Confusion
Cognitive unsettling when signals do not resolve into a clear story or next step.
2221 passages · 1 Vela essay · in 1 cluster
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From The Tides of Lust (1973)
The captain halted long enough to raise his face. Thick lips opened over Gunner’s. The captain filled the boy’s mouth with his tongue. And raised further to unstick Kim, who moaned till something moved to fill her. Gunner felt his master’s hand press his face down the sweating belly. The familiar cock plugged his throat, flavored with unfamiliar juice. A chuckle shook the belly above him. Gunner worked his mouth around the shaft. One cock was snatched from his face, another thrust in: it swelled, heated, and bellied his cheeks with bitter syrup. The captain’s fingertips were like pebbles on the back of his skull. And the captain’s laughter was like (suede . . . ? maroon . . . ?) Gunner pulled away, managed to kneel, whispering, “Hey, Captain? What . . . ? Why . . . ?” The captain put Gunner’s hand into his crotch. The dick was half hard. “You little bastards got it all this afternoon. It goes up; nothing comes out.” “But . . . ?” He pushed the boy away. Gunner, puzzled, moved toward the line of light that should be the door, unsteady on the mattresses. Once a woman reached up to play the cords of his inner thigh. He lingered long enough to stiffen but pulled away at the kiss. By the door he found his pants, slipped his legs in, tied his belt and stepped into the hall. A breeze blew from the alley. Gunner walked to the doorway, stood with his toes over the broken top step. A breeze dried and cooled his chest. Nazi stood by the drain pipe, taking his dick out to piss. He saw the boy. (Does he grin or does he smile?) “Hey.” He beckoned Gunner, took his shoulder. Nazi swiveled his boot toe, then he put his bare foot on Gunner’s (the chain is cold against Gunner’s ankle; the gritty sole is hot). Gunner reached for Nazi’s cock, his small fingers slipping between the big, dirty knuckles. Nazi’s mouth broke a wide grin. He kneaded the boy’s neck. On the hard shiny arm a dragon writhed about a blue swastika. Nazi smelled. Gunner heard water; a hot splash on his belly. He looked down to the arc glittering: Nazi guided it to Gunner’s groin, leg, sparkling and darkening the canvas. A rain on their doubled foot. The hand on Gunner’s shoulder became a weight. Gunner gave, and his wet knees knocked Nazi’s shins. Nazi’s urine beat belly, chest, chin. He caught the boy’s hair, yanked. Gunner’s face flooded and he lost the view of the spurting cock. His eyes went tight before the burning. His head was pushed back, so his mouth opened. The taste of hot ocean foamed between his cheeks. Nazi laughed.
From The Tides of Lust (1973)
Niger barked from the head of the alley. The captain’s face showed both confusion and recognition. As he reached the street Niger ran up and nosed his palm. Absently, he roughed the black fur. “Hey, Captain!” He looked up. The sunburned drifter loped into the street. “Hey,” again. Robby’s hands came out of his pockets. “Any action in that place with all the curtains on the windows?” He gestured toward The Hall of Mirrors. The captain shrugged. “Nothin’, huh?” Robby’s elbow swung out from his side as he began walking with the captain. “Where did the kids go? Pretty little girl!” The swinging elbow hit the captain’s arm. “You ever get any of that? She had that sweet look hungry pussy gets when it’s walking around on the street.” Niger, reaching the corner first, barked again. “How you doing?” the captain asked. “Find anything yet?” “Shit,” Robby drawled. “I ain’t even been close enough to smell none.” He shoved his fists forward and squinted at the sky. Then his head came back. He spat. “I’m just walking around here, feelin’ through the holes in my pockets, playing with my prick and looking for a place to put it. Sure as shit ain’t nothing else to do.” He nodded at his own profundity. “You going back to your boat?” “Going to see about that woman.” “Yeah?” “The one you saw around the boat.” Robby shook his head. “You niggers have all the fuckin’ luck.” The captain let laughter. And laughing, he clapped Robby’s shoulder, then turned the corner, while the dog leaped, half a block away. —A CARTOON: DISNEY—The wooden steps rattled under the beast’s claws. Niger burst the door. The man wheeled on the stool and grabbed the edge of the drawing board. His forehead scored with surprise. His boots hit the floor (he started to stand); then, as the dog leaped backwards, and back again, the craggy face cracked on a grin. “Down, boy! Down—” And looked up because a barefoot buck was standing in his door. The man’s grin fell away. Astonishment lay under. The dog circled, then sat by the captain, forepaw on the black foot. The tongue lolled and shook over the black gums. The captain raised his hands and settled his thumbs under his belt. The shapes in his forearms changed size. “You’re Jonathan Proctor.” Proctor nodded. Grey hair, short. Grey brows marked his face with a frown. “Who are you?” Slender. Hands very wide. The left hung by hooked fingers from the board’s edge. The nails were thick. White hair pawed the back of his collar, clawed from his chest over the edges of his shirt. “I’m captain for The Scorpion.” And looked at the: Painted panels of Masonite, some twelve feet high: A gutted horse sat in flaming money. Two naked figures hid in its carcass, toying at each other’s genitals.
