On Christian Teaching: Book 2

In book 2 of St. Augie's On Christian Teaching I encountered some very interesting passages. One that stuck out to me was about the types of learning according to Gus (by humans vs. by divine power). In the by humans section I found some of the examples very interesting. SA started out by describing superstitious human constructs, such as: astrology, fortune telling, foretelling, etc. I found this very interesting because Gus condemns any sort of forecast of the future given by a human being, regardless of whether it is correct or not. What I think is interesting is that Jesus made predictions about the sequence of events leading up to his death and was completely correct about them. Jesus, in his time on earth, was a human being and would seem to fall under the same category as astrologists. The only difference between the two would be the origin of the foretelling: Jesus' predictions coming from God and an astrologist's from the stars (the devil). Obviously there is also a difference in the predictions in that Jesus predicted his own death for the most noble cause there could possibly be and the astrologist would be predicting for money. I just think that it is interesting that there are such similarities between who is condemned and who is worshipped. I think it is safe to say that Augie wouldn't be a big fan of modern day weather forecasters; they predict things based on human created inferences.

Another type of human created learning is essentially: art. Any sort of human expression of the things around him/her falls under this category; it is also an accepted form of human constructed learning, one won't be condemned for performing an interpretive dance. Both of these types of human created learning are based on natural God given things. They both utilize the natural world in order to make sense of things, one just oversteps its boundaries. Also, both of these types need to be interpreted, because they are human created, they can't necessarily be completely understood by all humans. Only ideas presented by God himself/herself can be understood universally and without any translation. This is related to Gus' methods for interpreting scripture: we have to interpret it because it was written by humans and passed along via a human created system.

An interesting point I came across in the "human created" section, was the part about lies. Augie says that lies "derive exclusively from mankind itself." This idea is part of why human created mediums need to be interpreted, whereas anything coming from God is wholly true and universal. One would think that some sort of evil spirit (ie. the devil, demons, etc.) would be the original source of falsehood by influencing humans, and that these spirits tell nothing that is truthful. On the contrary Augustine himself mentioned that demons influence humans to correctly predict future events, which would be truthful. I think that a being that presents a statement is not labelled as "evil" or "good" based on whether it lies or not, but the intentions of that statement. A demon may influence a person to always tell the truth, but that truth causes pain and suffering each time. Whereas a person may lie constantly but each time he does he saves a person's life, should that liar be condemned? Humans created lies, but lies can do positive things (though admittedly they do some really bad things too).

Book 2 of Augustine applied to The Book of Psalms

One thing that St. Augustine mentioned early in his language/interpretation section of book 2, was his suggestion of cross reference. SA seems to have a method for decoding scripture. To him, it is best to know any of the literal translations or to know practically know everything about Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. I know nothing about any of those languages or how to translate them to English; learning them prior to reading the Psalms would take a little bit more time than I have. The next best strategy according to Augie is not relying on a single translation of the text. Not all translators of the text are going to do it the same way. They'll have different levels of literal accuracy as well as varying levels of intelligence (His Saintliness doesn't think very highly of some translators). In hindsight, looking at the translation of the Psalms in my bible could put into perspective what the psalms were trying to say. Alter's translation could be more literal and meant to be more objective translation, whereas my bible could be a little less literal and meant to be read by believers. Cross referencing would be a very useful tool. Another basic ground rule that Gus set down for reading scripture is that you have to be smart... I don't know if I would live up to his expectations, but I'd like to think I'm smarter than the average bear.

When it comes to signs within text, St. Augustine separates them into two types: literal and metaphorical. A literal sign would simply be a word that represents a single specific object (for example: bovem, which is the Latin representation for an ox). Metaphorical signs are words that mean one thing but represent another (ox is used to represent a worker of some kind, in this case a worker for God). Gus highlights two reasons that textual signs go wrong: ambiguity and unknown signs. Ambiguity messes up interpretation of a text when a sign in a certain language has multiple meanings in a different language. Some translators (the dumb ones, according to St. A) will pick the wrong meaning and it can severely alter the text. Unknown signs are words in a language that do not have a direct translation in another language; in this case translators must simply infer what the text means. and can be terribly wrong.These are essentially the reasons that cross referencing translations of a reading can help pull out what the base ideas are for the text.

