Unsucky English, Lecture 1: On Gilgamesh, and Dangerous Questions
with 129 comments
Print This Post
Come on in, Ned. And bring your kids.
[This post had major problems in its original draft. I heavily edited it for all you stumblers. Later posts in the "Unsucky Gilgamesh" series: 2: The Day I Thought Gilgamesh Would Cost Me My Job ~ 3: Adam and Eve, Backwards ~ 4. The Seven Deadly Sins, Backwards ~ 5. Good and Evil, Nature and the Hero - Backwards]
To My Few Student Readers: Please Stay
I’m bored writing for adults these days, and most of my readers are adults. If you’re a student, can you send this link to your friends, put it on Facebook, Stumble it, etc? I want students as my audience for this series, because I want to share with you all a series of posts, beginning today and continuing for years, probably, about:
Why the Classics Only Seem to Suck
I don’t blame students who think classic literature sucks.1
They have millions of good reasons to think that. They may, for example, have:
- teachers who aren’t that great at reading, writing, or teaching, or
- great teachers at not-so-great schools that are afraid to let them read the most controversial literature (almost all schools are really afraid of students and their parents), or
- English worksheets that turn literature into anatomy tests (”Identify which phrase below is an example of onomatopoeia” and similar dentist drills), or
- five-paragraph essays to write in which the teacher in #1 tells them that they “must not use ‘I’, must have a topic sentence in the first line of each paragraph,” and a million other rules that real writers (we just excluded most teachers there) ignore altogether, or
- a lack of time to read the books assigned in English class, what with all the other homework (they want to have a little time of their own to just live their life, after all, to maybe read stuff they want to read - so why not just read the Sparknotes summaries?), or
- over-their-head levels of language complexity or adult content that they really shouldn’t be expected to comprehend (language) or care about (a middle-aged housewife’s psychology) until they’re well out of high school, or
- dry lists of words and terms to memorize for that most ultra-sucky thing of all - that thing which more and more schools and parents seem to think education is now - the S.A.T.
My Promises for This Series
I promise not to bore you with trivia or showy diction - to use “use” instead of “utilize.” And I promise to try to give you enjoyable ideas of why, despite the pain of many English classes, this thing called literature, played with naturally, gives pleasure. Much classic literature is wonderful. I get more pleasure out of a used one-dollar copy of a Shakespeare or Oscar Wilde play than I do out of my $5,000 home theater. When I want a buzz, I choose books over booze and bongs. Good literature is the best drug out there.
Added Bonus: I’ll throw in a “big picture” tour of the history of literature from the earliest story ever told - today’s post - forward through the centuries to the Greeks, the Hebrews and their Bible, the Romans, the fascinatingly whacked Middle Ages and the lovely Renaissance, the supremely dangerous Shakespeare and the often-kinky Romantics, straight on up to a few choice books from our modern times. (That’s another thing that annoys me about so many English classes I’ve had to teach: they rip all books out of their historical context, and disconnect them from their times and each other. It’s like studying butterflies pinned under glass instead of watching them fly among the flowers.)
I’ll also avoid constipated scholar-talk in favor of the conversational, occasionally dangerous style of a teacher who can tell you the truth, as he sees it, about these books without fear of being fired for ruffling the feathers of the fearful “three P’s”: parents, principals, and preachers.
Great books are often door-openings to dangerous places, places polite society fears and deems off-limits. When those doors open in a classroom, teachers often refuse to enter. There’s always the student who can’t handle it, who complains to one of the three P’s, and forces the conversation to remain, safe and proper, in the well-lit hallway.
Not so here where, away from school, we can touch the taboos, and experience how literature can be a threat and a danger to who we are, to how we’ve been conditioned to see life, to our culture’s status quo.
Doris Lessing really nails the connection between schools and the status quo better than I could dream of doing, so I’ll close this section with her:2
“You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry, but it is the best we can do. What you are being taught here is an amalgam of current prejudice and the choices of this particular culture. The slightest look at history will show how impermanent these must be. You are being taught by people who have been able to accommodate themselves to a regime of thought laid down by their predecessors. It is a self-perpetuating system. Those of you who are more robust and individual than others, will be encouraged to leave and find ways of educating yourself - educating your own judgment. Those that stay must remember, always and all the time, that they are being molded and patterned to fit into the narrow and particular needs of this society.” - Doris Lessing
Now here goes.
Starting at the beginning - literally: c. 3,000 BCE
Let’s start with the oldest story ever told (or at least that we have written down), the first story in the history of our species, the story whose title, tragically, will make your eyes roll and your feet head for the exit door the minute you hear it, because it’s associated with your lifetime of aversion to classroom classics.
I’m talking about Gilgamesh.
Don’t leave.
Gilgamesh - the Earth's Oldest Epic - in Stephen Mitchell's brilliant 2004 translation.
It’s one of the coolest books you’ll ever read. It comes from one of the earliest cities, literally, on Earth - but it’s so alien to everything we Judeo-Christian types have been conditioned to think of as “good and evil,” “right and wrong,” that it seems a work of science fiction or fantasy more than anything else.
Really, don’t leave. You’ll miss the part about a religion that sees sex as a good and holy thing.
I’m not making this up. Here’s the background:
Gilgamesh is the story of a Sumerian king who actually lived and ruled around 2,700 BCE. That’s almost 5,000 years ago. The city itself was a thousand years old when the story was written, so we’re talking a story from a civilization 6,000 years ago.
Stop and let that sink in. The Bible is only half that old, with the “Old Testament” reaching its final form around 400 BCE, and the “New Testament” not being slapped together until around 330 CE (or A.D., if you’re out of touch with proper scholarly conventions). So Gilgamesh is more than twice as old as the Bible. The Bible’s a pup compared to this story, and as I’ll argue, the Bible is less wise, in many deep and fundamental ways, than this Sumerian book as well.
Moving on: The king’s city, Uruk, was such a walled and templed and terraced wonder that the citizens themselves were blown away by it. Since the story is from an age close to the agricultural revolution, when we stopped wandering around as nomads and living more like herd animals than humans, we get a sense, when we read this story, that the people who wrote it are totally aware of what a cool thing they’ve accomplished by making one of the world’s first grand cities - first, do you hear?
Looking out from Uruk’s walls across the sandy plains of what is today Iraq (Uruk was not far from later Babylon and today’s Baghdad3 ), you would have seen no other cities. Cities, to repeat, were new, and Uruk was one of the first. When you read this story, it’s like the story-teller remembers the days before the city was invented, the days of wearing animal skins and being goat-herders or hunter-gatherers. And you can clearly tell he loves his city all the more for the different kind of life it makes possible - the civilized life.
It’s a story, then, of humanity basically crowing its pride over creating civilization by creating that Most Needful Thing for civilization to exist at all: a city. If someone were to have written a blurb on the back of the book back then (which he couldn’t have done because the “pages” were actually baked clay tablets stacked like bricks in the library, all covered in reed-imprinted cuneiform), he would have written something like,
Unlike our neighbors in every direction, we aren’t hunter-gatherers, goat-herding nomads, or farmers in country villages. We’re civilized. We built a city. And we’re damned proud of that.
