On Nov 15, 2008, at 4:35 AM, jacqueline simpson wrote:
> Thanks to this discussion, I was brooding on the ambiguity of the
> word ‘hang’ in the Havamal verses about Odin on the tree, and
> suddenly realised that it is also sometimes used of Christ on the
> cross (as I said earlier, scholars have long debated whether this
> Odin myth is an imitation of Christianity).
>
I suspect that the interpenetration of religious imagery went both ways,
but primarily from Christianity to Norse Paganism -- or at least the
late and literary form of Norse Paganism.
Some people, however, will not want to hear that. They may be
emotionally invested in the idea of conversion and of the Norse gods
being false gods and demons. Conversely, they may be invested
in the idea of keeping Northern religion pure and untainted by
"soft" and "weak" Christianity.
If their personal identity requires a sharp break with Christianity,
then the idea of Christian influences in the Havamal might
be distasteful.
This reminds me of something that happened when I was in graduate
school in the 1980s.
A religious studies professor wrote an excellent book on how the idea
of "Mother Earth" could will have been a European literary projection
onto American Indian religions that, in turn, was picked up by some
Indians and fed back to the whites as pure and authentic.
The sharpest attacks on his books came from certain Native American
activists.
It only adds to the irony that the most vociferous of his attackers,
Ward Churchill,
was later exposed as a plagiarist and fake and dismissed from the
University of Colorado.
Draw your own parallels.
Chas
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