Joseph's Bones

I can't remember what I was looking for via the library's online search page...oh, wait a minute...I just did. Rewind. I was listening to a book called Meet Me in Atlantis: My Obsessive Quest to Find the Sunken City by Mark Adams whilst out walking. I'd happened upon the book at Goodwill and thought about purchasing it, decided that I had enough books already and checked the library to see if perchance they had a copy, and found the downloadable audiobook. And I found it to be quite an interesting book. At one point the narrator was quoting from something or other...I think it was Plato's description of the site of Atlantis...and he used the phrase, "the bones of the earth." I liked that phrase so much that I actually remembered it when I got home from my walk an hour later, and Googled the phrase to see if I could locate the whole passage. I didn't find that, but I did come upon a book of that title, and I decided I would like to have a run at that if the library had a copy, so I went back to the library search page and typed it in there. And I came up with one hit: Joseph's Bones: Understanding the Struggle Between God and Mankind in the Bible by Jerome M. Segal. Well, they had me at "bones." So I put in a request for it, it arrived, and I started reading.

It captivated me right from the start. The explanation of the title, for instance. I've read the Bible all the way through twice. I've read dozens of Kid Versions of the Bible. I went to a Lutheran school from kindergarten through the sixth grade. I went to a Catholic university and had 15 hours in theology. I was married to a woman who was a director of religious education at several different churches in Louisville. I have attended hundreds of church services. In short: I know the Bible pretty well. Better than most. But I'd never heard this story before. Before Joseph died, he asked that his people take his bones back home for burial. Turned out to be a difficult task as the Israelites were subsequently enslaved in Egypt and spent a few centuries there...not to mention the whole wandering in the wilderness for forty years thing. But 400 years later, the Israelites finally made it, and, as we are told in Joshua that Joseph's bones are buried at Shechem. Right here:

Public Domain

Mr. Segal talks about how this story forms the parameters of a six book "novel" which runs from Genesis to Exodus to Leviticus to Numbers to Deuteronomy to Joshua. It's the story of how the Israelites are faithful to a pledge that they made to Joseph...over the course of 400 years...and how that faithfulness seems to contradict the predominant image of the Israelites as bitchy, undependable, feckless, and faithless. (In fact, that's pretty much literally how God talks about the Israelites.) 

And that's just the start. I'm only about 100 pages into the book right now (it's about 300 pages long), but the basic premise seems to be that we have been reading the Old Testament from the wrong perspective...and that it is actually the story of how God became God...or, more provocatively, how Man taught God to be a Just God. That was a little startling for me. And I like startling. Especially when it makes sense, and this premise does seem to do that. For instance, there's the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, in which Abraham teaches God that it is wrong to destroy two cities in which there could be innocent people, and plea bargains with God on this matter. It doesn't turn out well for Sodom or Gomorrah in the end, but that's beside the point. Mr. Segal also does some neat things with the story of Abraham and Isaac...a story which is pretty profoundly disturbing if you give it any thought at all. (I imagine Isaac watching his dad out of the corner of his eye for the rest of his life, for one thing.) 

But this morning I hit what was for me The Big Time. Or maybe The Bigger Time.  Segal is discussing God's first conversation with Moses (the burning bush one) and when Moses asks God what his name is, God plays a little coy with him. Check this out:

"What is at stake for God--and here I mean from the very beginning of the story, when he creates man in his image--is the question of his own reality. God's fundamental project is To Be, and for this he needs mankind, and ultimately he decides that he needs a specific people, the Israelites. The paradox is that a god that calls himself "I Am" can only be if there are others that recognize him as God."

So not only does Man teach God to be morally just, but God's identity as God depends upon His being perceived as such by Man. Well, not only is this getting pretty damned close to Bishop Berkeley's  esse est percipi (aut percipere)...it is also suggesting that God evolves over the course of His relationship with Man. Which is one of the ideas I had started assembling due to various bits I'd read in A History of Philosophy (see HERE for details. 

Funny how all this stuff seems to come together...especially when it just kind of fell into place by bumping into some stuff. I would guess that a part of that is just a matter of keeping your eyes open, noticing shit, and being willing to explore a bit. But there's another element, too. I don't think of it as Fate, because that seems like a really stupid concept to me. But maybe something more akin to synchronicity...maybe even so far as the suggestion that there is some force pulsating beneath the level of our conscious awareness...some force that is calling us towards something that is good for us. Not necessarily is some mystical sense. Maybe more akin to the fact that some people with mineral deficiencies eat dirt and plaster. This is as close to an appreciation for Aristotelian mind / body separation that I can get: there are times when the body knows in a way that is not accessible to the mind.

And so on.