Where are all the Women?

After reading Rastafari and watching the various video clips in class, I couldn't help but start to notice that something was missing in all the reading and nearly all the video clips. Nearly all the people talked about in the Rastafari religion were men. Women were never mentioned when talking about discussion groups or get togethers. There was only one woman seen in the clip from the boboshanti village. Where were all the women? What is their role and why don't we see them as prominent members in this religious group? Are women just not Rastas or can they be Rastas too but kept hidden?

As it turns out, there are women involved in the Rastafari movement; however, in the early days of the movement especially, women were expected to take on a submissive role to their husbands and stick to domestic roles. Women were seen as childbearers and housekeepers who should look after their "King" (their husband). Women in the movement are not allowed to be leaders and the role of spiritual head of the family is maintained by the father in the family. Women must dress modestly, they are not allowed to wear makeup or fragrances and they must cover their heads when they pray. (For more detailed information see: http://www.jamaicans.com/culture/rasta/race_women.shtml or
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/rastafari/beliefs/women.shtml ).  One site even claims that women cannot be called to Rastafari except through their husbands. This restriction makes it much more difficult for women to become Rastafarian.

While women are a part of this movement they are expected to behave in a seemingly contradictory manner to the purpose of the movement. While the Rastafari strive for liberation, their women have been stuck in a submissive role. While they still participate in many of the practices of the Rastas, they are more restricted than the men in what they can and cannot do. While the movement is contrary to society in many ways, they still keep their women in traditional gender roles. Keeping women in traditional gender roles reflects Rastafarian adherence to some of the Bible's teachings, in this case teachings in which the male is the head of the household and women are expected to be submissive to him and be childbearers and play the traditional mother role and keep to the domestic sphere (http://jamaica-guide.info/past.and.present/religion/rastafarian/). While today it looks as though women Rastas are gaining ground toward a more equal role in the religion, they still have a ways to go.

Boboshanti's Turbans

One of the most salient features of the Boboshanti is their emphasis on the symbol of Ethiopia. The boboshanti are particularly connected to the Ethiopian symbolism seen throughout the Rastafari religon. They have an emphasis on repatriation to Ethiopia and they are set on preparing themselves for a return to the homeland by first, ressurection, then, redemption and finally, repatriation. The boboshanti try to accomplish this goal by organizing, purifying and centralizing the Rastafarian movement so that they may return one day to their African roots and the land of Haile Selassie. The emphasis on the importance of Ethiopia to Rastas is also seen in our text book, especially early in the movement when there was a strong push to return to Africa, to the homeland as soon as possible in order to escape the oppression of "Babylon" and return to the Rastas proud supposed roots and the land of the alleged Solomonic emporer Haile Selassie.

However, the boboshanti take the symbolism of Ethiopia even further than many Rasta groups by wearing turbans over their dreadlocks. The Rastas in the video claim to wear the turbans to emphasize their connection with Ethiopia. They try their best to dress like Ethiopians. It is one of this particular groups "requirements." The symbol of the turban, although it bears a strong connection to the symbol of Ethiopia, it has not been mentioned as a common symbol in our text which makes the appearance of turbans in this video surprising. Although it is not a ubiquitous symbol in the Rastafari, it is logical that followers would try to mimick Ethiopians in their looks and dress since the symbol of Ethiopia is one of the founding symbols of the movement. 

Because the boboshanti choose to wear turbans, while they do not omit the wearing of their hair in dreadlocks, the turbans still hide their dreadlocks which downplays the locks that are often seen as an important part of the Rastafarian image. The text mentions uses and symbolism of the dreadlocks, dreads emphasize naturalness while promoting an image of beauty contrary to the European conception of what beauty should be. Rastas may also shake their dreadlocks in order to unleash spiritual energy to bring destruction of Babylon. If Rastas are wearing turbans, however, they are not displaying that image of naturalness to the outside world and they are inhibited from shaking their locks and releasing said spiritual energy. It seems that the use of turbans and Ethiopian dress shifts the focus of these Rastafari from being contrary to rich, white Jamaican culture toward attaining the promised land of Ethiopia. Since, at least in the video, their community was secluded from wider society they did not have to encounter many white, non-Rastafarians and therefore could focus on attaining their ultimate goals rather than on rebelling against the white culture and Babylon. 

Queen of Sheba (and her son?)

