Antiquitopia

I'm reading Ernst Bloch' Atheism in Christianity: The Religion of the Exodus and the Kingdom , probably something I should have read years ago, but, alas, am getting to only now. It is a fascinating read so far, and is a nice counterbalance to the usual scholarly rubbish I have to wade through. There is only this point, that Church and Bible are not one and the same. The Bible has always been the Church's bad conscience. Tolstoy, speaking against her, called not on Haeckel but on the words of Jesus. The Enlightenment, therefore, will be all the more radical when it does not pour equal scorn on the Bible's all-pervading, healthy insight into man. It is for this very reason (one not remote from the Enlightenment) that the Bible can speak to all men, and be understood across so many lands and right on through the ages. (Ernst Block, Atheism in Christianity , 9-10; trans. J.T. Swann)

Usually my quotes come from primary sources and not the scholars who study them, but this line by Roland Boer, who blogs at Stalin's Moustache , stopped me in my tracks and made me laugh...although I am not sure if I was supposed to laugh: In Ezek. 20 Yahweh comes through as a complete bastard, to borrow Ed Conrad's phrase, one who msut have the last word, be totally in control and anticipate any move the people might make. (Boer, Marxist Criticism of the Bible , 154) Boer, here, is using the work of Erst Bloch in order to read the text in terms of of a "dialectic of utopia" and sees resistance against Yahweh (which Ezekiel rails against) as an implicit "atheism" or a "protest atheism." Nonetheless, the language of divine bastardy does arrest the reader somewhat.

I have really enjoyed reading the comments to my series about the Socialism of the Bible, particularly focusing on Luke-Acts. In fact, I usually just do not receive this much attention...perhaps that's why I have continued to post on it. Vanity, Vanity, all is Vanity. Anyway, I am hoping all of this posting will lay the preliminary study to something more systematic in the future. I do not really think, at least in these posts, that I am saying anything new or original. Perhaps something lost or intermittently forgotten. In fact, it is interesting to note among the more positive responses to my postings, the backgrounds of people who have posted have ranged quite a bit: youth pastor in what seems to be a more conservative or at least moderate church (correct me if I'm wrong), a Christian who is trying to create the communist vision of Jesus on earth, and, although not responding here, I have been pointed to other scholars saying similar things in these passages and other ...