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Speaker 1: As robin Hood kind of develops, you know, into the

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Tudor period, you really get the sense that one of

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the things that motivates robin Hood two things. One is

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his love for a virtuous maiden, which at the time

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would have been seen as very much an honorable pursuit.

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His love of maid Marian becomes something that is beyond

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his thuggery, you could say. But then the more interesting

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part is the idea that he is. He's an aristocrat, right,

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He's a he's a lord that has lost his he

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has lost his place because now Prince John or the

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Sheriff of Nottingham, or whoever's an authority is corrupt and

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has taken from him that place. But he also knows

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that he is not the king, that he can't take

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that role, and so he remains faithful to the true king, right,

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he remains faithful to King Richard, who is away, and

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he just finds a way to exist in that in

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that inverted world where the authority has become a legitimate

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it pokes at it, plays with it, and tries to

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survive until the king returns and restores order. And so

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what happens in that place is that robin Hood becomes

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a image of everything that opposes authority. But does it

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we'll see as we look at the story, does it

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in a very fascinating way, which is different from simple

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rebellion and simple revolution. This is Jonathan Pego. Welcome to

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the symbolic world. What you're about to see is a

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talk gave in Nottingham, England, on Robin Hood. As some

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of you know, I've been traveling quite a bit in

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the past few weeks. I was in England and France.

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Also went to Istanbul to film a documentary with John Raveaki.

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But this little part was something that I couldn't refuse.

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I was invited to come speak about Robin Hood in

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his area near Sherwood Forest, obviously in Nottingham. It was

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at the Southwell Cathedral there and so it was really

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quite a joy. What's funny is that the person who

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organized the event gave the talk a title, because I

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was just not giving her a title, and the title

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was something like Robinhood, the original green Man. And so

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this title forced me to think about Robinhood in a

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very different way and ended up with me making a

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relationship between Robinhood, a very strange character in the Quran,

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and Merlin, and so I think you will definitely enjoy this,

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and don't forget if you love what we're doing, don't

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forget to go to the Symbolic World dot com and

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you can sign up become a member for free. You

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can participate in the community of people discussing symbolism. But

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it's also the place where you can support what I'm

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doing financially. People who support it support my work financially,

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also get extra videos, all kinds of other little perks.

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But it's also the way that I support my family

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doing this, and so I hope you enjoyed this conversation.

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I certainly had a great time. They're looking at that cathedral.

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It's also amazing with all the little monsters and gargoyles

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all over the all over the cathedral, and so please enjoy.

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It's really a joy to be here. I was coming

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to the UK to do a few things and just

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completely out of the blue, I get a message from

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Allison's husband, John Millbank on Twitter you know something about

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robin Hood, and I gave a little quip about what

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I think robin Hood is about, and then he said,

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do you want to come to Nottingham to talk about Robinhood. Well,

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how could I say no to that? So it's really

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a joy to be and so I am very much

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the opposite of those historians, you know. I care about

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the manner in which we remember stories, the manner in

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which we celebrate them. And so for me, the entire

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story of Robinhood, from the origins in terms of the

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first ballads all the way to the Disney movie and

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to the way that it's been transmitted and remembered is

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part of the legend. There's something at the core of

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that that in some ways you could say that people

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are asking what are the questions that people are asking?

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Stories are not just for our entertainment. They have a

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function in society, like working out things you could say,

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in images, to try to understand certain aspects of the world.

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And one of the things I think that Robinhood is doing,

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you could say, for us, is he's trying to help

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us understand what do you do when authority becomes illegitimate?

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How do you deal with that? How can you be

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a virtuous rebel? Is there such a thing as a

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virtuous rebel? What's the difference between a virtuous rebel, common thug,

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a revolutionary? What is the difference between all those types

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of characters. And I think that the Robinhood's story as

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it develops, starts to refine and to ask questions about that.

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There are, of course all kinds of historical contingencies which

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bring the story to where it is. You could say,

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necessarily the Reformation has an effect on the character. Now

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thinking about rebellions somewhat differently, thinking about the relationship to

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authority differently, the Tudor period also, so all of this

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we can say, yes, there are definitely historical contingencies which

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bring us that bring the character along and skew or

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start to twist the way that he's told. But we

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can mostly and more interestingly, just look at the stories

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selves and what it is that the stories are doing,

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and how it is that we receive them and interact

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with them. And so another thing that I started to

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ask myself is I was looking at the question of

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Robin Hood, is does he resemble other characters one of

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the stories I always I'm a Christian, I always look

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back to scripture, and I ask myself, when any for

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fairy tale, for any kind of story, I asked myself,

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is there a version of his story in the Bible,

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and it turns out, actually there's quite a bit of

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robin Hood in the scripture. Took me a while to

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kind of get of it. When I found the line,

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I realized that it actually follows quite powerfully, and you

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see it in the story of King David. There's actually

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quite a relationship between the story of King David and

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the story of robin Hood, because the story of King

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day David is also at least the first part, the

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part before David becomes king. It's about how to be honorable,

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how to be a heroic figure, and how to live

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in a world where authority has become illegitimate, not only illegitimate,

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but hostile to you right, how to act when the

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king is trying to kill you. But you also know

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that killing the king is wrong. If I kill the king,

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or if I try to put myself in the place

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of the king, that revolutionary act will bring about a breakdown,

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will bring about chaos. And so the parallels become very

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very interesting. The as Robinhood kind of develops, you know,

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into the Tudor period, you really get the sense that

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one of the things that motivates robin Hood to things

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one is his love for a virtuous maiden, which at

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the time would have been seen as very much an

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honorable pursuit. His love made Marian becomes something that is

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beyond his thuggery, you could say. But then the more

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interesting part is the idea that he is. He's an aristocrat, right,

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He's a lord that has lost his He has lost

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his place because now Prince John or the Sheriff of Nottingham,

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or whoever's an authority is corrupt and has taken from

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him that place. But he also knows that he is

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not the king, that he can't take that role, and

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so he remains faithful to the true king, right, he

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remains faithful to King Richard, who is away, and he

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just finds a way to exist in that, let's say,

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in that inverted world where the authority has become legitimate,

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pokes at it, plays with it, and tries to survive

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until the king returns and restores order. And so what

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happens in that place is that Robin Hood becomes a

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image of everything that opposes authority. But does it, we'll

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see as we look at the story, does it in

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a very fascinating way, which is different from simple rebellion

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and simple revolution. When I proposed this talk to to

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to Alison. I was very busy and I was moving around,

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and I never gave a title to the talk. To

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Alison just made up a title. She said, I have

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to put a title on the poster, and so she said,

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I don't even remember Robin Hood, the original green Man,

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you know. And when I finally saw the title, I thought, oh,

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that's not really what I wanted to talk about. But

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then I thought, how is it that I can How

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can I connect all of these things together? What's the

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connection between the Green Man? I've had a lot of joy.

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You come here and visit the cathedral and go through

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the church and see all of the little funny figures

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and all the little monsters and gargoyles, you know, on

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these architectural these architectural transition spaces, either on the outside

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or on the screen, that is this kind of transition

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between these holy spaces. And of course many of those

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are these kind of green Men. And then I started

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to think and to wonder, like where have I seen this?

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You know, today is the day of Pentecost. It's very

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fascinating that I'm giving the talk today. I'm from an

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Orthodox tradition. I follow Eastern Orthodoxy. On the day of Pentecosts,

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you know what we do in the church, We actually

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decorate the entire church with greenery, no flowers, just green.

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We bring in boughs of different different plants that are

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that are that have just come out for May. We

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put them up on the icon screen. So the icon

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screen just covered with this greenery. It looks like you're

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in like you're in this wild uh, this wild place this.

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And I also remember in the story of the Green

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Knight that he poses his challenge on Pentecost. Right in

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the story of Gawayne and the Green Knight, he comes

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in to King Arthur's court and he proposes this challenge,

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who would be willing to cut his head off on

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the day of Pentecost and to what is happening very odd,

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very odd relationships. And you know, Robinhood is the green

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Man for all intents and purposes. That's how we represent

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him in popular culture. We try to get an image

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of Robinhood in your mind. He's wearing green, he's got

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that hat. And so we have this connection with Robin

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Hood and the notion of the green And in the

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earlier stories of Robinhood, we know that at the end

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of the story, even though he becomes reconciled with the king,

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he has this desire to return back to the forest,

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to go back into the woods. You know, he is

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in some ways an image of what the forest represents

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for us. That you could call the forest. In this sense,

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it's like a It's the border of that which is ordered, right,

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It's the place where the city stops, and now you

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go into the mysterious liminal spaces of the outside. And

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that's what robin Hood comes to represent. He seems to

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be gathering all of these images of liminality into himself,

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but interestingly enough, he takes them in and finally puts

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them into the service of the king, which is not ridiculous,

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you know, it makes sense. We do have these monsters

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on our churches, and so in a church, the gargoyles

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are all of that. There. They are the merry men

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for all intents and purposes, right, they are these funny

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creatures that make us laugh, that break protocol, that break

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the rules, that present us hybridity and strangeness and all

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kinds of twisty things. But ultimately they are there in

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a greater story kind of serve to serve God ultimately,

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which which many Protestants. I remember, I grew up. I

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grew up in a very kind of very fundamentalist Protestant world,

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and it was very difficult for people to understand gargoyles.

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It's like, why do they have these little devils on

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the churches? What is the role of that? And it's, honestly,

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it's not that hard to understand if we get into it.

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It has to do with humor, it has to do

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with jest, right, it has to do with the secular

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in general, which is where the robin Hood tradition kind

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of comes up. But it doesn't Robinhood doesn't come out

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of a religious tradition. It comes out of the secular world.

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The early stories really are in some ways a way

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for the folk to poke at the hierarchy away, for

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the folk to make fun of the clergy, to make

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fun of the authorities. And this is a you know,

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it's the it's a carnival of some sort. It's a

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kind of carnival esthetic where there's a moment in the

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year there's a place in society for poking at the king. Right,

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we have that gesture character that is in the court

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of the king and is in some ways there to

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show the insufficiencies and takes on all the roles that

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when you look at them on the face value, they're

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actually subversive. Right. It's a subversive gesture, but ultimately it's

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a subversive gesture that acts to show you the limit

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of the authority that is there in place. Right, because

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one of the problems with any authority, even legitimate authority,

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is that sometimes it can start to take itself for

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God's right. It can start to think that it's that

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it is so divinely ordered that it cannot go wrong,

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that it cannot make mistakes. So we need a little

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bit of humiliation for those people on the edges. It's

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almost necessary to kind of make the system, that make

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the system function properly. So that's why I Robin Hood

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has all of these cars. He's a trickster, you know.

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He dresses up, he goes out, he pretends to be

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something else. He steals from the rich. Ultimately we say

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that then he gives to the poor. And so again,

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even in that gesture, he's different from a common thug,

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because a common thug steals from the rich for himself,

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and so he would become just a mirror of the

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sheriff who steals from the poor for himself. So we

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we often we have tropes in our culture which are

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in some ways revenge tropes, you know, we have a

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kind of come up in tropes, and those are those

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are interesting and they're fine, But ultimately, if you want

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to have a full story, the idea that you know,

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a poor person steals from a rich person just to

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fill their pockets, Moraley is not. He doesn't seem that

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better than the other way around. And so this funny

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little aspect of the Robinhood story, which is that he

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steals for a higher purpose. It's very odd. It's not

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a normal morality. It's a strange morality of the edge,

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you could call it. But it does participate in the

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way that Robinhood is in some ways a trickster for

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trickster for the true purpose, a trickster for the King,

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you could maybe even say a trickster kind a trickster

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for God, you know, in the way that King David becomes.

