Nothing is easier than criticizing the present in view of the past, and with education it is sooo easy. In my day, when color TVs were expensive and huge because they were filled with vacuum tubes, we read a smidgen of (ancient) classic literature and a slew of the contemporary greats that were esteemed as such for their depth. We did not know then what depth was, but they tried to teach us. Nowadays, kids are taught social justice through novels and biographies that have no depth whatsoever – what you see is what you get, and what you get is the prevailing ruling class’s idea of what is socially correct.
But my generation of dinosaurs could also be found wanting. Until the public school system took over education in the latter half of the 19th century, most people who got an education were taught literature from the Greek and Roman classics, and from the Bible. By my time, the real classics were thought a bit stogy and perhaps irrelevant, and the Bible, an affront to our non-religious citizens. Too bad, for it has taken me until the last decade of my life to understand that the classics and the Bible truly formed modern western thought, a way of thinking that, like it or not, brought the western European nations to dominate the world. The two were both necessary and worked in tandem: the classics to perfect western logic – which has given rise to our technological world – and the Bible to give us individual moral conscience and, with it, depth.
Depth, layers, relationships, levels – these are words to specify that what we see is not what we get; rather, we learn that what we see is only what we are capable of seeing, given our knowledge and mindset, and that this mindset can expand and expand, growing from the previous level. From this, we learn that we ourselves have tremendous depth and, finally, might be nothing less than a microcosm of the universe. To bring us to this point, nothing in the Western world can compare to the Bible.
Here is an example, learned from my Bible class on the gospel of Mathew:
To begin the greatest part of his ministry, Jesus was first baptized by John the Baptist and then went on his famous sojourn into the desert where he fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. At the end of this time, he was enticed by the devil who played upon his hunger, his pride and his loyalty in an attempt to steal him away from his “abba,” God the Father. Jesus quoted from scripture at each of his 3 temptations, denying the devil his triumph.
This is all we usually learn in Sunday school, which fits the intellectual level of a child: turn away from temptation and do what Mom and Dad – and their moral lessons – tell you. But, as the tele-commercials tell us, “there’s more!”
40 days – this dovetails with the 40 days that Moses spent in meditation on Mount Sinai at the border of the promised land, and the 40 years that Israel wandered the desert after turning back from their goal (in defiance of God. It also reiterates the 40 days that Noah spent on the ark, but that is one level too deep for this discussion). And the three temptations: In Deuteronomy, Moses tells the people at the end of their wanderings how they failed before God three times – once, when they grumbled about food (hunger), another when they demanded water (in this case, pride, because they thought they deserved it as God’s chosen people), and the third when they worshipped the golden calf (one must have loyalty to God alone). Thus, Jesus’s three temptations. The scriptures used by Jesus to refute the devil were taken from Deuteronomy as well, nailing this reiteration – and this interpretation - to the door. So we are shown that Jesus’s trials mirrored Israel’s journey, with one significant – THE significant – difference: Jesus passed the tests. In such, he was not only reiterating the history of Israel in his own body and life, but was also signaling that he had come to fulfill the promise made by God to Israel – that through him, Israel would gain dominance of the world through a peaceful kingdom. As we know from history, the fulfillment was more than Israel could understand, for it sought a kingdom in the then- prevalent mode of material dominance.
We could go on and on from here, and others could take us much further still, but this is enough, I think, to make the point: that from the Bible we learn that what meets the eye is not what is really running the show; that life itself is much more than this “material kingdom;” and that our own lives are also reiterations of creation and the cosmos itself, just as Jesus’s life mirrored Israel’s history. More concretely, we see that our lives are dramas where our limited, material selves (the devil) comes to do battle with the higher, God-connected self (the son of God, or children of God as we all are). All of which gives us an interior morality beyond the tribal morality of Law, forming in us a sense of individualism, responsibility, and depth that manifests itself as the conscience – which is, in itself, a more expansive form of thought.
Thus, whether we now study the Bible or not, our mode of consciousness has been altered by it none the less. I might also add that this expansive form of thought might just be the trampoline that is needed for the human race to bounce to the next level, which might just be a world kingdom based on peace, maintained not by force but by willful adherence to God.
Which is just a thought. But depth, yes - the Bible would tell us more about the continued struggle to achieve this world of peace, but for now, I admit to being astonished by learning what true depth there is in this foundational book. One might not accept the Bible’s teachings or prophecies at all, but anyone can see that what it tells us has made it self-evident that we are much more than we seem – or at least that we are capable of understanding much more than we currently do, not only in information but in our manner – in our depth – of understanding. The logic of the Classics have given us the tools, but the Bible has given us the sense of destiny, of why we struggle to move on, to improve, to grow in the first place. Fascinating stuff. FK
Nothing is easier than criticizing the present in view of the past, and with education it is sooo easy. In my day, when color TVs were expensive and huge because they were filled with vacuum tubes, we read a smidgen of (ancient) classic literature and a slew of the contemporary greats that were esteemed as such for their depth. We did not know then what depth was, but they tried to teach us. Nowadays, kids are taught social justice through novels and biographies that have no depth whatsoever – what you see is what you get, and what you get is the prevailing ruling class’s idea of what is socially correct.
