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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: What makes this rage and spite?
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
Maybe I'm just hopelessly anti-Semitic, but I still don't see how there not being separate crowds is a slur on all Jews.
And can someone quote the unambiguously anti-Semitic lines in the hymn?
'Sometimes'....'Then' - suggests that the Jewish people were/are fickle and disloyal, which feeds into the blood libel where, in Matthew, they say 'His blood be upon us and our children' - quoted by several of the early father to justify pogroms, ghettos, expulsion etc.
e.g. Origen: “Their rejection of Jesus has resulted in their present calamity and exile. We say with confidence that they will never be restored to their former condition. For they have committed
1205: Pope Innocent III wrote to the archbishops of Sens and Paris that "the Jews, by their own guilt, are consigned to perpetual servitude because they crucified the Lord...As slaves rejected by God, in whose death they wickedly conspire, they shall by the effect of this very action, recognize themselves as the slaves of those whom Christ's death set free..."
In Claude Lanzmann’s harrowing Holocaust documentary Shoah, a Polish farm labourer is interviewed standing on the steps of her church after Sunday Mass. During the war the church had been used as a holding pen for Jews destined for the nearby death camp. Lanzmann presses her for an explanation. She answers with the story of Jesus’s trial in Matthew 27. Having offered the mob a choice between Jesus and the criminal Barabbas, and the crowd having chosen Barabbas for release and Jesus for crucifixion, Pontius Pilate washes his hands of the decision. Then ‘with one voice the people cried “His blood be on us and on our children”.
RC guidance: Jews should not be portrayed as avaricious (e.g., in Temple money-changer scenes); blood thirsty (e.g., in certain depiction's of Jesus'
appearances before the Temple priesthood or before Pilate); or implacable enemies of Christ (e.g., by changing the small "crowd" at the governor's palace into a teeming mob). Such depictions, with their obvious "collective guilt" implications, eliminate those parts of the gospels that show that the secrecy surrounding Jesus' "trial" was motivated by the large following he had in Jerusalem and that the Jewish populace, far from wishing his death, would have opposed it had they known and, in fact, mourned his death by Roman execution (cf. Lk 23:27).
Jews should not be portrayed as avaricious (e.g., in Temple money-changer scenes); blood thirsty (e.g., in certain depiction's of Jesus' appearances before the Temple priesthood or before Pilate); or implacable enemies of Christ (e.g., by changing the small "crowd" at the governor's palace into a teeming mob). Such depictions, with their obvious "collective guilt" implications, eliminate those parts of the gospels that show that the secrecy surrounding Jesus' "trial" was motivated by the large following he had in Jerusalem and that the Jewish populace, far from wishing his death, would have opposed it had they known and, in fact, mourned his death by Roman execution (cf. Lk 23:27).
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Magic Wand:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Well it's based on a lie isn't it?
It says that the crowd sometimes greeted him with palms and hosannas and later shouted for him to be crucified.
This isn't what happened.
Different crowds.
Or so we're told by Crossan and Borg, right?
Jeremias writes that "the influx of pilgrims at Passover time from all over the world was immense, and amounted to several times the population of Jerusalem" (Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus, 84). He estimates that during a Passover
in Jesus' day, there might be as many as 150,000 persons in Jerusalem, 25-30,000 of these
being inhabitants of the city. Josephus speaks of a crowd numbering 2,700,000.
more detail here
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BroJames
Shipmate
# 9636
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Posted
I can see the dangers of this hymn being wrongly used or wrongly interpreted, but it is not inherently anti-semitic. It makes no point at all about the background or ethnicity of those who "made strange" and would not know the "longed- for Christ".
Specifically "sometimes" is used in the now obsolete sense of "sometime" i.e "at one time", and the progression is from at one time "men" (and not specifically "Jews") strewed his way and sang his praise, then "men" call for him to be crucified. There is no necessary implication of changeableness, or that it was exactly the same group of people (any more than we can be entirely clear that there was no significant overlap between the crowds on Palm Sunday and on Good Friday).
I can see that there can be a problem that "I" sing the "sweet praise" of "my friend", while "they" do all the bad things. But there is also a problem of using the first person plural throughout which detracts from the specificity of focus on the events of the first Holy Week and Good Friday.
I can't be completely confident about this, but I suspect that more modern readers tend to a more individualist reading and are less attuned than Crossman's contemporaries to the sense he would have had of being a participant in what "men" did/had done.
