The plot begins with God's desire for a self-image. It thickens when God's self-image becomes a maker of self-images, and God resents it. From this initial conflict, others emerge. The plot reaches its crisis when God tries and fails to conceal his originating motive from a single physically ravaged but morally aroused exemplar of himself. (p21)
Here, 'God' refers to the Hebrew god, as discernible in the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh (Hebrew 't' torah, or 'teaching', 'n' nebi'im, or 'prophets,' and 'k' ketubim, or 'writings.') Miles notes that the narrative sequence is different in the Christian Old Testament, but argues that that arrangement served the purpose of the new sect, to emphasize the foreshadowing of its figurehead, Jesus. Miles is using, mostly, the 1985 Jewish Publication Society Tanakh (JPS). (p18).
A further, important, lexical distinction: 'elohim and yahweh 'elohim and 'edonay. A little confusing, but best I can make is that the first is a common noun, 'god,' while the second is a proper noun, a name, that 'pious Jews in ancient times' did not speak so as not to 'desecrate the sacred proper name of God by pronouncing it.' The third word above is not in the Hebrew text, but translates into English means 'my lord.'
The English phrase, 'the Lord,' by convention translates yahweh in all English bibles. (p30)
this distinction - and parsing of the use of the word 'lord' is crucial to my thinking: the english word 'lord' (think back to when these texts were translated into english, feudal systems, etc). from wiki an old english form of 'lord' reflects 'the Germanic tribal custom of a chieftain providing food for his followers.' are we then speaking of a protector, provider - a parent?
ReplyDeleteYes, but according to Miles, no cognate for 'the lord' is used in the Tanakh, but instead simply something like 'the god Yahweh'. 'The lord' bit was imposed by the translators. I like the part about 'the parent' or maybe a 'liege.' That fits this second creation story for me. So, did the translators see a justification of feudal ownership of peoples prerogatives? Their rights to decide and judge? Does this fit the Hebrew?
ReplyDeleteMiles is framing a literary character, 'the Lord God,' I'm anxious to see how he fleshes out.
my reference : we create god in the image we need / want in the language we have - and both develop and grow if we do
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