Synoptic Gospels

Jesus Christ baptism site: "In the synoptic gospels, Jesus is baptised by John the Baptist. Site...is considered by many to be the site of the baptism of Jesus." Photo and text (abridged): Vyacheslav Argenberg

Synoptic Gospels

The first three gospels appearing in the New Testament books of Matthew, Mark and Luke.

Although they differ in some details, there’s a great deal of overlap.

Most scholars believe that Mark is the oldest gospel, possibly written around 30 CE. Its form and content is simpler than Matthew and Luke.

Some hypothesize the existence of an undiscovered document called “Q” which would account for the commonalities in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark.

According to this view, the writers of Matthew and Luke drew upon both Mark and Q to further embellish Mark. As of yet, however, no actual Q document has been found so it remains a convenient scholarly fable.

» Bible, Gospel of Luke, Gospel of Mark, Gospel of Matthew, Q Document

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Serpent

Serpent to Rain by roctopus

Serpent

The serpent is a symbol found in most mythological and religious traditions around the world.

Similarities in meaning exist as do important differences.

In Jewish and Christian accounts of Eden, the serpent is the “most subtle” of all creatures that tempts Eve into disobeying God’s command to not eat of the tree of knowledge. Eve then seduces Adam into eating and mankind is expelled from the Garden of Eden and cursed to forever suffer and work.

The Biblical Leviathan was a great sea serpent, “the dragon that is in the sea” (Isaiah 27:1).

In India, the kundalini (Skt: coiled like a snake) represents serpent power that is awakened by carefully opening a series of chakras (body/psyche points of power).

India also has a naga cult with widespread devotees who worship a demi-god cobra with a human face.

The snake is also regarded as a healer in some Native American traditions.

Serpent devouring a man (Detail from Aztec calendar)

In Mexican mythological art, a giant serpent is often depicted as swallowing a human being, usually head-first.

Australian aboriginal myths also talk of the serpent “swallowing up people and animals” (Mythology: An Illustrated Encyclopedia ed. Richard Cavendish, 2003, Time Warner Books, p. 211).

This might bear a symbolic relation to the Biblical notion that “God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34). That is, the inferior aspects of the human personality must be purged, symbolically devoured or sent to hell so the superior may further develop.

The logo for contemporary western medicine is a snake coiled around a pole, a symbol derived from ancient Greece, as evident in engravings of Aesculapius, c. 100 BCE, where a serpent is coiled around his staff. This symbol is often mistakenly linked to the Greek Caduceus, displayed in myth as a two serpents wound around a staff, sometimes with wings.

The psychiatrist Carl Jung was interested in the Ouroboric serpent, a symbol derived from Gnosticism in which the snake forms a circle by biting its own tail. For Jung this is a mandala, symbolizing his understanding of self wholeness.

The above examples only scratch the surface of serpent symbolism, a topic too diverse to treat adequately here. Nevertheless, J. E. Cirlot suggests that one commonality present among numerous serpent symbols is the representation of psychic energy. And Philip Gardiner argues that snake symbolism as a whole is dualistic, containing elements of salvation and destruction.

» Apollo, Kundalini, Persephone, Shakti

• Articles and Reviews about “serpent” at earthpages.org » http://epages.wordpress.com/?s=serpent

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Numinous

Numinous

The term numinous is often said to have been coined by the German Lutheran scholar Rudolf Otto (1869-1937) to describe a personal experience of spiritual power.

But in 1647 Nathaniel Ward wrote in The simple cobler of Aggawam in America:

The Will of a King is very numinous; it hath a kinde of vast universality in it.

Source: Oxford English Dictionary

The term is derived from the Latin numen, usually translated as “the presence of a god or goddess” or the “will, manifestation or power of a deity.”

The most ancient example is in a text of Accius cited by Varro: “Alia hic sanctitudo est aliud nomen et numen Iouis” (“Here, the holiness of Jupiter is one thing, the name and power of Jupiter another.”

Schilling, Robert. “Numen.” Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. Lindsay Jones. Vol. 10. 2^nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 6753-6754. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale.

For Otto, numinosity originates from outside the self but is perceived within. A higher process than the magical, the numinous takes many forms. It has primitive, daemonic and dark as well as elevated, noble and pure aspects.