In its writing the hymn is no more anti-semitic than it is sexist (where are the women), and to read it as either is to read it through the tinted spectacles of our own preconceptions
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amos:
Do you sing 'Lo, he comes with clouds descending,' in your shack?
Not if I can help it.
I short list hymns for the worship committee and don't include that one.
BUT The Advent Carol Service is pout together by the musicians and it usually makes an appearance there. (And the battle with that event is to keep away from Christmas carols.)
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
I remember years ago reading a book by James B Nelson on Christianity and sex in which he suggested that "Lo he comes with clouds" descending was an example of S'n'M sexuality acceptable in a Christian context. (With what rapture gaze we on those glorious scars.)
But I may have got that wrong.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by NatDogg:
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
...for which read, I fear, 'I still can't get anybody else to share my ability to detect anti-Semitism absolutely everywhere'
Exactly.
Doesn't mean I am wrong
No. But so far nothing you've contributed conclusively states you're right about your opinions either. Only that you believe strongly in the assertions and opinions of certain other individuals, with whom you happen to agree.
The exegesis of scripture arguing that the 'crowd' was in fact two discrete groups of people is, of course, always possibly true. It would be an interesting exercise to have polled the crowd who saw Jesus entering Jerusalem and the crowd who witnessed his sentencing by Pilate to find out what percentage of overlap there was, or none; and who proportionately said what, and on which occasion. But again, nothing Biblically says any such thing. It's all angels on pinhead stuff. Thank goodness! What fun would Biblical interpretation be if everything was clearly settled in black and white - none at all.
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Leo, it is very telling that when asked for the unambiguously anti- Semitic lines, you quote just a couple of words and tell us what they 'suggest'. Because the truth is the lines make no mention of Jews.
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Leo, it is very telling that when asked for the unambiguously anti- Semitic lines, you quote just a couple of words and tell us what they 'suggest'. Because the truth is the lines make no mention of Jews.
That's right. Some clear answer please Leo.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
Sometimes'....'Then' - suggests that the Jewish people were/are fickle and disloyal, which feeds into the blood libel where,
So My song is love unknown is anti-semitic in the same way Pride and Prejudice is homophobic in that it suggests and feeds into the idea that social and personal fulfillment are only possible in heterosexual marriage.
leo - you are one of the few persons here who share many of my own approaches to religion - catholic and radical. You are one of the main reasons I started reading this board.
It is rather sad to see you digging yourself into a pit over this. If you'd just said "My song is love unknown has an attitude that in many other circumstances has lead to anti-semitism" then we'd have been alerted to an important point.
As it is, we are all reacting to you by defending it. Even I can see there is more to it that the masochistic sentimentality that I have suspected in the past.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Leo, it is very telling that when asked for the unambiguously anti- Semitic lines, you quote just a couple of words and tell us what they 'suggest'. Because the truth is the lines make no mention of Jews.
But it is obviously a reference to Jews. Who else could it possibly be, apart from the occupying Romans.
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Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
But the lines don't focus on the fact that those people were Jews; it is talking about the people who were around in Jesus' day (who were indeed Jewish). Without a focus on their race/religion I also find it hard to see this hymn as de facto anti-Semitic.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
Or to put it another way, it does not say what the crowd/s did was due to inherent corruption brought about by their Jewishness. And whether it was one or two crowds essentially doesn't matter - part of humanity's response to Christ and the gospel, was to murder the living God. Whether some of the crowd were previously welcoming for a brief period is largely irrelevant.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
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Spike
Mostly Harmless
# 36
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Posted
There is one Jewish person to my knowledge posting on this thread who doesn't seem to find it offensive.
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Posts: 12860 | From: The Valley of Crocuses | Registered: May 2001
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
So some Jews misunderstand it too. Big flick.
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I have one final thing to say about this, otherwise it will continue to go round and round in circles.
That is to ask how many on this thread have ever quoted this hymn to nay Jewish people.
I did, at a meeting of CCJ, and the uniform response was one of horror: 'It's as if you Christians have learned nothing from the Shoah.'
Did you do this with or without glossing it as anti-semitic ?
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
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Tubbs
Miss Congeniality
# 440
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Spike:
There is one Jewish person to my knowledge posting on this thread who doesn't seem to find it offensive.
Would that be a religious Jew or one who has converted to Christianity/messianic Jew/Jew for Jesus?
And what difference does that make exactly?
