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".

Now will we deal worse with thee, than with them (Judges 19)

Okay, time to get back to it; I've got to finish this book. As some might know, I've been out of work for a while, and it's been hard to focus at times when I feel that every waking moment should be spent in job searching. As it happens, I've also been involved in a Bible study with my church that's been taking up a fair amount of my time, being a bit more involved than the usual sort. This week, the topic of study is "work", which I've volunteered to lead the group on, out of my own love of irony. Of course, as is so often the case, in attempting to be ironic, I've also given myself a wonderful chance to be inspired by the subject matter. Work, wages, and money are big topics in the Bible, but here in Judges 19, we see some far less inspiring subjects touched on.

Now, while the SAB is virtually forced by the horror of this story to finally come back to commenting on the book, I might generously guess here that the shocking events in the latter portion of this chapter distract from legitimate concerns in the early portion of this chapter, and that's why no comments are given until verse 22. In the very first verse, we're introduced to the central characters of this story, a Levite and his concubine. Whatever the technical definition of a "concubine" is--which might be a useful topic of discussion in itself--it's certainly not a wholesome relationship by our modern understanding of the nature of marriage and sexuality, and there seems to be little to support the morality of concubinage anywhere in the Bible either, other than the fact that it is mentioned, which I repeatedly stress is no indication of condoning. Actually, for this story, it is of paramount importance to note that fact; there's pretty much nothing good happening in this story whatsoever.

If there is any lingering suspicion that this might be a wholesome family tale, the very next verse hammers the last nail in that coffin, as we read that "his concubine played the whore against him". Both of these verses should be rightly marked with the topic of "sex", and the SAB, which in other places seems eager to jump on such things, might as well have marked the second with "language", as "played the whore" hardly sounds like Sunday school terminology. (Everyone remember the episode of the Simpsons in which Marge asks the kids what they learned about in Sunday school? Bart replies, "Hell!" Homer chastises Bart for using improper language, but is assured by Lisa that it truly was the subject of the morning. Bart says, "I sure as HELL can't tell you we learned about HELL unless I say HELL, can't I?" Okay, enough Simpsons; the name "Jebus" appears enough in this chapter for any Simpsons fan, anyway...)

So after the Levite goes to get the woman back, and his father in law (His what? The Levite is also referred to as her "husband". I guess there's no alternate terminology for this relationship.) tries to keep the guy from going for several days, but eventually, he sets off. It gets late, and they need to seek shelter for the night, but the Levite insists that seeking shelter in a non-Israelite city is unacceptable. Perhaps this could be tagged with intolerance; he doesn't give his reasons for wanting to avoid the Jebusites, but in the end it he may regret his choice. The Bible doesn't give us insight into the inner workings of this guy's mind at all.

Interestingly, the Bible points out that he enters the city and sits down in the street because nobody offers him hospitality. As I noted in the earlier story in Genesis that bears a great similarity to this chapter, in the Middle East, hospitality is taken very seriously. The fact that he couldn't find a place to stay almost right away is culturally significant. "An old man" coming back from work sees him in the street and asks him what's up, to which he replies (probably in false humility, but once again, I'm only guessing) that although nobody has offered him a place to stay, he has everything he needs, and he's fine with sleeping in the street. The old man insists that sleeping in the street is not a good idea, and urges them to come into his house.

Now the story gets really familiar. A group of local men come to the house and insist to be allowed access to the Levite, "that we may know him." This is pretty clearly understood to mean that they're looking to gang rape this man for whatever reason, and I won't go into the issues that have already been addressed in the similar Genesis story, other than to note that it may be odd that the SAB tags this passage with a lot of topics, but does not include "homosexuality" as in the Genesis passage; as I think I said in the first story, homosexuality in itself is not really the issue here, but this is one of many stories in the Bible that is commonly linked to justification for homophobia, and for that reason alone, it might be worth labeling accordingly. The differing nature of this story lies in various notable details. This guy only has one virgin daughter to offer, and he offers her along with the Levite's concubine! I'm not sure whether we're to take it that this guy is a lousy host, or that the sacred protection of hospitality does not extend to female guests, or that the Levite was fine with this offer. The last of these possibilities seems least likely in many ways, but I actually wouldn't rule out anything. Despite what the note in the SAB says seeming to simply recap the story, there are at least two assumptions in there that need commenting on. First of all, the story does not say that "The mob refuses the daughter, but accepts the concubine..." It actually says that they refuse to listen, so the concubine is brought out to them. I've always imagined that this was a bit of a desperation move on the part of the men in the house to save themselves, hoping that once they actually have one of the women, they'll change their mind. This seems to work, and they have their way with her until the sun comes up.

Now comes what, to some, is the more shocking part of the story (although not to all; I've heard many women say that they'd rather be murdered than gang-raped, and I think I feel the same way), the guy takes the woman back home, chops up her body into twelve pieces and somehow mails these body parts to all the tribes of Israel, apparently with an explanation of what a horrible thing had happened. And here's the second assumption that I have a shocking comment concerning: nowhere in the story does it say "she crawls back to the doorstep and dies." I think people reading this story assume that, in hopes of retaining what few scraps of decency they can from an intrinsically indecent story. Remember how above I said I wouldn't rule out anything? That includes the possibility that the Levite butchered his concubine while she was still alive.

Yes, in reality, I have to say that this story is very likely far more shocking and disgusting than the SAB gives it credit. It's my own personal assumption on this, but consider: why the heck does the first half of this story have such a long telling of the tale of the father in law who is so reluctant to let his daughter go? Why is he trying so hard to keep this guy entertained and in his house rather than allowing him to go home? So many times in the past, I have read this story and wondered, is it an act of great grace that this Levite would take back his concubine after she "played the whore against him"? Are we perhaps to question his morality in being willing to take back a woman who was unfaithful to him, which might not be acceptable in the Mosaic Law? (Sure, there are a lot of Laws being broken in this story, but selective use of the Mosaic Law is common throughout history, even to this day of course.) I'm starting to think that it's much more likely that the Levite went to get his concubine back because he intended to take her home and punish her severely. Note that in the morning he talks to her (indicating to me that she's probably not dead), but shows no sympathy whatsoever for her ordeal (indicating to me that he doesn't care about her well-being).

To quote the SAB:

The story, which must be one of the most disgusting stories ever told, ends with: "consider of it, take advice, and speak your mind."

