"Is the Bible True" or "Is The Bible a Collection of Myths?"

How is the Bible True if it is Mythic?

Often I here the comment from someone questioning the Bible in a way that I don't consider questioning it. Now don't get me wrong, I question the Bible a lot. In fact, much of Relevancy22 is dedicate to questioning the Bible. But the questions I raise are questions I ask myself about life and God and why it is the way it is. Or, I may question my approach or my interpretation of the Bible in a way that may differ from my past conservative Christian heritage. Questions that I now consider quite healthy and appropriate to undertake.

However, I don't question the Bible in the sense of treating it as a compendium of narratives that is only human without divine intervention. Nor do I question the Bible in the cynic sense of disbelief that it is simply a piece of human literature. No, I don't come to it as one refusing to see its pages pregnant with the Spirit of the Lord.

And though I may question how my faith reads of God in the bible and learns from His Spirit in the narratives of the bible I reserve the right to read its script within the holy vernacular (or conversation) of God-speak to us by its many forms and ways and means. This doesn't mean that some sections of the Bible aren't written in mythic form. But it also doesn't mean that there aren't other sections written historically, poetically, as music, or prayers, or odes, sonnets, and songs. Remember, the bible is literature displaying all its ancient forms.

The list can go on and on but it is a list that contains a vast matrix to the person and story of God Himself. The story of His love and grace and mercy and forgiveness to us today as much as to those personages of the past. Hence I do not treat the Bible so simply as a mythic read.

Question: "Is the Bible true?"

Me: "Yes."

Question: "In what sense is the Bible true?"

Answer: "In many ways."

Question: "Is the Bible a myth that points to something that is more true than it is literally true?"

Answer: "Yes. But there's the catch isn't it? In what ways do we read of God and tell of God and think of God that might box us in away from God?"

  

The Story of Joseph Campbell

Now there was a man by the name of Joseph Campbell who made a living investigating the myths that human society lives by. Myths that are self-empowering as much as they can be self-defeating. Myths that can destroy our community with one another as much as they might re-invigorate our communities with one another.

Here's his story:

Joseph John Campbell (March 26, 1904 – October 30, 1987) was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience. His philosophy is often summarized by his phrase: "Follow your bliss." - Wikipedia

To this study Dr. Campbell made some life-long observations. Observations that are not necessarily disagreeable when you think through the Christian faith in these terms. A faith that can be "mythic" to some people. But for myself, a faith that is very much historically rooted in the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus Christ as an actual person.

Jesus was more than a man. Jesus was very God Himself come in flesh and blood to minister, live, and die as the our sin-sacrifice. And afterwards, to be bodily raised from the dead, and then seen and declared for 40 days as alive by those who ate and talked with the glorified Christ-man:

Acts 1:1-9

English Standard Version (ESV)

The Promise of the Holy Spirit

1 In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 3 He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

4 And while staying[a] with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me;5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with[b] the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

The Ascension

6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” 9 And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.

---

Now if the Christian faith is mythic in this sense of the definition than fine. I have no problem with calling myself or the Christian faith mythic. But unlike a Greek mythology the Christian faith is more a God-pronounced metanarrative or histor-ology than myth-ology.

And though many conservative Christian groups build a lot of importance on particular interpretations of cornerstone biblical texts that are actually a form of ancient mythic text-stories this does not mean that the spiritual or ontological truth within those mythic texts are untrue. For example....

I consider Genesis 1-11 to be written in mythic form. Of course this is where we find the creation narratives of mankind, its sin, judgment, flood, and restoration. Moreover, I may wish to read these mythic narratives from a Christian evolutionary perspective realizing that I will not find any scientific statements written herein by ancient (non-scientific) societies.

But this is not to say that God did not create the world. A world that became broken by the freedom given to it, and requiring a restoration of fellowship that only God can give to it. Here we may have broad agreement despite whether we read Genesis 1-11 as a literal historical account or as an ancient Near-Eastern mythic history (a style which most of the ancient wrote in during this time).

But I do not read Genesis 1-11 in the agnostic or atheistic understanding of its ancient "human-myths." No. Though I might subscribe to some of the Bible's literary narratives as mythic this does not discount for me its very real, very true, theistic implications. That is where I and those like Joseph Campbell will disagree with one another.

It is a disagreement in substance more than it is a disagreement in kind.

---

Let's go a bit farther here now. Because when I read of some of Dr. Campbell's broader teachings it gives me pause to reflect on my faith and the community of those I am in Christ with. That is, Campbell's observations are not necessarily untrue.

The rub is that for Campbell "Jesus was a myth." Whereas for myself - and my Christian brothers and sisters - we believe that Jesus is a true-true myth. Or, a very real, flesh-and-blood, Son of God, come to heal the sin gulf between us and God. 

The Functions of myth (from Wikipedia)

Campbell often described mythology as having a fourfold function within human society. These appear at the end of his work The Masks of God: Creative Mythology, as well as various lectures.

The Metaphysical Function - Awakens a sense of awe before the mystery of being

According to Campbell, the absolute mystery of life, what he called transcendent reality, cannot be captured directly in words or images. Symbols and mythic metaphors on the other hand point outside themselves and into that reality. They are what Campbell called "being statements"[29] and their enactment through ritual can give to the participant a sense of that ultimate mystery as an experience. "Mythological symbols touch and exhilarate centers of life beyond the reach of reason and coercion.... The first function of mythology is to reconcile waking consciousness to the mysterium tremendum et fascinans of this universe as it is."

