Nataraja, The Lord of Dance, depicts the god Shiva as the cosmic dancer who performs his divine dance to destroy a weary universe and make preparations for the god Brahma to start the process of creation. “Lord of the Dance” is a hymn with words written by English songwriter Sydney Carter in 1963. It follows the idea of a traditional English carol, “Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day,” which tells the gospel story in the first person voice of Jesus of Nazareth with the device of portraying Jesus' life and mission as a dance. Sydney Carter phrased it this way:
I see Christ as the incarnation of the piper who is calling us. He dances that shape and pattern which is at the heart of our reality. By Christ I mean not only Jesus; in other times and places, other planets, there may be other Lords of the Dance. But Jesus is the one I know of first and best. I sing of the dancing pattern in the life and words of Jesus.
Cosmic portrayals of momentous events in the world of humans are the specialty of religions world-wide. How else describe deep meanings that humans infer from those axial moments that presage deep change in human awareness? The dance is a metaphor for such an interaction between people and within imagined settings, whether musical, literary, artistic, or rhetorical.
“Choreographing Embedded Dialogue in Biblical Narrative” (Victor H. Matthews) engages dialogues within the biblical canon as an interactive dance form, a literary dance in which shifts in position by dialogue partners contribute to a shift in identity.
“Dismemberment, Dualism, and Theology of the Body in the Gospel of Matthew” (Myrick C. Shinall, Jr.) studies the body-soul dualism in the rhetoric of the Matthean Jesus as a mechanism to control the human body with imagery present in Jewish and non-Jewish materials of the Greco-Roman period. Since the body-soul dualism cannot now be expunged, “the theological task becomes incorporating a Jesus who speaks of one's body as something foreign and requiring control into a theology that does not lead to bodily denigration.” This is a dance engaging the Hellenistic and Hebrew partners informing both Jewish and Christian traditions.
“Jesus at Age 30: Further Evidence for Luke's Portrait of a Priestly Jesus?” (David H. Wenkel) infers from Luke's numerical reference both Jesus' status as fully grown and, in accordance with the literature current in first-century Judaism, a qualifying age for a Levitical priest. Jesus thus becomes an embodiment of the mission of Israel as a priestly people by revealing God to the nations and glorifying Israel as the instrument of redemption (Luke 2:32), the Lord of Israel's cosmic dance.
“Eschatology of the Synoptic Jesus: Based on a Misinterpretation of Otherworld Experiences?” (Heiner Schwenke) cites the mystical experiences documented in the Ghost Dance movement of the Lakota (Sioux) people as an example of how people are brought to believe in an earthly kingdom of God by their otherworld experiences.
