Talk:Dance

This seems a bit one-sided. Don't men ever dance for women?--Speedoslover 16:48, 4 September 2007 (BST)

I'm sure that some must do sometimes but I have no knowledge of it. Commercial male strippers, for example, don't exactly 'dance' do they? (Genuine question - I've never been to a male strip show!) If you can add content, please feel free to do so. --Interesdom 06:32, 6 September 2007 (BST)

Salome

Salome's alleged "Seven Veils" are not mentioned in the Bible at all. Is part of the Salome section copied from somewhere?

Also, Dance plays a large role in the Gor novels... AnonMoos 19:45, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, well, the character of Salome certainly originates with the Gospels. The kinky details that her story has later acquired -- the "Seven Veils" striptease, suggestions of incest and modern BDSM play, "Back! Daughter of Babylon!" et cetera -- seem to have been embellished by later artists and writers like Oscar Wilde and Liliana Cavani.

No, this section of the article was not copied from elsewhere. I revised the content a bit over the weekend to try to keep it more focused and relevant to the theme of this website. --Lycraman 20:22, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, the seven veils and the name "Salome" itself do NOT occur in the actual text of the Bible (the only occurrence of the word "Salome" in the New Testament is near the end of the Gospel of Mark, where it obviously refers to a completely different woman). In the text of the New Testament, she's referred to only as the "daughter of Herodias", or "the girl", and there's no indication that her dance is a particularly erotic one (and in fact, as a member of the local princely ruling family, not a lower-class or slave entertainer, it would have been highly unusual for her to dance in an explicitly erotic fashion). It's unfortunate that this article fails to distinguish between the Bible and later folklore... AnonMoos 12:56, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Why don't you amend that section of the article, then, and clarify the distinction between what is actually mentioned in the Gospels and what is apparently the product of later folklore. Also, bear in mind that the books of the bible have had many redactors over the past 2000 years. Could it be said that the popular story of Salome is "biblical folklore", since it does refer to a major biblical character like John the Baptist? This site isn't about biblical scholarship and archaeology anyway. I just added the bit about Salome and the Dance of the Seven Veils insofar as it is folklore -- with tenuous origins in the Gospels -- which has since been used as a kind of metaphor for modern notions of striptease and BDSM play. --Lycraman 21:28, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Come off it. Salome was a real person, the daughter of Herod and thus the granddaughter of Herod the great. While for some reason Matthew fails to mention her name, it is recorded by Josephus.--Taxwoman 20:11, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

For all we know the actual name, Salome, may have once been present in an early version of the Gospel of Matthew. By the time that the King James Bible was written in the early seventeenth century, the name may have long since been redacted from the text for whatever reason (the Athanasian creed, et cetera). But this is all pure speculation on my part, of course. Salome and the Dance of the Seven Veils occurs in Pasolini's Gramscian-Marxist film interpretation of the Gospel of Matthew as a metaphor for Fascist/capitalist coercion/exploitation.--Lycraman 00:55, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

What has the Athanasian Creed got to do with anything? And the text of the Gospels is witnessed by documents dating back to the time of Athanasius or earlier. Sorry, I know this is screamingly off topic.--Speedoslover 22:54, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Athanasius had his own agenda, so who knows? Are you a biblical scholar? The Gospels were written down about 100 years after the events described allegedly took place. Is "screamingly" a proper adverb? --Lycraman 17:25, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'll amend my previous statement and we'll agree that the Gospels were written about the decade 60-69 of the common era and shortly thereafter -- which is not that much short of a century, is it? I did say "about 100 years". I suppose I should have said "about 60-70 years" or "about the time of the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem", right? The point I was making was that the first versions of the Gospels were written down a bit later (indeed, at least three generations after) the alleged events took place, and so, it is not unreasonable to suspect some possible discrepencies as first-hand accounts are lost, is it? That there have been many redactors, exegetes, and translators of the biblical text in the 2000 years since that time is a well-known fact of history. That's all I was saying. --Lycraman 20:08, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not going to argue about dates of certain alleged events in the Gospels or when certain parts of the text were written down or changed or redacted and for what reason, or whatever. I think of a generation as spanning about 15-20 years, and I have my doubts as to whether the Gospels were actually written by people who witnessed any or all of the events described (the massacre of the holy innocents, the crucifixion, and so on) first hand. Whether the subsequent changes and codifications that you allude to actually served to corrupt any or all of the text is a matter of contention that I am not qualified to contend one way or the other. --Lycraman 20:38, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I am glad to hear though that BDSM was alive and well in Judea at the time of Christ Balzac 20:42, 27 December 2007 (UTC)