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Gender in Gnosticism
- Thread starter Mr Cheese
- Start date
No it isn't. A historical critical and sociological approach to ancient texts is the best way to understand them from the point of view of the authors.
What you are doing is a bit like a christian reading the OT through the lens of christian tradition. It works in a religious sense, but you unless you and those you are speaking to aleady believe that Jesus and his message are represented in the OT, nothing you say is worth much when it comes to understanding those texts.
Mr Cheese
Well-Known Member
yes its like reading a porn book and thinking when they are describing eating strawberries and whipped cream, they are actually eating a meal.
That is your choice, it IS a valid approach.
But this IS a religious discussion board, not a history one.
Thus your view point is rather boring in context to this entire board, as it negates "religion" totally....
I am quite aware of your stance, and your opinions, all of them, before you even posted them.... I am not new to such ideas. They have very little to do with actual Gnosticism though, and far more to do with the perceivers opinion of the texts... Gnosticism to state again.... sees ALL religious texts as garbage. You don't understand that. You are stuck reading and examining the text.
Gnosticism knows that eating strawberries and whipped cream.... does not mean you are eating a meal.
But I understand you will want to have the last word, and will never understand what I mean...as it is beyond you.
Yes, but it isn't a gnostic board. As such, there are plenty of people here who don't follow your religion. Now, while anyone might appreciate an interpretation of these texts through the point of view of a modern gnostic, I would like to ensure anyone who is actually interested in what the texts most likely meant to the authors has at least an idea.
You read a bunch of translations of ancient texts, and you think you know what they mean. You haven't studied the cultures behind them, the philosophies they were built upon, the societies they lived in, etc, and yet you insult all the scholars who have spent years researching this area in order to understand this, by using analogies from porn. Great.
No. There are any number of discussions here which focus on religious texts with a mind to history. Otherwise, there is no valid discussion, because what I think they mean is as legitimate as the next persons. And it is, unless you actually want to know what the authors meant. And many people do. If a study of the world behind the texts is invalidated, then it hampers an understanding of the tixt.
I seriously doubt that. You have made it clear that you are almost completely unfamiliar with gnostic scholarship, so you couldn't possibly be aware of all of my opinions.
Mr Cheese
Well-Known Member
Thank you for doign such a great service (sic)
Without people like you, we'd never have great things liek knowing that:
ducks do indeed like water (a recent study conducted by Oxford University, concluded this)
Baked beans do indeed cuase gaseous emissions from homosapiens ( a 5 year study was able to isolate acid found in baked beans that cause farting, which does indeed prove that baked beans do cause gaseous emissions from the posterior)
....
But I need to stop...
Thought for the day:
If I cut an apple up, a thousand times,
and then cut it more, a trillion times.
I still am unable to see an apple tree.
Without people like you, we'd never have great things liek knowing that:
ducks do indeed like water (a recent study conducted by Oxford University, concluded this)
Baked beans do indeed cuase gaseous emissions from homosapiens ( a 5 year study was able to isolate acid found in baked beans that cause farting, which does indeed prove that baked beans do cause gaseous emissions from the posterior)
....
But I need to stop...
Thought for the day:
If I cut an apple up, a thousand times,
and then cut it more, a trillion times.
I still am unable to see an apple tree.
sic? I don't think you are using that term correctly.
Mr Cheese
Well-Known Member
What do you think of the following in light of your constant assertions
Considering the often cited biblical texts on homosexuality.
Genesis 2-3: the Creation of Sexuality
In unfolding her interpretation of Gen. 2-3, Trible dispels arkhonic (4) notions regarding the explicit and implicit meanings of the text. She describes the narrative as the development of Eros (love of life), in four episodes of a love story, that began with the forming of the earth creature, ha-adam, and continued in the planting of a garden, the making of animals, and the creation of sexuality. The love story had gone awry however, when the fulfilment proclaimed when í, 'man' and íâ, 'woman', became one flesh, disintegrated through human disobedience. (5) However, the Bible does not leave the account there.
