Vile figs, that cannot be eaten, they are so evil (Matthew 21)

The first question of chapter 21 is the timing of Jesus' "temple tantrum", a term I've never heard before, and while I don't think it's likely to catch on, it does have a ring to it. The Gospel of John clearly puts it at the beginning of his ministry, while the others put it near the end. There are two common interpretations of this discrepancy, the most common one being that this event happened twice, and John's Gospel tells the first time, while the others tell the latter. Another possibility (although this may be my own interpretation alone, as I can't recall specifically hearing this anywhere) is that John's Gospel is simply not interested in chronology, and specifically outside of the last week of Jesus' life, John simply strings together stories he remembers in any old order, which also explains why his Gospel is so different from the other three.

The next question is the manner of transportation that Jesus used to enter Jerusalem. There is definitely some confusion here, but note that while the other Gospels are arguing between a colt and an ass, the passage here in Matthew talks of "a colt the foal of an ass" which would indicate that the colt was an ass nonetheless. So that really leaves only Matthew that seems to be indicating Jesus riding on two animals. Since, as the SAB itself seems to be well aware, this is pretty much a physical impossibility, I would say that Jesus rode on the colt (a young ass) and perhaps the mare (if that's the right term) was brought along.

Anyway, all of this was supposed to fulfill a prophecy in Zachariah 9:9, but the SAB objects that this cannot be correct due to technicalities in the following verses, namely that Jesus failed to have an army or (an earthly) kingdom. This is the sort of technicality that never bothers Christians, though, I'm afraid, as there is an understanding that a future day is coming at which all of that will be completely fulfilled. There are actually a lot of prophecies that Jesus sort of half-fulfilled with an understanding that the complete fulfillment would come in the future. I'm sure most skeptics will call that sort of thing a cop-out once again, but I've got nothing else on this one.

Later in the chapter, Jesus famously curses a fig tree, but how fast did the curse take? In this telling of the story, it says "presently the fig tree withered away" while in Mark's Gospel, we're told "in the morning" they saw the "tree dried up from the roots". This could certainly be an outright contradiction, or it could be that certain members of Jesus' party noticed it at different times, or it could be that there's something else going on here which is a pure guess on my part: perhaps "withered away" and "dried up from the roots" could be different terms for stages of drying out that the tree passed through. I don't know enough Greek (or enough about figs) to say whether that has any deeper merit, I only toss it out as a possibility, as I recall there was a similar issue involved in drying of the ground after Noah's flood. (I think I've mostly been skipping the "What the Bible says about X" pages when they come up, but I think there's a quick note I could make about the fig page: All this destroying of fig trees is, I think a testimony of how good figs are rather than bad. After all, if you want to punish someone, you take away something good, right? You don't see God smiting their poison ivy or some such plant, do you?)

Jesus tells a parable of a rented vineyard in verses 33-41, and the SAB marks it with injustice and violence. I've got to ask, towards whom? I would agree that the people running the vineyard were unjust and violent, but I'm not sure that's what the SAB means, perhaps implying that "the lord of the vineyard" was unjust and violent for taking revenge on these men for killing his servants and son. If so, I can't really agree.

Last issue in the chapter is verse 44, which is marked as violent, unjust, and intolerant. That's a lot to pile on a bit of poetic language, as the stone spoken of is indeed Jesus, but that being so, what does the verse really mean? (After all, Jesus is not literally a stone.) I have my own thoughts, but barring an interpretation of what the SAB thinks it means, I'm not sure what to say.

Ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me (Judges 20)

Now, while I don't think that chapter 20 is quite as shocking in a simple sense (I mean after all, this isn't so personal; it's war, and this is just the way war is.) there is something more troubling about it from the point of view of an apologist: While God is completely absent from the previous chapter, it appears that the civil war that unfolds in response to the events of chapter 19 is undertaken with the express blessing of God. This is pretty much genocide we're about to see here, and what's more, genocide against the Israelites' own brothers.

