Answer to Esoteric Question-2
February 17, 2017
Today, I have a very subtle question for you geniuses to ponder, new or old. It is a question which is NEVER asked by most students of esoteric philosophy (theology). Even, within our own Mother Order.
There is a rather obvious reason for this oversight. Here is your weekly challenge:
Question 2: When one reads sacred, narrative scripture, say the Old Testament, Quran, Vedas, or Homer’s Iliad / Odyssey, how does one determine whether or not her or she is reading no more than a semi-historical tale? Or, how do you justify the allegories you create, if more than a simple tale of humanity?
The reason I asked this question was to demonstrate that most ancient scriptures are written so to (1) establish or justify a cosmogony / theogony so to find reason and order in what appeared to early man to be chaos or (2) create / recall a historical chain of events concerning man and god(s). The scriptures of the major religions seen upon earth are typical of the above without exception.
Most of the major scriptures were written centuries prior to the appearance of high level abstract reasons typical of advanced cognitive processing. The original, ancient myths and stories were oral compositions presented in many cultures prior to the establishment of mature writing. Subsequently, the ancient story tellers lacked sophisticated, abstract cognitive processing and tended to describe their subjects very concretely and anthropocentrically, i.e., the universe operated under agency rather than impersonal natural laws.
Therefore, the early renditions of scripture in writing were meant to be taken literally and factually. Gods and man existed, interacted, and shared a relationship. This hypothesis is well-supported by the Pentateuch, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Hesiod’s Works and Days, and other writings prior to the birth of Hellenistic scholarship in the after the 5th century BCE. In other words, such early writings were NEVER allegorical or symbolic.
The literary process of allegorizing can be seen by comparing the Old Testament to the New Testament, studying the sophistication of the interpretations of the Homeric and Hesiodic schools in Athens from 800 to 200 BCE, the resurgence of allegory by the Neo-Platonists, and Swedenborg (and others).
However, because of the degeneracy of linguistic syntax and semantics (context dependency), mathematics included, even a historical narrative will produce many allegorical interpretations correlating with particular cultural conceptualization, personal cognitive sophistication, conscious and unconscious biases, political goals, and so on. Moreover, degeneracy of interpretation CANNOT be avoided and always distorts the intentions of the first author, unless, such allegory was intended when the scripture was first written.
The take home message is the following: Holy Scripture is never absolutely accurate nor complete, originally or after allegorization, as we are cognitively limited in understanding and reinterpreting any idea more cognitively expansive than our usual ideas. Even direct, intuitive knowledge is often misexperienced and misinterpreted.
The unfortunate truth of our existence is that there are NO compelling and complete rational answers to existence and wisdom other than, “How do I live my earthly life with dignity, altruism, justice, and good will to our Earth and its living biosphere? How do I establish ‘meaningful purpose’ to my personal life in this vast and wondrous universe? Proving God is unnecessary, but living my life, in a GODLY manner, as if I were a beloved son or daughter of God, is sufficient. So Mote It Be.“