[lit-ideas] KJV God -- (Was: Shakespeare)

  • From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2007 10:25:29 EDT

We were discussing whether it's by the grace of God that one  never finds 
one's accent 'ugly'. My theological argument rested on the premise  that it 
would 
make one's life miserable and God would not like that. Whereas  criticising 
the accent of others doesn't really make others' lives miserable in  the same 
sense. I thought this was a good argument for the necessity of  believing in 
the grace of God.
 
Geary coments: 
 
"Dunno."
 
and then rambles in an interesting way:

"I wonder what accent God had when he talked to  Adam and Eve? Or to Moses? 
Or to Mohammed? Is God an omniaccentual  being? Or does he sound hopelessly 
Yiddish? Or Arabic with all those  gutturals? -- yikes!"
 
Well, if you judge by the Old Tesament, he spoke Classical Hebrew. --  
Classical Hebrew Studies are becoming quite _a la mode_ in Yale, which is  
predominantly Jewish anyway -- whereas I'm more of a Loeb-lover. 
 
Geary continues:
 
 
"I generally don't tell people this, but God has spoken to me  on occasion, 
but to no avail. I couldn't understand a single word He  said. It sounded a 
little bit like Hindi -- there were several Indian  fellows at Christian 
Brothers 
College -- they talked like they only had  two seconds to get everything 
said. Jesus! Who'd have guessed so many  syllables could fit into one sentence?"
 
That's surprising. Sanskrit, from which HINDI derives, is  Indo-European, or 
as Loeb prefers, Indo-Aryan, or Indo-Germanic (hence the  "Indo-" prefix). But 
yes, they are fast (speakers). One reason is that the avoid  caesura and go 
straight to the elision of what it's called "isomorphic  allophones". So, "The 
airs are arrogant" (being mainly a combination of 'a'  sound and 'r's) becomes 
"th'arsa gant" in Hindi. 
 
Most of Hindi discourse is understood _in context_ and I grant that in  your 
case you probably did not have the context as to why God would talk to you  
anyway. Were you doing something _wrong_? That would give us a clue.
 
"Anyway, every time God tries to talk to me, I tell Him:  "English, damnit, 
English!" He leaves in a huff. I ain't got time to go  learn his language. If 
it's so damn important that I [need to] know,  then He'll just have to learn 
mine. 
Mike Geary speaker  of Shakespeare
in Memphis. 

Yes, I agree. Mind, we're not the only two. The 'queer' (I'm  not using this 
derogatorily but in the mere descriptive sense that he was  somewhat _odd_) 
King James V of Scotland (who became James I of England --  was that an 
under-rate) thought it would be a good idea to translate God's  speech into 
English.

His version is called, to this day, KJV -- King James Version. I find  the 
monologues by God in it too "Shakespeare" for my taste, with a sprinkle of  
Alexander Pope and John Milton. I prefer Wycliff's God. He speaks with the  
roughness one expect from a Middle Eastern. 
 
In Buenos Aires, God speaks in Latin. This is not the 'panacea', but it's  
something otherwise illiterate and pretty rough pampas monks are somewhat  
familiar with. 
 
Geary was complaining in "Sunday Polemic" about rules. What I would like to  
have is the decalogue (ten commandments) in the Original God. I have them in 
KJV  -- and Latin, but I would like to see if they are written as rules, 
orders, or  what not. 
 
King James has them as "Thou shalt not..." for negative prohibitions, and  
"Thou shalt..." for positive, as in "Thou shalt Loeb your neighbour".  But  I'm 
less sure about Hebrew. "Thou" is informal second person (and it presupposes  
a distintion with formal second person and second person plural -- so if it's  
personal it's something addressed to EACH addressee, not to the Jews as a 
lot. 
 
Then there's the 'shalt'. This is an auxiliary. It has no meaning in  itself. 
Only when followed by a verb. But the term for this, in English grammar,  is 
"future intentional" (as opposed to 'wilt', future indicative). I have a lot  
of respect for the future intentional, because God is like relying the  
responsibility of the following of the command(ment) on the addressee himself 
or  
herself. 

What is not clear to me and I ascribe it to the wickedness of God in  this 
area is that he does not specify the results of one's NOT abiding with the  
commands. I suppose there is an 'implicated' _apodosis_ to read, "If not, thou  
wilt rot in Hell" -- It cannot be 'thou shalt rot in Hell' because there's no  
agreement, or more importantly because if it's a matter of will, God would be  
too benevolent. 
 
Geary knows more about eschatology than I. 
 
Cheers,



J. L. Speranza, Esq.  

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