See what I mean? These chapters are so boring, you have to have an enormous amount of momentum in order to slog through, because it is going to grind you down. I had every intention of finishing this chapter by tomorrow! But I got mired down; now each day is going to be an unbearable grind. I can only hope Deuteronomy picks up again, that is if I ever get through Leviticus! I must! I can't let myself get stuck here again! One must ask, how can the world's most brilliant writer write so badly?
Old Testament
Book Three: Leviticus
The hallowing and installation of the priests (cont'd)
Chapter 9: The priests start work
Chapter 10: What happens if you don't follow the rules
Laws of purification and atonement
Chapter 11: Clean and unclean animals
Chapter 12: Dirty dirty childbirth!
Well, chapters 9 and 10 are painfully boring, but 11 and 12 are actually a little more interesting.
Chapters 11 to 16 are about uncleanness, which means they are at least a little bit salacious. Chapter 11 is interesting simply because it's an other chapter that proves that the book was written by humans 3000 years ago, not God. God would surely know, no matter when he wrote, whether bats are birds or not, right? (And you know what? Even if this book was written by humans leaving some room for error, still this section is spoken by God--at least God should be able to influence the author to quote him correctly, oughtn't he?) Well, God includes a section on birds, and guess what is an example of an unclean bird: that's right, bats. Lev. 11:19.
God likewise says that hares are not clean because while they do chew their cud, they do not have cloven hooves. Only problem with that? Hares do not chew their cud! It fascinates me that for a religious person a passage like this is not a big deal. They are able to shrug it off as the basest form of nitpicking. To me exactly the opposite is true. How could God not get these simple, obvious details right? It seems to me to be insulting bordering on blasphemy to suggest that God is too stupid to know that rabbits don't chew their cud, or indeed that God is not powerful enough to influence a writer to write the message God wants, without translational error. Remember this is the same god that is capable of manipulating the very atoms that comprise DNA, atom by atom, to rewrite strands into new species. That same guy can't manage to write down that rabbits don't chew their cud.
Now, I am sure religious people have some painfully strained explanation for this, but I don't see how it matters. Little things like this don't pass the "smell test" or the "laugh test" or whichever test you feel like throwing at it. It's just so obviously, empirically untrue, no further explanation is necessary.
One more interesting part about the animals concerns camels. It says that while they chew their cud, they do not have parted toes or cloven hooves. (The rule is that in order to be clean, the animal must be both--a cud-chewer, and a cloven hoofer. Lev. 11:3) Now as any red-blooded heterosexual male knows, where would the current state of the pussy be without camels? Without their suggestive feet, would we have the same appreciation of the girl version? I'm not sure if Wicked Weasel was in business 3000 years ago, but that's no excuse for God not knowing that camels have split toes!
The interesting thing about it is that they do not have cloven hooves, but do have split toes (but only have one big pad that goes across two toes). I don't think this technically can be considered a mistake, but it is certainly not clear. Why leave open whether camels count as clean or not, or what exactly it means by "parted toe"? (Notice I'm avoiding the infinitely more obvious question of WHY?!)
Oh, chapter 12 isn't the fun chapter. It's a very short chapter stating that childbirth is unclean, and the mother must remain isolated for 7 days afterward, etc. The more interesting chapter about spilling seed is a little later. (I've been reading a little ahead.)
That's about it. Only 15 chapters to go. Still not half way done, still not to my farthest point yet!
--bibletoenail
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Two Turtle Doves
These chapters are so boring there just is almost nothing to say about them. My entries are probably going to be very short. I'm not going to force myself to find something interesting to say. We're like the ship in the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner":
Down dropt the breeze, the sales dropt down,
'Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea !
All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion ;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
--Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
We are that ancient mariner. We were going along fine, when suddenly down dropt the breeze, and now day after day there's not a breath nor motion of narrative. As boring as boring could be.
Old Testament
Book Three: Leviticus
Laws concerning offerings and sacrifices (cont'd)
Chapter 5: An appendix of sinful situations
Chapter 6: Guilt offering
Chapter 7: The role of the Aaronite priests
The hallowing and installation of the priests
Chapter 8: The installation of the Aaronite priests
Chapter 4 is about inadvertent sins. But what I liked so much about the last group of laws in Exodus was their sophistication--you didn't have to pay for many inadvertent wrongs. They had a fairly sophisticated conception of negligence. It seems a little contradictory here for God to insist on offerings when the sin was inadvertent. Somehow, even though blameless, you still need to be cleansed of the sin. I guess that makes sense, similarly, if diseased you need to be cleansed, even though it's not your fault.
Only one slightly interesting detail presents itself in this section. In Exodus God's character changed again. By "character" here I don't mean his personality, which is pretty consistently petty, insecure, childish, and murderous. I mean his physical character--his physical manifestation. So far he has appeared in a few different ways. In the beginning of course he was just "a mighty wind" (I love Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer for making a fart joke out of that phrase) over the "waters." In the early days he just "spoke" to people such as Noah. Then he appeared to Abraham and to Lot as an actual physical human. (And there's further confusion about these lesser gods and angels that according to God should not exist, yet keep appearing. It is possible that modern theists utterly misunderstand the bible. The big Difference about Judaism and Christianity is that it is "monotheistic"--they are the only ones (along with Islam) who claim a single God. (Somehow that makes them better--it has always baffled me how that is an argument either way.)
But anyway, obviously, according to the old testament, other gods exist--think of the giants in Genesis 6, of the angels visiting Lot, of God himself saying "you shall have no other god before me" (Exod. 20:3), which is a clear admission of the existence of other gods. Christians say the amazing, unique thing about Christianity is that there is only one God--but it's not even true. These ancient Hebrew beliefs are very similar to other beliefs such as the Egyptians. Doesn't that explain the contest between God and the Egyptian gods so much better? In absolutely no way is the bible claiming the Egyptian gods do not exist. All it is claiming is that the Jewish god is better--same as every other religion in the world claims. This story is far closer to the other religions than they want to recognize.