Tubbs
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"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it up and remove all doubt" - Dennis Thatcher. My blog. Decide for yourself which I am
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Amos
Shipmate
# 44
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Posted
leo, how can you support the traditional teachings of the Church on women down in Dead Horses, and then fulminate up here against what is, for the Church, a very mild allusion to the Church's traditional teachings about the Jews in Samuel Crossman's lyric? Your inconsistency is mind-boggling.
It's a marvellous hymn. I love to sing it. I've posted my views about the 'they' and 'we' element near the top of this thread, so no need to repeat them.
[ 14. September 2013, 17:26: Message edited by: Amos ]
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At the end of the day we face our Maker alongside Jesus--ken
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Magic Wand
Shipmate
# 4227
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I have one final thing to say about this, otherwise it will continue to go round and round in circles.
That is to ask how many on this thread have ever quoted this hymn to nay Jewish people.
I did, at a meeting of CCJ, and the uniform response was one of horror: 'It's as if you Christians have learned nothing from the Shoah.'
Okay, so if your criteria is the reaction of Jews today, then what do we do with the New Testament on the whole? Because I don't at all doubt that I could find modern religious Jews who sincerely believe that in light of the Holocaust certain parts of the New Testament are best excised.
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Amos
Shipmate
# 44
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Posted
The CCJ (and why it resists becoming the CCJ&M) really deserves a thread of its own in Purgatory. I certainly wouldn't give that Society the last word on anything.
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At the end of the day we face our Maker alongside Jesus--ken
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Spike:
There is one Jewish person to my knowledge posting on this thread who doesn't seem to find it offensive.
Would that be a religious Jew or one who has converted to Christianity/messianic Jew/Jew for Jesus?
And what difference does that make exactly?
Tubbs
Jewish converts might be anti-Jewish in a way. Their views are not those of authentic Judaism because they will be seen as traitors.
So what is the answer to my question>
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Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Magic Wand:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I have one final thing to say about this, otherwise it will continue to go round and round in circles.
That is to ask how many on this thread have ever quoted this hymn to nay Jewish people.
I did, at a meeting of CCJ, and the uniform response was one of horror: 'It's as if you Christians have learned nothing from the Shoah.'
Okay, so if your criteria is the reaction of Jews today, then what do we do with the New Testament on the whole? Because I don't at all doubt that I could find modern religious Jews who sincerely believe that in light of the Holocaust certain parts of the New Testament are best excised.
Many, indeed, to - but the RCC guidance insists that we preach on the texts of scripture by balancing the positive pro-Jewish stuff alongside the anti stuff.
But when it comes to hymnody, passion plays and catechesis, there are strong guidelines to prohibit the perpetuation of anti-semitism - see Nostra Aetate and its guidelines, especially from the US bishops.
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amos:
The CCJ (and why it resists becoming the CCJ&M) really deserves a thread of its own in Purgatory. I certainly wouldn't give that Society the last word on anything.
Resists? Not so - it supports the Woolf Institute in Cambridge that deals with the three faiths in dialogue and also Scriptural Reasoning with Israelis and Palestinians.
But Jewish/Christian dialogue deals with shared scriptures and need a unique place because if Christians and Jews are brothers/sisters, muslims are cousins.
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Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amos:
leo, how can you support the traditional teachings of the Church on women down in Dead Horses, and then fulminate up here against what is, for the Church, a very mild allusion to the Church's traditional teachings about the Jews in Samuel Crossman's lyric? Your inconsistency is mind-boggling.
I do NOT support the trad. teaching about women - if you read my posts more thoroughly, you'd see that i have opposed the teaching on women, and on gays as it happens.
But i have lived in a FiF parish and seek to explain their views when they are slagged off. To explain isn't to support.
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
I was confused by Amos' comment, as the only post by leo I'd read on Dead Horses was to say he'd been to confession to women priests over the past 20 years.
On the other hand, his (apparently wholesale)dismissal of "traditional" Christian whatever was a bit odd, since liturgically I'd always got the impression he appealed frequently to "tradition". (As would I.)
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Jewish converts might be anti-Jewish in a way. Their views are not those of authentic Judaism because they will be seen as traitors.
So what is the answer to my question>
Seriously? You're trying the "self-hating Jew" line?
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Amos
Shipmate
# 44
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Posted
'Seen as traitors' by whom, leo?
The CCJ?
The term is meshummad, which means apostate.