I will, of course, offer a possible explanation of the apparent actions of God in this chapter, but I honestly have to admit that I'm grasping at straws here, and even my stretching of the interpretation of this chapter doesn't come across very pleasant at all. The easiest way out would be to say that when "the LORD said" in this chapter, it's not God, but the priests speaking falsely as though on behalf of God or some such thing. (Note that in verse 9, they say they "will go up by lot", raising the possibility that they essentially drew straws and considered the result to be the will of God.) Such an interpretation may create more problems than it solves for the apologist. I mention it only as a temptation, not as something I consider to be a reasonable response.

So here's the recap: Fighting men from all the tribes of Israel except for Benjamin (and probably Levi) gather together in Mizpeh to meet the Levite from chapter 19 and hear his story. Now the story he tells is technically true, but he leaves out the parts about his concubine being unfaithful to him and how he and his host actually gave the concubine to the crowd willingly. It's possible that the actual words of his story supply more detail than we read here, but it does sound like he's leaving out any details that paint him in bad light, which one would expect. The men of Israel vow that they will not return home until the rapists are brought to justice, and so they go to war.

The whole text of the battle that ensues is marked repeatedly by the SAB as absurd, violent and unjust. While I and any rational person would agree that this is a violent story, I don't see anything absurd about it, other than the fact that it's blown way out of proportion, which leads me to somewhat agree with the injustice label. I say "somewhat" because I suspect if this had not been an all-out war and only the men of Gibeah had been slaughtered, the label would still be there in the SAB, but I think I and many others would feel it was quite just. That being said, the fact that their fellow Benjamites are protecting them from justice may make them fair game, but that's more of a grey area in my mind.

The men of Benjamin fight exceptionally well, killing somewhere around 40,000 Israelites before finally losing. A note of accuracy that does little to soften the atrocity of the moment should be inserted here in response to the notes of the SAB. Verse 44 notes "Another 25,000 Benjamites are killed..." Actually, these are the same ones. If you read the story carefully, you'll note that the Benjamites started out with 26,000 soldiers (v. 15), so killing 50,000 of them would have to be an error. It isn't though; verse 35 is a summary of the battle while the following verses are a telling of the details of that battle, and a breakdown of how and where the Benjamites were defeated. In addition to the killing of soldiers, at the beginning of the final battle, they burn down the city of Gibeah, and after the battle, they pretty much just go nuts and destroy every city in the tribe of Benjamin.

Okay, so let me get down to it: this is horrible. It's a horrific, shameful moment in the history of Israel, and in addition to that, it appears that God is actually involved this time. What can you say? There are actually a few possibilities. One, which I've already hinted at, is that God approves. That is to say--and the distinction is important--that God approves of taking justice against Benjamin for allowing such an evil thing to happen in their midst. It does not necessarily mean that God approves of the all-out genocide and large-scale destruction that ensues after the battle. I can just barely believe of God that He might want not just the men of Gibeah destroyed, but the soldiers who fought to protect them. I don't believe that God intended the entire tribe to be decimated, no matter what, and I don't think the text supports that.

Another possibility that makes perhaps a bit more sense (although doesn't make things look much better) is that God led the men of Israel to do this thing as a form of punishment on them as well as on Benjamin. It hearkens back to Egypt and how once Pharaoh decided he would not let the Israelites go no matter what, God caused him to be hardened in his heart and stick to his guns even to the point of his own ruin. The men of Israel were so dead set on exacting revenge, and were so deeply steeped in sin themselves (if the rest of the book of Judges is any indication) that God said, "Sure! Go ahead and attack! Everyone is going to get exactly what they deserve..." Some people refuse to have faith in the God of the Bible because they pray, and do not get what they ask for, but Psalm 106:15 talks of what may be at times the worst curse that God can ever give someone: "He gave them their request".

And great was the fall of it (Judges 16)

Ah Judges 16, and the story of Samson finally defeated. Here we see him fall to what must be his greatest weakness, his lust for women, and apparent unfailing trust of them despite all evidence against doing so. Yes, Samson goes to visit a prostitute in Gaza, but this is not his downfall yet, although one might wonder if the whole thing was a set-up for a trap. The Philistines fully expect to catch him in the morning and kill him, but in the middle of the night (I assume while the soldiers are asleep) he gets up and rips the city gate out of the wall and carries it to a nearby hill. There may have been an actual purpose to this act, such as the possibility that's easily suggested by the text that they were trying to trap him in the city by barring the city gate. The SAB marks the act as absurd, and asks, "Did God make him do it or was he just showing off?" I'd lean towards showing off, as practically, all he really needed to escape was to knock the door down. It's possible that the practical purpose was to leave the city unprotected, as fixing a city gate that is knocked over is easier than fixing one that's been carried off. All of the angry, showy things that Samson does in his life end up being to the general detriment to the Philistines in the end.