Anyway, now, in Exodus and Leviticus, God only appears through some holy site. First the sacred Mount Sinai. I think this part is cool, though; the whole reason for all those altars and tabernacles and the Tent of the Presence is that Israel needed to move, but they couldn't just leave God there on the mountain! So they made the Tent of the Presence so he could go with them. I can't get over how similar this is to the commandment against graven images or idols--how is it different?
Just one small other note, in 5:7 are two turtle doves! which are referred to repeatedly in the next chapters. (Interestingly, they are what poor people use for offering since they can't afford to sacrifice a luxurious ram. Getting two turtle doves from your true love would be kind of lame. I've always wondered the origins of the gifts in that song--I wonder if all will be explained?
--bibletoenail
Down dropt the breeze, the sales dropt down,
'Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea !
All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion ;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
--Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
We are that ancient mariner. We were going along fine, when suddenly down dropt the breeze, and now day after day there's not a breath nor motion of narrative. As boring as boring could be.
Old Testament
Book Three: Leviticus
Laws concerning offerings and sacrifices (cont'd)
Chapter 5: An appendix of sinful situations
Chapter 6: Guilt offering
Chapter 7: The role of the Aaronite priests
The hallowing and installation of the priests
Chapter 8: The installation of the Aaronite priests
Chapter 4 is about inadvertent sins. But what I liked so much about the last group of laws in Exodus was their sophistication--you didn't have to pay for many inadvertent wrongs. They had a fairly sophisticated conception of negligence. It seems a little contradictory here for God to insist on offerings when the sin was inadvertent. Somehow, even though blameless, you still need to be cleansed of the sin. I guess that makes sense, similarly, if diseased you need to be cleansed, even though it's not your fault.
Only one slightly interesting detail presents itself in this section. In Exodus God's character changed again. By "character" here I don't mean his personality, which is pretty consistently petty, insecure, childish, and murderous. I mean his physical character--his physical manifestation. So far he has appeared in a few different ways. In the beginning of course he was just "a mighty wind" (I love Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer for making a fart joke out of that phrase) over the "waters." In the early days he just "spoke" to people such as Noah. Then he appeared to Abraham and to Lot as an actual physical human. (And there's further confusion about these lesser gods and angels that according to God should not exist, yet keep appearing. It is possible that modern theists utterly misunderstand the bible. The big Difference about Judaism and Christianity is that it is "monotheistic"--they are the only ones (along with Islam) who claim a single God. (Somehow that makes them better--it has always baffled me how that is an argument either way.)
But anyway, obviously, according to the old testament, other gods exist--think of the giants in Genesis 6, of the angels visiting Lot, of God himself saying "you shall have no other god before me" (Exod. 20:3), which is a clear admission of the existence of other gods. Christians say the amazing, unique thing about Christianity is that there is only one God--but it's not even true. These ancient Hebrew beliefs are very similar to other beliefs such as the Egyptians. Doesn't that explain the contest between God and the Egyptian gods so much better? In absolutely no way is the bible claiming the Egyptian gods do not exist. All it is claiming is that the Jewish god is better--same as every other religion in the world claims. This story is far closer to the other religions than they want to recognize.
Anyway, now, in Exodus and Leviticus, God only appears through some holy site. First the sacred Mount Sinai. I think this part is cool, though; the whole reason for all those altars and tabernacles and the Tent of the Presence is that Israel needed to move, but they couldn't just leave God there on the mountain! So they made the Tent of the Presence so he could go with them. I can't get over how similar this is to the commandment against graven images or idols--how is it different?
Just one small other note, in 5:7 are two turtle doves! which are referred to repeatedly in the next chapters. (Interestingly, they are what poor people use for offering since they can't afford to sacrifice a luxurious ram. Getting two turtle doves from your true love would be kind of lame. I've always wondered the origins of the gifts in that song--I wonder if all will be explained?
--bibletoenail
Thursday, December 25, 2008
In the Wilderness
Although Israel doesn't go "in the wilderness" until Deuteronomy, the narrative itself goes in the wilderness much earlier, with a 27-chapter litany of rules.
Old Testament
Book THREE!: Leviticus
Laws concerning offerings and sacrifices
Chapter 1: Whole animal offerings (pigeon if you're poor!)
Chapter 2: Don't give me no bread, no bread
Chapter 3: "Shared offerings"
Chapter 4: Paying for sin
The origins and reasons for this book are actually quite interesting. According to the opening notes this book is more of the rules started in Exodus and finished in Numbers. All these rules are part of a "priestly account"--meaning the Aaronite and Levite priests. It also dates to the postexilic age.
As I read, my understanding of the bible becomes more complete (weird how that works!). Although I'm expecting Leviticus to be boring, the reasons for it are fascinating. These poor Israelites apparently just have never been able to hang on to a state. (So is modern Israel the fulfillment of God's promise? Why would it be, after 5000 years of broken promises? Probably the Israelites will manage to lose it yet again.) In the "postexilic" age (which remember means after the exile from Babylon, not the exodus from Egypt), "an impoverished, harassed Israel lived under the domination of the Persian Empire" (from my book's opening remarks).
According to the notes, Israel had a tendency to assimilate to the culture of her neighbors. That one sentence explains so much of Exodus and Leviticus. The problem was, when Israel lost an identifiable "land," and were dispersed among some other people, they tended just to fit in rather than maintain their own identity. So the Aaronite priests strove to give the Israelites an identity, something other than the land they lived in, something to distinguish them from the other people in the neighborhood.
