Ah, doesn't this story keep getting better? No, not really. Apparently all of a sudden, the Israelites start realizing that--especially to the extent that they have butchered an entire tribe of Israel--two wrongs don't make a right. So naturally, they do what anyone would, and decide to see if maybe three wrongs will do the trick.
Since they had made a vow that they would never allow their own daughters to marry one of the Benjamites, they're in a quandary. They want to help the remnant of this tribe rebuild, but they can't do it without breaking their vows. The remaining Benjamites might have women of their own actually, but since there are such a small number of survivors of this genocidal rage we saw in the previous chapter, it seems to me that those women would probably be the daughters and sisters of the surviving men. Or it may be that they truly did destroy every city, and all inhabitants, which would have been all the women, the only survivors being a handful of fleeing Benjamite soldiers. Whatever the particulars of the situation, the Israelites show their moral fiber when they have to choose: On the one hand, they can break their rashly-made and morally-pointless vows, or they can kidnap, murder and pillage in the town of Jabeshgilead, the inhabitants of which are not bound by such a stupid vow and, apparently alone in all Israel in that day, had no blood on their hands. They of course choose the latter; you can't expect them to break their word, can you?
So they kill every man and every non-virgin woman in the city. I have no idea why this was supposedly necessary rather than simply kidnapping the virgins, but I don't understand much that these people do. (You almost imagine, what with the way they've conducted themselves in the previous chapter, that they got together and said, "But what if someone from the town complains?" Think...think...think. "I've got it! We'll just kill everyone, then they can't complain!") They bring the women back to the survivors of Benjamin, but there are only 400 virgins for what I assume is about a thousand soldiers. So, not nearly enough. What to do?
Solution? More kidnapping! (At least they didn't kill anybody else, I guess.) The people assembled, who I assume were not from the region of Shiloh, suggest that during an upcoming festival in Shiloh, the remaining unmarried Benjamites lie in wait for some young women who will come out to dance in the vineyards as part of the festival. If they simply drag these women off and marry them, then it's reasoned that their fathers will not be breaking their vows, since they didn't willingly allow their daughters to go. So they do it.
Summing up, kidnapping, lying, scheming, rape (of female virgins), arson, stealing, and mass murder are all considered to be preferable to breaking one's vow to the Israelites during this time, for "every man did that which was right in his own eyes."
Why am I summing up rather than explaining or excusing? I don't think there's much one can explain, and pretty much no excuse for this behavior. You can't blame it on God, though; you can't blame it on the Mosaic Law. These aren't people acting in the name of God; this is essentially random, bloodthirsty mass insanity.
Why is it here in the Bible? The SAB labels this passage in various places as essentially violent, unjust, misogynistic, and displaying a warped sense of family values. I'd be curious as to whether there is anyone alive today who professes belief in the Bible who disagrees with such an assessment; I certainly don't disagree. On the one hand, the simple fact is that this is supposed to be history. If this event actually happened--and indeed, who would want to make up such an event and put it into their own country's history?--then I think it would be immoral to simply sweep the whole thing under the rug. In the same fashion, Christian believers in the Bible need to deal with this story, and not pretend it doesn't matter. It's from this very nation, this very group of barbaric, bloodthirsty warriors, that the people we consider heroes of the faith arise. King David, the prophet Daniel, John the Baptist, even Jesus himself comes from these people.
The thing to realize from this, and so many other stories in the Bible, is that the Jews are God's chosen people. Not the best people in the world, and despite what you might think from this story, not the worst people either, just the chosen people. As such, they are simply people. What does the Bible tell us about people? "[T]he imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth", God says in Genesis 8. "[T]he heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live", King Solomon observes in Ecclesiastes 9. Jesus himself tells us in Mark 7 that, "For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly." And yet, it was this very same Jesus who gave up his life for the salvation of all of mankind. Why did God choose the Jews? Deuteronomy 7:7-8 says, "The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt." Why did Jesus decide to die for sinful people? Romans 5:6-8 tells us, "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." It's in the stories of the very worst that humanity has to offer that we see the depth of the love of God: that despite our best efforts to be as evil and reprobate as possible, God still insists on reaching out to us in love. This horrible chapter in Israel's history is not the final chapter; it's only the beginning.
Showing posts with label mass murder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mass murder. Show all posts
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Thursday, August 07, 2008
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".
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".
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Yet wherefore hast thou stolen my gods? (Judges 18)
"In those days there was no king in Israel." Ah, the oft-repeated phrase in the book of Judges, usually followed by "every man did that which was right in his own eyes." Cleary, the main lesson taught in the book of Judges is that of a need for (and unfortunate lack at the time) an authority figure to hold the people together. It's funny, but even though the Bible mandates a certain separation between church and state in the fact that the King is not to be a priest as well, there is definitely a sentiment that the king should be a moral example for the people, and should lead them in showing the way to be a good and moral person, and a follower of God. I think that's something we'd like to see in our own leaders here in 21st-century America, but rarely do.
(Of course, when you really think it through, there were very few kings during the time of the monarchy in Israel that were anything like exemplary moral figures. David's one of the better examples for us, and, well, you know. He's got his fair share of faults and then some. No doubt the writer(s) of the book of Judges are in part telling these stories as propaganda to suggest how great the monarchy is.) But to the story...
Here we take up right where we left off in two ways: this story meshes right in with the story of our idolater, Micah, and who do we introduce into the plot? Danites from Zorah and Eshtaol, some names that may be familiar. These are the fellow tribesmen of Samson, from the very same area that he lived in. Apparently, despite the fact that Samson had some good victories (or maybe because he hasn't yet at all; as I said, chronology is far from precise here) the Danites still can't live in peace within their inherited area of Canaan, since the Philistines are all over the place making trouble for them. So they go out looking for a good place that they can take over and kill the inhabitants of, of course.
On the way there (more or less), they come across Micah's house, where this Levite is working, (for more irony, note that the Levite tells them to "Go in peace") and they eventually decide to steal all of Micah's religious paraphernalia, along with his priest. Apparently, as I said before, the SAB seems to have no problem with either the idolatry or the thievery, leaving it without comment. Frankly, I myself am not sure what to think about it, as the whole thing to me is pretty ridiculous. "Ye have taken away my gods which I made!" Micah protests. This is wrong and ironic on so many levels that it's hard to deal with. I mean really, how helpful are those gods if they couldn't protect Micah from being robbed? The Danites come back with a sort of, "Are you sure you want to fight about this? Clearly we've got gods on our side here." Not really, but whatever; at the very least it's got to be absurd. Micah, you're outnumbered; go home and make yourself some new gods or something.
So the Danites go and destroy the city of Laish, killing everyone there. The SAB finally decides to chime in after two chapters of silence with a judgment of this being "violent" and "intolerant". Violent? I would agree, but once again wonder why the gouging out of Samson's eyes was not labeled as such (or "intolerant", which seems fairly reasonable). Something I don't understand at all is the "intolerance" label, however. I just don't see what definition of the word could possibly apply here. The Danites don't attack the people of Laish because they're non-Israelites. They certainly don't attack them because they're pagans. They attack them because they're greedy for land and the people of Laish appear to be an easy target; it's as simple as that. I guess we're to believe that the Danites are intolerant to people who tend to get killed by Danites? C'mon SAB, you're better than this...
(Of course, when you really think it through, there were very few kings during the time of the monarchy in Israel that were anything like exemplary moral figures. David's one of the better examples for us, and, well, you know. He's got his fair share of faults and then some. No doubt the writer(s) of the book of Judges are in part telling these stories as propaganda to suggest how great the monarchy is.) But to the story...
Here we take up right where we left off in two ways: this story meshes right in with the story of our idolater, Micah, and who do we introduce into the plot? Danites from Zorah and Eshtaol, some names that may be familiar. These are the fellow tribesmen of Samson, from the very same area that he lived in. Apparently, despite the fact that Samson had some good victories (or maybe because he hasn't yet at all; as I said, chronology is far from precise here) the Danites still can't live in peace within their inherited area of Canaan, since the Philistines are all over the place making trouble for them. So they go out looking for a good place that they can take over and kill the inhabitants of, of course.
