Tag Archives: archaeology

03/4/22

Looking at Roy Clouser’s Article (2021) “…Support of Carol Hill’s Reading…” (Part 3 of 6)

0011 The first point keys into the second point.

Adam and Eve are the first humans in the history of redemption.  They are neither perfect nor immortal.  So, they screwed up.

0012 How did they do it?

They thought that they understood the meanings, presences and messages latent in their speech-alone words.

Ooops.

0013 This slip up brings Clouser back to Saint Paul, in his letter to the Romans, where Adam’s covenantal failure is compared to Christ’s covenantal success.

More or less, Paul says that sin enters the world through one man, Adam… but, wait a second… before Moses there is no law, so how can there be sin?

0014 In other words, the actuality of sin2 potentiating death1 in the normal context of the Mosaic law3 must have been functioning after Adam and before Moses, even though Moses is yet to be formally present.

0015 Clouser concludes that this imputation suggests that there are humans contemporary to Adam.  Plus, their sins are not held against them, because God has not made Himself known.

0016 However, there are other suggestions that come to mind with the hypothesis of the first singularity.

Before Adam, do humans have access to a (metaphorical, or perhaps, literal) tree of life, which conveys an immortality unfamiliar to what we civilized folk currently imagine?

After Adam and before Moses, are folk, living within our current Lebenswelt, trapped within the imputation of Mosaic law, precisely as Paul notes?

0017 See the e-book An Archaeology of the Fall.

Also, see Comments on Original Sin and Original Death: Romans 5:12-19.

These are available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

03/3/22

Looking at Roy Clouser’s Article (2021) “…Support of Carol Hill’s Reading…” (Part 4 of 6)

0018 Paul’s aside fits the triadic structure found in A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form.

Here is a picture for humans after Adam and before Moses.

Figure 1

0019 The normal context of the imputed Mosaic Law3 brings the actuality of sin2 into relation with the possibilities inherent in death1.

0020 Now, if I erase the normal context3 and potential1 and replace them with items from the stories of Adam and Eve, I produce the following nested form.

Figure 2

The normal context of the Garden of Eden3 brings the actuality of sin2 into relation with the potential of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil1.

0021 These two nested forms complement one another.  The theological implications cannot be ignored.  The Garden of Eden marks a transition from the Lebenswelt that we evolved in to our current Lebenswelt.  The first singularity is a scientific hypothesis concerning the nature of this transition.  The Mosaic law associates to our current Lebenswelt.

Adam and Eve are not the first humans.

Adam and Eve are fairy tale figures, standing at the portal to our current Lebenswelt.

Fairy tale figures are larger than life.

03/2/22

Looking at Roy Clouser’s Article (2021) “…Support of Carol Hill’s Reading…” (Part 5 of 6)

0023 A third point supports Carol Hill’s commitment that Old Testament “celebrities” are real people.

0024 Clouser’s terminology is revealing.  Adam and Eve are “celebrities”.  Are “celebrities” real people?

I can visualize the headlines in the netherworld at the moment when Adam and Eve achieve celebrity status.  “Adam and Eve Fall For It.”  Read all about it.

0025 The key is “read”.

0026 Undoubtedly, the Pentateuch is a compilation of oral traditions.  Once codified, during or after the Babylonian exile, the compilation becomes fixed as canon.  Codification raises a host of issues, such as the reliability of the preceding oral traditions.

Or, are these oral traditions already codified in secret documents?

Does the question sound absurd?

Oh, the slipperiness of spoken words.

0027 Am I worried about the reliability of oral traditions or the reality within oral traditions?

0028 The Biblical text itself conveys a reality, in the objective sense of the word, that is assumed by the subjective realities engaged by the underlying oral traditions.  Even if Adam and Eve are fairy-tale figures in text, they are real in an oral tradition.  Even if Noah is an epic figure in text, he is real in an oral tradition.

0029 Why do the writers of the New Testament take the realness of the Old Testament for granted?

Please do not quote me on what I am about to say.

Despite the fact that the Old Testament is written, the biblical oral traditions are alive and well at the time of John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth.  Everyone knows that the words are now written, so they use the word “scripture”, acknowledging this fact.  However, even though Paul can read the written text, the apostles (and most early Christians) cannot.

My conclusion is that Jesus recites the scriptures, with as much precision as the written text.  So, does John the Baptist.  They draw crowds that already know the oral tradition and marvel at its theatrical articulation.  Jesus and John are performers.  What a performance they give.  They recite the scriptures so convincingly that members of the audiencewhisper to one another, “The kingdom of God is at hand.”

0030 The New Testament is composed while the oral traditions of reciting the scriptures are alive and well.  The spoken word renders a subjective reality.  In the beginning, is the word, which, dare I say, tells us that spoken words are slippery things.  Listen to the stories of Adam and Eve.

The objective reality conveyed in the written word enters the historical theodrama the moment when Christianity spreads from Israel.

Does that bring me back to Augustine’s slip up?

The slipperiness of spoken words also applies to the written text.

03/1/22

Looking at Roy Clouser’s Article (2021) “…Support of Carol Hill’s Reading…” (Part 6 of 6)

0031 Roy Clouser closes with a stern warning that the documentary approach, investigating the alleged secret documents underlying the Old Testament, should only be carried out by experts, who are convinced that their certification protects them from the fact that they, like Augustine, are vulnerable to the slipperiness of spoken words.

His article serves as a witness to a philosophical and theological world that has not come to terms with the implications that will follow once our scientific world comes to terms with the hypothesis of the first singularity.

0032 Surely, Clouser is on target, in that a rabbi is chosen for intelligence, rather than theatrical genius.  But, occasionally, both gifts arrive at the same doorstep.  Ask the followers of Rabbi Joseph Solovietchik.

0033 I suspect that commentary by Orthodox Jews will swivel on the tiny stone of the first singularity.

Why?

Is this the stone that the scientific builders rejected?

Or, is it a jewel that turns the imagination?

The early stories of Genesis are insider fairy tales about the social trends towards unconstrained complexity in the Ubaid and Uruk archaeological periods of southern Mesopotamia.

Swivel and turn.

0034 Orthodox Jews might appreciate another work by Razie Mah, also available at smashwords and other e-work venues.

Comments on Jeremy Cohen’s Essay (1980) “Original Sin as the Evil Inclination”

This electronic work belongs to the series, Reverberations of the Fall.