Saturday, March 27, 2010

Angels & Demons 1: When did the angels fall?


If the angels fell during creation week, why didn’t anyone mention it? The six days of creation recorded in Genesis 1 say nothing about the creation of angels. They were not explicitly mentioned as being present with God when he created the heavens and the earth. They were not mentioned in any of the six days, as God created light, firmament, seas, plant life, animal life, or man. We find it necessary to explore Rabbinic Jewish literature (Hebrew writings written AFTER the New Testament) to even find speculation on when they were created.

Rabbinic Judaism (from 200 to 400 A.D.) teaches that angels were created on the second day of creation, although some differing opinions vary from the first to the fifth day; and there is even the contention that some angels existed prior to creation. Regarding the Fall of the Angels, this date likewise varies from the creation week to later in the history of man.

What is significant, however, is that the discussion of the creation of angels and the Fall of the Angels did not occur until much later than the supposed event. It was not until the Hellenistic period of Jewish history (between 300 and 50 B.C.) when Jews were under the control of the Greeks (Alexander the Great and his successors) that the Fall of the Angels became a topic of much conversation. Yet, in those years following the completion of the Old Testament, there is a flood of literature containing information on the subject.

Interestingly enough, within the literature of the new associates of the Jewish people, the Hellenistic Greeks, there is an abundance of material that, in many ways, closely parallels the various accounts of the Fallen Angel story. Leo Jung explains: “That divine beings, even gods, have sexual intercourse with women was a well-known view, nay, a creed of Hellenistic religion.” We can safely assume that Greek culture had a reasonable effect on the Fallen Angel theme from its very outset. To be sure, many of our sources discussing the Fallen Angels are even written in the Greek language.

My major professor in my Master’s in Hebrew degree program at Indiana University, Henry Fischel writes:

It is fortunate that at this stage of scholarship no further defense has to be made for the assumption that Greco-Roman situations were well-known to the creators of . . . the literature that modifies the word and world of Scripture by interpretation, explicitly or implicitly. Rather, the problem is how far this knowledge went, how much of Greco-Roman academic procedure and philosophical quest was useful in that on-going process . . . [that produced the] Mishnah [200 A.D.] and the Jerusalem Talmud [400 A.D.]

In the next several weeks, I will discuss what we know about Angels, Fallen Angels, and Demons. Most of what people think they know about this subject is filled with legends, myths, and errors. I have found that the New Testament is totally reliable on the subject, as compared with Jewish literature, but that “interpretations” of the New Testament have been distorted and clouded by the literature that appeared between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament. The period between the two Testaments is the Hellenistic period. It is a time in which Jewish writers tried to please their Greek masters by suggesting that their religion was very similar to Greek religion. Unfortunately, Greek religion was polytheistic and Greek gods were very sexual. While monotheistic Judaism was unwilling to present God as sexual, it latched onto the possibility that angels (who were plural, as opposed to God) may have engaged in sexual activity.

Next week, I will discuss the Greek connection. For now, I issue this warning: It is not a coincidence that Jewish discussion of sexual angels surfaces at the same time Jews were trying to please Greeks.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Disneology #15: The Afterlife


ASSIGNMENT 19: RIDE EITHER THE “HOLLYWOOD TOWER OF TERROR” IN DISNEY’S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS OR THE “HAUNTED MANSION” AT THE MAGIC KINGDOM, AND PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO THE VARIOUS DEPICTIONS OF GHOSTS. ARE THERE SUCH THINGS AS GHOSTS? WHAT HAPPENS TO HUMANS AFTER THEY DIE?

Dennis O'Neil, in the website “Evolution of Modern Humans: Archaic Human Culture,” writes: “The Neandertal ritual burial of their own dead implies a belief in an afterlife. This is basically a rudimentary religious concept. Likewise, the ritual burial of cave bear trophy heads is consistent with a supernatural belief system.” (http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_3.htm)

Kenneth Burke, after generating his Definition of Man, toyed with the notion that he should have included one more clause, “conscious of his own death.” Not only are humans conscious of their own death, their perfectionist nature makes them interested in what happens to them after death. Human perfectionism causes individuals to write wills and purchase life insurance to effect proper conditions for their loved ones, after they die. Humans also pursue methods of insuring that their own personal afterlife will be satisfactory.