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So let's look at King David, because that's what I

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started you off with. And some people, a lot of

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have that many people know the story of King David

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that much but King David is anointed king in a

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time when there's already a king. So the prophet anoints him,

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and so he's hidden. He's a secret king, and there's

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already a king in power, and that king is becoming tyrannical,

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is becoming authoritarian, and David in some ways now becomes

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a slippery snake that tries to avoid getting caught by

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the by King Saul. There's a little story that exemplifies

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all of that, a very small story where David is

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a musician and he the music. The musical part is

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importantly part of this story. You know, if you think

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of the merry men, you obviously they're singing necessarily in

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your imagination, you know. And and also all of these

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are secular ballads that would have been in the folk

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and people would have heard these ballads in the very

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secular spaces. So this aspect of music and ballads is

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there already in the story of King David, where he's

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sitting and playing music for the king to rest the

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King Saul, and the king loses his temper and tries

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to pin down David with his lance, tries to to

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pin him to the wall, to to fix him. You

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could say, ah, and David has to escape that tyranny,

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has to escape the power that tries to fix something right,

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to hold it in place. And it's funny because even

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in scripture, where we have another version of that story,

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a story of an authority figure that pierces something with

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the lance who can remember it. I don't know if

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you have images of it here, right that even in

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England we see it often that image of Saint Michael, right,

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or the image of Saint George, of this kingly figure,

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this nightly figure that pins down the snake. But in

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this case, the whole thing is upside down, the whole

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thing is reversed. Now it's the snake who's the hero

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in this story. The snake is the one who's trying

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to avoid authority, who's trying to avoid being pinned down,

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struck down, held down by the authority figure. So you realize, oh, way,

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there's stories like that in scripture. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's

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very interesting. Scripture is really a great story once you

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start to see what it is that's going on. Then

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after that, King David now has to escape King Saul,

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and what does he do. He joins with the group

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of thieves and of debtors, of discontented men, and he

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lives in the wilderness, and he lives in a cave

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in order to hide from King Saul. Right, interesting, sounds

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a lot like our friend Robin Hood, who lives out

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in the forest with his band of merry men and

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his band of discontents, of people that don't have a

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place in society, you know, somewhat raucous clergy, you know,

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giants and all of these rather odd figures that don't

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seem to fit in society. Those are the figures that

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Robinhood allies with in the forest. And already in the

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story of King David, you see that that relationship is

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already there. One time, David finds himself in a bind

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and he has to pretend that he's crazy, and he

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makes himself look like a madman, and he drools, and

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I think he comes up to the door and he

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drools on the door of the city. And he's able

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to escape because he pretends, and he hides and he

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wears costumes, and all of that is dutifully again, is

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in the story of Robinhood, where Robinhood has to pretend

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to be something he is not. Now that think about

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that pretending to be something or not. You could say

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that that is on technical terms, that's what we called

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sinning right, doing something, thinking something, and doing the opposite, right,

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the idea of the trickery, that is, in some ways,

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technically it's something like a sin missing the mark. It's

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pretending to be something and then doing something secretly at

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the same time. But in this case, all of a sudden,

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that type of behavior, because it's secretly for a higher good,

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becomes part of the story. So now the trickery is

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almost like a you could say it's not usual trickery,

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but you couldn't tell if you saw it from the outside. Right,

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if you just saw Robin Hood and his men in

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the woods ambushing a nobleman and taking their money, there'd

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be no way to know that in their heart, right,

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in the secret of their heart, they're actually doing this

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to help the people the need. They're actually doing this

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to help the poor. And so this is what's interesting

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about this place in the story, the place of the character.

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This is the carnival place, or this kind of upside

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down place and stories where things are not what they

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seem and the trickster is acting in all kinds of

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ways in this version, everything kind of turns back ultimately

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in the end. Another aspect of the story of King

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David that is definitely related to this is actually the

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story of killing Goliath. And this is where in the

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Robinhood story. I think this is weird to say this,

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but I think that Robinhood outdoes David as a trickster

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to some extent. And I'll tell you why. When David

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comes and kills Goliath. There's a little part of the

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story that often we ignore that can help you understand

354
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what it is that's going on. There's a type of story.

355
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It's really universal. You could call it a river crossing story.

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It's a water crossing story. So you come to the

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end of something like an end of a world or

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the end of a land, and now there's a river,

359
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and the river presents itself as a test right, and

360
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the test can be all kinds of things. It could

361
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be the Billy goats gruff, where you have an ogre

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under the bridge and the ogre comes up and wants

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to eat you to prevent you from crossing over. You know,

364
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the story of the gin bread Man. Same story, digitbread

365
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man gets tricked by the fox, gets on its back,

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so he doesn't make it across. He goes across, the

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fox eats him. Many many there's so many stories. Actually,

368
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one of the greatest ones is the one in Genesis.

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The whole world falls into corruption, corruption, corruption, and now

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we have this problem. We have giants that are roaming

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the land, these horrible monsters that are roaming the land,

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and so God destroys the world, but gives one man

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a boat so that he can cross the waters right

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and start the world again right another version. Sorry, just

375
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listing them off here, but it's interesting. When the Israelites

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go back to the Promised Land, they repeat that story

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backwards the story of Genesis. Interestingly enough, they get to

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the Jordan River and then they cross the Jordan River

379
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with a different kind of arc, and now they have

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to fight the giants in the land of Canaan in

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order to reclaim their land. So this interesting connection of

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the giant, the river, the crossing, the monster, all of

383
00:24:02,599 --> 00:24:05,119
this is there. And one of the things that happens

384
00:24:05,119 --> 00:24:07,359
in the story of King David is we forget that

385
00:24:07,440 --> 00:24:11,039
when King David comes to fight Goliath, it says that

386
00:24:11,160 --> 00:24:15,079
before he fights him, he takes five stones from the river.

387
00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:17,920
So it's there to remind you can see it in

388
00:24:17,960 --> 00:24:21,240
your mind. So it's he's walking towards the Giant on

389
00:24:21,319 --> 00:24:24,680
the other side of some kind of brook, and then

390
00:24:25,279 --> 00:24:28,880
he takes the stones and then he fights the giant.

391
00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:32,720
So you think, oh, that's super interesting. But he David

392
00:24:32,799 --> 00:24:35,440
kills the giant. Maybe the reason why David kills the

393
00:24:35,440 --> 00:24:37,680
giant is because he's secretly the king. That's what I

394
00:24:37,759 --> 00:24:42,359
think is going on. But robin Hood is much more

395
00:24:42,359 --> 00:24:45,480
of a trickster. Everything about Robinhood is much more topsy

396
00:24:45,519 --> 00:24:49,680
turvy because robin Hood also encounters the Giant at a river, right,

397
00:24:49,799 --> 00:24:53,440
you know the story, he meets Little John on a

398
00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:57,599
log bridge, and so robin Hood wants to cross the bridge.

399
00:24:58,079 --> 00:25:02,440
It's it's it's it's such a it's such a mythical theme.

400
00:25:03,039 --> 00:25:07,799
You know, this monster in the liminal space and now

401
00:25:07,839 --> 00:25:10,160
you have to cross the bridge, but the monster won't

402
00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:13,119
let you cross. So Little John won't let you cross,

403
00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:16,039
and he says, well, fight me and if you beat me,

404
00:25:17,039 --> 00:25:23,920
I'll let you cross. But Robinhood loses. That's very interesting.

405
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:27,640
Robin Hood actually loses to Little John falls in the river,

406
00:25:28,480 --> 00:25:32,319
and it's by losing to Little John that he gained

407
00:25:32,319 --> 00:25:35,279
that he wins him. Right, it's by losing to the

408
00:25:35,359 --> 00:25:38,960
giant that he brings the giant into his band of merryman.

409
00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:42,960
I think it's very unique. I tried to find other

410
00:25:43,519 --> 00:25:46,839
versions of this, and they're very I couldn't really find one.

411
00:25:47,079 --> 00:25:49,839
The only thing that kind of looks like that story

412
00:25:49,880 --> 00:25:52,519
that I could think of is actually the story of Jacob,

413
00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:54,799
and the story of Jacob you have a little bit

414
00:25:54,839 --> 00:25:58,480
of that because you know that Jacob fights the angel

415
00:25:59,359 --> 00:26:02,720
and he to the angel, right, and in losing to

416
00:26:02,759 --> 00:26:05,799
the angel, he receives a blessing. What people usually forget

417
00:26:05,839 --> 00:26:08,079
again in that story, for a reason that I don't understand,

418
00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:10,960
is that it also says that it's next to a river. Right,

419
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:13,680
he fights this angel right next to a river, and

420
00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:16,680
in losing, he joins. But it's not exactly the same

421
00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:19,359
because an angel sometimes it can be a bit of

422
00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:22,359
a monster, but it's not quite a monster. But in

423
00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:24,240
this case he loses. And then when you look at

424
00:26:24,319 --> 00:26:27,640
Robin Hood's story, you'll see that, oh, there are several

425
00:26:27,799 --> 00:26:31,559
versions as iterations of this game that Robinhood is playing

426
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:36,480
about how on the edge of the river he actually loses,

427
00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:39,160
right if you know the story of Friar Tuck. There's

428
00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:42,440
one version of his meeting with Friar Tuck that has

429
00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:45,440
to do with this Robin Hood discovers that Friar Tuck

430
00:26:46,160 --> 00:26:49,440
that there's this wiley you know, Friar that supposedly can

431
00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:52,119
handle a bow staff, that can fight. So Robin Hood

432
00:26:52,240 --> 00:26:56,079
goes to see him next to a river, of course,

433
00:26:56,640 --> 00:26:59,599
and he demands of Friar Tuck. He says, cross me

434
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:02,599
over the road. I'm gonna get on your back, and

435
00:27:02,599 --> 00:27:05,480
you're gonna cross me over the river. And so Friar

436
00:27:05,519 --> 00:27:09,000
Tuck agrees, puts Robin Hood on his back, crosses him

437
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:11,400
over the river. But the joke on the other side

438
00:27:11,519 --> 00:27:14,160
is Friar Tuck says, okay, well, now it's your turn.

439
00:27:14,599 --> 00:27:17,559
You have to cross me back over the river, and

440
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:19,640
Robin Hood is saying, no, I'm not gonna do that,

441
00:27:19,680 --> 00:27:21,319
so okay, So that means that we have to fight,

442
00:27:22,079 --> 00:27:25,079
and so they fight, they do get out, and again

443
00:27:25,319 --> 00:27:30,200
Robin Hood loses the fight. He loses the fight, and

444
00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:34,720
then he does carry Friar Tuck back over the river

445
00:27:34,839 --> 00:27:38,519
to the other side. And so this funny, interesting situation

446
00:27:39,079 --> 00:27:44,000
where this trickster lets himself be tricked or becomes tricked,

447
00:27:44,559 --> 00:27:48,839
and in that ends up serving you know, ends up

448
00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:52,400
bringing these people into his band, and so he actually

449
00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:55,920
then becomes their leader, which is weird, right, Usually think

450
00:27:55,960 --> 00:28:00,119
of just any mythological story to think of a Gilgamashan

451
00:28:00,559 --> 00:28:04,359
is a great example of this usual trope, where Gilgamesh

452
00:28:04,519 --> 00:28:07,599
is this image of the king of authority, of power,

453
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:10,680
and Ank you Do is a wild man who lives

454
00:28:10,759 --> 00:28:13,519
in the forest and is half animal half man, his

455
00:28:13,599 --> 00:28:16,200
representation of all the greenery, all of that kind of

456
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:21,880
all of that forest figure. But Gilgamesh beats nk you Do,

457
00:28:22,599 --> 00:28:25,960
and in beating him becomes his friend and joins him

458
00:28:26,079 --> 00:28:29,200
into his you know, into his service. But now again

459
00:28:29,559 --> 00:28:33,519
Robinhood flips that upside down. And that is what is

460
00:28:33,799 --> 00:28:37,079
to me interesting about the Robinhood story, that there is

461
00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:40,519
a sense in which in the story there is a

462
00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:45,200
there is a very Christian element there. There's something about

463
00:28:45,279 --> 00:28:49,039
the idea that it is possible to how can you

464
00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:53,200
say this, that it is possible to submit or to lose,

465
00:28:53,400 --> 00:28:57,480
or to to give up, but then ultimately to win.