These incredibly anal rules that we've been reading about already, and are about to get an earful in Leviticus, were designed for just that. (It's not just these rules, however; in a broader sense the entire old testament is the written record of the myths and legends of one particular culture.) The notes throughout Exodus repeatedly mentioned that some rule or another is specifically directed toward some practice of the Canaanites or some other tribe. The point was we don't do it that way, we do it this way. The rules against miscegenation had the same purpose. And many of the anachronisms relate to this as well--some of the rules, supposedly given to Moses on Mount Sinai, actually addressed cultural practices of neighbors Israel didn't even have yet!
All that was the effort of the Aaronite priests to hold together the clan as they dispersed among other groups of people. From that stand point, everything makes sense. Half of Exodus was so boring, with such attention to detail. But it was exactly those details that the Aaronites wanted the Jews to focus on. Those details were what the Aaronites wanted the Israelites to embrace as their culture. It's such a common impulse, it's something we see here in this country all the time as various immigrant populations try to keep their children from assimilating too completely into American culture A much better question, for me personally, is why? That is something I will never understand. If I were, say, to move to France, I would go there because I wanted to. If my children became "French," I wouldn't care! More power to them, we could have yearly "no-fly" celebrations. Why would someone need their children to carry on their traditions? Your "self" is going to be carried on by your children in every single interaction you have with them; you don't need to worry about forcing one particular thing on them. Those tantrums they throw? That's a reflection of you. The drugs? The teenage pregnancy? The depression? The anger? All that is your legacy! Congratulations! You've already ensured that your true self will live on in your children for generations. Don't worry about making them remember the "homeland."
A long time ago I visited a class at the University of Utah. The class was something like comparative religion. The day I went an orthodox rabbi gave a talk about Judaism. (Oh my god I'm so dumb! It just dawned on me this second what "Judaism" means. It means frikkin' JUDAH-ism! We've been talking about these hints of Judah cropping up here and there for a long time! I can't believe when I read that note about Gen. ch. 38 about the Judah story being inserted because later on David comes from the tribe of Judah, that it never crossed my mind that JUDAH is Judaism. I can be so retarded sometimes!)
Anyway, this orthodox rabbi gave a talk (and again, I apologize for not knowing the proper terms--I don't know if he was orthodox or Hasidic or what he was, but he had the yarmulke and the tassels and the ringlets of hair). Something I've always remembered is he said that Judaism is the religion for an anal-retentive person, that his religion is all about the minutiae of the rituals.
And now we understand why! It's not an accident of the religion, it is the religion.
This leads me to another important question to contemplate as we read through the bible. Why this book? Why this book? Why did the Canaanite belief system not survive? Why not Babylonian or Pharaonic? It might be the case that the Aaronite priests were very successful in their endeavor. The belief system they set up worked, it created a cultural identity that has survived thousands of years. And at the same time, I think it explains a lot of the animosity toward Jews--they are simply more successful as a people than others. They learned specifically how to survive as a people even when "strangers in a strange land." That's exactly the kind of thing that breeds suspicion and jealousy among the small-minded (read human).
Who knows, Judaism might be one of the most successful intellectual enterprises of all time.
--bibletoenail
Old Testament
Book THREE!: Leviticus
Laws concerning offerings and sacrifices
Chapter 1: Whole animal offerings (pigeon if you're poor!)
Chapter 2: Don't give me no bread, no bread
Chapter 3: "Shared offerings"
Chapter 4: Paying for sin
The origins and reasons for this book are actually quite interesting. According to the opening notes this book is more of the rules started in Exodus and finished in Numbers. All these rules are part of a "priestly account"--meaning the Aaronite and Levite priests. It also dates to the postexilic age.
As I read, my understanding of the bible becomes more complete (weird how that works!). Although I'm expecting Leviticus to be boring, the reasons for it are fascinating. These poor Israelites apparently just have never been able to hang on to a state. (So is modern Israel the fulfillment of God's promise? Why would it be, after 5000 years of broken promises? Probably the Israelites will manage to lose it yet again.) In the "postexilic" age (which remember means after the exile from Babylon, not the exodus from Egypt), "an impoverished, harassed Israel lived under the domination of the Persian Empire" (from my book's opening remarks).
According to the notes, Israel had a tendency to assimilate to the culture of her neighbors. That one sentence explains so much of Exodus and Leviticus. The problem was, when Israel lost an identifiable "land," and were dispersed among some other people, they tended just to fit in rather than maintain their own identity. So the Aaronite priests strove to give the Israelites an identity, something other than the land they lived in, something to distinguish them from the other people in the neighborhood.
These incredibly anal rules that we've been reading about already, and are about to get an earful in Leviticus, were designed for just that. (It's not just these rules, however; in a broader sense the entire old testament is the written record of the myths and legends of one particular culture.) The notes throughout Exodus repeatedly mentioned that some rule or another is specifically directed toward some practice of the Canaanites or some other tribe. The point was we don't do it that way, we do it this way. The rules against miscegenation had the same purpose. And many of the anachronisms relate to this as well--some of the rules, supposedly given to Moses on Mount Sinai, actually addressed cultural practices of neighbors Israel didn't even have yet!
All that was the effort of the Aaronite priests to hold together the clan as they dispersed among other groups of people. From that stand point, everything makes sense. Half of Exodus was so boring, with such attention to detail. But it was exactly those details that the Aaronites wanted the Jews to focus on. Those details were what the Aaronites wanted the Israelites to embrace as their culture. It's such a common impulse, it's something we see here in this country all the time as various immigrant populations try to keep their children from assimilating too completely into American culture A much better question, for me personally, is why? That is something I will never understand. If I were, say, to move to France, I would go there because I wanted to. If my children became "French," I wouldn't care! More power to them, we could have yearly "no-fly" celebrations. Why would someone need their children to carry on their traditions? Your "self" is going to be carried on by your children in every single interaction you have with them; you don't need to worry about forcing one particular thing on them. Those tantrums they throw? That's a reflection of you. The drugs? The teenage pregnancy? The depression? The anger? All that is your legacy! Congratulations! You've already ensured that your true self will live on in your children for generations. Don't worry about making them remember the "homeland."
