The Bible in a post-secular age
By Mark Vernon on Monday, January 25 2010, 14:04 - Journalism - Permalink
Have written a piece for the Guardian on Howard Jacobson's film on the Bible, broadcast last night, which was pretty good. A taster:
But Jacobson's issue is different. How can he, a person repelled by both absolutes alike, find a way of appreciating a text that is holy, for want of a better word. "In the beginning God created heaven and earth." The exquisite beauty and serenity in those lines was noted repeatedly, as was the power of a poetry that speaks to our existence, that roots us in the drama of our own story. It addresses Jacobson's humanity, which is to say it enlarges his humanity. Could he, as a non-believing secular Jew, find a way to honour that?
Comments
I assume you mean Jacobsen's film was "pretty good" not your piece in the Guardian! :) I was a little less impressed (http://clayboy.co.uk/2010/01/nutrit...) than you.
Mark, I would say that when truly examined there is only sheer naked terror to be found in the words that you quoted. Why?
The notion of a creator god implies that God is outside and separate from "creation", and of course humankind too.
That there is twoness rather than an Indivisible Prior Unity.
So too with the notion of heaven and earth which again implies separateness or twoness, and by extension never-ending multiplicities, rather than Prior Unity.
Earth is here, and "heaven" is somewhere else where we go to after we die, but only if we are good (as defined by the dogmas of crowd control religion).
When and where was the "beginning"?
I also thoroughly enjoyed Jacobson's piece, although annoyingly I missed the first "reel". I'm looking forward to the rest of the series; refreshing to get an opportunity to hear some nuanced views on these topics.
PS: "This kind of biblical literalism, if that is what it is, is not so much a desire for certainty as a desire for identity."
Nice observation here; wish I had caught the scene in the show...
John@04:09
Sheer naked terror is a perfectly good beginning when you have it all backwards. Dare to investigate basic metaphysics, let in the light, and you will discern for yourself the true relationships between the things you are talking about, as well as the orders of reality in which they exist.
'Indivisible Prior Unity' is an attribute of God Himself, whichever tradition you hold to, and creation cannot logically be said to exist 'outside' of God. The separation of heaven and earth, both of which are themselves 'created', does not in any way rupture this prior - and ever-present - Unity.
Heaven and earth are two. God is one. In other words, He isn't outside. "In Him we live, move and have our being." Your spiralling multiplicities quickly show themselves to be inconsequential when compared to that which is essential.
There is a logical, profound and necessarily unchanging relationship between the genuinely supreme and the merely contingent. It makes room for everything the spiritual traditions have to teach us; it gives the souls of creatures like you and me not merely an orientation and a compass but a point of origin: we have a place to go, or rather, return to, and also a manner in which to travel. The end itself gives us the means to reach it.
It also makes the fate of the soul an unavoidably serious matter. Immortality and destruction arise as mutually exclusive possibilities (actually, spiritual directions) before any soul that rouses itself sufficiently from its sleep . The matter of goodness or virtue - the reconciliation of earth and heaven within ourselves - does come directly into play at that point, as you well observe, and as every teacher of wisdom has taught. As an attempt to widen the scope of that reconciliation beyond the inner lives of blessed individual persons, 'crowd control' is, in general and on balance, far more beneficial than harmful.
In answer to your last question:
The 'when' of the beginning is in eternity;
the 'where' is in your own 'Indivisible Prior Unity', i.e. in God.
Turn your point of view around 180 degrees and that very same terror can serve as a doorway to awe.