Some thoughts begin to gather for a study of biblical farts, as part of my ongoing ‘earthy Bible’ interest.
To begin with, Isaiah 16:11 reads: ‘Therefore my bowels (מֵעַ֣י) play like a harp for Moab and my innards (וְקִרְבִּ֖י) for Kir-heres’. Given that instruments have traditionally been regarded as replacements for the music of the body, here we have the musical bum at work.
And then, according to the venerable Augustine, once upon a time we were able to play that bodily instrument at the direction of our will:
Hence man himself too may once have commanded even from his lower members [membra inferiora] an obedience that by his own disobedience he has lost … Certain human beings … can at will do with their bodies some things that others find utterly impossible to imitate and scarcely credible to hear. For some people can actually move their ears, either one at a time or both together … Some people produce at will without any stench [sine paedore ullo] such rhythmical sounds from ‘down there’ [ab imo] that they appear appear to be making music [ut ... cantare videantur] even from that quarter (City of God 14.24, 4).
Thus, both the involuntary nature and the noted odour of anal bugling is actually a result of the Fall. One imagines Adam and Eve playing sweet music together as they rest in the shade of the evenings. But it also means – given that the Fall is overcome in heaven – that people such as Mr Methane or Roland the Farter provide glimpses of what the choirs of angels in heaven might actually be doing.
A title? How about ‘The Music Album Musical Bum of the Bible’
26 April, 2012 at 11:19 am
Makes ya wonder about what happened to Ezekiel when, upon receiving a revelatory scroll, the prophet ate it and – as a result – his bowels were “filled” (ומעיך תמלא; Ezek. 3.3). On this basis, might we understand the subsequent revelations which comprise the book of Ezekiel as the articulation of a prophetic fart? Is the book of Ezekiel an example of what we might term klapomancy?
I was recently reading about an illustration in a Bible in Parma which portrays Ezek. 3.3. The illustration portrays the prophet clutching what I think are his innards irrupting from a hole in his tunic – and which extend a good metre or so from his body in length (Parma, Biblioteca Palatina, Palat. 386, fol. 141r). However, in the article which discussed the illustration, Lila Yawn (“The Italian Giant Bibles”, 2011) has a different interpretation: “A Bible in Parma … shows Ezekiel clasping an object of an unexpected sort – not the parabolic or rectangular scroll, or rotolus, held by other prophets in the manuscript …, but rather a clublike protuberance, apparently a large erection, swelling from the prophet’s groin.” There is some support for this interpretation of מלא, if I recall rightly, in Boer, Knocking on Heaven’s Door. However, it seems to me to be a stretch.
26 April, 2012 at 12:14 pm
For a good nose, the interpretive tradition on Ezekiel has some juicy smells. Forgive the self-promotion, but a good number of these appear in the chapter, ‘Too many Dicks’, in The Earthy Nature of the Bible. I must admit Lila Yawn escaped me … (like a small belch perhaps).
28 April, 2012 at 9:24 pm
Hmmmm… read klanomancy for klapomancy.
26 April, 2012 at 7:48 pm
I look forward to reading The Earthy Nature of the Bible when it comes out. The cover images are a little tame, or subtle, though, aren’t they?
Anyway, what do you reckon about this illumination? Engorged bowels, filled with the shape of the ingested scroll within? Sheath? Or prophetic phallus?
26 April, 2012 at 7:50 pm
This illumination.
26 April, 2012 at 8:15 pm
Boomerang
26 April, 2012 at 9:35 pm
now THAT is an impressive … illumination
27 April, 2012 at 3:51 am
“Hey Zeke, is that a mediaeval illumination in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?”
27 April, 2012 at 7:38 am
Do you know who ‘owns’ the copyright on this (ridiculous idea though it is)?
27 April, 2012 at 8:14 am
Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali.
Contact form here.
27 April, 2012 at 3:55 pm
I’ve given it a go, but this is usually a ludicrous minefield. I mean, seriously, who’s going to ‘own’ something like that?
28 April, 2012 at 6:43 am
I don’t think so – presumably the Ministry or some other legal person owns the book, and also owns a digital reproduction of the illumination. They can then license you the use of their copyright in that reproduction for the purposes of a book cover. (Nobody will own any copyright in the illumination itself, but arranging for a new photograph with the owners of the book would probably be much more complicated.)
Lila Yawn must already have sought permission for use of the image, and probably knows exactly what was required. You can message her at the bottom-left of this page, if you wish.
I’d quite like to see the illumination in its original glorious colour.
28 April, 2012 at 10:08 am
Bloody ridiculous All for the sake of private property. Abolish it, I say, and passports and open all the borders.
28 April, 2012 at 3:01 pm
… I don’t disagree. Property, of course, does not exist – presumably why you kept scare-quoting “own”. But much more should also change before property and nations are abolished.
Yet, in this particular case, it is your lily-arsed publisher who must be placated, because there is no copyright protection for fair use or fair dealing, whether for pecuniary benefit or not, which your book undoubtedly constitutes. In general, publishers are scared to take advantage of what academics are legally able to do under international copyright law – reproduce whole works, if carried out for fair use/dealing.
26 April, 2012 at 8:15 pm
When it comes to images, the press decides and copyright is a major problem. I could always come up with my own photo, as I’ve done before (Knockin’ …)
28 April, 2012 at 10:12 am
Some further thoughts. Given that ruah and pneuma can also designate belching and farting, it does make one wonder about the ruah that hovered over the deep in Genesis 1, or indeed the associations with the holy pneuma in the NT.
28 April, 2012 at 9:23 pm
And what does this do to Derrida’s characterisation of the epoch of logocentrism, with its valorisation of the breath, of phone, or pneuma? Is phonocentrism better characterised as klanocentrism – with its conception of the originary moment as that in which the divine is inseparable from His priordial fart – a divine wind in which every literal, human fart seems to participate without mediation? These are the type of questions we must ask, if we are to take Игнацио Силоне seriously when he says, «у них был свой бог, поэтому им было все позволено».
29 April, 2012 at 11:17 pm
[...] resume an earlier post on ‘The Music Album Musical Bum of the Bible’ … three further [...]
26 November, 2012 at 6:56 am
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