"For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing"

"For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow." Job 8, pg 635

Class Notes 9/28

~ Jewish(?) identity comes from: being exiled (displacement and remembrance)
                                                  survival, on the run, 'portable religion'

~ Hyperbole - an exaggeration (ex: accounts in Egypt)

~ Christianity vs Judaism
          Christianity: Messiah has come (Jesus); the violent God (of the Old Testament) has been superceded by a more merciful one, events of the Old Testament have be reinterpreted in the New
           Judiasm: still waiting for the Messiah

~ Genesis 22
      - Abraham, sacrifice of Isaac
      - E writer
      - many details missing (specifically that of Isaac's thoughts), the writer was interested in other details

~ Genesis 24
      - J writer
      - "Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh" (testify, testimony)
      - narrative of the arranged marriage between Isaac and Rebekah, in which nothing really major happens that advances plot, but 'a great piece of literature'

~ Genesis 37
      - "coat of many colours"
      - story of Joseph and his brothers, the pit and being sold into slavery

"and upon every high tower"

"and upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall" - Isaiah 2, pg 888

Class Notes 9/23

it is hard to live accodingly to the rules of The Bible, there are many conflits

     -  A. J. Jacobs The Year of Living Biblically is a personal account, also the infamous 'letter to Dr. Laura'

                          ^ find humor in The Bible

Frye

    - reinforces the "U" shape theme, claims it will end "on an up note" with the New Jerusalem

            - start at the bottom, gain and lose

            - The Bible = a narrative that 'begins at the beginning and ends at the end'

~ Repititon not neccessarly a bad thing

     - clearly seen in Samuel II, but repitition is used through The Bible - repeated for the benefit of the audience (Shakespeare and Chaucer also utilized repition in their works)

~ The great event of Jewish mythology

     - Their exile in Egypt; slavery, 'a wanderer', then brought back (by Moses)

~ Israel split into: The North Kingdom (Israel)

                           The South Kingdom (Judah)

         721 BC - Assyrians conquer the northern kingdom

         587 BC - destruction of the southern kingdom - should be the end of the story, but they "survived by the skin of their teeth"

~ Psalm 137 - "By the rivers of Babylon..."

     - an example of rememberance (of the seige of Jerusalem and their exile), also reflects hatred and desire for revenge (in which "Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.")

      ^ also shows that often only half of the story is told/taught

             - arguments over why expand to the idea that it may set up someone to do those things, others claim that it may discourage others because it has already been done

~ Genealogies

      - narrative is interupted in Genesis 38 by a genealogy

              - last line = why it is there (shows that there would be no David, or Jesus, unless these connections have been made

 - genealogies 'take us to the beginning' 

"Surely there is a vein for silver"

"Surely there is a vein for silver, and a place for gold where they fine it." - Job 28 (pg 656)

Class Notes 9/21

Frye
     - polysemics:  different ways to read, different level to approach a text
            ex: descriptive --> rhetorical --> poetic/metaphorical -->chromatic
               (simple)                          (language uses)                            (The Bible)

     - loss/regaining of identity and the respondable narrative shape(upside down U) = the center of The Bible
     - Displacement - placing fiction as reality, basing reality upon mythological structures
               - "All literature is displaced myth." - there is always a fairy tale hiding behind each story

Leviticus = P writer, as a rule book
                -  vs J writer who regards the Bible as a book of stories, the moral is the story; the experience rather than the applicable moral
     - these two conflict each other, Friedman's Hidden Book in the Bible supplies only the J material, also see Herold Bloom The Book of J 

Lilith
     - Hewbrew mythological figure, Adam's first wife - note: NOT in the Bible

Etiology - explanation of how things came to be and began the way they are
     ex: why women give birth in pain, why snakes crawl on their bellies, why men must work by the sweat of their brow etc
     - creation myths
     - Bible = collection of etiologies

Gnosticism - religious knowledge

"I will sing of mercy and judgement"

"I will sing of mercy and judgement" - Psalm 101 a psalm of David (pg 769)

Class Notes 9/16

- people of The Bible are human; imperfect and flawed. The J writer often brings this out.
   see Oranda's blog "The Cursed, Cursed Book of Numbers"  http://bibleasliteraturemsu2010.blogspot.com/

