DANIELKRUSENCHEN »

this is the first of a new category of blog posts i’ll be writing. all content from the posts in this category, ‘from the inbox’, will be from emails past, present and future.

from 6/4/13:

if the pen is the phallus that ejaculates its ink-seed onto an intentionally placed world of a blank canvas that cannot germinate it, then the consciousness behind this phallic-pen, it is that of man, of being, of existence; for what is [nothing] cannot be written- that which man is un-conscious of.. and yet written by men…via a dominant prevailing/presumptive phallic/specular/logocentric/self-referential drive (the reason why ‘evil’ exists) to subsume all of life under one ideology…pressed beneath the force of the pen, the ‘God’ of christian architecture, an archi-text-ure, an ideological construct erected to reinforce man’s phallic dominance at the expense of all that it marginalizes, an earth that it covers and stands on without roots..this ‘god’ is written into existence..in the image of das Man, of self-referential being. and thus christendom was born. and thus pandora’s box of nihilism, unleashed..

besides all of that…the christian politico-theology that is practiced today is ‘pauline’. the hash marks betray an inauthenticity…does a damascus event turn one  into an overman, and empower one with the privilege to wrecklessly write whatever one wants? no, but apparently it does privilege das Man today to wrecklessly equate words, deficient-images, as absolute truth, explicitly dismissing a fifth of the ten commandments…in other words, deeming scripture inerrant. who was paul? highly educated, trained in greek philosophy, studied at tarsus-  a large cosmopolitan trade city- and heavily influenced  by stoic philosophy. an influence that prevailing interpretations of the pauline by das Man are blind to. christians are most beholden to spectacle. their willing enslavement to representation is, it seems, rather stoic.

and of course this is all assuming that christians consider their scriptures as ‘absolute truth’ and ‘inerrant’, as being ‘God’s word’. however, appropriating the kierkegaardian argument, if there’s a qualitative difference between the believer at first hand and the believer at second hand, then faith is eradicated. meaning if it takes faith[madness] to [non]believe in something as ir[rational] and super[natural] as the resurrection of christ and other miracles…then it doesnt matter whether or not you were there to experience these phenomena first hand or if you are infinitely removed from said events and are in the here and now believing in it…both instances require faith. and if that’s the case then these words today are no less ‘inspired’ and ‘inerrant’ or ‘biblical’ as paul’s or any other disciples’. and if they are less so than…then faith no longer exists, only reason. for then we only have a politico-theology projected from human consciousness and the assumed words of some ancient persons to hang all our beliefs on…we would only have deficient images of the rational and scientific and nothing else, no revelation, no faith, no alterity…and this would be no different from the mormons or scientologists, christianity would be no different from a cult. that is…if it is ‘neo-pauline’ and not christological, if… there’s a qualitative difference of faith between believers..a difference posited by the politics of das Man. for how could [nothingness] be differentiated?

all this doesnt mean you get to be selfish and live however the hell you want for the rest of your life, if because now you have just adopted the assumption that this writer is promoting anarchism and the end of moral absolutes, it just means ‘faith’ and believing in christ is not as simple as the christendom have sold it out to be. and even when the they admit that it is hard and that it  means carrying one’s cross they dont even begin to realize what all that means. so you can either take what they throw at you and embrace it at face value or do the hard work, that is the work of faith, to struggle, strive and discover for yourself what you yourself believe and who ‘God’ is to you divested of all the ‘christian’  baggage and platonic presuppositions. if the faith one experiences is inherited, it is no faith at all. but a repression of it.

main point being…to regard scripture with an over-compensation of rationality betrays an evasion of faith. indeed a prevention or abortion of faith. some ancient dudes’ opinions, you can take them or leave them, just dont build some oppressive ideology around what sounds agreeable to your preconditioned social palette. don’t go absolutizing what was never yours to begin with, a system of beliefs that at best you only perceive of in part. leave the absolutizing to the absolutes. that being said, i will still look into the greek.

