More Blooms

I say there is a brilliant paragraph on page 131 of Jesus and Yahweh by Harold Bloom - it might be what follows in my notes

The very phrase "cult of Yahweh" has an aura of the ridiculous. Equally opaque is monotheism and anthropomorphism. Yahweh is person and a personality - Divine Man. Jesus is theomorphic in ways that transcend the subtle complexities of his predecessors.

Ain't that a pair of sentences. That's why I will pick up and keep reading Bloom. Why do we bother with the abstract conclusions about God that we were fed as children? Non-sense.

Nowhere does the NT directly confront Jesus with Yahweh.

No kidding. But Bloom confuses Yahweh with Father, person with substance. All confuse Christ and Spirit. How can we speak of these? How can I as one who is not trained in Chalcedon or Nicaea?

Spirit, Anointing, Christ, Paraclete - not separated from me but in me / on me / with me / through the death of the fully Anointed Jesus. Does this mean my anointing is partial? Can I be persistent? Not of myself - but the unpredictable Lord / Spirit / Yahweh is in me / on me / with me / at one.

An what shall I do with the forsakenness of the cross? Atonement is not a misreading of the cross. But it is not cheap. It is by the Spirit - so the process of self-giving violates the second law of thermodynamics just as the Sun breaks in on the body .

Page 145 - he asks wonderful questions: what is to be made of a Yahweh incarnate? Is Jesus the anointed consciousness of John?

Page 147 - who can Jesus talk to? I answer: he talks to the accuser. He talks to his Abba. He pleads that his disciples pray with him - And they cannot.

Here's a note to all those wrestling with the feminine. Was the J writer Bathsheba the Hittite?

Page 150 - To call Yahweh anthropomorphic is a redundancy - No God has been more human.

Page 152 - Out of the strong came not forth sweetness but a sword - American Religion (the Crusades) and Wahhabi Islam.

Throughout the book he sees Yahweh as act. This is a fruitful statement.

P 172 Is Jesus Christ part of the Trinity or even "Trinitarian"?

What am I to say, my Love?
If yes we have a mixed metaphor
If no we have no dialogue.
God the Son is of the Trinity
Trinity is an odd word.

God is Spirit - Spirit encompasses all
The Spirit is the Lord - Hashem
The Lord is the Spirit
The Spirit is the Paraclete
Such Comfort as remakes - it is Act

Spirit Anoints - and teaches as no human can
Spirit is sent and is Father and Son
Spirit indwells and cries Abba
Spirit gives what belongs to the Son
Son, Spirit, Father are seen, known, in Jesus

Jesus, theophanic
Job, theopresent
Psalms, theomerciful
Song, God absent and known

I am just about finished

Distance is metaphor
Presence is reality
Absence is never

I am entangled in Christ
by the Spirit my glory is in his body
by the flesh of Jesus I am in the mercy
My gift I attribute to his death
a resurrection in him
Others - Sufi, Kabbalist, beloved
must know this bridal aspect
but have no words for it.

Page 202 - Tanach gives us no account of Yahweh's origin... he seems to tumble out of the pages of a book he may have written. Perhaps he wrote before he spoke and had to fashion an audience to read and to hear him. Should that be his elusive motive for risking creation then he would differ only in degree, not in kind from any other author I know.

There we are folks - that's all the Blooms in my garden for the moment.