Even atheists, according to Burke, are probably plagued with a haunting concern that they might find themselves in some version of Hell. Burke, an agnostic, sees that "atheism . . . involves the denial of immortality" (ATH 51). His perspective will not allow him to be an atheist. He explains:

Usually, the "scientific" mind prefers simply to truncate its thinking on the subject. It "suspends judgment." "Maybe there is immortality, and maybe there isn't." At least, if science abides by its rules, adopting a conviction only when it can be "proved by the evidence," it would not seem possible for the "scientific mind" to go beyond this agnostic position. Atheism (and, in keeping, a categorical denial of immortality) is a statement of faith that necessarily cannot be substantiated by a "weighing of all the evidence." When you find a [hu]man . . . eager to deny the possibility . . . you may legitimately . . . [ask:] Why such zest? Might it not come from a fear of punishment after death? (ATH 52)

As for the Walt Disney Corporation, the concept of death and rebirth seems to be formulaic in their films. In the Jungle Book, Balou the Bear appears to have died, then reemerges from this state. Sleeping Beauty succumbs to a death-like sleep and is then awakened. Likewise, Snow White, after eating a poisoned apple, is laid out in a coffin by the Dwarfs until her prince revives her with a kiss. In Pinocchio and Beauty and the Beast, Pinocchio and the beast seem to actually die. Then, they are both reborn to a new kind of body: a human body, instead of a wooden puppet or beast.

In a similar vein, Hercules descends to Hades to rescue Meg, and Mufassa, the Lion King Simba’s father, returns from the dead to speak to Simba.

Walt Disney, according to a myth, hedged his bets. The myth says he had his body preserved by cryogenics at his death, so that he could be revived when the cures to his illnesses had been discovered. Not true. Walt died of cancer and a heart attack, on December 15, 1966. His body was cremated two days later.

Biblically, the Hebrew word SHE’OL, translated “grave, hades, or the abode of the dead,” hints at the basic problem. It comes from the word SHA’AL, meaning “to ask.” The point is, much like the whole issue of theology, there are certain things no living human knows. We may, at times, just need to leave things in the arena of things we are still “asking” about. This means that the afterlife and theology, in general, fall in the realm of rhetoric. There seems to be evidence, dating as far back as the Neanderthals, that humans have believed in an afterlife. As Burke suggests, it would appear to be beyond the capacity of science to either prove or disprove the existence of either the afterlife or God. So, where are we?

Humans have been persuading themselves and others for thousands of years regarding the religious issues lurking in the parks at Walt Disney World. Some would persuade us that, since we do not know the answers of SHE’OL, we need not even consider it. Others would persuade us that, since there is an instinctive view in humans that there is an afterlife, we would be unwise to ignore such issues. Some would persuade us that, if there is an afterlife, everyone will (in a Disneyesque sense) “live happily ever after.” Other would persuade us that, if there is an afterlife, some will live MORE happily ever after than some others. What do you think?

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Disneology #14: Man’s Perfectionist Nature=God’s Image?

ASSIGNMENT 16: RIDE THE “TOMORROWLAND TRANSIT AUTHORITY” IN THE MAGIC KINGDOM, AND PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO THE MODEL VIEW OF THE PERFECT COMMUNITY, AS YOU PASS THROUGH SPACE MOUNTAIN. THEN, VISIT DISNEY’S “PERFECT COMMUNITY”—CELEBRATION, FLORIDA, LOCATED DIRECTLY SOUTH OF THE MAGIC KINGDOM AND DISNEY PROPERTY, ON WORLD DRIVE.

Is there such a thing as a “perfect” community, a perfect chair, a perfect house, a perfect wife or husband? Kenneth Burke concluded his definition of human with what he called a “wry codicil.” The fifth phrase is presented by Burke as a "final codicil [which] was still needed, thus making in all":

[The hu]Man is
the symbol-using . . . animal
inventor of the negative . . .
separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own making
goaded by the spirit of hierarchy . . .
and rotten with perfection. (LSA 16)

PHRASE 5: “ROTTEN WITH PERFECTION.”
Is there such a thing as “perfect” anything? Plato thought so. In Plato’s philosophy, there was a heavenly family of perfect forms that pre-existed all less-than-perfect forms on earth. The very reason Plato presents his teacher Socrates asking “Socratic” questions is that he believed each human soul originally existed in a perfect world PRIOR to being born into human bodies. In their pre-existing state, these souls knew all perfect forms. When these souls were born, they went through a process of “forgetting” everything they originally knew. Therefore, the best way to find knowledge, for Plato and Socrates, is through a process of un-forgetting what we originally knew. Hence, Socrates asks questions. He expects his students to unforget/remember those things they knew before birth.