466
00:28:58,079 --> 00:29:00,759
That It's not that they the image power, right, the

467
00:29:00,799 --> 00:29:04,799
image of subjecting, the subjecting the snake to you know,

468
00:29:04,839 --> 00:29:06,400
all of that is fine, doesn't mean that we get

469
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:08,960
rid of that story. But in the Robin Hood story

470
00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:11,680
and in these kinds of story, you can see this

471
00:29:11,839 --> 00:29:15,839
trick that's happening, this surprise that's happening, you know of

472
00:29:15,960 --> 00:29:19,400
in some ways giving in and then ultimate but ultimately

473
00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:22,440
serving doing that to serve a higher purpose or to

474
00:29:22,519 --> 00:29:25,279
kind of join someone to a higher purpose. And that's

475
00:29:25,319 --> 00:29:29,640
what's amazing about the Robinhood story is because all of

476
00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:32,400
these elements kind of come together in his story to

477
00:29:32,480 --> 00:29:35,319
show that that's what that's what it is that he

478
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:40,319
seems to be representing. In some ways, he is this

479
00:29:41,240 --> 00:29:44,559
upside down world, right, this kind of carnival jesting world

480
00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:48,039
of laughter and of merry men, and of transgression and

481
00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:52,240
of thievery. All of these things are part of his world.

482
00:29:52,559 --> 00:29:58,559
But ultimately they are not revolutionary, right, They are not

483
00:29:58,799 --> 00:30:01,839
there to re we move the power that's in place,

484
00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:05,440
but ultimately actually to serve the highest power.

485
00:30:06,559 --> 00:30:09,400
Speaker 2: Hi, this is Sarah from Hamilton, and I'm very happy

486
00:30:09,400 --> 00:30:13,319
to announce my first course with Symbolic World Scripture, The

487
00:30:13,359 --> 00:30:16,759
Key to Reality. Over the span of five weeks, we

488
00:30:16,839 --> 00:30:19,440
will look at the scriptural vision of reality. Through the

489
00:30:19,519 --> 00:30:22,400
lens of the Temple, we will see how all the

490
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:26,119
details of Scripture orbit around the person of Jesus Christ,

491
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:29,680
the eternal Word of God, and archetype of the world.

492
00:30:30,359 --> 00:30:33,599
And we will see how that Christological vision firmly Earth's

493
00:30:33,640 --> 00:30:36,920
in place the concrete details of Israel's Torah and story.

494
00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:40,680
Through that lens, you will come to see how meaning

495
00:30:40,720 --> 00:30:44,119
and matter intersect and intertwine, not only in the text

496
00:30:44,200 --> 00:30:47,759
of Scripture, but in the very tapestry of reality unveiled

497
00:30:47,759 --> 00:30:48,359
by the Bible.

498
00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:55,319
Speaker 1: It's good to think about that for us, because you know,

499
00:30:56,599 --> 00:30:59,119
there might come a time, and there has been times

500
00:30:59,160 --> 00:31:03,319
in the world where that has happened, right where even

501
00:31:03,359 --> 00:31:05,599
though maybe we're Christians, I don't know if everyone here

502
00:31:05,680 --> 00:31:08,759
is I know I am, And you find you come

503
00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:11,240
in a position where all of a sudden authority becomes

504
00:31:11,279 --> 00:31:16,160
to act in an illegitimate way, or that authority becomes illegitimate,

505
00:31:16,240 --> 00:31:19,559
or that it becomes corrupt. And so how do we

506
00:31:20,759 --> 00:31:27,920
act facing a corrupt authority and resisting that authority while

507
00:31:28,039 --> 00:31:34,079
also understanding that if I replace it, If I imagine

508
00:31:34,119 --> 00:31:38,319
if Robin Hood had said, you know, little King John

509
00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:44,480
Sheriff of Nottingham. Obviously these are corrupt officials. So what

510
00:31:44,599 --> 00:31:47,559
am I going to do? I'm going to take their power.

511
00:31:48,039 --> 00:31:53,200
I'm going to declare myself the king, or declare myself

512
00:31:53,559 --> 00:31:56,319
the sheriff. But we know what that looks like. We

513
00:31:56,440 --> 00:32:00,359
know what happens when something like that happens. We've seen

514
00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:04,359
too many stories of revolution in the twentieth century, and

515
00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:07,640
we know that it always leads to tyranny. Right, it

516
00:32:07,759 --> 00:32:10,200
always leads to a form of tyranny because the person

517
00:32:10,559 --> 00:32:13,839
that takes the power for themselves has no way of

518
00:32:14,039 --> 00:32:18,200
justifying it except for force. Right, they have no legitimacy

519
00:32:18,279 --> 00:32:20,759
in their power except for force. So the problem is

520
00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:25,920
how do we act? How do we play the trickster?

521
00:32:26,039 --> 00:32:28,680
How do we evade the corruption? How do we evade

522
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:34,039
the authority while serving a higher good? And they're really

523
00:32:34,119 --> 00:32:37,559
there's some interesting examples in our own tradition, in the

524
00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:41,720
Christian tradition, where people have done exactly that in a

525
00:32:41,759 --> 00:32:45,519
beautiful way. One of the versions that I that I

526
00:32:45,559 --> 00:32:48,240
love to I want to make sure I don't forget

527
00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:52,559
some things here. One of the versions that I love

528
00:32:52,599 --> 00:32:54,880
the most is Saint Francis of ASSISI there are some

529
00:32:55,000 --> 00:33:00,559
beautiful stories about Saint Francis. Where he comes, you'd say,

530
00:33:00,559 --> 00:33:02,759
and someone presents to him a corrupt priest and says,

531
00:33:02,799 --> 00:33:04,400
look at this one, you know, look at him. I

532
00:33:04,440 --> 00:33:06,960
don't know. He has a mistress or he's doing. He's

533
00:33:06,960 --> 00:33:09,480
a corrupt priest. What about him? What do we do

534
00:33:09,559 --> 00:33:15,680
about him? And Saint Francis, in this particular story, he says,

535
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:18,839
oh no, He says, I am not worthy of being

536
00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:22,359
in this of this priest's presence. And he bows down

537
00:33:22,359 --> 00:33:26,240
to the ground and he kisses this priest's feet, you know,

538
00:33:27,119 --> 00:33:31,720
And in lowering himself before the priest, he shames the

539
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:34,920
priest in a way that any other behavior would would

540
00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:37,359
not have done. And he shames them so much that,

541
00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:40,640
you know, the priest changes his ways. And there are

542
00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:44,720
many interesting versions of that. The most powerful version is

543
00:33:44,759 --> 00:33:49,920
the is of course the ultimate trick that Christians believe in,

544
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:52,480
which is the trick of the crucifixion, or that is

545
00:33:52,519 --> 00:33:56,799
the ultimate trick, the biggest trick ever played in the

546
00:33:56,839 --> 00:34:01,240
history of the world. There's a there's an apocryphal text

547
00:34:01,319 --> 00:34:05,720
called the Gospel of Nicodemus, in which it describes Christ's

548
00:34:05,799 --> 00:34:09,360
going down into death and said. The way the story

549
00:34:09,400 --> 00:34:13,440
goes in this version is that Christ is being crucified

550
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:16,840
and in Hell, the Devil and Hades are talking to

551
00:34:16,920 --> 00:34:21,480
each other and they're celebrating, finally we did it. Finally

552
00:34:21,519 --> 00:34:23,960
we killed the great King, Finally we killed the great One.

553
00:34:24,199 --> 00:34:27,679
Are we've now won? And then suddenly they hear a

554
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:31,039
noise and they hear this explosion, and there what is

555
00:34:31,039 --> 00:34:36,760
happening And they realize that in having killed the incarnate One,

556
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:38,559
all of a sudden, that means that now he's coming

557
00:34:38,599 --> 00:34:41,599
down into death, that he's breaking down the doors of

558
00:34:41,639 --> 00:34:44,960
death and he's coming down, and all of a sudden,

559
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:47,679
what they thought was a victory was actually a loss,

560
00:34:48,079 --> 00:34:50,679
and the Devil and Hades start to panic because now

561
00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:54,960
Hell is being taken by Christ, who's coming down and

562
00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:57,840
gathering all the people in order to bring them out

563
00:34:58,039 --> 00:35:02,519
of Hades. That is the ultimate version of how this

564
00:35:02,599 --> 00:35:07,840
trickery can kind of turn on itself. Another version that's

565
00:35:07,960 --> 00:35:10,719
interesting too is the story of Saint Christopher. If you

566
00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:13,519
know this story, it's one of my favorite stories, and

567
00:35:13,559 --> 00:35:17,239
you also see this trickery kind of turn on itself

568
00:35:17,400 --> 00:35:20,840
in a way that serves a higher good. So Saint Christi.

569
00:35:20,880 --> 00:35:22,960
In this version of the story, which you get is

570
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:25,079
you get a little bit of this story from the

571
00:35:25,119 --> 00:35:27,639
perspective of the monster, from the perspective of the giant.

572
00:35:28,039 --> 00:35:31,840
Saint Christopher is a giant. In some versions, he's a giant,

573
00:35:31,840 --> 00:35:36,079
dog headed, you know, kind of monstrous thing, and he

574
00:35:36,199 --> 00:35:40,000
wants to serve the strongest man. He realizes hees just

575
00:35:40,039 --> 00:35:42,920
this beast. He wants to serve the king, or serve

576
00:35:42,960 --> 00:35:46,079
a strong king. He finds this king, starts to serve

577
00:35:46,119 --> 00:35:48,800
the king, and then he realizes that the king is

578
00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:51,880
afraid of the devil, and so he tells the king.

579
00:35:51,960 --> 00:35:55,559
He says, who's this devil figure? Because Christopher wants to

580
00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:58,039
his name is Repritus. At the beginning, he wants to

581
00:35:58,079 --> 00:36:01,079
serve the strongest man. So the king doesn't want to

582
00:36:01,119 --> 00:36:05,199
tell him, and so Christopher tricks the king. He says, well,

583
00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:07,239
if you don't tell me who the devil is, then

584
00:36:07,280 --> 00:36:10,679
I will leave your service. So the king is forced

585
00:36:10,679 --> 00:36:14,679
to reveal who the devil is to Repribus, and of

586
00:36:14,679 --> 00:36:17,519
course it's a trick because then Repribus leaves the king

587
00:36:17,639 --> 00:36:20,960
to go serve the devil, and so Repribust goes finds

588
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:23,800
the devil starts to serve the devil, and then one

589
00:36:23,880 --> 00:36:27,400
day he realizes that the devil is afraid of the cross,

590
00:36:28,239 --> 00:36:32,440
so he asked the devil. He says, what is this cross?

591
00:36:32,599 --> 00:36:35,320
What is this? What is this figure about? And of

592
00:36:35,360 --> 00:36:37,159
course the same thing happens. The Devil's is, I won't

593
00:36:37,159 --> 00:36:39,039
tell you, because if I tell you, you'll leave my service.

594
00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:42,199
Repertus plays the same trick, says, if you don't tell me,

595
00:36:42,280 --> 00:36:44,840
I will leave your service. So the devil tells him

596
00:36:44,840 --> 00:36:49,119
about Christ, and Reprobus leaves. The devil's service has tricked

597
00:36:49,159 --> 00:36:52,039
the devil, which is not bad. Tricking the Devil's pretty good.

598
00:36:53,280 --> 00:36:55,840
And then he goes to look for Christ. He can't

599
00:36:55,840 --> 00:36:58,760
find him, can't find Christ, can't find the strongest, can't

600
00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:02,320
find the greatest, the strongest emperor that has ever existed.

