Running the Cosmos

“The cosmic deities do not govern the cosmos from an independent existence outside the cosmos. The cosmos functions as a result of the gods’ being who they are. The daily function of the cosmos is the story of the lives of the cosmic deities. They are not only manifest in the components of the cosmos; the cosmos is their very identity. Though mythology developed personalities for these deities in narrative contexts, the foundation of these personalities is grounded in their cosmic identity. Running the cosmos is not something they do; it is a result of who and what they are. It is from this cosmic identity that their portfolio of competencies is derived. Cosmic deities are those who are associated with the static aspects of the cosmos.”Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, page 65

Study Bibles

David Lamb has a wonderful post on study Bible here. Here's an excerpt:

I want to invoke the curse at the end of Revelation (21:18-19), which states that if anyone adds to the words of the prophecy, all the nasty things that Revelation describes will come upon them. Seems appropriate, don’t you think?

Why? A valid question.

The comments in Study Bibles appear to have the same authority as Scripture because they are printed right there on the same page. That’s scary. Hence the Revelation curse. In fact, since the comments often attempt to clarify an unclear text, they seem to have more authority than God’s word. Obviously, discerning readers will view the comments critically and take them with a grain of salt, but most people don’t do that.

I can’t count the number of times during a Bible discussion someone says, “Well, my Bible says…”. I ask, “Is that your Bible, or a note in the margin?” It’s usually a Study Bible comment...

<idle musing>
A man after my own heart! I have had people say the same thing about a note in their study Bible. In their mind, if it is on the same page as the text, it is equal to the text in authority. I have but one answer, "NO!"
</idle musing>

Thomas got a bum rap

The apostle Thomas, that is. A co-worker forwarded a link to me that was primarily about the arts and Christianity (it's quite good, although relatively old, 2005). Anyway, buried in there was this wonderful paragraph:

Thomas has said he won't believe unless he can actually put his finger into the mark of the nails, thrust his hand into the place where the spear went into Jesus' side. And it would have been better if Thomas had believed without needing that, but Jesus meets him where he is. "OK, Thomas, here are my hands, here's my side, don't be faithless. But believe." And Thomas takes the flying leap of faith and doesn't just say, "OK, all right, I believe." He says what none of the others have said to this point, "My Lord and my God."

<idle musing>
See what I mean? Thomas is called "doubting" Thomas—but he is the first one to make the connection. He got a bum rap in history; he should be celebrated as the first one who truly comprehended (after the resurrection) who Jesus was.
</idle musing>

Cosmos as people

“In our modern, material ontology, we are inclined to think of the cosmos as a machine—often with no one running it (that is, the modern perspective is dysteleological). When we moderns think about the ancient world (including the Bible), it is most natural for us to imagine that ancient peoples simply thought of the world as a machine with Someone running it, rather than seeing that they did not in any respect conceive of the world as a machine. In the ancient functional ontology, the cosmos is more like a business. In this metaphor, it is clear that a business only functions in relationship to people, both the company’s employees and its customers.”Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, page 45

But it's not that simple

“The idea that the ancients did not have a material ontology of course does not mean that they had no interest in or awareness of the physical world around them. That is, it is not as if they had a mystical view of the world rather than paying attention to the real world they experienced every day. The point is, however, that to them the 'real' world was a world of divine presence and activity. Their cosmological ontology reflects that it is the functioning of that ordered, real world that is of importance, not its physical makeup or the physical origins of the material objects.”Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, page 44

and

“In a material ontology, the world is full of objects. To us moderns, a cow or a tree can be nothing more than an object to be exploited for its material value (milk and meat in the case of the cow, wood or maybe shade or even beauty in the case of the tree). But in some cultures, where cows or trees have religious significance, they do not serve as objects that function only in terms of their material components or offer only material for exploitation. Although giving milk or shade are functions, the cow and tree are considered to have sacred functions that at times preclude the exploitation of their material functions. They have been personified (imbued with the divine) or at least sacralized. The personification or sacralization of material things was common in the ancient Near East. Israel’s theology moved away from the sacralization of the surrounding world. Isaiah the prophet argues that the wood used to make an idol is nothing more than wood and cannot attain the sacralized status that was attributed to the wood through the image-making process. But though the world around them was desacralized by Israel, this does not mean that the material of the world was objectified. The function performed by anything in the world is a result of its having been assigned this function by deity. The physical properties of the thing are designed to facilitate this function rather than to determine it. Israel’s movement toward desacralization may have been the first step toward a material ontology, but the functional perspective continued to dominate its understanding of the world.”Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, pages 44-45