A long time ago I visited a class at the University of Utah. The class was something like comparative religion. The day I went an orthodox rabbi gave a talk about Judaism. (Oh my god I'm so dumb! It just dawned on me this second what "Judaism" means. It means frikkin' JUDAH-ism! We've been talking about these hints of Judah cropping up here and there for a long time! I can't believe when I read that note about Gen. ch. 38 about the Judah story being inserted because later on David comes from the tribe of Judah, that it never crossed my mind that JUDAH is Judaism. I can be so retarded sometimes!)
Anyway, this orthodox rabbi gave a talk (and again, I apologize for not knowing the proper terms--I don't know if he was orthodox or Hasidic or what he was, but he had the yarmulke and the tassels and the ringlets of hair). Something I've always remembered is he said that Judaism is the religion for an anal-retentive person, that his religion is all about the minutiae of the rituals.
And now we understand why! It's not an accident of the religion, it is the religion.
This leads me to another important question to contemplate as we read through the bible. Why this book? Why this book? Why did the Canaanite belief system not survive? Why not Babylonian or Pharaonic? It might be the case that the Aaronite priests were very successful in their endeavor. The belief system they set up worked, it created a cultural identity that has survived thousands of years. And at the same time, I think it explains a lot of the animosity toward Jews--they are simply more successful as a people than others. They learned specifically how to survive as a people even when "strangers in a strange land." That's exactly the kind of thing that breeds suspicion and jealousy among the small-minded (read human).
Who knows, Judaism might be one of the most successful intellectual enterprises of all time.
--bibletoenail
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Ho, Hum
Old Testament
Book Two: Exodus
Israel at Mount Sinai (cont'd)
Chapter 37: They continue building the Holy Stuff
Chapter 38: They continue to continue to build the Holy Stuff
Chapter 39: Yet more continuing of building the Holy Stuff
Chapter 40: They finish building the Holy Stuff
The authors of the Old Testament really know how to end a story with a bang. Nothing whatsoever happens in the last four chapters of Exodus. And not only that, it is word-for-word a repetition of the instructions from earlier. Chs. 25-32 were instructions on how to make the tabernacle and so on. Guess what happens in 37-40. They make what they were instructed to do. The only thing worth noting about these four chapters is that they managed to do what they were told. It's almost unheard of, to this point in the story, for one chapter to be consistent with the same thing told a few pages ago.
Well, there's really nothing to say. I finished Exodus! Leviticus has 27 chapters. If I continue, I will finish it before the end of the year, and that will officially be the furthest I have ever gotten in the bible. It's all unknown from that point forward.
I went to the library yesterday and got the Freud article on the Moses of Michelangelo. I will try to read it today. It's very interesting. I don't know what yet, but something about it is so controversial that when Freud published it, he did so anonymously! Intriguing, huh!
Charmingly, the public library here still uses the Dewey Decimal System instead of the retarded Library of Congress numbering system. I'm a 2L now, which is journal-year, which means we all have to do a lot of research in the library hunting down sources for journal articles. I have a friend who is infuriated by the Library of Congress system, and says it takes hours to find something that should be simple. He came up with a new library numbering system that is simple, workable, and I think hysterical. If I ever have a library, I will implement it. The system is, you number the books consecutively using natural numbers. When you acquire a new book, give it the next number and put it at the end of the stacks. That way when you are looking up a book, the computer will tell you "that is book number 4352." You just go to that spot in the library and there is book number 4352. I love it. Unfortunately when I asked him if you would at least separate the books by topic, he realized maybe there is a logic to having at least some organization to the books in a library, and he started modifying his new system. But I am encouraging him to stick to the purity and simplicity of the original plan.
The name "Leviticus" refers to Levi. The entire book is Levite law--the law of the time of the Aaronite priests. I do not think there is a single moment of story in the entire book, which is why I've never been able to get through it. But now, perhaps, I'm used to reading boring laws and I will be able to plow through. Just be prepared for some unbearable boredom for the next few days. Hopefully it will pick up in Deuteronomy, but I don't know, because I've never been that far!
Oh, one last thing about Leviticus, and we'll have plenty of time to talk about it, is that "Leviticus," as you may have noticed, is a Latin word. We're moving far up into "modern" times, with Greek and Latin influences replacing the ancient Hebrew.
Well, that's really all. Exodus was very, very lame compared to Genesis. I really hope the bible picks up again soon.
--bibletoenail
Book Two: Exodus
Israel at Mount Sinai (cont'd)
Chapter 37: They continue building the Holy Stuff
Chapter 38: They continue to continue to build the Holy Stuff
Chapter 39: Yet more continuing of building the Holy Stuff
Chapter 40: They finish building the Holy Stuff
The authors of the Old Testament really know how to end a story with a bang. Nothing whatsoever happens in the last four chapters of Exodus. And not only that, it is word-for-word a repetition of the instructions from earlier. Chs. 25-32 were instructions on how to make the tabernacle and so on. Guess what happens in 37-40. They make what they were instructed to do. The only thing worth noting about these four chapters is that they managed to do what they were told. It's almost unheard of, to this point in the story, for one chapter to be consistent with the same thing told a few pages ago.
