Fish on Friday

The Catholic Church had and still has in the minds and hearts of the people a strange rule: no meat on Friday or during the Lent Season, but you can eat fish during those times. I had read somewhere once that after the no meat rule came into place (I don't remember why they came up with that rule exactly), the new converts in the northern regions almost defected from the faith as a result of this rule as they had little but meat to eat during the early spring months. The Vatican quickly revised their policy and stipulated that fish could be eaten. The northern Christians were happy enough and life went on.

How true this story is, I don't really know (but I'll look it up on Wikipedia in a minute and then tell you). But, as my husband and I were driving home tonight we came up with a more religiously meaningful reason for eating no meat on Friday, but still allowing fish to be eaten.

I should preface this by telling you that I have been forgoing meat on the Sabbath with the idea that the animals deserve a day of rest as well as we do, so I shouldn't eat them since that isn't very restful for them.

Back to the story, as we were driving home, my husband was lamenting the fact that we would never have great special meals on Sabbath, since to him MEAT = Good Food. He suggested that I move it to a different day, perhaps I should abstain from eating animals on the day they were created (the 6th day). We pondered this for a minute and then realized that this resulted in not eating meat on Friday! wow .. but, you can eat fish (and birds) because they were created on the 5th day! Remember, Saturday is the seventh day of the week. There were factions of Christians who tried to pretend that the Jews were wrong all along and Sunday was the true seventh day .. they didn't succeed, and Sunday is still considered the first day of the week.

So, now that I've speculated, let's look it up and see what scholars (Wikipedia, the Catholic Encyclopedia and a site about the Second Vatican Counsel) say the reasoning behind this rule is.

According to canon law, all Fridays of the year, Ash Wednesday and several other days are days of abstinence, though in most countries, the strict requirements of abstinence have been limited by the bishops (in accordance with Canon 1253) to the Fridays of Lent and Ash Wednesday. On other abstinence days, the faithful are invited to perform some other act of penance.

the historian Socrates (Hist. Eccl., V, 22) tells of the practice of the fifth century: "Some abstain from every sort of creature that has life, while others of all the living creatures eat of fish only. Others eat birds as well as fish, because, according to the Mosaic account of the Creation, they too sprang from the water; others abstain from fruit covered by a hard shell and from eggs. Some eat dry bread only, others not even that; others again when they have fasted to the ninth hour (three o'clock) partake of various kinds of food"

Throughout the Latin Church the law of abstinence prohibits all responsible subjects from indulging in meat diet on duly appointed days. Meat diet comprises the flesh, blood, or marrow of such animals and birds as constitute flesh meat according to the appreciation of intelligent and law-abiding Christians. For this reason the use of fish, vegetables, mollusks, crabs, turtles, frogs, and such-like cold-blooded creatures is not at variance with the law of abstinence. Amphibians are relegated to the category whereunto they bear most striking resemblance.

Some think that an ounce of flesh meat suffices to constitute a serious breach of this law, whereas others claim that nothing short of two ounces involves infringement of this obligation. Ordinarily, the actual observance of the law is confined to such circumstances as carry no insupportable burden. This is why the sick, the infirm, mendicants, labourers, and such as find difficulty in procuring fish diet are not bound to observe the law as long as such conditions prevail.

Friday itself remains a special day of penitential observance throughout the year, a time when those who seek perfection will be mindful of their personal sins and the sins of mankind which they are called upon to help expiate in union with Christ Crucified;

The forty days represents, according to the Bible, the time Jesus spent in the desert, enduring the temptation of Satan

Friday should be in each week something of what Lent is in the entire year. For this reason we urge all to prepare for that weekly Easter that comes with each Sunday be freely making of every Friday a day of self-denial and mortification in prayerful remembrance of the passion of Jesus Christ;

Now I see--Friday is the day Jesus was crucified, and (even though it is called Good Friday), it is a day of fasting (in more ancient times only until the 9th hour, supposedly because the moment of the death of Jesus had some mystic significance freeing the rest of humanity from death, but I'm not very well versed in Catholic theology, so I might be missing the obvious). Because all things have their type or symbolic representation, every Friday represents Good Friday, and every Sunday represents Easter. But, the Friday abstinence also represents Lent, which is a remembrance of Jesus' 40 day fast in the wilderness. So, which is it? a piece of Lent or a piece of Good Friday or maybe both at the same time. I think the last option is the most fitting one, since abstaining on the Fridays during Lent is much more weighty than any other Friday (aside from Good Friday itself).

