THL-1050 – Professor Ruscil
03/23/2009 – 16:30
Reading handout on Gnosticism, a particular form of dualism that x-tianity battled with in the early (post-1st-c.) church (after the diaspora to Greece). Bart Ehrman, Lost Christianities, ch 06
Next quiz: Mon. of “Holy Week” (Wed. class may be canceled that week). Covers all material covered since the mid-term. Review next Wed. (read all articles, more content than the first quiz)
2nd response paper assignment will be assigned then too.
Tonight: Compare and contrast biblical x-tianity to a type of dualistic, platonic x-tianity that x-tians inherited after moving to the Greek world.
To understand the message of what Jesus was about, the Jewish side must/should be understood.
The body has no understanding of categorical parts of itself. There is no dichotomy. Not a Jewish concept, this came from the Greeks.
Lord’s prayer, un-Greek. Asking for heaven to come down to earth (not for earth to go up to heaven)
If God grants life for either of these two groups, it will mean greatly different things. For Jews “something we can experience”, for the Greeks, “afterlife”.
The assumption of Mary, the feast is about Mary being assumed bodily, the symbol of x-tian discipleship, see #9 under Hebrew Spirituality below.
Hebrew Spirituality:
1. Make-up of humanity:
· Embodied persons (synthetic)
· Hebrew “bashar” –> difficult to translate, but “flesh” might be a way to approach it. “All flesh will see the salvation of God”. “Though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh I shall see God”. Not really in the “meat” sense, but emphasizes our common, objective dimension that we share together. –> Human attributes like weakness, corruptibility (physical and moral), mortality, etc.
· Hebrew “nephesh” –> Again difficult to translate, but “personal self”, or “living beings”. “Self” – emphasizes the subjective dimension, not psychological, not an inner quality. –highlights relational dimension; emphasizes life. Both these (bashar and nephesh) refer to the totality of a person. They are inseparable, there is no dichotomy, one cannot be without the other.
2. Motto: I AM my body
3. Approach to life: living life to the fullest; embracing bodily life (Braveheart reference again given, eveyone’s going to die but not everyone lives).
· Quality = blessings of God (pleasures)
4. Human vocation –> to become fully human through your relationships / any diminishment of life = evil. (The glory of God is the human person fully alive.)
5. Sin = based on our behavior within relationships/alienation, etc.
6. Main human attribute –> heart, desire of the human person, or the will St. Bernard “What you love is what you will become”
7. The enemy of humanity: death (and any type of physical, emotional, or spiritual handicap that lessens human living)
8. Major Conflict: life vs. death –> Salvation must be an embodied reality.
9. Salvation/Redemption –> focus is on the totality of the embodied person –> “resurrection”/transformation of life, a completely transformed physical totality.
· Emphasize the sanctity of the body
Greek Platonic Spirituality:
1. Make-up of humanity: dichotomy of body to soul
· Body –> temporal, provisional, a shell
· Soul = The “real” you, the center of consciousness, the subject of a person, immortal (Socrates, don’t worry about my body, my soul will transcend. Kind of a cavalier attitude about death, as opposed to Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, much more grave (though hemlock vs. crucifixion is something to ponder)
2. Motto: I have a body
3. Subjugating bodily desires; needs; passions to the spirit;
· “Asceticism” –> denial of bodily need
4. To rise above & transcend physical, bodily life > soul is imperiled through body –> “apatheia” –> ideal of life > total detachment
5. Sin = what we do with our bodily life/ bodily life is context for sin
6. Main attribute –> knowledge or intellect. Salvation & knowledge go together.
7. Physical existence is the enemy; death is positive –> the release of the human soul from its prison of earthly life
8. Conflict: body vs. soul –> world is static, no chance of change, no hope, nothing new is going to happen in the world. –> Salvation is escaping.
9. Salvation –> emphasizes the the immortal/disembodied soul
· Focus is on the eternal (after-)life of the “other world”.