The Cosmological Function - Explains the shape of the universe

For pre-modern societies, myth also functioned as a proto-science, offering explanations for the physical phenomena that surrounded and affected their lives, such as the change of seasons and the life cycles of animals and plants.

The Sociological Function - Validates and supports the existing social order

Ancient societies had to conform to an existing social order if they were to survive at all. This is because they evolved under "pressure" from necessities much more intense than the ones encountered in our modern world. Mythology confirmed that order and enforced it by reflecting it into the stories themselves, often describing how the order arrived from divine intervention. Campbell often referred to these "conformity" myths as the "Right Hand Path" to reflect the brain's left hemisphere's abilities for logic, order and linearity. Together with these myths however, he observed the existence of the "Left Hand Path", mythic patterns like the "Hero's Journey" which are revolutionary in character in that they demand from the individual a surpassing of social norms and sometimes even of morality.

The Pedagogical Function - Guides the individual through the stages of life

As a person goes through life, many psychological challenges will be encountered. Myth may serve as a guide for successful passage through the stages of one's life. - Wikipedia

Now as you can see Campbell's understanding of the functions of myth quite nicely dovetails with some of the ideas found with Christianity. The Christian faith will:

• awaken a sense of divine presence,

• perhaps provide some kind of explanation for why we are here, while

• validating and supporting our existential awareness of self, presence, and relationships,

• which may guide us through the various stages of life whether good or bad.

There is no refusal here. In fact, I remember reading through Greek mythology during my freshman year of humanities and simply loved the many stories I found because they so very well paralleled with my own tribalistic brand of Christian faith at the time. Those Greek myths gave me reason, purpose, awareness, wisdom, hope, and proverbial truth - even as my own Christian did.

Who'd of thought!?

But then again, this is the wisdom of God, is it not?

Comparing Attic Greek Myths with Ancient Hebrew Myths

And so I think it was more because I felt the rhythm of an ancient Greek Attic society hundreds of years before Jesus that was very much in tune with what I was also reading in the Bible as it was composed during that same ancient time in Hebrew society. A society returning from Babylonian exile that would recapture its faith under Nehemiah under his formidable bands of priests, teachers, and scribes. A Jewish society that dedicated itself to the preservation of its ancient faith through its many stories and legends and narratives from many hundreds, if not thousands, of years previous to itself.

And so, Joseph Campbell doesn't disturb me. However, his personal story disturbs me as one rejecting Jesus as the Christ and perceiving the Saviour of man as but a myth made up by societies requiring myths. It is that disbelieving faith-interpretation that disturbs me. A faith indwelling the soul of a skeptic who never became any more convinced of Jesus than that of a figure inscribed at the tip of a pen from the imaginations of societies wanting more from life than its own perception of reality.

Doubt is one thing. Disbelief another. For myself, Jesus is the reality of God come to mankind both then and now to disspell the disbelieving myths of our deceptive heart groaning in sin, burdened by disbelief, overspent in woe and suffering. The reality is that God has come to heal us, our hearts, our lives, with His renewing presence through His atoning grace on the Cross of Calvary. It is this kind of faith-reality that so many Christians have testified to through Christ their Saviour from the first century till now.

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In conclusion, let me leave with you Rob Bell's response to Pete Holmes in a recent interview. Rather than be drawn into an argument about the veracities of the Christian faith, Rob, in Christ-like style, simply responds to Pete's questions and leaves undone the further task for Pete to discover for himself all that wasn't said in his interview with Rob.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

April 16, 2015
rev. April 17, 2015

Is the Bible True?

Pete Holmes Interviews Rob Bell

publ. April 15, 2015

The Anvil of God's Word

“Last eve I paused beside the blacksmith’s door,

And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime;

Then looking in, I saw upon the floor,

Old hammers, worn with beating years of time.

“‘How many anvils have you had,’ said I,

‘To wear and batter all these hammers so?’

‘Just one,’ said he, and then with twinkling eye,

‘The anvil wears the hammers out, you know.’

“And so, I thought, the Anvil of God’s Word

For ages skeptic blows have beat upon;

Yet, though the noise of falling blows was heard,

The Anvil is unharmed, the hammers gone.”

—Attributed to John Clifford

Paul and the "New Perspective of the Bible"

http://www.preachingpeace.org/

From the pen of my friend Michael Hardin - 

The New Perspective on Paul (see the Index of Relevancy22 for more articles on this subject) has for almost four decades (since the publication of E.P. Sanders 1977 'Paul and Palestinian Judaism' [and even before that in Krister Stendahls' 1963 essay on 'Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West') been deconstructing the older reading of Romans as focused on personal salvation and now understands the Pauline meta-narrative to be that of the justification of the Gentiles inclusion into the covenant people of God. In other words, Romans is not about "my" personal salvation by faith" as much as it is about the bringing together of enemies (Jews and Gentiles) together in faith or by faith. The old paradigm has been completely debunked.

