Crossan, Disease, and Illness

In chapter four of his book, Crossan describes the difference between a disease and an illness. A disease, according to him and several other leading experts, is something that is physiologically wrong with someone, a mechanical deficit in the body that prevents it from functioning at or to its full capacity. An illness, on the other hand, is more of a psycho-social phenomenon that prevents an individual from utilizing their mental faculties as they might normally, and that prevents them from interpersonal relations and interactions. An illness, as it is described, is socially constructed and maintained. A person, when healed of an illness, will think more highly of themselves, not rely on a "condition" as a crutch or an excuse, and will be able to live their lives ass fully as possible. A disease, on the other hand, is something that may physically cripple someone, but can be cured through medicinal or medical intervention. 

This is all fine, and I would not like to contradict any of these viewpoints of illnesses or diseases as they have been outlined. Where I find issue, though, and we touched on this briefly in class, is in the mental sickness department. We discussed depression in class, and how it is considered more of a disease than an illness, and the treatment for it is not such that you can simply "heal" it. Where, then, do mental "illnesses" fall in these categorizations of diagnoses and treatments? 

I mentioned the dichotomy of the two in class, and, given the short discussion with professor Silliman, it seems that, though the text appears to classify them differently, it is in fact a false dichotomy. Separating the two to understand them historically and from an anthropological standpoint makes a lot of sense, especially when one comes to the exegesis of the bible and the attempt to define the actual and historical Jesus. How, though, are the two wed back together in current times and regarding the very real "illnesses" that people fight against today? Depression, I think, is a relatively easy subject to justify between the two of them, not because it is a simple disorder, but rather it has had the fortune of being widely studied. What of other psychological illnesses like Schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, dissociative identity disorder? All of these are firmly grounded in the psyche, and yet needs must be approached from the "disease" standpoint.

On Crossan

The text that we are currently reading, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, is a very interesting text, and I greatly appreciate the insight that Crossan is supplying us with. Having said that, I am a little disappointed with his exegesis of the text; he relies much more heavily on quotes from the bible than he does his own words. That is to say, the majority of the text is taken up not by his own work, but by quotes of the bible that he chooses to analyze. Granted, he analyzes if very well and, to quote a cliche, brevity is the soul of wit, but I would like him to go into a little more depth than this book does. Of course, he mentions that this is more of a crash course in the subject than his other 900 page book, but even so, I find that, were we to have a little more exposure to his own ideas and writing, the discussion could go that much further.
I realize that statement may seem somewhat obtuse, especially considering the subject matter, but if we were to just analyze the bible, we would likely be reading the King James right now instead of Crossan.

Having said that, I think that Crossan does a very good job of pointing out the inconsistencies in the bible, especially in regards to John the Baptist and Jesus. The comparison he makes between the two, the intentional exoneration of Jesus over John, even though John was clearly born first, and had tremendous historical importance. Though he was at one point a priest, much of the information that he proffers forth seems to be quite condemning to the Christian faith. Even the premise of looking Jesus as an historical figure, looking back into records, and not taking the bible at face value seems quite akin to sacrilege.

What do you guys think?

An overview of the Ghita

After having read the Ghita, what I found to be most interesting was that it is from a culture whose language greatly influences its ideas. This, at first, sounds like a rather obvious statement and there is nothing profound about it. I suppose that is true in a sense, but, being a psychology major as well as a philosophy major, I find this type of thing particularly interesting. The idea of Dharma, for example, is something that we must elaborate on greatly; it isn't simply one's purpose of life, it's so much more. It's who you are, what you do, where you came from, and where you will go. It is an idea that is firmly grounded within the roots and traditions of the culture that gave birth to it. This isn't the only example of this; several different ideas within the Ghita are ones that, without understanding the culture, are and will be lost on the scholars attempting to learn about what the Ghita has to say.

The lessons in the Ghita are ones that set out to include and help. This seems pretty unique in that most other religions require one to relinquish parts of their lives in order to join them. Hinduism almost doesn't seem like a religion in that sense because it is all-inclusive. Whatever you want to do, that's fine by the Ghita, so long as you are fulfilling your Dharma. One aspect that I found particularly interesting in this sense was the idea that Krishna wanted Arjuna to fulfill his Dharma as a Kshatrya, and defeat his enemies. Because it was his Dharma, he would not be punished for it, and he could expect to "move up" in his next life.

I understand that there is a great likelihood that Arjuna was not actually intended to kill his enemies, and that it is a metaphor for defeating the personal demons within us (or something along those lines) that will allow us to reach Moksha, yet at the same time it offers strange grounds for potentially atrocious acts simply because the individuals acting them out can claim that it is their Dharma to do so, and they aren't in fact "killing" anyone, because the self cannot be killed.

Thoughts?