To preach deliverance to the captives (Isaiah 58)

Isaiah chapter 58 is apparently the first chapter of this book where the SAB finds something that it likes, and I certainly agree that the messages of this chapter is very positive. This chapter talks a lot about fasting, which is the practice of denying oneself of food for a time. Many religions practice fasting as a religious discipline, believing that it draws one closer to God for various reasons, and Judaism has a few assigned fasts. Here in Isaiah, God is suggesting that simply denying oneself of food, is not enough, but that one should deprive oneself while seeking justice. God says to "let the oppressed go free,...deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him." So, people who don't have freedom, food, housing, and clothing should be given those things by those who do. I definitely believe that this should be the focus of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and those who don't are missing the real heart of God. I think it's a great shame that the people in America who claim that we are a Christian nation are more concerned with persecution of LGBTQIA people and immigrants than actually helping their fellow Americans who are in need when we have millions of people who are homeless and/or facing food insecurity. There's my soapbox for today, but it leaves an issue unaddressed here.

Does God approve of slavery? Although I talked a lot about Hebrew slavery back in Exodus, and Roman slavery in Luke chapter 17, there may be issues concerning slavery that I have not addressed. In particular, any instances of slavery before the giving of the Law of Moses most likely didn't follow those rules, and as the SAB notes, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all had slaves, with Abraham and Jacob in particular having slave girls that were forced to bear children for their masters. The Bible doesn't give any commentary on the moral value of this, but in not doing so seems to give tacit approval. Jesus does tell a handful of parables that involve slavery, but I don't think you can assume that means he approves; Jesus's parables are often very strange stories where the moral message is far from clear. The verse from Leviticus 25 is one I actually did address, but let me repeat it to be clear: in the year of Jubilee, all slaves are given their freedom, without exception. The passage from Mark ten is not saying that people who are Christians won't exercise authority over each other, but rather that those who are humble and serve will be considered to be the greatest. So what does the Bible teach in the end about slavery? I think there's no easy answer to this question. The concept of slavery in the Bible differs from culture to culture and situation to situation, and it's not an absolute evil because of this. "Slavery" is very morally relative, and while the Bible certainly endorsed certain forms of it, none of them were quite like the chattel slavery of the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries. In my opinion, it was right for the U.S. to end slavery, but even there, there are nuances. The Emancipation Proclamation effectively freed zero slaves at the time of its issuance. The end of the Civil War ended some slavery legally, but it wasn't in full effect until Juneteenth. The 13th Amendment actually did not end slavery in the United States (read the fine print!), and it is still practiced to the present day, because capitalism thrives on cheap labor. I strongly believe that we should amend the 13th Amendment to actually, completely end slavery in our country, and work to see that it is ended worldwide. Do I believe God would approve of this position? I do, because I believe that modern slavery is so much worse than what was practiced in Biblical times. I guess that's a different, but related soapbox.

Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city (Isaiah 14)

Isaiah chapter 14 continues talk about Babylon's destruction. Early in the chapter, it talks about Israel returning to the land, and taking people from the nations that conquered them as slaves. I know slavery is not looked on positively in modern times, but this is again retribution for the time they were in captivity; there's no indication of how long this lasts, so it may have been a temporary state of affairs.

The prophecy turns specifically to talk about the king of Babylon, and how he and his family will be brought low. Verse 12 addresses "Lucifer", in which I believe the SAB is correct in interpreting that this is the king of Babylon, and not Satan. This is the only verse in the whole Bible with this name (in the Hebrew as well), and it supposedly means "morning star". Yes, Jesus is called the morning star towards the end of Revelation, but I don't think there's any connection. The SAB takes verses 21 and 22 to mean all Babylonians will be killed (which, if that were the case, would be a failed prophecy), but I think it's referring to the royal family in particular, coming right after the talk about the fall of the king. I answered whether people are punished for the sins of others in Genesis chapter nine and other places, and it's complicated.

Lastly, Isaiah turns to Assyria, which also gets its comeuppance. It sounds like any Assyrians who are found living in Israel after it's restored are going to be killed. Then Palestine (previously in another place than Israel, despite the fact that Israel comes to be known as Palestine around the 5th century B.C., because the Philistines were invaders) gets a share of the woes that Israel and Judah got, including cockatrices (whatever the Hebrew originally meant by this; see my commentary in chapter eleven) and famine, although somehow the poor have enough.

Abiathar the son of Ahimelech (2Samuel 8)

So, back to 2Samuel chapter eight, which was clearly a trap because the SAB sees a lot of violence and injustice, which is hard to deny here. You do have to realize that Israel is at war with all these nations, and nobody has invented the Geneva Convention yet. It's ugly. David is killing two-thirds of the Moabites (it seems reasonable to assume these are POWs) and enslaving the other third; which is a better fate? Hopefully the slaves were treated well, but we can only guess. Why does David hough the chariot horses? I don't know, as it seems pointless and cruel, although a bit of research suggests this doesn't kill the horse, but makes it unsuitable for war use. How many horsemen did David take? This may be a scribal error, or perhaps the writer of Chronicles felt that since there were thousands of footmen, there ought more likely have been thousands of horsemen; who knows?

Yes, God is giving David all of these violent victories, but in the end, it's about preserving Israel against violent enemies who probably would have done the same or worse to them. I don't know that there is anything else I can say about it.

Was Abiathar the father or the son of Ahimelech? I did some research, and there are actually two different Ahimelechs in the Bible, but this doesn't clear up the problem as Ahimelech the Hittite doesn't have a genealogy given, and is clearly nothing to do with this. It seems pretty evident that Ahimelech is the father of Abiathar, and this verse is in error; perhaps the verse in 1Chronicles 24 copied the error, as it was written later. However, the verse 1Chronicles 18:16 says, "Abimelech the son of Abiathar" which may not be a scribal error; Ahimelech may have had a grandson named Abimelech. In the Hebrew alphabet h and b don't look as much like each other as they do in the Latin alphabet.

Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear (Luke 17)

I couldn't remember why I had taken such a long break from writing these entries other than the fact that I'd been a bit more busy lately. Then I looked at Luke 17, and remembered: Luke really is turning out to be tough book, far tougher than I'd imagined it to be!

So there are two things that had been general problems that I'll try to address generally through the first two notes in the SAB. First, statements like "If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you." There was an interesting concept that a friend of mine brought up on Facebook the other day (there was probably an article attached, but I'm not going to hunt it down), that being that it's common in Jewish literature to use hyperbole. Jesus may indeed be literally saying that a person with faith can boss around trees, but it's also quite likely that he's saying more generally that if you have faith, you can do amazing things with that faith to bolster you. Admitting the prevalence of hyperbole and its presence in the Bible opens up a can of worms that may be immediately obvious to some: How can you be sure what to take seriously and literally as opposed to hyperbolically in Jesus' teachings? As I've pointed out before, I don't believe that when Jesus says to cut off your hand to save yourself from sin, nor when he says you have to hate your family to follow him, that he really means that. But what other things might I be taking at face value that are not meant that way? It's a big question worth discussing, but I'm not going to take up the whole post with it.

