[Continued from here and here]
Still thinking over this subject of iconoclasm and of smashing idols. So I decided to go back to the source, and re-read Exodus 32, where Moses is up on Mount Sinai, receiving the revelation from God, but then comes down the mountain and finds out that the people in his absence have created and begun worshipping a Golden Calf. Read what happens:
19 It happened, as soon as he came near to the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing: and Moses’ anger grew hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands, and broke them beneath the mountain.
20 He took the calf which they had made, and burnt it with fire, ground it to powder, and scattered it on the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.
Aside from Moses destroying the calf, two psychologically & mythically important things happen in this short passage. I’ll talk about the second one first: Moses makes the people drink the dust of the graven image they have created. What does this mean?
To me, it means that the Israelites have turned to an externalized version of their spirituality. They followed Moses “into the desert” - ie, a place where there is no psychological sustenance. And when Moses left them for forty days and forty nights to receive the Word of God, they were without a guiding light anymore. No longer could they exist happily in the desert of belief; they needed to create a concrete image of what it was they were searching for. Moses comes back, sees this and instantly realizes that the only thing he can do is to symbolically make them re-internalize the image of god they have projected. He grinds down the calf and makes them drink it again, taking their image of god back into themselves. (Simpsons fans might see a parallel to the episode where Bart sells his soul to Milhouse via a slip of paper, and at the end of the episode rapidly eats the piece of paper - his externalization of his soul)
That much is pretty straightforward. But what about Moses breaking the tablets because he is so angry? Is he angry at the Israelites? Sure, I don’t doubt it. But intuitively, I understand that there is more to the story. For what was the difference between the Golden Calf that the Israelites created and the stone tablets that Moses went up to Mount Sinai for? As far as I can tell, nothing! Both of them are, in essence, idols - concretizations of the ineffable divine. Moses’ may have been “straight from god,” but then maybe the people’s creation of the Golden Calf was no less a direct act of god, one which suited better their need and temperament. Maybe the only difference was that Moses’ revelation was private and mystical, and that of the Israelites was public and utilitarian.
In his rage, Moses broke the original tablets containing God’s Law. Maybe because he deep down inside grasped this paradox, and he was as angry at himself as he was at what the Israelites had done in his absence. It’s a question whose final answer is lost to us in the mists of mytho-history, but which I think is a very important one for our time.
I found a really excellent interpretation of the story of the Golden Calf from the Muslim tradition as well, part of which I thought would be useful to share here:
The story of the golden calf is a pointer to the importance of making intense and continuous efforts in maintaining, cultivating, developing, and inculcating deep understanding and knowledge of religion and revelation - an understanding that is not hampered, conditioned and shaped by the changing currents, desires, trends, fashions, pressures, politics, and ideologies of our times.
The conclusion of that article suggests that we have to hold fast until the Imam, like Moses, returns “bearing the illuminative gift of true perspicacity and profound knowledge.” But it may very well be that we can’t rely on the return of Moses or his analogues, because the gifts which they return with will ultimately be as corrupted and corruptible as both the Golden Calf and the Ten Commandments. Everything can be distorted and perverted and we must simply hold fast and not let our imaginations fail, no matter what.
- END -
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25 Comments
The story is just meant to scare the hell out of people , to make them obey. Something to brain wash the kids with. Tribal identity thing
The early Jews were a ragtag collection of desert and mountain bandits, castoffs, malcontents, and drop outs from Egyptian and Canaanite society. Kind of like violent hippies at the time.
A totally heterogeneous mix of people that formed tribes of pastoralists that were connected by mostly spin offs of Sumerian and Canaanite myth that they put their unique spin on.
For the most part they were the most hated people in that area because of their noxious beliefs , and also because they almost never showed any mercy on their victims, of which there were many , as they gained power and grew in population.
Because they came out of an area with virtually no natural resources , they were particularly violent in capturing their land of milk and honey or Canaan.
They had newly aquired iron age technology, and because of their previous roaming aspect , and criminal bandit lifestyle , had little compunction of taking by force their neighbors lands. This means genocide of the former people.
The bible ordered every man , women , and child to be put to the sword in Canaan. I am not making that up , it says that in the bible.
They claimed god seeded this land to them also. They murdered all the inhabitants of that land to capture as their bible said to do. If you extrapolate the numbers the bible gives as to towns and people it ends over a million people that their god directed them to kill , he is portrayed as their real estate agent in the story. This qualifies as the first documented holocaust or genocide , if the story is true , in human history .