Earlier in the Psalms unit we did look at a different translation of one of the Psalms from The Bay Psalms Book. SA outlined the fact that interpreting translations relied on the reader's knowledge of the language in which it is written. What made the Bay Psalms translation difficult to cross-reference was that the style of English in which the psalm was written was not as familiar as the modern version that we use now. Because of this the translation was of limited helpfulness. If more translations were presented it would really give a better idea of what the basis for the psalms was meant to be.

Universality and Hypocrisy in the Psalms

As I wrap up my reading of the Psalms, I can't help but notice some characteristics that seem to span almost every one of the psalms. One that is almost impossibly obvious is that the psalms are all written about subjects that would have been fairly universal to the people of the time. Things such as: war, sex, violence, etc. tend to pop up occasionally in the text. These things are all of human invention and practice. They are things that a person living in the times that the psalms were written in would encounter at some point. The text occasionally will reference a specific occurrence of human fallibility (such as David's little fling with Bathsheba), but a lot of the texts refer to hypothetical situations that, in my opinion, are written in a way that would make the reader apply the situation to his/her own life. In this regard, I see two kinds of Psalms (though I acknowledge that there are other separations): ones that lead by example (historical stories (David and Bathsheba)) and ones designed to be optimally applicable (hypothetical stories/stories with a nameless narrator (not famous)).

Another feature that I noticed tended to be a trend throughout a great deal of the Psalms is how much the text seems to contradict itself. Often the text is hypocritical when it comes to its attitude towards violence. In a lot of the Psalms there is mention of wicked people enacting violence on the narrator/someone close to the narrator. There is a definite negative tone towards the violent actions of these "wicked" individuals. Often after describing and deriding the terrible deeds of the "wicked", the narrator will either ask for God's help to destroy that person, or recount how the Lord gave them strength to cut down each of his foes. This contradictory style, to me, seems to add to the universality of the text. If the reader looks at the text through a lens that is seeking to be above violence they will focus on the "the wicked are being naughty people" section, emphasizing that "wicked" people are the violent ones. A reader seeing the text with more of an "eye for an eye" point of view would probably concentrate on the vengeance section. By covering both sides of the story (despite the fact that it's done in a contradictory manner) the Psalms become more applicable.

The above sections, I realize, have a distinctly negative tone towards the writing in the Psalms. This tone is not purposeful. Though I may not agree with the some of the ways it is done, I believe that a religious text needs to be fairly widely applicable. In my opinion, a religion is only as good as its applicability; it needs to adapt to cultural changes without a drastic overhaul. Religion needs to stick to its guns though. If a religion completely changes its core values to appease society then it betrays itself. That's why I think that the contradictory statements in the psalms are sort of walking a thin line; if there is too much of a contradiction it is likely that the ideas will be rejected.

Ethics in Psalms

Within the Psalms there are many occurrences of the narrator begging forgiveness, but not as many that outline exactly what they are begging forgiveness for. In psalm 69, verses 12-13 it is stated "I made sackcloth my garment and became for them a byword. I was the talk of those who sit in the gate, the drukards' taunting song." I interpreted a couple of things from this passage. The entire psalm is the narrator's pleadings with God to forgive his sins. This section is him trying to look good for God; so first he fasts, and then he wears a sackcloth, which is a very low quality garment. If it is good to dress plainly then it can be inferred that it would be unethical in God's eyes to dress in a great deal of finery. Next the narrator speaks with disdain for the drunkards at the gate, which shows that excessive drink wouldn't be ethical.

Another passage from the psalms that shows the ethics at the time of the writing of these psalms comes from Psalm 51. In lines 1-2 of this psalm it outlines an event in history that we discussed in class as well: "For the lead player, a David psalm, upon Nathan the prophet's coming to him when he had come to be with Bathsheba." This passage tells of David committing the sin of adultery with Bathsheba, which would be considered unethical.