Into the story comes Delilah, a Philistine woman that Samson has a crush on. The Philistines continue their campaign to take advantage of Samson's weakness for women, and offer Delilah a reward if she can help them take Samson down. She proceeds to question Samson as to the source of his strength, to which Samson makes up several answers. Seriously, this has got to be the stupidest guy in the Bible; every time he tells her what can be done to defeat him, she proceeds to immediately do it. To tell this woman the true source of his power has got to be the biggest bonehead move ever. (Actually, for the first time I find myself wondering if, in fact, Samson didn't even mean it when he said his hair was the source of his power. In truth, the Bible never says it's the case that his hair is giving him power; I've always thought the possibility existed that this was all psychological on Samson's part.) Whatever Samson expected to happen, I truly marvel that he didn't know Delilah was out to get him. Despite what Hollywood has portrayed, there's also no evidence in the story here that Delilah was in it for anything but the money.

The SAB says of his hair being the source of his strength, "And I thought his strength was from God." Well, everything comes from God, particularly Samson's strength, which seems to be supernatural, but his hair seems to have been a part of it for whatever reason. The fact that his eyes were gouged out probably didn't help Samson much either (an act which the SAB does not mention as being cruel or violent, and I'm curious as to why).

Samson ends up killing more than 3,000 people (Wells, you may want to update your tally, as 3,000 is the number of people upstairs alone, while many others were downstairs, no doubt) in his death, taking down the building on top of them all. The SAB does not miss the chance to mark this as violent, cruel, unjust and intolerant, but I must question some of those. Sure, Samson was an awful guy, but does that make it alright to gouge his eyes out and bring him out to publicly humiliate him? Are the Philistines right in oppressing the Israelites? (Unlike many of the nations the Israelites had to contend with in Canaan, the Philistines were not locals, but invaders.) Violent? Yes, but as for the other things Samson is accused of here, this final thing is really the closest he comes to a noble act in his spotty life. This one time especially, the Philistines really have it coming.

So, what is the final lesson of the life of Samson? What is the answer to the question I put off answering a few chapters back? Why does God take one of the worst moral examples in the Bible and continue to give him power and blessing time after time? Actually, I already answered this question in the beginning of the book. The book of Judges and the life of Samson in particular should be an inspiration for anyone who is hoping to find favor with God. Why? Because if God wants to use your life to make a great thing happen, He's not going to allow your failings, even if they are catastrophic ones like Samson's, to stand in the way of that. No doubt God could have taken Samson, had he been an upright and moral man, and made him a brilliant military leader and inspiration to his people who would than have rallied around him like a king and rose up to drive out their oppressors. Instead, God used Samson's very weaknesses to maneuver him into a place where he would end up destroying the leadership of the Philistines in a surprise attack from within. Samson was chosen from before birth for this purpose and, despite his own free will subverting the best opportunity for resolving the conflict, the purpose of God was served. I'll say it again: the Bible is a book full of massively screwed-up people that God used to do great things despite themselves. It gives hope to billions around the world and throughout history. If I don't have the moral fiber to be a Daniel, maybe I have just enough faith in God that he'll make me a Samson? Something to think about, anyway.

Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith (Judges 9)

Yikes! If you think politics are ugly today, you obviously have no idea what it was like in previous centuries. Here in Judges 9, we get a taste of dirty politics from a few millennia ago. (Once again, let me lead off with the caveat that we can't assume that God approves of any of this, with one exception that must be addressed. We'll get there.)

Having made a number of very bad decisions in his personal life, Gideon, who already had numerous wives, also gets a concubine in the city of Shechem. This woman bears him a son, which Gideon names "Abimelech", a name which means "my father is the king". This is an odd choice of names for a man who claimed that he didn't want to be king, and also for a man who was famous for fighting off pagans, when "Abimelech" is apparently a common name for local pagan kings.