Judaism is purely a religion.
There is not a racial or ethnic aspect. It is only a belief system , and the stories like the one above are drawn to unify the believers with their peculiar form of propaganda.
This group of people have never been liked in the area at all. Lots of baggage. Lots of bigoted hate mongering about their neighbors that they did .
Ok. My little mid rash on this interesting story. Just a reality check . My opinion. Also the facts , as I am aware of them.
Douglas Rushkoff’s book Nothing Sacred is a fascinating read related to this topic. His media literacy studies are grounded back into his personal Jewish heritage, and he excavates the communal, open-ended, anti-fundamentalist tendencies in Judaism. He has his eyes wide open to the dark side of Judaism (he sees the state of Israel as a form of idolatry, among other things), but shows pretty persuasively that the tradition retains some insights that could be very valuable today.
He disses the Egyptian paganism that Judaism evolved in reaction to as “death-obsessed”, in contrast to the “this world” emphasis of Judaism, and I wonder about that. In my mind I’ve always contrasted the otherworldliness of Christianity to the life-and-death-celebration of paganism. Just shows there’s more complexity in the phrase “Judeo-Christian” than I often assume. And that maybe the problem with Egypt wasn’t its paganism, but its scale and social structures.
I’m very interested in the whole idolatry vs. iconoclasm issue, but I’m very far from feeling informed enough to make my mind up about it. One thing I’ve come to realise is that destroying idols often feeds idolatry. I don’t take idolatry to be the representation of divinity per se; the literalist mindset is the root of the problem. And destroying literal idols is just the flip-side of worshipping them blindly. The resolution of this dualist battle seems to be the initiation into the subtleties of a less literal, more reflective and complex relationship to images and ideas. Not something that’s easy to mass market, of course!
Study the Zohar for a couple years and then tell me you honestly still believe that’s all that’s going on here.
Sorry Prunes , I have studied all that stuff and you have read my opinion.
No reason to study religious texts , except for the fable or tale side of it .
It is very simple with religion .
If you believe the premise the rest is easy.
I don`t believe , but nevertheless, find the whole thing interesting, and I go with the scholarly way of looking at the thing from the big vantage point.
Gyrus, probably the very best work of history to find out the things you are wondering about above is ,
Egypt , Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times.
This book is by Donald Redford and is put out by the Princeton Press.
It is a scholarly book , but also written really well and probably the best explanation of those groups and how they found their identity , who the players were , and how the Jewish religion evolved in general.
Another book that is extremely good is by Richley H. Crapo, called ,
An Anthropologists look at the Judeo/Christian Scripture.
A free copy is on the Internet still I think, if you google Crapos World , a copy should be there.
Both these are considered classics on the subject. The Redford book may the best between them , but both are good.
I love this whole subject by the way, and have spent lots of time pondering and reading about religion in general.
I really love the old testament , if I can call it that here.
It has everything, Blood , Guts, Incest, Betrayal, Murder, Revenge, etc , etc, etc,
It has kept everyone interested since it came out.
It is captivating.
What a production.
Even though I know the things innards pretty well , I am amazed at it.
I like to refer to it like a some what picked over Turkey carcass .
You pick around on it to find a good morsel. There are lots of good morsels. Lots of bones and skin though also. Ha.~!~
The part “they had lost their guiding light when Moses went away for 40 days and 40 nights…” Why do you think the calf was golden? And why was it a calf?
Also — in one of my classes about Korea we learned that people who wanted to become priests had to memorize texts and texts to pass the examination so they internalized it, but how many people have memorized the Bible? Why don’t we look at the Bible as an icon? Would the Moses in the story destroy the Bible for the same reason he destroyed the tablets?
Mr. Blind that is what is referred to as being sucked in to the absurd context. Why don`t you go on now and speculate about all those questions you ask.?
Why was it a calf.? Uh , well gee, I give up.
These stories are created in a way to suck you in . Its marketing for religion. Mind twisters that put you under a spell. Most people are happy there.
The bible is an excellent trap. A snair. Brain washing at its best. I am sure the other books of religion are equally like this. In the words of P.T. Barnum, never give a sucker an even break. Ha ha . That’s religion in a nutshell.
Can I get a witness. Now time to tithe. 10% please.
By the way it was a calf because that’s what the early Jews did for a living , mostly herd cows , when they weren`t being brigands. It represents wealth in a pastoral society.
