Analyze or Interpret?

As we vigorously debated this claim in class, "Homer can be analyzed...but not interpreted", I kept asking myself what the hell the difference is between these two things. I've come to a number of conclusions on this sticky subject, none of which I feel hold any more validity than the other, however I do believe there is a point to be made here.
When one reads further into both of these stories, with Auerback's claim in mind, it is rather hard not to at least give the man some credit for his claim. As I see it, Homer finds himself having to explain every single action, and detail in the story, so there really is no room for interpretation, it just is what it is, nothing more, and nothing less. However in the Bible, and particularly the story of Issac, and Abraham, we see an entirely different style of expression. With Homer's style, we are presented with evidence, to support any claim, or action that might be happening in the Odyssey, and sometimes when all seems lost, a God comes down from "heaven"(Olympus I assume), and Homer narrowly escapes his almost certain doom.
However in the Bible, the style in which God is portrayed, and the characters being manipulated, or commanded by God are shown in an entirely different light. We really are not presented with any reason why God is doing what he's doing to Abraham, Issac, nor do we have any inclination as to how he feels about the actions he is taking against them. What I believe this suggests is perhaps we the people(the audience) are left to interpret what the Bible is trying to tell us. In the Odyssey we see the exact opposite, and we know exactly why the Gods take certain actions, and we are given a detailed explanation as to why certain events take place. Oddly enough when there seems to be even a hint of discrepancy in the Odyssey, we have a sudden Divine Intervention, and the Gods come to save the day. We see no such thing in the bible.

Open Post

An idea that keeps coming to mind as we continue to explore these stories of creation, is why the Gods portrayed in these stories reflects human emotions. I feel this is a very important fact to mentally note for anyone wishing to truly understand who created these stories. As many religious people would like to believe the, Gods meta-divine powers influenced humans to create these stories, in order to explain how Earth, and humans came to be. What I am attempting to point out to my readers, is that the Gods in these stories show emotions such as anger, jealousy, benevolance, contempt, and if I may be so bold, pity. What I feel makes these emotions so significant is the fact that we are lead to believe that these emotions come from the Gods. In no way do I believe any divine figure would express such human emotions, for if they truly were divine, their wisdom would prevent them from feeling, or expressing such feeling of jealousy, and anger.

What I believe this demonstrates, is that these stories were written by humans, interpreted by humans, and written in such a fashion as to scare man kind. If the Gods can get angry, jealous, and pitiful, what makes them any different than man kind? The individuals who constructed, wrote, and manipulated these tales of creation, wrote them in their own words, and by all accounts could have wrote whatever the hell they so pleased. With that being said, I find it very foolish, and wrong for any man to take these stories at face value, and accept them as fact, simply because of a divine claim of allegiance by their authors. When one truly takes the time to analyze the text as a whole, and not so much what the story is attempting to teach you, the hipocracy of the authors is illuminated. Leaving all preconceived notions, and religous opinions aside, it is blaitantly obvious that these stories are the by product of human construction, and mistake. These stories of creation were not constructed by the Gods, they were written by MAN. Whether the MEN who wrote this were influenced by the divine is completly up for debate. Your guess is as good as mine. FAITH is what YOU God fearing, and God worshipping people use as your cop out for this claim. But what is FAITH? To me, faith is blindly accepting something at face value, without any proof, or reason as to why you believe such an absurd story.

Try applying the concept of faith to any aspect of life. If I want to win my next hockey game, and I say, "hey I have faith in myself, and my teammates, so I am surely correct in stating that I will WIN", and when that game is played, and I lose, then what? Oh NO NO NO, I had FAITH why didnt I win? It's because FAITH is BULLSHIT. There is no reason to have such a vague, absurd, and out dated reasoning, and thought pattern. Its a waste of time to claim faith in anything, and a waste of time to speak on faiths behalf. Show me faith, and I'll show you a billion dollars.