On the way there (more or less), they come across Micah's house, where this Levite is working, (for more irony, note that the Levite tells them to "Go in peace") and they eventually decide to steal all of Micah's religious paraphernalia, along with his priest. Apparently, as I said before, the SAB seems to have no problem with either the idolatry or the thievery, leaving it without comment. Frankly, I myself am not sure what to think about it, as the whole thing to me is pretty ridiculous. "Ye have taken away my gods which I made!" Micah protests. This is wrong and ironic on so many levels that it's hard to deal with. I mean really, how helpful are those gods if they couldn't protect Micah from being robbed? The Danites come back with a sort of, "Are you sure you want to fight about this? Clearly we've got gods on our side here." Not really, but whatever; at the very least it's got to be absurd. Micah, you're outnumbered; go home and make yourself some new gods or something.
So the Danites go and destroy the city of Laish, killing everyone there. The SAB finally decides to chime in after two chapters of silence with a judgment of this being "violent" and "intolerant". Violent? I would agree, but once again wonder why the gouging out of Samson's eyes was not labeled as such (or "intolerant", which seems fairly reasonable). Something I don't understand at all is the "intolerance" label, however. I just don't see what definition of the word could possibly apply here. The Danites don't attack the people of Laish because they're non-Israelites. They certainly don't attack them because they're pagans. They attack them because they're greedy for land and the people of Laish appear to be an easy target; it's as simple as that. I guess we're to believe that the Danites are intolerant to people who tend to get killed by Danites? C'mon SAB, you're better than this...
Thursday, June 19, 2008
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.
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.
Friday, June 06, 2008
They were burned with fire (Judges 15)
So with each new chapter in Samson's life, he looks worse and worse. Aside from Samson's one supposedly redeeming feature of hating the Philistines, we see what might be considered a redeeming feature by some, but in his case is perhaps a bit of foreshadowing to his downfall: Even after his wife has betrayed him, he forgives her and goes back to her (whether it be a sexual betrayal or not, the thing that we see about Samson here is that he can't seem to fathom the idea of a woman being bad or dangerous, which is a different sort of sexism than we usually see in the Bible, but sexism nonetheless). It turns out that Samson's father-in-law has assumed that Samson wanted a divorce, and married her off to someone else. The following offer of the younger sister is, I think, an act of self-preservation on the part of Samson's father-in-law, whatever else you might think of it. Samson is known for having a nasty, violent temper, and he's certainly not above killing.
Samson's response to this is that he's decided to get revenge on the Philistines as a whole for this grave injustice done against him. (I actually find myself wondering if he's really so angry, or if he's just looking for an excuse to commit violence against the Philistines. You can almost imagine a typical day for Samson: gets up...eats breakfast...toast doesn't have enough butter, so he bludgeons 20 Philistines to death with a stale loaf of bread...checks out the newspaper, etc.) He somehow catches 300 foxes for a Rube Goldberg-esque plan of revenge that destroys the Philistines' crops. (The SAB marks this passage with the Absurd icon, and I tend to agree, whether it be the strangeness of Samson's plan or the thought of a single man catching 300 foxes, this is pretty weird.) Destroying the crops leads to an escalation: The Philistines burn up Samson's wife and father-in-law, and Samson takes this as an excuse for more violence, and some unknown number of Philistines are killed.
The Philistines get smart, and realize that they have to deal with the root of their problem, and move in to capture Samson himself. The men of Judah are willing to give up Samson to save themselves, so they go to him and ask him to surrender. (You know, despite the fact that Samson is supposed to be some sort of leader in Israel, there's not much to suggest that even his own people liked him.) Samson agrees to go peacefully if his own countrymen promise not to harm him, and they agree. So Samson is handed over to the Philistines tied up with two ropes.
Of course, this is one of the more well-known parts of the story of Samson: it was all just a ruse. Samson knows that he's too strong to be bound by mere ropes, so once he's tied up and unarmed in the midst of his enemies and they think they have the upper hand, he breaks his ropes, picks up a donkey's jawbone (once again, a no-no for a Nazarite), and kills 1,000 men with it. (1,000 is such a round number that it may be an exaggeration, but surely, he killed several hundred.) Then he makes a pun about the whole thing, saying, "I made a chamorah (heap) of bodies with the jaw of a chamor (donkey)!" That's not just messed up morals, but a sick sense of humor.
Then, to end this little story, Samson whines to God that darnit, mass murder is thirsty work! So God gives him some water out of the hill where he found the bone (not out of the bone itself, despite the confusing language of the translation). He calls the place "Enhakkore", or "the spring of the one who calls". Why is God helping Samson? I hope as I finish his story, I can explain on some level, but it's not bound to be pretty.
Samson's response to this is that he's decided to get revenge on the Philistines as a whole for this grave injustice done against him. (I actually find myself wondering if he's really so angry, or if he's just looking for an excuse to commit violence against the Philistines. You can almost imagine a typical day for Samson: gets up...eats breakfast...toast doesn't have enough butter, so he bludgeons 20 Philistines to death with a stale loaf of bread...checks out the newspaper, etc.) He somehow catches 300 foxes for a Rube Goldberg-esque plan of revenge that destroys the Philistines' crops. (The SAB marks this passage with the Absurd icon, and I tend to agree, whether it be the strangeness of Samson's plan or the thought of a single man catching 300 foxes, this is pretty weird.) Destroying the crops leads to an escalation: The Philistines burn up Samson's wife and father-in-law, and Samson takes this as an excuse for more violence, and some unknown number of Philistines are killed.
The Philistines get smart, and realize that they have to deal with the root of their problem, and move in to capture Samson himself. The men of Judah are willing to give up Samson to save themselves, so they go to him and ask him to surrender. (You know, despite the fact that Samson is supposed to be some sort of leader in Israel, there's not much to suggest that even his own people liked him.) Samson agrees to go peacefully if his own countrymen promise not to harm him, and they agree. So Samson is handed over to the Philistines tied up with two ropes.
Of course, this is one of the more well-known parts of the story of Samson: it was all just a ruse. Samson knows that he's too strong to be bound by mere ropes, so once he's tied up and unarmed in the midst of his enemies and they think they have the upper hand, he breaks his ropes, picks up a donkey's jawbone (once again, a no-no for a Nazarite), and kills 1,000 men with it. (1,000 is such a round number that it may be an exaggeration, but surely, he killed several hundred.) Then he makes a pun about the whole thing, saying, "I made a chamorah (heap) of bodies with the jaw of a chamor (donkey)!" That's not just messed up morals, but a sick sense of humor.
Then, to end this little story, Samson whines to God that darnit, mass murder is thirsty work! So God gives him some water out of the hill where he found the bone (not out of the bone itself, despite the confusing language of the translation). He calls the place "Enhakkore", or "the spring of the one who calls". Why is God helping Samson? I hope as I finish his story, I can explain on some level, but it's not bound to be pretty.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
It is not good to eat much honey: so for men to search their own glory is not glory. (Judges 14)
So with Judges 14, Samson's personal story begins. If Samson seems like an unlikely Biblical hero, that's because he is. He's a jerk, a drunk, a womanizer, and he's prone to fits of violent outburst that have a lot more to do with a sense that he's been personally wronged rather than a desire to see the will of God carried out, as with most of the other characters we've seen in this book. I'm not going to defend Samson much, as he's admittedly not a very nice person.
The story of Samson is an early example of what has been come to be called in our age the "anti-hero". The first time I'd heard the term used, I thought it was a modern concept, but I soon realized that history and literature is littered with such people. There is no doubt that Samson is the hero of the story that unfolds here and in the next few chapters, but unlike the sort of heroes we ideally expect from the Bible (squeaky clean paragons of virtue such as Joseph or Daniel) or even the sorts of heroes that we more realistically expect from the Bible (mostly good folks who have personal flaws, but a strong faith in God such as Noah and Jacob), this guy has pretty much no redeeming features other than the fact that he really hates the Philistines, who happen to be Israel's oppressors. Is that one thing enough to redeem him? In the end, it's really a matter of opinion.
