Glenn Jacob

Mythos

One of the most prominent tasks that the redactor of the Bible undertook was teaching the lessons of monotheism, at least the monotheism of the Israelite Cult. His pedagogic skills are phenomenal. The redactor did not teach by pasting sermons and lectures into the text because he knew lecturing is a poor methodology for explaining to the illiterate masses who would hear the verses but not read them. (Most of the world, perhaps 98% or 99%, were illiterate.) The redactor taught using the method of storytelling, embedding the lessons within the tale. Theology, history, life lessons, and even genealogies could be recalled if the Israelite could remember the story.

Certain motifs or storylines were repeated to reinforce or to emphasize lessons. When the redactor repeated these motifs, they became mythos, recurring narratives that take on significant meanings above and beyond individual lessons.

Not only can mythos be found across the entire Hebrew text, but the narrative will appear from the most simplistic plot to some of the most complicated depictions of Israelite belief. The easiest example of a simple plot motif is the famine story forcing our patriarchal family to go to a foreign kingdom for food only to have the matriarch taken to the royal harem. Abraham and Sarah go down to Egypt in Gen. 12:10-20 and to the kingdom of Gerar in Gen. 20:1-18. Isaac and Rebecca go down to Gerar in Gen. 26:1-11.

All three are essentially the same story. If they are the same, then why did the redactor keep all three when one telling without contradiction would have been just as clear? First, he had three stories and he chose to keep all three. Second, the mythos of the three stories – the merit of worshipping Yahweh, the power of Yahweh God, and the reward of obeying Yahweh – are three fundamental lessons taught in the Book of Genesis about the belief system of the Israelite cult. Hearing these stories repeated, the Yahweh believers learned that these lessons have an emphasis over other teachings.

The use of mythos is one of the fundamental building blocks of the redactors of the corpus. Consider how almost every religious system begins teaching children the tenets of the religion – by telling stories. Therein lies the power of mythos in human culture across time, generations, and geography.

First Verse of Genesis

The inability of science and religion to reconcile their points of view occurs in the first verse on the first page of Genesis. “When God began creating the heavens and the earth” is interpreted by literalists as the scientific beginning of the world as if these ancient monotheists were modern scientists publishing their findings. Science as we understand it today was not invented when Genesis was committed to parchment. Debunking their argument, the Bible is not a scientific text and should never be construed as one. Tanakh (Hebrew for “Bible”) is first and foremost, a proudly theological collection of books. The books are about Adonai God and the people of Adonai God, the children of Israel.

Theology and science are disparate disciplines, fundamentally different and incongruous. To read a compromise between theology and scientific inquiry on the first page of Genesis is an act of futility – there is no compromise because theology and science are two divergent disciplines. The battles we witness between the “the Bible is wrong” crowd and the “science is evil” crowd is the continuing failure to find compromise when none is available, plausible, or more to the point, necessary. The battle is the result of a categorical error.

Too many assume that the both approaches are attempting to answer the same question: how was the universe made? Science asks that question and has reams of exciting facts, theories, and emerging hypotheses. Science asks what is the process and how does it work. Science leaves the “why” or more precisely, “why was the universe created?” to philosophy and religion.

The author(s) of Genesis ask a different question: “Does the universe have meaning?” The typical-of-its-time mythology of the Greeks has Zeus chopping off the head of the monster and hoisting it up in the heavens as a bloody trophy called earth. There is no meaning for humans in crawling across the face of rotting skull like maggots. In contrast, the Genesis story argues that if God made the world, then the world has meaning. By being created by God, humans have a meaning for existence as well. To argue that our lives have meaning is a worthwhile theology to hold dear.

Science has nothing to say about the maker of the universe and Genesis has nothing to say about the science of creating universes. They are asking different questions. The fault of our thinking is assuming that science and religion are opposite of each other when they are actually working in two different, though parallel realms, answering different, though both worthy questions.