From The Tides of Lust (1973)
Will she like the children? The captain walked beside the brick wall of the bar. At the alley, he turned, as if a thought had taken him. Five steps in, he thumbed apart the buttons of his pants, and turned to the wall. His water ran the cinderblock foundation, puddled. He moved the stream back and forth, breaking it on the bars of the cellar window. He heard his stream inside on the cellar floor. His puddle darkened the earth. Buttoning, he turned to go, when he saw: two hands, barred with ligaments, cabled with veins and scaly with dirt, grasp the wet pipes. The captain frowned, stepped back. Someone inside was licking the dripping bars. Niger barked from the head of the alley. The captain’s face showed both confusion and recognition. As he reached the street Niger ran up and nosed his palm. Absently, he roughed the black fur. “Hey, Captain!” He looked up. The sunburned drifter loped into the street. “Hey,” again. Robby’s hands came out of his pockets. “Any action in that place with all the curtains on the windows?” He gestured toward The Hall of Mirrors. The captain shrugged. “Nothin’, huh?” Robby’s elbow swung out from his side as he began walking with the captain. “Where did the kids go? Pretty little girl!” The swinging elbow hit the captain’s arm. “You ever get any of that? She had that sweet look hungry pussy gets when it’s walking around on the street.” Niger, reaching the corner first, barked again. “How you doing?” the captain asked. “Find anything yet?” “Shit,” Robby drawled. “I ain’t even been close enough to smell none.” He shoved his fists forward and squinted at the sky. Then his head came back. He spat. “I’m just walking around here, feelin’ through the holes in my pockets, playing with my prick and looking for a place to put it. Sure as shit ain’t nothing else to do.” He nodded at his own profundity. “You going back to your boat?” “Going to see about that woman.” “Yeah?” “The one you saw around the boat.” Robby shook his head. “You niggers have all the fuckin’ luck.” The captain let laughter. And laughing, he clapped Robby’s shoulder, then turned the corner, while the dog leaped, half a block away. — A CARTOON: DISNEY — The wooden steps rattled under the beast’s claws. Niger burst the door. The man wheeled on the stool and grabbed the edge of the drawing board. His forehead scored with surprise. His boots hit the floor (he started to stand); then, as the dog leaped backwards, and back again, the craggy face cracked on a grin. “Down, boy! Down—” And looked up because a barefoot buck was standing in his door. The man’s grin fell away. Astonishment lay under.
From The Tides of Lust (1973)
Will she like the children? The captain walked beside the brick wall of the bar. At the alley, he turned, as if a thought had taken him. Five steps in, he thumbed apart the buttons of his pants, and turned to the wall. His water ran the cinderblock foundation, puddled. He moved the stream back and forth, breaking it on the bars of the cellar window. He heard his stream inside on the cellar floor. His puddle darkened the earth. Buttoning, he turned to go, when he saw: two hands, barred with ligaments, cabled with veins and scaly with dirt, grasp the wet pipes. The captain frowned, stepped back. Someone inside was licking the dripping bars. Niger barked from the head of the alley. The captain’s face showed both confusion and recognition. As he reached the street Niger ran up and nosed his palm. Absently, he roughed the black fur. “Hey, Captain!” He looked up. The sunburned drifter loped into the street. “Hey,” again. Robby’s hands came out of his pockets. “Any action in that place with all the curtains on the windows?” He gestured toward The Hall of Mirrors. The captain shrugged. “Nothin’, huh?” Robby’s elbow swung out from his side as he began walking with the captain. “Where did the kids go? Pretty little girl!” The swinging elbow hit the captain’s arm. “You ever get any of that? She had that sweet look hungry pussy gets when it’s walking around on the street.” Niger, reaching the corner first, barked again. “How you doing?” the captain asked. “Find anything yet?” “Shit,” Robby drawled. “I ain’t even been close enough to smell none.” He shoved his fists forward and squinted at the sky. Then his head came back. He spat. “I’m just walking around here, feelin’ through the holes in my pockets, playing with my prick and looking for a place to put it. Sure as shit ain’t nothing else to do.” He nodded at his own profundity. “You going back to your boat?” “Going to see about that woman.” “Yeah?” “The one you saw around the boat.” Robby shook his head. “You niggers have all the fuckin’ luck.” The captain let laughter. And laughing, he clapped Robby’s shoulder, then turned the corner, while the dog leaped, half a block away. — A CARTOON: DISNEY — The wooden steps rattled under the beast’s claws. Niger burst the door. The man wheeled on the stool and grabbed the edge of the drawing board. His forehead scored with surprise. His boots hit the floor (he started to stand); then, as the dog leaped backwards, and back again, the craggy face cracked on a grin. “Down, boy! Down—” And looked up because a barefoot buck was standing in his door. The man’s grin fell away. Astonishment lay under.
From The Tides of Lust (1973)
You read a story and suddenly there’s a part that becomes just words because you know nobody ever did it like that, or said it that way but you have to pretend just to find out what happened. What I am describing is like that, too. Everything flattens out and isn’t real. Attention, again. You know the first two? They were a woman and her half-wit brother that lived in that town. When I was with Herr Bildungs, I got with the woman who was about forty then and she had a baby from me which was my first. I was fourteen and Herr Bildungs thought it was funny though he beat me when he found out first. Her brother the half-wit use to suck me off behind the schoolhouse at night. I told Herr Bildungs about the woman but nothing about the brother, because the first day on the beach Herr Bildungs did the same thing, though he wouldn’t ever do it again. In New Orleans there are a lot of fat women, and I like them. Therese liked me a lot too. But I have more babies than deaths. There are men who are my friends who can’t say that. I wonder how many of the children are alive. One of Leora’s is dead, I know. There was a lot of people sick then. Once past Said it is even easier to work east in a boat without all the papers. Those boats there are not good. People don’t know what to do with them when they have them. The last, then, for me was in Bombay, maybe seven years ago. She ran a big house I went to a lot because it was really cheap. But expensive for there. Her name was Geana [This is the end of the page. The next several are torn away. They are neither folded in the front, in the back, nor in place. Their absence suggests revelations which dwarf the episode of the winch, since that page only bares the injuries of hesitation. These pages are nowhere on the boat. The narrative takes up again with another fragment:] how all these figures in my mind run together and become one like wax in the head of the volcano that shone off the first two. I think it is time to stop this, anyway, because now that I look back I don’t see anything here that tells what I wanted to say in a way that cannot be misunderstood. And there are somethings I shouldn’t have written about, so I will take those pages out of the log. Probably the next will be worse, anyway. It is getting into Autumn. I am going to take the children farther south, where we can get away from the stupid cold in this country. Maybe one or two stops at the coast. I might even go for Leora.