Well, there's really nothing to say. I finished Exodus! Leviticus has 27 chapters. If I continue, I will finish it before the end of the year, and that will officially be the furthest I have ever gotten in the bible. It's all unknown from that point forward.
I went to the library yesterday and got the Freud article on the Moses of Michelangelo. I will try to read it today. It's very interesting. I don't know what yet, but something about it is so controversial that when Freud published it, he did so anonymously! Intriguing, huh!
Charmingly, the public library here still uses the Dewey Decimal System instead of the retarded Library of Congress numbering system. I'm a 2L now, which is journal-year, which means we all have to do a lot of research in the library hunting down sources for journal articles. I have a friend who is infuriated by the Library of Congress system, and says it takes hours to find something that should be simple. He came up with a new library numbering system that is simple, workable, and I think hysterical. If I ever have a library, I will implement it. The system is, you number the books consecutively using natural numbers. When you acquire a new book, give it the next number and put it at the end of the stacks. That way when you are looking up a book, the computer will tell you "that is book number 4352." You just go to that spot in the library and there is book number 4352. I love it. Unfortunately when I asked him if you would at least separate the books by topic, he realized maybe there is a logic to having at least some organization to the books in a library, and he started modifying his new system. But I am encouraging him to stick to the purity and simplicity of the original plan.
The name "Leviticus" refers to Levi. The entire book is Levite law--the law of the time of the Aaronite priests. I do not think there is a single moment of story in the entire book, which is why I've never been able to get through it. But now, perhaps, I'm used to reading boring laws and I will be able to plow through. Just be prepared for some unbearable boredom for the next few days. Hopefully it will pick up in Deuteronomy, but I don't know, because I've never been that far!
Oh, one last thing about Leviticus, and we'll have plenty of time to talk about it, is that "Leviticus," as you may have noticed, is a Latin word. We're moving far up into "modern" times, with Greek and Latin influences replacing the ancient Hebrew.
Well, that's really all. Exodus was very, very lame compared to Genesis. I really hope the bible picks up again soon.
--bibletoenail
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
The Horned Moses
"When [Moses] descended, he did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been speaking with the Lord." --Exod. 34:29 [New English Bible]
"cumque descenderet Moses de monte Sinai . . . ignorabat quod cornuta esset facies sua ex consortio sermonis Dei" --Exod. 34:29 [Biblia Sacra Vulgata] ["When descended Moses from Mount Sinai, he was ignorant that horned was his face because he was conversing in the company of God"]
Old Testament
Book Two: Exodus
Israel at Mount Sinai (cont'd)
Chapter 33: Israel prepares to leave the sacred mountain
Chapter 34: Theophany!
Chapter 35: The erection of the tabernacle
Chapter 36: Judah and the holy carpenters
Have I gotten so bored with cow entrails and flinging blood on the walls that I have resorted to quoting St. Jerome's Latin Vulgate version of the bible? you ask. But that verse centers around the most fascinating thing I have encountered yet reading the bible. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai the second time, his face glowed because he had been talking to God. (Nevermind that that had never happened before, to anyone.) But look at the Latin Vulgate translation of that passage. Jerome said when Moses came down he had horns on his face!
The Hebrew word "qeren" means both "shine" and "horn," and Jerome mistranslated it as horn. But here's where it gets interesting. The Vulgate translation was written in the fifth century A.D., and remained the official Roman Catholic text for centuries. Even when the Roman Catholic church finally authorized an English translation of the bible, which became the Douay-Rheims version, that version was based not on the Greek and Hebrew texts, but on the Vulgate. So for centuries the official Roman Catholic bible said that Moses had horns on his head.
Consequently, artists for centuries thought Moses had horns on his head. Artists latched on to this one passage because it distinguished Moses from other saints. In most of the old testament (at least what we've read so far) there are very few physical descriptions of the characters. Moses' horns set him apart, gave him a readily identifiable characteristic. (According to the footnotes of my bible, "horns" is not necessarily a mistranslation. It says that "qeren" may have been related to the way "ancient priests were sometimes depicted with a horned headpiece which symbolized their semidivine status." So the Hebrew may very well have meant "horned"--Moses' face itself showed the horns that the ancient priests wore on their headpieces.)
Anyway, as a result, in one of Michelangelo's more famous sculptures, of Moses, in San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome, Moses has horns! Here is that amazing sculpture. Click on the picture so you can see the full-size image:
I've been to Rome one time. It is an amazing place. The city is so overflowing with art, sculpture, history, that they don't have room for all the sculptures of Michelangelo. A single minor sculpture by Michelangelo would be the centerpiece of any museum's collection in America (see From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler). In Rome, many Michelangelo sculptures are OUTSIDE on the sidewalk. They don't have enough room in the museums, so they just put them in parks and on streets. How amazing is Rome? Read this article. Just last year, on December 7, 2007, a new sketch by Michelangelo, who died over 500 years ago, was found in the archives of the Vatican. Can you imagine? I have been told that it is difficult for the Romans to do any construction or public works in Rome, because every time they start to dig they uncover more ruins that need to be excavated and examined for years before they can continue. While I was there, in 2004, they had just discovered new artifacts in the basement of a building on the Piazza Navona that they were trying to renovate.
So, it's fascinating that 1000 years of art and iconography was influenced by a mistranslation of that one rather unimportant detail in Exodus. But this story is just getting started.
One of my favorite authors is Sigmund Freud. He had an amazing mind, and he wrote unabashedly about sex, and he invented this enormous framework for how the mind works. Even though psychologists tend to discount a lot of his work nowadays, I never understand why--it would be like discounting Darwin because we've learned so much more about evolution in the last 150 years. The basics of what Freud believed are so fundamental to our understanding of the human mind now, I think most people no longer even recognize his influence. When psychologists say he was "wrong," they are talking in very specific, nitpicky ways. But the basics of the id and ego, and dissembling (see my post on Sarah's Dissembling in Genesis), and defense mechanisms, and how people lie to themselves more than they ever lie to others, and when someone is lying to you, or does something mean, they aren't lashing out at you, they are trying to protect their own insecurities. All that is fundamental to understanding human behavior, and Freud laid it all out.
