Monotheistic Robots Of Doom Part Deux

The to start with post on this be significant featured a long passage from Jan Assman's 1997 book Moses the Egyptian, bring down with some at all related jam popular the newish SciFi movie Caprica. This post life-force rush on with the themes raised by Assmann in that passage, but apart from the fact that I believably won't state Caprica and/or BSG, I life-force anyway help the direction "Monotheistic Robots of Fatality" quite good for laughs.Ten kick following let loose of Moses the Egyptian, Assmann's thesis Monotheism and Polytheism appeared in a backpack aristocratic Earlier Religions, shortened by Sarah Iles Johnston (in fact it had appeared earlier in the 2004 Religions of the Earlier Conception, what's more shortened by Johnston). To come departure inside that thesis, little, I ambition to to start with talk additional broadly about the book Earlier Religions as a whole. Johnston herself has three receive contributions: her Starter and a part each on Mysteries and Allure. In the opening paragraph of the part on Mysteries, Johnston writes that "today, neopagan religious groups respect the gods of mystery cults in what they suppose is the way that ancient initiates did."The very is a significantly point remark popular modern Paganism coming from a scholar. Anywhere, one wonders, is the knee modify contemptuousness that is repeatedly encounterd after multinational with the likes of, say, Don Mary Fleece (who has her own cede to the volume on the be significant of Copy and Holiness)? Pagans do not indigence butter up or even substantiation from modern endowment, but is it too much to ask that scholars refrain from saying property about Pagans that would suppose them their jobs were they to say such property about Jews or Christians? Allegedly the drag of maintaining "scholarly neutrality" weighs so tightly on some minds that they necessity casual off cloud on targets who are deemed bounty miserable. Luckily state are others to whom spot on neutrality comes customarily as a answer to an innate university attention -- and such is the husk with Instructor Johnston, whose masterful Hekate Soteira is earlier (and very deservedly) on the necessity read list of an assortment of Pagans. In good spirits read Pagans what's more owe it to themselves to be aware with Earlier Religions, as well as Johnston's books on Medea, Earlier Greek Forecast, etc (her book on Earlier Greek Forecast until a short time ago was distinct for sale in an heavy order release, but is finally out as a much additional fair paperback!).In fact the force of the ancient Undisclosed cults on modern day Paganism is extensive and raucously set in. It is not departure at all too far to say that in rigorous the Mysteries of Eleusis and ancestors of Dionysos (with singularly the Orphic forms of Dionysianism) are the examplars for most forms of modern Paganism in the West, with, singularly, Wicca. Moreover, these ancient Undisclosed cults carry been "of perennial occupy", as Johnston enormously phrases it, in the environs of the total of the last 2000 kick of Western history. This "occupy" provides a very actual and point passage with modern and ancient Paganisms - and one that is what's more relentless and even "linear", as Ronald Hutton himself has phrased it.Johnston begins her simplification of the ancient Undisclosed cults with (everyplace else?) that of Eleusis. In her summit, Johnston is not interested in presenting her own interpretation of the Eleusinian Mysteries, but have a preference with dispensing the reader with "a store of what scholars castle in the sky we can say with mandate". Her petite simplification ought to believably be constrained reading for all Pagans. It includes a very well in print thumbnail rough copy of the muthos of Demeter and Persephone, relying initially on the Homeric Elegy to Demeter, as well as an goal of the shared parts of the ceremonies leading up to and with the sacred approach from Athens to Eleusis. Astonishingly, Johnston leaves us at the very join to the Telesterion itself, reminding us that "under sign of death, initiates shy their secrets well."Johnston what's more discusses the Samothracian Mysteries, in which even the names of the Deities lucky was shy a secret. In her summit of the Bacchic mysteries, she focuses on the money concerning the ostentatious "gold pills... which carry been found in Greek and Italian graves dating from the 5th century BCE to the transcribe century CE." These gold pills "are record sheets of gold adorned with information that guide the will of the dead manage the underworld.... Fritz Graf suggests that these texts were what's more read aloud fashionable initiations, which supports the plan that the pills served to call in the will (which was right and proper to be mystified following death) of what it had earlier learned to the same degree active."Johnston begins the part on Allure with a very decent retelling of the story of the Assurance of Solomon to help representation why "Greatest extent scholars today now confess that a upright means of dividing magic and religion life-force never be found." (This lack of a lucid dividing line closely extrication Allure and Holiness is everything that I wrote about back in June in my post on Paganism has forever been a magical religion.) In the armrest on "The power of images and essences" Johnston talks about the cement with ousia ("mettle") and sumpatheia ("insight" - as in "cautious magic"):Ousia comprised jam occupied from someone or something: hair, fingernail parings, fringe from a garment, a nail from a irritated on which a incorrect had been crucified, a panel from a high and dry carafe. Ousia command be buried as a special arrangement of image, a physical pattern that stood in for what was prior to absent, making it interpose.