TL:DR: The Genesis Question part fifty

Hi, Everybody!

So, two things:

1, the bizness:

The Jaka's Story remaster has a Starcode!  APR191258 First month orders will be signed and numbered! Dave will be signing the ENTIRE print run of the book. Also, there's a "contest" to select the image for the bookplate Dave's gonna be signing.

Greg Hyland is Kickstartering the second volume of the Monster Atlas, and it's gonna have Gerhard art like the first volume. It's gonna look a little something like this.

The remastered Volume 1 is available digitally for $9.99. 

The Auction for the Green Dante/Green Virgil cover is up to $1277.00 US Dollars from: 高伯乐 (Gao BoLe)!

2, I ran out of pages from issue 289/290 to run in front of Dave's Genesis Question commentaries. Dave suggested I use Jewish, Christian or Muslim religious images. But then, Superman's Frenemy: David Birdsong sent in a bunch of (so far) unused Cerebus in Hell? images and now I'ma gonna run them. So:
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image by Doré, Sim & Birdsong

11 January 15

Hi Troy & Mia!

Mr. Ross' next citation is Psalms 97:6 which reads

The heavens declare his righteousness: and all the people see his glory

which definitely strikes me (at the risk of sounding facetious) as being in the "fortune cookie theology" end of things.  Hard to see how this would serve as a refutation of the "gap theory" Mr. Ross is attempting to refute, scripturally.

So, looking at Psalm 97 in its entirety:

The YHWH reigneth, let the earth rejoice: let the [KJV: multitude of Isles; Hebrew: many, or great Isles] be glad thereof.

It seems apparent to me that Psalm 97 is pretty much purely YHWHistic in form and content.  The coupling here of "the earth" with "isles" -- as separate contexts -- suggests to me a level of self-awareness on the part of the YHWH being conveyed through David.  The YHWH, as I infer, BEING the earth, it's natural to suggest that the earth would rejoice at the "fact" of the YHWH's "reign". The "isles" suggests to me a parallel context: the YHWH, the earth, surrounded by water, water being God's chosen medium.  Which would seem to align nicely with the next observation: 

Clouds and darkness round about him: righteousness and judgement are the [habitation/establishment] of his throne.

"Clouds and darkness" would certainly, I think, be the experience of the YHWH, both within the earth and as islands OF earth of varying sizes in the lakes, oceans, seas and other bodies of water on the face of the earth -- as distinct from the "clouds and darkness" of the heaven and of the "waters" above the heaven (as conveyed in Genesis 1) in the former case and in the experience of the earth where it abuts a body of water (the natural wave movements resembling "clouds and darkness" of a different consistency).

The next assertion:

A fire goeth before him: and burneth up his enemies round about.

I would infer as a YHWHistic expression resulting from "too deep" (too deep for the YHWH, I mean) contemplation of the cited "clouds and darkness" in their multiplicity of forms.  The impulse is to "break out" or at least threaten to.  The earth having a molten core that emerges from time to time in the form of lava flows, it would be hard to refute the assertion that "a fire goeth before him" or that that fire "burneth up his enemies round about".  Of course, as we know, there are severe limits on this.  Even the largest lava flow ultimately expires not (relatively) far from its source, however many "enemies" it devours on its way.  This is particularly true of the "isles" where there is no question -- in a head-on confrontation -- which is going to win: the lava or the body of water surrounding the "isles"?   

His lightnings inlightned [the KJV spelling: hard to know if this is Jacobian 17th century English for "enlightened" in the sense of spiritual enlightenment, or if it's intended in the sense of "lightening" relative to the clouds and darkness in verse 2 or more literally "in-lightened" as in "lit within"]: the earth saw and trembled.

Taking my own three suggestions in order:  if you take it as a given (which I do) that the earth is a sentient being then I think what is being conveyed here could well be spiritual enlightenment, here inferred BY the YHWH (assuming that's who is conveying these ideas to David) to be self-enlightenment and self-enlightenment of a very high order in that "the earth saw and trembled". 