I assume you're referring to people like the late apostate Hugh Montefiore, and the apostate Peter Selby within the Church of England and the late apostate Jean-Marie Aaron Lustiger within the Church of Rome. Their opinions would be worth nothing to you, I presume.
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Doesn't mean I am wrong
leo, would you agree that nowadays 95%+ of churchgoers singing "My song is love unknown" neither notice nor intend any anti-Semitic meaning in the words they are using?
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I have one final thing to say about this, otherwise it will continue to go round and round in circles.
That is to ask how many on this thread have ever quoted this hymn to nay Jewish people.
I did, at a meeting of CCJ, and the uniform response was one of horror: 'It's as if you Christians have learned nothing from the Shoah.'
Did you do this with or without glossing it as anti-semitic ?
In fact, the very method of presenting it in this way was a clear signal to the audience as to what to think of the hymn. A hymn which, I don't know how many times it has to be pointed out, doesn't actually mention Jews.
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Tubbs
Miss Congeniality
# 440
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Jewish converts might be anti-Jewish in a way. Their views are not those of authentic Judaism because they will be seen as traitors.
So what is the answer to my question>
Seriously? You're trying the "self-hating Jew" line?
And is using that line to decide who and what is "authentic Jewish" and dismiss those who don't agree with his POV after lecturing everyone else about how much they've got to learn about prejudices. There are words for that. Most of them are rude!
Tubbs
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"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it up and remove all doubt" - Dennis Thatcher. My blog. Decide for yourself which I am
Posts: 12701 | From: Someplace strange | Registered: Jun 2001
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I have one final thing to say about this, otherwise it will continue to go round and round in circles.
That is to ask how many on this thread have ever quoted this hymn to nay Jewish people.
I did, at a meeting of CCJ, and the uniform response was one of horror: 'It's as if you Christians have learned nothing from the Shoah.'
Did you do this with or without glossing it as anti-semitic ?
Leading questions don't start a good discussion.
The session was about 4 years ago and as far as i can remember, I presented them with double-sided A4 with various texts and asked the to comment in small groups followed by a plenary.
Quite a few Jews here will have encountered Christian texts before because there are a large number of public schools in this city and they don't want their kids to miss our assemblies and RE but want them to understand Britain's supposedly Christian culture.
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Amos
Shipmate
# 44
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Amos:
'Seen as traitors' by whom, leo?
The CCJ?.
by Orthodox Jews - Jews who have become Christians are likely to agree with the portrayal of Jews in the gospels because they are no longer orthodox Jews.
Orthodox Jews don't get to set the rules, leo. They're not somehow the gold standard for Judaism, even for Rabbinic Judaism. As that very fine sociologist of religion, Adam Seligman, once remarked, Orthodox Judaism was invented on a Tuesday, the Tuesday after the first Monday meeting of the Berlin Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment Movement. Orthodox Judaism isn't the default setting of Judaism: it is a specific movement formed in reaction to the Enlightenment.
The CCJ has a noble history (dating from 1942) resisting antisemitism in the UK during WWII, and afterwards, but its Jewish leadership unreflectively supports the government of Israel in any and all adventures, and its Christian leadership follows suit, and is reminded of the Shoah when it doesn't. This, and not any nonsense about 'cousins' and 'siblings' is why Muslims have never been invited to join.
[ 15. September 2013, 14:34: Message edited by: Amos ]
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At the end of the day we face our Maker alongside Jesus--ken
Posts: 7667 | From: Summerisle | Registered: May 2001
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I have one final thing to say about this, otherwise it will continue to go round and round in circles.
That is to ask how many on this thread have ever quoted this hymn to nay Jewish people.
I did, at a meeting of CCJ, and the uniform response was one of horror: 'It's as if you Christians have learned nothing from the Shoah.'
Did you do this with or without glossing it as anti-semitic ?
Leading questions <snip>
Technical point I know, but that was not a leading question. "Do you think glossing it as anti-semitic affected their response ?" Would have been a leading question.
Allow me to rephrase - why were you presenting bits of hymn texts in a seminar / plenary ? What was it about ?
I assume it was not because you were giving a presentation on poetic composition and had no other examples to hand.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amos:
but its Jewish leadership unreflectively supports the government of Israel in any and all adventures, and its Christian leadership follows suit, and is reminded of the Shoah when it doesn't. This, and not any nonsense about 'cousins' and 'siblings' is why Muslims have never been invited to join.
