Summary of text [comment] page 81
[The early Old Testament image of ‘the flesh sold into the bondage of sin’ calls the person. It calls the person’s bones. It is not a metaphor for society.
The bones long to be free. They long to be righteous before the Lord. Here, ‘bones’ call to mind consciencefree in the intersecting nested form portrayed above. Thinkdivine interpellates ‘the bones’. Thinkgroup calls the ‘flesh’.]
[In considering these two applications, I capture a key difference between an infrasovereign and a suprasovereign religion.
The metaphor of blood and bones, applied to the person, builds character.
The same metaphor, applied to society, interpellates the person into an (infra)sovereign religion.
One tells the person to breathe, because the flesh, blood and bones belongs to the person.
The other paralyzes. The blood and bonds belongs to the sovereign. The people are weak and fleshy. Also, the sovereign serves as artificial lungs.
This raises the question:
When I hear the metaphor of ‘flesh versus bones’ how am I to tell the difference between the two options?]
[May I apply that metaphor to human society?
I can imagine a thinkpro-object that tells the person that powerful figures of the sovereign religion are the bones. The sovereign scaffolds a weak and fleshy people. The bones are the sovereign support of society.
I can imagine a thinkpro-object that tells the person that powerful figures of the sovereign religion are the blood. The sovereign balances the passions (heat) and fears (coolness) of the subjects. The blood is the sovereign working in society.]
[How did the metaphor apply to the person?
One can imagine a thinkdivine that calls the person to attend to the bones. Attend to the scaffolding, the structure that holds one together. The bones give earth to the flesh.
One can imagine a thinkdivine that calls the person to attend to the blood, the warmth and humidity in the flesh. The flesh is weak and vulnerable. Blood balances fire (heat, dryness) and water (coolness, wetness), making the flesh strong and capable.
So far, this metaphor covers earth, water and fire.
One member of the four elements is missing.
‘The air’, ‘the breath’, or ‘the spirit’ is the unspoken complement to ‘blood and bones’. Something invisible from outside ourselves must be taken in, else the flesh dies.
The image of the air reverberates with thinkdivine.]
Summary of text [comment] pages 80 and 81
[What are we to make of this twist in oppositions between the Old and the New Testaments?
For one, between the two Testaments, the symbolic order of language transformed.
The difference between ‘flesh’ and ‘blood and bones’ was, in the early Old Testament symbolic order, a difference in the essential aspects of humans. The imagery is vibrant, especially to anyone who has butchered an animal.
The flesh gets work done. It is where the nourishment goes. If one does not eat, one loses muscle and strength.
The bones scaffold and anchor the flesh. The bones have the consistency of stone.
Yet, the bones also have something to do with nourishment. The marrow is alive. Animal bones go into soup.
The blood is the fluid of life. It is the liquid complement of the bones. The blood, too, may be used for food under certain ritual circumstances.
Food proscriptions reinforced the metaphor.
Flesh was to be separated from the blood and the bones.]
[St. Paul contrasts the ‘flesh’ and the ‘spirit’. The ‘flesh’ appears similar to the animal mind. It is unable to understand the things of God.
[What about ‘the blood and bones’?
Are these able to understand (or at least spiritually sense) the intentions of God?
In the the early Old Testament days, the answer was ‘yes’.
Don’t you feel it in your bones? Does it make your blood run hot or cold?
From the perspective of the New Testament, blood and bones are inadequate because they are constructed within the human to support the human.
Previously, one could sense the divine through the ‘blood and bones’, but not now.
The malleability of speech-alone talk deadens even these senses.]
The spiritual person judges everything. God is revealed to man through the spirit.
Summary of text [comment] pages 80 and 81
[In certain ways, the word ‘flesh’ in the New Testament subsumes ‘flesh, blood and bones’ in the Old Testament. In other ways, it does not.
We are ‘flesh, blood and bones’ and Christ himself is ‘spirit’. But, Christ is also ‘flesh, blood and bones’.]
Summary of text [comment] pages 80 and 81
In the Old Testament, ‘flesh’ is opposed to ‘blood and bones’.
Flesh and bones designates the whole person.
The New Testament presents a different opposition: ‘Flesh’ is opposed to ‘spirit’.
This opposition does not overlay exactly with the ‘flesh as opposed to bones’ terminology of the Old Testament.
