Augustine's Interpretation

A striking point that stood out to me over the [very] long +30 pages of reading was St. Augustine's viewpoint on why writings are misunderstood and how they cannot maintain their full meaning through translation without knowledge of the history and context they origionated from. Due to the complexities of language, it is virtually impossible to maintain a perfect translation of one idea in one language to another. Augustine especially speaks of the ambiguities that occur through translation, both in literal words and cultural phrases, that strongly influence the misinterpretations of ideas and meanings.

This is esentially perfect as the psalms we read were most definitetly an interpretation, and not only that but an interpretation OF another interpretation. After studying the constant fluxuation in language over short periods of time (as in a few years) in my cultural anthropology class, it is no wonder the psalms' to this day give us a run for our money in attempting to make out their meanings (i can only imagine that the changes and fluxuations in language over the course of thousands of years could be slightly difficult to translate). As Augustine stresses the importance of knowing the languages, culture, and history of Greek and Hebrew in order to fully understand the divine scriptures, we made the feeble attempt that we could in class to get a brief history of the psalms in order to better our comprehension of a select number of psalms. I think its more important to have the meaning of a work translated as opposed to the words from another language, but then is it technically a 'translation'? This made me wonder what is more important: having word-to-word translation or meaning-to-meaning? ...because it is literally impossible to have both.

Of the Religious Nature...

I found our looking into the context of nature within the psalms to be very interesting in class on Friday. Multiple psalms have mention of different aspects of nature to praise God's "handiwork" or show a sense of fascination with his power. This connection got me thinking on a few different tangents:

The cultures we are raised in are extremely dependent on our relationship to the natural world. Likewise with this, our respect and care for the environment seem equally dependent on the intimacy of existence with nature. For example, with foraging socieities (yay cultural anthropology) and past Native American cultures (effigy mounds), their very existence is very intimate and dependent on their surroundings, and in turn they have a very balanced sense of reciprocity in protecting their source of existence (very logical, don't you think?). As compared with industrial societies, our contact with nature is very limited and as a result, our respectful reciprocity is equally limited. This made me think to this connection of nature and culture through religion since studying the psalms. In past works of literature, the presence and mention of nature is quite frequent in glorifying God's or god's power(s) as many of the cultures they are derived from had a close relationship of nature and were able to see this display of power on a personal level. This also reminded me of the drawings at the Caves of Lascaux - though the paintings may not be religious, they do seem to show a sense of fascination and awe of their nonhuman neighbors. I can say myself I'm not awed in the least by the squirrels and bunny rabbits running around my backyard.

This led to another tangent on how our continued detachment from nature over time leads us to downsize its glory. Scientific explanations for natural mysteries have completely demolished their awesomeness and beauty. A sunset is just an assortment of color pigments and particles associated with light reflections; birth is just the replication and development of a bunch of cells (this reminded me of Angels & Demons). It seems as if our expanded knowledge of nature comes decreased respect. Maybe not shown so much in works of religion, but in our actions (yay Earth Day). Is is that the lack of care towards Mother Nature in our western industrialist societies is because we cannot see what we need to care about? Science and technology do have their downfalls.

I've had this argument with a few of my athiest friends who tend to lean towards the scientific argument. I think nature is too intricate and beautiful to just be a result of two objects in space crashing into each other and sparking an explosion of evolutionary growth. Being a scientist myself, its hard to see where to draw the line between religion and science. Instead of needing a distinct line (as some require), I believe the two theories are rather sewn together rather than completely seperate, which helps me see both sides of the religion/science coin. For this particular currency on nature, I like seeing both the fascination and awe-worthy side (as displayed throughout the pslams) as well as the explanitory scientific.

Psalm Ethics?

One particular ethic that stood out to me throughout reading the Book of Psalms is the concept and importance of devotion. In response to it being "livable" or not, I believe it is that very idea that is tried on the audience of the psalms in proving their utmost faith in their God. The concept of devotion is obviously present in all forms of religion (perhaps especially of monotheistic religions), though it can differ quite drastically in intensity. Through my own individual experience from Christian teaching is being presented the daily challenge of showing personal devotion towards God by living according to his teachings (the Ten Commandments, etc.).

The examples throughout the text are endless, beginning with the very first pslam of the book: "But the Lord's teaching is his desire, and His teaching he murmays day and night." (1:2). Setting the stage for the remainder of the psalms, this verse shows the ideal mindset towards one's God. Couldn't it be considered that devotion be one of the main aspects essential to the very creation of the book?