Luckily, since Uruk was civilized, it had court poets instead of flag-waving idiots to tell the story a bit more gracefully, and to tweak it and revise it over a couple thousand years to make it just so.
On Sex, Good and Bad
I have to be careful about sex here, because the story itself is.
Rendering of a ziggurat in Uruk (PD-self from Wikicommons)
On the one hand, the city had temples (like the ziggurat pictured right) dedicated to the goddess Ishtar, the goddess of love, fertility, procreation, and - strangely - war. (Aphrodite is basically the Greek version of the much older Ishtar, and Venus the Roman version. You knew that.)
We’re so blind today to the seeming magic through which sexual intercourse leads to pregnancy, and pregnancy to the creation of life from the womb of woman, that it takes a bit of imagination-work for us to appreciate how much sense it would make to pre-civilized and first-civilized humans to consider sex, pregnancy and birth, and above all women, as magical, sacred things.
That the Sumerians did consider sex sacred is clearly shown by this fact: the temples of Ishtar were staffed with priestesses whose role was to have sex there, in the temple - whether only with the king or other elites, or with everyone, I don’t know. These temple prostitutes were not “sinners,” were not “immoral”; they were respected every bit as much as Pastor Teds and Imam Abdullahs in churches and mosques around the world today.
And sex was not a “sin.” It was a holy thing. Check out “heiros gamos” on Wikipedia for the juicy (but deep) details. (And stay tuned for my own theory, when we get to the Bible one of these days in this series, of how Ishtar and the Sumerians influenced the Jewish priests who wrote the Bible’s Genesis to make Eve such a bad character in the story, and sex - everybody’s favorite hobby, to riff off Woody Allen - such a bad, guilty act.)
So in Uruk, it may have been your duty as a good, gods-fearing citizen, to go to “church” occasionally to have sex with a temple prostitute.
In class, this point would get giggles from the immature or freak-outs from the ever-present class prudes, and the following idea would never sink in - which is sad, because it could lead to possibly deep and beautiful ideas such as this:
Think of how different it must have been, as a young person entering puberty, not to be shamed for suddenly discovering sexuality, but to instead, I imagine, be congratulated by family and society, maybe brought to “church” - the temple - to have that sexual awakening honored and instructed through some religious initiation. To be welcomed into this magical new stage, rather than met with the silence and denial puberty is usually met with in our own culture. “Abstinence-only” sex education would be laughed at in Sumer, and priests, parents, and schools would be comfortable with this natural thing. There were far fewer locked doors, hidden materials, and guilt-burdened consciences for boys and girls back then, I suspect.
But it could also lead to less “beautiful” but still “deep” questions like this: For the “prostitute,” how was “temple prostitution” then different from prostitution now? Since sex wasn’t shameful then, was prostitution also not shameful? Were the temple prostitutes abused and frowned upon the way many prostitutes are today?4 Or were they protected from abuse by the temple, and by the reverent treatment of those they served there - treated less like today’s “whores,” in other words, than like today’s preachers? Since they surely thought of sex differently than we in the West do in the Judeo-Christian framework - and we inherited much of that framework whether we’re religious or not - it’s not an easy question to answer.5
(Do you see the “science fiction” side yet?)
But on the other hand, there was such a thing as “bad sex” in this story - and it’s what gets the plot rolling.
King Gilgamesh was a bit of a jerk when it came to sex. Because he was king, and above the law, he had more choices than his wives or the temple prostitutes. And the choice he made struck everyone involved - even the gods, who looked on from heaven - as really, really wrong: Gilgamesh chose to treat himself to the bed of every new bride on her wedding day - before her husband did.
So the people of the kingdom get understandably offended by this cocky king, and their complaints finally make it to the ears of the gods: the big-daddy god in particular, Anu (think Zeus and you’re close enough).
And here’s another place I think it gets deep and beautiful - but first let me take a detour to mention a couple of important things that connect to the beliefs of Jews and Christians and Muslims today. The “deep and beautiful” stuff won’t work unless you know this.
On God, His Leadership Style, and His Fore-Fathers
First, the Gilgamesh epic is from a culture6 that spoke a Semitic language related to Hebrew and Arabic, and that dominated the Middle East for thousands of years before Judaism, the religion of the Bible and of Jesus, even existed.
Second, the Hebrews who first settled Israel over a thousand years after the Gilgamesh story knew this dominant culture, and included many Sumerian myths in the Bible; two well-known examples are the Six-Days’ Creation and Noah and the Flood in Genesis (the Sumerian Noah, Utnapishtim, will be a major character by this story’s end, by the way - and will tell the original and much older Sumerian version of the Flood later adapted in Genesis). You can read the Sumerian creation myth, the Enuma Elish, yourself to see the similarities. It’s only a few pages long.
But the differences between the Sumerian and Judeo-Christian gods are even more interesting.
The most interesting difference to me is that the Sumerian religion had male and female gods and, more importantly, that the main Sumerian “god the father” type was, like most fathers, married. It’s always seemed weird to me that the Judeo-Christian-Islamic god is alone, unmarried. Zeus had Hera, the Sumerian Anu had Aruru, but Yahweh, the “God” of the Bible?7 No female for him. You have to wonder why the Hebrews took the female from heaven, who did it, when, and how. I do, anyway. But I’ll share those thoughts down the road.
The other interesting difference is in the morality - I almost want to say “leadership style” - of the two father gods. To see the difference, let’s do a thought experiment: pretend Gilgamesh did his wife-stealing stunt in Jerusalem, that Gilgamesh was a Hebrew and his god was not Anu but Yahweh, the god of the Jews and Christians.
When that God hears that Gilgamesh is deflowering all the wives of all “His people” - “coveting” more than his neighbors’ (and subjects’) “asses” and therefore breaking one of the Ten Commandments - how do you think that God would react?
People will argue with me here, but I don’t see how they can win: that God deals with sinners, rebels, and others who disobey him with this “leadership decision”: punishment. He’s an “angry God,” as he says himself. 8 It’s hard to see that God doing much but using angry force to punish Gilgamesh and make him change his ways. Human obedience is what matters to that God, as I read him; human wisdom comes a distant second. You want evidence? God’s instructions for dealing with people who disobey his laws, over and over (in Deuteronomy especially), is to simply kill them. And Adam and Eve received one hell of a punishment because of their disobedience, too.
Back to the Story: “What Would Jesus Anu Do?”
But the earlier Sumerian god, Anu? His reaction to Gilgamesh’s adulterous outrage is totally intriguing, and in my view, totally cool. I like this god.
He doesn’t say “Punish him.” He doesn’t say “Kill him.” Instead, he turns to Aruru, the goddess who the Sumerians believed created humanity from earthly clay, and tells her to do it one more time.