The SAB feels that anyone reading the story "will immediately reject the idea that it was inspired by God." Well, surprise! I don't. This story, while in God's book, has nothing to do with God, and in many ways, that's the point. The author of Judges is once again trying to imply, whether one agrees or not, that this is exactly the sort of thing one should tend to expect if a nation is given completely over to its own arbitrary morality and turns its back on God. To show the goodness of God's way, the book of Judges gives us this story along with so many others to give us something to contrast with it. Whether you personally agree with this view and/or believe in the God of the Bible, I hope you will agree that this story does show something worthwhile: that morality is not just an arbitrary and relative thing, but a real concern that should grip society. I don't care whether you are a Jew or a Gentile, Christian or atheist, gay or straight, Bible-believer or skeptic; some things are just plain wrong.

Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead (Judges 11)

Judges 11 gives us the very odd tale of Jephthah the Gileadite, a man whose life carries a few oddities that those like the SAB who like to find problems with the Bible are hardly going to overlook. Perhaps oddly, the SAB does not draw attention to the very first item of interest about Jephthah, the fact that apparently, he's a bastard. The fact that he is mentioned first and the following fact that apparently his half-brothers are afraid he will inherit from Gilead suggests that Jephthah is the eldest son, and may have some claim in being the rightful heir of Gilead. However, there is certainly a history (especially among the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) of firstborns not inheriting. Anyway, his family gets into some hot water with the Ammonites, and they come to him for help for some reason. He agrees to help in return for being made their leader.

The first thing he does as leader is send a message to the Ammonites looking for peace. I'm always looking for a hopeful suggestion where I can find it of a place where the SAB might add a "Good Stuff" icon; might there be one here? Certainly this is a much nicer approach than most guys in this book take. They argue back and forth a bit about whose land it is. Apparently, according to Jephthah, the land was won in battle from the Amorites (the SAB marks this fact as being bad for various reasons, but really, this is old news from back in Numbers 21, where Moses also tried to settle things peaceably, asking permission to pass through, and getting attacked in return, as we see briefly reviewed here in Judges. Sure, it's not all that nice that Sihon was destroyed by the Israelites, but this is largely a clear case of destroying a city in self-defense, oddly enough. Later in Jephthah's remarks, he points out that if indeed they think this particular part of the land belonged to them, it's odd they let the Israelites live there for 300 years without ever rectifying the situation. The SAB itself points out (although it calls it a contradiction) that the Israelites were ordered by God not to attack the Ammonites. Actually, they were ordered not to attack the land of the Ammonites, but this is the Ammonites attacking them.

Jephthah makes a remark that is much more thought-provoking to the SAB than it is to me, giving an apprent nod to the Ammonite god Chemosh. Does this statement imply that Chemosh exists, or that at least Jephthah thinks he does? I don't think so. I think this is an ironic statement on the part of Jephthah, although it certainly may have been stated in a manner that was meant to sound more polite, as in you serve your god in your land, we'll serve our god in ours, okay? As for the issue of the Bible containing statements that other gods might exist, I have formerly addressed that here. (Steve, if you don't mind, can you add a link on that page? I keep meaning to help you clean up the links between us, but I'm a terrible procrastinator.)

And now with all the pleasantries finished up, the battle begins, and the big issue of this story comes up. The "spirit of the Lord" comes upon Jephthah, (I was reading recently that this expression is often used in contexts such as this meaning not that the person becomes closer to God or anything like that, but that God gives them the power and wisdom to be a great military leader) and he goes to war. Early into the battle, he makes a rash and foolish gesture: he vows to kill the first thing that comes out his front door as a sacrifice to God when he returns victorious. When he wins, and he does return, the first thing out the door is his young daughter. Ouch.

The first thing to note is that nowhere does it say that God asked for this, so it is not proper to say that God approves. This was stupidity on the part of Jephthah to make the vow, and also to carry it out. There is more to say, though, in an odd musing that I myself have had with this passage. What was Jephthah really expecting? Does he often come home from work and find himself greeted at the door by...I don't know...a pair of turtledoves? What kind of stupid vow was that? I find myself wondering if he was expecting not so much a more proper sacrifice, but if he expected someone else to be at the door. I've never heard anyone else suggest this as a possibility, but the implications seem pretty staggering. Perhaps Jephthah was having domestic problems and hoped for an easy divorce?

Anyway, he comes home, and out comes his daughter, dancing with joy. He's not happy, of course, but feels he has to keep his vow. He gives her time to mourn her situation, and then sacrifices her. (Some have suggested that verse 39 is implying that rather than dying, she remained a virgin all of her life. This is definitely a possibility, but the verse is far from clear on the matter.)

Howl, O Heshbon, for Ai is spoiled (Joshua 8)

Well, I'm finding myself with very little time this morning for posting, but then I realized I have very little to say about this chapter, so I'll probably say it at great length anyway.

Contradiction is a funny thing, because I have my own standards for what I consider to be the difference between a "minor" contradiction and a "major" contradiction. Some people like to accuse me of hypocrisy for this, and I suppose like my standards, it's just a matter of personal opinion. For instance, despite my generalization of the average Christian's lack of criticism of the Bible (my first post), just last night I was at a Bible study at which we were studying Joshua 4, and somebody in my group said, "Hey, what's the deal with the fact that the priests set foot on dry land here? I thought the point of this was that they were on dry land the whole way through?" There's another one to add to the SAB, perhaps, although hypocrite that I am, I personally chalk it up to figurative language. (Either the verse in chapter three is meant to point out that they're not wading, or the verse in chapter four is meant to point out that they were no longer standing in the river; I think it's likely to be both.)

Apparently, this chapter of Joshua is loaded with contradictions, and I'll let you judge for yourself if they are major or minor, or indeed if they are contradictions at all. After all, it's not like I can stop anyone from having a personal opinion. As for me, I'm admittedly not certain on many of these, as they are a bit technical. I'll give a few suggestions and musings and move on.

Let me give the SAB summary of this chapter in a nutshell: Joshua leads his army against the city of Ai. Much violence and cruelty ensues, and it is claimed that the city was completely destroyed, never to be inhabited again. However, archaeology tells us that the city was already destroyed hundreds of years before Joshua got there, and other parts of the Bible say that the city was eventually inhabited. Contradiction with scientific findings, contradiction with itself, and not really a very pleasant story anyway; the Bible seems to be batting .000 here.

