asal usul : BATAK

Dicetuskan Misionaris Jerman, Dipakai Kolonial Belanda


Batak sebagai nama etnik (suku) ternyata tidak berasal dari orang Batak sendiri. Tapi diciptakan atau dikonstruksi oleh para musafir Barat dan kemudian dikukuhkan oleh misionaris Jerman yang datang ke tanah Batak sejak 1860-an. Demikian hasil penelitian Sejarahwan Universitas Negeri Medan (Unimed), Phill Ichwan Azhari. Selanjutnya?

KORANBOGOR.COM,

Hasil Penelitian Sejarahwan Unimed Asal-usul Kata Batak

Batak sebagai nama etnik (suku) ternyata tidak berasal dari orang Batak sendiri. Tapi diciptakan atau dikonstruksi oleh para musafir Barat dan kemudian dikukuhkan oleh misionaris Jerman yang datang ke tanah Batak sejak 1860-an. Demikian hasil penelitian Sejarahwan Universitas Negeri Medan (Unimed), Phill Ichwan Azhari. Selanjutnya?

Rahmad Sazaly, Medan

Penelitian yang dilakukannya berdasarkan sumber-sumber lisan dan tertulis, terutama di dalam pustaha (tulisan tangan asli Batak) tidak ditemukan kata Batak untuk menyebut diri sebagai orang atau etnik Batak.

“Jadi dengan demikian nama Batak tidak asli berasal dari dalam kebudayaan Batak melainkan sesuatu yang diciptakan dan diberikan dari luar,” terangnya kepada wartawan, Minggu (14/11).

Apa yang diungkapkannya merupakan hasil penelitian Ichwan selama dua bulan pada arsip misionaris di Wuppertal, Jerman, atas biaya Dinas Pertukaran Akademis (DAAD) Jerman.

Selain meneliti arsip misionaris Jerman, Ichwan juga melengkapi datanya ke arsip sejumlah lembaga di Belanda, mewawancarai sejumlah pakar ahli.

Batak di Belanda dan Jerman seperti Johan Angerler dan Lothar Schreiner. Menurut Ichwan, kata Batak awalnya diambil para musafir yang menjelajah ke Sumatra dari para penduduk pesisir untuk menyebut kelompok etnik yang berada di pegunungan dengan nama bata. “Tapi nama yang diberikan penduduk pesisir ini berkonotasi negatif,” jelasnya.

Pada sumber-sumber manuskrip Melayu klasik yang ditelusuri Ichwan, seperti manuskrip abad 17 koleksi Leiden, Belanda, juga ditemukan kata Batak di kalangan orang Melayu di Malaysia, sebagai label untuk penduduk yang tinggal di rimba pedalaman semenanjung Malaka. “Dalam manuskrip itu, saat Malaka jatuh ke tangan Portugis (1511), Puteri Gunung Ledang yang sangat dihina dan direndahkan oleh teks ini, melarikan diri ke hulu sungai dan dalam teks disebut, Masuk ke dalam hutan rimba yang amat besar hampir dengan negeri Batak. Maka diambil oleh segala menteri Batak itu, dirajakannya Puteri Gunung Ledang itu dalam negeri Batak itu,” paparnya.

Tidak hanya di Malaysia, lanjut Ichwan, di Filipina juga penduduk pesisir menyebut penduduk pedalaman dengan streotip Batak. “Untuk itu, cukup punya alasan dan tidak mengherankan kalau peneliti Batak terkenal asal Belanda bernama Van der Tuuk pernah risau dan mingingatkan para misionaris Jerman agar tidak menggunakan nama Batak untuk nama etnik karena imej negatif yang terkandung pada kata itu,” katanya.

Di Malaysia dan Filipina penduduk yang diberi label Batak tidak mau menggunakannya menjadi nama etnik mereka. Di Sumatra Utara label itu terus dipakai. Menurut Ichwan karena peran misionaris Jerman dan pemerintah kolonial Belanda yang memberi konstruksi dan makna baru atas kata itu. Dalam penelitiannya di arsip misionaris Jerman di Wuppertal sejak September 2010, Ichwan melihat para misionaris sendiri awalnya mengalami keragu-raguan untuk menggunakan kata Batak sebagai nama etnik. “Hal ini dikarenakan kata Batak itu tidak dikenal oleh orang Batak ketika para misionaris datang dan melakukan penelitian awal. Para misionaris awalnya menggunakan kata bata sebagai satu kesatuan dengan lander, jadi bata lander yang berarti tanah batak, merupakan suatu nama yang lebih menunjuk ke kawasan geografis dan bukan kawasan budaya atau suku,” jelas Ichwan.

Di arsip misionaris yang menyimpan sekitar 100 ribu arsip berisi informasi penting berkaitan dengan aktifitas dan pemikiran di tanah batak sejak pertengahan abad 19 itu, Ichwan menemukan dan meneliti puluhan peta, baik peta bata lander yang dibuat peneliti Jerman terkenal bernama Junghuhn, maupun peta-peta lain sebelum dan setelah peta Junghuhn dibuat.

Peta-peta yang diteliti Ichwan memperlihatkan adanya kebingungan para musafir barat dan misionaris Jerman untuk meletakkan dan mengkonstruksi secara pas sebuah kata Batak dari luar untuk diberikan lepada nama satu kelompok etnik yang heterogen yang sesungguhnya tidak mengenal kata ini dalam warisan sejarahnya.

Dalam peta-peta kuno itu kata Bata Lander hanya digunakan sebagai judul peta tapi di dalamnya hanya nampak lebih besar dari judulnya nama-nama seperti Toba, Silindung, Rajah, Pac Pac, Karo dimana nama batak tidak ada sama sekali. Dalam satu peta kata Batak di dalam peta digunakan sebagai pembatas kawasan Aceh dengan Minangkabau.
Kebingungan para misionaris Jerman untuk mengkonstruksi kata Batak sebagai nama suku juga nampak dari satu temuan Ichwan terhadap peta misionaris Jerman sendiri yang sama sekali tidak menggunakan judul bata lander sebagai judul peta dan membuang semua kata batak yang ada dalam edisi penerbitan peta itu di dalam laporan tahunan misionaris. Padahal sebelumnya mereka telah menggunakan kata batak itu.

Kata Batak yang semula berkonotasi negatif oleh penduduk pesisir kepada penduduk pedalaman dan kemudian menjadi nama kawasan geografis penduduk dataran tinggi Sumatra Utara yang heterogen dan memiliki nama-namanya sendiri pada awal abad 20, bergeser menjadi nama etnik dan sebagai nama identitas yang terus mengalami perubahan.

Setelah misionaris Jerman berhasil menggunakan nama Batak sebagai nama etnik, pihak pemerintah Belanda juga menggunakan konsep Jerman itu dalam pengembangan dan perluasan basis-basis kolonialisme mereka. Bahkan dalam penelitiannya Ichwan menemukan nama Batak digunakan sebagai nama etnik para elit yang bermukim di Tapanuli Selatan yang beragama Islam. Dalam sebuah majalah yang diterbitkan di Kotanopan, Tapanuli Selatan, tahun 1922 oleh pemimpin orang-orang Mandailing seperti Sutan Naposo, Gunung Mulia, dan lain-lain, mereka menggunakan kata Batak sebagai identitas. Bahkan nama media mereka diberi nama Organ dari Bataksche-Studiefonds. Dan, uniknya mereka tidak menggunakan marga Mandailing mereka di belakang nama.

Saat Keresidenan Tapanuli yang dibentuk pemerintah Belanda berjalan, identitas Batak antara Tapanuli Utara dan Tapanuli Selatan memasuki atmosfir baru, dimana Batak diidentikkan oleh orang-orang Tapanuli Selatan sebagai orang Tapanuli yang beragama Kristen dan mereka yang di selatan menolak untuk disebut sebagai bagian dari Batak.
Tapi penolakan yang berlatar agama dan politik itu tidak menghilangkan konstruksi misionaris Jerman dan kolonial Belanda yang lebih dulu masuk dan menyebut mereka bagian dari Batak. Di Tapanuli Utara sendiri, di kalangan orang Batak juga terjadi pergumulan pemikiran berkaitan dengan identitas kata Batak ini. Di arsip misionaris Jerman Ichwan juga menemukan tulisan-tulisan tangan dan penerbitan pemikir awal Batak yang mencoba merumuskan apa itu Batak menurut orang Batak sendiri. Tapi bias misionaris dan kolonial nampak dalam pergumulan orang Batak ini.


Konsep dari misionaris Jerman yang semula menggunakan kata Batak untuk kelompok masyarakat yang tinggal di kawasan Tapanuli Utara saja, menurut Ichwan, dipakai Belanda lebih lanjut untuk menguatkan cengkraman ideologi kolonial mereka. Perlahan-lahan konsep Batak itu mulai meluas dipakai Belanda termasuk sebagai pernyataan identitas oleh penduduk di luar daerah Toba. Peneliti Belanda juga kemudian merumuskan konsep sub suku batak dalam antropologi kolonial yang membagi etnik Batak dalam beberapa sub suku seperti sub suku Batak Toba, Batak Mandailing, Batak Karo, Batak Simalungun serta Batak Pak Pak. Menurut Ichwan, konstruksi Belanda ini sama sekali tidak diperkenalkan apa lagi dipakai para misionaris Jerman selama lebih 50 tahun keberadaan mereka di tanah batak.

Dalam antropologi di Indonesia moderen konsep sub suku Batak made in Belanda itu kemudian dikopi Payung Bangun dalam buku Manusia dan Kebudayaan Indonesia yang diedit Koentjaraningrat. Konsep sub suku batak merupakan konstruksi konsep kolonial yang dalam perjalanan sejarah berikutnya terbukti tidak tepat dan ditolak sendiri oleh kelompok-kelompok etnik yang dikenakan label Batak tersebut.

Kini orang Karo, Pak Pak, Simalungun serta Mandailing menolak disebut Batak yang dikonstruksi antropologi kolonial. Peneliti dari generasi baru Perancis, Daniel Perred yang baru-baru ini menerjemahkan disertasinya dalam bahasa Indonesia (2010), menurut Ichwan juga melihat adanya kesulitan dalam menggunakan konsep Batak sebagai nama etnik. Untuk itu jalan yang dipakai Perred adalah menggunakan kata Batak sebagai konsep kultural atau budaya ketimbang nama kelompok etnik. Boleh jadi menurut Ichwan ini juga merupakan konstruksi baru yang dirumuskan Perred.

