tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3814380475027677722024-03-13T19:55:57.447-07:00ReallyAwakeGuy Reads the BibleReallyAwakeGuyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15736656268281182625noreply@blogger.comBlogger98125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381438047502767772.post-86329103376684619372016-09-19T17:39:00.000-07:002016-09-19T17:39:26.162-07:00Isaiah: Horse-Trading for Humans<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"> I'm
not dead! Really! Just been through a lot of changes this summer,
including starting a new job. Plus, I've been kind of focused on
other projects, since truth-be-told Isaiah is boring as fuck!
Motivation to trudge through it and try to turn some into blogging
material has been a tad hard to work up. As it turns out, the story
about Hezekiah I discussed in the previous entry (itself a redundant
and inconsistent retelling of a story we heard twice in Chronicles
and Kings) was the last thing resembling a historical narrative that
is contained in this Book. From here on out, it’s mostly devotional
poetry and sermonizing on a few repetitive themes. These are:</span></div>
<ol>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">God
is more awesome than sex.</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">If
you’re an asshole, it still pisses God off even if you give
sacrifices to make up for it. </span>
</div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Other
religions (and their followers) are stupid and/or evil.</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Someday,
every nation on earth will totally kiss Israel’s collective
backside.</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">God
is going to fuck up (or has already fucked up) everyone who doesn’t
do as he says.</span></div>
</li>
</ol>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"> Some
of that is written from Isaiah’s perspective, and other bits are
Isaiah claiming to be repeating God’s own words, but it’s
basically the same stuff over and over. Kind of like Psalms, much of
it would probably sound nicely poetic if one actually believed it
were about anything real, but otherwise it just seems indulgent and
repetitive. There are a few things, though, that stand out here and
there. So as with past posts about sections that have no narrative
structure, I’ll just highlight some bits that caught my eye. So, to
kick that off:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i><b>Isa
43:3</b></i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i> For I am
Yahweh your god, the holy one of Israel, your savior. I give Egypt as
your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you. </i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i><b>4</b></i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i>
Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I
give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life.”</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"> </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"> Ummm…
what? God is giving other people and nations as ransom for the
Israelites? Giving them to whom? Who could he be buying them back
from? Is this a reference to the Babylonian captivity, suggesting
that God is giving Egypt, Cush, and Seba to Babylon in exchange for
the Israelites? Can you picture God sitting down to negotiate this
sort of horse-trading with a mortal king (“Alright, I’ll give you
two Egyptians and a Cushite for one Levite, but that’s my final
offer!” “What?! Cushites are worthless! My kids will starve for
the price of a Cushite! I’ll need two Egyptians and two Sebites, no
less!”)? Or is this passage about ransoming the Israelites from
God’s own wrath for their transgressions, suggesting that he’s
willing to punish others for the sins of the Israelites? At any rate,
it couldn’t be much clearer that the god in question is the tribal
god of and for the Israelites, and fuck everyone else.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"> Moving
on, the next thing of interest is a bit railing against idolatry.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i><b>Isa
44:16</b></i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i> Half of
[the tree], [the carpenter] burns in the fire. Over the half he eats
meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says
‘Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!” </i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i><b>17</b></i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i>
And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to
it and worships it. He prays to it and says ‘Deliver me, for you
are my god!’ </i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i><b>18
</b></i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i>They know not,
nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so that they cannot
see, and their hearts,</i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i><b>
</b></i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i>so that they
cannot understand. </i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i><b>19</b></i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i>
No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say ‘Half
of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I
roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it an
abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?’”</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"> So
the message here is clear: how can anyone possibly think that the same
chunk of material they casually burn to make food could also be a god?
Isn’t that stupid?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"> Well,
yeah, it kind of is. If people who worshipped idols thought they
actually were gods, that would definitely be stupid. But that’s not
how I understand idols to work. As I understand it, nobody ever
believes that the little statue actually </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i>is</i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">
a god. They believe that the physical representation creates a
connection to the </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i>actual</i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">
god, who is a </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i>separate</i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">
being with its own independent existence elsewhere, and that this
connection is necessary in order for the worship/prayers to reach
said god. In other words, they don’t so much worship the idol as
what it represents. I’m not certain whether Isaiah understood the
distinction, and was intentionally straw-manning the process to make
it look dumber than it was, or if he really didn’t get it.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"> Not that it isn't kind of silly this way, either. Of
course, I’m also not certain why he thinks “They worship a chunk
of carved wood,” is inherently any dumber than “I worship a
story.” They’re both something that a person made, either way.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"> Later,
there’s a bit talking about the Persian King Cyrus who, if you
recall, is the dude who released the Israelites from their captivity
in Babylon and allowed them to return to Jerusalem to rebuild their
temple.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i><b>Isa
45:1</b></i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i> Thus says
Yahweh to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, to
subdue the nations before him and to loose the belts of kings, to
open doors before him that gates may not be closed: </i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i><b>2
</b></i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i>‘I will go
before you and level the exalted places, I will break in pieces the
doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron. </i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i><b>3</b></i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i>
I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret
places, that you may know that it is I, Yahweh, the God of Israel,
who call you by your name. </i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i><b>4</b></i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i>
For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by
your name, I name you, though you do not know me.”</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"> There’s
more. Like much of Isaiah, it really goes on and on, but I think this
captures the gist. Basically, it’s a passage nakedly claiming
credit for the military successes of Cyrus for Yahweh, in spite of
the fact that Cyrus did not worship the Israelite god. Nonsensically,
this passage claims that these victories were given to Cyrus so that
he would know that he was in Yahweh’s favor, in spite of the fact
that Cyrus was a devotee of Marduk and would naturally have given his
own god credit for them since he “did not know” Yahweh. It’s a
ridiculously self-serving assertion for Isaiah to make, being clearly
aimed at co-opting the gratitude the Israelites would have felt
toward Cyrus and redirecting it toward the god for whom Isaiah just
happened to be the spokesman. The fact that there’s no evidence
anywhere that Cyrus ever gave up worshipping Marduk in favor of
Yahweh suggests this whole idea of Yahweh directly having such a
conversation with him is completely made up.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><b></b></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"> Since
I'm still a good twenty-plus chapters away from being done with
Isaiah, and this is already running long, I think I'll call this done
for the day. Come hell or high water, the next post will be the last
on the Book of Isaiah. Y'all be well!</span></div>
ReallyAwakeGuyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15736656268281182625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381438047502767772.post-81087557016270085912015-12-28T09:59:00.001-08:002016-09-19T16:53:03.222-07:00Isaiah: Divine Lessons Versus Human Ignorance<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yep, we’re still chillin’ with the
Book of Isaiah today. And when last we left off, we were in the middle of
Isaiah’s retelling of the story of Hezekiah (which we first saw in Second
Kings). The part we just finished was about how Assyria invaded Judah and was
turned back. It seriously reads like some poor dude was trying to write down a
story about which he’d heard two versions (one in which the Assyrians turned
back because God made the king hear a rumor that Cush was going to attack him,
and the other where God sent an angel to slaughter his army en masse),
couldn’t decide which version to use, and just decided “Fuck it! It was both!”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Anyhow, with the Assyrian army out
of the picture for the time being, the narrative stays with Hezekiah. The next
event discussed is Hezekiah suffering from a deadly illness, during which
Isaiah comes to visit and basically tells him that God says he should make out
his will ‘cause he gonna die. This is not welcome news to the king, who bursts
into tears and prays to God to spare him. So God sends Isaiah back to tell
Hezekiah that he’s changed his mind and will add another fifteen years to his
life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Now the timeline here is weird. First,
all of this is written about after the Assyrian army has returned home and
we’re told that sometime later the Assyrian king had been assassinated. But
along with the promise to extend Hezekiah’s life, God was also promising to
defend him from the Assyrians, implying that this event was taking place during
the invasion. Secondly, in Isaiah 38:7, God (unprompted) turns the shadow on
the sundial back ten steps as a sign that he really will do what he promised.
Almost the whole rest of Chapter 38 is then dedicated to some prayer supposedly
written by Hezekiah as thanks to God for saving him. And then, at the very end
of Chapter 38 we get:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Isa 38:21</b> Now Isaiah had said, ‘Let them take a cake of figs and
apply it to the boil, that he may recover.’ <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">22</b> Hezekiah also had said ‘What is the sign that I shall go up to
the house of Yahweh?’”</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And that’s just a weird place for
it. It’s like the author forgot to mention it back when he was describing
Hezekiah’s recovery, then remembered later and couldn’t be bothered to rewrite
that section. So he just tacked it onto the end. It’s also weird because this
is a retelling of a story from Second Kings, and in that version the bits about
making the cake of figs and Hezekiah asking for a sign were placed in the sensible
order with the rest of the story. I guess the author of Isaiah was just kinda
crap with storytelling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The next little bit tells us about a
visit from officials sent by the king of Babylon to wish Hezekiah well after
his illness. He decides that the best way to demonstrate his hospitality is to
show off to them everything in the treasury along with everything else in the
realm that he owns. When Isaiah hears about this, he “prophesizes” that God has told him that after Hezekiah's death the Babylonians are going to come
sack Jerusalem and carry off Hezekiah’s own sons to be servants and palace
eunuchs to their king. Hezekiah’s response is… surprising.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Isa 39:8</b> Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, ‘The word of Yahweh that you
have spoken is good,’ for he thought ‘There will be peace and security in my
days.’”</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yeah… I could have thought of many
responses to Isaiah’s claim, but “Fuck my kids; at least things will be good
while I’m alive,” would not have entered my mind. This guy who begged and wept
for his own life to be spared (and had that request granted) just a chapter ago
couldn’t be assed to offer even a token prayer on behalf of his children and
kingdom for after he dies? Is this supposed to be demonstrating how good he is
for accepting God’s decree? Because he sure as fuck didn’t accept it when it
was his own ass on the line. Altogether, it makes Hezekiah out to be one
selfish, heartless dick. And maybe he was; I guess I can’t just assume that every
story is meant to give us some kind of a moral lesson. Maybe it’s just talking
about what the guy was really like. Who knows?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Anyway, that’s the last we hear of
the life and times Hezekiah for now. And the last we hear of narrative structure
for awhile, too – the next bit is really just worship poetry and prayers. The
vast majority of Chapter 40 is just going on ad nauseum about how wonderful God
is. Which, I suppose, might be taken as inspirational poetry if you happen to
already believe it. But if you don’t, it’s kind of tedious and overblown. But
there’s something in this section that might be worth commenting on before
bringing today’s entry to a close.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Isa 40:22 </b>It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its
inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain
and spreads them like a tent to dwell in.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This is one of those passages
Christians like to point out to claim as evidence that the Bible contains
miraculous knowledge that the people of the time could not have gotten on their
own. Specifically, that the earth is round (based on “circle of the earth,”
above) and that the universe is expanding (based on “stretches out the heavens”).
I would have to say that’s a bullshit interpretation. That passage is very
clearly (if somewhat poetically) describing a flat, circular earth over which
the sky is placed and stretched taught like a tent canvas. In fact, a tent is
the exact metaphor the text uses. Nobody who actually knew the earth to be a
spherical object moving through a vast and expanding universe would <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ever</i> use that metaphor to describe its
structure. And nobody reading that description who didn’t already know those
facts would ever glean them from that description. This does not describe
divine knowledge, but rather all-too-human ignorance, and the apologetics that
claim otherwise are simply pathetic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Anyway, that’s it for today. Much of
the rest of Isaiah continues without a lot of storytelling. I’m not sure
whether that will mean I can knock out the rest in a single post next time –
there are still twenty-six more chapters to go, after all, and surely some of
it will bear comment. But while we wait to find out, I hope you all remain
happy and well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
ReallyAwakeGuyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15736656268281182625noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381438047502767772.post-12547067059221766272015-10-20T09:52:00.003-07:002015-10-26T09:20:02.240-07:00Isaiah: More Prophecy, More Nonsense, More Death<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Well, I’d like to say it’s been
interesting reading the last few weeks of reading, but… yeah. The two dozen or
so Chapters that follow the point in Isaiah where I last left off mostly
consist of oracles: predictions Isaiah makes about the lands and peoples
surrounding Israel. They’re largely various forms of Isaiah indulging in poetic
revenge-porn fantasies about the differnet nations, races, and cities that are
either the traditional enemies of the Israelites or who he just personally
doesn’t like, mixed with the occasional predictions of future glory for the
Israelites (but only if they repent and go back to obeying Yahweh). Now, I’m
not gonna bother trying to research and confirm or debunk every single one of
them; this isn’t that kind of blog, and others have done that work anyway. But
there are a few things that are worth commenting on.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Round about Chapter 17, Isaiah
predicts that the city of Damascus and the nation of Syria will cease to exist.
You may be familiar with Syria and Damascus; they’re in the news a lot lately.
Because they still exist something like 2500 years after this prediction was
made. Of course, since the passage making the prediction doesn’t bother with
trivia like when or how any of this destruction will happen, plenty of people
like to argue that it just hasn’t happened <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">yet</i>.
But honestly “someday City X and Nation Y will cease to exist… eventually” is
so trivial a prediction that any rational person would ignore any claim that
it’s prophetic at all. It’s a statement that could be made about literally any
city and any nation ever founded, and it will eventually come true.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In the midst of Chapter 21 we get
the prediction that one day Egypt and Assyria will join Israel in the worship
of Yahweh. By a strict reading, not only has this not come true, but it’s
impossible for it to come true. You see, Assyria stopped existing a couple
thousand years ago. Of course, you could pull the popular apologetics trick of
claiming that this just means the people who live on the lands Assyria once
occupied rather than the actual nation of Assyria. And you could even really
make a stretch and claim it actually <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">has</i>
come true… but only if you make the assumption that Allah and Yahweh are, in
fact, the same god and Islam is Biblically valid. Somehow, I suspect most Jews
and Christians would not be willing to make that assumption. But in any case,
Isaiah 21:24 further claims that the three nations will worship together and be
“a blessing in the midst of the earth,” and I don’t know anyone with a
fucked-up enough world view to think <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i>
portion of the oracle has come true!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This is made all the more
entertaining by the fact that the book later includes two chapters demanding
that Israel not make alliances with Egypt, and detailing all the catastrophes
that will befall them if they do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Then there’s this little gem….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Isa 21:11</b> The oracle concerning Dumah.
One is calling to me from Seir, ‘Watchman, what time of the night? Watchman,
what time of the night?’ <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">12</b> The
watchman says: ‘Morning comes, and also the night. If you will inquire,
inquire; come back again.’”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The very next verse starts
introducing an oracle regarding Arabia, so that lovely little piece of gobbledygook
up there is the whole of the “oracle concerning Dumah.” You know how you can
shake a Magic 8-Ball, and get “ask again later” as a possible answer because
it’s just a child’s toy with no real clairvoyant ability? Yeah, that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A few more oracles, some chapters
dedicated to verbally fellating God, more warnings and condemnations of
everyone from the women of Jerusalem to the whole of the world… and finally we
get to something resembling history/storytelling in Chapter 36. Here, king Sennacherib
of Assyria invades Judah, and this section seems to be written in a historical
style similar to that of Kings and Chronicles. In fact, it’s a retelling of a
story from Second Kings, which is a good thing if you want to have any clue
what the context is supposed to be; Isaiah just jumps in right in the middle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Interestingly enough, this story is
quite literally the exact one where, in my own blog entry on Second Kings, I
declared “aw, fuck it!’ and started breezing through to the end out of sheer
boredom. It says a little something about what it’s like to read Isaiah that
I’m now willing to write about the same story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Anyway, Isaiah starts with the
armies of Assyria attacking and capturing a bunch of cities from Judah, then
starting to lay siege to Jerusalem. It leaves out the bits from Second Kings
about how the king of Judah had been suckling at the Assyrian teat, had
recently bribed them to attack and destroy the northern kingdom of Israel, and
had tried (and apparently failed) to bribe the Assyrians into forestalling the
attack on Judah that is the subject of this story. I think, based on trying to
piece things together in the various books, that the Assyrians were attacking
Judah to prevent them from allying themselves with Egypt against Assyria.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Anyway, the commander of the
Assyrian army (called the Rabshekah, which seems to be a title or military
rank), shows up at Jerusalem to demand that Hezekiah surrender and to taunt
them for the inevitability of their defeat. He makes a point of saying that
their god can’t help them, since Assyria had conquered so many other kingdoms
and their gods hadn’t saved them. He also mocks them for trying to rely on an
alliance with Egypt for protection. Rabshekah also tries, unsuccessfully, to
incite the people of Jerusalem to abandon their king and accept Assyrian rule.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After the Rabshekah left to rejoin
the Assyrian king, Hezekiah sent his servants to ask Isaiah for help. Isaiah’s
response was:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Isa 37:6</b> Isaiah said to them ‘Say to your master, “Thus says
Yahweh: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which
the young men of the kind of Assyria have reviled me. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">8</b> Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that he shall hear a rumor
and return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own
land.”’”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That just seems like odd and
pointless phrasing. Why not just “I’ll cause him to hear a rumor…?” Why does a
spirit need to be put in him that would make him hear a rumor. People don’t
hear rumors because of spirits, they hear rumors because other people speak
them. Ah, whatever.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Meanwhile, the king of Assyria is besieging
the town of Libnah, when he hears that the king of Cush is coming to attack
him. And this is where things get a little confusing. Not sure if it’s just
that the author of Isaiah is a shitty storyteller, or what. But it apparently,
after hearing this rumor, the king of Assyria sends Hezekiah a letter with
words to the effect of “I’m still coming to kick your ass.” Is this meant to
suggest that God’s spirit/rumor gambit failed to turn him back? ‘Cause that
would mean God lied and/or failed to do something he said he’d do. The book
never actually explains this, or comes right out and says what is really
happening either way. And since the Assyrian king eventually does leave (for
other reasons, as we’re about to discuss), I suppose it’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">technically</i> true that he 1) heard a rumor and 2) returned to his
own land, even though they are unrelated events and not linked as the little
mini-prophecy implied.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Hezekiah goes on another prayer
binge after getting this latest letter, and Isaiah delivers God’s response. It’s
weird, in that he’s speaking to Hezekiah even though portions of the response are
clearly directed at the king of Assyria as if he were present. But the long and
rambling response includes a promise to defend Jerusalem, which is accomplished
by sending an angel to kill a hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrian soldiers in the
middle of the night. This, finally, convinces the king of Assyria to go home to
lick his wounds, where he is eventually assassinated by a couple of his own
sons.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And that will be my stopping point
for today. When next we come back, we can get into Hezekiah getting sick, recovering,
and being kind of a dick about his own kids as we continue our wondrous exploration
of Isaiah.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
ReallyAwakeGuyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15736656268281182625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381438047502767772.post-22719250763435300142015-09-09T09:09:00.000-07:002015-09-09T09:09:17.466-07:00Isaiah: Predictions of Murder
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Holy shit, it’s been a long time
since I wrote in this blog!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In my (sorta) defense, I worked a
lot of 12 hour days since March. And I lost the thumb drive where I keep my
writing files. But I also managed to find time to put up several posts in my
personal blog, so those excuses don’t really fly. But if you recall where we
left off last time (or want to go back and read my previous post), you might
see why motivation could be pretty low.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Isaiah, also, is a bit of a
challenge to blog about. After all, it contains a lot of stuff that Christians
like to claim is prophetic. Some of it happened. Some of it happened, but in
different ways than Isaiah predicted, and some of it has never come true. Plus,
there’s good reason to think that the Book of Isaiah wasn’t even finished until
after some of the events it “predicts” had actually happened. I can try to
research all the claims, but the fact is that I’m neither a Biblical scholar
nor a historian, and I kind of have a life outside this book. This blog is
really only intended to be the impressions of an ordinary guy reading the Bible.
