Friday, June 20, 2014

KLEM FM


The words to that 1965 hit song are almost 3,000 years old. What makes words so eternal?

21 comments:

ndspinelli said...

Sister Theresa taught us the lyric comes from the Book of Ecclesiastes.

chickelit said...

@spinelli: So Jews, Catholics and even "dirty prods" can relate. I wonder if the words are in the Koran.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

The perfect song tying most of posts together.

Chip Ahoy said...

That's assume!

I meant to say awesome. I meant to say that's Biblical, Man.

Except my copy of the bible has it a bit differently. Just a bit. Starting at Ecclesiastes 3.

That there's what you call rhetorical conduplicatio, the anaphora type. Repetition at the beginning of a series of phrases. 100 % of trufax

Very effective. But a bit tiresome. The listener yearns for relief of variation. So doubly effective when relief is finally provided. The listener goe, "aaaah."

I tend to hold first Corinthians 11-13 as its companion. In my copy of KJV the passage is separated typographically for special attention. And it does grab and hold your attention separated that way. As if to be framed and hung on a wall.

11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

It goes on about speaking in tongues, and that perchance benefitting the speaker but in no way benefitting a church of listeners.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

What makes words so eternal?

(1) I think the eusocial insects do it with telephones or hormones or pheromones or something or other.

I think it was back in the 1980s there was a fad to put pheromones in perfume so you'd be sexually irresistible. Pretty dumb.

(2) Taken From Memory:

FIRST GUY: Maybe I'll buy a new pair of boots.

SECOND GUY: Hey, wise up, Bill. Whiter teeth and fresher breath will turn her on.

-- Some 1970s TV commercial for Close-Up toothpaste

AllenS said...

I saw the Byrds perform in 1965 at the Prom Ballroom, on the corner of Lexington and University Ave in St Paul MN.

They had long hair, man.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

In Spanish Reina Valera, they use the l word instead of 'charity'.

Well known verse to me once upon a time.

Mitch H. said...

Well, the *ideas* are 2600 years old. The words date to the early 17th century, unless there's a Hebrew version of the Pete Seeger lyrics I'm unaware of.

In Spanish Reina Valera, they use the l word instead of 'charity'.

The charity-for-love replacement seems to be an artifact of the original King James Version, and those that either followed the Church of England theological logic, or have an aesthetic bias towards the KJV. The original text uses 'agape', and the committee that wrote the KJV made a doctrinal decision to render 'agape' as 'love' in the individual sense, and 'charity' in the communal or collective-church sense. It was kind of artificial at the time of writing, and has only become more archaic with time. Most modern English editions tend to follow the 1599 Geneva Bible, and render it 'love'. Especially in marriage ceremonies - 1 Corinthians 13 is a standby for English-language Christian weddings.

ndspinelli said...

AllenS, Groooovy, man.

ndspinelli said...

chicklit, Muslims don't sing. There was a picture of ISIS burning a mountain of cigarettes in Mosul. Must smell like my Aunt Mary's house now.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

That whole "go and sin no more" story was added in the middle ages.

Scholars have pretty much figured out that a whole lot of the bible is mighty sketchy.

chickelit said...

Well, the *ideas* are 2600 years old. The words date to the early 17th century, unless there's a Hebrew version of the Pete Seeger lyrics I'm unaware of.

Ideas translate and it doesn't so matter which tongue came first.

To put it another way, modern chemical language has two parallel channels -- one based on pictographs and one based on Latin characters (with a little help from Greek). They both strive to describe the same "idea" and ultimately are metaphors for a physical reality.

So unless the "ideas" meant something different 2600 years ago, I'm OK with saying that the lyrics, though originally written in a different language, haven't changed.

Oh and that was cool, AllenS.

chickelit said...

ndspinelli said...
chicklit, Muslims don't sing.

That's not what I meant, Nick. I meant whether that Ecclesiastes was bundled into the Koran. Does anyone know?

Mitch H. said...

Muslims don't sing.

Then what the hell is it that muezzin do?

That whole "go and sin no more" story was added in the middle ages.

Not unless you consider the late fourth century to be "the middle ages". And this sort of textual criticism is soft enough that I wouldn't bet the rent on either side of any given controversy being 100% in the right. I'm inclined to think that if it was a later insertion by someone other than the original author, it occurred fairly early - Jerome is cited in that wiki as stating that extant copies of John throughout late-fourth-century Christendom had the pericope adulterae, and Augustine was of the opinion that some manuscripts had been edited by "certain persons of little faith" afraid that it made Christ look like he tolerated adultery.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Why is there nothing in the Bible about Jesus's youth?

Well actually, they have ancient accounts of Jesus as a boy and he was pretty much like Bill Mumy wishing people into the cornfield. Something to do with a rooftop.

Didn't make the cut.

Not hard to see why.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Nothing. Absolutely freaking nothing was written down about what Jesus said or did until 20 years after his death, IIRC.

Yeah, oral tradition and all that but there was certainly a lot of leeway in there for a good sales pitch.

chickelit said...

Eric the Fruit Bat said...
Nothing. Absolutely freaking nothing was written down about what Jesus said or did until 20 years after his death, IIRC.

Bat, if what you're saying is that the NT is whole cloth invention, why is it such convincing and persistent invention? And why do Bible-detractors like to throw out the whole based on the parts they dislike?

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Whatever. I'm no biblical scholar. Just mildly interested in the subject.

If God wanted to give us a how-to manual, I should think He would have been able to do a much better, fully coherent, comprehensive job than some people claim He did.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

why is it such convincing and persistent invention?

First, I don't think it's totally bogus; probably essentially correct in it's broad contours.

Second, I believe that Jesus's message that the apocalyse will during the lifespan of people alive at the Sermon on the Mount got corrupted into a pleasing sales pitch to trade social conformity with the biggest reward of all.

It's much more complicated than that, I realize, and I'm not saying that the tradition hasn't produced much more good than bad.

I guess I'm in the camp that tries its best to keep its mouth shut and bear in mind that the end often justifies the means and literal, factual truth needn't be given all that much weight, after all is said and done.

Mitch H. said...

Why is there nothing in the Bible about Jesus's youth?

There's Luke 2 which contains, among other incidents, the famous one about the child confounding the scholars of the temple. But I suppose you mean his young adulthood, because there's a jump of more than a dozen years between Luke 2 and Luke 3. Traditionally, it's supposed that he was working as a carpenter, not doing much of worldly note. The accounts of the baptism of Jesus - with all that business about Holy Spirits and doves and voices from the heavens - strongly suggest that He came into his full incarnation at that moment, rather than at birth, having laid fallow, as it were, through the first thirty-some years of his life. As such, why would the gospel-writers make much of the mundane doings of the man who *would* become the great teacher, rather than dwell on the years of the teachings and miracle-workings?

There *is* an apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas full of wacky, miraculous doings of the child Christ. Most scholars classify it as fan-fiction by someone who had read the Gospel of Luke, and thought there ought to have been more Marty Stu bildungsroman in Holy Scripture.

ndspinelli said...

chick, If you can find 2 other people who give a flying fuck if Ecclesiastes is in the Koran, I'll be happy to research it.