Peace out girlscouts

The Flood Story Revisited

When comparing, and contrasting the Great Flood stories, I find a plethora of similarities, and also a number of pivotal differences. The general plot line of each story is rather similar, a person, or god like figure is contacted by the divine, and instructed to prepare for the great flood. Now the three main differences so far as I can tell were why man was going to be destroyed by the flood, how the Enlightened few chosen to survive were to prepare for the flood, and whether or not God would flood the Earth again. There are other minor differences such as the duration of time it took to prepare for the flood, how many people were chosen to survive the flood, and the construction of the vessel in which the chosen would ride out the storm on.

What I'd first like to address is the reasons as to why man was to be wiped out. In the Bible it is vividly depicted as God being angry with man for our sinful nature, and so he intended to wipe man out with a flood, and start over with Noah's family being, "fruitful, and multiplying." However in the epic of Gilgamesh there is a rather metaphorical description as to why Man shall perish, however it seems to be the same general principal, mans sinful nature. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Epic of Creation it seems to be more of a fictional depiction of Gods getting angry that they are not loved, respected, and worshipped by man. Where as in the Bible it seems very black, and white, and it just goes as follows, "man screwed up, now man shall die. Gods little do-over, the end.". The great flood inevitably happens, Noah, his family, and his massive heard of animals rides out the storm, and they all survive, geee what a surprise right?

I also find it odd that Noah is personally contacted by God, as is Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, where as in The Epic of Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim just has a dream about The Flood, and wakes up knowing exactly what to do. To me it makes more sense that if something that chaotic was indeed going to happen, and man was doomed, wouldn't the Divine just contact Utnapishtim directly? I suppose that leads me the reader, and the judge of these texts to believe the Bibles depiction of the flood to be more truthful, and accurate simply due to the fact that it says that God straight up told Noah what's up. I put little faith in dreams, and despite Utnapishtim's dream inevitably coming true, I think it's absolutely more of a fictional depiction. I also find it more believable that one flood is enough, and that God promising not to flood the Earth again was an accurate portrayal of God. In the epic of Gilgamesh there is no such promise made to man, basically leaving the reader on a massive cliff hanger. The Bibles portrayal basically suggests that once is enough, and man has indeed paid for our sinful nature. Where as in the epic of Giligamesh we are lead to believe, or assume that if we screw up again, with our sinful ways, that another Great Flood is inevitable. I think today I'll take option A, and agree with the Bible's story of the great flood. I am in no way saying that everything that happend in the Flood story is entirly true, or accurate, I am simply suggesting it to be a more logical, factual description of what happend.


Until Next time...this is Tyler Abbott, signing off.


Good Afternoon

Open Post(late)

There is a question in my mind that keeps arising everytime I read one of the orignal stories of creation, and the stories of the flood. What I find myself wondering is whether or not God knew he was going to eventually have to start over with the "creation of man project" he had going on way back then. There are many accounts in all the different stories we've read to date where the God portrayed by the stories authors, is all knowing, and all powerful. Now one would assume that if this were indeed the case, that perhaps the first attempt at creating Man, was sort of a trial, and if I may be so bold, an error at first. God created all that is life in this world, including man, despite Man's ability to have original thought, and original sin.

In my opinion, it is completly logical to assume that perhaps God just wanted to see how long it would take man to abuse the privledge of life. If this claim I have made is indeed anywhere close to accurate then what does this say about the God portrayed in these stories of Creation, The Great Flood, and even the stories of Cain and Abel? If God knew all these events were eventaully going to take place, much like a domino effect, then why go through the trouble of creating Man in the first place, if we were purposfully set up for failure? We are assumed to be imperfect beings, and by all accounts we absolutly are.

However, with all assumptions set aside I think these stories absolutly display contradictiory opinions, ideas, and stories. As one may already assume, I believe that these contradictions are actually the imperfect, and human interpretation of the Divine. It is safe to assume that whoever originally wrote these stories, had only one intention in mind, and that being to use the idea of God as a scare tactic to keep us from sinning. It is almost as if they're saying, "dont sin or else you'll realize your naked, you'll be wiped out by a flood, or God will ask you to kill your favorite son...ect". It seems to me that this God is displaying human emotions such as jealousy, anger, benevolance...ect. Which in turn leads me to again assume that this error in the portrayal of God is indeed a human error, and not an error on the Divines part. I could go on for days about this idea, however I have more posts to attend to, so I'll leave my readers this food for thought.