So I think I’m going to have to proceed with the policy of just commenting on
whatever I feel needs commenting on simply from a straight reading, and leave
it at that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Anyway, when last we left off, we
were in Chapter 6 of Isaiah, wherein God commanded his prophet to deliberately
deceive the Israelites into sinning more so that they wouldn’t repent and
therefore God could justify punishing them horrifically at a later date (people
find this stuff inspirational?). From there, we go on to a story from the time
of King Ahaz of Judah. In this, the northern Jewish kingdom of Israel has
teamed up with Syria to start attacking Judah, and Ahaz started losing his shit
over it. So God sends Isaiah to reassure Ahaz that God’s totally not gonna let
that happen. He even promises to give him a magical sign to prove that he’s
speaking the truth, which brings us to one of those passages that is, oddly,
held up as a prophecy about Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Isa 7:14</b> Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold,
the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">15</b> He shall eat curds and honey when he
knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>16 </b>For before the boy knows
how to refuse evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will
be deserted.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This is very obviously supposed to
be a sign that happens in the time of Ahaz (more than seven hundred years
before Jesus’ time) specifically in relation to his troubles with Syria and
Israel. I have no idea how anyone concludes it means anything else. I mean, the
Immanuel character in this “prophecy” isn’t even supposed to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">do</i> anything; it’s just predicting that
Syria and Israel will cease to be threats to Judah sometime between the kid’s
birth and him being old enough to eat solid food. Though maybe this was a case
where the lands of Syria and Israel were never actually deserted, and since
that makes it look like this was a failed prophecy the NT authors shoehorned it
into the Jesus story in an attempt to rescue it. But that’s just speculation on
my part. But what’s odd is how Chapter 8 starts out:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Isa 8:1</b> Then Yahweh said to me, ‘Take a large tablet and write on
it in common characters, “Belonging to Maher-shalal-hash-baz.” <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2</b> And I will get reliable witnesses,
Uriah the priest and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah, to attest for me.’ <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">3</b> And I went to the prophetess, and she
conceived and bore a son. Then Yahweh said to me, ‘Call his name
Maher-shalal-hash-baz; <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">4</b> for before
the boy knows how to cry “My father,” or “My mother,” the wealth of Damascus
and the spoil of Samaria will be carried away before the king of Assyria.’”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What’s odd about this? Well, it’s
strikingly similar to the Immanuel sign; a kid will be born and given a certain
name, and before he grows out of infancy the alliance of Israel and Syria will have
been defeated. It’s just that the name is different, and this time the kid is
Isaiah’s own son from banging a nameless prophetess rather than the fatherless
son of a nameless virgin girl (dude, Isaiah, women have names. Because they’re
people.). Is this maybe just a different telling of the same story? Because
it’s pretty damn redundant otherwise. And what is the point of the tablet in
the second story anyway? Just to illustrate that Isaiah had picked out the
kid’s name before he was conceived? Big deal. We’d picked out my daughter’s
name before she was conceived, too. None of this is explained, or even
mentioned again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Anyhow, seeing as it’s been a long
time since I read the Kings2 and Chronicles 2 versions of Ahaz’s reign (and I
skipped over writing about it in my blog entries on those books since it was
just another blip in the long parade of politicking and wars), I went back to
see if there was anything corresponding to all this. When I did, I discovered
that (surprise!) the two stories conflict: 2 Kings says Ahaz paid the king of
Assyria to come help him, which he did by invading Syria and capturing
Damascus, whereas 2 Chronicles says that Assyria took the money and still
didn’t help. How does Isaiah address the situation? By claiming that Yahweh
sent the Assyrians to wipe out Judah, and then would strike down Assyria for
having the unmitigated gall to think they had acted of their own accord instead
of as his tool.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Why would a people who weren’t in
Yahweh’s special favor and communication think to credit him for their own
decisions? No reason. Just that the claim that this is the case supports the
theological point the author is trying to make (that nobody should rely on
anyone other than his god for anything).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The next little bit is kind of tough
to get through coherently. It mostly consists of supposedly prophetic passages
about stuff that will occur in the future (relative to Isaiah’s time, though
since much of it never happened it’s often interpreted to still be in the
future relative to our time as well). Much of it is blood-drenched revenge
fantasies against the kingdoms of Assyria and Babylon, interspersed with other
fantasies of future glory for the Israelite people (after appropriate periods
of getting the shit whipped out of them by other people, who are really only
acting as god’s instruments to chastise them for their lack of slavish devotion
to him and his rules).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Among the predictions of a glorious
future is included the arrival of a new ruler for the Jewish people, who will
be a descendant of Jesse (King David’s dad, presumably). And this fellow, it is
said, will have an interesting method of ruling:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Isa 11:3</b> And his delight shall be in the fear of Yahweh. He shall
not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">4</b> but with righteousness he shall judge
the por, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike
the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall
kill the wicked.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So, ummmm… any guesses what the fuck
that is supposed to mean? It’s interesting that at such an early date the Bible
is already disparaging such ideas as evidence in favor of judging via
“righteousness.” Like, what does that even mean? Fuck information, if you’re
righteous you’ll just <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">know</i> what’s the
right thing to do? How does someone know they’re actually righteous, without
any information? If we’re talking about a human ruler (and bear in mind that
this passage gives no hints that anything else is implied), this would be a
clear recipe for disaster. But of course, I’m sure Christians are convinced
that the ruler talked about in this passage is Jesus. And since Jesus is God,
and righteousness is doing whatever God wants, then naturally anything he does
is righteous by definition. So I guess this passage amounts to “And he’ll do
whatever the fuck he wants, and kill anybody who disagrees, and trust me that
this is a good thing.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But what the hell could it possibly
mean to “strike the earth with the rod of his mouth?” I’m at a complete loss there,
and every image the phrase might conjure up is pretty disturbing to dwell on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Oh, incidentally, other features
included in the reign of this fellow are: predator and prey animals living
together in peace, children playing in perfect safety with poisonous snakes,
and the descendants of Judah and Israel teaming up to kill the everloving shit
out of the Philistines, Edomites, Moabites, etc., and plundering the nations of
the east. So… peace among animals, side-by-side with genocidal war among humans
(with, of course, the author’s people doing the genociding)? Like it matters
for shit that you’re no longer afraid of snakes, when God’s chosen people are
just going to come murder you anyway? Seems like more jingoistic fantasizing,
to be honest: things will be miraculously beautiful for us, while we run
rampant over all our old enemies.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This seems as good a point as any to
call it a day on this one. Hopefully I’ll be able to put the next post up in
less than the six months it took me to get around to this one. If you’re still
reading, thank you for your patience. And, until the next time, be well!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
ReallyAwakeGuyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15736656268281182625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381438047502767772.post-6297270614220255872015-03-19T09:49:00.003-07:002015-07-30T09:39:25.277-07:00Isaiah: Lies and Damn Lies Redux<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Book of Isaiah is one of those
supposedly prophetic books of the Bible. It’s famous for predicting the Jewish
exile in Babylon, despite the fact that the oldest known copy of the text has
been dated to more than a century after said exile ended. But whatever. It’s
also supposed to have some predictions about the Jewish Messiah (spoiler: Jesus),
though that’s fairly heavily disputed. But let’s dig in and see what the thing
actually says.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The book starts off with a section
that identifies itself as:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Isa 1:1</b> The vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, which he saw
concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jothan, Ahaz, and
Hezekiah, kings of Judah.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Clearly, we’re not talking about a
single vision here, since the time period it mentions spans somewhere between
thirty-two and one hundred three years depending on how much of Uzziah’s and
Hezekiah’s reigns were actually included. It’s unlikely Isaiah spent all that
time in a trance (or even alive). And anyway, he’s recorded as talking to some
of these rulers in Second Kings, so we know he spent at least a little time
conscious and interacting with the real world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What follows is a screed berating
the people for their immorality. Of course, the claim is not that Isaiah is
doing so, but that he’s relaying the words that God spoke directly to him in
his vision. It’s typical of the sort of fundamentalist rants we get in America
nowadays about how we’ve turned away from God and now he’s going to destroy us
all, only rendered in a more poetic and long-winded fashion. In the middle of
this rant, we get this interesting tidbit:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Isa 1:11</b> ‘What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices’? says
Yahweh; ‘I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed
beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">12</b> When you come to appear before me,
who has required of you this trampling of my courts? <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">13</b> Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me.
New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations – I cannot endure iniquity
and solemn assembly. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">14</b> Your new
moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.’”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On the one hand… didn’t God himself
require those sacrifices and feasts in the laws he gave Moses? Did he not, in
fact, declare that he adored the smell of burning flesh? Didn’t he declare that
nobody must ever appear before him empty-handed? Didn’t he say these sacrifices
would be a statute forever, and that nobody could ever alter the laws? Why yes,
yes he did. Now Isaiah is telling us that God doesn’t know where all that shit
came from and he hates it, so people should stop following those laws based on
his (Isaiah’s) say-so. Boy, it must be tough following arbitrary laws when they
can be arbitrarily changed by any ol’ bugger who claims to speak for the otherwise
silent and invisible lawmaker.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On the other hand… this is followed
up by saying that instead of just burning more animals the people should try
applying a bit more justice and charity instead. Isaiah seems to be trying to
push his theology in the direction of saying it’s pointless and stupid to burn
animals on an altar to make up for being a douchebag if, in the end, you keep
behaving like a douchebag. So... incremental improvement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Chapter 1 concludes with more about
how Jerusalem and Judah collectively suck balls compared to how awesome and
wonderful they used to be. So God is going to strike down the kingdom and
return it to the much better days when it was run by judges. That’s kinda
funny, because the Book of Judges bitched about how much everything sucked
without a king to keep everyone on the straight and narrow. The grass is always
greener, even if you’re God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Chapter 2 is short, and pretty much
just apocalyptic yammering about how someday God’s totally gonna just take over
the show of running the world in person. And on that day everybody in the world
will bow down and exalt him, and all that stuff. I think this is the first time
that kind of thing has shown up in the Bible, though it seems like pretty
standard rhetoric among fundamentalist Christians these days.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Continuing on, Isaiah talks about
how, in the meantime, God’s going to be working on destroying all the wicked,
cruel, and greedy people of Israel until only a purified group of righteous
folks remain. This is also pretty standard for modern days, but not quite as
unprecedented in the Bible since Moses sure liked to go on about the horrors
God would enjoy inflicting on people who rejected him. Though Isaiah seems to
focus a little more on social justice issues than mere obedience to the law. He
has a real objection to people gathering wealth to themselves rather than
seeing that their fellows have enough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There’s also an odd bit of argument
that suggests that people will behave unjustly because God has stopped
supporting them as punishment for… behaving unjustly. It’s circular and weird,
and kind of undermines the idea of free will yet again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Later, Isaiah compares Israel to a
vineyard that, despite all the care its gardener (God) has taken to ensure it
bears good fruit, produces nothing but junk. Basically, the analogy is to make
the argument that God will be justified in destroying the Israelites just as
the gardener would be justified in tearing up the vineyard. I think it’s an
equally valid interpretation to suppose that God’s just a shitty gardener, but
that’s not the one the author is going for obviously.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Now, to give credit where it’s due,
I totally sympathize with the social justice stance Isaiah is taking. It’s just
kind of a shame that he has no better argument for it than “So cut that shit
out or God’s totally gonna bust you up.” I suppose, in a highly religious
society, that might seem like a good argument to make… until Isaiah’s vision in
Chapter Six completely undermines everything he had said or ever would say. In fact,
I would go so far as to say that that this undermines the trustworthiness of the
entire Bible. Because in this vision, God issues Isaiah the following order:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Isa 6:9</b> And he said ‘Go, and say to this people: “Keep on hearing,
but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.” <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">10</b> Make the heart of this people dull, and
their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes and hear
with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.’ <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">11</b> Then I said ‘How long, or Lord?’ And
he said: ‘Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people,
and the land is a desolate waste, and Yahweh removes the people far away, and
the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">13</b> And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again, like
a terabinth or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled.’”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In case you missed it, that is God
giving direct orders to Isaiah to lie to the Israelites and teach them bullshit
about what God wants, so that they will continue doing stuff that pisses God
off so He can feel justified in punishing them. He specifically tells his
prophet to prevent people from understanding His wishes, because if they were
to understand and start behaving, he would have to forgive them instead of
killing the fuck out of ‘em. And God apparently wants to kill the fuck out of ‘em
way more than he wants anything else. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And that, my friends, is it for the
Bible. Because even if the god it describes really exists, everything in it
could be a lie specifically told to deceive you into pissing that god off so he
can justify fucking you up. And it would be that way<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> because that’s what God wants.</i> What teachings are true? What are
false just to create an excuse for punishment? There’s no way to know. By the
Bible’s own admission, everything in it is suspect.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Really, this isn’t even the only
place in the Bible this happens. <a href="http://reallyawakeguy.blogspot.com/2014/03/first-kings-lies-damn-lies-and.html" target="_blank">We've seen it before.</a> At this point, the only
thing that justifies reading any further is the fact that this book is such a
cultural phenomenon. So when I calm down a bit, I’ll get back to dragging
through Isaiah. But for now, I think it’s time for a break.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Y’all take care!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
ReallyAwakeGuyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15736656268281182625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381438047502767772.post-75266884641234605942015-02-17T09:53:00.001-08:002015-02-17T09:53:15.059-08:00Minipost: Psalm 137 - Blessed Infanticide
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Remember when I said I might come
back to Psalms to do mini posts on individual ones? Well, here’s the first of
those.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Many atheists love to quote the line
“blessed is he who dashes your babies against the rocks,” from Psalm 137 as a
refutation of the claim that the Bible is a perfect moral guide, because it’s an
obviously morally repugnant verse. But Christians love to protest that verses
like this are taken out of context. So in the interests of fairness I thought I’d
give this psalm a full once-over to see what possible context could possibly
justify the verse. Here’s the full text of Psalm 137:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Psalm 137:1 </b>By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept
when we remembered Zion. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2</b> On the
willows there we hung up our lyres. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">3</b>
For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying “Sing
us one of the songs of Zion!” <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">4</b> How
shall we sing Yahweh’s song in a foreign land? <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">5</b> If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill!
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">6</b> Let my tongue stick to the roof of
my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest
joy! <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">7</b> Remember, O Yahweh, against
the Edomites the day of Jerusalem, how they said “Lay it bare, lay it bare, down
to its foundations!” <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">8</b> O daughter of
Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you what you
have done to us! <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">9</b> Blessed shall he
be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>OK, so based on that it looks like
this is a song about the Babylonian Captivity, when the Hebrew kingdoms were
conquered and many of its citizens forcibly taken to live in Babylon. Those
events were described both in Second Kings and Second Chronicles. The Psalm
starts out as a lament for their current situation, and then it morphs into a
deranged revenge fantasy about murdering the children of their captors.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Nope. Sorry, the context still doesn’t
justify it. Murdering children because you’re pissed at their parents ain’t
cool, no matter how much the Bible seems to think that punishing people for the
actions of their ancestors is justified. Well, in some places, such as the
multiple times God orders genocides against people’s because stuff their
ancestors two centuries back had done. In others, the Bible tells you that
killing people for the sins of their fathers isn’t allowed. Because the Bible
can’t really get its shit together long enough to give any consistent moral
message.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And heck, even within the context of
the Bible itself, this is a shit attitude this Psalm is expressing. You see,
according to both the Kings and Chronicles accounts, God <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">caused </i>the Babylonians to conquer Judah in order to punish the
Israelites for not worshipping him properly. So this Psalm is a revenge fantasy
about killing children because their parents did the bidding of the god the
writer supposedly worships. It makes no fucking sense whatsoever!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So yeah… I’m gonna go with the
conclusion that atheist condemnation of this Psalm is fully justified.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
ReallyAwakeGuyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15736656268281182625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381438047502767772.post-69314148744574319592015-02-13T09:48:00.001-08:002015-02-13T09:48:38.310-08:00Song of Solomon: Bible Porn
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So… what would be the last thing you’d
expect to find in the Bible. If you answered “an entire book dedicated to passion
between two lovers,” then the Song of Solomon will be a surprise for you.
Written as a back-and-forth between a bride and her groom (with occasional
interjections from a chorus of onlookers), the Song of Solomon is all about two
romantics eagerly praising each other’s attributes. And from the very first
line (sung by the bride), you can tell that this isn’t about chaste and
virginal affection.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SoS 1:2</b> Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love
is better than wine; <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">3</b> your
anointing oils are fragrant; your name is oil poured out; therefore virgins
love you. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">4 </b>Draw me after you; let
us run. The king has brought me into his chambers.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What follows is a rather heated bit
of poetical romance. Some of it is quite fanciful, some of it is subtle (and not-so-subtle) double entendre, and some of it is… well…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SoS 4:5</b> Your breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, that
graze among the lilies.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SoS 4:11 </b>Your lips drip nectar, my bride; honey and mikl are under
your tongue; the fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“SoS 4:16</span></i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">
Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind! Blow upon my garden, let its
spices flow. Let my beloved come into his garden and eat its choicest fruits.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SoS 7:1 </b>How beautiful are your feet in sandals, O noble daughter!