Aristotle disagreed with Plato, his teacher. He did not teach that a world of perfect forms existed in a heavenly realm; instead, his form of perfectionism related to a term he coined: entelechy. He taught, for example, that all living organisms have a perfect form toward which they grow. A kernel of corn begins very small, but grows to be a stalk eight feet tall, with tassels, leaves, and ears growing within the protection of the leaves. The ears have husks, silks, cobs, and new kernels of corn growing on the cobs. The production of these new kernels represents perfection. Then, the new kernels are planted and the entelechy process starts all over again.


Kenneth Burke liked Aristotle’s term entelechy, but he used it in a way different from the way Aristotle used it. Burke used the term entelechy to demonstrate that humans are always trying to chase perfection. Thus, Burke's definition of the human ends with the human's rotten obsession for chasing perfection. Perhaps the irony of ending his definition with a clause indicating the rottenness of the human preoccupation with perfection prompted Burke to call this a "wry codicil" (LSA 16). With the addition of this “perfection” codicil, Burke believes that he has perfected a definition of mankind.

For my part, my doctoral dissertation at Purdue University and my book, Implicit Rhetoric: Kenneth Burke’s Extension of Aristotle’s Concept of Entelechy, detail my research into this perfectionist tendency in humans.

Walt Disney’s perfectionist impulse is found in his desire to build an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT). This dream/concept of a perfect community is found in the “Tomorrowland Transit Authority” in the Magic Kingdom, in the model view of the perfect community, as you pass through Space Mountain. It was his original idea for EPCOT, but the later developers of EPCOT took that theme park in a different direction. Yet, Disney’s “perfect community” was actually built in a newly developed town on the southern perimeter of Walt Disney World property--Celebration, Florida.

Disney’s perfectionist impulse is also found in his stories. You will not be disappointed when you reach the end of a Walt Disney movie. He solves all of the problems raised in the movie, with a perfect solution.

ASSIGNMENT 17: WALK THROUGH CINDERELLA’S CASTLE IN THE MAGIC KINGDOM. NOTE THE SERIES OF FIVE SCENES MADE OF MOSAIC TILES ON THE LEFT AS YOU ENTER FROM MAIN STREET. THE FIRST SCENE DEPICTS A PROBLEM--CINDERELLA WORKING AMONG THE CINDERS. NOTE WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE THREE MIDDLE SCENES. IN THE FINAL SCENE, CINDERELLA IS CARRIED AWAY BY HER PRINCE ON HIS WHITE HORSE. PERFECTION!

Humans, says Burke, are rotten with perfection. We believe there is a perfect way of speaking a language, so we “correct” each other when our speech displays “imperfections.” We believe there really is a perfect wife, a perfect husband, a perfect child, a perfect church, a perfect mother, and (theologically) a perfect father: God. It is with this perfect father/God in mind that Kenneth Burke introduces his term Logology. Burke, being an agnostic, is not ready to embrace full-fledged Theology, but he certainly recognizes that implicit in the human discussion of Theology is the ability to conceive of and talk about perfection. Logology is the study of words. This study of words includes words for the perfect, the supernatural, the theological. What is the term omniscient, as applied to God, if not a conception of someone who has perfect knowledge? The term omnipotent, if not a conception of someone who has perfect power? The term omnipresent, if not a conception of someone who has perfect capacity to be present (everywhere)? The term eternal, if not a conception of someone who has perfect longevity? The term immortal, if not a conception of someone who has perfect living-capacity?

How is it that, among animals, only humans show signs of conceiving of this perfection? Humans can not only conceive of a perfectly “good” being, but also of a perfectly “evil” being. What other animal shows signs of believing in a perfect devil? Other animals may be aware of their own predators and fear them, but do they ever perfect this notion into a concept of ultimate, perfect evil?

ASSIGNMENT 18: VIEW FANTASMIC IN THE EVENING AT DISNEY’S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS. YOU WILL EXPERIENCE MICKEY MOUSE’S DREAM OF “LIGHT VS. DARKNESS.” MAKE A LIST OF DISNEY’S VILLAINS PORTRAYED IN THIS PRESENTATION. DO THEY COME CLOSE TO THE CONCEPT OF PERFECT EVIL?

Genesis 3:5 observes this nature in man—his ability to know both good and evil—and suggests that this ability makes man like God. The serpent says to Eve: “God knows that whenever you eat of [the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil], your eyes will be opened and you will, like gods, be knowing good and evil.” This Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was, according to Genesis 2:9, in the center of the Garden of Eden, alongside the Tree of Life. (Disney’s Animal Kingdom has a Tree of Life, but no Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.) True. It would be in character for the serpent of Genesis to distort the truth, but there certainly is evidence (even in the name of the Tree) that the ability to conceive of good and evil is godlike. The ability to conceive of a perfect being is one more argument that man is in God’s image.

