0055 Hoffmeier dwells on Genesis 6:1-4, concerning the sons of God and the daughters of men.
Literary analysis suggests that the Nephilim episode relates to Noah’s flood in the same way that the Tower of Babelrelates to Abraham’s calling.
0056 In this, both point to periods of increasing contradictions within established paradigms, the final period of a cycle… er… genre.
0057 Hoffmeier considers the story of Noah’s flood. It has a literary structure common to Semitic civilizations. Typically, the structure goes ABCB’A’, where B’ and A’ mirror B and A. Noah’s flood story, ABC…P…C’B’A’, contains 16 steps.
0058 On top of that, during the past three centuries of the Age of Ideas, archaeologists unearth cuneiform-bearing clay tablets from long-buried libraries of ancient cities. Some of the tablets tell a flood tale almost identical to the story of Noah’s flood.
0059 What does this imply, concerning the genres in Gen 1-11?To me, this implies a deep coherence between an elite Sumerian tradition and Abraham’s ancestors. The idea is dramatically envisioned in the masterwork, An Archaeology of the Fall.
Gen 1-11 in an insider’s tale about the rise and the fall of Sumerian civilization.
0060 James Hoffmeier concludes, by expressing the conviction that the entire Bible, including Genesis 1-11, intend to portray real events. Therefore, the genre of Gen 1-11 is history and theology.
0061 These comments rely on the hypothesis of the first singularity, where a change in the way humans talk, from hand-speech to speech-alone talk, constitutes a transition so fundamental that our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
To me, this implies that the stories of Adam and Eve are fairy tales about the initiation and early development of our current Lebenswelt of unconstrained social complexity.
0062 The first singularity initiates cycles of failure, reorientation, paradigm implementation, and response to contradictions inherent in the established paradigm. Each cycle expresses its own genre. Each cycle lasts for 16 generations (that is, about 400 years). Each cycle brings the Ubaid further into the rewards and losses of increasing social differentiation.
A similar spiraling appears in Gen 1-11. For example, the stories of Cain and Abel are a little less dreamy than the stories of Adam and Eve. Lamech’s attitude is way more arrogant than Cain’s.
0063 The primeval history serves a witness to the consequences of the first singularity.
In this sense, Hoffmeier is on target. Gen 1-11 is history and theology.
0064 In chapter two, Gordon H. Wenham views Gen 1-11 as protohistory.
He starts with the genealogies.
Even though the narratives are difficult to classify as genre, the genealogies are not.
0065 Wenham proposes a thought experiment.
Clearly, the view from within, the author’s point of view, would not assign the classifier, “genre”, to portions of the text. The classification comes from the outside, from the reader’s point of view.
So, how does the reader, on the outside, enter the thought-world of the author, on the inside?
0066 This thought experiment associates to a two-level interscope, which is discussed in A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction.
For content, in the normal-context of the author’s world3a, the Biblical text2a emerges from (and situates) the potential of ‘the insider’s witness’1a.
For situation, in the normal-context of the reader’s world3b, an interpretation of the Biblical text2b emerges from (and situates) the potential of ‘insights into the revelation of what happened’1b.
0067 Here is a picture.
0068 Where does identification of genre enter into the previous diagram?
Genre introduces perspective.
Genre may serve as an ordering principle1c.
0069 Here is a picture.
0070 If I look at the virtual nested form in the realm of possibility (the column of elements in firstness), I see this:
genre1c( insights for reader1b( Biblical witness1a))
The normal context of genre1c virtually brings insights for the reader1b into relation with the potential of Biblical witness1a.
0001 Joseph Trabbic’s essay appears in the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly (volume 95(3), pages 389-409). This is the second article on phenomenology to attract attention. The full title is “Jean Luc-Marion and the Phenomenologie de la Donation as First Philosophy”.
Jean-Luc Marion is a French phenomenologist who attempts to put Husserl’s paradigm into perspective. His book is published 25 years ago. It still confounds readers.