      The story of "The Queen of Sheba and her only Son Menyelek" is an Ethiopian spin on the story that appears in the Christian Bible in which the Queen of Sheba visits Solomon to learn from his wisdom (the New International Version of the story can be found here). Once again we see religions morphing as they are adapted in different cultures and fit to that culture. The Ethiopians took the Biblical information and expanded on it from their own perspective.The Ethiopian version of the story is from the perspective of the Queen of Sheba (Ethiopians claim that Sheba is in Ethiopia)  rather than from the Solomon perspective as it appears in the Bible. In this way, the Ethiopians made the bible story their own and incorporated their own ideas and traditions into the story. They turned a thirteen verse blip into a twenty page adventure. In essence, they used the Queen of Sheba's visit to King Solomon as an explanation of how Ethiopians abandoned worship of the sun and how Christianity and Judiasm and heirs of Solomon found their way to Ethiopia. It also gives an explanation of how the Ethiopians would have obtained the ark of the covenant. This sort of sharing and molding of existing stories is very prevalent in religions especially when different cultures are geographically close together. The Ethiopians made the story of the Queen of Sheba into a story that explains something that may not have had a very good explanation in their historical records.

       In the Biblical version of the story, there is no mention of Solomon sleeping with the Queen of Sheba or of her having Solomon's son but in the Kebra Negast, the Queen of Sheba having a son by Solomon is vital to the plot of this version. The Queen of Sheba having King Solomon's son explains the "Solomonic line of Kings" in Ethiopia following this queen's rule. The Ethiopians also use the story as a vehicle for explaining how the ark of the covenant supposedly got transported to Ethiopia where the Ethiopians believe the ark of the covenant still resides today. The Kebra Negast version is an elaboration on the version found in the Bible which sought to provide answers to how Christianity found its way to Ethiopia. While it may or may not be accurate historically, it certainly provides answers to some of the basic questions that may puzzle Ethiopians. As we have seen before, people try to explain phenomena in their world through stories in religion. Also, since these two regions are close geographically, they tend to exchange information and engage in some cultural sharing whether purposefully or just as a result of mutual contact.

     Ultimately the Kebra Negast story explains phenomena found in Ethiopian culture through expanding on an already existing religious scripture of a neighboring religion.

Liberty in Interpretation: How much is too much?

     To make a religion run smoothly and not disintegrate or die out everyone must believe the same things right? They must have the same convictions, the same symbols that establish the same long lasting, powerful and pervasive moods and motivations that create a shared idea for a general order of existence. If people of a single religion do not believe the same things they actually cannot have the same religion. To what extent is this true though? How much leeway can be given in a religion without it turning into fifty different little spinoff religions? While Saint Augustine gives instruction in his book On Christian Teaching on how to effectively and properly approach the Bible and gives his readers the theological tools and guidance that they need to approach it in a Christian light he also does say that there is a certain amount of liberty that can be taken in the interpretations that one can come up with while reading the scriptures as long as they are not contrary to the faith. This is one of the things that makes Augustine such a cool guy. Although in some sense he is strict by giving people a framework in which to read the Bible, and he spends a lot of time warning people to be careful not to interpret figurative language literally and literal language figuratively; but at the same time he says, concerning passages that are not vital to understanding the Bible or God, that if the meaning is ambiguous and there are multiple possible meanings that could work it is acceptable to take the passage to mean something different from what other people might think it means. In this way Augustine keeps his readers happy by giving them some leash, not a lot of leash, but enough that people feel that they can use their own minds to come up with a solution and are not chained to a single way of thinking. Afterall, people like to have at least some freedom to think for themselves and make their own choices even if it is in little, inconsequential matters. Maybe, in an indirect way, this little bit of leash actually helps keep people on the same track of a religion rather than creating differences and discrepancies that might lead to splits in religions. I'm not saying that giving people a freedom to interpret a few phrases as they desire is what holds a religion together. But it may play a small role in keeping people happy and intellectually stimulated in a religious environment.

On Christian Teaching...yesterday and today

     After reading "How to Read the Bible" and the first two books of On Christian Teaching I found that both take a very similar approach to how the Bible should be read, used and interpreted by Christians in the faith. In the article J. Todd Billings even makes many references to Augustine's book On Christian Teaching to support his position on the topic. The sub-heading of the article itself seems to say it all, "

[n]ew strategies for interpreting Scripture turn out to be not so new..." It appears as though Billings is calling for a return to the same strategies proposed by Augustine over 1,500 years ago.

     For starters, both authors argue that some prior knowledge is required for properly understanding and using the scriptures, readers need a sort of "theological map" of assumptions about the Bible that guide them in their reading. Augustine states in the first lines of his book that "there are two things on which all interpretations of scripture depends: the process of discovering what we need to learn, and the process of presenting what we have learnt" (8). Saint Augustine develops a way to look at the scriptures, his entire aim is to teach people how to properly read and interpret the Bible. As part of that theological map both authors stress that we don't just see the Bible as a historical document but as God speaking through the authors of the Bible. There is also an emphasis on loving God and our neighbor in both texts.

