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eli-kittim · 1 year
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Does the Phrase Ἔτι ἅπαξ in Hebrews 12.26 Mean “Once” or “Once More”❓
By Bible Researcher Eli Kittim 🎓
The New Testament Versions
There are various theories about past catastrophic Biblical events. For example, some biblical narratives describe a time when the earth trembled, such as the mighty earth-quake at Mount Sinai when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, or the cataclysmic Noachian Deluge. Some Biblical scholars even theorize about a so-called “Gap Theory" (between the first and second verses of Genesis) regarding two different creations, or even an earlier creation-and-destruction of the universe prior to the current one.
So when we encounter biblical verses that seem to suggest some type of primordial earthly destruction, scholars often theorize about the probability of such events taking place as the ones mentioned above. Hebrews 12.26 is a case in point. It talks about some form of judgment in which God “will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” But there seems to be a difference of opinion as to whether or not this event will happen for the very first time. That’s because the key phrase Ἔτι ἅπαξ has been variously translated in two different ways: “once” and “once more.” The former suggests a first time, the latter, a second. Hence, the meaning of the text remains an open question. Hebrews 12.26 (SBLGNT) declares:
οὗ ἡ φωνὴ τὴν γῆν ἐσάλευσεν τότε, νῦν δὲ
ἐπήγγελται λέγων · Ἔτι ἅπαξ ἐγὼ σείσω οὐ
μόνον τὴν γῆν ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸν οὐρανόν.
Translation (NIV):
At that time his voice shook the earth, but
now he has promised, ‘Once more I will
shake not only the earth but also the
heavens.’
Most of the Bible versions of Hebrews 12.26 (with the exception of a few that I’m aware of) translate Ἔτι ἅπαξ as “once more.” That’s because Ἔτι can mean not only “still,” “yet,” “again,” but it can also relate to *time* and mean “longer” (Mt. 5.13; Lk 16.2; 20.36; Jn 7.33), “further” (Mt. 26.65; Lk 22.71), as well as “moreover” (Acts 2.26).
So, if the correct translation of Heb. 12.26 is “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens,” then the question arises: is this verse referring to Mt Sinai, the flood, the gap theory, or perhaps to a previous universe that was once-destroyed to make way for the creation of our own?
For example, one particular Bible version speculates that the reference in Heb. 12.26 is to the mighty earth-quake at Mount Sinai. The Amplified Bible reads:
His voice shook the earth [at Mount Sinai]
then, but now He has given a promise,
saying, ‘YET ONCE MORE I WILL SHAKE
NOT ONLY THE EARTH, BUT ALSO THE
[starry] HEAVEN.’
However, on closer inspection, the aforementioned translation is speculative because this “shaking” does not only involve the earth but also the heavens. At Mount Sinai, only the earth trembled (with a mighty earth-quake), not the heavens. Similarly, during the flood, neither the earth nor the heavens were destroyed: only living things (Genesis 6.7). So, the Hebrews 12.26-reference seems to imply a much larger catastrophic destruction of both the earth and the heavens. Therefore, if the verse has been faithfully translated, it can only refer to the so-called “gap theory,” or to a previously-destroyed universe.
On the other hand, the majority of the translations might be completely flawed, and the few Bible versions which suggest that this event will occur only “once” might be correct! Accordingly, the YLT version of Hebrews 12.26 proclaims:
‘Yet once -- I shake not only the earth, but
also the heaven.’
Similarly, the Darby Bible Translation exclaims:
Yet once will I shake not only the earth, but
also the heaven.
We find a similar reading in the Godbey New Testament:
I will still once shake not only the earth, but
also heaven.
Therefore, these latter versions would imply that this impending destruction will occur only once, in the future, in the same way as described, for example, in 2 Peter 3.10!
The Old Testament Versions
In trying to figure out the correct translation, it’s important to go back and look at the sources of the quoted material from the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint. Hebrews 12.26 is actually quoting Haggai 2.6 via the Septuagint. Therefore, let’s go back and look at what that verse actually says both in the Hebrew Bible and in the Greek Septuagint. Haggai 2.6 (NIV) reads:
This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘In a
little while I will once more shake the
heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry
land.’
It’s important to note that most of the modern Bible versions of Haggai 2.6 say “once more,” but some say “once” (see e.g. ASV, Douay-Rheims Bible, Good News Translation, JPS Tanakh 1917, and a few others). The KJB also says “once” at Haggai 2.6:
For thus saith the LORD of hosts; Yet once,
it is a little while, and I will shake the
heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and
the dry land;
Here, however, the KJB is inconsistent. While it says “once” in Haggai 2.6, it says “once more” in the parallel verse of Hebrews 12.26:
Yet once more I shake not the earth only,
but also heaven.
In Haggai 2.6, the Hebrew text (BHS) has אַחַ֖ת (once) ע֥וֹד (yet/again). In other words, the term ע֥וֹד (od) can be translated either as “yet” or “again.” But even the Hebrew Bible versions have conflicting translations. For example, the Sefaria Bible implies that this destructive event will occur only “once.” It reads thusly:
For thus said the LORD of Hosts: In just a
little while longer I will shake the heavens
and the earth, the sea and the dry land.
Similarly, the JPS Tanakh (1985) says:
For thus said the LORD of Hosts: In just a
little while longer I will shake the heavens
and the earth, the sea and the dry land.
The Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) also seems to suggest “yet once in a little while”:
‎כִּ֣י כֹ֤ה אָמַר֙ יְהוָ֣ה צְבָאֹ֔ות עֹ֥וד אַחַ֖ת מְעַ֣ט הִ֑יא וַאֲנִ֗י מַרְעִישׁ֙ אֶת־הַשָּׁמַ֣יִם וְאֶת־הָאָ֔רֶץ וְאֶת־הַיָּ֖ם וְאֶת־הֶחָרָבָֽה׃
By contrast, the Hebrew Bible——edited by translator and scholar, Rabbi A.J. Rosenberg——featured in Chabad.org reads:
For so said the Lord of Hosts: [There will
rise] another one, and I will shake up the
heaven and the earth and the sea and the
dry land [for] a little while.
So, even these Hebrew versions conflict. Most of them imply “once,” while the last one suggests “another.” So there are arguments on both sides. However, the most credible ones seem to suggest “once” for all. That’s probably why the Greek translations (LXX & NT) employ the term hapax (ἅπαξ), which also means “once for all”!
Let’s now explore how the Greek Septuagint (LXX) translates it. The LXX renders Haggai 2.6 thusly:
διότι τάδε λέγει Κύριος παντοκράτωρ· ἔτι
ἅπαξ ἐγὼ σείσω τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν
καὶ τὴν θάλασσαν καὶ τὴν ξηράν·
English translation by L.C.L. Brenton:
For thus saith the Lord Almighty; Yet once I
will shake the heaven, and the earth, and
the sea, and the dry [land].
Thus, the Septuagint agrees with most of the Hebrew Bible versions that Haggai 2.6 is saying “once,” not “once more.”
Interestingly enough, Hebrews 12.26 quotes the Septuagint-phrase ἔτι ἅπαξ ἐγὼ σείσω verbatim (word for word), with a slight variation on the theme concerning “the heavens and the earth” at the end of the sentence. Hebrews 12.26 reads:
Ἔτι ἅπαξ ἐγὼ σείσω οὐ μόνον τὴν γῆν
ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸν οὐρανόν.
Notice that both the LXX and the NT texts use the exact same key-phrase ἔτι ἅπαξ. Yet the LXX and most of the Hebrew versions say “once,” while most of the New Testament translations render it as “once more.” So which is it? If both the Septuagint and the New Testament are saying the exact same thing, then why are these texts translated differently? Both cannot be correct. According to the law of non-contradiction, contradictory statements cannot both be true. So, somewhere, somehow, someone got it wrong! The question is, what’s the right answer? What’s the correct translation?
Conclusion
The Septuagint translates the term עוֹד (od) as ἔτι (yet), and renders the phrase ‘ō·wḏ ’a·ḥaṯ as “yet once.” As far as the Hebrew translations are concerned, both the Sefaria Bible and the JPS Tanakh (1985) imply “once.” The BHS also seems to imply “once.” Only the Chabad.org Bible (with Rashi's commentary) seems to suggest “once more.” So, most of the Old Testament Hebrew and Greek texts support the phrase “yet once,” not “once more” or “once again”! All in all, from the point of view of the Old Testament concerning Haggai 2.6, it seems that both the Hebrew and the Greek versions agree on the “yet once” meaning!
Carrying this information over into the New Testament, we come to realize that the key phrase (ἔτι ἅπαξ) in Haggai 2.6 (LXX), which is quoted in Hebrews 12.26, should have the exact same meaning in the New Testament as it does in the Old Testament, namely, “yet once.” Yet, surprisingly, most of the modern NT translations say “once more,” although there are some that do say “once,” as has already been noted. Therefore, the modern translations of the New Testament are actually conflicting with the Old Testament data. Apparently, the range of meanings for the word Ἔτι makes it unclear as to which word should be applied.
So, if we combine our findings, it seems that more attention should be placed on the Hebrew and Greek Old Testament versions from which the quote of Haggai 2.6 is derived. Given that they are the sources of the Hebrews 12.26-phrase, the usages in these versions carry more weight than those of the New Testament translations in steering us in the right linguistic direction. Therefore, despite the fact that most of the modern Bible versions have “once more” for Hebrews 12.26, the few translations that have “yet once” (e.g. the YLT, Darby, etc.) might be closer to the truth!
Bottom line, given the range of meanings for the aforementioned terms, it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact rendering of both the Haggai 2.6 and Hebrews 12.26 phrases, especially since even the Hebrew translations have divergent meanings. Nevertheless, given that most of the Hebrew and Greek Old Testament versions agree on the phrase “yet once,” it seems more likely that this is the authorial intent of Haggai 2.6. And since that happens to be the exact same phrase in Hebrews 12.26, there’s no reason for the meaning to be any different than that which we find in Haggai 2.6 (LXX). Thus, it appears that the meaning of Hebrews 12.26 is faithfully translated in the YLT version which reads:
‘Yet once -- I shake not only the earth, but
also the heaven.’
This exegetical conclusion, of course, would not support the so-called “Gap Theory" or an earlier destruction of the universe prior to the current one. Rather, it would point to one final destruction at the end of the world!
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thinkingonscripture · 4 months
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The Cross & Crucifixion of Jesus
The cross overshadowed the life of Jesus, and He knew dying for lost sinners was the ultimate purpose of the Father. When facing the cross, Jesus said, “Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour ‘? But for this purpose I came to this hour” (John 12:27). For lost sinners, the cross of Christ is both personal and purposeful. It is personal, because…
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city-of-ladies · 10 days
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"Burginda’s letter is instructing the young man in his spiritual endeavours, and the contents of the (albeit short) letter reveal that she was highly educated and well-read. Written in a period that many still refer to erroneously as an intellectual ‘Dark Ages’, Burginda’s letter uses Greek words, utilises biblical exegesis, imitates Christian poetry like the fifth-century Psychomachia of Prudentius, and references both the sixth-century Italian poet Arator and the classical Roman poet Virgil. It also contains a reworking of a description of heaven found in a Latin poem from Africa that dates to c. 500. Burginda was clearly a very well-read intellectual.
This letter can be used as an example to refute many popular misconceptions about the early middle ages. The first misconception is that antique texts were neglected or unknown in this period. The second misconception is that medieval women were uneducated and unintellectual. The third misconception is that there was little or no intellectual transmission between Africa and Europe in this period. Burginda’s letter proves all these assumptions false. Not bad for two paragraphs of Latin."
