Tag Archives: Hebrew Scripture

“Thankfulness”

Posted on November 22, 2022 by Abigail

Abbie is unable to write a new column this week because she and her husband, Jerry Martin, are stuck in Denver, CO, where a succession of flights home have been canceled. She and Jerry were in Denver for a fascinating … Continue reading →

Posted in academe, action, alienation, cultural politics, culture, desire, erotic life, faith, friendship, guilt and innocence, history, ideology, philosophy, psychology | Tagged anger, bad faith, blessings, candor, collective community, Committee of Public Safety, consensus, covenant, decorum, dissent, Foucault, French Revolution, gratitude, Hebrew Scripture, homophobia, honesty, ideality, inauthenticity, insensitivity, Islamophobia, Israel, kibbutz, Leviticus, Mount Sinai, personal sincerity, politeness, political correctness, popularity, prayer, racism, ritual, sacrifice, sexism, Thanksgiving, The Archaeological Method, The Terror, Thought Crimes, Torah Study, unity | Leave a comment

“Thankfulness”

Posted on November 23, 2021 by Abigail

“Thankfulness” The other day, in the Saturday morning Torah Study class at my Reform temple, we were studying the verses on the ancient temple cultus detailed – and I mean detailed – in the Book of Leviticus. My patience with these Memory … Continue reading →

Posted in academe, action, alienation, cultural politics, culture, desire, erotic life, faith, friendship, guilt and innocence, history, ideology, philosophy, psychology | Tagged anger, bad faith, blessings, candor, collective community, Committee of Public Safety, consensus, convenant, decorum, dissent, Foucault, French Revolution, gratitude, Hebrew Scripture, homophobia, honesty, ideality, inauthenticity, insensitivity, Islamophobia, Israel, kibbutz, Leviticus, Mount Sinai, personal sincerity, politeness, Political Corrrectness, popularity, prayer, racism, ritual, sacrifice, sexism, Thanksgiving, The Archaeological Method, The Terror, Thought Crimes, Torah Study, unity | 2 Comments

What Kind of a Jew Was Jesus?

Posted on October 14, 2019 by Abigail

What Kind of a Jew Was Jesus? The other night this question kept me up half the night. I’m not concerned with his orthodoxy. He allowed healing on the Sabbath and held that what you said could be more polluting … Continue reading →

Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, Christianity, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, courage, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, heroes, hidden God, history, history of ideas, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, love, male power, masculinity, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, non-violence, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, philosophy, poetry, political movements, politics of ideas, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, romance, secular, self-deception, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Utopia, victims, violence, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged Abraham’s covenant, avoiding extremes, “His eye is on the sparrow”, “take no thought for your life”, Christian answers, Christian persecution, Christian questions, common sense, gates of heaven, God as partner, God as Witness, God's pilot project, God’s paradigm case, going to extremes, healing on the Sabbath, Hebrew Scripture, Isaiah's vision, Jesus the Jew, Jesus's hard sayings, Jesus’s love, Jewish practices, justice without mercy, King David’s story, life story, lion lying down with the lamb, living historically, living in balance, man from Nazareth, mercy without justice, netherworldly extreme, non-fiction narrative, non-resistance to evil, orthodoxy, otherworldly escapism, patriarchal stories, personal vulnerability, Pharisaic parables, Pharisaic self-criticism, Pharisees, reality checks, reform rabbi, Reform temple, religious dissenter, rigid orthodoxy, sleepless night, social prestige, surface and depth, taking Jesus literally, the gnostic Jesus, The Gospels, The Metaxy, the middle ground, The Old Testament, theological puzzles, turning the other cheek, unorthodoxy, Ur-story, what defiles, what is a Jew?, what to do about Jesus | 1 Comment

Ridicule

Posted on August 8, 2017 by Abigail

Ridicule It seems almost an age since the Republican Primary Debates, but there is an aspect of that contest that still comes to my mind. Part of Donald Trump’s victory was due to his success in ridiculing his opponents. He … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, femininity, feminism, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, mortality, mysticism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, romance, romantic love, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged "I'd rather be on the inside looking out", "the true Israel", a woman's looks, academic distinction, academic honors, adventures with God, ancient Israel, Assyrian conquest, Babylonian conquest, biblical stories, biography, caricature, Carly Fiorina, Christendom, Christianity, Christianity and Judaism, Christianity from Judaism, city walker, courtesy, Danish philosophy, deference, Divine intervention, Divine preference, Donald Trump, Donald Trump’s victory, duel of wits, Egyptian bondage, Exodus, first exile, flight from Egypt, God's presence, gospel songs, Governor Jeb Bush, grade school mockery, Hebrew Scripture, ironical style, irreverent theatre, Jehudim, Jewish assignment, Jewish breakaway sect, Jewish survival, Jewish vocation, Jews as witness, Joakim Garff's Soren Kierkegaard A Biography, kindergarten mockery, King of Denmark, malice, mockery of women, originality, parting of the Red Sea, Peder Ludvig Moller, philosophical talent, political downfall, political malice, political success, political victory, providence, redacting the Bible, Regine Olsen, Republican Primary Debates, ridicule, sarcasm, satirical magazine., Senator Marco Rubio, single women, Soren Kierkegaard, supersessionism, talented writer, ten lost tribes, The Corsair, The Covenant, The Jews, the Northern Kingdom, The Sullivan Family, tribe of Benjamin, tribe of Jehudah, twelve tribes, unlived sex life, women philosophers, writer and thinker | Leave a comment