601
00:37:03,280 --> 00:37:05,559
And he meets a monk on his ways, and the

602
00:37:05,559 --> 00:37:07,440
monk says, well, I can help you find Christ if

603
00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:09,119
you want to find him. And he says, well, the

604
00:37:09,400 --> 00:37:11,840
way that you can find Christ is you should pray.

605
00:37:13,280 --> 00:37:16,400
And you know, Repribus is just a giant, dog headed monster.

606
00:37:17,280 --> 00:37:19,079
I said, I can't pray. I'm sorry, that's not going

607
00:37:19,159 --> 00:37:23,360
to happen, So okay. The monk says, well, maybe you

608
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:26,119
could fast. If you fasted, maybe that would help you

609
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:30,199
find christ So Repribus says, no, I can't fast, that's

610
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:33,679
not possible. And so the monk tells him to stand

611
00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:36,440
next to a river, so now we have the river

612
00:37:36,760 --> 00:37:40,199
reappearing in the story. He says, stand next to the river,

613
00:37:40,360 --> 00:37:44,840
and you can carry people across. So Christopher stands by

614
00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:48,360
the river, carries people across, and one day a little baby,

615
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:51,840
little child, little infant, comes up to him and asks

616
00:37:51,920 --> 00:37:56,840
him to cross him over the river. And Christopher grees

617
00:37:56,880 --> 00:37:59,039
starts to cross him, and as he's crossing him, of course,

618
00:37:59,079 --> 00:38:02,800
the baby becomes heavier and heavier and heavier, and Christopher

619
00:38:02,880 --> 00:38:05,199
is thing is, how is this possible? How can you

620
00:38:05,239 --> 00:38:07,920
be so heavy? And the child says, well, it's because

621
00:38:07,920 --> 00:38:11,079
I'm carrying the sins of the world. And so Christopher

622
00:38:11,119 --> 00:38:14,159
crosses him over the river, and in different virgins, sometimes

623
00:38:14,159 --> 00:38:17,679
that's where he baptized, is Christopher. Sometimes he is changed

624
00:38:17,679 --> 00:38:21,559
back into a normal person. But what's interesting is that

625
00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:24,639
you know, it's a trick. The whole thing is a trick.

626
00:38:24,679 --> 00:38:28,960
The whole story is a trick. Right again, in serving

627
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:32,840
the weakest, he finds that he's actually serving the strongest

628
00:38:32,880 --> 00:38:35,840
in the story, right, he's looking to serve strong people,

629
00:38:36,119 --> 00:38:38,519
but then finally when he serves the weakest thing that

630
00:38:38,559 --> 00:38:41,519
you can imagine this little baby, this little child, that

631
00:38:41,559 --> 00:38:46,559
he is being tricked into serving the strongest. And so

632
00:38:47,039 --> 00:38:50,320
this idea of in the robin Hood story, in some ways,

633
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:53,440
of him losing to King John and losing to Friar Tuck,

634
00:38:53,719 --> 00:38:57,039
and in some ways being this marginal figure that is

635
00:38:57,159 --> 00:38:59,599
engaged in all this trickery and all of this it's

636
00:38:59,639 --> 00:39:02,440
related to It's related to these other stories. It's kind

637
00:39:02,480 --> 00:39:06,360
of playing amongst these other stories to help us understand

638
00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:09,599
what is the role of these what is the role

639
00:39:09,679 --> 00:39:14,639
of these marginal figures, What is the role of Carnival,

640
00:39:14,679 --> 00:39:17,039
what is the role of trickery? And then ultimately what

641
00:39:17,119 --> 00:39:20,599
is the role of even these gargoyles that we see

642
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:29,719
on the on the churches. I want to make sure

643
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:33,119
I don't go too long. What time is it? Five

644
00:39:33,119 --> 00:39:36,599
more minutes? All right? Okay? And so I wanted to

645
00:39:36,599 --> 00:39:38,719
bring it back to the idea of the green man

646
00:39:38,800 --> 00:39:44,239
and this idea of the of this greenery in the

647
00:39:44,280 --> 00:39:47,519
story of the greenery there is. There are all these

648
00:39:47,559 --> 00:39:51,719
interesting characters that appear, and one of the most interesting

649
00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:57,400
ones is actually from from actually from Islamic tradition. There's

650
00:39:57,440 --> 00:39:59,760
a character in the Quran. He's not named in the

651
00:40:00,360 --> 00:40:03,320
but he's known in the Islamic tradition as the green Man.

652
00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:08,360
His name is al Kadir, and in that story you

653
00:40:08,440 --> 00:40:12,360
see this trickery playing out as well. In the story

654
00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:16,760
of al Kadir, what happens is Moses finds out that

655
00:40:16,840 --> 00:40:19,320
this character who doesn't have a name in the Quran

656
00:40:19,800 --> 00:40:22,599
is the wisest character, and he wants to follow. He

657
00:40:22,599 --> 00:40:25,360
wants to receive teaching from this character, so he goes

658
00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:30,400
and finds him, and the character al Kadir says, yes,

659
00:40:30,480 --> 00:40:35,119
you can study with me, but never question. Never question

660
00:40:35,280 --> 00:40:38,679
my teaching. If you question my teaching, you know I'm

661
00:40:38,719 --> 00:40:41,559
gonna cast you out. So Moses agrees to do this

662
00:40:42,199 --> 00:40:45,639
kind of starts to follow al Kadir. Then al Kadir

663
00:40:45,719 --> 00:40:50,320
does horrible things. There's things that are completely nonsensical. One

664
00:40:50,320 --> 00:40:52,119
of the things he does is he goes into a city,

665
00:40:52,440 --> 00:40:56,239
finds a boat for a poor fisherman, and he rips

666
00:40:56,239 --> 00:41:00,239
a board off the boat and walks away. There are

667
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:02,320
different versions of what it is he does these things

668
00:41:02,320 --> 00:41:04,199
that look one of them is actually kills a young man,

669
00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:08,159
which that's pushing us, you know, a little far. It's

670
00:41:08,199 --> 00:41:09,800
not how can I say, this's like it is a

671
00:41:09,840 --> 00:41:13,119
Muslim story. It doesn't have exactly the same morality as ours.

672
00:41:13,360 --> 00:41:16,119
But he does these kind of horrible things, and every

673
00:41:16,119 --> 00:41:18,280
time most it's like, what are you doing? Why are

674
00:41:18,320 --> 00:41:20,039
you ripping a piece off this boat? Why are you

675
00:41:20,079 --> 00:41:23,000
doing this? And every time, you know, Kadir says, you're

676
00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:24,800
not supposed to ask, You're not supposed to ask questions.

677
00:41:25,239 --> 00:41:29,559
And then at the end, finally Kadir reveals all the secrets.

678
00:41:29,599 --> 00:41:32,280
He says, the reason why I took the piece off

679
00:41:32,320 --> 00:41:35,079
that boat is because there's the king who's coming to

680
00:41:35,159 --> 00:41:38,159
claim all the boats that are functional in the land,

681
00:41:38,480 --> 00:41:41,039
and so by removing a piece of the boat, the

682
00:41:41,159 --> 00:41:43,920
king won't take it from this poor man. And so

683
00:41:43,960 --> 00:41:47,920
a gesture that looked like it was nefarious was secretly

684
00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:53,519
hiding a positive gesture. And what's interesting about the al

685
00:41:53,599 --> 00:41:56,800
Kadir story is that there's a version of that story

686
00:41:57,199 --> 00:41:59,280
that for so I don't know how it happened, but

687
00:41:59,360 --> 00:42:02,559
it seems it's way into Christianity, it seeks its way

688
00:42:02,599 --> 00:42:06,440
into our legends, and it becomes a Merlin legend. So

689
00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:08,880
there's a legend of Merlin in a romance called the

690
00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:13,639
Romance of Silence, where Merlin is a wild man. He

691
00:42:13,719 --> 00:42:18,880
lives naked like an animal in the forest. And there's

692
00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:22,639
a character in the story who pretends to be a

693
00:42:22,679 --> 00:42:26,199
man because in order to inherit money from her father,

694
00:42:26,719 --> 00:42:29,760
so she's raised as a man and she pretends to

695
00:42:29,760 --> 00:42:33,599
be a man, but nobody knows, and for complicated reason,

696
00:42:33,639 --> 00:42:36,639
the king sends her out to find Merlin and to

697
00:42:36,719 --> 00:42:39,679
tame Merlin to bring him back to the court. And

698
00:42:39,719 --> 00:42:41,920
so she goes out and she finds Merlin. She tames

699
00:42:41,960 --> 00:42:44,360
him with like milk and meat. It's like this really

700
00:42:44,960 --> 00:42:48,840
interesting scene. And then Merlin coming back, sees all of

701
00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:53,039
these scandals too. He sees a woman who is mourning

702
00:42:53,079 --> 00:42:55,239
her husband, and a priest that's sensing the tomb, and

703
00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:59,639
Merlin's laughing. He just laughs. He sees these poor children

704
00:42:59,679 --> 00:43:01,639
that are on the side of the road, and Merlin

705
00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:04,840
laughs and he laughs and he laughs, and all through

706
00:43:04,880 --> 00:43:07,360
this he's just laughing. Then he gets to the king

707
00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:10,000
to Arthur's court, and he sees Arthur come out with

708
00:43:10,719 --> 00:43:13,239
his wife, and he laughs and he laughs and he laughs,

709
00:43:13,239 --> 00:43:17,519
and he's just laughing at everyone, mocking everyone, and finally

710
00:43:17,559 --> 00:43:19,840
the King says, you have to tell us what you're doing,

711
00:43:19,920 --> 00:43:22,760
or else, you know, you're in trouble. So finally Merlin

712
00:43:22,880 --> 00:43:26,599
reveals all the secrets. And the same way he says,

713
00:43:27,199 --> 00:43:29,760
you know, he was laughing when the man that was

714
00:43:29,800 --> 00:43:32,280
dead and the wife and the wife was mourning him.

715
00:43:32,280 --> 00:43:35,960
She says, actually the wife, her lover is the priest,

716
00:43:36,199 --> 00:43:39,280
and the man that is dead is better off dead

717
00:43:39,320 --> 00:43:42,800
at this point, and then he says that for all,

718
00:43:42,920 --> 00:43:44,719
He says, the children that were crying in front of

719
00:43:44,719 --> 00:43:46,800
the in front of this wall, what they don't know

720
00:43:46,920 --> 00:43:49,440
is that there's a treasure hidden right under the wall

721
00:43:50,440 --> 00:43:53,199
where they're begging, and that, in fact, the biggest riches

722
00:43:53,239 --> 00:43:55,920
are there, just hidden beneath them. So he reveals all

723
00:43:55,920 --> 00:43:58,159
the secret and he reveals that this lady is actually

724
00:43:58,159 --> 00:44:02,360
a lady, and everything is return to order, and that's

725
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:04,840
how the story of robin Hood ends, you know, in

726
00:44:04,920 --> 00:44:09,119
this final version, really it ends that all of the trickery,

727
00:44:09,199 --> 00:44:11,360
all of the slipperiness, all of the taking from the

728
00:44:11,480 --> 00:44:14,920
rich and giving to the poor. When the King returned,

729
00:44:15,000 --> 00:44:19,280
the carnival ends and everything gets put black, gets put

730
00:44:19,360 --> 00:44:22,960
back into its proper order, right, and robin Hood enters

731
00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:25,800
the service of the king, and everything kind of returns

732
00:44:25,920 --> 00:44:28,880
into the normal order. And that's really the way to

733
00:44:29,039 --> 00:44:32,360
understand this story. But if you you know, you're from

734
00:44:32,440 --> 00:44:35,559
around here, that's the way to understand all the carnival

735
00:44:36,079 --> 00:44:38,639
things that we do, right, all the all of these

736
00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:42,920
jesting feasts that exist in the in the in the

737
00:44:43,000 --> 00:44:46,320
Christian Church, some of them you have here now right

738
00:44:46,719 --> 00:44:50,599
on May Day, during during the Pentecost season. There are

739
00:44:51,159 --> 00:44:54,800
some of these kind of carnival uh traditions. And so

740
00:44:55,400 --> 00:44:57,719
hopefully this has helped you kind of understand a little

741
00:44:57,719 --> 00:45:02,119
bit how Robinhood is one element meant of this way

742
00:45:02,159 --> 00:45:06,000
in which it is possible sometimes and in a certain way,

743
00:45:06,559 --> 00:45:10,079
for upside down behavior and trickery to serve a higher good.

