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navelofwineSo why are my friends so interested in gerunds?
So why are my friends so interested in gerunds?
So why are my friends so interested in gerunds?
I was just reading the introduction to a book I'll be reading for class (Helpmeets, Harlots Heroes: WOmen's Stories in teh Hebrew Bible ed. Alice Ogdens Bellis), and the author of the introduction is going on about how most accurately the women of the bible were/would have been Afro-Asiatic, not white as most illustrated books seem to depict them. And that's quite true, I'm not going to dispute her point at all: it's very realistic. But doesn't the fact that so many people who are white picture the biblical characters as white, and as looking like them (I'm reminded of the stereotypical anti-semitic Christian comment about his "lily white Jesus") mean that the Bible, and the people who expose children or others to the Bible when they are most open to interpretation do a good job of making it personal and applicable? WHen you picture characters who are going to model your behavior and/or ideology, isn't it easier to do so in a way that makes them similar to you? In that way, I'm rather glad that people are picturing biblical characters as similar to themselves, especially before they have a more detached perspective and experience to draw upon religiously. On the same level, I would find it very troubling for someone who is not so caucasian to see Biblical figures in whom they believe and about whom they study, etc as Caucasian- then it is not only inaccurate, which it will be regardless, but less personal. These people are supposed to be our ancestors- on an emotive level, we should picture them as looking like our relatives.
On the other hand, if we could both picture them accurately and still feel connected, that would be a better thing. But I don't know if that's practical, or even desireable at first. I mean- I always have multiple images in my head for biblical stories. I borrowed a book about Devorah from my Hebrew school library a number of times, and the illustrations there informed my biblical imagery quite a lot- lots of colors and pretty tents and camels and jewelry. On another level, when I picture the matriarchs, especially Sarah, she always comes out looking rather like my Bubbe (in my family jargon, Bubbe was my paternal great-grandmother, whom I was lucky enough to have alive and aware until I was about 5), who would have looked pretty out of place in a desert tent: she was a large Slavic woman. When I'm thinking in a more scholarly vein, I can certainly bypass those images, and come up with a more Sephardi/African image, but it lacks the personal quality and the power of the images that have built themselves for me as the images of my ancestors.
It would be interesting to see how people picture biblical characters. I'm not sure how one would go about studying that- lists of adjectives? Drawings? Analogy? None of them seem very satisfactory on their own.
On the other hand, if we could both picture them accurately and still feel connected, that would be a better thing. But I don't know if that's practical, or even desireable at first. I mean- I always have multiple images in my head for biblical stories. I borrowed a book about Devorah from my Hebrew school library a number of times, and the illustrations there informed my biblical imagery quite a lot- lots of colors and pretty tents and camels and jewelry. On another level, when I picture the matriarchs, especially Sarah, she always comes out looking rather like my Bubbe (in my family jargon, Bubbe was my paternal great-grandmother, whom I was lucky enough to have alive and aware until I was about 5), who would have looked pretty out of place in a desert tent: she was a large Slavic woman. When I'm thinking in a more scholarly vein, I can certainly bypass those images, and come up with a more Sephardi/African image, but it lacks the personal quality and the power of the images that have built themselves for me as the images of my ancestors.
It would be interesting to see how people picture biblical characters. I'm not sure how one would go about studying that- lists of adjectives? Drawings? Analogy? None of them seem very satisfactory on their own.
I was just reading the introduction to a book I'll be reading for class (Helpmeets, Harlots Heroes: WOmen's Stories in teh Hebrew Bible ed. Alice Ogdens Bellis), and the author of the introduction is going on about how most accurately the women of the bible were/would have been Afro-Asiatic, not white as most illustrated books seem to depict them. And that's quite true, I'm not going to dispute her point at all: it's very realistic. But doesn't the fact that so many people who are white picture the biblical characters as white, and as looking like them (I'm reminded of the stereotypical anti-semitic Christian comment about his "lily white Jesus") mean that the Bible, and the people who expose children or others to the Bible when they are most open to interpretation do a good job of making it personal and applicable? WHen you picture characters who are going to model your behavior and/or ideology, isn't it easier to do so in a way that makes them similar to you? In that way, I'm rather glad that people are picturing biblical characters as similar to themselves, especially before they have a more detached perspective and experience to draw upon religiously. On the same level, I would find it very troubling for someone who is not so caucasian to see Biblical figures in whom they believe and about whom they study, etc as Caucasian- then it is not only inaccurate, which it will be regardless, but less personal. These people are supposed to be our ancestors- on an emotive level, we should picture them as looking like our relatives.
On the other hand, if we could both picture them accurately and still feel connected, that would be a better thing. But I don't know if that's practical, or even desireable at first. I mean- I always have multiple images in my head for biblical stories. I borrowed a book about Devorah from my Hebrew school library a number of times, and the illustrations there informed my biblical imagery quite a lot- lots of colors and pretty tents and camels and jewelry. On another level, when I picture the matriarchs, especially Sarah, she always comes out looking rather like my Bubbe (in my family jargon, Bubbe was my paternal great-grandmother, whom I was lucky enough to have alive and aware until I was about 5), who would have looked pretty out of place in a desert tent: she was a large Slavic woman. When I'm thinking in a more scholarly vein, I can certainly bypass those images, and come up with a more Sephardi/African image, but it lacks the personal quality and the power of the images that have built themselves for me as the images of my ancestors.
It would be interesting to see how people picture biblical characters. I'm not sure how one would go about studying that- lists of adjectives? Drawings? Analogy? None of them seem very satisfactory on their own.
On the other hand, if we could both picture them accurately and still feel connected, that would be a better thing. But I don't know if that's practical, or even desireable at first. I mean- I always have multiple images in my head for biblical stories. I borrowed a book about Devorah from my Hebrew school library a number of times, and the illustrations there informed my biblical imagery quite a lot- lots of colors and pretty tents and camels and jewelry. On another level, when I picture the matriarchs, especially Sarah, she always comes out looking rather like my Bubbe (in my family jargon, Bubbe was my paternal great-grandmother, whom I was lucky enough to have alive and aware until I was about 5), who would have looked pretty out of place in a desert tent: she was a large Slavic woman. When I'm thinking in a more scholarly vein, I can certainly bypass those images, and come up with a more Sephardi/African image, but it lacks the personal quality and the power of the images that have built themselves for me as the images of my ancestors.
It would be interesting to see how people picture biblical characters. I'm not sure how one would go about studying that- lists of adjectives? Drawings? Analogy? None of them seem very satisfactory on their own.
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