First, let me address the easiest point, one that will come up in Joshua again and again. Verse 28 includes the words "...for ever, even...unto this day." I have absolutely no problem with anything in the Bible that contradicts a statement like this, because supposedly this book was written by Joshua himself. If the city was reestablished after Joshua's death, then he would have had no reason to know such a thing. I think this phrase even crops up in other parts of the Bible, and I'm pretty sure we already saw it in Joshua, just not in a place worth commenting on.

I sort of wonder--although it's probably just me being a smartass and not admitting it to myself--how the SAB can say that the conquest of Ai was cruel right after they say it didn't happen? Of course, I suppose the SAB is operating under the assumption that most of this stuff never happened, so what can you say? The SAB really isn't required to be as consistent as one would expect the Bible to be, I'm reading too much into it.

So was the city of Ai already destroyed before Joshua got there? For the hundredth time, I'm no expert on science, history, or the subject where the two intersect: archaeology. There are a few things I could say about the subject, though. I don't know what techniques were used by archaeologists that dug up Ai, but it could be that Joshua destroyed another city in the same general area. Another thing that I find notable about the article the SAB links to (which I really should read, since I am fascinated by archaeology) is a passage that explains why the evidence is so damning to the Joshua account, and yet poses a new question in my mind.

The work of Kathleen Kenyon produced similar results in her excavation of the city of Jericho. Her conclusion was that the walls of Jericho were destroyed around 2300 B. C., about the same time that Ai was destroyed.(my emphasis)

Why is it that these two cities were destroyed for unknown reasons "about the same time"? All of this is speculation on my part, and will be taken as complete crap by skeptics, but is it possible that somebody is misdating either the ruins of these two cities or the date that the Israelites entered Canaan? As the article says elsewhere, "The actual truth about the battle will probably never be known."

I'm not going to delve into the issue of cruelty in any depth here, partly because war is simply cruel and violent by nature, and the meaning of this war is something I've already covered in detail. I will note that I don't think hanging the king's body from a tree is particularly cruel. I've often said that I don't much care what happens to my body once I'm gone; I'm not going to be using it anymore. As for the supposed irony of offering a "peace offering" to God in the midst of war, it should be noted that the purpose of the peace offering was to represent the peace between the Israelites and God, not the gentiles. No there would be no peace between Israel and surrounding nations for quite some time.

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:

"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.

Was not Rahab the harlot justified? (Joshua 2)

I was considering giving a bit of the standard talk about how the Hebrew word used here is questioned by some who believe that there is possibility that Rahab was not a prostitute, but an innkeeper. Sure, translation can be difficult at times, and it may be that the ambiguity is real, but then, one still has to wonder about the concept of a woman being an innkeeper in that day and that culture, when women generally did not hold down jobs but were required by their culture to take a husband. Even if she is an innkeeper, it might be by definition a tad shady to have strange men coming to stay overnight at the house of an unmarried woman.

Let's face it, though; Rahab was almost certainly an outright prostitute of some sort, but let's consider a few things in relation to that. First of all, the Bible does not say that the two spies went to her for her services as a prostitute. If the reader would like to imagine they did, I suppose I can't say that the Bible says they did not, either, so speculate away. Secondly, note that whatever it is she does for a living, it's not a secret; even the king seems to know about her.

It's this second point that leads to the third and perhaps most important point. What sort of city was Jericho? They had a prostitute who lived in a nice house attached to the city wall, everyone knew she was there and didn't care. In the end of our story, she comes to be rescued from the city because of her righteousness. Think about it for a minute. Yes, she was a prostitute. Yes, she was a liar. Yet still, she was apparently the most righteous person in that whole city. What does that say about Jericho?

What drives a woman to become a prostitute? Sure, there may be a number of reasons, but don't most of them boil down to the fact that when a society does not take care of its people, then those people will be forced to resort to immoral means of making a living? In my opinion, the real victim of the crime of prostitution is surely the prostitute. It may be that Rahab was sick of the society that had brought her to the state she was in, and that is why she was so very willing to cast her lot in with the Israelites. That's speculation on my part, but it doesn't seem too far out there to me.

What is not speculation is that at least in part, Rahab gives her reasons for protecting the spies. Verifying what I said earlier, back around, oh... here. Rahab informs the spies that everyone in the land of Canaan knows what happened in Egypt (and various other places) and that the God of Israel doesn't mess around. She knows that if Israel is headed this way, Jericho is about to be wiped off the map, and she needs to pick sides now.

This actually makes the moral value of her lies more ambiguous than some other ones so-called "righteous" people got away with, and it makes me want to make a slight backpedal on what I said about the issue in Exodus 2. Sure, Rahab is lying because she knows that it's the easiest way to save the lives of the Israeli spies, but she's also doing it to save her own skin. Furthermore, it is most likely in no small part due to her lies that her family becomes the only one saved from Jericho. I wonder whether turning in the spies might have resulted in more people being saved from the destruction of Jericho? (I've heard at least one pastor suggest that "spies" is not the best term for these men, but perhaps they were sent in to give a last warning to repentance.) I think this edges a bit further into the gray in the matter of lying to protect life.

Rahab helps the spies sneak out of the city, and they return to Joshua with the good news that all the people of Canaan are terrified of them.

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.

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 afterward shall they come out with great substance (Exod 1)

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season, whatever holiday you may have been celebrating, or if you at least hopefully got some time off of work or school. I was really quite busy myself, although obviously not with this blog. So, it's a new year, and time to start a new book. In the absence of any feedback at this time, I guess I'll just go on to Exodus for now, and see how this goes.

The first few verses of Exodus are a very short recap of the end of Genesis, and the SAB draws our attention to the inconsistency in verse five that I addressed in a previous post. Then, as a segue into the present time (of the story), we are told that in the intervening time, the nation of Israel grew quite large. The SAB marks this as ridiculous, apparently because we're talking about a span of about 400 years and a growth from about 100 people (70 men plus some wives) to "several million" (603,505 men plus their wives and children). I'm not sure why this is ridiculous, but there is also the "Science and History" icon given next to this comment, which I suppose is to give us a clue as to what's involved. If the issue is that it ought to be scientifically possible, then I don't quite get it. If the Israelites are fairly healthy and fertile, then increasing their population to a few million in 400 years doesn't seem impossible at all. Maybe someone who thinks so might be able to explain their math to me.

