Ask about Paganism

[agricola]

As you said, NA religion, while varying a lot from tribe to tribe, mostly seems to honor the overall creative force, all-father/mother, somewhat in alignment with the Judaic Yahweh, but to me it differs and runs into the pagan area of recognizing that force, or perhaps soul, in all things, living and non-living.

It might differ. But I think the apostle Paul said much the same thing, when he declared God to be "one God, the Father of all, who rules over all, works through all and is in all." That's the way I have always read this verse. But now that you mention it, maybe by "all" Paul was referring to all peoples, rather than all the created order. Maybe agricola (who is Jewish) can share her insights into what Paul may have meant by "all".

Are you assuming that people aren't part of 'the created order'? I think Paul meant the created order - which includes all people. Hebrew thought of that period, at least, didn't tend to categorize things quite the same way we would nowadays.

Here's what I see:

Shamanistic religions generally (which include most NA tribal faiths) see the divine as immanent in all creation: all is God and God is all. But that view of divinity tends not to see any transcendent aspects of divinity - that is, God is all, all is God, and that is all there is.

OTOH, Christianity especially sees God as mostly transcendent and not particularly immanent, which is why the figure of Jesus is so important: Jesus is the 'immanent' (this world) face of God. Judaism sees God as a sort of 'wholly both and neither': God is both (and at the same time) transcendent AND immanent. But it is easy enough (when considering a transcendent God) to feel that such a God is too 'big' to relate to ('what is man that Thou art mindful of him?'). Clearly you can see from reading the NT, that people felt that God was 'too far away' and 'too important' (remember that song 'from a distance'? God is watching us from a distance?) so they were interested in/related to Jesus' preachings about God as a loving Father (that was NOT something new, but was a common teaching from the Pharisees) who cared about even the most trivial things (hairs on the head, sparrows falling) and genuinely wanted and even NEEDED a personal relationship (all that 'in your heart' stuff).
That's 'immanence': God is 'in everything'. Transcendence is 'God in Heaven'.

I think that's why 'the trinity' was created (by early Christians): because they tended to categorize things somewhat rigidly (Greek/Roman) they saw God the Creator/Father as mostly transcendent, and Jesus as 'God immanent in the world' and the Holy Spirit as the facilitator which allowed the transcendent and the immanent to interact and 'work'.

Hebrew (Jewish) thought could be more flexible - or at least a lot less organized! and could conceive of a divinity that was 'both at once'. The earliest Christian groups had a lot of DIFFERENT ideas about what Jesus actually was and how Jesus related to God-in-Heaven.

Half the stuff I see from fundamentalist type Christians (of which the coc is a type) is quibbles over God-categorization, which would probably not do much for Jews of that period - Biblical imagery jumps all over the place, from our POV, and then modern western people argue over which image is 'right' when from the Jewish POV, they all are (or at least, all are equally wrong).

BTW I include modern Jews in that 'modern western people' because the orthodox do much the same thing. I think it is a tendency of people to latch onto the first idea they see and then try to make everything else fit it, and get hung up the details without seeing the whole picture - a tendency which Jesus mentions when he talks about his folks getting hung up on 'the tax on mint and cumin' and failing to see the humanity in others.

[teresa]

Are you assuming that people aren't part of 'the created order'? I think Paul meant the created order - which includes all people. Hebrew thought of that period, at least, didn't tend to categorize things quite the same way we would nowadays.

No, I always assumed that "all" referred to all the created order, including people. But after reading what LR49 wrote, I looked up a Christian scholar on Crosswalk, who interpreted Ephesians 4:6 as: One God and Father of all -- One God for all men. Who is over all (o epi pantwn), and through all (kai dia pantwn), and in all (kai en pasin). Thus by three prepositions (epi, dia, en) Paul has endeavoured to express the universal sweep and power of God in men's lives.

As an aside: Interesting info about immanence/transcendence of God in the ancient Hebrews' view. Your info has helped me more fully understand N T Wright's view of Jesus' self-identity, where Wright argues that Jesus's view of himself as the new "Temple" was in-line with ancient Hebrews' understanding of the Temple as (in Wright's words) "the place where heaven and earth meet". As Wright sees it, the prophets had promised God would return to rescue his people Israel from their enemies and establish God's kingdom reign on earth, and Jesus understood God to be acting in him and through him to accomplish God's promises. Hence, Jesus regarded himself as the "place" where the heavenly realm and created realm intersected and overlapped.

Now back to the topic of paganism. I am interested in hearing more about it, LR49

[agricola]

I think I meant 'you' to mean LR49 rather than you teresa! But anyway -

I like Wright's formulation - and I think it is valid enough from a Jewish POV to work with - HOWEVER, also from a Jewish POV, the location (so to speak) where 'heaven and earth meet' does not rely on any inherent special character of the LOCATION - it is 'holy' because we and God decide it is, and not because there is something innately special about the location of the Temple or the person of Jesus (or any other 'place').

