Re: Demystification vs. Ignorance--Which would Girard choose? -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 20:59:49 02/17/08 Sun
Author: Erin Risch
Subject: Re: Demystification vs. Ignorance--Which would Girard choose?
In reply to: Hwaet! 's message, "Re: Demystification vs. Ignorance--Which would Girard choose?" on 09:23:16 02/16/08 Sat

While I agree with you that the Hebrews spend a lot of time "getting it wrong," Girard managed to comfort me today in our reading from Things Hidden. On page 154, he says, "However this may be, in the biblical context these archaic legal prescriptions are far less important than what comes after them. The inspiration of the prophets tends to eliminate all these obsessional prescriptions in favour of the true raison d'etre, which is the maintenance of harmonious relationships within the community." And again, on p. 158: "I think it is possible to show that only the texts of the Gospels manage to achieve what the OT leaves incomplete. These texts therefore serve as an extension of the Judaic bible, bringing to completion an enterprise that the Judaic bible did not take far enough . . ."

While I was reading that, I thought, "Yeah, yeah, that is how I feel about the Hebrews." They were often petty and violent and mistaken and whining, but they did get part of it right. And they weren't like everyone else, all the other tribes who were instinctively enacting prohibitions and rituals and sacrifices. The Hebrews were intuiting, for lack of a better word, better. So, while this maybe religion-centric, it comforted me, and it made sense to me.

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