So after Gideon passes on, Abimelech decides to make his move. He goes to the men of his own city and suggests that they should back him as the next leader of Israel, since he's a local boy. They agree, and he goes off to kill his 70 half-brothers, only one of which escapes. The men of Shechem crown him king. (Here's a fun bit of Bible trivia to throw at your favorite Bible-believer: ask them who the first King of Israel was. A lot of people will say, "David." Then you say, "Nope, guess again!" They think for a moment, then say, "Oh, yeah! It was Saul, right?" Then you can smugly say, "Nope, it was Abimelech, Judges chapter 9." Of course, then they might argue how technically Abimelech doesn't count, and they might be right, but you've had your fun.)

Now, the SAB laughs at the idea of talking trees, and while yes, it's absurd, it's pretty clear from the context that Jotham's story about the king of the trees is a parable; a fable-like story with a moral point. The point of the story is one that we can take to heart today, even: most people want a strong leader over their country, but the fact is that often the set of people who would make good leaders and the set of people who actually want to be leaders don't have members in common. (The side-note about alcohol is addressed here, basically that alcohol is good in moderation.)

After Jotham's speech, we come to the place where we are told God directly intervenes, and therefore must address it. God sends "an evil spirit" to deal with Shechem, and causes a lot of trouble for them, and for Abimelech in particular. This is an odd moment, no doubt, and actually one among many in which it seems very clear that God is doing something evil, which should be against God's character, right? It's my understanding that many Jews have a belief which is shocking to Christians, but I think holds some possible merit: that Satan and other "evil" beings are actually servants of God in a strange fashion. God Himself, due to His own holiness, simply can't do certain things Himself. Thus, He has servants such as Satan to carry out certain tasks, such as tempting evil men to their own destruction, as we see here. This explanation of course would seem distasteful to most Christians, and I expect the Christian point of view would be that this is more of a passive activity on God's part; not so much that He actively sent this spirit upon them, but that He simply allowed it in response to their sin. Either way, the message is clear: Abimelech and the men of Shechem have done evil, and they are going to reap a penalty for it.

The SAB has on odd note about "the men of the tower of Shechem", claiming apparently that 1,000 people are way too many to house in a tower. Well, I have two thoughts about that. One, as the SAB suggests jokingly, I suggest in seriousness that this may have been a really big tower, the text gives no size. (Also, names may be deceptive, as the "Tower of London" is not a single tower, but a palace/fortress comprised of a walled area with about 20 literal towers.) Two, the text mentions "the men of the tower of Shechem", not "the men who lived in the tower of Shechem". There probably was some sort of fortress where these 1,000 people lived that was famous for having a tower, not being a tower. I could be wrong because once again, history is not my best subject, but I believe a tower in those days was not just a defense for itself, but for any walled area nearby, and these people may have simply lived in a walled area adjoining the tower.

Abimelech dies in an odd way. A woman tosses a rock on top of him, and knowing he is about to die, he calls out to his armor-bearer to kill him so that people can't say that he was killed by a woman. Yeah, it's sexist and sort of weird, what can you say? Well, other than the fact that this strange dying wish was apparently a failure. (This bears some similarities to the death of Saul.)

The last note here is on the comment that killing his 70 brothers was less of a crime against them than it was a crime against their father. There are numerous cultural reasons for this sort of statement as I understand it. First of all, it's common in the Bible and in that culture to consider a family to be a collective entity representing the father. Second, and closely related to that, it's considered a very good thing to have many children, and now, Gideon's heritage is essentially gone. Thirdly, even with all the bad stuff that Gideon did in his life, if his story had just ended with chapter 8, his would have been one of the best, at least in this book. Now, it's pretty much especially shameful with this bloody footnote. Murder is an odd thing, I've always said, since the "victim" does not suffer once the act is complete. Those who suffer are the friends and family. Now that everyone in this story is dead and buried, Gideon's children are simply forgotten, but Gideon's heritage is a serious blemish on the face of Israel's history.