“Jews on the Brain”

Posted on May 16, 2017 by Abigail

“Jews on the Brain” Over time, I have from time to time lost a friend or two – to many forces and factors – but, among them, sudden and insistent incursions of anti-Jewish feeling. Interestingly, I’ve encountered relatively little anti-semitism … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art of living, atheism, autonomy, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bureaucracy, Christianity, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, courage, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, freedom, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, mortality, mysticism, ontology, oppression, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, reductionism, relationships, religion, Renaissance, roles, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, suffering, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged "Judaizing", 18th century reason, anthropology, anti-Jewish, anti-semitism, authority, biblical lessons, bigoted epithets, bigotry, chairs of Hebrew, Christian culture, Christian polemic, Christianity and Islam, Church Fathers, counter-culture, covenant, Culture, David Nirenberg's Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition, divine/human partnership, dominance, Enlightenment, epithets, filial piety, fully human life, generic human task, Gnosticism, God's pilot project, group identity, groupthink, hadiths, happy endings, Hebrew Scripture, human nature, Islamic culture, Jewish influence, Jews and Gentiles, Jews on the Brain, lending at interest, Living in sacred history, medieval kings, metaphysical unreality, modern economy, new revelation, normality, normalizing life, Old Testament, Patristic writers, personal identity, philosophes, political stratagems, political theology, pre-judgment, prejudice, profane history, projection, Protestant Reformation, prototypical sacred history, reading the Bible, real life, reason, religion of Jesus, repression, reverence for parents, reverence for teachers, rigid legalism, sacred history, Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, sola scriptura, temptation, ten lost tribes, the historical level, the historical playing field, the normal, the plane of history, the Western tradition, theological dogmas, theology, tribe of Jehudah, ur-language, usury | 2 Comments

Is the Bible True?

Posted on January 31, 2017 by Abigail

Is the Bible True? Two questions: Why should any educated person care? Whaddya mean by “true”? Who could care? Of course, people whose identities (sense of who they are) are bound up with particular views about the Bible will care … Continue reading →

Posted in academe, action, alienation, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, childhood, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, courage, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, faith, fashion, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, guilt and innocence, heroes, hidden God, history, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, institutional power, Jews, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, memory, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, mortality, nineteenth-century, past and future, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, power, presence, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, scientism, self-deception, sex appeal, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged allegorical reading, Bible, Bible in Western Culture, biblical battle plans, biblical inconsistencies, biblical influence, Biblical literalism, biblical warrant, Book of Judges, Book of Numbers, British Army, Catholic identity, death bed consolation, Divine actor, Divine Author, Divine command, documentary hypothesis, empirical warrant, Eric Voegelin's Israel and Revelation, ethnic identity, Greco-Roman civilization, Hebrew Scripture, higher criticism, hillbilly gospel, Hindu temple, Israel Defense Force, J E P and D, Japanese flower arrangement, Japanese tea room, Jewish identity, Jewish miracle, Jewish scholar, Jewish theologians, Jon Levinson's Creation and The Persistence of Evil, Jonah and the whale, Julius Wellhausen, Manhattan, meditative state, Michael Walzer's In God's Shadow: Politics in the Hebrew Bible, miracle of the quail, moral truth, Moses as author, New Testament, Ninevites, Numbers 11, Old Testament, pagan civilization, Pentateuch, personal identity, philosophy, philosophy as pagan, prophecy, Protestant identity, psalms as consolation, Psalms of David, rabbinic view, religious identity, religious wars, Robert Alter, spiritual practice, supernatural v natural, symbolic reading, symbolic truth, tea ceremony, The Covenant, Torah, Toraya, world civilization, world of action | Leave a comment

“The Big Picture”