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preacherpollard · 2 years
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1 Peter 1-- Hope's Value
1 Peter 1– Hope’s Value
Wednesday’s Column: Third’s Words Gary Pollard For the next several weeks, I’ll be repeating the book of I Peter in present-day terminology. It’s not a true translation of the book, as I am not qualified to do so. It will be based on an exegetical study of the book and will lean heavily on the SBL and UBS Greek New Testaments, as well as comparisons with other translations (ESV, NASB, NIV, ERV,…
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tanadrin · 2 months
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The Gish Gallop was a term coined I think on the 2000s internet for a rhetorical maneuver where to buttress an argument you provide a ton of low-quality evidence; that the evidence is bad means it should be easy to refute, but the very large volume means it will take much longer to explain why it's all wrong than it did to copy-paste a bunch of links, and to a certain kind of very naive onlooker, it looks like the galloper is winning--after all, the one interlocutor has presented a ton of evidence! The second interlocutor has to spend so much time bending over backwards to refute it! Surely the first guy is more knowledgeable and authoritative. You aren't going to look at all that evidence yourself, of course--who has the time?
But listening to Dan McClellan talk about the Gospel of John this morning, it occurs to me that I don't think this is disingenuous. Not entirely. I think this is just the style of argumentation a lot of Christians (of a particular religious flavor) are used to. And I'm not just talking about in non- or para-religious matters like evolution. This is how Christianity understands the Bible.
This week's Data over Dogma is about the theology of John, and why it is non-trinitarian (because the Trinity is a much later doctrine developed as a kind of political compromise, maintained only because it had state backing) and does not actually identify Jesus with God (the theological developments are more complicated here; but suffice it to say it was not at all a given that "authorized bearer of the divine name" and "actually God" were the same being in 1st century Hellenistic Judaism, and indeed the distinction between the two had developed in Jewish thought precisely to avoid the awkwardness of anthropomorphic figures proclaiming themselves God in some of the older sections of the Hebrew Bible).
The funny thing is, there are a ton of passages in John that get trotted out as proof texts that Jesus is God. There are very good reasons in the case of each one to doubt that that is actually the correct reading; but of course, if you don't know anything about Greek, all you have are modern translations produced under the assumption of the dogma of the Trinity--mostly for devotional readers of the Bible who would be outraged if the Trinity wasn't in the New Testament--and you have been raised in a cultural and/or educational milieu where it is simply a default assumption about the way the world works that the Trinity is a timeless concept that has been in the Bible from the beginning, it sure looks like one side is spinning up tendentious arguments based on silly semantics that have nothing to do with the religion you learned as a kid.
But this exegetical approach (really, eisegetical) is common to many topics in traditional Christian theology. There are a ton of passages from the Septuagint that the Gospels warp to be about Jesus, even though, in their original context, this doesn't make any sense; sometimes even they're based on obvious mistranslations, like having Jesus ride into Jerusalem on the back of two animals simultaneously because you don't understand appositives. And you can poke holes in any individual bit of this exegesis, but psychologically having a ton of low-quality evidence for a thing is a pretty effective bulwark against thinking critically about that evidence; for every individual argument you knock down, the person you are arguing against is probably thinking, "yeah, but what about all that other stuff," even if they can't actually name all that other stuff in the moment.
And it's not mendacious! This is the stuff of true belief; this is how you get breathless Christian commentators saying the Bible couldn't possibly be written by human hands, because it so perfectly predicted Jesus even in the Old Testament--and the evidence they point to is, to anyone not steeped in traditional Christian exegesis, and especially to Jews who have their own exegetical traditions, absolutely barmy. Like really pants-on-head crazy stuff. But of course even now it is still being processed, in many parts of the world, through a two thousand year old tradition trying to reconcile it all and to normalize it all, and--to bring it back to discussions of evolution on the internet in the 2000s--I can't help but think of all those people who talk about the experience of thinking evolution was so obviously nonsense, because all they were exposed to was the fundamentalist strawman of it. When they finally sat down and began to read about it on their own, from unbiased sources--often with the intent of criticizing it--they realized how distorted their understanding was, and how limited their supposed outside view.
(If there are general lessons to be wrung from this situation, I think it's simply "beware of echo chambers." Social consensus in a bubble can make bad arguments feel much stronger than they really are, especially if you are not exposed to the actual opposing view. Be on guard against mistaking "quantity of evidence" for "quality of argument," especially if you're not gonna evaluate that evidence yourself. Also all religious traditions are fundamentally eisegetical, because in order to keep holy writ relevant to the community its meaning has to be constantly renegotiated. So, uh. If you want high-quality exegesis, ask an academic, not a theologian.)
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thirdity · 1 year
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[I]t is a bourgeois prejudice to suppose that for something to have worth, there must be a practical application. The ancient Greeks knew that pure understanding for its own sake was, even just in terms of the quest, the highest value or activity of a man: Homo sapiens: man who knows. However, look what this three year ongoing quest to understand, learn and know has done for me: joy, awe, peace, tranquility, a sense of purpose. Of personal worth — and above all meaning, from my awareness of God.
Philip K. Dick, The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick
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alexalexinii · 2 months
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Help me with my project!
I don't normally do this but I need some help here! I am heading to honours in March and I'm trying to brainstorm what my year-long project should be.
Just for context, I am an art student who specifies storyboarding and illustration. So the final result will be a storyboard with some illustrated key frames!
I've already decided that I want it to be based on something from Greek mythos as to honour my culture + religion. I will be taking texts from the most primary sources I can find and interpreting them myself.
I've put some of my favourites in the poll below:
I would love your help to spread it around as much as I can because it would be cool to see what people might want to see created visually!
I also would love to use this as a static for my research/exegesis (why is it called this, it's literally an essay) I have to write that goes along with this project. Thank you!
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inflamedrosenkranz · 13 days
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I find the discussion of the Lin Kuei's system as a clan to be really interesting, since the restart that was MK1 leaves us with some things to fill in and question. They are called a clan after all, so do they have an ancestral village? How do those people go about connecting with the outside world considering the fact that the Lin Kuei is extremely secretive? Why does Bi-Han put such emphasis in "pure" Lin Kuei blood? Is it an outdated belief or something anchored to the lack of cryomancers like previous games? Is it a thing of status to have special abilities? Just some things I've been thinking about.
Hello, dear Anon. I'm sorry to have kept you waiting. I'm posting the following in response to your ask, but alas, it's not finished. I still have a few things to add to the overall development. However, as I mentioned yesterday in a post, I'm ill; my cognitive abilities are damaged and, having to follow soon a demanding care protocol, I may not be able to update this blog in the next 6 weeks, or only at weekends; and I may not be able to write long takes for a long time either (and the fact that English is my second language does nothing to help my brain recover). As this follows on from an ask, I'd therefore rather publish this, however unfinished, than not at all. That said, I still plan to complete this analysis when I'm better. The last paragraphs in italics are those I still have to flesh out, and whose English still needs to be proofread and corrected (so if the end seems disjointed, don't worry: a few things are missing). I hope you like it, Anon, and that it answers some of your questions. Happy reading!
Yes, I too find all this interesting and fascinating!
I often ask myself these questions too, but I lack time and energy to properly answer them.
But as for Bi-Han's obsession with "pure blood", I've already tried to provide some more or less explicit answers in these posts:
The Lin Kuei brothers tragedy and, more importantly, Bi-Han's individual tragedy follow the pattern of Greek tragedy...
Bi-Han: A Cosmic Tragedy
Bì-Hán, Kuài Liáng, Tomáš & Lisa: they were four... (The Lin Kuei brothers’ families: an exegesis through timelines)
Tales of a Shattered Brotherhood: Tomáš and Bì-Hán, in Search of Lost Unity — Part 2 — Tomáš & Bì-Hán: So Different, Yet So Similar, or the Tragedy of a Broken Family
Why Bi-Han Hates Ashrah and Baraka
Peacemaker, glam metal and smoke: Tomáš is a metalhead
And to tell the truth, your question has made me keen to write a final take on the subject, bringing together all the aspects of the problem that I've developed in the 4 analyses above.
This said, I apologize in advance: it's going to be very long and... it's going to be, above all, an improbable (and indigestible?) mini-treatise on sociology and Greek philosophy applied to Mortal Kombat 1 and, more specifically, to the Lin Kuei. Will you bear with me?
So... what does Bi-Han mean when he tells Tomas that he's not, will never be a true, pure-blooded Lin Kuei? "Why does Bi-Han put such emphasis in 'pure' Lin Kuei blood?" ⬇️
The Lin Kuei is indeed a centuries-old inward-looking and autarkic social structure. As a clan, as a social structure in its own right, the Lin Kuei operates according to its own socio-cultural norms and codes and overall vision of itself and of the world, which determine and shape its members' way of being and thinking, just as their way of being and thinking determines and shapes in return these same norms and codes. This general worldview is called a Weltanschauung. ⬇️
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Worldviews derive from what the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) called "habitus". ⬇️
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Bi-Han and Kuai Liang were conditioned by the Lin Kuei's habitus and Weltanschauung even before they were born, and then once they were born, they received what we can assume was a martial, intellectual, cultural and spiritual teaching that further completed and consolidated the transmission of all these norms, codes and paradigm—a teaching that they were in turn destined to transmit, so as to guarantee the survival of the Lin Kuei as a social system. This is what is called social reproduction. ⬇️
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Moreover, the Lin Kuei is a kind of dynasty, passed down through the paternal line. Its members are therefore born with the good fortune to know their family tree(s?), which span(s) several centuries. Personally, I see the Lin Kuei as a micro aristocratic society unto itself, with its members being elite warriors and fine scholars who derive their legitimacy from Liu Kang/God, whose natural and cosmic order they defend against the forces of chaos and evil.
And, as guardians of the divine creation, they must imitate unto themselves the cosmic perfection of the universe ("cosmos" in Greek means "organized", and by extension also encompasses that which is harmonious, morally good and peaceful, and moderate/limited; and is opposed to the idea of chaos, which represents everything that is disorganized, disharmonic, excessive, belligerent, violent and boundless...).
As such, they are highly aware of their privilege, and of the strength, virtue and beauty it gives them. They are κᾰλοί κᾰ̓γᾰθοί ("kaloí kagathoí" = "beautiful and good"). ⬇️
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As written in the 4th screenshot: "The word [kalòs kagathòs] was a term used in Greek when discussing the concept of aristocracy. It became a fixed phrase by which the Athenian aristocracy referred to itself; in the ethical philosophers, the first of whom were Athenian gentlemen, the term came to mean the ideal of perfect man."
Because of everything we've seen above, Bi-Han and Kuai Liang were brought up to think they were the best (in Greek, aristocracy means "rule of the best") and actually, many of their intro dialogues show them behaving contemptuously towards other characters. @evilbihan wrote an important post about Kuai Liang's condescension. As for me, I've written one on Bi-Han's (this is my second link above-quoted), which is mostly shown towards Ashrah and Baraka.
Indeed, in order to maintain the cosmic balance, the Netherrealm serves as a dumping ground for all the evil in the world. This is why demons that inhabit it are inherently chaotic and malefic creatures. As for Baraka, his illness causes him to gradually regress into savagery (and so, into chaos and evil). Because of this, they are physically and morally the opposite of the ideal of kalokagathia, which encompasses the notion of physical and moral perfection. Physically for instance, Ashrah and Baraka are hybrid beings ("hybrid" comes from the Greek hubris, meaning excess or violence), in that their deformities are the marks of their moral affiliation with the principles of chaos and consequently, of evil. Yet, these principles and the very forces that stem from them and threaten to invade Earthrealm and disturb Liu Kang's peace are precisely what the Lin Kuei has learned and vowed to fight. Hence Bi-Han's prejudice against Ashrah and Baraka, and Kuai Liang's prejudice against "inferior species".
What needs to be grasped here is that the Lin Kuei's habitus and Weltanschauung are a social-scale reproduction of the abstract laws that rule the universe created by Liu Kang (in reality, this may not be clear, and to understand this I would have had to make a detour into Greek cosmogony, which would have made this post, already long and unintelligible for many readers, even longer and more unintelligible).