He tells her, more interesting still, not to create any old human, but instead a special type. “Now go and create,” he tells her,
“a double for Gilgamesh, his second self,
a man who equals his strength and courage,
a man who equals his stormy heart.
Create a new hero, let them balance each other
perfectly, so that Uruk has peace.”
And so she does.
I’m going to stop here for the moment, and just share why I think Anu is a god worthy of the title. Because by creating a “double” for Gilgamesh instead of simply killing him on the spot, he shows that to him, “sin” is a lack of wisdom. As you’ll see, he creates this double so that Gilgamesh may have the experiences he needs to grow wiser. I also think he’s just plain smooth for not freaking out and throwing a temper tantrum, but instead coolly coming up with this mysterious idea:
“Make a double for him. That should do the trick.”
What a wtf plot twist. Love it. Suspense accomplished.
And it’s a wonderfully optimistic view of man for a God to have: not “fallen” and in need of salvation, not infantile and in need of a list of Commandments to unthinkingly obey, not tainted by any “original sin,” but instead: capable of growing through experience, of learning and finding his own way, of finding “balance” that brings “peace.”
That “double,” by the way? His name is Enkidu - and he’s Gilgamesh’s double in a curious and fascinating way: Gilgamesh is two-thirds divine, one-third human; Enkidu, on the other hand, is - get this - two-thirds animal, one-third human. Gilgamesh is the king of civilization; Enkidu is a wild-man living naked in the wilderness, alone with no human companionship. But this animal-man is actually innocent and good - shades of some pre-Biblical Darwinian understanding that, hello?, humans are indeed animals in the animal kingdom, and that that bit of natural obviousness is nothing to freak out about?
Before Closing:
Challenges, corrections, extensions, additions, and anything else are welcome. More on Gilgamesh soon.9
Next: 2: The Day I Thought Gilgamesh Would Cost Me My Job ~ 3: Adam and Eve, Backwards ~ 4. The Seven Deadly Sins, Backwards ~ 5. Good and Evil, Nature and the Hero - Backwards
~ ~ ~
If you like this post, please spread it: 
(But don't tag it "education." That will bury it.)
- thanks to Tom, by the way, whose post partly inspired this and who turned me on to that article. [↩]
- and thanks to R. Greco for this gem [↩]
- that’s right: the US military is occupying and bombing the earliest civilization in the Middle East, and for any of you familiar with Mosul, that’s where the clay tablets holding the Gilgamesh story were uncovered, after two thousand years of sand-buried silence, by a British guy in the late 1800s [↩]
- And - are there prostitutes today that don’t feel ashamed, aren’t abused or frowned upon, and actually find fulfillment in their profession? Aren’t the questions endless? [↩]
- Thanks to the Salon.com forum that mentions this post for pointing out this angle. [↩]
- it’s complicated: the earlier Sumerians, whose language was not related to the Semitic Hebrew and Arabic, were overthrown by other races, including the Akkadians and Babylonians, whose languages were both dialects of Semitic Assyrian, and who kept the story alive [↩]
- Yahweh is a Hebrew name for what English-speaking Jews and Christians call “God” [↩]
- And boy, I just opened the floodgates to a million evangelists to explain how Jesus marked a change in God’s law, a new covenant, with mercy replacing wrath, et cetera. But I’m going to side with the Jewish people on this one, for the sake of argument, and stick only to their original, non-Christian texts. The Torah above all. I’m talking about that God as the literary character we read about in Jewish religious literature. [↩]
- and if you decide to buy the book, be sure to buy the Mitchell translation pictured above. All the other ones I’ve seen are pretty crappy in comparison. This one’s fantastic. [↩]
We actually read Gilgamesh for school last year… without glossing over the sex. The only thing I wish is that I hadn’t read it for school. Reading in preperation for a test is less enjoyable by many orders of magnitude, no matter the content. When you are trying to remember exactly what a list of 10 vocab words meant, it’s hard to get into the flow of the story. I don’t care what school would have me believe, but reading which isn’t fun (and thus engaging), isn’t worth reading.
On another note, I think you oversold this too much. Teens interact with the people and ideas, not the “lingo.”
[Reply]
Morgante Pell
26 Aug 08 at 2:54 pm
@Morgante, Yeah, it was a hard one to write. Many interruptions, which always kill me. But the “lingo” was less a reflection of what I think “teens” would like and more an attempt to just write about stuff I love in ways similar to how I sometimes talk about it with friends.
Did you read the Mitchell version? And did you talk the connections to Judeo-Christianity? Those connections are more than half of what makes the story so interesting.
[Reply]
john Reply:
September 12th, 2008 at 12:01 am
christianity is just mithraism gone wrong
[Reply]
speroni Reply:
September 19th, 2008 at 10:11 am
…and Mithra was based on Horus.
speronis last blog post..Snake? Snake!?!?! SNAAAAAKKKEEEE!!!!!!
[Reply]
Clay Burell
26 Aug 08 at 3:03 pm
Your page is now on StumbleUpon!
26 Aug 08 at 3:32 pm
Yes, it was the Mitchell version if I remember correctly.
Unfortunately, we didn’t talk about the connections with Judeo-Christianity in any great detail… we discussed the “facts” about the connections (which stories were replicated), but the class certainly wasn’t encouraged to discuss the moral implications… only what could be expected coming from public schools in the US.
[Reply]
Morgante Pell
26 Aug 08 at 3:34 pm
I’m not a student but I thought this was brilliant.
fairyhedgehogs last blog post..Feedback
[Reply]
Clay Burell Reply:
August 28th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Thank you, by the way
[Reply]
fairyhedgehog
26 Aug 08 at 7:02 pm
I feel like I live in a different world of teaching than you ever knew existed. I talk to my students all the time about the great themes of literature, film…the stories that hold us together and drive us apart.
And I’m not at all worried about getting fired over it…where the heck did you work that you had such worries?
oh - and do you really have a $5000 stereo system? Cool
Tracy Rosens last blog post..Pick it up
[Reply]
Clay Burell Reply:
August 27th, 2008 at 3:45 am
@Tracy: Really, you can question the wisdom of the Bible and its god in your classroom, and openly suggest that sex is a good thing, without fire alarms going off?
And yes, $5,000 sound system. And I almost never listen to it.
[Reply]
Tracy Rosen Reply:
August 29th, 2008 at 7:14 am
Yes, really. It may be my luck, that I live and work in Quebec, where these subjects are perhaps less taboo than in other areas. But yes, really, I can.
Tracy Rosens last blog post..Pick it up
[Reply]
ELT Reply:
August 31st, 2008 at 9:09 am
You can’t just say it’s $5K and not describe it. We want details.
BTW, Theta-Krell-Silverline Audio-Escient.
There. I started it.
[Reply]
Clay Burell Reply:
August 31st, 2008 at 1:38 pm
I’ll play. PAVV (Korean) HDTV, Denon AVR-3805, Elac 5-speaker surround hi-fi. (But don’t mistake me for an audiofile. I’m not techy enough, or patient enough - yet.