<idle musing>
Take away sentence: "But though the world around them was desacralized by Israel, this does not mean that the material of the world was objectified." In a lot of ways, I wish that were still true. We see nature as something to be conquered and overcome instead of something to live in communion with. Look at the pesticides and herbicides that we use; look at the earth that we move to create subdivisions—to say nothing of all the trees that get chopped down in the process...
</idle musing>

Baseball

I don't follow sports at all anymore. I used to follow professional cycling, but that got too drug infested, so I gave up following it. Anyway, that disclaimer aside, Michael Gorman has an interesting observation about baseball and God and nationalism:

The God revealed in Jesus Christ is not interested in blessing America or Americans any more than any other nation or individuals. Even more importantly, the God revealed in Jesus Christ has absolutely no interest in blessing the American military machine or furthering American military interests around the world. Quite the contrary, in fact.

Sports have their place in any culture. But they can become, and in the U.S. have become, another arm of nationalistic and even militaristic propaganda. The book of Revelation might counsel us to be wary, and even to “come out.”

<idle musing>
Amen! Good preaching! Read the whole post, it is very short.
</idle musing>

Give it a function

“The acts of creation involved naming, separating, and temple building. This coincides with what Eliade observed [Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return (New York: Harper, 1954)] concerning the perspective prevalent in the ancient world: the 'ontological thirst' of the ancients was the pursuit of a view of reality that could give meaning to life. Modern material ontology offers no secure understanding of the meaning of life, but the functional ontology of ancient Near Eastern peoples gave meaning to the reality that they experienced in the way the world worked.

“In the ancient cognitive environment, it was more important to determine who controlled functions than who or what gave something its physical form. We could therefore conclude that in the ancient world something was created when it was given a function.”Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, page 43

<idle musing>
I could try to be funny and make a snide remark about some people not really existing...but I won't :)
</idle musing>

What's the matter?

“In Mesopotamian sources, as in Egypt, when the texts report on the components of the cosmos, the building blocks overwhelmingly involve functional aspects of these components rather than treating them primarily as material objects. Even when material objects are mentioned, it is their functions, not the structures or substance of these material objects that are the focus of attention. Causation, likewise, was not thought of as involving material natural processes; instead, causation is always the prerogative of deity.”Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, page 42

<idle musing>
Simply put, matter doesn't matter :)
</idle musing>

Creation as separation

“The principal acts of creation [in the Enuma Elish] are naming, separating, and temple building. While separating holds a prominent position in Egyptian and Sumerian texts, the significance of naming can be seen in its role in Enuma Elish...”—Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, page 34

<idle musing>
Pay attention. This is the beginning of his argument for the importance of the temple...
</idle musing>

What I've been reading lately

My sidebar doesn't reflect it, largely because I have been reading them too quickly to keep up, but here's a quick run down:
The China Study, Forks over Knives, The Engine 2 Diet, Keep it Simple, Keep it Whole. You can pick them up at your local bookstore, or order them here. I checked most of them out of the library.

As I was musing over the weekend about the path we've decided on, I realized that it was just a small step along the journey that began way back in college and before. I started adding whole grains back into my diet then; I've always been a fruit and vegetable guy. As the kids were growing up, we slacked off on the whole grains a bit and had more meat/fish than before. But, while I was working for a video wholesaler in the 1990s, I was exposed to Covert Bailey. He had a PBS program that we sold and I received a free video.

The video led to reading his books, especially Fit or Fat (which is now revised) and Smart Exercise. We made changes to our diet, incorporating more whole grains, dropping more fats out, etc. The stuff that I've learned in the last 2 weeks simply confirms what he was saying back then—just a bit more.

So, if you are looking for more reading, there you go...

Quite the difference

“That all of the world was governed by the gods’ activities is an integral element of the cognitive environment of the ancient world, and it is diametrically opposed to the reigning modern paradigm, which is thoroughly dysteleological: origins and causation are seen in impersonal terms, the simple result of random reactions within the bounds of natural laws, discernible only within an empirical framework.”Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, page 38

<idle musing>
That is a significant difference in viewpoints. No wonder we don't "get" Genesis and the rest of the Bible so often. As I said yesterday, we're asking the wrong questions.
</idle musing>

From unity to diversity

“Egyptians were not concerned with abstractions such as the eternality of matter, nor were they interested in the origin of matter per se; but the continuity of matter from the original precosmic condition to the current state of differentiated elements was of utmost importance. Creation involved the transition from primordial unity to the diversity of the world that they experienced.”—Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, page 28

and
“The [Egyptian] texts are more interested in the unfolding process than the means or mechanisms by which the unfolding was accomplished. First and foremost, creation was considered to be not an account of the manufacturing of material things but a teleological account that reflected divine purpose.”—Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, page 29

<idle musing>
As were the other ANE civilizations—including the Israelites. We are simply asking the wrong questions...
</idle musing>

Recipes

I had a request for the recipes yesterday, so here you go. I don't claim they are anything special, but I like them.

