From: Boyd M Berry [bberry@mail1.vcu.edu] Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2001 11:08 AM To: Peter C. Herman Cc: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: oddity My memory is also hazy, but weren't Jews legally admitted into England only after the Restoration? If so, then we wouldn't expect to see Milton's signature. I do know there was agitation to admit them before. Boyd M. Berry English Department Virginia Commonwealth University P. O. Box 842005 Richmond Va. 23284 2005 804 828 1331 Fax 804 828 8684 On Wed, 19 Dec 2001, Peter C. Herman wrote: > > > Anyway, let's get back to Milton. I supplied a quote from Cromwell and > >Rose Williams has supplied that wonderful quote from her ancestor; where did > >Milton stand on tolerance of non-Christian religions? > > My memory is hazy here, but isn't Milton's signature notably missing from > the document allowing the Jews to (officially) return to England? And he > certainly does not have kind things to say about either Catholics in > Areopagitica or the East throughout the entirety of PL. My guess, and I > emphasize *guess*, is that he would not have tolerated non-Christian religions. > > Happy Holidays to all in this strange and "scambling" time, > > Peter C. Herman > > > > > >----- Original Message ----- > >From: "Larry Isitt" > >To: > >Sent: Monday, December 17, 2001 4:04 PM > >Subject: RE: oddity > > > > > > > id fBHG6LZ20191 > > > Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu > > > Precedence: bulk > > > Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > > > > > > P.J. Stewart writes (in part): "I think the USA has genuinely terrified > > > the Muslim world since 1948, > > > when Truman recognized Israel 10 minutes after it had been declared . . > > > ." > > > > > > To recognize is not to terrify, as that word is currently employed to > > > describe groups deliberately killing civilians in non-war situations. > > > Truman recognized Israel because Palestine is their homeland. That such > > > an action "terrified the Muslim world" is not an act of terror on our > > > part. Such casual usage of the term is to link us unfairly with > > > terrorists the like of those we currently face in Afghanistan in the > > > Al-Queda organization. > > > > > > Muhammed is against Christ and thus your statement that "the traditional > > > Christians' idea that Muhammad was the Anti-Christ" is not without > > > foundation in the centuries of antagonism between the two beliefs. The > > > Koran is unmistakable in its denunciation of Judaism and Christianity > > > (despite its recognition of the two in certain passages). For example, > > > the Koran denies absolutely the historicity of Jesus' death and > > > resurrection. Jesus is but "an apostle" (5.75), not the Son of God in an > > > absolute divine sense. His death on the cross did not even happen: > > > > > > "And their saying: Surely we have killed the Messiah, Isa son of Marium, > > > the apostle of Allah; and they did not kill him nor did they crucify > > > him, but it appeared to them so (like Isa) and most surely those who > > > differ therein are only in a doubt about it; they have no knowledge > > > respecting it, but only follow a conjecture, and they killed him not for > > > sure (4.157)." > > > > > > What exactly do you mean by "After all, their [traditional Christians'] > > > only guide to post-New-Testament history was the Book of Revelation!"? > > > Your exclamation mark makes it seem as though you hold such belief as > > > perfect lunacy and naivete. Your so-called traditional Christians do > > > read history too and they now and again have dipped into the pages of > > > the Koran and seen there its anti-Christian bias, denying the death of > > > Christ on the Cross and its exultation of Mohammed as supreme spokesman > > > for Allah. > > > > > > Larry Isitt > > > English Dept. > > > College of the Ozarks > > > Point Lookout, MO 65726 > > > 417-334-6411, Ext. 4269 > > > email: isitt @ cofo.edu > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: P J Stewart [mailto:philip.stewart@plant-sciences.oxford.ac.uk] > > > Sent: Friday, December 14, 2001 9:42 AM > > > To: Milton-l > > > Subject: oddity > > > > > > > > > > > > Every internet group I've ever belonged to goes through periodic > > > crises of > > > heated denunciation. I hope my remark about America's 'oddity' is not to > > > blame for the current outbreak of hostilities. What strikes me is that > > > there is something very 17th-century about America. I'm sure that in the > > > stage-coaches of Milton's England there were many Bible-reading > > > passengers, > > > and it struck me that my son's observation about the New York subway > > > might > > > tie in with the fact that 90% of this internet group seems to be > > > American > > > (my first milton-l e-mails of each day arrive in a rush at 1 pm > > > Greenwich > > > time, which is 8 am Eastern Standard Time). Do Americans feel a special > > > empathy with 17th century literature? > > > I would like to help to defuse the controversy about whether America > > > has > > > 'terrorized the world' for the last 50 years. Not the whole world > > > perhaps, > > > but I think the USA has genuinely terrified the Muslim world since 1948, > > > when Truman recognized Israel 10 minutes after it had been declared, > > > while > > > his delegation at the UN was debating an American proposal for a UN > > > trusteeship to succeed the UK Mandate. The colossal misjudgement of the > > > Arab > > > world that has characterized US Middle East policy ever since must > > > surely be > > > the modern version of the traditional Christians' idea that Muhammad was > > > the > > > Anti-Christ. After all, their only guide to post-New-Testament history > > > was > > > the Book of Revelation! > > > And what about Milton? What would he have thought of Oliver > > > Cromwell's > > > remark "I had rather that Mohometanism were permitted amongst us than > > > that > > > one of God's children should be persecuted"? With Suleyman the > > > Magnificent > > > at the gates of Vienna, an Islamic Europe seemed a real possibility. > > > Philip Stewart > > > > > > > > > > > > From: Curtis Eastin [curtis.eastin@yale.edu] Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2001 1:36 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: a query Hello and holiday wishes from a new subscriber. Your discussions over the past few weeks have been interesting, and now I find myself in need of your assistance. I have read the following quotation of Milton, but the scholar does not provide a citation. Is anyone familiar with this specific quote or perhaps have a suggestion as to where I might search? I am under a rather tight deadline and thought I might find quick help here! Thank you for your time and consideration. "I call upon Thee, my God...to witness that I am conscious of nothing, or of no deed, either recent or remote, whose wickedness could justify occasion or invite upon me this supreme misfortune." Also--I have been experiencing difficulties with my email, and was forced to mail this from another address. Thus I am not certain how/if the typical "network" reply will work--one may need to actually paste in the address to reply...??? From: Seb Perry [sebperry@hotmail.com] Sent: Saturday, December 22, 2001 6:01 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Lord of Misrule Colin Cartwright wrote: >I hear what you are saying about the church being repressive and >authoritarian over centuries. I belong to a movement of Christians >that >has been persecuted in the past by 'the church'. It does not >follow from >what you have said that Christianity is necessarily and >intrinsically >authoritarian. History has demonstrated that Christianity *is* intrinsically authoritarian. If that's not apparent nowadays, it's probably because Christianity no longer carries much authority. >There are two basic weaknesses to your argument. Firstly, the >teaching >and example of Jesus, the founder of Christianity, shows an >essential >'auto-immolation of authority'. Jesus talked of being the >servant of all, >he told his followers not to lord it over others and >he went to the cross. Is this the same Jesus who said: "thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matthew 16:18-9)? Or maybe it's the Jesus who said to the Jews (thus justifying centuries of Christian anti-semitism): "Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. ...He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God. (John 8:43-47) Just wondering. Seb. _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx From: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Sent: Friday, December 28, 2001 1:15 PM <0GOP00JCEGI2IK@drew.edu> for milton-l@richmond.edu; Fri, 21 Dec 2001 12:56:26 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2001 12:56:25 -0500 From: Jim Rovira Subject: Re: oddity To: milton-l@richmond.edu Message-id: <3C2377C9.ED564809@drew.edu> Organization: Drew University MIME-version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en]C-CCK-MCD {Drew University:Desktop:20001026} (Win98; U) Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit X-Accept-Language: en,pdf References: Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu Dear Prof. Isitt: You're employing a pretty fast and loose definition of "anti-Christ" in that you're speaking of disagreements about doctrine (very important ones, I know), but using language that can apply to a political commitment as well (in other words, one that requires the physical destruction of Christianity). There have been examples throughout history of Muslim regimes being outstanding examples of religious tolerance (just as there are examples of the opposite). Disagreement about doctrine does not, therefore, necessarily mean "anti-Christ" in a political and military sense. It doesn't mean "anti-Christ" in even a social sense, in that the teachings of Christ can be revered without regard to the preservation of orthodox Christianity. All you've really been able to assert is that Muslims don't share Christian belief. No kidding! If you see that as a genuine threat to Christianity, I think you're guilty of a greater betrayal of Christ than they are...at least they don't claim to believe in Christ as you seem to. Philip's reference to "Christian friends" who "go further in demythologizing the Bible than they do" means that there are Christians who make statements about Christ and the Bible far more dismissive of orthodox Christian belief than Muslims do. You can't be unaware of this. Jim Larry Isitt wrote: > I realize that in the following I am wandering from the concerns > of the Milton-L and will carry on any further discussions off-line, > should any desire to do so. > > To Philip Stewart: > The very history you cite of hostilities is the demonstration of > this historical dilemma: Islam is anti-Christian and Christianity is > anti-Islam. You say, "As for the Anti-Christ...! Get > real!" When I use the term anti-Christ I mean it in this sense: Islam is > against Christ as being God's only Son, and I quoted the Koran to show > this. Muslims have never changed in their belief concerning Christ. Nor > are there today any modern Muslim states that permit Christian > missionaries to openly proselytize Muslims. > > You insist that "It is laughable to suggest that Muslim > rejection of belief in the literal resurrection makes them enemies of > Christians." Without bodily resurrection there is no Christianity and no > divine savior (see Paul's defense of literal bodily resurrection as > being at the heart of the Christian hope in 1 Cor 15). The Koran > dispenses with this doctrine because failure to do so means that > Muhammad is not the superior spokesman for Allah afterall, especially > since there is no claim made in the Muslim world for his divinity, as > there is in the Christian for Jesus Christ (the Church Councils of Nicea > 325, Constaninople 381, Ephesus 431, and Chalcedon 451 establish this > view). > > You speak of "Christian friends" who you say "go further in > demythologizing the Bible": do you mean that they go further than you > do? If they (and you) deny the historical importance of literal bodily > resurrection, then it is not surprising that they would find my point > laughably naive and simplistic. > > Larry Isitt > > English Dept. > College of the Ozarks > Point Lookout, MO 65726 > 417-334-6411, Ext. 4269 > email: isitt @ cofo.edu From: Joseph M. Finnerty [jfinnerty@stenfinn.com] Sent: Friday, December 21, 2001 12:10 PM To: 'milton-l@richmond.edu' Subject: RE: Bloom of youth Or, read Bloom on Stevens, 'The Poems of Our Climate,' which contains some marvelous--and beautiful--commentary (e.g., the treatment of 'The Auroras of Autumn'). Sure, Bloom, as almost any critic or scholar from time to time, pushes rather too hard in some places to make something 'fit' a theme or theory (indeed, Bloom's mode is often the polemic), or even mistakes facts here and there, but if we disregard intriguing, challenging or contentious criticism because of a critic's tone, or theoretical aggressiveness or even outright mistakes, then who would survive to be read? -----Original Message----- From: CLINTON_JAMES_JR_NONLILLY@Lilly.com [mailto:CLINTON_JAMES_JR_NONLILLY@Lilly.com] Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2001 12:05 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Bloom of youth Seb, I have not read the book. If you are accurate about Bloom's assesment of "Titus Andronicus" and Kyd's "Spanish Tragedy" . I will not argue with a critic of a critic about a book I have not read. I completely disagree with your take on "The Anxiety of Influence" (actually the trilogy that best revealed Bloom's critical sensibility, which at the time was origninal and daring.) I understand why younger students are dismissive of Bloom. It's a little like Woodstock. Bereft of context it's inexplicable. I also understand why younger students knock Harold. He's the literary daddy they have to whack. Read Bloom's book on Yeats and get back to me. JC Seb Perry Sent by: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu 12/19/2001 06:43 PM Please respond to milton-l To: milton-l@richmond.edu cc: Subject: Bloom of youth To my shame I've never been able to understand why anyone pays Bloom any attention. As far as I can remember, the Anxiety of Influence has one good idea in it that's expressed in the title and explained clearly enough in the preface. After that it became a morass of wilfully obscure and (to me at least) unintelligible Greek phrases. As for The Invention of the Human, I've never read a more turgid and useless book on Shakespeare. If anyone's interested, I wrote a short and