In many of the examples that stress the ethic of devotion, they show the importance of utmost devotion towards God, though the temptations of evil and misfortunes, as devotion, perserverence, and faith will assure resolution in the end. This challenges the followers to make it a "livable" ethic.

"For the Lord loves justice and will not forsake His faithful. They are guarded forever, but the seed of the wicked is cut off." (37:28)

The Music of Psalms

Referring back Week 3, Professor Smith asked my personal oponion on reading the pslams thus far. I replied that I really enjoyed reading them due to their similarity (and sometimes existence) to hymns. Being an organist, I have played and read many-a-hymn in my day (to say the least) and have grown to truly appreciate the poetry and use of language from the texts. After a little research, I discovered that placing the psalms to music was largely Protestant tradition explained my immediate identification (as I was raised in a Protestant church).

This got me thinking of why I actually like them so much, seperate and together. I'd hoped it was more than just being apart of my church experience growing up. Looking further into it, I found seperate characteristics between the two (the psalms and music) that make them very similar to one another. From reading well over 100 of these bad boys by now, it is easy to see that the psalms' moods differ substantially from one page to the next. How do they establish such drastic differences? By the use of descriptive vocabulary for mood and punctuation for rhythym that can make psalms almost poetic. This is incredibly similar to a music's version of expression through a particular key and use of notes as well as its rhythym without the use of words.

This strong resemblence struck me as why they do fit virtually perfectly when put together. Music has a different and powerful effect on expressing moods and ideas that words can't always express, which is of course applicable vise-versa. With their parallel uses of expressing moods and ideas, they are easily combined. As a product of this combination between words and music, however, comes a multiplied result of a deeper experience of emotion and thought.

Maybe this is why I love being an organist so much or maybe this is why music has become such a large part of my personal religious experience, but I can now easily see the intention of the many, many composers who put psalms to music in hopes of achieving that experience.

Psalm II

One of the first differences between Robert Alter's translation and the Bay Psalm Book translation was the absence of distinct parallelism, signature of the Hebrew psalm format. I found the "statement-and-refutation" from Alter's translation to be not as easily noticed in the Bay Psalm Book. Perhaps it is from this differing format that the Hebrew psalms read (to me at least) more poetically in comparrison.

One of the significant aspects of the psalms (no matter the translation) in order to set the mood for its meaning is the use of vocabulary. Between the two translations, which are attempting to convey the same meaning, have very different uses of vocabulary - the Bay Pslam being much harsher, therefore establishing a much darker mood than Alter's version. From my remembered study of religious trend from the 1640s in North America (however accurate), fear was used in religious teachings to both attract followers and establish obedience.

As for the psalm's adaptation to Christianity, its resemblence to the Puritan situation in North America is quite strong. The alterations in word context in the Bay Pslam translation reflect very protestant and American ideals. I also do not believe that its audience of "Heathens" and the such were directed towards the Native Americans as much as their prosecutors from Europe.

The Ambiguity of it All

As stated as a last comment for my previous post (the fact that I couldn't ever study a subject such as Indian effigy mounds for my career due to an indefinite lack of definitive answers), made me think back to the actual, unknown meaning of the effigy mounds to the people that built them. Religious value? Cultural value? Artistic value? Though there are assumptions that are far more likely than others, the possibilities for such questions to our past are ridiculious in quantity.

This attempt at interpretation for the effigy mounds reminded me of other things that I've studied. With some solid help from my friend Wiki wiki on the definition of ambiguous, it states: "...where a word, term, notation, sign, symbol, phrase, sentence, or any other form used for communication, is called ambiguous if it can be interpreted in more than one way." I don't know if anybody else caught that, but that is a lot of possibilities that are just up in the air for interpretation. I've studied works of music, and in attempts to analyze it can drive me crazy if a composer had some intricate metaphor described by the notes or if they just thought that particular pattern sounded beautiful. This sense of "up-for-interpretation" was obviously with us in class every day for Freshmen Studies and sparked an argument or two regarding oponions. Take Kafka, perfect example: he himself stated that he found his story on The Transformation to be quite humorous - a lot of me thought he wrote it because it was entertaining. What's this deep focus on motif's about?