it is important to note that homosexuality and/or pedophilia were not taboo in ancient greece. they were common and accepted practices. so the greek rendering of the word we interpret as ‘homosexual’ doesnt directly correlate with our notions of that word in question. the greek typically means ‘soft’ or effeminate  but then again, the greeks were an extremely masculine society. all to say…the word is really meaningless outside of some biological term that defines a very specific sexual activity. cause even if it is taken as ‘effeminate’…thats presupposing that we know what such a thing as ‘femininity’ is…and we actually dont. the best we understand it today is as derivative of masculinity. female as other-than male. to define female apart from male has, to my knowledge, not yet been possible but thats another can of worms. basically, whatever homosexuality is….its still very much a masculine ideal. and our view about it today, in todays society only reflects the established norms of today which are very male dominant. whereas if we were living in the times of ancient greece this obviously wouldnt be an issue. our disposition towards it is culturally driven…religion be damned.

a question must be asked…whether or not we can assume that paul’s audience would’ve had much knowledge of stoic philosophy? this question is important because it would shed light on whether or not paul actually intentionally appropriated stoic philosophy…or if he made use of stoic philosophy’s ‘language’ and terms only to turn them on their head and use them argumentatively in contradistinction to ‘identity in christ’ and the sacraments. i bring up sacraments because i’m going to focus on the 1 cor. 6:9 verse…and corinthians is about the sacraments (baptism, communion, marriage to name a few), the phenomena that identify us with the mystery of christ.

before i begin i want to make clear that i do not necessarily ‘believe’ anything i’m about to write below; what i intend to convey is the idea that all translations and interpretations are ambiguous at best. and that interpretation is not just something anyone can do responsibly. we confuse ‘point of view’ with interpretation. judgement with critism. truth with assumption. appearance for substance. people can have their own subjective points of views, how they connect certain thoughts to others, but interpretations they are not. the distinction i mean to make is a psychological one, meaning a mere perspective is come by easily without ‘work’ but merely by a passing glance; whereas interpretation involves all the resources and rigor of philosophical discipline. anyways, you get the point…this shit aint easy and not everyone can do this that doesn’t find joy in work/tension/uncertainty. but there are those that do treat it as just being that simple and so we get a lot of the bullshit that is droned on in churches today. anyways. all to say i wouldnt take advice about this stuff from someone who can’t see past their own image. either everything below will be a projection of my own ego/self or it will be…nothing/meaningless. for before an idea can have meaning, it must first have been meaning-less, or [nothing]. and it is in this meaning-less ‘state’ of [nothing] that i conduct my inquiry. dropping baggage, presuppositions and assumptions. shall we begin?

CONTEXT (for sake of brevity i won’t cite sources but if you’d like them let me know)

background on corinth- cosmopolitan city, major trade port/route. the corinthians valued status, wealth, membership, power and could manipulate the legal system; were complicit in church fraud, leveraging power and wealth to dictate policy and church practices.

in light of the sacramental emphasis in paul’s letter to the corinthians, which culminates in chapter 13’s manifesto on Love, paul seemed to be concerned with the sacrifice of ‘christian identity’ for personal gratifications. i won’t go into an entire study on corinthians but it suffices to mention the utmost importance of chapter 13, what every argument in the letter ultimately alludes to and culminates in. for all this wisdom, all these thoughts, all our being becomes reduced to nothing without…Love. moving on. there’s evidence of wealthy corinthian christians abusing their power, causing others to stumble (beginning of ch. 6), obtaining property status and wealth when other members of the congregation were poor, causing division within church (ch. 3) via outside rhetoric (the ‘secret wisdom’ of God vs. philosophy of the world in chapters 1-2, rhetoric vs proclamation is a main theme that runs through corinthians). all of which is tantamount to manipulating ‘God’ to serve self-interest for once man projects ‘God’ in accordance with his own preferences (power, wealth, desires…manifestations of ‘sin’ as self-interest) he is free to posit whatever the hell he wants, be it ethics, moral values, religious principles, the institution of christendom- all made in man’s self-image in accord with his own preferences… revealing how ‘moral’ failure is always rooted in idolatry of the self (ch. 5:9-11, stoic/platonic list of virtues drawing on set traditions pertaining to virtue/nature; a satire? (v.12) paul is not concerned about those whom the ‘way of christ’ does not apply, he is concerned about christians in particular in this context. “you are not your own” 6:19, very contrary to stoic thought- further evidence for paul’s philosophical position, antipodal to stoicism). so that is some context with which we can now begin to understand the subject of our inquiry, verse 9 in chapter 16. let’s hold these themes (wisdom vs rhetoric…power/status vs. sacrifice/humility of christ…dialectic of love/knowledge) in suspension as we go on…