The Song of Songs is seen to redeem this love story, restoring Eros and enhancing the creation of sexuality in Genesis 2, and emphasizing equality and mutuality between man and woman as lovers. The main voice of the Song is female. Thus Trible says, "Women, then, are the principal creators of the poetry of eroticism." (6) That is not to say that the poetry of eroticism stays with women. We are all able to express the joy of our sexual being, in the poetry of our own lives as well as in words. In this way we celebrate the joy of erotic relationships, as a response to the God-given gift of sexuality and erotic intimacy. While God's voice is absent from the Song, the divine voice is borne by the breath of the poet, the very respiration of lovers, that cries in the cosmos, to affirm their own being, confirming their own togetherness, their own becoming. Through our personal delight in love-making our body's song or poetry becomes a responsive voice that rises to God in joy and in gratitude. In this sense, love-making transcends sexual gratification, to become a hymn of thanks and praise to God, for the gift of our embodied selves. More than that, it celebrates the relationship between the lovers, in the simple joy of sexual encounter. That is why God's voice is absent in the Song, as it is in Genesis 2, where poetry of eroticism first appears and ha-adam says,
"This, finally, bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh.
This shall be called íssâ (Woman)
because from ís (Man)
was differentiated this." (Gen.2:23)
Trible's interpretation is post-modern and inclusive. It is not only erotic, but traces God's initial blessing of harmony, pleasure and fulfilment in the creation of sexuality, as being prior to the actualization of procreational applications to sexuality. In the Song, the seeking of one's lover finds harmony of encounter and fulfilment in sexual embrace. Sexuality is thus celebrated in the longing, the pursuit and the embrace. The focus is delight and joy in relational connectedness. We can appropriate that spirit, for it is the spirit of mutuality and relational activity that not only celebrates life but also makes God present in the world, through love-making. It is relational connectedness that lifts human sexual relationships above those of the animals. The choice for gay and lesbian persons is not between heterosexuality and homosexuality but to be able to celebrate their sexuality, to form relationships and to seek relational intimacy in ways that are not cut off from their God-given nature.
Love-making possibilities re-envision our own sexuality as well as re-vision God, as an erotic God, full of life and passion. Sexual activity is a relational process of making erotic connections. It is God-given and blessed. The connection of sex and sexuality with The Fall has denigrated sexual activity, robbing it of its blessedness. Through mutual sex we experience personal communication, intimacy, the harnessing of desire and sexual truth. We touch our own erotic strength and liberate that of our partner. We share erotic power, transcending the self in the full inclusiveness of love-making. In this way it is also justice-doing, for it empowers the other. Carter Heyward expresses this dynamic empowerment as "godding", in which the verb, 'godding', points to the truth of God's erotic activity. She says:
Considering the often cited biblical texts on homosexuality.
Genesis 2-3: the Creation of Sexuality
In unfolding her interpretation of Gen. 2-3, Trible dispels arkhonic (4) notions regarding the explicit and implicit meanings of the text. She describes the narrative as the development of Eros (love of life), in four episodes of a love story, that began with the forming of the earth creature, ha-adam, and continued in the planting of a garden, the making of animals, and the creation of sexuality. The love story had gone awry however, when the fulfilment proclaimed when í, 'man' and íâ, 'woman', became one flesh, disintegrated through human disobedience. (5) However, the Bible does not leave the account there.