Almost all recent scholarship on Paul has moved in this direction (except for the hard core Lutherans). This is one of the most significant moves in reading the Bible since the Reformation. Sadly, pietistic Evangelicalism and spiritualist Charismatic Christianity still live in the illusion that the old "I,me, my" reading of Romans is still proper to Paul when it is not. The massive deconstruction of this position in the first 470 pages of Douglas Campbell's The Deliverance of God completely mitigates the narcissitic reading so familiar to 99% of the Christian population. This is not to mention all of the incredible work by Pauline scholars such as Tom Wright, Jimmy Dunn and others.

Appeals to the Fourth Gospel and arguments therein that Christians are called to have an intimate relationship with God, (as though that was the primary overarching meta-narrative of the Fourth Gospel) have for a long time been critiqued with the recognition placed by the writer and redactor of this text on the community of faith. Furthermore, as I have shown, the structure of I John is one oriented, not to a personal relationship with God but to social ethics.

Jesus' call to discipleship is never to the crowd but always to the individual. This is true. However, that call to discipleship in the Synoptics never has to do with a personal relationship to him in some 'spiritual' or 'pietistic' sense but is a call to live out in one's life the same ethic he lived out in his life.

My point: one skews the Bible if one reads the meta-narrative of the Bible so that the goal of the Bible is to create a personal mystical relationship with the divine. That component, to be sure, is not absent from scripture, but it is not its emphasis. People who read the bible this way are out of step with the Bible itself which is always focused globally, historically and cosmically. The notion of a 'personal relationship' with Jesus (or God) is a fiction of the post-Reformation era, a step-child of the Enlightenment fantasy of the 'individual.' Humans are not individuals, we are inter-dividual (to use a term coined by Rene Girard). This is why ethics plays such a prominent role in the New Testament. Notice I said ethics, not morality, not law. Ethics has to do with our human relationships, especially our relationships with the enemy 'other.'

Over the past two years I have seen more misunderstanding of the Bible from certain circles than I could have ever imagined. The swamp of a 'personal relationship' with Jesus has turned into a tar pit from which persons do not seem to be able to escape. Why? Because they have turned their own personal experience into a subtle form of self-justification. Their experience has become a 'Law' internalized, psycholgized and spiritualized. Thus they cannot see beyond themselves and so it is that they identify their salvation with their experience. This is just another form of natural theology, so roundly critiqued by Karl Barth. Those who fail to see this are doomed to dwell in their own subjectivity which they project onto the highest category they know (God).

There is a world of difference between discipleship and the modern 'personal relationship' with Jesus. The former teaches persons to follow Jesus, the latter seduces the person into just following themselves (or the group/cult leader). And so it is in these circles we have the never go ending merry go round of self-justification, whether it be by orientation to an external law or orientation to an internal law. Either way it is self-justification. And as such, this type of Christian focus has nothing to do with the gospel of the Lord Jesus and his work on behalf of all humanity.

Please remember that in the parable of the sheep and the goats, it was the goats who 'had they seen Jesus in the 'other'' (that is, had they recognized that the 'other' was Jesus with whom presumably these goats had a 'personal relationship' [sic]), they would have aided them. It was the sheep who 'did not see Jesus in the other' (who did what they did because it was the right thing to do not out of some alleged 'overflow of a personal relationship' with Jesus) who are commended.

Michael Hardin

April 12, 2015

Source link

Comments

publications by M.H.

ps - What I'm Not Saying: "I am NOT saying that one cannot have a personal experience of the transcendent; I am simply saying we should neither make personal experience the meta-narrative of the Bible nor should we confuse our subjective experience with 'Reality.' "

Michael Hardin, the "Dude of Theology"

Preaching Peace - Patheos Blog by Michael Hardin

http://www.preachingpeace.org/

For more on the "New Perspective of Paul" go to the Articles Index

of Relevancy22 under this topic to the immediate right.

Or start here and follow the topic index at the bottom of both 

this current post and any related post on NPP - 

NT Wright - Introduction to Paul's New Perspective, Part 1 of 2

The Politics of the Bible Both Then and Now

Artwork is by Marc Chagall

My Problem With the Bible

http://brianzahnd.com/2014/02/problem-bible/

by Brian Zahnd

February 17, 2014

I have a problem with the Bible. Here’s my problem…

I’m an ancient Egyptian. I’m a comfortable Babylonian. I’m a Roman in his villa.

That’s my problem. See, I’m trying to read the Bible for all it’s worth, but I’m not a Hebrew slave suffering in Egypt. I’m not a conquered Judean deported to Babylon. I’m not a first century Jew living under Roman occupation.

I’m a citizen of a superpower. I was born among the conquerors. I live in the empire. But I want to read the Bible and think it’s talking to me. This is a problem.

One of the most remarkable things about the Bible is that in it we find the narrative told from the perspective of the poor, the oppressed, the enslaved, the conquered, the occupied, the defeated.

This is what makes it prophetic. We know that history is "written by the winners. This is true — except in the case of the Bible it’s the opposite!" This is the subversive genius of the Hebrew prophets. They wrote from a bottom-up perspective.