Now despite the fact that Samson is so often portrayed as a strong, forceful man, you might note that when he gets the hots for a Philistine woman, instead of going after her himself, he whines to his parents about her. The violence, lust and drunkenness are obvious character flaws of Samson, but a more subtle one that we really see a lot of is that despite his strength, he's sort of an emotional wimp. He can't just go and talk to the woman himself? You get the impression (or at least I do) that while Samson's parents seemed like good folks at first, they don't seem to be very good parents; I think Samson is a spoiled brat, even as a grown man.
Samson is very strong, though, and in the middle of this story, he manages to kill a lion with his bare hands. At a later date, passing by the carcass of the lion, he finds that some bees have made a hive inside its dead body, and he eats some of the honey. Aside from being sort of gross, this is the first instance we see of Samson doing something expressly forbidden of a Nazarite: touching a dead animal. (The SAB marks the passage with the Science icon, although I'm not sure why. Maybe Wells knows something about bees that I don't.) Actually, eating something that had come from the body of a dead animal would be unkosher to anyone, and yet he feeds some of the honey to his parents, not telling them where he got it.
Later, at a feast, he takes the story and makes a riddle out of it. It seems to me that this riddle is akin to Bilbo Baggins' famous riddle, "What have I got in my pocket?" It was really not an acceptable riddle, it was essentially unsolvable, and in the end, the person challenged with the riddle solved it, but the poser of the riddle didn't abide by the rules of the original challenge. Really, would anyone have been able to solve this riddle without cheating? I don't know if the phrase "plowed with my heifer" really is meant to imply that Samson thought his wife was having sex with the men, but he certainly knows that she's the only one who knew the solution.
Samson, being a sore loser, goes off and kills thirty men and takes his payment off of them. The SAB is pretty much right here in that whenever "the Spirit of the LORD came upon him", he seems to do something nasty and violent. What's up with that? Honestly, I don't know.
The story of Samson is an early example of what has been come to be called in our age the "anti-hero". The first time I'd heard the term used, I thought it was a modern concept, but I soon realized that history and literature is littered with such people. There is no doubt that Samson is the hero of the story that unfolds here and in the next few chapters, but unlike the sort of heroes we ideally expect from the Bible (squeaky clean paragons of virtue such as Joseph or Daniel) or even the sorts of heroes that we more realistically expect from the Bible (mostly good folks who have personal flaws, but a strong faith in God such as Noah and Jacob), this guy has pretty much no redeeming features other than the fact that he really hates the Philistines, who happen to be Israel's oppressors. Is that one thing enough to redeem him? In the end, it's really a matter of opinion.
Now despite the fact that Samson is so often portrayed as a strong, forceful man, you might note that when he gets the hots for a Philistine woman, instead of going after her himself, he whines to his parents about her. The violence, lust and drunkenness are obvious character flaws of Samson, but a more subtle one that we really see a lot of is that despite his strength, he's sort of an emotional wimp. He can't just go and talk to the woman himself? You get the impression (or at least I do) that while Samson's parents seemed like good folks at first, they don't seem to be very good parents; I think Samson is a spoiled brat, even as a grown man.
Samson is very strong, though, and in the middle of this story, he manages to kill a lion with his bare hands. At a later date, passing by the carcass of the lion, he finds that some bees have made a hive inside its dead body, and he eats some of the honey. Aside from being sort of gross, this is the first instance we see of Samson doing something expressly forbidden of a Nazarite: touching a dead animal. (The SAB marks the passage with the Science icon, although I'm not sure why. Maybe Wells knows something about bees that I don't.) Actually, eating something that had come from the body of a dead animal would be unkosher to anyone, and yet he feeds some of the honey to his parents, not telling them where he got it.
Later, at a feast, he takes the story and makes a riddle out of it. It seems to me that this riddle is akin to Bilbo Baggins' famous riddle, "What have I got in my pocket?" It was really not an acceptable riddle, it was essentially unsolvable, and in the end, the person challenged with the riddle solved it, but the poser of the riddle didn't abide by the rules of the original challenge. Really, would anyone have been able to solve this riddle without cheating? I don't know if the phrase "plowed with my heifer" really is meant to imply that Samson thought his wife was having sex with the men, but he certainly knows that she's the only one who knew the solution.
Samson, being a sore loser, goes off and kills thirty men and takes his payment off of them. The SAB is pretty much right here in that whenever "the Spirit of the LORD came upon him", he seems to do something nasty and violent. What's up with that? Honestly, I don't know.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Thy speech bewrayeth thee (Judges 12)
Judges 12 is a short chapter with few comments from the SAB. It's funny, but I was reading this on my own over the weekend, and I anticipated what the comments would be; that's not always easy to do, as the SAB can be full of surprises.
Anyway, as yet another sad footnote on the time of Jephthah's rule, we see a bizarre and bloody fallout of this war that shows itself in some sort of intertribal warfare. I think this is the first time we see such a thing in Israel, but unfortunately it won't be the last. Men from Ephraim come to Jephthah and complain that they didn't get to take part in the battle. (Most likely, they wanted a share of the spoils of war.) Jephthah points out to them that the trouble had been going on a long time before the fighting broke out, and they had been asked for help before, a request that was ignored. Fighting breaks out, and a lot of slaughter ensues. In the midst of this, the infamous "shibboleth" event happens. Apparently, in those days it wasn't so easy to tell who was an ally or enemy. In this case, however, a known difference between these two tribes was that the Ephraimites apparently don't use the "sh" sound in their speech. So when a soldier came to the river to cross, he might pretend to be whoever he wanted to be, but the soldiers on Jephthah's side would ask the person trying to cross to say the Hebrew word for "stream". Ephraimites would give themselves away by pronouncing it "sibboleth". The guards would know they were an enemy and pluck them out of the water and kill them. Violent? Most definitely. Unjust? Well, the Ephraimites were waging a completely unprovoked war against the men of Gilead, so what can you say?
By the way, I expected it might be said that 42,000 were killed in this manner, but I also realized upon reading the passage that such a guess was probably a misunderstanding of the text, for what it's worth. I think the intended meaning is that 42,000 Ephraimites were killed in total on the whole battlefield; the thought of killing them one by one as they crossed the river seems unlikely, and the text does not expressly say that.
The chapter closes with short and quick notes on three judges that follow Jephthah. Abdon in particular is apparently funny to Steve Wells for another mention of donkeys. It might be worth noting that while the KJV says "forty sons and thirty nephews", I'm not sure where that translation comes from. The Hebrew says literally "sons' sons", which surely ought to be "grandsons" as other translations render it.
And next time, we come to Samson, one of the oddest characters the Bible has to offer.
Anyway, as yet another sad footnote on the time of Jephthah's rule, we see a bizarre and bloody fallout of this war that shows itself in some sort of intertribal warfare. I think this is the first time we see such a thing in Israel, but unfortunately it won't be the last. Men from Ephraim come to Jephthah and complain that they didn't get to take part in the battle. (Most likely, they wanted a share of the spoils of war.) Jephthah points out to them that the trouble had been going on a long time before the fighting broke out, and they had been asked for help before, a request that was ignored. Fighting breaks out, and a lot of slaughter ensues. In the midst of this, the infamous "shibboleth" event happens. Apparently, in those days it wasn't so easy to tell who was an ally or enemy. In this case, however, a known difference between these two tribes was that the Ephraimites apparently don't use the "sh" sound in their speech. So when a soldier came to the river to cross, he might pretend to be whoever he wanted to be, but the soldiers on Jephthah's side would ask the person trying to cross to say the Hebrew word for "stream". Ephraimites would give themselves away by pronouncing it "sibboleth". The guards would know they were an enemy and pluck them out of the water and kill them. Violent? Most definitely. Unjust? Well, the Ephraimites were waging a completely unprovoked war against the men of Gilead, so what can you say?