The Song of Songs is seen to redeem this love story, restoring Eros and enhancing the creation of sexuality in Genesis 2, and emphasizing equality and mutuality between man and woman as lovers. The main voice of the Song is female. Thus Trible says, "Women, then, are the principal creators of the poetry of eroticism." (6) That is not to say that the poetry of eroticism stays with women. We are all able to express the joy of our sexual being, in the poetry of our own lives as well as in words. In this way we celebrate the joy of erotic relationships, as a response to the God-given gift of sexuality and erotic intimacy. While God's voice is absent from the Song, the divine voice is borne by the breath of the poet, the very respiration of lovers, that cries in the cosmos, to affirm their own being, confirming their own togetherness, their own becoming. Through our personal delight in love-making our body's song or poetry becomes a responsive voice that rises to God in joy and in gratitude. In this sense, love-making transcends sexual gratification, to become a hymn of thanks and praise to God, for the gift of our embodied selves. More than that, it celebrates the relationship between the lovers, in the simple joy of sexual encounter. That is why God's voice is absent in the Song, as it is in Genesis 2, where poetry of eroticism first appears and ha-adam says,
"This, finally, bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh.
This shall be called íssâ (Woman)
because from ís (Man)
was differentiated this." (Gen.2:23)
Trible's interpretation is post-modern and inclusive. It is not only erotic, but traces God's initial blessing of harmony, pleasure and fulfilment in the creation of sexuality, as being prior to the actualization of procreational applications to sexuality. In the Song, the seeking of one's lover finds harmony of encounter and fulfilment in sexual embrace. Sexuality is thus celebrated in the longing, the pursuit and the embrace. The focus is delight and joy in relational connectedness. We can appropriate that spirit, for it is the spirit of mutuality and relational activity that not only celebrates life but also makes God present in the world, through love-making. It is relational connectedness that lifts human sexual relationships above those of the animals. The choice for gay and lesbian persons is not between heterosexuality and homosexuality but to be able to celebrate their sexuality, to form relationships and to seek relational intimacy in ways that are not cut off from their God-given nature.
Love-making possibilities re-envision our own sexuality as well as re-vision God, as an erotic God, full of life and passion. Sexual activity is a relational process of making erotic connections. It is God-given and blessed. The connection of sex and sexuality with The Fall has denigrated sexual activity, robbing it of its blessedness. Through mutual sex we experience personal communication, intimacy, the harnessing of desire and sexual truth. We touch our own erotic strength and liberate that of our partner. We share erotic power, transcending the self in the full inclusiveness of love-making. In this way it is also justice-doing, for it empowers the other. Carter Heyward expresses this dynamic empowerment as "godding", in which the verb, 'godding', points to the truth of God's erotic activity. She says:
"Godding, we experience our personal lives as profoundly connected at the root of who we are, rather than as separate and disconnected from our professional lives and from one an other's places of deepest meaning. Godding, we share how we really feel about our body selves-in-relation, in our living and working, our living and dying. We share, we act, we are together." (7)
In this way, we find relational empowerment through creative energy that finds and releases God's image in the other. It is in this way that homosexual relationships can be God-centred through relational connectedness and we all can say, "this is my beloved and this is my friend." (Song of Songs 5:16c). In this, love is discovered in the subjective encounter of friendship and not in the objective, dualistic designation male and female. http://fou.uniting.com.au/Genesis1_2.doc of Genesis 1-2 section only.
I'm not sure what your point is in all of this. Could you clarify? I have no problem with homosexuality, and I am a supporter of same-sex marriages. Perhaps it is that I am tired and ready for sleep, but I fail to see what this has to do with gnosticism. Could you elaborate?
Mr Cheese
Well-Known Member
Your assertions that women were perceived as the 'weaker" sex in the climate that the Gnostic texts were conceived...
How does your post address this? Trible is a modern author. She doesn't represent ancient gnostic texts. Also, she isn't even discussing gnostic texts in your quote. What does this have to do with gnostic portrayal.
Mr Cheese
Well-Known Member
Your argument was the "rice bowl" that the Gnostic texts were written in, contained an attitude toward women....
but never mind...
I really cant be bothered any more
Yet your quote doesn't even address that. Find me a few scholars who argue that the ancient hebrews, ancient romans, ancient greeks, etc. were not incredibly sexist and misogynist, and then you might have a case to build about the worlds behind the gnostic texts.