Teresita at Hacky Linux has begun a new series where she aims to blog the entire bible, one chapter per day.
Need I add that she lacks all fear of being provocative?
Her exegesis of Genesis 3 today prompted me to post a number of things I've thought of over the years. One of them, I had discussed in an earlier post, about the human drive to partake of forbidden fruit.
However, I also posted something that relates back a bit to her post on Genesis 1, as follows:
Oh, and God's name is not Yahweh Elohim. His answer to Moses was simply I am that I am.
What is the infinitive of the verb in the sentence "I am," Teresita?
It is "To be."Okay, that is two words in English. But let's use a foreign word where it's only one word, like the French être. (I bet there's a similar form in Hebrew -- although I don't need to know.)
For adding to my thesis, look at how John 1:1 does a reprise on Gen 1:1 with "In the beginning was The Word."
I think we are given an additional thought there. We are human and we are given the gift of thought, and that includes new thoughts.
See? I'm saying that The Word could be easily be like être. Remember, God always is and was in this system. But "in the beginning" suggest time is starting, something not timeless is beginning: it's temporal.
So God The Infinite exists always with the infinitive "To Be."
And God ponders "To Be?"
And God commands "Be."
Bang! Voilà! :)
And on it continues.
You are entitled to be. Do not forget that.
And while you are being, know that there are those who fear that you be. Ally with others who wish nothing more than to be. Ally against those for whom your death is their goal.
Calling attention that their goal has a very wide sweep will require courage as there has been pressure, and there will be greater pressure yet, to SYTFU. Be afraid of nothing other than remaining silent.
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Teresita at Hacky Linux has begun a new series where she aims to blog the entire bible, one chapter per day.
ReplyDeleteThere are 1189 chapters in the Bible, which will take me out to three and a quarter years.
Need I add that she lacks all fear of being provocative?
I'm not trying to stir the pot, but I have some ideas that might prove interesting.
Oh, and God's name is not Yahweh Elohim. His answer to Moses was simply I am that I am.
I intend to highlight the evolution of God in the scriptures, for the God that tells Moses to stay a certain distance away, and finds the rabble of Israelites he is trying to save to be infuriating, is far different from the God that created Adam from clay and wrestled with Jacob and had a picnic with Abram and Sarai at Mamre.
See? I'm saying that The Word could be easily be like être. Remember, God always is and was in this system. But "in the beginning" suggest time is starting, something not timeless is beginning: it's temporal.
Something that is not timeless cannot fathom how things can come to be without cause and effect. Substitute England as an analogy for the timeline of the universe. There are endless stretches of ocean, and then suddenly England has a beginning at Land's End. A person standing somewhere in this England where land has been substituted for time would say this city was caused by that abutting forest, and that forest was caused by that abutting cow pasture, on and on to the west, until finally he would say that this moor was caused by that cape, but beyond Land's End there is no further explanation, so we must postulate a first cause and call it God.
The timeless view would say simply that England terminated on the Atlantic Ocean at Land's End, as a brute fact of nature requiring no explanation. By analogy, chronology as geography, going backwards in time, the universe terminates at the Planck Time as a brute fact of nature, requiring no explanation.
And while you are being, know that there are those who fear that you be. Ally with others who wish nothing more than to be. Ally against those for whom your death is their goal.
Yes, well, that is one reason I'm not allied with The Family (a very shy group of American Evangelicals with tendrils in the political system). They are helping to push a bill in Uganda to require the death penalty for homosexuals. Osama bin Laden would be proud.
There are cultures that witness time not as a traveller looking forward, but as a traveller looking backward. We can see, clearly the things immediately behind us, the things in the more distant past less distinctly, but the future not at all. Some try to look at the events of the past and try to extrapolate what future will bring, but most of the time all you can do is take the brunt of what time brings.
ReplyDeleteWe have no real concept of the nature of time outside of our linear experience of it. The creator of the universe, author of Natural law, has decreed that this is so. Becoming aware of the true nature of time and being able to experience time not as a linear progression but as a matrix of related events may be what separates the living from the dead, the earthly from the inhabitants of paradise. Our ways, as it turns out, are not the Lord's ways, and our thoughts not His thoughts.