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kaigouBack in college, I was [stop laughing] a theology [NOT religion] major, and one of the classes I took -- fortunately alongside my favorite malcontent, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kraehe -- was on Revelations. I was raised Episcopalian, which is possibly one of the least apocalyptic forms of xtianity out there, so I'd never given Revelations much attention. Plus, the professor was definitely a theologian, not a religionist, so I figured I'd get something out of it.
One of the professor's main points was that Revelations' author had an extensive and comprehensive and incredibly in-depth knowledge of the source material, which is the original Hebraic canonical texts. This never really got through to me, because it seemed to me that if you have a good working handle on the general concepts in the earlier judeo-xtian texts, that of course you could flip them around and play with them. I didn't get the degree of playing, because I didn't have the depth myself to see all the minute areas where a concept or image from the Pentateuch got stood on its head in Revelations.
Thing is, I get it now: it's another form of fanfiction, if we loosely define fanfiction as "something written that uses source material outside the author's own immediate creation". I didn't get this when studying, and I also didn't know the source material well enough, so much of the text's nuances missed me, and at times I felt like the text was really quite flat -- and I'd have to say that from the reactions of my classmates (nearly all of whom self-identified as fundamentalist, wow, that was a nightmare class in the end), they didn't get it, either. I was used to metaphor, but had little ground for the specific metaphor in the text, and where they were used to the images, they weren't used to them being treated metaphorically. Either way, we were all ill-equipped for seeing the flips going on in the text.
I mean, think of when you read fanfiction that's lauded in its fandom as a brilliant work. Most often this is because the fanfic manages to reveal something previously obscured in the original, or perhaps explain something that had been left as a plothole. For instance, I can think of retconning stories that are utterly brilliant, really, unless you don't know the story well enough, and by "well enough" I mean that that you, too, could see that plothole or that unanswered question. If you miss the pivot-point in the original story upon which the retcon is built, then the story requires a foundation you're lacking, or that you only have partially. For you, the story becomes a house of cards that eventually collapses under its own weight -- but it's just as possible that it's collapsing because the foundation you provided wasn't thorough enough to hold up under it.
That was happened when I studied Revelations, because I just didn't have the extent of the massive scope (despite our professor's determined attempts to get us there!) that the imagery and metaphor needs to be able to see how the Pentateuch is getting completely and utterly retconned out the wazoo. I could get it around the edges, but then the house of cards would fall on me, and I'd feel like it was a lot of sturm und drang for very little in the end.
Riffing further off that, this is also the reason -- with original thanks tocaseyvalhalla -- I consider received (religious) texts as a form of fanfiction, again using the loose(r) definition introduced here. Especially in the judeo-xtian systems, which do rely a great deal on specific canonical limitations, the imagery and metaphor in the text becomes fodder for the next go-round, whatever it may be. It's being recycled. That's true of texts in most developing systems, since texts that match the company line (IOW reflect current political views) are more likely to become canon.
But received texts are a kind of juggernaut that can distort a religion/fandom into a completely different direction (cf Aishuu's comments on the post before this one). The more the text overlays while moving away from the shadow-lines of the original, the more we're getting into Major AU territory, where fanon can and has overshadowed the source material to such a degree that it's almost ignored in favor of the brilliance of this one fan, err, this one prophet*. We'll tell each other, "sure, the original story's okay, but it doesn't always make sense, so you should really read so-and-so's version, because she explains it so it all totally makes sense" -- until the day comes that some folks don't see reason to read canon but are perfectly comfortable sticking with fanon.
Maybe it's just me, but I can't help but find amusing that the authors of these so-called texts do, themselves, become a kind of BNF. A religious BNF, but still, a BNF.
* I am very much looking at you and your fandom, Weiss Kruez.
kraehe -- was on Revelations. I was raised Episcopalian, which is possibly one of the least apocalyptic forms of xtianity out there, so I'd never given Revelations much attention. Plus, the professor was definitely a theologian, not a religionist, so I figured I'd get something out of it.One of the professor's main points was that Revelations' author had an extensive and comprehensive and incredibly in-depth knowledge of the source material, which is the original Hebraic canonical texts. This never really got through to me, because it seemed to me that if you have a good working handle on the general concepts in the earlier judeo-xtian texts, that of course you could flip them around and play with them. I didn't get the degree of playing, because I didn't have the depth myself to see all the minute areas where a concept or image from the Pentateuch got stood on its head in Revelations.
Thing is, I get it now: it's another form of fanfiction, if we loosely define fanfiction as "something written that uses source material outside the author's own immediate creation". I didn't get this when studying, and I also didn't know the source material well enough, so much of the text's nuances missed me, and at times I felt like the text was really quite flat -- and I'd have to say that from the reactions of my classmates (nearly all of whom self-identified as fundamentalist, wow, that was a nightmare class in the end), they didn't get it, either. I was used to metaphor, but had little ground for the specific metaphor in the text, and where they were used to the images, they weren't used to them being treated metaphorically. Either way, we were all ill-equipped for seeing the flips going on in the text.
I mean, think of when you read fanfiction that's lauded in its fandom as a brilliant work. Most often this is because the fanfic manages to reveal something previously obscured in the original, or perhaps explain something that had been left as a plothole. For instance, I can think of retconning stories that are utterly brilliant, really, unless you don't know the story well enough, and by "well enough" I mean that that you, too, could see that plothole or that unanswered question. If you miss the pivot-point in the original story upon which the retcon is built, then the story requires a foundation you're lacking, or that you only have partially. For you, the story becomes a house of cards that eventually collapses under its own weight -- but it's just as possible that it's collapsing because the foundation you provided wasn't thorough enough to hold up under it.
That was happened when I studied Revelations, because I just didn't have the extent of the massive scope (despite our professor's determined attempts to get us there!) that the imagery and metaphor needs to be able to see how the Pentateuch is getting completely and utterly retconned out the wazoo. I could get it around the edges, but then the house of cards would fall on me, and I'd feel like it was a lot of sturm und drang for very little in the end.
Riffing further off that, this is also the reason -- with original thanks to
caseyvalhalla -- I consider received (religious) texts as a form of fanfiction, again using the loose(r) definition introduced here. Especially in the judeo-xtian systems, which do rely a great deal on specific canonical limitations, the imagery and metaphor in the text becomes fodder for the next go-round, whatever it may be. It's being recycled. That's true of texts in most developing systems, since texts that match the company line (IOW reflect current political views) are more likely to become canon. But received texts are a kind of juggernaut that can distort a religion/fandom into a completely different direction (cf Aishuu's comments on the post before this one). The more the text overlays while moving away from the shadow-lines of the original, the more we're getting into Major AU territory, where fanon can and has overshadowed the source material to such a degree that it's almost ignored in favor of the brilliance of this one fan, err, this one prophet*. We'll tell each other, "sure, the original story's okay, but it doesn't always make sense, so you should really read so-and-so's version, because she explains it so it all totally makes sense" -- until the day comes that some folks don't see reason to read canon but are perfectly comfortable sticking with fanon.
Maybe it's just me, but I can't help but find amusing that the authors of these so-called texts do, themselves, become a kind of BNF. A religious BNF, but still, a BNF.
* I am very much looking at you and your fandom, Weiss Kruez.
no subject
Date: 20 Nov 2009 02:49 am (UTC)I guess it's left up to the reader/viewer to determine whether this conclusion degrades art & religion, or elevates fandom.