But more than that, his work is seminal. Although he's been rejected in many circles in psychology, feminist theory and film theory love him. SCREEN memories for heaven's sake! He created an entire theory of feminism and film. And yet, one of the main reasons psychologists don't like him is that his theory was too phallocentric--his theories, they say, were way off when it comes to women. But, feminists say, the entire world is phallocentric, that's the entire point. You know who else was highly phallocentric? Michelangelo!
It turns out, Freud wrote an essay on the Moses of Michelangelo! And not just any essay. It's apparently one of the strangest, most personal essays Freud wrote. Unfortunately Freud's works are not online. (Apparently they are still under copyright. I think of him as a nineteenth century thinker, but he didn't die until 1936.) So I haven't read the essay yet, but I will let you know.
What an amazing web of Western culture spread across 2000 years was sparked by that one little passage of Exodus!
--bibletoenail
Textual Notes
- Exod. 33:3 -- A great new twist. Now God says he's not going to go with Israel, because if he does he's afraid he will annihilate them along the way! It's so great, just like a bad marriage--"I just can't talk to you right now." Remember this is the god of supposed infinite compassion, etc. etc.
- Exod. 33:15-16 -- An amazing passage that refutes the entire Christian belief. Moses says to God, "Indeed, if thou dost not go in person, do not send us up from here; for how can it ever be known that I and thy people have found favor with thee, except by thy going with us?" Moses is saying that we humans cannot possibly be expected to believe in God if he does not show himself! More importantly, v. 17, GOD AGREES! "I will do this thing that you have asked, because you have found favor with me."
- Exod. 33:18 -- Moses gets a little pervy here: "Show me thy glory." George Michael got arrested for saying that to the wrong person.
- Exod. 33:19n -- Here again the editors are getting a little heavy-handed with the grace theme, and I don't think it fits. They say God's "graciousness" is shown by him being nice to Israel after the golden calf incident. But he has already promised them repeatedly that he would go--I don't see what is gracious about it.
- Exod. 33:20-23 -- Here's a weird, interesting little story. God tells Moses he can't see his face (although Moses has already had several face-to-faces with him). So God covers Moses' eyes until he passes, then God lets Moses see his back. It is very reminiscent of a tale from Greek Mythology.
- Exod. 34:1-35n -- Theophany. What a great new word!
- Exod. 34:6-7n -- Weird little passage, where God brags and complains: "[I'm] compassionate and gracious, long-suffering, ever constant and true, maintaining constancy to thousands, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin, and not sweeping the guilty clean away." Every single thing he claims about himself there is empirically not true. The note says "[t]his seems to be an extremely ancient cultic confession, and it is repeated many times (Num. 14:18; Neh. 9:17; Ps. 103:8, Joel 2:13, Jonah 4:2)."
- Exod. 34:15-16 -- More prohibition on miscegenation, here, again, don't let your daughters marry those Canaanites.
- Exod. 34:20 -- This is, I think, a VERY obscure verse that the notes don't pick up on. It says, "You shall buy back all the first-born of your sons, and no one shall come into my presence empty-handed." I cannot unravel that. He told them already that they have to give him their first born. And yet now they can "buy them back." What does that mean? And what is this about entering his presence empty-handed? Buying back your first-born will provide you company? That sounds vaguely Mormon to me!
- Exod. 35:3 -- Many of my classmates are "devout" Jews. (I don't know the official word for it--"orthodox," maybe? And they are also very wealthy. On some of the Jewish holidays it is apparently not allowed to turn on the lights in your house. Are you ready for this? Some of these people HIRE SOMEONE to come in and turn on their lights for them! Well, I think this verse might be the origin of that bizarre practice: "You are not even to light your fire at home on the Sabbath day." Getting back to my training as a lawyer (and these books of the bible are THE LAW after all! There is a concept called "vicarious liability" which means, basically, that if you tell someone else to do something illegal, you are guilty of it yourself. Pretty obvious. It seems pretty obvious to me that hiring someone else to flip your light switch is in no way better than doing it yourself, or doing it with a stick. There is no way you are getting around that prohibition simply by having someone else do it. In fact, it might even be more sinful, because you are enticing someone else to sin.
- Exod. 36:6-7 -- It's interesting that here the Israelites donated too much to the building of the temple, because I swear earlier God had to force to do so. This is a much softer version. (And yes, the book is wearing me down--even I am growing tired of all the needless and contradictory repetition.)
"cumque descenderet Moses de monte Sinai . . . ignorabat quod cornuta esset facies sua ex consortio sermonis Dei" --Exod. 34:29 [Biblia Sacra Vulgata] ["When descended Moses from Mount Sinai, he was ignorant that horned was his face because he was conversing in the company of God"]
Old Testament
Book Two: Exodus
Israel at Mount Sinai (cont'd)
Chapter 33: Israel prepares to leave the sacred mountain
Chapter 34: Theophany!
Chapter 35: The erection of the tabernacle
Chapter 36: Judah and the holy carpenters
Have I gotten so bored with cow entrails and flinging blood on the walls that I have resorted to quoting St. Jerome's Latin Vulgate version of the bible? you ask. But that verse centers around the most fascinating thing I have encountered yet reading the bible. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai the second time, his face glowed because he had been talking to God. (Nevermind that that had never happened before, to anyone.) But look at the Latin Vulgate translation of that passage. Jerome said when Moses came down he had horns on his face!