dismissive review of it, which may be accessed here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thedyershand/files/Invention.htm I should add that it was written for my own amusement and thus features a few remarks that would never see the light of publication. Regards, Seb Perry. >From: CLINTON_JAMES_JR_NONLILLY@Lilly.com >Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu >To: milton-l@richmond.edu >Subject: Re: memorizing Milton >Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 13:57:46 -0500 > >Sara, > >My comment was about memorization for its own sake, not about Harold >Bloom. There has never been anyone like him. It's fitting that he's a >department of one. "The Anxiety of Influence" and "A Map of Misreading" >were to my generation what Northrup Frye's work was to Bloom's. It >changed how we read. They will still be reading his books in one hundred >years and nobody will remember or care that he had a remarkable memory. I >did like the "in his bones" metaphor. >Jim _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com From: Peter C. Herman [herman2@mail.sdsu.edu] Sent: Friday, December 21, 2001 11:12 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Bloom I think that early Bloom (The Anxiety of Influence period) is still quite important. But as for loom's more recent productions, we need to remember that they are not aimed at the interpretive community, if we can be called that, of scholars. When he writes a book on the canon or on Shakespeare, he doesn't have us in mind at all. His goal, as he has often said, is to generate sufficient income to ensure the well-being of his child, who, sad to say, is not capable of taking care of himself. Given that, a measure of generosity and forbearance is in order. Peter C. Herman At 07:54 AM 12/20/01 -0800, you wrote: >The name of the list-member who wrote to say that he had never understood >why anybody bothered with Bloom has disappeared into the mists of my >web-mail, but I want to stand up and be counted with him. Since reading >Bloom's commentary on Blake appended to David Erdman's text I haven't >bothered with him either. It seemed to me entirely proper that in the >British version of that edition Bloom's commentary was dropped. All my >subsequent reading of Bloom has been done standing up, in bookshops or in >open-shelf libraries; two or three pages have always sufficed to convince me >that purchase would be folly and borrowing a waste of time. I'm temped to >suggest asking list-members for their views on the most over-rated >"scholars" and "critics" of the last fifty years, but this is supposed to be >the season of good-will. > >Alan Rudrum > > >E-MAIL: Please respond to rudrum@sfu.ca, NOT to arudrum@telus.net From: CLINTON_JAMES_JR_NONLILLY@Lilly.com Sent: Friday, December 21, 2001 10:57 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Bloom Why not a list of overrated artists, as well. Shakespeare, da Vinci, Mozart... Dismissing Bloom's fifty odd books because of a "commentary on Blake appended to David Erdman's text" is like "not bothering with" Shakespeare after seeing a lousy production of Richard III. Wasn't "Blake's Apocalypse" (I'm assuming that's the source of the Blake quote) written when Bloom was in his twenties ? JC Alan Rudrum Sent by: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu 12/20/2001 10:54 AM Please respond to milton-l To: milton-l@richmond.edu cc: Subject: Bloom The name of the list-member who wrote to say that he had never understood why anybody bothered with Bloom has disappeared into the mists of my web-mail, but I want to stand up and be counted with him. Since reading Bloom's commentary on Blake appended to David Erdman's text I haven't bothered with him either. It seemed to me entirely proper that in the British version of that edition Bloom's commentary was dropped. All my subsequent reading of Bloom has been done standing up, in bookshops or in open-shelf libraries; two or three pages have always sufficed to convince me that purchase would be folly and borrowing a waste of time. I'm temped to suggest asking list-members for their views on the most over-rated "scholars" and "critics" of the last fifty years, but this is supposed to be the season of good-will. Alan Rudrum E-MAIL: Please respond to rudrum@sfu.ca, NOT to arudrum@telus.net From: Jameela Lares [jlares@ocean.otr.usm.edu] Sent: Friday, December 21, 2001 2:30 PM To: john rumrich Cc: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: oddity On Thu, 20 Dec 2001, john rumrich wrote: > Thanks for the informative Telegraph review. I am left with a query > that perhaps someone on the list can answer, or begin to answer: why > deny the crucifixion? or rather, what is the historical basis for > the denial? And if he can bring skulls back to life and was born of > a virgin, then why should resurrection strain credulity? > I will hazard the thought I've usually had, and that is that such a loss of dignity on the part of the leader would threaten a concomitant loss of dignity on the part of the followers. (Christ said no less.) Islam is very much into dignity. But I could be wrong about this as the answer or the only answer. By the way, when I was living in North Africa, one of the teenage girls we knew said, "When you are sick, you pray to Jesus (Issa). Everyone knows that!" Jameela Lares Associate Professor of English University of Southern Mississippi Hattiesburg, MS 39406-5037 +(601) 266-6214 ofc +(601) 266-5757 fax From: colin cartwright [colcris@dircon.co.uk] Sent: Friday, December 21, 2001 5:28 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Cc: colcris@dircon.co.uk Subject: Re: Islamic interpretation Dear P J Stewart, I could not resist responding to your message of 20 December. I hear what you are saying about the church being repressive and authoritarian over centuries. I belong to a movement of Christians that has been persecuted in the past by 'the church'. It does not follow from what you have said that Christianity is necessarily and intrinsically authoritarian. There are two basic weaknesses to your argument. Firstly, the teaching and example of Jesus, the founder of Christianity, shows an essential 'auto-immolation of authority'. Jesus talked of being the servant of all, he told his followers not to lord it over others and he went to the cross. It is difficult to find a better example of the 'auto-immolation of authority'. Secondly, you mention the date 312 AD. Is it not the case that before this date the church was not so closely allied to worldly authority ? Indeed the primitive church was an underground movement, regarded as subversive to authority. This is true Christianity in the pattern of the Messiah. It is indeed a scandal that this aspect of Christian truth took so long to re-surface within church history. But if you study church history more closely, you will find numerous movements that tried to return Christianity to its true calling of proclaiming 'freedom to the captives'. This is partly why I personally find Milton so interesting, because he represents a rediscovery of the importance of 'Christian liberty'. Best wishes of this festive season, Colin Cartwright ---------- >From: "P J Stewart" >To: >Subject: Re: Islamic interpretation >Date: Thu, Dec 20, 2001, 10:53 am > > Dear JDF, If Kazantzakis had written his book any time between 312 and say >1600 he would have been hetero-immolated. Can we say that an auto-immolation >of authority is intrinsically Christian if it took so long to surface? It >was Protestant Christianity rather than Christianity per se that made >individual conscience theoretically sovereign over authority, though it took >centuries for Protestants to draw all the conclusions. To outsiders it looks >as though the loss of authority in Christian society results from the >impossibility of resolving the contradictions in the Bible. How can the >genocidal God of the Book of Joshua be resolved with the Suffering God of St >Paul? Islam lacks that internal conflict, in that the whole Koran came in >twenty years of the lifetime of one man. There was nevertheless a >near-reformation in the third Islamic century, based on reinterpreting the >Koran metaphorically - a reformation that did not take over Islam, but never >completely went away. The problem for present-day reformists is that - after >centuries of Western colonialism - they are torpedoed by charges of >Westernization. >Philip Stewart >----- Original Message ----- >From: >To: >Cc: ; >Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2001 7:04 PM >Subject: Re: Islamic interpretation > > >Thank you for this informative response. Of course I do not agree that in >_DDD_ M is guilty of "sophistry" in pitting one of Christ's statements >(sabbath for man not man for sabbath) against another (Moses only allowed >you [the Jews] divorce for your hardness of heart]). He is making an >argument, I think a brilliant one, that aligns very nicely with the >Christian reinterpretation of Judaism in terms of spirit over letter, faith >over law. This reinterpretation, by the way, is surely more than a "theory"; >it is one of the central conceptions of the religion (as I understand it), >and has left a legacy, as I suggested in my earlier post, of potentially >illimitable creaturely interpretative freedom. Has it not? Of course this is >not to expect, as you somewhat puzzlingly offer, that Christian or >post-Christian countries ought not to have civil and/or criminal laws. At >issue here is the creature's relationship with ultimate, not intermediate >sources of authority and meaning, and the Christian version of that >relationship is paradoxical, not paradisical. But the paradox is key. You >sketch, very helpfully, a Moslem dynamic of interpretation and authority >among Koran, Hadith etc. I continue to suspect, however, that nothing in >this system can compare with the auto-immolation of authority that occurs at >the beginning of Christian thinking. When Kazantzakis and Scorsese >blasphemed against Christ with their _Last Temptaton_, they attracted a few >protesters, who were (it seems to me) theologically out to lunch. When >Rushdie represented a sort-of Muhammad in the _Satanic Verses_, millions of >Muslims rose up and declared themselves ready to slit his throat. Were they, >too, theologically out to lunch? Or is there a difference of kind, not >degree, between (post)Christian and Moslem understandings of sacred law? > >JD Fleming >On Wed, 19 Dec 2001 13:35:36 -0000 >philip.stewart@plant-sciences.oxford.ac.uk wrote: > > Milton's sophistry is marvellous in what he says about Christ's teaching > > > on divorce not being Christian. The theory that Judaism was a religion of > > Law and Christianity a religion of faith and freedom goes back to St Paul, > > > but the governments of societies with a Christian majority were never > > noticeably reluctant to impose laws, often with draconian punishments for > > non-compliance. Burning people alive, incidentally, was always forbidden >by > > Islam, and Muslims viewed their Christian neighbours as barbaric for > > adopting it. > > As regards Islamic Law, it is not so rigid as is often said. There are >at > > least eight versions of Sharia Law (four Sunni, three Shi'i and one >Ibadi). > > For nearly a thousand years the Sunni systems were held by their followers > > > to have been fixed for all time by the end of the third Islamic century, > > but there is now a growing tendency to mix and match laws from the four > > systems. The Shi'is and Ibadis have always held that their systems of > > Sharia could evolve with time. The most liberal of all are the Ismaili > > Shi'is, whose head is the Agha Khan. > > The Koran is only one of the four sources of law recognized by most > > Muslims, the others being Hadith (accounts of what the Prophet said or did > > > in various circumstances), Analogical reasoning and the Consensus of the > > community. In practice direct application of Koranic laws is limited by >the > > fact that there are not that many of them, and most of them have been > > interpreted in more than one way. > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: > > To: > > Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2001 7:24 PM > > Subject: Islamic interpretation > > > > > > fBIJONB12069 > > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > > X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by argyle.richmond.edu > > > id fBIJO0V30335 > > Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu > > Precedence: bulk > > Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > > > > Perhaps an important question to be extracted from the current thread is > > what Milton would have thought of Islamic hermeneutics. In _DDD_ M > > promulgates a model of Christian interpretation as radically free, because > > > consisting in a liberation from previous unfreedom. "The Sabbath was made > > for man, not man for the Sabbath," says the Christ of Milton's divorce > > argument, thereby inverting and annihilating (M insists) the Jewish > > dispensation of concrete and opaque rule-observance, even while >maintaining > > that dispensation's rigor and authority. The new law is "there used to be >a > > law," and the point-form version of this already-simple rule is the single > > > and flexible word "love." All this, of course, is quintessentially > > Protestant and typological (see Herbert's "Jordan (2)" and "Bunch of > > Grapes"), as well as running right back to Augustine and, for that matter, > > > to the Christ of those scriptures that Milton selects. In other words > > (since my bias is already showing), Milton's argument is right, and > > Christianity's legacy is a radical interpretative freedom founded in the > > knowledge that God 1) gave laws, and 2) then took those laws away, even > > while insisting that he was fulfilling them thereby. The maneuverability > > provided by this construction is evident in _DDD_, where it allows M to > > deny an entire legal and cultural tradition by insisting that when Christ > > spoke against divorce (as he did), he wasn't being Christian! The mind > > boggles at such creaturely impertinence - all the more so if the > > impertinence is, as M contends, orthodox. > > > > My question to anybody who knows is: how does this model compare to those > > available in Islam? Am I right in suspecting that Islam offers >considerably > > less freedom in the interpretation of laws and texts of all kinds, because > > > its scripture comes directly from God's archangel with Muhammad as > > amanuensis, and has never been subjected to the sort of erasure that >leaves > > the human subject in the condition of liberty and doubt? > > > > JD Fleming > > > > James Dougal Fleming > > Assistant Professor, English > > Simon Fraser University > > (604) 291-4713 > > >=========================================================================== = > > > == > > >James Dougal Fleming >Assistant Professor, English >Simon Fraser University >(604) 291-4713 >=========================================================================== = >== > From: P J Stewart [philip.stewart@plant-sciences.oxford.ac.uk] Sent: Friday, December 21, 2001 9:04 AM To: Duncan Kinder Cc: Milton-l <00a301c188b3$f0303820$02010101@duncan> Subject: Re: Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 16:47:08 -0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.3018.1300 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.3018.1300 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu Much as I love PL (partly for Empsonesque reasons), I never made it to P Regained (what there is of it). That is where I'd expect to find Milton's ideas on prophethood and how it differed from Messiah-hood. The trouble is that I am not greatly bothered by the problem, which I find incomprehensible. I could never understand how Jesus was named after the most blood-thirsty prophet in the OT. Poor heathen that I am! PJS ----- Original Message ----- From: "Duncan Kinder" To: Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2001 2:36 PM > <005001c187d1$9e186cc0$452401a3@plants.ox.ac.uk> > Subject: Re: oddity > Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 09:38:11 -0800 > MIME-Version: 1.0 > Content-Type: text/plain; > charset="iso-8859-1" > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > X-Priority: 3 > X-MSMail-Priority: Normal > X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 > X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 > X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with > any abuse report > X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - host7.hrwebservices.net > X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - richmond.edu > X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [0 0] / [0 0] > X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - neoclassicists.net > Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu > Precedence: bulk > Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > > Since we insist on proceeding with this topic, may I point out that - > regardless of their other differences - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all > revere the Old Testament prophets. > > It seems that all discussions about the three religions seem to boil down to > a haggle about their obvious and apparently irreconcilable differences > respecting Christ and Mohammed. > > If, instead, these differences were to be tabled and discussion instead were > to proceed about the prophets, what is prophecy, and similar topics, > something productive might instead result. > > We might even eventually reach a topic that somehow enhances our > understanding of Milton. (E.g., what is the relationship between prophecy > and poetry?). > > Duncan C. Kinder > duncan@neoclassicists.net > > > From: John Hale [john.hale@stonebow.otago.ac.nz] Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2001 5:11 PM To: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: webpage updated Dear All: Compliments of the season, and may I please invite you to view my newly revised Milton webpage, ? The update lists the main new portions on the Contents page. Some are infomation about new Miltonic events here, including some sound-bytes now I've learnt how to put them in. There are parodies, a cartoon (courtesy of Neville Davies), and a few first moves towards interactivity. Comments would be welcome. John Hale From: john rumrich [rumrich@mail.utexas.edu] Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2001 1:07 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: oddity id fBKI4PZ19205 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu Thanks for the informative Telegraph review. I am left with a query that perhaps someone on the list can answer, or begin to answer: why deny the crucifixion? or rather, what is the historical basis for the denial? And if he can bring skulls back to life and was born of a virgin, then why should resurrection strain credulity? A couple of side points: I don't recall Nietzsche being so hard on Christ himself, though he certainly sliced and diced Christianity and Christians (and if he held Christianity and Judaism in contempt, then what would he think of Islam as a combination of both!?) I very much look forward to reading Professor Durocher's book. Happy holidays, John >On the subject of Islam's relationship with Christianity, perhaps the >following article from today's Telegraph will be of interest: > >*** >No offence, but Muslims love Jesus as much as Christians do >By John Casey >(Filed: 19/12/2001) > >SOME years ago, an agnostic friend of mine married a Jewish woman who >practised her faith seriously. He took instruction in Judaism and seemed >quite likely to convert - but eventually did not. His chief reason was that >he remained agnostic. But there was another obstacle that surprised even >himself: "I found that I just did not want to give up Jesus." > >In European culture, there is no getting away from Jesus even if you are >agnostic. True, Nietzsche tried to reject him with detestation and contempt, >calling him an "idiot", a purveyor of a sick, decadent view of the world. >Nietzsche thought that the only figure in the New Testament who commands >respect is Pontius Pilate. Yet the very ferocity of Nietzsche's onslaught on >Jesus showed how strong in his heart was the image he wanted to destroy. > >Now, what if my friend had married a Muslim? The interesting thing is that >he could have kept Jesus - not the Jesus who was the Son of God, admittedly, >and who was crucified, but certainly the Jesus who was Messiah and miracle >worker, who conversed regularly with God, who was born of a virgin and who >ascended into heaven. > >Jesus is referred to quite often in the Koran, six times under the title >"Messiah". Yet I had long supposed that the importance of Jesus as prophet >in Muslim tradition was not much more than a matter of lip-service, >something to which Muslims gave (to use Cardinal Newman's distinction) >"notional" rather than "real" assent. > >This impression was strengthened when I went to Ur of the Chaldees in >southern Iraq and visited the so-called house of Abraham. It is only a few >piles of sun-baked mud bricks, but you would have expected hundreds of >Muslim Arabs to be visiting the birth-place of their Patriarch. I saw none - >whereas the shrines of Muslim martyrs in Najaf and Kerbala were thronged. I >assumed, therefore, that Jesus must be a marginal figure in the Muslim >world. > >How wrong this assumption was I have learnt by reading a fascinating and >instructive book, The Muslim Jesus, by the Cambridge academic Tarif Khalidi. >Professor Khalidi has brought together, from a vast range of sources, most >of the stories, sayings and traditions of Jesus that are to be found in >Muslim piety from the earliest times. > >The Muslim Jesus is an ascetic, a man of voluntary poverty, humility and >long-suffering. He literally turns the other cheek, allowing his face to be >slapped twice in order to protect two of his disciples. He teaches the >return of good for evil: "Jesus used to say, 'Charity does not mean doing >good to him who does good to you . . . Charity means that you should do good >to him who does you harm.' " He loves the poor and embraces poverty: "The >day Jesus was raised to heaven, he left behind nothing but a woollen >garment, a slingshot and two sandals." He preaches against attachment to >worldly things: "Jesus said, `He who seeks worldly things is like the man >who drinks sea water: the more he drinks, the more thirsty he becomes, until >it kills him.' " > >Many of the sayings of the Muslim Jesus are clearly derived from Biblical >sources - "Place your treasures in heaven, for the heart of man is where his >treasure is"; "Look at the birds coming and going! They neither reap nor >plough, and God provides for them." Sometimes there is a sort of gloss on >words of Jesus from the Gospel: "Oh disciples, do not cast pearls before >swine, for the swine can do nothing with them . . . wisdom is more precious >than pearls and whoever rejects wisdom is worse than a swine." > >He is certainly a wonder-worker. He often raises the dead, and gives his >disciples power to do the same. More than once he comes across a skull and >restores it to life, on one occasion granting salvation to a person who had >been damned. The skulls, like everyone else in these stories, address Jesus >as "Spirit of God". Once he is even addressed as "Word of God". > >I once had a conversation with members of Hizbollah in Beirut. One of them >said this: "The greatness of Islam is that we combine Judaism and >Christianity. Jesus freed enslaved hearts, he was able to release human >feeling, to reveal a kingdom of peace. Jesus's realm was the realm of soul. >Jesus is soul; Moses is mind, the mind of the legislator. In Islam, we >interweave both." > >This is certainly the Jesus of these stories - the Jesus of the mystical >Sufi tradition. The great Muslim philosopher Al-Ghazali actually called >Jesus "Prophet of the heart". > >The Muslim Jesus is not divine, but a humble servant of God. He was not >crucified - Islam insists that the story of the killing of Jesus is false. >He is, as it were, Jesus as he might have been without St Paul or St >Augustine or the Council of Nicaea. He is not the cold figure of English >Unitarianism, and he is less grand than the exalted human of the Arians. As >you read these stories, what comes across most powerfully is that the Muslim >Jesus is intensely loved. There is an element of St Francis of Assisi. > >It is good to be reminded, especially now, of the intimate connections there >have been between Islam and Christianity, and how close in spirit Muslim and >Christian piety can come to each other. Curiously enough, the Muslim Jesus, >shorn of all claims of divinity, could be more easily held on to by my >agnostic friend than the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. > >One other thing: since Muslims deny the Crucifixion, their emphasis has been >on the wonders surrounding the birth of "Jesus Son of Mary", born as his >mother sat under a palm tree, and miraculously speaking from within the >womb. There really is no reason why schools that put on Nativity plays, or >anyone who wants to insist on the Christian meaning of Christmas, should >fear that they may offend Muslim sensibilities, for Jesus really is shared >by both faiths. > >The Muslim Jesus by Tarif Khalidi (Harvard University Press) is available >from Telegraph Books Direct at £15.95 plus £1.99 p&p. To order, call 0870 >155 7222 > >John Casey is a fellow of Gonville and Caius, Cambridge >*** > >Regards, > >Seb. > > >_________________________________________________________________ >Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. >http://www.hotmail.com From: DianaBenet@aol.com Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2001 11:52 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton among the Romans DearRich: A lurker on the Milton List is just delighted to hear abt your new book & looks forward to seeing it in New Orleans! Diana From: Duncan Kinder [duncan@neoclassicists.net] Sent: Friday, December 21, 2001 9:06 AM To: P J Stewart Cc: Milton-l <00a301c188b3$f0303820$02010101@duncan> <00be01c18975$f6f95980$452401a3@plants.ox.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 13:27:23 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - host7.hrwebservices.net X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - richmond.edu X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [0 0] / [0 0] X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - neoclassicists.net Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu The concept that poets are prophets is quite old. The Greeks made much of it. Here is a title for starters. I haven't read it, but it should suggest how a discussion of whether Milton, as a poet, was therefore a prophet, might proceed: "John Milton: Poet, Priest and Prophet" http://asgard.humn.arts.ualberta.ca/emls/iemls/postprint/jhill-milt/milton.h tm Duncan C. Kinder duncan@neoclassicists.net ----- Original Message ----- From: "P J Stewart" To: "Duncan Kinder" Cc: "Milton-l" Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2001 8:47 AM Subject: Re: > Much as I love PL (partly for Empsonesque reasons), I never made it to P > Regained (what there is of it). That is where I'd expect to find Milton's > ideas on prophethood and how it differed from Messiah-hood. The trouble is > that I am not greatly bothered by the problem, which I find > incomprehensible. I could never understand how Jesus was named after the > most blood-thirsty prophet in the OT. Poor heathen that I am! > PJS > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Duncan Kinder" > To: > Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2001 2:36 PM > > > > <005001c187d1$9e186cc0$452401a3@plants.ox.ac.uk> > > Subject: Re: oddity > > Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 09:38:11 -0800 > > MIME-Version: 1.0 > > Content-Type: text/plain; > > charset="iso-8859-1" > > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > X-Priority: 3 > > X-MSMail-Priority: Normal > > X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 > > X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 > > X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with > > any abuse report > > X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - host7.hrwebservices.net > > X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - richmond.edu > > X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [0 0] / [0 0] > > X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - neoclassicists.net > > Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu > > Precedence: bulk > > Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > > > > Since we insist on proceeding with this topic, may I point out that - > > regardless of their other differences - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam > all > > revere the Old Testament prophets. > > > > It seems that all discussions about the three religions seem to boil down > to > > a haggle about their obvious and apparently irreconcilable differences > > respecting Christ and Mohammed. > > > > If, instead, these differences were to be tabled and discussion instead > were > > to proceed about the prophets, what is prophecy, and similar topics, > > something productive might instead result. > > > > We might even eventually