 |
Mandorla
Scott Bodenheimer 1991
woven color plates, 12" x 8" |
|
 |
Pietà
Scott Bodenheimer 1992,
woven color plates, 15" x 12" |
|
 |
The Incarnation
Scott Bodenheimer 1992
woven color plates, 24" x 16" |
|
 |
Pie Pellicane Jesu Domine
Scott Bodenheimer 1995
woven color plates, 30" x 21" |
|
 |
Blessing Second
Scott Bodenheimer 1998
woven color plates, 11" x 9" |
|
 |
Blessing: Varada Mudra
Scott Bodenheimer 1999
woven color plates, 11" x 9" |
|
 |
Bound Christ
Scott Bodenheimer 1994
woven color plates, 48" x 24" |
|
Yehoshua, Yeshua, Jeshua, Joshua, Iasous, Iesous, Jesus are some of the various spellings of Christ’s Hebrew name. In the Old Testament, the name of the hero Hoshea, which means “salvation” was altered by Moses to Yeshoshua, which means “God [Yahweh] is salvation.”
I believe that religion hurts people more than it helps, and that all ethics basically propagate from the Golden Rule:
One should not behave towards others in a way which is disagreeable to oneself. This is the essence of morality. All other activities are due to selfish desire.
Mahabharata
Anusasana Parva, 113.8
If people adhered to the Golden Rule, it would obviate the need for any religion, but even if that were the case, the idea of Joshua or Jesus is a vital cultural idea or meme. Like a DNA gene sequence that produces a certain set of traits, like brown eyes or left-handedness, a meme is an idea that reliably produces certain cultural effects, some that are positive and many that are negative.
|
|
For nearly two thousand years, the Jesus meme reliably inspires some people some of the time to uphold the Golden Rule, to act peacefully and altruistically during their lives on earth. The Jesus meme also reliably provides a support for violently authoritarian and patriarchal oppression, with its promise of justice in heaven after death.
The Gospels, the four incomplete and differing accounts of Christ’s life written likely 30 to as many as 100 years after his death, present various idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies, and let the Jesus meme evolve and mutate into countless forms. Like a fractal pattern that is unique and impossible to replicate, but that still is recognizable as produced by the original mathematical term, there is a Jesus for any language and ethnicity, any mood or predilection. Divine Jesus and mortal Jesus, philosopher Jesus, workman Jesus, angry Jesus, loving Jesus, cryptic Jesus, plainspoken Jesus, Christian Jesus, Islamic Jesus, Historic Jesus, Literary Jesus.
I'm fascinated with Jesus and what the Jesus meme provokes, because it’s a nexus for so much of the world’s history and art. |
|
