VftSW: My Dark Angel

Right before church I walked my Black Labrador, Derby. On the way home ahead of us walked a young couple with a toddler enjoying a sunny patch in the fall day. As we approached they got the stout little toddler out of his backpack.

“Look quick,” I recommended to the young mother. ”before you know it he’ll be asking to borrow the car keys and drive a way.“

As the stout little blonde tottered our way, he bawled out; “Bawg dawg!”

All three of us adults encouraged his understanding. His parents tried to explain about showing a dog your hand first if you wanted to pet it. I assured them that Derby was friendly. For her part she knelt down, because she likes children and wants to make herself look less threatening. The parents offered her nose the back of their hands too. The little boy laughed to see Derby’s tongue flicker out in response and joyously touched the shiny, dusty, black fur. His curiosity sated he looks up at us adults and said, “Where’s the other person?”

There had been no one else around us on the street.


　

VftSW: Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls

First, let me say, “Wow!” As a reader, I truly appreciate an anthology with over a dozen authors and still consistently top quality writing throughout! Which is what you get with this

“Understandingthe Dead Sea Scrolls” edited by Hershel Shanks.

In 1947, a Bedouin shepherd found the first six of the “Dead Sea” Scrolls.  In the literary land-rush that followed scholars and shepherd discovered hundreds upon hundreds of scrolls.  The vast majority of which were in hundreds and hundreds of fragments.  They were stored in eleven caves somewhere around 70 A.D.  The essays in “Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls” start with the history of the find, literary genealogy of scrolls, the cloak and dagger business of antiquities, the Israeli war for independence, the cut-throat politics of academia, the controversy, reconstruction and conspiracy theories surrounding the scrolls.  Somewhere in there, the authors manage to discuss various finds and their significance.  The editor wisely arranged the articles to build on the reader’s growing knowledge on these topics in preparation for the ever-growing complexity and controversy of the Dead Sea Scroll discussions.

Now for some tid-bits, I found along the way.

·        Dead Sea Scroll 3Q15 is a treasure map written on a sheet of almost pure copper.  The treasure?  The treasure of the Temple in Jerusalem, hidden before the destruction of the Temple by the Romans. 

·        One of the first scrolls found is the  Temple Scroll which some scholars believe was a sixth book of the Pentateuch on  the same level of authority as Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

·        Whenever a scriptural passage is repeated, it is because of some new point contained in it.

·        The Dead Sea Scrolls might contain  the lost books of the Bible referenced in 1 Chronicles 28:19.

·        There are copies sometimes several copies of every book in the Old Testament, except Esther.  Esther is the only book of the Hebrew Bible that does not mention God. 

Oh and by the way, the custodians of all these desert libraries were “monks” of a Jewish sect called the Essene.  There is no mention of Jesus, John the Baptist or the Gospels.  Nevertheless, the Dead Sea Scrolls and this marvelous book, provide plenty of insights into scripture, Christianity, Judaism and to the world into which Our Lord was born.  

VftSW: Is That Cute or What?

I don’t know if this is the sweetest thing or the saddest. 

I stepped into my darkened garage this morning.  My Black Labrador wasn’t waiting at the door for me.  Sitting on the doorstep apparently makes Derby feel closer to us.  When she came to greet me, sleep still hung about her like a warm blanket, until her squinting eyes and fluttering lashes chased it away. 

 Only she hadn’t come from the direction of her bed.  Over the weekend, I’d been clearly as friends’s property of invading alders.  When I got home sweat and rain ran through all my clothes and wood chips snuck in everywhere.  My wife brought my robe and I stripped in the garage.  Derby had been sleeping on my piled clothes.

Is that cute or what?

VftSW: Neutering the Almighty

Originally, our congregation belonged to the Norwegian Lutheran Church of America. (Now we are in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.) We still say the King James version of the Lords Prayer, because, well that’s the way the Lord said it, right? In other words we are a conservative congregation. So, this morning the pastor comes out without his robe on. No, not naked. He wore a nice dress shirt, slacks and tie, but come on, we are High Church. I was being kind of grumpy about this as the service progressed. Admittedly it was summer time. Well, not any more, this is Labor Day weekend. What’s his excuse? Of course, that’s Satan way, cracking congregations apart over little things.


His sermon was based on Mark 7. The Pharisees and scribes came out to see the Lord. They asked why his disciples didn’t wash their hands before dinner. Just a question right? The Lord lays into them and calls them hypocrites. He quotes Isaiah, condemning them for “teaching human precepts as doctrines.” Mark 7:3 explains that Jesus was talking about human tradition like washing hands before dinner, washing food you bought at the market before eating it and washing dishes, pots and pans.