If the issue is the lack of historic evidence of millions of Israelites, then that's a whole other issue, and one that I ought to address at this time. I may have said it before, but it's certainly worth repeating that in matters of history, I'm far from an expert. I'm not going to be able to address most issues relating to inconsistency between Biblical and extrabiblical history, and it's at this point in the Bible where that will hinder me more than a bit in dealing with the SAB, I'm sure. All the stuff in Genesis largely happened before there was much in the way of written history, so we might as well take the Bible's word on those matters. Now, we've come to a time when things are happening that we'd expect to be recorded outside of the Bible. One thing I have heard is that the events of the Exodus ought to have been recorded in Egypt's history, but there is little or no evidence for any of it. It may be that the Egyptians chose not to record it out of embarrassment. It may be that the records of the events were simply lost. It may be that they were recorded in a manner that is simply unrecognizable since both the Egyptians and the Israelites put their own personal spins on the events. Or of course, it may have simply not happened. (You can probably guess that I am particularly opposed to this view.)

On the one hand, lack of evidence for something does not imply evidence against it. On the other hand, with events of the sort of scale being described in this book, the lack of historical record is undoubtedly suspicious; I won't pretend that's not true. I suppose the only thing I can hope for is that readers of the Bible, whether believers or not, will keep an open and analytical mind on the matters presented therein.

(I remember some time ago there was some excitement that some chariot wheels were discovered at the bottom of the Red Sea. A number of people latched on to the story and cited it as proof positive that the events of the book of Exodus were true in their entirely. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to think up at least two ways chariot wheels could end up at the bottom of the sea without appealing to God's wrath, as well as figuring out why, even if those wheels are from the army that chased the Israelites, it proves nothing about this book whatsoever.)

Okay, rest of the chapter... I notice the SAB has no note on a matter that's always bothered me: verse 15. Although it doesn't explicitly say so, and as such we can't say for sure that it was the case, it sure sounds like the entire nation of at least one million people has only two midwives. If so, these two women must have been awfully busy! Among the things they were busy with was lying to Pharaoh. The SAB notes that God rewards the midwives for lying to Pharaoh, calling it a contradiction. I strongly disagree. I think most people would agree, and the Bible seems to support this as well, that while lying is indeed a sin, there are times when lying is a preferable sin to the alternative. Let's see, they could lie to Pharaoh, or they could kill babies; hmmm...? Really, I think it's a no-brainer. (The SAB has a whole page on lying, and mostly because of this reason, I think I only have a problem with one of the verses cited.)

Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son (Luke 2:1-20)

Okay, what the heck. Here's the Christmas edition of the ASAB, as hinted.

So Luke chapter 2 opens with mention of the census tax in "all the world". While of course this is a clear hyperbole of a sort (surely there was not a Roman tax on people living in the Far East or southern Africa) it's not clear to what degree. One could assume that Luke means throughout the Roman Empire, as some translators have assumed (the NIV translates the phrase to "the entire Roman world", although I don't believe the word "Roman" is in the Greek text), but even with that assumption, I have heard that there is no historical record of a tax even of that magnitude. While that is not mentioned in the SAB, the perhaps more weighty matter of the timing of this tax is mentioned. While one might dismiss the above as hyperbole of a sort, Luke seems to be intent on being very specific with respect to the time frame, "when Cyrenius was governor of Syria." This is a well-known issue with this story, and there are various approaches to it that have been taken. The most convincing approach I have ever heard is that some scholars have suggested that Quirinius/Cyrenius actually served two terms as governor of Syria, the first being at the time of Jesus' birth.

(Note that as I think I said before--and if not, I say it now--I'm not highly familiar with the finer points of historical accuracy. This limits my abilities to respond to points such as the one above, but aside from the fact that I don't expect to be able to answer every issue in the SAB, it also presents an odd opportunity to go outside of my usual mode of response at times. That is to say, while most of the points I respond to that are not of an historical nature, and thus I respond to them using only logic and/or common sense, I am forced to respond to these (if I choose to) by doing outside research. I think that's fine, since in most cases, one would not know that these supposed errors exist without outside research to find them in the first place!)

For the purposes of the taxation, for some reason Joseph had to leave the town of Nazareth and come to Bethlehem. Supposedly Bethlehem was prophesied to be the birthplace of the Messiah, so it's good this worked out, and also interesting that God's will is exercised by the decree of a pagan king. (I love to point out to fellow Christians of a conservative political bent that if God's will can be worked out in men like Caesar, Herod and Pharaoh, then surely God would have no problem working with a Democrat in the White House.) The SAB contends that there is a contradiction with Matthew 2. While I may do Matthew 2 after I finish this chapter, I think the response to this is simple. Mary and Joseph (or at least Joseph) lived in Nazareth before the census. The census called them to relocate to Bethlehem. After the census, they decided to stay there, and lived there for a couple years before another temporary move to Egypt. In any case, wherever this "house" that they lived in was that is mentioned during the story of the Magi, it clearly was a place they lived about two years after Jesus was born. While there was no place to stay when they first came to Bethlehem, that doesn't mean they had to stay in the stable for two years.

Of interesting note, the Bible never says that they were in a "stable" per se. Because Jesus lay in a manger, people assume that the surroundings were a barn of some sort, but the actual nature of the structure Jesus was born in is not really known. Some people think he was born in a cave on the outskirts of Bethlehem which may or may not have held livestock. Also of interesting cultural note, as is seen later in the passage and explained more fully in the Old Testament, a woman giving birth would be considered "unclean", and need to be purified. In addition, anything touched by an unclean thing or person tends to also be unclean. Thus, if the inn had given them a room, they would have had to throw out or purify everything in that room that Mary had touched. Contrary to the image of a crowded inn with a kindly innkeeper who says, "You poor young folks, if only I could put you up...Tell you what, I'll let you have my barn!" it's quite possible that there was specifically "no room" for a pregnant woman in labor.

The fact that there were shepherds watching sheep at night suggests that this is not likely to be late December at all, of course. Most likely, it was a time with favorable warm weather, such as spring. I once read a book that suggested there was a significant astrological event that happened in early October of 6 B.C., and perhaps that was the "star" the Magi talk about seeing, and the weather would have been good enough for grazing sheep at night. Who knows?

