Notes - relaxing day / LOTFlies / prophets / (stop)

     Almost noon. You just finished your thirty minutes of exercises and are listening to the 'Eighties' on Pandora - "I'll stop the world and melt with you" just completed. What's next -- "There is always something there to remind me"  and "How can I forget you girl . . . you'll always be a part of me". - Amorella

       1200 hours. I cannot have the music on . . . [memories] . . ."Always something there to remind me". And next -- "Take my breath away". [A lifetime of memories, what can I say.]

       You had a relaxing bath with bubbler on. Carol has been nibbling so no Mother's Day dinner a day early. You will split a two scoop turtle sundae at Graeter's instead. No rain scheduled for a few day so you are getting the car washed and then have a sandwich lunch of some sort and go to the Little Miami River to read passing through scenes of West Virginia as you twist and turn your way down to the river valley. Later, young man. Post. - Amorella

       You had lunch at Smashburgers and Carol is now taking a walk in the northern section of Pine Hill Lakes Park. You are facing south parallel to a the Muddy Creek fork at your left. Lot of thick greenery, very much forest-like in Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee or Kentucky. You can very much smell the freshness of the oxygen. - Amorella

       1428 hours. It reminds me of what I thought a jungle or rain forest was when I was a kid. It was always an adventure to take a trail or make one in such an environment -- camping in the woods pup tent style just like the good Boy Scout I was in those days. At least in Ohio where we were there weren't the bears to consider; some water moccasins and rattle snakes though. No scorpions either but you did find them in Tennessee as you did black bears. In those days I was somewhat like the character Piggy in Lord of the Flies, somewhat rotund, though athletic, with glasses and friends like Ralph. Nobody reads Golding's book anymore, passé, I suppose.

       The Lord of the Flies theme still fits with modern civilization, my friend. Sadly enough. Drop in the Wikipedia info as a reminder. - Amorella

       1451 hours. I pretty much remember the book. I taught it for at least two and a half decades at least, but here it is.

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Lord of the Flies is a 1954 novel by Nobel Prize-winning English author William Golding. The book focuses on a group of British boys stranded on an uninhabited island and their disastrous attempt to govern themselves.

Background

Published in 1954, Lord of the Flies was Golding's first novel. Although it was not a great success at the time—selling fewer than three thousand copies in the United States during 1955 before going out of print—it soon went on to become a best-seller. It has been adapted to film twice in English, in 1963 by Peter Brook and 1990 by Harry Hook, and once in Filipino (1976).

The book takes place in the midst of an unspecified nuclear war. Some of the marooned characters are ordinary students, while others arrive as a musical choir under an established leader. With the exception of the choirboys, Sam, and Eric, they appear never to have encountered each other before. The book portrays their descent into savagery; left to themselves on a paradisiacal island, far from modern civilization, the well-educated children regress to a primitive state.

Golding wrote his book as a counterpoint to R. M. Ballantyne's youth novel The Coral Island, and included specific references to it, such as the rescuing naval officer's description of the children's pursuit of Ralph as "a jolly good show, like the Coral Island". Golding's three central characters—Ralph, Piggy and Jack—have been interpreted as caricatures of Ballantyne's Coral Island protagonists.

Plot

In the midst of a wartime evacuation, a British aeroplane crashes on or near an isolated island in a remote region of the Pacific Ocean. The only survivors are boys in their middle childhood or preadolescence. Two boys—the fair-haired Ralph and an overweight, bespectacled boy nicknamed "Piggy"—find a conch, which Ralph uses as a horn to convene all the survivors to one area. Because Ralph appears responsible for bringing all the survivors together, he immediately commands some authority over the other boys and is quickly elected their "chief", but he does not receive the votes of the members of a boys' choir, led by the red-headed Jack Merridew. Ralph establishes three primary policies: to have fun, to survive, and to constantly maintain a smoke signal that could alert passing ships to their presence on the island and thus rescue them. The boys establish a form of democracy by declaring that whoever holds the conch shall also be able to speak at their formal gatherings and receive the attentive silence of the larger group.