  As a parent, I mumbled sarcastically to myself, “Thanks, Lord!”

This is a common complaint with pastor’s sermons. He bases them on the Gospel reading for the day rather than the Old Testament. A bunch of unemployed, bachelors with no responsibilities wrote the Gospels. No patriarch or prophet ever said anything encouraging his children not to wash their hands before dinner!

I still pondered saying something about pastor’s robe, but figured he follow the Almighty’s example, get indignant and call me a hypocrite by quoting Isaiah. .

The service moved on. We got to the new version of the “Great Thanksgiving” We use to sing, “It is right to give Him thanks and praise.” But, in this politically correct age, they’ve changed it to “It is right to sing our thanks and praise.” Sort of neutering the Almighty. We had a big thing recently about gay clergy too. Many congregations left the ELCA over the issue. We get our shorts in a knot over a lot of stuff Jesus didn’t think was important enough to discuss.

So, all this rumbled through my mind, when communion started. We sing while people go up to the railing around the altar in groups to take the wine and bread. I started singing the first song, still thinking about the whole don’t-wash-your-hands things.

“Well,” I say to myself, “I certainly hope your daughters were not here today, pastor.”

At which point I covered my mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Scripture directs us to make a joyful noise unto the Lord but sometimes my vocalizations aren’t that joyful. So people around me would think nothing of me praying instead. Of course, if they peered over the edge of their hymnals, they would see me laughing in my hands. Pastor’s daughters hadn’t been sitting in his lap during children’s sermon. They actually weren’t here. Talk about a hypocrite! I was red with laughter and feeling frustrated with event. I began to pray in earnest. I prayed on pleasant things; like the young family I’d met earlier in the morning.

Right before church I walked my Black Labrador, Derby. On the way home ahead of us walked a young couple with a toddler enjoying a sunny patch in the fall day. As we approached they got the stout little toddler out of his backpack.

“Look quick,” I recommended to the young mother. ”before you know it he’ll be asking to borrow the car keys and drive a way.“

As the stout little blonde tottered our way, he bawled out; “Bawg dawg!”

All three of us adults encouraged his understanding. His parents tried to explain about showing a dog your hand first if you wanted to pet it. I assured them that Derby was friendly. For her part she knelt down, because she likes children and wants to make herself look less threatening. The parents offered her nose the back of their hands too. The little boy laughed to see Derby’s tongue flicker out in response and joyously touched the shiny, dusty, black fur. His curiosity sated he looks up at us adults and said, “Where’s the other person?”

There had been no one else around us on the street.

I offered “Someone must have an imaginary friend.”

They assured me he had many. Reflecting back at that moment from my pew, I recalled that imaginary friends are really just what we call children’s guardian angels. I suspect that the child saw my guardian angel and that through all the petty turmoil in my thoughts this morning, the Holy Spirit sat with me all along.

I rose for communion with a clean heart and renewed spirits.

　

　

TFBT: A Most Dangerous Sea and the Beauteous Scarf

Below is one of the pivotal scenes in Odysseus’ long journey home and the point at which he leaves behind the fiefs and realms of the gods for those of mortal men. Leucothea’s short cameo and brief words in the scene leave quite a few questions for the average reader.  Who is she?  What is with the veil?   Why isn’t she afraid of Poseidon’s wrath? Why did she save Odysseus? 

But Leucothea, the White Goddess, saw him, she who once had mortal speech as Ino of the slender ankles, Cadmus’ daughter, but now in the deep is honored by the gods. She pitied Odysseus, driven on, surrounded by dangers, and she rose from the waves like a sea mew on the wing, settled on the close-knit raft, and spoke to him:  ‘Poor wretch, why has Poseidon, the Earth-Shaker, dealt you such fierce suffering, sowing the seed of endless misery for you? Yet for all his anger, he shall not destroy you quite. You seem a man of sense, so do as I tell you. Strip off these clothes, and let the wind take your raft, while you swim hard towards the Phaeacian coast, where you are destined to escape the waves. And take this veil, and wind it round your waist. It has divine power, and you need not fear injury or death. But when you clasp the land, unwind it once more, and cast it far out onto the wine-dark sea, and turn your eyes away.’  The Odyssey 5.22-30 Homer

Leucothea was once the princess Ino of seven-gated Thebes in Ancient Greece.  Running from the wrath of her husband, she with her child Melicertes leapt into the sea where her new sisters the Nereids graciously received them and Zeus deified them as Leucothea and Palaemon.  Keep in mind that even as Ino, she was no mere mortal.  Ino was the aunt and foster mother of the Olympian deity Dionysus.  Her mother was born to two other Olympians.  One sister was a goddess and another nephew also a god.  Still Leucothea had been mortal once. 

