The LORD sent me to anoint thee to be king (1Sam 10)

In chapter 10, Samuel finally comes out and tells Saul plainly that he is to be the king of Israel, and he anoints him with oil. (I've always thought this a strange practice, and probably ought to read up on it more. I can't imagine having a jar of oil dumped on your head is a pleasant thing, but I suppose I'm missing something.) He tells him a series of signs that will come to pass to verify to him that all he has spoken is true. After seeing the signs, Saul is to go to Gilgal, where something important is to occur.

So Saul comes along the road and meets some prophets, and immediately, the Spirit of God comes over him and he begins to prophesy as well. People see him there and ask in amazement, "Is Saul also among the prophets?" This is an interesting story for many reasons, one of which is that it occasions the skeptic to ask, as the SAB does, how can this story and the similar one in 1Samuel 19 both be true? Actually, the SAB flat out denies that they can both be true, but I fail to see why. Certainly, if we accept that such a thing could happen once, it could happen again many years later. The problem is not the repetition of action, but the ascribing of the "proverb" to both events, right? But why should that be a problem? Sure, it's strange, but why should it not be a possibility that the first event made some people say such a thing, and the second event made it all the more popular?*

The thing that makes it very interesting is the realization that this event is a miraculous moment in which Saul loses control of himself that was engineered to verify God's will that Saul be made king. The second event is, on the other hand, a miraculous moment in which Saul loses control of himself that was engineered to verify God's will that Saul be deposed as king. God has a sense of humor, I have no doubt about that.

Saul returns home and tells his uncle that he met Samuel, but not that Samuel said anything about the political situation to be. It's interesting that Saul, upon returning home, has a lengthy conversation with his uncle rather than his father. Perhaps there is something in the structure of Saul's family we are not being told that might explain the trouble of the previous chapter?

Samuel calls all the people together and gives them one last lecture on how bad they are for wanting a king, and then makes a choice. The selection process seems very odd, and not a lot of detail is given, but eventually, Saul is chosen to be king, although nobody can find him, because he's hiding for some unnamed reason. They bring him out, and everyone is impressed, because he's a tall handsome guy.

The SAB notes the writing in verse 25 as a "lost book of the Bible", which I think is an overstatement of the idea being put forth here. "Book" is pretty much a catch-all term for anything written down, and I've always assumed that what has happened here is Samuel has written up a short scroll with the details of the rules in the Mosaic Law that the king should be especially aware of, like Deuteronomy 17, which has a handful of laws concerning kingship. Whatever it was, it seems likely that this is more of a "lost pamphlet of the Bible".

In the last verse of this chapter, we are told that there were a few people in the crowd ("children of Belial", generally a term for particularly sinful people) who didn't think highly of the idea of Saul. The SAB finds this absurd, but I don't know why. Once again, I seem to be missing the point. I probably would have felt the same way, but perhaps it's something about the wording? I'm missing what the issue is here.

*Robert Alter says in his footnotes on chapter 19, "The doublet, far from being a stammer of transmission or inept or automatically inclusive redaction, is vividly purposeful, providing a strong frame for Saul's painful story. ... To the ancient audience, however, the recurrence would not have seemed a contradiction, and the conflicting valences given to the explanation of the proverbial saying add to the richness of the portrait of Saul, formally framing it at beginning and end."

And they had emerods in their secret parts (1Sam 6)

In examining the story unfolding here in 1Samuel 6, Robert Alter points out that there is indication of a possible mistranslation. The Philistines make an offering to the God of Israel in the form of "Five golden emerods, and five golden mice". This is the first time we hear about mice, and it's suggestive to some scholars that there is an aspect of the affliction of the Philistines about which we're not being explicitly told. Think about it: hemorrhoids are bad, but they aren't generally fatal. It may be that rather than being hemorrhoids, it was the dark boils associated with the Bubonic Plague that we're really talking about (which often appear in the groin area), a plague also associated with rodent infestations. It seems like a resonable speculation, although admittedly, golden images of their "buboes" still seems silly.

This offering of "Five golden emerods, and five golden mice" is at no point in the passage indicated to be demanded by God, only that the Philistine priests thought it was the best course of action, along with the rest of what is done in this chapter. (The issues of the number of gods and who it is that hardens hearts are ones I have previously addressed.) They put the ark onto a cart and return it to the Israelites, taking the manner in which the ark returned as a sign, which, lacking any evidence for or against God agreeing with this method of divination, you can take as you will. The actions of the cows is unusual, so it may be taken as miraculous, but it's not such an exciting miracle if so.

