Phallicissues&crossculturalvagranciessince33/44/66



vrolijk'myDi~root beer'erg vrolijk

cool!I would like
to make this
absolutely clear: ... knipoog


It is proper
to speak of 'rabbinic' Judaism
only
with regard to the second century
and onward, because
we have no direct evidence
for such a movement
prior to the Mishna
formed in the late second
century.

The Rabbis
see the first~century Pharisees
as their spiritual ancestors,
and there is no reason to assume
that the later rabbinic reports
about those Pharisees have not been
substantially re~formed
in the light of rabbinic
Judaism
itself.

Accordingly,
when we speak of rabbinic Judaism,
we are speaking of a post~Pauline
religious development.

THIS means
that Judaism formed itself
for good or for ill
in the context of Pauline
{and other Christian} thought,
sometimes
undoubtedly reacting simply
for the purpose of self~definition
but also, more positively, answering
in its own distinctive fashion
theological and other challenges placed before it
by Pauline Christianity.

Second,
I would like to
reclaim Paul
as an important Jewish
thinker.

On my
reading of the Pauline corpus,
Paul lived and died convinced that he was a Jew
living out
Judaism.


He represents,
then, one option which Judaism
could take
in the first century, and I do argue
that he presents
a challenge to Jews
NOW as well!

Assuming,
as I do, that Paul was motivated
not by an abnormal psychological state
but by a set of problems and ideas
generated by his cultural,
religious situation,
I read him as a Jewish cultural critic,
and I ask what it was in Jewish culture that led him
to produce a discourse of radical reform
of that culture.

I ask also
in what ways
his critique is important and valid for Jews today,
and indeed in what ways the questions that Paul raises
about culture are important and valid
for EVERYONE
today.

Further,
I want to inquire into the limitations,
inadequacies, contradictions, and disastrous effects
of some
of the Pauline solutions to those
problems.

Finally,
I wish to interrogate our situation
and ask whether we have better solutions
to the cultural, social problems raised by the
Pauline corpus.

In his very extremity
and marginality, Paul is in a sense paradigmatic
of 'the Jew.'

HE represents
the interface between Jew
as a self~identical essence
and Jew as a construction constantly
being remade.

The very
tension in his discourse,
indeed in his life,
between powerful self~identification as a Jew ~
in Romans 9,
he expresses willingness to sacrifice his own salvation
for that of
'his brothers according to the flesh' ~
and equally powerful,
or even more powerful, identification of self
as everyman
is emblematic of Jewish
selfhood.

Paul
represents in his person
and thematizes in his doscourse,
paradoxes not only of Jewish identity, but,
as we have come to learn,
of all identity as such.
When the Galatians wish to take on
Jewish cultural practice,
Paul cries out to them
with real
pathos:

Remain as I am,
for I have become
as you are.

The
paradoxes and oxymorons
of THAT sentence are,
I submit,
those of identity itself,
and exploring the Pauline corpus
with THIS kind of quest
in mind
will lead us to a deeper and richer appreciation
of our own cultural quandaries as male or female,
Jew or Greek, and
human.

I am indeed
wrestling here with Paul ~
a metaphor that I think he would have appreciated ~
in two senses:
I am wrestling alongside of him
with the cultural issues with which he was
wrestling, and I am also wrestling against him
in protest against some of the answers
he came up with.

Paul's
discourse is supremely
pertinent even today {also in myDi},
and not only because there are millions
for whom his word
is Scripture.

When Paul says,
There is no jew or Greek, no male and female in Christ,
he is raising an issue with which we
STILL struggle.

Are the
specificities of human identity,
the diggerences, of value, or are they only an obstacle
in the striving for justice and
liberatian?

What I want to know
is what Paul is saying to me,
a male Jew,
and how I must respond
to it.

HOW must I
accept what he says as an ethical challenge
and WHAT ways do I wish to reject that challenge and
its implications?

FINALLY then,
for now:
HOW
might Paul's challenge and my response
be of interest and importance
to other people of
difference?

Rather than seeing Paul
as just a 'myDi~text' and my task
that of a philologist,
I see us engaged across the centuries
in a common enterprise of
cultural criticism.

When,
FOR INSTANCE,
I deal with the questian of
the signification/significance
of circumcision in Paul and in the rabbinic response
to him,
I speak about it in terms
drawn from post~structuralist inquiries
into the significance of
the 'phallus,'
a seemingly appropriate line
of inquiry which to my knowledge
has yet to be pursued,
although SOME of us have, I think, been thinking
along these lines
for years.

When I inquire
into Paul's pronouncements on the relations
between the sexes,
I do so with the full agenda of feminist cultural criticism
in my personal reading
agenda.

And I am
concerned as well to register the response
of an actively practicing {post}modern rabbinic Jew
to both Paul
and Pauline interpretation,
particularly insofar as the {especially the latter}
have often been inimical to my religious/ethnic group
and practice.

My inquiry
and response involve, as well,
the ways that Pauline discourse of the Jew as 'figure'
has heirs today in both marxian and other
theoretical and 'amusing'
discourses.

MY
myDi clearly is,
from the very beginning,
intended to be
a cross~cultural study
of particular texts and issues
within our common,
more or less religious and philosophical,
world~literature,
and of course the Pauline corpus,
especially those of gender
and ethnicity.

MY
underlying assumption
is that in some fundamental ways
Paul has set the agenda on these issues
for both Jews and Christians
until this very
day.

verliefdcool!verliefd

Sleep tight &
dream sweet:
salaam/shaloom
& sayonara,

Ch@i a.v.o.
@ Irminlooo

vrolijkknipoogerg vrolijk
engel
10 okt 2004 - bewerkt op 04 feb 2008 - meld ongepast verhaal
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