Heartbeat: why do you miss when my baby kisses me?

The division between christianity & judaism was sharpest in this. As the rabbis chose to present it, sexuality was an enduring adjunct of the personality. Though potentially unruly, it was amenable to restraint - much as women were both honored as necessary for the existence of Irael, and at the same time were kept from intruding on the serious business of male wisdom. It is a model based on the control and segregation of an irritating but necessary aspect of existence. Among the christians the exact opposite occurred. Sexuality became a highly charged symbolic marker precisely because its disappearance in the committed individual was considered possible, and because this disappearance was thought to register, more significantly than any other human transformation, the qualities necessary for leadership in the religious community. The removal of sexuality - or, more humbly, removal from sexuality - stood for the state of unhesitating availability to "G d" and one's fellows, associated with the ideal of the single-hearted person.

Although in this passage PB sets up the opposition between a reified judaism and christianity, he himseld has made us aware that this is not the relevant taxonomy, for the gran rifuto is just as jewish in its social origins as the acceptance of sexuality [however ambivalent] by the rabbis. Peter Brown has made this point explicitly in a passage near the one cited above:
IT IS CLAIMED THAT A DISGUST FOR THE HUMAN BODY WAS ALREADY PREVALENT IN THE PAGAN WORLD. IT IS THEN ASSUMED THAT WHEN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH MOVED AWAY FROM ITS JEWISH ROOTS, WHERE OPTIMISTIC ATTITUDES TOWARD SEXUALITY AND MARRIAGE AS PART OF G D'S GOOD CREATION HAD PREVAILED, CHRISTIANS TOOK ON THE BLEAKER COLORS OF THEIR PAGAN ENVIRONMENT. SUCH A VIEW IS LOPSIDED. THE FACILE CONTRAST BETWEEN PAGAN PESSIMISM AND JEWISH OPTIMISM OVERLOOKS THE IMPORTANCE OF SEXUAL RENUNCIATION AS A MEANS TO SINGLENESS OF HEART IN THE RADICAL JUDAISM FROM WHICH CHRISTIANITY EMERGED.

Usually roots go far and deep! Er moet dus wel een duidelijk verschil zijn in oorzaken en gevolgen via Avram uit Ur @ Chaldea, met wie weet wat voor geschiedenissen daaraan voorafgaande, & meer dan 1000 jaar later de opkomst, afscheiding en daaropvolgende 2000 jaar min of meer 'gescheiden' voortgang in de
omringende volkeren vanwege geopolitieke hubbels & strubbels: de functies van mannen en vrouwen, de opvoeding & training van kinderen, kloosters met nonnen & paters, de diaspora, shoah/holocaust door de
handen van christelijke Europeanen, de geboorte van de staat Israel, Arabische protesten & belegeringen
over en weer met keer op keer de opvallende verschillen tussen voedsel- & reinheidswetten, de invloed van Grieken, Romeinen, Byzantijnen & opeenvolgende bezetters van praktisch alle 'islamlanden' tussen 't
zuiden van Spanje en de Philippijnse eilanden. Voortplanting & opvoeding als wortels van ons bestaan en
de ontwikkelingen tot op de mydidag van vandaag tussen die drie 'monotheistische' godsdiensten in al hun verschillen en overeenkomsten tussen grote lijnen & de allerkleinste levensdetails!

Communicatie?

We'll see or we won't.
28 okt 2010 - bewerkt op 28 okt 2010 - meld ongepast verhaal
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Asih, man, 80 jaar
   
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