FT353
- Thread starter stu neville
- Start date
Mythopoeika
I am a meat popsicle
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2001
- Messages
- 51,661
- Location
- Inside a starship, watching puny humans from afar
I'd class it as 'edutainment'.
AgProv
Doctor of Disorientation Studies, UnseenUniversity
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2014
- Messages
- 1,339
- Location
- too North to be Midlands, too south to be North
The article about the status of werewolves in Jewish folklore and biblical scholarship was everything that makes FT worth reading. you'd think on the face of it that a life-form that does not kosher its food before eating would not be a good fit for Judaism. But a few moments thought and hopefully intelligent extrapolation from the article....
Some random thoughts (from a Terry Pratchett/Discworld flavoured bit of my writing elsewhere).
There is an entire article in the current FT about the place of the werewolf in Jewish culture and religious thought. Apparently Yiddish communities in Europe picked up the werewolf meme from the Gentiles all around them and incorporated it. Eminent rabbis wrote treatises concerning how lycanthropy could be squared with Judaism, and the place of the werewolf in G-d’s creation.
Thirteenth century Rabbis actually created a valid exegesis from the Bible to prove werewolves existed and were part of divine creation – and even contemplated what the process of change would look like, as a human form translated into an animal one. In depth. Yes, people actually did contemplate what Angua would have looked like in the in-between state, neither wolf nor woman. And wrote about it. In detail. I won’t spoil the game but these Rabbis put an entirely logical spin on Genesis 49:27 (which is generally interpreted differently in both Judaism and Christianity). Look it up. And you can extrapolate from that, that the Tribe of Benjamin – already marked with the suspicious and viewed-as-Satanic trait of being left-handed – needed a sort of “ethnic cleansing” by the rest of Israel for hidden, more esoteric, reasons. The war between Israel and its errant tribe is recounted later in Scripture.(Judges 20, in which the tribe of Benjamin is almost completely and deliberately expunged from the face of the earth for its specified and unspecified sins, in a sort of harbinger of genocides to come.) A remnant of 600 men is alowed to live, as there must be twelve tribes still, but are found wives from other tribes of Israel. This could be read - in a different and heterodox context - as deliberately wiping out the werewolf gene or making absolutely sure it is so diluted as to never be a threat to Israel again.. which leads to further wild speculation - in diaspora, did the exiled Jews inadvertantly bring the werewolf gene to Europe with them? Interestingly, St Paul boasts of being of the lineage of Benjamin - and elsewhere in the NT Letters, he bemoans an unspecified physical ailment that causes him grief in his relationship with the Lord...
These thirteenth century Rabbis also pointed to the serpent being physically transformed by G-d as punishment for the Eden business. And asked the obvious questions in this context. When a creature with limbs undergoes a physical transformation into a different state. What is the exact process? What would be seen? And could this curse of God have transmitted itself into humanity, so that some humans carry the transformation curse? Satan as a were-snake... After all, Scripture tells us the Sons of God – who by definition include fallen angels – mated with the daughters of Man and left their seed among us as the Nephilim.
Reading a Biblical justification for lycanthropy makes me feel a happier man. The first Church of Christ Werecreature? (And Jesus is often depicted as a lamb… a weresheep.)
Some random thoughts (from a Terry Pratchett/Discworld flavoured bit of my writing elsewhere).
There is an entire article in the current FT about the place of the werewolf in Jewish culture and religious thought. Apparently Yiddish communities in Europe picked up the werewolf meme from the Gentiles all around them and incorporated it. Eminent rabbis wrote treatises concerning how lycanthropy could be squared with Judaism, and the place of the werewolf in G-d’s creation.
Thirteenth century Rabbis actually created a valid exegesis from the Bible to prove werewolves existed and were part of divine creation – and even contemplated what the process of change would look like, as a human form translated into an animal one. In depth. Yes, people actually did contemplate what Angua would have looked like in the in-between state, neither wolf nor woman. And wrote about it. In detail. I won’t spoil the game but these Rabbis put an entirely logical spin on Genesis 49:27 (which is generally interpreted differently in both Judaism and Christianity). Look it up. And you can extrapolate from that, that the Tribe of Benjamin – already marked with the suspicious and viewed-as-Satanic trait of being left-handed – needed a sort of “ethnic cleansing” by the rest of Israel for hidden, more esoteric, reasons. The war between Israel and its errant tribe is recounted later in Scripture.(Judges 20, in which the tribe of Benjamin is almost completely and deliberately expunged from the face of the earth for its specified and unspecified sins, in a sort of harbinger of genocides to come.) A remnant of 600 men is alowed to live, as there must be twelve tribes still, but are found wives from other tribes of Israel. This could be read - in a different and heterodox context - as deliberately wiping out the werewolf gene or making absolutely sure it is so diluted as to never be a threat to Israel again.. which leads to further wild speculation - in diaspora, did the exiled Jews inadvertantly bring the werewolf gene to Europe with them? Interestingly, St Paul boasts of being of the lineage of Benjamin - and elsewhere in the NT Letters, he bemoans an unspecified physical ailment that causes him grief in his relationship with the Lord...
These thirteenth century Rabbis also pointed to the serpent being physically transformed by G-d as punishment for the Eden business. And asked the obvious questions in this context. When a creature with limbs undergoes a physical transformation into a different state. What is the exact process? What would be seen? And could this curse of God have transmitted itself into humanity, so that some humans carry the transformation curse? Satan as a were-snake... After all, Scripture tells us the Sons of God – who by definition include fallen angels – mated with the daughters of Man and left their seed among us as the Nephilim.
Reading a Biblical justification for lycanthropy makes me feel a happier man. The first Church of Christ Werecreature? (And Jesus is often depicted as a lamb… a weresheep.)
Spookdaddy
Cuckoo
- Joined
- May 24, 2006
- Messages
- 7,951
- Location
- Midwich
Enjoyed the Lincoln's Inn oddness. I pride myself on a fairly rounded knowledge of London's darker corners, and the stories contained therein, but this one had kind of passed me by. I was aware of something connected to a house by the Fields, but thought there was little detail out there - I may have read it in connection with the name Elliott O'Donnell, which does tend to make me glaze over a bit.
I'm going to be in central London next week - maybe I'll take a walk past Number 8.
I'm going to be in central London next week - maybe I'll take a walk past Number 8.
McAvennie
Justified & Ancient
- Joined
- Mar 13, 2003
- Messages
- 3,998
The piece about the girl found by a lake in Fresno who didn't know who she was and claimed to be a mermaid I found a little distressing.
Following up on them getting an identity but not releasing it as she may have been the victim of crime seemed fairly understandable, but there is absolutely no follow up on this case. If she was a victim of crime I assume there would have been follow up stories on the case and trial.
Story just goes dead though. Very sinister and/or sad sounding case...
Following up on them getting an identity but not releasing it as she may have been the victim of crime seemed fairly understandable, but there is absolutely no follow up on this case. If she was a victim of crime I assume there would have been follow up stories on the case and trial.
Story just goes dead though. Very sinister and/or sad sounding case...