At what point, then, did could we say that man began to exist “in God’s image”? If you accept the view of the serpent in Genesis, it may not have ultimately occurred until Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. (Incidentally, according to Genesis, it was not until after this event that humans made clothing from fig leaves.) If you want to trace the origin of man to human symbol-use (as in Burke’s first phrase), you would do well to look at the earliest cave drawings. If you want to trace the fossil record to the date at which humans began to make tools (as in Burke’s third phrase), it is called the Stone Age.

It may strike the reader as strange that Burke's philosophy has no need of a definitive position on human origins. Burke answers such a question this way: “Certain . . . decisions might be immaterial to a given philosophy. For instance, though specialists might quarrel as to just exactly where human culture began and exactly how it spread, many such decisions would be quite irrelevant to a philosophy of language which takes as its starting point a definition of [hu]man as [s/]he is, everywhere all over the world, regardless of how [s/]he came to be that way” ("Poetics and Communication," in Perspectives in Education, Religion, and the Arts).

I leave it up to you to develop your own views of exactly when humans began to exist in God’s image, but it seems clear to me that the fossil remains of pre-humans from millions of years ago that exhibited no signs of symbol-use, morality, tool-making, symbolic hierarchies, or concepts of perfection were NOT in the image of God. The oldest known written languages date back some 6000 to 10,000 years. This whole matter of not knowing must be frustrating to a being who is “rotten with perfection”—a being who desires perfect information concerning his own origins; a being who is not God, but who is in the image of God. If we were not perfectionists, why would we be frustrated about this?

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Disneology #13: Man’s Symbolic Hierarchies=God’s Image?

ASSIGNMENT 15: VISIT THE GORILLAS IN “PANGANI FOREST” IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. WHICH GORILLA DO YOU BELIEVE IS AT THE TOP OF THE GORILLA HIERARCHY IN THAT COLLECTION OF GORILLAS? NOW, VISIT “THE HALL OF PRESIDENTS” IN THE MAGIC KINGDOM. CLEARLY, PRESIDENTS ARE THE TOP OF THE HIERARCHY IN THE U.S., BUT DO YOU DETECT ANY HIERARCHY AMONG THE VARIOUS PRESIDENTS (A TOP OF THE TOP), ACCORDING TO THE DISNEY PRESENTATION?

Recall that we are still considering Kenneth Burke’s definition of human:

“Man is the symbol-using (symbol-making, symbol-misusing) . . . animal, inventor of (and moralized by) the negative . . . separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own making, goaded by the spirit of hierarchy (or moved by a sense of order) . . . and rotten with perfection.” (LSA 16)

We have considered three phrases and are now ready for PHRASE 4: GOADED BY THE SPIRIT OF HIERARCHY (OR MOVED BY A SENSE OF ORDER).

Virtually all animals have hierarchies, but these hierarchies are all “natural” hierarchies. In the insect world (which you visited in the show “It’s Tough to be a Bug” in the Animal Kingdom), the top of the hierarchy is typically a female, such as the Queen Bee. Among such birds as chickens, there is a “pecking order.” One chicken (or rooster) is in a position in which s/he has earned the honor of not being “peckable” by other fowl. (This is not the same as when English speakers speak “impeccable” German!) This non-peckable chicken is allowed to peck every other chicken in the hen-yard. However, none of the others can peck her/him. There are those below this chicken who can peck every other chicken EXCEPT the one at the top of the hierarchy. And, so it goes until you reach that one chicken that is peckable by every other chicken in the hen-yard, but is not allowed to peck ANY other chicken back. We call that lowest one on the hierarchy “hen-pecked.” Humans, noticing this natural hierarchy, label husbands who do not seem capable of fighting back against their wives’ onslaughts “henpecked.” A similar phenomenon occurs among wolves. The “leader of the pack” is allowed to bite the back of every other member of the wolf-pack. Some lowly wolf is bitten by all the pack, but cannot bite any other wolf. Humans, noticing this natural hierarchy, speak of “backbiting” going on in organizations as employees jostle for superior ranking in the organization.
What is enlightening to Burke is that, while various animal species seem to have a single “natural” hierarchy, humans have innumerable “symbolic” hierarchies. The Greek word HIEROS, translated “priest,” when combined with the Greek word ARCHE, meaning “first,” produces the word “hierarchy.” Even in the Catholic Church, there are priests who seek higher and higher positions. The highest or first priest in the Catholic Church would be higher than Bishop, Archbishop, or Cardinal: the Pope. Yet, the hierarchy goes even higher—to Jesus and God the Father. The bottom level of the hierarchy also goes lower than the lowest priest—to altar boy, parishioner, Protestant Christian, member of another religion altogether, atheist, and (eventually) Satan. This is, of course, a religious hierarchy.