Your rounded thighs<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>are like jewels,
the work of a master hand.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“SoS 7:6</span></i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">
How beautiful and pleasant you are, O loved one, with all your delights! <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">7</b> Your stature is like a palm tree, and
your breasts are like its clusters. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">8</b>
I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its fruit. Oh, may your breasts be
like clusters of the vine, and the scent of your breath like apples, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">9</b> and your mouth like the best wine.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So, yeah. Song of Solomon,
everybody. Not much more to say about it, other than that it may just have been
the wisest of the books attributed to him. Cold showers may be in order before moving
on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Next up is Isaiah, which is listed
at sixty-six chapters. Something tells me we’ll be awhile in getting through
that one! Until next time, be well!</span></div>
ReallyAwakeGuyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15736656268281182625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381438047502767772.post-9984737457944300442015-02-09T09:56:00.001-08:002015-02-09T09:56:22.186-08:00Ecclesiastes: Epic Whining
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Here we are again, back in the
saddle of my Bible blog. Today we’ll be diving into the twenty-first book of
the Old Testament: Ecclesiastes.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ecclesiastes seems to be an essay
written by an author who introduces himself as “the Preacher, the son of David,
king in Jerusalem.” By which I presume we are to infer that the author is
Solomon, and that we should therefore strap ourselves in for some mind-blowing
wisdom. And wisdom is one of the themes threaded throughout the essay, so I
guess that’s consistent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Apparently, Ecclesiastes is
considered highly quotable, since quite a number of lines and motifs from it
are referenced throughout popular culture. You might, for example, recognize
such staples as “There is nothing new under the sun,” and “To everything, there
is a season.” There are more, but I suspect one would have to read the entire
essay to pick up on all of them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Anyway, the book starts out on kind
of a bleak note with another famous phrase “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”
This continues into a lamentation about how temporary and kind of pointless
human lives are in a world of unchanging permanence where everything that
happens now has happened before and/or will happen again, and nothing genuinely
new ever happens.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From there, the narrative moves into a kind of
autobiographical story about the author’s quest to find out what purpose men
should have in life. It starts with his pursuit of knowledge and wisdom, which
the author proclaims himself to have acquired to a degree surpassing all who
came before him. But lest you think this is egotistical, he goes on to proclaim
the pursuit to be vain and merely “striving after wind.” His final conclusion
about the pursuit of knowledge?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Ecc 1:18</b> For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases
knowledge increases sorrow.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That’s sentiment with which I’m
fairly certain many beneficiaries of modern medicine would disagree. And one
which, unfortunately, seems to infect the mindset of many modern Christian
denominations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So, having dispensed with the value
of seeking wisdom, the author moves on to seeking pleasure. He goes on about
the masses of wealth he acquired, and the gardens he planted, and the many
slaves that he bought, sold, and bred (seriously, he really does, talking about
them in the same verse with his herds and flocks) and the many concubines he
bedded. He claims that, while he indulged himself shamelessly, his wisdom
remained as great as ever (leading me once again to question just what it is
that he thinks wisdom entails), but in the end he concludes that seeking
pleasure is just more vanity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After this the author returns to the
subject of wisdom and foolishness. And in his ruminations on the subject,
realizes that wise men and foolish men all die and are forgotten eventually. In
this section, we see kind of a prototype of the lame apologist argument that
the temporary nature of a material life means that it must be meaningless and
valueless. So, again, the author concludes that all is vanity with the added
proviso that now he hates life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The author moves on to a new subject
then: labor. And here he kind of bitches a moans that all the products of one’s
work and wisdom might somehow end up benefitting somebody else after one dies,
and that this is for some reason a bad thing. Basically, his complaint is that
the products of the labor or righteous men could end up going to sinners, and
the products of sinners could end up going to righteous men, so neither one of
them really benefits. Naturally, he concludes that labor and its products are
also vanity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Chapter 3 opens with one of the most
famous passages in the Bible: the bit about how “to everything there is a
season.” You may be familiar with it from the song “Turn, Turn, Turn,” by The
Birds, which faithfully reproduces the words nearly verbatim. But it also gets
referenced pretty routinely in other media.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>From here, the essay starts getting
pretty self-contradictory. There are passages that say the dead are better off
than the living, but later a passage that says it’s “better to be a live dog
than a dead lion.” Other passages lament that wisdom and foolishness are
equivalent since everybody ends up dead anyway, in the midst of multiple other
passages that claim it’s better to be wise than to be foolish. And, ironically,
passages that claim only fools throw out a lot of words while the wise say
little, but the author who claims to be wise beyond everybody else is
presenting a rambling, wordy, contradictory, and redundant spillage of words.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It’s difficult, really, to tease out
just what it is that the author is trying to say overall. I thought maybe it
was just me, but I did a little research and it seems that there really is a
lot of confusion as to just what the overall message of Ecclesiastes is
supposed to be. Many readers can’t even agree if it’s supposed to be an
optimistic or a pessimistic book. This has led some to speculate that it’s not
even supposed to have a coherent message at all, but rather intended to provoke
the reader into thinking about the topics on which it touches.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If that’s the case, though, I think
it’s rather unfortunate that the author chose to phrase so many of his
statements in very definitive terms (even the ones he contradicts). Some of
them really do come off as him giving specific advice on how to live one’s
life, and some of that advice is rather unfortunate indeed. Such as:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Ecc 8:2</b> I say: Keep the king’s command, because of God’s oath to
him. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">3</b> Be not hasty to go from his
presence. Do not take your stand in an evil cause, for he does whatever he
pleases. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">4</b> For the word of the king
is supreme, and who may say to him, “What are you doing?” <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">5</b> Whoever keeps a command will know no evil thing, and the wise
hear will know that proper time and the just way.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That reads a lot like “The ‘just
following orders’ defense is totally legit.” Or worse, a direct order to do
whatever a king orders you to do, even if you know it’s wrong. If the author
really was Solomon, then this is clearly a self-serving passage, and
unfortunately a generally worded command of the sort that has helped to justify
oppressive notions like “Divine Right of Kings,” for centuries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In the end, the author does seem to advocate
generally for taking pleasure in simple joys of life, though on little more
justification than “because God wants you to.” There also seems to be a rather epic amount of whining that this is the case, since the author seems to think it's poor reward and kinda pointless. But this is a book that is
clearly open to a great deal of interpretation. I highly suspect that another
reader could easily come away from it with a far different impression than I
have. So, like many of the more abstract books of the Bible, I’m going to have
to advise you to read it for yourself and see if it says anything of value to
you. For me, though, I can’t say that it did much.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Next stop on our magical tour of the
Bible: the Song of Solomon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
ReallyAwakeGuyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15736656268281182625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381438047502767772.post-28012092920973799612015-01-09T09:59:00.005-08:002015-01-09T09:59:59.873-08:00Proverbs: Some Won Ton Soup with Your Wisdom?
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So we’re continuing on with Proverbs,
which is supposed to represent the wisdom of Solomon in print form. And, in
case you need a reminder, the Bible claims that Solomon is the wisest man who
ever has or ever will live. That’s a lot to live up to. So let’s keep going and
see how well it holds up to the hype.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Anyway, when last we left off,
Solomon was advising (among other things) that going to prostitutes is an
acceptable way to avoid adultery. And then there are several chapters of long
soliloquys about wisdom again, once more personifying it as a woman. These seem
even more explicitly to be treating wisdom as a goddess than the previous ones.
For example:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Prov 9:1</b> Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn her seven
pillars. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2 </b>She has slaughtered her
beasts; she has mixed her wind; she has also set her table. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">3</b> She has sent out her young women to
call from the highest places in the town, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">4</b>
“Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!” To him who lacks sense she says, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">5</b> “Come, eat of my bread and drink the
wine I have mixed. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">6 </b>Leave your
simple ways and live, and walk in the way of insight.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That sounds an awful lot like
describing a goddess with her own temples, offerings, and priesthood, doesn’t
it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Anyway, once we get to Chapter 10,
we hit the main thrust of Proverbs: the actual proverbs, which will pretty much
occupy all but the last two Chapters of the book. If you want to get an idea
what it’s like, well, try to imagine that someone opened a couple hundred
fortune cookies and taped the fortunes down into the pages of a book. Complete
with the occasional baffling mistranslation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The vast majority of the proverbs
are simple pithy sayings taking up only a single verse, usually in the form of
“X does/is like Y, but A does/is like B.” Usually these are written by way of
contrasting some form of good or wise behavior with some form of bad or unwise
behavior. Let me just pick a representative excerpt to kind of give you the
general idea.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Prov 10:4</b> A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent
makes rich. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">5</b> He who gathers in
summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings
shame. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">6</b> Blessings are on the head
of the righteous, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">7 </b>The memory of the righteous is a
blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">8</b> The wise of heart will receive commandments, but a babbling fool
will come to ruin. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">9</b> Whoever walks
in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his ways crooked will be found
out. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">10</b> Whoever winks the eye causes
trouble, but a babbling fool will come to ruin.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That’s just a little sample. And
really, you could open Proverbs anywhere from the start of Chapter 10 to the
end of Chapter 29 and read pretty much the same thing. The details vary, but
not as much as you might think; like Psalms, there are a limited number of
themes and a good deal of redundancy. But Proverbs is vastly more readable, so
I was actually able to read through all the way to the end.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The general themes are: Laziness is
bad, adultery is bad (and generally a woman’s fault), fools are awful people
who deserve to be beaten, wives who talk back are just about the worst thing in
the world, don’t fuck with kings, good things happen to the righteous and bad things
happen to the wicked (contradicting Job), honesty is good, fear God, yadda
yadda yadda. There are so many proverbs, really, that any attempt to
encapsulate them all would be fruitless. I suggest just reading them yourself.
None appear particularly insightful, but I suppose that it’s just possible
that, for the time in which they were written, they might have been revelatory
grains of wisdom. But given the two-line compare and contrast format, each
individual proverbs couldn’t have been anything other than shallow sayings
anyway. Most just seem like “everybody knows this” kinds of things, but maybe
we only know them because they were written down here. Who knows?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But then there are some whose
inclusion is just baffling. Such as…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Prov 12:17</b></span></i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> </span></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Whoever speaks the
truth gives honest evidence, but a false witness utters deceit.”</span></i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yes, Solomon, thank you for telling
us the definitions of “speaks the truth,” and “false witness.” Or maybe you
were going meta and decided to define “tautology” for us? This needed to be
written down? And how about…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Prov 12:19</b> Truthful lips endure forever, but a lying tongue is but
for a moment.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This is one of those proverbs, of
which there are quite a number, that seem to be more in the realm of wishful
thinking rather than insightful observations on reality. I also find it
immensely ironic that it should be included in the pages of one of the most
enduring lies of all time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Prov 13:19</b> A desire fulfilled is sweet to the soul, but to turn
away from evil is an abomination to fools.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Can anyone tell me what the second
clause of that proverb has to do with the first? Maybe it’s being a bit
pedantic of me, but this kind of sentence construction is generally supposed to
be used to draw a contrast between related concepts. The concepts in this
sentence have nothing to do with each other. There are several proverbs that do
this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Prov 14:1</b> The wisest of women builds her house, but the folly of
her own hand tears it down.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Is this meant to suggest that even
the wisest women are so foolish that they inevitably destroy what they work
for? More sexist bullshit?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Prov 14:5</b> A faithful witness does not lie, but a false witness
breathes out lies.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yes, Solomon was so impressed with
his earlier tautology that he had to repeat it. See what I mean about
redundancy?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Prov 15:10</b> An oracle is on the lips of a king; his mouth does not
sin in judgment.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The king is always right? How
convenient for Solomon, given that he was a king and all. Surely this proverb
could only have been pure in motivation. In the verses that follow it, there
are several proverbs reinforcing the notion that kings are inherently wise and
just, and should be obeyed and/or appeased.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Anyway, this goes on and on through
Chapter 29. Chapters 30 and 31, the last of the book, purport to be the words
of different people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Chapter 30 opens by identifying
itself as “the words of Agur, son of Jakeh, the oracle.” It also seems to be a
collection of sayings, though in a different format than those attributed to
Solomon. Agur doesn’t restrict himself to single pithy compare/contrast verses,
often taking several verses to make a point. Here’s a small sample of the fare:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Prov 30:20</b> This is the way of the adulteress: she eats and wipes
her mouth and says, “I have done no wrong.” <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">21</b> Under three things the earth trembles; under four it cannot bear
up: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">22</b> a slave when he becomes king,
and a fool when he is filed with food; an unloved woman when she gets a
husband, and a maidservant when she displaces her mistress.</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As you can see, Agur continues the
trend of treating adultery as a female-initiated thing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That construction of “X is like Y,
X+1 is like something similar to Y,” followed by a list of X+1 things, is
repeated often throughout this section. It seems to be some kind of poetic
convention, as I’ve seen it once or twice in the Bible before this. But Agur
makes use of it far more than any of the other authors I’ve encountered thus
far.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Anyway, it’s just one chapter and,
like the rest of Proverbs, combines some insightful sayings with a mixture of
gibberish and biased judgment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The final chapter of Proverbs
introduces itself as “The words of King Lemuel. An oracle that his mother
taught him.” Wouldn’t that mean it’s actually the words of Lemuel’s mother, and
in the typical casual sexism of the Bible Lemuel is just taking credit? By the
way… King Lemuel is never mentioned anywhere else. Nobody seems to know for
sure who he is. One theory is that Lemuel is just another name for Solomon,
which would make the true author of these words Bathsheba. But whatever.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Chapter starts out with several
verses admonishing the king to not give power to women, and to stand up for the
rights of the poor and needy. There’s also a bit in there about refraining from
strong drink for himself, but rather to give it to the poor so they can drown
their sorrows. It’s a weird mix of healthy and unhealthy advice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>From there it continues into
discussing the wondrous virtues of a good wife. It’s a tad sexist, as might be
expected, but many of the values it expresses (industriousness, generosity,
kindness, providing for one’s family, etc.) are fairly laudable. It’s the only
extended portion of the Book of Proverbs that lauds virtues without also
condemning everyone who falls short of them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But now I have to single out a weird
translation nitpick:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Prov 31:21</b> She is not afraid of snow for her household, for all her
household are clothed in scarlet.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>OK, that doesn’t make a lot of
sense, now, does it? There’s no reason red clothing would ward off snow better
than any other color. But this line has a footnote attached to it, and if you
follow the footnote it informs you that the line can also be translated as “clothed
in double thickness.” What the fuck, translators? Given the choice between “scarlet,”
and “double thickness,” as a description of clothing that would ward off fear
of snow, you went with “scarlet” as your primary translation? In what way does
that make any fucking sense whatsoever?! No cookie for you!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Deep breath.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So anyway, that gets us to the end
of Proverbs. It was actually a fairly interesting read, and there’s some good
stuff to be gleaned from it. Though I must admit that it falls far short of
what I might expect of the writings of the wisest man who ever lived. It makes
a lot of assertions about how people ought to behave, but its reliance on
two-line fortune cookie style platitudes and/or weird poetic conventions means
it rarely provides reasons behind the advice it gives. Rather, it leans heavily
on simply insulting anyone who might reject any of the advice and occasionally recommending
violence against them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Next up: Ecclesiastes. It’s a short
book, so if we’re lucky we can toss it off in a single post. Until then, y’all
be well!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
ReallyAwakeGuyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15736656268281182625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381438047502767772.post-37626057587573189652014-12-10T09:53:00.001-08:002014-12-10T09:53:01.648-08:00Proverbs: What (or Who) is this Wisdom Thing?
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">This
post represents an important milestone. By starting the Book of Proverbs, I am
now officially furthest I have ever managed to read in the Bible. You may
recall from my introductory post way back in May of 2013 that my last attempt
to read this thing bogged down and ended with Psalms.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Of
course, if you read my last post then you know I cheated a little bit this
time: I skipped almost two thirds of Psalms. There’s a good reason it stopped
me the last time. Namely, that reading through the Psalms is torturously
tedious. So I told myself I’d try skipping back to deal with individual Psalms
later, and I’ve moved on to Proverbs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Oh!
Another milestone! I’ve passed the halfway mark! We’re on the downward slope
now!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Now,
Proverbs is set forth as a collection of sayings and essays from Solomon
himself, the Biblically declared wisest man who has ever lived or who ever will. What
should we expect? I mean, it probably won’t be as wise as the stuff God says
himself, because Solomon is only a man. On the other hand, he is the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wisest</i> man ever! So it’s gotta be pretty
good stuff, right?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Well,
the good news is that there does seem to be some good advice in here. On the
other hand, there’s some stuff that doesn’t seem so great, and there’s also
some total gibberish. But let’s start at the beginning.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The
Book of Proverbs opens up with a simple introductory statement that we are
reading the proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel. It then goes on
to say that to know wisdom, justice, and insight, a wise man must be willing to
listen to instruction and continue to learn. Not too shabby a beginning, until
you hit the seventh verse:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Prov 1:7</b> The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge; fools
despise wisdom and instruction.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">It
says a good bit about the character of the god Solomon is describing that he
should say fearing him is the first thing you should know. Not love, not
understanding, but fear. And I should point out that, logically, one would have
to know (or at least believe) this Yahweh exists and something of the brutish
nature of his personality before one could reasonably start fearing him. So to
say you need to begin at fear has already skipped a few steps. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Although…
it occurs to me that he could be saying that the thing Yahweh fears most is
people beginning to gain knowledge. That would be fairly consistent with the
rest of the Bible, actually, but it seems unlikely to be something Solomon
would have believed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Moving
on, though, Proverbs continues as though Solomon is explicitly addressing his
son with words of advice. And we do get some good advice about not letting
people talk you into doing such unpleasant stuff as murder and theft. Then it
just randomly moves into a section that kind of personifies wisdom as a woman
that talks to people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Prov 1:20</b> Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she
raises her voice; <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">21 </b>at the head of
the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance to the city gates she speaks:”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">What
follows that quote is a lengthy first-person soliloquy by this wisdom person
about how awesome it is to have her, and how calamity will befall those who
reject her. It includes imprecations about how, when bad stuff happens to
foolish people, she will laugh and mock them. It’s kind of a weird section –
especially in light of the fact that the Bible has consistently mocked and
derided the mental and moral capacity of pretty much everything female up to
this point. Why would it suddenly embody wisdom as a woman, then?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">There’s
an interesting theory floating about out there that the original form of this
section was about a separate goddess of wisdom (I’ve seen both Asherah and
Sophia proposed) who used to be worshipped as a companion to Yahweh, but whose
worship was later stamped out by the Yahweh cult. I didn’t dig all that deeply
into it, but it makes an interesting theory. It also makes a kind of sense in
light of the fact that the First Book of Kings tells us Solomon was chastised
by God specifically for the crime of taking up the worship of his wives’ gods.
Doesn’t seem like much of a stretch that he might have written some stuff
praising them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">On
the other hand, maybe Solomon was just being poetic and fetishizing women a bit
– he did have a thousand wives and concubines, after all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Anyway,
the monologue <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">by</i> wisdom gets us to
Chapter 2, where Solomon takes up monologue <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">about</i>
wisdom. And not so much about what wisdom is as about how awesome it is to
have. He also talks a bit about his belief that wisdom is given by God, though
it’s not terribly clear whether he means that wisdom involves following God’s
laws or that God directly puts wisdom into you as kind of a separate thing. But
he does say that once you have wisdom, you will understand righteousness and
the value of knowledge, and how to avoid evil; stuff like that. It’s all pretty
vague fluffy stuff, but it seems to come down to a belief that wisdom is
spectacularly awesome (expressed again in a few places by describing wisdom as
a “she”), and that it consists entirely of doing what God tells you to do
without burdening your head overmuch with stuff like independent thought.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So then we get into some actual,
concrete words of advice. And there’s actually some decent stuff in there (e.g.
“Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due,” “Do not plan evil against
your neighbor who dwells trustingly beside you,” “Do not contend with a man for
no reason,”). But then, once Chapter 4 goes back to referring to wisdom as
“her” we get a really bizarre verse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Prov 4:7</b> The beginning of wisdom is this: get wisdom, and whatever
you get, get insight.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Like, what the fuck does that even
mean? It starts of like it's actually going to define for us what wisdom is, but then descends immediately into gibberish! It’s word salad, completely devoid of content! This might
be excusable if the verses that followed somehow explained what it means, but
they don’t even make the attempt. Instead, we get yet another soliloquy about
how precious wisdom is, and how if you “prize her highly,” she will “honor
you,” and “place on your head a beautiful garland,” and “bestow on you a
beautiful crown.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The rest of Chapter 5 is kind of
self-congratulatory stuff about how Solomon has taught his son wisdom and given
him wise instruction, plus a lengthy diatribe against wicked people. That gets
us into Chapter 6, which is almost entirely dedicated to a long-winded warning against
adultery. Of course, that’s pretty easy advice to give for a man who literally
has hundreds of wives and concubines to choose from at any given time. And the
framing of the warning is along the lines of warning his son not to allow an
adulterous woman to ensnare him, as if the only way a man might commit adultery
is if the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">woman</i> seduces <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">him</i>. The long diatribe also contains
this bit of hilarity, in talking about the adulterous woman:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Prov 6:25</b> Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let
her capture you with her eyelashes; <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">26</b>
for the price of a prostitute is only a loaf of bread, but a married woman
hunts down a precious life.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yes, my friends, the Biblically-declared
wisest man the world has ever known, or will ever know, advises us that if we’re
so horny we’re thinking of sleeping with another man’s wife, we should just go
to a prostitute instead. This might be shocking to you, in light of the
expressed morality of the sort of people who claim to look to the Old Testament
for rules of behavior. But as I’ve observed before, it’s pretty clear that
under Old Testament law, a man is allowed to have sex with as many women as he
likes and it won’t be considered adultery <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">unless</i>
some other man has a prior ownership claim on her. Solomon’s advice is
perfectly in keeping with this idea, so at least it has consistency going for
it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Anyway, that’s probably enough for
now. Proverbs, I think, is going to be pretty tricky to write about for many of
the same reasons Psalms was. Even in this bit I’ve skipped over a lot, and I
suspect I’ll be skipping a helluva lot more before it’s done with. After all,
it’s thirty-one chapters long and I’ve only gotten through six so far. I don’t
really want to spend too many posts on it if it canbe avoided.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Until next time, everyone be well!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
ReallyAwakeGuyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15736656268281182625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381438047502767772.post-82834599551086880972014-11-05T10:48:00.001-08:002014-11-05T10:48:12.396-08:00Psalms: Poetry in Devotion
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So now
we’ve arrived at the Book of Psalms. This is basically a collection of prayers,
poems, and songs traditionally attributed to King David. They are frequently
quoted for inspiration and, in some interpretations, as prophecies (which seems
odd to me since I don’t recall David being attributed any prophetic abilities
thus far; maybe it comes up later).<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Being,
as it is, a collection of over a hundred separate short works without a truly
unifying story or theme, the Book of Psalms presents a challenge in how to
write about it. But for the sake of thoroughness, I don’t want to leave it out.
My first idea was to list each psalm along with a one- or two-sentence summary
of the central thought it embodies. But there are about a hundred and fifty of
them, so that started to become tedious pretty darn quick. Also, it gets
repetitive and vacuous just as quickly, because there really are only a very
few themes encompassed within that mass of poetry. These are (in no particular
order):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Kissing
God’s ass (almost every psalm combines this with one or more other themes)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Insulting/threatening
people with other religions or no religion<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Asking/thanking
God for protection from and/or assaults against opponents<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Bragging
about how righteous the author is<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Groveling<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 1in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">(Interestingly
enough) asking God for evidence that he exists and/or gives a fuck.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">That
being the case, there’s not much I can do beyond recommending that you read
them for yourselves. At least to the degree you can stand it. Whatever else you
may want to say about the author and his motivations, he is a poet and there is
some impressive use of words and imagery in the psalms. I’ll just warn you that
there’s only so much that clever language and imagery can do in the face of a
hundred and fifty works all pounding the same limited set of themes. It gets
really, really tedious and starts to blur together into a mass of repeated
phrases and praises, cursing and whining. In the meantime, I’m going to just
touch on a few things that stuck out to me along the way, and in the next post
we’ll move on to the Book of Proverbs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">And the
first thing that sticks out is the second half of the Second Psalm.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Psalms 2:7</b> I will tell of the decree: Yahweh said to me, ‘You are
my Son; today I have begotten you. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">8</b>
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth
your possession. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">9 </b>You shall break
them with a rod of iron and dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’ <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">10 </b>Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be
warned, O rulers of the earth. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">11</b>
Serve Yahweh with fear, and rejoice with trembling. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">12</b> Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for
his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The
author, theoretically King David, is declaring <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">himself</i> to be the Son of God, and demanding obeisance from all
other kings on threat of divine punishment. Christians will sometimes ascribe a
double meaning to this psalm, as if it refers to Jesus as well, but there’s no
real reason within the psalm to believe that. It’s pretty explicitly the author
that’s being talked about.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Skipping
down the line…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Psalms 14:1</b> The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are
corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Christian
apologists love to quote this verse when arguing with atheists, because it lets
them insult their opponents while pretending they’re making a scriptural
argument. But really, this is just a poetic way of saying “atheists are
poopyheads!” Which is not the level of intellectual discourse one might expect
from the supreme intelligence behind the creation of the universe.
Interestingly, this also suggests that even back in David’s day there were
people who didn’t buy into the god BS, and they were significant enough that
ol’ Davey-boy felt the need to throw out some anti-atheist propaganda.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">But in
case you miss it the first time (or in the more likely event that you just
skipped over it out of tedium), Psalms is glad to repeat the message in Psalm
53. In fact, the first half of Psalm 53 is almost word-for-word identical to
Psalm 14. I guess inspiration was running dry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Alright…
fuck… I can’t take it anymore. It’s been more than a month now since my last
post, because I just can’t force my way through this mass of poetic nonsense. I’m
only a third of the way through it, I’ve stopped reading every word, and I’m
just skimming at this point, and even so the tedium is wearing me down. It’s
just verse after verse after verse of the same stuff. “Please, God, help fuck
up my evil enemies who don’t believe in you even though your backside is the
greatest fucking thing I’ve ever applied my lips to.” I’m thinking the only
reason Christians think the Psalms are inspirational is because they’ve never
had to sit down and read them all. Maybe individually they work, but as a
single body they’re tedious as all hell.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">I’m
sorry. I really wanted to get through this. But it’s just so… damn...
mind-numbing! There’s so little that says anything interesting or novel, and I
can’t torture myself with it anymore. My recommendation: if you’re interested
in the Psalms, just flip the book open to a random location and read a bit,
then put it down. Any spot is pretty much the same as any other. So you’ll have
the gist pretty quick, and perhaps taking it in small doses will preserve your
appreciation for the poetry. Just please, for the love of your sanity, do not
try to plow through it from beginning to end.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Maybe
later I’ll come back and see if I can work up some enthusiasm for it in smaller
chunks. Perhaps I’ll do some mini-posts on single Psalms to mix in with later
posts. Actually, here’s something that might be fun: if anyone reads this and
wants to suggest a Psalm to get some commentary, I would be glad to take a shot
at it. But for now, I’m done with this book. Next up: Proverbs!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
ReallyAwakeGuyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15736656268281182625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381438047502767772.post-77264712673522181532014-10-01T09:01:00.002-07:002014-11-05T09:30:33.100-08:00Job: I’ll Take That Bet!<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">This is
one of the most famous pieces of work in the Bible: the Book of Job. I’m sure
most of us know it in its basic outline. Job is the most faithful of God’s
people in all the world, but Satan claims that Job is only faithful because he
has a good life. So Satan visits all kinds of horrors on Job in an effort to
get him to curse God. When Job remains faithful, God eventually rewards him.
That’s the simplistic version that I, and probably many others, got in Sunday
School. The story as it actually appears in the Bible is a bit more complicated
than that, of course.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">For one
thing… it’s forty-two chapters long! And the vast majority of that is
long-winded, almost indecipherably poetic speeches given back-and-forth between
Job and some friends.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">But
let’s jump in here at the beginning. The book opens by telling us all about
Job, who is a wealthy man with seven sons and three daughters. And Job loved
himself some God, to the point of offering extra sacrifices on behalf of his
kids, just in case they had any nasty thoughts about God when he wasn’t
looking. Then, after introducing us to Job:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Job 1:6</b> Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present
themselves before Yahweh, and Satan also came among them.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Hey,
look! It’s Satan again! This is, what, his third appearance in the Bible and it
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">still</i> hasn’t told us who the hell he
is! And speaking of uncertainty… who or what are the “sons of God?” Is Satan
one of them, or are we to take the wording “Satan also came among them,” to
imply that he showed up in a gathering of the sons of God even though he <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wasn’t</i> one of them? And I thought God
only had one son. Are these sons of God also one and the same with God just
like the most famous son of God? Are these the same fellows who were screwing
around with the pre-Flood women and creating Nephilim? This one sentence raises
so many questions, and we aren’t even into the story yet!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Spoiler
alert: the story answers none of those questions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Anyway,
God notices Satan and asks what he’s been up to. When Satan replies that he’s
just been wondering around the world seeing what’s what, God goes “Hey, did you
notice Job? Ain’t he just the best?” Satan, though, is unimpressed and says
“Feh! He only loves you because he has such a great life. I bet if you let me
fuck with him a bit, he’d curse you in no time!” To which God replies “I’ll
take that bet!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So they
establish the ground rules of the wager, which are that Satan can do whatever
he likes to Job’s possessions, so long as he doesn’t touch Job himself. Then
Satan skips on over to the Job homestead, where he arranges to have all of
Job’s livestock and servants killed or stolen. Then he kills all of Job’s
children by knocking a house down on them. Unsurprisingly to anyone who’s been
paying attention to the Bible thus far, servants and children are in the
category of possessions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Job
reacts as anyone would: by tearing off his clothes, shaving his head, and
praising God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Sometime
later, there’s another gathering of the sons of God, and again Satan joins the
crowd.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Job 2:3</b> And Yahweh said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant,
Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who
fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast to his integrity,
although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Are we
firmly established that Job is an innocent pawn in the game between these two?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Anyway,
Satan argues that a man can put up with losing everything he has, so long as
his person remains safe. So God tells Satan he can do anything he likes to Job,
so long as he doesn’t kill him. With the new rules in place, Satan skips off to
afflict Job with painful sores all over his body. And despite his wife’s urging
him to curse God and die, Job remains steadfast.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Next
we’re introduced to Job’s three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. These
fellows hear about Job’s misfortunes and decide to go visit him and try to
comfort him. They arrive at Job’s house, and then they all sit around silently
for seven days waiting for Job to say something.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Finally,
Job starts speaking. And this is where the language starts getting very dense
and poetic. There’s basically a long conversation between Job and his three
friends (with a fifth guy named Elihu cropping up toward the end just totally
out of nowhere) that takes up the vast majority of the book. I’m going to do my
best to summarize, but I warn you that I’m not a big reader of poetry. So fully
expect that I’m going to miss a lot of nuance here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Also,
most of Job’s dialogue is complaining and much of his friends’ arguments will
later be declared irrelevant or wrong by God. So… I’m not sure that it matters
how much nuance I lose. So this will be a really condensed version.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Job: “I
wish I was never born!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Eliphaz:
“You always encouraged others when their lives sucked, so whining now is kind
of hypocritical. Anyway, God makes the truly innocent prosper, so you’ve probably
done something wrong. You need to just accept this rebuke and turn back to
him.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Job: “No,
really, I’m innocent! I’ve always been completely faithful! I just wish God
would kill me now so I don’t have to suffer anymore!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Bildad: “Y’know,
your kids probably earned their deaths through their own sins. But if you’re
innocent and plead with God for mercy, I’m sure he’ll make the rest of your
life all wonderful and stuff.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Job:
“I’d love to plead my case with God. But how can I? He’s too great for me to argue
with, and there’s nobody in heaven to intercede on my behalf. And andyway, we
know good people suffer and bad people prosper. So what good would it do? If
only he’d show up and tell me why he’s doing this to me!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Zophar:
“Listen to you and your whining! You deserve worse than you got!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Job: “Hey!
You’re no better than me! I know as well as you do that God gives favor and destruction
where he will, but I’ve done nothing wrong! I don’t see why I should keep
silent about it. I’ll plead my case with God, hope that he’ll tell me why he’s
done this, and hope for a bit of mercy before I die.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Eliphaz:
“I don’t think you really fear God, or you’d shut your yap and start praying.
In my experience, wicked people are miserable even when they seem to prosper,
so you’re better off not complaining anyway.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Job:
“Dude, you suck at this consolation thing! If even my friends treat me like
this, I really do have no hope!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Bildad:
“I’m telling you, man, bad shit happens to bad people.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Job: “What
the hell is wrong with you? It’s not bad enough that God has destroyed my life,
but you gotta keep tearing me down, too? Someday I’ll stand redeemed before
God, but you’ll receive his judgment for being such dicks.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Zophar:
“Insulting us doesn’t change anything. God punishes the wicked, perhaps through
their children after they die, even if they’re allowed to prosper briefly.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Job:
“Bullshit! The wicked seem to do just fine, and you know it. Why should they
care if God punishes their children? They’ll be dead and won’t know about it
anyway. He should punish them directly.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Eliphaz:
“OK, look, maybe you really have been completely faithful to God. But you’ve
probably been shitty to other people, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that’s</i>
the reason you’re being punished now.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Job: “If
only God kept office hours, I could go and convince him that I am innocent of
that too. And even so, we know there are people far worse than me who seem to
prosper anyway.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Bildad:
“Don’t know why you think that matters. God is perfect, so next to him no mere
man can measure up.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Job: “Oh,
big help you are! That doesn’t get me one step closer to knowing what I did
wrong. I’m telling you, I can’t think of a damn thing, and I won’t lie and
claim I can! I’ve been faithful to God, and kind and generous to my fellow man.
Yet here I sit, held in contempt by even the lowest and worst of people because
God tore me down. If only God would tell me what I have done wrong, I would
bear my punishment gladly!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Now at
this point Elihu jumps in. It’s suggested that he’s been sitting here listening
to the whole prior conversation, even though (unlike all the other characters)
his presence is never mentioned up until he starts speaking. Just another
little example of poor storytelling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Elihu:
“You’re all so full of shit! Just listening to you makes me sick! All this
blathering on about trying to figure out what Job did wrong, when the truth is
God does tell you. You should be searching for his signs. He instructs you in
dreams, and through your suffering, and the signs contained in natural
disasters. You’re just too ignorant or proud to see it. God <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> just. If God hasn’t responded to you,
it must be because your complaint is unjustified.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Then,
out of nowhere (well, technically, “out of the whirlwind” whose arrival is never
mentioned), God starts talking to Job. Here it is! The Big Guy himself!
Finally, we’re going to get the explanation! The very reasoning of the divine
creator of all the universe. It will be inspiring! It will be so brilliantly
insightful that we will be left in awe and wonder, contemplating the breadth and
beauty of his amazing plan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Are you
ready? Here’s God’s divine reason for why he allowed all this awful stuff to
happen to poor devoted Job!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">God:
“I’m bigger than you, I’m stronger than you, and I’m smarter than you. Plus, I
made everything – including you and a whole lot of beasts that can totally kick
your ass. Until and unless you become as awesome as me, you have no right to ask
me questions or expect answers. So sit your whiny ass down and shut up!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">There’s
a great deal of grandly poetic language that goes with all of this, and a lot
of the imagery is quite good and impressive. I suggest you read it, really,
starting at Job 38:1. Christians love to focus on the imagery and poetry itself
without focusing too much on the message. But at its heart, it is a “might
makes right and I’m the mightiest,” argument.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Job’s
response: “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. May I have another, sir? Now that I see
you in person I see how incredibly impressive you really are, and I’m a worm
ever to have questioned.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">God then
turns his attention to Job’s friends.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Job 42:7</b></span></i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> </span></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">After Yahweh had
spoken these words to Job, Yahweh said to Eliphaz the Temanite: ‘My anger burns
against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is
right, as my servant Job has.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Remember
that Job’s friends had argued that God punishes the wicked and godless, and
supports the godly and innocent. We’re told that none of that is true, and in
fact it kinda pisses God off to claim that it is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So after
demanding a burnt offering from them, God allows that he will listen to Job’s
prayer that he not punish the friends for lying about him. Oddly, no mention is
made of Elihu in any of this conversation. Given that Elihu seems to appear and
disappear from the story without any references before or after, it makes me
wonder if he was an afterthought added in to fill out the arguments sometime
after the original story was written.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Anyhow,
with all of this done…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Job 42:12</b> And Yahweh blessed the latter days of Job more than his
beginning. And he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000
female donkeys. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">13</b> He had also seven
sons and three daughters. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">14</b> And he
called the name of the first daughter Jemimah, and the name of the second
Keziah, and the name of the third Keren-happuch. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">15</b> And in all the land there were no women so beautiful as Job’s
daughters. And their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So in
the end, God gives Job twice as much wealth as he’d had before, along with
replacement children who are even better than the children he’d had before.
Because, y’know, people are replaceable commodities that way, just like farm
animals. What parent wouldn’t gladly trade their children in for a
better-looking set?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">It’s
interesting that in the middle of all the debate between the human characters
about God’s motivations, we as the readers already know the reason that all of
this happened. Because God was settling a bet with Satan. And that fact is
never addressed again after the opening scene of the story. God certainly
didn’t cop to it when he finally showed up to put an end to the debate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">All in
all, the Book of Job attempts to address a certain formulation of the Problem
of Evil: “Why does God allow (or cause) bad things happen to good people?” And
the answer it seems to come up with is “You may never find out the reasons,
which may be (and even very probably are) quite petty and stupid. But that
doesn’t matter because there’s fuck-all you can do about it, so you might as
well accept it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Phew!
