mountainman

{22}
The Crooked shall be made Straight ...

The crooked shall be made straight
And the rough places plain;
The pools shall be filled
And the worn renewed;
The needy shall receive
And the rich shall be perplexed.

So the Wise Man cherishes the One,
As a standard to the world:
Not displaying himself,
He is famous;
Not asserting himself,
He is distinguished;
Not boasting his powers,
He is effective;
Taking no pride in himself,
He is chief.

Because he is no competitor,
No one in all the world
can compete with him.

The saying of the men of old
Is not in vain:
"The crooked shall be made straight-"
To be perfect, return to it.

The Mystic Wisdom of Ancient China
Translated by Raymond B. Blakney {1955}
http://www.mountainman.com.au/tao_3_9.html



How zen aware are minds associated with BC&H.?
In which century did the OT writers speak of the
straight path so that the NT writers could echo
their tomes?



Pete Brown

gstafleu

Nice quote Pete. It extols, I think, the wu wei principle: do nothing. According to my Chinese friend the whole principle is four syllables long, reading in translation something like "do nothing in order to manage." Which is what the poem describes very well.

How OT/NT is this, though? The Tao places the principle of wu wei in oneself, as opposed to an external vengeful god whose ways you have to follow, or a saviour in whom you must believe. Also notice that the Mosaic law emphasising doing works, while wu wei emphasizes the opposite. Even the Christian idea that you must believe in Christ, even in its simple Pauline form, seems opposed to wu wei.

Still, great poem.

yummyfur

Isaiah 40:3-5 I think the general dating is to roughly 550 BC for this section.

Luke 3:5
kai estai ta skolia eiv euqeian

Isaiah 40:4 LXX
kai estai panta ta skolia eiv euqeian

not sure what this has to do with Tai Te Ching

mountainman

Thanks for finding that quote. Its the one similar
to the Tao verses ...


3 A voice of one calling:
"In the desert prepare
the way for the LORD ;
make straight in the wilderness
a highway for our God.

4 Every valley shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain.

CF:The crooked shall be made straight
And the rough places plain;

Thanks also for the c.500 BCE dating.



Pete Brown

Clivedurdle

There was continuous contact between China, the Middle East and Europe and Africa for several thousand years before CE.

Ideas have always spread, especially powerful poetic ones.

Caesar (which means "long hair") thought the Britons started it all!!!!

Salvation by works or grace is a huge faultline in xianity. Zen is an off shoot of the Tao - I am the way! This might of course all be Alan Watts fault!

Clivedurdle

550 BCE - Cyrus!

mountainman

Agreed, especially if you include the Indus-Sarasvati
civilisation between China and the Middle East.

Ideas not requiring literature, in song and dance.
The importance of the bards, and of memory
in the oral tradition of the preservation of knowledge.

That is why I thought that thread about "Esus" of the Druids as a model
for the name of "Jesus" in the NT, was interesting, since Constantine
would have seen the fourth century druidic culture first hand, and may
have been similarly thought of them.


Pete Brown

Jobar

Oh ye experts of BC&H, tell me: is there any record of why the Gospel of Thomas was left out of the canon? I always suspected that the "cleave a piece of wood, and you will find me there" pantheism was anathema to too many at Nicea, and so it was discarded. Isn't Thomas contemporaneous with the canonical gospels?

mountainman

My opinion is my own.

IMO many gospels were written
(under sponsorship in the fourth century)

but only few were chosen
(by the sponsor Constantine).



Pete Brown
www.mountainman.com.au