transforming into a stereotypical Ashkenazi Jew, craving whitefish, using Yiddishisms, etc. This proves challenging for the townsfolk as they live in a constant state of conscious denial, attempting to return to the orderly, well-mannered lives they lived before the rise of the Third Reich and doing everything they can to avoid acknowledging what they and their countrymen did.

What I found particularly challenging was the novel's use of black humor throughout, as Genghis Cohn couldn't resist cracking wise even as he was killed and his ghost continues to mock and perform for the man he is haunting. Humor has long been a means by which the Jewish people have dealt with tragedy and suffering, both as consolation and as rebellion, and we're rightly famous for it. But to have the specter of a comedian represent the suppressed memory of the Holocaust was harrowing in a way that employing a more serious figure never could have been.

Oooh, there's always Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God? -- arguably one of the most popular yet absolutely one of the worst "scholarly" texts ever written. It's an EXCRUCIATING read for anyone who knows anything about...well...any of the subjects he's purporting to analyze. I don't want to launch into a rant. My review can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

But here's an example of the kind of logic he uses:
Jesus was accused of using magic --> Therefore Jesus was actually a magician.

Now, in the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern regions all Egyptians, all Persians, all Babylonians, all Thessalians, all Jews and all women were also accused of using magic. So by the logic upon which his entire book is founded, all Egyptians, all Persians, all Babylonians, all Thessalians, all Jews and all women WERE/ARE magicians.

Seriously, it's a mind-bogglingly terrible academic work, literally the academic equivalent of that "Ancient Aliens" show. But it is AMAAAAAZING how many unwary and uncritical readers take it as the gospel (no pun intended) truth.

Paul wrote: "well, apart from Hay-on-Wye."

I'm pretty sure that's only the most bookstore-filled of any city...in Wales.

Gregsamsa wrote: "Apikoros Sleuth

It's pretty interesting even though it's pretty much your typical Talmud-layout noir mystery whose narrator has reference mania. Like you see everywhere.

"

This sounds like exactly my kind of book.

Paul wrote: "Anything goes? Oh well.... yesterday I went to London and found myself on Mile End Road, sitting in a pub which was bang opposite the front door of the notorious East London Mosque. That was very u..."

I'm told that Buenos Aires, Argentina has the most bookstores of any city in the world.

Nandakishore wrote: "Oh, no self-promotion here... just the first thing that came to my mind. You know, just to get the ball rolling. :D"

Ha ha, and I'd have to be banned too since I brought up my cat-lit-blog.

The Nine Lives of Clemenza.

Long story short, it posits that for some reason all souls live nine lives. Those lives are chosen consciously by the souls and can be spent as anything, because souls are just balls of living energy that possess consciousnesses, and those energy-balls make up all of reality. So the protagonist exists as an oxygen molecule, a part of the Aurora Borealis, a tree, a cancer cell, a dog, etc.

Personally, I found the book's cosmology and theology utterly implausible and inconsistent. A lot of it felt like that odd fusion of Westernized Hindu/Buddhist concepts and simplified post-medieval Abrahamic concepts that so predominates in modern Western "spirituality". It's overwhelmingly positive, there's never any judgment, and there is no Hell (or similar state of existence); if a soul does badly enough, they will simply be snuffed out of existence. But only if they do badly enough in their last life, because a moderately inoffensive last life can apparently make up for eight previous lifetimes of conscious and deliberate evil. And no soul ever faces any consequences of their choices or actions in life until they have finished their ninth life. So, assuming that Hitler, Elizabeth Bathory & Jeffrey Dahmer weren't on their final existences, and chose not to be humans in their final lifetimes, they could make up for whatever they did while being human by being kind to a puppy in their final life. The human element is important because (in this book's concept of reality) only humans can't remember all of their previous existences or the true nature of reality -- for some vaguely-explained reason that assumes ignorance allows for free-will. Even though every soul possesses free will in every incarnation in the book. It's all very confusing and nonsensical, and the author clearly believes she's come up with a beautiful, inspiring view of reality, but the theodicy alone seems terrifyingly inconsistent and irrational. Say what you will about the mainstream religions of the world, but at least their theodicies are internally consistent.

Worst of all, there's never any explanation for the "Nine Lives" limitation -- you'd think it would have something to do with cats, but the protagonist never once experiences life as a feline and the God which this book imagines certainly isn't feline either!

Has anyone else read this? It honestly felt like something a stoned college student might write after sleeping through a religious studies class. It was all over the place, while simultaneously being no place at all!

Traveller wrote: "Let's see: Lobsang Rampa is the pen name of an author who wrote books with paranormal and occult themes. His best known work is The Third Eye, published in Britain in 1956.

Following the publicati..."

I read an odd book a friend loaned me called The Nine Lives of Clemenza which, she and I thought, would involve someone living as a cat for at least one life. But they do not. I will describe the details of it in the thread about odd books. I will say, however, that it seemed like author had been experimenting with trepanning...

Anything Goes?

All right then. I purchased two cat-themed mystery novels that turned out to be utter rubbish, relying on the cat element to draw in a particular type of reader when the books themselves were virtually cat-free. They were so bad, it inspired me to start a blog in which my cat will review cat-themed books.

That's the state of my life right now. I need a real job! XD

I am here. Behold my glorious, radiant face! ;)