reach a topic that somehow enhances our > > understanding of Milton. (E.g., what is the relationship between prophecy > > and poetry?). > > > > Duncan C. Kinder > > duncan@neoclassicists.net > > > > > > > > > From: Duncan Kinder [duncan@neoclassicists.net] Sent: Friday, December 21, 2001 9:06 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu <5.1.0.14.2.20011219074258.022dad90@pop3.norton.antivirus> Subject: Re: oddity Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 13:17:43 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - host7.hrwebservices.net X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - richmond.edu X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [0 0] / [0 0] X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - neoclassicists.net Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu "And he certainly does not have kind things to say about either Catholics in Areopagitica or the East throughout the entirety of PL." In the Areopagitica, Milton cites the Muslim banning of printed texts as what was, to him, the reductio ad absurdum of efforts to regulate books. Duncan C. Kinder duncan@neoclassicists.net ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter C. Herman" To: Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2001 7:45 AM Subject: Re: oddity > > > Anyway, let's get back to Milton. I supplied a quote from Cromwell and > >Rose Williams has supplied that wonderful quote from her ancestor; where did > >Milton stand on tolerance of non-Christian religions? > > My memory is hazy here, but isn't Milton's signature notably missing from > the document allowing the Jews to (officially) return to England? And he > certainly does not have kind things to say about either Catholics in > Areopagitica or the East throughout the entirety of PL. My guess, and I > emphasize *guess*, is that he would not have tolerated non-Christian religions. > > Happy Holidays to all in this strange and "scambling" time, > > Peter C. Herman > > > > > >----- Original Message ----- > >From: "Larry Isitt" > >To: > >Sent: Monday, December 17, 2001 4:04 PM > >Subject: RE: oddity > > > > > > > id fBHG6LZ20191 > > > Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu > > > Precedence: bulk > > > Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > > > > > > P.J. Stewart writes (in part): "I think the USA has genuinely terrified > > > the Muslim world since 1948, > > > when Truman recognized Israel 10 minutes after it had been declared . . > > > ." > > > > > > To recognize is not to terrify, as that word is currently employed to > > > describe groups deliberately killing civilians in non-war situations. > > > Truman recognized Israel because Palestine is their homeland. That such > > > an action "terrified the Muslim world" is not an act of terror on our > > > part. Such casual usage of the term is to link us unfairly with > > > terrorists the like of those we currently face in Afghanistan in the > > > Al-Queda organization. > > > > > > Muhammed is against Christ and thus your statement that "the traditional > > > Christians' idea that Muhammad was the Anti-Christ" is not without > > > foundation in the centuries of antagonism between the two beliefs. The > > > Koran is unmistakable in its denunciation of Judaism and Christianity > > > (despite its recognition of the two in certain passages). For example, > > > the Koran denies absolutely the historicity of Jesus' death and > > > resurrection. Jesus is but "an apostle" (5.75), not the Son of God in an > > > absolute divine sense. His death on the cross did not even happen: > > > > > > "And their saying: Surely we have killed the Messiah, Isa son of Marium, > > > the apostle of Allah; and they did not kill him nor did they crucify > > > him, but it appeared to them so (like Isa) and most surely those who > > > differ therein are only in a doubt about it; they have no knowledge > > > respecting it, but only follow a conjecture, and they killed him not for > > > sure (4.157)." > > > > > > What exactly do you mean by "After all, their [traditional Christians'] > > > only guide to post-New-Testament history was the Book of Revelation!"? > > > Your exclamation mark makes it seem as though you hold such belief as > > > perfect lunacy and naivete. Your so-called traditional Christians do > > > read history too and they now and again have dipped into the pages of > > > the Koran and seen there its anti-Christian bias, denying the death of > > > Christ on the Cross and its exultation of Mohammed as supreme spokesman > > > for Allah. > > > > > > Larry Isitt > > > English Dept. > > > College of the Ozarks > > > Point Lookout, MO 65726 > > > 417-334-6411, Ext. 4269 > > > email: isitt @ cofo.edu > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: P J Stewart [mailto:philip.stewart@plant-sciences.oxford.ac.uk] > > > Sent: Friday, December 14, 2001 9:42 AM > > > To: Milton-l > > > Subject: oddity > > > > > > > > > > > > Every internet group I've ever belonged to goes through periodic > > > crises of > > > heated denunciation. I hope my remark about America's 'oddity' is not to > > > blame for the current outbreak of hostilities. What strikes me is that > > > there is something very 17th-century about America. I'm sure that in the > > > stage-coaches of Milton's England there were many Bible-reading > > > passengers, > > > and it struck me that my son's observation about the New York subway > > > might > > > tie in with the fact that 90% of this internet group seems to be > > > American > > > (my first milton-l e-mails of each day arrive in a rush at 1 pm > > > Greenwich > > > time, which is 8 am Eastern Standard Time). Do Americans feel a special > > > empathy with 17th century literature? > > > I would like to help to defuse the controversy about whether America > > > has > > > 'terrorized the world' for the last 50 years. Not the whole world > > > perhaps, > > > but I think the USA has genuinely terrified the Muslim world since 1948, > > > when Truman recognized Israel 10 minutes after it had been declared, > > > while > > > his delegation at the UN was debating an American proposal for a UN > > > trusteeship to succeed the UK Mandate. The colossal misjudgement of the > > > Arab > > > world that has characterized US Middle East policy ever since must > > > surely be > > > the modern version of the traditional Christians' idea that Muhammad was > > > the > > > Anti-Christ. After all, their only guide to post-New-Testament history > > > was > > > the Book of Revelation! > > > And what about Milton? What would he have thought of Oliver > > > Cromwell's > > > remark "I had rather that Mohometanism were permitted amongst us than > > > that > > > one of God's children should be persecuted"? With Suleyman the > > > Magnificent > > > at the gates of Vienna, an Islamic Europe seemed a real possibility. > > > Philip Stewart > > > > > > > > > > > > From: CLINTON_JAMES_JR_NONLILLY@Lilly.com Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2001 12:05 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Bloom of youth Seb, I have not read the book. If you are accurate about Bloom's assesment of "Titus Andronicus" and Kyd's "Spanish Tragedy" . I will not argue with a critic of a critic about a book I have not read. I completely disagree with your take on "The Anxiety of Influence" (actually the trilogy that best revealed Bloom's critical sensibility, which at the time was origninal and daring.) I understand why younger students are dismissive of Bloom. It's a little like Woodstock. Bereft of context it's inexplicable. I also understand why younger students knock Harold. He's the literary daddy they have to whack. Read Bloom's book on Yeats and get back to me. JC Seb Perry Sent by: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu 12/19/2001 06:43 PM Please respond to milton-l To: milton-l@richmond.edu cc: Subject: Bloom of youth To my shame I've never been able to understand why anyone pays Bloom any attention. As far as I can remember, the Anxiety of Influence has one good idea in it that's expressed in the title and explained clearly enough in the preface. After that it became a morass of wilfully obscure and (to me at least) unintelligible Greek phrases. As for The Invention of the Human, I've never read a more turgid and useless book on Shakespeare. If anyone's interested, I wrote a short and dismissive review of it, which may be accessed here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thedyershand/files/Invention.htm I should add that it was written for my own amusement and thus features a few remarks that would never see the light of publication. Regards, Seb Perry. >From: CLINTON_JAMES_JR_NONLILLY@Lilly.com >Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu >To: milton-l@richmond.edu >Subject: Re: memorizing Milton >Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 13:57:46 -0500 > >Sara, > >My comment was about memorization for its own sake, not about Harold >Bloom. There has never been anyone like him. It's fitting that he's a >department of one. "The Anxiety of Influence" and "A Map of Misreading" >were to my generation what Northrup Frye's work was to Bloom's. It >changed how we read. They will still be reading his books in one hundred >years and nobody will remember or care that he had a remarkable memory. I >did like the "in his bones" metaphor. >Jim _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com From: Alberto Cacicedo [alc@mac.com] Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2001 11:35 AM To: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Angels in America : : : X-Virus-Scanned: by AMaViS-perl11-milter (http://amavis.org/) : Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu As a continuation to the Bible-reading in America thread, I want to report that an article in my local paper today tells us Americans overwhelmingly believe in the existence of angels (77% of respondents) and in their actual and continuing presence on earth (73%). In fact some 20% of respondents say they have actually seen one of the feathered troop. >From skeptical left field, Al Cacicedo From: Stella Revard [srevard@siue.edu] Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2001 11:34 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: To the Latinists among you id fBKGPPZ07520 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu Are you a neo-Latinist and don't know it? Here is an opportunity to find out. Do you use Renaissance Latin in your research? Do you ever cite authors who write in Latin after the age of Petrarch in Italy and Erasmus and More in England. If so, you are a neo-Latinist and don't know it. Here is an opportunity to join the group in Europe and America at the next Neo-Latin Congress to be held in Bonn in 2003. I list the details below. If you would like more information, let me know. Stella Revard President, International Association for Neo-Latin Studies P.S. Milton was a neo-Latinist. The Twelfth International Congress of the International Association for Neo-Latin Studies will take place from 3 August to 9 August 2003 at the Universität Bonn in Bonn, Germany. Abstracts (150-200 words) should be submitted to Prof. Dr. Marc Laureys, Universität Bonn, Seminar für lateinische Philologie des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, Am Hof 1e, D-53113, Bonn, Germany by mail or fax, postmarked no later than 31 March 2002. Forms for the abstracts may be downloaded from the web site of IANLS (http://fuzzy.arts.kuleuven.ac.be/ianls) or obtained from the secretary of IANLS, Prof. Marianne Pade, Københavns Universitet, Institute for Greek and Latin, Njalsgade 80, DK-2300, Copenhagen, Denmark. The theme of the Congress will be "Latein als internationale Wissenschaftssprache seit Beginn der Renaissance" (Latin as the international language of scholarship from the Renaissance to the present). Papers on other aspects of Neo-Latin studies are also welcome. From: Alan Rudrum [rudrum@sfu.ca] Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2001 10:54 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Bloom The name of the list-member who wrote to say that he had never understood why anybody bothered with Bloom has disappeared into the mists of my web-mail, but I want to stand up and be counted with him. Since reading Bloom's commentary on Blake appended to David Erdman's text I haven't bothered with him either. It seemed to me entirely proper that in the British version of that edition Bloom's commentary was dropped. All my subsequent reading of Bloom has been done standing up, in bookshops or in open-shelf libraries; two or three pages have always sufficed to convince me that purchase would be folly and borrowing a waste of time. I'm temped to suggest asking list-members for their views on the most over-rated "scholars" and "critics" of the last fifty years, but this is supposed to be the season of good-will. Alan Rudrum E-MAIL: Please respond to rudrum@sfu.ca, NOT to arudrum@telus.net From: Jim Rovira [jrovira@drew.edu] Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2001 10:27 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Islamic interpretation id fBKFQPa32619 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu Can we be really sure that Milton was being that big a sophist when he said that Christ's teaching about divorce wasn't "Christian"? I think that's a spurious interpretation on Milton's part as well because the context seems to imply that Christ is giving a special rule for his own disciples (which would be Christians, I imagine :) ), but there are dispensational theologies (that I think existed in Milton's day) that understood even many Gospel teachings as being spoken within the context of the Mosaic Law. These readings emphasize that the New Covenant wasn't instituted until Christ's death on the cross (following the Book of Hebrews), so the events we see recorded in the Gospel accounts up until the crucifixion were guided by, and within the context of, Mosaic law. This explains the need for Christ to be baptized by John the Baptist, his willingness to pay the temple tax, his command to his followers to obey the Pharisees and Sadducees because the sit in Moses' seat even though they shouldn't follow their moral example, etc. Is it possible Milton may have been trying to read Christ's teaching about divorce within the context of this kind of theology? Again, I think he would be misapplying even this type of thinking because Christ seems to pretty clearly set his teachings in opposition to that of the Mosaic law (not that he contradicted it, but raised the standard), and seemed to be clearly directing his words to his disciples. Jim P J Stewart wrote: > > Milton's sophistry is marvellous in what he says about Christ's teaching > on divorce not being Christian. The theory that Judaism was a religion of > Law and Christianity a religion of faith and freedom goes back to St Paul, > but the governments of societies with a Christian majority were never > noticeably reluctant to impose laws, often with draconian punishments for > non-compliance. Burning people alive, incidentally, was always forbidden by > Islam, and Muslims viewed their Christian neighbours as barbaric for > adopting it. > As regards Islamic Law, it is not so rigid as is often said. There are at > least eight versions of Sharia Law (four Sunni, three Shi'i and one Ibadi). > For nearly a thousand years the Sunni systems were held by their followers > to have been fixed for all time by the end of the third Islamic century, but > there is now a growing tendency to mix and match laws from the four systems. > The Shi'is and Ibadis have always held that their systems of Sharia could > evolve with time. The most liberal of all are the Ismaili Shi'is, whose head > is the Agha Khan. > The Koran is only one of the four sources of law recognized by most > Muslims, the others being Hadith (accounts of what the Prophet said or did > in various circumstances), Analogical reasoning and the Consensus of the > community. In practice direct application of Koranic laws is limited by the > fact that there are not that many of them, and most of them have been > interpreted in more than one way. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: > To: > Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2001 7:24 PM > Subject: Islamic interpretation > > fBIJONB12069 > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by argyle.richmond.edu > id fBIJO0V30335 > Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu > Precedence: bulk > Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > > Perhaps an important question to be extracted from the current thread is > what Milton would have thought of Islamic hermeneutics. In _DDD_ M > promulgates a model of Christian interpretation as radically free, because > consisting in a liberation from previous unfreedom. "The Sabbath was made > for man, not man for the Sabbath," says the Christ of Milton's divorce > argument, thereby inverting and annihilating (M insists) the Jewish > dispensation of concrete and opaque rule-observance, even while maintaining > that dispensation's rigor and authority. The new law is "there used to be a > law," and the point-form version of this already-simple rule is the single > and flexible word "love." All this, of course, is quintessentially > Protestant and typological (see Herbert's "Jordan (2)" and "Bunch of > Grapes"), as well as running right back to Augustine and, for that matter, > to the Christ of those scriptures that Milton selects. In other words (since > my bias is already showing), Milton's argument is right, and Christianity's > legacy is a radical interpretative freedom founded in the knowledge that God > 1) gave laws, and 2) then took those laws away, even while insisting that he > was fulfilling them thereby. The maneuverability provided by this > construction is evident in _DDD_, where it allows M to deny an entire legal > and cultural tradition by insisting that when Christ spoke against divorce > (as he did), he wasn't being Christian! The mind boggles at such creaturely > impertinence ­ all the more so if the impertinence is, as M contends, > orthodox. > > My question to anybody who knows is: how does this model compare to those > available in Islam? Am I right in suspecting that Islam offers considerably > less freedom in the interpretation of laws and texts of all kinds, because > its scripture comes directly from God's archangel with Muhammad as > amanuensis, and has never been subjected to the sort of erasure that leaves > the human subject in the condition of liberty and doubt? > > JD Fleming > > James Dougal Fleming > Assistant Professor, English > Simon Fraser University > (604) 291-4713 > ============================================================================ > == From: Jim Rovira [jrovira@drew.edu] Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2001 10:45 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: P J Stewart wrote: > > Dear Jim: Please tell me about your Current Events listserve. Thanks! Philip Stewart If I had any brains at all I would have just posted information about subscribing to the list the first time I mentioned it :). Information below. Jim Go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/acadcurrent/ If you're already a member of Yahoo groups, you'll be asked to register for the group. If not, you'll be asked to register with Yahoo Groups -- a free membership that allows you to opt out of receiving junk mail, and set your preferences for how you receive listserve e-mail (individual posts, digest, or view on the web only -- you don't need to receive any e-mail at all if you don't want to). if you have any problems subscribing, please e-mail jrovira@drew.edu. From: jfleming@sfu.ca Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2001 2:05 PM To: philip.stewart@plant-sciences.oxford.ac.uk Cc: milton-l@richmond.edu; jfleming@sfu.ca Subject: Re: Islamic interpretation fBJJ4rB22781 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by argyle.richmond.edu id fBJJ2Oa11534 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu Thank you for this informative response. Of course I do not agree that in _DDD_ M is guilty of "sophistry" in pitting one of Christ's statements (sabbath for man not man for sabbath) against another (Moses only allowed you [the Jews] divorce for your hardness of heart]). He is making an argument, I think a brilliant one, that aligns very nicely with the Christian reinterpretation of Judaism in terms of spirit over letter, faith over law. This reinterpretation, by the way, is surely more than a "theory"; it is one of the central conceptions of the religion (as I understand it), and has left a legacy, as I suggested in my earlier post, of potentially illimitable creaturely interpretative freedom. Has it not? Of course this is not to expect, as you somewhat puzzlingly offer, that Christian or post-Christian countries ought not to have civil and/or criminal laws. At issue here is the creature's relationship with ultimate, not intermediate sources of authority and meaning, and the Christian version of that relationship is paradoxical, not paradisical. But the paradox is key. You sketch, very helpfully, a Moslem dynamic of interpretation and authority among Koran, Hadith etc. I continue to suspect, however, that nothing in this system can compare with the auto-immolation of authority that occurs at the beginning of Christian thinking. When Kazantzakis and Scorsese blasphemed against Christ with their _Last Temptaton_, they attracted a few protesters, who were (it seems to me) theologically out to lunch. When Rushdie represented a sort-of Muhammad in the _Satanic Verses_, millions of Muslims rose up and declared themselves ready to slit his throat. Were they, too, theologically out to lunch? Or is there a difference of kind, not degree, between (post)Christian and Moslem understandings of sacred law? JD Fleming On Wed, 19 Dec 2001 13:35:36 -0000 philip.stewart@plant-sciences.oxford.ac.uk wrote: > Milton's sophistry is marvellous in what he says about Christ's teaching > on divorce not being Christian. The theory that Judaism was a religion of > Law and Christianity a religion of faith and freedom goes back to St Paul, > but the governments of societies with a Christian majority were never > noticeably reluctant to impose laws, often with draconian punishments for > non-compliance. Burning people alive, incidentally, was always forbidden by > Islam, and Muslims viewed their Christian neighbours as barbaric for > adopting it. > As regards Islamic Law, it is not so rigid as is often said. There are at > least eight versions of Sharia Law (four Sunni, three Shi'i and one Ibadi). > For nearly a thousand years the Sunni systems were held by their followers > to have been fixed for all time by the end of the third Islamic century, > but there is now a growing tendency to mix and match laws from the four > systems. The Shi'is and Ibadis have always held that their systems of > Sharia could evolve with time. The most liberal of all are the Ismaili > Shi'is, whose head is the Agha Khan. > The Koran is only one of the four sources of law recognized by most > Muslims, the others being Hadith (accounts of what the Prophet said or did > in various circumstances), Analogical reasoning and the Consensus of the > community. In practice direct application of Koranic laws is limited by the > fact that there are not that many of them, and most of them have been > interpreted in more than one way. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: > To: > Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2001 7:24 PM > Subject: Islamic interpretation > > > fBIJONB12069 > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by argyle.richmond.edu > id fBIJO0V30335 > Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu > Precedence: bulk > Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > > Perhaps an important question to be extracted from the current thread is > what Milton would have thought of Islamic hermeneutics. In _DDD_ M > promulgates a model of Christian interpretation as radically free, because > consisting in a liberation from previous unfreedom. "The Sabbath was made > for man, not man for the Sabbath," says the Christ of Milton's divorce > argument, thereby inverting and annihilating (M insists) the Jewish > dispensation of concrete and opaque rule-observance, even while maintaining > that dispensation's rigor and authority. The new law is "there used to be a > law," and the point-form version of this already-simple rule is the single > and flexible word "love." All this, of course, is quintessentially > Protestant and typological (see Herbert's "Jordan (2)" and "Bunch of > Grapes"), as well as running right back to Augustine and, for that matter, > to the Christ of those scriptures that Milton selects. In other words > (since my bias is already showing), Milton's argument is right, and > Christianity's legacy is a radical interpretative freedom founded in the > knowledge that God 1) gave laws, and 2) then took those laws away, even > while insisting that he was fulfilling them thereby. The maneuverability > provided by this construction is evident in _DDD_, where it allows M to > deny an entire legal and cultural tradition by insisting that when Christ > spoke against divorce (as he did), he wasn't being Christian! The mind > boggles at such creaturely impertinence ­ all the more so if the > impertinence is, as M contends, orthodox. > > My question to anybody who knows is: how does this model compare to those > available in Islam? Am I right in suspecting that Islam offers considerably > less freedom in the interpretation of laws and texts of all kinds, because > its scripture comes directly from God's archangel with Muhammad as > amanuensis, and has never been subjected to the sort of erasure that leaves > the human subject in the condition of liberty and doubt? > > JD Fleming > > James Dougal Fleming > Assistant Professor, English > Simon Fraser University > (604) 291-4713 > ============================================================================ > == James Dougal Fleming Assistant Professor, English Simon Fraser University (604) 291-4713 ============================================================================ == From: P J Stewart [philip.stewart@plant-sciences.oxford.ac.uk] Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2001 5:53 AM To: jfleming@sfu.ca Cc: Milton-l Subject: Re: Islamic interpretation Dear JDF, If Kazantzakis had written his book any time between 312 and say 1600 he would have been hetero-immolated. Can we say that an auto-immolation of authority is intrinsically Christian if it took so long to surface? It was Protestant Christianity rather than Christianity per se that made individual conscience theoretically sovereign over authority, though it took centuries for Protestants to draw all the conclusions. To outsiders it looks as though the loss of authority in Christian society results from the impossibility of resolving the contradictions in the Bible. How can the genocidal God of the Book of Joshua be resolved with the Suffering God of St Paul? Islam lacks that internal conflict, in that the whole Koran came in twenty years of the lifetime of one man. There was nevertheless a near-reformation in the third Islamic century, based on reinterpreting the Koran metaphorically - a reformation that did not take over Islam, but never completely went away. The problem for present-day reformists is that - after centuries of Western colonialism - they are torpedoed by charges of Westernization. Philip Stewart ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Cc: ; Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2001 7:04 PM Subject: Re: Islamic interpretation Thank you for this informative response. Of course I do not agree that in _DDD_ M is guilty of "sophistry" in pitting one of Christ's statements (sabbath for man not man for sabbath) against another (Moses only allowed you [the Jews] divorce for your hardness of heart]). He is making an argument, I think a brilliant one, that aligns very nicely with the Christian reinterpretation of Judaism in terms of spirit over letter, faith over law. This reinterpretation, by the way, is surely more than a "theory"; it is one of the central conceptions of the religion (as I understand it), and has left a legacy, as I suggested in my earlier post, of potentially illimitable creaturely interpretative freedom. Has it not? Of course this is not to expect, as you somewhat puzzlingly offer, that Christian or post-Christian countries ought not to have civil and/or criminal laws. At issue here is the creature's relationship with ultimate, not intermediate sources of authority and meaning, and the Christian version of that relationship is paradoxical, not paradisical. But the paradox is key. You sketch, very helpfully, a Moslem dynamic of interpretation and authority among Koran, Hadith etc. I continue to suspect, however, that nothing in this system can compare with the auto-immolation of authority that occurs at the beginning of Christian thinking. When Kazantzakis and Scorsese blasphemed against Christ with their _Last Temptaton_, they attracted a few protesters, who were (it seems to me) theologically out to lunch. When Rushdie represented a sort-of Muhammad in the _Satanic Verses_, millions of Muslims rose up and declared themselves ready to slit his throat. Were they, too, theologically out to lunch? Or is there a difference of kind, not degree, between (post)Christian and Moslem understandings of sacred law? JD Fleming On Wed, 19 Dec 2001 13:35:36 -0000 philip.stewart@plant-sciences.oxford.ac.uk wrote: > Milton's sophistry is marvellous in what he says about Christ's teaching > on divorce not being Christian. The theory that Judaism was a religion of > Law and Christianity a religion of faith and freedom goes back to St Paul, > but the governments of societies with a Christian majority were never > noticeably reluctant to impose laws, often with draconian punishments for > non-compliance. Burning people alive, incidentally, was always forbidden by > Islam, and Muslims viewed their Christian neighbours as barbaric for > adopting it. > As regards Islamic Law, it is not so rigid as is often said. There are at > least eight versions of Sharia Law (four Sunni, three Shi'i and one Ibadi). > For nearly a thousand years the Sunni systems were held by their followers > to have been fixed for all time by the end of the third Islamic century, > but there is now a growing tendency to mix and match laws from the four > systems. The Shi'is and Ibadis have always held that their systems of > Sharia could evolve with time. The most liberal of all are the Ismaili > Shi'is, whose head is the Agha Khan. > The Koran is only one of the four sources of law recognized by most > Muslims, the others being Hadith (accounts of what the Prophet said or did > in various circumstances), Analogical reasoning and the Consensus of the > community. In practice direct application of Koranic laws is limited by the > fact that there are not that many of them, and most of them have been > interpreted in more than one way. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: > To: > Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2001 7:24 PM > Subject: Islamic interpretation > > > fBIJONB12069 > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by argyle.richmond.edu > id fBIJO0V30335 > Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu > Precedence: bulk > Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > > Perhaps an important question to be extracted from the current thread is > what Milton would have thought of Islamic hermeneutics. In _DDD_ M > promulgates a model of Christian interpretation as radically free, because > consisting in a liberation from previous unfreedom. "The Sabbath was made > for man, not man for the Sabbath," says the Christ of Milton's divorce > argument, thereby inverting and annihilating (M insists) the Jewish > dispensation of concrete and opaque rule-observance, even while maintaining > that dispensation's rigor and authority. The new law is "there used to be a > law," and the point-form version of this already-simple rule is the single > and flexible word "love." All this, of course, is quintessentially > Protestant and typological (see Herbert's "Jordan (2)" and "Bunch of > Grapes"), as well as running right back to Augustine and, for that matter, > to the Christ of those scriptures that Milton selects. In other words > (since my bias is already showing), Milton's argument is right, and > Christianity's legacy is a radical interpretative freedom founded in the > knowledge that God 1) gave laws, and 2) then took those laws away, even > while insisting that he was fulfilling them thereby. The maneuverability > provided by this construction is evident in _DDD_, where it allows M to > deny an entire legal and cultural tradition by insisting that when Christ > spoke against divorce (as he did), he wasn't being Christian! The mind > boggles at such creaturely impertinence ­ all the more so if the > impertinence is, as M contends, orthodox. > > My question to anybody who knows is: how does this model compare to those > available in Islam? Am I right in suspecting that Islam offers considerably > less freedom in the interpretation of laws and texts of all kinds, because > its scripture comes directly from God's archangel with Muhammad as > amanuensis, and has never been subjected to the sort of erasure that leaves > the human subject in the condition of liberty and doubt? > > JD Fleming > > James Dougal Fleming > Assistant Professor, English > Simon Fraser University > (604) 291-4713 > ============================================================================ > == James Dougal Fleming Assistant Professor, English Simon Fraser University (604) 291-4713 ============================================================================ == From: Seb Perry [sebperry@hotmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2001 2:15 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: oddity On the subject of Islam's relationship with Christianity, perhaps the following article from today's Telegraph will be of interest: *** No offence, but Muslims love Jesus as much as Christians do By John Casey (Filed: 19/12/2001) SOME years ago, an agnostic friend of mine married a Jewish woman who practised her faith seriously. He took instruction in Judaism and seemed quite likely to convert - but eventually did not. His chief reason was that he remained agnostic. But there was another obstacle that surprised even himself: "I found that I just did not want to give up Jesus." In European culture, there is no getting away from Jesus even if you are agnostic. True, Nietzsche tried to reject him with detestation and contempt, calling him an "idiot", a purveyor of a sick, decadent view of the world. Nietzsche thought that the only figure in the New Testament who commands respect is Pontius Pilate. Yet the very ferocity of Nietzsche's onslaught on Jesus showed how strong in his heart was the image he wanted to destroy. Now, what if my friend had married a Muslim? The interesting thing is that he could have kept Jesus - not the Jesus who was the Son of God, admittedly, and who was crucified, but certainly the Jesus who was Messiah and miracle worker, who conversed regularly with God, who was born of a virgin and who ascended into heaven. Jesus is referred to quite often in the Koran, six times under the title "Messiah". Yet I had long supposed that the importance of Jesus as prophet in Muslim tradition was not much more than a matter of lip-service, something to which Muslims gave (to use Cardinal Newman's distinction) "notional" rather than "real" assent. This impression was strengthened when I went to Ur of the Chaldees in southern Iraq and visited the so-called house of Abraham. It is only a few piles of sun-baked mud bricks, but you would have expected hundreds of Muslim Arabs to be visiting the birth-place of their Patriarch. I saw none - whereas the shrines of Muslim martyrs in Najaf and Kerbala were thronged. I assumed, therefore, that Jesus must be a marginal figure in the Muslim world. How wrong this assumption was I have learnt by reading a fascinating and instructive book, The Muslim Jesus, by the Cambridge academic Tarif Khalidi. Professor Khalidi has brought together, from a vast range of sources, most of the stories, sayings and traditions of Jesus that are to be found in Muslim piety from the earliest times. The Muslim Jesus is an ascetic, a man of voluntary poverty, humility and long-suffering. He literally turns the other cheek, allowing his face to be slapped twice in order to protect two of his disciples. He teaches the return of good for evil: "Jesus used to say, 'Charity does not mean doing good to him who does good to you . . . Charity means that you should do good to him who does you harm.' " He loves the poor and embraces poverty: "The day Jesus was raised to heaven, he left behind nothing but a woollen garment, a slingshot and two sandals." He preaches against attachment to worldly things: "Jesus said, `He who seeks worldly things is like the man who drinks sea water: the more he drinks, the more thirsty he becomes, until it kills him.' " Many of the sayings of the Muslim Jesus are clearly derived from Biblical sources - "Place your treasures in heaven, for the heart of man is where his treasure is"; "Look at the birds coming and going! They neither reap nor plough, and God provides for them." Sometimes there is a sort of gloss on words of Jesus from the Gospel: "Oh disciples, do not cast pearls before swine, for the swine can do nothing with them . . . wisdom is more precious than pearls and whoever rejects wisdom is worse than a swine." He is certainly a wonder-worker. He often raises the dead, and gives his disciples power to do the same. More than once he comes across a skull and restores it to life, on one occasion granting salvation to a person who had been damned. The skulls, like everyone else in these stories, address Jesus as "Spirit of God". Once he is even addressed as "Word of God". I once had a conversation with members of Hizbollah in Beirut. One of them said this: "The greatness of Islam is that we combine Judaism and Christianity. Jesus freed enslaved hearts, he was able to release human feeling, to reveal a kingdom of peace. Jesus's realm was the realm of soul. Jesus is soul; Moses is mind, the mind of the legislator. In Islam, we interweave both." This is certainly the Jesus of these stories - the Jesus of the mystical Sufi tradition. The great Muslim philosopher Al-Ghazali actually called Jesus "Prophet of the heart". The Muslim Jesus is not divine, but a humble servant of God. He was not crucified - Islam insists that the story of the killing of Jesus is false. He is, as it were, Jesus as he might have been without St Paul or St Augustine or the Council of Nicaea. He is not the cold figure of English Unitarianism, and he is less grand than the exalted human of the Arians. As you read these stories, what comes across most powerfully is that the Muslim Jesus is intensely loved. There is an element of St Francis of Assisi. It is good to be reminded, especially now, of the intimate connections there have been between Islam and Christianity, and how close in spirit Muslim and Christian piety can come to each other. Curiously enough, the Muslim Jesus, shorn of all claims of divinity, could be more easily held on to by my agnostic friend than the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. One other thing: since Muslims deny the Crucifixion, their emphasis has been on the wonders surrounding the birth of "Jesus Son of Mary", born as his mother sat under a palm tree, and miraculously speaking from within the womb. There really is no reason why schools that put on Nativity plays, or anyone who wants to insist on the Christian meaning of Christmas, should fear that they may offend Muslim sensibilities, for Jesus really is shared by both faiths. The Muslim Jesus by Tarif Khalidi (Harvard University Press) is available from Telegraph Books Direct at £15.95 plus £1.99 p&p. To order, call 0870 155 7222 John Casey is a fellow of Gonville and Caius, Cambridge *** Regards, Seb. _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com From: Seb Perry [sebperry@hotmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2001 6:43 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Bloom of youth To my shame I've never been able to understand why anyone pays Bloom any attention. As far as I can remember, the Anxiety of Influence has one good idea in it that's expressed in the title and explained clearly enough in the preface. After that it became a morass of wilfully obscure and (to me at least) unintelligible Greek phrases. As for The Invention of the Human, I've never read a more turgid and useless book on Shakespeare. If anyone's interested, I wrote a short and dismissive review of it, which may be accessed here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thedyershand/files/Invention.htm I should add that it was written for my own amusement and thus features a few remarks that would never see the light of publication. Regards, Seb Perry. >From: CLINTON_JAMES_JR_NONLILLY@Lilly.com >Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu >To: milton-l@richmond.edu >Subject: Re: memorizing Milton >Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 13:57:46 -0500 > >Sara, > >My comment was about memorization for its own sake, not about Harold >Bloom. There has never been anyone like him. It's fitting that he's a >department of one. "The Anxiety of Influence" and "A Map of Misreading" >were to my generation what Northrup Frye's work was to Bloom's. It >changed how we read. They will still be reading his books in one hundred >years and nobody will remember or care that he had a remarkable memory. I >did like the "in his bones" metaphor. >Jim _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com From: durocher@stolaf.edu Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2001 3:18 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Cc: durocher@stolaf.edu Subject: Milton among the Romans Duquesne University Press has just published, as the latest title in its Medieval & Renaissance Literary Studies series, MILTON AMONG THE ROMANS: THE PEDAGODY AND INFLUENCE OF MILTON'S LATIN CURRICULUM, by Richard J. DuRocher. The blushing author asks you to forgive the shamless self-promotion, but he felt that you may be interested in the subject. Several members of the list, indeed, will find their names mentioned in the Appendix, with gratitude, and other Miltonists enter the pages later. Duquesne will have the book at MLA in New Orleans, and particularly at the Milton Society Dinner. Anyone wishing to purchase the book directly can contact CUP Services at 800-666-2211, or email . Thanks to all of you who have put up with my essays on Milton and the Romans for the past twelve years, and hoping for kind reviews shortly, Rich DuRocher Professor of English St. Olaf College durocher@stolaf.edu (507) 646-3206 From: Larry Isitt [isitt@cofo.edu] Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2001 11:36 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: oddity id fBJGbNZ26337 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu I realize that in the following I am wandering from the concerns of the Milton-L and will carry on any further discussions off-line, should any desire to do so. To Philip Stewart: The very history you cite of hostilities is the demonstration of this historical dilemma: Islam is anti-Christian and Christianity is anti-Islam. You say, "As for the Anti-Christ...! Get real!" When I use the term anti-Christ I mean it in this sense: Islam is against Christ as being God's only Son, and I quoted the Koran to show this. Muslims have never changed in their belief concerning Christ. Nor are there today any modern Muslim states that permit Christian missionaries to openly