The Hebrew word "qeren" means both "shine" and "horn," and Jerome mistranslated it as horn. But here's where it gets interesting. The Vulgate translation was written in the fifth century A.D., and remained the official Roman Catholic text for centuries. Even when the Roman Catholic church finally authorized an English translation of the bible, which became the Douay-Rheims version, that version was based not on the Greek and Hebrew texts, but on the Vulgate. So for centuries the official Roman Catholic bible said that Moses had horns on his head.
Consequently, artists for centuries thought Moses had horns on his head. Artists latched on to this one passage because it distinguished Moses from other saints. In most of the old testament (at least what we've read so far) there are very few physical descriptions of the characters. Moses' horns set him apart, gave him a readily identifiable characteristic. (According to the footnotes of my bible, "horns" is not necessarily a mistranslation. It says that "qeren" may have been related to the way "ancient priests were sometimes depicted with a horned headpiece which symbolized their semidivine status." So the Hebrew may very well have meant "horned"--Moses' face itself showed the horns that the ancient priests wore on their headpieces.)
Anyway, as a result, in one of Michelangelo's more famous sculptures, of Moses, in San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome, Moses has horns! Here is that amazing sculpture. Click on the picture so you can see the full-size image:
I've been to Rome one time. It is an amazing place. The city is so overflowing with art, sculpture, history, that they don't have room for all the sculptures of Michelangelo. A single minor sculpture by Michelangelo would be the centerpiece of any museum's collection in America (see From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler). In Rome, many Michelangelo sculptures are OUTSIDE on the sidewalk. They don't have enough room in the museums, so they just put them in parks and on streets. How amazing is Rome? Read this article. Just last year, on December 7, 2007, a new sketch by Michelangelo, who died over 500 years ago, was found in the archives of the Vatican. Can you imagine? I have been told that it is difficult for the Romans to do any construction or public works in Rome, because every time they start to dig they uncover more ruins that need to be excavated and examined for years before they can continue. While I was there, in 2004, they had just discovered new artifacts in the basement of a building on the Piazza Navona that they were trying to renovate.
So, it's fascinating that 1000 years of art and iconography was influenced by a mistranslation of that one rather unimportant detail in Exodus. But this story is just getting started.
One of my favorite authors is Sigmund Freud. He had an amazing mind, and he wrote unabashedly about sex, and he invented this enormous framework for how the mind works. Even though psychologists tend to discount a lot of his work nowadays, I never understand why--it would be like discounting Darwin because we've learned so much more about evolution in the last 150 years. The basics of what Freud believed are so fundamental to our understanding of the human mind now, I think most people no longer even recognize his influence. When psychologists say he was "wrong," they are talking in very specific, nitpicky ways. But the basics of the id and ego, and dissembling (see my post on Sarah's Dissembling in Genesis), and defense mechanisms, and how people lie to themselves more than they ever lie to others, and when someone is lying to you, or does something mean, they aren't lashing out at you, they are trying to protect their own insecurities. All that is fundamental to understanding human behavior, and Freud laid it all out.
But more than that, his work is seminal. Although he's been rejected in many circles in psychology, feminist theory and film theory love him. SCREEN memories for heaven's sake! He created an entire theory of feminism and film. And yet, one of the main reasons psychologists don't like him is that his theory was too phallocentric--his theories, they say, were way off when it comes to women. But, feminists say, the entire world is phallocentric, that's the entire point. You know who else was highly phallocentric? Michelangelo!
It turns out, Freud wrote an essay on the Moses of Michelangelo! And not just any essay. It's apparently one of the strangest, most personal essays Freud wrote. Unfortunately Freud's works are not online. (Apparently they are still under copyright. I think of him as a nineteenth century thinker, but he didn't die until 1936.) So I haven't read the essay yet, but I will let you know.
What an amazing web of Western culture spread across 2000 years was sparked by that one little passage of Exodus!
--bibletoenail
Textual Notes
- Exod. 33:3 -- A great new twist. Now God says he's not going to go with Israel, because if he does he's afraid he will annihilate them along the way! It's so great, just like a bad marriage--"I just can't talk to you right now." Remember this is the god of supposed infinite compassion, etc. etc.
- Exod. 33:15-16 -- An amazing passage that refutes the entire Christian belief. Moses says to God, "Indeed, if thou dost not go in person, do not send us up from here; for how can it ever be known that I and thy people have found favor with thee, except by thy going with us?" Moses is saying that we humans cannot possibly be expected to believe in God if he does not show himself! More importantly, v. 17, GOD AGREES! "I will do this thing that you have asked, because you have found favor with me."
- Exod. 33:18 -- Moses gets a little pervy here: "Show me thy glory." George Michael got arrested for saying that to the wrong person.
- Exod. 33:19n -- Here again the editors are getting a little heavy-handed with the grace theme, and I don't think it fits. They say God's "graciousness" is shown by him being nice to Israel after the golden calf incident. But he has already promised them repeatedly that he would go--I don't see what is gracious about it.
- Exod. 33:20-23 -- Here's a weird, interesting little story. God tells Moses he can't see his face (although Moses has already had several face-to-faces with him). So God covers Moses' eyes until he passes, then God lets Moses see his back. It is very reminiscent of a tale from Greek Mythology.
- Exod. 34:1-35n -- Theophany. What a great new word!
- Exod. 34:6-7n -- Weird little passage, where God brags and complains: "[I'm] compassionate and gracious, long-suffering, ever constant and true, maintaining constancy to thousands, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin, and not sweeping the guilty clean away." Every single thing he claims about himself there is empirically not true. The note says "[t]his seems to be an extremely ancient cultic confession, and it is repeated many times (Num. 14:18; Neh. 9:17; Ps. 103:8, Joel 2:13, Jonah 4:2)."