)
[Reply]
Tracy Rosen
26 Aug 08 at 7:26 pm
Going to grab Gilgamesh and read it again. It sits on the bookshelf between Cicero and Herodotus. My year elevens and I had a rather enjoyable afternoon reading Poet and The Women by Aristophanes. They even sang the chorus with melodies that they made up on the fly depending on the meter. The plot cracked them up. The reading cracked them up. The smiles were broad, the laughter was long. They will remember something of the position of women in 5th century Athens. We completed Act One. The second act this Thursday. Great post Clay.
Cheers,
John
[Reply]
Clay Burell Reply:
August 28th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Jump on in, John. Good discussions here.
I’m dashed: my copy of the Mitchell translation belonged to my last school, so I don’t have it handy to review for the rest of the posts! In Korea, that means weeks waiting for the mail from elsewhere.
[Reply]
John Larkin
26 Aug 08 at 8:47 pm
I can hardly wait for the next installment. I’m going to pick up Mitchell’s Gilgamesh today.
Sharon Seslijas last blog post..Research Projects That Motivate
[Reply]
Clay Burell Reply:
August 28th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Thanks Betty
[Reply]
Sharon Seslija
26 Aug 08 at 8:56 pm
Good morning, Clay -
Sorry, I’m bad with instructions, so I read your post even though I’m old.
I love Gilgamesh, and Stephen Mitchell is my favorite translator of so many works and writers (Lao-tsu, the Bhagavad Gita, Rilke).
One of my favorite Star Trek: TNG episodes, Darmok, (with the late Paul Winfield as the metaphor-speaking Tamarian captain) returns to this story of friendship. I may use it in my Science Fiction/Fantasy class this year.
For the last two years I have taught Psychology in Literature to second semester seniors. Some very honest, enlightening, thoughtful, hilarious, and embarrassing conversations about literature happened in that class.
And thanks once again to the United States Congress for yet another contemporary example of a man in public office having sex with someone who is not his wife. How easy that makes teaching The Scarlet Letter (which is about sex, love, the human heart, and choosing to defy convention.)
Oh, and one of my favorite words is sucktastic.
Kate Tabors last blog post..Rehearsal, revision: preview, prehear?
[Reply]
Clay Burell Reply:
August 28th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
“Sucktastic” - duly noted. Will use in future episodes
[Reply]
Kate Tabor
27 Aug 08 at 12:39 am
Great post Clay; stumbled across this so I’m a first time reader here, but I’ll definitely come back for more!
I’ve loved literature from an early age, and like many others, school took the bright glow from that love and dimmed it with tests, dissection and going at the pace of the slowest student.
THink it might be time to get out Sweet’s Anglo Saxon Prose again and re-enjoy The Ballad of Cynewulf and Cyneheard!
Thanks again
[Reply]
Clay Burell Reply:
August 27th, 2008 at 3:56 am
@James, just a quick thanks for bothering to be kind.
Anglo-Saxon….I love it. Half the job of a high school English teacher worth his or her salt these days is to un-teach the idea that long Latinate words (”SAT words”) are better for writing than the snappy Anglo-Saxon.
As I love to tell my students, I’ll take a “kiss” over an “osculation” any day.
[Reply]
James
27 Aug 08 at 2:25 am
Thanks for a great essay, I plan on reading further. Just so you know, mid-way through your piece, I went to Amazon and ordered the book.
I have two comments:
1. Personally, I’m bothered by the “proper scholarly conventions”. BCE vs. BC and CE vs. AD. What, exactly makes the “common era” the common era? Oh yeah, THAT. Which is to say, BCE and CE are nothing more than empty PC posturing. A tool to help users pretend they are not using the referrant that they are clearly using. And because they obscure the basis of the time pivot, they obscure rather than advance meaning (as is typical for all things PC–it is the enemy of knowledge and understanding).
2. The Hebrew god created nature, and therefore is above nature. Male and female are concepts of nature and therefore the Hebrew god, being above nature, is neither male nor female. It is a short-coming of the English language that we do not have a non-gender-specific third person singular pronoun, forcing us to give to god a gender that the Hebrews who first worshipped “him” would not have recognized.
So, the Hebrews did not remove the female god from the pantheon, leaving the male god alone; the Hebrews removed gender from the pantheon, leaving a god neither male nor female. Interesting to me is the change introduced by Christianity–by giving god a consort and a son, they made him male for the first time. To my knowledge, you don’t see “god the father” anywhere in the old testament. The new testament god has been brought closer to us, made more human and, therefore, less godly.
[Reply]
Clay Burell Reply:
August 27th, 2008 at 3:54 am
Tim, thanks for the thoughts.
Re: 1. I hear you, but I think there’s substance to the shift from “BC” and “AD” to “BCE” and “CE.” Yes, they still reference the same pivot point, which still smacks of cultural imperialism, but any alternative would be messier than going from British to Metric measures. At least there’s no explicit or implicit confirmation that “Jesus is Lord” (Domini) when we say “CE.” To me that’s a good, respectful, scientific shift.
Re: 2. It’s been so long since I read Bloom and others about the different writers - what, J, D, Q, and Y ? - of the Old Testament. Seems I remember there are actually two main names for “God” in the Torah: what, El (maybe Elohim?) and Yahweh? And wasn’t one more anthropomorphized than the other? God’s “walking in the garden” and calling around for Adam and Eve after the Fall, for example - is that a Christian re-write?
Still, interesting points. I’d love more clarification. God sure has come to take on a “fatherly” persona in Judaism as much as Christianity and Islam, as far as I can see.
[Reply]
George Reply:
August 28th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Re: 1
If one finds a new celestial body, one gets to name it. If one finds ( creates ) a new element, one gets to name it. They that defined our “current era” named it.
If you want to use CE, define it and it’s yours. If it’s the same as AD, then either you’re a plagiarist or a fraud. THAT’S academic rigor. THAT’S being respectful. THAT’S science.
Silly innuendos of undefinable and irrelevant motives, i.e. “cultural imperialism”, are the methods of politicians and demagogues.
You, sir, are a journalist.
[Reply]
Clay Burell Reply:
August 28th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Huh?
Historians didn’t “find” world history, and neither did the Church. Logic check.
“Define it and it’s yours” sounds so solipsistic I don’t know what to do with it.
Rude bombast is no substitute for logic: call an African “Johnson,” you change his reality; call time “the Lord’s,” you do the same - motive or no motive.
If you’re not being rude, my apologies. I’m a bit of a tone-mirror in comments.
Sir.
[Reply]
tim maguire
27 Aug 08 at 2:45 am
Here by Stumbling and just commenting to say how much I wish you had met my old religoin teacher from high school. You would have had a blast:
“We’ll be starting with the Bible. You know, the apple thing? Yeah, looking at the climate it was probably a fig and not an apple. And what does a fig look like? It looks like a uterus, it does! What do you make of that?”
He had similar openings for every lessons and while some of them were more far-fetched than others, they did make people participate instead of texting their friends.
[Reply]
Clay Burell Reply:
August 27th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
I’m a fan. I wouldn’t have texted either.