Odysseus is of course, the long-suffering hero of the Odyssey.  He spent 10 years at the siege of Troy and was in his tenth year trying to get home to his wife Penelope.  Just prior to this scene Odysseus was released from the care of the lovely Calypso.  The goddess Calypso loved the hero, going so far as to say, “make your home with me, and be immortal, no matter how much you long to see that wife you yearn for day after day…Then resourceful Odysseus replied to her: ‘Great goddess, do not be angry at what I say. I know myself that wise Penelope is less than you, it’s true, in looks and stature, being a mortal, while you are immortal and ever young. Even so I yearn day after day, longing to reach home, and see the hour of my return.”[i] Calypso with a little nudge from the gods of Olympus, helped the hero on his way, she “bathed him and dressed him in scented clothes, and watched him set out (on a raft). The goddess had placed a skin filled with dark wine on board, and a larger one of water, and a bag of provisions, full of many good things to content his heart, and she sent a fine breeze, warm and gentle” [ii]

As to the veil, goddesses used them in many ways.  Medea used her silver veil to avoid seeing Jason murder her brother.  It also protected her from the blood splatter to follow. [iii]Amidst tragedy in her son’s life Thetis when summed to Olympus made sure to cover her head with “a dark-hued veil, than which was no raiment more black” [iv] In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter;  sharp grief seized the mother's heart; she tore the head-dress upon her ambrosial hair, and threw her dark veil down…” when her daughter was kidnapped.  When she found out her brother was party to the crime; in her anger at Zeus, Demeter veiled herself in clouds and she deserted the gatherings of the gods.  Apollonius Rhodius records[v] that in an attempted rape, the Giant Tityus, boldly dragged off the Titaness Leto by her veil.  Upon the ramparts of Troy Helen, sister to the Castor and Polydeuces recalling all she left behind one day “veiled herself in white linen and, weeping large tears, she left her room.”[vi]

As Aphrodite famously lent her girdle (cestus) to Hera for magical purposes in the Iliad, so Leucothea chooses to lend the drowning hero something he can tie about his waist. The imperishable veils of the goddess come in shades of saffron, night, shining,    celestial blue and star-spangled.  Walter Burkett in several books suggests that Leucothea’s veil was purple due to her association with the mysteries of Samothrace. [vii]  Initiates into the Mystery wore similar purple garb “to protect themselves from the danger of the sea”. [viii]

Poseidon is the god of the sea, reputed to be as powerful as his brother Zeus, king of the gods.  And his heart was full of anger against the storm tossed hero, because of Odysseus’ blinding of his son the one-eyed giant Polyphemus.[ix] Admittedly, Polyphemus ate several of Odysseus’s crewmates and it was all a matter of self-dense, but gods aren’t overly understanding.   As witnessed by the debate over the patronage of Argos by Hera and Poseidon.  When the River Inachus and two neighboring rivers judged against Poseidon, the sea god drained the water from their beds.[x]  So, we might wonder at Leucothea’s calmness before the quick-tempered master of the deep. 

 Her calm before the storm-tossing and earth-shaking Olympian might have to do with what she was and what she did. Leucothea was a “demi-god” or demi-goddess more accurately.  Born of Harmonia; daughter of Ares and Aphrodite and the hero Cadmus, she was half deity and half mortal. The demi-gods generally classified as mortal, were not the weaklings the gods make them out to be.  Apollo for one made the rather snide comment in Book 21 of the Iliad “wretched mortals, now full of life, eating the earth’s fruit, now fading away and falling like the leaves”

However, when the Giants attacked Olympus, the gods would have lost the war for supremacy of the universe except for two things.  One, if the giants found the herb of invulnerability they would win.  Or if the gods could enlist the aid of Heracles; the greatest of the demi-gods.  Zeus forbade Helios, Selene and Eos (Sun, Moon and the Dawn herself) to shine while he found the herb.  According Hesiod in the Theogony, Heracles and the demi-god (turned Olympian) Dionysus joined the side of the Olympian.  But evidence from the decoration of major temples suggest that Achilles, Bootes, and the Discouri, all demi-gods also joined the gods.  So, let’s do the math here.  If the giants are more powerful than the gods and the demigods are mightier than the giants.  That could lead some demigods to think they are more powerful than the gods.  See “Five Reasons for Fighting the Fates” for additional arguments.