I couldn't find any substantiation for my 'fast strike of the northern barbarians' story .. oh well, I've told that tale to many a listener already! and ... I couldn't find anything actually refuting it either ;-)

A few other people mentioned the correspondence between not eating meat on the day that the animals were created and the Catholic observance.

I also found this fascinating theory:

The Hebrew scriptures also tell of Leviathan, a primordial gigantic enigmatic sea-creature (think Jonah's whale) that represents death. So carving up and eating Leviathan on the day that Christ killed death makes great sense to the biblical imagination. Because of Christ's victory, the great monster death is now nothing more than fish sticks on your plate!

--The Free Library

Mormon Quote

"Mormonism be it true or false, holds out to men the greatest inducements that the human mind can grasp. And so it does... It teaches men that they can become divine, that man is God in embryo, that God was once man in mortality, and that the only difference between Gods, angels and men is a difference in education and development. Is such a religion to be sneered at? It teaches that the worlds on high, the stars that glitter in the blue vault of heaven, are kingdoms of God, that they were once earths like this, that they have been redeemed and glorified by the same laws, the same principles that are applied to this planet, and by which it will ascend to a perfected and glorified state. It teaches that these worlds are peopled with human beings, God's sons and daughters, and that every husband and father, may become an Adam, and every wife and mother an Eve, to some future planet."

- Orson F. Whitney 1895

Blog-Merge

I've merged my posts from Feminitiation and Becoming Eve because, I couldn't keep interested in posting to three different blogs all at the same time. I'm leaving them up though because both of them are very pretty. I'm still keeping Star Tome and my cooking blogs separate though.

/end notice

The Ideal Translation Helper Software

I ran into an awesome program the other day, The Hebrew Interlinear Bible. It lets you create your own translation of the bible by assigning the appropriate word to each hebrew word. When you make an association, every instance of that word in the entire old testament is "translated" as such. So, that was really cool and everything, but there are a few problems. As an individual issue, I seem to get a whole lot of I/O errors when doing simple things like scrolling through the pages or searching for a word. My husband (who runs linux) has no troubles at all, and neither do a lot of other people. But, even I/O errors aside, there are still some key features missing. The ability to export - at all. you can print the file, but there is no print dialog, it just sends the print command to your printer. I would like to have more than one translation going at a time, and the programs says you can, but I couldn't get it to work - mostly because of all the errors. I'd also like to add a new set of "strong's numbers", because, I feel that they are fundamentally flawed being based on the King James translation of the bible. This *is* possible, but then you loose the ability to use the real strong's numbers! The last actual problem with the program is that the creator hasn't released a new version since 2003, so I know none of these complaints will ever be taken care of. I didn't know I even wanted this program a few days ago, and now I can't do without it!

I looked online for a program that does a similar thing and found Paratext, but it was more like a gated community than a piece of software. I decided to make a list of what my ideal translation program would do...

Languages and Fonts:
Ability to translate texts from more than one language. Hebrew, Greek or any custom language the user could think up. Basically, you would name the language, pick a font and character mapping (unicode would be default but custom maps would be available for custom true type fonts) and then you would be able to assign new numbers and words to it. You would also be able to start out with a new blank language or base it off of an already existing one.

You would be able to apply a language or more than one language at the same time to a book and see what the differences are. An example would be Modern and Middle English. There are words that are the same, and there are words that have a completely different meaning today. This applies to all languages! not just English, and you should be able to use different sets of translation data for them.

Words:
One of the coolest things about the HIB was the built-in Hebrew word database. It knows which words are related to which other words, the only problem being that it was based on strong's numbering system which seriously needs updating. The creator of the program should not be expected to create a word and roots database for every language, so, there should be quick and easy ways for the user to do so. Everyone likes to use their own interpretation anyhow. The way this would work is by letting the user create base and root words, variations and assign "numbers". The numbers may only be for internal consistency for the actual program and the user wouldn't even have to see them. They would serve the same function as the base word data. Every word has a base and a root. Most of the time, they are the same word, but not always, and in the case of compounded words, they can have more than one of each. It would be nice to allow some way to include compound words into the system.

