Ship of Fools: Kerygmania:Seraphim and Sandals

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Posted by Afghan (# 10478) on :

The Seraphim in Isaiah 6... I think I'm missing some cultural context here. Clearly covering one's face when in the presence of the Lord is a very common reaction. But why do they cover their feet?

Moses covers his face in Exodus 3 but at the other end he goes the other way and removes his sandals. Did the seraphim forgot to take their sandals off or something, between the sheets?

[ 26. December 2006, 17:56: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

Posted by The Wanderer (# 182) on :

I was told somewhere that feet, in this context, was a euphemism for genetalia.Between the sheets. Not sure how much that helps actually.

[ 22. December 2006, 06:14: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

Posted by Saint Bertelin (# 5638) on :

Yes, I've always heard the same thing, that "feet" means "bits" and not the things you use for walking.

Between the sheets.

[ 22. December 2006, 06:14: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

Posted by Afghan (# 10478) on :

Certainly puts a new complexion on Isaiah 3:16!(Between the sheets.)

I've got to say I'm not entirely convinced. Where else should we be translating regel... um... differently.

[ 22. December 2006, 06:15: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

Posted by MouseThief (# 953) on :

Why would Seraphim, being bodiless beings that have no need whatever to reproduce between the sheets, have genitals in the first place?

[ 22. December 2006, 06:15: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

And even if sometimes the word for feet is a euphemism, does that mean it always is?

I mean, sometimes we use the word balls to mean things we bowl with.Between the sheets.

[ 22. December 2006, 06:16: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

Posted by BWSmith (# 2981) on :

quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
Why would Seraphim, being bodiless beings that have no need whatever to reproduce, have genitals in the first place?

Clearly, you are unfamiliar with Gen 6:1-4... [Big Grin]

Posted by Anselm (# 4499) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BWSmith:

quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
Why would Seraphim, being bodiless beings that have no need whatever to reproduce, have genitals in the first place?
Clearly, you are unfamiliar with Gen 6:1-4...

Clearly, you are unfamliar with the teaching of Jesus in Mark 12:25...

As for Gen 6 - there is good reason to interpret "Sons of God" as a reference to the descendents from 'godly line' of Seth (as opposed to those from the line of Cain). Genesis 5 seems to suggest as much.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

In the Middle East, showing the soles of the feet to someone is considered an insult. The feet are the most unclean part of the body,between the sheets,because they're constantly in contact with the ground - and in Biblical times, when people didn't wear shoes much, and there were no rubbish collections, you'd probably be avoiding animal dung and household waste a lot of the time. I suspect it has something to do with that. (Although I can't quite see a seraph picking his way past heaps of rotting rubbish in the city streets.)

(So Moses would probably have removed his sandals because they'd picked up muck from the journey.)

[ 22. December 2006, 06:17: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

Posted by auntie di (# 11521) on :

I read the genitalia=feet story years ago, and have often wondered about Ruth "uncovering Boaz' feet" in this connection. Between the sheets.

[ 22. December 2006, 06:17: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

Posted by Anselm (# 4499) on :

quote:
Afghan mentioned
Certainly puts a new complexion on Isaiah 3:16!

Or, indeed, Jesus washing the “feet” of the disciples at the Last Supper!!

Posted by tclune (# 7959) on :

quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
Why would Seraphim, being bodiless beings that have no need whatever to reproduce, have genitals in the first place?

Because God is less concerned about utilitarianism than you are?

--Tom Clune

Posted by SteveTom (# 23) on :

quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
Why would Seraphim, being bodiless beings that have no need whatever to reproduce, have genitals in the first place?

How could Seraphim, being bodiless beings, have feet?

Posted by BWSmith (# 2981) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anselm:

quote:
Originally posted by BWSmith:

quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
Why would Seraphim, being bodiless beings that have no need whatever to reproduce, have genitals in the first place?
Clearly, you are unfamiliar with Gen 6:1-4...
Clearly, you are unfamliar with the teaching of Jesus in Mark 12:25...

As for Gen 6 - there is good reason to interpret "Sons of God" as a reference to the descendents from 'godly line' of Seth (as opposed to those from the line of Cain). Genesis 5 seems to suggest as much.

I would agree that the authors and audience of Gen 6:1-4 meant the passage to be interpreted as you describe.Between the sheets.

However, I would also suspect that at the time of Jesus, that "sons of Elohim - daughters of men" passage was being interpreted in the context of angelology, such that the flood was somehow "caused" by whatever the "sons of God" were doing with those "daughters of men".

And therefore, I think the Mark passage where Jesus says that "there is no marriage, but people are like the angels in heaven" is an allusion from that common interpretation of "angel marriages bringing the flood", so that at the time of the resurrection, even the sin of the "angel marriages" will be undone and forgiven.

Now does that mean that we should interpret Gen 6:1-4 as dealing with the "fallout from angel marriages"?

That's the "postmodern" dilemma that we can't escape - when a passage has different meanings depending on which audience is reading it. Hopefully, we can learn from passages like this that "the one and only meaning" of a text is not necessarily our goal...