Ichwan menyimpulkan, kata Batak baik sebagai sebuah pernyataan dan ekspresi identitas, sebagai nama suku dalam konsep antropologi ataupun sebagai nama kawasan kultural dan geografis akan terus mengalami perubahan makna dan interpretasi baik dikalangan akademisi maupun dikalangan mereka yang disebut atau menyebut diri sebagai Batak. (hsp)

sang juru damai, sang no-name

Myanmar democracy activist Suu Kyi is free
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate makes a brief appearance before a cheering crowd and promises to speak at greater length Sunday. Her future is uncertain in the repressive nation.

By a Times Staff Writer

November 14, 2010

Reporting from Yangon, Myanmar
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At 5:15 p.m., soldiers armed with rifles and tear-gas launchers pushed aside the barbed-wire barriers blocking University Avenue, and a swarm of supporters dashed the final 100 yards to the villa's gate. Twenty minutes later, a slight 65-year-old woman popped her head over her red spiked fence.

Aung San Suu Kyi was free.

The jubilant crowd roared, and chants of "Long Live Suu Kyi" filled the air Saturday night as her supporters greeted the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and democracy activist who had defied Myanmar's military leaders and paid a monumental price that robbed her of her family and a normal life.

"I'm very happy to see the people," she said, barely audible over the chanting. "It's been a very long time since I've seen you."

Suu Kyi (pronounced Sue Chee), who has been detained for 15 of the last 21 years under brutal military rule, promised to speak at greater length Sunday at the headquarters of her political party.

"I'll have a loudspeaker then," she said, to laughter. "I won't say anything more now, since you can't hear me anyway."

But the charismatic opposition leader's future was uncertain. If she pushes her activism too far in a country that has just seen elections widely decried as making a mockery of democracy, she could be arrested again by the regime.

In the past, she's been barred from leaving Yangon, the former capital also known as Rangoon, or forced to gain approval from the military for trips. Eleven years ago, she faced a terrible choice: fly to her dying husband's side in London, or remain in the country whose people's rights she had spent decades defending.

She remained in her homeland.

Those principles, and her enormous sacrifice, have won her global acclaim, including the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. On Saturday, President Obama praised the freed activist, and had harsh words for the regime.

"Whether Aung San Suu Kyi is living in the prison of her house, or the prison of her country, does not change the fact that she, and the political opposition she represents, has been systematically silenced, incarcerated, and deprived of any opportunity to engage in political processes," he said in a statement.

But Suu Kyi has also earned criticism at home among some who are no fans of the regime but believe her desire to score political points by advocating international sanctions against the military government has taken a big toll on impoverished Burmese.

Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, won by a landslide in 1990, but the results weren't honored by the regime. And the opposition party was forced to disband recently after deciding to boycott last weekend's controversial elections.

Full election results have not been released, but officials of the Union Solidarity and Development Party, which is backed by the regime, have indicated that it has won close to 80% of the parliamentary seats.

That has sparked allegations by opposition parties in Myanmar, also known as Burma, and by governments and human rights groups abroad of widespread fraud centered on the use of advance ballots. Obama accused the regime last week of "stealing" the elections.

As darkness settled Saturday over 54 University Ave. and Suu Kyi's lakeside neighborhood, supporters rejoiced.

"I'm so happy she's free," said a 24-year old student who identified himself as Bositt and wore a "We stand with Aung San Suu Kyi" T-shirt. "She's our leader, our mother. I've been waiting since 9 a.m. for this, but it's more than worth it."

The conditions of her release weren't immediately clear. She had vowed to remain in detention, where she had no telephone, TV or Internet and her mail was heavily censored, unless given an unconditional release.

"I don't think they'll try and rearrest her quickly," said a former political prisoner who spoke on condition of anonymity. "She will be given some leeway, and if she stays within that, it will be OK. But I don't think they'll let her give public speeches."

Close aides said she will spend the next few weeks meeting with party members, journalists, diplomats, speaking by telephone with world leaders, getting back in touch with her family — she hasn't seen her two sons in a decade — and possibly working to open a dialogue with the regime.

She's also expected to try to reconcile divisions within Myanmar's pro-democracy community after some members of her party disagreed with her decision to boycott last week's elections and fielded candidates under the banner of the National Democratic Force.

Those who boycotted may be tempted to say "I told you so" because of the allegations of fraud, while many of those who opted to work within the system now feel disenchanted.

"It's especially hurtful for someone like me, given that I supported the election," said activist Khin Zaw Win. "The scale of the cheating and fraud boggles the mind."

Suu Kyi, however, has been one of the few people in Myanmar able to unify the diverse pro-democracy movement, ethnic parties and the public. That's one reason the regime fears her so much.

"We will all come back together," said Thant Zin, a National Democratic Force candidate in the recent election who lost to a pro-regime candidate because of what he called cheating. "She must lead us strongly. We must combine for Burmese democracy against our common foe."

Insiders say vote fraud provides an ideal platform to gain traction quickly.

"The regime was foolish," one person said. "They gave her a huge gift with the cheating."

Still unknown is the mood of the people, and how they'll respond to her. Although many Burmese who participated in the vote feel angry and disenchanted after believing change was possible, election day itself was largely quiet, suggesting that people had few illusions to start with.

Her release is not expected to have any immediate bearing on U.S. and European sanctions against Myanmar for its repression, including its jailing of more than 2,000 political prisoners.

For two days before her release, security officials photographed those waiting near her house as riot police officers lingered, wearing red scarves to symbolize combat readiness.

But this failed to intimidate Burmese of all ages, many of whom had her picture pinned to their lapels or affixed to their hats.

"Aung San Suu Kyi is now able to speak for herself, and we need to let her do that," said Andrew Heyn, the British ambassador to Myanmar, who joined the crowd to "witness history." "You can see from people's reactions here how excited everyone is."

Others said change can come to Myanmar only incrementally.

"My government is very powerful. You can't fight the army," said Aye Ko, an artist imprisoned in the early 1990s as a student protester. "If Aung San Suu Kyi wants to make a revolution, big demonstrations, that's a problem. You need to go slowly or you'll be arrested again."

The writer is unidentified to protect those who work with him.

golongan putih SEMAKIN BERGIGI

Pilkada Tangerang Selatan
“Pemenang Pilkada Tangerang Selatan Adalah Golput"
Sabtu, 13 November 2010 | 18:47 WIB
Besar Kecil Normal Empat pasang Calon Walikota Tangerang Selatan dan wakilnya yang akan bertarung pada 13 November 2010. ANTARA/Muhammad Iqbal

TEMPO Interaktif, Tangerang--Tingkat partisipasi masyarakat Tangerang Selatan terhadap pemilihan wali kota dan wakil wali kota Tangerang Selatan sangat rendah,hanya 45 hingga 50 persen dari 7.29195 Daftar Pemilih Tetap.” Tinggi sekali,”ujar Sekretaris Jaringan Pemilih Tangerang Selatan Ali Irvan, sore ini.


Sehingga, menurut JPTS, pemenang dalam pilkada Tangerang Selatan yang digelar hari ini adalah golongan putih (pemilih yang tidak menggunakan hak pilihnya).” Pemenangnya adalah golput,”kata Irvan. Data yang dihimpun oleh JPTS dari 729 195 pemilih yang masuk dalam DPT, yang menggunakan suaranya adalah 50-55 persen.


Rendahnya partisipasi masyarakat dalam Pilkada Tangerang Selatan ini, menurut Ali, karena sejumlah faktor. Antara lain masyarakat Tangerang Selatan yang merasa tidak berkepentingan dalam PIlkada ini sehingga mereka memilih untuk tidak menggunakan hal pilihnya. Selain itu, buruknya kinerja KPUD dan tim sukses para kandidat dalam sosialisasi juga dituding menjadi penyebab.

JONIANSYAH

RIP Des Alwi

Des Alwi, Anak Angkat Sjahrir yang Jago Diplomasi
Jum'at, 12 November 2010 | 10:35 WIB
(TEMPO/ Nickmatulhuda)

TEMPO Interaktif, Jakarta - Des Alwi, baru saja berpulang pagi tadi. Indonesia kehilangan lagi satu tokoh sejarah yang mengalami secara langsung perjalanan bangsa ini. Ia adalah putra Banda Naira, tempat yang juga bersejarah bagi para pembesar negara ini. Des Alwi lahir di Desa Nusantara, Naira, pada 17 November 1927 dengan nama lengkap Des Alwi Abubakar.

Di sana, Des Alwi pertama kali bertemu dengan tokoh seperti Muhammad Hatta dan Sutan Sjahrir, di masa pembuangan mereka. Saat bertemu Hatta dan Sjahrir, Des Alwi baru berusia 8 tahun dan duduk di kelas dua ELS (Europeesche Lagere School).

Dari pertemuan pertama di dermaga itu, ia segera tahu bahwa keduanya adalah orang yang dibuang ke Boven Digul, karena wajah mereka pucat. Des Alwi menduga, orang yang dibuang ke sana kekurangan makan dan banyak yang menderita malaria.

Pertemuan itu tak pernah lepas dari ingatan Des Alwi. Ia bahkan menganggap pertemuan itu menjadi arah hidupnya hingga kini. Berkat kecerdikan dan kepandaiannya, Bung Hatta, --yang dipanggil Om Kacamata oleh Des—mengambilnya sebagai anak angkat. Sementara, “dari Oom Sjahrir, saya mendapat banyak wawasan dan pengertian,” kata Des Alwi.

Selain menjadi anak angkat Hatta, Gunawan Mohammad, budayawan, menyebut, Des Alwi juga menjadi anak angkat Syahrir. Des menjadi bagian hidup kedua tokoh yang mencintai anak-anak Banda tersebut.

Barangkali karena ‘pengaruh’ pendidikan Hatta dan Sjahrir, Des Alwi kemudian memiliki ‘kelebihan’ dalam berdiplomasi, hingga mendapat julukan pelobi tingkat tinggi. Des juga banyak belajar dari dr. Tjipto Mangunkusumo yang disebutnya sebagai Oom Tjip, dan Mr. Iwa Kusumah Sumantri, serta beberapa anggota Sjarikat Islam Indonesia lainnya.