below is my original translation, from the greek, of the text in question (translation in bold, greek in romanized form in parentheses for the most part):

or have you not known (oidate)

that those who are ‘unjust’ (adikoi)
-those who try to assert their power unfairly. this has a strong connotative connection with the legal injustice paul denigrates earlier this chapter and in earlier chapters concerning corinthian obsession with power/domination/objectification/self-interest…which will also be important when we attempt to understand the latter elements in this verse in relation to being ‘unjust’

shall not inherit (kleronomesousin)

• this seems to be a tricky word that does not occur all that often. in the parable of the prodigal son, the greek for ‘inheritance’ is ousia which is typically translated as being. if we can take this instance of ‘inheritance’ in conjunction with the iteration of ‘inheritance’ from the prodigal son parable then we’ve discovered something quite interesting. for now we can read this part of the verse as pertaining to something more essential than just inheritance, but being. for ‘those who are unjust’…the unjust will not only ‘not inherit’, but the unjust will not BE. to be unjust becomes tantamount to not-being. the unjust shall not be gifted nor given the kingdom of God.
• what is inheritance? what is being? part of what they are, are bound with time. inheritance/being as temporal phenomena. as a process of change. to inherit, to be, is to go through the passage of time. implies transformation from being-in-sin/unjust/self-interest to being a new creation in christ, to being-in-christ which is experienced un-consciously in the flux of life.
• allusion to 1 cor. 15:50, not flesh and blood but a transformed being that can inherit, that can authentically Be. and if ‘being’ is self-interest then this transformed Being is one that is in sacramental relationship with an Other. paul is not describing qualification for entry into a club, no that would be elitist, he is contrasting christian identity as new-creation versus the habituated/assumptive/lazy actions of the self-interested being, of human nature’s impulse to objectify, desire and subsume others to itself.

the kingdom/dominion/reign of God. do not be led to wander astray:

neither fornicator/catamite (pornoi)
- in 1 cor. 5:9-11 the same greek word expresses the illicit sexual relationship which is a desire for what is not one’s due….again, an allusion to the corinthians’ exploitation of social networks via litigation/power. catamite- young boy in pederastic relations with older man. this notion connects directly to the translations behind the greek words typically rendered as ‘homosexual’ below. this notion of sexual immorality will be important to understanding this verse as a whole.

nor servant/worshipper of an image (eidolatreia)
- a coagulation of two separate greek concepts, eidos/image and latreia/worship. again, an allusion to human nature’s tendency towards self-reference, self-interest, self-sublimation…the idea that we worship our own image and so we project a God that fits our image. this is important to note as being essentially descriptive of what is considered ‘unjust’, such as the aforementioned fornication above.

nor adulterer/paramour (moichoi)
- a coagulation of moi/choi? excavation of ‘my’ soil? the plundering of the womb. interesting potential ramification for feminism..the unjust, the adulterer as specifically the male in this case. the adulterer as the rapist of the other. the unjust fornicator.

nor (MALAKOS)
- typically means effeminate/soft, but is widely translated as ‘homosexual’. can also mean “youth who consciously imitated feminine style and behavior”. or pederasty (the standard form where paul encountered male intimacy) linked with male prostitution, a passive partner in male sexual relations or a call-boy, the youth who prostitute themselves to older men for money (from graeco-roman society and hellenistic jewish reaction, remember, pederasty was normative in greek culture. it’s the injustice of the relationship between an older man with power using a younger boy that paul is opposing.) which again alludes to the power discrepancy in corinth.