The Lin Kuei warriors are indeed Liu Kang's right-hand men, the guardians of his creation and the instruments of his will. Their age-old sense of belonging to something beyond themselves, which only they can truly understand and embody, reinforced by their very secretive and reclusive existence (incidentally one of the conditions for the exercise of their divine and holy mission...), can make them reluctant to accept and integrate into their ranks what comes from outside (let's not forget that Bi-Han doesn't accept Liu Kang's collaboration with Ashrah... just as a part of him rejects Tomas). In story mode, for example, Raiden and Kung Lao's offer of help is dismissed by the two brothers:
Sub-Zero: You are not Lin Kuei. You would only hinder the effort. Scorpion: We're trained differently. It takes years to master our ways.
The Lin Kuei are very proud and protective of themselves and their raison d'être, not only because it defines them in relation to the rest of the world (i.e. all other Earthrealmers, ordinary Earthrealmers), but also because without this necessary self-preservation, their clan could not survive and continue to protect the whole of humanity and maintain peace.
Thus, anything that comes from outside is deemed as dangerous, not just extraterrestrial threats to Earthrealm, but anything that could slow down the clan's progress or even bring about its destruction from within.
Its destruction from within.
Does that sound familiar? Yes? No?
Yes: Tomas.
Tomas, the little hunter that 15 years earlier (15 years: Tomas says it in his ending, not me), the former grandmaster took in after his men mistakenly attacked him along with his mother and twin sister, eventually killing the last two. Tomas, who would then have had every opportunity to take revenge on his tormentors for the murder of his family, had he wanted to, especially as he had kept his mother's karambit with him, and later learned the Lin Kuei's fighting techniques and magical abilities.
For all these reasons, Bi-Han always remained wary of Tomas:
Sub-Zero: Your treachery does not surprise me. Smoke: It is you who betrayed us, Bi-Han.
And it is only logical: Tomas, because of what the Lin Kuei did to him, represents a threat to the latter's unity and physical integrity.
Of course, by force of circumstance, Bi-Han has come to appreciate, listen to and accept the young man as one of their own, as his many gestures towards him during their mission in the Ying Fortress prove (@evilbihan talked about this here and there). But that doesn't take away from the fact that he's always kept him at arm's length despite it all:
Smoke: You've always been cold to me. Sub-Zero: Because your blood is not Lin Kuei.
For, even if Tom has shown over the years that he had good intentions and was well-disposed towards his second family, and that he had embraced their cause by becoming in turn an Earthrealm's defender—deep down, he still remains in essence an insider threat to the Lin Kuei in the same way that Ashrah and Sareena remain in essence insider threats to Earthrealm, which nobody denies:
Liu Kang: Be careful, Syzoth. Ashrah is still a demon. Reptile: Don't we all have a demonic side?
Reptile: I worry Sareena is falling back into evil. Ashrah: We can't let her, Syzoth.
In essence... It's very important that we look at the etymology of this word:
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So, even though Ashrah and Sareena are eager to do good and redeem themselves, they remain in essence demons drawn to evil. Even though Tomas wants to return the good the Lin Kuei has bestowed on him by protecting "the weak and helpless" (Sindel: "It's impossible, Smoke. We can't save everyone."/Smoke: "Then I'll save who I can to make up for the ones I can't."), he is still a victim of that same clan, and the negative feelings he has certainly repressed could one day rise to the surface and drive him to seek revenge:
Smoke: Is there evil in me? Ashrah: My kriss senses none.
Smoke: I've been having visions of demons. Raiden: What were they? Enenra?
Smoke: There are many kinds of demons?Ashrah: The worst are the Enenra.
Geras: I am concerned about Tomas. Scorpion: What has the Hourglass shown you, Geras?
Whatever Ashrah and Sareena do to deny their evil nature and rise above their metaphysical condition, they can never truly escape it: it's in their blood, in their genes, in their innermost being—in a word, in their essence.
Whatever Tomas does to deny the fact that he is first and foremost a victim of the Lin Kuei and to pretend that he is a Lin Kuei like the others in order to ward off his trauma and cognitive dissonance, he will remain, will always be a victim, potentially carrying deep within him a desire for vengeance drawning him to evil in spite of himself.
Tomas is a Lin Kuei by circumstance, not in essence, and Bi-Han says no more than that.
By the facts indeed, Tomas is a Lin Kuei, in essence however... he'll always lack something to be a true Lin Kuei:
Smoke: We can't abandon tradition. Sub-Zero: Mind your place, Tomas. Father may taken you in, made you one of us... Sub-Zero: ...but your blood will never be Lin Kuei.
This is also why Bi-Han orders him to "mind [his] place": for the Lin Kuei's tradition that Tomas asks Bi-Han not to abandon is at once the clan's habitus, its Weltanschauung, and its tool for social reproduction. In fact, this tradition is an all-encompassing, multi-secular matrix that gives Lin Kuei individuals their intrinsic quality of being, their very essence as true Lin Kuei. To achieve this, however, they must have been born into the very heart of this matrix, i.e. into the clan, which is not the case for Smoke. Because the Lin Kuei has been chosen to carry out a divine and cosmic mission in the shadows, so as not to arouse the suspicions of Earthrealmers as to the existence of other dimensions and extraterrestrial peoples (this would hit the headlines so much that the peace desired by Liu Kang would be critically endangered...). This is why the Lin Kuei is a clan that must imperatively live in seclusion and not open up to the world (like any aristocratic circles, we can assume that cousin marriage is a thing, but perhaps they occasionally accept "contributions" from other clans too...). Essence defined by true blood. This dual imperative gave rise to a habitus, which then formed a Weltanschauung that then crystallized into a tradition from which no derogation is permitted for the reasons rightly cited above: the maintenance of natural order and, by extension that of the Lin Kuei as a family. In fact, Bi-Han believes that Tomas has no part in the clan's tradition, and therefore cannot speak on its behalf, because he was not born in and born form it.
But there's one last thing to explain why Bi-Han doesn't see Tomas as a true Lin Kuei, as a "pure blood". Here, we'll have to go back to sociology (and I promise I'll free you later).
In that regard, it is important to notice that he was born in Prague (whereas the Lin Kuei is probably in Asia). Spoke Czech before he spoke Mandarin. Probably fatherless (so he has no strong genealogical roots like his adoptive brothers), and lives a nomadic life with his mother and twin sister in order to survive. I think it's fair to say that Tomas comes from a modest, even poor, background. Consequently, Bi-Han/Kuai Liang and Tomas have radically different habitus, because they simply don't come from the same world. Tomas is, as Bourdieu would say, a class defector ("transfuge de classe"), a transclass. Not only: in fact, he's also a "civilisational" and language defector. He has integrated social, linguistic, cultural and civilisational structures and environments so different in every way from the ones in which he was born and raised that, even if he adopts all its codes and makes them his own, he will never truly be a Lin Kuei in the purest sense of the word. To be a true Lin Kuei is to be born into the clan, to have been determined, even before birth, by the clan's habitus. This is why, even if Cyrax, who will appear in the expansion, is of African origin, she remains a true Lin Kuei in the sense that Bi-Han understands it: her family has been part of the clan for, we can assume, several centuries, and has therefore assimilated its habitus at the same time as representing and helping to maintain it. No one can deny that Bi-Han and Kuai Liang have similar personalities, and that Tomas's is different. I talk about this in this post and this one (above-quoted). Thanks to the intro dialogues, we know something of Tom's personal life, apart from his professional life, which is to be an Earthrealm's defender and a high-ranking member of the Lin Kuei. We know that he likes popular culture, movies, going out to eat, listening to music. He's also outgoing, showing positive emotions. His brothers are quite different: they show rather negative emotions, and when they are positive, they remain contained. We don't know anything about their hobbies either. Above all, they remain Lin Kuei warriors, with no existence of their own outside their duties. This testifies to the fact that Tomas comes from the outside, and from a modest background open to the world. Bi-Han and Kuai Liang, on the other hand, come from an aristocratic, inward-looking background that doesn't mix with the trivial, mundane lives of most Earthrealmers, whose well-being they look after. They seem out ot time, untouched by it, straight from the dawn of time; and their cultural references are undoubtedly "classical". They live only by and for duty. That's why NRS doesn't show them as anything other than the way their clan has conditioned them: men who are now nothing more than a job function, a tool.
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raisengen · 10 months
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Correction on previous post: as clarste​​ helpfully pointed out, Benthonexigios is probably a Greek name, which helps explain why the inhabitants of not-Italy have such a hard time pronouncing it.
There is (or was?) a Greek tradition of names formed by compounding words, too. In that case, it seems most likely to be a compound of the Ancient Greek βένθος + ἐξήγησις, benthos + exegesis (η having become similar in pronunciation to ι more recently).
Your wiktionary translation is “poetic form for ‘deep’” + “narration | interpretation or explanation”.
Amazing.  He’s Mr. Deep Takes.  Mr. Excessive Exposition.
(This, uh, could also be a meta-joke about people who spend too long trying to figure out the reason for a character’s name. Hi.)
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sabakos · 1 year
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You claim to be pursuing a "classical" education and yet there are no commentaries on philosophical texts or allegorical exegesis of scripture or canonical literature, and moreover I see a distinct lack of support for any of your argumentation with quotations from Homer or Euripides, or perhaps even some more modern poets such as Milton and Shakespeare. Even as much as I hate them, the continental weirdos who try to read Freud into Shakespeare are still closer to reconstructing Ancient Greek paideia than you'll ever be.
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nerdygaymormon · 4 months
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Matthew 5:21-48 "Ye have heard it said..."
Five times in Matthew chapter 5, Jesus uses some version of "Ye have heard that it was said...But I say unto you..." Jesus is saying that this text has been interpreted this way, but I'm giving a better way. Jesus challenged traditional ideas, He expanded the interpretation.
We can do likewise.
There's two words used a lot in Biblical study, hermeneutics and exegesis.
Hermeneutics is deciding what we will use to help us interpret the text. We bring our own sensibilities, experiences, and understandings. Scholars may bring historical context, linguistical analysis, and a knowledge of Hebrew or Greek.
Exegesis is what understanding we pull from the text. The hermeneutics we use will affect what meaning we retrieve. This is why reading the same verses at different times of our lives will give us different insights.
Jesus taught that all the laws hang on the 2 great commandments to love God and to love people. I think we can use that as our hermeneutics as we read the scriptures. What does this teach me about loving God and about loving people? How does this relate to loving my neighbor, specifically the vulnerable and marginalized?
I also think about how does this relate to queer people? I bring to this my understanding that being queer is not a choice, God made us this way and expects us to live our life as queer. It's incorrect to view queer people as broken, not worthy, or not good enough. LGBTQ+ people deserve hope and an uplifting spiritual life.
Given those hermeneutics, let's look at the examples we find in Matthew 5.
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Matthew 5:21-26
You've heard it said, 'Don't commit murder because you'll be in danger of being judged.' I say if you're angry at your siblings without a good cause, or you call them names, you'll be in danger of being judged and going to Hell. If you've come to worship God but things aren't right between you and your sibling, then leave and make things right before coming back.
Another way to state this is if a person plans to murder someone, but at the last moment doesn’t because of fear of consequences or cowardice, is that person still good with God? No. Don't murder them, but don't even be angry at them. You can't love God if you don't love your neighbor.
How does this apply to queer people? Don't physically harm LGBTQ+ people. Don't murder us, don't beat us up, don't bully us, and don't call us names. Stigma, prejudice, and discrimination create hostile and stressful social environments which lowers self-esteem, decreases psychological well-being, and has other harmful mental health outcomes. Instead, desire blessings for us and hope for our inclusion and equal standing.
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Matthew 5:27-30
You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that every man who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
It is natural and good for a man to be attracted to women, he can't help that, it's how God designed humans so that we will procreate. But if he's attracted to another man's wife, how does he handle that? Does he merely note that she's attractive and move on or does he lust after her and think about being with her?