"Lightening" would, arguably, be just a differently-nuanced way of expressing the same thing:  surrounded by both literal AND metaphorical "clouds and darkness" any kind of illumination (and molten rock would seem to me to qualify implicitly) would likely provide the same kind of illumination as lightning does: brief, limited, but vivid.  Sufficient to glimpse the Reality of that surrounding nature -- basically a Glimpse of God -- and to lead to the obvious result: "the earth saw and trembled".

"In-lightened" as in "lit within" would seem to me to be equally a differently-nuanced

form of the same thing.  I would infer that the fear exhibited by the YHWH would be attributable to the YHWH's complete non-acceptance of there existing any larger context…or entity…than the YHWH.  In which case Psalm 97 would be documenting a dissociative state:  the YHWH inferring that it is the YHWH his/her/its self who is being Glimpsed.  That is, from the YHWH's perspective, where do the "clouds and darkness" and the "enemies round about" end and the YHWH begin? 

It appears that the YHWH chooses to evade the question by reiterating the nature of the isolated "lava events" implicit, as I read the text, in "a fire goeth before him":

The hills melted like wax at the presence of the YHWH: at the presence of the YHWH of the whole earth.

It's entirely true that hills melt "like wax" in a volcanic lava flow.  But it's also true that they don't STAY melted.  Eventually the event exhausts itself and the lava cools and just becomes igneous rock: another form of the YHWH.  The inclusion of "whole" here strikes me as "whistling past the graveyard" on the YHWH's part:  an -- I would imagine -- futile attempt on the part of the YHWH to assert an expanded context that includes the "clouds and darkness":  the YHWH of the WHOLE EARTH. 

Futile, I would think, because (at one level or another), the YHWH -- experiencing spiritual enlightenment/physical "lightening" of the YHWH's surrounding context(s)/inward illumination or all three simultaneously -- has to be aware that there is an "inside the YHWH" context and an "outside the YHWH" context and that the latter dwarfs the former (the cause of "saw and trembled"). 

The heavens declare his righteousness: and all the people see his glory.

DO "the heavens declare his [the YHWH's] righteousness"? I see this as another example of attempting to impose an expanded context on the YHWH's own (as I infer) far more limited context.  The "heavens" I think "declare righteousness" and that is experienced by the YHWH, but I think they "declare righteousness" because they are, contextually, expressions of/enactments of/incarnations of God, the Divine Presence which surrounds the earth/YHWH.  The heavens declare, I think, God's righteousness and "undeserved kindness" to the earth and to all His creations ON and WITHIN the earth. 

And the glory that all the people see is God's glory.  Which the YHWH attempts to misappropriate. 

Confounded be all they that serve graven images, that boast themselves of idols: worship him all [interpolated: ye] gods.

It certainly seems true to me that "all they that serve graven images, that boast themselves of idols" are "confounded".  Ultimately.

But, again, I think that's more a condition of "God entering in upon His work" in this epoch:  that the YHWH is adjacent to that Revelation and that much of the purpose of that Revelation is to provide the YHWH with a more accurate sense of self and self-context -- over the long term.  Which constitutes a species of "centrality" as the YHWH experiences it, lacking only a sense of proportion on the part of the YHWH:  a genuine awareness of the Immensity the YHWH is attempting to misappropriate and the inappropriate nature of that misappropriation.  The "ye" interpolated here, I think, represents a perplexed reaction on the part of the KJV translators to the bald-faced falsehood and NON-monotheistic and ANTI-monotheistic sense of the assertion.  There ARE no "gods".  There is only God.  That's a settled issue -- or is supposed to be -- with monotheists. And yet, there it is -- as it is in several places in the Torah and in the Gospels. The "ye" seems a feeble attempt to at least externalize the plural noun. 

The only rational explanation, to me, is that the narrating voice -- the YHWH -- pictures itself as a god among gods, asserting his/her/its preeminence over all other gods and commanding the other gods to worship he/she/it. (this is metaphorically enacted in the Joseph narrative where he dreams of his brothers bowing down to him in worship).  Including, I think is the compelled inference, God Himself.     

Sion heard, and was glad, and the daughters of Judah rejoiced, because of thy judgements, O YHWH.