On Elder Suicide

A colleague just lost a 72 year old father-in-law to suicide. He wanted to assure us that are the family making a concerted effort to remember the joys and successes of the man’s life and not just his tragic end. Only a short time has passed since Robin Williams took his life while in his sixties. Elder suicide is not a new phenomenon and its tally has been recorded for decades; it is not uncommon. There are many lessons to be learned in these tragic deaths and the first and most important is that not everyone can be saved from their own destructive impulses.

The media frenzy surrounding Robin Williams’ death immediately pointed to his history of depression and perhaps other mental illnesses even though he was under treatment for Parkinson’s disease. The message left for entertainment consumers is that depressed people kill themselves. The media left for fresher tales of woe and then ignored information that was released later. Rarely does the media circle back to examine earlier released articles, meaning that a later review of Mr. Williams death got little play.

Parkinson’s disease is a progressive disorder of the central nervous system of the brain. The disease is incurable and affects brain chemistry. Besides the physical symptoms of stiffness and tremors of limbs that an observer can see, victims of Parkinson’s disease experience organic depression. “Organic” signifies that the depression is not from an external source (i.e. loss of a spouse or a job) but is an issue caused by brain chemistry. Medications for organic depression may not be effective and in this case they were not. Robin Williams committed suicide but he died of Parkinson’s disease.

The case of Robin Williams is not atypical for the disease. No one failed Mr. Williams and Mr. Williams did not fail himself. However, practitioners of certain religious systems condemn Robin Williams and his death, consigning him to their version of after death damnation commonly called “Hell”. What these people believe is not of consequence but the pain they inflict on mourners is consequential. Of course mourners have doubts; they have doubts whether they were attentive enough or aggressive enough. If only they had observed “x” or seen “y” or asked “z”, they bargain that they could have prevented the tragic end. Or they are angry at the deceased for causing them such pain. Hellish condemnation only fuels the pain of profound mourning.

One of the formidable reasons for religion is to guide us through the painful episodes of our lives. When a religious system causes more pain at the point that it supposed to provide solace, the theology is false. Any religion should be able to understand suicide as a disease, as our medical science demonstrates that it is. Suicide in the oldest cohorts of human beings is not wholesale preventable or simple to understand. Even more, these adults are old enough and have enough experience to succeed in their destructive impulse. If anyone can succeed in acting on this urge, our elders certainly will.

Our ever evolving understanding of disease and its courses forces us to reassess our elders’ motives and our judgments of their behaviors. Disease attacks mind, body, and spirit. When the brain is afflicted by a disease, boundaries of behavior may disintegrate. It is the disease not the person and the caregiver is helpless. Condemnations and self-recriminations are common, wrong and only spread the destructive consequences of the disease beyond the afflicted.

My colleague in mourning is correct: celebrate the successes of a life when lived well and invoke the good memories. If one wants to pray for these souls who have been released from the burden of their tangled minds, then pray for cures that allow mortals to go gently into that long, dark night.

Reading Food Labels – MSG

With the blessing of the Department of Agriculture, food manufacturers must list MSG as an ingredient only if it is added as a separate and unique item. If another processed ingredient in the product already contains MSG, no matter the quantity of the chemical, the manufacturer does not have to list MSG as an ingredient. Also, the manufacturer may list the process of creating the food product (i.e. ultra-pasteurized) that includes adding MSG without listing MSG. The “short list” of 58 ingredients containing quantities of MSG is as follows:

