[How did the metaphor apply to the person?

One can imagine a think^divine 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 think^divine 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 think^divine.]

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.

Summary of text [comment] page 80

‘Evil attitudes and dispositions’ allow us to appreciate what is involved with the Scripture’s use of the words ‘flesh’, ‘concupiscence’, ‘bondage under the devil’ and ‘bondage under sin’.

[These all describe actuality emerging from possibility.

Ted Peter’s 1994 book Radical Evil portrays this. His work has already been analyzed with the nested forms.

Concupiscence belongs to the situation level of an interscope precisely as actuality emerging from and situating possibility (that is, concupiscence₂₍₁₎).

Indeed, the origin of the word ‘concupiscence’ is ‘the state of being₂ with Cupid₁’.

The complete situation level of the interscoping form follows:

Self-justification_3b(the state of being…_2b( potential …with Cupid_1b))]

Summary of text [comment] page 80

An evil attitude accompanies sinful action, combining with our inability for the good.

Every sin produces a persistent attitude that further consolidates sinful drives and inclinations. Persistent attitudes resist personal integration. One’s powers, tendencies, instincts, and passions demand their own satisfactions, even at the expense of the total value of the individual and community.