By the way, I expected it might be said that 42,000 were killed in this manner, but I also realized upon reading the passage that such a guess was probably a misunderstanding of the text, for what it's worth. I think the intended meaning is that 42,000 Ephraimites were killed in total on the whole battlefield; the thought of killing them one by one as they crossed the river seems unlikely, and the text does not expressly say that.
The chapter closes with short and quick notes on three judges that follow Jephthah. Abdon in particular is apparently funny to Steve Wells for another mention of donkeys. It might be worth noting that while the KJV says "forty sons and thirty nephews", I'm not sure where that translation comes from. The Hebrew says literally "sons' sons", which surely ought to be "grandsons" as other translations render it.
And next time, we come to Samson, one of the oddest characters the Bible has to offer.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
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.
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.
Friday, November 02, 2007
Thou shalt utterly destroy them (Joshua, Holy War)
Often I try to imagine what the world would be like if the Holocaust had not happened. Six million Jews slaughtered by Hitler's Third Reich, not to mention several million others including Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses and the disabled. It was a horrible time in modern history, but one of the things that's perhaps really disturbing about it is that it really wasn't an isolated phenomenon. While it seems to have happened with remarkable frequency and severity to the Jews, history is replete with eras in which one group decided to make a concerted effort to annihilate another. But at the risk of violating the somewhat well-known rule of debating that "The first person to mention Hitler in a debate automatically loses," I'm going to focus on the Holocaust to illustrate a point.
If the Jews had risen up in the early '30s, before the Nazis came to full power, and had killed all members of the Nazi party and any other known anti-Semites, then the Holocaust most likely would not have come to pass. However, in such a preemptive strike, who would have sympathy for the Jews? Although their actions would essentially have been in self-defense, they would probably have been seen as monsters for having killed far less people than the Nazis eventually came to kill. History judges what happened, however, not what would have happened.
The various tribes and people that lived in the land of Canaan before the Israelites eventually attained complete conquest of the land had some problems of various types that were a danger on numerous levels. Not to say that they were Nazis, but God needed to deal with them. As I said in an earlier exchange, there is probably no explanation that will convince some people who are just going to see mass killing as evil no matter what the reason is for doing it. I'll admit that it certainly strikes me as one of the more unsavory aspects of the Bible, but I do see the justification for Holy War.
Back in Genesis 15, God talks to Abram about the future of his descendants. He tells him that while He's going to give the land of Canaan to them, "the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full." What does this mean? In some way that God has not explained, because the people of Canaan are quite evil, God intends to punish them, but He is giving them a last chance of about 500 years to clean up their act. Among several points I want to make about Holy War, the first is this: God never sends His people off to war without giving some sort of warning first.
Here in the book of Joshua, as I have already noted elsewhere, the people that the Israelites were coming in to the land to destroy knew about the plagues in Egypt. They knew about the crossing of the Red Sea and the drowning of the Egyptian army. They knew about a handful of battles that were fought during the wilderness wanderings. They knew about the crossing of the Jordan River. Whatever sort of warning God may have given them 500 years previously (which I speculate about, but don't know for sure), God has been sending a clear, urgent message for the last forty years to these people: God's vengeance is coming.
So one might ask, "What is the use of a warning like that?!" Well, compare the forty-year warning that was given to the Canaanites and went unheeded to the forty-day warning given to the people of Nineveh by Jonah: "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." Not the most uplifting sermon ever preached, but it had an effect on the people of Nineveh that was highly disappointing to both Jonah and the SAB, apparently:
Another option that I think few people consider is the possibility that God would have allowed them to simply evacuate. After all, there were a few incidents in their wandering in the desert in which they went to war against a nation that simply wouldn't get out of the way. They would politely ask if they could just pass through on the way to Canaan, and not only were they denied passage, but the nation that they had made the request to decided to fight them just because they were there.
One of the main issues in respect to turning the land of Canaan into the nation of Israel was that the Israelites needed to have the land all to themselves. If they were to take the land, but leave the inhabitants in it, then they would have to deal with the mixing of their culture, which was a new culture that God was building from the ground up. While I once again admit that I don't know so much about ancient history, I am of the understanding that when Persia defeated Babylonia, Persia became very Babylonian; when Alexander conquered Persia, he adopted much of the Persian culture and integrated it into Greek culture; when the Romans overthrew the Greeks, the Greek culture and language remained dominant despite the fact of Roman rule. The Israelites needed to conquer Canaan without becoming Canaanites in the process, and really, the only was they could guarantee that was to make sure there was not a single living Canaanite left in the land.
God repeatedly tells the Israelites that they are not to allow the customs of the people of Canaan to be an influence on their own culture. These people were sexually immoral, practiced human sacrifice, worshiped idols, and were generally violent and unkind. Because the Israelites didn't completely cleanse the land of the former inhabitants, eventually they, too, fell into these practices, which is probably the biggest shame from the point of view that considers Joshua's Holy War a good thing, because in the end they killed thousands if not millions of Canaanites and still fell into the trap that Holy War had been designed to protect them from.
Another thing that Holy War is intended to protect the Israelites from is actually much more closely related to the musings I put forth at the beginning. Case in point: Israel's first King, Saul, was ordered by God to go to war against the Amalekites and totally destroy them. He almost did it, but the notable exception was that Saul took King Agag captive. After all, what difference could one guy make? Well, a few hundred years later, when the Israelites were subject to Persia, there was a man by the name of Haman who devised a plan to wipe out the Jews. Many people compare Haman to Hitler, but Haman wasn't German, he was an "Agagite", that is to say, a descendant of the man Saul failed to kill on God's orders. As I said, history does not judge what would have happened, but I strongly suspect God knows. Yes, Holy War is at times a matter of self-defense.
Something else to be considered as almost a side note, but I think an important one, is that God is not partial. The same way God gave the Amalekites about 500 years to shape up or ship out, He gave Israel 500 years (from the coronation of Saul to the Babylonian invasion was just a tad over 500 years). Eventually, after living in the land for a few centuries and failing to be the nation He wanted them to be, he sent the Babylonians and the Persians to carry them into captivity toward the east. There are some who have done far more extensive studies into the significance of the stretches of time that Israel was in the land and out of it; you might do a Google search on the subject to find a complicated theory on how a handful of verses in the Bible map out a complicated calculation that predicts the reinstatement of Israel as a nation in 1948, but it's out of my scope here. The main point is that while God gave the land of Canaan to the Israelites, and had them kill off the former inhabitants, it was with the understanding that they would strive to make Israel, to borrow a familiar phrase, "one nation, under God."
So yeah, Holy War is far from a beautiful thing, but my understanding is that God gave many opportunities for the people He set the Israelites on to avoid His wrath. They knew it was coming, they knew that they needed to repent, they had ample time to do it, but they freely chose instead to stand up to God and His people. God wins in the end, though. God always wins, and to refuse to accept that and put your lot in with the enemies of God is essentially suicide.
On top of all of this, something that even I myself had always missed when it comes to the book of Joshua is that the issue of Holy War has application in our own lives today, thousands of years later. The Bible makes it clear that God's wrath is still coming. God will eventually deal with all nations and all individual citizens of all nations. You have the choice to play the part of the Israelites in this scenario or play the part of the Canaanites. Are you going to clean out the sin in your life through the power of God, or are you going to go into the walled city of your pride, shut the doors and think, "When the wrath of God comes knocking, I'll just pretend I'm not here or something." Or maybe you'll be the sort who, when you hear God's people are passing by, will pick up your weapons and go out to attack them? Or maybe you'll be someone like Achan, who will march with the Israelites, but not be as devoted to the cause of righteousness as you appear to be? There are many parts to be played in this drama, a drama that gets played out daily in our modern world in a more abstract, spiritual manner. I hope you'll make the right choice.