You are simply wrong about CCJ and Islam - many local groups do 3-way dialogue and this is encouraged by CCJ.
As for Jewish support for the State of Israel and CCJ's stance, I have severe problems with that. However, the leadership does not approve of all the gov'ts stances and actions - Rabbi Jonathan Gorsky (on the exec. of CCJ until his academic work took him away) has written for CCJ about Israel and is critical.
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My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I have one final thing to say about this, otherwise it will continue to go round and round in circles.
That is to ask how many on this thread have ever quoted this hymn to nay Jewish people.
I did, at a meeting of CCJ, and the uniform response was one of horror: 'It's as if you Christians have learned nothing from the Shoah.'
Did you do this with or without glossing it as anti-semitic ?
Leading questions <snip>
Technical point I know, but that was not a leading question. "Do you think glossing it as anti-semitic affected their response ?" Would have been a leading question.
Allow me to rephrase - why were you presenting bits of hymn texts in a seminar / plenary ? What was it about ?
I assume it was not because you were giving a presentation on poetic composition and had no other examples to hand.
It was at one of our monthly meetings - our Jewish membership wanted to know about Christian worship - some are surprised that we use the Hebrew scriptures and the psalms.
This was a look at Holy Week - it was at the time of the controversy of the Passion of the Christ - Mel Gibson et al.
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
some are surprised that we use the Hebrew scriptures and the psalms.
Many Christians - Anglicans - would be surprised to encounter them at the parish eucharist. There seems to be a closet Marcionite tendency restricting the readings to NT + gospel and replacing the psalm with a hymn. ![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Leo
I suppose you think that the whore in Revelation is Babylon?
If not, there is a far more obvious candidate for these lines to be aimed at.
Jengie
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Amos
Shipmate
# 44
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
some are surprised that we use the Hebrew scriptures and the psalms.
Many Christians - Anglicans - would be surprised to encounter them at the parish eucharist. There seems to be a closet Marcionite tendency restricting the readings to NT + gospel and replacing the psalm with a hymn.
Creeping Marcionism. It is distressingly prevalent. Like chestnut blight and ash wilt and sudden oak death.
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At the end of the day we face our Maker alongside Jesus--ken
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Before this thread dies from lack of interest or gets shunted to Dead Horses as an intractable argument about anti-semitism, I'd like to explain further why I started it, and try to address some of the issues that have been raised.
For reasons beyond my control, I have ben away a lot, so I have a great deal of catching up to do.
I'm printing off ten pages at a time - please forgive me if I appear not to have read ahead enough.
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Didn't mean to hit the send button there. Very early on in the thread Leo suggested the hymn should not be sung at all on account of its anti-semitism. This astonished me, since the hymn is based on a "mystical" poem - commentators have likened it to those by George Herbert - in the form of a song of praise from the (imagined) point of view of Joseph of Arimathea, Jesus' secret follower, without whose intervention after the crucifixion, there might be no Christian religion as we know it today. Since Joseph was one of the Jewish establishment, it is hard to figure out how the oiece could be seen as anti-semitic.
I think there might be two reasons why, in some quarters, it is. The main one is that there is another verse missing in many hymn books (thanks to the shippie who pointed this out) and it's the one that actually identifies the putautive 'I' of the poem. It makes sense to leave it out in the context of a church service,
but herein lies the trouble. It was never meant to be part of any ritual. Not all hymns are meant to be sung in church. But Ireland's tune is so compelling, how could we not? The question of the morality of using unauthorised versions of an artist's work in this way need to be addressed, especially when they obscure the artist's original intention.
Also in the first ten pages was a suggestion by one shippie that the hymn is no more anti-semitic than the gospels. It's a good point. I think that the biblical allusions nearest to the hymn's lyrics are to be found in John's gospel - which many Jewsa find utterly anti-semitic. Arguing that point would make a good thread on its own, but I haven't the time here.
The point of the hymn originally being a poem was taken up at length by several shippies, and a somewhat esoteric discussion on how a poem works ensued, with the finer semantic points hammered out, I hope, to the protagonists' satisfaction.
That's all I can remember for now. Next ten pages heading for the library's overworked printer. Watch this space....
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Oh, dear. I'm up to page 33 of the printer-friendly version and nothing new seems to have been said. I sometimes want tosay to both Leo and his antagonists, "Yes. Christianity is, and always has been, intrinsically anti-semitic. Get over it."