That was a long post, and took me a long time to finish it! Job really is a
much longer book than I’d realized, and it’s a very difficult read for someone
used to more prosaic material. But because it’s a single coherent story, I figured
it deserved to be addressed in one post even if that meant a really long one. I
hope you think that was the right choice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Anyway,
when next we come back, I’ll be tackling Psalms. That should be interesting,
since it’s really just a collection of prayers, songs, and poems with no
unifying story. But I think I have a viable idea for how to tackle it. So until
then, take care and be well!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
ReallyAwakeGuyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15736656268281182625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381438047502767772.post-55366767903964919542014-08-20T09:27:00.002-07:002014-08-20T09:27:23.289-07:00Esther: Countergenocide
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The Book
of Esther is the story of the origin of the Jewish holiday of Purim, and it’s
pretty short at only ten chapters. I suppose there’s possibly a little basis in
reality for it, but almost certainly it’s had some legendry attached – I just
don’t see real people acting in the way the people in this story act.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">It’s set
in the time of king Ahasuerus of Persia, and starts out with the king throwing
a massive party for his officials that literally lasts for months. On one of
the days, he summons his queen, Vashti, to come join him so he can show her off
to his cronies and have them ooh and ahh over how beautiful she is. But Vashti
refuses to come, and of course that pisses off his royal highness. Also, his
hangers on claim that an example must be made of her, or else all the wives in
all the kingdom will suddenly become contemptuous and disobedient to their
husbands. So Ahasuerus strips her of the title of queen with the promise to
give her title to someone better (i.e., more obedient). He then sent out a
decree to have loads of beautiful young virgins shipped into his harem so he
can choose a new queen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">This is
when we get introduced to Esther, a Jewish orphan who is being raised by her
cousin Mordecai. She fits the qualifications for the king’s decree, and so is
taken into the harem and quickly becomes one of the king’s favorites. He
eventually gives her the queen’s crown. At Mordecai’s insistence, she keeps her
Jewish origins a secret. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Now
Mordecai would hang out by the palace gates, and there were these two eunuchs
guarding it. And Mordecai overheard them plotting to assault the king.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Est 2:22</b> And this came to the knowledge of Mordecai, and he told it
to Queen Esther, and Esther told the king in the name of Mordecai. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">23</b> When the affair was investigated and
found to be so, the men were both hanged on the gallows. And it was recorded in
the book of the chronicles in the presence of the king.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Just
gonna leave that quote there. We’ll come back to it later.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">OK, so
all of that was just setup for the real conflict of the story. There’s this
dude, Haman, who is the king’s most favoritest official ever. So much so that
he gives orders that everybody is supposed to bow down and pay homage to Haman
whenever he goes by just like they would for the king. But Mordecai won’t do
it. So Haman gets pissed. But, being a monumental asshat, Haman isn’t content
to punish Mordecai for it. No, he decides that he’s going to destroy all the
Jews in Persia because this one dude won’t bow down to him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So Haman
goes to the king and tells him that all the Jews refuse to obey the king’s
commands, and so they should be destroyed. He also offers to pay 10,000 talents
of gold into the king’s treasury if he’s allowed to destroy the Jews. So the
king gives Haman is signet ring and tells him to write up the orders and send
them out to all the governors. Haman does so, and for some reason specifies
that all of this is to happen on one specific day nearly a year from the date
the orders were issued (the text says the orders were drawn up on the
thirteenth day of the first month, specifying the purge to happen on the
thirteenth day of the twelfth month).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Apparently
the whole thing wasn’t even kept secret. There were public decrees about the
upcoming purge, resulting in much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Weird.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">But
Mordecai has himself an ace in the hole: Esther.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So he asks her to intercede with the king. At
first she’s reluctant, on the argument that anyone who enters the king’s
chamber uninvited is supposed to be put to death, and the king hadn’t invited
her. For some reason, this hadn’t been an obstacle when Mordecai needed her to
tell the king about the plot in that section I quoted above. But now, with
dramatic tension needed, it suddenly becomes an issue.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Mordecai
overcomes Esther’s objection by telling her that if she doesn’t help, God will
just find some other means of saving the Jews and will kill her instead. This
is a pretty standard religious tactic, actually.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So
Esther agrees to try and prevail upon the king. She goes to visit him, and he’s
so happy to see her that he refrains from having her killed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Est 5:1</b> And the king said to her ‘What is it, Queen Esther? What is
your request? It shall be given to you, even to the half of my kingdom.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Now,
that would seem to be the answer to the problem right there. The king just
offered half his kingdom! Take it! Or at least ask for Judah back. Then all the
Jews can move there, and there would be no more left in Persia for Haman to
kill. Bam! Problem solved!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Oh,
wait, I forgot what book I’m reading for a second there. This is the Bible,
where a plan like that suffers from an insurmountable flaw that renders it
wholly unacceptable: nobody has to die.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So no,
given the option of requesting half the kingdom, Esther settles instead for
requesting that the king and Haman come to a private feast she prepared for them.
At that feast, the king again offers her half his kingdom, and she again skips
right past that to ask for the king and Haman to attend a second feast the
following day, where she promises she’ll finally tell him her real request.
What’s with all this coyness? The text never indicates Esther’s reasoning for
all this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">After
this first feast, Haman goes home feeling really full of himself. But he passes
Mordecai by the gates, and of course Mordecai refuses to bow as usual. So
Haman, head swelled with self-important rage, goes home and orders his servants
to build a gallows from which he intends to hang Mordecai.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Meanwhile,
the king finds himself unable to sleep. So he orders his servants to bore him
to sleep by reading from the court records (I guess they didn’t have a copy of
Leviticus or Numbers sitting around). One of the bits they read is the record
of Mordecai uncovering the eunuchs’ plot to attack the king. And the king is
all like “Wow! That was totally awesome of the Mordecai dude to do that! How did
I reward him?” I’ll reference you back to the quote I placed above, where it
says that these proceedings all took place in his presence in the first place.
I rather have the impression that the king is a complete mental deficient, or
at the least doesn’t give a flying fuck about running his kingdom. Either that,
or he’s just a plot device that people struggle over controlling, rather than
an actual character.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Anyway,
when his servants inform him that he’d done nothing to reward Mordecai, he
decides that’s something he has to fix right away. So when Haman shows up for
work the next day, the king asks him how he should reward a man he intends to
honor. Haman assumes the king is talking about him, and so he comes up with all
this elaborate shit about dressing the guy up in royal clothes and parading him
around town with people proclaiming how much ass he totally kicks. And the king
is like “Right! Do that for Mordecai!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So this
is already shaping up to be a shitty day for Haman, but it only gets worse when
he goes to the feast with Esther and the king that night. Esther finally gets
around to telling the king what her request is: that the king spare her life
and that of her people, because some wicked person has conspired to have them
destroyed. And the king’s response is “Gosh! What evil person would do
something like that?” as if he hadn’t personally given Haman permission to do
exactly that. And Esther names Haman. When Haman throws himself at her couch to
try and beg for mercy, the king thinks he’s trying to attack the Queen and so
orders him to be hanged from the very gallows Haman had made for Mordecai.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Then,
the king regretfully informs the Queen that any orders issued under his name
and seal can’t be repealed even by him. Because that’s not totally one of the
dumbest fucking rules that can exist in a kingdom. Not that it’s likely to be a
real rule; it’s probably just a plot device to make it necessary for there to
be shitloads of bloodshed to resolve a problem that could easily be solved
without it. What the king does do is give Esther his signet ring and permission
to give whatever orders she deems fit in place of rescinding the previous
orders he’d allowed Haman to issue.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So
Esther and Mordecai get together and pen a proclamation that, on the day when
they are supposed to be slaughtered, the Jews are allowed to gather together to
defend themselves (because I guess otherwise they just would have waited in
their homes to be slaughtered?). But not only were they allowed to kill their
attackers, the proclamation also gave them permission to go after their women
and children and to plunder their goods.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Like,
what the fuck?! You see what I mean about the Bible’s preference for bloodshed as
the solution to all problems, even if it requires the most moronic plot
contortions imaginable to allow it to happen? We’ve seen several opportunities
to resolve this issue turn up in the course of the story, and the one that’s
settled on is just to issue two sets of orders that essentially demand
genocidal civil war between two factions in the kingdom. No ruler capable of rolling
out of the puddle of his own drool would run his nation this way!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So
anyway, the appointed day rolls around and the slaughter commences. All of the
king’s governors and officials side with the Jews, so it’s kind of unclear
exactly who would have been trying to carry out the original orders to
exterminate them. Nonetheless, the Jews kill 75,000 people (no mention is made
of any Jewish casualties). Then Mordecai sends out letters to all the Jewish
people ordering them to keep an annual feast in honor of this day, and that’s
the feast of Purim (named for the lots, called Pur, that Haman had cast to
decide what day to carry out his attempted genocide).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So that’s
the story of Esther. In my opinion, it reads more like a “If you mess with the
bull, you get the horns,” kind of parable rather than an accurate portrayal of
historical events. But who knows? In my brief research, I haven’t found a
definitive conclusion either way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Next
time, we’ll get into a Book I’ve really been looking forward to: Job! Until
then, be well!<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
ReallyAwakeGuyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15736656268281182625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381438047502767772.post-46612392363632092812014-08-07T18:13:00.001-07:002014-08-07T18:13:30.137-07:00Nehemiah: Nothing to See Here<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">This
is gonna be short.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">The
Book of Nehemiah is a quick ten-chapter book about, you guessed it,
Nehemiah. Like Ezra, it kind of does this weird back-and-forth
between third person and first person. Most of it is first person,
though, and the third person bits are kind of slipped in subtly here
and there almost as if by accident.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Nehemiah
is cupbearer to king Ataxerxes. Presumably the second Ataxerxes, not
the first, since this book appears to take place around the same time
Ezra was in Judah. At least, Ezra gets mentioned as being present at
some of the ceremonies at the end of the book.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Anyway,
Nehemiah hears about how the Jews who returned to Judah are all
despairing because the walls of Jerusalem are broken down. So
Nehemiah asks the king for leave to go to Jerusalem and rebuild the
walls. The king gives him permission, and letters to the governors to
provide materials.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Nehemiah
returns and inspects the walls, doing it in secret because the local
officials are apparently pissed that he's there to try and help the
Jews. Long story short, he gets the wall built, and has the Jewish
people in the surrounding areas agree to send one tenth of their
population to live in and to guard the city. Even though there's all
kinds of rumors that their neighbors intend violence, nothing ever
comes of it.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">In
the end, we get the rededication of the new temple and walls, a new
agreement signed by the chief men to follow the Mosaic laws, and a
repeat of the bit from Ezra where they forced the Jewish men who's
married foreign wives to abandon those women.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">A
lot of the book is taken up with long lists of names, some of which
are redundant with the same lists from Ezra. Many of the events are
also redundant with the events of Ezra. But the thing that strikes me
most that is similar about the books? Both are the only books of the
Bible I've read so far that purport to be first person retelling of
events, and neither one of them contains a single supernatural event.
Or even something that could be reasonably interpreted as contact
with God in any form. Both authors are very quick to credit human
actions and emotions to God, but neither one describes anything even
vaguely like a manifestation of that being</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Just
found that interesting.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Anyway,
like I said, short. The next book is Esther, another short book, and
hopefully I'll get through that one pretty soon.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
ReallyAwakeGuyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15736656268281182625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381438047502767772.post-40029133780189265762014-08-04T09:42:00.000-07:002014-08-04T09:43:06.418-07:00Ezra: Racist D-Baggery<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Ezra is
kind of a weird book. It starts out in third person, then in the middle starts
being told in first person as though it were the personal account of this Ezra
person, and then it switches back to third person. There’s no reason given for
the transitions at all. So… yeah.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Anyway,
the book starts off in the first year of the reign of King Cyrus of Persia
(which by this point was in command of Babylon, where the captive Israelites
had been carted off to after Judah fell to the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar).
This is about 70 years after the fall of Judah, and as supposedly prophesied by
Jeremiah the Israelites are about to be released from captivity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So the
Book of Ezra starts out with Cyrus’ declaration that the Jews are to be
released and allowed to return to their homeland to rebuild the temple of God.
This apparently was part of his overall policy of allowing all the Babylonian
captives to return to their homes and return their religious icons that Babylon
had been in the habit of looting, but that policy gets no mention of the Bible.
It talks only of the Jewish people, as if they and their god were specially
singled out. It also claims that in his proclamation Cyrus credits Yahweh for
giving him his kingdom and calling on him to rebuild the temple. Thing is,
there’s this thing called the Cyrus Cylinder which is an original declaration
by Cyrus, and it explicitly credits the Persian god Marduk for his victories
and for the order to restore all the other gods to their various homes. So the
Bible may have a… creative interpretation of the proclamation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">There’s
also a funny bit where the book gives an inventory of the vessels being
returned to the Jewish people from the original temple.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Ezr 1:8</b> Cyrus king of Persia brought these out in the charge of
Mithredath the treasurer, wo counted them out to Sheshbazzar the prince of
Judah. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">9</b> And this was the number of
them: 30 basins of gold, 1,000 basins of silver, 29 censers, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">10</b> 30 bowls of gold, 410 bowls of
silver, and 1,000 other vessels; <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">11</b>
all the vessels of gold and of silver were 5,400. All these did Sheshbazzar
bring up, when the exiles were brought from Babylonia to Jerusalem.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">See the
problem? Hint: the Bible is bad at math. 30+1000+29+30+410+1000 = 2,499. Not
5,400.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">All of
Chapter 2 is spent on listing everybody who returned (I think by town), and
they’re all listed as “the sons of X…” followed by a number. So presumably this
dull recitation doesn’t include any of the women, as usual.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Anyway,
the exiles return to Judah and start rebuilding their temple. They get as far
as building an altar for sacrifices and laying the foundations of the temple
before they are approached by some of the people who’d been living in the area
since the Jews were spirited away. As you may recall, after conquering Israel
and Judah, the kings of Babylon sent some Israelites back to teach the people
who were living there in the Israelites’ place how to follow God’s laws in the
hopes that it would make life easier in that land. Anyway, these people
approach the newly returned Jews and say “Hey, we’ve been worshipping your god
here while you were away, and we’d like to help you build his temple.” And the
Jewish people told them to fuck off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">After that,
the locals start interfering with the building, intimidating laborers and
bribing officials to slow down construction. Eventually Cyrus is succeeded by
other kings, and the folks who are interfering with the construction write a
letter to the new king Ataxerxes complaining that the Jews plan to rebel once
they finish rebuilding Jerusalem’s walls. So Ataxerxes issues orders to stop
the construction, and authorizes the governors in Judah to use force if
necessary to prevent it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">This
stops construction for a bit, until Ataxerxes is eventually succeeded by Darius.
The under the urging of a pair of so-called prophets named Haggai and
Zechariah, the Jews just start building again. When the new governor asks who
authorized it, they say that king Cyrus had commanded them to rebuild. This is
technically true, it just ignores the fact that king Ataxerxes had
countermanded the order. But the governor writes to king Darius, whose scribes
find Cyrus original proclamation, and so Darius orders the governor to allow
the construction to continue. So the temple gets finished, and is dedicated
with the usual bloodlettings and burnt sacrifices.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">At this
point, seven chapters into the ten-chapter Book of Ezra, we finally get
introduced to Ezra. He’s this scribe who’s studied the law of Moses, who was
also apparently somewhat in favor with king Ataxerxes (since this portion of
the story explicitly takes place after the completion of the temple during the
reign of Darius, this can’t be the same Ataxerxes who ordered the construction
to stop before Darius was king. The Bible, in its usual clarity of writing, makes
no effort to distinguish between the two). Ezra is also apparently a direct
descendant of Moses’ brother Aaron, and therefore eligible for priesthood.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Anyway,
for some reason Ataxerxes sends Ezra to Jerusalem to teach the people God’s
laws, even going so far as to authorize him to appoint judges to enforce those
laws (which, frankly, seems like a really weird thing to do. Most kings send
governors to enforce their own laws, not the laws of some foreign god). The
Chapter starts out speaking of Ezra in third person, then provides a supposed
transcript of the letter in which Ataxerxes orders him to Jerusalem, and then
immediately after the letter the chapter finishes out with talking in first
person as though Ezra himself were writing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Another
fucking geneology of people who went with him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So
anyway, Ezra makes the journey safely, and presents all the wealth and
offerings and shit the king had sent with him to the priests at the temple. And
afterwards…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">9:1</b> After these things had been done, the officials approached me
and said, ‘The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not
separated themselves from the peoples of the lands with their abominations,
from the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites the Jebusites, the Moabites,
the Egyptians, and the Amorites. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2</b>
For they have taken some of their daughters to be wives for themselves and for
their sons, so that the holy race has mixed itself with the people of the
lands. And in this faithlessness the hand of the officials and chief men has
been foremost.’ <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">3</b> As soon as I heard
this, I tore my garment and my cloak and pulled fair from my head and bears and
sat appalled. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">4</b> Then all who
trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the faithlessness of the
returned exiles, gathered around me while I sat appalled until the evening
sacrifice.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Racist much?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The book
goes on to cover the lengthy and histrionic prayer Ezra sends up to god recounting
his deep shame for how disgracefully his people have behaved and how thoroughly
they deserve to be punished for their evil deeds in marrying whom they chose.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">And
then, suddenly, we’re back into third person for the final chapter. And in this
chapter, Ezra and the priests basically round up all the Jewish men who had
married outside their race, and force them to divorce their wives and disown
any children they had by them. Because Ezra and the priests were fuckers.
Religiously motivated racist douchebaggery is still racist douchebaggery.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">And that
brings us to the end of Ezra. There’s really no overt participation in the
story by any god, just people acting like tools on the basis of their past
pronouncements. Next up is the Book of Nehemiah, who I’m sure we’ll find is
just a swell guy. Can’t wait!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
ReallyAwakeGuyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15736656268281182625noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381438047502767772.post-243030634742046262014-08-01T09:55:00.002-07:002014-08-01T09:55:15.873-07:00Second Chronicles: Shoring Up the Image
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Holy
crap! It’s been more than a month since my last post! I’m slipping!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Well, Second
Chronicles has been a little bit of a challenge. Like First Chronicles, it is a
retelling of stories we’ve already read. As such, it’s tempting to jump back
and forth between the Chronicles version of each story and the Kings version,
comparing every little detail. But let’s be honest: this isn’t really that kind
of a scholarly exercise. I’m not a historian; just some dude with a life of his
own trying to read his way through the Bible and share his thoughts on what he
reads. So I’m gonna try and get this done in a single post, and just highlight
a few things that I think get at the general theme of the similarities and
differences.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Second
Chronicles starts with the reign of Solomon, and follows the story up through
the destruction of Judah and the kidnapping of the surviving Jewish people to
Babylon. But where First Chronicles tells abbreviated versions of the stories
it covers, Second Chronicles fleshes out the stories it tells a great deal
compared to the writings in Kings. It does this at the expense of ignoring
Israel altogether and focusing almost entirely on the stories of the kings of
Judah. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">It seems
that the general thrust of the expansions of the stories in Chronicles is to
make God come off a little better than the impression given in the Kings
accounts. For example, Chronicles tweaks the story of Solomon building and
sanctifying the temple in Jerusalem. In both accounts, Solomon holds a massive
ceremony to dedicate the new temple, which features a long speech about prayer
and blessings and stuff. In both books it’s essentially the same, but you can
see by comparing 1 Kings 8:50 to 2 Chronicles 6:39 where the Chronicles account
goes off the rails. In First Kings, Solomon proceeds from that point to invoke
a blessing on the people and enjoin them to be true to God before moving on to
perform the burnt offerings part of the ceremony. In Chronicles, he instead
ends the speech by inviting God to take up residence in the temple, and “fire
came down from heaven” to consume the burnt offerings. Just a little touch
added to make it look more like God was an actual participant in history.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Chronicles
moves on through the rest of Solomon’s reign, covering basically the same
territory as the Kings account. We get the Queen of Sheba story, and the waxing
eloquent on the vast wealth of Solomon and Israel under his rule. Chronicles
leaves out the bit about Solomon falling into idolatry near the end of his life
due to the influence of his many foreign wives and concubines, as well as God’s
declaration that he would split Israel after Solomon’s death as a punishment
for that faithlessness. Kinda glossing over the whole “punishing the son for
the sins of the father,” aspect of the original story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So the
story moves on through the splitting of Israel in two kingdoms (Israel under
Jeroboam, God’s hand-picked ruler who immediately turns to idolatry; Judah
under Rehoboam). Same story as before. And we go through Rehoboam’s reign to
his son Abijah, and from him to his son Asa who enacts a lot of reforms that
basically amount to persecuting adherents of any other religion. The story of
Asa gets expanded in Chronicles to condemn his making an alliance with Syria to
prevent Israel from invading, rather than “relying on Yahweh,” to prevent the
invasion. God declares that Asa’s punishment for this is to have more wars
(which means, essentially, that God punishes Asa by causing a lot of other
people who had nothing to do with his political decision to die violently,
which I’m sure we can all agree is the very embodiment of perfect justice). And
the expansion leads on to this little gem as well:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2 Chron 16:12</b> In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa was
diseased in his feet, and his disease became seere. Yet even in his disease he did
not seek Yahweh, but sought help from physicians. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">13 </b>And Asa slept with his fathers, dying in the forty-first year of
his reign.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So yeah,
in the context of Asa just having been punished (well, others punished on his
behalf) for failing to rely on God for war, this is a rather strongly implied
condemnation of his decision to see physicians to treat his illness. And while
that may have been a bad idea for the state of medicine at the time, people who
read this silly fable as unchanging wisdom for all time would certainly be
drawing horrifically bad medical advice from this passage in modern times.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Let’s
see… we next get an expansion on the reign of Jehoshaphat, complete with the
usual grossly inflated numbers for the size of his army and crediting his
sending priests about to spread the worship of Yahweh for the increased
prosperity of the kingdom. We also get a repetition of the story about God
sending a spirit to lie to his prophets in order to trick Ahab into going into
a battle where he will die (See my post titled “Second Kings: Lies, Damn Lies,
and Prophecies,” for details). This one is pretty much unaltered from the
original telling, so I guess the author was still comfortable with the idea of
God and his prophets lying to people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Jehoram,
Jehoshaphat’s son, gets a major expansion. In Kings his tale was just a
run-of-the mill “he did what was evil in the sight of God, and then he rested
with his fathers,” story. Chronicles expands him into a fratricidal tyrant (he
literally killed all of his brothers after assuming the throne) who is
eventually punished by God by having his family stolen by invaders and his
bowels destroyed by disease so that he dies in agony.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The
story moves on to Jehoram’s son Ahaziah. The Chronicles story doesn’t really
expand on the Kings version, but does manage to get many of the few facts it
does relate different. If you recall the Kings version (it’s covered in my
entry titled “Anniversary! And Murder Most Foul!”), Ahaziah’s uncle Jehu was
commissioned by God (through the intermediary of one of Elisha’s servants) to
kill all of Ahab’s direct descendants. So he murders Joram (the king of Israel,
Ahab’s descendant) at Jezreel, and also has his men shoot down Ahazael (who was
visiting Joram at the time) as he tried to flee the ambush. Then Jehu goes on
to murder all of Joram’s family (including the children). After that, he kills
forty-two of Ahazael’s family that he meets on the road. In the Chronicles
version, Jehu slaughters Joram and his family, then kills Ahaziah’s family on
the road, and only after that do his men track down Ahaziah hiding in Samaria
and bring him back to Jehu to be executed. So the deaths occur in different
scenes set in different places and in a different order. Y’know, in the manner Biblical
perfect consistency.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Skipping
generations, we get to an expansion of the story of Uzziah (also called Araziah
in the Kings version). The Kings version only said that he did what was right
in the sight of God (except for not destroying the worship sites of other religions),
and that God made him a leper in his old age for no stated reason. Chronicles
comes up with a reason: Uzziah tried to burn incense in the temple himself,
instead of leaving that to the priests. I’m sure that was a reason that must
have made sense to the guy writing the book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Anyway,
those are just a few illustrations of differences between Second Chronicles and
Second Kings. The general thrust seems to be to add stuff that makes some of
God’s decisions seem less arbitrary, the punishments more the fault of the
people receiving them instead of their ancestors, and God himself less absent.