So the second thing that had been a problem in Luke, and really the New Testament as a whole, is the whole slavery thing. While I feel I've given some possibly good insights into Old Testament slavery, in Jesus' time we're dealing with slavery as defined by the Roman Empire, and I know next to nothing about it. So I decided to read the Wikipedia entry on slavery in ancient Rome, and honestly, I still don't know much. It seems in general that slaves who had rich owners (which were most of them) generally lived better lives than peasants. Roman slaves had the right to own property and make money, and they could use that to be able to buy their freedom. Freedmen had the right to vote, but couldn't run for office and were considered second-class citizens; their children would be full freeborn citizens. Throughout most of Roman history, it seems that slaves could complain in court if their masters treated them with cruelty. All that being said, there are certain aspects of Roman slavery that were not so nice as all that. Slaves that had to work in mines lived under harsh conditions, had little hope for freedom, and tended to die young. Slaves that tried to escape were often branded, and slaves that attempted revolt were often crucified. Also, some slaves were forced into fighting gladiator matches, which was sort of a mixed bag since it was dangerous work, but if you were successful, you learned a skill that might lead to you becoming a freed soldier. So once again, while neither God nor Jesus ever spoke out against slavery in particular, even Roman slavery was not much like 19th century American slavery that most people associate the word with.

Anyway, I think this chapter may have some of Steve Wells' best writing; at least I enjoyed reading the notes here. Jesus says, "The kingdom of God is within you." to which the SAB responds, "That has a nice sound to it, but I don't know what it means." Well, yes, it is a bit of a mystery, isn't it? Jesus is clearly talking about something very spiritual, and I think the meaning is that "the kingdom of God" is not a physical place so much as it is a state of mind to be found in people who believe.

In verse 24, Jesus compares his return to lightning, to which the SAB comments "Like the Wicked Witch of the West writing 'Surrender Dorothy' in the sky. Like that." Cute. Like that indeed.

In the next few verses, Jesus talks about Noah's ark and the destruction of Sodom. The SAB (like many Christians!) takes this talking to imply that Jesus believed that these were real, historical events. I personally have an issue with this interpretation; it's entirely possible that Jesus simply used these two stories as ones that he knew his audience would be familiar with. The point that Jesus is trying to make here may be entirely separate from whether these stories are factual, which does mean that some of the points that the SAB brings up about this passage concerning injustice and cruelty still need to be addressed, as clearly Jesus is saying when he returns, he's going to bring some sort of massive punishment akin to what was told of in those two stories. In the case of injustice, I think it's clear that in all of the cases mentioned, the people being punished were wicked people and had it coming; cruelty is a harder issue to deal with because there is quite a bit of difference in opinion on what makes something cruel, but suffice it to say that in all instances, we're talking about near-instant death. Make of it what you will.

Finally, taking verse 34 to be about homosexuality has got to be a joke, right? If it isn't, I really don't know what to say.

And when he knew it of the centurion (Luke 7)

Luke 7 opens with the story of a centurion asking Jesus to heal his slave. The story here is told differently than it is in Matthew 8, prompting the SAB to ask "Did the centurion ask Jesus directly to heal his slave?" In Matthew's telling of the story, the centurion comes in person to talk to Jesus, while here, he sends some messengers. (Note that in neither version does Jesus go to the centurion's house.) While I couldn't say for sure, my guess on this matter is that Matthew left out details and simplified the story. Even though this transaction involved messengers, it's still essentially the centurion who's asking for help.

More important perhaps is the issue of slavery here. As the SAB rightly points out, if Jesus was against slavery, this would have been a good time to say something, but he doesn't. The SAB has a page on whether God approves of slavery, but I think there needs to be a distinction made between slavery in ancient Israel (which I addressed here) and slavery in Roman times. That being said, just as when I covered this story in Matthew 8, I have to admit that I know very little about Roman slavery and so I can't say much about it. Maybe if I ever get to the book of Philemon (which is about a runaway slave) I'll have to force myself to do some research.

Did Jesus know everything? While a case can be made that Jesus did not know everything, I think the fact that Jesus "marvelled" at the centurion is more of a statement of Jesus' emotional reaction than genuine surprise.

Next in the story, Jesus raises a man from the dead, prompting two questions from the SAB: Is death final? While I'm sure I've dealt with this before, let me do it here. In general, death is a final thing, but there are occasional exceptions of people who are revived from death, and that doesn't even require a miracle; sometimes a knowledge of CPR is enough. That being said, there is that matter of the concept of the resurrection of the dead, which is always supernatural. In this case in general everyone will resurrected at the end of time to be judged in a new, perfect body. When Jesus died on the cross, he was the first to be resurrected, which leads to and partially answers the second question, Was Jesus the first to rise from the dead? The two verses in the yes column are referring to the resurrection, and not to people who were revived, nor to people whose spirits sent messages from beyond the grave.

In verse 19 we see "And John [the Baptist] calling unto him two of his disciples sent them to Jesus, saying, Art thou he that should come? or look we for another?" The nature of this question is mostly a rhetorical one. John the Baptist already knows that Jesus is the Messiah, but he's confused about what Jesus is doing because like many other in that day, he expected the Messiah to revive the Israelite monarchy. Since Jesus seems to be just doing spiritual stuff, a lot of people are confused about his mission. (In other Gospel tellings of this event, John is in prison, and is confused as to why Jesus hasn't come to bust him out.)

In verse 28, the SAB asks, Who was the greatest prophet? Well, look at what those verses actually say: the Deuteronomy passage says there was never a prophet like Moses, not that Moses was the best. The verse in Hebrews says that Jesus was worthy of glory, but doesn't say that he was the greatest prophet (and really, even if it did, it would be fairly reasonable to assume that when Jesus praised John as the greatest, he was excluding himself from the comparison. So in short, John the Baptist was the greatest.

Were the Pharisees baptized by John? I don't think that the verse in Matthew 3 is saying what the SAB is claiming it's saying. When John said "I baptize you..." I believe he was speaking in general to the crowd, whether or not any one of them in particular were getting baptized, and the Pharisees were not.

The question Is it OK to use perfume? is, in my opinion, really one of the silliest that the SAB poses, and I'm not going to answer it again.

Send us into the swine (Matthew 8)

The first issue raised in Matthew 8 is the question of whether the centurion who asked Jesus to heal his servant came directly to Jesus, or sent messengers. While of course it could be possible that these are two different centurions, I think it's more likely that Matthew left some details out of the story. Note that in both stories, the centurion tells Jesus not to come to his house, so not coming in person makes some sense. The SAB points out that this would have been a good opportunity for Jesus to make a statement condemning slavery, but Jesus says nothing about this guy owning a slave. While I touched on this subject before, that was essentially discussing Israelite slavery, and this guy is a gentile, so I have little reason to assume that this is the same sort of arrangement. If I were to address the issue of slavery in the New Testament, I'd have to do some research, I think, but no, Jesus never comes out expressly against slavery as far as I'm aware.