Maka, dalam perjalanan karier selanjutnya, ia pernah beberapa kali menjadi Atache Press/Kebudayaan kedutaan besar republik Indonesia seperti KBRI Bern, KBRI Austria, dan KBRI Philipina. Bahkan ketika terjadi konfrontasi antara Indonesia–Malaysia tahun 1965-1975, ia sebagai Dinas Diplomatik terlibat dalam Operasi Khusus Tim Penyelesaian Konfrontasi itu. Des berhasil menjadi perantara ‘sulit’. Jurus-jurus kepiawaian diplomasinya, disebut-sebut mendekati almarhum mantan PM Tun Abdul Rahman dan almarhum mantan DPM Tun Abdul Razak berhasil meredakan konfrontasi itu.

Di usianya yang ke-83 tahun, Des Alwi berpulang. Menurut cucunya, Sharem (25 tahun), Des pernah berpesan agar dikebumikan di kampung halamannya di Banda Neira, Maluku. Ia rupanya ingin kembali beristrahat dengan tenang di kampung nan indah itu. Selamat jalan, Pak!

HAYATI MAULANA NUR | TOKOH INDONESIA
Des Alwi Berpulang
Jum'at, 12 November 2010 | 09:29 WIB
(TEMPO/ Nickmatulhuda)

TEMPO Interaktif, Jakarta - Salah seorang tokoh nasional, Des Alwi Abubakar, meninggal dunia Jumat (12/11) sekitar pukul 5 dini hari di kediamannya Jalan Taman Biduri Blok N 1/7 Permata Hijau, Jakarta Barat.

Menurut cucunya, Sharem, 25 tahun, almarhum masih mengobrol dengan keluarga semalam dan sempat bangun beberapa kali, sebelum didapati meninggal sekitar pukul 5 pagi tadi.

Des Alwi, kata Sharem, baru pulang dari menjalani operasi by pass jantung di Rumah Sakit Cinere sekitar tiga minggu lalu. Dia pulang ke rumah kemarin untuk menjalani masa penyembuhan.

Tadi malam, Des sempat diberi obat penenang agar dapat tidur. Menurut susternya, kata Sharem, obat itu sesuai resep dari dokter.

Pihak keluarga saat ini sedang mengupayakan agar Des Alwi dapat dikebumikan di kampung halamannya di Banda Neira, Maluku. Hal itu sesuai dengan pesan almarhum sebelumnya.

Des Alwi lahir di Banda Naira, 17 Nopember 1927. Di Jakarta, ia terkenal sebagai pelobi tingkat tinggi dan simbol masyarakat Banda.

Sebagian orang menilai, kepiawaian Des Alwi dalam hal melobi, hingga mendapat julukan pelobi tingkat tinggi, dari petinggi nasional hingga internasional itu salah satunya hasil dari kebiasaannya bergaul dengan tokoh-tokoh tahanan politik yang dibuang ke Banda.

Des banyak belajar dari dr. Tjipto Mangunkusumo yang disebutnya sebagai Oom Tjip, Dr. Muhammad Hatta yang dipanggilnya sebagai Oom Kaca Mata, Sjahrir sebagai Oom Rir, Mr. Iwa Kusumah Sumantri dan beberapa anggota Sjarikat Islam Indonesia lainnya.

ERWIN Z

emang elo SIAPA

BAR 36:06, Nov/Dec 2010
The Bible In the News: Answers to Cain’s Question
By Leonard J. Greenspoon

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” The first person to utter this question, Cain (in Genesis 4:9), more than likely expected, or at least hoped for, an answer in the negative. It is clear, though, that readers of the Bible are intended to respond in the positive: Yes, I am my brother’s (and sister’s) keeper.
In contemporary society, at least as based on reports in major newspapers worldwide, the appropriate response to this eternal query is decidedly more mixed. For example, advice columnists tend to proffer resounding “hands-off” responses. A Canadian asks, “My brother is a lifelong heavy smoker. He’s now 29, married for two years, and the very proud father of a beautiful baby girl ... I’ve nagged and at times pleaded with him to stop [smoking]. Where do my ethical obligations to ‘be my brother’s keeper’ begin and end on this matter?” According to the expert (in the Toronto Star), the inquiring writer “should get off your brother’s case ... Your intentions are noble, but all you’re accomplishing is distancing yourself from him and making him feel guiltier than he already feels ... Your brother, in this case, has to be his own keeper.” Something, I suppose, like “physician, heal thyself.”
Such pragmatic negations of “keeping” our brothers are countered elsewhere in the press. For example, a correspondent in Malaysia’s New Straits Times writes (in a piece titled “Life Means Little Without the Sharing and Caring”): “I am my brother’s keeper. I say it not out of some misplaced sense of responsibility or schmaltzy sentimentality. I say it as it is part of some higher calling. It is a question of duty.”
Even more expansive is the definition of brother that encompasses those to whom we have no blood relationship, as in a Newsday story titled “My Brother’s Keeper: A Long Island Veteran Makes Sure a Brother in Arms Is Buried with Dignity.” This account narrates the efforts of veterans to provide an appropriate burial for a Korean War-era veteran who had died “penniless and long separated from his family.”
And it can even cross species: “There is a deep beyond-its-years wisdom in Suma’s eyes—a look that speaks of a shared understanding between keeper and orangutan about the animal’s precarious existence, and the lifelong dedication of zoo staff to help.” These efforts, playing out in Borneo and Melbourne, are the subject of a story in Australia’s Herald Sun titled “They Are My Brothers’ Keepers.”
Returning to the realm of humans, we discover that overcoming adversity is often the stimulus for positive attitudes and actions toward others. Thus, we read (in USA Today) of Michigan State basketball player Kalin Lucas, who had to overcome considerable personal tragedy as he grew up. Now a leader, Lucas, along with teammate Durrell Summers, sport “the same tattoo inscribed on their right forearms, the letters BFSG. What the letters stand for is private and sacred, Lucas says, but he sums up their significance this way: ‘I am my brother’s keeper.’”
Alas, “I am my brother’s keeper” does not always equate with the positive sentiments we tend to associate with the expression. As reported in the Herald Sun, the same words are part of the insignia of the Bandidos, an “outlaw motorcycle gang” in Australia. Their definition of “brother” and “keeper” is decidedly less expansive than others, as also seen in another of their slogans: “Real power can’t be given—it must be taken.”
As always, I want to conclude on a higher note: a story from Glasgow’s Herald with the title “‘Going Green’ Is a Moral Duty for Scots Christians.” As part of his argument, the Right Reverend William Hewitt, moderator of the General Assembly, stated: “There’s a moral and ethical argument to [environmental issues]. It’s absolutely basic to the teachings of the Bible. Am I my brother’s keeper? Yes, you are your brother’s keeper.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

STOP rekayasa PEMBEDAAN

Jumat, 12/11/2010 08:52 WIB
Amnesty International Minta Pemerintah Stop Tes Keperawanan

Irna Gustia - detikHealth

Jakarta, Amnesty International (AI) mendesak pemerintah Indonesia untuk menghentikan upaya diskriminatif terhadap siswa di beberapa sekolah dengan melakukan tes keperawanan dan kehamilan.

AI menyoroti aksi yang dilakukan pihak Sekolah Menengah Kejuruan Negeri (SMKN) I Magetan, Jawa Timur pada 10 Nopember 2010 yang menggelar tes kehamilan terhadap 300 siswi yang bekerja sama dengan Dinas Kesehatan setempat.

Alasan pihak sekolah melakukan tes kehamilan untuk mencegah adanya seks bebas. Tes dilakukan kepada siswa kelas XI yang habis mengikuti praktik kerja industri.

"Tes ini tidak hanya mengganggu dan merendahkan tetapi jelas diskriminatif," kata Isabelle Arradon peneliti Amnesty International Indonesia dalam siaran pers yang dilansir dari situsnya, Jumat (12/11/2010).

AI melihat upaya-upaya melakukan tes keperawanan dan tes kehamilan telah mencoreng hak-hak dasar anak perempuan Indonesia.

"Ini adalah satu lagi contoh bagaimana stereotip jender dan diskriminasi bisa membuat perempuan Indonesia tidak dapat mengakses hak-hak dasar mereka," kata Isabelle Arradon.

Sebelumnya, AI juga mengecam wacana untuk melakukan tes keperawanan pada calon siswa di Jambi yang dilontarkan anggota Komisi IV DPRD Provinsi Jambi, Bambang Bayu Suseno pada September 2010.

Dalam laporan terbarunya 4 November 2010, AI menyoroti tentang hambatan kesehatan reproduksi di Indonesia yang masih diskriminatif. AI juga banyak menemukan praktik-praktik yang menolak perempuan Indonesia yang hamil di luar nikah serta minimnya akses mereka untuk perawatan ibu dan kesehatan reproduksi.

Perempuan Indonesia sangat dirugikan terhadap pembatasan ini, karena pandangan stereotip jender tentang seksualitas. Kehamilan di luar perkawinan dapat diartikan sebagai bukti kejahatan.

Adanya pembatasan hak-hak seksual dan reproduksi di Indonesia juga menempatkan perempuan dan anak perempuan berisiko mengalami kehamilan yang tidak diinginkan. Jika itu terjadi maka dapat membuat mereka mengalami masalah kesehatan dan pelanggaran hak asasi manusia, seperti dipaksa untuk kawin muda atau keluar sekolah.



(ir/ir)

TRADISI Maria Magdalena

The Bible and Biblical Figures Reviews
Bible Women
Gospels of Mary

The Gospels of Mary: The Secret Tradition of Mary Magdalene, the Companion of Jesus

by Marvin Meyer with Esther A. de Boer

San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004, 128 pp.
$17.95 (hardback)



Women in Mark’s Gospel

Women in Mark’s Gospel

by Susan Miller

London: T & T Clark, 2004) 228 pp.
$39.95 (softcover)



The Last Week

Mary’s Mother: Saint Anne in Late Medieval Europe

by Virginia Nixon

University Park, PA: Penn State Univ. Press, 2004, 36 b&w illus., 215 pp.
$35.00 (hardcover)


Was Mary Magdalene a repentant whore? Marvin Meyer, a professor of Bible and Christian studies at Chapman University in Orange, California, provides us with the relevant Biblical and extrabiblical texts. According to Meyer, Mary was the disciple whom Jesus loved above all others.

