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Post by megli on Jun 28, 2009 15:11:03 GMT -1
Problem is--neither Pliny or Plutarch are especially reliable sources. Pliny's Natural History is full of tall tales. Indeed, much the same problem applies to using pliny for gaulish druidism as applies to using Gerald of Wales for information about Ireland: pagans only ever quote the bits they find relevant, without giving sufficient weight to theoverall shape of the text, its generic conventions, and the intentions of the author. So -- as Aelfarh has recently done elsewhere--we quote the 'Topographia Hiberne' on, say, St Brigit's cult as though it was a straight historical source, whilst ignoring all the other bits in the text about magic fountains, supernatural islands, and Christian werewolves. Exactly the same goes for Pliny and, by extension, any source.
It's always tempting to take the mysterious, exciting fragments of (just possibly) druidic lore from different souces and think of ingenious ways to synthesise them. The idea that behind the falling-off represented by Christian history there exists a pristine, undiluted, primordial version of the 'druidic mysteries', accessible to the determined amateur scholar, is thrilling and romantic. Unfortunately, it's just not the kind of information these souces can be used to provide. The only thing Pliny's Natural History really tells us about is what Pliny thought worked when he was writing it.
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Post by Heron on Jun 28, 2009 20:31:00 GMT -1
We keep returning on this forum to the question of the validity of historical or pseudo-historical sources. I wonder if it might be worth being a bit clearer about what we want from them. If we are trying to get what Megli refers to as the "undiluted, primordial version of the 'druidic mysteries'" or some such then of course we are always going to be told by those who know that we are deluded. But is this what we want? If, instead, we are looking to assemble a collection of texts and sources that could provide a focus for a Brythonic religious practice, what would this be, and what criteria of historical accuracy would we need to apply?
Consider the Bible. There are some fundamentalist christians who consider every word of it to be literally true. But it's not difficult to prove them wrong. Many christians today do not regard their holy book in that fashion. Yet it remains their holy book. Much of it can be shown to be folk tale, historical legend and mythical stories that have parallels elsewhere. But for it's adherents, even if they acknowledge all this, it contains stories about their ancestors and their various attempts in various ways to worship their god. In the New Testament specific claims are made for the significance of certain historical events that, were they not enshrined in a long tradition of belief, would be dismissed in the same way that many current pagan and druidic theories are dismissed. And in fact these stories are actually dismissed by atheists in just this way.
So can we expect to get access to anything that can't be criticised by scholars as being doubtful? Probably not. Can we collect a series of tales, legends, accounts of gods etc. that are inspirational and provide us with a focus for pursuing a religious practice? Why not? We just need to forget trying to know what pagans in the past did except in very general terms and see what use we can make of what survives in later and inevitably transformed texts and see what it is that inspires us to be able to create an ethos for our own time.
If, for instance, the stories about Rhiannon in Y Mabinogi do inspire us in this way, what we can know about the source of her name in Brythonic religious practice can also be inspiring. As for the stories themselves, they are stories. No modern, or medieval, users of the Bible could really know what stories in the Old Testament meant to their original audience but they make their own sense of them. Just as they do of the story of the Garden of Eden. Some modern christians undoubtedly think this happened just as it is told, others look for deeper truths in the story. What deeper truths can we find in our own stories, and would finding deeper truths within them be invalidated by the fact that some neo-druids want them to be literally true?
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Post by megli on Jun 28, 2009 20:32:27 GMT -1
I think you might get different answers to that from different people!
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Post by Adam on Jun 29, 2009 6:08:35 GMT -1
No modern, or medieval, users of the Bible could really know what stories in the Old Testament meant to their original audience but they make their own sense of them. and the medieval and modern christians made a different sense from each other, each rich in its own diversity and each responding to the needs of the cultural context of the time, the latter being what I understand to be hoped for for Brython?
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Post by megli on Jun 29, 2009 6:28:58 GMT -1
Yes: I think this is fair, and wise. The issue of how important textuality is to us is one that needs to be addressed. Also there must be a middle ground between the Scylla of Restall-Orr-style cod-animism, where anything and everything is fine as long as it 'inspires', and the unbelievably boring and rickety Charybdis of a naively doctrinaire reconstructionism.
Of course, Heron, the difference with the Bible is that, after the self-revelation of God's nature in the person of Christ, it is the foundation of the whole faith; it's also supposed to be inspired by the Holy Spirit throughout, so that in a real sense for Christians its very heterogeneity and overflowing fulness is a sign of God's will. I can't imagine that we would want to take any medieval or ancient text in that sense.
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Post by Francis on Jun 29, 2009 11:04:35 GMT -1
Can we collect a series of tales, legends, accounts of gods etc. that are inspirational and provide us with a focus for pursuing a religious practice? Why not? We just need to forget trying to know what pagans in the past did except in very general terms and see what use we can make of what survives in later and inevitably transformed texts and see what it is that inspires us to be able to create an ethos for our own time. I wholly agree Heron. I think all of us who have been here for a while now realise mining the old texts alone is not going to provide us with the materials to build what it is we hope the Brython project might become. Perhaps we need to be more explicit about the limits of this approach? Without falling into the TDN mindset of whatever inspires, how best can we we decide where else to rationally look for other avenues "that inspire us to be able to create an ethos for our own time." My path is more focussed on the echos in the landscape but how to discuss the hoard to be found there that has value to me is very difficult. To misquote someone or other "talking about music is like dancing about food"
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Post by Heron on Jun 29, 2009 13:31:13 GMT -1
I take the point, Megli, about the Bible being understood as inspired throughout by the Holy Spirit, and that we can't expect to match that (pauses for visions of a Brythonic prophet arising saying "Lugh told me to lead you all ..." and telling us what we should be doing). I agree that we would not want to take any ancient or later text in that sense. I also agree that we need to avoind the 'anything that inspires' tendency and therefore that some rigour needs to ber applied. And that's the work that needs to be done as it is only possible if there is some agreement on what you refer to as 'textuality'. What constitutes a valid text, and valid for what.
Stephen, yes 'echoes in the landscape' are also crucial. This always has to be 'ground zero' when we are assessing usefulness and relevance.
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Post by noctua on Jan 24, 2016 22:08:59 GMT -1
Enjoyed reading this thread,made me realize very quickly that this is a fun site, thanks
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