The SAB makes a side-note on this story suggesting that perhaps the centurion and his servant were a gay couple. I find this difficult to fathom. Yes, I think in that day homosexuality may have been considered acceptable in Roman society, but what sort of couple would they have been if one was the owner of another? No, I think homosexuality is another issue that Jesus never directly addresses, even by silent assent.

In verse 10, we are told that Jesus was "astonished" and the SAB takes the opportunity to ask "Did Jesus know everything?" First of all, I think that Jesus expressing an emotion that is often linked with being surprised does not immediately mean that Jesus didn't know something, but I'll set that aside, because it's my view that Jesus, in the time that he walked the earth in human form, was not omniscient. The two quoted verses from the book of John aren't Jesus claiming to know everything, but his followers making that claim. The real nail in the coffin of Jesus having omniscience is Mark 13:32, in which Jesus admits there is at least one thing that he does not know. Now how much Jesus does know is worth questioning, and indeed, he does seem to know quite a bit, but he does not know everything.

Verse 12 is another odd one, and for more than just the reason the SAB notes. Yes, I'll agree with the interpretation that "the children of the kingdom" most likely refers to Jews, but that doesn't mean that all Jews will fail to be saved, I think that the point here is that despite the fact that the nation of Israel is the "chosen people", there will be many non-Jews in heaven and many Jews in hell. (I'm not really convinced that Jesus is even saying the the centurion is saved, only that he has an impressive level of faith.) The thing that I find interesting that's not noted is yet another use of the phrase "the children of..." that clouds the picture of what standing various people have before God, as discussed in a few of the recent chapters.

In verses 14-15, there is mention of Peter's mother-in-law being healed. The SAB asks, no doubt semi-sarcastically, whether this implies that the first Pope was married. Yes, Peter did appear to be married, and I don't know the full details, but it's my understanding that requiring clergy of the Catholic church to be celibate is a development more recent than the first century. I don't know if this goes for the Pope also, or whether the Catholic church thus has some explanation of this passage because of that issue; you'd probably have to ask a Catholic, not an ex-Jewish baptist like me. (The SAB marks this healing and the following casting out of devils as absurd; I'm not generally going to address miracles marked as absurdity, I think, but let them stand as miracles.)

Verses 21-22 have a man who wants to follow Jesus, but says "suffer me first to go and bury my father." I think the SAB is misunderstanding what the guy is asking here; it's always been my understanding that this was his way of saying, "I don't think my father would approve of me following you, so can I wait until he's passed away?" Jesus' response is not to literally suggest that dead people should bury each other, but that if his father can't handle Jesus, then he should be left behind. (This could still perhaps take all the tags the SAB gives it, but the meaning is not quite what it's being taken as.)

The story in verses 23-27 is another miracle, and I think the real point of the miracle, if anything, is what it says in the last verse: that even the weather obeys Jesus' commands.

The last story in this chapter is an odd one about Jesus casting out some demons (or perhaps one very strange, powerful one). For reasons unknown, when Mark and Luke tell this story, they say there's only one demon-possessed man, while Matthew puts it at two. I have no idea why the difference in number, and it seems to be a big difference; I mean, who has a hard time counting to two? (Matthew does use different names in his telling of the story, so it could possibly be a different event, but there's enough detail in common to make this improbable.) Anyway, this is an interesting story for numerous reasons. The demons immediately know who Jesus is, and they refer to some time in the future that Jesus is going to torment them. Weird stuff. Note that in other versions of the story, Jesus finds out that the devil(s) is named "Legion", and in all the stories, they are sent into a herd of pigs. Some have suggested that this story is symbolic of the Roman occupation, which is possible, but I'm not real keen on that interpretation. It is odd to note that someone in a Jewish city would be keeping a herd of pigs, seeing as they're unclean animals. I find it odd that people who dislike this story object to the drowning of the pigs; I guess while I'm thinking it's good that the demons were driven out at all, these people are wondering if it could have been done more cleanly. Certainly the people of the nearby town seem to think so, as they ask Jesus to leave.

Stand thou still upon Gibeon (Joshua 9)

The story of the Gibeonites has always held a bit of a confusion for me, and clearly not in the same way it holds confusion for the SAB. Back in the day when I read this book for the first time, and didn't have the understanding that I have now of the book, this story always seemed strange. It still does, but in a different way.

Before I had gained my current viewpoint on the nature of Holy war, I thought it was strange that of all the people that lived in Canaan, the one group that would come to be spared would be one that found a way out through subterfuge. While I now am of the opinion that Holy war is not so complete and final as it seems on a cursory reading, it still shocks me that apparently we can add lying to the list of ways to escape the wrath of God, so long as you lie to the right people and really manage to convince them apparently.

The only thing the SAB has to say about this chapter is to claim injustice because the Gibeonites were made to become slaves. This is going to be one of those rare chapters where I completely disagree with every point the SAB makes and/or fails to make. That single accusation is something that I believe will lose its teeth when one fully unpacks the passage, and several other points that the SAB fails to make seem a tad hypocritical to me. We'll see.

Heck, let's skip right to the issue of slavery, why not? While I have addressed the concept of slavery at length before, this does seem to be a special case that doesn't fit the mold of what I discussed there. Here we do not see slavery existing as a kind of unemployment program as I argued in the case of slavery among Jews. This is slavery of citizens of another nation which, as I touched on in the final paragraph of that other post, falls under a different set of rules in a manner that is less than 100% clear. Nonetheless, I think that something is being missed here. The Hivites keep saying, as in verse 8, "We are thy servants." (Note that "servant" is King James-ese for "slave"; the actual word "slave" only appears once in the King James Old Testament, and that one time it appears, it's not the translation of any particular Hebrew word, but a word inserted for clarification.) Sometimes language like that can be used in a figurative sense, but I don't think it is the case here. These people do actually become slaves of the Israelites, and when Joshua tells them of their status, they don't protest, but say in verse 25:

"And now, behold, we are in thine hand: as it seemeth good and right unto thee to do unto us, do."

This of course saved their lives. The alternative to becoming slaves was to have their nation and their cities wiped off the face of the earth. Would you rather be a slave or be dead? That's not entirely a rhetorical question; I'm sure there are people who would answer either way.

Still, it remains a mystery to me as to why the oath the leaders of Israel swore to the Hivites were binding, seeing as they were made under false pretenses. The men of Gibeon made a rather elaborate deception (almost too elaborate, sometimes I wonder how close to verbatim Biblical dialog is recorded, as I read about these guys going, "Look, our bread is moldy! Moldy, I tell you! We live really really far from here, we swear!!!") in order to get Israel to make them a promise that they had no right to make.

