Re: In God's image
Posted: Fri Sep 03, 2021 12:36 am
I hear you BP, but I think the two or more translations are preferable to a Cliff notes or Classic comics telling you what it means.
have fun, relax, but above all ARGUE!
http://www.theplanbforum.com/forum/
http://www.theplanbforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=21811
Of course, so do many Jewish men, and a lot of Christian clergy, especially in the roman catholic catholic, orthodox, and anglican churches. And since the OT is where the image of god is first mentioned, I would think Paul is more rejecting the Jewish custom to cover their heads during worship (or, more likely, affirming the Church in Corinth's rejection of it), rather than restating the understanding of the image of god in men (and whether it is gender specific). Then again, maybe not. That's the problem with isolated quotesin fact in many Christian traditions a woman must cover her head in church
Insisting upon anthropomorphic imagery or indeed any physical imagery at all when the scriptures make it clear that God is not a shape but is "fire", "light" and "spirit" is extremely obtuse. To invent such imagery in the face of the clear scriptural statements that deny it is futile. [Noted that even among Christians, there are those who like the old guy with the beard image]The image and glory of God (eikōn kai doxa theou). Anarthrous substantives, but definite. Reference to Gen_1:27 whereby man is made directly in the image (eikōn) of God. It is the moral likeness of God, not any bodily resemblance. Ellicott notes that man is the glory (doxa) of God as the crown of creation and as endowed with sovereignty like God himself.
The glory of the man (doxa andros). Anarthrous also, man’s glory. In Genesis 2:26 the lxx has anthrōpos (Greek word for both male and female), not anēr (male) as here. But the woman (gunē) was formed from the man (anēr) and this priority of the male (1Co_11:8) gives a certain superiority to the male. On the other hand, it is equally logical to argue that woman is the crown and climax of all creation, being the last.
Does anyone else want that one, or shall I do it? (I'm looking at you, BSG. Sue or Guin? Is your reason vigorous enough today?)Furthermore, in regard to what is within, man is more especially called the image of God, inasmuch as reason is more vigorous in him. But it is better to say that the Apostle speaks clearly here. For he said of man that he is the image and glory of God; but he did not say of the woman that she is the image and glory of man, but [Paul] only that she is the glory of the man. This gives us to understand that it is common to man and woman to be the image of God; but it is immediately characteristic of man to be the glory of God.” (The italics are in the piece linked - I have not been back to Aquinas to see if he emphasized this point or whether whoever quoted him did that.)
MajGenl.Meade wrote: ↑Fri Sep 03, 2021 4:16 pmSome of those were a hoot all right, exkA! Very popular with the ladies, no doubt!
As to the substantive, well you make a claim yet can't provide any evidence other than to suggest other people have got it wrong, so there. The claim I am making is hardly extraordinary: if you take the Bible literally, and many many people say you should, then God and man (but not women) have a common image. And by way of evidence I took it back to the Greek of the New Testament and agreed (big of me, I know) with the general translation King James' chaps worked up. 'Other people have got it wrong': well the first example of 'other people' in the link you provided was Aquinas who really should have stopped digging himself further into that hole. Bertrand Russell said of Aquinas that he made his mind up and then 'found' evidence to support his belief. Not uncommon in those days. Mind you, Russell had quite severe standards of evidence and proof: he famously took one hundred pages to prove that 2 + 2 = 4. The Enlightenment has a lot to answer for.
Not to mention (OK I will) your resolute refusal to even acknowledge that the Bible itself says that God is fire, light and many things the exact opposite of looking like man - and man has described this God as the exact opposite of themselves as far as appearance goes. But that's OK. God is love, too. I'm guessing you are referring to John 1: 5 "This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." Light and darkness were and are common metaphors for good and evil. I told a story back in February about the (white) Bishop of Madagascar who performed my confirmation. On one of his trips into the interior, he was introduced as Bishop So-and-so: 'His skin may be white but his heart is as black as any of ours!" So there's a possibility that this specific metaphor has some racist origins as well as the obvious. Nevertheless, light, dark, fire, love are all metaphors: good ones, but still metaphors. Philippians 2:15 has it: "That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world." Does that mean that the sons of God (not to mention the daughters. I did once but I think I got away with it.) are themselves Gods (or gods)? Some modern translations substitute 'stars' for 'lights' - if you like I'll go back to the Greek.
I am duly chastised and shall consult you rather than the silly scholars who've devoted lives and brain cells to the cause of understanding. . Fair enough. My rates are very reasonable.
Source: Rav Danya
Love and the Holy
How we can find the Big Bigness when we find one another
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
Sep 6
***
Isaac grew up. He made it to adulthood, and it was time to get him married off.
Abraham had tasked a servant to go find him a suitable bride from among his kinfolk back in the home country. So the servant did, and came up with a whole Kindness Test for how he’d know who to go for when he got there—the first woman to not only provide him water, but to offer to water to his camels would be the one. Which… you know, honestly, matches have been made on less.
So, lo and behold, here comes Rebecca, and does the camel-watering thing, just like that. He gives her an awesome gold nose ring and some bracelets (actually; Genesis 24:22) and asks her if she’s up for an adventure, willing to travel to new lands to meet and marry a total stranger. She is, indeed—hey, why not?
So the servant and Rebecca travel back to the land of Canaan, where Abraham and Isaac are, and there’s this lovely, romantic scene that unfolds, cinematically, over a few short verses—the rest of the Torah passage that I quote in this post is from Genesis 24:61-67.
Just mentally add in a kind, adventurous young woman wearing a gorgeous gold nose ring somewhere in here.
So first we see Rebecca setting on the journey:
Next verses—scene change!“Then Rebecca and her maids arose, mounted the camels, and followed the man. So the servant took Rebecca and went his way.”