The first time the user opens a new language file and a book in that language, they can edit the options for any particular word. They would be able to denote a base word, if it is the base word, a root word, an etymology or notes section, if they like, about that word and create new translations of anticipated word combinations. For instance, if the first word they opened was Ran, they could set the root and base word as run, and then edit that base word and add runs, running, runner or any other word they liked as 'children' of the base of run. The, as they go through the book they are translating, and they come upon a new variation of run that they had forgotten, no big deal, they just type run in as the base word and it is automatically added in as a child of run. Why is this useful at all? Mostly for future reference, especially useful if you don't know a language well. Think of all the ways people have used the strong's reference numbers - now imagine they were words that meant something to you instead of numbers - you would be able to create word indexes, or create super-intelligent search algorithms. It would also be possible for someone to create a word relation index and then share it with another user but let them actually translate the word. This would be great for language students who are still struggling to know where words end and conjugations begin. This would also help anyone understand the original meaning of a text, since any translation is approximate - you could click on any word and see where it came from and view all the various translations possible for that word in various circumstances.

This base and root word function is nice, but the program would still 'work' without it. The functionality would just be limited, but someone could just manually enter the translation for each word individually and not worry about whether they are translating one instance of eretz as earth and when an and is added to it translate it as land.

The actual translation of the words would involve picking a translation for a specific word that will work for most circumstances, and then, when needed, choosing a separate translation for a single word instance. You could also denote if it is really the same word, but it needs to be translated a little differently in order to make sense in the language it is being translated in, or if it's actually a separate word that happens to be spelt alike. We can use our run example again. Run as in run a race could be denoted as having the base word of run¹ and run as in I have a run in my pants could be denoted as having the base word of run². In this case, they would share the same root word, because they really do mean the same thing in a twisted sort of way.

Note, I think it might be useful to have a tool specifically designed to create root/base relationship files for languages without having to open a text for that language.

Interlinear and Comparative:
One main function of this program would be to create interlinear texts. To one side you could have an accepted translation of the text, loaded in by yourself with markers added for chapters and an automatic parser for paragraphs, sentences or verses. These markers would have to be matched with your original source text file - and this would also be able to be done with a parser if possible, or a point and click system if necessary. The main section of the screen would be taken up with the main text to be edited. Underneath each word would be your own personal translation of the text, root words, base words, some other person's word for word translation of the same text and a place to create a more flowing version of the text with corrected word order, connecting words and grammar (or in some people's cases, theological manipulation). the order these appear, or if the appear at all would be up to each user, if you double click any of these rows, the edit screen pops up with whatever you selected in the focus. For instance, if you double click the root word spot, your cursor will be set in the root word edit box on the edit screen. You will still be able to click on any of these if they are empty (except the source text, obviously). Another, quicker, way to enter text would be to use the tab key - just click once in the appropriate row, a cursor would appear, and then type the word. Pressing tab would move you on to the next word. If you wanted to choose a separate meaning for the word, you would either double click the space or hit an F key, I think to automatically set it to the corresponding meaning.

The only thing that would work differently is the new 'flowing' version of the translation, each sentence/verse/paragraph should be visibly separate in the flowing version - this tool is for literal translations, after all. As above, these marks could be added all at once, or as you create the flowing part of the text.

You should also be able to change the source text - I think of instances where you have more then one version of the text you are translating, and you would need to choose the most likely version to trust in certain cases - these should be marked somehow when you do, however!

Output:
Output is a necessary step! You should be able to output the text as a PDF, plain text, xml, LaTex, html, odt, and others... this would be hard to do though .. I thin k that if the text always lives as xml, the export wouldn't be that bad.