From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)
τἄράσσω, Att. -ττω, in Att. also shortd. θράσσω (q. v.): fut. ταράξω Att.: aor. ἐτάραξα Hom., Att.: pf. τετάρᾶχα, only known from plqpf. συν-ετεταράχει Dio C. 42. 36: Ep. pf. in neut. sense τέτρηχα (v. infr. 111) :—Pass., fut. ταραχθήσομαι Menand. Incert. 244, and late; med. ταράξομαι in pass. sense, Thuc. 7. 36, Xen. Cyr. 6. 1,43: aor. ἐταράχθην Att.: pf. τετάραγμαι Att. (From 4f/TAPAX, cf. τε-τάραχα, ταραχή, also Té-rpnxa, τρηχύς.) To stir, stir up, trouble, in a physical sense, σύναγεν νεφέλας ἐτάραξε δὲ πόντον [Ποσειδῶν] Od. 5. 291; κύμασιν ταράσσεται πόντος Archil. 49, cf. Solon 26; τ. πέλαγος ἁλός Eur. Tro. 88, cf. 687; ὁμοῦ τ. τὴν τε γῆν καὶ τὴν θάλατταν εἰκῆ Ar. Eq. 431; τ. καὶ κυκᾶν Id. Ach. 688, Eq. 251; so also, οὐ χθόνα ταράσσοντες troubling not the earth (by ploughing), Pind. O. 2. 114; βροντήμασι κυκάτω πάντα καὶ ταρασσέτω Aesch. Pr.9943 τ. φάρμακον, like κυκάω, Ameips. Spevd. 2; cf. τάρακτρον :—metaph., τ. φωνάν to wag the tongue, Pind. P. 11.66; πάντα τ., of a speaker, to jumble up, Lat. com- miscere, Dem. 370. 12; δεινὰ τ. he makes ‘confusion worse confounded,’ Soph. O. T. 483. 2. to trouble the mind, confound, agitate, dis- turb, disquiet, με δεινὸς ὀρθομαντείας πόνος στροβεῖ ταράσσων Aesch. ΓᾺΡ. 1216; Κύπρις τ. φρένα Eur. Hipp. 969, cf. Soph. Fr. 607, Ar. Eq. 358, etc.; τ. καρδίαν Eur. Bacch. 13223 esp. of fear (cf. συνταράσσω), Aesch. Cho. 289, Ar. Eq. 66, Plat., etc.; ἄν τις φόβος τ. Xen. Mem. 2. 4,6; also, τὸ σῶμα τ. τὴν ψυχήν Plat. Phaedo 66 A, cf. 103 C; 50, τ. γλῶσσαν Eur. 1. A. 1542: absol. to cause confusion, Plat. Rep. 564 B, Hipp. Mi. 373 B:—Pass., Id. Phaedo 100 D, etc.; περί τι Id. Soph. 242 C; διά τι Dem. 41. 7; ταράσσομαι φρένας Soph. Ant. 1095 ; ὄμμα σὸν τ. Eur. Or. 253. 3. of an army, 20 throw into disorder, Hat. 4.125., 9. 51, Xen., etc. :—Pass. to be in disorder, Hdt. 4.125, 129., 8. 16, Thuc., etc.; ἐν σφισὶν αὐτοῖς τ. Id. 7. 873 so, b. ἐτάρασ- σον τοὺς ταρσοὺς τῶν κωπέων Hat. 8. 12. 4. τ. τὴν κοιλίαν to disorder the bowels, of strong purges, Hipp. 567. 15, Arist. Probl. 1. 43: 3:—in Pass., ταράττομαι τὴν γαστέρα Ar. Nub. 386. 5. often of political matters, to agitate, distract, τὴν πόλιν Id. Eq. 867; τὰ πράγματα Ib. 214:—Pass. to be in a state of disorder or anarchy, ἐν ἀλλήλοις τ. Thuc, 2. 65, cf. Dem. 22. 8, etc.: cf. ταρακτικός. 6. ταράττεσθαι ἐπὶ τῶν ἵππων to be shaken in one’s seat on horseback, Xen. Cyr 25 17: Il. to stir up, raise by stirring up, τὸν θῖνα Ar. Vesp. 696: metaph., τ. νεῖκος, πόλεμον Soph. Ant. 794, Plat. Rep. 567 A; φόνον Eur. Bacch. 792; ἡλίκα πράγματα ταράξασα Dem. 278. 15, cf, Xen. An. 5. 10, 93; τ. δίκας τινί Plut. Themist. 5 :—Pass., πόλεμος ἐταράχθη Dem. 277. 23; γόος ταραχθείς Aesch. Cho. 331. Τ1Τ. except in the places mentioned, Hom. uses only the intr. pf. τέτρηχα, to be in disorder or confusion, be in an uproar, τετρήχει δ᾽ ἀγορή 1]. 2. 95; ἀγορὴ TeTpnxvia 7. 346; so, TeTpyxXvia θάλασσα Anth. P. 7. 2833; τε- τρηχότα βῶλον Ap. Rh. 3. 1393; τετρηχύτι νώτῳ Nic. Th. 267; but, ἐκ σέθεν .. ἄλγεα .. τετρήχασι cruel woes arise, Ap. Rh. 4. 447; Nic. Th. 521, has a part. with pres. termin., τετρήχοντα κλήματα :—v. Buttm. Lexil. s. v.