[Reply]
Thomsen
27 Aug 08 at 4:28 am
Hey Clay, I feel compelled to comment again: what fun!!! I actually love Gilgamesh, and don’t have to be sold on it… I am so glad you are preaching the Gilgamesh gospel here! Gilgamesh is one of the options in my Myth-Folklore class (although it’s competing with Egypt that week, and Egypt usually trounces Gilgamesh) - http://www.mythfolklore.net/3043mythfolklore - anyway, that’s not until next week, but one of my students is working ahead, chose Gilgamesh, and did this great story retelling with Siduri, the ale maid. I’m pasting it in here - my students publish their formal writing assignments as webpages on the open Internet, but they do the blogging in an invite-only Ning (long story, my school is paranoid) - and this is one of the weekly blog story retelling assignments. Anyway, I’ll send you an invite to the Ning if you are interested! Meanwhile, enjoy - I think she did a super job!
Laura Gibbs
Univ. of Oklahoma
======
My retelling is based on the Epic of Gilgamesh: Gilgamesh Departs. My story is told from the point of view of a narrator, and Siduri plays a larger role in the scheme of things; Gilgamesh learns to drown his sorrows in a good brew.
Gilgamesh, having cried as much as a grown man (and a king to boot) possibly can, finally let his friend Enkidu be buried near the forest he grew up in. Gilgamesh wiped the snot from his kingly nose (the clogging of which was probably the reason he didn’t put the guy in the ground sooner) and decided that no earthly pleasure could make him forget his sorrow. So, he set out on a quest to attain something new, whether it be immortality or something even better, he couldn’t be quite sure. All he knew was that he had to find something to either elevate himself above human emotions, or to make him completely forget that Enkidu even existed.
On and on Gilgamesh sojourned. Over rough, gravelly terrain did he stumble, through mosquito-infested bogs did he scramble. Many a splinter in his fingers did he suffer and much throbbing pain of stubbed toes did he endure. Finally, the woebegone king, again wiping the snot from his snout, and in great distress, came upon a building in a clearing. The sign outside the door read, “Siduri’s Irish Pub.” Having heard much of the goddess’ knack for brewing many a fine stout and her wisdom in solving problems for her customers, Gilgamesh eagerly knocked on the door, hoping to be admitted within to question Siduri about the path to immortality.
Siduri opened the door to see a snotty-nosed man with the dejected air of a whiny child, and promptly began to close the door again, having seen enough of these pitiful mortals tonight.
“Please!” Gilgamesh cried, a snot bubble bursting from one nostril, “I need to know how to find the path to immortality!”
At this request, Siduri couldn’t help but open the door again. “All right,” she sighed, “but I’m in the middle of cooling a batch of wort, and I need to transfer another into its secondary fermenter, but if you keep quiet and don’t touch anything, you may be rewarded.”
Siduri’s great wisdom was in her method of dealing with the problems of mortals. Rather than begrudgingly listening to the downpour of frivolous dribble that came out of the mouths of human beings, Siduri feigned interest whilst bringing them more and more beers, good strong beers, mind you, none of this commercial, watered-down, low-calorie liquid. And before she had to utter a single word of advice, her once bedraggled customers were soon recovering nicely, often to the point of singing and dancing and throwing all caution to the wind.
Gilgamesh, after following Siduri around the micro-brewery behind the pub, was becoming increasingly discouraged. Apparently, as far as Siduri was concerned, he should give up his quest; the only person who knew how to gain immortality was Uta-Napishtim, and he hadn’t been seen in these parts for years due to a little too much beer and too little money. His boatman, however, was a regular here, but he wasn’t likely to be in tonight.
“Just have a beer,” Siduri exclaimed with a wave of her hand. “Here, this one’s my imperial stout, over here we have a nice, full porter, and I’ll throw in my famous pale ale on the house.”
Gilgamesh, having been a bit of a beer novice, shakily brought the stout up to his lips, dreading the idea of flavor and multi-sensory overload. But, alas! One drop of the nectar did him in; a whole new, bright and happy world opened before his eyes. More and more he drank, and more and more he savored. At long last, Gilgamesh completely forgot why he had come to Siduri in the first place, and joined in with the singing of several happy customers around him, feeling very hopeful and brave. In the middle of his quartet, the door to the pub opened, from which came a man whom Siduri immediately welcomed as Uta-Napishtim’s boatman, Ur-Shanabi.
“Good news!” Siduri shouted over the drawling warbling of an older man next to Gilgamesh. “Ur-Shanabi is here and has agreed to take you to see Uta-Napishtim.”
Gilgamesh looked blankly from one to the other.
“Why would I want to go there?”
Laura Gibbss last blog post..August 24 Round-Up
[Reply]
Clay Burell Reply:
August 27th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Laura, I’ve laughed over the punch-line more than once today. Good stuff
[Reply]
Laura Gibbs
27 Aug 08 at 6:56 am
Most common Hebrew names for God (Conservative affiliation):
adonai
yud-hay-vav-hay (the letters, pronounced adonai)
I’ve never heard adonai referred to as yahweh in a religious context, only scholarly. Hmm. I wonder how that happened. When did yahweh become the default scholarly name for the Hebrew god?
And as a Jewish student in mainly Christian schools, I generally prefer CE and BCE myself. It’s not offensive to use AD and BC, but it is a Christian reference.
I think I’ll go borrow a copy from the library…
Hannahs last blog post..
[Reply]
Clay Burell Reply:
August 27th, 2008 at 8:00 am
Hi Hannah,
I think the “Yahweh” is based on the yud-hay-vav-hay - i.e., YHVH. Change that “V” in “vay” to a “w” (a common substitution in Western languages) and you have YHWH. Throw in vowels and there you have it?
[Reply]
Hannah
27 Aug 08 at 7:42 am
OK, this one put me over the edge–I linked it and stole your photo. So sue me.
I loved Gilgamesh when I read it years ago. I need to read it again. Great literature bears rereading every decade or so. (Probably worth reading more frequently, but time is time.)
Two points, both tangential, but both hit home:
1) Sex is sacred. Reality twists. Lives are created. We suffer from our inability to even try to define sacred these days. We run from what’s holy. One of your (many) strengths is that you do not confuse the religious with the sacred.
2) Baghdad is an old city–when we started bombing Iraq, I mentioned (only to those I love) that cities around as long as Baghdad will likely outlast our culture.
I’ll go away now.
Michael Doyles last blog post..Beyond School
[Reply]
Clay Burell Reply:
August 27th, 2008 at 8:32 am
RAmen, Michael. Hey, on a different note, where can I get one of those tinfoil hats you’re sporting recently? You crack me up in such the right way.
[Reply]
Michael Doyle Reply:
August 27th, 2008 at 8:38 am
If you promise not to tell, I’ll tell you which brand of foil to use–one that’s not tangled up with the Illuminati.
Michael Doyles last blog post..Beyond School
[Reply]
Michael Doyle
27 Aug 08 at 8:18 am
Being a Jewish student in a Jewish school, I just wanted to clarify a few things.
