{"id":282,"date":"2005-04-17T04:29:23","date_gmt":"2005-04-16T20:29:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nargalzius.com\/blog2\/http:\/www.nargalzius.com\/blog2\/archives\/2005\/04\/2005_04_17_0429.php"},"modified":"2005-04-17T04:29:23","modified_gmt":"2005-04-16T20:29:23","slug":"jordan-day-07","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/04\/17\/jordan-day-07","title":{"rendered":"Jordan: day 07"},"content":{"rendered":"

WARNING: these posts have not yet been proof read. It’s difficult to find decently priced internet connections here. The actual<\/strong> posting times of these entries is April 22, in Jerusalem – in the Olive Tree hotel… with free WiFi!<\/em><\/p>\n

2005.04.16<\/p>\n

\n\"\"<\/a>\n*Pilgrimage Day 7*\n<\/center>\n\n

Day 7<\/h1>\n

A large chunk of the day was just spent traveling out of Luxor, back to Cairo, for our connecting flight to Jordan. The weather here (Jordan) is nice and cold. Sort of Los Angeles cold… or a less windy Chicago (at least for today).<\/p>\n

We ended up in the Regency Hotel, where we had dinner, heard mass, and had some sort of Bible study (never been to one before so I couldn’t tell)<\/p>\n

Since nothing really happened today (as far as the “tour” is concerned) I might as well try to recount the points I gathered in one of our sessions with Fr. Vic – who tries to relate the places visited (and stories connected to them) to the Old or New Testament (it is a pilgrimage after all)<\/p>\n

The cool thing about Fr. Vic (and Jesuits) I guess is their progressive view on Christianity and the scriptures. Since I never really listened in any of my Theology classes, I don’t remember when exactly the Jesuits started actively taking the stance which Fr. Vic takes today. This is significant because Father Vic is the head of the Theology department of Ateneo, so aside from him being a Jesuit who understandably takes the views of the Jesuit order, this obviously means that theological education (in Ateneo in particular) should be influenced by its Theology head – which I think is a good thing after hearing his views.<\/p>\n

Jesuits (at the very least) approach sacred scripture as being symbolic for the most part,<\/strong> which puts a lot of “literal inconsistencies” into perspective. Not that the whole symbolism angle hasn’t been there all the while. I mean you’d really have to be an idiot to think that say, the story of the prodigal son, or the talents were historical fact. But going back, as I never really paid attention in class but have a vague recollection of classes saying or suggesting the symbolic angle – yet it was nowhere near as explicit as how father explains it today.<\/p>\n

The stress on the understanding of literary form<\/em> is given extreme importance, as it enables the readers to understand the situation in which the scriptures were written in – and not just blindly taking them as the literal truth, which in my opinion is one of the extreme flaws of conservative Christianity, or any other religion\/sect that interprets scripture as such.<\/p>\n

Having said that, in context of the literary form used in the period the scriptures were written, most of the Old and New testament is just a story of man’s inner struggle – and the need for man to communicate with the divine. Father didn’t hesitate to even go as far as saying that most of the text in the Bible are myths<\/strong> – myths intended to get a message across.<\/p>\n

Father described the retelling of a story to fit contemporary life is called midrash<\/em> – so the people of that time\/period can relate to it. The scriptures may easily be exactly that. Most of the Old and New Testament are spoken as myth, but the Bible also<\/em> its share historical truths. The letters of Paul in the New Testament are said to be historical fact, as well as other accounts – which is one reason why we cannot dismiss the existence of a certain “Jesus\/Christ” as a convenient symbol or concept used for midrash.<\/em><\/p>\n

Yet it should also be noted that the reason why the New and Old Testament are important even if they seem to say the same thing ultimately, is that in the New Testament, Jesus’ life itself<\/em> is a summary\/retelling of the Israelite’s life story from the Old Testament myths, or a real life fulfillment of them if one chooses to take that stance.<\/p>\n

Some symbolisms that were discussed are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • \n

    Burning bush = A religious experience<\/strong>\nFire was related to power, and perhaps God, this applies to any religion. What was important here wasn’t that he saw a bush that burned but didn’t fry to a crisp, but that there was something experienced that was undeniable significant enough to make a person believe… and follow the divine.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  • \n

    The plagues = Chances given to the Pharaoh<\/strong>\nI guess this can also be interpreted as how God continually gives people the chance to change. It could also be trials given to us by God.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  • \n

    Sea and Desert = Symbols of chaos<\/strong>\nThe Israelites crossing the sea and desert may simply mean that they as a people were struggling and lost.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  • \n

    Parting of the red sea = The creation story<\/strong>\nThis is bringing order out of chaos, just like light and night was divided as well as sea, land and sky. Connecting this to the previous statement may be significant because it represents how the divine puts things into perspective… that you may be lost and struggling, but if you keep faithful, you will find your way through Him.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  • Israelites complaining to Moses in the desert – People wanting to return to “slavery”<\/strong>\nHow people want to maintain in the status quo<\/em> just because they’re used to it. We become “slaves” that way. This shows the human aspect of everything, that regardless of the numbers of signs given, we will still falter if we do not surrender to Him wholeheartedly.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Other notable points:<\/p>\n

      \n
    • Egyptian history mentions the Hixos (Ixos?), which are considered as foreign rulers<\/em> – could this be related to the Hebrews “ruling” Egypt in the Old Testament? The Joseph story in Genesis obviously discusses how Joseph went “down” to Egypt and went up the ranks to becoming the Pharaoh’s Vizier – something like a prime minister, or one who executes the rulers decision… this probably elevated the Hebrews’ status in Egyptian society.<\/li>\n
    • The Bible mentions how the Israelites walked with the sea to the left and right of them (Exodus?). In Hebrew, Right also means South and Left, North. With that, it can be deduced that they were headed East from the West.<\/li>\n
    • Sun God Ra (sun) sets in the west, entering the underworld, fighting with Apophis and succeeding (dawn) and rises again in the East.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      It was a pretty interesting discussion, too much to write down, but trust me when I say that it made a lot<\/em> of sense.<\/p>\n

      Miscellaneous<\/h2>\n

      The currency here is called a JD<\/em> (Jordanian Dinar) which is stronger than a dollar (0.7 USD to 1 JD)<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      WARNING: these posts have not yet been proof read. It’s difficult to find decently priced internet connections here. The actual posting times of these entries is April 22, in Jerusalem – in the Olive Tree hotel… with free WiFi! 2005.04.16 *Pilgrimage Day 7*<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[642,920],"class_list":["post-282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-jordan","tag-pilgrimage"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}