proselytize Muslims. You insist that "It is laughable to suggest that Muslim rejection of belief in the literal resurrection makes them enemies of Christians." Without bodily resurrection there is no Christianity and no divine savior (see Paul's defense of literal bodily resurrection as being at the heart of the Christian hope in 1 Cor 15). The Koran dispenses with this doctrine because failure to do so means that Muhammad is not the superior spokesman for Allah afterall, especially since there is no claim made in the Muslim world for his divinity, as there is in the Christian for Jesus Christ (the Church Councils of Nicea 325, Constaninople 381, Ephesus 431, and Chalcedon 451 establish this view). You speak of "Christian friends" who you say "go further in demythologizing the Bible": do you mean that they go further than you do? If they (and you) deny the historical importance of literal bodily resurrection, then it is not surprising that they would find my point laughably naive and simplistic. Larry Isitt English Dept. College of the Ozarks Point Lookout, MO 65726 417-334-6411, Ext. 4269 email: isitt @ cofo.edu -----Original Message----- From: P J Stewart [mailto:philip.stewart@plant-sciences.oxford.ac.uk] Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2001 8:38 AM To: Milton-l Subject: Re: oddity What more terrifying than having a colony established on your holiest shore with a potential immigration of more than ten million and backed by the most powerful nation on earth, the destroyer of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? As for the suggestion that Islam is anti-Christian, Larry Isitt needs to read a little history. When the perscution of Muslims first began in Mecca, Muhammad encouraged his followers to seek refuge in Abyssinia because he thought they would be safe under the protection of a Christian sovereign. After the submission of Mecca he received a Christian delegation from Najran in southern Arabia; they debated theology for several days and then parted on friendly terms. It is thought to be in the wake of this visit that the Koran said: 'You will certainly find the closest in affection towards the faithful are those who call themselves Christians; that is because among them are scholars and monks, and because they are not proud.' It was only in the last two years of his life that Muhammad learnt that the Christian Arab tribe of Ghassan, clients of the Byzantines, were preparing an attack, and his last expeditions were defensive ones against them. But the Koran never told Muslims to fight against the People of the Book (Christians and Jews) if the latter did not attack them. Within five years of Muhammad's death, the Muslims conquered Syria. The Caliph Omar sent letters to the Christian leaders of all the towns assuring them that they could practise their religion, keep their churches, their crosses and their property and that the sick and the well would be protected. The Byzantines had abolished the Jewish Patriarchate, but soon the Jews of Syria reemerged under the tolerant control of the Muslims. It is laughable to suggest that Muslim rejection of belief in the literal resurrection makes them enemies of Christians. Many of my Christian friends go further in demythologizing the Bible. As for the Anti-Christ...! Get real! Anyway, let's get back to Milton. I supplied a quote from Cromwell and Rose Williams has supplied that wonderful quote from her ancestor; where did Milton stand on tolerance of non-Christian religions? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Larry Isitt" To: Sent: Monday, December 17, 2001 4:04 PM Subject: RE: oddity > id fBHG6LZ20191 > Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu > Precedence: bulk > Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > > P.J. Stewart writes (in part): "I think the USA has genuinely terrified > the Muslim world since 1948, > when Truman recognized Israel 10 minutes after it had been declared . . > ." > > To recognize is not to terrify, as that word is currently employed to > describe groups deliberately killing civilians in non-war situations. > Truman recognized Israel because Palestine is their homeland. That such > an action "terrified the Muslim world" is not an act of terror on our > part. Such casual usage of the term is to link us unfairly with > terrorists the like of those we currently face in Afghanistan in the > Al-Queda organization. > > Muhammed is against Christ and thus your statement that "the traditional > Christians' idea that Muhammad was the Anti-Christ" is not without > foundation in the centuries of antagonism between the two beliefs. The > Koran is unmistakable in its denunciation of Judaism and Christianity > (despite its recognition of the two in certain passages). For example, > the Koran denies absolutely the historicity of Jesus' death and > resurrection. Jesus is but "an apostle" (5.75), not the Son of God in an > absolute divine sense. His death on the cross did not even happen: > > "And their saying: Surely we have killed the Messiah, Isa son of Marium, > the apostle of Allah; and they did not kill him nor did they crucify > him, but it appeared to them so (like Isa) and most surely those who > differ therein are only in a doubt about it; they have no knowledge > respecting it, but only follow a conjecture, and they killed him not for > sure (4.157)." > > What exactly do you mean by "After all, their [traditional Christians'] > only guide to post-New-Testament history was the Book of Revelation!"? > Your exclamation mark makes it seem as though you hold such belief as > perfect lunacy and naivete. Your so-called traditional Christians do > read history too and they now and again have dipped into the pages of > the Koran and seen there its anti-Christian bias, denying the death of > Christ on the Cross and its exultation of Mohammed as supreme spokesman > for Allah. > > Larry Isitt > English Dept. > College of the Ozarks > Point Lookout, MO 65726 > 417-334-6411, Ext. 4269 > email: isitt @ cofo.edu > > -----Original Message----- > From: P J Stewart [mailto:philip.stewart@plant-sciences.oxford.ac.uk] > Sent: Friday, December 14, 2001 9:42 AM > To: Milton-l > Subject: oddity > > > > Every internet group I've ever belonged to goes through periodic > crises of > heated denunciation. I hope my remark about America's 'oddity' is not to > blame for the current outbreak of hostilities. What strikes me is that > there is something very 17th-century about America. I'm sure that in the > stage-coaches of Milton's England there were many Bible-reading > passengers, > and it struck me that my son's observation about the New York subway > might > tie in with the fact that 90% of this internet group seems to be > American > (my first milton-l e-mails of each day arrive in a rush at 1 pm > Greenwich > time, which is 8 am Eastern Standard Time). Do Americans feel a special > empathy with 17th century literature? > I would like to help to defuse the controversy about whether America > has > 'terrorized the world' for the last 50 years. Not the whole world > perhaps, > but I think the USA has genuinely terrified the Muslim world since 1948, > when Truman recognized Israel 10 minutes after it had been declared, > while > his delegation at the UN was debating an American proposal for a UN > trusteeship to succeed the UK Mandate. The colossal misjudgement of the > Arab > world that has characterized US Middle East policy ever since must > surely be > the modern version of the traditional Christians' idea that Muhammad was > the > Anti-Christ. After all, their only guide to post-New-Testament history > was > the Book of Revelation! > And what about Milton? What would he have thought of Oliver > Cromwell's > remark "I had rather that Mohometanism were permitted amongst us than > that > one of God's children should be persecuted"? With Suleyman the > Magnificent > at the gates of Vienna, an Islamic Europe seemed a real possibility. > Philip Stewart > > > From: Peter C. Herman [herman2@mail.sdsu.edu] Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2001 10:46 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: oddity > Anyway, let's get back to Milton. I supplied a quote from Cromwell and >Rose Williams has supplied that wonderful quote from her ancestor; where did >Milton stand on tolerance of non-Christian religions? My memory is hazy here, but isn't Milton's signature notably missing from the document allowing the Jews to (officially) return to England? And he certainly does not have kind things to say about either Catholics in Areopagitica or the East throughout the entirety of PL. My guess, and I emphasize *guess*, is that he would not have tolerated non-Christian religions. Happy Holidays to all in this strange and "scambling" time, Peter C. Herman >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Larry Isitt" >To: >Sent: Monday, December 17, 2001 4:04 PM >Subject: RE: oddity > > > > id fBHG6LZ20191 > > Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu > > Precedence: bulk > > Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > > > > P.J. Stewart writes (in part): "I think the USA has genuinely terrified > > the Muslim world since 1948, > > when Truman recognized Israel 10 minutes after it had been declared . . > > ." > > > > To recognize is not to terrify, as that word is currently employed to > > describe groups deliberately killing civilians in non-war situations. > > Truman recognized Israel because Palestine is their homeland. That such > > an action "terrified the Muslim world" is not an act of terror on our > > part. Such casual usage of the term is to link us unfairly with > > terrorists the like of those we currently face in Afghanistan in the > > Al-Queda organization. > > > > Muhammed is against Christ and thus your statement that "the traditional > > Christians' idea that Muhammad was the Anti-Christ" is not without > > foundation in the centuries of antagonism between the two beliefs. The > > Koran is unmistakable in its denunciation of Judaism and Christianity > > (despite its recognition of the two in certain passages). For example, > > the Koran denies absolutely the historicity of Jesus' death and > > resurrection. Jesus is but "an apostle" (5.75), not the Son of God in an > > absolute divine sense. His death on the cross did not even happen: > > > > "And their saying: Surely we have killed the Messiah, Isa son of Marium, > > the apostle of Allah; and they did not kill him nor did they crucify > > him, but it appeared to them so (like Isa) and most surely those who > > differ therein are only in a doubt about it; they have no knowledge > > respecting it, but only follow a conjecture, and they killed him not for > > sure (4.157)." > > > > What exactly do you mean by "After all, their [traditional Christians'] > > only guide to post-New-Testament history was the Book of Revelation!"? > > Your exclamation mark makes it seem as though you hold such belief as > > perfect lunacy and naivete. Your so-called traditional Christians do > > read history too and they now and again have dipped into the pages of > > the Koran and seen there its anti-Christian bias, denying the death of > > Christ on the Cross and its exultation of Mohammed as supreme spokesman > > for Allah. > > > > Larry Isitt > > English Dept. > > College of the Ozarks > > Point Lookout, MO 65726 > > 417-334-6411, Ext. 4269 > > email: isitt @ cofo.edu > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: P J Stewart [mailto:philip.stewart@plant-sciences.oxford.ac.uk] > > Sent: Friday, December 14, 2001 9:42 AM > > To: Milton-l > > Subject: oddity > > > > > > > > Every internet group I've ever belonged to goes through periodic > > crises of > > heated denunciation. I hope my remark about America's 'oddity' is not to > > blame for the current outbreak of hostilities. What strikes me is that > > there is something very 17th-century about America. I'm sure that in the > > stage-coaches of Milton's England there were many Bible-reading > > passengers, > > and it struck me that my son's observation about the New York subway > > might > > tie in with the fact that 90% of this internet group seems to be > > American > > (my first milton-l e-mails of each day arrive in a rush at 1 pm > > Greenwich > > time, which is 8 am Eastern Standard Time). Do Americans feel a special > > empathy with 17th century literature? > > I would like to help to defuse the controversy about whether America > > has > > 'terrorized the world' for the last 50 years. Not the whole world > > perhaps, > > but I think the USA has genuinely terrified the Muslim world since 1948, > > when Truman recognized Israel 10 minutes after it had been declared, > > while > > his delegation at the UN was debating an American proposal for a UN > > trusteeship to succeed the UK Mandate. The colossal misjudgement of the > > Arab > > world that has characterized US Middle East policy ever since must > > surely be > > the modern version of the traditional Christians' idea that Muhammad was > > the > > Anti-Christ. After all, their only guide to post-New-Testament history > > was > > the Book of Revelation! > > And what about Milton? What would he have thought of Oliver > > Cromwell's > > remark "I had rather that Mohometanism were permitted amongst us than > > that > > one of God's children should be persecuted"? With Suleyman the > > Magnificent > > at the gates of Vienna, an Islamic Europe seemed a real possibility. > > Philip Stewart > > > > > > From: P J Stewart [philip.stewart@plant-sciences.oxford.ac.uk] Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2001 8:36 AM To: jfleming@sfu.ca Cc: Milton-l Subject: Re: Islamic interpretation Milton's sophistry is marvellous in what he says about Christ's teaching on divorce not being Christian. The theory that Judaism was a religion of Law and Christianity a religion of faith and freedom goes back to St Paul, but the governments of societies with a Christian majority were never noticeably reluctant to impose laws, often with draconian punishments for non-compliance. Burning people alive, incidentally, was always forbidden by Islam, and Muslims viewed their Christian neighbours as barbaric for adopting it. As regards Islamic Law, it is not so rigid as is often said. There are at least eight versions of Sharia Law (four Sunni, three Shi'i and one Ibadi). For nearly a thousand years the Sunni systems were held by their followers to have been fixed for all time by the end of the third Islamic century, but there is now a growing tendency to mix and match laws from the four systems. The Shi'is and Ibadis have always held that their systems of Sharia could evolve with time. The most liberal of all are the Ismaili Shi'is, whose head is the Agha Khan. The Koran is only one of the four sources of law recognized by most Muslims, the others being Hadith (accounts of what the Prophet said or did in various circumstances), Analogical reasoning and the Consensus of the community. In practice direct application of Koranic laws is limited by the fact that there are not that many of them, and most of them have been interpreted in more than one way. ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2001 7:24 PM Subject: Islamic interpretation fBIJONB12069 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by argyle.richmond.edu id fBIJO0V30335 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu Perhaps an important question to be extracted from the current thread is what Milton would have thought of Islamic hermeneutics. In _DDD_ M promulgates a model of Christian interpretation as radically free, because consisting in a liberation from previous unfreedom. "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath," says the Christ of Milton's divorce argument, thereby inverting and annihilating (M insists) the Jewish dispensation of concrete and opaque rule-observance, even while maintaining that dispensation's rigor and authority. The new law is "there used to be a law," and the point-form version of this already-simple rule is the single and flexible word "love." All this, of course, is quintessentially Protestant and typological (see Herbert's "Jordan (2)" and "Bunch of Grapes"), as well as running right back to Augustine and, for that matter, to the Christ of those scriptures that Milton selects. In other words (since my bias is already showing), Milton's argument is right, and Christianity's legacy is a radical interpretative freedom founded in the knowledge that God 1) gave laws, and 2) then took those laws away, even while insisting that he was fulfilling them thereby. The maneuverability provided by this construction is evident in _DDD_, where it allows M to deny an entire legal and cultural tradition by insisting that when Christ spoke against divorce (as he did), he wasn't being Christian! The mind boggles at such creaturely impertinence ­ all the more so if the impertinence is, as M contends, orthodox. My question to anybody who knows is: how does this model compare to those available in Islam? Am I right in suspecting that Islam offers considerably less freedom in the interpretation of laws and texts of all kinds, because its scripture comes directly from God's archangel with Muhammad as amanuensis, and has never been subjected to the sort of erasure that leaves the human subject in the condition of liberty and doubt? JD Fleming James Dougal Fleming Assistant Professor, English Simon Fraser University (604) 291-4713 ============================================================================ == From: Duncan Kinder [duncan@neoclassicists.net] Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2001 9:37 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu <005001c187d1$9e186cc0$452401a3@plants.ox.ac.uk> Subject: Re: oddity Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 09:38:11 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - host7.hrwebservices.net X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - richmond.edu X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [0 0] / [0 0] X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - neoclassicists.net Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu Since we insist on proceeding with this topic, may I point out that - regardless of their other differences - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all revere the Old Testament prophets. It seems that all discussions about the three religions seem to boil down to a haggle about their obvious and apparently irreconcilable differences respecting Christ and Mohammed. If, instead, these differences were to be tabled and discussion instead were to proceed about the prophets, what is prophecy, and similar topics, something productive might instead result. We might even eventually reach a topic that somehow enhances our understanding of Milton. (E.g., what is the relationship between prophecy and poetry?). Duncan C. Kinder duncan@neoclassicists.net From: Cynthia Gilliatt [gilliaca@jmu.edu] Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2001 8:23 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu; milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Johnny Mnemonic There are all kinds of memorizing, I suspect. As an Episcipal priest, and a likelong Episcopalian, I know the texts of the liturgy extremely well when I am worshiping, when I am in church, but am not sure how steady I would be if someone said: "Recite Rite II Holy Eucharist, using Eucharistic Prayer C." Most priests I know make sure, no matter how well they know the liturgy, to have the Altar Book within sight. Music is another part of it - I am truely awed that my diocesan bishop never needs a hymnal for any of the verses of any hymn; but he too is aware of the pitfalls of memory alone. He tells the story of celebrating the Eucharist without the book, using Prayer C, in which, he says, he inadvertently invented a new creation story. The text reads, in recounting God's acts towards us, "From the primal elements you brought forth..." - my bishop heard himself say loud and clear, "From the primal elephants you brought forth..." I am sure, as someone speculated on this list earlier, that many of us who teach PL often in fact have much of it in memory, but probably not as a recitation piece...and speaking of peace [ha ha], let me wish it to dwell in our hearts in this holy season - Cynthia G. ------------------- Cynthia Gilliatt From cowardice, that shuns new truth, English Dept. From indolence, content with half truths, J. M. U. From arrogance, that claims all truth, Good Lord, deliver us. Member, JMU Safe Zones English Department James Madison University MSC 1801 Harrisonburg VA 22807 From: P J Stewart [philip.stewart@plant-sciences.oxford.ac.uk] Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2001 9:37 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu <3C1F537E.82B2ED52@drew.edu> Subject: Re: odd Bible-reading Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 13:43:44 -0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.3018.1300 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.3018.1300 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu Dear Jim: Please tell me about your Current Events listserve. Thanks! Philip Stewart ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Rovira" To: Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2001 2:32 PM Subject: Re: odd Bible-reading > Responses below. Again, anyone interested in continuing this discussion > off list in a Current Events listserve, please e-mail jrovira@drew.edu. > > Larry Isitt wrote: > > > > Jim, > > Was the alternative to fighting communism, a worldwide serious threat to > > peace, not to fight it at all? When you say America has "supported every > > two bit dictator" . . . in our fight against communism" do you contend > > instead that we should have been fighting or supporting the communist > > side of these political equations? In China, Korea, S. Vietnam, for > > instances? If you do,then are you not distorting the threat Communism at > > the time presented to our safety and worldwide interests? > > > > The alternatives are hardly that simple. We weren't confronted with a > choice between severe right wing oppressive dictators and communist > dictators. At times -- as in the case of Panama -- we overthrew > democratically elected goverments and set dictators (like Noriega) in > place. I believe that was the case in Iran as well. > > Yes, I believe Khomeini was aware of the role the US played in the world, > but especially in his own country, and was motivated by that to call the US > the "great Satan" and the "world devourer." That last phrase is especially > interesting, given that we were supporting US business interests and > attempting to control world resources through our post WW II foreign > policy. It wasn't just about fighting communism, although that did very > strongly motivate us. > > > Further, when you say that we Americans "have supported terrible human > > rights abuses indirectly" what do you mean exactly? That we should > > better have been about the business of reform before deciding to stop > > Communist aggressions in those countries? Or perhaps have done nothing > > at all while watching Communism sweep away the dictatorships and > > human-rights abusers for us--only to replace them with worse? Where in > > the universe of communism are the human rights champions? > > > > It's pretty facile to assume all communist takeovers would automatically > instilling a "worse" regime. I can't imagine a regime worse than Noriega's > or the Shah's. I'm hardly saying that communist governments were "better" > than dictatorial governments -- in many cases, if not most, they were not. > Perhaps if we worked with these governments instead of tried to overthrow > them we may have been more successful in keeping the "dirty Russkies" out. > I think it's a mistake to think people overseas don't know what we're > doing, though. > > I worked with a man from Argentina who told me the right wing dictatorship > there in the late 70s, early 80s made 30,000 people just "disappear," one > of them being his own brother (the reason why I was in America talking to > him. He finally gained US citizenship and was quite ecstatic). He said > that Jimmy Carter put a lot of pressure on that country because of its > human rights abuses and it made a lot of difference. Then when Reagan took > power, he didn't really care what the government did...and that's when my > co-worker felt he had to escape. > > So yes, Virginia, people around the world are aware of who we support and > how they are able to act because of our support (and the type of support we > give them). I think we're imposing a pretty stubborn blindness upon > ourselves if we think that supporting people who oppress their own people > is going to win us the love of people around the world. > > Sometimes they might even be inclined to retaliate...as we do when we're > attacked. > > Jim > > > From: Jim Rovira [jrovira@drew.edu] Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2001 9:26 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: odd Bible-reading Yes, I'm very sorry about that...someone else pointed that out to me off list. Jim "Dr. Carol Barton" wrote: > > ->sigh<- MR. Carrol Cox's position in no way proceeds from or is connected > with MS. Carol Barton's position on this subject, which has not even been > put forth . . . a disclaimer I felt duty-bound to make, lest the customary > confusion of one with the other proliferate. > > Carol (one R and female) Barton > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: > To: > Sent: Monday, December 17, 2001 10:55 AM > Subject: Re: odd Bible-reading > > > > > The assumption that anyone dismissive of Carol's position is handicapped > > by a fundamental "ignorance of US policies and activities overseas since > > WWII" is more offensive than Carol's position. The assertion that "we've > > supported every two-bit dictator across the planet across the face of the > > earth in our fight against communism" speaks for itself. Do you make > > this up as you go along ? > > > > JC > > > > > > > > > > > > > > James Rovira > > Sent by: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu > > 01/14/2002 06:11 PM > > Please respond to milton-l > > > > > > To: milton-l@richmond.edu > > cc: > > Subject: Re: odd Bible-reading > > > > > > > > No, Carol says things like this because she's informed about some of the > > realities of US involvement overseas. What we did in and to Panama, > > killing > > hundreds of civilians and essentially pre-empting the soverignty of the > > country, > > was completely shameless. We've supported every two bit dictator across > > the > > planet across the face of the earth in our fight against communism, and > > have > > supported terrible human rights abuses indirectly that way as well. In > > Iran, we > > funded and trained the Shah who used our money and training to brutalize > > his own > > people. And then we wonder why the revolutionary government identified > > the > > US as > > "the great Satan." We acted like it. > > > > This doesn't justify the terrorist acts of the 11th or invalidate the > > legitimacy > > of US aggression in Afghanistan, but it's terribly -- immoral -- to be a > > voting > > US citizen and remain ignorant of US activities overseas since WW II. > > > > Jim > > > > > > Tmsandefur@aol.com wrote: > > > > > < leaders > > of > > > which have for 50 years terrorized the world. > > > Carrol >> > > > > > > Oh, I'm confused. Perhaps you're talking about the nation that > defeated > > the > > > specter of international communist totalitarianism--you know, the > > bloodiest > > > dictatorship in the history of humanity? > > > (http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/)--not to mention feeding and > > clothing the > > > victims of the rest of the world's dictators? > > > > > > I wonder if people say stupid and offensive things like this just to > > seem > > > like brash original thinkers, or if they just say them because they're > > stupid > > > and offensive. > > > > > > Timothy Sandefur > > > > > > > > From: Roy Flannagan [Roy@gwm.sc.edu] Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2001 9:17 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Question I would like to add to John Hale's query a bit about the "rabia" part of Fuentarrabia as well as the crucial spelling and etymology. Are we dealing with an Arabian spring or a well whose waters provoke madness? I dropped a note that was in my Macmillan edition of Paradise Lost because there was no way to be sure of correct spelling or correct etymology, and there is no way to tell for sure why Milton misplaced the fall of Roland (not Charlemagne, who died in bed) at Fuentarabbia instead of Roncevaux. Roy Flannagan >>> john.hale@stonebow.otago.ac.nz 12/18/01 10:30PM >>> Is "Fontarabbia" (PL I.587) named in any of the Italian epics? Or is this form of the name just what Italian does to Spanish "Fuenterrabia"? What happens in Italian gazetteers of more general compilations? I ask this because of a shortage of relevant reference material here. I hope someone can help. The name has a jinx on it, though, not only because Milton seems to have made a mistake in his allusion but because the form of the name shifts around for both Italian and Spanish spellings (-er, -ar, -arr, -err, and b/bb). Thanks. John Hale