744
00:45:10,320 --> 00:45:25,719
So thank you. That was so rich.

745
00:45:26,440 --> 00:45:29,039
Speaker 3: I'm sure it's going to have sent our minds in

746
00:45:29,119 --> 00:45:35,920
all interesting directions. Does anybody want to start us off

747
00:45:36,199 --> 00:45:42,239
on the first trail? I can see a hand, Yes,

748
00:45:43,719 --> 00:45:46,480
is there is there a little John?

749
00:45:46,559 --> 00:45:47,599
Speaker 4: But Saint John.

750
00:45:53,519 --> 00:45:56,559
Speaker 1: I've never Yeah, he said, is there a relationship between

751
00:45:56,559 --> 00:46:00,880
Little John and Saint John? I don't. I never thought

752
00:46:00,880 --> 00:46:03,760
about it. It could be a just a lot of

753
00:46:03,800 --> 00:46:05,480
the things in the robin Hood stories, you always have

754
00:46:05,519 --> 00:46:07,679
to see them as kind of reversal. So it could

755
00:46:07,679 --> 00:46:10,559
be seen as a kind of as as a way

756
00:46:10,559 --> 00:46:14,480
of joking in which an accidental baptism happens. Right, It's

757
00:46:14,480 --> 00:46:16,920
like it becomes a baptism story because a lot of

758
00:46:17,239 --> 00:46:21,719
a lot of the river crossing stories are actually baptism stories,

759
00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:23,159
like the story of Saint Christopher.

760
00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:23,559
Speaker 5: Right you.

761
00:46:23,639 --> 00:46:26,400
Speaker 1: I hope you got the sense that christ was baptist,

762
00:46:26,559 --> 00:46:31,039
baptizing Saint Christopher as he's carrying him across the river. So, yes,

763
00:46:31,119 --> 00:46:33,480
probably that's an interesting idea. It might be. It might

764
00:46:33,519 --> 00:46:35,719
be right, yeah, good, good insight.

765
00:46:37,519 --> 00:46:38,280
Speaker 3: The pack.

766
00:46:40,760 --> 00:46:46,960
Speaker 5: Yes, you mentioned going in grade nine at the beginning,

767
00:46:47,599 --> 00:46:54,599
you know, I was kind of trick and then ultimately

768
00:46:54,639 --> 00:46:57,199
that does work, how well, But then it strikes into

769
00:46:57,280 --> 00:47:01,000
something different going on it it's not ultimately for the

770
00:47:01,039 --> 00:47:02,639
initiated thought for the Hends.

771
00:47:02,639 --> 00:47:02,840
Speaker 3: Good.

772
00:47:02,920 --> 00:47:09,280
Speaker 5: Yeah, So I want to provide to say.

773
00:47:05,559 --> 00:47:10,199
Speaker 1: That, Yeah, so this is the story, I mean, the

774
00:47:10,360 --> 00:47:12,559
story of Gawayne in The Green Knight is so subtle.

775
00:47:12,599 --> 00:47:16,079
It's a very very subtle story. But I think the

776
00:47:16,119 --> 00:47:21,880
way of understanding that aspect right, because Gawayne transgresses, right,

777
00:47:21,960 --> 00:47:25,199
he actually sins in this case, it's an actual sin,

778
00:47:25,239 --> 00:47:28,280
and it's really considered to be a sin in this case.

779
00:47:28,599 --> 00:47:31,920
But I think that what the story is trying to

780
00:47:32,119 --> 00:47:34,840
kind of help us understand is more like the story

781
00:47:34,840 --> 00:47:39,159
of Jacob, that we that in our Christians actually our

782
00:47:39,280 --> 00:47:44,039
humility and our recognition of our sinfulness is secretly to

783
00:47:44,199 --> 00:47:50,440
our glory. Right, and Sowain GWayne beats his chest. Gawayne

784
00:47:50,519 --> 00:47:54,280
sees himself as someone who missed and marked, and then

785
00:47:54,400 --> 00:47:57,400
everyone around him is saying no, no, no, you did

786
00:47:57,400 --> 00:47:59,519
the best thing you could. You know, Arthur saying you

787
00:47:59,519 --> 00:48:01,679
did the best thing you could. The I forget the

788
00:48:01,760 --> 00:48:04,480
name of the Green Night character like he he's saying, no,

789
00:48:04,559 --> 00:48:09,000
you did the best you could. But GWayne is not prideful, right,

790
00:48:09,079 --> 00:48:11,320
He actually moves in humility, And I think that's the

791
00:48:11,679 --> 00:48:14,280
that is in some ways the the right way to

792
00:48:14,400 --> 00:48:17,360
see that that that trick, particular trick. Of course, the

793
00:48:17,400 --> 00:48:19,760
whole story of Gawayne is about trickery. You know, he's

794
00:48:19,760 --> 00:48:21,480
being tricked in the castle. He's being tricked all the

795
00:48:21,519 --> 00:48:24,119
way through. Uh, and then finally that little part. But

796
00:48:24,159 --> 00:48:26,079
I think that's you know, if you load a little

797
00:48:26,119 --> 00:48:29,199
bit around the story of Sir Gawayne and the uh,

798
00:48:29,239 --> 00:48:32,760
the story of the Order of the Garter. Uh, there's

799
00:48:32,800 --> 00:48:35,800
something of that going on where in some ways there's

800
00:48:35,880 --> 00:48:41,440
something embarrassing that happens, and instead of pretending and hiding it,

801
00:48:41,840 --> 00:48:44,000
you actually just call it out. You just say, yes,

802
00:48:44,119 --> 00:48:47,440
this happened, like this embarrassing thing happened, and you know,

803
00:48:47,559 --> 00:48:52,519
and then it becomes a it becomes to your glory.

804
00:48:52,920 --> 00:49:01,480
The US talks to Visionaire, Well, what I would say

805
00:49:01,519 --> 00:49:03,920
to that is, I think you need to come to

806
00:49:04,039 --> 00:49:09,559
Allison's talk, because that is what her talk is going

807
00:49:09,599 --> 00:49:12,400
to be about. But everything that I think of that

808
00:49:12,480 --> 00:49:14,719
I've actually gotten from her, and I think that, yes,

809
00:49:14,920 --> 00:49:15,880
but to come to the talk.

810
00:49:16,119 --> 00:49:25,039
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then.

811
00:49:24,320 --> 00:49:30,760
Speaker 1: Said the forest, and yeah, there are different I think

812
00:49:30,800 --> 00:49:32,679
the early in the early stories, I think he goes

813
00:49:32,719 --> 00:49:34,719
back to the forest. But I think in the early

814
00:49:34,760 --> 00:49:37,400
stories it's also that he's not necessarily seen as a

815
00:49:37,440 --> 00:49:39,800
noble that has lost He's just a He's more like

816
00:49:39,800 --> 00:49:42,719
a rebellious figure who will who allies with the king.

817
00:49:43,079 --> 00:49:45,360
But in the stories where he is in some ways

818
00:49:45,400 --> 00:49:48,000
a noble that has lost his title, then I think, yeah,

819
00:49:48,039 --> 00:49:51,239
he does then is restored. Everything is is kind of restored.

820
00:49:51,679 --> 00:50:03,039
So yeah, there's something right to the back. Yes, yeah,

821
00:50:03,079 --> 00:50:07,199
they're I mean they different monsters have different characteristics, but

822
00:50:07,519 --> 00:50:10,519
ultimately in terms of their meaning, usually they they play

823
00:50:10,599 --> 00:50:13,880
the same kind of roles. You can think of a

824
00:50:13,920 --> 00:50:16,440
monster as something that doesn't fit. That's really the best

825
00:50:16,440 --> 00:50:18,639
way to think of a monster is that it's either

826
00:50:19,039 --> 00:50:21,599
so it could be a very little man or a

827
00:50:21,679 --> 00:50:25,199
very big man, or it can be a mixture of things.

828
00:50:25,760 --> 00:50:28,880
It's all. It's basically things that don't fit, that don't

829
00:50:28,960 --> 00:50:32,719
that are that that present to us as hybridity or

830
00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:36,760
excess or or abnormality, right in that way, So a

831
00:50:36,800 --> 00:50:40,400
giant plays that role. The giant per se, what it

832
00:50:40,559 --> 00:50:44,159
usually ends up representing in most of the tradition is

833
00:50:44,159 --> 00:50:46,760
something like a body without a head, something like that.

834
00:50:46,800 --> 00:50:49,800
It's too much body, right, So that's why giants, you know,

835
00:50:49,880 --> 00:50:53,320
they they they're appetites. They eat, they want to eat you,

836
00:50:53,519 --> 00:50:56,000
that's part of that. They they're very strong, you know,

837
00:50:56,039 --> 00:50:58,079
they hold up the sky. They all of these these

838
00:50:58,119 --> 00:51:01,239
old stories about these these these kind of giant figures

839
00:51:01,239 --> 00:51:06,280
that are in some ways power without authority. Right, So

840
00:51:06,360 --> 00:51:08,679
you know these stories about you know, the cliche of

841
00:51:08,760 --> 00:51:11,480
the dwarf on the giant, Right, that's in some way

842
00:51:11,519 --> 00:51:15,079
like a kind of joke about about something that's that's more.

843
00:51:15,440 --> 00:51:17,079
It's like, let's say it's something more like a seed

844
00:51:17,239 --> 00:51:19,320
and then the body that's joined together in that kind

845
00:51:19,320 --> 00:51:27,559
of a weird way, you know.

846
00:51:27,840 --> 00:51:32,400
Speaker 4: More say the references you made. It's kind of confusion

847
00:51:32,440 --> 00:51:35,119
and trickery and so on. But it seems to me

848
00:51:36,000 --> 00:51:42,039
that at the bottom of it all, it's intentionality is intended,

849
00:51:42,599 --> 00:51:47,840
and it sometimes it's it's obscured by some of the

850
00:51:48,840 --> 00:51:54,840
man but Spa, this is surely it isn't there.

851
00:51:56,679 --> 00:52:00,199
Speaker 1: It's intention Now. The thing, the thing that's interest thing

852
00:52:00,239 --> 00:52:06,440
about intentionality is that, in some ways, the when there's

853
00:52:06,440 --> 00:52:11,440
a separation between the outward appearance and the intentionality from

854
00:52:11,480 --> 00:52:14,440
the when you just look at what's happening, you can't

855
00:52:14,480 --> 00:52:18,159
tell the difference. It's a secret, right, The difference is

856
00:52:18,159 --> 00:52:20,480
a secret. And that's what a lot of these stories

857
00:52:20,599 --> 00:52:23,039
are representing. Right. It's to kind of show that when

858
00:52:23,079 --> 00:52:26,159
things are going wrong when things are falling apart and

859
00:52:26,199 --> 00:52:31,760
the relationship between intentionality and outer gestures becomes impossible to discern,

860
00:52:32,280 --> 00:52:35,679
Like the intentionality appears as a as a secret, and

861
00:52:35,719 --> 00:52:37,480
that's what you know, I mean, in some ways, that's

862
00:52:37,480 --> 00:52:39,280
what the story of Jesus. A lot of the story

863
00:52:39,320 --> 00:52:42,320
of Jesus has that in its story, where you know,

864
00:52:42,599 --> 00:52:44,840
he's he's ends up being treated as a criminal. Anybody

865
00:52:44,880 --> 00:52:47,880
would walk by and seen, you know, seeing this character

866
00:52:47,920 --> 00:52:50,239
being crucified, would would have said, well, yeah, here's a

867
00:52:50,239 --> 00:52:53,400
common criminical being crucified like all the other common criminals,

868
00:52:53,679 --> 00:52:56,639
and that there was no way to discern from just

869
00:52:56,760 --> 00:53:00,480
outward appearances what it is that was truly happening secret

870
00:53:00,519 --> 00:53:08,480
behind it. Yeah, and you've temporary.