It was golden because that also represents wealth or money. It was a calf because a whole cow of gold is a lot of god-damned gold , and they probably only had a calf’s worth.~~~~~!! Ha Ha.
Let me remind you of course that there were no tablets written by gods finger. Good story though. A very very very tall tale . Puts Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill to shame.
Mr. Blind:
I’m guessing it’s not because they were herders, as Skip suggests, but because worship of the cow/calf/bull was extremely important in just about all regions of the Middle East. Look at the Egyptian cow goddess, Hathor, the sacred bulls and dancers of Crete, the many Greek legends about gods taking the form of bulls, Mithraism and Mithra’s slaying of the bull, even Hinduism’s reverence for the cow, so much so that people who are starving won’t even kill their cows to eat. The list goes on and on. I believe Terence McKenna suggested that some of these cow-cults were actually celebrating the magic mushrooms which grew so well in the dung of these cows.
I would also guess that gold was associated with the sun, since the bull was a solar sacrifice. Clearly it is not about money because the people were more than happy to melt down their precious jewelry for what seemed to them to be a greater purpose of some kind - something more valuable than money.
I don’t agree with Skip that these are bad questions to ask or that they are a dead-end. I believe that declaring something a dead-end and saying “nothing to see here” is the much more obvious dead end.
Skip:
You’ve reached a level of dogmatism exactly as strong as the person who insists that there WERE those tablets. Simple fact is, neither of you has a lick of actual proof since you weren’t there.
Gyrus:
Awesome point implied in what you’re saying: that to actively destroy the idols is to invest them (idolatrously) with enough energy that they become dangerous.
ha ha ha , you missed all the points I was making. None of which had a thing to do with your commentary on what I said. Ha Ha ha.
Tim , I am thinking you are in La La Land tonite. Ha Ha Ha. heheheheh.
Man I am beginning to think you are one hell of a jaded person right now. I want to say cynic but this seems more extreme with that kind of commentary totaly unrelated to my post .
Ha Ha Ha Ha
By the way there is not god , let alone god writing on tablets.
Dogmatic .? La La Lala La Dream on. god wrote on tablets? uh huh. right.
Perfect example of brainwashing by religious disinformation , Now you are carrying the torch for a pack of lies that have been used to mentally torture people for centuries. Man I really can`t believe that I am Dogmatic. hahahahahahahahahaha
It’s like those giant Buddha statues. Until the Taliban blew them up I had no idea they existed. I’m sure I wasn’t alone in thinking, “Wow. Why were they such a threat? That Buddhism stuff must be some powerful juju.”
As far as the calf goes, a lot of it is astrology, age of Taurus and all that. And burning the gold and drinking the dust sounds like alchemy, which as most of you know is a “many stories rolled into one symbolic package” affair. The story was probably intended to function on many levels, psychological, chemical, financial, astronomical, agricultural, etc.
I wonder about the numerology. Ten commandments on two tablets. Ten fingers on two hands. Moses comes down from the mountain angry as hell, holds up his fists and says, “I’ve got ten commandments right here muthafuckas.”
You’re kidding right? That’s the first symptom of dogmatism.
(And Skip, must you laugh like that? You sound like Sideshow Bob.)
Many people think that Michaelangelo painted the Sistene Chapel using a brush. In fact, God painted it using a Michaelangelo.
Question: If there is no God, who is it who looks out from behind your eyes? You? Ha indeed. What hubris!
Skip, you seem to be illustrating my thing about literalism. “There is a god” vs. “There isn’t one”, “God Himself wrote the words on this stone” vs. “Don’t be dumb, it was just some guy doing it and lying about it”… They’re just poles on the literalist spectrum. And I think it’s adherence to this single plane of engagement with the world that’s our biggest problem.
The reason I thought of the questions was because in this part:
I wondered what other parts of the story (even though it is really short) could be looked at for significance rather than trying to read a ton of stuff and pick out really big things. The importance of the small I guess.
Any one that bothers two read the couple posts I made will find out from my references a whole lot about the subject here. Not just uninformed romantic balderdash like the stuff Tim posted.
There seems to be a general interest in religion in a grand cultural scale now.
The born agains in the guise of Bush , the angel shows on T.V. , The occultism/religious shows about phony spirituality , like psychic detectives shows.
Who painted the Sistine chapel. ? Da, god you say.? Is that some romantic poetry on your part.? I thought it was just a human animal that painted it.
