Bulletin, Bulletin, Bulletin, this is a Bulletin, Bulletin, Bulletin
George Carlin bit. Didn't say it was funny. But it goes through my mind on a regular basis, and it's fitting here (methinks) for myself and the other four people who give a shit about what I write here. (And I'd like to personally thank every one of you: Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you." Steve Martin bit. DSiwF.)
I've been on a bit of a William S. Burroughs kick lately. No, I didn't see that one coming either. But I rewatched Queer (2024) and loved it so much (***** = Must See) that I decided to read the book, which my local library just happened to have. And then I found out that Queer was a part of a trilogy (a loose trilogy, to be sure, but it is trilogy nonetheless), so I backtracked to the first book and read Junky, and while reading that I started nibbling at The Adding Machine, then finished Junky and went to book three of the trilogy, The Yage Letters, then checked out Naked Lunch and had started reading the first few pages of that, intending to begin in earnest today when it hit me: the book I'd gotten via interlibrary loan, The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene: Legends, Apocrypha, and the Christian Testament by Jane Schaberg, was non-renewable and due August 15, and although I'd gotten a good start (179 of 379 pages), I'd been so absorbed in Burroughs that I hadn't even opened the book in a week, and it was obvious that I was going to run out of time if I started another book for my DDR. So I'm switching to glide.
The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene: Legends, Apocrypha, and the Christian Testament...you're up! 200 pages, 13 days--less than 16 pages per day average. Piece of cake!
Day 1 (DDRD 2,832), August 3, 2025
Read pages 180 to 210. 😊
"The isolated individual self is an illusion." (182)
When I was in the local Edgar Cayce: Search for God group (which I affectionately refer to as The Crazy Women's group because (1) most of the participants were female and (2) they were all crazy), one of the recurring themes was We Are All One person. The first time the leader said this to the group I involuntarily responded, "Well, I'm glad I came, then." Nobody laughed, but I still think that's pretty funny.
"...in the moderately dualistic systems, salvation means the reunification of the male and female principle to an androgynous or asexual unity..." Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her * (188)
Reading this made me think about the role of sexuality in spiritual quests. Maybe the denial (and even the vilification) of sexuality is wrapped up in renouncing both male and femaleness. To be sexualty is to be immersed in some gender identity, thus it is not sex which is being "criticized," but gender identification, which limits the reach of the spirit.
* Available in its entirety here:
Day 2 (DDRD 2,833), August 4, 2025
Hey, its a 2, 3, 4 day. We're back in the groove.
Read to page 240. 😁
" In many historical reconstructions of the empty tomb materials, then, Mary Magdalene is either a semi- fictional character (her name comes from ancient tradition, but the story about an empty tomb is theological fiction) or a woman who did not understand the significance of what she found, until men interpreted it for her through their own experience." (218) How's that for misogyny run amok?
At one point on page 238 (almost...there...), Jane Schaberg couples mainstream and malestream. A clever way to critique the patriarchal usurpation of The Story. Im wondering if there's another level to it, though. Malestream is so close to maelstrom that autocorrect tried to throw it in instead of Malestream. And a maelstrom is, as we all know, "a situation or state of confused movement or violent turmoil."
140 pp2g
Day 3 (DDRD 2,834), August 5, 2025
Read to page 270.
Lots of talk about John Crossan...who seems kind of assholy. For instance, on page 252:
"Jane, if I could give you the empty tomb, I would."
WTAF?
I do wish that Jane Schaberg would (1) stop invoking Virginia Woolf...in fact, I wish shed left Virginia Woolf (whom I live dearly) out if this completely. Her constant invocations if Wolf remind me of people who have bumper stickers proclaiming that they live their corgis. Who the fuck cares? (2) learn he proper use of punctuation--especially semi-colons. (For the record, "In the English language, a semicolon is most commonly used to link (in a single sentence) two independent clauses that are closely related in thought...." (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semicolon) That's not difficult to understand, is it?