871
00:53:09,880 --> 00:53:20,519
Speaker 6: Politically, Robin Hood I mean, I think that it's Robin

872
00:53:20,519 --> 00:53:22,079
Hood can't really I don't think Robin.

873
00:53:21,960 --> 00:53:24,559
Speaker 1: Hood can really be a political leader. You know. I

874
00:53:24,559 --> 00:53:28,400
think that he has to be on the on the edges, right,

875
00:53:28,440 --> 00:53:30,280
he also has to he has to be playing on

876
00:53:30,320 --> 00:53:33,599
the edges. And so you know, it's hard because this

877
00:53:33,679 --> 00:53:37,159
is is high these things are highly political. But let's

878
00:53:37,159 --> 00:53:44,239
say there are characters that are contenders for that, people

879
00:53:44,280 --> 00:53:48,280
that are persecuted by the state very much. And then

880
00:53:48,320 --> 00:53:52,039
you find out that actually that we got the story wrong,

881
00:53:52,119 --> 00:53:55,280
that in fact, that person was in the right, and

882
00:53:55,280 --> 00:53:57,880
that the state has you know, kind of gathered this

883
00:53:59,159 --> 00:54:02,440
gathered all his energy to to lie and to persecute

884
00:54:02,519 --> 00:54:04,639
and to slander and to do all that. And so

885
00:54:04,719 --> 00:54:06,840
you can think of your own version, but there's there

886
00:54:06,880 --> 00:54:14,960
has been several you know, I think, yeah.

887
00:54:12,199 --> 00:54:13,840
Speaker 3: And one of the fact to let it back.

888
00:54:14,159 --> 00:54:18,679
Speaker 5: So I just asked about the marksmanship element of hood.

889
00:54:19,239 --> 00:54:22,079
Speaker 1: About that, Yeah, that's what I mean. I think that

890
00:54:22,119 --> 00:54:25,159
that's actually to show this exactly what what what the

891
00:54:25,239 --> 00:54:28,320
lady there was saying, is that is that he has aim.

892
00:54:28,760 --> 00:54:31,480
He has he has true aim, and that you know

893
00:54:31,559 --> 00:54:35,239
that that true aim appears even though he's in costume,

894
00:54:35,280 --> 00:54:38,119
even though he's tricking, though he's stealing and he's jesting,

895
00:54:38,440 --> 00:54:41,400
that all of a sudden, you know, all of a sudden,

896
00:54:41,400 --> 00:54:43,320
if you're if you're paying attention, you'll see that his

897
00:54:43,480 --> 00:54:47,239
arrow is absolutely true. And therefore it's kind of showing

898
00:54:47,320 --> 00:54:56,000
what he really is, is that someone that has true aim? Yeah, yeah, exactly, Yeah,

899
00:54:55,800 --> 00:54:58,519
that he's not because the thing this is actually just

900
00:54:58,559 --> 00:55:00,000
to add a little bit this because they're just unders

901
00:55:00,199 --> 00:55:04,039
that it's not arbitrary. Is that jesting is distraction, right,

902
00:55:04,079 --> 00:55:07,760
that's what jesting is. Jesting is his playfulness. Its distraction.

903
00:55:07,920 --> 00:55:12,480
It's drinking, it's it's merrymaking, you know, and shooting an

904
00:55:12,559 --> 00:55:14,400
arrow is the very opposite of that. Shooting an arrow

905
00:55:14,519 --> 00:55:18,920
is absolute attention, absolute vision, absolute directionality. And so that's

906
00:55:18,960 --> 00:55:21,880
the play I think that's happening in the and just aesthetically,

907
00:55:21,960 --> 00:55:24,639
if you think of the character and the situation where

908
00:55:24,760 --> 00:55:27,320
you know, he's acting a little silly and ridiculous and

909
00:55:27,360 --> 00:55:29,360
he's wearing a costume, and all of a sudden, the

910
00:55:29,480 --> 00:55:32,239
arrow goes straight to the point, and then you think, oh,

911
00:55:32,360 --> 00:55:34,280
this is not I'm not in the situation. I'm not

912
00:55:34,280 --> 00:55:36,880
where I thought I was. You know, he is actually

913
00:55:36,920 --> 00:55:39,360
and you there are a lot of stories there in fiction.

914
00:55:39,480 --> 00:55:42,039
You'll find these stories of someone who who looks like

915
00:55:42,079 --> 00:55:43,840
he's drinking, that he's getting drunk, but then all of

916
00:55:43,880 --> 00:55:46,559
a sudden, like you know, you realize that he's completely sober,

917
00:55:46,639 --> 00:55:49,440
completely attentive. So these are these are narrative tropes that

918
00:55:49,480 --> 00:55:52,440
are also fun because kind of it's a it's a

919
00:55:52,440 --> 00:55:54,079
little flip in the story that you can do.

920
00:55:55,679 --> 00:56:01,000
Speaker 3: It was he's talking about and.

921
00:56:06,480 --> 00:56:10,519
Speaker 1: Means no. So I think no. But I think that

922
00:56:13,519 --> 00:56:17,880
in the case of Robin Hood, you know, how can

923
00:56:17,920 --> 00:56:21,920
I say this? At least what I understand is that

924
00:56:22,000 --> 00:56:25,960
he doesn't. He plays in that world, but he always

925
00:56:25,960 --> 00:56:31,599
careful to remain honorable in his actions, right, So he

926
00:56:31,599 --> 00:56:33,800
he takes from the rich and he gives get to

927
00:56:33,840 --> 00:56:37,400
the poor, but he his ultimate aim is, hopefully is

928
00:56:37,400 --> 00:56:39,880
the restoration of the king. And so then even his

929
00:56:40,039 --> 00:56:44,679
means end up actually secretly being fine, Like even his

930
00:56:44,760 --> 00:56:47,800
means are not complete, they're not completely out of bounds,

931
00:56:47,840 --> 00:56:50,719
Like he remains honorable and he'll show that honor. I mean,

932
00:56:50,760 --> 00:56:52,199
I don't know if there are stories of him just

933
00:56:52,280 --> 00:56:54,599
killing the people he steals from. I don't think so,

934
00:56:54,679 --> 00:56:56,519
at least if there were. In the older stories, those

935
00:56:56,559 --> 00:56:59,559
have been kind of eliminated, where it's usually some kind

936
00:56:59,599 --> 00:57:02,599
of some kind of humiliation, you know, and then uh

937
00:57:02,639 --> 00:57:06,960
then leaving the character there. And so yeah, I would say,

938
00:57:06,960 --> 00:57:09,719
and especially like a story where the idea of the

939
00:57:09,800 --> 00:57:12,840
end justifies the means, would probably end up looking more

940
00:57:12,840 --> 00:57:17,519
like a revolutionary story, right, because what's interesting about Robin

941
00:57:17,519 --> 00:57:19,960
Hood too is that he accepts to be humiliated himself.

942
00:57:20,679 --> 00:57:23,119
You see that happened. That's why the Little John story

943
00:57:23,199 --> 00:57:25,159
so funny. That's why the for our Tuck story is

944
00:57:25,199 --> 00:57:28,400
so funny is that he's actually humble, right, He's not

945
00:57:28,679 --> 00:57:31,079
he he he he. He gets he gets taken down

946
00:57:31,119 --> 00:57:33,559
and he laughs about it, and that creates this kind

947
00:57:33,559 --> 00:57:37,400
of a makeabill like he's very People appreciate him for that.

948
00:57:37,480 --> 00:57:41,239
So yeah, So obviously I don't believe that the that

949
00:57:41,320 --> 00:57:49,559
the end just by the means that if Robin Hood

950
00:57:49,599 --> 00:57:57,199
was religious, like the actual Robin Hood, the one, the

951
00:57:57,360 --> 00:57:59,719
historical one, I think in I think in the stories,

952
00:58:00,360 --> 00:58:01,920
I mean, all I have is the story is that

953
00:58:01,960 --> 00:58:04,360
I think in the stories, I think that it is

954
00:58:04,559 --> 00:58:08,679
a secular manner, a way to be in the secular

955
00:58:08,719 --> 00:58:12,480
sphere and to have everything that's secular. So it's it's

956
00:58:12,519 --> 00:58:15,480
important to write to see that. So it's like he's drinking,

957
00:58:15,800 --> 00:58:19,079
he's merrymaking, he's with a kind of rebellious friar. So

958
00:58:19,159 --> 00:58:21,880
there's he's in. He really is in that secular world.

959
00:58:22,159 --> 00:58:25,119
But that underneath that there's a way to kind of

960
00:58:25,119 --> 00:58:29,559
bring that together towards something which is attuned to to

961
00:58:29,559 --> 00:58:33,280
to God. But it's it's very it's not explicit because

962
00:58:33,280 --> 00:58:35,360
it because it's not a religious story. It is a

963
00:58:35,400 --> 00:58:38,239
second it's a second story through and through I think so.

964
00:58:38,519 --> 00:58:40,880
But it ultimately, well maybe you'll you'll you'll have another

965
00:58:40,880 --> 00:58:45,800
opinion about to go to pray to pray. Okay, so

966
00:58:45,880 --> 00:58:47,519
there you go, so he is there you go, so

967
00:58:47,599 --> 00:58:53,519
he is a Christian? Then yeah, well you said that

968
00:58:53,679 --> 00:58:55,360
because this is I don't want impede on your talk.

969
00:58:55,440 --> 00:58:57,239
He said that in the early versions he had a

970
00:58:57,239 --> 00:59:02,880
great dedication to the to the our lady. Yes, yes, no,

971
00:59:03,960 --> 00:59:06,280
leave that as a yeah, just hold that space.

972
00:59:07,239 --> 00:59:12,760
Speaker 7: And there's a lot of different locations of the area,

973
00:59:13,159 --> 00:59:21,800
like have these locations played stories.

974
00:59:21,519 --> 00:59:24,920
Speaker 1: Of I mean, I don't. I'm not a historian, but

975
00:59:25,000 --> 00:59:27,960
one thing I can maybe say about that, uh, just

976
00:59:28,000 --> 00:59:30,920
to it's something that Allison mentioned at the beginning, which

977
00:59:30,960 --> 00:59:33,239
is that you what I understand, he's had historians coming

978
00:59:33,280 --> 00:59:36,320
here and debunking all of these things, you know, debunking

979
00:59:36,360 --> 00:59:38,480
that he was here and there and was born there.

