Of Course You Can Change the Past

It is impossible to say how much of the Bible is improvised, only that it is, being that it is always (vertically speaking) a harmony of two voices, divine and human. Moreover, it is symphonic, in that it is a unity of many voices over a period of 2,000 years or so. That's a long time. 

Nor can we say that it begins with the writing of Genesis, since Genesis adverts to the beginning, or to the beginning of time itself. It reminds me of a movie with a plot which in turn adverts to events prior to it, i.e, backshadowing. 

Also, it is not as if it literally ends with the composition of Revelation in AD 95 (or whenever it was), nor with the closing of the canon in AD 363, because that's just another beginning -- of ceaseless riffing and improvising on the text. 

Analogous to musical improvisation, it is as if scripture provides the chordal structure that supports the countless melodic improvisations we can draw from it, from trivial to profound. At any rate, it is inexhaustible.

And if we're going to be literal, we cannot even say that earlier events are fixed, since only future events can reveal their full meaning. We do not mean that the earlier events change figuratively, but literally. 

For example, an eyewitness to the Crucifixion would not only have have no idea of its meaning, the meaning continuously unfolds through time, thus changing its very character.

Once again it's a relief to stumble upon a book that makes the same point, Deep Exegesis: The Mystery of Reading Scripture. Chapter two in particular, Texts Are Events, not only explains how it is possible for past events to undergo "change," but how this is built into the very fabric of temporal being. 

For example, supposing it were possible to witness the Big Bang, what could we really know of it? As we've said many times, the later emergence of such shocking properties as Life and Mind cause us to reconsider the very meaning of the Big Bang. 

And not just the meaning, because the universe that suddenly comes to life is a changed universe: things require time in order to disclose what they are; in a single moment, nothing is anything. 

Now, you will ask: are you saying that the future operates causally on the past? Because that's more than a bit woo woo. But Leithart makes it clear that

Events themselves change over time, taking on new properties because of later events. 

And again, not just vis-a-vis scripture. He uses the mundane example of an assassination, but let's consider one in particular that occurred on the morning of June 28, 1914, since its effects continue to resonate and reveal "what happened." 

Such an event is in one sense "fixed": "the assassin aims, shoots a gun, and hits his target with a bullet to the head" (or jugular in the case of the Archduke). 

Assuming the victim doesn't die instantly, all an eyewitness could say is that an attempted assassination has taken place. Certainly he would have no knowledge of World War I, and how this in turn led to World War II, the Cold War, and even to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. 

We cannot know the event fully because we do not yet know how the events of 10:00 a.m. will be modified by later events.   

This sounds like some fallacious trick of logic, e.g., Zeno's paradox or something. But no: "This is not simply a change of description but a change of the event," because "the event is brought into relation with subsequent events and acquires new properties that change the very thing it is" (emphasis mine). 

I don't know, Bob. Too clever by half. 

Clearly this has to do with the metaphysics of time. Back to our discussion of how music mirrors the nature of temporality, a note in one moment reveals next to nothing about the melody. Does the note undergo change? Yes and no, for the same unchanging note can support an infinite number of melodies which, once played, reveal the nature of that note.

What happened on January 6? Whatever it was, it's still happening, as per the amphetamine addled ravings of last Thursday's State of the Dementia. 

Again, music is a quintessentially temporal event, not a static and atemporal thing. And last I checked, we to are allavus Plunged into Time, whatever that is.

To hear the simplest melody, we need to listen for at least a few seconds. And more complex pieces of music can take an hour or more to experience. Notes follow notes, measures follow measures, movements follow movements.... If we are going to listen to music at all, we have to give it time to unfold.

What if we're listening to history? Or to scripture?

Texts are musical in that they take time, and the time texts take is musical time. The time of music and the time of texts always involve reaching for the next moment.... we are always reading beyond the individual word.  

In reading, we have to suspend judgment until the texts unfolds itself, but note that the Bible is again a special kind of text that spans from before-the-beginning to after-the-end, AKA Alpha to Omega and thensome. And

Not unjustifiably may we say that musical motion is at the core of every motion; that every experience of motion is, finally, a musical experience. 

With respect to scripture, "the meanings of earlier texts shift with the introduction of later texts," and this is all over, for example, John, the prologue of which very much changes the meaning of Genesis 1. 

Only in a timeless universe could the "past" be fixed: "Everything depends on the temporal dimension." And what it is, precisely.   

The meaning is disclosed only by taking the time that the text takes..., and the story changes not only what we thought happened but what did happen. 

Maybe. But "we need to consider what happens to texts after they seem to be finished." This post is finished, but we don't yet know what it means. We'll keep you and I in suspense for another 23 hours.