Quote:
Originally Posted by Jibartik
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In Is God A Moral Monster it's argued that Joshua describes his battles using “ancient Near Eastern exaggeration rhetoric. Like his ancient Near Eastern contemporaries, Joshua used the language of conventional warfare rhetoric.”
In the later fifteenth century (BC so its backwards remember hehe) Tuthmosis III could boast “the numerous army of Mitanni was overthrown within the hour, annihilated totally” but, historically the forces of Mitanni lived to fight many another day, in the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries… meaning annihilated totally = exist as an empire for another 200 years.
Under "Ancient Near East Warfare Rhetoric" theory, the language "Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey." is exaggeration. God is not actually expecting or commanding Saul to hunt down every last living thing under every tree and kill them all. Instead, God's purpose is that their entire society (their religion and immoral practices) would be destroyed.
The language "utterly destroy" is often referred to as an act of worship to God. That is, by removing the religion and practices which directly oppose God, they are offering sacrifice to God.
Just as we might say that a sports team “blew their opponents away” or “slaughtered” or “annihilated” them, the author (editor) likewise followed the rhetoric of his day.
The fact is, Youtube & biblical scholars have allowed themselves to be swept away by the upbeat, rhetorical element present in Joshua, a persistent feature of most war reports in ancient Near Eastern sources that they are not accustomed to understand and properly handle.
(edit: that said maybe the bible is a horcrux and once you figure out the correct meaning behind the words it will unlock a new doorway, what do I know!) |
It absolutely is a "horcrux" with multifaceted meanings. That is why Psalms 119:130 states "the unfolding if your word gives light;it brings understanding to the simple"
This statement, in and of itself, is revealing, because it insinuates word choices have at least dual meanings. Some would state that at its root, the judeo-christian-islamic myth is one of Dualism;and by that measure syzygy applies to a large majority of the text.
Lets unpack ezekiel 16.
In ezekiel 16, God refers to Israel as the sisters of sodom, stating their transgressions make Sodom and Gomorrah look justified in his eyes, despite the fact that he destroyed sodom for their "pride".
He then goes on to state, the consequence for the israelites prideful transgressions is they must bear the burden of their shame. This relationship between Pride and Shame is compared and contrasted, because at its root God is describing the interrelated nature of pride and shame.
When you are full of pride, you think no one else can see it, but everyone else can: it just blinds the Self (in the Jungian sense)from seeing it.
When you are full of Shame, you think everyone else can see it, so you stole yourself away, withdrawing, hoping that others can not see it, and no one else can for the most part unless theyre sagastic enough to see the withdrawl as symptomatic of shame.
Now with that said pride and shame are sisters of each other; they exist along the same axiom with one being a conscious manifestation and the other being a subconscious repression of the same thing.
Now, to apply to the dualistic framework, the syzygy of pride is humility; that it to say humility exists on the same axiom as pride except it is its conjoined opposite, it has no meaning without relating to its counterpart.
Because it is the syzygy of pride, a conscious manifestation, it must therefore exist in the subconscious as being profusely humble actually leads to self-conceptualization of betterness than others which then finds itself paradoxically manifesting as arrogance/pride when exercised consciously, so how can one consciously embrace humility? By consciously manifesting the syzygy of pride's sister-sin:shame.
Shame's syzygy is strength, which is where the power of testimony and refusing to hide our shame away derives its strength.
So, unfolding "pride" reveals "shame", "humility" and "strength"as axiomatic. This axiom creates a 4 quadrant cross:this is the meaning of the symbology of the cross, aside from the actual act of Christ dying upon it, so that you could be metaphorically navigate through it as you increasingly take up Christ's yoke.
Syzygy etymologically means "to be yoked together" this is what is referenced in Matthew 11:29 when Christ says to take up his yoke and learn from him, for he is gentle and humble of heart and will bring rest to your soul.
Christendom is defined by only one truth, that Christ came, and died for our sins, fundamentally bridging the separation of space humanity places between themselves and God through sin; thats it. It doesn't matter if Christian pharisees had a bunch of ecumenical councils to further dilineate because there is only one truth.