Attempting to stick strictly to the facts here:  my dictionary defines Sion -- or Zion -- as:

1. A hill in Jerusalem, the site of the temple and the royal residence of David and his successors, regarded by the Jews as a symbol for the centre of Jewish national culture, government and religion.  2. The Jewish people 3. Any place or community considered to be especially under God's rule, as ancient Israel or the Christian church.  4. The heavenly Jerusalem: heaven

So, I'm inclined to see this as an independent assertion on David's part (since it is addressed to "O YHWH"):  basically David attempting to provide his own contextual confirmation of the "The heavens declare his righteousness: and all the people see his glory" assertion, "Sion heard, and was glad, and the daughters of Judah rejoiced" taking roughly the same form (a physical context first identified and then followed by an identifiable people).   

For thou, YHWH high above all the earth: thou art exalted far above all gods.

I infer that this is David still speaking on his own because of the "thou,YHWH" form of address.  Obviously, I see the "thou art exalted far above all gods" to be doubly blasphemous:  first, because it's addressed to the YHWH, specifically, and not to God and second, because it presupposes that "gods" -- plural -- exist.  It's hard for me to imagine how monotheists would rationalize this assertion WITH monotheism, especially as an assertion of Divine authority FROM Divine authority.  You're either a monotheist or you're a polytheist and (unless I'm missing something), asserting that "gods" -- plural -- exist is, by definition, polytheism.

It's one of the reasons that I don't see David as one of God's prophets and I don't see the Psalms as scriptural: although I do see David as a conduit for both God and the YHWH -- and certainly as an enthusiastic devotee of both: 

Ye that love the YHWH, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints: he delivered them out of the hand of the wicked.

I think it's implicit in the Torah that souls come from the earth and incarnate in physical form either during gestation or at birth and then, after death, return to the earth.  So, I think it's a natural inference on the part of the YHWH that he/she/it is preserving "the souls of his saints", although I suspect that has more to do with the YHWH's own perceived order of those souls than in any implicit soul nature (which I think is known only to God and will constitute a very different order from the YHWH's on Judgement Day when the dead rise up out of their graves).  If there ARE souls that the YHWH delivered "out of the hand of the wicked", I think there are probably many more souls that the YHWH sees as condemned but which are of great value to God.  It seems likely that in many instances, the YHWH sees those souls that are precious to God as being "in the hand of the wicked". 

We'll all find out on Judgement Day.

The only pure "God sentiment" I see in Psalm 97 is in the conclusion:

Light is sown for the righteous: and gladness for the upright in heart.

That is, I see this as God attempting to explain the Reality of illumination as the YHWH attempts to understand it.  That the illumination, the inward illumination, the fitful illumination of the YHWH's surroundings and the YHWH's own inner light are all "sown for the righteous".  They are there implicitly, as seed is sown in the earth and then grows.  If you're righteous, the illumination being discussed grows and proliferates.  It's designed by God to do so. 

Likewise gladness.  Although treated as a minor element in Psalm 97 -- in favour of sabre-rattling on the YHWH's part -- it is present in the "gladness" of the isles in the first verse and then in David's own declaration that "Sion heard and was glad and the daughters of Judah rejoiced".  So I read this verse as God first addressing the YHWH: This is the explanation of your experience of the lightning-like illumination and then addressing David:  This is the explanation of your -- and Sion's and the daughters of Judah's -- experience of gladness.  Gladness is sown in the same way True Light is.  

Rejoice in the YHWH, ye righteous: and give thanks [at the remembrance/to the memorial] of his holiness.

I would guess this is David's final word.  Another example (as I read it) of God being untroubled by the YHWH being perceived as a) a source of joy, as b) an object of thanks or  c) as possessing the attribute of holiness.  As long as your innermost motivation is the worship of God and being righteous, everything else is just a technicality.  And only God knows the difference between Reality and portrayal.  I think David was far more Reality than portrayal. Even when he was, in my view, misapprehended.

Next week, God willing:  Psalm 98!

Best,

Dave

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Next Time: Ya'll invented time travel yet? -Past Matt