Trabbic performs admirably in trying to decipher both the French language and the book.
0002 There is a lot to unpack, especially since science is not mentioned at all.
I wonder what Husserl is up to when he calls for a return to the noumenon?
Perhaps, scientists focus so much on phenomena that they neglect the thing itself.
0003 This is the lesson formulated in Reverie on Mark Spencer’s Essay (2021) “The Many Phenomenology Reductions”(available for purchase at smashwords). Spencer also publishes in the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly. The full title of Spencer’s article is “The Many Phenomenological Reductions and Catholic Metaphysical Anti-Reductionism”.
Spencer mentions Jean-Luc Marion, along with many other phenomenologists.
It is like going through an old jewelry box.
Jean-Luc Marion sparkles.
0004 Comments on Joseph Trabbic’s Essay (2021) “Jean Luc Marion and … First Philosophy” (also available at smashwords) builds upon this reverie.
Why does Jean-Luc Marion catch the eye?
0006 Trabbic’s approach to Jean Luc-Marion’s masterwork, The Phenomenology of Givenness, is curious.
Trabbic precisely executes a style that is rarely used in contemporary works.
He asks us to recognize a possibility (that seems to be impossible).
0007 First, the reader must recognize that there are phenomena, rather than nothing. Things themselves are simply given.
Second, the reader must recognize that givenness implies a gift with no giver and no recipient.
0008 Trabbic’s construction leads the reader up the staircase of one and down the staircase of two.
The literary structure is beautiful to behold.
0009 The following looks like a hylomorphe, but it does not belong to the realm of actuality.
0010 This dyad expresses what is in the Positivist’s judgment.
The Positivist’s judgment constitutes the second first philosophy, arising and ruling out the first first philosophy.
0011 What is a first philosophy?
A first philosophy addresses the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?”
This is the first question that every philosophy must confront.
0012 Many prefer to skip to the next question, “What is ‘something’?”
The first first philosophy, as practiced by scholastics of the Latin Age, says, “It must be the things of God and of everyday life.”
The second first philosophy, modern science, says, “No, it must be phenomena, the observable and measurable facets of things.”
The third first philosophy, Husserl’s phenomenology, says, “We must return to the noumenon, the thing itself, and figure out what the noumenon must be.”
But, is the thing itself the same as what the thing itself must be?0013 Here is where Jean-Luc Marion enters the picture and says, “A fourth first philosophy should place Husserl’s situating of science into perspective, by addressing the question, ‘Why are there noumena, rather than nothing?’.”
0014 Ah, phenomenology situates empirical science.
This is one lesson found in Reverie on Mark Spencer’s Essay (2021) “The Many Phenomenology Reductions” (available for purchase at smashwords).
0015 Givenness puts phenomenology into perspective.
This statement stands at the heart of Comments on Joseph Trabbic’s Essay (2021) “Jean Luc Marion and … First Philosophy” (also available at smashwords).
0016 Yet, neither Spencer nor Trabbic mention science.
0017 Comments on Joseph Trabbic’s Essay (2021) “Jean Luc Marion and … First Philosophy” adds value to the original.
How much value?
Maybe two Euros worth.
0018 What is the value of a Euro?
That is a very good question.
0019 Can a one Euro coin be reduced to its matter and form?
Can a Euro be reduced to instrumental and material causalities?
Surely, according to the empirio-schematic judgment, a one Euro coin can be accounted for by its constituent metals and circular shape. There is a science to coining money. Isn’t there?
0020 Or, does the givenness of the Euro allow us to imagine that a Euro is more than metal and shape?
Does the givenness of the Euro say that what the thing itself must be may be treated as a thing itself, supporting novel, “social”, sciences, where the noumenon can be objectified as its phenomena?
0021 If this is so, then phenomenological reduction precedes Husserl by over a century.
Is that possible?
Can what the thing must be become a thing itself?
There is something eye-catching and nonsensical about givenness.
Trabbic graciously accepts that Marion must make sense and leads the reader to that glittering impossible possibility.
