The conference of the Society for Old Testament Study took place this week. The topic was the extent to which the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible gives us a defensible history of Israel. The general conclusions are that the Bible writers have their doctrine, ideology and theology and cheerfully rewrote history. If we are lucky, we might get a glipse of something 'truthful' (or example, king David probably was a minor warlord; but the story of his major conquests and empire are later fantasies. The Bible writers were mostly writing around 500-300 BCE and were fabricating their past history. They had emerged from exile and disaster and been sent to Palestine and were determined to forge themselves into one people. The twelve tribes comes from this time, a mighty fiction of national unity tracing the origins of this mixed group back to a single ancestor, Abraham. Before you dismiss me as a crank, this is the accepted view of scholarship, including Christian and Jewish worshippers. I explored this twenty years ago with a number of scholars, in Creating the Old Testament: The Emergence of the Hebrew Bible. Those ideas are now mainstream. It places Abraham, Moses, David and Solomon on a similar level to Robin Hood. It sounds negative, but actually it is positive, as the truth usually is. Once we understand what the writers meant, we can get on with our own lives free of deception.
Follow this thread on http://4004BCE.blogspot.com
See also on ideas about God, http://4004bce.blogspot.com/2009/08/hebrew-god.html
Friday, 31 July 2009
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
Dealing with death.
Watching the end of the BBC TV series Robin Hood has led me to wonder about how death is approached in literature for children, and thereby in education. This is also at a time when there have been high profile celebrity deaths that created a degree of public emotionalism. In Robin Hood, Robin is wounded by a poisoned dagger which allows him a protracted and reflective death. As he eventually dies, his dead wife Marion comes to fetch him and leads him by the hand into "an even greater adventure". As they walk off screen, his body slumps. His death loses gravity. The act of murder has released him into a better world, reunited him with his heart's desire. His death is implicitly condoned.
What do children think of death, and what do we tell them when a loved one dies? Today's gun and knife culture may encourage some children to kill: could their mental model of death encourage them to depict death as a good thing, and remove a sense of guilt?
Death is becoming a common theme in writing for children. Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials is littered with child and adult deaths, and includes a visit to Hades, whose bounds were broken allowing the shades freedom in a celestial melting pot or nirvana. Part of his purpose was to remove the fear of hell and project a picture of a blissfully happy afterlife modeled on Friends Reunited.
Garth Nix has made a career writing about death in curious ways. His Abhorsen fantasy trilogy is about necromancy, the dead returning, people entering death and sometimes escaping from it. Death is greatly to be feared, and mixed up with magic and destruction. His Keys of the Kingdom cycle have a young asthmatic boy, Arthur on the point of death during a cross-country run, being taken into a fantasy house where he in declared heir and wins the keys of power which will enable him to gain control of time by removing the upstart despots who rule each day. The house is like an afterlife, in which the basic function is archiving people's lives and actions. So a companion, Turquoise Blue (from the colour of the ink) had died of black death in the middle ages. The last volume, Lord Sunday, does not appear until the new year, so we must wait to see how it all resolves, and whether the seven books have only been a dream.
Michelle Paver's six volume Chronicles of Ancient Darkness (starting with Wolf Boy, 2003) charts the life of two young people, Torak and Renn. The setting is the stone age north, where totem tribes were hunter gatherers. This was the pre-scientific world of magic, shamans ('Mages'), spirits and demons. The voice-over narrator assumes these beliefs. Torak is the world's redeemer, with special powers, but is otherwise just a vulnerable lad. Renn also has special powers, and superb personal qualities, which she uses to support, protect and manage Torak. Wolf, a real wolf, is pack brother to both of them. The world is, Tolkein style, threatened by a magic stone than needs destroying, against the greed for power of rogue Mages, the Soul Eaters. This is a world where people live by hunting, showing respect for the lives they are taking and other flora and fauna. In death, the three souls leave the body, and provided the right rituals take place, keep together. They can however be harnessed for evil means, such as made to possess animals or children. The death of anything, even for food, and even plants, is not taken lightly. However, when declared an outcast, anyone who encountered him was supposed to kill him, and killing people or animals who threaten clan security is sanctioned - usually these are declared possessed of evil. Torak, Renn and all other young people carry weapons routinely for their own safety, usually made safe by clan custom. For child readers, there are questions about the nature of the soul or souls (the eternal spiritual entity that resides within our body, and about how we should view life and death in daily life.