Carrageenan,
Wheat, rice, corn, or oat protein,
Protein Fortified Milk,
Whey Protein or Whey,
Anything enriched or vitamin enriched,
Annatto,
Whey Protein Isolate or Concentrate,
Protein fortified “anything”,
Spice,
Pectin,
Enzyme modified proteins,
Gums (guar and vegetable),
Protease,
Ultra-pasteurized dairy products,
Dough Conditioners,
Malted Barley (flavor),
Natural Flavors,
Flavors, Flavoring,
Modified food starch,
Barley malt,
Reaction Flavors,
Rice syrup or brown rice syrup,
Malt Extract or Flavoring,
Maltodextrin,
dextrose,
dextrates,
Soy Sauce or Extract,
“Low” or “No Fat” items,
Caramel Flavoring (coloring),
Soy Protein,
Corn syrup and corn syrup solids,
high fructose corn syrup,
Stock,
Soy Protein Isolate or Concentrate,
Citric Acid (when processed from corn),
Malt Extract or Flavoring,
Natural Chicken, Beef, or Pork, Flavoring “Seasonings” (Most assume this means salt, pepper, or spices and herbs, which sometimes it is.)
Lipolyzed butter fat,
Protease enzymes,
Fermented proteins,
Yeast Nutrients,
Lecithin,
Gluten and gluten flour,
Protein powders: whey, soy, oat, rice (as in protein bars shakes and body building drinks),
Amino acids (as in Bragg’s liquid amino acids and chelated to vitamins),
Algae,
phytoplankton,
sea vegetable,
wheat/ barley grass powders, Stock,
Soy Protein Isolate or Concentrate,
Citric Acid (when processed from corn),
Broth,
Cornstarch fructose (made from corn),
Milk Powder,
Bouillon,
Flowing Agents,
Dry Milk Solids.
“Ultra-pasteurized” anything.

Saving Grandma

The following is a tribute to my students:

“As the children emerged from the cornfield and tromped through the back door of the old farmstead, the eldest called out, ‘Let’s eat grandma!”

Err.

“As the children emerged from the cornfield and tromped through the back door of the old farmstead, the eldest called out, ‘Let’s eat, grandma!”

These two sentences offer a brief lesson in the difference between “The Children of the Corn” and “The Children of the Comma”. Only commas save lives.

Skepticism or Ignorance

On one of the more academic message boards I follow, someone asked, “How do we know the First Temple (Solomon’s Temple) actually existed? Those who took the man’s question at face value gave proof texts from many different books in the Bible while admitting that there is no archeological evidence. There is no archeological evidence because one cannot/should not excavate under the Dome of the Rock. No matter, the skeptic was not convinced; he became belligerent.

His belligerence only confirms the status of this person – the man is ignorant. The stupidity of the question is easily explained by the course of Israelite history. Solomon’s Temple and his palace was a turning point in Israelite history but not because of a standing House of Worship dedicated to the One God. The excesses of slave labor and the territorial ceding of twenty-three towns and villages in the northwest corner of the country to the Kingdom of Tyre to pay for these buildings led to civil war and a split of United Kingdom into the minor kingdoms of Judah and Israel, kingdoms that never reunited. If the skeptic had studied the Biblical history of the First Temple just a little bit, then the question never would have been asked.

A cliché that has been tossed about for years, usually to encourage shy students, is “there is no such thing as a stupid question.” For a shy student who is afraid to ask, asking any question is a pedagogical success because the content of the question does not matter as much as the new interaction with the teacher. A first question becomes a starting point for teaching a student how to engage the material. However, the cliché is not always understood from a teacher’s point of view but is assumed as a broad statement of academic integrity, that is to say, any question is legitimate. Perhaps in perfect world but in our day the cliché is just a “feel good” sentiment that permits ignorant questions that suck time, effort and life out of a lesson or conversation. When questions and challenges stop the learning process, they are stupid questions. Belligerence on the part of questioner is one of the symptoms of destructive pedagogic behavior.

Skepticism, a philosophical tool of the Greeks, was developed to test the soundness of an argument and its assumptions. Skepticism uses questions as tool to test the soundness of an idea, like using your finger to thump a watermelon to test its ripeness. Like the cliché above, skepticism is great when used in this limited sense but as a broad tool used to challenge everything, skepticism is destructive and debilitating to the process of learning or decision making. Using skepticism as a broadside is meant to attack rather than create.

For anyone who has come prepared to a class and listened to another student who has not prepped ask an ignorant question that the first sentences of the assignment answered, the sense of dismay is powerful. Yet this is not the destructive skepticism that destroys a lesson but statement of pervasive ignorance. Correcting ignorance, no matter its source, can be used as a part of teaching. Pervasive skepticism is not redeemable.

How many times have teenagers exclaimed, “Why do we have to study this? I’m never going to use it.” This is not a teachable moment. If the student has exclaimed, “When am I ever going to use this?”, only then is the opening to teach available. Overindulgent Skepticism kills learning.