1. First off the whole “Yaweh” phenomenon is actually blasphemous according to orthodox Judaism. Because (as was mentioned before) the ten commandments list “Using God’s Name in Vain” as a sin. When talking about God in the mundane most Jews say “HaShem”, which means “The Name” because there is so much dispute about naming God. There are layers upon layers of Jewish mysticism (kabbalah) underlying God’s name. Names such as “Adonai” mean “My/Our Master”, “Elohim” is a generic word for God in modern Hebrew (El, Shadai, Tsva’ot etc… fall under the same category). There is a “real” name for God supposedly, however this name is no longer known, officially, to mankind. As far as the derivation of “Yaweh” this comes from the ancient Hebrew word spelled “Yud-Hay-Vav-Hay.” Now it is prohibited to pronounce that word in its true form so “adonai” is substituted (though it still commands a good deal of respect) even though “Yaweh” is actually a contraction of the Hebrew words for past and present, “Haya”, and “Ye’heyeh”, (interestingly ancient Hebrew did not have a future tense).
2. As far as anthropomorphism is related to God, God’s name is inextricably intertwined. Many of the aforementioned pseudonyms carry a specific attribute with them. For instance, when the Torah uses “Elohim” it is trying to emphasize God’s attribute of strict law; conversely, when the Torah uses the name “El/El-Shadai” it is emphasizing the attribute of mercy. Neither one is “more” anthropomorphisized, each name carries a certain message that the Torah is trying to convey. Now this may easily be construed to show that Judaism is polytheistic; however, that is obviously not the case. The different attributes are not different Gods, they are merely different emphases that the Torah wants to create in order help the reader learn, and understand the context.
3. I don’t even want to touch the sex issue, but suffice it to say that the original Bible did not condemn any NATURAL sex (i.e. not homosexual, incestuous, etc…).
4. For those of you who have suffered through the Da Vinci Code, please note that Dan Brown is thoroughly lacking in any deep Jewish Knowledge. According to Mr. Brown there are two male/female sides to God, “Yaweh” and “Shkhina (note that “kh” is the guttural sound made in the back of the throat)”. First off, this is a load of bullshit, I have already explained “Yaweh. As far as the “Shkhina”: The “Shkhina” is another anthropomorphic title of God. In fact the “Shkhina” is about as physical as God gets, the Torah describes God’s “Shkhina” (usually translated as presence) residing amongst the Jewish people in the desert/ in the Holy of Holies etc… This is usually meant to be taken as a measure of the Jews’ worthiness: when the Jews are acting appropriately, God resides amongst them, when the Jews sin, their temple is destroyed and the presence of God is no longer as concentrated or as obvious. The “Shkhina” is purely a literary tool meant to convey the people’s ever-changing connection with God.
PS: I apologize for getting so far into this dangerous territory, but I hope a cleared up a few misconceptions
PPS: By the way, I completely agree with you as far as your ideas about teaching/inculcation are concerned. I get a larger than normal dose, being in a private school.
[Reply]
Clay Burell Reply:
August 27th, 2008 at 11:36 am
Mamimon, I appreciate the input. Without meaning to antagonize at all, I do want to touch the sex issue, because it’s relevant to my comparison with the older religion of the Sumerians. My reading of popular rabbis introducing Judaism has led me to understand that Judaism is a lot less puritanical about sex than most Christianity is, but I’ve also read enough of the Torah (in English, granted) to know several strict condemnations of sex are to be found in it: women raped without yelling loud enough to be heard are to be married to their rapists; homosexuals (who being part of nature, I would argue, practice “natural” sex by definition, without supernatural definitions interfering - but we seem to disagree on this one pretty fundamentally) get death by stoning.
Blast, I’m rushing because I want to go watch Hillary’s speech at the convention. But this mention of the “original” Bible - what do you mean by that?
Again, no trollishness intended. Thanks for the clarifications.
[Reply]
Maimon Reply:
August 28th, 2008 at 9:44 am
Ahhh yes, I’ve heard those arguments before. Well, I’m sure you are aware of the vast amount of Rabbinic literature that has accumulated over the centuries, and they provide clarification to the “Torah Sh’Michtav” (the written Torah). Now, I should have prefaced that sentence with a caveat that would remind you that “Rabbinic literature” is not necessarily written solely by Rabbis. There was a tradition amongst Jews in the ancient times to have a solely oral law the “Torah Sh’Baal Peh,” which was not meant to be written down. It was meant to be passed from Moses down, and interpreted throughout the generations; however, this chain was broken by a Roman massacre of many of Rabbi Akiva’s students, and this forced the oral law to be written (which in an of itself was declared a day of mourning). Now, for my point: This Oral law explains all the various intricacies of the Written Torah.For instance, it is written that when a woman is raped and nobody responds to her calls, then all those that neglected her calls are worthy of having all their property destroyed. Other cases that you hear like that one are likely to have been previously resolved in a more reasonable way than you may have heard.
As far as Homosexuals go, think about it from an evolutionary standpoint: you need to reproduce to sustain your species; if you want to reproduce, you need to be heterosexual;ergo the “natural” way to have intercourse is heterosexual. Once the dire need to reproduce for fear of extinction is gone, the need to only have heterosexual intercourse is obviated to a certain degree: therefore homosexuals have evolved as a societal phenomenon. Also, when the Torah prescribes death in any form you must be aware that death was such an uncommon occurrence that it is said that a “Beit Din” (a court of law) who kills someone once every 70 years is very harsh.
By original I was just trying to stress the old testament.
PS: I was rather tired when I wrote my last comment; as you can see my name has changed since then =)
[Reply]
Clay Burell Reply:
August 28th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
I know about the “vast amounts of oral tradition,” etc, and see them much the way I see medieval scholasticism: centuries of argument and explication taken to infinitely complex levels, but - all based on false (or at least un-demonstrable, and therefore “proof-burdened”) premises.
So it takes me back to the original texts upon which all the volumes of commentary are based.
Occam’s Razor.
[Reply]
Crispy Reply:
September 15th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Mamimon,
Great comment - I do feel compelled to respond to your theory on the “evolution” of homosexual behavior, however. There are numerous documented examples of homosexuality and bisexuality in other animal species (most notably among populations of macaques and bonobos). As far as researchers are able to discern, this behavior is not a by-product of a species having reached any evolutionary or population benchmark: rather, the behavior appears to be and integral part of said maintenance of a “satisfactory” rate of reproduction. In fact, most homosexual behavior in these groups has very little to to with pleasure or reproduction at all, but has everything to do with survival in terms of the maintenance of social order and positive social relationships.
Forgive me if I misunderstood your comment, but you seem to be positing the opposite with regards to the emergence and evolution of homosexuality. It appears to me that you may be conflating the existence of the behavior itself (a fact) with the categorization/”critical reception” of said behavior (a social construct).
[Reply]
Mamimon
27 Aug 08 at 11:22 am
First time reader, also from StumbleUpon. Looks like someone knows where the traffic is.