Otto calls the absolute and purest experience of the numen “the Holy.” This high aspect of the numinous involves an experience marked by a feeling of “Awefulness,” “Overpoweringness,” “Energy” or “Urgency.”

Sometimes Otto implies that the numinous is identical among all religions. Other times he reveals a Christian bias, suggesting that the numinosity experienced through the Bible and by various Christian mystics is absolute and pure.

Innocue Vivito: Numen adest - Hammarby by Henry Heatly

From today’s standards, Otto’s definition of numinosity might seem a bit vague and unsystematic. But his work is regarded as a milestone and continues to have a profound influence in depth psychology and comparative religion.

The term numinous is also used by C. G. Jung to depict a spiritual experience involving some kind of alteration of ego-based consciousness (i.e. “altered states”).

For Jung, the experience of numinosity arises when an archetype of the collective unconscious is activated. Depending on combined factors such as the condition of the psyche, the stability of the ego and the archetypal source, numinosity may be either psychologically healing or destructive.

Joseph Campbell says that numen has parallel terms in the “Melanesian mana, Dakotan wakon, Ironquoian orenda and Algonquian manitu.”

But it would be unwarranted to suppose that these terms necessarily point to identical spiritual forces and related experiences.

Along these lines, the Romanian scholar, Mircea Eliade says that numinosity exhibits a diversity of intensities, qualities and effects. And Deidre Sklar adds from the perspective of dance:

While the experience alternately called presence, or unity, or numinosity may be the same across spiritual traditions, “ways of doing” are different. Presence comes in a multitude of flavors. “The virgin,” is different than “Buddha” or “God the Father.” Kneeling in prayer before the virgin is a different bodily experience than sitting cross-legged in meditation. Both the natures of the divinities and the ritual practices performed in their names are elaborated in distinct communities to do different work upon soma.

Deidre Sklar, “Reprise: On Dance Ethnography.” Dance Research Journal, Vol. 32, No. 1 Summer, 2000: 70-77, p. 72.

Sigmund Freud saw the numinous in terms of a person recalling the unified “oceanic bliss” that everyone apparently felt within the mother’s womb. Perhaps Freud’s greatest shortcoming was his inability – or perhaps unwillingness – to study religion on its own terms, at its own level of experience.

Before Otto, Jung, Campbell, Eliade and Freud, the philosopher Immanuel Kant spoke to a realm of the noumena. Kant said we cannot know the character of the noumena but may ascertain its existence by virtue of the “intelligible order of things” in the empirical world of phenomena.

Kant’s noumena may point to a source of numinous experience but it is not the numinous itself.

Mystics from various traditions write about different numinous experiences. And even within a single tradition descriptions of the numinous vary dramatically in terms of both quality and intensity.

Consider, for example, the ordinary churchgoer who claims to feel an invisible presence of peace on entering a Church as compared to the full-fledged saint who speaks of various all-absorbing states of numinous rapture.

In Paradise Lost John Milton depicts Satan’s dismay when he sees the gloom of hell that he’s traded for the light of heaven.

“Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,” Said then the lost archangel, “this the seat That we must change for Heaven, this mournful gloom For that celestial light?”

At Earthpages.org:

• An Outline of Rudolf Otto’s The Idea of the Holy
• C. G. Jung and Numinosity
• Celibacy, Sex and Spirituality

» Archetypal Image, Aurobindo (Sri), Ego, Holy, Inflation, Jackson, (Michael), Joachim of Fiore, Mysticism, Numen, “Numinosity,” Paranoia, Participation Mystique, Power, Psychosis, Ramakrishna (Sri), Religion, Sargon, Symbol, Teresa of Avila (St.) Kowalska (Faustina Helen, St). Vampires, Vulcan

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Shakespeare, William

Photo credit: jimmiehomeschoolmom

Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

English playwright and poet born in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Shakespeare worked as an actor in London, where he began to compose sonnets.

With the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, a company of players to become known as the King’s Men, Shakespeare leased the first Globe Theatre, erected in 1598. It burnt down in 1613 but Shakespeare and his troupe had already been performing at a new Globe.

The genius of his work, written mostly for the Globe, was recognized by Queen Elizabeth and her court.

Shakespeare enjoyed much success and considerable wealth in his lifetime. Today, many forget that his plays were written to be seen, not read.

