{"id":5195,"date":"2011-05-01T01:10:50","date_gmt":"2011-05-01T06:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paganpages.org\/content\/?p=5293"},"modified":"2011-04-29T13:03:07","modified_gmt":"2011-04-29T18:03:07","slug":"pagan-theology-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/2011\/05\/01\/pagan-theology-26\/","title":{"rendered":"Pagan Theology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pagan Theology:\u00a0 Exegesis<\/strong><\/p>\n

One big advantage any theologian of the book religions have is the they, um, have a book.\u00a0 That gives them a lot to talk about [1], even if it many times doesn\u2019t make a heck of a lot of sense.\u00a0 The critical analysis of religious texts, more specifically Christian texts like the Bible, is called exegesis.\u00a0 The word derives from the Greek meaning \u201cto lead out.\u201d\u00a0 Exegesis takes on many different forms, it can mean the direct, religious, interpretation of the text either through inspiration or rational inquiry, or it can mean the \u201cmeta\u201d analysis of the text where you look at the text independent of faith and assess its historical or literary meaning.<\/p>\n

Exegesis is not just a Christian activity.\u00a0 In the Hebrew tradition exegesis (Pardes) plays a big role in understanding of the law (Torah) and what it requires.\u00a0 Jewish exegesis breaks into several useful sub-categories that expand on the idea of a practical or outer exegesis and an \u201cinner\u201d one derived from mystical insight.\u00a0 Essentially most of these exegesis techniques were designed to aid in either the study or understanding of the simple or \u201cextended\u201d meaning of the Torah.<\/p>\n

The Mimamsa school of Hindu philosophy is concerned with understanding dharma by a careful and close reading of the Vedas.\u00a0 \u00a0Again, as with both Christian and Hebrew exegesis, the emphasis is on the question of what the \u201claw\u201d or sacred book requires followers of the religion to do.\u00a0 In this sense exegesis of sacred books can be seen as a proto-legal exercise, whereupon those interpreting the text make rational and reasoned arguments about what the texts\u2019 (laws\u2019) say a proper follower should do.<\/p>\n

And, lest we forget, exegesis can be a secular activity as well, with a good recent example being the Tea Party\u2019s relationship with the Constitution [2].<\/p>\n

But what does all this mean for modern neo-Paganism? There are a couple of ways we can approach a modern, Pagan, exegesis.<\/p>\n

The first is to remark how silly it would be for us to attempt to derive rules from text because we don\u2019t really have either.\u00a0 \u00a0We don\u2019t believe in rules, and we certainly don\u2019t have sacred texts in the same way that other religions do.\u00a0 Why worry so much about something that means so little?\u00a0 Fair enough.\u00a0 But the same argument could apply to Pagan theology in general, lets call it the \u201cjust do it\u201d argument.\u00a0 And I don\u2019t buy it [3].<\/p>\n

After all, we do have some rules to think about.\u00a0 We have covenants between group members, oaths to the Gods and Goddesses, and \u201claws\u201d of witchcraft and magic.\u00a0 We actually have quite a few more rules than you might think.\u00a0 The recent spate of discussions on \u201charm none\u2026\u201d and \u201cthreefold law\u201d are examples, in my opinion, of exegesis about Pagan rules.\u00a0 These enquiries attempt to construct a more complex set of rules out of these basic ones by using rational analysis.\u00a0 While we don\u2019t have the quality and quantity of rules about behavior that the book religions do, we do have enough rules that we can work with them.<\/p>\n

And we do have some texts, though how sacred they are is open to discussion.\u00a0 The text that comes the closest to a founding document would be Gardner\u2019s original book of shadows.\u00a0 However those papers are squirreled away with the Gardnarians\u2019 in Canada and Spain who bought the Ringling collection and are unavailable for general study [4].\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Otherwise all we have are the legends and other writings from European late indigenous traditions [5].\u00a0 \u00a0Other than the Northern traditions, and some of the reconstructionists, we don\u2019t do a lot with these texts.\u00a0 Many of these texts are narratives of heroic actions or conflicts, stuff that requires thought and some understanding of context in order to properly analyze.\u00a0\u00a0 It would be very useful to have a detailed discussion about the origin, meaning, and context of texts like the Ulster cycle, however those discussions seem to be elusive, at least to me [6].<\/p>\n

Even more elusive when we consider ancient texts is the Pagan context of those texts.\u00a0 Take, again, the Ulster Cycle.\u00a0 \u00a0The manuscripts we have are 12th<\/sup> to 15th<\/sup> century, written by Christian monks.\u00a0 The cycle documents a lot of things that might be associated with Paganism, such as druidry, but scholars debate how realistic and accurate the cycle actually is.\u00a0 Many of the translations date back to the 18th<\/sup> century, and so do many of the commentaries.\u00a0 Some say that the texts are actual representation of what life was like during Pagan Celtic Ireland, others don\u2019t.\u00a0 We could (but we won\u2019t here) develop a detailed narrative of these texts, how realistic they are, and how they apply to modern Paganism.\u00a0 However the layers and layers of meaning already laid on them, starting with the 12th<\/sup> century monks who wrote them down, will greatly complicate what we would need to do [7].<\/p>\n

Of course we don\u2019t necessarily have to go all the way back to original texts in order to develop a rational enquiry into written \u201cscripture.\u201d\u00a0 If we define a Pagan \u201cscripture\u201d (itself a bit of an oxymoron) as the key texts that are used to inform and form our faith, we have a whole bunch of 20th<\/sup> century texts that can be the subject of a Pagan exegesis.\u00a0 Starhawk\u2019s The Spiral Dance<\/em> is perhaps the best example of a 20th<\/sup> century canon for Paganism.\u00a0 Similar arguments could be made for Buckland, Farrar, Valiente, and, of course, Gardner.\u00a0 Gains could be made in overall Pagan thought and faith if these and other texts were read closely and trends and themes developed.\u00a0 Already we have a growing body of exegesis on the work of Hutton [8], for example.<\/p>\n

Rules and texts are available for a more detailed exegesis, and the long, complicated process of developing them can be done.\u00a0 But to do so we\u2019d need an interested audience, or at least an audience forced to listen to part of it.\u00a0 My suspicion would be that the audience would be quite small.\u00a0 Quite small.<\/p>\n

But there is a third response to the question of exegesis.\u00a0 As Pagans we find meaning in the natural world, in our direct experience.\u00a0 This is different from the book religions, which have a mediated experience through their Priests and their texts.\u00a0 We seek meaning directly in the world, both as an end in itself as well as a way to get closer to the Gods and Goddesses.<\/p>\n

So what would an exegesis of the world look like?\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that deals with questions of existence and what is in the world.\u00a0 What is an object?\u00a0 What is time?\u00a0 How is the world constructed?\u00a0 A world exegesis might look a lot like metaphysics if we defined the scope of our enquiry broadly enough to encompass the more fundamental questions of existence and reality.<\/p>\n

However there is also the possibility of a narrow exegesis of the world, one that concentrates on the phenomenology of experience.\u00a0 The relationship we have with our and other\u2019s ideas of the world and our emotional and physical experience of the world.\u00a0 This is more immediate and \u201cpractical\u201d than a metaphysical enquiry, and more suited to the grounded, world-based, magic that Pagans engage in.\u00a0 But if it\u2019s a practical sort of enquiry, then we should be able to define it much more easily than we can with text-based exegesis.<\/p>\n

What questions would a world exegesis ask?\u00a0 Each individual would have their own answers, and their own questions.\u00a0 Everyone has their own way of seeing and reacting to the world.\u00a0 However some example questions might include the following:<\/p>\n