Anyways, I never actually read Gilgamesh, though I know enough bits and pieces of the plot that when I saw you were gonna be retelling it for a modern audience without holding back I knew it would at least be a fun way to kill some time. However, by the end of the page I’m glad I looked because this is far more than just a vivid plot synopsis (which is what I was expecting). Consider yourself bookmarked.
I have to agree about reading for a test being absolutely horrid, although on the other hand I know I wouldn’t have gotten halfway through Catcher In the Rye if I didn’t have to (it took me a while to stop hating the protagonist as a person and notice that it was actually pretty good). Though part of it is that, when forced to read the closest thing to the original version that they can both get past the censors and nominally call English, most classics are just a pain in the butt to read in the format schools make you read, plain and simple. I know Shakespeare, for instance, was chock full of lude jokes, fight scenes and language that people of the time actually used, and on top of that most performances probably involved a lot of improvisation, but the teachers are probably glad that the average student doesn’t understand that biting one’s thumb was the equivalent of giving someone the finger (and so on), or at least take no steps to correct it. It’s considered blasphemy if you don’t read what the original script said word-for-word in the most serious tone you can and without stopping to explain what the phrase you just read meant at the time.
Anyways, I look forward to reading this series, and will probably be exploring the rest of the site.
PS: I’m a college student, going into my second year in engineering. I read for pleasure sometimes (though mostly sci-fi or fantasy, almost never classics), but as you can guess from the fact that I stumbled-upon your site, probably not enough.
[Reply]
Clay Burell Reply:
August 27th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Brickman, thanks for the interesting comment and “civilized” defense of me on SU (gosh there are some boobs there).
I hear you on the catch-22 of English teaching. Force is aversive, but laxity is exploitable. We English teachers pull our hair out over how to escape that dilemma. (The link starting that numbered list of “suckiness factors” takes you to the Washington Post article that expresses it all very well.)
Engineering, huh? I’m jealous. I discovered applied science’s beauties way too late to be a player in those fields.
As for Shakespeare - ob yes. I did a fun “King Lear Street Talk” project where students had to understand the cursing, and translate it into Mafia contemporary English. Fun stuff. Search “F-bomb” here if you’re bored
Thanks again for stopping by. Good luck in college. I miss college terribly.
[Reply]
Brickman
27 Aug 08 at 4:02 pm
Love the post, glad you are making lit an experience instead of an assignment.
One thing to mention, I think the stereotypical Christian has warped what Christians/ the Bible actually say about sex. If you read the whole Bible (Song of Solomon, for instance) you’ll find that the Bible thinks sex is awesome. Freaking amazing. It does, however, specify that it is only this level of amazing in the marriage context where the sacred bond is forever only between two people. Ideally.
The Bible doesn’t say sex is bad. The Bible values sex very highly, which is exactly why it preaches that sex shouldn’t be taken lightly.
Plus I would argue that a monogamous sex life is the more enlightened view than temple prostitutes… sure its out in the open but those ladies were still giving their bodies away daily… which sucks for anyone.
Just my thoughts.
[Reply]
Clay Burell Reply:
August 28th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Hi Rick,
Hm. Granted the “Old” (Jewish) “Testament” has a few books that honor sex. But it has a few that don’t as well. (A big problem with any collection of texts from different authors spanning centuries.)
But the Christian add-ons? Paul is pretty sex-o-phobic, from what I can see. “It’s better to marry than to burn,” he says. “Better to be celibate like me, but if you can’t, tie the knot.” (Many scholars question if Paul was a guilt-ridden homosexual. Google it
)
We’re getting ahead of my game plan - I’ll definitely write a piece on Genesis, and the utter weirdness of the “original sin” or “knowledge of good and evil” leading up to the covering of the original couple’s genitalia. Strong implication there that sex is somehow shameful, no?
Thanks for weighing in. I’m not sure where I stand on polyamory v. monogamy. The whole cultural context of each would require tweaking for people to be able to handle it.
[Reply]
Clay Burell Reply:
August 28th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Back again, Rick. Your comment,
just kept ringing.
Because prostitutes around the world are still giving their bodies away daily, and because it’s socially frowned upon, in most countries its illegality and reproach only add to the burden of the prostitute (and the lack of legal protection).
It’s a point I’m not sure I’m comfortable with, but still I see it and want to entertain it: if prostitution were still classified as holy and honored by society, might not that be preferable to the type of prostitution we have today in its stead?
Again - thinking outside the box does not mean subscribing to each attempt
[Reply]
Rick
28 Aug 08 at 9:40 am
I’m obviously late to this party but I could not have put this any better! If you are okay I may quote this in my Western Lit class. I teach Western Lit and I do it because I LOVE BOOKS and it kills me when teachers turn it into something painful. These are great, exciting stories - STORIES PEOPLE - not crusty old books to be revered from afar.
Beths last blog post..See Dick Fail His Class
[Reply]
Michael Doyle Reply:
August 28th, 2008 at 10:27 am
@Beth: I think Clay is averse to lawsuits. I tried, but he won’t bite. You have my permission to quote him
@Rick: sex is all about giving away the body, monogamous or otherwise. I happen to be monogamous for a whole lot of reasons (not all I understand), but I’d put my money on the polyamorous as far as enlightenment goes.
@maimon: not sure what the “natural” heterosexual position is, but I imagine it involves the woman standing on her head a few post-coital hours to up her chances of impregnation. And your reasoning puts condom use up there with buggery, but that almost makes sense given my Catholic background.
@Clay: I’ve hijacked your site–take me to Libya.
Michael Doyles last blog post..Capitalism and biology class
[Reply]
Clay Burell Reply:
August 28th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Be my guest, Beth - of course. (Though Michael has already given that permission, I see.)
[Reply]
Beth
28 Aug 08 at 10:11 am
I love discussions like this. Seriously, great posts people. I remember when I first read Gilgamesh in high school. Darn near gave me a crisis of faith! I was a conservative young christian at the time ( I am a liberal semi-young christian today)
Gilgamesh actually helped me open my mind quite a bit to ‘risky’ ideas like… the bible might not be a literal representation of history, but rather that the ancient Jews who wrote it were influenced, heavily, by summerian culture and language. Even the Suzerain style covenant is a sumerian derivative.
This topic is not ignored by two GREAT authors. Thomas Cahill in “The Gifts of the Jews” and Chaim Potok in “Wanderings”. (Yes Yes… do not forget Potoks non-fiction!! Fantastic!)
Cahill particularly emphasizes the different road the Jews took in regards to God and life in general.
Once more book recommendation - author: Rob Bell, title: “Sex God” Brilliant view on how Christians ought to see sexuality. (That is, as a good, natural, and sacred thing!)
It’s a brave new world folks, not all differing ideas must be seen as clashing dichotomies. It’s all part of the human story. Which brings me to my last point…. as a future history teacher, I’ll use either date system and genuinely not give a flying freckle. (C.E. BC etc..). But really, if all we do is change letters around to be PC, are we really enhancing knowledge??
