God is the madwoman in the attic.
I'm camped out on the threshold with my journal, camera, and plenty of snacks.

Friday, March 14, 2008

beginningness

"Kabbalists teach that the very first line of Genesis has been mistranslated. Most people think it says: 'In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.' But the actual words in Hebrew can be read another way. A Kabbalist could say: 'With a beginning, [It] created God (Elohim), the heavens and the earth.' That is to say, out of Nothingness the potential to begin was created -- Beginningness. Once there was a beginning, God (in a plural form) was created -- a God to which the rest of creation could relate. Then the heavens and the earth were created."

How's that for turning your Sunday School lessons inside out and backwards! It's from Rabbi David Cooper's God is a Verb and it's just one example of his biblical gymnastics. Set aside a literal reading of the text for something more mystical, dynamic, curious, and creative. Having been raised an Evangelical, my instruction has always emphasized the "literal word of God." That contributed to an angsty relationship with it that's effectively become a rejection of it. But this suggests other ways to read scripture - and those different readings point to a different understanding of the Divine, our relationship, how that relationship happens... and it unfurls from there.

The Bible might not be dead. It might be bubbling alive like a pot of boiling water. And as a living text it might be relevant to a life with spirit.

That's my reaction to just one quote from Cooper's book. The book gives me hope to see faith, a life with spirit, newly and yet as something possible & vibrant in my own life. It feeds my hope that there is more and that the more is different from what I was taught and how stale, judgmental & divorced from real life the religion I was taught seems to me.

Cooper, David. God is a Verb. New York: Riverhead Books. 1997. p. 66.
And you can check out Rabbi David Cooper at his website: http://www.rabbidavidcooper.com/

1 comment:

Ryan Hawkes said...

Thanks so much for sharing that! I recently went to some Catholic services here in Mexico and I was reminded about my own spiritual path having diverged from that of the church.

Yesterday I saw a book in town (there aren't that many English books here) and thought of reading it. It's by Normal Mailer. I've never read him, but recognize the name and the book is "The Gospel according to the Son". Supposedly he looks strictly at the words of Jesus and writes on it...from the perspective of Jesus. I peaked a bit and saw him criticizing the Gospels due to the length of time that passed between his lifetime and the lifetime of someone such as Mark.

I'm forgetting my gospels lately, but I thought maybe you'd have something to say about this idea of reading the words of Jesus over other parts of the bible and maybe some experience with this book in particular.

Thanks,
Ryan