If two people have made vows to each other, it's harmful to try to get one of them to break that promise. Loving our neighbor means wanting their happiness and wanting them to have fulfillment in their most important relationship. To selfishly desire something for you that would harm their relationship is not loving. We should wish them the best in their relationship.
Unfortunately, I've had people use this passage to argue that being gay is a sin because I'm lusting after the wrong sort of person, just like the adulterer. And furthermore, by simply using the word 'gay' to acknowledge that I’m attracted to men, they say I'm identifying myself by my sin and I’m committing sin in my heart. That's not a generous or loving interpretation. This is not how straight people apply this teaching to themselves.
This scripture provides no reason to think of homosexual attraction any differently from heterosexual attraction. If we seek to have sex with someone and upset their married relationship, that is a sin, as is lusting for that in our heart. A Christian should love their gay neighbor enough to want them to find a rewarding romantic relationship, just as they hope for themselves.
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Matthew 31-32
It was said, 'Whoever divorces his wife must give her a divorce certificate.' But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual unfaithfulness, forces her to commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
The law was if you're going to leave your wife, you gotta give her a divorce certificate. This way she can prove she's not married any longer and can pursue finding another husband.
At that time, men had the power to divorce, women did not. Also, women at that time had little power or rights, they were reliant on men. To divorce a wife is to make her vulnerable to real harm, such as poverty, hunger, and homelessness. To not provide documentation that she is no longer married to you and thus prevent other men from being willing to marry her will cause her harm and is not loving.
Many like to say that sexual immorality is the exception clause, you are not justified in getting divorced unless your spouse has cheated on you, in which case you can move forward with splitting up. I don't know. Maybe Jesus is saying that if she cheated on you then she chose to commit adultery, but if you divorce her then you are causing her to commit adultery should she ever remarry, and you'll also be committing adultery if you remarry.
Christianity has long wrestled with these verses. Forcing people to remain in an abusive relationship or letting them split but not get divorced which means they can't remarry, that doesn't seem like it's in their best interest.
I think due to the LDS experience with polygamy and how difficult it was, the church made peace with the idea of divorce and remarriage. Not that we don't discourage divorce, it's seen as a serious thing, but if someone wants to get divorced, we won't stand in the way. And when someone who is divorced wants to get married, we allow that and even give them the highest blessings by letting them get sealed in our temples. We recognize it is to their benefit to get married and enjoy a loving relationship. They have companionship. They have a partner to help with raising the children and the many tasks of life. They can find sexual satisfaction within the bonds of a marriage. They can help each other progress.
I'm glad my church has put aside this and other teachings against divorce and remarriage, and that we recognize what a blessing it is to individuals to get out of relationships which are harming them and also that it is a blessing for them to join a new, loving relationship.
How can we apply this to queer folks? We allow them the same blessings you want for yourself. Let them form loving, committed relationships and bless those with the recognition of marriage because we know such relationships bless their lives.
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Matthew 5:33-37
Again you have heard 'Don't make a false promise, you should follow through on what you have pledged to the Lord.' But I say you shouldn't make such pledges, and don't swear by heaven. Let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no.
We need to keep the commitments we make. Don't be deceitful. Don't make a promise we intend to break. When we make promises that others rely on, all while knowing we don't intend to keep that commitment, it harms them. They take actions that benefit us without getting the same in return. That's definitely not loving our neighbor. We should be honorable and trustworthy and known to keep our word. We should have integrity.
I think of people who say they love and support queer people, call themselves an ally and say we should be treated fairly by society, and then they vote for candidates who seek to block us from having legal protections and rights. If you're going to vote for our harm, then you're not the loving ally you portray yourself as.
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Matthew 5:38-42
You have heard it said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you when someone hits you on your cheek, turn the other to him. If someone legally takes your tunic, give them your cloak as well. If you are pressed into service for one mile, go two miles.
This is different from the other examples because they were saying for us not to harm others. These verses are how to respond when we get treated unfairly. Jesus is not saying that we should be a doormat inviting more injury to ourselves.
Jesus' examples are forms of passive resistance. If a Roman legionary tells you to do something, and you refuse, you are punished. If you are unjustly sued, and you lash out, then you go to prison, instead here's steps you can take to highlight the wrongness of what is being done.
I've read that in Jesus' time someone could backhand a person of lower status as a way to assert authority and dominance. If someone backhands you, turn your face so they can slap your other cheek. They can't use their left hand as it's used for unclean purposes, so will they now hit you with their open hand as that shows you're equal? By turning the other check, I am forcing them to recognize my equality or to walk away from my challenge to their dominance.
A person's tunic could be used as collateral for a loan, but not the cloak. The debtor can be forced to give the tunic off of his back, but by also giving them the cloak, they're now naked. Public nudity was viewed as bringing shame on not just the one who is naked, but also the viewer. The one enforcing his rights to take your clothes is shamed.
Inhabitants of occupied territories could be forced by Roman authorities to carry messages and equipment for one mile post, but the law prohibited forcing them to go further than a single mile. A Jew at any time could feel the tap on his shoulder from a Roman soldier and know he has to carry the soldier's gear for a mile. By going the extra mile, it's a nonviolent way to criticize the unjust Roman law and cause the Roman solider to be at risk of discipline
These are each ways to assert our dignity and to shame others for the how they're treating us. Each is a form of resistance but not retaliation, each is a way of highlighting the injustice without it turning into revenge. This is nonviolent resistance, which can be powerful in changing hearts.
This passage reminds me of the first time I went to a Pride event, it was really joyous and wonderful, except for some preacher yelling about how we're all sinners and going to hell and even yelling insults at people walking by including about what they were wearing. He was really getting people upset. Instead of yelling insults back, or worse, a group formed a circle around him and started singing Katy Perry's song "Firework" and the rest of the crowd joined in, drowning out his hateful words, until security could remove him. We did no harm to him and our actions stood in contrast to his hate and anger. It was a way to affirm ourselves and negate his message
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Matthew 5:43-48
You've heard it said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you. God's sun rises on both the good and the bad, the rain falls on the just and unjust, in other words, he blesses all. There's no benefit in only loving those who love you.
When one group perceives another as 'the Enemy,' it's easy for conspiracy theories, prejudice, and fear to cause us to no longer see their humanity. This leads to seeing all Muslims as undercover terrorists or to believe that gay people are responsible for hurricanes.
We are to love everyone.  This includes people who aren’t our race, or religion, or nationality. This includes sexual minorities, poor people, that annoying coworker, the politicians voting to limit your rights.
We don't have to agree with them. We focus on the issues and don’t make things personal. We can look for peaceful, constructive ways forward. We can have kindness and goodwill for people even as we disagree.
I think of the hatred toward LGBTQIA+ people by many who identify as Christian. The lack of compassion towards queer people is disheartening, and to be asked to love them in return feels difficult, but it can lead to positive change.
In 2004, 60% of Americans disapproved of gay marriage. In 2019, 61% approved of gay marriage. That's a complete flip-flop in 15 years. There were many who were vehemently against gay marriage and expressed hatred towards queer people. Gay rights advocates were speaking of love, and when gay marriage was legalized, we saw videos of couples joyously celebrating their love, which stood in contrast to the bigotry that had been expressed. It's hard to see the joy and love and believe the hateful rhetoric. Individuals naturally don't want to see themselves aligned with people who are harming and hurting people.
We can keep protesting, keep speaking our truth, keep advocating for those who can't, but don't villainize those who oppose us. Stick to the issues and act with compassion and love. Let our actions stand in contrast against those who view us as enemies.
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deathlessathanasia · 7 months
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"The aphrodisiac symbolism of the golden apples is deployed between two extremes: on the one hand, the coercive violence of the gift that cannot be shunned, on the other, the courteous suitor's offer of a present that his intended seems freely able to accept or refuse. It is important to review the symbolic contexts of the apples within this spectrum, given the bonds of deception that unite Atalanta and Aphrodite at the crossroads of hunting and marriage.
There are two contrasting traditions as to their origin. In the one Ovid's narrative follows, Aphrodite herself picked them in the center of the island of Cyprus on her estate at Tamasos in the middle of which rustle the golden boughs of a resplendent tree. According to the other, the fruit come from the Garden of the Hesperides. But the sameness of the fruit cancels the geographical difference. For the only tree that Aphrodite nurtured at Cyprus is the pomegranate (Punica Granatum), the fruit tree that a whole tradition associates with Hera's orchard and through it with the Garden inhabited by the daughters of Atlas. In her sanctuary at Argos, Hera in state holds a scepter in one hand and a pomegranate in the other, a fruit from the tree that is said to grow only for her, the mistress of legitimate marriage. In fact, at the time of her marriage to Zeus, Who made her the unbending guardian of the conjugal bed, Hera received from Earth, who came with the other gods to give wedding gifts to the new bride, the golden fruit that thenceforth would shine in the garden of the gods beneath the protective gaze of the Hesperides, the Virgins of the ends of the earth.
Lest there be any misunderstanding, the fruit of the pomegranate tree, which pleases Aphrodite no less than Hera, is only another name for the "apple" in the fable. The Greek word for "apple" (melon) designates every kind of round fruit resembling an apple, and consequently, it is used not only for the fruit of the apple tree but for the pomegranate and the quince, which was known to the Greeks as the "Cydonian apple". In the domain of marriage, where Aphrodite's power accommodates Hera's, sparkling round fruits--quince, pomegranates, and apples--are used in various ways in gestures and ritual practices. In one of his poems, Ibykos of Rhegium evokes happy love and the untouched garden of the Virgins where pomegranates and apples of Cydon ripen. They are picked at wedding time, as is shown by the tablets of Lokroi: two young women are filling baskets placed at the foot of a tree whose branches are covered with round fruit. An attentive examination of different examples of the same scene has made it possible to recognize on the tree an alternation of pomegranates, quince, and plain apples.
These fruits are offered to the young couple and sometimes thrown at the wedding procession; for instance, the cart that bears Helen and Menelaos is covered with myrtle branches and apples of Cydon. They know other uses as well. Freshly picked fruit are poured into the bride's garment, or a young woman accompanying the bride and groom holds a fruit between two fingers and presents it to them. At Athens, the ritual gesture was even sanctioned by the Solonic code, which enjoins the bride to munch an apple of Cydon before crossing the threshold of the bridal chamber. Plutarch's exegesis may attribute to Solon the wisdom of thus assuring that the bride has a clean mouth and sweet-smelling breath, but Persephone's experience in Hades is doubtless more revealing as to the symbolism of the fruit the bride eats. The gods have decided to return her daughter to Demeter. Hades then must assent, but before letting Persephone join her bereaved mother, he gives her a fruit to eat. It is a pomegranate seed. Henceforth, Persephone will have to spend part of the year in the land of the dead, for she has become the wife of Hades. Persephone will tell her mother that her host did her violence by forcing her to eat a sugary sweet food, when actually the only compulsion inflicted upon her was that of the gift she received from Hades' hand without knowing it. To be sure, there is deception in his way of offering the young woman her nuptial fruit: Hades glances round, he acts in stealth. But the essential point is that in the marriage ceremony the offering of a round fruit, be it quince or pomegranate, ritually consecrates the marital union. Persephone's misadventure provides proof of the gesture's effectiveness."
- Dionysos Slain by Marcel Detienne
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hobbydrawer · 1 year
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Religious symbolism, reference and implications, oh my!