In answer to your theory that perhaps Mr. god painted it , perhaps even the Judeo/Christian god even since that its what this post is about, I am just wondering what makes people like you get so terribly defensive.
On the oracle temple at Delphi , there were two things written , and considered to be important then, I will will reference them again.
Nothing to much. and
Know thyself as a human being and not as a god.
These are the people that invented that hubris word you used .
Think about that.
Just a little reality check buddy.
Just a little information for what seems to be some very anti`intellectual , and really very uninformed people here.
I see it is a no win situation to try and inform people with vested interest in crackpot religious stuff.
Christians are losers , that love to try and make people jump through their JuJu hoops.
I think the difference is terrorism Mr. Blind.
The people that made the calf were just about to be slaughtered for having a good time.
The people that were just about to slaughter them did it on gods orders .
This is kind of like group punishment , like destroying a whole town because a murderer is there.
I don`t know if you get my point , but you may like to read the entire story of what happens when the people there that had fun singing and dancing with the calf , were all murdered by another faction led by Moses and his faction .
It is one of the nastiest stories in the bible, and I mentioned at the front end of this thing , it is designed to scare the hell out of people, or in other words terrorize people with a certain belief system.
Btw, Stories like this are one of the reasons that people have hated the Jews .
This group has been hated and despised by others from day one almost because of these nasty and inhuman stories about themselves and others.
The fact that they brain wash their children even today by indoctrinating them with these terrorist dehumanizing tales is a real pity.
Lets tell the rest of the story now where the calf worshippers were wiped out. Lets give the number now of the people that were ordered killed by Mr. god for not obeying.
I would like to introduce a slight curve ball to this thread and suggest to anyone here that it might be interesting for them to read a story called
In the Penal Colony , by Franz Kafka.
This story is about obedience and punishment and the societal horror of group think .
Nasty Nasty story, , , this tablet story. All about striking the fear of a half arsed fascist/authoritarian control freak god into a bunch of losers that need to be controled. Very Nazi like. Zieg Heil , Mr. god. Kill the idoliters on your orders Mr.god . A good example for others Mr. god . Scare the pants off the children and gullible adults Mr. god.
Skip, if that’s you trying to inform people, I’d love to see you ramble incoherently.
You are entitled to your opinion unthinkable. I try to base mine on fact. Any opinion is as valuable as any other.
This is simply false on its face.
Skip, I’ve noticed a tendency you seem to have. Maybe you’d appreciate having the outside feedback on how you’re coming off. When someone challenges you in certain areas (religion, etc), you become very defensive and resort to name-calling and derision. I respect you and your opinions and have enjoyed our interactions for the most part, but I find these times when you slide into this behavior to not be very conducive to our having meaningful discussion.
I certainly don’t think we all need to agree. In fact, I like it a lot better when we don’t, but I do think there are certain standards of deceny which if we all adhere to will make our time spent (virtually) together more fruitful for all of us.
If you don’t understand my point of view and would like me to clarify so that we can appreciate one another more as real people, then I would be happy to do so.
To be completly honest with you Tim , I don`t care what you think. That may or may not seem disrespectful to you , but it is the truth.
In your opinion you apparently think I am somehow insulting people.
I put the info I put here to inform people.
To me if some find offense in anything above, I would say they are thin skinned, or not really interested at getting at the truth.
If you wish me to vacate the site I will. Just because I don`t care what you think doesn`t mean that I don`t appreciate you as a real person.
Skip opined:
Then try harder. All I see is rhetoric, which would be fine if you were good at it.
The biggest problem with being addicted to alleged facts and truths is that they are really hard to let go of should they turn out to be wrong, which happens more often than you’d think.
Being willing to admit you might be wrong is the first step toward being right.
I’m an analytical chemist, so I’m hardly an airy-fairy anti-intellectual (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but facts are practically useless without two other faculties: an open mind and gut instinct. Without them you’re just a meat robot lacking the ability to learn from your mistakes.
Ok so you don’t like the bearded Santa-type God. Me neither, I’m no Christian. But I have seen something else that was so um, indescribable that no other descriptor but ‘God’ will suffice. You can deny the validity of my senses and sanity, but I would be as justified in applying the same criteria to your experience of reality and we’ll end up having one of those existential Matrix conversations, which is just a little passe.
