April 07, 2006
Information and Its Destiny
"The Oxford Cento" a poetic collage by David Lehman in the New York Times Book Review lay open over my keyboard, determined to distract me this morning. Here is the line taken from the "The Preface" to "God's Determinations Touching His Elect" by Edward Taylor (1642-1729) that captured my fancy:
"Who in this Bowling Alley bowld the Sun?" Great question, and so contemporary.
The book section was atop my keyboard , because I was reading a review of "Programming the Universe: A Quantum Comuter Scientist Takes On the Cosmos" by Seth Lloyd. Since I just returned from Gregg Braden's conference on the Divine Matrix, and Gregg was a computer scientist before turning toward a life of the spirit, I thought I might be able to understand some of this. Here's the last paragraph where Corey Powell , the reviewer. describes Lloyd's eulogy of his friend, physicist, Heinz Pagels. Lloyd was mountain climbing with him in 1988, when Pagels slipped and fell to his death.
"The pain is still fresh as Lloyd recounts the episode, and his effort at finding solace in information, not in religion, is touching. 'We have not entirely lost him," he writes. 'While he lived, Heinz programmed his own piece of the universe. The resulting computation unfolds in us and around us.' That elegy reveals a central but previously hidden aspect of Lloyd's theorizing: information as thread that binds past and future so that nothing is ever truly gone -- not a great idea, not a great man , not even love itself."
How's that for the question of an afterlife - quick, everyone, get yourself a blog.
And, if information is the thread that binds, what of its manipulation and suppression? I know, you thought I was going to go on about the Bush administration, (haven't I been fabulous about ignoring them lately?) No. You will be relieved to discover that I have chosen to discuss the Bible instead.
We know that when the early Christian editors looked at that unwieldy ragtag manuscript, they knew that they simply had to eliminate something. Of course they cut the original according to what worked for them at the time, which is why some of us find it a bit patriarchical, although it still works like a charm for others.
The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library, preserved by those who thought the edited parts might prove to be important, were unearthed in the twentieth century. It's only now that we get to look at what was left out. From the article quoted below about the release yesterday of the Gospel of Judas (Iscariot fyo):
"The Gospel of Judas is only one of many texts discovered in the last 65 years, including the gospels of Thomas, Mary Magdalene and Philip, believed to be written by Gnostics.
The Gnostics' beliefs were often viewed by bishops and early church leaders as unorthodox, and they were frequently denounced as heretics. The discoveries of Gnostic texts have shaken up Biblical scholarship by revealing the diversity of beliefs and practices among early followers of Jesus.
As the findings have trickled down to churches and universities, they have produced a new generation of Christians who now regard the Bible not as the literal word of God, but as a product of historical and political forces that determined which texts should be included in the canon, and which edited out.
For that reason, the discoveries have proved deeply troubling for many believers. The Gospel of Judas portrays Judas Iscariot not as a betrayer of Jesus, but as his most favored disciple and willing collaborator."
Unscholarly aside: When asked to name his favorite thing at nursery school, a dear and close personal relative said "Flimits" He elaborated with examples -- the pear tree, the big slide, the stove. Flimits, we finallly figured out, included everything that was off limits to him. He had met the challenge of categorizing the diverse. In biblical scholarship, that could be said of Gnosticism as well. It included everything that was off limits, and in religion, if it's off limits, it's usually heresy.
And then there are the specifics of the The Gospel of Judas:
"The most revealing passages in the Judas manuscript begins, 'The secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot during a week, three days before he celebrated Passover.'
The account goes on to relate that Jesus refers to the other disciples, telling Judas 'you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.' By that, scholars familiar with Gnostic thinking said, Jesus meant that by helping him get rid of his physical flesh, Judas will act to liberate the true spiritual self or divine being within Jesus.
Unlike the accounts in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the anonymous author of the Gospel of Judas believed that Judas Iscariot alone among the 12 disciples understood the meaning of Jesus' teachings and acceded to his will. In the diversity of early Christian thought, a group known as Gnostics believed in a secret knowledge of how people could escape the prisons of their material bodies and return to the spiritual realm from which they came.
Elaine Pagels, a professor of religion at Princeton who specializes in studies of the Gnostics, said in a statement, 'These discoveries are exploding the myth of a monolithic religion, and demonstrating how diverse — and fascinating — the early Christian movement really was.'"
Elaine Pagels is Heinz Pagels widow. Make of that what you will.
Photo note: The sacred garbage can, illuminated. Be careful what you toss. Unlike the editors of the Bible, I take that statement much too seriously.