φύσις κρύπτεσθαι φιλεῖ
Here we are. To the best of my ability I’ve attempted, in the last twenty-five posts, to create a primer for this moment. Beginning with the importance of the image of the shepherd in the ancient world to the Mesopotamian and Egyptian cosmogonies which preceded the ancient Hebrews, to how various scientific disciplines have found…
In this final post before we take up the task of walking through the stories of Genesis I want to talk about frames of reference as well as make some disclaimers. After all, to paraphrase Marcus Brody, we are meddling with powers we cannot possibly comprehend. Despicable people like philosopher John Gray and eco-fascist David…
Several weeks ago we discussed how action is the cradle for thought. As we are getting ready to embark on the project of walking through the biblical stories, it is important to stop for a moment and consider how it is that stories come about. The human story begins some eight million years ago with…
As mentioned in several posts already, the closest the modern world has to the biblical understanding of the world comes from American Pragmatism and Phenomenology. For both the pragmatist and phenomenologist, that which is experienced is that which is real. For instance, in his seminal work and arguably the seminal work of phenomenology, Sein und…
Theos (Gr.θεός) is the Greek word for God. If we are going to contend with the biblical stories it is probably a good idea to get straight exactly what we mean when we say “god” — at least to the best of our abilities. To this end, and in no particular order, I intend to…
Today, as we continue to flesh out our introduction to the Bible, I want to continue with our understanding of the differences between the modern epistemic framework versus the one of the ancients. The difference is important and far too infrequently understood. To this end I want to begin by discussing the problem of creationism….
In this week’s Main Project post we began the process of introducing the Bible. Today I want to continue this introduction by talking about the epistemology of the Bible, the natural cognitive framework of man and how these stories arose and became the wellspring for all of western civilization. One way to look at…
The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. Proverbs 9:10 This project is of enormous in scope. The span ranges from the earliest writings of the Mesopotamian Empire to the present day. The idea which gave birth to this project is that the…
In both the Mesopotamian and Egyptian cosmogonies, the primordial state of the world is chaotic and that chaos must be overcome. In both the Enuma Elish and the Egyptian creation myth the primordial state of the world is that of formless watery chaos. For the Mesopotamians it is the internal embrace of Apsu (fresh water/culture/masculinity/order)…
Our early ancestors, after the end of the last ice age roughly 14,000 BC, had a very important question to answer viz., how are we going to survive? In a world with very little structure the primary concern was that of nature. Nature, like fire, has two sides — the benevolent and the malevolent. There…