Imagine a history of colonial America written by Cherokee Indians and African slaves. That would be a different way of telling the story! And that’s what the Bible does. It’s the story of Egypt told by the slaves. The story of Babylon told by the exiles. The story of Rome told by the occupied. What about those brief moments when Israel appeared to be on top? In those cases the prophets told Israel’s story from the perspective of the peasant poor as a critique of the royal elite. Like when Amos denounced the wives of the Israelite aristocracy as “the fat cows of Bashan.”

Every story is told from a vantage point; it has a bias. The bias of the Bible is from the vantage point of the underclass. But what happens if we lose sight of the prophetically subversive vantage point of the Bible? What happens if those on top read themselves into the story, not as imperial Egyptians, Babylonians, and Romans, but as the Israelites? That’s when you get the bizarre phenomenon of the elite and entitled using the Bible to endorse their dominance as God’s will.

This is Roman Christianity after Constantine. This is Christendom on crusade. This is colonists seeing America as their promised land and the native inhabitants as Canaanites to be conquered. This is the whole history of European colonialism. This is Jim Crow. This is the American prosperity gospel. This is the domestication of Scripture. This is making the Bible dance a jig for our own amusement.

As Jesus preached the arrival of the kingdom of God he would frequently emphasize the revolutionary character of God’s reign by saying things like, “the last will be first and the first last.” How does Jesus’ first-last aphorism strike you? I don’t know about you, but it makes this modern day Roman a bit nervous.

Imagine this: A powerful charismatic figure arrives on the world scene and amasses a great following by announcing the arrival of a new arrangement of the world where those at the bottom are to be promoted and those on top are to have their lifestyle “restructured.” How do people receive this? I can imagine the Bangladeshis saying, “When do we start?!” and the Americans saying, “Hold on now, let’s not get carried away!”

Now think about Jesus announcing the arrival of God’s kingdom with the proclamation of his counterintuitive Beatitudes. When Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” how was that received? Well, it depends on who is hearing it. The poor Galilean peasant would hear it as good news (gospel), while the Roman in his villa would hear it with deep suspicion. (I know it’s an anachronism, but I can imagine Claudius saying something like, “sounds like socialism to me!”)

And that’s the challenge I face in reading the Bible. I’m not the Galilean peasant. Who am I kidding! I’m the Roman in his villa and I need to be honest about it. I too can hear the gospel of the kingdom as good news (because it is!), but first I need to admit its radical nature and not try to tame it to endorse my inherited entitlement.

I am a (relatively) wealthy white American male. Which is fine, but it means I have to work hard at reading the Bible right. I have to see myself basically as aligned with Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, and Caesar. In that case, what does the Bible ask of me? Voluntary poverty? Not necessarily. But certainly the Bible calls me to deep humility — a humility demonstrated in hospitality and generosity. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with being a relatively well-off white American male, but I better be humble, hospitable, and generous!

• If I read the Bible with the appropriate perspective and humility I don’t use the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus as a proof-text to condemn others to hell. I use it as a reminder that I’m a rich man and Lazarus lies at my door.

• I don’t use the conquest narratives of Joshua to justify Manifest Destiny. Instead I see myself as a Rahab who needs to welcome newcomers.

• I don’t fancy myself as Elijah calling down fire from heaven. I’m more like Nebuchadnezzar who needs to humble himself lest he go insane.

I have a problem with the Bible, but all is not lost. I just need to read it standing on my head. I need to change my perspective. If I can accept that the Bible is trying to lift up those who are unlike me, then perhaps I can read the Bible right.

BZ

Here’s the sermon version

The Politics of Jesus' Death Both Then and Now





Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues (with lyrics)




I was raised up believing

I was somehow unique

Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes

Unique in each way you can see

And now after some thinking

I'd say I'd rather be

A functioning cog in some great machinery

Serving something beyond me

But I don't, I don't know what that will be

I'll get back to you someday soon you will see

What's my name, what's my station

Oh just tell me what I should do

I don't need to be kind to the armies of night

That would do such injustice to you

Or bow down and be grateful

And say "Sure take all that you see"

To the men who move only in dimly-lit halls

And determine my future for me

And I don't, I don't know who to believe

I'll get back to you someday soon you will see

If I know only one thing

It's that every thing that I see

Of the world outside is so inconceivable

Often I barely can speak

Yeah I'm tongue tied and dizzy

And I can't keep it to myself

What good is it to sing helplessness blues?

Why should I wait for anyone else?

And I know, I know you will keep me on the shelf

I'll come back to you someday soon myself

If I had an orchard

I'd work till I'm raw

If I had an orchard

I'd work till I'm sore

And you would wait tables

And soon run the store

Gold hair in the sunlight

My light in the dawn

If I had an orchard

I'd work till I'm sore

If I had an orchard

I'd work till I'm sore

Someday I'll be

Like the man on the screen

The Politics of Jesus' Death Both Then and Now

Jesus’ radical politics

source link

by Brandon Ambrosino

April 1, 2015

In his kingdom, enemies are loved, the marginalized prioritized,

and wealth inequality exposed for the sham it is.

TWO THOUSAND years have sanitized Easter for most people. Jesus is alive, we sing each spring, and now let’s get on with lilies and chocolates and bunnies and think about what his resurrection means for us — namely, that we get to go to heaven when we die, and perhaps more important, a lot of other people don’t.