The shepherds get invited to the party, so to speak, when some angels appear to them and tell them what's going on. They sing a little chorus of praise that ends "...on earth peace, good will toward men." This little song and other verses elsewhere lead the SAB to pose the very apropos question, "Did Jesus come to bring peace?" Some passages seem to suggest yes, while others no. The answer is of course, "Yes and no." How can this be? Well, the important question to ask is, "Peace with whom?" Jesus came to give an offering of peace between man and God. That much is very clear, and I believe that is what is meant by all of the passages mentioning Jesus bringing peace. Perhaps there are some that are clearly saying otherwise, and if so I will eventually get to them when I come to the New Testament. However, there is an unfortunate side-effect due to the fact that the world as it was then and is today is not in general at peace with God. As James says,

...know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

You see, the problem is that once a person puts themselves on the side of God, then they're not on the side of all the people who are not on God's side. (This is a difficult Biblical issue regarding the many meanings of the word "world", in this case meaning the non-Christian culture around us.) Put that way, it seems rather obvious, but the idea here is that the majority are not on God's side. Even today, only about one-third of the world is Christian. So no contradiction as such, but simply two different sides of the same coin. When you find peace with God, you will find that you will lose a lot of your other peace. (My roommate at the time I became a Christian was very irritated at my conversion, despite the fact that I was never preachy at home.)

Some have entertained angels unawares (Gen 18)

Chapter 18 is the prelude to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Chapter 19, and some elements of this story make more sense when you put the two chapters together, in my opinion. First of all, the SAB notes that "Abraham feeds God and three angels." Various religious traditions have different understandings of this story, but I'm not aware of any that have that particular understanding. If I'm not mistaken, the Jewish tradition is that God is not physically present at this meal, but only these three angels. Christian tradition states that either God is one of the three or, being a Trinity, God is all three at once. In any case, something one can see in the next chapter is that while three men come to Abraham, only two men/angels arrive at Sodom. I think the Jewish tradition might be that the third went to Gomorrah, which makes some sense, as it seems that if there's a need to send physical witnesses of some sort into the city before judging it, then both cities needed a visitation. Something odd about this story overall is that while both the cities are destroyed for their wickedness, we really don't ever hear any details about Gomorrah's issues.

While I have already addressed the question of whether or not God can be seen, something interesting to note about this story is that there seems to be little indication that Abraham realizes that these men are anything special at first. The wording of his greeting to them is different than the way he addresses God in chapter 15, but then again, he also speaks to God differently in verse 27 onward, when it seems pretty clear that he does know who he's talking to, so it's hard to say. (In the KJV, a word translated all-caps to "LORD" or "GOD" is a translation of the Hebrew name for God. At current, the SAB has the capitalization wrong for this chapter, so you can see the correct version here.) In any case, I think the real point here is a contrast in styles of hospitality between Abraham and the Sodomites. It's understood that proper etiquette in those days was that when you had a guest in your home, you would almost go so far as to act like their slave to show them proper hospitality, which may explain some of the bizarre actions of Lot in the next chapter. Abraham suggests humbly that he will get the men "a morsel of bread" and when they agree, he runs off and has a banquet prepared for them.

(Interestingly, the meal includes both meat and milk, a Jewish dietary no-no; while the dietary laws have not been handed down yet, it's fascinating to note it. Jewish tradition is that Abraham, despite living before the law, kept kosher, and many theorize that while he served meat and milk at the same meal, it was not part of the same dish, and the angels probably only ate one or the other.)

So the men ask where Sarah is. Once again, this is not a case of God failing to be omniscient, but merely a conversation-starter. While it may be possible that one of the angels asked, and he himself did not know the answer, it's not like they called her out to talk with her, they're drawing the subject to this message of her upcoming pregnancy. When Sarah overhears the message, she laughs, because she thinks it's silly since she's well past menopause, and perhaps isn't even having sex with her husband anymore. God hears Sarah's thoughts, and tells Abraham, asking "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" The SAB points out a few verses that name some things that are apparently too hard for the Lord, and while I'm tempted to simply answer the question "No," and move on, addressing those verses when I get to them, it's an important enough question to give time to here.

The three verses that are quoted on the page each have their reasons, and let me address the last one first: Yes, God cannot lie. This is not to say that God does not have the physical ability to lie; any being that has the ability to give information could conceivably give false information. However, God, by His nature, is unable to do anything but tell the truth. As for the other two verses, the answer is probably similar for both of them. In Mark 6, if you look at context, you see that the problem there is lack of faith. Some people have supposed that God is like a big engine that uses faith as a fuel, but that's not why faith is important. Note that just about everywhere else Jesus went, big crowds gathered around Him, eager for His wisdom, his forgiveness, and His miracles. Here, nobody shows up. What is likely happening is that Jesus is interested in doing miracles for people, but only for people who really want to see miracles, and are putting their full trust in Him. Jesus wasn't able to do much in that town because nobody wanted Him to, and so there was no point for it. The similarity in the Judges passage is that the people of Israel were fighting for God to take the land, but it probably was the case that when they got to whatever valley this was, they saw all the chariots and lost hope, never taking hold of God's promise that He would make them victorious. Note that it doesn't say they lost against the chariots, only that they couldn't do it.

So before they leave, God says, "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do...?" God's not "worried that Abraham might stop Him", He's asking a rhetorical question; it's His way of saying, "Y'know what? I ought to let Abraham in on what's about to go down here." So He explains it. When He says He "will go down now, and see" it's not an instance of Him being unable to see from Heaven, but something else. There's a pattern that recurs in the Bible fairly often that God always takes some concrete action before judging, in order to give a last chance. In this case, it occurred to me that God might be giving these angels the final say on the matter in a way, telling them, "I've decided that there's not much worth saving in these cities, so go down there and take a look; I've given you authority to do with them as you see fit." I think a more orthodox approach would probably be that the angels coming to visit is a final test to see how the people respond. More on this next chapter, I think.

Abraham, upon hearing the news, asks, as the SAB puts it "two good questions" about the destruction of S & G. These two questions are the beginning of a series of similar questions, of the form, "Will you destroy the city if there are X righteous people there?" Most people interpret this as Abraham bargaining with God, but the concept bothers me to some extent. It seems to me personally that a possibility is Abraham is trying to understand both the nature of God's justice and how wicked the city is. "Surely you wouldn't destroy a city if it had at least thirty good people in it, right?" "That's correct, Abraham." Maybe Abraham is indeed hoping if he gets the number low, God will change his mind, but I think Abraham is possibly thinking in the end, "Man, there's not even ten righteous people living there? What's my nephew doing living in a place like that?"