If the Jews had risen up in the early '30s, before the Nazis came to full power, and had killed all members of the Nazi party and any other known anti-Semites, then the Holocaust most likely would not have come to pass. However, in such a preemptive strike, who would have sympathy for the Jews? Although their actions would essentially have been in self-defense, they would probably have been seen as monsters for having killed far less people than the Nazis eventually came to kill. History judges what happened, however, not what would have happened.
The various tribes and people that lived in the land of Canaan before the Israelites eventually attained complete conquest of the land had some problems of various types that were a danger on numerous levels. Not to say that they were Nazis, but God needed to deal with them. As I said in an earlier exchange, there is probably no explanation that will convince some people who are just going to see mass killing as evil no matter what the reason is for doing it. I'll admit that it certainly strikes me as one of the more unsavory aspects of the Bible, but I do see the justification for Holy War.
Back in Genesis 15, God talks to Abram about the future of his descendants. He tells him that while He's going to give the land of Canaan to them, "the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full." What does this mean? In some way that God has not explained, because the people of Canaan are quite evil, God intends to punish them, but He is giving them a last chance of about 500 years to clean up their act. Among several points I want to make about Holy War, the first is this: God never sends His people off to war without giving some sort of warning first.
Here in the book of Joshua, as I have already noted elsewhere, the people that the Israelites were coming in to the land to destroy knew about the plagues in Egypt. They knew about the crossing of the Red Sea and the drowning of the Egyptian army. They knew about a handful of battles that were fought during the wilderness wanderings. They knew about the crossing of the Jordan River. Whatever sort of warning God may have given them 500 years previously (which I speculate about, but don't know for sure), God has been sending a clear, urgent message for the last forty years to these people: God's vengeance is coming.
So one might ask, "What is the use of a warning like that?!" Well, compare the forty-year warning that was given to the Canaanites and went unheeded to the forty-day warning given to the people of Nineveh by Jonah: "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." Not the most uplifting sermon ever preached, but it had an effect on the people of Nineveh that was highly disappointing to both Jonah and the SAB, apparently:
"So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them."As a result of this act of mass repentance, there did not follow an act of mass destruction. I suggest that it should be considered a great likelihood that if any of the cities of Canaan had reacted in the manner that Nineveh did, they would have been allowed to remain in the land. It worked for Rahab, after all. The fact is that while the God of the Bible is a vengeful God, He would rather forgive the repentant than inflict suffering on the unrepentant.
Another option that I think few people consider is the possibility that God would have allowed them to simply evacuate. After all, there were a few incidents in their wandering in the desert in which they went to war against a nation that simply wouldn't get out of the way. They would politely ask if they could just pass through on the way to Canaan, and not only were they denied passage, but the nation that they had made the request to decided to fight them just because they were there.
One of the main issues in respect to turning the land of Canaan into the nation of Israel was that the Israelites needed to have the land all to themselves. If they were to take the land, but leave the inhabitants in it, then they would have to deal with the mixing of their culture, which was a new culture that God was building from the ground up. While I once again admit that I don't know so much about ancient history, I am of the understanding that when Persia defeated Babylonia, Persia became very Babylonian; when Alexander conquered Persia, he adopted much of the Persian culture and integrated it into Greek culture; when the Romans overthrew the Greeks, the Greek culture and language remained dominant despite the fact of Roman rule. The Israelites needed to conquer Canaan without becoming Canaanites in the process, and really, the only was they could guarantee that was to make sure there was not a single living Canaanite left in the land.
God repeatedly tells the Israelites that they are not to allow the customs of the people of Canaan to be an influence on their own culture. These people were sexually immoral, practiced human sacrifice, worshiped idols, and were generally violent and unkind. Because the Israelites didn't completely cleanse the land of the former inhabitants, eventually they, too, fell into these practices, which is probably the biggest shame from the point of view that considers Joshua's Holy War a good thing, because in the end they killed thousands if not millions of Canaanites and still fell into the trap that Holy War had been designed to protect them from.
Another thing that Holy War is intended to protect the Israelites from is actually much more closely related to the musings I put forth at the beginning. Case in point: Israel's first King, Saul, was ordered by God to go to war against the Amalekites and totally destroy them. He almost did it, but the notable exception was that Saul took King Agag captive. After all, what difference could one guy make? Well, a few hundred years later, when the Israelites were subject to Persia, there was a man by the name of Haman who devised a plan to wipe out the Jews. Many people compare Haman to Hitler, but Haman wasn't German, he was an "Agagite", that is to say, a descendant of the man Saul failed to kill on God's orders. As I said, history does not judge what would have happened, but I strongly suspect God knows. Yes, Holy War is at times a matter of self-defense.
Something else to be considered as almost a side note, but I think an important one, is that God is not partial. The same way God gave the Amalekites about 500 years to shape up or ship out, He gave Israel 500 years (from the coronation of Saul to the Babylonian invasion was just a tad over 500 years). Eventually, after living in the land for a few centuries and failing to be the nation He wanted them to be, he sent the Babylonians and the Persians to carry them into captivity toward the east. There are some who have done far more extensive studies into the significance of the stretches of time that Israel was in the land and out of it; you might do a Google search on the subject to find a complicated theory on how a handful of verses in the Bible map out a complicated calculation that predicts the reinstatement of Israel as a nation in 1948, but it's out of my scope here. The main point is that while God gave the land of Canaan to the Israelites, and had them kill off the former inhabitants, it was with the understanding that they would strive to make Israel, to borrow a familiar phrase, "one nation, under God."
So yeah, Holy War is far from a beautiful thing, but my understanding is that God gave many opportunities for the people He set the Israelites on to avoid His wrath. They knew it was coming, they knew that they needed to repent, they had ample time to do it, but they freely chose instead to stand up to God and His people. God wins in the end, though. God always wins, and to refuse to accept that and put your lot in with the enemies of God is essentially suicide.
On top of all of this, something that even I myself had always missed when it comes to the book of Joshua is that the issue of Holy War has application in our own lives today, thousands of years later. The Bible makes it clear that God's wrath is still coming. God will eventually deal with all nations and all individual citizens of all nations. You have the choice to play the part of the Israelites in this scenario or play the part of the Canaanites. Are you going to clean out the sin in your life through the power of God, or are you going to go into the walled city of your pride, shut the doors and think, "When the wrath of God comes knocking, I'll just pretend I'm not here or something." Or maybe you'll be the sort who, when you hear God's people are passing by, will pick up your weapons and go out to attack them? Or maybe you'll be someone like Achan, who will march with the Israelites, but not be as devoted to the cause of righteousness as you appear to be? There are many parts to be played in this drama, a drama that gets played out daily in our modern world in a more abstract, spiritual manner. I hope you'll make the right choice.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
The plague shall not be upon you to destroy you (Exod 11)
Before the final and most brutal of the plagues, we take a side trip into some instruction God gives to prepare for it. In many ways, the nine plagues that came before were just preparation for this one, which has great significance in the Bible as a whole, some of which is revealed in the next few chapters, and some of which is revealed in the New Testament (if you believe in the N.T., of course; most Jews would certainly not.)
Brief mention is made here of the plundering of the Egyptians, but I won't address it here since the SAB does not. Suffice it to say I will revisit it in the next chapter, and I already touched on the subject back in chapter 3.
So, to the main objection that the SAB brings up for this chapter: "These verses [11:4-6] clearly show that the mass murder of innocent children by God (see 12:29-30) was premeditated." This is an odd statement for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that it's largely right on the mark. Pulling it apart from back to front, I first want to note that it would be theologically sound to say that everything God does is "premeditated". Since God is supposedly all-knowing, everything that He has done or ever will do was already planned before time itself even existed (as much as that's a meaningful thing to say, but you get the idea I'm sure). As far as "innocent children", that's a difficult issue to address, although I tried to in part in an earlier post. Aside from the issues talked about there, it might be noted that it may not necessarily be only children, whether that be a plus or minus. Then there is the most important issue, the key question of whether this truly qualifies as either "mass" or "murder".