Nowhere has our misunderstanding of memory been so clearly and terribly demonstrated as in what we now call “false memory syndrome” but should always have known as “ordinary memory syndrome.” Memory is as much or more creative reconstruction as accurate recollection, and, unfortunately, it is often impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins. We usually work from either or both with the same serene and implacable confidence. Common sense tells us that, apart from deliberate lying, eyewitnesses are the best proof of guilt; and the more closely involved they are, the better their witness. It tells us that traumatic events, and especially those of maximum personal involvement, are hardest to forget, are most indelibly recorded in memory. It tells us that everything is recorded somewhere in memory even though we may not be able to find it easily or ever. Here, then, are three situations of memory at work, given to offset common sense’s confidence. They are all derived from sources cited or experiments conducted by Elizabeth Loftus, a professor of psychology at the University of Washington and an expert witness in court cases on the dangerous deceits and confident inaccuracies of memory. My point in what follows is not that we remember some things and forget other things, or that we remember the important things and forget the unimportant things, or that we remember the main events and forget the specific details, or that we remember the core but forget the periphery (who determines which is which?). Those features of memory are understood in theory if not always properly assessed in practice. My point is how much fact and fiction, memory and fantasy, recollection and fabrication are intertwined in remembering. And how nobody, including ourselves, can be absolutely certain which is which, apart from independent and documented verification. Not even when we ourselves are remembering about ourselves. Fact Becomes Non-Fact The laboratory evidence makes it plain that emotion aids memory for some sorts of material within an event, but undermines memory for other sorts of material. Daniel Reisberg and Friderike Heuer, in Affect and Accuracy in Recall , p. 183 The first situation of memory that we will address involves the move from fact to non-fact . It is a process we all know about but whose theoretical implications we seldom face. We remember an event and mistake the details. It happens all the time. But we may recite those details just as securely as we record the event. Case 1 . Jack Hamilton was pitching for the California Angels against Tony Conigliaro of the Boston Red Sox on August 18, 1967, in Fenway Park. At the age of twenty, some three years before that game, Conigliaro led the American League with thirty-two homers. At twenty-two he was the youngest batter to reach one hundred homers.
His disciples said to him, “When will the rest for the dead take place, and when will the new world come?” He said to them, “What you look for has come, but you do not know it.” (Gospel of Thomas 51:1–2) The disciples said to Jesus, “Tell us how our end will be.” Jesus said, “Have you discovered the beginning, then, that you are seeking after the end? For where the beginning is, the end will be. Blessed is one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death.” (Gospel of Thomas 18:1–3) In terms of form both sayings are explicit dialogues, but there is little structural parallelism. In terms of rhetoric both responses are corrective—the former mockingly so, the latter emphatically so. In terms of content the twin dialogues are quite different: one asks about “our end” and the other about “the rest of the dead” and “the new world.” They agree only on that verb “know.” Matrix and Development . I see those seven texts as the varied developments of a single matrix. To make that clearly visible, I emphasize the common elements in them. Here are the texts, with development to the left and right of that common matrix in the middle: [image "image" file=Image00030.jpg] That matrix saying can be seen most clearly in Special Luke 17:20–21 and Gospel of Thomas 113:1–4. The only difference worth noting is the latter’s concluding phrase “and people do not see it.” But that only makes explicit what is already implicit in the very question itself (“when”). From that common matrix, the unit develops in three different directions. The first two are rather similar. Mark applies the saying to the advent of false Christs, the Q Gospel to the advent of the Son of Man. But the development in the Gospel of Thomas is most intense and instructive. There are both verbal, formal, and structural links as well as very striking differences across those Gospel of Thomas texts. I place the four sayings in that left-to-right sequence because I propose that as their basic development. The core saying is 113:1–4. Its structure (say/behold/rather) reappears in 3:1–3, but its form (dialogue) reappears in 51:1–2. Those verbal changes, however, reflect profound theological changes. First, the sequence starts with looking for a future kingdom (wrong) as against recognizing a present kingdom (right) but concludes with seeking the end (wrong) as against discovering the beginning (right). Second, the sequence moves from the impersonal to the personal: 113:1–4 is about “them,” but all the others are about “you.” Third, and most significant, we begin with outsiders or “people” (literally : men) not “seeing” what they look for as already present before them but end with insiders or “disciples” not “knowing” what they look for as already present before them. Finally, separate sayings about “knowledge” (hence “know” above) are added on as Gospel of Thomas 3:4–5 to 3:1–3 and as 18:3 to 18:1–2.
She wanted to confess her past faults, and in particular to return the watch she had been given as a reward on this occasion. She had made up the whole story, faking the scratches. I, therefore, must have heard, as a child, the account of this story, which my parents believed, and projected into the past in the form of a visual memory, which was a memory of a memory, but false. Many real memories are doubtless of the same order” (187–188 note 1). Notice that last bit: reconstruction, visualization, and even newly “remembered” details do not guarantee accuracy. Lie had become memory; fiction had become fact. Case 2 . A scene from the 1944 movie A Wing and a Prayer focused on the three-man crew of a navy torpedo bomber in the South Pacific. As the crippled plane plunged downward and the gunner prepared to parachute, the pilot said to his wounded and immobilized radioman, “We’ll take this ride together.” In a byline from “A Flying Fortress Base, England, Feb. 1, 1944,” Jack Tait recorded a similar story in the New York Herald Tribune , but now it was one gunner who stayed with another trapped gunner: “Take it easy, we’ll take this ride together.” He admitted that he could not verify the story except as one “circulating at this base that has almost become a legend.” That qualification was omitted when the Reader’s Digest condensed the story in its issue of the following April. Ronald Reagan told that story as an historical fact during his 1976 and 1980 presidential campaigns and then repeated it, on December 12, 1983, to the annual convention of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society in New York City. The story involved the pilot and ball-turret gunner of a B-17 over the English Channel: “He took the boy’s hand and said, ‘Never mind, son, we’ll ride it down together.’ Congressional Medal of Honor, posthumously awarded.” That last point, however, was open to verification, and when Lars-Erik Nelson, Washington bureau chief of the New York Daily News , checked the 434 Medal of Honor citations from World War II, he found no such act of heroism recorded anywhere. Presidential spokesman Larry Speakes, when questioned about the story’s accuracy, said, “If you tell the same story five times, it’s true.” President Reagan, who had seen A Wing and a Prayer and was a regular follower of Reader’s Digest , claimed that he recalled “reading a citation” recommending a medal for such a heroic act while he was himself in the army (Cannon 58–60). It is unnecessary to claim that Reagan could not tell fiction from fact or propaganda from history. What happened in his memory was not as unusual as we might like to think. Fiction had become fact and was thereafter impervious to criticism. Who could prove there had been no such citation recalled from Reagan’s army days? But, on the other hand, who believes there was one?