Joshua records that they didn't ask God whether or not to believe the men, which is really the lesson of this story for believers. They didn't ask whether it was alright, and then when it turned out they had been deceived, it ended in trouble for everyone. The SAB doesn't call out the Hivites for this lie as it did the lie of Rahab, and this lie led to strife between Israel and God, the leaders and the people, and between the Gibeonites and their neighbors, as we will see in the next chapter. In the midst of this trouble, Joshua is essentially forced by his oath here to escalate the war as the Amorites go into offense mode.

Above a servant, a brother beloved (Exod 21:2ff, slavery)

Ugh, I got well into this post a few weeks ago and lost it in a computer crash, then got busy with other things. Perhaps it's doubly upsetting because I largely feel I've already addressed this topic in previous posts (here and here specifically, if you want to read back), but decided to make a single post focusing on the matter in specific. As I said in my last post an age ago, most of my posts for a while will be much more topical in nature than what I've done before.

There's a lot to say about slavery in the Bible, but one of the important things to note right off the top is the difference between slavery as we tend to think of the term in 20th-century America and the way the Bible describes it in ancient Israel. Modern slavery which was practiced in America for several centuries generally was the kidnapping of people from Africa, shipping them across the Atlantic in conditions not suitable for cattle much less humans, selling them into permanent unpaid servitude in which many were treated as far less than human, and their inability to be freed extended to their children, who would be born into slavery and live their whole lives as nothing more than property. For those with strong stomachs, a frankly graphic portrayal of many of the evils of modern slavery can be seen in the movie Amistad.

But as I obviously was getting to, Hebrew slavery was quite different, as one can see when one reads about it. That doesn't mean that it was all fun and games, obviously, but permit me the liberty of contrasting it to the negatives of modern slavery to show it in a positive light before I admit there are some things I would consider as unsavory as anyone else.

Point one: Slavery was largely a voluntary institution in Israel. In contrast to how we think of people being torn away from their home and family to be sold into slavery against their will so that the slave-trader can make some quick and easy cash, Hebrew slaves were selling themselves into slavery for their own well-being. Assumably, a person who was poor and had no means to make ends meet, rather than starving to death would approach one of their wealthy neighbors and ask to be taken on. Probably most people would consider this a good deal if the alternative were starving to death or becoming a beggar. Pay the man's debts and agree to house, clothe and feed him, and he's yours to keep!

Point two: Slavery was not a permanent status in Israel. Yes, you get to keep the guy, but only for six years. For all those people in the early days of America that used the Bible to justify slavery, imagine if they had actually practiced Biblical slavery! You can buy slaves, but you have to make them into free men after six years? That would have changed the slave trade, not to mention my previous point and the next much more interesting one. Which leads me to...

Point three: Not only are slaves not in a permanent state of slavery, but when they are released at the end of their term of service, you are required to pay them! I believe the idea here is that even with all the ways I'm trying to make out ancient Hebrew slavery to be a wonderful, cheery thing, it was not considered a desirable state to be in for the long run, so once someone had served you as a slave, you were required to set him up in such a manner that he really had the chance to go back to being a productive member of society on his own. Once again, try to imagine that in early 19th century America! "Well, you've served me well, these last six years on my cotton plantation here, so I guess your time is up. Here's your share of the proceeds from the last six years of cotton sales, and take a horse, too, since you'll need something to carry all the stuff you'll be packing out of here..." Difficult, but somehow funny to imagine.

So, the positive points aside, I suppose I should get to the negative, but there are also some points that are ambiguous, and probably depend on you personal point of view. For instance, while I said that slavery was largely voluntary, one of the exceptions is notable. If a person is caught stealing, and they can't repay what they stole, they are forced to go into slavery to pay off the debt. It may seem cruel, but in modern times, we throw them in jail. Either way, you're faced with a few years of lost freedom, so I think it's a personal judgment call. Still, I think it beats cutting the guy's hands off, but maybe that's just me.

A lot of the fairly ambiguous problems with Hebrew slavery (although much more abhorrent to our modern sensibilities) have to do with the treatment of women through this institution. Yes, as Bible detractors point out, in those days people would sell their daughters. The reason that I call this "ambiguous" is that things look very different when you compare this practice to the practices of those times and modern times. While we don't like it, women had very little rights in those days, and rather than choosing the man they wanted to marry, their fathers would sell them off to another family. The verses here are making it clear that just because a woman you have bought (and this may not actually be an issue of slavery, but betrothal, but honestly the dividing line is a thin one) belongs to you, you don't get the right to treat her like trash. She is not to go out and perform manual labor. She is not to be sold to a foreigner. You can't marry another woman unless you have the means to continue to support your first wife at the same level you already have been. (I'm not going to get into polygamy here.) By modern Western standards, being sold into marriage/slavery seems like a bad thing, but in the culture of that time (and even the modern culture of many countries today) that's being very generous.

(A friend of mine with whom I was discussing this subject recently pointed out that while many of us would certainly hope that God would create a moral code that was considerably less barbaric than the one ancient Israel got, it may simply have been prudent to work in "baby steps". Culture is resistant to change, and God, rather than flinging them forcefully into a 21st-century sensibility, gave them a strong nudge in the right direction. "Okay, while your slaves and wives are your property, that doesn't mean you're justified in treating them like livestock.")

Somebody pointed out to me in the comments that I forgot to mention the particular status of a slave becoming a "bondsman". At the end of the six-year period of servitude, the slave has the option of signing on for permament service. A man who decided to stay on permanently would get his ear pierced in an odd little ceremony before witnesses. Since this is voluntary, I don't think there is a real problem here. People of a more libertarian bent seem to have no problem with the idea that a person has the right to commit suicide or abuse their body in whatever way they choose to, so why not have the right to be a slave if you really want it? I would assume that this is often in the case of a person who found that being a slave ended up being a better lifestyle for them than being free and having to take care of themselves, as odd as that may sound.

On the positive side of this, even this "permanent" status is not really permanent, I believe. I would assume that a slave in this position still had the chance to purchase their freedom (Did I mention that since most slaves ended up being slaves because of debt, the early payment of the debt entitled them to freedom? I think I missed that as well.) and also, they would still have the right of release that is outlined below in the second-to-last paragraph. Furthermore, as we see in Leviticus 25:10, all slaves are to be set free every 50 years. (I'm putting that in bold because I think it's the most blatantly clear part of the Bible showing that slavery is never a completely permament status, and I don't want it to be missed.) Granted, the lifespan may not be so very long as to be beneficial for every slave to be set free in 50 years, but a big part of the point of the 50-year jubilee cycle is to restore things to families. Although as a permanent slave one may not be very young by the time the jubilee year comes around, your freedom and all of your family's real estate come back to your children at that time.

On the negative side, there are some further complications to this that have to do with the status of women and the way marriage worked in those days. (In addition to people not often understanding ancient Israelite slavery, I think modern "traditional marriage" supporters would not really want to have marriage be the institution that the Bible presents us with.) Basically, if you get married while you are a slave, your marriage is by permission of your master, and since you have no money, the bride-price was certianly paid by him. At the time you are to be set free, your master has the option of keeping the wife he bought for you, because she's his property, not yours. Obviously, this could really suck, and as the Bible points out, the only thing you can do about it if your master does this is elect to stay on as his servant. On the other hand, this fact wold be well known, and I would think that a person would avoid getting married while in servitude because of it. Not nice, but there it is.

