I was at a book discussion with Hemant last night - it was fun to see him again. I wrote about it on Conversation at the Edge.
Posted in A Cacophony of Posts | Comments OffBy Siamang
What is it with these museums about Noah’s Ark? Coming soon, Los Angeles is set to get a new one, at the Skirball Cultural Center. But this one is different:
The biblical tale of Noah’s Ark is found in the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament’s Book of Genesis — a good fit for the Skirball Center which is, first and foremost, a Jewish cultural center.
But Kirschner stresses the religious aspects of the story aren’t what’s important here.
“We wanted to find something based on Jewish tradition, but we didn’t want to interpret it religiously,” he says, adding the exhibit also will feature stories of similar floods from around the world.
“We want them to learn values — to appreciate diversity, to appreciate that if we don’t work together, nothing works.”
Watch an amazing video about it here.
From the Skirball’s website we get this description of a whimsical children’s playland. Part sculpture, part puppet show and part eco-message:
Inside a floor–to–ceiling wooden ark, filled to the rafters with whimsical animals, you and your family will play, build, climb, explore, collaborate, and more. Conduct a storm, help construct the ark, and bask in the glow of a beautiful rainbow. Mingle with hundreds of fanciful animals—from cuddly companions to life–sized puppets—all crafted from recycled materials and everyday objects, including bottle caps, bicycle parts, baseball mitts, croquet balls, mop heads, and rear-view mirrors.
I look at this as a study of contrasts. In Kentucky, the Creation Museum has an Ark as well, and since their interpretation is literal, they are saying that there really was a boat and it really had all these animals on it… end of story.
Whereas the story as the Skirball tells it is alive and current and calling us to take part in it.
I am reminded of a post on the boards awhile back where Mike C quoted a dialogue from Brian McLaren’s book “The Story We Find Ourselves In.”
In the story of Noah, humans are grappling, I think, with the realization that our evil has the capacity to unleash a flood of complete chaos and destruction. So human beings become horribly evil. In Genesis, God is pictured as feeling brokenhearted for creating us humans, because of our evil and violence. So, from living peacefully as hunter-gatherers in gardens, we advanced - that might be the wrong word - to the level of ancient civilizations full of oppression and social and personal evil. And so the ancient Jewish storytellers pick up a story that is preserved in many cultures: the story of a primal, catastrophic flood.”
“You’re bringing back my college ancient history class. Gilgamesh, right?” Glenn asked.
“There are a number of ancient versions of the story. I think it reflects one of the greatest fears of ancient people. You move from being hunter-gatherers and animal herders to farmers who gather around cities, and where do you settle? In the fertile, flat river valleys, where the best farmland is. And when floods come, your whole world is destroyed. Water seems to represent a kind of archetypal chaos, and the ancient Jews seem to realize that if we live apart from our true story as creatures in God’s creation, creatures who are free to learn and grow and advance but always need to respect their limits as creatures in God’s creation, if we disconnect from our story and promote ourselves to autonomous, godlike status so we can write our own story in our own way, apart from God, apart from moral limits, then a flood of chaos overtakes us.”
Read the extended quote here.
There’s much to it. But this is an interpretation of Genesis that in my mind goes way beyond the literal. It ceases to be mere fact (or asserted as fact) and becomes instruction, wisdom, and a challenge for living today.
Myself, I can’t wait until the Ark opens and I can take my 4 year old daughter to visit it. I’m so excited about it that I told her the story of Noah and the Ark so that she can appreciate the narrative when she visits.
Here’s the print article from the New York Times:
What happened to Noah?
…“That’s an easy one: You’re Noah, we’re all Noah, we’re all working together to save the planet.”
-Siamang
Posted in A Cacophony of Posts | 4 Comments »I try to read my Bible every day. And this year, in an effort to do things a little different, I decided to read the entire new testament in 30 days. And in case you don’t know … that’s pretty fast. I’ve done this before and the benefit I get from it is that when you “read it like a book,” it reads different than when you actually study it and dig into the deeper meanings. For example, many of the books of the new testament are actually letters written from someone, to someone. So rather than dig out all the deeper meanings, I try to read it like a letter … Paul, for example, sat in a jail cell one day and wrote a letter to a (the only?) church in Phillipi. And when he wrote it, I’m sure he didn’t spend weeks analyzing every phrase and innuendo because it was going into a Bible … he just wrote them a letter. It’s actually quite interesting to see the different angles and perspectives that come out by simply reading it faster. Read the rest of this news item »