The final tale of this chapter is that of the men of Bethshemesh, many of whom died because they looked into the ark. Apparently, this was not a right thing to do. (It may have been reserved for Levites only to look, or it might possibly have been for no man to see the contents of the ark, I don't know; no doubt Stephen Spielberg has some thoughts on the matter.) In all of the nation of Israel's dealings with the ark, once again, the issue is their failure to take the Holy things of God seriously. Clearly, God takes the ark very seriously.

Is God merciful? You just know I'm going to give the answer "Yes" but how does one deal with the details the SAB brings up, which are certainly confusing? One thing worth noting first of all is that the first verse given in both columns is from the very same chapter. When you get an apparent contradiction that follows so quickly on itself, you're probably misreading or misunderstanding. God is merciful, yes, but His mercy is not without limit. To some extent, this is simply logical; there are cases where two parties are in conflict, and to give mercy to one would logically deny mercy to the other. Also, there's a very strange quality to mercy that I feel I understand conceptually, but may not be able to put into words well. Mercy is of a certain nature that it lives in contrast to justice. It's been said that justice is getting what you deserve; grace is getting something good you don't deserve; mercy is not getting the punishment you do deserve. If justice is never served, then in some sense, it cheapens mercy, and stretches the limits of some sort of cosmic balance sheet, it seems. God is merciful, but we can't escape punishment forever if we keep on pushing it.

A great sacrifice unto Dagon their god (1Sam 5)

In chapter five, we see a series of rather humorous miracles.

First, the ark is taken to the temple of Dagon and left there. The following morning, Dagon's statue had fallen over, appearing to bow before the ark. Not liking this, the Philistines figure it's just an accident, and set Dagon upright again. The next morning, not only is Dagon on the ground, but his head and hands have been severed. The Philistines are apparently freaked out, and stayed out of the temple from then on.

But this is not enough. Apparently soon afterwards, many people died, and among most who did not die...yep, they were all struck with hemorrhoids. (I don't know why this triggers the "language" icon in the SAB; it is what it is!) So they take the ark and take it away from Ashdod to Gath, where the same thing happens. And again to Ekron. Death and hemorrhoids everywhere. What's a Philistine to do? Well, the situation is admittedly pretty absurd, and their response to it takes it to a new level of absurdity.

They laughed us to scorn (external links)

Once again, here is a post about other people's blogs, and the links that love them. I don't recall whether I ever pointed out that I added a link to Steve Wells' blog, Dwindling In Unbelief. It's pretty good; mostly more of the same stuff he puts on the SAB, but in a looser form. In the comments of his blog, I came across a couple of other blogs that I thought a person who liked my blog might also like. Or you might not, but I liked them.

Actually, the first one that caught my eye was By The Book Comics. Being a person whose two main passions are comic strips and theology, I find that even though you'll guess that I don't share DocMike's views on theology, I immensely enjoyed his format and humor. Sometimes the best way to get a point across to people is to make it funny, and so despite the fact that he doesn't go to the depth of discussing the issues that Wells does...a picture says a thousand words, as they say. Consider each strip a 3,000 word essay on "What Bugged Me About The Bible This Summer". A funny one at that, although not for the easily offended, surely.

The other blog I came across was one called simply Bible Discussions. It's written by a Jason, who identifies hiself as a "Christadelphian". Oddly enough, I've never heard of this denomination before this week, or maybe not so odd, as Wikipedia claims that there are about 50,000 of them worldwide. As a Christadelphian, Jason has some very different ideas as to the nature of some deeper theological issues. However, in reading his comments and a few posts on his blog, I'm struck by similarities in his writing style to mine. It's interesting to see that a person coming from a different point-of-view concerning the Bible could hold some beliefs and views so similar to my own. Anyway, I thought his blog was good, and I for one intend to read it more.

Well, with the addition of these links on my sidebar, I think I am going to take a few others down. Many of the links I have so far are to blogs of a theological nature, but I'm thinking I'd like to link specifically to blogs about the Bible. Those other links will be moved to my other blog. If you know of any other blogs on the Bible that you think are very good, let me know, and I may want to add them.