Good Day to you all.

Yahweh & The Flood

Perhaps one of the most note able stories in Biblical history would be that of Noah, the Ark, and the flood. God, or "Yahweh" as I will refer to him as from now on, is tired of the evil, and wickedness that has come of Earth, and his people. We see an example of this disdain for man in Genesis when the story describes Yahweh's feelings towards man as being, "..God saw that the wickedness of men was great on Earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on Earth, and it grieved him at his heart"(Genisis93). It seems the text is portraying Yahweh as almost being ashamed of his creation, that man has indeed failed Him, their God, and that repercussions for mans wickedness will soon come. Yahweh seems almost angry, and ashamed of man at this point in the story.

However, as we continue to read more into the story of The Flood, we begin to see a very different side to Yahweh, then what one may have originally thought. It seems that Yahweh is also very saddened by the fact that his creation, Man, has indeed failed him as their God, and we see this at the end of my last quote where it says, "...and it grieved Him at his heart"(Genisis 93) This portrayal of sadness, and melancholy feelings towards man seems to foreshadow something inevitably happening to man, because of man's lack of respect for God.

As we read further into the Flood story, I find myself begging the question of whether or not Yahweh is truly all knowing, and all-wise. For if He was, is it not logical to assume that perhaps God knew his people would with out a doubt fail Him eventually? If this were the case, and Yahweh really did know the fate of his creation of man ultimately failing Him, why then would he have created man in the first place? This lack of evidence to support the idea that Yahweh is indeed all knowing is an obvious answer to my questions of God's "all knowing" abilities. What I believe the text portrays about Yahweh is that he is indeed All-powerful, but he is defintly NOT all knowing. I say this simply due to the fact that I would assume any form of the Divine, or meta-divine realm would not create something simply to destroy it.

I believe the texts suggests that Yahweh did not expect his people, his creation, Man, to fail him so miserably. In response to mans lack of Holiness, I believe Yahweh did the only logical thing, and basically erase his "mistake"(Evil men), and start over with a clean slate in front of him. I find contextual evidence of this claim to be very minimal, however this in no way discourages my thoughts, or opinions on the matter. What I did find to support this idea was the instructions from Yahweh to Noah about building the Ark, and basically saving life on Earth as we know it. When Yahweh says to Noah, "come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation"(Genisis 93), I believe this is reflecting a faint strand of hope in Yahwehs eyes, and the stories portrayal of God. Where at first we are lead to believe that God has lost all faith in humanity, we a greeted with a breath of fresh air when we realize Yahwehs faith in us is not gone forever. This renewal of hope, and faith in humanity couldn't have come soon enough in the story, because one is lead to believe that the annihilation of man is indeed inevitable.

All though the Flood story portrays Yahweh in many different fashions, I believe the most obvious descriptions of Yahweh, and his feelings towards man are felt when Yahweh is speaking directly to Noah. We see examples of Anger, sadness, faith, and hope through Yahwehs eyes, and life eventually does go on. Yahweh saves the few righteous followers of God, and after the annihilation of evil, and wickedness in the world, God instructs Noah, and his family to, "be fruitful & Multiply, and replenish the Earth".(95) I believe this statement alone, ultimately gives us the portrayal of Yahweh as being all powerful, and a loving God. For despite all the destruction of Man, and Earth Yahweh has left hope, and faith in humanity, back in the hands of Men...http://youtu.be/PnUvSn9pVaA

Open Post

To the Youth, and Young adults of our Nation, rather to whom it may concern:

When I was younger, the guidance counselors of my youth promised me if I tried hard in middleschool, and highschool I'd get into college, and do amazing things. However, with the current state of affairs in America, I am starting to doubt the promises Mrs. Grandy promised me. You said if I got my 4 year degree, I'd be happy, and well off for the rest of my life. Instead, in this day in age, a 4 year degree might aswell be a highschool diploma that you paid for. My best friend john just graduated from Boise State with a 4 year degree in American History. Now one may argue that this is not the most applicable degree right now, however it is still a 4 year degree from Boise State. Isnt that what were all here for? We get to walk the stage, humbly except our blue, and orange piece of shinny paper, and then what? I'll tell you what happend to my friend John, he's been looking for a real job for over a year now, and works at Radioshack for minimum wage. He has a college degree, and works with people who barely graduated highschool. Wait hold up. W T F right? That isnt supposed to happen, or at least according to our parents, and academic advisors it isnt. They promised us the moon, and instead we got radar detector, and cell phone salesmen.  So I suppose I will continue on my quest to summit the academic mountain, that in my opinion rivals Mount Everast. But what will become of me once I succeed? What will become of my peers? Is there any clear cut answer?

Found Lost Post hooray!

When comparing, and contrasting both of these pieces I find my self wondering who the authors intended their audience to be. They are obviously both stories of how the Earth came to be, however The Epic of Creation seems to reflect more of a story plot line, rather than a lyrical description of the birth of Earth, as we find in Metamorphoses. The most noteable similarity in my humble opinion would be the descriptions of Earth, or whatever this place was, before the Gods decided to have a divine intervention with the matter at hand. Both stories describe Earth prior to any divine act being a place of utter chaos. Now when I first read these stories, I assumed chaos was something like what I witnessed on 9/11 all those years ago. However Scott gave me some insight that helped me think better of this word. Chaos, as you described in class is simply a lack of order. I may be assuming, or guessing on this one, but perhaps the chaos is exactly as you described it to the class in both these authors minds. Maybe chaos is not synonymous with violence? With that being said I think in both of these stories the authors were trying to convey the idea that the Divine, or the Gods of this time, were the fathers, and mothers of order, and peace. Something I also felt was important enough not to leave out on this post was the description of the Gods from each of these stories. In Metamorphoses the author refers to the divine as, "Till God, or kindlier of nature"(Humphries 168). We also see on the following page that he refers to the Creator as, "Whatever God it was, who out of chaos brought order to the universe and gave it division".(Humphries 169). We see here that the author gives no name, or any real claim of allegiance by this god to any formal religious group. Where as in The Epic of Creation we see multiple example of Gods, they are specifically named, and they even procreated, giving way to the idea of offspring of the Gods...crazy right? My final thought will be on the introduction of each of these stories because they are amazingly similar. In metamorphoses the first few lines are as follows, "Before the ocean was, or earth, or heaven. Nature was all alike, shapeless. Chaos so called ruled the lumpy matter".(Humphries 168). We see the same idea, almost verbatim in The Epic of Creation when the author states. " When the skies above were not yet named, nor Earth below pronounced by name.."(Dally 146). These similarities are amazingly obvious that even a common fool could make the comparison. I believe that both of these stories follow a similar structure, and pattern. So far as motives are concerned I believe that it speculatory at best, and would imagine it was simply to convey a common message to the future world. Whatever that message may be, your guess is as good as mine.

LOST MY POST

Scott. I had a 700 hundred word respose to this post, when using blogger spell check it redirected me to the blogger dashboard. When i clicked back, I had lost everything. Is there an autosave, or drafts like when you send an email? I literally just finnished my response, and was spell checking before i posted, what did i do, or what should i do?

Myth Questions...

What is the significance of the struggle between father, and son? Thinking along the lines of castration, and gential removals symoblism.

Is there a central idea, or message illustrated in the text, when it comes to each texts version of creation, and the creation of human beings? Is there a theme? What would that theme be, and why do you suppose the authors of these ancient texts would chose to shed light on these themes in particular?


I dont know if these questions are exactly what you wanted, however these were the question I found myself asking as I read each text.


To be debated...