sotto voce

That's quite alright.

Chili

Good link ty,

Interesting line here . . . that Baum dared to challenge ferosiously unto himself to find the real meaning of life in Plato's 5th as the engaging senior himself in the 4th. To this let me add that the word American can be replaced by Englishman [at large] ever since poor Henry thought that he could think for himself.

Notice dear reader that the description of Baum here shows his Gethsemane event where in real life 'all that he had and all that he was' he put to the test in Plato's 4th, as senior to find himself in the 5th, that is confermed here:

And do you see how it can be said that his 12 apostels here were 'on the run'
that can be called his eidetic images that got him thusfar? to become the 'mere lyricism and mere historicism and mere religion' to be the sacrificial lamb in the final rout wherein par-ousia is found?

Paul called this "persecuting of Christians" and used it to warp his religion into the wrong direction that his followers should go West instead of East so that bad Catholics may be the good Catholics in the very end.

Call it Kansas, for all I care, if West is still where the end of the world must be found, and is than is why Catholics are always eager to say: "I am Catholic" in a soft voice when they hear the evangelist call . . . meaning to say: "I am still going in the other direction, thank you so much and be on your way."

. . . until the prettiest girl in Kansas is found and She will lead him to see the living water in his very own soul.

Chili

Here it is: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15425

Not sure if there is a river in Kansas, but it was the prettiest girl in Kansas who inspired this poem.

I have copied it to show the flying monkeys making sorrowfull noices overhead as if "winter came early that year."

by Ezra Pound


While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-yen, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

By Rihaku

steve_bnk

From what I read the gospels are filled with cliches that would be obvious in the language and times.

12 tribes -- 12 apostles, unmistakeable. The image of JC entering Jeruselam on a donkey with palms strewn and the 12 disciple,s aka 12 tribes, in tow had meaning in Jewish biblical lore.

http://www.biblegateway.com/resource...Jerusalem-King

I read that GWB had writers research and incoporate bibical references in his speeches. They were subtle but obvious to evangelicals, not so obvious or overt to the average listener.

Politics and image building were not new in Roman times. The fact that the gospel writers may have known Jewsh lore and myth and nade use of it should not be a surprise.

Netanyahu comes over here and what dpos he do, he invokes American cultural images to sell Israel to the American people.

The best description of the gosples I heard was they being promotional literature intended to be used with potential converts and intentionally embellished. They then makessense as literature targeting Jews with Jewish images to cross over to Christianity.

MrMacSon

Yes, many people have said the Christian gospels are based on stories developed from the prophecies in the old Testament: preliminary stories that originated before the first century.

sotto voce

Really?

PhilosopherJay

Hi stephen Huller,

Excellent points about how meanings of material are transformed and lost. Meanings and associations operating when something gets created may not be the same when something later gets transformed into a new medium or re-edited, shown or published for a later generation.

The note that Williams Jennings Bryant was the model/reference for the Cowardly Lion is really interesting. Bryant later appeared for the prosecution in the Scopes Monkey trial in 1925. The 1955 play and 1960 movie "Inherit the Wind" portrayed Bryant as a demagogue and Anti-Evolutionist religious fanatic.

It is also interesting to look at the movie today from the point of view of acting. The movie contained two fantastic performances by two of the greatest actors of the 20th century, Spencer Tracy and Frederic March. Spencer's performance of Bulldog Drummond based on Clarence Darrow is a tour- de-force. I do not think that an agnostic/atheist character has ever been portrayed so heroically He starred in a number of great movies after this one, "Its a Mad, Mad, Mad World" and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner". On the other hand, this was really the last great performance for Frederic March as Matthew Harrison Brady based on Williams Jennings Bryant. For years, I thought March was simply expressing his own personality as Brady/Jennings so I could not see the greatness of his performance. I saw him several times in "A Star is Born" where he plays a care-free, alcoholic movie star, I never connected that the two roles were played by the same actor. I simply thought there were two different actors by the name of Frederic March.
The face, the voice inflections and body movements seemed completely different. March became Brady/Bryant so completely, that I didn't see the acting.

Another irony is that Frederic March played the lead in Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde in the 1931 movie and Spenser Tracy played the part in the 1941 movie version.

Again, the lesson here is that meanings and references attach and detach easily from narratives and elements of narratives.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

sotto voce

Thank you.

Chili

That mainly began when the age of reason gained power after the so called Reformation when Galileo proved the world round and flatearthers were allowed to think for themselves and soon after converted the Gutenberg press into a giant yeast factory so they could convince each other how right they were.

That was about when so called Christians started growing a beard while Jesus himself got a shave when he became the first one . . . because after all the ancients had said: "As for glows, that they are not is clear" (Metaphysics 1059b4), and concluded to say that "The glow of eidetic vision is essentially the glow of and individual being, [and] we can only know it in actual encounters" (1087a15).

At best, then, they are aestetic good news 'seekers' relishing in materialism and the historic Jesus who did get his shave.

Better yet is that they still insist that their world is round and call Sunday the first day of the week as if the seventh day missed them by far.

So funny they are.

Chili

Dapper Jesus/Joseph (here now Baum) was riding 2 donkeys one presenting the old and the colt was the new as the new self.

The 12 disciples were his converted shepherds that were out herding sheep in the middle of a midwinter night, to say that something had gone wrong with the mind of the man. These shepherds were his eidetic images (insights) that made him the man and the sheep they were herding were the sum total of his accumilations that was all put to the test.

The after these same shephers looked in and understood they could preach the good news to all their followers in tow, and feed all 5000 with 2 fishes and 2 loafs to make known the difference between 'yes and no' from the insight they had. Ie. "the converted converting more than the convert" and that is how realization should work from a source that is infinite this time; and no doubt the scraps will be many to remember no more.All second hand oats and at best is testamonial as shepherd in faith that must be abandonned as Baum did here on his own. To validate that read John 5:29 and then 30 to see the contradiction he meant.Not to talk politics here, but Israel should not be a piece of land in this context but a state of mind only as one-with-God (is-ra-el). So it is also wrong to be 'king over' if only those richess are yours when you are fully at rest and so are not (as seen in Rev.14:13).