One of the much more unsavory parts of slavery is the fact that the Bible does allow a slave owner to beat his slave. However, that comes with a caveat: if you beat the slave to death, you're guilty of murder, and if you beat them so severely that you disfigure them, you are forced to release them early.

Although there are probably many minor points I have not fully touched on, I'm going to leave the topic with just one more observation. The voluntary and temporary status of slaves does not apply to slaves acquired from foreign countries. At least not in the same manner, it would seem. The rules don't seem to be as well fleshed out in such a case. I suspect that the rules for release of a slave through mistreatment or on jubilee years still apply, and while slaves acquired during wartime are almost certainly not in voluntary service, those acquired from gentile neighbors may or may not be. Biblical detractors may be free to think the worst; even the best of this aspect clearly doesn't seem very pleasant.

He commanded you to perform even ten commandments (Exod 20:12-17)

In the transition between commandments about God and commandments about interpersonal relationships, we find the fifth commandment:

Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

This is an interesting commandment for numerous reasons. First of all, its place within the list is interesting. Many have suggested that the commandments are in order of importance, and in the case of the last five, most likely even atheists would agree. However, even if you accept something important about God that trumps other issues here in the material world, one may well wonder why honoring your parents is considered more important than even avoiding killing. It's been said that there exists an issue here that parents, while not God, are representing a God-like authority over their own children. Very often the New Testament writers use the relationship between a child and parent as a model of the relationship between a believer and God.

As the Bible comments on itself in Ephesians 6:2, this is the first commandment that comes with a promise attached to it. It may be that the promise is a special supernatural blessing given by God, but on the other hand, there may be a perfectly natural explanation for this promise that parallels the explanation I gave for the curses mentioned elsewhere. Reject authority, and you and your children will have trouble as a natural consequence. Obey authority, and things will go well.

Now, the SAB has two comments on this verse, one that's vital, and the other that's, well, just sort of odd. How should parents be treated? The answer is pretty obvious; one should honor one's parents. The difficulty comes in the interpretation of the verses that seem to suggest otherwise. The two verses that have the infamous quote by Jesus of "Who is my mother?" is a toughie, really a matter of personal interpretation. Jesus spent a large portion of his ministry working on identifying himself with the people he was ministering to, and to God the Father. I tend to think that those verses are his way of saying that his family is bigger than just his blood relatives. The "Let the dead bury their dead" quote is one often misunderstood. The man Jesus was talking to did not have presently dead parents, but was saying essentially, "I'd like to follow you, but I think I'll wait until my parents have passed away, is that okay?" The answer was, "No, not really." Of course, as misunderstanding goes, few verses are as often misunderstood (and with good reason) as the "...hate not his father, and mother..." verse. The standard explanation, which is definitely true in part at least, is that one's love for Jesus should be so strong that all other relationships should seem like hateful ones in comparison. I think it's possible that there may be more to it than that, however, to be generous to the skeptic who can't quite buy this explanation. The Bible has a confusing way of describing the life of the Christian in terms of a series of love/hate relationships. We're told that we can't love the world, but we're told that God loved the world; what gives? The fact is, there are people in the world who are loved by God, and should be loved by you, but at the same time, they do things that are not lovely. If the people you love are keeping you from realizing your full potential, then you'd be better off hating them than loving them. This even goes for your parents.

Is it OK to call your father (or anyone else) father? Wow, what a question! The fact is, I have actually met a guy who took Matthew 23:9 fully literally and did not call his biological father "father". I don't think there is a call to take it that way, though. The point of the passage in Matthew is not that titles are somehow inherently evil, but that people shouldn't be looking to show off with fancy titles. Does anyone really think that Jesus is advocating referring to your biological father as "dear old Mom's sperm donor" or some such nonsense? I'll admit, this is a confusing issue, but I don't think it's meant to imply something absurd.

Thou shalt not kill.

This one seems very straightforward. But of course, it's not. The SAB points out numerous verses that seem to place a stamp of approval on killing. The first thing to note is that it appears that the SAB has avoided one of the usual pitfalls in misunderstanding this verse. It's my understanding that in the Hebrew, the word for "kill" is clearer, and means something more akin to "murder"; the implication is that this commandment doesn't apply to things like killing animals for meat, killing attackers in self-defense, or killing enemy combatants in war. Instead of dragging out no doubt hundreds of verses that would deal with those issues, the SAB brings up a handful of very pertinent ones that are likely among the most troubling.

The Exodus 32:27 passage is troubling because these are Israelites killing fellow Israelites, at a point in time just a little over a month after our current moment we're studying in chapter 20. In Numbers 15:35, just a short time later, we see another instance of Israelites killing Israelites. In both instances, there was no act of aggression on the part of the person(s) attacked, and the attackers were ordered by God Himself to do the attacking. (The third verse cited on that page could conceivably fall under the heading of war, but I'll address it further when I get to it, as there are special circumstances there.) There's no getting around it that this is more than a bit disturbing. I used to know a guy who, when cornered on a debate concerning the Bible would often retreat to: "Do you think it's right to stone a man FOR GATHERING STICKS?!?!" It was seldom apropos, but a good question nonetheless. The fact that both of these things happened in the very early days of Israel being established as a nation seems significant to me. I think that this was a time when God was in the process of teaching the nation as a whole that He was serious about His devotion to them, and He wanted them to be serious in their devotion to Him. So, He made examples of a few key people at this early time; it's the only way it makes sense to me. These people seem to have just heard the Ten Commandments spoken to them by God Himself, and yet there they are, breaking most if not all of them just a few days later.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

It's interesting to me that the SAB gives this one the thumbs up. A lot (well, some, at least; I don't know what portion) of atheists are against the idea of sexuality between consenting adults being considered wrong. Attitudes towards sexuality are hardly universal among either atheists or Christians. "Is it wrong to commit adultery?" the SAB asks. The answer is a very clear "Yes," although admittedly, the term "adultery" is never very clearly defined, and must be gathered from contexts. The verses cited by the SAB are really stretching. Numbers 31:18, while sounding rather offensive to the much more feminist culture we live in, is not adultery. It's fair to assume that if they were going to sleep with these women, they would be married to them. As for the verses from Hosea, the prophet Hosea was ordered by God to marry a woman who was an adulteress. This is not the same as ordering him to commit adultery at all. (Why was he ordered to do so? Like a number of the prophets, he was made to live out an allegory in his life. Check out the book, it's one of the easier prophets to read.)

Thou shalt not steal.

