Music and Rasta

The Rasta's music is a very powerful and influential sound that has affected many people lives all around the world. Musically the this music is very distinct from other forms of music, much like Jazz, which didn't sound like anything else, and came out of similar circumstances. Out of oppression (or should we say "downpression"), Reggae has come to spread a message guiding a people for generations. Musically it conveys the message and the struggle well.

A simplistic example of the bass on the down beat with
the chords of the guitar on the off beat

it conveys struggle by not conveying struggle, and rather expressing elements of freedom. Jazz came out of oppressed people in the 1920s, African Americans who were prejudiced against. They created Jazz, and I think that if you ask just about any Jazz musician what Jazz is they will say, "It's freedom." Now Reggae is not freedom in the same sense that Jazz is, in the way Jazz has an improvisational element and often lose structure. Reggae has a rhythm that has a happy feel with its off beat chords on the guitar and bass notes on the down beat. Often this beat as altered and made a little more funky, giving it a more appealing sound. In some songs, like Bob Marley's "One Love," this happy feeling is kept a live though out the song, with a melody in a major key and a pretty straight forward beat. Although some of his more powerful songs like "Exodus," it is in a minor key with a more complex rhythm–although while still staying true to the off beat idea. The bass line of the song "Exodus" has very empowering sound, and wants keep pushing along and moving forward. And This fits with the theme of the song; a "movement of Jah's people" to the promised land.

Bass line from "Exodus"

All the elements described above in combination with good instrumentation and the raspy yet flowing voice of great reggae singers like Bob Marley, you have beautiful music which, wether you are Rastafarian or not, sets your mind free. Now I only really covered a few songs, but I think it is interesting and important to look at not only how a music came about and what it conveys, but also how it is conveyed. How the music itself conveys messages and emotions in nature of what the instruments are doing individually to make the whole sound.

Rastafarians and Ethiopia

The most clear aspect of the Bobo Shanti (though this is of course not limited to the Bobo Shanti) is their emphasis on the return to the Ethiopia. This Short YouTube video, gives us an insight into a Bobo Shanti village in Jamaica, and starts of with a walk through a ceremony celebrating the return to Africa. This focus on the return to Africa is reflection of the Jew's exile from the "promised land" to Babylon. This village feels as though the land to which they belong is in Ethiopia, and hey are placed in Jamaica (and they got there through the slave trading). It is no surprise that their main focus is on the return to Africa as the name Bobo Shanti essentially means Children of Africa.

They of course reinforce these beliefs in other aspects of their religious practices. For example they wear red turbans around their dread locks, red of course being on of the colors of Ethiopia; this, reinforcing the belief that this is where they belong and that they are loyal to the land. Interestingly, they also closely follow the Jewish law. They are strict on diet, and the rules revolving around cleanliness through hygiene. They also are known for carrying around brooms with them to symbolize their cleanliness. They also follow the Sabbath on Saturday from sundown Friday to sunset Saturday. This strict following of Jewish Law shows how much they believe that Ethiopia is the promised land which God favors.

This closeness to the Jewish tradition and the longing to go back to Africa is the most interesting part of the Rastafarian religion. Which is interesting because knowing nothing about the Rastafari movement, I imagine that most people would assume that it is about smoking pot and having a good time. I think it is important to take a closer look at these people and realize that what they believe is closer to what many other people believe today.

imagnes from:

http://www.ethiopianrastafari.info/ethiopianrastafari_patches.html

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/davebulow/wow/

Great Wisdom

The story of Queen of Sheba is an interesting story. If it is a true story, it is amazing that someone would travel that far firstly. And the fascination with knowledge, or more specifically wisdom, is another interesting aspect of this story. This reminds me of Deism when I read an account of the story of Queen of Sheba.

Queen of Sheba

There is such a fascination with knowledge in this account as she desires to travel from (supposedly) Ethiopia to Solomon in Israel. On the way there, as the story goes, Queen of Sheba expresses her desire for wisdom: "Hearken, O ye who are my people, and give ye ear to my words. For I desire wisdom and my heart seeketh to find understanding; for wisdom is far better than treasure of gold and silver." Deism is kind of a religion, but more of a viewpoint that organized religion is not needed and that reason and observation of the natural world will reveal that the world is a creation and has a creator. Deists usually dismiss supernatural things such as prophecy and miracles. Solomon seemed obsessed with wisdom, and of course Queen of Sheba and others were interested in the knowledge of Solomon; "Wisdom is the best of all treasures" the Queen says. However there are definitely differences in Solomon's views compared to a deist's views. Solomon believed that he should let God intervene in his life and he feared God: "He gave commands with dignity, and his replies were made quietly and with the fear of God." This differs from Deism as they believe that God, though he/she created everything, does not interact with people.