Another book I'd like to read: Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion by Jack D. Zipes. Not at the library, hoopla, or Internet Archive, but can be had for about $10 from Thrift Books. Here's the quoted line which hooked my upper lip: "The fantastic has liberating potential, can be seen as 'inverting and subverting the world with hope,' in the words of Jack Zipes." (255)
We have a new contender for the most misogynistic statement of all time: "Kraemer remarks that for Philo "the inclusion of women was facilitated by the fact that they were of relative old age (probably menopausal), childless, apparently virgins, and probably never married. That is, while possessing the bodies of women, they were in all significant respects, male." (267) I mean...SERIOUSLY??? And Schaberg doesn't even comment on this. 🧠 🎆
So Woman is defined by sexual activity. That is some really outrageously sick shit. My daughter already ticks off the last 3 things listed, and she's 33 years old. I guess in 12 more years she ceases to be a woman, then? What utter bullshit.
I was going to follow that with a boiling pot emoji, but got no image for boiling and got this 😋 for pot. Kind of refuses the whole anger thing, but let me just add thus: Fuck Philo. And Kraemer. And Schaberg, too, for not protesting even a little bit.
Day 4 (DDRD 2,835), August 6, 2025
Read to page 300.
Y'know, for a scholarly work, this book has a lot of proofreading errors. Things like this
Oh, look, another one:
Rough going today. I feel like Schaberg is spinning her wheels...and spending too much time on supposition.
Day 5 (DDRD 2,836), August 7, 2025
Read to page 330. Which means tomorrow should do it. And there will be much rejoicing, for verily I say unto you that whilst this tome does yield up some interesting figs of knowledge, I would recommend that you not spend your time on it. I'd rate it at **. There's just too much dillydallying around, too much Virginia Woolf, too much angst, too much anger, too much supposition, and too many errors. 😞
"I wonder in particular how much scholarly emphasis on the empty tomb traditions as crassly physical is attributable to male notions of female piety, and sexist identification of women with the flesh and death (womb/tomb), the uncanny." (303) Having spend over 300 pages...about 10 hours...with Jane Schaberg, I feel that I can justly say that I think this is bullshit. Maybe I'm being unjust, maybe I'm missing the deep crevices of nuanced, but there are some big assumptions in that statement, and it seems to me to be teetering on the edge of paranoia. At any rate, this was the straw that cracked T 11. I'll finish this book, of course, but after that I'm finished with Schaberg. I want more facts/evidence, fewer assumptions and speculations.
And fewer errors in the text.
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| Public Domain |
ADDENDUM: Decided to read a few more pages, hoping to ease my sufferings tomorrow. And ran across another book which sounds interesting: Paradise Now: Essays on Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism by April . Unfortunately it's not available at my local library or Internet Archive, and its very pricey (I saw prices ranging from a low if $50 to a high of over $1,000). But here's an interesting thing that April DeConnick had to day which caught my attention: "Mysticism is erotic theology...."
Yep.
Read to page 340. 25 pages to go!
ADDENDUM 2: Found a bit of Paradise Now: Essa630m-CcwC&pg=PA1&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false
So I'll be having some of that peach pie for dessert.
Day 6 (DDRD 2,837), August 8, 2025
Read to page 379, The End.
Here's a line which pretty much sums up my problems with Schaberg's methodology: "And it is not what I want John 20 to me." (352) Not "This is not what John 20 means" or even "I don't think that this is what John 20 means." Not an assertion which is then backed up by facts. A desire. A supposition.
And the overuse of Virginia Woolf is astounding. Here's page 354. The sections bounded by red are direct quotations from Woolf:
I love Virginia Woolf. I did a study of her work in college and read most of her novels. But this (⬆) is just craziness in a book of theology. He'll, its crazy in any book not written by Virginia Woolf.
I'm beginning to feel that I've wasted my time here. My vision of Mary Magdalene as Jesus' number one disciple has been affirmed, but that was already a strongly held belief. What facts have I gained? Hmmm.
The rest is silence.
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