I don't suppose that would be seen as very helpful. Whatever the historical faults of mainstream Christianity, though, I think we have moved on from the early stance of "Yes, of course we must love the Jews. But only if they accept our beliefs about Jesus. Otherwise they are blind, self-afflicted devils' spawn and don't deserve to be regarded as huiman beings."
I would really like some input from a liberal Jew or two in this discussion. I'd like to persuade them that Crossman had no anti-semitism in his heart when he wrote that poem. That Christians have misused it. That "What makes this rage and spite?" not only refers to the anger of traditional Jewish contempories but is also a pretty obvious sideways glance at the more vicious members of his owb community.
Not all Puritans were iconoclasts and regicides. Andrew Marvell - he of the coy mistress - was against taking arms in the struggle against the cavaliers. He believed in "a proper degree of seriousness for every subject" and civil war was definitely over the top. Milton wrote pretty pastoral pieces before he got all worked up about paradise.
Crossman was a wise enough man to know that it's not a sin to change your mind, given reason enough. And he would have seen a kindred spirit in Joseph of Arimathea, the secret follower of Jesus who was also IIRC, a member of the Sanhedrin. There are, in "Love Unknown" many parallels between the internecine strife of first-century Palestine and the pernicious feuds which led to civil war in 17th-century England.
There's one helluva lot more to occupy the mind of a charitable Englishman (or Welshwoman!) than
the ugly head of anti-semitism.
Ah, well, another twenty pages to go to the end of chapter one, I think. Anyone else want to join in? I won't be allowed to talk to myself here for much longer...
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
Leo
I suppose you think that the whore in Revelation is Babylon?
If not, there is a far more obvious candidate for these lines to be aimed at.
Jengie
Don't understand the relevance - or is it a joke?
It's Rome - the empire, not the church.
Nope.
First of all I have to blow the cover of another hymn. You know the hymn "O God, our help in Ages Past" a paraphrase, well it is not coincidental that it in Year 1714. What you do not know is Queen Anne was going to sign legislation that would make life difficult for Dissenters. This is Watts response to her death which means that legislation did not make the statue books. So a paraphrase of Psalm 90 is actually a comment of political events at the time.
Now go back to the notes on this hymn and you will see that in 1663, the author was in poverty having been forced out of his living by the clemency of the Anglican supporters of King Charles II. So political comment on the time by someone under persecution. The memory of the vindictiveness of the Anglican party in 1662 remains a folk memory in Dissent. Of course a Dissenter could not say that openly just as Isaac Watts did not dare give his message openly, so they used the same technique as the writer of Revelation. The rage and spite is therefore that of authorities that use it against Christ's body in the current day (or authors days).
Basically,it is your party in the CofE and not the Jews it is aimed at.
Jengie
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
So not a hymn? And where does Joseph of Arimathea fit into this political point? And did you mean to say "clemency"?
[ 07. October 2013, 14:24: Message edited by: pimple ]
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
Leo
I suppose you think that the whore in Revelation is Babylon?
If not, there is a far more obvious candidate for these lines to be aimed at.
Jengie
Don't understand the relevance - or is it a joke?
It's Rome - the empire, not the church.
Nope.
First of all I have to blow the cover of another hymn. You know the hymn "O God, our help in Ages Past" a paraphrase, well it is not coincidental that it in Year 1714. What you do not know is Queen Anne was going to sign legislation that would make life difficult for Dissenters. This is Watts response to her death which means that legislation did not make the statue books. So a paraphrase of Psalm 90 is actually a comment of political events at the time.
Jengie
Very interesting - one learns something every day.
We sang that hymn at the Eucharist at the start of the new university year, yesterday.
Since it is based on scripture, though, i won't be as censorious as I am on certain other hymns.
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
Now go back to the notes on this hymn and you will see that in 1663, the author was in poverty having been forced out of his living by the clemency of the Anglican supporters of King Charles II. So political comment on the time by someone under persecution. The memory of the vindictiveness of the Anglican party in 1662 remains a folk memory in Dissent. Of course a Dissenter could not say that openly just as Isaac Watts did not dare give his message openly, so they used the same technique as the writer of Revelation. The rage and spite is therefore that of authorities that use it against Christ's body in the current day (or authors days).
Basically,it is your party in the CofE and not the Jews it is aimed at.
Jengie
Extremely interesting - makes me almost want to rehabilitate this hymn, with proper explanation to those who sing it.
After all, we all enjoy the tune and Palm Sunday seems lacking without it.
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