nor men who sexually manipulate for political gain(ARSENOKOITAI)

• the greek word, typically translated as ‘homosexual’ is a coagulation of two separate greek words- ‘arsen’ and ‘koitai’. this is the first such usage of the word so it is unique in that interpreters have no recourse to past iterations of the word found in other ancient greek manuscripts, etc. so it would be prudent to be cautious against any assumptions about the meaning of this greek expression
• arsen: means male, masculine/strong…ironically, in opposition to the effeminacy referred to by malakos above which is ‘soft’
• koitai: typically rendered as ‘to lay in bed’ is derived from keimai- which is a METAPHOR FOR CONTINUING CONDITIONS- to be laid, situated, placed, positioned, all meant as temporal metaphors (allusion to inheritance/being above which also had temporal connotations). so considered this way, koitai can mean those in the temporal process in which man becomes situated as masculine (arsen). koitai can be translated as the act of going to bed, bedstead/lair/chambers…or to be made pregnant by man (allusion to moichoi above) referring to the lasciviousness/lustful desires of man in op-position to women, by means of desire for excess and power (in connection to the corinthians’ lust for power also in connection to homosexuality being strongly associated with sexual dominance, more specifically, the dominant older male over a young boy, the assertion of the strong over the weak, wealthy over the poor, etc)
• by emphasizing the assumption relating masculinity with strength (arsen) we arrive at an interpretation that translates arsenokoitai as an issue concerned with identity and gender politics. meaning the corinthians who lusted for power, found their identity in masculinity which was equated with ‘owning’ or dominating a younger boy. it’s not so much the homosexual element of the relationship that paul is concerned with as it is the unjust power dynamic.
• plural form of koitai is not gender specific, so you cant definitively say one way or another if it refers to male or female prostitutes; the term itself is ambiguous, precisely due to its possible metaphorical/temporal usage. perhaps relating to how fetus’ are sexually ambiguous at inception, let alone orientation…

…will inherit the kingdom of God.

and that’s that. i think i’ve made strong arguments against the standard violent readings of these verses and its denigration of homosexuality. it can be argued that the above translation is more faithful to the spirit of paul’s argument. especially his desire to unify the corinthians, to patch the divisions created by lust for power. this is all within the context of the surrounding chapters as well. to read these verses as a list of do-nots is missing the point for its difficult to see paul re-appropriating levitcal law when it is precisely his pharasaical past that he’s seeking to turn on its head (not destroy, mind you..but deconstruct and reinterpret). paul would more likely argue for identity in

christ and an equality found in Love (ch. 13) than an emphasis on stoic ethics that is in accord with that which nature intends (homosexuality as unnatural based on limitation in reproduction which is the natural function of sexual relations). i think my interpretation clearly emphasizes the values of ‘kingdom inheritance’ which is found in christ- a sacrificial love for others that dies to itself, that suffers on behalf of the weak. in contradistinction to the prevailing corinthian worldview of power, dominance and exploitation of the weak.

i’ve already mentioned in the last email how we cant regard scripture as the absolute authority on all that there is. and here’s a really good example of why. it can be argued that we live in a modern day corinth. people create a ‘God’ and religion based on their preferences, based on their fears and what they dont understand..hence the marginalization of women…and homosexuals, etc. what is ‘church’ these days other than a place of economy where power is exercised, where ‘theological knowledge’ oppresses those who don’t know any better, where assumptions are taken as truth? anyways i think at bottom the point is you’re either selfish or your hospitable. we’re either self-interested and are self-enslaved to our desires for domination or we’re self-sacrificing and given over to loving/striving with others. again, take everything i’ve said with a grain of salt for these are merely my all-too-human interpretations. you gotta figure out for yourself what you believe. and it wont be easy. hopefully i’ve shown at the very least how involved, nuanced and difficult understanding an ancient text can be. you shouldnt take anything you read in the bible at face value. especially if you’re reading it in english. alrighty, let me know if you have any questions.