Is it wrong to steal? Once again, I think this one is clear. The verses brought up by the SAB to suggest the Bible supports stealing are all matters of people taking back what rightly belongs to them. I discussed this some back in a previous post.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

This tends to be interpreted as "Don't lie." If you read it carefully, it's not so broadly about lying so much as it is about slander. Still, it's reasonable to treat it as though it were about lying in general. The SAB asks Is it OK to lie? As I said way back at the beginning of the book when this question first surfaced, lying is wrong in general, but there are cases in which lying may be justified, such as in order to save a life.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour'swife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

Last one! Coveting is a bit set aside from the other ones in that rather than an action, it's about the way a person thinks. If you're breaking this commandment, nobody but God will know. Why is it included at all? And why are there passages that seem to command coveting? Well, most obviously, one can look at what is being coveted and realize a fundamental difference. Coveting somebody else's stuff vs. coveting to be a better Christian? There's a clear difference there. The command talks about coveting things that do not belong to you, whereas Paul is talking about things that do belong to the Christian. He's saying, "This really is rightfully yours, so be excited about God giving it to you!" On a less obvious note, the Greek word that is rendered "covet" here is never rendered "covet" in any other passage. Generally, it refers to being zealous about something, and in fact, is the root word for zealous; in both places the Greek is zeloute.

Oh, and slavery is a side-issue that I have already discussed (and discuss again in a later post in greater detail.)

Why stand ye here all the day idle? (Exod 5)

The SAB has no notes on chapter 5, but I think there are a few things here that deserve comment. First of all, I've always thought it interesting that Moses' initial demand is not that Pharaoh set the people free, but only to let them go for a few days to freely practice their religion outside of Egypt. At least, that's what it sounds like when I read it. If this is indeed true, then I wonder if Moses is lying to Pharaoh, or if perhaps the intention was just to ask for a little bit at first rather than come right out and ask for it all. If Pharaoh had said yes, would they have come back after three days?

Pharaoh has nothing of it, though, whatever it is that they're asking. Instead, he decides to enact some cruelty on the Israelites by saying essentially, "If you slaves have time enough to waste my day with ridiculous demands, you're clearly not working hard enough," and he gives them more work. This is actually another place where I wonder if we're only getting part of the story, as Pharaoh claims of Moses, "ye make them rest from their burdens." Is he talking about the three or six days off they'd get if he gives in to Moses' demands, or is he making something up, or is there something going on behind the scenes where the people stopped working that day, and they're standing around waiting to hear what response Moses gets? I suppose that the scene later in the chapter in which "the officers of the children of Israel came and cried unto Pharaoh" points to them not really knowing what's going on, and therefore, it's not the latter. Still, it could be a matter of a few Israelites hanging around Moses; he had at least Aaron with him, and it seems reasonable speculation that they might have had a small entourage.

Anyway, the people get angry with Moses, and instead of accepting him as their savior, they accuse him of making their lives worse, which after all, he did. And Moses asks God essentially the same question that so many skeptics ask: Why does all of this have to be done the hard way? And in Chapter 6, God gives the only answer we ever really get, like it or not.

Jesus saith unto them, I am (Exod 3)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child. (Exod 2)

Ack! I can't seem to ever get back to this, I've been so busy lately, and yet I feel like I've gotten very little done in my personal life. (And then Blogger.com was experiencing some difficulties for a while.) I can relate being busy in this way to the story, though. I gotta admit I've often wondered at the amount of busy-work God gave Moses. Most of what's accomplished in this book and the ones following seem like they could have been done much simpler and faster than they were, but no dice. I guess God has his reasons for it, though, and perhaps we'll get into some of them.

So, the background for our story having been set up, we now introduce the baby who will grow up to be our main character in the next few books: Moses. The SAB points out that the story of Moses' childhood bears a strong resemblance to that of Sargon the great, an old Babylonian king. As the link provided points out, however, such stories are actually very common, and not just in a literary sense, but perhaps in a very real sense. Note that Pharaoh's daughter, upon discovering the child, immediately realizes that he's a Hebrew baby; it may have been not so uncommon for Hebrew women to do this sort of thing in the days of Moses' childhood.

Actually, in a more general sense, I've heard many pastors make the claim about stories in other religions that are similar to the stories of the Bible that, "Satan is good at making counterfeits." The idea behind this belief is that when you hear about a pagan god who was born of a virgin, or a Babylonian king who was set float in a basket, or the Buddha who, having been born into a royal family, forfeited his earthly kingdom to begin a new religion, the similarities are actually deceptions to distract people from the truths of the Biblical accounts. If you believe in the supernatural, this explanation makes a lot of sense, actually, although it's not necessarily true. If you don't believe in the supernatural, then it hardly matters, but perhaps you can see the logic in it, or at the very least why it's an appealing explanation. In any case, it's not unheard of for two different important historical personages to have similarities in their life stories, is it? (For instance, the second and third U.S. Presidents both died of natural causes on July 4th, 1826, the 50th anniversary of American independence. Sounds mythical, but it's apparently true. Go figure.)

Anyway, Moses is raised among the Egyptian royalty, but it seems despite what the movie Prince of Egypt (I highly recommend it) would tell us, he did know where he came from. Thus, in his adulthood, he one day killed an Egyptian slavemaster, and hid the body. Yes, Moses was a murderer, and the fact that he was the chosen deliverer of Israel didn't make it less of a sin. Afraid once he realized that the murder wasn't a secret as he had hoped, Moses fled the country. Now the SAB calls this a contradiction with a later verse, but I think it's a matter of time scale. At this time in the story Moses feared Pharaoh, but later on, when he knew he was on a mission from God, that fear evaporated. Indeed later in his life, Moses is very bold in standing up to Pharaoh.

After fleeing into the wilderness, Moses meets up with the daughters of the priest of Midian, named here as being "Reuel". The SAB points out a contradiction here that is actually one I've heard a few times, that being that Moses' father in law keeps being called by many names. I have both the standard interpretation of what's going on here, and my own viewpoint that I came up with just the other day. The standard interpretation is that "Jethro" (which is certainly the correct name) also at times went by the name "Reuel", and that "Hobab" is actually Moses' brother-in-law. This latter point indicates that while Judges 4:11 is either an actual mistake or at the least, badly written, the problem with Numbers 10:29 is that the SAB only quotes the verse in part. The full clause that begins that verse reads, "And Moses said unto Hobab, the son of Raguel the Midianite, Moses' father in law,..." Now "Raguel" is actually "Reuel" in Hebrew, and I have no idea why the KJV spells it different in this verse, and unless there is someone out there reading this who knows Hebrew better than I do and knows why it must be otherwise, I think it's more than reasonable to assume "Moses' father in law" refers to "Raguel the Midianite," and not the preceding.

My own theories I put forth as possibilities are as follows. Note that "Reuel" means "friend of God". I believe that it is a possibility that Reuel is not just another name that Jethro occasionally used, but his priestly title. The other possibility goes back to the recurring theme in the Bible that the term "grandfather" is never used. It may be that at the time Moses comes to Midian at first, Reuel is the high priest, and these young women are actually Reuel's granddaughters. Years later, when Moses returns to Egypt, Reuel has died, and Jethro is now the high priest, having inherited the position from his father Reuel. I think any of these three explanations is sufficient to explain this issue, apart from Judges 4:11, which is a mystery to me.