Jack organises his choir into a hunting party responsible for discovering a food source. Ralph, Jack, and a quiet, dreamy boy named Simon soon form a loose triumvirate of leaders with Ralph as the ultimate authority. Though he is Ralph's only real confidant, Piggy is quickly made into an outcast by his fellow "biguns" (older boys) and becomes an unwilling source of laughs for the other children while being hated by Jack. Simon, in addition to supervising the project of constructing shelters, feels an instinctive need to protect the "littluns" (younger boys).

The semblance of order quickly deteriorates as the majority of the boys turn idle; they give little aid in building shelters, spend their time having fun and begin to develop paranoias about the island. The central paranoia refers to a supposed monster they call the "beast", which they all slowly begin to believe exists on the island. Ralph insists that no such beast exists, but Jack, who has started a power struggle with Ralph, gains a level of control over the group by boldly promising to kill the creature. At one point, Jack summons all of his hunters to hunt down a wild pig, drawing away those assigned to maintain the signal fire. A ship travels by the island, but without the boys' smoke signal to alert the ship's crew, the vessel continues without stopping. Ralph angrily confronts Jack about his failure to maintain the signal; in frustration Jack assaults Piggy, breaking his glasses. The boys subsequently enjoy their first feast. Angered by the failure of the boys to attract potential rescuers, Ralph considers relinquishing his position as leader, but is convinced not to do so by Piggy, who both understands Ralph's importance and deeply fears what will become of him should Jack take total control.

One night, an aerial battle occurs near the island while the boys sleep, during which a fighter pilot ejects from his plane and dies in the descent. His body drifts down to the island in his parachute; both get tangled in a tree near the top of the mountain. Later on, while Jack continues to scheme against Ralph, the twins Sam and Eric, now assigned to the maintenance of the signal fire, see the corpse of the fighter pilot and his parachute in the dark. Mistaking the corpse for the beast, they run to the cluster of shelters that Ralph and Simon have erected to warn the others. This unexpected meeting again raises tensions between Jack and Ralph. Shortly thereafter, Jack decides to lead a party to the other side of the island, where a mountain of stones, later called Castle Rock, forms a place where he claims the beast resides. Only Ralph and a quiet suspicious boy, Jack's closest supporter Roger, agree to go; Ralph turns back shortly before the other two boys but eventually all three see the parachutist, whose head rises via the wind. They then flee, now believing the beast is truly real. When they arrive at the shelters, Jack calls an assembly and tries to turn the others against Ralph, asking them to remove Ralph from his position. Receiving no support, Jack storms off alone to form his own tribe. Roger immediately sneaks off to join Jack, and slowly an increasing amount of older boys abandon Ralph to join Jack's tribe. Jack's tribe continues to lure recruits from the main group by promising feasts of cooked pig. The members begin to paint their faces and enact bizarre rites, including sacrifices to the beast.

Simon, who faints frequently and is likely an epileptic, has a secret hideaway where he goes to be alone. One day while he is there, Jack and his followers erect a faux sacrifice to the beast nearby: a pig's head, mounted on a sharpened stick and soon swarming with scavenging flies. Simon conducts an imaginary dialogue with the head, which he dubs the "Lord of the Flies". The head mocks Simon's notion that the beast is a real entity, "something you could hunt and kill", and reveals the truth: they, the boys, are the beast; it is inside them all. The Lord of the Flies also warns Simon that he is in danger, because he represents the soul of man, and predicts that the others will kill him. Simon climbs the mountain alone and discovers that the beast is only a dead parachutist trapped by rocks being moved by the wind. Rushing down to tell the others, Simon is seen by the boys who are engaged in a ritual dance. The frenzied boys mistake Simon for the beast, attack him, and beat him to death.

