Freethought & Rationalism Archive

David B · 08-15-2006, 01:38 PM

Rather in the way that god has an inordinate fondenss for beetles, the bible seems to have an inordinate fondness for the number forty.

http://www.blueletterbible.org/tmp_d...4180-4094.html

David B

JES · 08-15-2006, 01:44 PM

Thought this was timely...From the News of the Weird

http://www.newsoftheweird.com/archive/index.html

Quote:

And a 34-year-old woman, fasting to re-create Christ's 40-day, 40-night starvation in the wilderness, passed away of probable dehydration after 23 days (London, England, May)

Jesus must have had a heck of a constitution:huh:

Clivedurdle · 08-15-2006, 01:45 PM

The Word of God is not in copyright!

Quote:

Gen 7:4 For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.
Gen 7:12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
Exd 24:18 And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.
Exd 34:28 And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
Deu 9:9 When I was gone up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, [even] the tables of the covenant which the LORD made with you, then I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights, I neither did eat bread nor drink water:
Deu 9:11 And it came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights, [that] the LORD gave me the two tables of stone, [even] the tables of the covenant.
Deu 9:18 And I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and forty nights: I did neither eat bread, nor drink water, because of all your sins which ye sinned, in doing wickedly in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.
Deu 9:25 Thus I fell down before the LORD forty days and forty nights, as I fell down [at the first]; because the LORD had said he would destroy you.
Deu 10:10 And I stayed in the mount, according to the first time, forty days and forty nights; and the LORD hearkened unto me at that time also, [and] the LORD would not destroy thee.
1Ki 19:8 And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.
Mat 4:2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.

It really puzzles me that there seems to be difficulty understanding it is all story upon story, theme repeated upon theme as generations repeat and embellish the great tales of yore round a fire of a cold evening. What is it about "forty days and forty nights" does it sound good?

Solo · 08-15-2006, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

I do not see where you get that from.

Was he not eating spiritual food - mannah - and is there not here a direct reference to the Exodus?

The issue I was addressing were the traditions around Jesus in the desert and whether he was fasting. I was not interpreting anything here, just reading the text.

Jiri

Clivedurdle · 08-15-2006, 01:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solo

The issue I was addressing were the traditions around Jesus in the desert and whether he was fasting. I was not interpreting anything here, just reading the text.

Jiri

But you cannot "just read the text" when every word is dripping with meaning and relationships to other stories!

Assumptions - Was there a Jesus? What is the purpose of this story? Why quote Deuteronomy? Was there a Moses? Was there an Exodus? Why forty?......

Clivedurdle · 08-15-2006, 02:06 PM

Quote:

In the Bleak Midwinter
Harold Darke
(1888-1976)
In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan.
Earth stood hard a iron, water like a stone.
Snow had fallen snow on snow, snow on snow.
In the bleak midwinter long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain.
Heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter, a stable place sufficed the Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for him whom cherubim worship night and day, a breast full of milk, and a manger full of hay.
Enough for him, whom angels fall down before, the ox and ass and camel, which adore.
What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb.
If I were a wise man, I would do my part; yet what I can I give him, give my heart.
—Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

(

http://www.chapel.duke.edu/documents/121805.pdf

Chili · 08-15-2006, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

I do not see where you get that from.

Was he not eating spiritual food - mannah - and is there not here a direct reference to the Exodus?

Mannah is not spiritual food. It is second hand from Moses and therefore did not last and hence evening came.

Solo · 08-15-2006, 03:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

But you cannot "just read the text" when every word is dripping with meaning and relationships to other stories!

Sure, I can just read the text to qualify my contention that Jesus was fasting only in the Matthean rendition. BTW, it is for the same reason that you find Mt 19:12 not cross-referenced.

Quote:

Assumptions - Was there a Jesus?

In the desert. Not with YHWH on Mount Horeb, but with fending off a devil.

Quote:

What is the purpose of this story?

To illustrate the ordeal that initiates experience after their Jesus epiphanies.

The struggle with the evil one exists in all major religious systems. Buddha fights evil Mara after his Illumination under the baobao tree. Paul receives "thorn in the flesh" from Satan. Mohammed runs from Mount Hira to his beloved Khadilja, screaming to cover him by a blanket, so the devil does not find him. The Tibetan Dead failing to stay with the Clear Light of Reality descend to struggle with reincarnating karmic monsters in Chonyid Bardo.

Did I leave out Moses ? Of course, not: Moses who operated before the Persian dualism prenetrated Judaic belief systems, gets his comeuppance direct from YHWH (Exodus 4:24). Likewise, the Thomasian Gnostics had no compunction to escribe the downside to Father in heaven. See, if you can find the saying in Thomas' Gospel which supports this.

Quote:

Why quote Deuteronomy? Was there a Moses? Was there an Exodus? Why forty?

I have made the connection here between mystical transports and manic symptoms. There seems to be in the universal religious experience an interesting consensus among cultures on the internal structure of the inaugural fugue. In Judaism, the forty days, was an agreed-on symbolic duration for the visits with God. In today's therapeutic world the duration of hypermanic excitement falls usually between 2 weeks and 4 months.

Jiri

Gamera · 08-15-2006, 03:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

What had been wrong with his prior everyday life, and why was cutting down on food any more useful than cutting down on , say, oxygen?

Nothing wrong with eating normally, is there?

God gave Jesus an appetite for a reason, didn't he?

Nothing wrong with it his everyday life, but it was inconsistent with his mission as the savior of mankind, as one might suspect. So he left it behind.

Fasting is a typical rite of passage.

Cutting of oxygen leads to death; fasting doesn't. So it's a much better way to engage in a rite, if you want to do anything afterwards (which is of course the purpose of a rite of passage).

Nothing wrong with eating normally -- Jesus did so thereafter. Abstaining from something as a rite of passage isn't a moral comment on the activity, just a symbolic change in one's status.

Gamera · 08-15-2006, 03:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amaleq13

Fasting for that length of time frequently results in hallucinations that the more fantasy-prone individual is likely to interpret as "spiritually significant".

Certainly that it one reason to fast -- to induce an altered state. Whether those visions are "fantasy" is of course the issue.

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08-15-2006, 01:38 PM	#11
David B Contributor Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Wales Posts: 11,620	Rather in the way that god has an inordinate fondenss for beetles, the bible seems to have an inordinate fondness for the number forty. http://www.blueletterbible.org/tmp_d...4180-4094.html David B

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