Meyer introduces us to several Gnostic manuscripts, including the Gospel of Mary, known from a fifth-century Coptic copy (Papyrus Berolinensis 8502); the gospels of Thomas and Philip, as well as the Dialogue of the Savior, both found at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945; and the Pistis Sophia, a fourth-century collection of Gnostic revelations and teachings that purports to contain Mary Magdalene’s teachings on Wisdom.

These texts portray Mary as Jesus’ closest companion and a “pure spiritual woman.” Whatever the facts, these texts illustrate the role of women in the early Christian Church.

Each of the canonical Gospels tells a different version of the life of Jesus. Mark’s Gospel has survived with two different endings. In the other Gospels, the resurrection is witnessed and announced by women, either Mary Magdalene alone or with others. In Mark in the shorter ending (which most scholars agree is the more original ending), the women see, but they do not tell.

Susan Miller, a professor at the University of Glasgow, surveys the role of the women in Mark in terms of discipleship. Mark’s emphasizes the women’s service, a word not used for the men. They are the anointers, the witnesses, the servants. They are with Jesus in Galilee, and are the only ones present at the crucifixion. They are the ones who go to the tomb and they are the first to see it empty. And although they are silent in the end, Mark knows that future discipleship is dependent on their witness.

Jesus’ maternal grandmother is not mentioned in the Bible, but she is nevertheless an important character in understanding the way the Bible has been studied. Anne is first named in the second-century Protoevangelium of James, which lists her in the genealogy of Jesus. By the late Middle Ages, there was a veritable cult of St. Anne.

Virginia Nixon, an art historian at Concordia University in Montreal, has studied hundreds of images of Anne in an attempt to understand her and her popularity.

Farisi, siapa seh mereka

The Bible And Biblical Figures Reviews
In Quest of the Historical Pharisees
Historical Pharisees

Edited by Jacob Neusner and Bruce Chilton

Baylor Univ. Press, 2007, 548 pp.
$39.95 (paperback)

Reviewed by John Merrill

Talkback Add Your Comment

Who were the Pharisees? The New Testament Gospels portray them as opponents of the Jesus movement, but their identity and motives are at best opaque. The Book of Acts and Paul add little concerning their beliefs or socioeconomic status.

The Dead Sea Scrolls allude metaphorically to a group called “Seekers after Smooth Things” (cf. Isaiah 11), or “Ephraim,” that scholars sometimes identify as the Pharisees; but apart from the fact that the sectarian authors of the scrolls disliked the Pharisees, little more can be gleaned about them here. The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus has much to say about the Pharisees, but what he says is often ambivalent, elusive or downright contradictory, reflecting the fact that Josephus was both a self-described former member of the sect, but also a proud descendant of their bitter Hasmonean rivals.

Finally, the Mishnah and Tosefta, rabbinic musings of the third and fourth centuries C.E., although containing many references to Pharisees, are inward-looking and inscrutable and of little historical value.

The 17 contributions (by 11 authors) to the volume under review, edited by Jacob Neusner and Bruce Chilton of Bard College, analyze the varying sources and different aspects of information about this ancient and enigmatic group. As if these limitations of the sources were not enough of a handicap, the contributors are further constrained by the scholarly impulse to avoid conjecture. As editor Neusner has admonished: “What we cannot show, we do not know.”

On the other hand, experience teaches that scholarly progress often requires educated guesswork—that is, the application of generalized knowledge and common sense to incomplete and often contradictory information. In short, I wish the authors had speculated more.

A few of the puzzles that call for educated speculation:

“Pharisee” seems to be derived from the term “perishim,” meaning “separatists.”

But from whom or what did the Pharisees separate themselves?

The Dead Sea Scrolls used the term “seekers after smooth things” which has a degree of self-evident meaning. The designation “Ephraim” does not. But what were these “smooth things” and why did the sectarian authors of the scrolls label their opponents “Ephraim”?

Luke tells us that the Pharisees were members of the urban elite and “lovers of money” (Luke 16:14). In the Gospel of John we learn of Nicodemus who appears to be a wealthy and politically influential Pharisee. The implication is that there are others. But wealthy and influential groups do not pluck this status out of thin air. Nor is wealth the product of ritual purity. At this time wealth was acquired by some combination of money-lending, tax farming, agricultural monopolies or mercantile franchises—most of which required some form of symbiotic relationship with those in control of government. A lot could be said, one imagines, about how the Pharisees supported Herod’s overthrow of their Hasmonean antagonists, and how that support served to consolidate their position as wealthy aristocrats.

To add to the confusion, another chapter in the book tells us that the Pharisees were a “nonaristocratic group.”

I wish the learned authors had speculated more even though they lack conclusive proof. I would have liked more educated guesswork.

That said, there is still much of value in this volume. It contains a detailed inventory of everything the New Testament and the rabbinic writings have to say about the Pharisees. The materials from Josephus and the Dead Sea Scrolls are less comprehensive, but nevertheless a good starting point. And there is an extremely thought-provoking commentary by Bruce Chilton on the dialogue between James (the brother of Jesus), Peter and Paul on how Gentiles were to be treated within the Jesus movement. In Chilton's view, it was James’ decision that Gentiles could be saved without converting to Judaism (and without being circumcised) that eventually outraged the Pharisees and resulted in James' execution by stoning. An alternative interpretation, based on Eusebius, might be that James was stoned because he insisted that no one could be saved, including Jews, without believing that Jesus was their savior. Either way, James’ execution illustrates the degree of emotional power that can be unleashed by the belief that a particular group will be saved and eternally rewarded, while all others not part of that group are to be eternally damned and punished forever. Much of the world is still in the grip of such beliefs, and it is useful to remind ourselves of the context in which they originated.

John Merrill is a contributing editor of BAR.

isu TAK TERHINGGA

Israel Antiquities Authority vs. Conspiracy of (Alleged) Forgers
Judge Considers Verdict in 5-Year-Long Jesus Forgery Trial
October 7, 2010



After five years, the “forgery trial of the century” has concluded in a Jerusalem courtroom. Now the only remaining defendants, antiquities collector Oded Golan and antiquities dealer Robert Deutsch, await the judge’s verdict. So does the rest of the world.

According to Jerusalem journalist Matthew Kalman, the only journalist who has attended the trial daily for five years, the judge has expressed grave doubts about the government’s case. After the prosecution and Golan presented their evidence, the judge remarked to the government’s lawyer, “Have you really proved beyond a reasonable doubt that these artifacts are fakes as charged in the indictment?”

Matthew Kalman’s report from The Jerusalem Post appears below.
Putting the case to rest
By Matthew Kalman
10/07/2010
The Jerusalem Post
The judge considers his verdict in the five-year-long Jesus forgery trial.
The discovery in 2002 of a limestone burial box with the Hebrew inscription “James son of Joseph brother of Jesus” electrified the world of archeology. If genuine, the burial box, or ossuary, would be the only archeological artifact found with a possible direct link to Jesus of Nazareth.
Amid international fanfare, the ossuary went on display at Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum and swiftly spawned numerous articles, scholarly studies, several documentary movies and at least four books.
But experts at the Israel Antiquities Authority declared it a modern-day forgery. Israeli police seized the burial box and arrested its owner, Tel Aviv collector Oded Golan. In December 2004 he was charged with faking the ossuary and dozens of other items, including an inscribed tablet linked to King Joash, which, if authentic, would be the only physical evidence from the Temple of Solomon.
The indictment leveled 44 charges of forgery, fraud and deception against Golan and 13 lesser counts against a codefendant, antiquities dealer Robert Deutsch. The trial of Golan, Deutsch and three others opened in Jerusalem District Court in September 2005.
On Sunday, the defense ended its summing-up with just two men left in the dock, bringing to an end five years of court proceedings that spanned 116 sessions, 133 witnesses, 200 exhibits and nearly 12,000 pages of witness testimony. The prosecution summation alone ran to 653 pages.
Yet despite the flood of strong scientific testimony, the feeling in the tiny courtroom, where fewer than a dozen people (including only one reporter) have followed the proceedings, was that the prosecution had failed to prove the items were forgeries or that Golan and Deutsch had faked them.
Judge Aharon Farkash, the wheelchair-bound polymath who has overseen the marathon trial, wondered aloud on several occasions how he could be expected to deliver a legal ruling on what was essentially a scientific question that the experts themselves could not resolve.
In October 2008, just three years into the proceedings, Farkash pointedly asked whether the trial should continue after the prosecution and Golan had presented their evidence.
“Have you really proved beyond a reasonable doubt that these artifacts are fakes as charged in the indictment? The experts disagreed among themselves,” Farkash told the prosecutor.
Summing up last March, lead prosecutor Dan Bahat made a startling admission. “If the ossuary had been the only thing on trial, we probably would not have carried on with the process,” he said.
Bahat was not even in court to hear the judge wrap up the trial and retire to consider his verdict.
Scientists and lawyers have spent months arguing over the patina—a thin crust of material formed by microorganisms that covers all ancient objects. The prosecution accuses Golan of creating a fake patina, which he applied to new inscriptions on ancient objects. Defense experts say there is patina inside the grooves of the inscriptions that could not have been formed in the past two centuries.
Golan said he had never faked anything.
“I feel that I succeeded to prove that the most important items should be at least 200 years old.
They could not be forged because there is ancient, authentic, natural patina which has been developed gradually over at least 200 years in both the James ossuary and the Joash tablet,” Golan said.
“They lost the case, there’s no question. On the main issues they were completely wrong. They are not forgeries. It’s not only that they could not prove there was a forgery. With the James ossuary and the Joash tablet, I believe that we proved their authenticity with experts in patina, in geology, in stone, in engraving,” he said.
At times, the courtroom has seemed more like a doctoral seminar than a legal proceeding. The world’s leading experts on archeology, biblical history, Semitic languages, ancient stones and inscriptions, geology, isotopes (both stable and carbon-14), biology, chemistry, microscopy and glue have participated in an often fascinating and sometimes embarrassing collision of scholarship and criminal law.
The court has heard from grave robbers, dealers in the shady antiquities market, billionaire collectors and tireless investigators who spend freezing nights in the desert waiting to catch tomb raiders.
There have been stories of mysterious Egyptian forgers, cash payments of thousands of dollars in parked cars on West Bank back roads, sting operations at airport customs and warehouses crammed full of priceless ancient artifacts.
Judge Farkash said Sunday he would try to plow through all that material and deliver a verdict as soon as possible. It could take several months.
The criminal, scholarly and scientific implications of his verdict are immense. If genuine, the artifacts are of historic importance and worth millions. An acquittal would be a severe setback for the Israel Antiquities Authority and its special investigators, who accused Golan and his codefendants of making millions of dollars as part of an international chain of forgers planting sophisticated fakes in the world’s museums. It would also be an acute embarrassment for the isotope experts at the Israel Geological Survey and Prof. Yuval Goren of Tel Aviv University, who spent many days on the stand defending scientific tests they said showed the items must be fakes.
A guilty verdict, on the other hand, would destroy the reputation of one of the world’s leading collectors of biblical antiquities and drive the entire Israeli market underground. The Israel Antiquities Authority has made no secret of its desire to shut down the trade in Bible-era artifacts, which it believes encourages grave robbers, who spirit the choicest finds out of the country.
Government officials and many scholars say the market is riddled with forgeries, and they are skeptical of any item that does not come from a licensed, supervised excavation where its provenance can be proved. But Golan said he had never seen a forgery that wasn’t immediately obvious and pointed out that some of Israel’s greatest archeological treasures came from dealers. Indeed, the most striking example is one of the most important biblical finds ever: the Dead Sea Scrolls, which a Beduin shepherd sold to an Israeli professor more than half a century ago.