Personally, I believe that the deist point of view is a more reasonable point of view, because it seems that God is not totally active in our lives and reason and knowledge is a more reasonable way to go about things (though I am not sure that there even is a god in the first place). Although Solomon's great use of knowledge was ahead of its time. Either way, it is interesting that Solomon used great wisdom in his rule and this concentration on wisdom was prevalent at some point long ago and it is similar to the beliefs of our forefathers (as they were–arguably–deists).

Plastic Art

 Religion is something that is a group phenomenon. We communicate our religious ideas through things in our world. Religion is a communal thing and thus we need a way to share it.

Christ depicted in Native American tradition

Religion seems to be something that comes about naturally in a group. However they way it evolves and grows and the way it is passed on seems to be a more involved process. Each individual will have ideas about what the religion should be like, or have ideas about what should be different here and there. These ideas without expression are nothing. Each person needs to express themself, and they do this through things. These "things" can be a wide variety of items that are tangible in this world. However, things by themselves are nothing. However, when you have ideas combined with things, you get art. And this is the foremost mode of expression in religion as it is legible to illiterate and creates most easily the "powerful, pervasive, and long lasting moods and motivations" needed to convey the religion's message and make it more desirable to pass down.

Some artwork is likely not accepted into the symbolic
vocabulary of most groups

But perhaps art is dangerous for religion. Art is the creative expression of individuals, and this individuality seems contradictory to the group aspect of religion. Art has many benefits for religion though as mentioned before, giving it emotional character and giving the illiterate something to read. Perhaps, although art is individual expression, many people make religious art, and the art that is agreed upon as embodying the religion's ideas becomes symbolic of the art. And anything that would not be acceptable to the group would likely not be added to the vocabulary of symbols. This would make sense because this is how the scripture (an art form in and of itself) is agreed upon. Many people had writings about the christian religion, and at some point hundreds of books of christian ideals and stories had to be sheared down to one big book (The Bible). Perhaps religious art works the same way. Though the art works is from the inspiration of an individual, it is agreed upon by the religious community.

Modern religious art

And one beautiful thing about art is that it has the ability to morph. As times change and culture advances and the old symbols/art does not seem relevant anymore, the art can morph to fit the times better. The ideas that people have are expressed differently from time to time and culture to culture. We often see this as Native Americans or Africans or Europeans display their jesus differently from each other, though they are all depicting the same person. And we see differences in art through time as we have gone from icons to paintings depicting stories to even modern art.


It is fascinating how art changes as time goes on and manages to stay relevant to both the religion and the social times. Art is an emotionally power, versatile and effective device that helps to keep religion alive. It helps keep a religion a communal phenomenon.

Extra Extra Read All About It!

Scripture is a mysterious thing. We are never sure exactly who wrote it or why they wrote. And so much gets lost in translation it can be difficult to really know what is said. Also, since much of the bible is understood to not be taken literally (except by some groups), it seems that it is open to interpretation. But perhaps there is right and wrong way to read the bible. Some people would say there is. Saint Augustine (354-430) who has written such books as Confessions and City of God, writes several books on how to read through the bible properly. And we have a more modern view written by J. Todd Billings on the Christianity Today Magazine website in an article called How to read the Bible.

Looking at the teachings of Saint Augustine, I feel as though he is saying that one should approach the scriptures with a clean heart. The best way to look at the scriptures is with an understanding that material the things that bring us inconstant joy are to be avoided and that we must put our energy into what brings us real happiness (and the only thing that brings us real, true happiness is God (of course). The article by J. Todd Billings essentially comes down to we need to simply letting the "scripture dwell in us" and letting the spirit guide you based on what it may find in this word of God. Billings explicitly makes the point that "we do not have to master scripture and then make it relevant to our lives... In reading the Bible as Scripture, we are not the masters. We are being mastered and enlivened by the triune God."

