Something that Kari has been wondering about is the connections, if that can even be the word we want to use, between Yahweh and Krishna.

I fell to ruminating about the Book of Job in the Hebrew scriptures after reading the Tenth Teaching in the Bhagavad Gita, entitled in this translation "Fragments of Divine Power". Arjuna asks Krishna "Recount in full extent/the discipline and power of your self;/Krishna, I can never hear enough/of your immortal speech." Krishna responds by saying, in effect, that he is absolutely everything: "I am the self abiding/in the heart of all creatures/I am their beginning,/their middle and their end." These descriptions go on for a few pages, and then in the next chapter Arjuna sees the vision for which words were not enough to comprehend. This may be an indicative things about sublime epiphanic experiences, that even "divine speech" cannot make it comprehendible in all its great and terrible beauty.

This made me think of Yahweh(God) in the book of Job, whom it is still very hard not to view as a sadistic prick on a power trip. He when he finally appears to Job out of the whirlwind and says "Gird up your loins like a man; I will question you, and you shall declare to me." (Chapter 38, verse 3, Revised Standard Version) This is equivalent in many respects to Krishna calling Arjuna a coward at the beginning of the Gita, but still it somehow strikes me as more harsh and severe. But the lists of divine power and sheer capacity are quite similar. One particular similarity which I found striking was the power of the horse.

From the Gita: "Among horses, know me as the immortal stallion/born from the sea of elixir;/among elephants, the divine king's mount;/among men, the king."

From the book of Job: "Do you give the horse his might? Do you clothe his neck with strength?Do you make him leap like the locust? His majestic snorting is terrible. He paws in the valley, and exults in his strength; he goes out to meet the weapons. He laughs not at fear, and is not dismayed; he does not turn back from the sword. Upon him rattle the quiver, the flashing spear and the javelin. With fierceness and rage he swallows the ground; he cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet. When the trumpet sounds, he says "Aha!" He smells the battle from afar, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting. (Chapter 39, verse 19-25)

Perhaps I am stretching in search of a connection between these stories, but I couldn't help but think of it. And, hard though it is for my tiny-little mind to grasp the notion, perhaps they are talking about the same thing on a certain level. Or perhaps not. Kari doesn't know, but Kari will perhaps pursue this consideration further if she can.