Then again, there are some people whose agenda is to do just that.

The Book Stolen Most Often in U.S.A

The most stolen books according to Publisher’s Weekly is by author rather than by title. Literate thieves love everything Charles Burkowski wrote. The most stolen text, amassed by comparing a number of lists is the Bible.

The book that states twice, first in Exodus 20 and again in Deuteronomy 5, “You shall not steal” is shoplifted more than most other choices in the bookstore. The irony is not that any person in America can get a Bible for free, a tradition most widespread by the Gideon Society but probably accommodated graciously by any church with a front door. Even the prison will give an inmate a copy of the Bible in Solitary Confinement.

The irony is The Bible does not contain the answers these thieves are seeking. Excuse me, the Bible does not contain “The Answers” that the desperate are seeking. People who believe and people who do not believe read the Bible and find all sorts of knowledge: folk beliefs, anthropology, philosophy, theology, history, songs, poems, wisdom sayings and ancient oracles. There may be only one God but the Bible gives us an array of ideas of how one might perceive God, from the All-knowing God of Genesis 1 to the God who exists but the human cannot fathom in Job 38.

The most depressing point of a stolen Bible is that the text is incomprehensible without a teacher. A theologian is going to read the text with a certain bias while a biblical scholar is going to teach the text using the tools of Literary Criticism. Answers: the Bible is best understood as generating questions, big ones about life and it meaning to small ones about the definition of word. The Bible is the product of a process and the study of the Bible is a process as well. One should seek out the text to find the questions; to find the answers, find a teacher.

In Search of the Root Cause of Calamity

For more than curiosity, people will ask for the root cause(s) of events such as wars, accidents, and traumatic events. Perhaps they ask in hope of identifying preventive process or they to provoke meaning to a tragic loss of life. “Just tell me why” seems like a reasonable plea on the surface but the reality of an event betrays the simplistic nature of the request.

Root causes are a grail, a belief that if we can identify the one first cause of the event in question, then we can eradicate the possibility of this trauma every occurring again. Ending tragic death by the erasure of the elements that lead to strife, death and destruction is a lofty, noble goal yet a naive one. A simple argument is that humanity is far too enmeshed in the struggles for security of all types, the consequences of history, and the needs of the day to affect by the removal of one element easily and thoroughly. War and terror is always a combination of elements, of factors, of processes put into place some time ago and chance that all the prerequisites will align.

When they align, someone has to explain standing near the debris of the aftermath. Pundits hate non-specific explanations. The person at the microphone, whether the person is the sheriff, head of an agency or investigative board, a district attorney, or the president of a country appears as defensive bureaucrat because they can offer no one concise reason. They declare in one form or another, “It is complicated; there are many reasons; the reasons are unclear; we have differing points of view, ideology or religion.” The presenters are condemned for hiding the answers when they do not have the answers or worse, there are no real answers to be had.

My example: Columbine was a terrible massacre. The reasons and explanations of motivations of the two shooters were a universe of opinions, innuendo, pseudo-science, and arm-chair punditry – and every educated speculation offered up in the first years, including many of the facts, were wrong. Only after ten years was a definitive study of the event, including an examination of all of the facts, published. The conclusions offered did not resemble anything presented in the first year and the reasons confounded most of the speculation of the early years. At the end of this thick tome, the reasons did not lend themselves to easy or satisfying solutions.

If Columbine was restricted to two shooters and one high school, and after a thorough, ten year examination there was no simple straightforward answer of why, then how do we turn to the greater events of the day, the Syrian Civil War, the so-called Islamic State, the massacres of Boko Haram in Nigeria and the slaughter by Al Shabab in northern Kenya, and expect explanations that lead to solutions?

The point is now clear: the simplistic hope of a root cause leads only to absurdity and despair. Even if there is a root cause, there are plenty of other elements, other causes that lead to outbreaks of war, invasion, revolution, and self-righteously justified slaughter of innocents. There is more than one root cause and the answers we need to seek are not going to be simple. Why indeed.