TUHAN yesus

http://www.bib-arch.org/
BAR 36:06, Nov/Dec 2010

Jesus of History vs. Jesus of Tradition

BAR interviews Sean Freyne

Sean Freyne is director of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies, as well as emeritus professor of theology, at Trinity College Dublin. His research focuses on the integration of literary and archaeological sources for understanding the social and religious world of Galilee in Hellenistic and Roman times. Editor Hershel Shanks sat down with Professor Freyne in New Orleans to discuss what archaeology and Biblical studies can tell us about the historical Jesus.

Hershel Shanks: Sean, I take it you’ve come to New Orleans for the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature [SBL]?

Sean Freyne: That’s true, Hershel, but also I’m retracing my footsteps of 30 years ago and more, when I taught here in New Orleans at Loyola University. My first daughter, Bridget, was born here. So I have very special memories of New Orleans.

I’m glad to be able to talk to you. My only fear is that our typist won’t be able to understand your thick Irish brogue.

No, no, I speak very clearly. I speak slowly and clearly in my best Americanese. [laughter]

You’re a senior scholar. What do you get out of these meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature?

Well, I found coming to the SBL was a very stimulating experience even as a young scholar. I had been trained in Europe, of course, in Rome and Jerusalem and then subsequently in Germany. And when I came to teach in the States, I found that the discipline [of Biblical studies] here was different from Europe. While I don’t always agree with everything I hear from the United States in the field of Biblical studies, nonetheless I always find it very challenging and very stimulating. And so I see myself as kind of bridging a European, more theological, approach with a more secular one, particularly in regard to historical Jesus studies. In America there is a greater emphasis on sociological methods, which can be very helpful, but which also can be quite restrictive.

You are an expert in historical Jesus studies. I have always wondered about that name. Are there nonhistorical Jesus studies, or unhistorical Jesus studies?

[Laughing] That’s a good question. Some people confuse the notion of the historical Jesus with the notion of the actual or the real Jesus. I think the historical Jesus is a construct, a theological construct, really. It’s the figure of Jesus as he is represented in the documents of Christian faith as a historical person.

I thought it was just the opposite, that the historical Jesus was opposed to the theological Jesus.

What we’re trying to do, I think, in this quest for the historical Jesus is to find the figure who stands behind the gospel narratives as a historical figure. If we look at the Gospels, all we have, in the case of the Synoptics [Matthew, Mark and Luke], is one year of his public ministry. If we include John, we make it three years. It’s a bird’s-eye view of this figure who walked the roads of Galilee. We have no record whatever of Jesus’ early life. We have the infancy gospel stories, which of course are highly theological and highly literary, made up later. So we really can’t build anything historical on those narratives.

In Hebrew Bible studies, there’s a big question about whether Solomon and David lived. Archaeologists have now found an inscription that actually refers to David’s dynasty. So that’s settled. But Solomon is still an open question and of course there is no archaeological evidence of Moses. Yet you never hear about historical Moses studies or historical Solomon studies or even historical David studies. Why the contrast? You have it only with Jesus.

Someone has said that if Moses didn’t exist, we’d have to invent him. He stands behind a whole tradition. We know very little about him. So little in fact, that as an historical person he is virtually lost to history too. But I think the Israelite tradition as it developed, as well as later Jewish tradition, weren’t as dependent on one figure as the Christian tradition was on this figure of Jesus of Nazareth. I think that’s why the historical Jesus becomes a real battleground theologically and historically, because so much is at stake in terms of the Christian proclamation.

If we say Jesus is purely a construct, without any historical roots, then Christianity itself would be in danger of collapsing. The same is true for the traditions of Israelite origin. If we can’t somehow put some trust in the early traditions—the legal traditions, the Exodus tradition, the origins in Egypt and so on—if we can’t put some trust in those, then it seems to me the whole story, as a religious expression, would be in danger of collapsing also.

So I think, in other words, something of the historical roots of the tradition, both the Israelite tradition and the early Christian tradition, are important for the kind of theological religious claims that are invested in those figures and those histories. But I think we have to recognize that our ancient sources cannot be judged by the standards of modern historiography. We have to try to work with historical methods and try at the same time to recognize the literary creations, be it about Jesus or about Israel.

I thought there was a more intense debate and acrimony among those who are arguing over whether there was a United Monarchy ruled by David and Solomon than there is in New Testament studies about the historical Jesus.

No, no. There is quite an intense debate in the historical Jesus studies as well.

Some New Testament scholars say Jesus was a magician.

They use that term. But a lot depends on how you use the word “magician”. Is it a pejorative term? Some people have said Jesus was a shaman, others say he was a Hasid [a very religious Jew]. We have a whole range of images of Jesus floating around. “Magician” is used as a way of discrediting somebody in antiquity. According to Celsus [a second-century C.E. Greek philosopher], Jesus went to Egypt and learned magic there, and came back and deceived the people. I think we have to try to balance a negative account with what we can establish historically. And I think that “magician,” for me, is not the appropriate title.

Another characterization of Jesus is as a Greek-style philosopher, who is a Cynic.

Yes. The Cynics were traveling popular philosophers that were to some degree counter-cultural figures. When some scholars say that Jesus was a Cynic, there is often the implication that he wasn’t Jewish, or only marginally so, since the Cynics were a phenomenon of the Greco-Roman urban environment. That is where I think the archaeology of Galilee can help. When I wrote my first book on Galilee, I came across a book published in German in 1941 by Walter Grundmann, a professor of New Testament. The title was Jesus der Galiläer—Jesus the Galilean—which claimed that because Galilee in Jesus’ time was heathen, with great probability, “Jesus kein Jude war,” “Jesus was not a Jew.” Although it was published in Germany in 1941 at the height of the Nazi period, there had been that scholarly tradition going back to the 19th century, and to some extent it is still with us, as in the Cynic Jesus hypothesis: The Greek world was enlightened; the Jewish world, the Semitic world, was backward and outdated. In a sense, making Jesus Greek was a way of saying Jesus is not tied to the particularities of his Jewish tradition. It was making him a figure of universal significance—that was the dominant trend of 19th-century Jesus studies.

Has archaeology helped to counter that view?

Absolutely, very clearly.

How?

In a number of ways. First and foremost it has shown that the reception of Greek influences in the Near East from the time of Alexander the Great [fourth century B.C.E.] was not a hostile clash of civilizations, as has often been asserted. The question is at what point, or to what extent, were the unique claims of the Jewish tradition, for instance that of Yahweh as the only God, abandoned in favor of a polytheistic understanding of the divine? Archaeology has shown that the Jewish identity maintained itself despite the dangers of total assimilation, but Jews also benefited from the advantages of the Greek world. The Jewish diaspora was Greek, and the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Greek in the third century B.C.E. already. Philo of Alexandria, one of the great Jewish philosophers, was heavily influenced by Greek philosophy in first-century C.E. Alexandria. So Greek culture was not necessarily hostile to the Jewish tradition, which came under the impact of Hellenism in various ways. But it also vigorously resisted abandoning its own distinctive world view. It accommodated itself to Hellenism while at the same time it retained its own distinctive identity. That, to me, is crucial to the understanding of Jesus also.

Archaeology, I think, has shown us that there was indeed a strong element of Hellenization in terms of trade, language, military and administrative strategies, etc. It was to some extent a case of acting Greek without becoming Greek, as somebody has put it.

You seem to be saying that Galilee was Jewish but absorbed Hellenistic culture at the time of Jesus and yet was not overcome or overrun by it.

It didn’t lose its distinctive Jewish identity. In the interior of Galilee, for instance, you do not find any of the things that we associate with a Greek or Roman city in terms of monumental buildings or statues of the gods.

You feel that Jesus was imbued with Jewish culture?

Absolutely. To my mind there’s no question about that. Locating him more precisely within that culture is another question. Jewish culture at the time was not monochromic. There were different varieties of Judaism—diaspora, or Greek-speaking Jews, the Sadducees, proto-rabbinic Jews such as the Essenes and the Pharisaic movement, etc. Where we locate the Jesus movement in this matrix is the big question historically.

What are the alternatives?

Well, for me, one of the important things is to start with Jesus’ relationship with John the Baptist. We know from John’s gospel that, later, the Jesus and the Baptist movements were in opposition, since their disciples were in competition for members (John 3:26). In this gospel the Baptist is apologetically presented as being the first witness to the Christian gospel (John 1:29–34). In the much-earlier synoptic account, Jesus says that “nobody born of women is greater than John the Baptist” (Matthew 11:11; Luke 7:28). These are the words of an admirer of John. Jesus has left his Galilean village culture of Nazareth and joins the Baptist movement in the desert, it would seem.