The sons of God (Gen 6:1-5)

The "sons of God" is an understandably confusing phrase. It occurs five times in the O.T., and six times in the N.T., and in many of the places it appears, it's clear what it's referring to. Unfortunately, this is not really one of those times. In those appearances in the N.T., it's really a reference to our (Christians') relationship status to God due to our response to the person of Jesus Christ. I think we can pretty much rule out that interpretation here. All O.T. instances of the phrase outside of this chapter occur in the book of Job, where it is pretty much universally accepted that it is referring to the Heavenly spirit beings that we call "angels". Now, some people have tried the suggestion that "the sons of God" and "the daughters of men" refer to the descendants of Seth and Cain respectively, but I'm not sure there's good evidence for it. Whatever is going on, though, the fact that it's mentioned in two verses sandwiching a verse in which God says He's not happy with what's going on seems suggestive that it's not good.

Oh, but to answer the question that the SAB poses regarding the number of "sons" God has, you have to look at the subtleties of the language and the theology. Note that the verses calling Jesus God's only son actually say "only begotten son," and that word is important. Every other being called the "son" of God was either created by God ex nihilo, or was "adopted" into His family. In a sense, all human beings are God's children, but this terminology is talking about a special relationship, as is the relationship we find a few chapters from here between Abraham and Isaac, where I'll probably talk a little bit more about this.

Back to God's actual words in that sandwiched verse, He says of mankind that "yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years." The SAB points this out as a possible contradiction to a verse in the Psalms claiming that men live to be only seventy. There's a lot that can be said about this. One thing is that of course either number being thought of as an estimate of how long a person might live is clearly an average. Not every man is going to live to be exactly 70, many will die young, some will live to be well over a hundred, so any specific counterexamples to this number are hardly breaking the general rule. It may very well be that the life expectancy at the time around the flood was quite different. Before the flood, we see the average life span of those people whose ages are given is right around 900 years old, while after the flood, the life span seems to quickly drop to about half of that, and continues dropping, tending towards the lower 100s (although admittedly never quite getting there). But lifespans aside, there is another possible meaning to this verse, and I think it's a likely one. When God says "yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years," what He may in fact mean is that the flood is going to come 120 years after the events being talked about here. Note that in the end of chapter 5, Noah is 500 years old, and the flood comes when he's 600, so it may be that the story is saying, "Around the same time that Noah was raising Shem, Ham, and Japheth, there was some stuff going on in the world that was making God very unhappy."

So what was making God so unhappy? I'll engage in some slightly wild speculation aided by verse 4. We've got giants, we've got "sons of God", and we've got some notable sexual unions happening. What is this all about? Believe it or not, it's a fairly commonly accepted concept that what's happening is procreation between human females and fallen angels. There is a theological doctrine that says that before the world was created, some of the angels in Heaven decided to rebel against God, and God kicked them out. (As some have pointed out to me, a lot of this we owe to Milton's "Paradise Lost" more than the Bible, but there is some Biblical basis for it.) After the fall, these creatures managed to gain free access to earth. The whole idea related to this short passage is that some of them figured out how to have sex with humans, and eventually, they somehow had children that, for whatever reason, were giants. (In the Hebrew, the word nephilim, translated "giants" actually comes from a root word meaning "fallen" or "cast down". It's also used in Numbers 13:33, where it's much more clearly referring to giants.) This was apparently an important part of the whole problem of the earth that led to God causing the flood.

Let me finish today's post with a look at verse 5, and what the SAB says concerning it. I think it's odd that in comparing this verse to 8:21, it's cited as an absurdity rather than a contradiction, but I guess sometimes it's a personal judgment call. Here, God says He's going to destroy every living thing because of the evil of men's imaginations, in the later verse, God says He's going to be nicer because of the same thing. I think you have to look at 8:21 more carefully.

And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.

Note that God doesn't say that He won't destroy the world because of this evil in men's hearts initially; He first says He won't "curse the ground". I think this primarily hearkens back to the curse from chapter 3, which given this verse, may in fact show to be more of a punitive thing than I had said in my commentary there, but it's hard to say. In any case, I think the point that God may be making here is that the world keeps growing steadily more and more evil, and in the end, evil is largely its own punishment. Why does God need to add any more of a burden on to the life of man to remind him of the fallen state of the world, when mankind has to live with itself day after day? Not that things will be rosy and cheery and all good, but that things are just going to be largely left to their natural processes. Furthermore, in the case of the flood, which is tacked on as an ending clause to this verse, I think God is saying that once is enough.

The way of Cain (Gen 4:8-26)

Sure enough, as God warned Cain, his jealousy and selfishness eventually led to further sin. Cain murders his brother.

I think in order to stay consistent with its objections in verse 3:9 and elsewhere, the SAB really ought to mark every passage in which God asks a question. If God knows everything, why is he asking questions? Of course, if anyone did indeed have a problem with this, it should be especially clear in this passage that God is not asking questions that He doesn't know the answer to, as He proceeds to essentially immediately answer His own question in verse 10. God's looking for a confession from Cain, but all He gets is a smartass retort, "Am I my brother's keeper?" (It's an interesting parallel in the KJV that Abel was a "keeper" of sheep, and Cain's final word on his rivalry is to point out that he's not a "keeper". However, I looked, and this parallelism is not in the original Hebrew, so it's just an oddity of this particular translation.)

Anyway, for committing the second murder, Cain gets a curse. It's not clear at all to me what portion of this curse is punitive and what is just the natural consequence of his transgression. Being "a fugitive and a vagabond" seems like the sort of thing that just plain happens when you're a murderer, since you will eventually have to flee the scene of the crime, and it seems somewhat reasonable to assume that all of the people in the world at this point, however many they are (could be several, although probably not many) all live in the same general area, and are near relatives of his brother and him. So, he has to run away. As for the ground somehow being even more cursed for him than it was for his father in the previous chapter, I don't know what that's about. Perhaps since they are likely living near the garden of Eden, the ground in that area is nicer than in outlying regions. That's pretty speculative, though.

So Cain proceeds to complain about his punishment, and claims that people will try to kill him. I don't really understand why he is so certain this would be so, nor why God seems to agree that there is a risk and protects him. Actually, the whole "mark" thing is rather odd, and I wonder what sort of mark a person might have that would say to any person he met, "Hey, don't kill this guy!" but apparently, such a mark existed. (I don't buy that this has anything to do with dark-skinned people, especially since it's likely no descendants of Cain were on the ark.) Most likely, God is interested in preventing vigilante justice; Cain has already received a punishment from God, nothing more is needed.