Like Second Kings, Second Chronicles runs up to the destruction of Judah and
the Israelites’ captivity in Babylon. It ends after the establishment of the
kingdom of Persia, which controls Babylon, when the Persian king Cyrus decides
at God’s urging to rebuild the temple in Jerusalam and to release the
Israelites to return home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Phew!
Hopefully we’re done with redundant books for a while! At least reading new
stories should help to maintain interest, and I’ll be able to pick up the pace
of postings. We’ll be picking up next with the Book of Ezra which, clocking in
at only ten chapters, should be a pretty quick read.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Until
next time, be happy and well!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
ReallyAwakeGuyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15736656268281182625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381438047502767772.post-30018992950210146012014-06-19T09:50:00.001-07:002014-06-23T06:22:03.056-07:00First Chronicles: Department of Redundancy Department (Can’t Even Do That Right)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So,
remember at the end of my last post, how I said we might be able to get through
First Chronicles relatively quickly because it repeats a lot of what we’ve
already seen? Yeah… try one post. Yeah, it’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i> redundant. Just to give you an idea: it’s twenty-nine chapters
long, and the first <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ten</i> are spent on genealogies
starting all the way back at Adam. Including repeating the genealogy of Saul
twice. It’s like the author is just daring you to try and stay conscious while
reading this.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So
eventually we get an extremely abbreviated bit of Saul’s story (basically, just
how he died and David became king). Then an abbreviated story of David’s
kingship (more time seems to be spent listing his “mighty men” and their
accomplishments in the realm of killing people than on what David actually did
with his throne). Nothing new or interesting until we get all the way to
Chapter 21. Like much of what’s already passed this is basically retelling of a
story from an earlier book, but it’s at least an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">interesting</i> retelling. Because it starts like this:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1 Chron 21:1</b> Then Satan stood against Israel and incited David to
number Israel. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2</b> So David said to
Joab and the commanders of the army ‘Go, number Israel, from Beersheba to Dan,
and bring me a report, that I may know their number.’”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">First
interesting thing about this: who the fuck is Satan?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Now,
obviously, I know who Satan is. He’s the great bogeyman of Christian mythology,
with the horns and the pitchfork and the fallen angelness and shit. But this is
the first time Satan is mentioned by name in the Bible. And there is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">no context whatsoever!</i> Just a name, with
absolutely nothing to connect it to who or what it’s supposed to be. For all we
know, it could be a treacherous advisor of David’s, or the king of another
nation, or a spirit, or whatever the hell you might think of that could have
some reason to dislike Israel. And it’s not like it’s further explained later
in the story, either – that one passage right there is the only mention of
Satan and he completely disappears for the rest of the story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The
other interesting thing about that passage is that it’s kicking off a retelling
of an event we already read about in Second Samuel. Allow me to refresh your
memory.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2 Sam 24:1</b> Again the anger of Yahweh was kindled against Israel,
and he incited David to go against them, saying ‘Go, number Israel and Judah.’ <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2 </b>So the king said to Joab, the
commander of the army, who was with him, ‘Go, through all the tribes of Israel,
from Dan to Beersheba, and number the people that I may know the number of the
people.’”<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b></span></i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Notice
the difference? It’s pretty fucking critical. We have one book saying God told
David to take the census, and the other saying this so-far-undefined Satan
character did it. That’s a pretty damn obvious contradiction in our reputedly
perfect little Bible, and a pretty damn critical one as well in that it speaks
directly to the character of the god being described. Given that God punishes
David for taking the census by killing 70,000 people, it makes a real
difference whether he’s the one who gave the order or Satan is. I mean, the
slaughter is a dick move no matter who gave the order, but it matters for
understanding <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">how big</i> a dick move it
is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Well,
there’s no clarity to be found within the story. It just outright contradicts
the Second Samuel account and moves on without addressing the discrepancy at
all. Enter the Internet, because I just had to look up how apologists deal with
this. I read through a couple different pages on the topic, and both dealt with
it using essentially the same argument. And that argument goes something like
this:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The
ancient Hebrews who wrote the Old Testament regarded God as the ultimate cause
of all things, and everything that happens is ultimately part of his plan (this
is just flatly asserted without linking any linguistic research to back it up).
So when writing about events, they would attribute them to God as if he were
actively causing them, when what they <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really</i>
mean is that he allowed the circumstances surrounding the event to evolve on
their own without actively causing them himself. However, when they describe
the actions of anybody else <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">using the
exact same wording</i> (the one article made a point of specifying that the
original Hebrew words used were the same), they really do mean that those
people or entities were directly taking the action. So when the Bible says
“Satan incited David…” it really means that Satan directly convinced David to take
the census. But when it says “God incited David…” it really means that God
simply didn’t prevent David from deciding to take the census at Satan’s urging.
And because the exact same words mean entirely different things when talking
about God than when talking about everyone else, there isn’t really a
contradiction. One of the articles made a point of extrapolating this to other
situations beside the question of the census, asserting that this also means
that God didn’t “harden Pharaoh’s heart,” in the Exodus story, but rather
simply arranged the situation and Pharaoh hardened his own heart (even though
the text, as we’ve already discussed, explicitly says the opposite).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Wow! I have
to admit that I’m impressed. This is a truly magnificent edifice of bullshit!
The argument defends the literal truth of the Bible by abandoning the idea that
statements about God’s actions can be taken literally. And just imagine the fun
that can be had with this apologetic!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">When
the Bible says that God created living things, what it really means is that he
allowed evolution to occur without ever involving himself directly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">When
the Bible says that God wrote the law on stone tablets, what it really means is
that he allowed Moses to write the law without participating directly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">When
the Bible says God parted the Red Sea, what it really means is that he allowed
the Israelites to cross during a naturally occurring extreme low tide event
without ever lifting a finger.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Holy
shit! It turns out that the Bible is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really</i>
saying that God never did anything! It only <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">appears</i>
to claim he did stuff because words have no agreed literal meaning!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Of
course, I don’t really think the authors of this particular bit of pig feces
meant it to be broadly applied. I’d bet good money that what he really meant is
“Whenever the Bible attributes something freaking awful to God, or that I don’t
want to believe about him, or that makes it impossible to defend the myth of Biblical
non-contradiction, then what it really means is this weird interpretation where
God can be said to not have been directly involved in some way that allows him
to bear no responsibility even though the text directly credits him. But
whenever the Bible attributes to God anything I happen to approve of or think I
can defend rationally, well, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">then</i> you
take the words literally.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p>It's also worth noting, I think, that both examples the author of that bit of apologetics uses as illustration (David's census, and the hardening of Pharaoh's heart) include the Bible attributing direct quotes of God speaking the relevant action. In David's census, the text doesn't just say that God incited David, it includes the order he gave as a directly attributed quote. The story of the Exodus doesn't merely state that God hardened Pharaoh's heart, it includes quotes from conversations with Moses where God says he will do exactly that. So I don't think this argument holds any water whatsoever.</o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Yeah, I’m
tossing this argument aside. The Bible contradicts itself and offers no
explanation. Most likely, the author of Chronicles was uncomfortable with what
the Second Samuel account suggested about the character of God, so he threw
this Satan character in to absolve Yahweh of some responsibility.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The rest
of the story plays out pretty much as we’ve read before. Joab takes the census
(but reports incorrect numbers to David because he disagreed with the
decision), then David has a sudden fit of guilt. God punishes Israel for the
census by causing a massive plague that kills seventy thousand men (and since
only men were counted, who knows how many women and children died?). David ends
the plague by buying the threshing floor of Onan the Jebusite and building an
altar to God on which he made sacrifices. Chronicles differs from Samuel on the
number of Israelites counted in the census, and on the amount David paid for
the threshing floor, but these are kind of small quibbles. The whole thing is a
clusterfuck from beginning to end.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">There’s
some more intensely dull stuff about who David gave what duties with respect to
the resting place of the ark, and him gathering materials for his son Solomon
to use in building the temple. But essentially, there’s not much new of
interest for the rest of the First Book of Chronicles. The book comes to a
close when David dies after having named Solomon his successor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Next
time we’ll be diving into the Second Book of Redundancy… I mean… Chronicles,
which picks up with the reign of Solomon. Will this be an equally dull read? Or
equally shattering to myths of biblical perfection? I guess we’ll find out! Until
then, do be well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
ReallyAwakeGuyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15736656268281182625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381438047502767772.post-80965586955230940352014-06-10T09:44:00.003-07:002014-06-10T09:44:08.219-07:00Second Kings: Just Get it Over With!
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Well,
for a number of reasons I haven’t been able to put up a post in about a month.
This is partly due to life getting pretty crowded, and the late-but-welcome
arrival of nice weather prompting me to spend more time outdoors that I’d
otherwise spend writing. But there’s another reason as well: the rest of Second
Kings is pretty damn boring. It’s just tough to find anything in the remainder
of the book that I really want to write about. But, I’ll gamely give it a go.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So when
we left off, Elisha had just died. Which gets attached to a cute little story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2 Kings 13:20</b> So Elisha died, and they buried him. Now bands of
Moabites used to invade the land in the spring of the year. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">21</b> And as a man was being buried,
behold, a marauding band was seen and the man was thrown into the grave of
Elisha, and as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and
stood on his feet.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So yeah…
I guess that’s, what, the third resurrection that’s been pulled off so far? How
special! I wonder if people started bringing other dead folks to Elisha’s
grave. I imagine it would have been tough to actually get him fully buried
after that point, what with the likely demand for further resurrections. But
then, oddly, nothing is ever mentioned about it again, one way or the other.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">After
that, it’s pretty much back to politics and wars. Amaziah becomes king of Judah
(and he did what was good in the sight of God), and for no stated reason declares
war on king Joash of Israel. Joash (who was one of the many kings who “did what
was evil in the sight of God”) beats the everloving shit out of Amaziah’s army,
takes him captive, sacks Jerusalem, and loots the temple. Guess God was a
little off his defensive game that day. Or had, y’know, some of those famous
“mysterious reasons,” for letting the king who worshipped him faithfully get
spanked by the one who didn’t. Joash lives out the rest of his life reigning
over Israel, while Amaziah is eventually returned to Judah only to be
overthrown and murdered by a conspiracy of his own people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Amaziah’s
son, Araziah, becomes king. He’s another who “did what was right in the eyes of
God.” His reward? God turns him into a leper. Seriously… the text specifically
says that God turns him into a leper. Possibly because, while he was faithful
to God himself, he wasn’t doing enough to oppress the people who worshipped
other gods or who worshipped Yahweh incorrectly (though that’s only implied as
the reason, and not stated outright).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">What
follows is a succession of kings in both Israel and Judah that are largely
uninteresting. Some did “right” and some did “evil” in the eyes of God, some
were usurped and murdered, some were not, some were successful in war, some
were not. Dry stuff presented in very dry and cursory fashion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So a few
generations down, we run into Hoshea, king of Israel. And he gets spanked by
the Assyrians, and forced to pay tribute. But when the Assyrians later find out
that he’s conspiring with Egypt to rebel, they just flat out invade and conquer
Israel. Hoshea himself is taken prisoner, and the people of Israel are forcibly
relocated. So the kingdom of Israel ceases to exist, leaving only Judah as the
sole bastion of Jewish sovereignty. And as per usual, after spelling out the
exact political and economic reasons why something happened, the Bible then
goes on to lay that blame squarely on the Israelites’ failure to worship God
properly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">A few
years later, the Assyrians are walloping on Judah as well. Hezekiah is king in
Judah, and he’s been running a little pogrom of persecuting people who worship
other gods and destroying their places of worship. So God likes him well enough
to intervene when the Assyrians stage a full-scale invasion. And…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Aggh…
fuck it! I’m sick of Second Kings! Sick or writing about it, sick of reading
and re-reading it to try and find interesting things to say. It’s boring as
shit, and I’m just gonna push through to the end so that today’s post can
finish it up and we can move on. Ultimately, it’s just a long and incredibly
tedious parable for “If you don’t worship God exclusively, he’ll fuck your shit
up. Mostly in ways indistinguishable from normal politics and war.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So… God
tricks the Assyrians into going away. But they come back later and he kills
185,000 of them. Hezekiah gets sick, and God tell him he’s gonna die. But he
prays and God changes his mind to let him live another 15 years. He also tells
him that Judah is gonna get destroyed in a few generations, and Hezekiah is all
like “That’s good. Everything’s fine for me, so fuck my descendants anyway.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">A couple
generations later, Josiah is king of Judah and he goes whole hog on religious
persecution. Not only does he do one of those purges that seems to happen every
couple generations where the king tears down the worship places of every god
other than Yahweh, but also…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2 Kings 23:19</b> And Josiah removed all the shrines also of the cities
of Samaria, which kings of Israel had made, provoking Yahweh to anger. He did
to them according to all that he had done in Bethel. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">20</b> And he sacrificed all the priests of the high places who were
there, on the altars, and burned human bones on them. Then he returned to
Jerusalem.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So yeah,
human sacrifice again. Mind you, this is after God had already told him
(through the prophet Isaiah) that he was going to destroy Judah anyway and
that, because Josiah was such a good little toady, God would reward him by
making sure he died before having to see any of the destruction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Josiah is
eventually killed by the king of Egypt. We get a couple more generations of
kings before the Babylonians bitch-slap Judah into the ground and force them to
pay tribute. A few years later, Judah rebels against Babylon, so king
Nebuchadnezzar just all-out invades. Jerusalem is burned to the ground, and the
temple with it, and a Babylonian governor appointed. Many of the people of
Judah (including the king) are taken as prisoners back to Babylon, and the independent
Jewish states are gone. This is, of course, entirely because the Jewish people
had the wrong religious beliefs and practices.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">And that’s
it. We’re done with Second Kings. I apologize for the brusque manner in which I
breezed through this last part, but I’d really had enough and had long since
ceased getting anything out of it. With my next post, we’ll be moving on to the
First Book of Chronicles. It is, unfortunately, a bit of a recap of stuff we’ve
already read. But maybe that means we can skip through it fairly quickly, and
perhaps it will provide some interesting comparisons.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Until
next time, y’all take care!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
ReallyAwakeGuyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15736656268281182625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381438047502767772.post-89574510377761524672014-05-05T18:19:00.001-07:002014-05-05T18:19:05.307-07:00Second Kings: Anniversary! And Murder Most Foul!
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Well,
this is a rather special episode. Not particularly for content, but because this
blog has achieved a milestone: one full year! Yes, May 5 is the anniversary of
my very first post in this blog. And here we are, 80 posts later, and only a
little over a third of the way through this tome. So thank you to everyone
who’s been keeping up so far! And now, let’s jump back in.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">We’re in
the midst of Second Kings. The next story we’ll relate happens shortly after
where we left off the last time. Jehoram, the king of Judah dies and leaves the
throne to his son Ahaziah. Joram is still king of Israel, and Hazael the king
of Syria is still running about attacking Israel. So Ahaziah and Joram team up
to fight the Syrians, and Joram is wounded in the process. Joram goes to the
city of Jezreel to recover, while his army remains in the field.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">This is
the scene as Elisha intervenes in politics once again. This time he sends one
of his servants to find the commander of Joram’s army, a fellow named Jehu who
is also the son of Jehosaphat (which makes him the uncle of Ahaziah, the king
of Judah). Got that? This guy is the servant of one king, and the uncle to
another, which is important because he’s about to do them like Uncle Scar on
Elisha’s say-so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Elisha’s
servant, on Elisha’s orders, finds Jehu and takes him aside.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2 Kings 9:6 </b>So he arose and went into the house. And the young man
poured the oil on his head, saying to him, ‘Thus says Yahweh, the god of
Israel, I anoint you king over the people of Yahweh, over Israel. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">7 </b>And you shall strike down the house
of Ahab your master, so that I may avenge on Jezebel the blood of my servants
the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of Yahweh. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">8</b> For the whole house of Ahab shall perish, and I will cut off from
Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel.’”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">There’s
a little more to the speech, but you get the gist from there. Some random kid
shows up claiming to speak for God and tells Jehu that he’s king now and needs
to kill his master the current king. And his whole family. Because of stuff
Ahab did. And rather than saying “What are you, a lunatic?!” Jehu just says “Sure
thing!” and immediately commences a murder spree.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">He
starts by gathering up his men and going to Jezreel where king Joram of Israel is
recovering from his wounds and king Ahaziah of Judah is visiting. After telling
his king that is mother Jezebel is a whore, Jehu shoots him down. Then, for
good measure, Jehu has his men shoot down his own nephew Ahaziah.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Then,
after murdering both kings, Jehu heads back to the palace where he orders the
servants to toss Jezebel out a window, which they do. Then he has his horses
trample her to death. Following this, he then sends orders to the people in
Samaria who are fostering Ahab’s remaining sons, demanding that they prove they
are with him by murdering the boys. Which they do. He also kills all of the
remaining officers, allies, and priests who served the old king’s family. Oh,
and forty-two member of his own family who he met on the road because they had
been coming to visit Jezebel and her family.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So with
the political purging done, it was time for the religious purges. Jehu sends
out a proclamation to all the priests and followers of Baal that he’s going to
make a huge sacrifice to their god. He gathers them all together in their
temple under that pretense, then slaughters every last one of them and burns
the temple to the ground.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Now,
finally, God apparently has a personal word for Jehu rather than talking
through people claiming to talk for him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2 Kings 10:30</b> And Yahweh said to Jehu, ‘Because you have done well
in carrying out what is right in my eyes, and have done to the house of Ahab
all that was in my heart, your sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the
throne of Israel.’”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Yeah.