If theatre going isn’t a practical alternative, the next best thing might be the BBC television series (VHS and DVD) of Shakespeare’s plays. This production boasts authentic costumes, on-location castles and ancestrally inherited accents to help bring the mystical bard’s works to life.

It has been suggested that Shakespeare is the greatest writer ever, not only in the English language, but in any language. Some feminists contend this claim, suggesting that writers like Jane Austen and Emily Dickinson are equal if not superior to Shakespeare’s wit and wisdom. And others say that if Johann Wolfgang von Goethe had not written in German, he might have rivaled Shakespeare’s literary throne.

This author remembers an Anglican minister once saying that the Biblical Book of Job was “like Shakespeare,” as if to imply that Shakespeare was better literature than the Bible. Many might disagree, and popularity is not necessarily an indicator of absolute value, but from 1986 to 1993 Shakespeare ranked third in the Top 10 Authorities cited in academic journals of the Arts and Humanities, with the Bible at 5^th place.†

† Source: Institute for Scientific Information as cited in The Globe and Mail, Toronto: Southam, February 11, 1993.

On the Web:

» Arjuna, Atlantis, Berkeley (George), Glamour, Hamlet, Homer, Iago, Keats (John), Macbeth, Madness, Merchant of Venice, Milton (John), Othello, Pericles, Psychosis, Radha, Reincarnation, Romeo and Juliet, Shylock, Unconscious

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Jehovah’s Witnesses

Photo Credit: Tracie Masek

Jehovah’s Witnesses

An international religious organization that traces it beginnings back to the American Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916), said to have founded the movement in 1884.

From the perspective of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, this millennial religion was once called ‘International Bible Students’ and ‘Millennial Dawnists.’

Around 1918 a schism occurred, somewhat reminiscent of the Orthodox and Catholic split, in which Russell’s successor Joseph Franklin Rutherford was not universally accepted. This resulted in two different religious groups each claiming lineage to Russell: The Bible Students and The Jehovah’s Witnesses.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses took their new name in 1931. Believers interpret the Bible according to certain core beliefs. Jehovah’s Witnesses believe in the imminent second coming of Christ, avoid worldly involvement and do not abide by any law taken as a contradiction to God’s Law (e.g. taking oaths, entering military service and receiving blood transfusions).

The organization publishes the magazine The Watchtower, meets regularly and proselytizes through door-to-door preaching, called ‘witnessing.’

Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe in the Christian idea of the Trinity. They deny the deity of Christ but see him as the messiah and God’s son. They also believe that before Jesus was born he existed as the archangel Michael.

Jehovah’s Witnesses believe in a multitude of angels and also that 144,000 people will go to heaven and rule with Christ. The remaining virtuous people will exist on a new, peaceful Earth.

Although Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe in hell, there is eternal death.

Jehovah’s Witnesses meet regularly at a church called the Kingdom Hall and observe an annual Lord’s Evening Meal (Last Supper) at the first Spring full moon.

They reject Halloween and Valentine’s Day as pagan events. Father’s and Mother’s day are regarded as unhealthy ancestor worship and Birthdays are said to draw too much attention to the self.

On the Web:

• “This trailer contains sample scenes from national broadcast on PBS series “Independent Lens” May 22, 2007. By Joel P. Engardio and Tom Shepard.”

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Tree of Life

Tree of life by Swamibu

Tree of Life

In the story of Genesis 2:9 this is a sacred tree planted in the Garden of Eden, representing eternal life.

When Adam and Eve eat from the forbidden tree of knowledge, they are cast away from the tree of life and become mortal.

For conservative Christians, only through the redemption of Jesus Christ does mankind regain everlasting life.

The tree of life was a popular symbol in the ancient world, appearing on seals, reliefs, pottery and literature. It forms an important prelude for aspirants in the mystical tradition of the Kabbala. Hindu mythology ascribes all sorts of magical properties to different trees. And the Buddha is said to have gained enlightenment under a bodhi tree.

Some Christian theologians say that non-Christian precursors and parallels to Jewish and Christian stories and symbols does not indicate that all stories are just myths of equal value, an idea forwarded by figures like Joseph Campbell and sometimes by the psychiatrist C. G. Jung.

