Sodom

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Look!  Up in the sky!  It’s a bird!  It’s a plane!  It’s an asteroid coming to wipe out a city!  One of the cottage industries outside biblical studies is the interest in finding historical events to explain Bible stories.  A few years ago it was proposed, with some degree of probability, that the flooding of the Black Sea by the Mediterranean, validated by archaeology, led to the story of Noah’s flood.  I recently saw a story suggesting that the destruction of Tall el-Hammam by an asteroid about 3,600 years ago might’ve been the basis of the story of the destruction of the cities of the plain, Sodom and Gomorrah  most prominent among them.  The piece by Christopher R. Moore in The Conversation describes the moments of horror—mercifully brief—as the space rock exploded above ground and wiped the city from the face of the earth.

Since this happened near the location of Jericho, the destructive shock waves knocked its walls down, leading to another biblical tale.  I often wonder about these “theories.”  They show just how deeply biblical our society is.  The frame of reference is already there.  People know about Sodom and Gomorrah.  They know about the flood.  They know of naked Adam and Eve and a snake wrapped around a tree.  When a disaster happens in the right region, and before the biblical story was written, it is suggested as the etiology of the tale.  Many have tried to explain the plagues of Egypt using similar methods.  Our culture seems to long for some skyhook on which to hang our biblical hat.  Some indication of why people put such strange stories in the Good Book.

Biblical scholars look too, but with a different perspective.  Etiologies are stories of origins.  Traditionally the Genesis account of the cities of the plain is understood as an etiology of the Dead Sea.  A unique geological feature of this planet, it is, in a word, weird.  The story of Abraham’s nephew Lot seems to explain it.  The article makes a compelling case for a heavenly fireball at about the right time that wiped out a settlement of about 8,000 people.  Genesis wasn’t written yet at 1600 BCE, the time of the event.  Since the impact site wasn’t far from the Dead Sea it seems to fit  the bill for a valid etiology.  None of these events proves biblical stories true, but they do show possible avenues of transmission.  This one definitely has me wondering.

Image credit: Daderot via Wikimedia Commons

M Is for Mary

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While pre-celebrating Christmas with some friends recently, the topic of cats came up. This really isn’t surprising since two of the families present had been members of the local 4-H cats club. For a while cats were ubiquitous on the internet, but since I have so little time to browse the web anymore, I’m not sure if that’s still the case. Nevertheless, being near Christmas, someone narrated a story I’d never heard before. Tabby cats (like many jungle cats) have a distinctive marking in the form of an “M” on their foreheads. The legend suggests that on the first Christmas a tabby cat was in the manger. Seeing a mouse trying to crawl into the trough were baby Jesus lay, the cat killed the mouse, earning the thanks of Mary, who kissed it on the forehead, bestowing her characteristic M. It is a nice story (apart from the point of view of the mouse, I suppose)—an etiology to explain an evolutionary development in fur patterns.

Blessed is M...

Blessed is M…

Shortly after that my wife sent me a story on the BBC about the oldest inscribed human artifact. Zigzag marking found on a fossilized clam shell from Indonesia suggest that Homo erectus was an abstract thinker, I’m told. The markings, which must at least be 430,000 years old, predate the earliest known human markings by 300,000 years. If accepted by anthropologists this evidence could rewrite all of human history. We had no idea that Homo erectus had time to doodle on shells. Looking at the photos accompanying the BBC article, I couldn’t help but notice they’re in the shape of an M. Perhaps Mary kissed these shells too? So etiologies begin.

If you’ll pardon me for attempting to brush off my training in ancient languages, Mary of Nazareth was likely born into an Aramaic-speaking family. Her name, Mariam, would have been spelled with mem, which, although representing water is some scripts, took roughly this form: מ (assuming the Imperial Aramaic alphabet). If Mary were both historical and literate (the latter, at least, is doubtful) she would not have recognized the tabby’s distinctive mark as part of her name. It would have been an abstract symbol. Of course, God, being a natural lover of cats, may have had the Greek alphabet in mind, where the letter mu gives us our classical capital M. Mary, however, would probably still not have known what to make of it. We love to attribute significances to perceived patterns. The tabby’s distinctive M, as well as Homo erectus’s early exercises in penmanship present us with opportunities to continue making myths. And we should keep the myths in Christmas.