One thing that really surprised me about the psalms is the sort of disregard for a certain ethic that I would usually associate with Christianity: killing. Throughout these psalms there are multiple references to was and killing. The narrators often ask God to help them kill the "wicked people" that stand before them. A great example of this is in psalm 18, in which it says "I pursued my enemies, caught them, turned not back till I wiped them out. I smashed them, they could not rise, they fell beneath my feet." (verses 38-39) as well as "I crushed them like dust in the wind, like mud in the streets I ground them." The narrator seems to be perfectly okay with violently killing people without even thoughts of mercy, whilst he begs for mercy for his sins (besides killing). Later in the psalm the narrator says "[God] frees me from my enemies, yes, from those against me You raise me, from a man of violence You save me." (verse 49). It is obvious from this section that it is bad to be a violent person, but for some reason our narrator can get away with it.

Psalms Etc.

A discussion that we had in class this week really stuck in my mind. When we started to talk about the way that we judge religions. Professor Smith posed the question to us at the beginning of the class period: If a religion is one in which human sacrifices are required, would it still be a religion? According to the guidelines we've set down already on what a religion is, technically it is still a religion given that it has the characteristics that we've outlined. The question that we talked about, though relevant to what we are trying to figure out in class, made me think about how people judge religion. A question that occurred to me was: Where do we draw the line on moral standards in religion? If we claim to allow people the freedom of religion, what gives us the right to say that another person's religion is sick and wrong? Granted, human sacrifices in religion is a rather extreme example of this situation. But what if there was a religion in which the members have underage/premarital sex (safely of course) with as many of the other members of their religion as possible? Undoubtedly this religion would be heavily contested by some people. These people would base their judgments on what their moral beliefs(which is usually based on religious morals). If the situation is flipped, the people of this religion may not like the fact that other people wait until marriage to have sex, or that they even get married at all. The big problem with how we look at religion is that too often we view religion based on our religious views. If we look at religions objectively we see what our final answer to professor Smith's question was... that even though human sacrifice may not be socially acceptable, but it doesn't make the group that practices it not a religion.

In reading the psalms there are a few things that stuck out to me. One characteristic that I noticed about the Psalms is that they are designed in a way that the themes expressed in them would apply to most people of the time period they were written. For example, in some of the Psalms the narrator is praying for God to punish their enemies and to protect them. Having enemies is definitely something that is universal. The Psalms are designed to contain cultural universals. The Psalms are written to apply universally because religion exists to answer universal questions about humanity.

Psalm 2 (English English vs. modern English)

The first thing that I (and hopefully everyone else) noticed about the Bay Psalm Book version of Psalm 2 is the physical shape of certain letters, as well as the spelling of certain words. They are obviously much different than the ones that we use in modern English. Though this physical difference is irrelevant to the contents of the Psalm, I think that it is an important indicator of how much things have changed since the Bay Psalm version was written. It illustrates the vastly different world that these people lived in, in comparison to the modern world that we live in. Despite these facts, it is important to note that the ultimate meaning of the text remains the same throughout the years, all the while, the context to which it applied constantly changed.

As mentioned above, the text of the two versions of psalm 2 ultimately have the same meaning. The only real difference between the two is how it is written, it is translated slightly differently. There are very few cases between the two texts that may present different ideas to the reader. In line 12 of Alter's version of the Psalm it reads "With purity be armed." (Alter 7) where as in the Bay version of the Psalm, the line reads "Kiss ye the Son." The two versions present different actions that the reader should take to be protected from God's fury. The modern version presents an idea that is not something "attested to in the the Bible" (Alter 7) as Alter says himself. The Bay version is less heavy than the Alter version of this line. Instead of asking the reader to be ready for "battle" it simply requests that they kiss the Son.

I think what will differentiate these two translations of the Psalm is the context in which they will be interpreted. For the audience that the Bay version was written for, the text is something that incited legitimate fear. This text is sort of a what happens to the good people and what happens to bad. It's mostly warning to the people of what will happen if they do disobey God. I believe that in modern day this Psalm would not be one widely used in the christian religion. In our modern world with our "God-like powers" we feel invincible and above everything around us. I think that we want to avoid this kind of scripture because it makes us confront not only our sins, but our mortality. So we focus on texts full of God's love... not his rage.