Instead, traditional Christian theologians usually say that non-Christian symbols act as a kind of rough and abstract “blueprint” for the perfect manifestation of God’s true revelation–i.e. the Christian Bible, the Word Made Flesh, and so on.

Not surprisingly, this reasoning has been critiqued and debated from various angles.

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The Our Father

Pater noster, The Lord's prayer (qv. Matthew 6:9ff) in Latin, by Wulf Forrester-Barker

The Our Father or The Lord’s Prayer

This is the prayer that the Christian tradition says Jesus himself gave to mankind.

The version in Luke 11: 2-4 differs slightly from that of Matthew 6: 9-15, probably because the two were written in different contexts.

Some versions of the prayer include at the end: “For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, now and forever (or forever and ever).”

Our Father, Who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come.
Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. Amen.

Different Bible translations of the original Greek treat the Lord’s Prayer differently, perhaps reflecting the convictions and agendas of those involved in the book’s publication.

While there is a surviving Aramaic version of the prayer, this being the language that Jesus spoke in, scholars generally agree that it’s based on early Greek New Testament sources and is not the “original” as some claim.

In 1973 the Australian Sister Janet Mead spearheaded the Christian Rock scene by setting the Our Father to funky (for that time) music.

On the Web:

• Sister Janet Mead The Lords Prayer » http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGpnkPqjudM

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Uriel

"St Uriel" by Jenny Mansfield - Tim Mansfield

Uriel

One of the four Catholic Archangels, along with Michael, Gabriel and Raphael.

He is not mentioned in the Bible but appears in various apocryphal works–that is, in books that are similar to the Bible but which have not been accepted by a major Christian religion.

Occult writers have picked up on the apocryphal writings and added their own fanciful interpretations as to who and what Uriel is.

Of course, a similar criticism has been leveled at the Catholic interpretation of Uriel.

Non-Catholics say that Catholic teachings such as this are unbiblical and hence man-made fictions.

This leads to the ongoing debate between Catholics and non-Catholics about the supposed authority of the Catholic Tradition.

Contemporary Catholics believe that the Catholic faith articulates the authentic teachings of Christ as given to the apostles and recorded in scripture, these teachings being preserved, present and developed through a legitimate and holy apostolic tradition. Whereas non-Catholics tend to see this claim as so much pompous hokum.

Uriel is also mentioned in works of fiction, such as John Milton’s Paradise Lost, where the sharp-sighted angel acts as God’s eyes and helps Raphael to defeat the pagan god, Adramelech.

» Angels, Catholicism

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Lot’s Wife

Lot's Wife near the Dead Sea DSCF8241 by GflaiG

Lot’s Wife

An Old Testament character.

Lot’s wife has become a cautionary figure with regard to the dangers in not trusting God.

When delivered from Sodom, Lot and his wife are warned by the Lord to not look back because the city is being utterly destroyed since “the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly” (Genesis 13:13).

Lot’s wife disobeys. As she turns to look back she is transformed into a pillar of salt. Lot, however, doesn’t look back and survives the ordeal.

Feminists point out that the name of Lot’s wife is not mentioned in the Bible.

Historians, tour guides and geologists each have their own spin on what really happened. Two prevailing naturalistic theories are:

1. Lot’s wife is a natural rock salt formation that occurs in the Dead Sea area, which can still be viewed today.
2. Salt floes in the dead sea were thrust upward by surging waters, “hence legend is created out of what can now be explained as a simple geological phenomenon.”¹

From a practical perspective we could say that the story of Lot’s wife instructs us to “not look back” when life and, perhaps, our very physical, economic, psychological or spiritual survival demands that we move forward and not get stuck in the past.

» Eurydice, Orpheus

—

¹ “The geologists said that Lot’s wife did not appear to turn into a pillar of salt because she dared to look back but because of the briny nature of the Dead Sea. But the research shows it was more likely a case of mistaken identity. Mr. Harris said by telephone from Canada that the Dead Sea was full of salt floes that might have been thrown up by surging water to resemble a female outline. ‘Hence legend is created out of what can now be explained as a simple geological phenomenon.’” Source: “Geologists Zero In on Sodom and Lot’s Wife” in New York Times » http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B03E0D71739F934A25751C1A963958260

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Virgin Mary, The Blessed

Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Originally uploaded by Lawrence OP

The Blessed Virgin Mary

The Blessed Virgin Mary is the Mother of Jesus Christ, wife of St. Joseph.

