Getting Crap Past the Radar/Oral Tradition

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Getting Crap Past the Radar in Oral Tradition include:

  • Older Than Feudalism: The Bible has various examples:
    • The Revelation to John is considered by many scholars to be a disguised warning against Rome. Since it was to be read by a Roman audience, it had to get past Rome's censors, so it couched its accusations in crazy imagery. For instance, the Beast was said to have 7 heads, and a later passage said "The seven heads are seven hills" (referring most likely to the seven hills of Rome).
    • The Song of Songs (a.k.a. the Song of Solomon) contains plenty of suggestive sexual imagery couched in a perfectly innocent (cough cough) Hebrew poem.
      • Of particular interest is verse 7:2, in which the groom describes his beloved's navel as "a rounded goblet that never lacks wine". Let's just say that in the original text, the word "navel" probably refers to something a bit lower than your bellybutton.
      • Or, the word navel could simply refer to the womb of a woman with the wine being babies.
    • Throughout the Old Testament, the word "naked" is often used as a polite euphemism for engaging in the sort of activities that would normally require a person to be naked.
    • The Bible is full of veiled references to sex, such as the famous "to 'know'" (have sexual relations with) and "thigh" as a euphemism for "groin".
      • Which leads to the realization that the Israelites swore oaths to someone by grabbing the *cough* family gems.
    • Long story short, The Bible is a lot less wholesome than fundamentalists would like to admit.
  • In The Arabian Nights, one of the stories deals with a merchant who gets a lucky break, allowing him to pretend to be rich. The story describes his wedding night in highly suggestive detail, e.g. "He loaded his cannon, lit the fuse, and fired the shot."
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Getting_Crap_Past_the_Radar/Oral_Tradition?oldid=1961662"