A more careful look at the Gospels, however, might offer a much less sentimental, much more startling picture of the original Easter message, which was decidedly not, “Jesus is alive, and here’s what that means for the next world.” Rather, the true lesson was: “Jesus is alive, and here’s what that means for this one.”

The central claim of Easter — and indeed, of Christianity — has always been that the rejected, tortured, crucified, dead, and then resurrected Jesus is somehow Lord of the entire earth. If that doesn’t sound particularly scandalous today, imagine you’re hearing it for the first time while living in the Roman Empire. As many New Testament scholars argue, hearing “Jesus is Lord” in the first century might sound suspiciously like a bold rejection of the standard Roman creed at the time: “Caesar is Lord.” (There is a lot of discussion about this, but even a quick glance of the Gospels and Acts shows that the texts contain instances of anti-imperial rhetoric.)

'Remember the Stranger in Your Midst"

What’s radical about Easter, then, is not that Christians claim a dead man rose from the dead. What’s radical is what that means — specifically, what it meant for Rome, and, by implication, what it means for all kingdoms everywhere, including the ones we live in. Jesus’ resurrection marked the end of Caesar’s way of doing things. It established a new kingdom in which enemies are loved, the marginalized are given primacy of place, and the poor are blessed. In this kingdom, hierarchies are subverted, concentrated power is decentralized, and prodigal children are welcomed home. Black lives matter here, as do queer lives and the lives of undocumented aliens within our borders — “Remember the stranger in your midst” is a common refrain in this kingdom.

Of course, speaking about Jesus in such a political way is not without its dangers. Many with political agendas are guilty of branding their particular ideologies with the name of Jesus, both on the right and left. But there’s no denying that, at least in recent US history, conservatives have been ready to marry God and government. As a result, Christianity has come to be associated less with policies aimed at helping the poor — and more with those that often serve to keep them down. The tragic irony, of course, is that, as the Gospel of Luke teaches, Jesus’ ministry is inaugurated with the announcement that the Spirit of the Lord compels him to preach good news to the poor.

Though the name of God is sometimes invoked to justify war and greed and the oppression of already marginalized persons, the broken body of Jesus seems rather like a prophetic protest against those values. Philosopher John Caputo discusses this irony in his 2007 book, “What Would Jesus Deconstruct?” — a play on the phrase “What Would Jesus Do?” that many conservatives have plastered onto their cars, T-shirts, bracelets, etc.

The gospels, Caputo writes, invite us to imagine a new way of life where the poetics of Jesus’ kingdom are transformed into political structures:

“What would it be like if there really were a politics of the bodies of flesh that proliferate in the New Testament, a politics of mercy and compassion, of lifting up the weakest and most defenseless people at home, a politics of welcoming the stranger and of loving one’s enemies abroad?

What would it be like if there were a politics of and for the children, who are the future; a politics not of sovereignty, of top-down power, but a politics that builds from the bottom up, where "ta me onta "[lit. “the nothings”] enjoy pride of place and a special privilege?”

Caputo then asks this frightening question: “Would [this politics] not be in almost every respect the opposite of the politics that presently passes itself off under the name of Jesus?”

"Love Your Enemies, Bless Those Who Curse You"

ONE LOOK at current events across the globe today, and Caputo’s imaginings may be easily dismissed. How can Americans simply turn the other cheek to our warring enemies? How can anyone expect the government to make sure each child is looked after? And working to eliminate poverty? Wasn’t Jesus talking about spiritual poverty? That’s a private matter, not a public one. Those kinds of policies just aren’t practical in 2015.

Of course they aren’t. They weren’t practical in Jesus’ day, either. That’s one of the reasons Jesus was killed. He was, to use Caputo’s word, mad. How else do you explain his teachings? Love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. Do good to them who use you. Do not retaliate. Look after your neighbor. The meek will inherit the earth.

But the madness of God is wiser than the wisdom of man, as Paul reminds us, just like God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. And it’s the kingdom of this God — who, contrary to what anyone expected, is weak, mad, and disruptive — that Jesus is both announcing and installing.

“If I, with the finger of God, cast out demons among you, then the Kingdom of God has come near to you,” says Jesus, and his Jewish hearers might have understood the scandalous reference. Scandalous because in this brief line, Jesus seems to be identifying himself with the same God who heard the cry of oppressed Israel and took it upon himself to liberate them from Egypt. As the Book of Exodus recounts, when Pharaoh refuses Moses’ request to let the Hebrews go, a battle of miracles quickly ensues. Though Pharaoh’s magicians try to imitate the wonders that Moses ascribes to God, they don’t succeed. “This is the finger of God,” they explain to Pharaoh, which creates wonders, which liberates God’s people from the empires that enslave them. The finger of God, they reluctantly acknowledge, is mightier than the strongest arm of any world leader.

In reinterpreting this passage around his life and ministry, Jesus is giving us a glimpse into what he thought of himself (who but God alone works wonders by the finger of God?) as well as into what he thought about his kingdom: that, though it’s ultimate fulfillment will be in the future, look around you — it’s already here. As New Testament scholar N.T. Wright explains, for Jesus, God’s kingdom “wasn’t just an aspiration; it was an accomplishment.” Jesus was convinced that his life and preaching and miracles were bringing about the kingdom his followers had longed for.