- the P writer is all about saying your prayers, acting ritualistic and proper   ex: Jane Eyre's school teacher

Frye
Northrop Frye's Bible
Read this page: http://cla.calpoly.edu/~smarx/Publications/frye.html

G22 - The E writers "great moment"
Read this from Eric Auerbach's Mimesis http://www3.dbu.edu/mitchell/odysseus.htm
     - everything is brought out of the background, everything answered, however, in The Bible exist lots of lacunas (if these details were covered it would be terribly long)
     - several books exist in filling in these lacunas   ex: The Red Tent, The Lamb, The Blood Meridian, Cities of the Plain

The two different styles Auerbach tracks pull on us daily (the Homeric vs Scriptural)

Exodus 4 24 - 26
     - vague pronoun game played here: "And it came to pass on the way, at the encampment, that the LORD met him and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the fore-skin of her son and cast it at his feet, and said, 'Surely a bloody husband art thou to me'. So he let him go"
     - the most 'uncanny' and Freudian part of the Bible

9/15 Class Notes

Frye deals with Themes of: Ascent   ex: mountain, Jacob's Ladder
                                          Descent  ex: cave, furnace and other "Chthonic Demisions"

~ Every novel we read has biblical references and/or foundations, direct or indirect
   ex: Invisible Man, Absolom Absolom!, Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, Sun Also Rises, Jane Eyre, The Infinity of Lists

~ The Priestly writers are best read outloud and with rhythm

We must know these names:
     God
     Adam & Eve  - The Serpent, "And Adam knew his wife" (the relationship between carnal and knowing)
     Cain & Able   - Agriculture vs Animal
             - "Am I my brother's keeper?"
             - the different 'marked' interpretations (was it meant to be degrading, or just simpy for identification)        
     Onan - "spilled his seed upon the ground" - killed for disobeying God's Law
     Lamech
     Tower of Babel
     Noah & the Flood
     The Patriarchs - Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph
     The Matriachs -  Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Leah; (12 Children)
     Joseph and his brothers   

9/9 Class Notes

Recap of Tuesday:
Christian Bible consists of: 1. Old Testament
                                         2. Apocrypha
                                         3. New Testament (more of a 'response' to the Old Testament)
Hewbrew Scriptures:     1. The Law (Tora, 1st Five books of Moses, Pentatude)
                                     2. Prophets
                                     3. Writings
"T N K"

9/9
New Testament Genres:
      ~ Gospels  ex: Mathew, Mark, Luke, John - "bless the bed I lie on"
                                                               John is more philosophical
      ~ Letters/Epistles
      ~Textual Documents - little literary value but still extremely significant in terms of history
                - David M. Levy, Scrolling Forward, a supplementary text that demonstrates the importance of
                                for example, receipts - revealed an entire history

Oral Tradition vs Written Word
Both the Christian Bible and Hebrew Scripture show respect for the written word
     - both saved the stories from extinction by writing them down, however, it can be argued that some of the spirit of oral tradtion is lost by 'setting it in stone' (it will be the same thing everytime, rather than be alive and changing)

N. Frye
The Bible = Creation
                   Exodus  (revolution)
                   Law       (Tora)
                   Wisdom
                   Prophecy
                   Gospel
                   Apocalypse (revelation)

Biblical Incoherence
- Plotz views The Bible as a mess of incoherent stories because: over the millenium it was written, the writers thought they were adding to it, but turned out they created inconsistencies
- Frye believes that The Bible holds together in terms of the integrity of the primary images (the mountain, the cave, the gardent, the furnace)

Documentary Hypothesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis
Julius Wellhausen

J  - Yahwist - primary story teller, female
E - Elohist, "Elohim"(God) - prophecy, dreams, visions
D - Deuteronomist
P - Priestly
R - Redactors - copy and revise

Example: Genesis 1 & 2
G1: Priestly writer(s) - very organized around numeration, logos, generations, technical details, and a transcendental God
G2: Yahwist - more anthropomorphic God
See http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/genesis_texts.html for more details

Another supplementary text of note, The Alphabet versus the Goddess (?)