Greek and Roman attitudes would see people 'recognizing' that some location itself was inherently 'holy', and then building a temple on top of it (like where the Sybil dwelt, or a special spring, or something). But the Jews saw the whole people as 'holy' and built a sanctuary 'in the midst of the nation'. Yes, all sorts of ideas about the holiness of the temple location exist - but they don't PRE-exist so much as endorse an already-decided upon spot. It was built on the highest available peak, but that sort of location was common throughout the entire middle east and Mediterranean already, since most people had the idea of a god who was 'up' (sky, storm, wind, whatever).

If you believe God is wholly immanent, then clearly there are probably going to be locations where the interface between daily life and divinity is 'thinner' and you can more easily access this immanent deity - spooky places, caves, springs, maybe high mountain peaks, Really Big Trees..... But if God is transcendent, then there is no actual 'place'. The interface has to be 'thin' for other reasons than locations. The Jewish God is both transcendent AND imminent, and encounters with that God seem to take place wherever that God chooses - which might be places, but they aren't full time, permanent 'places'. God encounters the Jewish people and makes a convenant with them 'at Sinai' which is merely 'in the un-owned, trackless wilderness' and no permanent installation was created there by the Jewish people, because their 'holy place' was portable and traveled with them wherever they went. We never see anybody making pilgrimages to Mount Sinai - it wasn't important as a PLACE.

Am I tracking at all?

Every prophet at the moment of prophecy would have been a 'place' where God and mundane reality would intersect - but only temporarily and 'as a dream'. Dream state encounters with the divine world/God seem to be fairly common, worldwide.

So if we see the Temple as being the temporal location where God (temporarily at least) 'dwells' and if you see a person as ALSO a 'place' where God 'dwells', then it is an easy jump to equate the one to the other, isn't it?

the current Jewish ideas about 'God's immanence' on earth circle around the Shekhina, which is an image or metaphor for God's presence in this world. When the temple stood, the Shekhinah was above the ark in the Holy of Holies, but since the temple was destroyed, we imagine the Shekhina as accompanying the Jewish people and sharing the exile.

'Shekhina' is a feminine gender word and the Shekhina is usually envisaged as female. Leonard Nimoy did a very cool photographic series of impressions of the Shekhina - mostly female nudes wearing a prayer shawl (tallit) and tefillin.

h**ps://www.google.com/search?q=Nimoy+shekhina+ ... 1N91CSmbNM:

Shekhina (the word) means holiness - or, actually, 'the glory of the divine presence' and it doesn't imply anything about a location.

[agricola]

Oh -sorry for the digression -


however, the Greek/Roman ideas of the inherent 'holiness' of certain physical locations is practically the job description of 'pagan' and it's all on account of the idea of divinity being wholly imminent in this world, with lesser or no 'transcendence'.

See also 'Gaia'.

It also (that idea) why 'witchcraft' works. BECAUSE divinity is imminent, we humans can manipulate/control/influence the deity by doing the right things/saying the right worlds: e.g.: rituals and spells.

[teresa]

Shamanistic religions generally (which include most NA tribal faiths) see the divine as immanent in all creation: all is God and God is all. But that view of divinity tends not to see any transcendent aspects of divinity - that is, God is all, all is God, and that is all there is.

Thank you for explaining. I understand what LR49 is saying now.

I like Wright's formulation - and I think it is valid enough from a Jewish POV to work with - HOWEVER, also from a Jewish POV, the location (so to speak) where 'heaven and earth meet' does not rely on any inherent special character of the LOCATION - it is 'holy' because we and God decide it is, and not because there is something innately special about the location of the Temple or the person of Jesus (or any other 'place').....So if we see the Temple as being the temporal location where God (temporarily at least) 'dwells' and if you see a person as ALSO a 'place' where God 'dwells', then it is an easy jump to equate the one to the other, isn't it?

Wright would put more emphasis, I think, on God's initiative and our response. Wright would say, I think, that Jesus understood himself to have been chosen by God as the 'place' where 'heaven and earth meet'. And Jesus' response was one of faithfulness in carrying out God's purpose. The prophets had promised that God would return to his people Israel to rescue them from their enemies and to establish his kingdom reign. As Wright sees it, Jesus understood God to be acting to accomplish this promise in him, through him, and as him. So in Wright's view, it's perfectly plausible that Jesus spoke of himself in terms of the Temple, the place where 'heaven and earth meet'.

Sorry LR49. I can move this digression off your thread, if you like, although it has helped me understand the pagan view better.