Now how do we understand the Baptist movement in the desert? I see it as one movement among various strands in Judaism that are beginning to be disaffected, not just politically but religiously. Herod changed the high priesthood. He got rid of the Hasmoneans [the previous Jewish rulers] and brought in replacement high priests from outside, from Egypt and from Mesopotamia.

I think we can see some disaffection here; the symbolic system of the Temple was not functioning as well as it might have in terms of being the religious center for the whole people. Luke presents the Baptist as the son of a country priest (Luke 1:5–8). Now, if John’s the son of a country priest, what’s he doing in the desert, preaching forgiveness of sins? He should be in Jerusalem talking about how people should come there on Yom Kippur. Instead, he’s undermining the system that is functioning in Jerusalem, just as the Qumran people [where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found] are as well, by claiming that they are an alternative temple. We have to see that kind of movement in the first century in this larger context. I would want to locate Jesus as well within that general environment.

Where within that context?

All the Gospels say that once John was arrested, Jesus moved into Galilee. Now that move is very important. He’s going back to Galilee, going back to his own roots, but he’s not going back to settle in Nazareth.

There’s a famous story in Mark where Jesus is in a house with people gathered around him, and they say to him, “Your mother and brothers are outside waiting for you and calling for you [Mark 3:32].” Mark had made a very unexpected assertion that [his family] thought that Jesus was out of his mind [Mark 3:21–22]. But Jesus does not go out to meet them. Instead he makes this amazing statement, asking “Who are my mother and my brothers?” Those who do the will of my father, he says, are my brothers and sisters and mother [Mark 3:33–35]. In other words, he’s establishing a new kind of family that is based not on kinship, but on following his way of understanding what God’s will is. For me, those are some of the core moments in trying to reconstruct the way I see Jesus developing a new vision within the contemporary varieties of Judaism in Galilee.

The prophet Isaiah was very important for Jesus, as he was for all these renewal movements, including the people at Qumran. The remains of several different Isaiah scrolls have been found in the caves there, including one complete scroll and another nearly complete.

In Isaiah you have a clear sense of the remaking of Israel after the Babylonian Exile and the hopes that that engendered. The servant figure will bring light to the nations as well as restore Israel. There’s a sense of the universal in Isaiah. I tend to see John the Baptist more focused on Israel, and Jesus as adopting a more open and inclusive approach to renewal. They are both building their visions of what Israel’s role is, even when the emphasis is different. The Jesus movement is thus a renewal group built around the figure of the servant of God, as depicted in Isaiah, who is not militantly opposed to foreigners. Yet he addresses his message to Israel. The servant figure is deeply embedded in a tradition of Jewish piety associated with the anavim or “pious poor” whom we meet in the Prophets and Psalms [Isaiah 3:14–15; Ezekiel 18:12; Psalms 9:13, 10:12, 25:9, 34:3]. They are often depicted in Isaiah as suffering at the hands of the ruling elite associated with the temple, yet especially dear to God (Isaiah 58:1–14, 61:1–3, 65:13–14).

Did Jesus initiate his own unique renewal movement or was he part of another renewal movement?

I think Jesus began within the renewal movement that was associated with the desert and with John the Baptist, as I have been saying. And then his strategy changes from John’s. John’s world vision is of an imminent judgment, that God is going to come and separate the good from the wicked, a highly apocalyptic world view. He remains in the desert summoning people to come out and prepare themselves through repentance and baptism. Jesus seems to be less influenced by the apocalyptic view of history. He retains it, but he’s not as influenced by it. So when he goes into Galilee, he attempts to wed the apocalyptic world view with a “wisdom” one, as he moves around the villages preaching and healing. In other words, he recognizes that this world is essentially good. You can examine many of his parables, for example, where he talks about nature reflecting God’s ways with the world, as in the parables of growth [Mark 4]: seeds falling into different kinds of soil. It’s not a vision of God coming in thunder and lightning. God is in the world already. So I think Jesus operates out of what I would call a creation tradition, where true wisdom is about understanding the ways of the world and recognizing God’s active presence in its processes. I think Jesus puts more emphasis on the wisdom tradition than the purely apocalyptic one. In that sense he is less a John the Baptist figure, more a prophetic one who is able to extend his calling not merely to Israel but to the nations also, accepting that the nations, too, can share with Israel’s blessings.

Was this unique to Jesus or was this part of another Jewish movement?

That was already in Isaiah. In Isaiah 49:6 [in so-called Deutero-Isaiah or Second Isaiah], for example. Yahweh [Israel’s God] is addressing the servant. “It is too little a thing,” he says, “for you to restore the tribes of Israel. You must be a light for the nations that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” So the servant figure, when Israel is restored, will be a light unto the nations. That is Isaiah’s vision of “all peoples” coming from the various points of the compass to the great banquet described in Isaiah 25:6. In the latter part of the book (Trito-Isaiah, i.e., Isaiah 56–66), this same universal perspective is retained alongside the special role of Israel—long before Jesus.

Was Jesus alone in this, or was he part of a larger Jewish movement?

The Isaiah tradition kept being reworked in one way or another. We see it in the Book of Daniel, as well as in 1 Enoch and in the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs [both in the Apocrypha]. There’s a lot of reworking of the tradition going on. We have no evidence, however, of another movement quite like the Jesus movement. I use the term “Jesus movement” because it’s very difficult to distinguish between Jesus as a historical figure and the movement that emerges in his name in Galilee. I think that Jesus’ first followers continued to imitate his lifestyle, a wandering, charismatic figure. We don’t have any parallels to this.

That brings us back to the archaeology of Galilee, to try to understand why such a movement happened at that particular juncture of Jewish history and the role that the social and cultural context might have played. It’s a historical fact that in the first century this group emerged in Galilee. We don’t know of any other movement in Galilee like it. We know of certain prophetic movements in Judea, but not within Galilean Judaism of the same period. So the question, as a historian, would be: What were the circumstances in Galilee that provide a context to this? And can the historian say anything about that? There archaeology can help us greatly.

Recently archaeologists have been discussing the social conditions in Galilee. Some say Galilee was impoverished by the Herodians, and Jesus is standing up for the peasants against the new ruling class. Other scholars say Galilee wasn’t like that at all, and that Antipas’s reign brought prosperity to the peasants; there was much intervillage trading and a lot of commercial activity. Villages like Cana, Yotapata, Bethsaida and Capernaum weren’t on the decline; they were prosperous villages. So if Galilee was doing well, why would the Jesus movement emerge just then? Where is Jesus coming from? How is he going to fit into this context? Are there any niches, if you like, that we as historians might fit him into?

All this is reconstruction of course. But it is clear from the material remains that you had different economic and social strata in these villages: Some people are doing better, and others are suffering as a result. The Jesus movement, it seems to me, is addressing the wealthy as well as the poor, and saying that the blessings of Israel are for all Israel. That is the inclusive vision that is at the heart of the Jesus movement. And its message was not very acceptable to those who were better off. “Woe to you, Chorazin, woe to you Bethsaida, woe to you Capernaum” [Matthew 11:21, 23; Luke 10:13, 15]. These villages in Galilee that we associate with the Jesus movement are condemned because they didn’t follow his message, it would seem. It is no coincidence that they are all located close to the lake and bordering the Plain of Ginnosar, whose fertility the Jewish historian Josephus praises highly, suggesting their prosperity. The rejection suggested in the woes addressed to these villages suggests that the Jesus movement gradually moves out of the region of lower Galilee and begins to move up toward Syria, as we can discern from the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, written after 70 C.E. [when the Romans destroyed the Temple at Jerusalem].

Let me go back to something you referred to earlier about the birth narratives. It sounded to me as if you had reached a negative conclusion as to their historicity.

Well, yes and no! Luke [1–2] and Matthew [1–2], the only Gospels with birth narratives, are so different in the ways they tell the story. Maybe the fact that they are so different, and yet agree on some elements of the story, might give the historian pause, to say, “Wait a minute, hold on. There is some historical reality here!” I think that may well be the case.

But I think you have to recognize that once you get into the public ministry of Jesus, that is, from John’s baptism of Jesus to the Passion, the gospel writers do not deal quite as freely with the traditions about Jesus as they do in the birth narratives. The birth narratives were trying to fill in the gaps in the narrative by providing a theological introduction in story form. Matthew has the flight to Egypt; Luke knows nothing about that. Luke has the whole story of Mary going down to Elizabeth and visiting her; Matthew doesn’t.

The two accounts are so very different, it seems to me that we have to be very careful in trying to collapse them into one and claim we know the details of that part of Jesus’ life.

Was Jesus born in Bethlehem?

My sense would be no. He was born in Nazareth, I believe. He’s never called “Jesus of Bethlehem”; he is called “Jesus of Nazareth.”

Now, that said, what I would want to add is that he comes from parents who may well have roots in Bethlehem. From the second century B.C. onward, we know that émigrés from Judea settled in Galilee. And therefore there are strong links between Galilean Judaism and Jerusalem. There’s a lot of archaeological evidence that points to continuity between Galilean and Jerusalem practices. So I would say Jesus’ family may well be a Judean family who moved to Galilee. Therefore one can’t dismiss entirely the possibility of links with Bethlehem [just 5 mi south of Jerusalem]. Of course, for the Christian evangelist later, the links to Bethlehem are particularly important because King David was from Bethlehem. And Jesus is called a son [a scion] of David [Matthew 1:6; Luke 1:27]. For the early Christians, that was clearly a part of the reason to say he is the Messiah. The Messiah was to come from the house of David; he’s the son of David, and he, like David, was born in Bethlehem. Jesus is made to fill all the categories. But Nazareth is the more likely place in purely historical terms.

I think your question is a good one because it points to the problem we have of trying to distinguish between what is theological reflection and its development, on the one hand, and historical realities, on the other. Instead of splitting them apart and saying that’s theology and that’s history, I think the Bible as a whole gives us theologically interpreted history. It’s the same with the origins-of-Israel question that we talked about earlier. There is an ongoing kind of reflection on historical events and rethinking them and reframing them and reinterpreting them, constantly reworking Biblical tradition itself in the process. That’s why it’s so hard to pull out the historical Jesus or the historical Israel and say there they are.

