And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted and dried up. And they shall turn the rivers far away; and the brooks of defense shall be emptied and dried up: the reeds and flags shall wither. The paper reeds by the brooks, by the mouth of the brooks, and every thing sown by the brooks, shall wither, be driven away, and be no more. The fishers also shall mourn, and all they that cast angle into the brooks shall lament, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish.According to these bible verses, the Egyptians will suffer ecological problems visited upon them by God.
~ King James version ~
The ten thousand things rise and fall without cease
~ from Verse 2 of the Tao Te Ching ~
From the Taoist perspective, all things in life are defined by cycles. Sometimes things are high and sometimes they are low. When the rivers run dry or the fishing isn't as plentiful as some other years, it's not because of the malevolence of a specific entity. The far easier explanation is that everything in this life ebbs and flows!
If you're interested in reading more from this experimental series, go to the Tao Bible Index page.
I often feel the way the ancients understood God differs from how we do today. I don't know that they seperated God from the World quite like we do, I don't think they had a developed materialism like we do. So to say God will inflict droughts and such on Egypt is like saying Nature will do it. It's hard to understand or really explain this, since we are all stuck in our own understanding and have a very hard time seeing it other ways. I think, though, that back then, it was a spiritual-based world, they didn't have science as we know it, didn't think of the world as "dead matter" pushed around by a god. God infused all, much like the Tao or some sort of pantheism (panentheism, really). Since all cultures come from a basic sort of animism (historically speaking), and the Hebrews had of course developed pas that but still retained a spiritual perspective: their Creation started not with the world, but with God.
ReplyDeleteYour point is well taken. While I think there is much truth in your comment, the point I was trying to make is one of intent. Tao does not intend, but gods do.
ReplyDeleteisn't Tao beyond such distinctions of intending and not intending? And isn't it impossible to write about such things using dualistic language, which is all language? And therefore isn't it natural that Isaiah should speak of God intending these things?
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