     Both the article and the book stresses the fact that ordinary people, given the proper tools can properly interpret and enjoy the Bible in the way that it is meant to be read and enjoyed. However it is also important to have someone with a knowledge of biblical languages to help properly interpret what is meant in some cases where the language is confusing or the meaning of the imagery is unclear.This idea is shared by Augustine and Billings. For me there didn't seem to be many differences in the positions held by Billings and Augustine other than the historical context in which they were written; the challenges to Billings convictions on the proper way to read the Bible are fairly different from the ones faced by Augustine. Billings saw that today people use the Bible as a how-to guide for diets, relationships and more and these particular fads were  probably not quite as common in Augustine's time. 

     In the context of the religion of Christianity I can see this philosophy of reading the Bible to be positive in that it is beneficial to the followers of the religion. It creates a structure and instructions on how to properly use the text of the religion. It is quite beneficial for unity of the followers if everyone interprets the text in the same way. By giving the followers of a religion tools, or a guide for interpreting what they read, they can insure that every one is on the same page (figuratively) and getting what they should out of the scripture. If everyone in the religion is interpreting the text of their religion without any guidance they may come to various conclusion about the meaning of the text and how it should be utilized which could lead to different factions within the religion or could ultimately lead to the collapse of the religion because of the lack of unity of belief. 

      

What Makes the Psalms Stick?

     After perusing the Psalms for two weeks I have begun to wonder what makes some religions or at least pieces of religions such as the psalms persist and other religions or aspects of other religions disappear or fall out of use entirely. As far as I know no one still follows the religion connected with the Indian mounds and hardly anyone still worships the Egyptian sun god (as far as I know). In contrast, the psalms are still recited in churches across the world and the serve as the basis for songs and hymns in many contexts. So what is it about these psalms that gives them such staying power that they are still in use 2000-3000 years after they were written and still play a part of multiple religions?
    I would argue that the relatability is where at least some of the sticking power comes from. All people go through struggles in their lives and have to defend themselves from enemies. Of course not everyone is fighting wars against other nations necessarily but warfare against internal demons exists as well as smaller scale enemies. When dealing with our own enemies, the pleas in the psalms might be just what we need to help get us through a tough time, to help us believe that "The LORD gaurds you from all harm,/He gaurds your life" against your enemies (Psalm 121:7). Among other things, the psalms give its readers reassurance that the Lord will help them out in times of trouble as long as they are not a wicked person. (For a list of some of the purposes of specific psalms see http://anigeena.com/cms/?p=348 ) Perhaps some of the psalms that talk about specific places may be a little harder to relate to unless we talk about the places as being more abstract than they are presented in the original psalms, places like Jerusalem become more of a concept than a real place to those who read the psalms for themselves in our day and age. Christians in particular encourage use of the psalms for prayer and praise as noted at this and many other websites: http://www.psalmspower.com/.
    Although we have concentrated on the origins and original meanings of the psalms and specific historical context in which these psalms might have taken place, it is also important to realize why these psalms have persisted through all these years. There must be something about them that speaks to the basic human condition that anyone, not just ancient Israelites can relate to.

Talk like an Egyptian

     Although the Egyptian hymn and the psalm touch on many similar themes, express some similar ideas and even have similar wording in some places the psalm has obviously been modified to fit the Israelite religion. The psalm does not mention Egypt at all like it does in the Egyptian hymn, which would make sense since the Israelite religion did tend to modify songs from other traditions and religions (Canaanite religion for example where Ba'al was replaced by God in psalms taken from Canaanite tradition) to fit its own views and beliefs. The Egyptian song is more than transposed in this case because there are parts in the Egyptian version that do not exist in the psalm such as when the hymn talks about "he who brings to life the son in the womb of his mother." The psalm, although it talks about God as a creator in many places, it does not mention humans being begotten. The hymn also talks about the different races  how "their skins are different" which is never mentioned in the psalm.
      The psalmist however did take many elements from the ancient hymn because the section about lions roaring for prey and heading home when the sun comes up and then man waking up and going to work when the sun comes up is eerily similar in the psalm and the hymn.
     I'm not sure whether or not the psalm has a distinct message from the hymn although it seems to me that at the end of the psalm the message strays from the one presented by the hymn. The psalm resorts to it's typical talk of punishing the wicked. It says, "Let offenders vanish from the earth/and the wicked be no more." which is unlike the views expressed in the Egyptian hymn. The psalm seems to be very similar to the hymn in many aspects apart from these last lines which makes me think that perhaps the psalmist is transposing the Egyptian hymn to fit the names and places of Israelite religion rather than expressing it's own distinct viewpoint.