These are the twin texts: Can a blind person lead a blind person? Will not both fall into the pit? (Q Gospel 6:39) Jesus said, “If a blind person leads a blind person, both of them will fall into a hole.” (Gospel of Thomas 34) The self-contradictory image of the blind guide “was a commonplace in the ancient world,” as Kloppenborg notes with examples (1987a:184), so the significant issue is not just whether Jesus cited this proverb but what the context might have been. Was it, for example, internally or externally directed? Was it warning for insiders or invective for outsiders? The context in Matthew 15:12–14 directs the saying specifically against the Pharisees. But the Q Gospel context, as in Luke 6:39b, directs it internally against teachers within the community “who do not emulate their master … who try to outstrip their master by judging others,” as Kloppenborg summarizes its meaning (1987a:184). Gospel of Thomas 34 could be read either internally or externally, but lack of context makes it impossible to decide. There is not, however, any explicit link to the Pharisees as there is, for example, in Gospel of Thomas 39:1–2 and 102. All in all, therefore, the saying’s meaning in the Common Sayings Tradition is more likely to be internal admonition than external accusation. But it also seems to bespeak a situation of debate about how one follows, teaches, or imitates Jesus rather than a situation within the life of Jesus himself. Speck and Log. The second of the three sayings in this set is Speck and Log (Appendix lA: #10). It is a Type 4 saying (Appendix 1B); that is, it has been redacted neither toward asceticism in the Gospel of Thomas nor toward apocalypticism in the Q Gospel . It appears in the Q Gospel as Q 6:41–42—that is, Luke 6:41–42 = Matthew 7:3–5—and in the Gospel of Thomas , with both Coptic and Greek versions, as Gospel of Thomas 26 and P. Oxy. 1, lines 1–4. But only the very end of this saying’s Greek version is extant, since the fragmented P. Oxy. 1 begins at that point. Here are the three texts: Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, “Friend, let me take out the speck in your eye,” when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye. (Q Gospel 6:41–42) […] and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye. (Gospel of Thomas 26:2b [Greek]) Jesus said, “You see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but you do not see the beam that is in your own eye.
One would not ask, in that understanding, Why is the passion-resurrection account a story? What else could it be? But if you understand it as prophecy historicized, then a new question presses hard on that interpretation: Why or how did it ever become such a story? What or who turned exegesis into narrative? A few words about the two-part epigraph above. First, there are three contemporary North American scholars involved in those paragraphs: Brown, Koester, and myself. I intend here, as mentioned earlier, to continue the debate between those three authors throughout this Part X. I will underline where we disagree, especially where such disagreement is profound and intractable. But I want to see also whether there are any glimmers of agreement or any possibilities of understanding between our opposing opinions. Second, beware the rhetoric of that second epigraph. The opening phrase of Raymond Brown’s quotation—“showed no concern” —confuses the issue, which is not concern but knowledge . What did Jesus’ companions know about the passion events? The issue is further confused when Brown (in text not included above) interweaves concern and knowledge , first denying that “the earliest followers of Jesus knew or cared nothing about what happened” (16) and then refusing to descend “into the nihilism of assuming that no writer knew or cared about anything that happened in Jesus’ passion” (1361 note 20, my italics). It is not a question of care or of concern. It is a question of what Jesus’ companions knew and, more important, what they needed to express in the passion-resurrection story. Furthermore, going back to the epigraph, the debate is not over could but over did , not over what could have happened but what, in one’s best historical reconstruction, did happen. Finally, in Chapters 25 and 26 my focus is always on the story of the passion and resurrection. By story I mean a consecutive narrative and not just a confessional statement. By passion and resurrection I mean a story that always includes both accusation and justification, danger and deliverance, persecution and vindication, defeat and triumph. Even if there were earlier stages when the emphasis was not on a crucified person resurrected by God, the story was always about an innocent one vindicated by God. It was never, never, never simply a passion story. Whenever, therefore, in these final chapters, I speak of the story , it is always an abbreviation for the passion-vindication story. CHAPTER 25THE OTHER PASSION-RESURRECTION STORY[1] GPet … had a source besides Matt, namely, a more developed account of the guard at the tomb.
