It All Goes Back to Babylon
Dr. Kevin Hunger
Erev Shabbat, Friday, December 19, 2008
Parsha Vayeshev “He Settled”
Dec 19-25
Genesis 37-40
Haftarah: Amos 2:6-3:8
21 Sat - 1 Kings 3-5; Mark 13
22 Mon - 1Kings 6, 7; Mark 14
23 Tues - 1 Kings 8; Mark 15
17 Wed - 1 Kings 9; Mark 16
18 Thu - 1 Kings 10, 11: Luke 1
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January 4th, 2009 at 10:39 am
I am listening to this podcast, and am currently up to the bit about the death of Nimrod. As I was listening to your discussion on the ziggurat, in particular about the top of the ziggurat being a counterfeit of heaven, I was for some reason reminded of Bruce Lee’s last film, Game of Death, which was never released during his lifetime because he died during its production. In case you don’t know about the film, the climax takes place in a pagoda (another form of ziggurat?). Being a martial arts film, the film shows each level of the pagoda as featuring a different martial philosophy; on each level, Bruce Lee has to face a fighter specialising in a different martial arts style. The top level is inhabited by… Kareem Abdul Jabbar (seriously!), whose martial arts style is exactly the same as Bruce Lee’s own style, the so-called style without style, shown to be superior to the previous styles that he has had to face so far. What the style without style … uh, style means is that it has no fixed stance, and adjusts to any attack very flexibly. Okay, why am I telling you all this (aside from having a tendency to babble on - no pun intended), is I think Game of Death wasn’t simply an action film but was a vehicle for Bruce Lee to express his martial arts philosophy, Jeet Kune Do. I believe this was also the same philosophy that he applied to life, heavily drawing from Far Eastern philosophical religions such as Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism (particularly its East Asian varieties). Perhaps the concept of style-without-style was derived from the Buddhist concept of Nothingness, or Mu in Japanese, which is apparently the goal of Buddhist thought. So to bring it back to the ziggurat… I guess what reminded me of this film while listening to your podcast was that the location of this allusion to the Buddhist ‘heaven’ (which is really nothingness in pure Buddhism, freedom from the sufferings of reincarnation), at the top of a tower. So yeah, I guess even today, Nimrod’s tower is everywhere, even in a 1970’s action film with philosophical influence from the far east, a seemingly unlikely place. (PS. I was also reminded of that monstrous national heritage building in my home country, Indonesia: a Buddhist temple called Borobudur - you might have heard of it. Like the pagoda, it depicts levels of spiritual enlightenment, culminating in top level that supposedly reflects nirvana, not to mention gives sore legs). Anyway, enough of my ranting. Thank you if you have been reading. I have been intrigued by your podcast, and your other podcasts have been a blessing too.
January 20th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
We always appreciate your messages so much. We’ve especially been blessed by this and the “seed of the woman” message. We as a family have relistened to them several times, which has provoked amazing discussion with our children. Many other times, the children have brought up, asked, & discussed things they are identifing everywhere is our culture (seemingly benign tv & movies, cartoons, t-shirts!, billboards, inauguration speaches, etc) that align themselves with the positions you discussed. I believe it is extremely important for our children (and ourselves) to be thinking individuals, well-equiped in this day and the culture we live in, so that we “know what we believe and why we believe it” in order to be strong enough to withstand the winds against us, like the “house build upon the ROCK”! I believe, only in this way can we truely be the “light” that Adonai has called us to be, to share and disciple those He puts around us, as well as not being tossed around by “every wave of doctrine”. Your teachings have greatly aided us in this work. Others we have referred this teaching to have also gotten much from it. Thank you so much for your research & time in His service.