980
00:59:39,519 --> 00:59:41,599
There's a whole other way to get to this, and

981
00:59:41,679 --> 00:59:44,760
it has to do with celebration and memory, which is

982
00:59:44,760 --> 00:59:50,119
more important, honestly than just finding some birth certificate. You know,

983
00:59:50,519 --> 00:59:55,079
the fact that some people remember something celebrate it, and

984
00:59:55,280 --> 00:59:58,559
even interestingly enough, even the fact that legends prop up

985
00:59:58,679 --> 01:00:01,960
pop up around character. You know, the modern historian might

986
01:00:02,000 --> 01:00:04,519
tell you, oh, this is a deformation, right, it's a

987
01:00:04,519 --> 01:00:07,000
deformation of memory. It's kind of memory going off, it

988
01:00:07,320 --> 01:00:10,159
off its rails. But I think it's the opposite. I

989
01:00:10,199 --> 01:00:14,159
think that it's actually when legends pop up around a character,

990
01:00:14,239 --> 01:00:17,599
it's so that we remember him, right. It's not that

991
01:00:17,639 --> 01:00:20,400
we're forgetting. It's that it's actually an effort to remember

992
01:00:20,760 --> 01:00:22,679
and to kind of add a little bit so that

993
01:00:22,679 --> 01:00:24,880
that story doesn't go away. And I think that in

994
01:00:25,639 --> 01:00:30,320
terms of places that's also true. The value of the

995
01:00:30,480 --> 01:00:33,199
memory that people have of Robinhood hiding in this cave

996
01:00:33,639 --> 01:00:35,760
or going through this part of the forest or everything,

997
01:00:36,000 --> 01:00:38,920
it has a value in its own And in the end,

998
01:00:39,280 --> 01:00:43,559
the historians they can't historians can't know this. They have

999
01:00:43,679 --> 01:00:47,400
no absolutely no way of knowing these things. How are

1000
01:00:47,400 --> 01:00:49,880
they How are they going to prove or disprove that

1001
01:00:50,000 --> 01:00:54,400
a bandit living outlaw like lived in this or that

1002
01:00:54,440 --> 01:00:56,280
place or this is that cave? They have no way

1003
01:00:56,320 --> 01:00:57,719
of doing that. Where they're going to find a paper

1004
01:00:57,719 --> 01:01:02,360
trail for Robin. It's ridiculous. So the celebration and the

1005
01:01:02,440 --> 01:01:05,719
memory and and our participation in that story is far

1006
01:01:05,840 --> 01:01:09,880
more actually I think dependable in understanding what the story is.

1007
01:01:09,960 --> 01:01:15,239
Then then you know, finding some I'm being a little yeah,

1008
01:01:15,280 --> 01:01:17,280
a little cheesy, but yeah, they're a little cheeky.

1009
01:01:17,400 --> 01:01:22,800
Speaker 3: So yes, it's just interesting that this neighborhood, this area

1010
01:01:22,960 --> 01:01:27,599
has found these stories generated. Yeah, that they live and

1011
01:01:27,639 --> 01:01:39,079
so there's having us something about ourselves.

1012
01:01:39,920 --> 01:01:43,960
Speaker 5: I'm just say something about the role of humor in

1013
01:01:44,039 --> 01:01:46,320
Christianity because I'm really a New Testament.

1014
01:01:46,000 --> 01:01:48,760
Speaker 3: At the moment and.

1015
01:01:47,719 --> 01:01:51,079
Speaker 5: I'm just not seeing humor in there, and I think

1016
01:01:51,079 --> 01:01:52,599
it should be have an important place.

1017
01:01:53,880 --> 01:01:58,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are there are jokes in the Bible. You

1018
01:01:58,880 --> 01:02:01,480
just have to you have to know where they are.

1019
01:02:02,880 --> 01:02:03,599
Speaker 5: They they.

1020
01:02:05,800 --> 01:02:07,440
Speaker 1: There is a joke in the New Testament that there's

1021
01:02:07,440 --> 01:02:11,960
at least one and it's it's actually it's in the

1022
01:02:12,079 --> 01:02:15,239
darkest place ever. It's actually one of the darkest place

1023
01:02:15,400 --> 01:02:20,239
is that when the disciples run away. You know that story,

1024
01:02:20,719 --> 01:02:22,760
and it's in the Gospel same Mark where it says

1025
01:02:22,800 --> 01:02:25,400
that one of the Roman soldiers grabs onto his coat

1026
01:02:25,440 --> 01:02:28,440
and he runs away naked, that's a joke. It's a

1027
01:02:28,519 --> 01:02:32,239
joke because they're in a garden, right, They're in the

1028
01:02:32,280 --> 01:02:37,000
garden of Eden. And then this character ends up naked,

1029
01:02:37,000 --> 01:02:39,199
but in a completely upside down way, like in a

1030
01:02:39,280 --> 01:02:42,719
completely ridiculous manner, in which it's he's actually kind of

1031
01:02:42,880 --> 01:02:46,159
fleeing the garden naked and his clothing is being taken

1032
01:02:46,199 --> 01:02:48,400
away from him. So it's like the opposite of the

1033
01:02:48,400 --> 01:02:52,559
Genesis story. So the Book of Jonah is a entire

1034
01:02:52,639 --> 01:02:55,480
The whole book is a joke. The whole Book of

1035
01:02:55,559 --> 01:02:58,159
Jonah is that is that you read it with a

1036
01:02:58,159 --> 01:03:00,559
bit of humor, and you will. You will laugh out loud.

1037
01:03:00,800 --> 01:03:04,440
It's quite funny. Yeah, it's all twisty and turning and

1038
01:03:04,519 --> 01:03:07,079
upside down. It's really funny.

1039
01:03:08,159 --> 01:03:11,039
Speaker 3: I think Jesus tells a few little jokes. I think

1040
01:03:11,079 --> 01:03:13,400
he's telling them to the woman at the well, for example.

1041
01:03:14,000 --> 01:03:19,360
M I wanted to ask him a bit about the

1042
01:03:19,400 --> 01:03:23,679
trickery because it's a very traditional way to think about

1043
01:03:23,760 --> 01:03:27,400
the death of Christ and its meaning for Christians. And

1044
01:03:27,440 --> 01:03:30,480
sometimes Christ is called the cheese in the mouse trap

1045
01:03:32,119 --> 01:03:33,960
in the early Church. But then when you get to

1046
01:03:34,000 --> 01:03:40,960
the time of into the later period, they begin to

1047
01:03:40,960 --> 01:03:44,320
think it's not fair to trick the devil, and therefore

1048
01:03:44,360 --> 01:03:49,159
you can't have it anymore because you're tricking him. But

1049
01:03:49,440 --> 01:03:52,039
are you really tricking him? That's the point. You gave

1050
01:03:52,079 --> 01:03:56,800
a lovely example from the Gospel of Nicodemus. Well, did

1051
01:03:56,880 --> 01:03:59,360
Jesus set out to trick the devil?

1052
01:04:00,079 --> 01:04:01,440
Speaker 1: Mh is?

1053
01:04:02,360 --> 01:04:05,719
Speaker 3: I mean mobi twitch is obviously setting out to trick people?

1054
01:04:05,800 --> 01:04:10,760
Speaker 1: Because really, yeah, so the best I think if we

1055
01:04:10,840 --> 01:04:13,039
take the story of the gospel, it's what's important to

1056
01:04:13,079 --> 01:04:16,000
see is what a trick like, what a trick is,

1057
01:04:16,519 --> 01:04:19,960
and also what it means to kind of turn something

1058
01:04:20,639 --> 01:04:24,039
upside down. Right, it's like to to do something, and

1059
01:04:24,079 --> 01:04:26,760
then the opposite is what your true intention is. Okay,

1060
01:04:26,960 --> 01:04:29,280
so that's kind of what a trick is. Right, You're

1061
01:04:29,280 --> 01:04:33,400
doing something here and I'm actually doing something there, right, uh. Now,

1062
01:04:33,920 --> 01:04:40,239
the nature of reality itself, so it means that that

1063
01:04:40,320 --> 01:04:43,159
at some point will be turned back. It's gonna it's

1064
01:04:43,159 --> 01:04:45,880
gonna turn back. It's gonna be revealed to be false,

1065
01:04:45,920 --> 01:04:47,639
to be an illusion, to be to be a lie.

1066
01:04:47,800 --> 01:04:52,679
And so it is very important to understand the crucifixion

1067
01:04:52,880 --> 01:04:55,800
and resurrection of Christ as a trick because the story

1068
01:04:55,920 --> 01:04:59,880
starts as a trick in the garden, right, the devil

1069
01:05:00,119 --> 01:05:05,360
the snake tricks Eve into taking the fruit, and so

1070
01:05:05,880 --> 01:05:09,840
that trick has to undo itself. And the trick that

1071
01:05:09,880 --> 01:05:12,000
we say that Christ plays on the devil is bigger

1072
01:05:12,000 --> 01:05:15,440
than you think. It's bigger. It's cosmic. Christ is saying,

1073
01:05:16,400 --> 01:05:19,000
you know that thing you did at the beginning, it

1074
01:05:19,079 --> 01:05:23,000
led to this. Right, you thought that you were you

1075
01:05:23,039 --> 01:05:24,639
had it all. You thought that you had done this

1076
01:05:24,719 --> 01:05:26,679
thing at the beginning, and that this was going to

1077
01:05:26,760 --> 01:05:30,840
lead to a world of death. But actually it's leading

1078
01:05:30,880 --> 01:05:33,920
to something which is greater than what was at the beginning.

1079
01:05:34,760 --> 01:05:38,039
And so the resurrection of Christ becomes the final trick

1080
01:05:38,079 --> 01:05:39,800
in the sense that it turns what happened in the

1081
01:05:39,800 --> 01:05:42,559
garden back up on its feet, but even in a

1082
01:05:42,599 --> 01:05:44,920
way that's even greater than what was there at the beginning.

1083
01:05:45,559 --> 01:05:48,039
This image of the incarnation as being in some ways

1084
01:05:48,079 --> 01:05:50,639
more than what Adam was in the garden. And so

1085
01:05:50,880 --> 01:05:54,400
I think it's important to see that as the story

1086
01:05:54,480 --> 01:05:59,599
and to understand that that's how trickery always kind of

1087
01:05:59,760 --> 01:06:03,559
kind of functions, and you can actually recognize a holy fool,

1088
01:06:03,599 --> 01:06:06,920
you could say, from a regular fool is that the

1089
01:06:06,960 --> 01:06:10,320
holy fool wants the trick to come back on him.

1090
01:06:10,840 --> 01:06:13,719
Usually that's the sort of same Francis is a good

1091
01:06:13,719 --> 01:06:19,400
one where he ultimately he humiliates himself. That's how the

1092
01:06:19,440 --> 01:06:21,800
clown story is supposed to end, right. The clown comes

1093
01:06:21,800 --> 01:06:24,039
out and he puts a banana peel on the ground,

1094
01:06:24,320 --> 01:06:26,320
and he gets everybody to trip on the banana peel

1095
01:06:26,360 --> 01:06:29,519
and everybody's laughing. The only way to end that sketch

1096
01:06:30,039 --> 01:06:32,320
is for the clown to finally get distracted and then

1097
01:06:32,400 --> 01:06:35,079
slip on the banana peel himself. That's how you end

1098
01:06:35,079 --> 01:06:37,800
that story, right, because that's what tricks are, and that's

1099
01:06:37,840 --> 01:06:40,800
how tricks function, and that's why the carnival, you know,

1100
01:06:40,880 --> 01:06:50,519
ultimately leads to the restoration in the end. So what

1101
01:06:50,639 --> 01:06:52,599
comes you just may.

1102
01:06:54,760 --> 01:06:56,880
Speaker 8: Degree multification.

1103
01:06:59,440 --> 01:07:02,119
Speaker 9: Turns the same double triple.

1104
01:07:02,239 --> 01:07:04,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, that.

1105
01:07:08,880 --> 01:07:11,039
Speaker 7: What comes back is great?

1106
01:07:11,280 --> 01:07:15,199
Speaker 1: The wall Yeah maybe yeah in some ways because I

1107
01:07:15,199 --> 01:07:17,079
don't I don't, I never thought about it that way.

1108
01:07:17,199 --> 01:07:19,719
But for sure, this whole you know, what goes around

1109
01:07:19,840 --> 01:07:23,719
comes around idea that's captured in the idea of karma

1110
01:07:23,840 --> 01:07:26,239
or whatever. We have these instant karma reels that you

1111
01:07:26,280 --> 01:07:29,639
can see online, you know, and so I think that

1112
01:07:29,639 --> 01:07:32,599
that's right. I mean, what's interesting about about that? You could?