Disclaimer: Content is based on the gameplay demo. The final gameplay is subjected to change by Neowiz and Round 8 studio, and thus, potentially making this post’s information outdated. Also, I am not a religious study expert. Please take everything I said in this post with a grain of salt.  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To be fair, I thought I’m kinda done with the lore digging mission of this game’s demo but then... something happened. I came back, took a second glance at stuff in the gameplay and realized a few things.  This game has a lot of religious and philosophical references, and things don’t just stop at that La Pieta statue at the end of the trailer.  1) Christianity and Gnosticism 
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The lamp that contains our buddy, Jiminy Gemini the Talking Cricket, is named as “Monad’s lamp”. Monad, in the concept of Greek philosophy, is the absolute Divine being, that comes first and being the perfect existence (that later bear the dyad, and then the points, etc). Monad is usually presented as a circle with a dot in the center, as below:
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“The symbolism is a free exegesis related to the Christian Trinity.[5] Alan of Lille mentions the Trismegistus' Book of the Twenty-Four Philosophers where it says a Monad can uniquely beget another Monad in which more followers of this religion saw the come to being of God the Son from God the Father, both by way of generation or by way of creation.[5] This statement is also shared by the pagan author of the Asclepius[5] which sometimes has been identified with Trismegistus. The Book of the Twenty-Four Philosophers completes the scheme adding that the ardor of the second Monad to the first Monad would be the Holy Ghost.[5] It closes a physical circle in a logical triangle”
In this way, the concept of Monad is “tied in” with Christianity and the “voice of the conscience” that the Talking Cricket represents in the novel. As the description suggests, “Do not fear [...] cricket’s guidance will be with you.”, Gemini will function not only as our combat guide AI but probably also as the voice of conscience, the moral compass and the voice of the Divine. Being the voice of the Divine, Gemini could likely end up against P/the player in certain quests, and this might lead to the events like in the novel (the Cricket being killed, and then later appear again as the Ghost of the Talking Cricket). In fact, as I pointed out in one of my previous posts, this Gemini we saw in one of the gameplay demos is not even the first version of  Gemini that P met.  Additionally, being the voice of conscience and representative of the Divine, Gemini could also act as an agent for the Three council (whose symbol we encountered in V’s factory), and whose job is likely to guide and shape P toward a certain development (with P being hinted as one of the puppets that didn’t receive The Grand Covenant inscription).  The reason I’m speculating that Gemini and the Three council are probably relating to each other is because of this symbol:
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that vaguely combines the idea of Monad with the Holy Trinity (and further reinstate the statement from The Book of the Twenty Four philosophers) : 
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With a game that places a lot of emphasis on destiny, predisposed fate and God, it is not at all surprising that we get to see something like this in the game. The floor is drawn out with a “physical circle enclosed in a logical triangle”, and the placement of the chairs vaguely suggests the existence of a Holy Trinity-equivalent in the game. However, note that the game doesn’t strictly adhere to the Holy Trinity’s description in Christianity and also adds in their own creative characterization in the game.  It is possible that the Three council is comprised of Geppetto (the Father), Sophia (the Holy Spirits) and Venigni (the Son). So each person, to their own respect, is ‘God’ (or God equivalent) by themselves. Giveth that Gemini made some remarks about a mysterious woman, who is possibly related to Gemini and its duty, could it be that the Talking Cricket is referring to Sophia?  Another possible candidate for the third position could be Antonia, who is a genderbend version of Master Antonio (the person who discovered and gave the magical wood log to Geppetto in the novel). Following this interpretation, Antonia is the “Holy Spirits” in the Trinity, whom discovery and work has helped create the famous Krat puppets.  note: Someone has pointed out in Discord that Venigni is a reference to the name Benigni. Roberto Benigni is the director and comedian who both directed and played as Pinocchio, the titular character in the movie of the same name in 2002. He then goes on to play as Geppetto in Garrone’s movie in 2019. This is interesting, because a graffiti on the wall accused Venigni as “a dummy”...And the guy is owner and director of a factory which made a lot of important stuff, including puppets...And he is the Prince of the High society too... => So by either embracing the Divine’s guidance, or rejecting it, P is subjected to be an Antichrist Antigod figure or to be led toward salvation, to fulfill his destiny.  2) Buddhism, reincarnation and the concept of rebirth that happens in many heroic journey novel  A common concept that is employed in many adventure novel is the death and rebirth cycle for the protagonist. This can happen physically or metaphorically, depending on the plot’s direction. “The adventure of Pinocchio” is no exception. Many times, the protagonist went through literal and metaphorical deaths: being hung on a tree, turn into a donkey and thrown into the sea, swallowed by a shark, mourning for the death of his mother figure, etc.  And I swear I don’t have a hallucination from reading the Korean interview (that, unless I have been fooled by the beloved Google Translate), but: 
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According to PD Choi, there will be Buddhism theme supplemented in the background as if the game doesn’t have enough religious reference already. It may sound far-fetched and ill-fitted with the Western philosophy and Christianity reference already there but, hear me out, this may work in tandem wonderfully.  One of the Buddhism concepts that overlap with the death-and-rebirth theme of the novel is the wheel of life and the cycle of reincarnation:
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According to the principle of the cycle of reincarnation, one individual/soul will be born into one of the six realms, and depending on the karma they accumulate in their lives, that once one individual die, they will be reborn into an appropriate realm befitting of their good deeds or bad deeds. All beings are trapped in this cycle endlessly, and they can only break free from it through enlightenment. (”All beings within the six realms are doomed to death and rebirth in a recurring cycle over countless ages -- unless they can break free from desire and attain enlightenment.”)
The six realms are (some wording can vary depending on regions):
Realm of God-Heaven (also known as Realm of Deva)
Realm of Demon (sometimes refer to as Realm of Atula)
Realm of Hungry Ghosts ( Hungry ghosts = Preta-gati in Sanskrit, or Gakido in Japanese)
Realm of Human
Realm of Animal
Realm of Hell 
In this, Hell is considered the ‘worst’, for all of its torment, and suffering, while Heaven is the representation of “bliss” and “pleasure” (but not necessarily the best, because the ‘Deva’ who enjoy a long life of bliss are eventually blind from the suffering of other realms’ citizens, and in the end, are still subjected to the principle of the reincarnation).  Interestingly, a parallel: by traveling to the Land of Toys and being turned into donkeys...is vaguely an equivalent of being reincarnated into the Realm of Animal, because both realms require their denizens to accumulate “ignorance” and “laziness” to be ‘reincarnated’ into animal Now this next part is simply my interpretation of the situation, and again, does not necessarily reflect the game’s content, or the development team’s artistic interpretation. So treat it with a grain of salt (or as a headcanon) ======================================================= With all the info so far, it is possible to consider Krat city right now as a representation of “Realm of Hell”. According to Chinese mythologies, that was popularized in Tang dynasty, Hell is consisted of 18 layers. And then, in an interview, Director Choi has hinted, that the game will have around 15 chapters, each chapter represents an area, with expandable DLC. I don’t know how many DLC packs the team are going to implement but summing up the number, that’s roughly equal to the 18 layers of Hell!  Now if you go along with this interpretation, putting into the perspective of P’s journey going into Krat (Hell) to find his father, Mr. Geppetto, then we can draw a big parallel with a famous Chinese Buddhism tale called “Mulian saves his mother from Hell”
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(image courtesy of a 19th century scroll, from Wikipedia) The reason why I’m pulling this up as a parallel is not only because of the idea of P finding Mr. Geppetto in Krat but also because of Geppetto’s plea from the Gamescom’s trailer, asking P to help him. In the original Mulian tale, Mulian’s mother was punished in the deep layers of Hell for her sins (”his mother is suffering extremely in the Avīci Hell, the cruelest of the purgatories “), suffering all sort of cruel punishment. Mulian, who is a Buddha’s disciple, wants to save his mother due to filial duty. But he can’t do it by himself, and thus needs to ask for help from Buddha and other disciples. Thanks to his relentless and filial effort, his mother (after reborn through many other realms as well) is finally saved (some ver may say not), and thus the concept of Ghost Festival is born. It is possible that Geppetto has committed some serious sins in the past, and is now “suffering for his punishment” in this hellish Krat. P, being a filial child, is willing to journey into this hellscape to save his father, but he would need help from other characters to do this. note: This story was one of the earliest to be written down in the literature Korea, Japanese and Vietnamese. A another interesting finding.  => In this interpretation, P’s journey is parallel to Mulian’s journey. By saving his father, P might be setting up a foundation for an unprecedent virtue/action that never seen before. And like Mulian, who later ascended and achieved enlightenment (breaking free from the cycle of reincarnation), P could also achieve enlightenment, transforming into a being beyond human. (I don’t know if this interpretation can apply to Antonia, no info further so far to support this) ======================================================== 3) P/Pinocchio and how does he fit into all of this? With so many elements coming together like this, it is easily to be confused about what role or figure P is playing in this game. To be fair, I don’t know either. We don’t have enough information to interpret this. One of my speculations is that P is currently “stuck” at the Realm of Hungry Ghost, which is a domain below the Realm of Human, and characterized by an aching emptiness and perpetual yearning for something that is unattainable. This is also a domain for obsession and addiction, and a result of accumulating bad karma for such desire. Some might say it is a domain for those who refuse to ‘descend’ into Hell. This would make sense, considering that P wants to be a human, to ascend to the Realm of Human.  I’m using the word ‘stuck’ is because so far, we haven’t seen P displaying any characteristics of a typical denizen of the Realm of Hungry Ghost. More likely, P only reflects a part of the characteristic of this realm: longing and yearning for something perpetually- in this case, Humanity. Thus, this is not a strong evidence to support this theory.  Another possibility is that P is already outside of this cycle of reincarnation, but he is willing to earn a ‘soul’, and become a part of this cycle, so that he could fulfill his predisposed destiny that is guided by the voice of the Divine (to be a savior? to break the cycle?). But for whatever his higher calling is, he must first delve into this Hell called Krat city first. 
TLDR: In a journey to Hell, influenced by both Eastern and Western religions, depending on whether you embrace the guidance from the High above or not, P may or may not end up being a Messiah, or in a less favorable position. Maybe P stands for Player, not just Pinocchio
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junebugwriter · 2 months
Text
Galatians 3:28 is Transgender Affirming, Actually
An exegetical exploration of the text
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I used to be a pastor. That occupation affords a position as a lot of things within the church, an opportunity to be “all things to all people” as Paul would say. 1 Perhaps the one that I was most well suited to and excelled at was being the neighborhood theologian in residence and academic in practice. Now that I am an academic full-time in my graduate studies, I am practically drowning in research, but remarkably, little of it is explicitly biblical in nature. This is something I quite miss, and so I began this blog partly to fill that missing piece of my former life, because I believe that as a Christian, drinking deep from the well of scripture is generally good practice and ideal to work towards.
So, call me surprised when a few weeks ago, I heard a murmur of a discourse on the site formerly known as Twitter, discourse revolving around Galatians 3, specifically Galatians 3: 28: “There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
Now, let me say this up front: this passage has meant a lot to me most of my life. It is a message that is designed to unify, to build community, to embolden us to set aside differences for the common good of the Christian community. But also, it has meant a lot to me personally, as it signaled to me that God simply does not regard my being transgender as something to be used against me, that in the end it does not matter to God, because God is beyond all of the binaries and dividing lines we might draw here on earth.
However, this is not exactly consensus. (Not that Twitter is at all an engine for consensus-building—in fact it was engineered to be the opposite!) For every person who argued that Galatians 3:28 was an affirming passage as regards people of the transgender experience, there were perhaps dozens more who said that interpreting it that was robs the passage of its context, and goes against the sacred word of Paul of Tarsus.2
This naturally got my pastor engine burning, because to me, it seems obvious, even with context, that Galatians 3 would be affirming for transgender people. Yet, most likely, there are many that would not see it so. Therefore, allow me to make my case for a queer, trans reading of Galatians 3.
(Note: though I am a trained pastor and theologian, I am NOT an expert in New Testament studies or biblical Greek. Additionally, though I am a queer theologian, Queer Theology as an area of
focus is not my exact specialty, not as much as disability or ethics is. This is my own exegesis and interpretation, make of that as you will.)
