Re: Social Evolution

Bob wrote:

George,
 Recently I was listening to Lamech's victory/taunt song read in an OT
lesson, when it suddenly struck me: did Jesus have this passage in mind when he
responded to a question of Peter's?
 
Lamech sings (Gen. 4:24):
    I have killed a man for wounding me,
    A young man for striking me.
    If Cain is avenged sevenfold,
    Truly Lamech sevety-sevenfold.
 
In Matthew's account (18:21-22), Peter says, "If my brother sins against me,
how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?" Jesus says to him, "Not
seven times, but, I tell you, seventy times seven."
Bob

George replied:
Probably. hebdomekovtakis hepta could be either 77 or 70 x 7. KJV has made
the latter the popular form of the saying but the former seems more likely (as
in, e.g., NRSV & NIV), especially in view of the fact that it then can be
seen as an undoing of Lamech's song.

When I looked at their exchange I was reminded of my recent response to a
post on the Ancient Bible History group on yahoo groups:

--- In AncientBibleHistory@yahoogroups.com, "@@@@@@@"
<@@@@@@@@P...> wrote:

"For the pharaoh and his army (of Exodus)to meet their end in a "field
of reeds" is to heighten the irony (and insult) to its highest pitch."

Just a comment on this literary device @@@@ is suggesting for the
exodus story and its innate irony.
I've seen the device in other places and for want of a better term I
call it the "reversal of absolutes."
In the NT, Jesus is virginally birthed, his father is God himself,
making Jesus literally son of God and the highest ranking male in
Judaism (decided by the father's line) implying Mary's womb is a
unique receptacle.

In the Toledoth Yeshu in the Talmud, Jesus's mother is likely a
prostitute, his father a Roman soldier. In the Talmudic scenario,
Jesus has no valuable lineage, no standing in Judaism and Mary's womb
is a common rather than a unique receptacle, the exact opposite of
the NT.

In 2003, I attended a lecture by Elisheva Carlebach, a widely
respected authority on the Jews of early modern Europe. Her lecture
was titled, The anti-Christian Strain in Early modern Yiddish
Culture. She gave two examples that I remember. In Poland there was
a "White Church." In Yiddish writings of the time it is referred to
as a "black hole." The feast of the Annunciation was referred to in
Yiddish calendars, not as the feast of the "virgin," but the "woman"
not virginal.

Is this the same device "reversing absolutes" Louis sees in the
exodus story?

rich faussette

----------------------------------------------------------

It is very likely that Jesus' words in Matthew are precisely what Bob
suggests and George says they are. A reversal or undoing of Lamech's song, perhaps
literally a "reversal of absolutes" if we consider the significance of the
number 7 to Hebrew writers. This is a common device in the Bible and in other
Jewish writings, e.g. the Talmud.

I include one of these reversals of absolutes in True Religion:

When Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the “tree of the knowledge of good and
evil” the “eyes of both of them were opened and they discovered that they were
naked; so they stitched fig-leaves together and made loincloths… and hid from
the Lord God.” Genesis 3: 6-7

In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus says, “When you disrobe without being ashamed…
 you will not be afraid.” The Gospel of Thomas (37) The Nag Hammadi Library,
revised edition, James. M. Robinson, general editor, Thomas O. Lambdin,
translator, Harper Collins, 1978

rich faussette
Received on Tue Jan 24 23:05:08 2006