Murder of an entire family line is what is in God’s heart. What a lovely being.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">From
here we get a few more generations of kings in both Israel and Judah, mostly “doing
what is evil in the sight of God.” Some more political coups, and wars… pretty
dull stuff, actually, at least in the way it’s all presented. Things turn
briefly interesting, in an entirely inane sort of way, when we come to the
death of Elisha.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">At this
time, Joash is king of Israel, and as usual, Israel is at war with Syria. He
goes to visit and consult with Elisha, who is sick abed. Inevitably, stupidity
ensues.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2 Kings 13:15</b> And Elisha said to him ‘Take a bow and arrows.’ So he
took a bow and arrows. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">16</b> Then he
said to the king of Israel ‘Draw the bow,’ and he dre it. And Elisha laid his
hands on the kings hands. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">17 </b>And he
said ‘Open the window eastward,’ and he opened it. Then Elisha said ‘Shoot,’
and he shot. And he said ‘Yahweh’s arrow of victory, the arrow of victory over
Syria! For you shall fight the Syrians in Aphek until you have made an end of
the them.’ <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">18</b> And he said ‘Take the
arrows,’ and he took them. And he said to the king of Israel ‘Strike the ground
with them.’ And he struck three times and stopped. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">19</b> Then the man of God was angry with him and said ‘You should have
struck five or six times; then you would have struck down Syria until you made
an end of it, but now you will strike down Syria only three times.’”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">How dumb
is that? Seriously? Another one of Elisha’s little arbitrary made-up-on-the-fly
rituals? And he gets <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">angry </i>at Joash
for not doing it right because he didn’t guess the arbitrary number rattling
around in our prophet’s little head for how many times to strike the floor?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“Hey, do
this stupid thing. No, you FOOL! You guessed wrong, and now you won’t get the
result that you didn’t even know was the point of my stupid ritual!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">And then
Elisha died. So after a few high notes in the middle of his career, he goes out
on a wave of whimsical idiocy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">But
anyway, as Elisha checks out, so shall we for the day. And here’s to another
year of Biblical fun!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
ReallyAwakeGuyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15736656268281182625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381438047502767772.post-41343260486117703552014-04-22T09:57:00.002-07:002014-04-22T09:57:38.869-07:00Second Kings: Are You Going to Eat That? (Part 2)
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Well,
here I am again with more progress on Second Kings. Let’s get to it.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Where
were we? Oh yeah, Israel is warring with Syria again. And he’s having a hard
time of it, because Elisha keeps telling the Israelite king (who I presume is
still Jehoram, though the text doesn’t refer to him by name in this story)
where the Syrian armies are camped. It’s kind of unclear why he’s doing this,
since in the story about the invasion of Moab Elisha was pretty clear about his
disdain for Jehoram. But whatever.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Anyway,
some of the Syrians tell their king that it’s Elisha giving away their
positions, and that he’s in the city of Dothan. So the Syrian king sends an
army to besiege Dothan so he can get rid of Elisha. But the prophet prays for
God to strike them all blind, which he does. Elisha then tricks the blind
Syrian army into following him to the city of Samaria (I looked it up: we’re
expected to believe this army of blind men trekked twelve miles on a stranger’s
say-so), where the Israelite king and his army are located. He restores their
sight in time for them to be captured by the Israelite king.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Interestingly,
Elisha advises the king to give them food and drink before sending them home.
Now this is an interesting development: for the first time, God has provided a
miraculous defeat of an enemy army without commanding their utter genocide. Is
God evolving, or does his personality happen to change depending on the
personality of the prophet conveying his orders?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The
Syrian king, Ben-hadad (the same guy Ahab once defeated and let go), reacts by
regrouping his army and going to assault Samaria. The siege lasts so long that
(and remember, God did promise oh so long ago that he would make this happen)
people begin to starve so badly that they start eating their babies. Upon
hearing of the cannibalism going on in his city, the Israelite king gets pissed
and demands Elisha’s head.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">On the
one hand, this seems like a singularly stupid reaction – after all, it isn’t
Elisha eating babies, and it isn’t Elisha besieging the city. On the other
hand, the king supposedly has seen Elisha miraculously defeat Syrian armies by
himself just recently, so it has to be galling that he’s just letting his own
people starve when he could theoretically throw miracles at the Syrians some
more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Anyhow,
Elisha bars his doors against the people who are sent to arrest him, and tells
the leader that there will be plenty of food tomorrow (but that said leader
will not get to eat any of it).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Sure
enough, in the morning the Syrian army has completely evaporated. We’re told
because God had made the Syrians hear the sound of a vast army coming at them
in the middle of the night, and got so scared that they ran off and left all of
their stuff behind in their camp. If I were that easy, one has to wonder why
the fuck this God guy didn’t do it before people were reduced to eating their
own fucking children.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Oh yeah…
because he wanted them to. Said so all the way back in Deuteronomy 28.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Anyway,
when the people realize what’s happened, they stampede out the gates to loot
the Syrian camp, and in the process trample to death the poor schmuck that
Elisha had said wouldn’t get to eat of the food.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Let’s
see… side story about a seven-year famine… not terribly important.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Then
Elisha travels to Damascus in Syria. When the king, who is ill, hears that
Elisha is in town he sends some dude named Hazael (that name should be familiar
if you’ve read my previous posts) to inquire whether he will recover from his
illness. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2 Kings 8:10</b> And Elish said to him, ‘Go, say to him, “You shall
certainly recover,” but Yahweh has shown me that he shall certainly die.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Yeah,
prophet of God, instructing Hazael to lie. These prophets seem to be
increasingly untrustworthy sorts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Elisha
then goes on to burst into tears, and tell Hazael about how God has told him
that Hazael will become king of Syria and do all kinds of shitty things to
Israel. So Hazael goes back to king Ben-hadad and tells him the lie he was instructed
to tell, then later smothers the king and claims the throne for himself. I
suppose this could count as Elisha fulfilling the instructions God gave (to
Elijah) to anoint Hazael king of Syria.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Then we
kind of get into some dense politics, which is made all the more confusing by
the fact that at one point both Israel and Judah are being ruled by different
men who are both named Jehoram and are both referred to by that name and by the
name Joram. The Bible is critical of both, in any case, because they worship
other gods beside Yahweh (in the case of Jehoram of Judah, the Bible lays the
blame on the fact that he’s married to one of Jehoram of Israel’s sisters). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Under Jehoram’s rule, the cities of Edom and
Libnah revolt and become independent of Israel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">At any
rate, I think this is going to be a stopping place for today. We’re going into
a portion of the book heavy on politics and successions (and very short on
theological stuff), so I’ll need to put some thought into how to relate the stories.
Until next time, you all be well!.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
ReallyAwakeGuyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15736656268281182625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381438047502767772.post-62936023535153207822014-03-25T09:59:00.000-07:002014-03-25T09:59:05.278-07:00Second Kings: Miracle Men
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Today we
start of the Second Book of Kings. I’m sure great wonders are in store for us,
just like every other book so far. So let’s dive in, shall we?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The very
first story is a real thriller. Ahab’s son Ahaziah is king and has a nasty fall
that injures him badly enough to confine him to bed. He sends messengers to
Ekron to ask their god (Baal-zebub) whether he will recover. Naturally, this
pisses off Yahweh, so he sends Elijah to turn the messengers back with the news
that Ahaziah is going to die because he tried to consult with another god.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">When
Ahaziah hears about this, he sends a company of fifty men to bring Elijah back
to see him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2 Kings 1: 10</b> But Elijah answered the captain of fifty ‘If I am a
man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty.’
Then fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">OK, so,
mystic murder of fifty-one men because Elijah didn’t want to go to the king.
Well, actually a hundred and two men, since Ahaziah sends another company and
Elijah does the same thing to them. Then Ahaziah, apparently a very slow
learner, sends a third company of fifty men. But the captain of this group begs
Elijah to spare his life, at which point an angel tells Elijah to go with the
captain to meet the king.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So he
does, and repeats the exact same message about how Ahaziah is going to die
because he tried to consult with another god instead of Yahweh. Then Ahaziah
dies, having reigned only two years, and his brother Jehoram becomes king.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Afterwards,
we get a story about Elijah and Elisha traveling together. They stop in three
different cities, and before leaving each one Elijah tells Elisha to stay behind
but he refuses. Also in each one the prophets tell Elisha that God is about to
take Elijah from him, to which he responds that he already knows and they
should keep quiet about it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">After
these stops they travel on to the Jordan river, which Elijah causes to part by
smacking it with his cloak. They cross the river and leave behind some fifty
prophets who’d been following them, heading off alone into the wilderness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2 Kings 2:11</b> And as they still went on and talked, behold, chariots
of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a
whirlwind into heaven.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So yeah,
Elijah has been physically picked up and taken alive to heaven. Elisha picks up
Elijah’s cloak, which had fallen off when the whirlwind came, and marched back
to the Jordan. He smacked the water with the cloak and made it part again so he
could cross back over to where the prophets are waiting for him. They want to
go look for Elijah in case the whirlwind dropped him someplace still on earth
(or maybe because “Elisha murdered him and buried him in a shallow grave,”
seemed like a more plausible story than “Chariots of fire carried him in a
whirlwind up to heaven,”), and do so over Elisha’s objection. But their search
is fruitless, so instead they start asking Elisha for miracles like making the
local water more palatable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">From
there we move on to this charming little tale:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2 Kings 2:23</b> He went up from there to Bethel, and while he was
going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him,
saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">24</b> And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in
the name of Yahweh. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two
of the boys. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">25</b> From there he went
onto Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Dude!
Not cool! That’s some weapons-grade insecurity (not to mention psychotic
assholery) there, sending bears to maul children for making fun of your
baldness. And then he just travels on as if it ain’t no thang.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Next is
a little story about how Jehoram (king of Israel) gets together with Jehosaphat
(king of Judah) and the king of Edom to go put the smackdown on the Moabites
because they stopped paying a tribute of sheep to Israel after Ahab died. They
persuade Elisha to help them out, and so God engages in his usual method of
divine intervention: helping his followers kill the fuck out of a whole mess of
people. But then, after bitchslapping the Moabite army around and destroying
the Moabites’ farmland for shits and giggles, we find the combined army
marching on the Moabite capital.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2 Kings 3:27</b> When the king of Moab saw that the battle was going
against him, he took with him 700 swordsmen to break through, opposite the king
of Edom, but they could not. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">27</b> Then
he took his oldest son who was to reign in his place and offered him for a
burnt offering on the wall. And there came great wrath against Israel. And they
withdrew from him and returned to their own land.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Well how
do you like that? Cornered by an Israelite army that showed every indication of
wanting to kill every last one of his people, the king of Moab sacrificed his
son in a desperate bid for his own god’s intervention to save them. And from
his perspective, it certainly must have seemed as though it worked, because the
Israelites were driven off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Now I’ve
heard Christians mention this tale as an example of how awful the Moabites were
and therefore how they deserved all the genocidal attacks from God’s followers.
To this I respond: read up on Jephthah (Judges 11:30 – 11:39, which I covered
in my post titled “Judges: Barbeque!” at </span><a href="http://reallyawakeguy.blogspot.com/2013/10/judges-barbeque.html"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="color: blue;">http://reallyawakeguy.blogspot.com/2013/10/judges-barbeque.html</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">). He did the exact same fucking
thing (only under less desperate circumstances), sacrificing his daughter as a
burnt offering to God in exchange for victory in battle. And he’s considered a
hero in the Bible. The only difference between him and the king of Moab is
which tribal figment of imagination they were sacrificing their offspring to.
But as I’ve mentioned before, the choice of gods appears to be the only
discernible difference between heroes and villains in this book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">After
this, Elisha starts doing something very odd for one of Yahweh’s Old Testament prophets:
helping people in ways that don’t involve killing anyone. We get a story about
how he miraculously gave a poor widow a vast supply of oil to sell in order to
pay off her debts and avoid having to sell her sons into slavery. This is
followed by him raising from the dead the son of a Shunammite woman who had
given him shelter (though there are some weird sexual overtones to the method
he used – whereas just praying was good enough for Elijah to raise the dead,
for some reason Elisha has to lie down on top of the boy and kiss him on the
mouth a few times to get the same result). After this he purifies a stew that
had accidentally been prepared with poisonous ingredients so that it could be
eaten safely. And then, in a time of famine, he multiplies a supply of barley
and grain to feed a hundred men with food left over. He cures Namaan (a favorite
of the king of Syria) of leprosy, and punishes his own assistant with leprosy when
the guy tries to con Namaan into paying for the cure. Finally, he… umm… makes
an axe head float to the surface when one of his servants accidentally drops it
in the water.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">What’s
interesting about Elisha’s miracles is that they don’t ever seem to include
prayer – just weird little rituals seemingly made up on the spot, like throwing
a stick in the water to make the axe head float, or tossing flour in the
poisonous soup. It looks more like wizardry than anything else. Also, there’s
no explicit command from God for him to do any of it. He just seems to wander
around tossing off magic at his whim (and other than the bit with bears mauling
small children, doing so in ways that really aren’t terribly consistent with
the character of God thus far displayed) and occasionally crediting God for it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">It
raises a few questions, I think. Are we looking at a god who’s softening a bit,
or stories representing an evolution in how the authors (who most certainly were
not the ones who wrote the oldest books) regard the role of their imaginary
friend and what he expects of his adherents. Perhaps further reading will
provide insight, but with a new war with Syria on the horizon I think this may
be a good place to stop for today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Until
next time, you be well!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
ReallyAwakeGuyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15736656268281182625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381438047502767772.post-69264878003646260752014-03-11T09:34:00.000-07:002014-09-24T14:04:41.759-07:00First Kings: Lies, Damn Lies, and Prophecies<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Well,
here we are again, and in today’s episode we have the activities of Ahab, king
of Israel in the time of the prophet Elijah. We should be able to skip through
these pretty quickly.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Immediately
after Elijah took Elishah as his apprentice prophet, Ahab gets involved in a
war with the king of Syria Ben-hadad. Note that this is not Hazael, whom God
instructed Elijah to anoint king of Syria. And we’re explicitly told that God
gave the Syrian army into Ahab’s hands (i.e. God helped Ahab win). The details
of the battles aren’t really important, but in the end Ahab has defeats two
Syrian armies and has the king cornered in the city of Aphek (where,
apparently, a wall fell on 27,000 of his men – that must have been one fuck of
a wall!). Ben-hazad buys his freedom by giving back to Israel some cities that
Syria had previously captured from them and making a trade agreement for
letting Israelite merchants into his cities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Apparently,
even though God never instructed Ahab to kill Ben-hazad, he’s pissed that Ahab
spared his life. So he sends one of his prophets to inform Ahab of his
displeasure in a psychotic little story that starts thusly:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1 Kings 20:35</b> And a certain man of the sons of the prophets said to
his fellow at the command of Yahweh, ‘Strike me, please.’ But the man refused
to strike him. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">36</b> Then he said to
him, ‘Because you have not obeyed the voice of Yahweh, behold, as soon as you
have gone from me, a lion shall strike you down.’ And as soon as he had departed
from him, a lion met him and struck him down.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So God
has a lion kill a man for refusing to hit one of his prophets… because I guess
people are just supposed to do whatever the hell a man calling himself a
prophet tells them to or fucking else. Of course, for all he knew the
instruction to hit the guy was a test to see if he would actually hit a prophet
and he might be killed for doing that, but I suppose he guessed wrong.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Anyway,
our little nameless prophet friend finally finds someone willing to hit him.
And apparently this was just to add some verisimilitude to his disguise when he
approaches Ahab claiming to be a soldier from the battles with Syria. There’s a
brief little conversation in which the prophet essentially tricks Ahab into
judging that it’s a bad thing to let a prisoner escape whom one’s commander has
given into your charge by claiming that he was a soldier who’d accidentally
done so during the battle. But I guess it’s not all that surprising that the
prophets’ stock and trade would be trickery and deceit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Of
course, this is followed by judgment:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1 Kings 20:42</b> And he said to him ‘Thus says Yahweh, “ Because you
have let go out of your hand the man whom I had devoted to destruction,
therefore your life shall be for his life and your people for his people.”’”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Yeah… so
basically God is declaring that, because Ahab didn’t kill a guy who he was
never explicitly told to kill, God is going to kill Ahab and his subjects as
well. Because that’s totally not the behavior of a psychotic douchebag at all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Then we
get a quick side story about how Ahab wanted some dude’s vineyard. But since
the guy wasn’t willing to sell it, Ahab’s wife Jezebel framed him for blasphemy
and had him executed so that Ahab could take over his land. This brings Elijah
back to the story, to deliver God’s threat that because of this Ahab and all of
his descendants will be wiped out. And after receiving the threat, Ahab puts on
a great show of sorrow and repentance. And so…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1 Kings 21: 28</b> And the word of Yahweh came to Elijah the Tishbite,
saying <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">29</b> ‘Have you seen how Ahab
has humbled himself before me? Because h has humbled himself before me, I will
not bring the disaster in his days; but in his son’s days I will bring the
disaster upon his house.’”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So we go
from “I’m going to punish you and your family horribly for the crimes you’ve
committed,” to “OK, since you kissed my ass enough, I won’t punish you. I’ll
only punish your family for the crimes you’ve committed.” Somehow, God managed
to find a way to make his original unjust judgment even less just. Although,
really, it kind of reads like the writers of the Bible were thinking that Ahab
did a bunch of stuff they hated and seemed to get away with it, whereas bad
stuff happened to his son, so they just went back after the fact and made up a
story to make it look like the bad stuff that happened to the son was really
Ahab’s punishment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">I’m not
saying Ahab wasn’t clearly a shitty person. Just that God’s behavior was even
shittier.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">But it
gets better.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">After
three years of peace, Ahab asks Jehosaphat the king of Judah to help him out
with a war against Syria to take back the city of Ramoth-gilead. Jehosaphat
doesn’t want to join up unless Ahab consults about what God wants them to do.