The Text in Context
Paul’s Letter to the Galatians is a text with a fraught history, which makes sense considering the letter was written to a problematic church. If Paul was going to write to a church, there was usually a significant enough problem at stake for the foundling churches of Asia. Moreover, if the letter was to be included within biblical canon, it meant that the issue was significant enough for the leaders of early church to have found it essential for the spiritual formation of the church itself. That issue was nothing less than a question of inclusion and discrimination within the church.
Paul was faced with the question: Who is to be included within the church? Who is to be given salvation? It’s a soteriological question with social implications, and to erase the second facet is to do a disservice to the first facet. Paul relates as much in his discussion in earlier chapters regarding his disagreement with Peter, Cephas, and James. To be a follower of Christ, did one need to be a Jew first? They had agreed, and sent Paul with their blessing, that the correct answer is no. One did not need to be a Jew in order to be saved through the redeeming work of Jesus Christ. One could be a Gentile or a Jew, and this pivotal decision set in motion the course of the church for the rest of history, one which would ultimately spell final division with our Jewish siblings.
But I digress. The point was, there was confusion among the church as to who was included in the family of God, and Paul emphatically declared in Galatians that this entire line of questioning was out of order. Paul was of course chiefly focused on the Jewish/Gentile divide, but he was not blind to the hierarchical realities of the society in which he lived. The statement he makes in 3:28 is a threefold formulation, one that approaches the chief dividing lines in society as he saw it: Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female.3 This entire letter was birthed by inequality and division occurring socially4, and Christian communities are reflections of their societies and communities. Jim Reiher puts it like this: “...human ‘horizontal’ relationships were not reflecting the ‘vertical’ equality we all have in Christ with God.”
Thus, in response to these divisions among the people of the church, Paul’s response is that it is in the waters of baptism in Jesus Christ that we are given common salvation. Jennifer Slater states that in a post-Christ paradigm, “both men and women share equally in Christ and so become equal members or participants of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.”5 This is not in ignorance of the realities of division, nor a collapse of identity. People remain distinct, and so do identities within the church. To ignore such would
be to ignore reality. Rather, it’s instead not a dissolution of distinction, but rather a negation of difference as a basis for exclusion. 6
In Paul’s day, and in ours, it would be the height of foolishness to state that difference did not exist. Yet despite that, we as the church are called to not necessarily bless the structures that divide us in our society, but reflect a different reality in which those differences do not deny any of us citizenship in the Reign of God through Jesus Christ. Christ did away with those when he took on human flesh and was resurrected from the dead. When we undergo the waters of baptism, we are initiated into that reign, that new reality, and offered salvation through faith.
That Paul knew what he was doing here seems obvious. There was a very strict codification of gender binary within Roman society in that time, with a clear advantage given to men over women. Women had less social status than men, often could not hold property, and even were seen as property of men in every arena. To state “there is neither male nor female” is a direct contradiction of the social order as it stood, and different gender roles were proscribed by society. As such, this disregarding of gender as it affects life in the church is a radical statement indeed, and thus worthy of modern interrogation.
Queering the Text
This is, of course, where the fun begins. I needed to get through that background to get to the question at hand: how is Galatians 3:28 a trans affirming passage?
I am going to state here that queer theory and queer criticism is a relatively new field of criticism, doubly so for theology. Though the interrogation of the text as a gender-inclusive statement can be seen to go back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, queerness as a subcategory of theology can only go back a few decades. Therefore, the scholarship is scant on the matter of Galatians 3:28, but not impossible to find. For a more in-depth analysis, I’ll recommend an excellent paper by Jeremy Punt, full citation in the footnotes.7 His work is excellent, yet it is mostly focused on establishing a basis for a queer reading of Galatians 3, not as much the specific queerness that being transgender poses.
In claiming that in Christ there is “no male nor female,” there is an androgynizing effect to the passage that poses a danger to the male audience, much more than the female one.8 Men stood to lose much in the categorical collapse of gender: social status, privilege, and legal rights. In the bargain, women stood to gain much more than men would lose, and thus this was a radical proposal for 1st century church members. Yet, one could argue that this collapse was potentially less dangerous than the difference collapse between rich and poor, slave and free, and most especially for Paul’s interest, Jew and Gentile. The presence of salvation through the work of Jesus Christ was a radical proposition, and to separate social reality from soteriological would be folly, especially since the social aspect seemed to be the chief problem that was being posed to salvation.
This naturally leads to a significant question for the interpreter: what do we mean by salvation? Is salvation simply something that happens in the great by and by? Is it simply a reality relegated to existence after death? Or does salvation mean something in the present, the here and now? I would argue that for Paul, it absolutely matters. Salvation was a social issue, because the material reality with which the church was faced was affecting their theological prejudices and division. Thus, when Jesus saves, Jesus does not simply save us for later, but saves us right now. When he first speaks in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus says “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”9 That’s not a promise of the reign in the future, in some far away time or place that is immediate and urgent. Thus, salvation only makes sense if we frame it in the present, material reality of the listener.
Jeremy Punt wisely stated that “...queer theory is not so much about bestowing normalcy on queerness but rather queering of normalcy.”10 If one takes that task seriously, it is then a very queer thing indeed for Jesus to have proclaimed the arrival of the Reign of God. It very much queered the normalcy of the people he preached to, and Paul is very much queering the normalcy of the people of Galatia in this broad, unifying pronouncement. He is blurring the divisions between ethnic groups, economic groups, as well as gender groups, something that is usually believed to have been an unreconcilable divide. After all, did God not create the two genders in the Garden of Eden? ”Male and female, he created them?” Yet in Christ, we see that this division need not be maintained so strictly, because the things of heaven, the Reign of God, does not seem to care about these divisions all that much.
The case for gender inclusion in Galatians seems straightforward, then. Women ought not be barred from anything within the church itself. The social dimension directly affects this salvation issue, and God is freeing us from division within salvation and society. But this leads to the crucial question:
Does this include transgender people?
The T-shaped Hole in our Text
Our beliefs and understanding about gender, sex, and the social constructs around them have changed in the intervening millennia between our us and our text. There was no way for Paul to have talked about what we now understand as transgender people, because that category did not exist for him in that context.
That does not mean that we did not exist back then, mind you. The existence of transgender people in history is being uncovered on a daily basis. Our journals, our records, our stories exist, but on the margins of social consciousness. The truth of the matter is, we did not simply appear in the last few years, when people started making more of a fuss about us in the public sphere. We simply have learned more about how gender works, and that is a concept and topic that is expanding each day. So, while Paul did not consider transgender people in his writing, that does not mean that we did not exist in his day and age, and that does not mean that this text doesn’t have something to say about us.
If one had to boil down the entire text of Galatians to a single point, it would be that our divisions do not stop us from receiving the love of God through Jesus Christ. Quite the reverse. Jesus
Christ does not care about our divisions. God’s love does not end at an arbitrary dividing wall of our own creation. That love is shared among God’s children equally; how could you make a holy parent like God choose among their creation? Likewise, God does not contain within themselves division. God may be triune in nature, but that triune aspect of God only heightens the communal aspect of love, and the love that God shares within God’s selves is only stronger when it is shared with God’s creation.
When I was a child, I was baptized into the life of the church. There is not a day that goes by where I did not know God’s love for me. It has been a constant throughout my life, and I cherish the fact that I have always had assurance of God’s love for me. God does not suddenly stop loving someone like me when I learn more about myself, about my mind, my identity, and my manner of expression. If, as Paul says, “There is no longer male and female,” then why get hung up on whether or not God’s love is extended to transgender people? You can hop that binary divided at any point, and God’s love for you would not change. You can ride that line all day long if you want! You may say, forget the line! Because the line is only there because we say it’s there.
In the end, male and female are simply categories, and if God is any indicator, categories are meant to be defied. God does not have a gender, because God is beyond the binary. God is beyond every binary, in fact. This isn’t a controversial statement, it simply has been the understanding of the church going back to antiquity. That we call God Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and use predominantly masculine pronouns is because of how language works, and how God through Jesus Christ revealed themselves to us. That is the language they used, but any language we use is provably lacking when talking about the divine, because it is a construct of human making, and therefore flawed and fallible. Our understanding of biology is simply what we have so far observed and tested, backed up on documentation, and is liable to change as more information is gathered. Furthermore, gender is different from biological sex, and while both are important—fascinating, even!--they are also more malleable than we might imagine.
Christians are also a people of change. We believe that Jesus came to change the world from how it is to how it will be under the Reign of God. Jesus calls us to repentance, to change ourselves, and be transformed by the love that God has for us. You are changing every day in small, unnoticeable ways. Transgender people are just people who have observed an interior discrepancy in how we are perceived by the world, and work to change that in our lives to better reflect the person that we always were inside. That’s not dishonesty or delusion, it is simply how humans work! It's the height of honesty to be transgender, because the most intimate part of ourselves, our identity, is important, and God honors that. Because of that, God does not really care if we transition. Because God shows no partiality. Man, woman, something in between, something outside the binary completely—there is no longer any division, because all are one in Christ our Lord. If you belong to Christ, you belong to the promise that God will always love you, no matter what.
Conclusion
To me, a theologian and one deeply called to teaching the truths of our faith, are deep truths that cannot be denied. Paul does not want there to be any division among us, as division only sows injustice, infighting, and chaos. Jesus came to both men and women, slave and free, rich or poor, Jew and Gentile. This is a text that is designed to free us from our interior divisions, to work towards a reality in which those divisions do not matter anymore.
The context of the text recognizes the social reality of our world, and then subverts it. The message of Jesus Christ, then, is a revolutionary attitude of inclusion, love, and support. It goes beyond gender divisions, to the very cores of our being. God loves us, God includes us, God celebrates us. God wants us to live in truth and love with one another—and being transgender is a truth that should not be denied.
Look, I have tried to deny it for decades. I tried to be what I was assigned at birth, and have found so much freedom in acknowledging the truth of who I am inside. Ask any transgender person, and they will tell you the same. If it could be denied, we wouldn’t be honest with ourselves, or with God. God wants us to be free, loved, and honored in our communities, especially in the church.
So yes, Galatians 3:28 is a transgender affirming text, actually. It is a text that unbinds us to binaries and reveals a vision of a community that has progressed beyond division to true unity, solidarity, and love. Go therefore and act like God has freed you from your interior divisions. Live in truth, and the truth shall set you free.
______________________________________________
Footnotes:
1- 1 Cor. 9:22 (NRSV).
2 -I quite like Paul, by the way! But he was a human being, and as a human being, his words bear the stain of human frailty and fallibility. Therefore, it is more than acceptable to criticize and/or examine his work as such. He was an excellent writer and theologian, and demands that his work be taken seriously as an academic; I imagine he would want nothing less
3- Slater, Jennifer. “'Inclusiveness’ - An Authentic Biblical Truth That Negates Distinctions: A Hermeneutic of Gender Incorporation and Ontological Equality in Ancient Christian Thought.” Journal of Early Christian History 5, no. 1 (2015): 116–31. Pg. 118.
4- Reiher, Jim. “Galatians 3: 28 – Liberating for Women’s Ministry? Or of Limited Application?” The Expository Times 123, no. 6 (March 1, 2012): 272–77. https://doi.org/10.1177/0014524611431773. Pg. 275.
5- Slater. Pg. 119.
6- Ibid. Pg. 122.
7- Punt, Jeremy. “Power and Liminality, Sex and Gender, and Gal 3:28: A Postcolonial, Queer Reading of an Influential Text.” Neotestamentica 44, no. 1 (2010): 140–66.
8- Punt. Pg. 154.
9- Mark 1: 15, NRSV.
10- Punt. Pg. 156.