A pastor friend of mine wrote a very good essay on this subject that I read years ago, and it's a shame it's not online, at least as far as I know, since he goes much more in to detail on this matter than I ever could. Although we do indeed see a lot of large groups of people being killed in various moments throughout the Bible, there are a few things we can note about these occurrences. First of all, God gives a warning. In this case, we have a series of nine incredible plagues that occur over the course of several months. The plagues are always predicted by Moses, explained to be the work of God, and do not have an effect on the Israelites. As a result of this, many of the people of Egypt are sitting up and taking notice of what's going on. While Pharaoh continues in a state of denial about God's will and God's power, many others aren't so stupid. As I said in my last post, it seems quite likely that people started doing what they could to avoid the plagues and save their crops and livestock, if possible.
This leads to the second point, which is that God always gives a way out. In this case, the way out is announced in the next chapter: put blood on your doorposts and God will spare your house. If you read these chapters carefully, you will see that God is not saying He's going to kill all of the Egyptians and spare all of the Israelites; He says He's going to kill those who refuse to follow His simple instructions and spare those who do follow them. To a Christian, this is a clear foreshadowing of the message of the Gospel: a person here was saved from the wrath on Egypt by the blood of a lamb's sacrifice, while in life, a person is saved from the wrath on sin by the blood of the "Lamb of God". To a Bible believer of any religious bent, however, this instruction has significance because it shows God is merciful enough to make an escape clause for His wrath. In every case throughout the Old Testament where large groups of people were destroyed either by plagues or an army due to the will of God, there was always a warning, and always a way far an individual to escape the fate of the group as a whole.
That being said, all the people of Egypt had to do to save themselves and their children was sprinkle some blood on their doors. I have little doubt that there were many people who did so. Imagine this allegory: You meet up with a man who claims to have a message from God to you. He says, "Get out of your house, or you will die." You'd be right to be skeptical. But suppose he said, "Tomorrow it will rain on your house, but not the house of your neighbors," and the next day a little cloud blew in and rained only on your house. The next day, the same thing happened with snow, then hail, then it was struck by lightning, then it was overrun with ants, then your power went out for no discernable reason, etc. Each time, the man said it would happen the next day, and it did, nine times. Then the man said, "Tomorrow, your house will be hit by a meteorite, and nothing will be left but a smoking crater. I suggest you get out." Would you get out? Would you get your family out? Your possessions? I sure would.
One might complain though that I am wrong, and it's illustrated by the phrase that the SAB points out for different reasons: "...the LORD doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel." Surely this is saying that God wants to arbitrarily hurt the Egyptians and spare the Israelites, right? I don't think so. As I read the Bible, there is often a distinction made, and an important one, between a country and its people. God deals with them in different ways, and is much more forgiving towards individuals than a country in general. The "difference between the Egyptians and Israel" is not about individual people, but about differences in cultures, societies, and religious beliefs. Call it intolerant if you want, and I won't deny it, but God is saying that He will show favor on those that believe in Him, and not on those who do not. In the original Hebrew, there is no difference between the word used for "Egypt" and "the Egyptians" in this passage, and verse seven probably would have been translated differently if I'd been in charge of the KJV. But I'm not of course.
So last point the SAB makes is a very good one to take note of, as it's central to this idea. God actually wanted Pharaoh to say no to Moses?! What the heck? you might ask. The book of Exodus is about the beginning of the nation of Israel, and it's this nation that God has chosen to be his representatives on earth in a special way. Egypt and Israel lie at the joining point between three continents, perhaps the only continents that were settled by (relatively) modern civilizations. God is getting ready to set up Israel in its appointed place, and to start them off, He is using Egypt as an example for the other nations. Everyone in the Middle East will come to know of these plagues and what happened when a kingdom dared to try and stand in the way of God and His chosen people. The first nine plagues were Egypt's warning, but the tenth plague is a warning to the nations that would come into contact with the Israelites over the next forty-plus years as they moved out of Egypt and into Canaan.
God gave Egypt a warning, and a way out. The only thing Pharaoh had to give up was his pride.
Brief mention is made here of the plundering of the Egyptians, but I won't address it here since the SAB does not. Suffice it to say I will revisit it in the next chapter, and I already touched on the subject back in chapter 3.
So, to the main objection that the SAB brings up for this chapter: "These verses [11:4-6] clearly show that the mass murder of innocent children by God (see 12:29-30) was premeditated." This is an odd statement for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that it's largely right on the mark. Pulling it apart from back to front, I first want to note that it would be theologically sound to say that everything God does is "premeditated". Since God is supposedly all-knowing, everything that He has done or ever will do was already planned before time itself even existed (as much as that's a meaningful thing to say, but you get the idea I'm sure). As far as "innocent children", that's a difficult issue to address, although I tried to in part in an earlier post. Aside from the issues talked about there, it might be noted that it may not necessarily be only children, whether that be a plus or minus. Then there is the most important issue, the key question of whether this truly qualifies as either "mass" or "murder".
A pastor friend of mine wrote a very good essay on this subject that I read years ago, and it's a shame it's not online, at least as far as I know, since he goes much more in to detail on this matter than I ever could. Although we do indeed see a lot of large groups of people being killed in various moments throughout the Bible, there are a few things we can note about these occurrences. First of all, God gives a warning. In this case, we have a series of nine incredible plagues that occur over the course of several months. The plagues are always predicted by Moses, explained to be the work of God, and do not have an effect on the Israelites. As a result of this, many of the people of Egypt are sitting up and taking notice of what's going on. While Pharaoh continues in a state of denial about God's will and God's power, many others aren't so stupid. As I said in my last post, it seems quite likely that people started doing what they could to avoid the plagues and save their crops and livestock, if possible.
This leads to the second point, which is that God always gives a way out. In this case, the way out is announced in the next chapter: put blood on your doorposts and God will spare your house. If you read these chapters carefully, you will see that God is not saying He's going to kill all of the Egyptians and spare all of the Israelites; He says He's going to kill those who refuse to follow His simple instructions and spare those who do follow them. To a Christian, this is a clear foreshadowing of the message of the Gospel: a person here was saved from the wrath on Egypt by the blood of a lamb's sacrifice, while in life, a person is saved from the wrath on sin by the blood of the "Lamb of God". To a Bible believer of any religious bent, however, this instruction has significance because it shows God is merciful enough to make an escape clause for His wrath. In every case throughout the Old Testament where large groups of people were destroyed either by plagues or an army due to the will of God, there was always a warning, and always a way far an individual to escape the fate of the group as a whole.
That being said, all the people of Egypt had to do to save themselves and their children was sprinkle some blood on their doors. I have little doubt that there were many people who did so. Imagine this allegory: You meet up with a man who claims to have a message from God to you. He says, "Get out of your house, or you will die." You'd be right to be skeptical. But suppose he said, "Tomorrow it will rain on your house, but not the house of your neighbors," and the next day a little cloud blew in and rained only on your house. The next day, the same thing happened with snow, then hail, then it was struck by lightning, then it was overrun with ants, then your power went out for no discernable reason, etc. Each time, the man said it would happen the next day, and it did, nine times. Then the man said, "Tomorrow, your house will be hit by a meteorite, and nothing will be left but a smoking crater. I suggest you get out." Would you get out? Would you get your family out? Your possessions? I sure would.
One might complain though that I am wrong, and it's illustrated by the phrase that the SAB points out for different reasons: "...the LORD doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel." Surely this is saying that God wants to arbitrarily hurt the Egyptians and spare the Israelites, right? I don't think so. As I read the Bible, there is often a distinction made, and an important one, between a country and its people. God deals with them in different ways, and is much more forgiving towards individuals than a country in general. The "difference between the Egyptians and Israel" is not about individual people, but about differences in cultures, societies, and religious beliefs. Call it intolerant if you want, and I won't deny it, but God is saying that He will show favor on those that believe in Him, and not on those who do not. In the original Hebrew, there is no difference between the word used for "Egypt" and "the Egyptians" in this passage, and verse seven probably would have been translated differently if I'd been in charge of the KJV. But I'm not of course.