1113
01:07:32,639 --> 01:07:34,000
I could. I've never thought about it, but one of

1114
01:07:34,039 --> 01:07:36,599
the things you can think of is that what happens

1115
01:07:36,639 --> 01:07:38,480
when in a trick, when you kind of try to

1116
01:07:39,000 --> 01:07:42,719
falsify reality, right, is that there are fruits. It has fruits.

1117
01:07:42,800 --> 01:07:47,000
It actually brings about certain consequences, and by the time

1118
01:07:47,159 --> 01:07:50,559
that those consequences have become ripe, when they come back

1119
01:07:50,599 --> 01:07:53,400
to haunt you, they're actually much bigger. They've gathered a

1120
01:07:53,400 --> 01:07:55,519
lot of body, right, And you know that every time,

1121
01:07:55,559 --> 01:07:58,440
you know, it's like anybody here who's lied knows that

1122
01:07:58,519 --> 01:08:01,719
it's like you lie. You know, you try to dissimulate

1123
01:08:01,800 --> 01:08:04,159
what's real, and you lie, and then you let that fester,

1124
01:08:04,639 --> 01:08:07,199
and then the consequences of it they begin to grow,

1125
01:08:07,239 --> 01:08:10,079
and all the the things you hadn't planned that were

1126
01:08:10,119 --> 01:08:12,599
part of the lies start to start to kind of gather.

1127
01:08:12,719 --> 01:08:15,280
And then finally when it comes to catch you, it's

1128
01:08:15,320 --> 01:08:17,640
pretty it's a dragon that's swallowing you up. You know.

1129
01:08:17,920 --> 01:08:20,279
So that's a good I think that's good insight.

1130
01:08:25,199 --> 01:08:32,239
Speaker 3: Gosh, well, okay, one more, just if you push.

1131
01:08:33,479 --> 01:08:39,560
Speaker 9: Jesus and roll the club mad nature Man who keep

1132
01:08:39,640 --> 01:08:44,520
it through Beef and Maris Kane fun And that's a

1133
01:08:44,600 --> 01:08:49,640
seconate story. Why do we need that in parallel gospel stories?

1134
01:08:50,199 --> 01:08:50,960
Speaker 1: What do you mean.

1135
01:08:52,319 --> 01:08:54,399
Speaker 9: When we have perhaps the stories?

1136
01:08:57,279 --> 01:09:02,880
Speaker 1: Well, because because all the good stories are are downstream

1137
01:09:02,920 --> 01:09:06,720
from the gospel story, we would have no stories. You know,

1138
01:09:07,319 --> 01:09:11,000
Rocky Balboa is downstream from the gospel story. Like any

1139
01:09:11,079 --> 01:09:14,479
story that that attracts your attention and kind of points

1140
01:09:14,520 --> 01:09:17,439
you towards something that's good and true ends up being

1141
01:09:17,479 --> 01:09:20,359
downstream from that story. The resurrection story, the sort of

1142
01:09:20,439 --> 01:09:24,439
Christ contains all the stories. I can't I don't want

1143
01:09:24,439 --> 01:09:26,159
to go into detail now, but it's actually it's not

1144
01:09:26,239 --> 01:09:29,039
just something that you say that sounds mystical, but like

1145
01:09:29,239 --> 01:09:33,880
Christ actually is. If you look at it on face value,

1146
01:09:33,920 --> 01:09:37,479
it could be like very contradictory because there are narrative

1147
01:09:37,520 --> 01:09:40,560
tropes in ancient myth and in ancient stories. In Christ,

1148
01:09:40,640 --> 01:09:42,960
for some reason, he just kind of has them all.

1149
01:09:43,640 --> 01:09:46,760
And so he's like he's a king. He's also a shepherd,

1150
01:09:47,279 --> 01:09:52,119
and he's also an agriculturist. He's a technician, you know,

1151
01:09:52,199 --> 01:09:57,479
he's he's an artisan. He's a criminal, he's he's a

1152
01:09:57,640 --> 01:10:00,279
he's a teacher. He's like, I could keep going. He

1153
01:10:00,359 --> 01:10:04,359
just weirdly accumulates all of these story tropes and characters

1154
01:10:04,399 --> 01:10:07,920
in his story, and somehow it works and then you

1155
01:10:08,000 --> 01:10:11,800
end up with this very, very very unique story. So

1156
01:10:12,239 --> 01:10:15,800
I think that you know what you asked about Robin

1157
01:10:15,800 --> 01:10:20,079
Hood is true about the entirety of the Arthurian Corpus.

1158
01:10:20,520 --> 01:10:24,680
It's true of Dante, it's true of all of the legends,

1159
01:10:24,720 --> 01:10:27,840
all the fairy tales, all of that that they contain

1160
01:10:27,920 --> 01:10:32,640
a sliver of Christ. But so in terms of what

1161
01:10:32,640 --> 01:10:35,359
we're saying now, let's say this idea of the trickery

1162
01:10:35,479 --> 01:10:39,920
that Christ plays is one aspect that's not what Christ is.

1163
01:10:40,920 --> 01:10:43,800
Christ is not a trickster. There's an aspect of the

1164
01:10:43,800 --> 01:10:46,079
trickster in Christ, but he's not a trickster. I mean,

1165
01:10:46,119 --> 01:10:47,960
he's the King for goodness sake. So Christ is the

1166
01:10:48,079 --> 01:10:52,239
King and the trickster, right, He's all of the character.

1167
01:10:52,319 --> 01:10:55,359
He's just all of the characters at the same time.

1168
01:10:55,439 --> 01:11:00,960
So he becomes the source of our storytelling. That's really

1169
01:11:01,000 --> 01:11:02,600
probably the best way of understanding it.

1170
01:11:03,239 --> 01:11:06,600
Speaker 3: And this is the Feast of Pentecost, when the disciples

1171
01:11:06,600 --> 01:11:09,960
received the Holy Spirit and immediately they stop telling.

1172
01:11:09,680 --> 01:11:12,359
Speaker 1: Stories, right. But not only that, but then they also

1173
01:11:12,520 --> 01:11:15,960
tell the story in a way that everybody can understand

1174
01:11:15,960 --> 01:11:18,920
in their specific context. And that's a good example. It's

1175
01:11:18,960 --> 01:11:23,079
like robin Hood or these different types of legends. They

1176
01:11:23,439 --> 01:11:26,760
can be a sliver of the story of Christ which

1177
01:11:26,800 --> 01:11:31,239
is accessible to regular guy who goes to the pub.

1178
01:11:31,399 --> 01:11:33,720
You know, doesn't necessarily go to church very often a

1179
01:11:33,720 --> 01:11:37,000
few times a year, but he still is without even knowing,

1180
01:11:37,560 --> 01:11:40,920
participating on the margins in that story. You know, it's

1181
01:11:40,920 --> 01:12:00,560
still part of his life. The scriptures, both of them

1182
01:12:00,560 --> 01:12:01,199
are stories.

1183
01:12:03,399 --> 01:12:23,840
Speaker 8: HM told, I say that Bob was exploration.

1184
01:12:23,840 --> 01:12:30,119
Speaker 1: Jesus well part of the story. So this, yeah, so

1185
01:12:31,159 --> 01:12:34,079
the story of Jesus is clearly his story, right. And

1186
01:12:34,039 --> 01:12:35,800
in the Gospel of Saint John, not only that, but

1187
01:12:35,840 --> 01:12:37,359
it says that if he had written down all the

1188
01:12:37,399 --> 01:12:39,239
things that Christ had done, it would feel there would

1189
01:12:39,239 --> 01:12:41,960
be a lot of books in the world to contain them.

1190
01:12:42,199 --> 01:12:45,840
So we basically picked elements in the story of Christ

1191
01:12:45,960 --> 01:12:49,520
which can would contract his story in a way that

1192
01:12:49,880 --> 01:12:52,520
reveals who he is. Right. And so it's told as

1193
01:12:52,520 --> 01:12:56,960
a story necessarily because because nobody's telling me about like

1194
01:12:57,640 --> 01:13:01,000
you know what, what color where his toenails, or like, no,

1195
01:13:01,439 --> 01:13:03,359
we're not we're not telling No one's telling me about

1196
01:13:03,399 --> 01:13:05,119
what he ate on a Tuesday, Like there are a

1197
01:13:05,119 --> 01:13:06,880
bunch of things that Jesus did that we don't tell.

1198
01:13:07,159 --> 01:13:10,119
We contract that into a story form. But part of

1199
01:13:10,159 --> 01:13:13,760
the story of Jesus for it to be what it is,

1200
01:13:13,760 --> 01:13:16,199
is that Jesus had to be a man that lived

1201
01:13:16,199 --> 01:13:19,720
in the first century, and he had to die and

1202
01:13:19,760 --> 01:13:23,880
be crucified. Without that, it's the story would be a

1203
01:13:23,880 --> 01:13:27,039
self contradiction because it's actually part of what the story

1204
01:13:27,199 --> 01:13:30,800
is is that in the case of robin Hood, that

1205
01:13:31,119 --> 01:13:35,199
it's not as important, right because Robinhood. I think robin

1206
01:13:35,199 --> 01:13:38,000
Hood is based on true memories of someone who existed,

1207
01:13:38,239 --> 01:13:41,479
but to the extent that legends accumulated around him, and

1208
01:13:41,560 --> 01:13:43,960
the fact that some of these things might not have happened,

1209
01:13:44,319 --> 01:13:46,760
it's not a big deal because in the story, we

1210
01:13:47,520 --> 01:13:50,840
don't depend our life doesn't depend on robin Hood, like

1211
01:13:50,880 --> 01:13:53,880
and our you know, our salvation doesn't depend on Robinhood,

1212
01:13:53,960 --> 01:13:56,159
as it does on Christ. But in the case of Christ,

1213
01:13:56,199 --> 01:13:59,239
it's important that the events that happened in his life

1214
01:13:59,800 --> 01:14:02,720
are describing a man that lived in the first century

1215
01:14:02,720 --> 01:14:05,199
and died and the tomb was empty, all of these things,

1216
01:14:05,720 --> 01:14:07,439
but it still is a story. It has to be.

1217
01:14:07,720 --> 01:14:11,199
Speaker 3: I don't think we have time to explore all these

1218
01:14:11,279 --> 01:14:13,960
questions now, because you said you know the gospel is

1219
01:14:14,000 --> 01:14:17,439
a true story. Yeah, and I think you can all relax.

1220
01:14:20,079 --> 01:14:22,880
So I just want to thank Jonathan so much. I mean,

1221
01:14:22,920 --> 01:14:26,760
it's been unbelievably rich. I'm pleased to say. Have you recorded?

1222
01:14:26,960 --> 01:14:28,640
Speaker 1: I hope, so we'll see if it works.

1223
01:14:28,760 --> 01:14:29,920
Speaker 3: Would it be going out?

1224
01:14:30,199 --> 01:14:32,079
Speaker 1: Yes, I'll put it on my own YouTube channel.

1225
01:14:32,720 --> 01:14:37,640
Speaker 3: What we visit this? Go to his YouTube channel and watch.

1226
01:14:38,479 --> 01:14:40,960
And we're just so grateful to you to come in

1227
01:14:41,000 --> 01:14:42,880
to us. And I don't think I shall ever think

1228
01:14:42,880 --> 01:14:47,239
about Clean David or Robin Hood ever the same again,

1229
01:14:47,600 --> 01:14:51,399
completely blow, Thank you, thank you.

1230
01:14:53,159 --> 01:14:56,039
Speaker 1: If you enjoy these videos and podcasts, please go to

1231
01:14:56,079 --> 01:14:58,760
the Symbolic World dot com website and see how you

1232
01:14:58,760 --> 01:15:01,920
can support what we're doing. There are multiple subscriber tiers

1233
01:15:01,960 --> 01:15:04,840
with perks. There are apparel and books to purchase, So

1234
01:15:04,960 --> 01:15:07,119
go to the Symbolic wal dot com and thank you

1235
01:15:07,399 --> 01:15:08,159
for your support.