Where Jesus was born doesn’t really affect theology, but the virgin birth comes closer ...

It does.

And resurrection is really right there.

At the heart of it.

What are the “historical Jesus” views of these?

Do you want me to have a go at answering this? Okay! Okay! People will tell me that as a historian I can’t touch these questions. But I like to think that I’m a theologian as well, so I’m going to make an effort.

I think the virgin birth is the easier of the two because, although we don’t quite have parallels, we do have some stories very like it. The idea of the birth of a hero like Heracles and Dionysus and the various myths of the newer gods within the Greek pantheon—the newer gods as distinct from the old Zeus and the nature gods. You have this idea of the mingling of the mortal and the immortal going on. So I think there’s a tradition there in Hellenistic religious history where the story of the virgin birth would fit in very well, once people sought to attribute divine status to Jesus.

As to the Resurrection story: The tradition is very early. In 1 Corinthians [15:3–8] Paul, writing before 50 A.D., says “I handed on to you what I received,” that is, a very early tradition had been established. Paul then recounts Jesus’ post-Resurrection appearances. But Paul’s account doesn’t match the stories in the Gospels, where we have the empty tomb stories as well as the appearances to women and men [Matthew 28; Mark 16; Luke 24; John 20–21]. Eventually, the two types of stories get combined into a single narrative. You have to trace the traditions back and see—can you separate out the lines of these developments?

Now what lies behind them is something that no historian can verify. That’s for sure. We are dealing with a religious claim that somehow God has approved of this man’s life, approved of him in such a way that the language of “resurrection from the dead,” as this was understood in Jewish circles then, was deemed to be entirely appropriate. The Book of Daniel (12:2–3) envisions that the maskilim [12:3], the pious [or wise] ones who have been persecuted, will shine like the stars forever. Within a Jewish framework, we see the ultimate triumph of goodness, and this can be affirmed of one man in the expectation that all the just would share in this victory.

That would be the background against which I would see the development of the post-Resurrection stories. There’s an experience or claim that certainly can’t be verified historically, in which somehow or other the belief arose that God has approved in this way of this man Jesus. What can be established historically is the transformative effect of the claim on Jesus’ first followers.

If you look at Paul—and Paul is a Jewish figure, however much he may be seen to be on the margins of Judaism for later Christian readers—Paul cannot conceive of the resurrection of one individual without the resurrection of the whole group. Read 1 Corinthians 15, and you see that Paul is doing his damnedest to try to get at the notion of the whole people about to share in the resurrection experience. And he uses the examples of the seed, the stars, whatever. He’s struggling, struggling, struggling. In the end he says, I will tell you a mysterion, that is, a hidden message of the divine plan for humankind. On the one hand, he shows his Jewishness that there isn’t a resurrection of an individual but of a group. But secondly, that the manner of this triumph has ultimately to be left in the hands of God.

So I think that theologically we shouldn’t shy away from these issues. And historically we shouldn’t just dismiss them all as later developments that appear totally irrational to the modern mind. I think we can see them within the context of different forms of renewal Judaism at a very early stage, where apocalyptic hopes and wisdom traditions are intermingling and developing. The hopes associated with these expressions are all brought to bear on understanding the figure of Jesus, his life and death.

Do you envisage a physical resurrection?

No, absolutely not. Resurrection from the dead should not be confused with resuscitation of a corpse, even when some of the appearance stories give that impression as part of their narrative realism.

What do you do with the story after the resurrected Jesus returns from Emmaus [Luke 24:36–42]? And they give Jesus some broiled fish to eat to demonstrate that he’s physically resurrected, not just an apparition or a spirit. What do you do with that?

There’s no question about it, as stories develop—I could tell you some really good stories in Irish folklore about filling out the details of some wondrous deed or some experience that’s deemed to be supernatural or preternatural. It’s been vividly told, with all the details. You have to allow an oral culture to develop stories in that way. They don’t create any problem for me. What we have is a tradition trying to develop that sense of the reality, the identity, that the earthly Jesus whom they knew had triumphed over death.

Thank you very much, Sean.

seksualitas biblikal

Editor of The New Oxford Annotated Bible Michael Coogan recently applied his thorough knowledge of Scripture to a universal and eternally relevant topic: sex. In God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says, he discusses everything from marriage and prostitution to "fire" in God's own loins (yeah, you may want to reread the Book of Ezekiel). Coogan puts the Bible, which is often inconsistent on such hot topics, in perspective, and you may find yourself surprised by what the ancient texts have to say. (See 10 surprising facts about the world's oldest Bible.)

Your book begins with a discussion of the erotic Song of Solomon. Does its inclusion in the Bible mean there was a positive attitude toward sex back then?
I think there was a positive attitude toward sex in general, because reproduction was essential. Anything that led to reproduction was certainly viewed positively, and the idea of refraining from sex for religious reasons was something that was fairly unusual in Judaism in most periods. In many passages it's a highly erotic text, and it was a text that rabbinic literature tells us used to be sung in taverns. Yet when I was in seminary many decades ago, it was razored out of many of the Bibles that we had. (See pictures of religion in the ruins of Katrina.)

Is there any word in the Bible that isn't a euphemism for genitals? There's feet, hand, knees, flesh.
The word for testicles is stones. There aren't what we would call precise anatomical terms. As with any literature, passages in the Bible can have more than one level of meaning. And sometimes there may be a kind of sexual innuendo or double entendre there that is implicit. (Read "The Case for Teaching the Bible.")

Even laughing has a sexual connotation.
That's a great one, and you don't see it until you get to the story about Isaac telling the foreign king that his wife Rebecca is his sister, and then the king sees Isaac making Rebecca laugh, and he says, "She's not your sister, she's your wife!" Usually the translation itself is not literal; the translations will say fondling, caressing, or something like that. But the Hebrew word actually means to make laugh. It's the same word that's used in other contexts, as in the story of the golden calf, so there's a hint of an orgy there, which complicates the offense.

How important is it to read the Bible in its original languages?
It's essential for some of us to do it, if for no other reason so that translations can be made that are as accurate as possible. Often translators reflect their own views and their own biases just as much as the biblical writers do. I was interested recently in this case that the Supreme Court had in the Westboro Baptist Church. I looked at their website, and he lists all the passages that he says the Bible talks about sodomy. Well, in most of them sodomy isn't discussed at all. The term sodomy is a translator's term to translate Hebrew words that never mean sodomy in the sense of anal intercourse between males. (Read "Should the Highest Court Protect the Ugliest Speech?")

Given all the examples of polygamy, where in the Bible is marriage sanctioned as a union only between one man and one woman?
There is no unequivocal statement in the Bible, especially the Hebrew Bible, that says that monogamy should be the norm. For the most part, biblical characters we know well, if they could afford it, had many wives. Solomon, the greatest lover of them all — maybe why he's attributed with writing the Song of Songs — had 300 wives. So the fundamentalist Mormons who insist that polygamy is biblical are right, in a sense. If you're going to be a strict literalist, there's nothing wrong with polygamy. (See the 25 most influential evangelicals in America.)

We never know if Adam and Eve are married, right?
That's right. There's no marriage ceremony described. Here's another case where the issue of translation comes up. The same Hebrew word can be translated either as woman or wife. So when it says that the man knew his wife, and she got pregnant — that's another euphemism, to know in the biblical sense — it could also be the man knew his woman and she got pregnant.

You devote a chapter to the status of women. Is the reason there are so many misconceptions about the Bible and sex the fact that we often forget how patriarchal those societies were?
The status of women is important as background, but it's also another example of how we have, for the most part, while accepting the Bible as authoritative, moved beyond it and in some ways rejected some of its main points of view. If we can do that for things like slavery or the subordinate status of women, then we can do it on other issues as well, like same-sex marriage. We have to ask the question, How is it that we'll take some parts of the Bible and say they are absolutely and eternally binding, and other parts can simply be ignored?

As for abortion, the Bible doesn't say much.
It doesn't say anything. That's one of the things I find most interesting, because both sides of the contemporary debate about abortion will quote the Bible in support of their position. They have to quote verses that don't really talk about abortion.

Addressing the sexuality of God, you write, "Yahweh is envisioned as a sexual being," according to certain passages.
He is described as a sexual being, but the language is both mythical and metaphorical. (See pictures of John 3:16 in pop culture.)

Those descriptions, in Ezekiel, for example, even if they're allegories, are pretty explicit.
They're very explicit. They've in fact been called pornographic.

Were people in biblical times less prudish than we are today?
I think in some ways they were, even though they used a lot of euphemisms. When they were thinking about their god, they thought of him in ways not that different from the way other people thought about their gods. If you could describe God as a king or a shepherd or a warrior, then you can also describe him as a husband, and doing the sorts of things that husbands do. In the Greco-Roman world in which Christianity arose, the idea that a deity would come down to earth and have sex with a mortal would have been not surprising at all.


Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2027582,00.html#ixzz14nVBySLs

The Bible And Biblical Figures Reviews
God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says
God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says

by Michael Coogan

New York: Twelve, 2010, 256 pp.
$24.99 (hardcover)

Reviewed by Phyllis Trible

Talkback Add Your Comment

God and Sex. Who would not be intrigued by so expansive and seductive a title coming from a secular and boutique press? But the subtitle narrows the scope: What the Bible Really Says. If that phrase suggests either a prudish or salacious bent, the identity of the author assures us differently. A scholar of ancient Near Eastern and Biblical studies, Michael Coogan writes from head and heart—and both are in the right place.

For him, the paradigm of male dominance and female subordination governs gender relationships in the Bible. “Your desire will be for your man,” says Yahweh to the woman in the story of Eden, “and he will rule over you” (Genesis 3:16). “That decree,” says Coogan, “illustrates the bleakness of the overall Biblical picture for feminists who would claim the Bible as an authority.” Yes, the paradigm heralds bleakness. Whether that bleakness also harbors blessing, readers must decide.