Cain also says to God, "From thy face shall I be hid." This is not to say that God shall be unaware of the doings of Cain from this point onward, but rather that Cain is turning away from God, so to speak. God has an eye on everyone in the world, but not everyone has an eye on God. Sometimes my children, when they get angry, will turn their backs to me, effectively hiding themselves from [seeing] my face, but not becoming invisible. This is the same sense that is meant by "out from the presence of the LORD" in verse 16.

Starting in verse 17, we get a sort of life story and genealogy of Cain. Yes, Cain had a wife. No, the Bible doesn't say where she came from. Most likely, she was a sister, but as some others have pointed out, she could have been a niece (although such a niece probably would have been the offspring of two of Cain's siblings, so it hardly makes her less of a close relative genetically). They settle down somewhere far away from the rest of civilization and start a family.

They also start a city, which the SAB is right to be confused about in light of Cain's curse to be a "fugitive and a vagabond". Such people don't make cities. Some possibilities come to mind, though. Cain did remain a fugitive from the other part of society for all of his life, I think we can pretty safely assume. The curse may have simply been that he had to leave all that he had previously held dear and relatively become an outcast. Another couple of possibilities both have to do with that part of his curse being temporary. God said he'd have a hard time with planting "henceforth", but doesn't really give a timeframe for being a vagabond. Either eventually it just ran out and was no longer effective (not all natural results of sin last forever), or if it was a punitive sentence set on him by the Lord, then he simply refused to comply. In the latter case, building a city was yet another act of defiance, which may well fit with his character as we know it.

I guess I'll wrap up this post with a few comments on Lamech, Cain's great-great-great-grandson, of whom for some unknown reason quite a bit is said. Perhaps the reason is that he seems to be exceptionally evil, although he does seem to have okay kids. Lamech is the first noted polygamist in the Bible. I already mentioned my view on the Biblical subject of polygamy at the end of this post, and I think all that needs to be added is that it's hard to see (at least for me) that the Bible is setting this guy up as an example of righteousness and right living. Lamech makes a claim at the end of his story that although he is a murderer, in the manner that Cain was promised to be avenged "sevenfold", he would be avenged "seventy and sevenfold". The SAB calls this absurd and unfair, and I totally agree, but I also point out that this is Lamech talking about himself, not God saying anything about anyone at all.

Aw, heck, I'm going to consider that the end of the chapter for me. There's really nothing to say about the last two verses that hasn't already been said about the first two in yesterday's post. Have a great weekend, everyone!

This beginning of miracles (Gen 2:1-3)

The SAB has no notes on these verses, but I wonder if we can pause for a moment and relax as God did after all of this and contemplate it over a nice glass of wine. I don't think it was ever stated in chapter one of the SAB outright, but it was implied that there is a big scientific problem with this whole week. Certainly everyone who is a skeptic knows it without having to be told. Here is the seventh "day", and we have to wonder as I hinted at previously what exactly does a "day" comprise of? Modern science teaches us that several billion years elapsed between the creation of the universe and the time the first man walked on earth. So is each "day" 24 hours, or is it some larger span of time?

Let's jump ahead about 4,000 years to a moment that is recorded in the Gospel of John, chapter two. Jesus is at a wedding feast, and a terrible faux pas has happened: the groom's family has run out of wine. Well, most of you probably know this one. Jesus takes six huge waterpots full of water and turns them into wine. A man at the party who was the first-century equivalent of a wedding planner compliments the hosts on the quality of this fine wine, not knowing that Jesus had just made it out of water.

The SAB has pretty much no comment on Jesus turning water into wine in this story. The fact is that, in a sense, it's not so very remarkable that he did it. I have a cousin who has the ability to turn water into wine actually, and he does it all the time. Of course, he's not as fast as Jesus; it takes him a little over a year to make a good wine out of water.

When the man tasted the wine and complimented its quality, do you think he pondered to himself, "This wine is good; it tastes like it was made in an instant from water a couple minutes ago!" Probably not. In fact, I'd venture that if you put Jesus' wine next to a regular wine, it would for all intents and purposes be impossible to tell which was the supernatural wine.

If God can create something in a second that usually takes a year or more to make, do you suppose He can create something in six days that "usually" would take ten million years to make?

Skeptics point to modern science and say, "We can see that there are stars more than 6,000 light years away, therefore the universe must be more than 6,000 years old. Therefore the Bible is incorrect." Sounds good, but remember this: God created light first.

Have you ever heard people ponder whether or not Adam had a belly button? Some say no, he didn't, because he had no mother. But if we consider Adam to be a normal man, he had DNA, and in his DNA, he had an X-chromosome; where do those come from? In every other man throughout history, it came from their mother. On this day, day seven, Adam was less than 48 hours old; ever seen a depiction of Adam with a bald head? It takes more than 48 hours to grow a full head of hair, so logically, he should be bald, right?

No, if you had cut down a tree in the Garden of Eden, it would have rings indicative of years it had not grown. Adam had characteristics of a normal man who had lived for twenty, thirty years or more because God made him complete. The night sky shone with light from stars thousands of light years away that had only come into existence two days before Adam himself did because God made the sky complete. What I'm saying is, can you think of any good reason why God wouldn't make a universe that had the perfect appearance of being over ten billion years old?

A lot of you have probably heard a form of this argument in people saying that the world was created with fossils already in place, or something like that. The standard response is, why would God want to trick people? Now, I'm not necessarily saying anything about fossils, but I'm definitely not saying God is tricking us. I'm talking about God creating a universe that is a work of art! If a painter uses their paints to make a picture of a landscape that doesn't actually exist anywhere but in their mind, do we say that they have intended to trick us, since the trees and the flowers didn't actually grow from seeds, but only appeared to do so? When an author creates an interesting main character, do we complain that that person appears to be a real human, but does not have an actual mother and father? God's making a work of art with intricate detail and fine craftsmanship, and if He doesn't have to skimp on the details, why should He? Indeed, why would He?

And why take ten billion years when He can do it in six days and have the same exact results? In the end, I don't think we really can know for sure, but given the fact that God is omnipotent, I see no good reason for a Bible-believer not to believe the world was created in exactly six literal days.

Let there be a firmament (Gen 1:6-8)

Okay, those skeptical readers that believe that all Christians are wing nuts are in for a treat today, because day two of creation is where my personal beliefs are, I realize, more than a bit out there. Of course, my personal beliefs do not reflect the whole of Christendom, but I didn't come up with this stuff on my own, and when you get to an odd passage like this, you have to develop some sort of understanding.