The ambiguity of our cultural areas of study include music, art, architecture, literature, and of course, religion. It is intensely frusturating me as to if we are overanalyzing something intended to be simple or underanalyzing something with complex meaning. This is so true of religion, especially of those of the past, in which there is no other source for explanation other than it being "up-for-interpretation", which makes me think a few more arguments will be had over the course of the class.

Undoubtedly, it is with the aspect of ambiguity that our very intellectual world exists, and I am an active particpant.


That doesn't mean its not frusturating.

Indian Mounds

As from my personal learning on various Indian tribes and their cultures (which, for the record, isn't exactly extensive) and from the readings of Indian Mounds of Wisconsin, many of their religious beliefs were connected with the workings and operations of nature. Perfectly understandable, as they were considerably more dependent on their immediate environment and were permanently immersed in nature far beyond what we can compare to today. The use of animals, physically (for food, clothing, tools) and metaphorically (names, stories), is present in multiple aspects of their societies. Having these ties extend beyond into a religious belief system is understandable if not expected. This intimate association with nature is likewise true of those people responsible for the animal drawings in Lascaux Cave some 16,000 years ago. As the differences in the actual representation of animals is obvious, the huge obstacle is the lack of known culture in comparrison with the tribes from Wisconsin.

It is, of course, difficult to distinguish the depth of significance religiously and culturally of the effigy mounds in Wisconsin as there are indefinite possible explanations that could be true. As to compared with our own societies' cultures in our constant use of animal representation in cartoons, advertisements, or team mascots - there is hardly much close ties involving religious beliefs. As brought up in class, it is possible that the effigy mounds were simply pragmatic representations. Less likely, but definitely possible.



I will state that I could never do study something like this for my profession as the open-endedness and indefinite lack of difinity would drive me crazy.

GrizzlyMan

So. GrizzlyMan.


First off, I wouldn't define Timothy Treadwell as being insane or mentally unstable by any means, but would label him something along the lines of egocentric, unorthodox, or a free spirit. His interactions with grizzly bears (highly dangerous) are no less dangerous than bungee jumping or swimming with sharks or sword swallowing (or something). Plus, all of his intentions were very optimstic and beneficial, whether they actually were or not.

In comparing GrizzlyMan desired co-existence with animals and the actual co-existence between humans and animals shown in the cave paintings of Lascaux, I find a huge difference. Though I obviously don't know (not that anyone truely does), I would think the people who painted the cave art had a much different interpretation of "respect" towards the animals they lived among than Treadwell did that can be largely attributed to the environment they lived in. Treadwell seemed to want to create more fluidity in the existence between humans and animals to replace our current state in which both sides misunderstand each other. (I believe grizzly bears especially are perfectly understood - but it is our reactions and behavior towards them that are highly over-dramatized.) But Treadwell didn't have to kill and eat/make use of the bears in order to stay alive, surely a much more challenging task than just staying out of bear-fights. Had that been necessary for him to stay alive, I'm sure his state of respected co-existence would be considerably different.

A Definition of Religion

As stated by Clifford Geertz:

"A system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic."

After reading this definition, I couldn't help but think of Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism from Freshmen Studies. The "long-lasting moods and motivations" stated by Geertz immediately reminded me of the development of capitalism in Western Protestant nations as a result of a "protestant ethic" that eventually developed into an entire culture. I'm sure Weber and Geertz would agree, from a cultural standpoint, religion has immense potential for impact on the "motivations in men".

I think the biggest flaw in Geertz's definition is his use of the phrase "clothing these conceptions", as it makes the reader interpret that he is trying to materialize one of the most intangible ideas in existence. After all, theology has been one of the topics of thought in existence for all time, largely attributed to the element of uncertainty that religion holds. More wars, more laws, more works of art have been focused around religion than anything else and the majority of the world's population (by a long shot) practices some form of religion as compared to those who don't. His wording from the defintion makes it seem so tactile when its one of the least tactile things I can think of.

I also think he made quite a literary blunder out of most of the second half of the definition as he appears to be condescending religion as a whole. From a cultural perspective, as Geertz is an anthropologist himself, I can see how his description of religion as he explaining its effects on man in terms of moods and behaviors. Take his phrase "aura of factuality": From every religion's perspective, your practiced religion is the correct one and perhaps this is what he meant: each religion has an established "aura of factuality" that is seen by other religions.