So Ahab consults with four hundred prophets of God, who all tell him that God
says it’s OK to go to battle because he’s going to give the city into Ahab’s
hand. But Jehosaphat isn’t satisfied and asks for a second opinion (or a
four-hundred-and-first opinion). So they bring up this guy, Micaiah. And at
first, Micaiah gives the same advice. But when Ahab makes him swear to tell the
truth, Micaiah admits that it was a lie and Ahab will actually be killed and
Israel left without a king. Then he finally tells the full details of his
prophecy:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1 Kings 22:19</b> And Micaiah said ‘Therefore hear the word of Yahweh:
I saw Yahweh sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside
him on his right hand and on his left; <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">20</b>
and Yahweh said, “Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at
Ramoth-gilead?” And one said one thing, and another said another. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">21</b> Then a spirit came forward and stood
before Yahweh, saying “I will entice him.” <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">22</b>
And Yahweh said to him “By what means?” And he said “I will go out, and will be
a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.” And he said “You are to
entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do so.” <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">23</b> Now therefore behold, Yahweh has put a lying spirit in the mouth
of all these your prophets; Yahweh has declared disaster for you.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As it turns out, Micaiah was right and Ahab
does in fact die in the battle (along with the usual casualties, of course, who
wouldn’t have had to go to war without those lies).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So what
are we supposed to get from this story? Either Micaiah was lying, and just got
lucky about the outcome of the battle - in which case the other four hundred
prophets were wrong and/or lying. The other option is that Micaiah was telling
the truth, in which case God is in fact the kind of guy who lies (or sends
spirits explicitly instructed to lie on his behalf – a distinction that makes
no practical difference whatsoever) in order to start wars and get people
killed. In either case… <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">how the fuck does
anyone ever justify believing a damn word any so-called prophet says?!</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">After
all, according to this story, even in the (highly unlikely) circumstance that a
prophet is faithfully reporting the exact message that an actual existing God
is conveying to him, God could be fucking lying!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Say… isn’t
the Bible supposed to be the God-inspired writing of his prophets? Just play
with that thought a little.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">And
remember… all of this farce involving deceiving four hundred men who, so far as
the text shows, were faithful prophets into becoming false prophets (a capital
offense under the law at the time) and tricking Israel into going to war
(causing unknown casualties among both peoples) was all supposedly aimed at
killing one man: Ahab. Something God could have done with less effort that
snapping his fingers if he’d wanted to. This is just going out of his way to be
an asshole about it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Anyway,
the death of Ahab pretty much brings us to the end of First Kings. There’s some
trivia about Jehosaphat ruling in Judah and Ahab’s son Ahaziah inheriting the throne
of Israel, but nothing all that exciting is said about either. So it looks like
next time we’ll pick up the Second Book of Kings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Until then,
be well!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><strong>Edit 9/24/2014:</strong> Since writing this, I've been exposed to a branch of Christian apologetics called "presuppositionalism." I won't try to describe it in detail here, but one of the key premises is that they only way to make any claim of knowledge is to presuppose the existence of the Biblical God, and that this knowledge is based on direct revelation from God. This, in turn, is based on their claim that revealed knowledge from God must be true, because the Biblical God cannot lie. I think the story of Micaiah and Ahab demonstrates pretty clearly that this position is false.</span><br />
<br />
By the way, the standard response from presuppositionalists to pointing out that the Bible clearly contradicts their description of God is to state a flat refusal to discuss Bible interpretation with anyone who doesn't already believe it to be true. This contributes to my own belief that the purpose of presuppositional argument is not to demonstrate the existence of God, but rather to shield the believer from questioning.</div>
ReallyAwakeGuyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15736656268281182625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381438047502767772.post-12534866513904704362014-03-07T09:36:00.002-08:002014-03-07T09:36:15.328-08:00First Kings: Bummer for Baal
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Let’s
see… we were about to start talking about Ahab and Elijah, right?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Now, the
Ahab we’re talking about was a king of Israel, not a whale-obsessed ship’s captain.
Just so we’re clear. And we’re told that Ahab did more evil than all of the
people who came before him, because not only did he allow cults to other gods
to flourish like his predecessors did, but he married a Sidonian chick named
Jezebel and converted to the worship of her god Baal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So
because Ahab was so awful, God sent his prophet Elijah to inform Ahab that
there would be a three year drought. Then God sent Elijah into hiding
(presumably so Ahab wouldn’t retaliate) in the wilderness east of the Jordan,
where he had ravens bring him food every day. But after a bit, because of the
drought, Elijah ran out of water to drink and God sent him to the city of
Zarepath. There, he met a starving widow and her son, whose nearly exhausted
supply of food God multiplied so that she could feed Elijah as well as herself.
But even with their food worries taken care of, tragedy still lingered in the
form of the son coming down sick and dying. But fear not, for Elijah was on the
case:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1 Kings 17:20</b> And he cried out to Yahweh, ‘O Yahweh my God, have
you brought calamity even on the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her
son?’ <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">21</b> Then he stretched himself
upon the child three times and cried to Yahweh, ‘O Yahweh, my God, let this
child’s life come into him again.’ <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">22</b>
And Yahweh listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into
him again, and he revived.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So there
you go. Miraculous resurrection. God defeating death via Elijah long before
doing it via Jesus. And in such a sweet setting – a heartfelt plea for the life
of a young boy, answered with a miracle. What a refreshing change of pace!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">After
three years of drought, God sends Elijah to go have a word with Ahab.
Apparently in the meantime, Jezebel had ordered all of the prophets of God
killed so they couldn’t compete with the prophets of her own god, but Ahab’s
servant Obadiah had hidden a hundred of them away in caves and provided them
with food and water.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Elijah
confronts Ahab and demands that he gather “all Israel,” along with 450 prophets
of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah at Mount Carmel. And for some reason, even
though Ahab clearly regards Elijah as just a troublemaker, he does as he
demands.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">When
everyone is gathered at Mount Carmel, Elijah proposes a challenge between Baal
and Yahweh (for some reason, even though the prophets of Asherah are invited,
they aren’t included as part of the challenge). Each of them will prepare a
burnt offering to their god, but they won’t set it on fire. Instead, they are
to pray to their respective gods to light the fire for them. The prophets of
Baal go first, and even though there are 450 of them there praying and
entreating their god, the offering fails to light. Elijah spends his time
mocking their efforts, at one point suggesting that maybe Baal isn’t answering
because he’s off somewhere taking a dump.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Then
Elijah makes his offering, and when his preparations are done he takes the
extra step of completely soaking it in water. I guess he was worried about the
artistic merit score from the Russian judge, and was hoping to pick up extra
points on technical difficulty.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">When
Elijah calls out to God, a fire descends from heaven so hot that it not only
consumes the offering, but destroys the altar and evaporates all the water that
had puddled around it. Everyone watching is stunned, and falls down to worship
God. Then Elijah, magnanimous in victory as all of God’s prophets invariably
are, orders the people to seize the prophets of Baal and kill them all. After
this, finally, the drought ends and the rains come.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Don’t we
ordinarily consider it a bad thing to engage in human sacrifice as a means of
ending droughts? Or for any reason, really? I guess it just really depends on
which god you’re sacrificing to.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">When
Jezebel hears about all this, she sends a messenger to Elijah to let him know
she intends to have him killed. Why she didn’t just send several people with
orders to actually kill him instead, I have no idea, but he responds to the
gracious warning by fleeing like a little bitch. Which seems like odd behavior
for someone who supposedly has unequivocal proof that God s on his side and
just successfully ordered “all of Israel” to murder hundreds of Jezebel’s
prophets. What is he scared of? Couldn’t he just order those same people to
murder her as well?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">But
anyway, Elijah flees into the wilderness, where God has an angel feed him while
he journeys to Mount Horeb. There, Elijah whines to God about how he’s the only
guy in all of Israel still loyal to God and everybody wants to kill him. You’d
think lying straight to God’s face like that would have consequences, but
apparently it doesn’t work that way. Instead, God sends Elijah to go anoint
some guy named Hazael to be king of Syria and Jehu to be king of Israel (and
why, exactly, would anyone in Syria care who a disenfranchised priest of an
Israelite god tells them should be king?), and to anoint a guy named Elishah to
be prophet after him. Yes, there will now be a pair of prophets named Elijah
and Elishah. Good luck not getting them confused.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Then God
promises to use those anointed fellows to kill shitloads of Israelites until
there are only seven thousand left. Because mass murder remains the
one-size-fits-all solution.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Anyway,
Elijah finds Elishah, who agrees to follow him and marks the occasion by
sacrificing a couple dozen of his family’s oxen (I’m certain they were thrilled
at the spontaneous destruction of that much wealth). The Bible then takes a
break from following Elijah for a bit (without mentioning whether he carried
out the orders to anoint new kings in Syria and Israel) to go on at length
about some of Ahab’s wars with Syria. Since there are some stories worth
repeating covered in that aside about Ahab, I think the transition here is a
good place to take a break for now. We’ll get into those stories next time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Until
then, be well!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
ReallyAwakeGuyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15736656268281182625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381438047502767772.post-16257001814054207612014-02-21T09:32:00.000-08:002014-02-21T09:32:00.023-08:00First Kings: Can’t Pick a Winner
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Welcome
back to our exploration of the First Book of Kings from the Old Testament of
the Bible. When we left off, the kingdom of Israel had split in two: Judah,
under the rule of Solomon’s son Rehoboam and Israel under the rule of a former
servant of Solomon’s named Jeroboam. The means were all political, but the
Bible credits God for it.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The
first interesting story to follow that split takes place in Israel under
Jeroboam, whom the Bible claims God chose to rule Israel with the understanding
that Jeroboam would keep God’s laws. Well, no sooner does Jeroboam take over
than he decides “fuck that noise!” Concerned that if the people of Israel keep
having to go to the temple in Jerusalem (which is the capital of Judah) to do
their sacrifices they’ll start wanting to put the old kingdom back together
under the rule of David’s descendants, Jeroboam decides to set up his own
religious observances. For this purpose he makes up a pair of golden calves to
set up as gods (what the hell was the ancient Israelite fetish for worshipping
baby cows made of gold?) and puts them up in their own temples with their own
altars.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So one
day Jeroboam is making sacrifices on his altar as superstitious barbarians are
wont to do, when a fellow described as a “man of God,” comes by to talk to the
altar. Because why not?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1 Kings 13:2</b> And the man cried against the altar by the word of
Yahweh and said ‘O altar, altar, thus says Yahweh: “Behold, a son shall be born
to the house of David, Josiah by name, and he shall sacrifice on you the
priests of the high places who make offerings on you, and human bones shall be
burned on you”’”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">This
annoyed Jeroboam, who pointed at the man and ordered his guards to arrest him,
but instead his hand withered up. And the altar was torn down, which makes one
wonder how that prediction that it would be used by Josiah for human sacrifices
could take place. Maybe we’ll find out later.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Anyway,
Jeroboam is freaked out and asks the guy to beg God for his hand to be
restored. Which he does, and it is. Then Jeroboam offers the guy something to
eat, at which point our man of God reveals that when Yahweh ordered him to come
curse the altar he also ordered him not to eat or drink anything while he was
there. Then our little prophet sets out to return home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Next we
are informed that there’s another old prophet dwelling nearby who hears about
all of this. And he really wants to meet the guy who cursed the altar. So he
sets out to find him on the road, and when he does he invites the traveler back
to his house for something to eat and drink. The traveler repeats that God has
ordered him not to eat or drink anything. But the old prophet is having none of
this refusing-his-hospitality shit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1 Kings 13:18</b> And he said to him ‘I also am a prophet as you are,
and an angel spoke to me by the word of Yahweh, saying “bring him back with you
into your house that he may eat bread and drink water.”’ But he lied to him. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">19</b> So he went back with him and ate
bread in his house and drank water.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Of
course <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">after</i> he’s eaten and drunk is
when God decides to inform the prophet that he didn’t give any such permission
to eat and drink with the old guy. So on his way home to Judah, God has a lion
kill him and dump his body in the road. To make that clear: God killed one
prophet who broke his rules because a different prophet lied to him about what
the rules were. The liar, by the way, wasn’t punished at all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So we
learn from this story, what? That there’s no clear way to know what God wants,
but he’ll fucking kill you if you get it wrong?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Oh, and
by the way, after this supposedly clear and unambiguous (and totally not made
up by the authors) personal warning that God disapproved of his religious practices,
do you suppose Jeroboam gave up his idolatry? Not a bit of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1 Kings 13: 33</b> After this thing Jeroboam did not turn from his evil
way, but made priests for the high places again from among all the people. Any
who would, he ordained to be priests of the high places.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Ah well,
better luck choosing rulers next time, Yahweh.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Oh,
except his luck doesn’t really improve at all. After a charming little story
about how God kills one of Jeroboam’s babies and threatens to wipe out all his
descendants, we’re treated to brief synopses of several generations of kings in
both Israel and Judah. Virtually all of their reigns are described using the
phrase “…and [king X] did what was evil in the sight of God…,” even the ones
who the Bible claims were specifically given Yahweh’s mandate to usurp the
throne in order to make up for the bad behavior of the previous king. God is
either deliberately picking shitty kings that he knows are just going to piss
him off (which pretty much always results in multiple deaths), or he has worse
luck picking winners than your cousin who got his legs broken by a loan shark
after losing all his money at the track.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Of
course, all the usurpations are presented in the usual way of describing the
political reasons and methods used, and then saying “but it’s really because
God wanted it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Meanwhile,
Judah and Israel are pretty much constantly at war with each other and with
their neighbors. Sometimes it goes well, sometimes poorly. One of the
usurpations in Israel does indeed result in the slaughter of Jeroboam’s
descendants (after Jeroboam himself died a peaceful death of old age), just as
God supposedly threatened. And generations pass (I’ll skip the details because
they’re mostly boring and irrelevant) with each successive king just getting
worse and worse until we eventually reach the reign of Ahab in Israel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">And that
is where this post will leave off, because the reign of Ahab gets more detail
than most of the others, and we get introduced to the stories of Elijah who is
one of the more famous prophets. So all that will probably be worthy of
starting a whole new post to cover.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So until
that one goes up, I hope you remain happy and well!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
ReallyAwakeGuyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15736656268281182625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381438047502767772.post-2549333223089294952014-02-11T09:33:00.002-08:002014-02-11T09:33:29.993-08:00First Kings: Smells Like Misattribution
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Alright,
so, Solomon has built the Temple, where the name of Yahweh will dwell on earth.
When the construction was done, he had the Ark of the Covenant brought to the
temple, where it was placed under the giant carvings of cherubim in the most
holy inner chamber. Afterwards, Solomon holds this big dedication ceremony that
included interminable speeches and prayers. I mean, it just goes on, and on,
and on with the usual requests for blessings, and yammering about how every bad
thing that might happen is because of curses for turning away from God, and
verbally stroking God’s… ego. The whole thing culminates, we are told, with the
sacrifice of 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep in the temple courtyard over the
course of a week. I suspect the decimal point got misplaced a little there, but
I’ll leave it to you, dear reader, to speculate on how many places.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Immediately
after all of this, God appears to Solomon personally (so add Solomon to the
people who’ve seen God in person in spite of claims elsewhere in the Bible that
nobody ever has) to tell him how pleased he is that Solomon built him a temple.
Of course, the encounter is laden with the usual stuff about how as long as
Solomon keeps worshiping Yahweh and no other gods, then Israel will prosper and
Solomon’s line will rule forever. But if he ever starts worshipping other gods,
then God will fuck him up something fierce along with Israel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">It bears
repeating: God appeared to Solomon in person and told him that bad shit would
happen to him and to Israel if he ever starts chasing after other gods. Got it?
Because…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Later in
life, that’s exactly what Solomon does. Because of his foreign wives, of
course.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Before
the Bible gets to that, it spends some time raving about how incredibly wise
and rich and famous Solomon was, and how every king in all the world sought him
out for his wisdom and sent him lavish gifts. But by the time we get to the
last years of his life we find Solomon with 700 wives and 300 concubines, many
of whom are from people that Israelites are forbidden to marry. And of course,
Solomon starts serving the various gods of his various wives, and having
temples built for them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So just
to summarize. The Bible claims that Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived
in all of history (which is questionable to begin with just on the basis of
having a thousand wives and concubines). Further, that he was given this wisdom
for the express purpose of governing Israel properly. It further claims that
God visited Solomon and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">personally warned
him</i> not to muck around with foreign gods or it would result in the destruction
of his kingdom. So, in theory, Solomon has actual evidence of his god’s
existence, explicit instructions from that god about an action that will
destroy Israel, and the explicit mental faculties to avoid taking that action.
But he does it anyway. That’s not even remotely credible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Unless…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">All the
supernatural aspects here are bullshit, Solomon actually had no reason to
believe Yahweh is any more or less real than Ashtoreth, Milcom, Chemosh, or
Molech (the gods he’s accused of building temples to), and all of it was just
added to the story after the fact to explain why the nation fell apart (for
purely human political reasons that the Bible describes in detail and then
attributes to God anyway) in a way that let the writers reinforce a religious
dogma.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">But
anyway, back to the Bible story. God has an interesting way of enforcing his
dictates.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1 Kings 11:9 </b>And Yahweh was angry with Solomon, because his heart
had turned away from Yahweh, the god of Israel, who had appeared to him twice <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">10</b> and had commanded him concerning
this thing, that he should not go after other gods. But he did not keep what
Yahweh commanded. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">11 </b>Therefore
Yahweh said to Solomon, ‘Since you have not kept my covenant and my statutes
that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and give it
to your servant. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">12 </b>Yet for the sake
of David your father I will not do it in your days, but I will tear it out of
the hand of your son. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">13 </b>However, I
will not tear away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son, for
the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem that I have
chosen.’”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">There he
goes again, punishing the son because he’s pissed at the dad. Yay, justice!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Although
to be fair, the son who loses the kingdom is kind of a dick.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The
Bible goes on for awhile about the politics of who plots to break up the
kingdom and why (which are all initiated by human beings, though sometimes
human beings claiming to speak on behalf of God). Interestingly, among these
descriptions is not one instance of Solomon attempting to make up to Yahweh
and/or get rid of the temples to other gods. Almost as if God’s warning never
actually took place, or at least wasn’t regarded seriously. And after a reign
of forty years, Solomon eventually dies and leaves the kingdom to his son
Rehoboam.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Early in
Rehoboam’s reign, some of the elders of Israel (led by a guy named Jeroboam,
who’s been hiding out in Egypt ever since a priest named Ahijah had promised
him that God would give him most of the tribes of Israel to rule after
Solomon’s death) come to complain that Solomon had been too harsh and demanding
a ruler, and to ask that Rehoboam take a lighter hand. Rehoboam responded that
since he was a bigger man than his father (and depending on how well you trust
the internet when it comes to Biblical euphemisms, may have been making a joke
about penis sizes when he said it), he would be even more harsh than Solomon
had been. And…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1 Kings 12:15</b> So the king did not listen to the people, for it was
a turn of affairs brought about by Yahweh that he might fulfill his word, which
Yahweh spoke by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Once
again implying that God controls people’s actions when he feels like it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So all
the tribes of Israel except Benjamin and Judah rebel against Rehoboam and make
Jeroboam their king. Rehoboam wants to make a fight of it (supposedly gathering
an army of 180,000 men), but God (speaking through a “man of god” named
Shemaiah) forbids the people from fighting and they go home instead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Ironically
Jeroboam, whom God supposedly picked to rule Israel to make up for Solomon’s
respect to foreign gods, also can’t seem to follow God’s rules or refrain from
putting up idols. Yahweh, it appears, is pretty shite when it comes to picking
kings who’ll do his bidding.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Anyhow,
I think we’ll call this a stopping point for now. It’s going to take some
thought to cull the worthwhile stories from the mind-numbing political
meanderings of the next portion of First Kings. So until then, everybody be
well!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
ReallyAwakeGuyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15736656268281182625noreply@blogger.com2