According to Catholic teaching, Mary was conceived immaculately and born without the taint of original sin.

The Greek Orthodox Church accepts devotion through Mary but not the idea of her immaculate conception.

Catholics believe that Mary always was and will be a virgin. That is, Mary and her elderly husband Joseph remained perfectly chaste.

The virgin birth refers to Mary’s conceiving Jesus after she freely chose to accept God’s miraculous intervention. This took place before her marriage to Joseph and Mary most likely suffered from the misunderstandings of Joseph and others who initially saw only scandal.

From reading the New Testament and Apocrypha, many believe that Joseph and Mary had sex and four other boys and two girls after Jesus.

But the Catechism of the Catholic Church says Mary bore only Jesus.

For believing Catholics, the “other Mary” mentioned in the New Testament bore James and Joseph, the so-called “brothers” of Jesus.

Catholics say the term “brother” (Greek: adelphos) is in keeping with Old Testament usage, meaning “close relation” (i.e. kith and kin) and designates spiritual instead of physical brotherhood.

Catholics believe that Mary is a mediator between Christ and mankind, not a goddess. The idea that Mary is a mediator between mankind and God has been traced to the 3rd century CE.

When praying to Mary through the Holy Rosary, Catholics do not worship her but rather request that she intercedes for them–as the Hail Mary Prayer says, “pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

Some Protestants and Fundamentalists complain that Catholics have got it all wrong because, so they say, Jesus Christ is the only mediator between God and Man. But these very same people freely ask their friends and associates to “pray for them” which to any thinking person is clearly a request for intercession.

The Catholic reply to this contradictory Protestant and Fundamentalist charge is that if you can ask souls on Earth to pray for you, why not souls in heaven?

In the New Testament Mary instructs Jesus to perform his first miracle at a wedding ceremony at Cana (John 2: 1-11).

Jesus hesitates – “it is not my time” – but performs the miracle of turning water into wine at Mary’s insistence.

Mary is depicted musically in Stabat Mater, the “standing mother” (at the foot of the cross of her crucified son). The composers Palestrina, Pergolesi, Rossini, Haydn, Verdi and Dvorak have written unique works, each called Stabat Mater. While Pergolesi’s work is the most popular, all compositions are based on the same New Testament account of Mary’s grief while witnessing Jesus’ execution at the hands of the Romans.

Since 1727 the devotional poem Stabat Mater Dolorosa (“A mother standing, grief-stricken”) has been set to a plainchant melody in the Catholic Mass.

Mary became widely venerated throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. The devotion of monks and religious during this period was enthusiastic to the point of their sometimes being taken as madpersons.

In 431 the Council of Ephesus defined Mary as Theotokos, a Greek term meaning “The Mother of God.”

The doctrine of Mary’s bodily assumption (i.e. her rising at death) into heaven was formed around the 6th century CE by orthodox theologians. It became sanctioned by the Catholic Church in 1950 by Pope Pius XII.

The idea of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s immaculate conception was hotly disputed in the Middle Ages but generally accepted by the 16th century. The doctrine was defined by Pope Pius IX in 1854, stipulating that Mary was born free from “all stain of original sin.”

Many lay and religious persons around the world claim to have witnessed apparitions of the Virgin Mary, the most publicized being those at Fatima, Lourdes and Medjugorge. For a good summary of Marian apparitions, see http://www.apparitions.org/.

Some religious scholars and lay people, alike, equate Mary with the Egyptian Isis, the Roman Demeter, the Hindu Kali or the Chinese Kwan Yin, among a host of other goddesses.

Likewise, C. G. Jung and Joseph Campbell somewhat dubiously equate Mary with various goddesses, envisioning all as archetypal images of an underlying and some say sexist “feminine principle.”

But even a casual study of these various female deities reveals striking differences. And to equate them as if they were all the same, as so many New Agers and pop psychologists do, seems facile.

» Adam, Anima, Assumption, Brahman, Fatima, Goddess vs. goddess, Great Mother, Greek Orthodox Church, Hail Mary Prayer, Heaven, Icon, Infallibility, Knight, Koran, Madonna, Nicene Creed, Sister

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