RE: My Revelation
July 18, 2023 at 12:33 pm
(This post was last modified: July 18, 2023 at 12:52 pm by Bucky Ball.)
Ever since Dr. John Boswell (https://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/25/obitu...-dies.html )
published his book about the formal liturgical (religious) same-sex unions his research found in Medieval Europe,
there have been a number of scholars who have written on the subject. Among them are the Biblical scholars Dr. Richard Elliott Freidmann ("Who Wrote the Bible")
and his collaborator Dr. Shawna Dolansky. They pretty much destroyed the notion that the Bible disapproved of "homosexuality", and among the reasons they look at is the fact that the concept of sexual orientation (as such) did not arise in the history of human ideas until the late 19th Century when Psychology began to look at the question, and itself emerge as one on the sciences. Make no mistake, same sex activity was forbidden, but, the sexuality of humans was presumed to be that for ALL people of their birth gender. What the scholars found was that the laws against it were "power based" and since men were presumed to have and deserve more power than women, various acts which "feminize" a man were culturally unacceptable. More about that if anyone is interested. Science now knows that human sexual orientation is not a choice, and therefore cannot be a matter of morality. Human sexuality exists in a vast range of interests and behaviors, as we know from various studies.
There actually is in Hebrew history and Christian history, agreed to by the famous liberal 20th Century Christian writer (Paul Tillich, in "The Courage to Be") the correction of the Christian concept of "sin as disobedience" (as usually regurgitated by religionists) from the Garden Myth in Genesis. The first time I read the correction I was taking "Comparative Mythology" and were were assigned to read Martin Buber's "Good and Evil", (famous Jewish philosopher) who did a word by word examination of the text in part II of that same book. He demonstrated that the text revels the very same concepts (and it's probable source) ... the Babylonian creation myth which included their concept of "chaos vs order". Evil for them was about chaos, and not order. When Marduk slays Tiamat, the Dragon of Chaos, from chaos arises order. And THAT is the same concept the words in Genesis portray when the man and woman attempt to eat "of the tree of knowledge" of (both) good AND evil (at the same time). Attempting to *encompass* opposites ... which for humans is not possible. They have to decide. They have to act (according to the meaning of the texts, as Buber claims) in accordance with what they judge to be their real/ essential character. It's not about the gods, it's not about eating apples. It's about the Babylonian theme of chaos and order. Tillich agreed with Buber.
published his book about the formal liturgical (religious) same-sex unions his research found in Medieval Europe,
there have been a number of scholars who have written on the subject. Among them are the Biblical scholars Dr. Richard Elliott Freidmann ("Who Wrote the Bible")
and his collaborator Dr. Shawna Dolansky. They pretty much destroyed the notion that the Bible disapproved of "homosexuality", and among the reasons they look at is the fact that the concept of sexual orientation (as such) did not arise in the history of human ideas until the late 19th Century when Psychology began to look at the question, and itself emerge as one on the sciences. Make no mistake, same sex activity was forbidden, but, the sexuality of humans was presumed to be that for ALL people of their birth gender. What the scholars found was that the laws against it were "power based" and since men were presumed to have and deserve more power than women, various acts which "feminize" a man were culturally unacceptable. More about that if anyone is interested. Science now knows that human sexual orientation is not a choice, and therefore cannot be a matter of morality. Human sexuality exists in a vast range of interests and behaviors, as we know from various studies.
There actually is in Hebrew history and Christian history, agreed to by the famous liberal 20th Century Christian writer (Paul Tillich, in "The Courage to Be") the correction of the Christian concept of "sin as disobedience" (as usually regurgitated by religionists) from the Garden Myth in Genesis. The first time I read the correction I was taking "Comparative Mythology" and were were assigned to read Martin Buber's "Good and Evil", (famous Jewish philosopher) who did a word by word examination of the text in part II of that same book. He demonstrated that the text revels the very same concepts (and it's probable source) ... the Babylonian creation myth which included their concept of "chaos vs order". Evil for them was about chaos, and not order. When Marduk slays Tiamat, the Dragon of Chaos, from chaos arises order. And THAT is the same concept the words in Genesis portray when the man and woman attempt to eat "of the tree of knowledge" of (both) good AND evil (at the same time). Attempting to *encompass* opposites ... which for humans is not possible. They have to decide. They have to act (according to the meaning of the texts, as Buber claims) in accordance with what they judge to be their real/ essential character. It's not about the gods, it's not about eating apples. It's about the Babylonian theme of chaos and order. Tillich agreed with Buber.
Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble. - Joseph Campbell 
Militant Atheist Commie Evolutionist
Militant Atheist Commie Evolutionist