The SAB lists this passage as an "absurdity", and I'll be the first to agree, but once again, we're talking about the miraculous, and the stuff that happens during the first few chapters here is largely outside of the norm for the whole of natural history. Many translations find different ways to fit an English term to this "firmament", but the essence of the idea apparently is that the Hebrew word raqiya in this context denotes the idea of a large solid object that's holding up a sky full of water. Yes, the world as described by these three verses is a big underwater dome. The atmosphere is made by creating an air bubble in an endless sea, held open by this undescribed structure.

My belief? There's a theory about the antediluvian age among many Bible believers known as the "water canopy" theory. The idea here is that God originally created the world with the ocean waters suspended in the air, holding in a warm, moist atmosphere. Supposedly, this accounts for a number of things which come to their end in the flood of Noah's day. People living long, healthy lives due to a clean, oxygen-rich atmosphere and lack of cosmic radiation; largely unchanging weather conditions (it may have never rained before Noah's day!); and, some believe, the coexistence of dinosaurs with humanity. While a lot of this sounds pretty bizarre and silly, suspending your disbelief regarding this suspension of water you can see solves many other Biblical dilemmas, thus its appeal.

For probably most people, however, this passage is taken to be poetic in nature. While the sky is most certainly not a solid object as far as we know (and given that we have traveled into space in modern times, it seems we can rest pretty sure about that) the concept of haraqiya as a "bowl" shape still has some appeal. After all, even after the flood the term is still used to describe the sky numerous times; and really, isn't the sky shaped like a bowl wherever you look at it from the ground? There's a reason observatories and planetariums are domed: it's the essential shape of the sky.

And what of the "waters above the firmament"? Well, those would just be clouds. If this explanation doesn't suffice to fit your concept of "above", then I would say wait for the fourth day, I'm going to take some time to talk about translation and prepositions. It should either clear things up immensely or convince you more than ever that I'm a crackpot. Either should be entertaining.

Remember also that when God calls the firmament "Heaven", that there is some vagueness to that word. In the NT, the Apostle Paul refers to the "third heaven", and is clearly talking about what we tend to think of in reference to the word "Heaven". However, this concept of "third" is important, as there were three heavens. The first heaven is the atmosphere, the second heaven is outer space, and the third heaven is beyond space, the place where God lives. Many translations render "Heaven" in verse eight as "sky", because the Bible seems to clearly be talking about the atmosphere.

The SAB makes an interesting note that God doesn't call the second day "good." No explanation is given. I don't find this troubling, only thought-provoking. One possibility that I like, being a believer in the "water canopy" theory, is that when God creates the world with this form, He's looking ahead to the day when all this water He has put in reserve will be used to wipe clean the face of the earth. He's not happy about it, but He foresees it coming, so He makes this water canopy with a heavy heart, so to speak. Who knows?

Let there be light! (Gen. 1:1-5)

Now it's time to dive in with some specifics, right? I'm tiring myself, and I don't know if anyone's bothering to read this anymore, if indeed anyone ever was. Well, one last semi-generalized note, actually.

Not everyone agrees on this, but it's my own personal opinion that chapter one is intended to be poetic. In many ways it's very poetic in form and feeling, and as such, I don't think it's necessarily intended to be taken as literal. The real point behind this chapter is the creative power of God, not the specific fine detail regarding what He does with it. That said, I do think one can take this chapter in a fairly straightforward way nonetheless, and a rule of thumb for Bible understanding is that if you can find a way to interpret it non-symbolically that makes sense, you should probably go with that.

The main thing that is taken as poetic by many is the concept of seven "days". Is a day 24 literal hours? Well, who knows? In a sense, a "day" is the period of time it takes for the earth to rotate 360 degrees relative to the sun's position, but of course the sun wasn't created until day four, so what does "day" mean in a more practical sense for those first three "days"? Who knows, indeed. I reiterate that the Bible is not a science textbook, and the technical specifics of the creation are not the real point of the story anyway.

On day one, God creates light. The skeptic says, "But if there's no sun, how can there be light? This doesn't follow our scientific understanding of the order things were created!" Point one: the sun is hardly the only possible light source in the universe. Point two: I'm not a physicist, but I believe that in fact this does follow the current scientific understanding.

What does science say presently about how the universe began? In the beginning, there was nothing; and by "nothing" we mean that not even time or space existed. You could say that it was "without form, and void". Then, all at once, there was something! What was that something? Essentially, it was a tiny little ball of energy, which exploded and made everything in the universe over the course of an extended period of time, supposedly over 10 billion years. At first, this ball of energy was so hot and charged up with power that it was unable to condense into matter of any recognizable form, but it surely radiated off one thing: light, and plenty of it. To say that light was the first thing created in the universe is, I would say, the one thing in this chapter that precisely matches up with modern scientific understanding. But I don't want to lose sight of my repeated warning that we're not really talking science here. The Bible doesn't say where this light is coming from, so we either speculate, or we let scientists figure it out.

On the poetic side again, the "light" may be a very symbolic thing. While I could speculate on how "God divided the light from the darkness" is flowery talk about how eventually that proto-plasma (Is that a word? I don't know what to call it.) at the beginning of the universe eventually cooled enough to settle into clumps of gas separated by empty space, I think it's much more worthwhile to talk about the imagery of light vs. darkness that pervades the Bible from beginning to end.

There's a fairly common belief known as "gap theory" that speculates on why God would create the heavens and the earth "without form, and void". (Once again, I think this shows a misunderstanding of the sequence of events; verse one is not an event so much as a "thesis statement," if you will, of the story that follows.) That theory is concerned with a pre-history that supposedly occurs in a gap between verses one and two. I don't know it well, but I believe the idea is that God made the universe in verse one, something went wrong that was somehow related to an angelic rebellion led by Satan, and the upshot is that God had to wipe everything out and start over: verse two.

Whether you choose to interpret things that way (and it's quite a bit of a stretch, clearly) or not, it's compelling to think of God creating a world which he infuses with "light" (goodness) so that he can separate and drive away "darkness" (evil). Really, that's what the Bible as a whole is about, so putting it right there at the beginning is interesting. As I have heard many a pastor say, while we tend to see the "day" starting with light and ending in darkness, the Jewish reckoning is that the "day" begins at sundown, thus starting with darkness and leading to light.