I’ll pause for a second here to note that the word I’m translating as “walking” could also translate as “meditating”, and is interpreted by the Rabbis (Genesis Rabba 60:14, e.g.) to mean that he was praying. In any case, we have this image of a man, off in solitude, towards evening—not in the evening, but towards evening; one imagines that it’s twilight, that time when everything feels heightened, not-quite, both-and. One pictures him out in this electric time, out in nature, tapping in, connecting to God or the universe or the Big Bigness or whatever words make sense to you.“Isaac had just come back from the vicinity of Beer-lahai-roi, for he was settled in the region of the Negev. And Isaac went out walking in the field toward evening.”
But he’s out there, in the field, in this state, at this exquisite, intensified time, in a state of profound connection, senses tingling,
And there she is. The text doesn’t tell us, even. We know.“and, looking up, he saw camels approaching.”
Cut back to her.
So, first of all, JPS wants to translate her coming off the camel as “alighted,” other translations choose “descended,” but if you want to get technical about it, that Hebrew word means “fell.” She literally fell off the camel when she saw Isaac. (Insert all your “falling in love” jokes here.) This is how powerful and primal the impact of seeing him was on her. When she saw him, she fell off her camel.“Raising her eyes, Rebekah saw Isaac. She alighted from the camel and said to the servant, ‘Who is that man walking in the field toward us?’ And the servant said, ‘That is my master.’ So she took her scarf and covered herself.”
Second of all, yes, a normative reading might be that she covered herself with her scarf out of modesty and as part of ancient Near Eastern gender expectations, but there’s another reading that I much prefer.
The 16th c. Italian Torah commentator Sforno likens her veiling to Moses’ fear of looking too closely at the Burning Bush in Exodus—the sense that she has encountered something so holy, so awe-inspiring that it brings her more than a moment of pause.
And, indeed, if we’re going to make Moses analogies, the obvious one would be Exodus 34:30-35—after Moses comes down from his extended coffee date with God at the top of Mount Sinai, his skin is so radiant that it literally shines with divine glory, and it’s a bit much for the people to handle, so he takes to wearing a veil so as not to make the Israelites too uncomfortable. Moses’ veiling or concealing himself is in the face of divine power, or in the aftermath of it—either way, we see echoes of it here. Something big and extraordinary, something sacred and profound has happened to Rebecca, and it demands not only emotional but physical response.
Isaac had been in a profound state of spiritual connection, and what he saw in that state was... her.
And when Rebecca saw him, it was an encounter with the sacred.
Now, there are plenty of things we can say about love at first sight (does it happen, does it not, I don’t know, I certainly won’t weigh in on that here) or a myriad of other things in these passages, but I want to point at this, this thing:
The ways in which love can be, in itself, a manifestation of the divine.
And that, even, the work we do to love one another is holy work.
Which does not mean that—even though Rebecca and Isaac are serving us serious Rom-Com Crescendo here—offering and receiving love is simple or straightforward. (One only need look at their own relationship as it unfolds over the course of Genesis to know that.)
Love is hard. Love is a painful mirror for our imperfections. And, most importantly, maybe, love isn't a single, fixed state. It's an action, or a series of actions. It is work, active work. The Black feminist theorist bell hooks cites author M. Scott Peck's definition of love, based off the work of the philosopher Erich Fromm. Love is, she claims, the
"The will to extend yourself": To stretch and extend, because someone needs you to, so that they can grow. (Note, this does not mean the abrogation of your own boundaries, or harming yourself. It means manufacturing patience when you have run plumb out because a child needs you to model calmness; it means holding your peace even though you really don’t want to because your spouse needs time, or pushing into difficult-for-you conversations because someone you care about needs support. Extending does not mean breaking.)"will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth."
Fred Rogers, the Presbyterian minister behind the TV show Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, said once that "to love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.” Here and now. And as Rogers notes, loving is about a striving to accept, not in the completed act of acceptance. This striving is also a kind of an extending of the self. And the choice to accept someone, no matter who and how they are—well, there’s nothing more conducive to their spiritual growth than that.
And it might even be that when we let ourselves go down, deep down into that love, that we can meet the transcendent there. As Maimonides, the 12th century philosopher and legal scholar, wrote:
That is, we know God through love. Our acts of love are the path in."What is the way to love and be in awe of God? … As the Sages said regarding love, through this you know the One who spoke and [created] the Universe.” (Laws of the Foundations of Torah 2:2)
Whether or not Isaac and Rebecca always related to one another with that extending of the self for the other’s growth (spoiler: they did not), we see the possibility here, and the opportunities for us all.
We can reach out to find one another, and to find the Big Holy Bigness in the process, too.
And, indeed, from Rebecca’s willingness to say yes to this strange, unexpected thing to their mutual encounter with the holy and one another, there was love—and, for a grieving Isaac, finally, this offered him the possibility of something new.
For,
In one another’s arms, some healing could happen.“Isaac then brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he took Rebecca as his wife. Isaac loved her, and thus found comfort after his mother’s death.”
And some possibilities for finding the holy in one another.
Bullshit. God made them make that choice and knew they would do it. Mind you, I think this is one of the most logically beautiful stories in all of our culture.MajGenl.Meade wrote: ↑Thu Sep 02, 2021 7:34 am...
Adam and Eve earned their loss of privileges by using their rational, free, loving, self-determining, morally aware abilities to choose wrongly.
True or otherwise, it's rational given the premise that God created man in his own image and the other information contained in the same place from whence came that premise. Naturally, men basking in their own image are free to discard the first premise and thus render the rest irrelevant.
PS I do not join in chortling about us being made in the "image of God". It seems not to be sound theology. I think