Jack and his rebel band decide that the real symbol of power on the island is not the conch, but Piggy's glasses—the only means the boys have of starting a fire. They raid Ralph's camp, confiscate the glasses, and return to their abode on Castle Rock. Ralph, now deserted by most of his supporters, journeys to Castle Rock to confront Jack and secure the glasses. Taking the conch and accompanied only by Piggy, Sam, and Eric, Ralph finds the tribe and demands that they return the valuable object. Confirming their total rejection of Ralph's authority, the tribe capture and bind the twins under Jack's command. Ralph and Jack engage in a fight which neither wins before Piggy tries once more to address the tribe. Any sense of order or safety is permanently eroded when Roger, now sadistic, deliberately drops a boulder from his vantage point above, killing Piggy and shattering the conch. Ralph manages to escape, but Sam and Eric are tortured by Roger until they agree to join Jack's tribe.

Ralph secretly confronts Sam and Eric, who warn him that Jack and Roger hate him and that Roger has sharpened a stick at both ends, implying the tribe intends to hunt him like a pig and behead him. The following morning, Jack orders his tribe to begin a hunt for Ralph. Jack's savages set fire to the forest while Ralph desperately weighs his options for survival. Following a long chase, most of the island is consumed in flames. With the hunters closely behind him, Ralph trips and falls. He looks up at a uniformed adult—a naval officer whose party has landed from a passing warship to investigate the fire. Ralph bursts into tears over the death of Piggy and the "end of innocence". Jack and the other children, filthy and unkempt, also revert to their true ages and erupt into sobs. The officer expresses his disappointment at seeing British boys exhibiting such feral, warlike behaviour before turning to stare awkwardly at his own war-ship.

Themes

At an allegorical level, the central theme is the conflicting human impulses toward civilization and social organization—living by rules, peacefully and in harmony—and toward the will to power. Themes include the tension between groupthink and individuality, between rational and emotional reactions, and between morality and immorality. How these play out, and how different people feel the influences of these form a major subtext of Lord of the Flies. The name "Lord of the Flies" is a literal translation of Beelzebub, from 2 Kings 1:2-3, 6, 16.

Selected and edited from Wikipedia

[My underlining for emphasis]

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       1508 hours. I can't believe I forgot about Simon's character, but I did at the outset. I don't believe I ever mentioned to the classes that Simon was as the soul of man. I considered him "prophet-like and poetic" instead.

       That's how you used to picture yourself is it not, prophet-like and poetic? - Amorella

       1515 hours. Embarrassing to admit (such a shuffle of arrogance I had) but this is the way I saw myself. It was a stretch of imagination but I leaned towards Ezekiel I suppose, more than any other prophet; that is, I more readily secretly identified myself with Ezekiel. I don't know why this was. I don't even remember the names of the other Biblical prophets though I did take a course in it at Otterbein. I was the only English major (1963) in the class if I remember right, the rest were studying to be Methodist men of the cloth. I was taking the course because I reasoned that the major of early English and European literature was based on biblical stories and thought I needed the background. At the time I was basically an agnostic.

       This sounds like your character at the time. I'll let it pass as 'true enough in those circumstances'. As your curiosity has been stimulated, let's drop in those prophets of old mentioned in your two or three semester classes at Otterbein. - Amorella

       1526 hours. I still can't think of a one beyond Ezekiel.

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Question: "What are the Major Prophets and Minor Prophets?"

Answer: The terms Major Prophets and Minor Prophets are simply a way to divide the Old Testament prophetic books. The Major Prophets are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, and Daniel. The Minor Prophets are Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. The Minor Prophets are also sometimes called The Twelve.

The Major Prophets are described as “major” because their books are longer and the content has broad, even global implications. The Minor Prophets are described as “minor” because their books are shorter (although Hosea and Zechariah are almost as long as Daniel) and the content is more narrowly focused. That does not mean the Minor Prophets are any less inspired than the Major Prophets. It is simply a matter of God choosing to reveal more to the Major Prophets than He did to the Minor Prophets.

Both the Major and Minor Prophets are usually among the least popular books of the Bible for Christians to read. This is understandable with the often unusual prophetic language and the seemingly constant warnings and condemnations recorded in the prophecies. Still, there is much valuable content to be studied in the Major and Minor Prophets. We read of Christ’s birth in Isaiah and Micah. We learn of Christ’s atoning sacrifice in Isaiah. We read of Christ’s return in Ezekiel, Daniel, and Zechariah. We learn of God’s holiness, wrath, grace, and mercy in all of the Major and Minor Prophets. For that, they are most worthy of our attention and study.