But my generation of dinosaurs could also be found wanting. Until the public school system took over education in the latter half of the 19th century, most people who got an education were taught literature from the Greek and Roman classics, and from the Bible. By my time, the real classics were thought a bit stogy and perhaps irrelevant, and the Bible, an affront to our non-religious citizens. Too bad, for it has taken me until the last decade of my life to understand that the classics and the Bible truly formed modern western thought, a way of thinking that, like it or not, brought the western European nations to dominate the world. The two were both necessary and worked in tandem: the classics to perfect western logic – which has given rise to our technological world – and the Bible to give us individual moral conscience and, with it, depth.
Depth, layers, relationships, levels – these are words to specify that what we see is not what we get; rather, we learn that what we see is only what we are capable of seeing, given our knowledge and mindset, and that this mindset can expand and expand, growing from the previous level. From this, we learn that we ourselves have tremendous depth and, finally, might be nothing less than a microcosm of the universe. To bring us to this point, nothing in the Western world can compare to the Bible.
Here is an example, learned from my Bible class on the gospel of Mathew:
To begin the greatest part of his ministry, Jesus was first baptized by John the Baptist and then went on his famous sojourn into the desert where he fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. At the end of this time, he was enticed by the devil who played upon his hunger, his pride and his loyalty in an attempt to steal him away from his “abba,” God the Father. Jesus quoted from scripture at each of his 3 temptations, denying the devil his triumph.
This is all we usually learn in Sunday school, which fits the intellectual level of a child: turn away from temptation and do what Mom and Dad – and their moral lessons – tell you. But, as the tele-commercials tell us, “there’s more!”
40 days – this dovetails with the 40 days that Moses spent in meditation on Mount Sinai at the border of the promised land, and the 40 years that Israel wandered the desert after turning back from their goal (in defiance of God. It also reiterates the 40 days that Noah spent on the ark, but that is one level too deep for this discussion). And the three temptations: In Deuteronomy, Moses tells the people at the end of their wanderings how they failed before God three times – once, when they grumbled about food (hunger), another when they demanded water (in this case, pride, because they thought they deserved it as God’s chosen people), and the third when they worshipped the golden calf (one must have loyalty to God alone). Thus, Jesus’s three temptations. The scriptures used by Jesus to refute the devil were taken from Deuteronomy as well, nailing this reiteration – and this interpretation - to the door. So we are shown that Jesus’s trials mirrored Israel’s journey, with one significant – THE significant – difference: Jesus passed the tests. In such, he was not only reiterating the history of Israel in his own body and life, but was also signaling that he had come to fulfill the promise made by God to Israel – that through him, Israel would gain dominance of the world through a peaceful kingdom. As we know from history, the fulfillment was more than Israel could understand, for it sought a kingdom in the then- prevalent mode of material dominance.
We could go on and on from here, and others could take us much further still, but this is enough, I think, to make the point: that from the Bible we learn that what meets the eye is not what is really running the show; that life itself is much more than this “material kingdom;” and that our own lives are also reiterations of creation and the cosmos itself, just as Jesus’s life mirrored Israel’s history. More concretely, we see that our lives are dramas where our limited, material selves (the devil) comes to do battle with the higher, God-connected self (the son of God, or children of God as we all are). All of which gives us an interior morality beyond the tribal morality of Law, forming in us a sense of individualism, responsibility, and depth that manifests itself as the conscience – which is, in itself, a more expansive form of thought.
Thus, whether we now study the Bible or not, our mode of consciousness has been altered by it none the less. I might also add that this expansive form of thought might just be the trampoline that is needed for the human race to bounce to the next level, which might just be a world kingdom based on peace, maintained not by force but by willful adherence to God.
Which is just a thought. But depth, yes - the Bible would tell us more about the continued struggle to achieve this world of peace, but for now, I admit to being astonished by learning what true depth there is in this foundational book. One might not accept the Bible’s teachings or prophecies at all, but anyone can see that what it tells us has made it self-evident that we are much more than we seem – or at least that we are capable of understanding much more than we currently do, not only in information but in our manner – in our depth – of understanding. The logic of the Classics have given us the tools, but the Bible has given us the sense of destiny, of why we struggle to move on, to improve, to grow in the first place. Fascinating stuff. FK
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