"like a living woman"

[John 19:33] But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.
[34] Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.

The author of John refers this to Zechariah 12:10, but there is no obvious reason why this event would have been omitted from the other gospel accounts.

So why was it included? The footnotes in the HarperCollins Study Bible suggest two reasons, one of which occurred to me: that it was included to promote the "physical reality" of the death and resurrection (this gospel was obviously written at a time when the debate began to pick up over whether or not the events of Jesus' life ever actually happened). Another possible reason was an allusion to baptism. Neither answer though strikes me as completely satisfactory. Another answer though occurred to me, which alludes to the parallels between Adam and Jesus.

In the Pauline literature Christ is described often as a kind of "anti-Adam:" a perfect and complete complement for the figure of Adam. And just as Adam represents the collective psyche of humankind, Christ is the collective pneuma.

We find this in the Hypostasis of the Archons:

The rulers took counsel with one another and said, "Come, let us cause a deep sleep to fall upon Adam." And he slept. - Now the deep sleep that they "caused to fall upon him, and he slept" is Ignorance. - They opened his side like a living woman. And they built up his side with some flesh in place of her, and Adam came to be endowed only with soul.

As an aside it is worth noting (I've read this observation in association with A Course In Miracles but I'm not entirely certain that is the source) that it is never mentioned in Genesis that Adam awoke from his sleep. The separation of Adam from Eve and the subsequent explusion from the Garden of Eden is said to be a dream. The Gnostic view, as is obvious from the quote above, seems close to this, and perhaps mirrors the Buddhist assertion that we are all already Buddhas [awakened ones], but we just need to remember it.

What catches my attention here is how they opened Adam's side "like a living woman." This sounds like a way of saying that they gave him a vagina. This was the means by which Adam and Eve were separated into two beings -- in other words, Adam gave birth to Eve.

It seems to me that this was meant to somehow reconcile the Genesis story of Adam's rib being converted into Eve with the Platonic myth of the division of the syzygies. It also in a way turns the status of Eve as "Adam's rib" on its head -- by describing Eve as Adam's pneuma she is actually elevated above Adam, whereas in the original telling in Genesis she is denigrated.

The tantric symbolism is reminiscent of an episode in early Hindu mythology, wherein Indra was said to have been cursed by a sage so that his body was covered with a thousand vaginas.

Adam's vagina might also provide an avenue whereby the pneuma could be re-inserted -- via the Bridal Chamber mystery.

What the rulers removed from Adam was his pneuma. What the Romans (the rulers) removed from Jesus was his pneuma -- he "gave up the ghost," and was split apart the way Adam was -- so that the reconciliation of psyche and pneuma could be demonstrated through the resurrection.

Second Edit: While thinking about this I am reminded that in some Gnostic literature it is said that the divine portion of Jesus departed just before the body's death -- causing him to cry out "Eli eli lama sabachtani," "God, God, why have you abandoned me?" (Actually a mistranslation of the Aramaic, but a firmly established part of the Christos teaching.)

(no subject)

United States diplomats to the rest of the world: "Any country that doesn't go along with us will be paying a very heavy price."

WHY would a war fought for supposedly "humanitarian" reasons involve global arm-twisting? What is in it for the vested interests of the powers-that-be, that aid to poor countries would be tied to their support for war on Iraq? Compassion at a price is not compassion at all.

We live in dark times.

(no subject)

linked by georgedorn: this interesting entry on blips and glitches in the major news outlets that demonstrate self-censorship. For more info see:
http://truthout.org/docs_02/021303A.htm
http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=georgedorn&itemid=62339

Thank God for the internet.

Meanwhile, there are still voices of common sense in the mass media. Maureen Dowd, for example, has this to say about Tom Ridge and his new focus-group-tested campaign to spread mass fear readiness in case of another terrorist attack:

"What Mr. Ridge is supposed to be doing is getting the best scientific and technical expertise, as it relates to all threats, and developing concrete plans and suggestions for every possible contingency.

"He's not supposed to be selling security, or spinning it; he's supposed to be providing it.

"He doesn't need to make security more alluring to us. We already find it absolutely alluring. We'd just like to get some more of it."

From http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/23/opinion/23DOWD.html

Adoptionism

In response to a question by badsede

The view taken by Gnostic Adoptionists is that the Spirit of Christ came to reside within Jesus at the moment of his baptism. The Spirit was said to to have left Jesus just before the death of his body, prompting him to lament, "God, God, why have you abandoned me?" In their view it was impossible for the divine to actually die.

As best we can tell, the earliest versions of the Gospel of Mark, the first Gospel, ended with his burial and a short note that his grave was found empty. This gospel of course begins with the baptism, not the birth, of Jesus.

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