Posted on August 2, 2016 by Abigail

“The Big Picture” Why do we need philosophy? There are entire philosophic orientations, Wittgenstein’s is one, holding that philosophy as traditionally practiced is something to be cured of, and that the only thing philosophy can usefully do is to cure … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, Bible, Biblical God, chivalry, Christianity, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, courage, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, faith, fashion, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modernism, mortality, mysticism, nineteenth-century, ontology, oppression, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, reductionism, relationships, religion, Renaissance, roles, romanticism, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, slave, social climbing, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged "man will be a god to man", "the best lack all conviction", "the moderns", "the worst are full of passionate intensity", administrators, alienation, automobile manufacturers, autonomous man, autonomous woman, bankers, Battle of Lepanto, Battle of Tours, biblical world view, botanists, chefs, church authority, Church Fathers, Classical world view, common experience, communism, conscience, cosmology, cultural self-condemnation, cultural self-reproach, disaffiliates, disvalued Jews, dualism, expertise, experts, facism, fly in fly bottle, free will, Galileo, Galileo's telescope, Gates of Vienna, geologists, globalization, grammarians, Greco-Roman world view, Hebrew Scripture, house painters, ice cream from the hardware store, identity theory, intelligent will, Islamism, Israelite world view, Jihad, language of specialists, lawyers, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Materialism, metaphysics, micro-particle physicists, mind as brain, mind/body, Modernity, naturalism, newscasters, novelistic lives, Ontology, ordinary language, Patristic writings, personal identity, personal life, philosophic cure, philosophic therapy, philosophical puzzles, philosophy, photographers, physicalism, poets, political Islam, priests, puzzle pieces, qualia, quarrel of the ancients and the moderns, reductionism, religion, religious authority, scientism, secularlism, self-assertion, sins of the West, social life, specialists, supervenience, The Bible, the mind/body problem, the will, the will to power, W.B. Yeats' "The Second Coming", Western Civilization, Wittgenstein's philosophical investigations, Wittgensteinians | Leave a comment

“Personality”

Posted on May 3, 2016 by Abigail

“Personality” More than once in these columns, I’ve mentioned my long-standing view that people live and die by ideas. Still, as I’ve come to recognize, that’s not entirely true. It has to be qualified. For example, it’s very hard to … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, alienation, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, class, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, ethics, evil, existentialism, faith, fashion, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, heroes, hidden God, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, institutional power, Jews, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, masculinity, master, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modernism, mortality, mysticism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, ontology, oppression, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, political, political movements, politics, power, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reductionism, relationships, religion, Renaissance, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social conventions, sociobiology, spirituality, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged 1907-1914, abdication, adultery, authoritarians, Aztecs, belief system, bluff, Carnival, Catholic authoritarians, Catholic mystics, childish taunting, Classical culture, conquest, conquest of Mexico, conquest of the Western hemisphere, consorts of powerful men, corrigibility, cultural conquest, cultural consensus, death wish, debates, descent, Donald Trump, European conquest of New World, female vulnerability, Feminism, Freud, gamesmanship, God-to-people partnership, Greco-Roman civilization, group consensus, Hebrew Scripture, ID, imprinting, infidelity, inherited belief, intellectual rivalry, intellectual self-correction, Jesuits, let-downs, libido, Life Force, male force, malice, man to man, marital cheating, morbid imprint, natural force, Nietzsche, night of passion, nineteenth century Europe, nineteenth century European women, one wild night, paganism, passion, personal imprint, personal magnetism, personal weak spots, personality, Political Campaign 2016, political debates, political games, political malice, power games, power of argument, power of ideas, power politics, powerful men, powerlessness of argument, pre-Columbian Mexico, Presidential Candidates 2016, Presidential debates, Presidential politics, primal force, primitive force, primitivity, refutation, rivals, Schopenhauer, secular humanism, seduction, social acceptance, suicide, TB, TB sanatorium, teasing, Terror, Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, trophy wives, truth-seeking, United States of America, universal rights, untamed paganism, untamed personality, Walpurgis-Night, widowhood, winning debates, woman's autonomy, woman's freedom, womanhood, world progress, World War I | Leave a comment

“Thankfulness”

Posted on November 26, 2015 by Abigail

Posted in academe, action, alienation, culture, desire, erotic life, faith, friendship, guilt and innocence, history, ideology, philosophy, psychology | Tagged anger, bad faith, blessings, candor, collective community, Committee of Public Safety, consensus, convenant, decorum, dissent, Foucault, French Revolution, gratitude, Hebrew Scripture, homophobia, honesty, ideality, inauthenticity, insensitivity, Islamophobia, Israel, kibbutz, Leviticus, Mount Sinai, personal sincerity, politeness, Political Corrrectness, popularity, prayer, racism, ritual, sacrifice, sexism, Thanksgiving, The Archaeological Method, The Terror, Thought Crimes, Torah Study, unity | 2 Comments

Tag Archives: Hebrew Scripture

“Thankfulness”

“Thankfulness”

“Thankfulness”

Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column

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