An Unexpected Kingdom

Only, Jesus’ kingdom of peace and love looked much different than the one that Jews at the time hoped the Messiah would establish. One of Jesus’ more cryptic sayings is found in Matthew’s Gospel. After a strange discussion of kingdom, Jesus compares his audience to children sitting in the marketplace singing to each other, “We played the flute for you, but you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.” Jesus, he hears them say, you are not the Messiah we expected. To which he responds: I will not dance when you tell me to dance. I will not cry when you tell me to cry. I will not be the Messiah you tell me to be. I am here to show you a different sort of dance, a different way; follow me, and build my father’s kingdom, which looks very different than the ones you cling to.

This is the prophetic memory of Jesus that rushes toward us today. What would Jesus do if he showed up today, say, in Washington, D.C.? Would he turn a blind eye to racial injustices in Ferguson and elsewhere? Would he lobby to ensure that entire swaths of our population continue to feel as if they don’t belong in their cities, in their religious congregations, in their local bakeries? Would he, interested as he is in the physical bodies of all he encounters, enact policies that bar people from the health care they desperately need?

At the same time, can we really be sure that Jesus would protest with Wall Street Occupiers, railing against the one percent? This is the same Jesus who, as Luke recounts, tells his followers that if just one of their sheep wanders away from the fold, they are to leave the 99 and go after the one percent. And can we be equally sure that this Jesus, who has no patience for greed, would spend all of his energy condemning the wealthy? This is the same Jesus, after all, who is rumored to be the friend of tax collectors.

A Kingdom of Disruption

This is why it won’t do merely to begin with a political ideology and brand it with Jesus’ memory. The memory of Jesus is disruptive to all kingdoms, to all earthly powers, without respect to any specific political affiliation or agenda.

What we can imagine that Jesus would probably do — indeed what he definitely did do, is to suddenly, without warning, announce that his new kingdom is breaking in upon all of us, has broken in upon us, and that this kingdom is almost the exact reversal of what any of us thought kingdoms were supposed to be. This new king will not tolerate oppression and systemic poverty, nor he will excuse violence directed at those in power. He has no patience for any dirges or dances. He is here about his father’s business.

"Do This Unto the Lest of These as Unto Me"

THE BELLS of Easter Sunday, comforting though they may be, are actually a call to war, albeit a nonviolent kind of war; a call to rise up, to act up, to announce to the powers and principalities that rule our nations that their power has an expiration date, that their rule is a sham, that their kingdom has been undone by the one who undoes death.

The rebuttal here has always been: Open your eyes. This kingdom you’re talking about — where the last are first, where the outsiders are preferred — is not here. There is war. There is evil. There is death and rape and racism and unemployment and sex trafficking. There is a brutally agonizing world here and now, and to pretend otherwise is either naive or morally bankrupt.

But Easter doesn’t deny these things. After all, even the resurrected body of Jesus contains crucifixion scars, which are Jesus’ eternal reminder that he was murdered by the very people he came to save. What Easter teaches is this: Even in the midst of the kingdom you’re living in, it’s possible to actually pledge loyalty to a different one. By feeding the hungry, forgiving your enemies, and providing shelter for the homeless, you can actually choose to live in the kingdom Jesus established.

Hope, then, is not a spiritual thing, or a reflective exercise; it’s decidedly physical. If you believe Jesus was raised from the dead, the obligation that Jesus puts upon you is to meet people’s physical needs. “Do not abandon yourselves to despair,” said Pope John Paul II. “We are the Easter people, and alleluia is our song.”

This alleluia is both a praise and protest. The world is made new, alleluia, and all lives matter. Creation is transformed, alleluia, and therefore let us embrace the strangers in our midst. The tomb is empty, alleluia, now let us work to heal the hurt of all those who have been discriminated against, made to feel like second-class citizens. In God’s kingdom, after all, there is only one class of citizen, because all have inherited the same birthright from their heavenly father.

Two thousand years later, the promise of Easter has not lost its power. The risen Jesus, then as now, invites us to live in this world as if it is somehow a different world.

Because, alleluia, it is.

*Brandon Ambrosino covers culture and religion for Vox.com.

"This Easter I've really been trying to focus on the one I fell in love with a few years ago,

Jesus, as the man who took on our sins and died. I picture the scene in the Son of God, which

still can barely count the ways he suffered. I literally ache for Jesus in the sufferings knowing

that it was our crap that put him there. It has caused a lot of tears this week as I study him

more and more and it has opened my heart to recognize some things that have been

hindering my growth. To the man that saved my life, who now sits on the throne. My heart

is for you. My help came from you. With that I owe my life." - anon

Matthew 28

English Standard Version (ESV)

The Resurrection

28 Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2 And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, andhis clothing white as snow. 4 And for fear of him the guards trembled andbecame like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he[a] lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.” 8 So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.9 And behold, Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came up andtook hold of his feet and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”

The Report of the Guard

11 While they were going, behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place. 12 And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers 13 and said, “Tell people, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ 14 And if this comes to the governor's ears, we willsatisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” 15 So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story has been spread among the Jews to this day.

