Extrabiblical Writings - OT and NT Apocrypha And Pseudepigrapha E-Book

Ulrich R. Rohmer

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Instead of getting lost in infinite canon discussions hoping to clarify the question whether there is a right and valid canon being approved by God or not, any interested reader should simply start to transcend his or her prejudice by reading different texts, and the field is huge and extremely interesting. Any diligent student will be astonished of the richness the texts do provide on both, different angles of perspectives and manifold cross connections. And that is the deep reason any biblical student needs a solid understanding of the many extrabiblical text existing, so called apocrypha and pseudepigrapha. This book is a kind of navigator helping to find freely available texts in the huge ocean called internet. I´ll provide many sources you can use, and I hope that many readers will love what they will read. Apocrypha and pseudepigrapha belong without any doubt to the most exciting subjects human minds and souls have ever created…

Leseprobe

Ulrich R. Rohmer

Extrabiblical Writings - OT and NT Apocrypha And Pseudepigrapha

A Navigator To Freely Available Texts

BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

Introduction

Humans share the divine gift of using words, grammar and sentences in order to speak, and by discovering signs and numbers expressing thoughts by phonetic acts it became possible to write and record that which is and has been spoken. There is a quite funny remark Plato has in one of his writings (Phaedrus):

Socrates.[274c]

I heard, then, that at Naucratis, in Egypt, was one of the ancient gods of that country, the one whose sacred bird is called the ibis, and the name of the god himself was Theuth. He it was who [274d] invented numbers and arithmetic and geometry and astronomy, also draughts and dice, and, most important of all, letters. Now the king of all Egypt at that time was the god Thamus, who lived in the great city of the upper region, which the Greeks call the Egyptian Thebes, and they call the god himself Ammon. To him came Theuth to show his inventions, saying that they ought to be imparted to the other Egyptians. But Thamus asked what use there was in each, and as Theuth enumerated their uses, expressed praise or blame, according as he approved [274e] or disapproved. The story goes that Thamus said many things to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts, which it would take too long to repeat; but when they came to the letters, “This invention, O king,” said Theuth, “will make the Egyptians wiser and will improve their memories; for it is an elixir of memory and wisdom that I have discovered.” But Thamus replied, “Most ingenious Theuth, one man has the ability to beget arts, but the ability to judge of their usefulness or harmfulness to their users belongs to another; [275a] and now you, who are the father of letters, have been led by your affection to ascribe to them a power the opposite of that which they really possess. For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem [275b] to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise…

(http://www.english.illinois.edu/-people-/faculty/debaron/482/482readings/phaedrus.html)

These are unusual thoughts to readers today, aren´t they? In fact, Plato picks a thought connecting two insights he had at his time: 1. letters are a godly invention (Theuth) and 2., this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory, as we read in the text. We must remember: around 850 BC the great Homer told and sung orally his stories (Iliad and Odyseey) instead of writing on paper. Homer was in the tradition of being an oral bard, and all he spoke and barded was in his memory. Others did write his texts of course from memory too. Bard traditions are still alive today. We know of some moving testimonies of bards in the 20th century being able to fill many evenings memorizing their songs and stories even without being able to read and write.

The phenomenon of forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it has it´s value – we see it clearly in our contemporary times, which is of course almost 2500 years after Plato and 3000 years after Homer. Modern technology has made western people mentally lazy when it comes to simple math and memorizing poems or detailed and longer texts. Yes, Plato´s objection against using letters is indeed right, nevertheless this was obviously supposed to happen, and humans have to deal with it. Theuth the god gave humans letters like Prometheus did provide humans with godly fire. The story can´t be changed anymore, although many rulers have tried at certain times in history: they prohibited folks learning to read and write in order to keep them suppressed more easily.