The last issue brought up in this chapter is whether or not God "respects" anyone. Aside from my response to this issue in general in a previous post, I would like to say here that there may be another intended meaning of this word in the original Hebrew. If you look at what the word means, it seems that what's happening is that God is turning His full attention to their plight.

And his brethren also went and fell down before his face (Gen 42-44)

Once again, no commentary from the SAB on chapters 42 or 43, and I'm not sure I have much to say either. Basically, Joseph is now in a position of authority, and he has a run-in with his (half-)brothers, who don't recognize him. They bow down before him, and he remembers the dream he had had about his brothers' sheaves of wheat bowing before his sheaf; no doubt this is the fulfillment of that dream. For whatever reason, (perhaps to get even?) he pretends not to know them, and makes things difficult for them, accusing them of being spies, throwing them into jail, and sending them back to Canaan with Simeon locked up in prison. He tells them that Simeon will not be released, nor will they get more supplies until they bring back Benjamin. (Possibly, Joseph is worried that they have killed Benjamin as they tried to kill him.) On the way back, they discover that their money has been restored to their sacks, and their father refuses to let them go back with Benjamin. This refusal is actually rather oddly insensitive, as Jacob's wording of the refusal is such that he is suggesting Benjamin is his only son, and he cares not for the fate of Simeon rotting away in an Egyptian prison, nor the nine other sons standing before him.

Eventually, though, they run out of food (although apparently not all kinds of food), and they have no choice but to go back. They decide that they dare not go back to Egypt without Benjamin and double the money they had brought before. When they get there, Joseph invites them to his house for lunch, which makes them suspicious. Certainly it's not customary for every foreigner that comes to Egypt looking for food to be invited to a meal with the viceroy of Egypt? Thinking it might be a chance to pull them aside and accuse them of stealing, they make sure to point out that they have brought back the money from last time. They are assured the money is of no consequence, and Joseph seats them around the room in order of their age, which surprises them since they still don't know he knows them. The author notes that the Egyptians, Joseph, and the brothers all eat in separate groups, as Egyptians find Hebrews to be an "abomination", perhaps a hint of what is to become of the relationship between them in the future.

Finally in chapter 44, they are sent on their way with provisions, but once again, they are given back their money, and Benjamin is given a silver cup as well. Joseph lets them get a head start, and then sends his servants after them to accuse them of stealing, but only the cup, which they are to claim Joseph uses for purposes of divination. (In Robert Alter's notes on 44:1, he points out that there is a sort of nightmare logic in this repeated returning of their money to them. After all, the great burden of guilt they carry is that they sold their brother into slavery in Egypt for some silver, and now they find that try as they might, they can't give their silver back to Egypt!)

The servants catch up to them and insist that they have stolen the "magical" cup. The SAB has issue with divination, and I would too, but there's no indication that Joseph really does perform divination with the cup, only that he wants his brothers to believe he does. The brothers are indignant, and certain that they are innocent, so much so that they insist that whoever holds the cup can be put to death, and the rest can be slaves. (This is another interesting allusion to their guilt over Joseph.) Joseph's servant accepts their claim of innocence, but suggests a lesser sentence: that only the person with the cup should become a slave, and the rest go free. The cup is found in Benjamin's sack, and the brothers are very distressed, because they know they can't possibly go back to Canaan without Benjamin. (Once again, this may be a testing on Joseph's part to see if his half-brothers will show any loyalty to his full brother.)

When they return to Joseph, Judah pleads that all of them ought to be put into slavery. Perhaps this because he knows there's no use going back without Benjamin, but it may also be because he realizes that it's himself and the other nine older brothers who have the real guilt here. Finally, Judah pleads that he himself would be taken, rather than the youngest, explaining the whole story of how Benjamin is his father's favorite child (Yes, as the SAB notes, Benjamin is not a "little" child or "lad", but an adult, however I think Judah is emphasizing the fact that Benjamin is the youngest, and thus the most vulnerable of the lot of them. I'm well into my thirties, and my mother occasionally refers to me as her "baby", somewhat to my wife's distaste.), and to go back without him would cause him to die of a broken heart. Judah, the brother who first suggested selling Joseph into slavery out of jealousy, now suggests that he himself should go into slavery to save his brother. As we will see in the next chapter, all of this finally becomes too much for Joseph.

It was not you that sent me hither, but God (Gen 37)

I'm sure the legions of regular readers (all three of them) have been wondering when I'm going to post again. Sorry, I've really been busy with a lot of stuff, and I hate the fact that I've gone from posting pretty much every day to about once a week. I'm going to try to be more regular in this, but no promises. After all, I should have been through Genesis by now at the rate I started, and I'd rather not take years and years to get to the relatively easy SAB notes on Revelation 22.

So, as I've been looking forward to, this is the story of Joseph, who is a major character in the Bible, a major player in Israelite history, and the person whose story will see us out of this book into Egypt to set up for the main event of the Torah, the Exodus.

Joseph has a few things going on with him that set him up for trouble. He's his father's favorite son which is no secret to his brothers at all, a bit of a tattletale which never makes for popularity, and he has what may or may not be an inflated sense of his own importance. Due to his dream and due to the way Joseph is generally treated in the midst of trouble, I think the SAB is right in saying that Joseph is also God's favorite among the brothers. Joseph is an interesting fellow, though, in that he is one of the few major characters in the Bible that the Bible never says anything bad about. Well, at least no outright sins are mentioned, we see later that he's a bit of trickster like his father, but he doesn't use it to his own advantage particularly. There seems to be good reason for him to be the favorite.

Joseph has some dreams that seem to be indicating that some day, all of his family will come to him and bow before him. This is pretty much the only time his father gets angry at him, rebuking, "Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?" (This actually brings up a point that the SAB probably should take notice of, at least for the sake of giving us food for thought. Joseph's mother is dead. One might wonder what Jacob means by this rebuke, and whether the dream is fully coherent in its symbolism. I always note, however that despite Joseph's reputation as a dream interpreter, he never attempts to explain these two dreams himself.)

So one day, Israel sends Joseph off to check out what his brothers are doing, and tell on them if they're doing anything they shouldn't be. Turns out they're not where they said they would be, so Joseph has to track them down.

When he approaches them, they see him coming, and get the idea that they should kill him. After all, they will hardly have to someday bow down to Joseph if he's dead, right? The original plan is to kill him, and then just toss the body into a hole in the ground so he won't even have the dignity of a proper funeral.

Reuben, the eldest, seems to have enough of his head about him to realize this is not a good idea, so he tells his brothers, "Let's just toss him in a pit without hurting him," implying that maybe they could just let him starve to death in a hole in the ground and not actually directly cause his death themselves. Of course, he's thinking he'll just come back and get Joseph out of the hole later, either out of pity, or perhaps in hopes that he'll gain some favor with his father indirectly through Joseph. So Joseph ends up in the pit, and the brothers take a lunch.