Selected and edited from - https://www.gotquestions dot org/major-minor-prophets.html

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       1532 hours. I chose the above source because it appears fitting with the courses at Otterbein, all taught by ordained ministers.

       How about a little more background? - Amorella

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Prophets and Prophecy Level: Intermediate

• A prophet is G-d's spokesman to the people
• Can be male or female, Jewish or gentile
• The Bible records 48 male prophets, 7 female and one gentile
• Daniel was not a prophet because he did not speak to the people

What is a Prophet?

Many people today think of a prophet as any person who sees the future. While the gift of prophecy certainly includes the ability to see the future, a prophet is far more than just a person with that ability. 

A prophet is basically a spokesman for G-d, a person chosen by G-d to speak to people on G-d's behalf and convey a message or teaching. Prophets were role models of holiness, scholarship and closeness to G-d. They set the standards for the entire community. 
The Hebrew word for a prophet, navi (Nun-Beit-Yod-Alef) comes from the term niv sefatayim meaning "fruit of the lips," which emphasizes the prophet's role as a speaker. 
The Talmud  teaches that there were hundreds of thousands of prophets: twice as many as the number of people who left Egypt, which was 600,000. But most of the prophets conveyed messages that were intended solely for their own generation and were not reported in scripture. Scripture identifies only 55 prophets of Israel. 

A prophet is not necessarily a man. Scripture records the stories of seven female prophets, listed below, and the Talmud reports that Sarah's prophetic ability was superior to Abraham's. 

A prophet is not necessarily a Jew. The Talmud reports that there were prophets among the gentiles (most notably Balaam, whose story is told in Numbers 22), although they were not as elevated as the prophets of Israel (as the story of Balaam demonstrates). And some of the prophets, such as Jonah, were sent on missions to speak to the gentiles. 

According to some views, prophecy is not a gift that is arbitrarily conferred upon people; rather, it is the culmination of a person's spiritual and ethical development. When a person reaches a sufficient level of spiritual and ethical achievement, the Shechinah (Divine Spirit) comes to rest upon him or her. Likewise, the gift of prophecy leaves the person if that person lapses from his or her spiritual and ethical perfection. 

The greatest of the prophets was Moses. It is said that Moses saw all that all of the other prophets combined saw, and more. Moses saw the whole of the Torah, including the Prophets and the Writings that were written hundreds of years later. All subsequent prophecy was merely an expression of what Moses had already seen. Thus, it is taught that nothing in the Prophets or the Writings can be in conflict with Moses' writings, because Moses saw it all in advance. 

The Talmud states that the writings of the prophets will not be necessary in the World to Come, because in that day, all people will be mentally, spiritually and ethically perfect, and all will have the gift of prophecy.
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Why is Daniel Not a Prophet?

I am often asked why the Book of Daniel is included in the Writings section of the Tanakh instead of the Prophets section. Wasn't Daniel a prophet? Weren't his visions of the future true? 

According to Judaism, Daniel is not one of the 55 prophets. His writings include visions of the future, which we believe to be true; however, his mission was not that of a prophet. His visions of the future were never intended to be proclaimed to the people; they were designed to be written down for future generations. Thus, they are Writings, not Prophecies, and are classified accordingly. 

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© Copyright 5758-5771 (1997-2011), Tracey R Rich

[This is 2017. I do not know if the copyright is still valid.]

Selected and edited from -- http://www.jewfaq dot org/prophet.htm
[I did not include the list of prophets because I could not keep the material in a list form.]

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       You are concerned because of the copyright. - Amorella

       1548 hours. This article best serves the context which I see this 'prophet theme' due to my schooling. Personally, I don't see the harm. These are my notes I am giving full credit. I'm not gaining anything but information to use in my personal background in conjunction with Soki's Choice which will be available for free. I do not stand to make a profit (no pun intended). 