So last point the SAB makes is a very good one to take note of, as it's central to this idea. God actually wanted Pharaoh to say no to Moses?! What the heck? you might ask. The book of Exodus is about the beginning of the nation of Israel, and it's this nation that God has chosen to be his representatives on earth in a special way. Egypt and Israel lie at the joining point between three continents, perhaps the only continents that were settled by (relatively) modern civilizations. God is getting ready to set up Israel in its appointed place, and to start them off, He is using Egypt as an example for the other nations. Everyone in the Middle East will come to know of these plagues and what happened when a kingdom dared to try and stand in the way of God and His chosen people. The first nine plagues were Egypt's warning, but the tenth plague is a warning to the nations that would come into contact with the Israelites over the next forty-plus years as they moved out of Egypt and into Canaan.
God gave Egypt a warning, and a way out. The only thing Pharaoh had to give up was his pride.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
There in the way of Ephrath; the same is Bethlehem (Matthew 2)
Shoot. I looked back at my post on Genesis 1:14, and see that I didn't bother to really address the issue of astrology at that time. Honestly, I don't know what that verse is trying to say exactly, but there is some musing in the comments section, as well as an excellent (IMHO) mini-essay on the difficulty of translation, particularly prepositions. I'm hoping people will read that and reflect on it, although it doesn't have anything to do with the topic at hand, which I suppose I should address.
Although I addressed the issue of time frame in my first post on Luke 2, I'm finding it interesting to put this story in perspective. If Herod died in 4 B.C., and Jesus was born in 6 B.C., and the Magi came to Jerusalem about two years after Jesus' birth, then Herod didn't live too long after this story. Jesus' time in Egypt must have been very short.
So, astrology... In verses 2 and 9, there is mention of a "star" that the Magi were following to find Jesus. Oh, the issues this brings up... As far as astrology, a case might be able to be made that these men, not being Jews, were not prohibited from astrology, but that would surely go against conventional wisdom in Christian circles that astrology is just plain bad. I myself am not fond of the astrology column in the paper, think it's a load of crap and have thought so since before I was a Christian. Yet I don't think one can deny that the Bible is saying something here (and perhaps in Genesis 1:14 as well) to suggest that looking up to the sky can tell some people something about what happens on earth. What, though?
First of all, despite verse 9 (which I'm stumped on, as admittedly it doesn't make a whole lot of sense), I think it's sound to reject the notion of the "Star of Bethlehem" being a supernatural light in the sky that was hanging over the manger (or the house where Jesus lived) that could actually be literally "followed" to a specific spot. Aside from the fact that celestial objects don't act like that in general (although of course this could be another miracle), it begs the question: why didn't the Magi go straight to Bethlehem if they were following a "star" that could pinpoint the Messiah's location? No, they head to Jerusalem. If you're looking for a King in Judea, where else would you go? It's the capital. Whatever the signal was that these men had to go, it simply told them to go to Israel. When they got there, they were surprised to find Herod, and not a baby.
What did Genesis say? "Let there be lights...and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years." The "signs" set apart for a moment, the plain meaning here is that the objects which light the sky serve as a sort of calendar; and of course, they do. In numerous sci-fi stories that I have read, it's been used as a plot device the fact that knowing the positions of the planets within the solar system can tell you what the date is, and this is true. As for the "signs", most calendars have important dates noted on them, and perhaps God's is no different. Some have suggested a significant planetary conjunction occurring at the time of Jesus' birth. I have heard it suggested on one hand that this conjunction may have occurred in a manner or location in the sky that suggested to the Magi a significant event in Israel. I have also heard it suggested that the Magi may have been familiar with the prophecies of Daniel, as Daniel lived east in Babylon during his life. If Daniel was well-versed in Babylonian astronomy, which is a reasonable assumption, and he had some special knowledge as to the time the Messiah would appear (which is believed very strongly by Christians, but is too complicated to go over here), then he might have told them to look out for this conjunction as a sign.
Anyway, Herod is worried by these men, who are probably not--as sometimes traditionally pictured--three kings riding alone on camels, but more likely a procession of prominent men with a military guard who have come from east of the Roman Empire, and are implying a challenge to Herod's authority. He goes to his advisors and asks them their perspective on where the Messiah ought to be, and they quote (inaccurately) Micah 5:2, which points to Bethlehem. The SAB has a lot to say about this, so I'll take it one point at a time.
Hopefully, I covered the issue of verse 14 in my last post, in which I essentially pointed out that despite the note in the SAB, the word "directly" does not appear in Luke 2:39, nor any synonym.
The massacre spoken of in verse 2:16 is indeed not recorded anywhere outside of the book of Matthew, which casts a question of authenticity upon it. The only possible explanation is that Bethlehem, being a fairly small town may have been small enough that this atrocity went largely unnoticed among many others committed by Herod.
The last verse refers to a non-existent prophecy that has pretty much stumped all scholars. Some have suggested a misunderstanding or misspelling of the Hebrew word for "branch" in some prophecies, while others have suggested that the fact that many prophecies refer to the Messiah as being rejected could be fulfilled by having him grow up in a place of ill-repute. I think both of these explanations are more than a little bit of a stretch, myself, but I present them just because they exist.
I wish you all a Merry Christmas, Chanukah Sameach, Prosperous Ramadan, and Happy Kwanzaa.
Although I addressed the issue of time frame in my first post on Luke 2, I'm finding it interesting to put this story in perspective. If Herod died in 4 B.C., and Jesus was born in 6 B.C., and the Magi came to Jerusalem about two years after Jesus' birth, then Herod didn't live too long after this story. Jesus' time in Egypt must have been very short.
So, astrology... In verses 2 and 9, there is mention of a "star" that the Magi were following to find Jesus. Oh, the issues this brings up... As far as astrology, a case might be able to be made that these men, not being Jews, were not prohibited from astrology, but that would surely go against conventional wisdom in Christian circles that astrology is just plain bad. I myself am not fond of the astrology column in the paper, think it's a load of crap and have thought so since before I was a Christian. Yet I don't think one can deny that the Bible is saying something here (and perhaps in Genesis 1:14 as well) to suggest that looking up to the sky can tell some people something about what happens on earth. What, though?
First of all, despite verse 9 (which I'm stumped on, as admittedly it doesn't make a whole lot of sense), I think it's sound to reject the notion of the "Star of Bethlehem" being a supernatural light in the sky that was hanging over the manger (or the house where Jesus lived) that could actually be literally "followed" to a specific spot. Aside from the fact that celestial objects don't act like that in general (although of course this could be another miracle), it begs the question: why didn't the Magi go straight to Bethlehem if they were following a "star" that could pinpoint the Messiah's location? No, they head to Jerusalem. If you're looking for a King in Judea, where else would you go? It's the capital. Whatever the signal was that these men had to go, it simply told them to go to Israel. When they got there, they were surprised to find Herod, and not a baby.
What did Genesis say? "Let there be lights...and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years." The "signs" set apart for a moment, the plain meaning here is that the objects which light the sky serve as a sort of calendar; and of course, they do. In numerous sci-fi stories that I have read, it's been used as a plot device the fact that knowing the positions of the planets within the solar system can tell you what the date is, and this is true. As for the "signs", most calendars have important dates noted on them, and perhaps God's is no different. Some have suggested a significant planetary conjunction occurring at the time of Jesus' birth. I have heard it suggested on one hand that this conjunction may have occurred in a manner or location in the sky that suggested to the Magi a significant event in Israel. I have also heard it suggested that the Magi may have been familiar with the prophecies of Daniel, as Daniel lived east in Babylon during his life. If Daniel was well-versed in Babylonian astronomy, which is a reasonable assumption, and he had some special knowledge as to the time the Messiah would appear (which is believed very strongly by Christians, but is too complicated to go over here), then he might have told them to look out for this conjunction as a sign.