Tell-Tale Hearts

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StorytellingAnimal As a sometime dabbler in the fictional arts, I was intrigued by Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make us Human. I read the book because of my own fascination with fiction—it is a transcendent activity to read it, but more so to write it. I‘ve always wondered why. Gottschall, a fellow academic making a living as an adjunct instructor, is a lucid writer and a great storyteller. His book opens with the unusual fact that even the most logical and rational of humans are addicted to stories. Our brains work to spin unrelated events into narratives. Even while we sleep, our minds continue to tell fictitious accounts of weird adventures. To be human, Gottschall clearly demonstrates, is to be in love with stories.

In chapter 6, “The Moral of the Story,” Gottschall turns his attention to religions. That far into his book it is no surprise that we find religions are largely based on story. Those who’ve studied mythology plainly see the story-ridden origins of religions. Religions, after all, have nothing if not great explanatory value. They tell the tales of why we’re here—the technical name is “etiology,” stories of origins, but also tales of what the gods, the tao, or the force demand of us. Believers often take such fanciful narratives literally, missing the point of it all, the proverbial moral of the story. The story is the moral. We find the deepest truths in fiction.

Many of my friends are fiction writers. Most have never been published or struggle to find representation. None simply give up. The draw of narrative is as palpable as the need to eat or sleep, as strong as the urge for sex or recognition. It is far stronger than the desire for money since nothing material can substitute for our desire for stories. After a busy day we send our children off to bed with a nighttime tale. Many of us climb into bed with a book—the more fictional the better—to end our conscious hours each day. We dream our way through the night and spend our long days fabricating a narrative we call “my life.” Those of us who indulge in fiction are sometimes solitary individuals, but we crave the awareness that we are not alone. Others too, as Gottschall clearly proves, are alone with us. In fact, all humans are gathered around this campfire of the storyteller. Thank you, fiction, for coming to the rescue.

Razzing Cain

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Generations of literalists who’ve had their eyes opened by reading what the Bible actually says have stumbled over Cain. His murder of Abel is fine—predictable even. The problem is what happens after that. Since he has murdered his brother, the only other human born so far, Cain seems prematurely concerned about “every one that findeth” him killing him. Seems unlikely that Eve, or even Adam, would like to kill the only surviving child they have. Yet God puts a mark on Cain. Presumably his parents would recognize him, so why is Cain literally a marked man? Rather than Omega Man survival techniques, Cain focuses his attention on kick-starting his love life.

Cain’s wife immediately raises the issue of where the girl comes from. Those who like to call themselves literalists have to back-peddle a little and suggest that since, according to Genesis 5 Adam and Eve had other children, this must be where she derives. Of course, she would in such a scenario, be his sister. Extraordinary circumstances call for extreme measures, but even so, literally, there are no other people yet. Cain is old enough to kill his brother and the next child born, according to the narrative, is Seth. Seth is explicitly a replacement for Abel, and really he doesn’t do Cain any favors in finding a wife. The story here simply slips out of character and gives us a world already partially populated.

As I was tweeting Genesis 4, it occurred to me that immediately after marrying, Cain builds a city. Cities only sprang into existence to allow for mutual protection with the diversification of labor, following on from the agricultural revolution. One of the main characteristics of cities is population. Genesis 4 has only Adam, Eve, Cain, his wife, and Enoch. It may be the smallest city in history since the entire human race could have easily fit into one modest house.

The stories of Genesis are etiologies—tales of origins that have no ties to historical incidents. Cain represents the urbanites, the city dwellers who will always somehow find ways of irritating God. In our urban culture where most people are born in towns or cities, we have lost touch with the life of the nomadic pastoralist. We are, however, merely following the literal path that the Bible lays out for us. As we shall shortly see, the children of Cain and Seth are the same.