       You are home. Carol is checking the mail. You have an ice cream treat awaiting before a stop at the grocery on the way home. Post. - Amorella

       You did stop at Graeter's but Carol wanted the usual 'kid's cup' so that is what you had. Presently you are at Kroger's for essentials and will wait until tomorrow to get the car washed. - Amorella

       1713 hours. I don't know why the list of prophets? I did learn something from the last article though.

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• A prophet is G-d's spokesman to the people
• Can be male or female, Jewish or gentile
• The Bible records 48 male prophets, 7 female and one gentile
• Daniel was not a prophet because he did not speak to the people

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I didn't realize that there were seven female prophets and one who was not even Jewish. (1716)

       1909 hours. Here is what Wikipedia has to say.

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Prophecy involves a process in which one or more messages are allegedly communicated by God. Such messages typically involve inspiration, interpretation, or revelation of divine will concerning the prophet's social world and events to come (compare divine knowledge ). Prophecy is not limited to any one culture. It is a common property to all known ancient societies around the world, some more than others. Many systems and rules about prophecy have been proposed over several millennia.

Etymology

The English word "prophecy" (noun) in the sense of "function of a prophet" appeared from about 1225, from [[Old Frenprofecie(12th century), and from Late Latin  prophetia, Greek  propheteia "gift of interpreting the will of God", from Greek prophetes . The related meaning "thing spoken or written by a prophet" dates from c. 1300, while the verb "to prophesy" is recorded by 1377.

Definitions

Rabbinic scholar Maimonides, suggested that "prophecy is, in truth and reality, an emanation sent forth by Divine Being through the medium of the Active Intellect, in the first instance to man's rational faculty, and then to his imaginative faculty."

The former closely relates to the definition by Al-Farabi who developed the theory of prophecy in Islam.

The Catholic Encyclopedia defines a Christian conception of prophecy as "understood in its strict sense, it means the foreknowledge of future events, though it may sometimes apply to past events of which there is no memory, and to present hidden things which cannot be known by the natural light of reason."

According to Western esotericist Rosemary Guiley, clairvoyance has been used as an adjunct to "divination, prophecy, and magic"

Modern (Western esoteric) research in prophecy is a pseudoscience. In general, a diviner's foretelling or a prophetic prediction of the future does not adhere to the scientific method, therefore it is no object of science.

From a skeptical point of view, there is a Latin maxim: prophecy written after the fact vaticinium ex eventu. The Jewish Torah already deals with the topic of the false prophet (Deuteronomy 13:2-6, 18:20-22).

Judaism

The Hebrew term for prophet  Navi literally means "spokesperson"; he speaks to the people as a mouthpiece of their God,  and to their god on behalf of the people. "The name prophet, from the Greek meaning "forespeaker" (πρὸ being used in the original local sense), is an equivalent of the Hebrew נבוא , which signifies properly a delegate or mouthpiece of another." A major theme of the Nevi'im is social justice. 

According to Judaism, authentic Nevuah (Heb.: נבואה, "Prophecy") got withdrawn from the world after the destruction of the first Jerusalem Temple. Malachi is acknowledged to have been the last authentic prophet if one accepts the opinion that Nechemyah  died in Babylon before 9th Tevet 3448 (313 BCE)

The Torah contains laws concerning the false prophet (Deuteronomy 13:2-6, 18:20-22). Prophets in Christianity like Daniel, or prophets in Islam like Lot, for example, are not prophets or false prophets according to Jewish standards.

In the Torah, prophecy often consisted of a conditioned warning by their god of the consequences should the society, specific communities, or their leaders not adhere to Torah's instructions in the time contemporary with the prophet's life. Prophecies sometimes included conditioned promises of blessing for obeying their god, and returning to behaviors and laws as written in the Torah. Conditioned warning prophecies feature in all Jewish works of the Tanakh. 

