Anyone may learn to know and love William Blake. Small steps include reading, asking questions, making comments about posts made here (or anywhere else for that matter). We are ordinary people interested in Blake and anxious to meet and converse with any others. Tip: The primary text for Blake is on line. The url is Contents.

Monday, May 21, 2007

The Book of Brass

As committed a Christian as Blake was, he still receives little or no coinage in conventional religious circles. The reasons are rather obvious: he exploded the pet values and prejudices of the conventional Christian, like the "inerrency" of the Bible, etc. etc.

In MHH Blake promised to write the Book of Hell:
The Book of Urizen shows Urizen (Old Nobodaddy) with the Book of Brass; it doesn't save; it condemns. As Moses (and Blake) said, "would to God that all the Lord's people were prophets", and able to hear God speaking directly in Jesus' tones of love rather than like Urizen heard it.
Posted by Larry Clayton at 12:11 PM
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2 comments:

  1. LarryMay 24, 2007 at 1:23 PM

    Forrest:
    You wrote:
    "Would you be dropping back to http://kwakerskripturestudy.blogspot.com/
    again more often if we stopped trudging through Christian scriptures and threw it open to "whatever deepens our spiritual understanding"? Going back and forth, not just between Jewish & Christian but into whatever we know that sheds light for us?"

    Hopefully I might. As you've discerned I am more interested in spiritual sharing than in academic pursuits.

    You could well say that the Bible explodes the notion of biblical "inerrancy", and that might be true for you and me, but not for the unwashed multitude who consult or at least mention the Bible. I would hope to change the mind of at least one of them with my raving.

    Re "what does Blake have to do with it?" Perhaps nothing for you, but a great deal for me. Anyone who gets into Blake (believer or not) is bound to see the freedom with which he used the Bible, and perhaps be weaned away from an immature respect for "inerrancy".

    Re Quaker Studies two much is going on in my life. Days seem like four hours; precious hours in which right now I'm highly committed to revising the Blake book.

    Thanks for your comment, and best regards.

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  2. JonJune 3, 2007 at 11:47 AM

    Hi, Larry,

    I enjoy your posts--very informative, but I was wondering if you might be able to include snippets of relevant passages in the posts sometimes, rather than just hyperlinking? I'll admit I'm lazy, but it is asking a lot of a non-Blakian to go through the entire book of poetry to see the arc of the Book of Brass!

    I'd just love it if you could show me what the angel does to the book, etc.

    Thanks,

    Jon

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