Holte's corner

The Golden Man

In my previous post I refer to the power of strategy and the use (misuse actually) of mythology as a strategy. That use is perfectly valid when done honestly and wisely. But of course, here I'm combatting the misuse of the powerful methods of religious interpretation and myth; the misuse of the Garden, the PaRDeS. To do that I'm using the power of story telling and interpretation myself. But in a way that I think is honest and hopefully inspiring.

If we are going to combat the strategy of abusive mythologizing, it has to start with getting a clear understanding of the myths and tales we already have. And to me the issues start and finish (nearly literally) with Daniel. I've heard a lot of good sermons about this subject, and a lot of claptrap. There are of course many levels to any good story and even more to how to interpret it. A good sermon can take a story and put it in modern terms and still carry its sense. A bad sermon turns a good story into mush or worse turns it inside out.

Storytellers invented the myth of the "Golden Man" long ago. In a sense the epic of Gilgamesh is a tale about one mans candidacy for the role. This myth, that of the divine king dates back at least to the first Pharoah of Egypt, Ramses, but it was developed probably before the Greeks developed civilization by other thinkers now lost, because they used it to build the myth of the divine King, and later the divine King of Kings. The divine King is part of the story of King David, part of the narrative that drove the Egyptians, then the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, the Mongols, and their successor states. It also is the controlling image of the story of Hercules, son of "God", and Apollo. Somehow we in the West are still half Roman and more than a little Greek in our "Western" Souls. Even as we claim to worship a Bible authored by Jews. Because of that Bible, before I joined the Jewish Community I arrogantly presumed I already understood them. I didn't.

In the megillah or story of Daniel where he talks about this very same image, in open allegory. I consider this story, placed nearly at the beginning of the Book of Daniel, as the controlling revelation of Daniel, and the controlling story for further related revelations penned into the predictions of Daniel, of Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezequiel and later prophets such as Zechariah. This controlling metaphor also plays into the prophesies of the Christian Bible.

I believe that at the hear of the story of Daniel is a buried allegory about the "Man God" myth. Like most such allegories it is an "on the one hand, on the other hand" type of analysis. In Daniel Nebuchadnesser dreams of a Golden Man. Daniel explains this dream. Like Joseph he is a master at dream interpretation. The ancient Rabbis who wrote down the Bible often intentionally separated linked stories, but this story is linked later to an incident in which Nebuchadnesser erects a Golden Head in the desert outside of Babylon. Most Biblical scholars since those documents were first written down at a later time, when the Greeks were an enemy not the Persians. Even decoupled from the backdated elements, the dream that Daniel interprets and that gets incorporated into works up until Revelations is spookily "on target" to such a degree that even the crudest sermonizer usually gets that part of the message.

In the dream of the Golden man, Daniel is asked to interpret the dream of a Golden Man and he explains that the head of Gold refers to Nebuchadnesser himself, the upper body of silver to the "kingdom to follow" [A direct reference to Persia], the Mid-body of Bronze refers to the Greeks. The Kingdom of Iron to the Romans, and finally the feet of clay and iron to the successor to the Romans. The authors knew about the Gold Silver and Bronze states, but they could not have known what would succeed those states. Looked at as a strait allegory we live in the time of "mixed clay and iron" that follows. Finally a ball of stone is made by "no human hand" and thrown at this Golden man, and he is broken up into dust which reforms the "world." Obviously not a literal story, though many abusive mythologizers interpret it such. When they make the link to revelations they often liberally interpret the part about the feet of clay. It refers to "us" and that is why it makes us uncomfortable. This is because most of them use it to supplement Revelations, where they treat it as a supplemental revelation and Revelations as if it were the primary revelation. However, revelations is explicitly tied to Daniel. The authors of Revelations were interpreting the dream or vision of Daniel (Actually Nebuchadnessar himself) through their own meditation/dream power, maybe modified by redactors but essentially a vision based on another vision.

They treat the Megillah as supplemental because to do otherwise wouldn't allow them to shift the context of the vision from a Jewish one to a Christian or even anti-semitic one. It seems pretty obvious to me that the "part of iron" is the Roman part, and the "part of clay" is the Judeo-Christian part. [Of course for the authors they may have been thinking of Alexander, and his Generals. Which shows the value of putting things in context, but doesn't detract from the value of my own interpretation which pretty much makes the interpretation of Revelations nearly facile]. When revelations and later passages in Daniel talk about successor kingdoms and patterns they are talking about patterns of anti-semitism and "realpolitik" that continue into our own time. If those patterns resemble the behavior of the Greek Kings and the Maccabees, that shouldn't be surprising. As long as people don't take history series, the same stupidities keep repeating time after time after time.

The Golden man vision is related to fundamental beliefs. Jewish religion forbade the carving of images for the worship of such carvings. A Golden man is the ultimate of violations of Jewish Law. And Daniel explains allegorically the why of why that is such an evil sin. Christians (and many Jews Moslems and others) get caught up on little things, but big things often excape them (us). Gods commandments include "thou shalt not worship any God but me,...and thou shalt not worship engraved images." Where Jews and others have gotten in trouble is what it means to worship God, what or who God is, and what that commandment is talking about.