So in a way these two views of scriptures are similar. They both focus on turning to God as the answer. There are some key differences in their philosophies. For one, they both approve of eliminating confusion and misunderstanding of the written word. Billings seems to address this by telling us to keep sight of the historical context when trying to interpret the scriptures. Augustine is more concerned with the specific symbols that appear in the reading and thinks that learning Greek and Hebrew is the best way around the problem. Also, Billings says that a christian reading of the scripture reveals a God that is more so loving and caring. "one can read the Bible in a way that sees the God of Israel as a judging God, as the antithesis of the God of Jesus, who is supposedly only a gracious (not judging) God. But this is not a Christian reading of the Old or New Testaments," Billings says. He does not mention fearing God as way to read scripture (which–in general–I feel that looking a God as a loving God and not one to be feared is the modern Christian view of God). Augustine on the other hand, says that "the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom." It seems likely that the modern idea that we are "being mastered" by the word of God has replaced this harsher language of fearing God.

Although these two philosophies on reading the scripture differ, I feel that they are both effective ways to find a similar product. Perhaps there is a definite meaning to the scriptures, but the way we approach them can be individualized.

Religion = Art = Religion

 Art is the central form of communication of religion. Art gives us the power to express emotions and ideas powerfully. It also allows us to pass religious traditions down from generation to generation. 


Geertz's definition of religion states that religion is "A system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long lasting moods and motivations." The definition of art is "The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power." The potential emotional power of art is practically the only way to suitably portray the emotions that religion makes us feel. That is why there have been cave paintings, statues and music throughout the years used to define religions all over the world.

From this...

...to this.  (BWV 244b/29a)

The oral tradition of song has helped cultures pass on myths and tales revolving around their religion. The songs of many cultures have gone unchanged for centuries and centuries and are still around today. Sometimes, songs go through changes, intentional and unintentional. There were lots of simple hymns in Catholic church around the time of J.S. Bach, and he took the melodies of those hymns and made them into his collection of chorales. Physical art such as paintings and statues are more permanent in a way; obviously they (sometimes literally) more concrete then passing down tradition word of mouth. however paintings and statues corrode and songs can change so much that meaning is lost, so it is hard to say that the methods are the best for keeping something alive, however they capture the emotion and pervasive power of religion better than any written record.




However, you could ask, what came first? art, or religion. I find it likely that art and religion are one and the same. When our brains developed this ability and lingering to believe in higher beings and when we became so curious about the world and developed a drive to find an answer to everything (causal reasoning) I imagine that this is also the time that the creative, artistic aspect of humans came about. Also, some of the earliest art we know of has religious contexts (The Caves of Lascaux). Since religion is a means of explaining the world around us and the uncertainty of everyday events, and art is a means of expressing the creative skill and imagination of humans it makes sense that art is commonly used to express religious thought and ideas. And this explains why it is the most effective way of expressing people's strongest religious beliefs and this would also explain why it is such a universal way of religious  expression.

From Sun to Sunday

The Hymn to the Aten

To some extent, the ancient Egyptian hymn to Aten (which can be found here: http://www.touregypt.net/hymntoaten.htm) is very comparable to Psalm 104. Both pieces are very similar in many ways. If you read the two side by side, it is very obvious that these two pieces are practically the same with praise to "God" instead of "Aten." Though, the wording is not exactly the same and of course and any purely Egyptian religious idea in the Aten Hymn is removed in the Psalm 104 rendition. In overall structure that are nearly identical and share similar ideas of creation of the earth, and praising God.

However, it seems interesting that the people who wrote Psalm 104 would use the Egyptian hymn as a model to write a psalm off of. Especially considering the fact that this comes from a totally different Religious context and it comes from the a polytheistic religion. Although it is interesting that this Egyptian Hymn comes out of a movement in Egyptian religion of reformation. Names of the many other Egyptian Gods were etched out of the writings on the temple walls throughout the land. This was all by order of the king Amen-Hotep–who later changed his name to Akhenaten ("Amen" is the name of a previous Egyptian God). This is (debatably) a movement of monotheism. So perhaps is does seem at least somewhat appropriate that this would be used as a model of a monotheistic psalm thousands of years ago. But did the writer of Psalm 104 have that idea in mind; the idea that this hymn is from a (once again, debatably) era of monotheism in Egyptian religion. I guess we cannot really know the answer to that that question. But Perhaps that is the case since this seems to be the only Egyptian Hymn that is borrowed for the creation of a Psalm; and also since this is probably one of few monotheistic Egyptian hymns, it makes sense that this is the one to be used for a psalm. And not mention, the similar themes of praise and creation, etc. that come from the hymn that make this a tempting piece for psalmist to imitate.