Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, July 19, 2007


And a festival shall be kept for King PTOLEMY, THE EVER-LIVING,
THE BELOVED OF PTAH, THE GOD EPIPHANES EUCHARISTOS,
yearly in the temples throughout the land from the 1st of Thoth for five days,
in which they shall wear garlands and perform sacrifices and libations and the
other usual honours, and the priests in each temple shall be called priests of the
GOD EPIPHANES EUCHARISTOS.

- From the Rosetta Stone, found on this day by Napoleon’s soldiers,
knocking down a wall near Alexandria, Egypt, 1799


Babel. The implication in the Bible is that languages were multiplied by a jealous God who didn’t want people to “get too big for their britches”. How like ego-centric humans!

Balderdash. The meaning I take is this. This is an etiological story, attempting to explain the multitude of languages. The underlying implication? God wants people to recognize that it takes effort to understand each other and to learn to respect each other. That this effort is worth it – otherwise the result is alienation and brokenness.

The Rosetta Stone placed together two languages, Egyptian and Greek, with three scripts, demotic, hieroglyphic, and Greek. It permitted the understanding of Egyptian culture.

We need many new Rosetta Stones. In two languages. Each human tongue and the language of Divine Love and Compassion. Perhaps then we would discover how to understand and respect each other.

In fact, better still, we each could become one.

Brian+