That is my primary question in this chapter: What ideology or theology or eschatology is present in the Common Sayings Tradition? In answer I identify what I term ethical eschatology , a doctrine whose presence in the Common Sayings Tradition I will demonstrate in Part VII. But first, here in the concluding chapter to Part VI, I want to introduce and think about this third type of eschatology. I very deliberately chose both the epigraph above and the next one below from Albert Schweitzer, who lived from 1875 to 1965. In 1906 he published a review of preceding historical Jesus research (reissued in 1969) and pronounced it flawed to the core because it refused to face the eschatological vision of Jesus. I begin with Schweitzer because he points forcibly to the twin difficulties in understanding that eschatology. First, he himself equates the terms apocalyptic and eschatology , and he does so without any explicit discussion. (He generally uses the term eschatology , but in such a way that it means apocalyptic .) Indeed, the terminological and even logical confusion seen in Chapter 15—confusion that has pervaded contemporary discussion of eschatology and apocalypticism—stems in no small measure from Schweitzer himself. Second, while he describes Jesus as a misguided apocalyptic eschatologist, he still thinks it quite possible to follow Jesus; indeed, he finds it mandatory for the Christian to do so. The epigraph above cites the closing lines of his powerful 1906 classic. But are his words just climactic gush, romantic peroration, Renan in German? For this is the question they invoke: What type of eschatology is both inaccurate and imperative, both misguided and mandatory, both wrong and right at the same time? Out of Europe Men feared that to admit the claims of eschatology would abolish the significance of His words for our time; and hence there was a feverish eagerness to discover in them any elements that might be considered not eschatologically conditioned…. But in reality that which is eternal in the words of Jesus is due to the very fact that they are based on an eschatological worldview, and contain the expression of a mind for which the contemporary world with its historical and social circumstances no longer had any existence…. Because it is thus preoccupied with the general, the universal, modern theology is determined to find its world-accepting ethic in the teaching of Jesus. Therein lies its weakness. The world affirms itself automatically; the modern spirit cannot but affirm it. But why on that account abolish the conflict between modern life, with the world-affirming spirit which inspires it as a whole, and the world-negating spirit of Jesus?
So “they,” that is, the crowd, were able “to hear” some of the parables? Finally, the parable of the Sower itself in Mark 4:3–9 and its detailed interpretation in 4:14–20 contradict Mark’s reading of Jesus’s purpose for this particular parable as a paradigm for all parables. Think about it this way. Jesus gave not only three types of bad soil, but also three types of good soil in Mark’s version of the riddle parable. Thus there are three types of loss but also three degrees of gain: “Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold” (4:8). Good soil yields thirty, better soil yields sixty, and the best soil yields a hundredfold. That is later explained allegorically: “These are the ones sown on the good soil: they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold” (4:20). The three types of bad soil get extensive commentary, but nothing more is said about the three types of good soil. They are not interpreted allegorically. Are they not important? One of Mark’s most careful and most critical early readers was Luke. He saw that problem and rewrote Mark to avoid it. He ends the parable with this: “Some fell into good soil, and when it grew, it produced a hundredfold” (Luke 8:8). And the interpretation reads like this: “As for that in the good soil, these are the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance” (Luke 8:15). Luke gives three modes of failure, but only one of success. Does not that balance of three modes of failure with three degrees of success inside the parable itself negate that outside interpretation of its purpose as incomprehension—with or without condemnation? If the audience easily recognizes the three degrees of failure (birds, rocks, thorns), how would it interpret those three degrees of success (thirty, sixty, hundredfold)—even in the literal microcosm of sowing? Jesus’s parable seems quite ready to expect and accept degrees of failure and of success. I conclude that, at least pending further investigation, Mark’s interpretation of Jesus’s parables as riddle parables intending incomprehension and thereby generating condemnation is not appropriate or adequate to the intention of Jesus. THIS CHAPTER’S SUBTITLE , “SO That They May Not Understand,” is a motto or mantra for riddle parable as a whole. I began the chapter with the opera Turandot as a modern overture to emphasize that, in the ancient world, riddles were not childish word games, but potentially lethal word contests. That opening was followed by answers to four questions. The first question asked whether such lethal word duels existed in the Mediterranean world of Jesus. Oedipus’s sphinx story and Samson’s lion story gave us a resoundingly affirmative answer. Lethal riddle parables were there, in other words, as possible models for Jesus’s own parables.
From Sometimes an Art: Nine Essays on History (2015)
The boundaries in Andrews’s case are particularly interesting since they were encountered, with some bewilderment, by Andrews himself. At the end of his life he recognized only too well that his huge new world of Anglo-American administration had ignored the whole realm of social history, which surely was relevant in some way—though how, he did not know—and further, that he had not dealt with politics as such, only with government. One realizes as one reads the poignant memoir he left unpublished at his death that he lacked the conceptual ability to deal with both politics and society and to integrate them into his institutional and administrative world. Nothing in Andrews’s training and nothing he could later devise for himself furnished tools with which to analyze the social context of public life. He pondered inconclusively the character of social history. His original plan for the projected seven volumes of The Colonial Period included one on “colonial life in the eighteenth century.” But, as he freely admitted and as one of his poorer books, Colonial Folkways, clearly attests, he never found in social history what he wisely knew to be a prime necessity for historical analysis, “logical or synthetical form.” Social history appeared to him either as “a sort of chaos of habits and customs, ways of living, dressing, eating, and the performance of duties of existence”—a “disorganized mass of half-truths”—or as “social science,” dealing not with development in time but with the laws of human behavior. Neither was acceptable to him. Yet this was an area that was stirring with new life when Andrews’s big volumes were being written. Twenty years after his death in 1944, another new world was developing in precisely those areas, glowing into reality beneath the one he himself had first developed. A cluster of younger historians suddenly saw his once exciting institutional and administrative structures as fusty and superficial. The administrative structure that he had explained was certainly there, but what had driven it? What gave it life? The shaping forces, it seemed, had been ignored. Quickly, in the generation that followed Andrews’s, the politics of empire, which Andrews had never broached, was sketched by young scholars. And the underlying social history, which Andrews knew to be basic but could not grasp, lay waiting to be brought together within an effective framework of ideas. All of this, in outline form, seems to me to constitute the creative process in historical scholarship.