There are two views of death currently at odds - that our inner self will survive death and move to some other sphere, disembodied; and that our inner self is simply the accumulations of feeling and knowledge which, on death, is simply switched off and ends. Logically, what holds for a human should also hold for a dog, cow or slug, and a slug heaven is rather difficult to imagine. Religions have promoted belief in an afterlife, emphasizing the need for reward or punishment. Hinduism is more open, recognising the mystery and relegating reward and punishment to our future embodied lives. Today, the autonomous self is promoted, with self esteem, self respect and an expectation for self empowerment. That this self has an eternal future is viewed as self evident. Modern spiritualities have replaced the efforts of traditional religions, although they borrow angels, demons and other conceptual paraphernalia.
This leaves us a quite serious question, what do we teach our children about death? Given the popular media and the stories they read, they cannot be very clear.
What do children think of death, and what do we tell them when a loved one dies? Today's gun and knife culture may encourage some children to kill: could their mental model of death encourage them to depict death as a good thing, and remove a sense of guilt?
Death is becoming a common theme in writing for children. Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials is littered with child and adult deaths, and includes a visit to Hades, whose bounds were broken allowing the shades freedom in a celestial melting pot or nirvana. Part of his purpose was to remove the fear of hell and project a picture of a blissfully happy afterlife modeled on Friends Reunited.
Garth Nix has made a career writing about death in curious ways. His Abhorsen fantasy trilogy is about necromancy, the dead returning, people entering death and sometimes escaping from it. Death is greatly to be feared, and mixed up with magic and destruction. His Keys of the Kingdom cycle have a young asthmatic boy, Arthur on the point of death during a cross-country run, being taken into a fantasy house where he in declared heir and wins the keys of power which will enable him to gain control of time by removing the upstart despots who rule each day. The house is like an afterlife, in which the basic function is archiving people's lives and actions. So a companion, Turquoise Blue (from the colour of the ink) had died of black death in the middle ages. The last volume, Lord Sunday, does not appear until the new year, so we must wait to see how it all resolves, and whether the seven books have only been a dream.
Michelle Paver's six volume Chronicles of Ancient Darkness (starting with Wolf Boy, 2003) charts the life of two young people, Torak and Renn. The setting is the stone age north, where totem tribes were hunter gatherers. This was the pre-scientific world of magic, shamans ('Mages'), spirits and demons. The voice-over narrator assumes these beliefs. Torak is the world's redeemer, with special powers, but is otherwise just a vulnerable lad. Renn also has special powers, and superb personal qualities, which she uses to support, protect and manage Torak. Wolf, a real wolf, is pack brother to both of them. The world is, Tolkein style, threatened by a magic stone than needs destroying, against the greed for power of rogue Mages, the Soul Eaters. This is a world where people live by hunting, showing respect for the lives they are taking and other flora and fauna. In death, the three souls leave the body, and provided the right rituals take place, keep together. They can however be harnessed for evil means, such as made to possess animals or children. The death of anything, even for food, and even plants, is not taken lightly. However, when declared an outcast, anyone who encountered him was supposed to kill him, and killing people or animals who threaten clan security is sanctioned - usually these are declared possessed of evil. Torak, Renn and all other young people carry weapons routinely for their own safety, usually made safe by clan custom. For child readers, there are questions about the nature of the soul or souls (the eternal spiritual entity that resides within our body, and about how we should view life and death in daily life.
There are two views of death currently at odds - that our inner self will survive death and move to some other sphere, disembodied; and that our inner self is simply the accumulations of feeling and knowledge which, on death, is simply switched off and ends. Logically, what holds for a human should also hold for a dog, cow or slug, and a slug heaven is rather difficult to imagine. Religions have promoted belief in an afterlife, emphasizing the need for reward or punishment. Hinduism is more open, recognising the mystery and relegating reward and punishment to our future embodied lives. Today, the autonomous self is promoted, with self esteem, self respect and an expectation for self empowerment. That this self has an eternal future is viewed as self evident. Modern spiritualities have replaced the efforts of traditional religions, although they borrow angels, demons and other conceptual paraphernalia.