Cornbread
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 t salt
2 t baking powder
1/4 cup sugar/honey <---this was too sweet for me; try halving it
1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1 cup water

Mix the dry ingredients, add the liquid ones and mix. Avoid overmixing as it develops the gluten and make a tougher cornbread. Pour into a 9x9 glass pan. Bake at 350ºF for 22 minutes (may vary, depending on your oven).

Chili
2 quarts stewed tomatoes (I use home canned, obviously)
1 small can of tomato paste
1/4 t cummin
1/4 t chili powder
1/4 t paprika
chili peppers (I used a small can because I didn't grow them this year)
3 onions, minced
1/2 green pepper, diced
simmer for about an hour, stirring periodically
add a can of kidney beans and heat through (about 30 minutes) (I have used dried kidney beans in the past, but they take forever to rehydrate!)

I add a few drops of habanero sauce to my bowl; it is too strong for Debbie, so I don't add it to the main pot. I also broke up some cornbread and added it to my bowl. I didn't miss the cheese.

We finished up the leftovers last night. The cornbread didn't age very well; it was still ok, but without the oil and egg, it gets old quickly, so eat it the first day :)

About substituting the flour in the cornbread recipe: our granddaughter is celiac, so our daughter started a blog that has some information. I know Renee found a good substitute for flour—a mix of various stuff. It actually is quite good; I eat it when we are visiting them. Maybe Renee would be willing to post it in the comments?

Chaos

“In the Classical world, Chaos in Hesiod’s Theogony and in Virgil’s Aeneid is personified as the primal state in which earth, sky, and seas were all merged. More generally, chaos is the opposite of cosmos, which refers to the ordered whole. It is this latter juxtaposition that is particularly evident in the ancient Near East. Egyptian philosophers conceived of the precreation state as the opposite of the created state. In Mesopotamian views of the precosmic condition, chaos was personified only secondarily in the conflict myths in which the created order was considered to be at risk. In this cosmological literature, the creatures posing the threat must be overthrown and order reestablished.”—Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, page 27

Update on food

So, it has been one week now since the dairy and eggs disappeared. I have to say that I really haven't noticed the difference. The pizza was a bit strange without cheese, but I found that I could detect the flavors of the various ingredients better. I liked it.

One thing I have noticed is that the granola seems sweeter without milk—as did the cornbread we made last night. That was an experiment that turned out, but I wasn't too sure at first. I made chili and we wanted to have cornbread to go with it; I haven't been able to find a recipe without egg, milk, or butter/oil. So, we improvised. I substituted water for the milk, skipped the egg, and used applesauce for the oil. The texture of the batter was a bit strange, so I wasn't sure. I checked it after 12 minutes and it looked ok. I checked it again at 22 minutes and took it out. Believe it or not, it was good—except it was too sweet. Next time I'll reduce the sugar to 2 tablespoons; if that isn't sweet enough, then I'll try 3 tablespoons. I know some of you were raised without sugar in your cornbread, but I like it a bit sweet.

The chili was good, too, but I've always made vegetarian chili, so that was no change. The one difference was that I didn't add cheese to my bowl, but I really didn't miss it. On the whole, not much has changed in my diet, except dropping the dairy. We've been experimenting with some recipes. Some work, some don't. But, that's always been true :)

Miscellany

Some miscellaneous stuff that you might enjoy.

From the Wall Street Journal, about The Science of Irrationality:

We like to see ourselves as a Promethean species, uniquely endowed with the gift of reason. But Mr. Kahneman's simple experiments reveal a very different mind, stuffed full of habits that, in most situations, lead us astray. Though overconfidence may encourage us to take necessary risks—Mr. Kahneman calls it the "engine of capitalism"—it's generally a dangerous (and expensive) illusion.

What's even more upsetting is that these habits are virtually impossible to fix. As Mr. Kahneman himself admits, "My intuitive thinking is just as prone to overconfidence, extreme predictions and the planning fallacy as it was before I made a study of these issues."

Read the whole thing, though. It is quite short, but good food for thought. We certainly aren't rational!

From Michael Gorman's blog:

...In addition to its approximately 1,000 military bases worldwide, the U.S. has drone operations in and from numerous countries. And, according to this apparently well-researched article, “In less than three years under President Obama, the U.S. has launched drone strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. It maintains that it has carte blanche to kill suspected enemies in any nation (or at least any nation in the global south).”

I know that many “progressive” Christians have been huge fans of Obama. Christians of all stripes need to remember that empires with two parties are still empires.