[ 22. December 2006, 05:51: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

quote:
So, then, forms, even those drawn from the lowliest matter, can be used, not unfittingly, with regard to heavenly beings. Matter, after all, owes its subsistence to absolute beauty and keeps, throughout its earthly ranks, some echo of intelligible beauty. Using matter, one may be lifted up to the immaterial archetypes. Of course, one must be careful to use the similarities as dissimilarities, as discussed, to avoid one-to-one correspondences, to make the appropriate adjustments as one remembers the great divide between the intelligible and the perceptible.

These words were written by Dionysius the Areopagite.

If we want to speak about genitalia as far as the angels are concerned, we have to be careful not to think that they feel lust or that they engage in sexual activities or that they multiply the way men do,between the sheets, but we should understand that in order to be close to God, and the seraphim are as close as it can get, one has to leave all earthly lusts aside. No one that is bound to earthly pleasures can worship God properly. Or words to that extent, as used in the divine liturgy of St. John the Chrysostom.

If we don't make the connection between feet and genitalia, then:

quote:
The feet are the nimble movement and speed of that perpetual journey to the divine things. (Hence the Word of God has fashioned wings on the feet of intelligent beings, for wings signify their uplifting swiftness, the climb to heaven, the ever-upward journey whose constantly upward thrust rises above all earthly longing. The lightness of wings symbolizes the freedom from all worldly attraction, their pure and untrammelled uplifting towards the heights.) The bare feet and body signify detachment, freedom, independence, the fact of being untarnished by anything external, the greatest possible conformity to the divine simplicity.

(The Celestial Hierarchy, Paulist Press, Translation by Colm Luibheid)

[ 22. December 2006, 06:18: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

This is about the verse in question by the Areopagite:

quote:
The sacred image of their six wings signifies an endless, marvellous upward thrust towards God by the first, middle, and lower conceptions. Seeing... those wings blocking out the contemplation of their faces above and their feet below, and the unending beat of the middle set of wings, the sacred theologian [Isaiah] was uplifted to a conceptual knowledge of the things seen. There were shown to him the many facets... He witnessed that sacred caution of theirs... He saw the harmony among them, between the sheets... amid a stirring that was ceaseless, exalted and forever.

Chapter Thirteen (Why the prophet Isaiah is said to have been purified by the Seraphim.)

[ 22. December 2006, 06:19: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

Posted by Anselm (# 4499) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BWSmith:
I would agree that the authors and audience of Gen 6:1-4 meant the passage to be interpreted as you describe.

However, I would also suspect that at the time of Jesus, that "sons of Elohim - daughters of men" passage was being interpreted in the context of angelology, such that the flood was somehow "caused" by whatever the "sons of God" were doing with those "daughters of men,"between the sheets.

ISTM that the overwhelming evidence in the New Testament is that the phrase "sons of God" was understood as a reference to the people of God - those who would inherit the kingdom of God.

quote:
And therefore, I think the Mark passage where Jesus says that "there is no marriage, but people are like the angels in heaven" is an allusion from that common interpretation of "angel marriages bringing the flood", so that at the time of the resurrection, even the sin of the "angel marriages" will be undone and forgiven.

That understanding seems a little forced. ISTM that Jesus is drawing on a common understanding that the angels are without gender - and that, come the resurrection, the resurrected humanity will also be without gender - there will be no male and female (no Jew no gentile, no slave no free) but all will be one in Christ.

quote:
That's the "postmodern" dilemma that we can't escape - when a passage has different meanings depending on which audience is reading it. Hopefully, we can learn from passages like this that "the one and only meaning" of a text is not necessarily our goal...

Surely the 'postmodern dilemma' is that it claims that "you cannot communicate absolute truth through language", but then assumes it can communicate that truth through language.
But maybe that's a discussion for Purgatory. [Biased]

[ 22. December 2006, 05:47: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anselm:
ISTM that the overwhelming evidence in the New Testament is that the phrase "sons of God" was understood as a reference to the people of God - those who would inherit the kingdom of God.

Anselm,
That's something I would like to explore further at some point,between the sheets, because we didn't really polish off the "sons of god" question in Barnabas62's thread on Henotheism a while ago. I felt that the phrase as used by the Jews referred to divine beings, perhaps the 'gods' of other nations, as part of a divine council. At some point it may have been toned down – perhaps as a result of the Babylonian exile experience – and the denotation passed over to other words, e.g., ‘angels’, ‘powers’, etc. Quite what the referent was in the hands of the first Christians, I’m not sure.

Something for another thread, I think.

Nigel

[ 22. December 2006, 05:46: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

Posted by Duo Seraphim (# 256) on :

Yer, right. None of you thought to consult the expert, moi. Between the sheets.

[ 22. December 2006, 05:46: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

Good point, Duo. Sorry about that.

Posted by Afghan (# 10478) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BWSmith:
And therefore, I think the Mark passage where Jesus says that "there is no marriage, but people are like the angels in heaven" is an allusion from that common interpretation of "angel marriages bringing the flood", so that at the time of the resurrection, even the sin of the "angel marriages" will be undone and forgiven.

Although the angels in Heaven remained celibate, between the sheets - at least according to the Book of Enoch.

[ 23. December 2006, 20:37: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

Hoping the Kerygmaniacs will indulge me...

I would like to archive this thread in Limbo as a memento of this year's festivities, because I think it turned out pretty hilarious.

Locking it for now, but do PM me if this is still a thread you feel interested in.

Happy Christmas, and thanks for playing!

Kelly Alves
Kerygmania Host

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