But, Leucothea had another reason to be confident that she could rescue Odyssey without retribution from Poseidon. It was her job.  After the defeat of the Titans, the victors gathered at the city of Mecone, elected Zeus king and divided all the honors and privileges.  Each god, man and beast was given inviolate rights and the gods their various domains.   Consider what Laura Slatkin has to say in The Power of Thetis, “The most startling silence in the voluble divine community of the Iliad is the absence of any reproach made to Thetis for her drastic intervention in the war.”   That might be because Thetis was in some way exercising the authority granted her years before.  Thetis like Leucothea is a rescuer of those fallen into the sea. “She there received Dionysus on his flight from Lycurgus, and the god, in his gratitude, presented her with a golden urn. When Hephaestus was thrown down from heaven, he was likewise received by Thetis.”[xi] Leucothea’s area of responsibility; her sphere of influence was rescuing mortals adrift on the briny deep with “her son Palaemon they help sailors beset by storms."[xii] .  Rescue seemed to be the specialty of demi-gods.  Witness Glaucus of Anthedon in Boeotia, a fisherman, who had the good luck to eat a part of the divine herb, which Cronus sowed, and which made Glaucus immortal marine deity.[xiii] Another example is the brothers of Helen of Troy, Castor and Polydeuces, also called the Dioscuri  “The Dioscuri are deliverers of men on earth and of swift-going ships when stormy gales rage over the ruthless sea.”[xiv].  Rescuing sailors was there job and in general, they could expect interference on occasion from other deities but no outright denial of their prerogatives.

Additionally in answer to the question of who Leucothea is, Mills sees her as an agent of limnality.[xv]  She aids Odysseus in his transition from the goddesses Circe and Calypso via herself a demi-goddess at birth to the mortal women Princess Nausicaa and Queen Penelope.  From the sea to the shore.  From life through the gray waters of death to life again. From eternal life as a god to inevitable death as a man.

So, now Odysseus’ rescue continues.

His knees gave way, and his arms fell slack, his strength exhausted by the sea. All his flesh was swollen, and streams of brine oozed from his mouth and nostrils. So he lay there, breathless, speechless, with barely energy enough to stir. But as he revived his spirits rose, and he unwound the goddess’s veil and dropped it into the ocean-bound flow: the current sweeping it downstream, so it was soon in Ino’s hands. Odysseus turned from the river, sank into the reeds and kissed the earth, giver of crops: and deeply shaken he communed with his valiant spirit: Bk V:452-456

Our naked hero is soon rescued and dressed by Princess Nausicaa of Phaeacia. Why was the goddess Leucothea insistent on getting her scarf back?  Because, according to Donald H. Mills it was magical.  “”The focus of this gift centers on the immortal and life-giving veil she offers the hero…it has the implicit power to confer immortally (hence) she says to Odysseus, “there is no need for you to suffer, nor to perish.” [xvi]  It was magic just like the herb Glaucus consumed that him invulnerable to death.  Like the ambrosia and nectar, Calypso offered Odysseus at their final meal.  To keep Leucothea’s veil had the same effect as staying with Calypso and wearing her scented garments, to become a god.  Which meant Odysseus lost himself, his glorious destiny, his famous return and the loving arms of his wife Penelope

---

[i] Odyssey Bk V 198-202. 

[ii] Odyssey Bk V:264

[iii] Argonautica of Apollonious 4.468-474 

[iv] Iliad 24.93

[v] Argonautica 1.758

[vi] Iliad Bk III:131

[vii] Homo Necans page 132,   Greek Religion page 267

[viii] Scholiast to Apollonius Rhodius 1.917

[ix] Homer, Odyssey 13.341

[x] Pausanias, Description of Greece 2. 15. 4

[xi] Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology  

[xii] Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 3. 28 : 

[xiii] Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.  

[xiv] Homeric Hymn 27 to the Dioscuri

[xv] The Hero and the Sea: Patterns of Chaos in Ancient Myth

[xvi]The Hero and the Sea: Patterns of Chaos in Ancient Myth

VftSW: Slugs Leave their Lair

The rain falls heavy and hard this time of year in Southeast Alaska. 