I came not to send peace, but a sword (Judges 3)

Judges 3 starts with what seems like a lot of repetition, but there's a bit more to it than that. The SAB says of verse 8 that God sold the Israelites into slavery "again". Actually, while this was mentioned in the previous chapter, this is the first time (unless you might want to count their time in Egypt, which isn't quite the same). As I said in my last post, the second chapter is more like a summary, so while it talks about some things that we see here, it's not talking about specific events, but rather the events of the book as a collective entity, which really start here.

And really, it's an odd turn of phrase that I don't quite parse. God certainly doesn't literally sell them into slavery, but the metaphor is surely implying something along those lines. God has nothing to gain by letting them go into slavery, but they've got a lot to lose, and it's largely their own choice for their disobedience.

So now the story returns to Othniel, Caleb's nephew. Apparently the story earlier about his unusual marriage was probably a setup for this later story, and the reason it was retold in Judges. Most of us have a modern perception of what a "judge" is, but in the context of this book, most of the judges of Israel were something akin to warrior-kings. They're people who have a certain degree of authority in their time, usually because of their ability to fight and protect their own people from enemies.

The deeper meaning of this is all a matter of perspective. The SAB calls the fact that God made Othniel into a great warrior unjust, violent and contradictory to the supposed nature of a God of peace. Well, I won't argue that war is not violent; it is by nature. But consider that the SAB says it's unjust to send the Israelites into slavery, and then immediately claims it to be unjust to redeem them. It seems like there ought to be only one claim of injustice here at most, take your pick. The problem is, when it comes to war, it seems unlikely that God is going to be on both sides at the same time. (I think it's likely in many cases that God is on neither side; I suspect that to be the case in our current war with Iraq, which happens to be in Mesopotamia.) Does a God of love go to war? I think He does if there is a loving reason to. Few people would argue that it was a bad thing to go to war to stop the Holocaust. When a situation deteriorates far enough, I think sometimes war is necessary to achieve peace. (Once again, I think there were good and noble reasons to institute a regime change in Iraq; I just didn't see the administration promoting any of those reasons. Justifying the war with false claims of WMDs is hardly noble. But enough editorializing, I've got to get back to that 3,000 year old Iraq War.) Indeed, the upshot of that war was 40 years of peace.

After that peace, there comes a time when they turn from God and the king of Moab takes them over. Eventually, God sends Ehud, who has a rather nasty scene of stabbing the king. The SAB labels it violent (again, I agree) and "language", which is less clear. The thing is, if you didn't already guess it, the phrase "the dirt came out" is the translators cleaning up a phrase that is unclear in meaning, but probably is referring to feces. Apparently, the king crapped his pants when he was stabbed, although a few other possible translations are out there.

Later, they end up killing 10,000 Moabites. This may seem violent and unjust, but once again, if you read it clearly, this is a squelching of a military invasion. Sure, there are a few times in this book when it seems that the killing is pretty arbitrary, but I don't think this is one of those times. This is a major battle that led to the ending of a war and a foreign occupation of the land of Israel. The SAB's page on Moab here has a couple errors, then, one of which unequivocally should be fixed (and now has been). So long as I'm there, I also think that the verse in Jeremiah is being understood wrongly as well. It's not a command, but an observation that Moab is about to be destroyed.

The chapter ends with a brief note about Shamgar, the third judge. All we know about this guy is that he killed a lot of Philistines, AND that he "delivered Israel". This may have also been an act of war in defense of his homeland, in which case I would not fault him personally. This is the first of several judges that are presented to us with minimal information, so one can only speculate.

Thou shalt drive out the Canaanites, though they have iron chariots (Judges 1)

It was the sort of thing that I would have saved for my other blog, but really I don't have so much to say about it. Apparently, the Dalai Lama has threatened to resign in the face of violence being committed by his followers in his homeland of Tibet. The Dalai Lama is just one of these guys you have a hard time not admiring even though his religious views are so disparate from your own. Certainly violence on the part of Buddhists seems ludicrous to me, and while I am personally against violence and a Christian, I recognize that even Christianity at its best ideals can't live up to Buddhism at its best ideals when it comes to peaceful living. And Judaism? The book of Joshua should dispel any idea that that religion is fundamentally non-violent, and here in Judges' beginning, we start with a fight that picks right up where Joshua left off.