Cain just can't figure it out

The Violence of the Lambs

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Religious holidays are curious affairs. In many Christian contexts “the holidays” are often poignant scenes of tension and angst. Granted, much of this is generated by human family dynamics, but then, what of religion is not? An unfortunate shooting episode erupted yesterday in Baluchistan, Pakistan during the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. According to Star-Ledger wire services, the followers of two rival religious leaders pulled out guns in the mosque and began firing. The festival of Eid is the commemoration of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son. Islamic sources suggest the intended victim was Ishmael while the Bible claims it was Isaac. Whoever came under the knife, however, the implicit human sacrifice is disturbing.

Human sacrifice has been a part of human culture for a very long time. Never a common practice, it was generally reserved for times of severe crisis, when you really, really needed the gods to pay attention. The story of the Akedah, or “binding,” of Isaac demonstrates the reluctance in Judaism to speak of Abraham as an actual murderer of a child. After all, this was only a test. Many biblical scholars see this story as an etiology, a story of origins. The binding of Isaac explains why human sacrifice is not permitted in the religion of Abraham. When it does occur, for example in 2 Kings 3.27, it is effective. Nothing like a good, old-fashioned human blood-letting to satisfy the gods.

Soren Kierkegaard found the story of the sacrifice of Isaac so disturbing he wrote an entire book to deal with it. Even if we, the readers of Genesis, are given the advance knowledge that this is only a test, the image of a religiously devoted old man with the knife hovering over his bound son is the very definition of horror. And that frozen moment comes to life and acts itself out time and time again in acts of religious violence. One of the most recent was in Baluchistan, but as sure as the knife rises above the sacrifice, there have been other incidents of religious violence since that awful moment. Human sacrifice may be at the heart of religion after all.

Precious moments akedah, shamelessly borrowed from James McGrath's blog

O Pomona!

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Ancient goddesses have long been a fascination with me. After writing my Edinburgh dissertation on Asherah, and taking employment at an Anglo-Catholic seminary that venerated the BVM – Blessed Virgin Mary, and not some underwear brand, as I had supposed – I realized that male-dominated religions still recognize the need for the sacred feminine. In my recent post on Halloween, I mentioned the Roman goddess Pomona. Roman religion is generally not treated with the finesse of classical Greek mythology, but it represents an important part of our western heritage. Pomona is an etiological goddess. Etiologies are stories of origins, and like other goddesses of the ancient world Pomona was used to explain the mysterious ways of nature.

The story that best describes Pomona is preserved by Ovid in his Metamorphoses. Pomona is one of the virgin goddesses, specifically the goddess of fruit. She has no known Greek antecedents. The myth involves her devoted chastity and her commitment to ripening fruit, particularly apples (and sometimes pears). Shunning all lovers, she was eventually wooed by Vertumnus, the god of changing seasons. Disguising himself as an old woman, Vertumnus visits Pomona and tells her of the wonders of love and of the attributes of Vertumnus especially. Eventually Vertumnus reveals himself, and Pomona, delighted at what she sees, loves him. Of course, apples ripen and seasons change. Winter is soon to come once the apples fall from the tree. The goddess has been subdued by masculine designs.

So it often is with goddesses. Men recognize the need for the divine feminine, but fear it and attempt to tame it. Pomona, however, survives. One of the memorable objets d’art at Nashotah House, where I sat in that chapel for over a dozen long years, was a frieze of the BVM. More technically, a Madonna and Child. The frieze hung over an altar in a side chapel behind the choir, so most people didn’t spend much time looking at it. Mary, holding Jesus, was surrounded by a frame of fruit rendered in plaster. Apples were prominent among them. There are those who suggest that apples show how Mary overcame the heinous sin of Eve. I believe, however, that the fruits surrounding the virgin demonstrate that Pomona, the virgin goddess who eventually succumbs to the advances of the male deity, still has a place in the patriarchal world of Christendom.