The beginning of wisdom

I've been having a hard time getting back to my blog lately, partly because of my current workload and personal issues, but frankly, there is something else that's been keeping me from blogging lately.

All this reading and rereading of the notes in the SAB is making me start to have some serious doubts and questions. Maybe I need some time to consider more of the content of that site before continuing on this project much farther.

Just because I'm saying this doesn't mean that I have given up the faith. On the contrary, I'm still holding fast to it as best I can, but I have to be honest. Knowing some of the things I know now, I do have to admit logical difficulties. In the meantime, I suppose I'll still continue with my other blog. Never fear, faithful two or three regular readers, in some form, I will carry on. Get yourself some rest this weekend.

Jesus saith unto them, I am (Exod 3)

Having just addressed the issue of the proper name of Moses' father-in-law in my previous post, I can turn to the big issue here that the SAB overlooked in this chapter: How the heck can a bush be burning and yet not consumed? That goes against the known laws of physics and chemistry! Pardon me, this should be a short post, so I thought I might as well throw in some sarcasm to point out that I'm never quite clear how Bible skeptics pick and choose which miracles to accept and which to doubt. For instance, as a peek ahead, I see in chapter 14 that parting the Red Sea is left without comment, but having the wheels fall off the Egyptian chariots is considered absurd. Perhaps Steve Wells is commenting on the Lord's great love of slapstick comedy? Actually, the SAB does comment on the burning bush, but merely to remark that it's absurd that God would speak through it. I'm not sure why this would be, aside from the fact that sometimes I think it absurd that God would bother to speak with us at all.

While there aren't a lot of notes in the SAB to respond to for this chapter, there are a number of notable things in this dialogue between Moses and God. For one thing, Moses is clearly not happy to be sent back to Egypt, and keeps coming up with excuses not to do it, but God convinces him to do it. The other notable thing is the exchange in verses 13 and following, in which God identifies Himself as "I AM". It's of course fairly widely believed that God's name in the Old Testament, which is rendered in the Hebrew something like "YHVH", is derived from a form of the phrase "I am", which is similar in form.

On verse 16, the SAB poses the question, "Has anyone ever seen God?" I responded to this in a previous post, and while I admit that answer may not be highly satisfying for many, it's about all I've got. Maybe I'll expand on it sometime. (Or maybe I already did in another post, and forgot since then?)

The final verse has a very interesting foreshadowing--well, actually, it's more than foreshadowing, isn't it? The verse says that essentially, the Hebrews are going to steal a lot of stuff on their way out of Egypt. Is this a right thing to do?

First of all, I'd like to examine the words used here, both "borrow" and "spoil". "Borrow" is a word both in English and the original Hebrew that indicates that whatever they take is going to be asked for first. These women are not going to simply go over to their neighbors and take stuff, they're going to ask. However, the sense of "borrow" that implies it will eventually be given back certainly does not apply. Whatever they take when they go, they're certainly keeping.

As for the word "spoil", I think the true meaning of this word in Hebrew will illustrate the real point of God's will here. While there is definitely a sense intended of "spoil" in the more usual fashion of taking by force and leaving in ruin (and indeed, even the NIV translates this word as "plunder"), I think it interesting that this word in no other place in the Bible (besides the two passages quoted in Exodus) is translated "spoil". It is far more likely to be translated as "deliver" or "recover", the implication being, in just about every case, that someone is taking something away because in reality, they have it coming to them.

The Israelites served the nation of Egypt as slaves for about 400 years, and this is just their way of getting "back pay" if you will. It's like the concept of "reparations" that's been discussed from time to time here in America, which I think is a good idea in theory, but at this time in our history, difficult to put into practice. For all those people in our nation's history who used the Bible to justify their right to own slaves, it's a damned shame that none of them seemed to pay much attention to Deuteronomy 15:12-14, in which it is made clear that a slave was only to be owned for six years, at the end of which he was not only to be released, but paid liberally for the six years of service you received from him. Most people seem to miss this vital aspect of Biblical slavery, which makes it very different from our modern understanding of the practice.

(Note: On the SAB page on slavery, I notice that Deut. 15:9-10 is quoted, but that particular verse is not actually about slavery, but about loaning money. In that context, the "year of release" while yes, also being the year of release from slavery, is actually the year of release from debt, and God is saying, "Don't think you'll get out of having to take care of the poor just because you suspect they'll never pay you back.")