Anti-Semitism, Gnosticism, Pseudospeciation

 When I was an undergrad, I wrote a paper contrasting Job and Revelation from an evolutionary perspective. The paper was read by a TA who had the sense that I was saying Revelation was more advanced that Job or the Christian myth was somehow more evolved. Ultimately, even if that were the case, Judaism would have undergone it's own evolution during that period and the period that follows.

Revelation is not a good myth. It's an anti-body, anti-world myth. I call these myths of translation. We get stuck in the sense that we're on the verge of some great transition forever. That transition is nothing short of the end of history. So, we're being translated into a higher spiritual existence. 

On the one hand, Revelation requires a Jobean perspective to build on itself. On the other hand, it is not "better" or more "advanced" than Job. Judaism has a profound history of Midrash, and I personally would be nauseated in the effort to conceive of such an argument.

When I came to the UB English Department, I took a Bible as Literature course and I wanted to take a look at the two books for my final paper. Evolution does not ensure that you will become more advanced. Revelation is a book written by people during wartime in code to communicate to an oppressed minority. It predicts the translation of that community into a community of power. But, when taken out of context, it becomes a script for dying.

As a student in the English department, no one will ever straight up accuse you of anti-Semitism. Instead it was hinted at. To understand why an accusation like that would hurt me, you have to understand that I worked closely with Assyriologist Sam Paley who taught me Akkadian. The accusation was horrific to me. I doubt professor Paley would have believed it. But it bothered me.

Yes, I grew up Catholic. But when I was young, I had a Jewish friend and we went to Camp Centerland together which was a Jewish summer camp run by the JCC. I had only good experiences with Jews. Further, the idea of advancing Christian morals above anyone is anathema to my motives. 

Ultimately, anyone who knows me would know that. But, I never got a chance to defend myself. I was never directly asked anything. I would have happily explained my environmental critique on Western religion which is based heavily on Joseph Campbell.

Gnosticism

Gnosticism is anti-Semitic. The God of the Old Testament is essentially a demon in Gnostic ideology. There's no way around that. However, there was some overlap between Gnosticism and Jewish mysticism of the time, and it's not entirely clear that Gnostics targeted Jews so much as formed their own communities.

Again, Gnosticism is an ideology of translation. You want to demonize the God who created this world, call the body a prison, and the world itself a corpse. The idea is to get off the world. Ascend to a higher existence. It's an escape. 

If that's what you want, there's no reason to harm others to get it. 

Gnosticism is certainly not an ideology to advocate. But understanding it is very useful.

Pseudeospeciation

Does a belief that animals have language lead to the possibility of pseudospeciation? I never would have thought it could. Making language a human-only phenomenon limits our understanding of language. While ill-intentioned people may use this as a springboard to deny humanity to human beings, it is literally my intention to do the opposite. 

I will take any direct criticism of my work on these grounds very seriously. It will never be my intention to advance any type of genocidal ideology. I will have blindspots. We all do. It's okay to point them out.