I have plenty of argument with OT theology, but it's worth noting that even
the most orthodox use most of it rather differently than the New Testament
is used by orthodox Christians. Traditionally the OT is divided into three
parts, in descending order of sacredness--the Pentateuch, the Prophets, and
Writings. Writings includes among others the psalms, Ecclesiastes, the Song
of Songs, Job, Proverbs. They've always been regarded as literary works,
and some probably became canonical only because they were associated with
historical figures. The only part of the bible that's prescriptive is
sections of the Pentateuch--even most of those five books are the mythic
history of the tribe, and there are purely literary texts, like the song of
Miriam, embedded in it. beyond that, it should be obvious that the
attitudes expressed in the OT change enormously over the course of the
millenium of composition. The last parts of Isaiah present a morality very
similar to the more user-friendly parts of the NT, which is why the NT
quotes it. And most of Jewish traditional thought is to be found not in the
OT but in the Talmud, a set of very wide-ranging commentaries upon it.

Put another way, most of the OT is closer to a combination of the Icelandic
Sagas and a literary anthology than to the NT looked at as a separate work.

Mark


At 01:12 AM 9/27/2001 +0100, you wrote:
>Dear Candice
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Candice Ward" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: 26 September 2001 23:07
>Subject: Re: Letter to a leftist friend/the real mystics/innocents
>
>
>|     Lawrence: You've been making some excellent points in your series of
>| posts, I think, and I very much appreciate your insistence on the need for
>| attention to language--rhetoric, political or otherwise, and the
>rhetorical
>| moves made here on this list, in Washington, and elsewhere--as very much
>at
>| issue in discussions of/debates over our actions, personal or political.
>
>It's all I can do, so I do that. I haven't got cash to give to charities;
>and as to vigils and so on I have lost my faith but not my self-respect so I
>look at words.
>
>A great deal of counselling and therapy works to some extent on the belief
>that we become what our self-narrative describes. Talk happy and you may be
>somewhat content... I'm not sure if that is always true; but if there is
>anything to it, and I think there is, then I think it must work in
>transpositions - talk angry and you'll become angry - talk stupidly and
>you'll be stupid. I am trying to talk logically.
>
>I am also on the watch for intentional and unintentional rabble-rousing...
>There's an awful lot of grief-looting going on. Over here the government is
>trying to use it to push through further repression; and our Home Secretary,
>David (Security) Blunkett is starting his campaign to become Prime Mover on
>the back of "doing something"
>
>We need to be fearful of all that - though I am not saying a few more basic
>checks would not go amiss in USA...
>
>By tracking the change in diction, it is possible to guage something of the
>battle in heaven. It's a pity they didn't do it in private - the way, I
>recall, that the old regime in Albania was ended in a gun battle over the
>dinner table. That's the way to do it: let the murderers murder each other.
>Instead a lot of physical suffering has been caused by bellicose blustering
>and the fearful response to it in Afghanistan
>
>Re the change in diction, we used to have the information super highway,
>then we got ecommerce, an interesting change of emphasis
>
>It's years since I read the Koran and I have only read it once. I have
>little personal sympathy for any religious text. I mean that I try not to
>offend people who put faith in their sacred texts - you don't dissuade
>people from belief by abusing them. Repress religion and it grows. In UK,
>you can largely believe what you want - it's different to USA or parts of
>USA - and the churches are largely empty... So the Koran doesn't bother me.
>It's what the reader does with it that's the problem
>
>I am, however, saturated with the bible, the King James... That's come from
>poetry and just from being brought up in a community where it is or has been
>important. Being sent to a catholic school, I got a relatively unenlivening
>text; but reading poetry and reading around it is how I got much of my KJ
>knowledge, such as it is... It is often such damn good writing,
>mechanically... Whatever merit there is in the originals, much of what I get
>out of KJ is heavily located in that text itself - I've been told of, and
>now can't remember, examples where the original has been mistranslated and
>now works on its own terms
>
>But as Alison remarks large parts of it are appalling. Have a look at Joshua
>some time. That's my current hobby horse... The gospels mean the most to me
>and I have been imagining someone standing before the western warlords,
>perhaps just after they have come out of church, and before they start to
>talk bollocks, writing in the dirt, and them fading away
>
>I was trying to write something using "dead or alive" using references to
>the passion, but my atheistic art wasn't in it and I had to give up
>
>I'm told that the koranic writing is just as brilliant as the bible if you
>know the language
>
>I am all for them as literature, but as the believed in word of the creator
>they're potentially dangerous. The person who believes or who has persuaded
>themselves that they are behaving in accordance with God's word is not open
>to logic
>
>I would see both the koran and the bible as potentially as dangerous as each
>other. The way to defeat the dangerous tendencies in ourselves is to swamp
>each other with respect or as near verisimilitude as we can manage; and the
>necessities of life in abundance
>
>
>Cheers
>
>L
>