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aboutanancientenquiry · 5 months
Text
"Poetics of Fragmentation in the Athyr Poem of C. P. Cavafy
Gregory Nagy
[Originally published in Imagination and Logos: Essays on C. P. Cavafy (ed. Panagiotis Roilos) 265-272. Cambridge, MA 2010. The original pagination of the article will be indicated in this electronic version by way of curly brackets (“{“ and “}”). For example, “{265|266}” indicates where p. 265 of the printed article ends and p. 266 begins.]
Ἐν τῷ μη[νὶ] Ἀθύρ
[[1]] Μὲ δυσκολία διαβάζω    στὴν πέτρα τὴν ἀρχαία. [[2]] <<Κύ[ρι]ε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ>>.    Ἕνα <<Ψυ[χ]ὴν>> διακρίνω. [[3]] <<Ἐν τῷ μη[νὶ] Ἀθὺρ>>    <<ὁ Λεύκιο[ς] ἐ[κοιμ]ήθη>>. [[4]] Στὴ μνεία τῆς ἡλικίας    <<Ἐβί[ωσ]εν ἐτῶν>>, [[5]] τὸ Κάππα Ζῆτα δείχνει    ποὺ νέος ἐκοιμήθη. [[6]] Μὲς στὰ φθαρμένα βλέπω    <<Αὐτὸ[ν] … Ἀλεξανδρέα>>. [[7]] Μετὰ ἔχει τρεῖς γραμμὲς    πολὺ ἀκρωτηριασμένες· [[8]] μὰ κάτι λέξεις βγάζω –    σὰν <<δ[ά]κρυα ἡμῶν>>, <<ὀδύνην>>, [[9]] κατόπιν πάλι <<δάκρυα>>,     καὶ <<[ἡμ]ῖν τοῖς [φ]ίλοις πένθος>>. [[10]] Μὲ φαίνεται ποὺ ὁ Λεύκιος    μεγάλως θ’ ἀγαπήθη. [[11]] Ἐν τῷ μηνὶ Ἀθὺρ    ὁ Λεύκιος ἐκοιμήθη.
It is hard to read . . . . on the ancient stone. “Lord Jesus Christ” . . . . I make out the word “Soul”. “In the month of Athyr . . . . Lucius fell asleep.” His age is mentioned . . . . “He lived years . . . .”? The letters KZ show . . . . that he fell asleep young. In the damaged part I see the words . . . . “Him . . Alexandrian.” Then come three lines . . . . much mutilated. But I can read a few words  . . . . perhaps “our tears” and “sorrows.” And again: “Tears” . . . . and: “for us his friend mourning.” I think Lucius . . . . was much beloved. In the month of Athyr . . . . Lucius fell asleep . . . .
Translated by George Valassopoulo in E.M. Forster, Pharos and Pharillon, Hogarth Press, 1923 from C. P. Cavafy, Poems 1916-18 as published on the Official Website of the Cavafy Archive, http://www.cavafy.com/
My contribution, however slight, to an understanding of this difficult poem starts with an alternative translation of my own, followed by an exegesis. My translation has no literary merit: it is simply a working translation, keyed to the exegesis that follows it. In order to facilitate the reading of the exegesis, I have numbered, within double-square brackets ([[ ]]), the lines of the translation to match the verses of Cavafy as printed in their original format. As we will see, even the formatting of this poem is part of its meaning. Here, then, is my translation of the poem—and of its formatting:
[[1]] “With difficulty, I am reading … what is on the ancient stone. [[2]] It starts <<Lord Jesus Christ …>> Then there is another word, <<psyche>>, I can make out that much. [[3]] <<In the month Athyr …>> <<… Lucius went to sleep>>. [[4]] In remembrance of his age … <<He lived for such-and-such number of years>> [[5]] —the letters <<Kappa>> and <<Zeta>>, for twenty and seven, show … that he was a youth when he went to sleep. {265|266} [[6]] Right in the middle of the damaged parts, I see <<… himself … the Alexandrian>>. [[7]] Then there are three lines that are … very much dismembered, [[8]] but I can somehow make out some words … like, <<our tears>>, <<pain>>, [[9]] then once again <<tears>>, … and, <<for us his friends, sorrow>>. [[10]] It seems to me that Lucius … would have been very much loved. [[11]] In the month Athyr … Lucius went to sleep.”
What follows is my exegesis, pursued line by line. In this exegesis, double quotation marks enclose wording xxx spoken by the poet who is reading an inscription in his poem: so, “xxx”. Double angular brackets enclose wording pictured as seen by the poet in the act of reading the inscription: so, <<xxx>>. And single quotation marks enclose wording that I use to translate Greek wording that falls outside the poem: so, ‘xxx’.
I start with the first comma, “,” at line [[1]] of my translation of the poem. With the placement of this comma “,” I mean to convey a double meaning inherent in the poem. That is, there are two levels of difficulty in this poem. One, it is difficult to read the fragmentary inscription engraved into stone. And two, it is difficult to read the poem. Not only is the fragmentary inscription difficult to read; even the act of reading the poem is difficult in the first place. For us as readers, it is as difficult to read the fragmentary poem as it is difficult for the poet to read the fragmentary inscription. That is because the reader of the fragmentary inscription, who is the poet of the poem that pictures the inscription, is implying that all poems are fragmentary inscriptions. Even more, the poet is implying that any act of reading anything is difficult: “With difficulty, I am reading.”
At line [[2]], the first three words of the fragmentary inscription seem at first to be easy enough to read. <<Κύ[ρι]ε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ>> or <<Lord Jesus Christ>>… So far, so good. Maybe the reading will not be so difficult after all. Some letters have broken off, yes, but they can be restored without too much difficulty by the reader poet, who is following here the convention of experts in the heuristic science of epigraphy, making restorations of missing letters xxx by enclosing the letters of their restoration within square brackets: so, [xxx].
But now the real difficulties begin. Now the reader poet is starting to have a difficult time reading the next word at line [[2]], as the inscription becomes more and more fragmented. The reader thinks he can still make out the word <<Ψυ[χ]ήν>>, which translators tend to render as <<Soul>>, but the letter <<χ>>, which is also the first letter of <<Χ>>ριστός or <<Ch>>rist, has broken off, and it can only be restored within square brackets, just as experts in epigraphy restore missing letters within square brackets. Now, on second thought, the {266|267} reader is made more aware that the <<Lord>> of <<Lord Jesus Christ>> as read earlier at line [[2]] is also fragmented. There the missing letters are <<ρι>> in <<Κύ[ρι]ε>>, but those missing letters had been easily restored, also within square brackets, by the reader poet reading as an expert in epigraphy.
There is more to be said about the word <<Ψυ[χ]ήν>> as read by the reader poet at line [[2]]. This word, which is conventionally rendered as <<Soul>>, has been left untranslated in my working translation, where I give simply <<psyche>>. I do so because the translation ‘soul’ for ψυχή works only if the Christian sense of ψυχή is meant. But what if a pre-Christian sense is also meant here? In the Greek of Homeric diction, for example, ψυχή can refer either to the breath of life, when someone is alive, or to a disembodied simulacrum of identity after death, when someone is dead. And, by contrast with ψυχή, the word αὐτός in Homeric diction means not only ‘self’ when someone is alive but also ‘body’ when someone is dead. We see such a contrast between the words ψυχή and αὐτός at the very beginning of the Iliad:
Μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί’ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε’ ἔθηκε, πολλὰς δ’ ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι, Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή
Anger, sing it, goddess! The anger of the son of Peleus, Achilles, the baneful anger that caused countless pains for the Achaeans and hurled to Hades many powerful psychai of heroes, but they themselves [autoi, = their bodies] were made prizes for dogs and for all kinds of birds. And the will of Zeus was being accomplished.
Iliad I 1-5
The Homeric body, as expressed by αὐτός or ‘self’, is still the self even after death, while the Homeric ψυχή after death is no longer the self but merely a disembodied simulacrum of the self. It is the ψυχαί or disembodied simulacra of the self who are being hurled down to Hades, not their bodies, who are the ‘selves’ themselves, the αὐτοί.
So then the question is, does the <<Αὐτόν>> or <<himself>> in the accusative case, as we read this word later on at line [[6]] in the poem of Cavafy, refer to the <<Alexandrian>> at the same line [[6]] in the Christian sense of the ‘self’ as a ψυχή that transcends death—or to the ‘self’ in the Homeric sense of a body left {267|268} behind by the ψυχή after death? At line [[2]] of the poem by Cavafy, the word <<Ψυχήν>> is also in the accusative case, just as the <<Αὐτόν>> or <<himself>> is in the accusative case at line [[6]]. Something is happening to the psyche, is being done to the psyche—whether this psyche is a Christian or a pre-Christian ψυχή.
At line [[3]], the reading continues, but we do not find out what happened to the psyche. All we can find out so far is that whatever did happen happened <<in the month of Athyr>>. That is what the inscription says in the first part of the line. In the second part, which is separated from the first part by a break in the line, the inscription goes on to say that a young man <<went to sleep>>, and we learn that his name was <<Lucius>>>. I translate the break between the first part and the second part of the line not with three dots marking ellipsis but with two sets of three dots marking two separate ellipses. That is because the break comes in the middle of a quotation, and there is no way of knowing whether the missing words are part of one syntactical sequence or of two.
The fragmentary inscription, as imagined at line [[3]], does not say outright that the young man <<went to sleep>>, since the root of the verb that I translate as <<went to sleep>>, <<κοιμ->>, is imagined as a learned epigraphical restoration. In the inscription, the root <<κοιμ->> has broken away and has to be restored within square brackets: <<ὁ Λεύκιο[ς] ἐ[κοιμ]ήθη>>, which can be approximated as <<Lucius [went to sleep]>>. The experience of going to sleep is epigraphically conjectured, without being poetically realized. At line [[5]] and then again at line [[11]], by contrast, the epigraphical conjecture will become a poetic reality. In those two lines, [[5]] and [[11]], the experience of going to sleep is a reality created by the poetry, no longer a conjecture derived from the heuristic science of epigraphy.
At line [[4]], the remembrance of the age of the young man Lucius anticipates a certainty—that the number of years he lived is known to the reader poet—who anticipates what is already known by the writer of the inscription. But the number is missing in this line, where the reader would expect to read it. That is why I translate here at line [[4]] the missing number by using the words <<such-and-such>>. What line [[4]] says is that <<He lived for such-and-such number of years>>. Line [[5]], which comes next, will fill in, adding the numbers that are expected but not yet found at line [[4]]. The <<such-and-such>> number of years at line [[4] can finally be filled in with real numbers at line [[5]], but only because the reader can now make out the <<Kappa>> and the <<Zeta>>, Greek letters reused for the Attic numerals <<20>> and <<7>>, in this case showing <<27>> as the age of the young man Lucius when <<he went to sleep>>.
At line [[5]], my working translation starts with a dash, and the first letter of the line is not capitalized. These details in formatting are meant to show that the previous line [[4]] did not end in a full sentence. The present line [[5]] {268|269}continues where the previous line [[4]] had left off. Meanwhile, the reading in the inscription that had to be restored as <<went to sleep>> at line [[3]] is now the reading in the poem as written by the poet and as read by the reader of the poem at line [[5]].
In the lines that follow, both in the lines of the inscription and in the lines of the poem, the fragmentation is so severe that the reader of the inscription and the reader of the poem can barely make out any readable words. All there is to read in the inscription is what the speaking reader actually sees, as signaled by “βλέπω” or “I see” at line [[6]]. If we take this word “βλέπω” in a sublime Platonic sense, not in the everyday sense of ‘βλέπω’ as ‘I see’ in everyday modern Greek, then what the “I” actually “sees” is an absolute Form, in that Plato’s use of βλέπω focuses on the seeing of Forms in Plato’s Theory of Forms. But the question is, what Form does the reader poet see “in the middle of the damaged parts”? And the answer is, he sees what he reads, which is <<… himself … the one from Alexandria>>. That <<himself>>, conveyed by <<Αὐτό[ν]>> in the accusative case at line [[6]], could be not only Lucius, the young man from Alexandria. It could be Cavafy himself from Alexandria. Or, as I noted some moments ago, the <<himself>> could be the Homeric body, which is temporarily the ‘self’ as distinct from the ψυχή after death. Or again, in a Christian sense, it could be the ‘self’ as permanently reunited with the ψυχή after death.