And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.” (3:23–27) After that inaugural use of parables in 3:23, it is not surprising to find them understood in Mark 4 as Jesus’s rejection of rejection, as riddle parables intending to extend and condemn prior rejection. I return to Mark 4 and have already mentioned that when a riddle query —as with Samson, Oedipus, or Turandot—is expanded by narrative into a riddle parable, it is usually called an allegory . Here is how Mark’s Jesus explains the riddle parable or allegory of the Sower when he is alone with the disciples (my numbers, as before): The sower sows the word. [1] These are the ones on the path where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. [2] And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: when they hear the word, they immediately receive it with joy. But they have no root, and endure only for a while; then, when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. [3] And others are those sown among the thorns: these are the ones who hear the word, but the cares of the world, and the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, and it yields nothing. [4] And these are the ones sown on the good soil: they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold. (4:14–20) Birds as Satan? Rocks as temptations? Thorns as desires? That certainly seems to be a riddle story intending, first, incomprehension and, then, condemnation: “in order that…so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.” Even if you guessed that “sowing” meant “teaching,” how could you ever get all those other details correct? And a riddle demands that you get all its details correct: for Oedipus, “four” means infancy, “two” adulthood, and “three” senility; for Mark, “birds” mean Satan, “rocks” persecution, and “thorns” temptation. Get all or you get none. I turn next to Mark 7. A situation similar to the one in Mark 4 appears in Mark 7. “When the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him,” they criticized some of his disciples (7:1–5). Jesus responds by calling them “hypocrites” who “abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition” (7:6, 8). It is, once again, in that confrontational situation that Jesus first speaks publicly to “the crowd” (7:14) and then, “when he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable” (7:17). For Mark, parables intend to reject those who have already rejected Jesus. My final focus is Mark 12.
From Sometimes an Art: Nine Essays on History (2015)
“I make no moral judgments of my own,” Taylor insisted. “Who am I to say that [the Versailles Treaty] was ‘moral’ or ‘immoral’ in the abstract? From what point of view—that of the Germans, of the Allies, of neutrals, of the Bolsheviks? Some of its makers thought that it was moral; some thought it necessary; some thought it both immoral and unnecessary.”20 Taylor’s views could be disputed, and they have been, but they could not be ignored. He knew too much about the details of international relations to be ignored; he could too convincingly show the similarity of Hitler’s opportunistic aggression in foreign affairs to that of the other European powers—just as others could show the similarity of the Hitlerjugend to Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps;21 and he was better able than most of his critics to mobilize a mass of information into a cogent argument. The tendency to obscure the moral dimensions of history grows as the penetration into the details and subtleties of past contexts deepens and the extraordinary becomes normalized—within the situation of its time. It is a systematic, inherent problem, a seemingly inescapable consequence of this approach to history—but it is not the only one. Equally important and perplexing is the problem of dynamics—of explaining change, process, evanescence, which lie at the heart of historical understanding. The more deeply and fully one explains how things were, how things functioned, the more one loses control of the dynamics of change. For the disturbing elements, the disequilibrating forces, the motives for change, are necessarily subordinated in any situation one describes in depth, since it is the stable—that is, the dominant—elements that are most relevant to the effort at hand. If one gives a fully contextual picture of what was going on at a particular time, one will inevitably subordinate the disturbing elements, which lead to change, to the controlling, stable elements. Therefore how can one show why or how things changed? Why did the secondary forces become dominant? What events upset the situation? There are vivid illustrations of this problem. I have already mentioned Keith Thomas’s difficulty in explaining why deeply embedded, immemorial magical practices declined in the seventeenth century, why they ceased “to be intellectually acceptable.” But it is in Australia that the problem of dynamics—of change and evanescence—in contextual history is most vividly illustrated. The eleven-volume Australian bicentennial history is one of the most elaborate efforts in contextual history ever written. Six of the volumes are reference works, but in the five core volumes the authors rejected narrative history altogether and concentrated on a series of deep probes—“slices”—at fifty-year intervals. It was in this form—as five volume-length “social portraits of Australia at arbitrarily chosen moments of the past”: 1788, 1838, 1888, 1938, and from 1939—that these distinguished historians and anthropologists chose to tell Australia’s national history.22
From Come As You Are (2015)
The research measuring how the three systems function in human sexuality has barely begun. I include them here not because I’ve already seen definitive proof of how they affect sexual wellbeing but because when I teach about them, I see how helpful people find it to know that desire, pleasure, and genital response are not the same thing. Your brain can like something without wanting more. It can learn that a kind of stimulation may lead to sex, and learning may activate desire—movement toward—but it may also activate dread—movement away—depending on the context. Your brain can even want something without particularly liking it, as we’ll see with Olivia. And all three are context dependent: If your wanting, liking, and learning substrates are busy coping with stress or attachment issues (which are the topic of the next chapter), then sex-related stimuli may not be perceived as sexy at all. Understanding that these systems are separable is as powerful as learning there are brakes! Let’s walk through the three systems in different contexts to see how they can change sexual responsiveness: Context 1: Before you get pregnant. Your partner lies down in bed next to you and you enjoy your usual end-of-the-day cuddle while you talk through plans for tomorrow. Your partner’s hands begin to wander over your body, which activates learning and liking, since you’re in a relaxed, affectionate state of mind, and pretty soon wanting joins the party. So you start kissing and letting your hands wander, too, and one thing leads to another. Context 2: Two months after you give birth. Your partner lies down in bed next to you, waking you up from a rare and precious sound sleep, wanting to cuddle and talk through plans for tomorrow. You turn into their arms and talk for a while, and their hands begin to wander over your body—your sleep-deprived, lactating, different-shaped body with its still-healing vagina and feet half a size bigger than they were a year ago, a body that has been constantly pawed by little baby hands. Your partner’s touch on this strange new body of yours activates learning… which fills you with dread—wanting to avoid sex. So you turn back over and say, “Honey, not tonight.” And your partner thinks—and maybe you do, too—“I don’t understand. This used to be great.” Same stimulation, different context. Different response by your emotional One Ring, leading to different outcomes. We could replace “give birth” in that example with “put your parent into hospice care,” “learn your partner was cheating on you,” or “get laid off from your job,” and get a somewhat similar outcome. On the other hand, we could replace it with “decide to try to get pregnant,” “renew your vows,” or “win the lottery,” and get a pretty different outcome.