If you really don’t care what people think, why are you trying so hard to inform us all? The idea of taking a leap of faith makes you quite uncomfortable doesn’t it? But you’ll swallow everything the scientific priesthood throws at you because science is inerrant or something? I’m guessing that, like most self-proclaimed rationalists, you believe in the Big Bang, yes? I don’t, and for good reason. But I wouldn’t want to think I’m better than all the deluded believers, because 1) I could be wrong, 2) It’s mean and dehumanizing, and 3) I don’t want to sound like a bloody priest! It’s just embarrassing for everyone who has to witness it.
Fwiw, being proud of not caring what other people think is just really, really, sad. Oh and it’s the third symptom of dogmatism (the second is fact worship). Seriously Skip, you need to see an exorcist, you’ve got it bad.
(This is just friendly bickering, try not to get your panties in a bunch.)
And? So what?
No, I think you are simply being annoying and that otherwise you say fairly interesting things, but that when one of your mental-emotional blocks gets triggered, you go completely haywire and put your fingers in your ears and go “NYAH NYAH NYAH NYAH NYAH” and then try to remind yourself that what we’re saying isn’t true and doesn’t challenge the identity which you both cling to and instinctively recognize you no longer need.
You wouldn’t stay away if I told you to, and anyway that’s never been my intention. Re-reading those comments, you’ll see that my intention is to establish a set of simple social protocols (in the absence of physical and similar cues online) to enable us to have what I consider to be stimulating and useful conversations.
Frankly, I think you enjoy these conversations precisely because they do challenge you and you don’t want to hear them and they force you into odd mental positions. And that’s one of the things I really appreciate about you - is that you seem to be willing to allow yourself to enter into those types of situations (from what little I know of you, that is).
Now, to re-iterate and maybe start from scratch since we’ve cleared all that up: I’m not suggesting that you ought to accept that God exists, or that Jesus or Moses were actual historical figures. Nor am I therefore suggesting you need to “accept Jesus into your heart” or that the Bible is somehow the “Word of God.” I believe everyone answers those types of questions for themselves. What I like to do is put people into positions where they have to ask those questions and many other more interesting ones which they may never have thought about. I’m not so much attempting to persuade or to “inform” (as you said you are), but to allow people some space and tools with which they can transform.
I find references to the Bible and other metaphysical, paranormal and conspiratorial subjects to be very useful for these purposes because they are extremely subtle and nuanced areas of both thought and personal experience. I choose them because they are slippery and because they inspire melt-downs and flare-outs.
What your reactions say to me is that something is locked in these questions for you about divinity: something so powerful that you seem to actively fear it and try to wish it away. Whether or not it is “God” per se, or something else, I suspect that over careful consideration, you’ll know that there really is something here you personally *need* to probe. Only you can decide what the best way to do that is. Maybe for you, for right now, the best way is exactly what you’re doing. Or maybe not. Just realize though that we are all in this together, all struggling through the same things and maybe there are ways we can help one another - even when it seems like there are not, and like noone else really gets it…
I’m going to bed. Have a pleasant evening!
Thanks Tim for the excellent and thoughtful response. I think we are pretty much on the same page.
I admit to being forceful in my opinions , and part of what I do is to run with things in what could be described in an effort to apply a little shock to sensibilities. I have my reasons for doing this , and I will just say that it connected to another thread in a way where Gurdjieff was discussed.
I am very much fascinated by and have been thinking about and studying the very heart of what religion is , and also very much value , these old texts, how they came about, what they teach us, etc.
The not caring what people think thing, is my way of going through a,, from my perspective , insane world.
I always allow people to think anything , and try not be unduly influenced by other people.
To me this is the ultimate caring.
Most importantly for me I try not to get people to be what I want them to be.
In other words by not caring what people think, I hope this allows people to act out in their own certain way. Playing things out always seems better to me than little nicety’s.
I know that you are not looking for converts. You are right that I find some of the things you post really interesting.
Unthinkable , I have no idea what the Matix was except that I saw a movie preview of some people flying over a house or something like that.
My focus is mostly art and history , and my type of ideas and opinions can be gotten at from, those sources also.
I am sorry if I have unintentionally offended any one. What I mostly write is not meant to do that. I like to think what I am doing is bringing out some different insights. My hope is actually that some people may find some things I have to say kind of liberating.
Btw , I never mean to be an intellectual bully , and don`t consider myself such. Just someone that wants to get at the truth. The truth is a really rare and precious thing, and sometimes the truth has a lively changing face.
I don’t agree that the truth is rare, but I do think it is certainly precious!