This leaves us a quite serious question, what do we teach our children about death? Given the popular media and the stories they read, they cannot be very clear.
Monday, 6 July 2009
Michelle Magorian, Just Henry.
Michelle Magorian became famous for the wartime evacuee story Goodnight Mister Tom. Here in Just Henry (2008) she sets her story around 1950. It is just at the ending of ration coupons. Austerity appears everywhere - bomb sites still flattened, the family relics of war apparent, with missing fathers, dead fathers, desperate mothers. This is an 'all live happily ever after' story but the detail makes it interesting. I am not retelling the story here, it is for you to read; rather I pick out some issues to contemplate. There is an anti-discrimination theme, with treatment of an illegitimate boy and the son of an alleged deserter dominating the first third of this 700 page book. Henry has his mind poisoned by his Gran (mother of Henry's dead war hero father) who declared herself a dependent invalid at the age of 53, not only adding to Henry's mother's burden, but physically hitting her and Mollie her infant. It is painfully gradually that Henry sees her for what she really is. The heroes of the tale are the new teacher Mr Finch, and the 60 year old writer Mrs Beaumont, who teach the children actively to resist prejudice and develop a can-do attitude to life and relationships. Both adults are rebels, non-compliant, creative, putting good relationships ahead of all else. A historical job of the story lies in the detail on 1950s films and cinema, presented as a source of entertainment visited several times each week.
The children are from the first ROSLA cohort, when school leaving age was raised from 14 to 15. They are in a secondary modern school, although Henry deliberately failed the 11 plus to please his Gran. Grace is dyslexic and has been expelled from 13 schools for idleness and insubordination, Pip is illegitimate, Jefferies whose father is accused of desertion. These become an unlikely group of friends. Secondary modern kids are presented as talented artistically and vocationally. Things work for these children because of cooperation - their careers were what they wished, but only good will made it possible. It is not a meritocracy - jobs went to people who had friends and relations in the business - railway, films, drama and singing, music. The cooperation of this special group of children and adults beat off the horrendous conservatism of society generally, represented by Gran who is actively malicious, the school headteacher who is prejudiced, Grace's absentee parents who think success comes through punishment. The only part of the plot I shall give away is the irony of bigoted Gran's discomfort to find her own son to be a deserter and her favorite grandson to be illegitimate.
Similar but different issues about negative views of people leading to prejudice are apparent in each generation. We have to have eyes open for the next threat - whether asylum seekers, Muslims, economic migrants from Eastern Europe, travellers or whatever. Empowering all should be a key to policy, strategy and pedagogy.
The children are from the first ROSLA cohort, when school leaving age was raised from 14 to 15. They are in a secondary modern school, although Henry deliberately failed the 11 plus to please his Gran. Grace is dyslexic and has been expelled from 13 schools for idleness and insubordination, Pip is illegitimate, Jefferies whose father is accused of desertion. These become an unlikely group of friends. Secondary modern kids are presented as talented artistically and vocationally. Things work for these children because of cooperation - their careers were what they wished, but only good will made it possible. It is not a meritocracy - jobs went to people who had friends and relations in the business - railway, films, drama and singing, music. The cooperation of this special group of children and adults beat off the horrendous conservatism of society generally, represented by Gran who is actively malicious, the school headteacher who is prejudiced, Grace's absentee parents who think success comes through punishment. The only part of the plot I shall give away is the irony of bigoted Gran's discomfort to find her own son to be a deserter and her favorite grandson to be illegitimate.
Similar but different issues about negative views of people leading to prejudice are apparent in each generation. We have to have eyes open for the next threat - whether asylum seekers, Muslims, economic migrants from Eastern Europe, travellers or whatever. Empowering all should be a key to policy, strategy and pedagogy.
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