Is it correct, then, to describe the earliest transmission of Jesus materials as oral “tradition ”? How exactly did such a tradition work? And, if oral tradition is not the best name for the process, how did any of the historical Jesus’ words and deeds survive into earliest Christianity (if, in fact, they did)? Evidence of Orality Some more recent scholarship reflect[s] a way of viewing early Christianity and the gospel traditions that takes it as highly probable that traditions originally existed in oral form, and the writing down of the synoptic, or canonical gospels, did not exhaust them…. The problem in making such a claim is that it cannot be demonstrated, as likely as it may seem. Oral tradition, as real as it may have been, is uncontrollable and ephemeral unless it survives to us in written form. Dwight Moody Smith, “The Problem of John and the Synoptics,” pp. 152–153 It is hard for me to imagine more confusion and misinformation than accompanies current presuppositions about memory, orality, and literacy in connection with the Jesus traditions and the gospel texts. I choose two examples from a recent and massive study on The Death of the Messiah by Raymond E. Brown to indicate some of those presuppositions. But first a word of background. There are five early versions of the passion of Jesus still extant, in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Peter. Those first four have always been available in complete accounts within the New Testament, but the last one was only discovered in fragmented papyri from Egypt within the last hundred years. My examples concern the interaction of memory, orality, and literacy in determining the relationship between those five texts. The first example involves the dependence of Matthew and Luke on Mark. A large consensus of gospel scholarship agrees that Matthew and Luke used Mark as one of their main literary sources and that they did so independently of one another. In terms of our but not their world, they copied or plagiarized from him. That explains why the order of their accounts follows his sequence of events and why the content of their accounts develops his version of events. That hypothesis, in other words, explains why, when, and where they agree together with Mark. But what about those places where they agree together against Mark? What about those cases where Matthew and Luke are copying from Mark but both contain an element not present in Mark? Scholars call those cases the minor agreements of Matthew and Luke against Mark , and they are an objection (but not an insurmountable one) to that general theory of Matthean and Lukan dependence on Mark. Here are two instances of such minor agreements from the account of Jesus’ trial before the Jewish authorities.
Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. (20:3–9) The Beloved Disciple gets there first, looks in first, and believes first—or even alone (note my italics). All Peter gets to do is—in ultimate deference to Luke 24:12—enter first. But, says John in a challenge to the synoptic tradition, an empty tomb and abandoned death wrappings may or may not inspire belief in the resurrection of Jesus. Next, Mary. Neither is the empty tomb enough for Mary to believe in resurrection. Three times John has her interpret it incorrectly—as a case of grave robbery: [1] She ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” (20:2) [2] They [the angels in the tomb] said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” (20:13) [3] She turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” (20:14–15) That last scene is quite extraordinary. Even a risen vision is not enough until Jesus calls her by her name: “Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher)” (20:16). An empty tomb is ambiguous, says John, and so—just in itself—is a risen vision. Both empty tomb and risen vision require interpretation—by faith. One final point on Mary. She is not told by Jesus noli me tangere, “Do not touch me,” as in the traditional Latin translation. The Greek is importantly different: “Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God”’” (20:17). In other words, the risen apparitions that count are not before, but after the ascension of Jesus into heaven. When Jesus appears in 20:19 and again in 20:24, he has ascended and is appearing from heaven above and not from an empty tomb below. That is John’s ultimate challenge to the synoptic apparition tradition, and it leads directly into my next section. My fourth and final step involves the so-called return of Jesus. In the synoptic tradition, the consummation of the kingdom’s presence was understood as the return of Jesus in the imminent future.
From Come As You Are (2015)
One side benefit of this whole situation was that Laurie found she could have an orgasm in about five minutes with the vibrator, and that made falling asleep easier. So she’d go to bed early and buzz herself to sleep. But she hid it from Johnny, because she was pretty sure he’d be unhappy to learn that she was having orgasms on her own but not with him. It puzzled her, this interest in solo orgasm, when hardly anything could prompt her to want sex with her husband. So she felt stuck and confused and crazy when she sat down to talk with me about it. Her perception of the situation—and her sense of hopelessness—changed completely when she learned what’s in this chapter: Your sexual brain has an “accelerator” that responds to sexual stimulation, but it also has “brakes,” which respond to all the very good reasons not to be turned on right now. Imagine it’s 1964 and you’re working in the laboratory of groundbreaking sex researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson, at Washington University in St. Louis. You’re on the cutting edge of science, working to understand what has never been studied before, and you spend a lot of time posting want ads in the local paper. You’re looking for people, ordinary people, who are not only willing but also able to have orgasm in a laboratory (“research quarters”) while connected to machines that measure their heart rate, blood pressure, blood flow, and genital response, with you and the team of scientists in the room, observing. When a woman responds to the ad, you invite her to the lab, where you take a detailed medical and sexual history, you conduct a physical exam to check for any health issues, and you introduce her to the research quarters and its equipment. Next time she comes in, she practices having an orgasm in the research quarters, first on her own and then with the research team there in the room with her. Now she’ll be observed, measured, and assessed as she stimulates herself with the equipment in the research quarters, all the way to orgasm. For science. This is what you’ll observe:1 Excitement. As stimulation begins, her heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration rate increase, and her labia minora and the clitoris darken and swell, separating the outer labia. The walls of the vagina begin to lubricate and then lengthen. Her breasts swell and the nipples become erect. Late in excitement, she may begin to sweat.