It would be best if the output wasn't strictly for interlinear translations. You should be able to switch between pure interlinear, interlinear with a side translation, side by side comparisons, just the plain translation and so on. It could be / would be formatted in a two column format, with the mormon-style footnotes or commentary style footnotes, depending on the amount of footnote data involved. Just like in the mormon footnotes, these would be denoted in the footnote area by what type of footnote it is - for instance, a cross reference, a topical reference, a language note, commentary and so on. These types and their abbreviations would be set by the user.

This sort of works in with my idea for a lulu book generator, and if I could get that produced, I would certainly have this tool able to interface with it so you could go straight from translator to published book with only a few simple steps in between. But that, is really dreaming.

Why do I care?

While reading a book today, the thought struck me - 'why do I care what these men think so much, if I disagree so strongly about their fundamental views on females and gender roles? Why am I devoting so much of my time and energies learning about them?'

Part of the answer is simple- the spiritual and mystical ideas that they have come up with concerning our eternal progression and the nature of God are intriguing and make a lot of sense to me (at least until I ask how I fit into the plan).

The other part is a little more complex and of shady certainty. I feel like the prophets and/or their successors really didn't think much about where women fit into their schemes, and so, when they asked God a question, he would have answered their questions. From experience, even if God did expound upon the role of women, if you aren't listening for something, you won't hear it. This is perfectly illustrated by the common phenomenon of hearing a newly learned word many times in a week which you had previously never heard before. Logic implies that the new word had been there all along, but you had never noticed it rather than a freak coincidence.

All this boils down to Women seeking inspiration from "God", and sharing it with her sisters. If this knowledge isn't shared and recorded, it is lost and all we have left are the pondering of men regarding the only thing they have had experience with - the life and concerns of other men.

Jehovah and Women

Note: I started writing this post months ago, and I don't really know what I was going to say - so I'm posting it incomplete with a follow-up post expressing some new concerns.

After reading the Bible, or other Hebrew-based literature, I can't quite shake off the feeling that something is out of place with the idea of a "loving father who only wants the best for all His children". Some examples of what disturb me are: Certain writings by Paul (all the women know which ones I mean), the fact that the Old Testament seems to be written by men and for men, speaking of the women in third person and using the male-only pronoun rather than the neutral (we don't notice this when reading in the English bible, as they are both translated as man, and we assume that women are included, since that is the way English works).

Moving on to the modern era, in Mormonism, men are required to have at least three wives in order to become a god (at least they think they do), where women are to only have one husband. Consider the eternal implications of this! We know that there is an equal number of male and female children being born. This is true all over the world in every country. If in eternity each male is partnered with three females, that leaves two thirds of the male spirits without a mate, and without a hope of eternal progression. I can see two possible solutions to this within the doctrines of traditional Mormonism. Either the third of the host of heaven who fell in the pre-existence and most, if not all those who are dammed in this life are male- therefore creating a large mis-balance between the genders and a reason for the 1:3 ratio (incidentally, I have read a journal from the 1800s that agrees with this theory). Or,

we do not believe in reincarnation ....

Here are some thoughts:

1) Men receive revelation for us, and they are sexist. God tells them correct principles, and they color them with their own ideas.
2) Jehovah doesn't like women (or think of them as being worth the same as a man)
3) Women were evil in the life before this, so they are paying for it now
4) Men are evil and they made Jehovah up so they could be mean to women

Chimp Spears

I recently read an article about Chimps in Senegal using spears to hunt small animals. While fascinating in itself, there is one point that relates especially to this blog:

What makes the discovery all the more remarkable, project leader Pruetz said, is who the hunters are: predominantly mature females and immature-youngsters between about two and ten years old.

In normal Chimpanzee social structure, the males do the hunting rather than the females. To see the females taking the initiative with this new technology is intriguing. In modern human society, the males are expected to be the ones who "invent" or discover new technologies. While we are taking steps to address this inequality, if you made a list of famous or influential inventors of the last 100 years, it would consist primarily of men.

Were the females the leading inventors in early human development? If so, what has changed? Why has innovation been labeled as a male activity? Are women still endowed with the power of invention? Or, do the value a different sort of invention - one that directly benefits their lives, rather than abstract acquisition of knowledge?

To answer these questions I think we need to examine the next generation of women - give them a chance to test their skills. Ask the question and see if they will bear out the answer, then ask another question.