The thing about the violence in this era of Israel's history is that, as I think I implied strongly in Joshua, it's mandated by God. There's a sense of higher purpose to it, and a sense of justice on a level that's not always obvious. The shame is (and it's reiterated in this and the following chapters) that the violence in Joshua's time was supposed to serve a purpose that had an end result of the ceasing of violence. All the immoral pagan peoples living in Canaan were to be driven out or destroyed, and once the job was done, the Israelites could live in peace. In their failure, they end up living in war against not only the pagan influences within their borders, but against each other at times.

The first accusation aimed at the book of Judges by the SAB is one of violence and injustice. Let me say here once again that yes, this is a violent book. Let me say for the first time (although I've said similar things elsewhere) that I'm not going to spend much time defending the violence and cruelty of this book, as I'll be largely in agreement with the SAB on such matters.

As for injustice, however, note that at least here, the text explains itself. King Adonibezek gets his thumbs and big toes cut off, an act that leaves a person alive, but greatly hinders the utility of their hands and feet, reducing them to an animal-like existence being not easily able to handle objects or walk anymore. Is it unjust? Adonibezek himself says, "...as I have done, so God hath requited me." After having extracted such a punishment on 70 other kings in the past, even Adonibezek seems to agree that this is just what he had coming to him. It's hard to argue against that, although I don't blame anyone for trying.

The next thing mentioned (which sounds from the wording as though it may have come before chronologically) is the sacking of Jerusalem. There are a couple things to note there. While the SAB calls this act violent and unjust, my response is the same as it has been throughout Joshua: God told them to do it, and the people of that city had warning that the Israelites were coming; in their case, forty years' more advance warning than the city of Jericho. Also, and fairly important, while the SAB says, "The Israelites killed everyone in Jerusalem..." there is no mention of that in the text. In fact, down in verse 21, we're told that the Israelites were unsuccessful in clearing out the inhabitants of Jerusalem. (More on that verse momentarily, which will give food for thought for the skeptics.)

Following this, we have an odd story that culminates in Caleb giving away his daughter to his nephew as a prize for destroying a city. This story may seem familiar to those who have already read Joshua, as this story is essentially a reprint of the same story in Joshua 15. Actually, a fair portion of the text of Judges 1 is copied from Joshua 15-17 for some reason, with this story being the biggest chunk. While I have commented on this story already, in looking at it during the past week or so, I have found some interesting things in the comparison with this version. The story doesn't change in essential details, but putting them side by side, even in the Hebrew, there are minor differences, such as the specification here that Kenaz was Caleb's younger brother. This might be of interest to those interested in the concept of accuracy of textual copying and/or transcription of oral histories. While as I said, there are no major differences between the stories, a notable difference surfaces in the aforementioned verse 21, which has its parallel in Joshua 15:63, where the SAB gives a very similar note. What is not noted, but I found quite fascinating, is that in Joshua, it's the Judahites who are charged with the responsibility of not driving the Jebusites out of Jerusalem. While Jerusalem lies on the border of Judah and Benjamin, it makes sense that the responsibility might be shared, but I'll admit that this fractured parallelism is odd. Anyway, I'm sure there's a lot of room for skeptics to speculate on the significance of these parallel verses.

In verse 19, we get a case of people failing a battle due to the presence of iron chariots. It's sort of neat to me that the SAB has added an iron chariots page, which I'm pretty sure is new, although I've been wrong more than once before. I like it because this is a favorite argument of Bible skeptics, and in this one case, it's one that they seem to like precisely because of how silly it sounds, or at least that's the impression I get. It seems to some that God is essentially powerless in any situation where iron chariots are involved. The answer to both questions posed there is essentially the same, and was answered way back by me, although I will reiterate here. God has the will and the ability to make the Israelites victorious no matter what the situation, but iron chariots, being the pinnacle of modern warfare technology in the time of this writing, were frightening the Israelites out of even trying to go to war against certain enemies. God can prevail against even iron chariots, as will be seen a few chapters after this, but His people need to trust Him in order do it. The "he" in Judges 1:19 refers not to God, but to Judah.

As for the remaining issues in this chapter, I rest on the explanations I gave in Joshua. Why did the conquest of Canaan fail? See this post. Why does the tribe of Joseph destroy Bethel excepting one family? It's probably a lot like the story of Rahab, discussed here.