The dream of the Golden man reflects Nebuchadnessars fundamental confusion about religion. To dream of a Golden man is appropriate. To carve an image of him to worship is not. Nebuchadnessar carves that image after Daniel explains that the "Golden head" was the Great king himself. So what does he do, carves an image of his own head and orders people to worship it. Fundamental confusion, fundamental mistake. To try to carve him as an image, as Nebuchadnessar did, was, in the story of Daniel the reason for his fall. Naturally, this mistake also was the pretext for a persecution of his Jewish servants. The famous story of them in the furnace follows his carving the head. His next dream was about his head reaching up into the sky and him being punished by insanity for the trouble. Nebuchadnessar was brought down because his head had reached into the heavens, and he was starting to believe his own myth. Not because of his persecution of Jews. His "hubris" as the Greeks called it brought him down.

But the myth, and controlling myth is bigger than one man. After Nebuchadnessars son (actually more like his grandson or great grandson historically) was defeated by the Persians, Daniel serves the Persians, Darius son of Ahasuerus (same name as the King in the megillah of Esther) comes to rule the entire land, the Jews return to Israel, and continue to dream of a restored monarchy -- the "branch" of King David. The bible gets written down (all but the "New Testament") and the temple is rebuilt.

But then things go wrong again. There is the story of Hannukah, and the Maccabees fight to keep Israel pure and then succumb to Helenizing influences. The Maccabees enlist the Romans who betray them and install the "Idumean" King Herod. Herod is thoroughly corrupt and thoroughly Helenized, and he presides over a Temple that is goverened by patronage. The various members of Davidic Royalty finally find themselves being crucified by the hundreds as they seek to resist the Romans. Finally one of them presents himself as a spiritual and allegorical Jewish King and is martyred for it.

Yet History continues, the "branch" never returns to real power, and along comes revelations and the conversion of the Roman Empire to the cult of one of those martyred candidates. Well the reason is that the "Golden Man" myth is still standing. Unlike the Colossus of Rhodes, we don't even marvel at his broken body, but still see him mounted up on walls and Churches all over the world.

In our present age how many of us have seen people (usually with feet of clay) portrayed as if they were hero-kings, "Hercules" child of the Sun God, or "Apollo" child of the Father God. Or Jesus,... portrayed as men with heads made of Gold. The Babylonians followed this abusive myth, but then the Persians chased after it as well. Following them came the Greeks, who were in turn corrupted by it. And following them were the Romans. And now? Are we ready to end the creation of "golden men" or are we ready to accept a new compelling vision? Forget all the stories about dragons, and monsters, and Kings of the East, North, South and West. The controlling myth here is the image of the Golden Man; of Man as God. Of "worship me I'm an Emperor."

But Daniel tells how this will end. In the vision God finally makes a ball of stone carved by "no man" and throws this at the man, who is destroyed and the Stone becomes a "great mountain" that fills the entire Earth.

How about this final interpretation?

The ball of stone is Earth. Seeing that earth is a ball of Stone made by "no mans hands" is a humbling experience. It is time to do away with the myths of Golden men and to accept that we are all just human beings after all. If these metals are all melted together and reformed into crystals of pure beauty then the metal is first turned into clay and then into precious and semi-precious stone. We live on a jewel of Lapis Azula, agate and jade. That is what Daniel was trying to show us. Revelations is about the eternal effort to build golden men. And how all that needs to fall away and we need to live a vision in which we recognize and accept what we've already been offered. If we but developed an enlightened viewpoint we'd see that the "new earth" and "new Jerusalem" are already potential in our hearts. Which is what I think Augustine was talking about when he wasn't trying to explain why Rome had fallen to barbarians.

At the same time, in the hands of the confused people of Rome and its dominions, the "Golden Man" myth was turned on its head and people actually equated it with Jesus, the founder of Christianity itself. Hence, the Romans picked up the tradition of persecuting Jews where they had left it off, and coupled it with replacement theology. Revelations may be a Christian Book, but it was written about Jewish concerns. And Daniel's own dream, later and referring to the controlling dream, was about how long those persecutions would last. Hence when they talk about Revelations and those prophesies come true, they are referring to their own behavior. All those things are about the anti-Jewish behavior of Christians. When Human beings awaken to the figurative nature of the Jesus character Kingship, and stop following the Golden man myth, they will be destroying the Golden man. When they follow people who turn the Messiah/kingship of the "Branch" (descendents of David) on its head, they are acting as the Anti-Messiah. And this has been pretty explicit, especially in the Catholic Churches.

And of course the "great mountain" is Zion, but is also the seat of all learning and wisdom. Which means it is "Sumeru." It is Gridrakutra. It is Mt. T'ien-t'ai, and it is Mt. Hiei and Eagle Peak. So Daniel tells us all we really need to know about Revelations. The repeating miseries of the Jewish people, the persecutions and stupid wars, will all end, when Humans see the Golden man for what he really is; an Illusion. And when they see the Great Mountain of Peace in their hearts, with the eternal "Golden Image" in its place.

This is my opinion and my vision. Just food for thought.

Chris

Posted by cholte at December 14, 2006 07:48 PM