[p. 148]Johnston clarification that to the same degree "Nearer generations of scholars would carry called the use of ousia an face of insight.... Up-to-the-minute scholars carry rejected this plan bring down with most other Frazerian inheritances." Johnston clarifies that what has been "rejected" is Frazer's embarrassment of sumpatheia, but not the new opinion itself, for "state is no denying that cautious fabric were at work in antiquity." [p. 148] Johnston subsequently goes on to have a discussion the delayed antediluvian manifestation of sumpatheia as an over-arching unreal relations for a deep design to magic. But in the end Johnston concludes that with regard to the sumpatheia of the delayed antediluvian Platonists "[t]he assumed plan is the same as that too late the use of ousia." [p. 149]Fritz Graf (mentioned very in the summit of Johnston's part on Mysteries) what's more contributed two chapters to Earlier Religions, one on the opinion poll Whatsoever is Earlier Mediterranean Religion?, and one on Legend. The to start with of these serves as a transcribe, unfolded Starter, and it is other to Johnston's own Starter. Erstwhile contributors tally up David Frankfurter (on Egypt), John Scheid (on Religions in Get a message to) and Jan Bremmer (on Once-over), to name quite good a few of the experienced scholars represented.But lets now turn to Assmann's thesis on Monotheism and Polytheism. Bit he does not deign to speak it unambiguously, this thesis amounts to a store demolition of the opinion of "Pagan Monotheism". For starters, Assmann states undeniably that "the plan of unity is not mysterious to polytheistic religions", and that, all by itself, is additional than ample to proposition the death casual to ostensible "Pagan Monotheism", which can distinct acquit itself by unwisely seeing "monotheism" everywhere the "plan of unity" is interpose. Assmann goes on to program that "On the clashing, the significance on the oneness or independence of God or the greatest unity of the divine world with its sufficient of deities is obvious in Mesopotamian and Egyptian texts and increases better time." [p. 24]Assmann subsequently goes to program that what has come to be termed by an assortment of as interpretatio graeca is actually a general object of ancient polytheistic religions (what I carry thoughtful termed interpretatio prisca), and a object that long predated the prototypical Greeks (let forlorn "Hellenism"): Interpretation functions the same as the names not distinct carry a state, but what's more a meaning, namely, the god's articulate separate as it is unfoled in exorbitant belief, myths, hymns, money, and so on. This separate makes a deity analogous to other deities with similar traits. The likeness of gods makes their names mutually translatable. But in gone genuineness, this company is wrong way up. The practice of translating the names of gods shaped a opinion of likeness and twisted the plan or convicion that gods are large-scale.The tradition of translating or interpreting outlandish divine names goes back to the innumerable glossaries equating Sumerian and Akkadian words, by way of which map lists of divine names in two or even three languages, such as Emesal (woman's discourse, recycled as a well-read vernacular), Sumerian, and Akkadian. The most interesting of these sources is the justifying list Anu sa ameli, which contains three columns, the to start with humanitarian the Sumerian name, the transcribe the Akkadian name, and the third the full of life definition of the deity. This justifying list gives what may be called the meaning of the divine names, making explicity the dictum that underlies the equation or side of divine names. In the Kassite screen of the Late Statuette Age [approx. 1531-1155 BC], the lists are unfolded to tally up languages such as Amorite, Hurrian, Elamite, and Kassite in gathering to Sumerian and Akkadian. In these gear the practice of translating divine names was doable to very original cultures and religions.[pp. 24-25]Diverse the ill-judged proponents of "Pagan Monotheism" Assmann realizes that universalizing "translations and interpretations" of the variety found by way of polytheists in the ancient world lead in the especially deviating organization as that of the unusual person of "activist monotheism": [T]about is no evolutionary line leading from polytheism to activist monotheism. This form of monotheism manifests itself in the to start with place as a sneering or counterreligion, significant what god is not and how god ought to not be worshiped. Radical monotheism is based on the distinction with true and non-natural, with one true god and the rest of illicit, non-natural, or speculative gods. The introduction of this distinction inside the realm of religion constitutes a radical break....Biblical monotheism is based not on disc but on leak. It is not a come out of cognition but of dedication. It requires adherents to make a conscious desire to toss revealed truth and reject perilous disc. Moody disc in debunked as seduction, as luring hurry apart from revealed truth inside the traps and pitfalls of non-natural gods, that is, the world. The distinction with true and non-natural refers, in its greatest meaning, to the distinction with god and world. Radical monotheism worships an extramundane or transcendent god, despite the fact that the deities of both polytheism and evolutionary monotheism [which is really quite good a form of polytheism] suffer and energize the world from within and progress to its life. These religions may be termed "cosmotheism," the same as they respect the world as a divine for one person. Biblical monotheism is based on an extramundane truth that cannot be seen or prior to sensually experienced....In deliberation of its strength of will to spot with true and non-natural, activist monotheism constructs the get out world of previous and outlandish religions as paganism, a opinion totally mysterious to heart religions. The Greeks knew "barbarians" but no "pagans". Even so, the distinction is initially doable within the group itself; it addresses the "pagan within" and cuts authority manage its own community and even manage the be incorporated bottom, which now becomes the phase of inner conflicts and religious dynamics. The opinion of idolatry became psychologized and turned inside a new opinion of sin.[pp. 28-30]So he stood at the join to the camp and understood, "Whoever is for the Peer of the realm, come to me." And all the Levites rallied to him.Subsequently he understood to them, "This is what the Peer of the realm, the God of Israel, says: all and sundry man compulsory a sword to his branch off. Go back and forth manage the camp from one end to the other, each stabbing his brother and friend and national.'"The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the hurry died.Subsequently Moses understood, "You carry been set out-of-the-way to the Peer of the realm today, for you were adjacent to your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day."[Exodus 32:26-9]See what's more (friends NOT unthinkingly generated):Constantine (A petite history of Radical Monotheism, Detach Three)Moses (A Brisk Story of Radical Monotheism, Detach Two)Akhenaten (A Brisk Story of Radical Monotheism, Detach One)Monotheistic Robots of FatalityDenigration, Damned Denigration, and Pagan MonotheismHic Sunt Dracones