Or, yet again, in an ancient Egyptian sense that is most appropriate to Alexandria in Egypt, the <<self>> conveyed by the <<Αὐτό[ν]>> in the accusative case at line [[6]] could be the body of Osiris. In Egyptian myth, the god Osiris was the first person to die and then be resurrected after death. He had gone to sleep while sealed within a larnax or ‘chest’—and his body was then dismembered and scattered by Seth, lord of chaos, only to be reassembled and restored to life by the goddess Isis, loving consort of Osiris, in the month of Athyr. The ancient Egyptian myth about the fragmentation of Osiris and about his subsequent restoration by his consort Isis in the month of Athyr has been retold in the learned essay of Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris. The form of the myth as known to Plutarch was doubtless well known to Cavafy. Here is my paraphrase of the Egyptian myth as retold in the Isis and Osiris of Plutarch:
356B. It all happened on the 17th day of the month Athyr. The occasion for the death of Osiris is a sumposion ‘symposium’ attended by the god and 72 symposiasts who conspire to trick Osiris into lying down into a larnax ‘chest’ that fits him perfectly—and him only. Once Osiris takes his place inside the perfect fit of the larnax, the conspirators seal it and cast it into the Nile. With reference to the sacred number 72, we may compare the number of assembled men in the narrative about the genesis of the Septuagint. {269|270}
357A. The larnax containing Osiris floats down the Nile and into the sea, floating onward all the way to the Phoenician seacoast city of Byblos, a place that becomes the namesake for ‘papyrus’ and ‘book’ and, ultimately, ‘bible’ as represented by the Septuagint. Isis ultimately brings back the body from Phoenicia to Egypt.
357D. In Egyptian ritual, Plutarch says, the eidōlon ‘image’ of any dead person, when it is ritually carried around in a kibōtion ‘box’, is not just some ‘reminiscence’ [hupomnēma] of the ‘sacred experience’ (pathos) concerning Osiris. The ritual act of carrying around such an eidōlon is in the specific context of a sumposion ‘symposium’.
357E. The mythical honorand of the ritual symposium, Maneros, is envisioned as the inventor of ‘the craft of the Muses’ [mousikē].
357F-358A. Seth finds the sōma ‘body’ of Osiris in the moonlight and ‘dismembers’ (dieleîn) it.
358A. Then Isis looks for the parts of the sōma in a papyrus boat. The narrative adds an aetiology: how papyrus boats are immune from attacks by crocodiles. It is implied that Isis is reassembling the parts of the body of Osiris in order to reintegrate it for his eschatological resurrection.
358A. There is a different taphos ‘tomb’ of Osiris for each different ‘part’ [meros] of Osiris in different places throughout Egypt because Isis performed a separate taphē ‘entombment’ for each. Another version has it that she made eidōla ‘images’ for each polis in which Osiris is entombed.
The dismemberment of the body of Osiris is matched by the dismemberment of the poem of Cavafy, which is pictured as the reading of a dismembered inscription. The fragmented members of the poem need to be reassembled by the reader poet just as the fragmented members of the body of Osiris need to be reassembled by Isis. Just as the task of reassembling the fragmented body of Osiris is the key to the eschatological restoration and resurrection of Osiris, so also the task of reassembling the fragmented body of the poem is the key to restoring this poem and bringing it back to life.
But the task is difficult for the reader, perhaps so difficult as to be impossible. That is because the missing parts of the body of the poem, which match the missing parts of the inscription that is read by the reader poet, may perhaps never be found, may perhaps never be reunited with the parts that remain. And so the remains of the body of the poem may perhaps never be brought back to life. Unlike the goddess Isis, whose quest is to reassemble and restore all the missing parts of the body of Osiris, the reader of the poem may have to give up any hope, settling for something that falls far short of restoring the whole poem. The reader may have to settle for the fragmentation that remains. {270|271}
But the reader poet persists. He continues to read the inscription, as if to sustain a hope of restoring it and bringing it back to life simply by continuing to read. The reader continues to restore missing fragments within the square brackets that mark what is missing. The remains of the body of the poem call for the restoration of the fragments that are missing.
But now the reading becomes even more fragmentary, even more difficult. In the three lines that follow line [[6]], the fragments that remain are too disjointed to be read in continuity. Here the dismemberment of the body of the poem becomes decisive. It happens immediately after the <<self>> is signaled at line [[6]]. The next line [[7] signals that the reader of the fragmentary inscription is about to read “three lines that are … very much dismembered.” These “three lines” in the inscription will now be reenacted in the fragmentary wording and syntax of the next three lines in the poem, [[8]] and [[9]] and [[10]].
At lines [[8]] and [[9]], the reader reads words that break apart from each other, such as <<our tears>> and <<pain>> at line [[8]] and <<tears>> and <<for us his friends, sorrow>> at line [[9]]. The words at lines [[8]] and [[9]] are separated from each other by the breaks in the inscription. They are no longer connected to each other organically. And the two lines [[8]] and [[9]] are disjointed even as lines, since line [[8]] does not close in a full sentence but is picked up by the disjointed additions that follow. That is why the tears cannot end at [[8]] but need to start all over again at [[9]].
Then, at line [[10]], even the poem breaks apart, breaks up, disintegrates. This time, it is not the wording of the inscription that disintegrates. Rather, the disintegration happens in the wording of the poem itself. The wording at line [[10]] has taken over from the wording of the fragmented inscription. The wording of the poem here at line [[10]] is meant to tell what the fragments cannot tell fully, but now even the wording of the poem becomes fragmented. It is not that the fragmentation is caused at line [[10]] by breaks in the inscription. It is caused by breaks in the structure of the poem, in the body of the poem. The syntax of “It seems to me that Lucius … would have been very much loved” shows that the poetry is becoming fragmented, just as the inscription is already fragmented. The line is not a complete sentence, since something is syntactically missing in the ellipsis (…) that separates the two parts of the line.
Then, at the end, at line [[11]], the fragmented words of the poem as expressed in the previous line [[10]] are replaced by the restored words of the inscription. There are no more square brackets to indicate the missing letters of the inscription. Now “Lucius went to sleep” for sure, “ὁ Λεύκιος ἐκοιμήθη,” and these words are no longer quotations from the inscription, enclosed in double angular brackets and showing the epigraphical restorations, as they had been before at line [[3]], <<ὁ Λεύκιο[ς] ἐ[κοιμ]ήθη>>, which I had translated {271|272} as <<… Lucius went to sleep>>. This time, at line [[11]], the words “ὁ Λεύκιος ἐκοιμήθη” or “Lucius went to sleep” are not the words spoken by the inscription but the words spoken by the reader poet. But these words too, like the words of the inscription, are fragmentary, as we see from the spacing between the first and the second part of the line.
What ultimately reintegrates the disintegrating poem as it draws to a close is the love expressed for Lucius at line [[10]]: “μεγάλως θ’ ἀγαπήθη” – “[he] would have been very much loved.” In the logic of the inscription, this love was experienced by the original readers of the inscription—and by its original composer. But now we see it experienced all over again by the composer of the poem that frames the inscription. This composer becomes the first reader of this poem by virtue of being the last reader of the fragmentary inscription that he sees being framed within his poem. And just as the ultimate reintegration of Osiris after his disintegration is driven by the love of Isis in the ancient Egyptian myth, now the ultimate reintegration of the poem after its own disintegration is being driven by love—a love restored in the act of reading a fragmented inscription. Such is the integrating power, paradoxically, of Cavafy’s poetics of fragmentation."
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grandhotelabyss · 3 months
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Thoughts on Guy Davenport?
A great essayist, the generalist to rebuke all specialists, whose dizzying associations gradually overlap and braid together until all of humane culture appears as a unity. He was almost the last of that type, after his friend Kenner, or, in a more strictly academic vein, the likes of Frye and Auerbach. But Kenner, Frye, Auerbach—or even Bloom, Steiner, Sontag—all feel much heavier, more armored and therefore crushing in their erudition, while Davenport had the lightest touch. He was a true belletrist, an amateur in the etymological sense, who seemed to be doing it for fun.
I'll give just one example, from the title essay in the soon-to-be reissued collection, The Geography of the Imagination. I quoted part of it here before almost a decade ago, so I assume it's been forgotten by now: a literally extravagant ("from Latin extra- ‘outside' + vagari 'wander'") exegesis of Poe, who stands revealed, by the time Davenport is finished, neither as a panting pulp scribbler nor a dipsomaniacal poète maudit but as an encyclopedist of Joycean proportions, except in miniature:
Poe titled the collection of his stories published that year Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. These two adjectives have given critics trouble for years. Grotesque, as Poe found it in the writings of Sir Walter Scott, means something close to Gothic, an adjective designating the Goths and their architecture, and what the neoclassical eighteenth century thought of mediaeval art in general, that it was ugly but grand. It was the fanciful decoration by the Italians of grottoes, or caves, with shells, and statues of ogres and giants from the realm of legend, that gave the word grotesque its meaning of freakish, monstrous, misshapen. Arabesque clearly means the intricate, nonrepresentational, infinitely graceful decorative style of Islam, best known to us through their carpets, the geometric tile-work of their mosques, and their calligraphy. Had Poe wanted to designate the components of his imagination more accurately, his title would have been Tales of the Grotesque, Arabesque, and Classical. For Poe in all his writing divided all his imagery up into these three distinct species. Look back at the pictures on the wall in his ideal room [in the essay “The Philosophy of Furniture”]. In one we have grottoes and a view of the Dismal Swamp: this is the grotesque mode. Then female heads in the manner of Sully: this is the classical mode. The wallpaper against which they hang is Arabesque. In the other room we had a scene of Oriental luxury: the arabesque, a carnival piece beyond compare (Poe means masked and costumed people, at Mardi Gras, as in “The Cask of the Amontillado” and “The Masque of the Red Death.”): the grotesque, and a Greek female head: the classical. A thorough inspection of Poe’s work will disclose that he performs variations and mutations of these three vocabularies of imagery. We can readily recognize those works in which a particular idiom is dominant. The great octosyllabic sonnet “To Helen,” for instance, is classical, “The Fall of the House of Usher” is grotesque, and “Israfel” is arabesque.”
But no work is restricted to one mode; the other two are there also. We all know the beautiful "To Helen," written when he was still a boy:
Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicaean barks of yore, That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, The weary, way-worn wanderer bore To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo! in yon brilliant window niche How statue-like I see thee stand, The agate lamp within thy hand! Ah, Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy Land!
The words are as magic as Keats, but what is the sense? Sappho, whom Poe is imitating, had compared a woman's beauty to a fleet of ships. Byron had previously written lines that Poe outbyrons Byron with, in "the glory that was Greece / And the grandeur that was Rome." But how is Helen also Psyche; who is the wanderer coming home? Scholars are not sure. In fact, the poem is not easy to defend against the strictures of critics. We can point out that Nicaean is not, as has been charged, a pretty bit of gibberish, but the adjective for the city of Nice, where a major shipworks was: Marc Antony's fleet was built there. We can defend perfumed sea, which has been called silly, by noting that classical ships never left sight of land, and could smell orchards on shore, that perfumed oil was an extensive industry in classical times and that ships laden with it would smell better than your shipload of sheep. Poe is normally far more exact than he is given credit for.
That window-niche, however, slipped in from Northern Europe; it is Gothic, a slight tone of the grotto in this almost wholly classical poem. And the closing words, "Holy Land," belong to the Levant, to the arabesque.
Now I haven't read Davenport's fiction yet. Word on the street is that the best of it is a pederastic fantasia on themes from Fourier, but I could be wrong.
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