Comfy?

Several words need to be defined and put into setting so that I can more clearly use them to explain some of the things I have been discovering in my latest readings. Some of them will, no doubt, be familiar to most. Perhaps the two most familiar will be polytheistic and monotheistic. Poly, being of course, many and mono being singular. Theistic refers to a supreme being, i.e., God. To say one is monotheistic is to say they believe there is only one God.

Two words that might not be so familiar are syncretism and etiological. The first, syncretism, means to attempt reconciliation of differing, maybe even opposing, principles, practices or parties as in philosophy or religion. Etiological pertains to causes or origins.

In other words, syncretism is the process by which different accounts of previous events can be made to fit together complementary. In many such process proceedings both sides will have to give some ground, be willing to compromise, perhaps agree to disagree on points, but arrive at an agreement that allows the two sides to coexist without conflict. The case in point may be events or even the existence of peoples.

Etiologic is the reason behind the event or condition being observed. If you have a cold, most doctors will offer a possible scenario for your infection, but will not dwell too much on the possible means of infection. He or she will, instead, concentrate on either curing you or at least making you comfortable while your body heals itself. An epidemiologist, on the other hand, would not be so interested in effecting a cure as in resolving how you contacted the cold in the first place. An epidemiologist then is involved in seeking the etiology behind your cold. Many biblical scholars believe that writers of scripture that became canon were heavily involved in creating an etiological process to explain the current events, processes and procedures the peoples of faith were involved in on a daily basis.

For example, when one would question why the celebration of the Passover, the keepers of the holy books would explain why using very old stories, tales and possibly a bit of stretching of facts and details, leaving out complicating parts and perhaps even bolstering the story a bit with fabricated events and people that may in fact be bits and pieces of other real events and persons. Sort of a mixing of tales to produce a tale that was more in line with what the writer wished was the background to the then modern question.

Not lying, not pure fabrication, but a blending and bending of things. After all, it had all been passed down orally from generation to generation for many generations, who is to say that the exact story remained intact anyway?

With that being put forth, I want to share on this blog, and explore some of the thought processes that have been mine as I sort through Kugel’s mindset on reading the bible.

A number of things have come to my attention through this book that I am quite sure mainstream Christianity never encounters. Probably the biggest encounter was the belief by many biblical scholars that the early books of the Bible were written at a very late date, certainly not any time close to when the events were believed to have occurred. That means that the “patriarchs” of the earliest books may be understood and pictured very differently than they really were.

There are a number of biblical scholars who are convinced that many of these “patriarchs” are most likely inventions of later writers. It is for sure, for instance, that the Pentateuch was not written by one person, whether named Moses or not. Most biblical scholars believe that Moses had no hand in the writings at all, but that the first 5 books of the cannon of scriptures were written by at least 4 and possibly 5 different writers.

The second largest encounter was that many biblical scholars believe that the earliest peoples, who became known at a later time as Israelites, were not monotheistic, but polytheistic. Many scholars have taken the ten commandments apart in their original language and concluded that while YHWH God may have given the familiar rules to his people and said “Thou shall have no other gods before me” it did not mean they couldn’t have other gods. But it did mean the other gods would be secondary to the one God, YHWH.

In other words, if you want a god of harvest, a god of sowing, a god of plenty, a god of safety, etc, it was OK. Just remember that I am the chief god, the god who is jealous of your worship and praise.

Many biblical scholars believe that much of the Pentateuch is partly events of very early times that have been told and retold, massaged and adapted, elaborated upon and updated with changes in lifestyles and societal norms, and partly pure fabrication to provide “etiological” substantiation for situations, practices and observances of the current day in which those events were being told or discussed.

With my being raised in a fellowship of believers that take the Bible pretty much literally, you might wonder if these opinions of men and women known as scholars of scripture would adversely impact my personal beliefs. Some who have been following along are, I am sure, wondering. Especially those who have known me for some time.

Actually, an amazing quantity of what I am reading fits to some degree suspicions that I began to have as early as the eighth grade. I know I have referenced the eighth grade before, but in case you missed it, I’ll recap it.

Eighth grade for me began in September 1962. I turned 13 in July before school started. Thirteen is for a lot of young people right in the time of their lives when an awareness of a lot of things begin to change somewhat. Puberty is beginning to set in, if not already set. A sense of knowing when others are being truthful or not begins to be sharpened. The ability to “look through” a façade or “masks” that people put on is developing. A heightened sense of seeing what is happening around them, almost in slow motion, is becoming second nature. In fact, this sense seems to be with us at its peak for a short time in our lives.

Eighth grade in the school system I was raised in was the middle grade of what was then known as “Jr. High School.” We weren’t considered high school young adults, yet, but we were expected to act a little more mature, be a little more mature, and be ready to consider more mature material and exposure than elementary school children.

In the school system in which I was educated eighth grade was the time when upper level mathematics, literature and science were introduced. Eighth grade saw me in an English class that began to consider literature from a world perspective. Eighth grade was geometry, a new way to consider mathematically the shapes and designs not only in man made things, but within nature as well. And eighth grade was for those in this school system the first foray into natural science. Science that included exploring cell structure, cellular reproduction, cell mutation and cellular diversification to galactic properties including births, lives and deaths of stars. We dissected frogs, worms and cats. And we looked at an ever expanding universe and considered if it was now expanding, from where did it start, and how did it start?

The dichotomy of sitting in an almost enraptured state of amazement in these three subjects verses the rigid sameness of what I was being told in church was brain piercing. It began to divide my thought processes with a deep rooted fear that the people of faith around me may be right in their simplistic view of the world and the emerging greater fear that they were poisoned with a thought process killing agent of some kind. I began to see the process not only affecting the way they regarded new discoveries but in the way they perceived the very creator they regarded with a terrible apprehension of offending by questioning the creation.

Of course I could not, in the eighth grade, have verbalized this in any understandable way to others. I did try. Oh how I tried. But the knowledge and vocabulary were not mine then. I was looked upon as trouble and “lost. “

Lost, a very convenient word. It covers so many situations and circumstances. I was the lost one. The lost son. The lost brother. The sheep out of the fold. The 1 of the 90 and 9. The coin of great value lost in the house.

And it began in the eighth grade. It began to take on a life form of its own, this lostness. I evoked not only prayers in the closet, but prayers in public, some in the presence of the lost one. Heart wrenching, tear stained and voice distorting prayers. Time slowly added a form of shunning. Along with the constant prayers and whispered conversations was the resolve of many to not include this lost one until reconciliation was effected.

No reaching out for understanding of the lost one. No attempt at syncretism. No walking in the lost one’s shoes.

So do you want to rethink that question? The one about the opinions of men and women known as scholars of scripture adversely impacting my personal beliefs?

No. They haven’t. At three score years, not a lot impacts me.

Blessings. And thanks if you stayed with this until now. Would you like a cold drink?