Precipitating the argument above is a paper released recently on the effects of climate change on the Syrian Civil War. A root cause, if such a thing exists, is a recent migration within the country. As the southern and southeastern parts of the country were consumed by an accelerating and expanding desertification of the land, the people who eked out a living on these previously marginal lands were forced to relocate in camps surrounding the urban centers of Syria. These displaced families, clans, and tribes received little or no support from the government and they became the fuel upon which the civil strife exploded into civil war. All of the fractures of economic, social, and civic struggle were already in place, a product of the al-Assad regimes but climate change may have been a root cause among many, many reasons.

The purpose of the paper was to demonstrate a larger thesis that climate change will exacerbate tensions and clashes across the globe. With the rapid expansion of the Sahara Desert, we should expect war and violence in the countries affected: Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Nigeria, Niger, Ethiopia, Chad, Somalia and so on. When resources such as water and arable land disappear, people will compete for ever-shrinking resources. Villages and tribes will migrate and fanaticism born of desperation will fortify them as they surge outward.

The hatreds and the competitions are already there. The battles between religions are millennia-long wars that may be the continuance of tribal wars that preceded the missionaries. The competition over resources, the best land or the water source or the salt pan is ancient. The xenophobia is ever present. By luck or by goodly intervention these points of friction were kept cool and calm for periods of time. If the thesis is correct, climate change will overwhelm the good luck and extinguish the noble efforts of peacemakers.

The solutions are easy to state and terribly hard to implement. In fact they sound like the prophets of the Bible railing against the kings of Judah and Israel. (Addressing climate change is essential but at this moment it is not the concern of this argument.) The solution is to support the peacemakers and pull back the warmongers. Feed the hungry and clothe the naked. Give the homeless shelters and to the displaced give jobs. Stop selling weapons overseas. Demand diplomacy first. Yet all of these reasonable solutions, all of which address fundamental causes, are nigh impossible to implement in part much less in full.

The time has already arrived when we need to stop asking “why” and start accessing “what can we do?” We are not helpless and we are not without possibilities. However, we are lacking time and we, the peacemakers and the repairers of the world, need to act.

Sledgehammer Literature

Sledgehammer literature is a phenomenon in modern publications of over-the-top manipulation of emotions or actions in the text to elicit a reciprocal visceral response from the reader. While sledgehammer writing is the preferred style of political opinion writers and advocacy pundits, the same “all faucets on full” writing appears to have migrated to fiction and not political non-fiction writing as well. Authors assume that wringing every last drop of emotional pain from an event is good writing or good for sales, perhaps. Good for one or the other, the prescription of pain, wrenching emotions, brutal self-evisceration and physical manifestations of such pepper the populist lit and literary lit with gut-twisting passages.

This is not bad writing. In fact sledgehammer literature is excellent writing that produces powerful reactions in readers, leaving them shifting uncomfortably in their chairs and on their couches. Typically the purpose of walking a person through a wrenching experience is conclusion of catharsis once the resolution is complete, like the ancient Greek plays that excelled first at presenting wrenching emotional circumstances. The unique characteristic of sledgehammer literature is that there is no catharsis at the end, only relief that the passage is done or disbelief that one stuck with the text and read through it. This type of literature beats up the reader for the sake of demonstrating that the writer can beat up the reader.

Sledgehammer literature is the epitome of technique by an author. Indeed, the mark of such literature is pure technique; missing is many of the other elements of the art of writing. While an excellent novel may have a particularly painful scene, the elements of plot, pacing, character development, and description will also be well pronounced. A novel of the sledgehammer variety relies on the visceral reaction to mask the deficiencies of the other ingredients.

Sledgehammer literature is best identified by its weak appeal to suspend disbelief. When elements are missing, when characters have no more depth to them than the pain they evince in the reader, the reader is left with little else but the pain. And who wants that much suffering really?

Galaxy

Does anyone really understand how expansive the term “galaxy” is? A new 1.5 billion pixel composite picture of 1/3 of Andromeda galaxy has been released. The picture is expandable, allowing the viewer to zoom in to extraordinary detail.

The view is breathtaking.

http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1502a/zoomable/