While they're lunching, some traveling merchants come by. They were either Ishmaelites or Midianites; the story is very garbled about it. In fact, this garbling is a bit of a problem, and part of the problem is that it's not clear exactly what type of problem it is. Is it a contradiction as the SAB says? Is it an anachronism, as any "Ishmaelites" at this time would be cousins, and probably wouldn't be referred to in that way? Or is it a technical inaccuracy due to a tendency to call people from a particular area by a certain name whether they're of that tribe or not? I'm inclined towards the latter, both because it's the least of the three errors (and therefore selfishly the most appealing to the apologist!) and because Judges 8:22, 24 suggests that "Ishmaelites" and "Midianites" were somewhat interchangeable terms even in times far removed to the future.

Judah suggests to his brothers that rather than killing Joseph, they could sell him to the merchants as a slave. Maybe he wants to make some money, or maybe he's thinking, "Well, sure, selling your half-brother into slavery isn't the best thing in the world, but it's not as bad as murder, right?" As a child, I always thought this was a bit of irony in that the brothers as a group wanted Joseph dead, but at least two of them as individuals didn't think he deserved it; failing to speak their minds, Judah's plan to save Joseph unwittingly messes up Reuben's much better plan that he didn't know about. Somehow Reuben is not present when this plan is carried out, an oddity that admittedly leaves the suggestion that some scholars no doubt favor that this story, with its confusion over Midianites/Ishmaelites and Reuben/Judah trying to save Joseph's life in a sneaky manner is actually two (or more) oral traditions woven together imperfectly. I'm willing to admit this is also a possibility, as I discussed way back at the beginning. The essential irony of the story in the end is, in Joseph's words to his brothers, "...ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good..."

Wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. (Gen 9:5-29)

Does God approve of capital punishment? That's actually a very good question, and one that many of us wish had a simpler answer. The fact is, God's view of capital punishment in the Bible is a question that would require the study of far more verses than the two quoted here. You'd have to look at passages like the one in which a man is killed for gathering firewood on a Saturday, or where Jesus forgives a woman caught in adultery (but never denies that adultery is a capital crime!), and many others. The short simple answer is, yes, God does approve of capital punishment; the long answer would be an extensive study on what sorts of things God considers worthy of death, and why, and when and why God prefers mercy. I don't believe I'm qualified to give an adequate response of the long sort, but I'd be willing to discuss my views on it in the comments section if anyone really is curious.

Verses 8-17 talk about the covenant that God makes that He will never destroy the world again through a flood, and He offers the rainbow as a sign of that covenant. The main beef that the SAB seems to have with this concept is a scientific one, that being that rainbows are a natural phenomenon. Personally, I don't see why this should be a problem. Just because rainbows may have existed before this covenant was made doesn't mean that God can't use them as a symbolic gesture. Take the early Christians as an example. They were of the habit of using a simple drawing of a fish as a symbol of their faith. Fishes existed before Christianity did, but they decided to use the symbol for their own purposes.

However, my own personal theory that I admittedly have little scientific basis for goes back to the water canopy theory. It seems to me that if the entire earth was covered with a layer of water acting a shield of some sort, then sunlight may not have refracted in precisely the way it does today. Furthermore, regarding this theory, you might remember that I had briefly speculated that it may never have rained before the flood. If it never rained, then there would never have been a rainbow. All of this is in the area of wilder speculation, of course, and the more important aspect of this part of the story is the symbolic aspect. The rainbow, as we now know, is not an actual bow, but is instead a circle that we only see part of from our vantage point standing on the earth. God uses the rainbow as a symbol, knowing that when we look at it, it will look like a bow, but without an arrow on the string. The symbolism is that God has fired this weapon He has, and He intends to now set it down, never to pick it up again.

The rest of the chapter is pretty much all about the drunkenness of Noah and the curse of Canaan. This is obviously a very strange story, and a lot of it that nobody really fully understands. The SAB gives a link to an excellent article on The Straight Dope, a site that I have a great deal of admiration for in many of these matters. (Even when I disagree with their conclusions, I respect the scholarship that went into them and consider them about as unbiased as it gets on the Internet.) It does seem a little odd to me that they link to an article that gives some straightforward answers to many of the questions they raise right before the link.

First of all, being drunk doesn't necessarily mean that you're not righteous, and I think it's perhaps quite understandable that after seeing the entire world destroyed, Noah might feel the need for a good drink, whether out of shock or guilt or depression. Secondly, being naked is also not a sin, especially if it's in the privacy of your own home (or tent as the case may be).

"What did [Ham] do besides look at him?" the SAB asks. First of all, looking at him alone is not entirely inoffensive; I think Noah has a right to some privacy, and Ham's violating that. On top of personally violating his father's privacy, Ham goes and tells his brothers that this is going on, as if it's their business! Granted, on the face of it, there seems to be very little reason to go so far as to put a curse on someone, and even if Noah was justified, it's not too clear why he curses Canaan rather than Ham. The Straight Dope gives the only possibility that even begins to make sense to me, that being that since Ham shamed his father, Noah shamed Ham's son. I don't know, though really, although there are a number of interesting speculations given in the article there. Actually, something that occurs to me now is that since at this time Canaan is the only offspring of Ham mentioned, he may in fact be the only one at this time, and Noah may be using Canaan's name as a generic label for all the descendants of Ham. Not that it fully justifies the curse, but it might make more sense.

Does God approve of slavery? That's a tough question that has been struggled with for a long, long time. You may have heard this sort of response before, but I do think it's the correct one. Yes, God does approve, but it depends on the definition of slavery. In Exodus 21, it's made clear that among the Israelites that slavery is never to be a permanent thing, and furthermore, slavery is essentially a voluntary position. There are some exceptions that get complicated, but the idea is that if a person sank into poverty and could no longer afford food, one could sell oneself to another person (but you couldn't sell someone else), and then they were bound to serve that person for six years, or until their price could be paid back, whichever came first. Maybe it's not ideal, but it's not the same as we think of slavery from the early 1800s, not by a long shot. (For more observations on the nature of Biblical slavery, see this post.)

But the SAB asks the excellent question "Are we punished for the sins of others?" Yes and no. Sometimes, we end up having to take responsibility for the sins of our parents and grandparents just because it's the natural result of what they did. For instance, when a pregnant woman abuses drugs, her child is often born with health problems, and that's not a curse or a punishment, it's just the way things are. Some things are more subtle, like parents dying and leaving you with their debts to settle, parents doing bad things to you that leave you emotionally scarred, and so forth. In general, it's just a fact that people tend to follow in their parents' footsteps, and if you do something that you really ought not do, your children may be cursed for it not because God's angry at you, but because they decided to follow in your footsteps. This may not account for every instance on the page linked, but I think it accounts for a lot of them, and I'll discuss other ones when I get to them. In this case, it may be the fact that Ham's immoral act performed for Canaan to witness it may have led Canaan into a sinful life which in turn led his descendants into sinful ways of their own. So think about the example you set for your children, all you parents out there.