The Great Commission

16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,baptizing them in[b] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold,I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Footnotes:

Matthew 28:6 Some manuscripts the Lord

Matthew 28:19 Or into

The Politics of the Bible Both Then and Now

Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues (with lyrics)




I was raised up believing

I was somehow unique

Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes

Unique in each way you can see

And now after some thinking

I'd say I'd rather be

A functioning cog in some great machinery

Serving something beyond me

But I don't, I don't know what that will be

I'll get back to you someday soon you will see

What's my name, what's my station

Oh just tell me what I should do

I don't need to be kind to the armies of night

That would do such injustice to you

Or bow down and be grateful

And say "Sure take all that you see"

To the men who move only in dimly-lit halls

And determine my future for me

And I don't, I don't know who to believe

I'll get back to you someday soon you will see

If I know only one thing

It's that every thing that I see

Of the world outside is so inconceivable

Often I barely can speak

Yeah I'm tongue tied and dizzy

And I can't keep it to myself

What good is it to sing helplessness blues?

Why should I wait for anyone else?

And I know, I know you will keep me on the shelf

I'll come back to you someday soon myself

If I had an orchard

I'd work till I'm raw

If I had an orchard

I'd work till I'm sore

And you would wait tables

And soon run the store

Gold hair in the sunlight

My light in the dawn

If I had an orchard

I'd work till I'm sore

If I had an orchard

I'd work till I'm sore

Someday I'll be

Like the man on the screen

Taste and Parody collide with Art and Music

The Indie Band Hold Your Horses! web link

70 Million by Hold Your Horses ! (official music video)

Matching the Art with the Scenes

What the Master Pieces Meant

Matching the Art with the Scenes

70 Million Lyrics
Hold Your Horses!

And it hardly looked like a novel at all,
I hardly look like a hero at all
And I'm sorry, you didn't publish this
And you were white as snow; I was white as a sheet

When you came down in this black dress
In your mom's black maternity dress
And so,
Though it hardly looked like a novel at all,
And the city treats me, it treats me to you
And a cup of coffee for you
I should learn it's language and speak it to you

And 70 million should be in the know
And 70 million don't go out at all
And 70 million wouldn't walk this street
And 70 million would run to a hole
And 70 million would be wrong wrong wrong
And 70 million never see it at all
And 70 million haven't tasted snow

And we dance dance dance like the children dance
Imply thought are we taking the chance?
With the light still on, and will we ever reach the tower

And after you came down in this black dress
I don't know what took so very long
And this,
And this isn't a war, we don't have to ration
Now wave white flag, and you kept it at home
And words I wrote from a foreign land
You're holding my no longer foreign hand

And 70 million should be in the know
And 70 million don't go out at all
And 70 million wouldn't walk this street
And 70 million would run to a hole
And 70 million would be wrong wrong wrong
And 70 million never see it at all
And 70 million haven't tasted snow

* * * * * * * * * *

In the music video for the song "70 Million," indie pop band
Hold Your Horses! interprets 25 paintings, including
Magritte's  The Son of Man. | L'Ogre

PLAYING GOD, JESUS, AND LIBERTY

http://www.artnews.com/2010/05/01/playing-god-jesus-and-liberty/

by Jeremy D. Goodwin

May 1, 2010

How a rock band restaged art-history classics for a music video that went viral.

As Salome carries his head on a silver platter, John the Baptist opens his eyes and sings a merry little melody to the camera.

That scene -- enacted by members of the French-American indie pop band Hold Your Horses! -- helped turn the music video for their song “70 Million” into a viral hit on the Internet, viewed nearly 300,000 times within two weeks of its being posted on the Web site Vimeo.

But it wasn’t this live-action re-staging of Caravaggio‘s Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist alone that did it. The three-minute video, created by the small production house L’Ogre, careens through 25 tableaux vivants of iconic works, ranging from Velázquez‘s Las Meninas to Munch‘s The Scream, from Manet‘s Olympia to Klimt‘s The Kiss.

All this art history was filmed over two weekends in a parking garage in Paris, using chalk drawings as backdrops and a smoke machine for fog. To re-create the cloudy sky in Michelangelo‘s Sistine Chapel ceiling, the production team ripped out the stuffing from 200 pillows. “The idea was to make the paintings youthful and funny and rock-and-roll,” the video’s director, David Freymond, says. “We were not trying to be too academic.”

The video begins with Jesus, from Leonardo‘s The Last Supper, drumming on a pot with a pair of wooden spoons. Frida Kahlo (from her self-portraits), van Gogh (from his Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear), and Picasso‘s muse Dora Maar (from his Portrait of Dora Maar) are among the recognizable characters taking subsequent turns with the upbeat tune. One band member sings while smoking a cigarette, interpreting Otto Dix‘s Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden.

The music video “breaks with the image of a rock band,” Freymond says. “This poor band has to get naked—to re-create Renaissance paintings.” Well, not entirely naked: the Venus of Botticelli‘s The Birth of Venus wears a guitar as a cover-up.

The irreverent effort—for an enigmatic song the band claims is about the shifting feelings in a romantic relationship—required feats of costuming. A head covering and the perfect piece of jewelry turned guitarist Charles van den Boogaerde into Vermeer‘s Girl with a Pearl Earring. A bowler hat transformed bassist Robin Montmusson into Magritte‘s Son of Man. The same hat, adorned with a feather, appears in a staging of Holbein the Younger‘s Henry VIII.