Notably Maimunides  (Rambam), philosophically suggested there once were many levels of prophecy, from the highest such as those experienced by Moses, to the lowest where the individuals were able to apprehend the Divine Will, but not respond or even describe this experience to others, citing in example, Shem, Eber and most notably, Noah, who, in biblical narrative, does not issue prophetic declarations

Maimonides, in his philosophical work The Guide for the Perplexed, outlines twelve modes of prophecy from lesser to greater degree of clarity:

1.  Inspired actions

2.  Inspired words

3.  Allegorical dream revelations

4.  Auditory dream revelations

5.  Audiovisual dream revelations/ human speaker

6.  Audiovisual dream revelations/angelic speaker

7.  Audiovisual dream revelations/Divine speaker

8.  Allegorical waking vision 

9.  Auditory waking revelation

10.               Audiovisual waking revelation/human speaker

11.               Audiovisual waking revelation/angelic speaker

12.               Audiovisual waking revelation/Divine speaker (that refers implicitly to Moses)

The Tanakh contains prophecies from various Hebrew prophets  (55 in total) who communicated messages from God to the nation of Israel, and later the population of Judea and elsewhere. Experience of prophecy in the Torah and the rest of Tanakh was not restricted to Jews. Nor was the prophetic experience restricted to the Hebrew language.

Skepticism

According to skeptics, many apparently fulfilled prophecies can be explained as coincidences (possibly aided by the prophecy's own vagueness), or that some prophecies were actually invented after the fact to match the circumstances of a past event ("postdiction").

Bill Whitcomb in The Magician's Companion observes,

One point to remember is that the probability of an event changes as soon as a prophecy (or divination) exists. . . . The accuracy or outcome of any prophecy is altered by the desires and attachments of the seer and those who hear the prophecy.

Psychological understandings

The phenomenon of prophecy is not well understood in psychology research literature. Psychiatrist and neurologist Arthur Deikman describes the phenomenon as an "intuitive knowing, a type of perception that bypasses the usual sensory channels and rational intellect.

“(P)rophecy can be likened to a bridge between the individual ‘mystical self’ and the communal ‘mystical body’,” writes religious sociologist Margaret Poloma. Prophecy seems to involve “the free association that occurred through the workings of the right brain.”

Psychologist Julian Jaynes proposed that this is a temporary accessing of the bicameral mind; that is, a temporary separating of functions, such that the authoritarian part of the mind seems to literally be speaking to the person as if a separate (and external) voice. Jaynes posits that the gods heard as voices in the head were and are organizations of the central nervous system. God speaking through man, according to Jaynes, is a more recent vestige of God speaking to man; the product of a more integrated higher self. When the bicameral mind speaks, there is no introspection. We simply experience the Lord telling us what to do. In earlier times, posits Jaynes, there was additionally a visual component, now lost.

Child development and consciousness author Joseph Chilton Pearce remarked that revelation typically appears in symbolic form and “in a single flash of insight.” He used the metaphor of lightning striking and suggests that the revelation is “a result of a buildup of resonant potential.” Pearce compared it to the earth asking a question and the sky answering it. Focus, he said, feeds into “a unified field of like resonance (and becomes) capable of attracting and receiving the field’s answer when it does form."

Some cite aspects of cognitive psychology such as pattern forming and attention to the formation of prophecy in modern-day society as well as the declining influence of religion in daily life.

Selected and edited from Wikipedia

[I focused here on the cultural aspects I associate with my days at Otterbein rather than on a broader list of world cultural backgrounds.]

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       Today you are much more skeptical about prophecy than you were in younger years mainly because of your own psychological experiences as seen in the above article's segment on the 'Psychological Understandings'. You have plenty examples of this in this Encounters-in-Mind blog. - Amorella

       1926 hours. I am an agnostic who recognizes that G-D most probably exists, and I readily accept that G-D exists. This does not mean G-D exists. I don't know. I don't have the capability of knowing such a thing as I do knowing science and art exists through/within our humanity. Somewhere between/among the lines of Melville's fictional work, Moby Dick, I feel that there is an underlying truth/observation about our humanity that deals with our spiritual realm. I am done (stop) with this subject for now. (1935)

       Post. - Amorella