There are educational hierarchies—with Ph.D.s at the top and illiterate grade school drop-outs at the bottom. There are athletic hierarchies as numerous as the number of events in the Winter and Summer Olympics, plus all organized (and unorganized) sports. There are corporate hierarchies at every corporation, as employees climb the corporate ladder. There are popularity hierarchies in Middle School.


I comment, on pages 306-307 of my chapter, “Communication, Hierarchy, and Dramatistic Form,” in Omar Swartz’s book, Transformative Communication Studies:

Another hierarchy is the family hierarchy. We call the competition among children in this hierarchy “sibling rivalry.” Politics is a hierarchy . . . humans create all kinds of symbolic hierarchies—from the best tobacco spitter in Tennessee to the best practitioner of speaking the English language in Britain, to the best looking hand model in Hollywood. Ironically, many of those who oppose hierarchy theoretically create their own new hierarchies, such as the hierarchy of “least hierarchical systems.”

Just as humans are symbol-MAKING,
INVENTORS of the negative,
And tool-MAKING,
they are also, now, hierarchy-MAKING.

Bottom line . . . humans MAKE things, and they MAKE things using their SYMBOLIC nature.

Almost everything Genesis claims that God MADE was MADE by God using his SYMBOLIC nature—he SPOKE. This symbolic nature (of both man and God) is what Burke may have been referring to when he said that man was goaded by a SPIRIT of hierarchy. (Spirit is, for Burke, another word for symbolicity.) While other animals HAVE hierarchies, their hierarchies are NOT OF THEIR OWN MAKING. The other animals utilize hierarchies that already exist in nature. Humans are different. They are capable of making things due to their symbolic nature as the “image of God,” the creator.

As I first mentioned in Disneology #6: “The term ‘create’ is used by Genesis only in terms of creating the ‘heavens and the earth’ in 1:1 (which seems to imply [in the term ‘heavens’] that the Sun, Moon, and stars were already created by Day One), creating ‘the great creatures of the sea and every living’ thing in the sea in 1:21 (the beginning of animal life), and God creating ‘man in his own image’ in 1:27.” Other activities of God in the creation week are described as God MAKING things. MAKING could be thought of as less impressive than (but certainly in the same order as) CREATING. Furthermore (based upon the Genesis 1:2 claim that the universe that God created was originally “without form and void”), the creation week account was essentially an account of God bringing this chaos into ORDER. First universe/mass, then light, then seas, then plant life, then water-based animal life, then birds, then amphibians, then land-based animal life, then mammals, and finally humans. This bringing to order was often essentially God MAKING something out of something that he had already created. God, according to Genesis, CREATED the heavens and the earth, but ORDER needed to be brought to the earth. With the exception of animal life and human life in God’s image, all of the other acts in the creation week consisted of MAKING. Even the contentious issue of God’s providing the Sun, Moon, and Stars as indicators of days, seasons, and years (on the 4th day) was a matter of God MAKING, NOT CREATING. That is, things that he had already created (Sun, Moon, and Stars) were now MADE to serve as time markers. It was not until the heated waters above the earth had sufficiently condensed that these preexisting (already created) celestial bodies could be made into “tools” for keeping time. Likewise, the tool-making animal (man) takes elements that already exist in his natural environment and MAKES them into useful instruments. Humans bring further ORDER into the universe.

Now, what about God’s hierarchy? My book on Revelation considers the hierarchical order of beings in the heavenly realm: First God (the one who is seated on the throne), then the Lamb, then the twenty-four elders (who may be a combination of the twelve apostles and the twelve sons of Israel). Beyond these, John equates all Christians--priests, prophets, saints (and even angels)—as “servants. There appears to be no hierarchy, except that of the two who in Revelation are worthy of worship (God and the Lamb). I discuss this hierarchy thoroughly on pages 145-148 of my book on Revelation:

In both creation week and in heavenly hierarchy, one could say that God was “moved by a sense of order.” This is precisely the language used by Burke to describe humans. Since they are also “moved by a sense of order,” one could say that humans are the image of God.