In declaring Genesis 3:16 a divine “decree” and, later, a “curse,” Coogan misreads. (He is in good company, from the apostle Paul and his successors through millennia.) These words of Yahweh to the woman do not characterize her status in creation but rather her life after disobedience. They do not “decree” patriarchy; they describe it. They announce judgment; they do not prescribe punishment, which comes later in expulsion from Eden. Further, Yahweh never “curses” the woman. This word the deity reserves for the serpent and the earth (via the man). In numerous ways, literary analysis disqualifies Genesis 3:16 as the paradigmatic proof text for endorsing patriarchy.

Nonetheless, Coogan’s overall assessment is right. For some 40 years (a fitting Biblical time frame), second-wave feminists have wrestled with patriarchy and the Bible. They, too, have cautioned that the Bible belongs to the foreign country of antiquity. Despite its ubiquitous presence in the news and its canonical standing in communities of faith, it remains distant, even alien, in time, languages, mentality and geography. For diverse reasons—scant evidence, contradictory data, discrepancies among genres and historically locked views—what the Bible really says (or really does not say) about matters such as abortion, marriage, divorce, adultery, rape, prostitution and same-sex relationships does not readily transfer (for better or worse) to our world. Tensions between “original meanings” and contemporary applications persist—tensions that Coogan compares to interpreting the U.S. Constitution.

But what about competing evidence within the Bible? What about women characters, for example, who don’t seem to fit patriarchal strictures? In ancient Israel, the prophet Miriam was never linked to a husband. Leader in victory at the crossing of the sea and questioner of authority in the wilderness, she survived censure to endure in prophetic tradition as the equal of her brothers Aaron and Moses (Micah 6:4). The prophet Deborah, identified perhaps as “woman of fire,” exercised authority as judge and military leader in the settlement of the land (Judges 4 and 5). In the reign of King Josiah, the prophet Huldah (without her husband) authorized the beginnings of the Bible (2 Kings 22:14). And the prophet Noadiah, identified by neither father nor husband, opposed the policies of Nehemiah (Nehemiah 6:14). In the New Testament, the prophet Anna, a widow apparently living an independent life, blessed the child Jesus who had been brought to the Temple (Luke 2:36–38). Four unmarried daughters of Philip the evangelist also held the gift of prophecy (Acts 21:9). To these prophets we add wise women (of Tekoa and Abel), queens (Jezebel and Vashti), widows (Naomi and Judith) and disciples (Mary, Mary Magdalene, Joanna).

Throughout the Bible various women, by their actions, words or status, challenge the patriarchal paradigm, at least indirectly. Although Coogan reports on these public figures, he fails to stress their potentially subversive presence. What did such women represent? Tokens? Exceptions? An alternative narrative? A lost history? A saving remnant within the bleakness of patriarchy?

Despite this book’s title, God takes center stage only in the last chapter. There Coogan argues that the Biblical deity is a male, indeed a sexual being who engages in reproductive activities in a polytheistic environment. The archaeological find at Kuntillet ‘Ajrud depicts two figures with the inscription “Yahweh and his Asherah” (eighth century B.C.E.). Within the Bible, more evidence surfaces: Ezekiel’s description of the divine loins (1:27); the pairing of Yahweh in the Temple with Asherah; metaphors of Yahweh as Israel’s husband and father; the goddess Wisdom alongside Yahweh; and the Christian formula for the parentage of Jesus: son of God, born of a virgin.

Believers cannot neglect these threatening descriptions, says Coogan. But to what extent have believers neglected them? Even though polytheism and a female consort may not be acceptable, the basic idea that God is male has endured for centuries, sometimes as unofficial dogma. After all, Jesus called God “Father.” Missing among many believers are sustained critiques of this idea.

Female images of God, in contrast to a female consort, call for attention. The metaphor connecting divine mercy (rahamim) to the vehicle of the womb (rehem) permeates the Bible. One small witness describes the God who “writhed in labor pains” giving birth to Israel (Deuteronomy 32:18). Sexual overtones in these portrayals are not male. Although early in his prophecy (chapter 3) Hosea depicts Yahweh as the abusive husband beating his wife Israel, later Yahweh repudiates both male identity and violence. “For I am God (‘el) and not male (‘is), the Holy One (qadosh) in your midst, and I do not come to destroy” (Hosea 11:9). Is this the pattern of the abusive husband—to feign goodness and mercy? Or does the declaration of holiness testify to God beyond (male) sex, gender and attendant consequences? In keeping with his passionate plea that we read “the entire Bible” and not “cherry-pick” for “preconceived conclusions,” Coogan might have explored these and other counter-texts.

On one occasion, God set before ancient Israel life and death and then commanded the people to decide the difference. “Choose life that you may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19). Likewise recognizing that authority derives from the community, Coogan admirably concludes that what the Bible really says (this time, its “underlying ideals”) moves “toward the goal of full freedom and equality for all persons.” That rhetorical flourish awaits development beyond the provocative subject of God and Sex.

Distinguished feminist Biblical scholar Phyllis Trible is professor of Biblical studies at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in North Carolina. From 1981 until her “retirement” in 1998, she taught at Union Theological Seminary in New York. She served as president of the Society of Biblical Literature in 1994, only the second woman to serve in that capacity since the organization was founded in 1880.

Pornografi Sudah Menggelora Ribuan Tahun Lalu
Rabu, 10 November 2010 | 15:05 WIB
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Kompas.com — Berbicara tentang pornografi, orang selalu mengidentikkan kata tersebut dengan produk manusia modern, bukti dari kemorosotan moral. Padahal, pornografi sudah eksis sejak ribuan tahun lalu, bahkan sebelum ditemukannya teknologi video dan kamera foto.

Para ilmuwan bahkan yakin bahwa evolusi memengaruhi manusia memiliki gairah visual. Berbagai bukti material pornografi dari zaman lampau juga menunjukkan bahwa manusia sejak dahulu sudah tertarik pada hal-hal yang berbau seks.

"Seks selalu menjadi hal yang penting bagi hubungan tiap manusia. Apa yang orang lain lakukan secara seksual selalu memancing rasa ingin tahu," kata Seth Prosterman, seksolog klinis dan terapis dari San Francisco, Amerika Serikat.

Definisi pornografi sendiri sangat subyektif. Dalam Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia disebutkan bahwa pornografi adalah penggambaran tingkah laku secara erotis dengan lukisan atau tulisan untuk membangkitkan nafsu berahi; bahan bacaan yang dengan sengaja dan semata-mata dirancang untuk membangkitkan nafsu berahi dalam seks.

Dari pengertian tersebut, ternyata penggambaran erotis pertama yang diketahui manusia mungkin tidak porno, tetapi lebih dalam pengertian tradisional. Sekitar 30.000 tahun silam, manusia Paleolithic memahat bentuk payudara yang besar dan padat dalam figur wanita hamil pada batu dan kayu. Para arkeolog menduga figur Venus ini tidak dimaksudkan untuk membangkitkan gairah, tetapi sebagai simbol kesuburan.

Kalau kita maju lebih dekat lagi, manusia purba di Yunani dan Roma menciptakan seni pahat dan seni lukis di dinding untuk menggambarkan homoseksual, threesome, fellatio (seks oral pada penis), serta cunnilingus (tindakan menstimulasi organ intim wanita dengan tangan atau lidah).

Di India pada abad kedua, Kama Sutra menjadi buku manual cara melakukan seks. Kemudian orang-orang dari suku The Moche di Peru telah melukis adegan seksual pada barang-barang tembikar. Di Jepang, pada abad ke-16 hal-hal erotis bahkan dicetak dalam kayu (woodblock).

Sementara di Barat, kebanyakan material seksual yang disebar lebih banyak bersifat politis daripada pornografi. Misalnya saja, saat Revolusi Perancis disebarkan pamflet bersifat seksual untuk menyindir anggota kerajaan. Bahkan Marquis de Sade, penulis terkenal dari Perancis yang karyanya terkenal akan unsur brutal dan erotis, lebih banyak berangkat dari unsur filosofis.

Kelahiran pornografi

Sekitar tahun 1800, hal-hal yang berbau porno mulai menyebar. Novel erotis sendiri sudah mulai ditulis pada pertengahan tahun 1600 di Perancis. Namun, novel pornografi yang ditulis dalam bahasa Inggris pertama kali adalah Memoirs of Woman of Pleasure, atau dikenal dengan Fanny Hill, diterbitkan tahun 1748.

Teknologi kemudian mendorong inovasi genre porno. Tahun 1838, Louis Daguerre menciptakan daguerreotype, bentuk primitif dari fotografi. Tak lama berselang, buku-buku cabul langsung memanfaatkan teknologi itu. Penggambaran persenggamaan pun dilakukan secara hati-hati pada tahun 1846.

Penemuan video pun mengikuti jalan serupa. Tahun 1896, pembuat film dari Perancis menciptakan film bisu porno berdurasi pendek. Isinya adalah aktris film beradegan tari telanjang. Baru pada tahun 1900, film seks yang termasuk hard core muncul. Film-film itu kebanyakan memakai aktor yang sudah tua, tetapi beradegan seks sesungguhnya.

Selama bertahun-tahun film-film porno itu berjalan stagnan, baik dalam hal kualitas maupun isinya. Baru pada tahun 1970-an, terjadi pergeseran sebagai imbas masyarakat yang lebih terbuka menerima sensualitas. Perkembangan internet dan kamera digital ikut berpengaruh pada produksi film-film porno.

Menurut sebuah penelitian tahun 1994, diketahui bahwa 48 persen orang yang mengunduh film porno menyukai bentuk seksual yang tidak lazim, misalnya, hubungan seks dengan binatang, inses atau paedofilia. Hanya kurang dari 5 persen yang mengunduh film seks yang dilakukan lewat vagina. Diduga masyarakat mencari di internet hal-hal yang tidak mereka temukan pada majalah dan film porno biasa.

Kini, pornografi bisa dengan mudah ditemukan di internet meski angka pasti penjualan materi pornografi ini masih misteri. Menurut sebuah riset, diperkirakan angka penjualan majalah, alat bantu seks, dan film porno per tahunnya mencapai 6 miliar dollar AS.

Usaha untuk membungkam materi pornografi sendiri masih terus berlangsung sejak era Victoria dan tampaknya belum akan mencapai kata akhir dalam waktu dekat. Kecuali jika orang mulai berhenti melihat foto atau gambar orang lain dalam kondisi telanjang.