Killing should bother us—especially such impersonal killing and disregard for other nation's borders. Can you say hubris?

From the Brazos blog:

We are not so much integrating human and technology as we are confusing the two.

And for that reason, I think that the trend will continue, and even accelerate. Too few people are asking questions about what is desirable. We tend to ask, instead, only about what is possible. That is the nature of a culture, like ours, that is enamored with technology, and sees it as a means of salvation. And my main response to this is a simple line of questions. “Has it made us happier persons? Has it made us more content as persons? Has it made us better persons?”

Yep; sadly, we worship technology.

Finally, Roger Olson cites some examples of the exegesis of Romans 9, both Calvinist and Arminian, that don't go the double predestination route. He concludes with these thoughts:

But, as I said earlier, it is not only Arminians who offer exegesis of Romans 9 that conflicts with traditional Calvinist interpretations. Lesslie Newbigin, for example (hardly an Arminian!), also explained Romans 9 in the Arminian manner (which is also how it was interpreted by ALL the church fathers before Augustine!)–as dealing with nations and service rather than individuals and their salvation.

Finally, Arminius himself offered a very cogent exegesis of Romans 9.

My point in quoting Wesley was NOT (as some disingenuously imply) to say that Arminians have no alternative explanation of Romans 9 based on exegesis. It as simply to say that ANY interpretation of Romans 9 or of ANY OTHER scripture that makes God arbitrary and unloving, in brief, a monster, is impossible BECAUSE there is no reason to believe Scripture if God, its author, is evil and not good. The (perhaps unintended) view of God as actually WANTING many people to suffer eternally in the flames of hell for his glory (as Theodore Beza asserted) undermines the validity of Scripture itself. It makes it untrustworthy because it is only trustworthy if God is trustworthy and an evil God is not trustworthy.

Amen and amen!

Materialism in the deepest sense

“In the post-Enlightenment Western world, the framework of cosmic ontology has become strictly material—that is, the cosmos is perceived to exist because it has material properties that can be detected by the senses. The functioning of the cosmos is consequently understood as resulting from its material properties, and its origins are described in material terms. In a material ontology, something is created when it is given or otherwise gains its material properties. In material ontology, there is great interest in investigating and understanding the physical nature of reality, especially in terms of its building blocks, from the smallest constituents, including molecules, atoms, cells, quarks, and so on (the constituent parts), to the largest agglomerations of constituents, including planets, solar systems, and galaxies. In a material ontology, material origins are of ultimate importance and of central concern.

“However, we have no reason to think that cosmic ontology in the ancient world was conceived as having a material basis. Though an ancient material cosmic ontology cannot be ruled out, it certainly should not be assumed as the starting point for our consideration. Good methodology demands that we take our lead from the texts themselves when thinking about how the ancients framed their own ontological perspectives. If their ontology was not material, then they likely would have had little interest in material origins. The focus of their ontology would also naturally be reflected in their accounts of origins.”—Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, pages 23-24

Borrowing?

“...understanding the Hebrew Bible requires its interpreters to recognize the pervasive connection that ancient Israel had with the legacy of ancient Near Eastern literature and thought. This relationship, however, is not merely a matter of literary adoption at some point in time; that is, we cannot simply consider what we may think Israel has derived from contemporary literature. The relationship is more complex, because Israelite literature reflects the broad ancient stream of culture from which it was watered in the course of centuries or even millennia. As a result, the issue is not whether Israel borrowed or adopted another culture’s ideas. The stream was so pervasive and persistent that some of the ideas we are considering had become a “native” way of thinking; they had long been a part of the conceptual framework of the ancient world and had much earlier taken root in whatever context(s) the Israelite cognitive environment took shape.”—Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, page 13

<idle musing>
Indeed. The idea of "borrowing" that was so pervasive a generation or two ago is overly simplistic. After all, does a fish know it's wet?
</idle musing>

Thought for the day

“Everyone lies to their neighbor;
they flatter with their lips
but harbor deception in their hearts.

“May the LORD silence all flattering lips
and every boastful tongue—
those who say,
'By our tongues we will prevail;
our own lips will defend us—who is lord over us?'
“'Because the poor are plundered and the needy groan,
I will now arise,' says the LORD.
'I will protect them from those who malign them.'
“And the words of the LORD are flawless,
like silver purified in a crucible,
like gold refined seven times.

“You, LORD, will keep the needy safe
and will protect us forever from the wicked,
who freely strut about
while depravity is honored by the human race.”—Psalm 12:2-8 TNIV

Eisenbrauns annual ASOR/AAR/SBL in October sale

I love this sale, although it is a lot of work to put together. Anyway, here's the announcement.