To become Van Gogh’s sunflowers, band members covered their arms in green paint. Cellist Simon Tordjman had his face painted white, blue, red, yellow, and black to approximate a Mondrian painting. And six of the band’s seven members got to play the part of Warhol‘s Marilyn Monroe. They all wore the same wig, spray-painted a different color for each shot.

Part of the fun is watching unlikely subjects bang out the tune. The cadaver in Rembrandt‘s The Anatomy Lesson of Doctor Nicolaes Tulp reaches over to play a few notes on a melodica, for example. In an evocation of Gabrielle d’Estrées and One of Her Sisters, by an unknown 16th-century painter, a shirtless musician sways his head to the beat as he pinches the nipple of a comrade strumming a guitar. In most cases instruments are not in the original artworks, with Chagall‘s The Bride a notable exception: as in the painting, in the music video a goat (or rather a man with a goat mask attached to his head) plays the cello.

Florence Villeminot, drummer and vocalist, has starring roles in the stagings of The Creation of Adam, from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, Leonardo’s The Last Supper, and Eugène Delacroix‘s Liberty Leading the People. “I was happy because I got to be God, the Virgin Mary, Jesus, and Liberty. That was my goal when I joined the band,” Villeminot quips.

In order of “appearance” in the Hold Your Horses! music video for “70 Million”:

• Leonardo, The Last Supper (1492–98)
• Botticelli, The Birth of Venus (ca. 1485)
• Rembrandt, The Anatomy Lesson of Doctor Nicolaes Tulp (1632)
• Holbein the Younger, Henry VIII (ca. 1536)
• Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring (ca. 1665–66)
• Théodore Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa (1818–19)
• Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Marat (1793)
• Michelangelo, The Creation of Adam (ca. 1511)
• Magritte, The Son of Man (1964)
• Mondrian, after various compositions
• Frida Kahlo, after several self-portraits
• Picasso, Portrait of Dora Maar (1937)
• Munch, The Scream (1893)
• Van Gogh, Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear (1889)
• Warhol, after various Marilyns
• Unknown artist, Gabrielle d’Estrées and One of Her Sisters (ca. 1594)
• Cenni di Pepo, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Six Angels (ca. 1280)
• Caravaggio, Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist (1606–7)
• Manet, Olympia (1863)
• Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People (1830)
• Otto Dix, Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden (1926)
• Klimt, The Kiss (1907–8)
• Chagall, The Bride (1950)
• Velázquez, Las Meninas (ca. 1656)
• Van Gogh, Vase with 12 Sunflowers (1888)

Copyright 2015, ARTnews LLC, 40 W 25th Street, 6th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10010. All rights reserved.

* * * * * * * * * *

26APR2011

70 million

by whart

This isn’t about an art event/exhibition (I have something else from that I’m still trying to edit) but I found an interesting video – interesting, humorous and pretty creative. It’s a music video for the band Hold Your Horses.

[First question]... How many paintings did you recognize? :)

Anyway, I guess this is a highly relevant video considering that we were discussing how advertising appropriates art in the last lesson. This is a pretty literal example of it, and it is also an example of parody. I think there are two possible implications.

1) The humour is disrespectful to the artworks as it violates their sanctity and doesn’t bring out their original meaning or context context e.g. if you think about how serious and emotional a Van Gogh painting is and how it has been turned into a funny singing man.

Also, the use of art for advertising [music] is objectionable…turning a priceless creation into low entertainment and a way to earn money.

The second one is the one most people will have and the one that I personally had.

2) It is humorous, but not in a malicious way. Seeing old and familiar artworks portrayed in a new way that is not mocking of them, but took creativity to plan and execute, is pleasant and inspiring. It is a lighthearted take on paintings that might otherwise be regarded as serious or boring by most people, and an expression of the band and director’s own creativity.

That is the view I lean more towards, although I won’t deny that the video doesn’t do justice to many of the original artworks’ emotional content and sense of pathos. In that sense I think I am quite pragmatic about art and reproductions…

I would rather a piece of artwork be reproduced, reused, given new meaning and made

relevant to a new audience rather than remain a sacred object that only a few people

are motivated to try and understand on a deeper level. (As long as the meaning is not

in conflict with the old one, and as long as it is not used for banal/unrelated/really

disrespectful like my toilet paper holder.)

It was the same thing when we were having the show and tell with all the appropriated/reproduced art we found and I said about my Coldplay album that I felt it was an acceptable use of art.

I guess you could say that both the video and the album cover do this. They are appropriating the artwork’s of the Old Masters, and on one hand it is a form of advertising (advertising to get people to buy the music) but on the other hand I feel they are creative endeavours in their own right.

The Coldplay album is part of a whole musical concept and idea the band is trying to evoke, while the direction and production of a video is a difficult and creative process. The paintings are the creative works of the past, but these are the creative works of the present, and we can’t deny that they have a broader appeal in today’s world.

Thus, I think it is a mistake to dismiss all reproduction as harmful and disrespectful to art. It isn’t something that can be stamped out or ignored, and like everything else, it has ambiguous and double-edged impacts, and some of these impacts can be positive, inspiring and creative. I feel that if we take all paintings so seriously and deny any kind of perspective or commentary on them other than the serious, classical, respectful one, we are not doing justice to their complexity and the way people relate to them.

-- Grace