In my childhood, the sunbaked New Mexican soil couldn’t absorb a heavy rain.  The streets would flood.  The gutters would fill. And torrents gushed into all the underground burrows.  I remember earthworms squirming out of the drowning lawns onto the sidewalk, so they could breathe. 

Monday morning, here in Alaska, as I came out the back door with Derby, there were two slugs 5 feet up the wall.  What did they know that I didn’t?  Ends up what they knew was that it would rain even hard last night.  The storm grew so loud last night that I went out into the garage to comfort Derby.   

This morning Derby and I took her morning walk along a wet street in heavy fog.  From a distance we could hear either Rose or Flynn barking.  They are a pair of short-haired Yellow Labrador’s, healthy, friendly and almost white in color.  Oddly we only heard one dog sporadically barking.  Derby stopped at one point, held perfectly still, head high, looking in the direction of their yard from a spot where we had seen them before.  Nothing!  We moved on.  We stopped at the abandoned lots at the end of the street and spent some time there. 

When we headed home around the corner came their master’s pickup truck.  Apparently, the dogs knew or maybe they have really good ears and recognized the music that was booming from the cab.  I’ve seen my wife’s little Miniature Schnauzer jump up and run to the window five minutes before our truck (driven by her mistress) turned on to the street.  It’s amazing the many things us mortals miss and how often we ignore that “small still voice” that seems to come in loud and clear to all the other creatures around us.

TLtS: Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls

I’ve been reading “Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls” edited by Hershel Shanks.  First, let me clarify that the Dead Sea Scrolls consist of six mostly intact scrolls and hundreds of manuscripts in two thousand year old, brittle, desert-seared fragile fragments.  You’d think a book about these literary shards would be dry.  No!  It’s an amazing anthology!  Parts read like an adventure novel; how the shepherds found the scrolls in a cave high up on a cliff, the “cloak and dagger” world of antiquities and the bombshells for a layman like me.

Various articles cover the standardization of the Pentateuch under Ezra and the Old Testament under Hillel.  I’ve learned a lot of interesting things about the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essene.  The latter occupied the monastery amidst the 11 caves used as libraries.  

Now for a few things that amazed me;

First, 1 Chronicles 28:19 “All this, said David, the Lord made me understand in writing by his hand upon me, even all the works of this pattern.”  King David is referring to the blue prints for the Temple.  So, where are they?  Why aren’t they part of the Old Testament?  How did the blueprints get lost?  They didn’t.  All this is covered in the Temple Scroll found amidst the Dead Sea Scrolls.  And there are several copies of it.  Who knew there was lost books of the Bible?   

Second, in the eleven “libraries” amongst the hundreds of books there are copies of ever book in the Old Testament except one.  There is not one copy of Esther.  Know why?  Because God is not mentioned in the Book of Esther.  I guess I knew that, but truth is fleeting. 

Third, in re-reading Esther this weekend I noticed something else.  There’s a scene missing between Esther 7-8. 

“ ⁷And the king arising from the banquet of wine in his wrath went into the palace garden and Haman stood up to make request for his life to Esther the queen; for he saw that there was evil determined against him by the king.                                          ⁸ Then the king returned out of the palace garden into the place of the banquet of wine; and Haman was fallen upon the bed whereon Esther was. Then said the king, Will he force the queen also before me in the house? As the word went out of king's mouth, they covered Haman's face.”

So, what happen when the king went outside to cool off?  All of the sudden Haman was over powered by lust for Esther?  He tripped and just happen to be straddled on the queen when the king returned?  Esther tripped him and “rent her garments” when she saw her husband returning?  Whatever happen Esther’s servants were quick to cover Haman’s mouth so his side of the story couldn’t come out before he was promptly hung. 

What particularly confuses me is that Moses Maimonides comment on Esther.  Maimonides is  a philosopher and scholar whom I much admire.  To quote his commentary  on Laws of the Scroll (of Esther) 2:18, "When Messiah comes, the other books may pass away, but the Torah (Old Testament ) and Esther will abide forever."  Moses was much wiser and better educated in Biblical matters than I so I guess I’ll take his work for it.  Still I wonder.  I looked at some of the allegorical interpretation of the book and they reek of desperation.  So I guess I’ll accept the Esther at face value.  Maybe even follow Normandi Ellis advice in “Awakening Osiris” and contemplate a “bit of legend fallen from the lips of a slave girl”. 

All in all, I highly recommend “Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls”

PS: The Dead Sea Scrolls do not include any Christian writings.