All it tells me is that around the later part of the 20th century, social groups began to feel offended if they heard Christian language. And that is how students of history will read about our society. 80 years from now.
I jest, I jest.
I mean come on! I don’t gripe about being born in the month of August, despite my loathing for Caesar Augustus and his brutal policies! Perhaps I should start a movement though, lets purge all Roman influence from our calendar!
This mechanic has homework if he wants to finish college in 5 years. l8r.
[Reply]
Michael Doyle Reply:
August 28th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Yes, when we change letters around, we are enhancing knowledge–the process itself is enlightening.
And there is no such thing as a crisis in faith–faith allows exploration. Maybe a crisis in “beliefs”, but I’m all for that.
Social groups are not offended by Christian language–they are offended by Christian presumption. A subtle (but important) difference.
Clay already knows I’m one of those kind-of-off-tilt Christians. At least up to the point of the empty tomb.
As far as the Roman calendar, point well taken–let your kids know where the term “August” comes from. Tell them about the Benedictine monks and time.
Call it the 8th month. That you challenge the name August in class will mean something to a child whose mind is being dulled by a state-sanctioned curriculum.
Really. I double dog dare you. =)
(Clay, where are you?)
Michael Doyles last blog post..Capitalism and biology class
[Reply]
Clay Burell Reply:
August 28th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Thanks, Craig. I’m in a rush, so I’ll point to my reply to Tim here about the CE v. AD thing.
Mind you, I’ve lived and taught in China and Korea, so labeling their history in reference to the “Year of Our Lord” seems far more objectionable than it did when I was in the States. But even in the States, it is, as Michael notes, “presumptuous.”
I see historians as social scientists, bound by the rules of evidence that dictate any scientific craft. Their personal leaps of faith shouldn’t seep into their as-objective-as-possible (or at least respectably skeptical) scholarship. They become propagandists when this happens.
[Reply]
Craig Reply:
August 30th, 2008 at 3:39 am
A crisis of beliefs is better way of puting it, for sure. It is what you get when your beliefs are based on one simple truth. I have met such people time and time again. Faced with the fact that the Bible has stories strikingly similar and seemingly borrowed from Gilgamesh, Christians who have always been told that the Bible is the absolute infallible word of God are suddenly at a lack for words. Thats why so many Christians ignorantly defend a literal interpretation of scripture. Literally shutting their mind to other ideas. To them, it is all false if any one thing is false. I ask, how does the message of Jesus change if we suddenly learn that the world wasn’t made in 6 literal days and the Grand Canyon wasn’t carved by the great flood!? Oh crap… guess we still have to love our neighbor and forgive people an stuff.
Clay, I love the word social scientist. History as science is the best form of history. Yet, part of what historians do is give their interpretation and opinion on the data collected. Thus, an argument is born, and that is what historians do.
Propagandists happen when no one else knows history well enough to argue with the pseudo-historian weenie-wack who spoon fed them a load of junk talking points that they should have known to spit back in his face.
Propagandists depend on half-truths and half-wits to believe them. Our country (U.S.) has an abundance of both.
[Reply]
Clay Burell Reply:
August 31st, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Sorry to be late on this one, Craig.
I love your first paragraph. It needs nothing else from me.
And yes, agreed, social scientists do offer interpretations, but based on the evidence at hand, not on unfounded metaphysics. Are we agreed on that?
I’m certainly agreed on your last point about weenie-wacks and half-wits, and also smiling at the language. Levity is next to godliness in my book (ever read or see Eco’s In the Name of the Rose?
Thanks for the nuggets.
[Reply]
Craig
28 Aug 08 at 11:34 am
Unsucky English - Dan Simmons Forums
28 Aug 08 at 12:01 pm
Clay,
Amazing post! Now I see what you’ve been up to… Teaching. I’m happy for you and impressed once again with your writing ability. One of my professors said that we don’t spend enough time sitting under trees thinking about giants; you, however (I know how much you hate that word), have moved from thinking about giants to actually battling them.
[Reply]
Tim
28 Aug 08 at 3:54 pm
Salon Table Talk - Religion: Good Idea or Bad?
29 Aug 08 at 3:24 am
I quite honestly believe I would have killed to have learned the classics from you in high-school. I attended a very Bible-Belt rooted, South-East Texas high-school. We were never able to read anything for controversial than Huck Finn, or To Kill a Mockingbird.
Your lecture style appears to be phenomenal. I can’t wait to read the rest of the series.
[Reply]
Clay Burell Reply:
August 31st, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Thanks Chet - but here’s the irony: between the self-censorship that goes on because of the prudes and religious fanatics in the classroom, and because of the concentration-breaking giggles or gasps that break out every time sex or secularism are mentioned, classroom discussions never felt as good as writing these things here does.
Thanks again for the kind words.
[Reply]
ChetG
29 Aug 08 at 5:27 am
Jemdawg's favorite web pages, page 4 - StumbleUpon
29 Aug 08 at 8:26 pm
[...] the comments on my last post (the first Gilgamesh essay), and of the people who also commented on it on StumbleUpon,5 it occurs [...]
When Corrupting the Youth is Good | Beyond School
30 Aug 08 at 12:45 am
Oh wow. I actually read this whole lecture and enjoyed it (despite being a God-fearing Christian).
I’ve never read Gilgamesh, but now I’m curious as to what is written in this book.
Bravo on the lecture, you really know how to target teenagers. Other than that, I don’t really have much else to say other than I laughed at some of the “DON’T LEAVE!” parts.
Nice.
[Reply]
Clay Burell Reply:
August 31st, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Gee, that was nice. Thanks
Laughter is good stuff.
[Reply]
Dessy
30 Aug 08 at 1:46 am
amberaly's favorite web pages, page 4 - StumbleUpon
30 Aug 08 at 2:31 pm
Hello. I found this site on Stumbleupon. I enjoyed reading your lecture and look forward to more. I have not read Gilgamesh but will. I am almost 40 and remember asking one of my English teachers if a story is every just a story and the teacher was caught off guard and said yes. I was always a prolific reader and my favorite epic is Lord of the Rings. I do not agree with all of your lecture but enjoyed it.
Thank you.
[Reply]
Clay Burell Reply:
August 31st, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Thanks Rodgeman, and by all means voice your disagreements. Things get more interesting that way!
I’m going to sound like an English teacher here, but I would answer your question differently. To me, a story is never just a story: it’s a mirror of its times and culture, and sometimes a lamp to enlighten them as well. Blake says we can “see infinity in a grain of sand.” I add we can do the same in any story.
Granted, that can get boring when done bloodlessly.
[Reply]
rodgeman
31 Aug 08 at 2:11 am
lostandconfused's favorite web pages, page 4 - StumbleUpon
31 Aug 08 at 6:23 am
I’m a student in college studying writing, and I really enjoyed this article. I’ll be waiting for the rest! Any chance you’ll be moving on to Shakespeare soon?
[Reply]