Anyway, Herod is worried by these men, who are probably not--as sometimes traditionally pictured--three kings riding alone on camels, but more likely a procession of prominent men with a military guard who have come from east of the Roman Empire, and are implying a challenge to Herod's authority. He goes to his advisors and asks them their perspective on where the Messiah ought to be, and they quote (inaccurately) Micah 5:2, which points to Bethlehem. The SAB has a lot to say about this, so I'll take it one point at a time.
"Bethlehem Ephratah" in Micah 5:2 refers not to a town, but to a clan: the clan of Bethlehem, who was the son of Caleb's second wife, Ephrathah.Interesting catch, that bit of info, but there are problems with this claim. None of the verses linked to give definitive evidence as far as I can see that Bethlehem actually is a person. Knowing that Bethlehem is a location (and its name in Hebrew sure sounds like a location, and not a person), it is quite likely that the phrase "father of Bethlehem" means that Salma and Hur were co-founders of the city of Bethlehem. After all, despite the fact that there are verses that seem to be referring to Bethlehem as a person, this "person" never has any children, nor does anything else for that matter. Maybe I missed it, but "clan of Bethlehem" is not a phrase that I've seen anywhere in the Bible. Whether a person or not, there are certainly many places in the Bible that are named after people and vice-versa, including Ephrathah herself. Rachel was buried near "Ephrath, which is Bethlehem" hundreds of years before Ephrathah and/or Bethlehem were born.
The prophecy (if that is what it is) does not refer to the Messiah, but rather to a military leader, as can be seen from Micah 5:6. This leader is supposed to defeat the Assyrians, which, of course, Jesus never did.True, and yet not true. The common Christian approach to Biblical prophecy is that any given prophecy may have different levels of interpretation and fulfillment. The most well-known of such prophecies is the one Jesus talks about in Matthew 24:15. The "abomination of desolation" spoken of by the prophet Daniel in various passages was believed by the Jews of Jesus' time to have been fulfilled in 168 B.C. when Antiochus Epiphanes slaughtered a pig and erected a statue of Zeus in the Jewish Temple. Jesus hints that this prophecy is not yet completely fulfilled, alluding to both the destruction of the Temple on 70 A.D. and an event still future from today that will supposedly happen when the Temple is rebuilt one more time. So Micah 5:2 is prophesying the birth of two important leaders. This explanation also applies to verses 15 and 17-18 of Matthew 2.
It should also be noted that Matthew altered the text of Micah 5:2...Maybe; I'll grant it's a reasonable assumption. It may be that the scribes and priests misquoted it in the first place. It doesn't matter so much, though, because as I noted, both "Bethlehem" and "Ephratah" are place-names in the land of Judah.
Hopefully, I covered the issue of verse 14 in my last post, in which I essentially pointed out that despite the note in the SAB, the word "directly" does not appear in Luke 2:39, nor any synonym.
The massacre spoken of in verse 2:16 is indeed not recorded anywhere outside of the book of Matthew, which casts a question of authenticity upon it. The only possible explanation is that Bethlehem, being a fairly small town may have been small enough that this atrocity went largely unnoticed among many others committed by Herod.
The last verse refers to a non-existent prophecy that has pretty much stumped all scholars. Some have suggested a misunderstanding or misspelling of the Hebrew word for "branch" in some prophecies, while others have suggested that the fact that many prophecies refer to the Messiah as being rejected could be fulfilled by having him grow up in a place of ill-repute. I think both of these explanations are more than a little bit of a stretch, myself, but I present them just because they exist.
I wish you all a Merry Christmas, Chanukah Sameach, Prosperous Ramadan, and Happy Kwanzaa.
Monday, October 31, 2005
What shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for? (Gen 34)
The SAB has nothing to say about chapter 33, and I don't think I do either. It's a pretty straightforward and nice reunion story of Jacob and his brother Esau. Chapter 34, however, has a lot of scandal in it that a lot could be said about.
This chapter is the story of Dinah, Jacob's only mentioned daughter. A short time after moving back to the promised land, Dinah gets taken away by Shechem, a member of a local royal family, and he has sex with her. The story doesn't seem to make it particualrly clear whether or not it's consensual sex; he may have kidnapped and raped her, or it may have been something more like eloping. Given the fact that women weren't treated with too much respect in those days, and Dinah's brothers don't seem to be angry at her specifically, I'd venture to guess that it wasn't consensual sex. Also, the wording of verses three and four seem to me to indicate that his desire to have any sort of long-term relationship with her came after the sex.
The two families get together and try to work out the terms of whether and how the two should be married. Jacob seems to be trying his best to be quiet and calm about it, but his sons are pretty ticked off. They insist that Shechem and all of his people (the Hivites, I guess?) have to be circumcised in order to be acceptable. While indeed, as the SAB says, this may be a case of intolerance against gentiles, it may also be that they're setting demands on Shechem that they don't expect him to be able to fulfill, so that when he says "No," they can have an excuse to say, "See? He doesn't really love her! Let's kill him!" At least, the overall story seems to point to this as a strong possibility.
But they agree, and do it! It almost sounds like that very same afternoon, the whole city goes out to the gate and undergoes this rather uncomfortable procedure. Now if circumcision was what the sons of Israel really wanted, then this should have been a happy ending right here, pretty much. Instead, a couple days later, when all these men are lying around in pain, and perhaps drunk (I probably would be!), Simeon and Levi come and kill them all. They take all their possessions, livestock, and women, and go back home, taking their sister with them.
Now, this sounds like a terrible thing, and in fact, the Bible does very little to dissuade someone of that. Jacob rebukes them, and they seem to not care at all, because their sister's honor was damaged. I'm not sure why the SAB claims, "To the author of Genesis, rape is clearly a crime against the honor of men rather than against a woman." It may indeed be so that this is the case for Simeon and Levi, and for the author of Genesis, but frankly, I don't see that it's "clearly" the case. I could see this going either way.
In any case, a lot of people here have failed to make the right moral decision, and the Bible does not condone any of what happens in this chapter.
This chapter is the story of Dinah, Jacob's only mentioned daughter. A short time after moving back to the promised land, Dinah gets taken away by Shechem, a member of a local royal family, and he has sex with her. The story doesn't seem to make it particualrly clear whether or not it's consensual sex; he may have kidnapped and raped her, or it may have been something more like eloping. Given the fact that women weren't treated with too much respect in those days, and Dinah's brothers don't seem to be angry at her specifically, I'd venture to guess that it wasn't consensual sex. Also, the wording of verses three and four seem to me to indicate that his desire to have any sort of long-term relationship with her came after the sex.
The two families get together and try to work out the terms of whether and how the two should be married. Jacob seems to be trying his best to be quiet and calm about it, but his sons are pretty ticked off. They insist that Shechem and all of his people (the Hivites, I guess?) have to be circumcised in order to be acceptable. While indeed, as the SAB says, this may be a case of intolerance against gentiles, it may also be that they're setting demands on Shechem that they don't expect him to be able to fulfill, so that when he says "No," they can have an excuse to say, "See? He doesn't really love her! Let's kill him!" At least, the overall story seems to point to this as a strong possibility.
But they agree, and do it! It almost sounds like that very same afternoon, the whole city goes out to the gate and undergoes this rather uncomfortable procedure. Now if circumcision was what the sons of Israel really wanted, then this should have been a happy ending right here, pretty much. Instead, a couple days later, when all these men are lying around in pain, and perhaps drunk (I probably would be!), Simeon and Levi come and kill them all. They take all their possessions, livestock, and women, and go back home, taking their sister with them.
Now, this sounds like a terrible thing, and in fact, the Bible does very little to dissuade someone of that. Jacob rebukes them, and they seem to not care at all, because their sister's honor was damaged. I'm not sure why the SAB claims, "To the author of Genesis, rape is clearly a crime against the honor of men rather than against a woman." It may indeed be so that this is the case for Simeon and Levi, and for the author of Genesis, but frankly, I don't see that it's "clearly" the case. I could see this going either way.
In any case, a lot of people here have failed to make the right moral decision, and the Bible does not condone any of what happens in this chapter.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