- Exod. 34:15-16 -- More prohibition on miscegenation, here, again, don't let your daughters marry those Canaanites.
- Exod. 34:20 -- This is, I think, a VERY obscure verse that the notes don't pick up on. It says, "You shall buy back all the first-born of your sons, and no one shall come into my presence empty-handed." I cannot unravel that. He told them already that they have to give him their first born. And yet now they can "buy them back." What does that mean? And what is this about entering his presence empty-handed? Buying back your first-born will provide you company? That sounds vaguely Mormon to me!
- Exod. 35:3 -- Many of my classmates are "devout" Jews. (I don't know the official word for it--"orthodox," maybe? And they are also very wealthy. On some of the Jewish holidays it is apparently not allowed to turn on the lights in your house. Are you ready for this? Some of these people HIRE SOMEONE to come in and turn on their lights for them! Well, I think this verse might be the origin of that bizarre practice: "You are not even to light your fire at home on the Sabbath day." Getting back to my training as a lawyer (and these books of the bible are THE LAW after all! There is a concept called "vicarious liability" which means, basically, that if you tell someone else to do something illegal, you are guilty of it yourself. Pretty obvious. It seems pretty obvious to me that hiring someone else to flip your light switch is in no way better than doing it yourself, or doing it with a stick. There is no way you are getting around that prohibition simply by having someone else do it. In fact, it might even be more sinful, because you are enticing someone else to sin.
- Exod. 36:6-7 -- It's interesting that here the Israelites donated too much to the building of the temple, because I swear earlier God had to force to do so. This is a much softer version. (And yes, the book is wearing me down--even I am growing tired of all the needless and contradictory repetition.)
Monday, December 22, 2008
Blog links broken
Blogger apparently made some change that has broken the links. It is appending the blogger address before every URL address. So if you click on a link in a blog entry, it's not going to work. You have to go up to the address bar and remove the blogger address from the beginning of the URL. Hopefully they will fix this problem soon.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
A Squeeze of the Hand
I got in an argument with this guy on youtube. He posted this video, 10 questions every atheist must answer. As is so often the case with these types, he presented himself as logical and reasonable. I always long for a logical, reasonable conversation about religion, so I watched. One of his questions was about birds--he claimed that birds cannot have developed through evolution. While the claim is obviously not true--millions of years of evolution is plenty of time to create wings--how exactly it happened is sort of irrelevant. (It's an interesting question, one that biologists will probably explain at some point, but it's irrelevant to the question of the existence of God.) I noticed that another guy on youtube responded to this video with his own, answering the questions. He said that wings are actually one of the easiest things to explain--small animals falling out of trees to escape predators. One has some extra webbing between his toes, it slows him down just enough to survive the fall, and voilà, the beginning of wings.
So I wrote to this guy, the original guy, to ask him what he thought of that explanation. It was clear, simple, easy to understand, and eliminated one of the guy's ten questions. As I wrote back and forth to the guy it became increasingly clear, surprise, surprise, that the guy isn't the least bit reasonable, and that no amount of evidence would ever prevent him from claiming it still hasn't been proven completely.
There are of course a million things wrong with that "argument." But anyway, I still write to him sometimes when I see something particularly obvious in the bible that needs to be explained. I just wrote to him about Exodus, this post will just be mostly my email to him.
Old Testament
Book Two: Exodus
Israel at Mount Sinai (cont'd)
Chapter 29: Instructions for the installation of the priests
Chapter 30: The incense altar, taxes, other instructions (the sacred sink, recipes for incense)
Chapter 31: The holy carpenters
Chapter 32: Edward G. Robinson's big moment!
If you simply read the bible, the book is so bizarre that to claim it was written by God is nothing short of insulting to him.
Just look at Exodus. God, and the book, change personality about ten times. First he goes insane and tries to kill Moses right after he hires him. Then the ten plagues. Then the book COMPLETELY changes character, and goes on and on in the most minute detail about things that are utterly unimportant for any future reader, the plans for the tabernacle, the ark, and so on. These passages of the book are completely different from anything that came before it, and then, of course, in chapter 32, it goes back to the old style!
The historical explanation of this explains it readily: later on, after the exodus story was written, the Aaronite/Levite priests came to power. Since Aaron was the bad guy in the older exodus story (with the golden calf), they needed to add some passages to prop him up, so they just inserted some chapters about God installing Aaron as his priest.
That explanation makes sense. Here's a really really interesting question for you to contemplate. You are very comfortable condemning certain translations in favor of others. Should you not be equally skeptical of certain verses of the bible themselves? Are these Aaronite verses really the word of God? Or are they written by bad humans in order to prop up themselves?
And HOW CAN YOU KNOW? Isn't that what the whole bible is? Where do you draw the line? And you are so big on the "fossil record," where's your "fossil record" proving the authenticity of these versus that are in our bible? We can only trace them back to 500 or 1000 A.D.! There's an enormous gap between the version we think of as the bible, and the original writing. How do you know what (if ANY) of it is real?
If, as you readily admit, indeed, insist on, current translators (going back at least to King James) made mistakes, or even worse, purposefully translate a passage in a certain way to make the point they want to make--why wouldn't that have been happening 2000, 3000, 4000 years ago? There's an enormous, 1000s-of-years-long gap in the "fossil record" of the bible. You should, if you have any intellectual integrity about it, have zero confidence in the veracity of the bible whatsoever. Not because you doubt the existence of God, but because you have absolutely no reason to believe that the book we have now is anything other than bullshit a bunch of humans wrote long after the original was written.
Just one more reason a belief in the whole enterprise is so unfounded and intellectually dishonest.
In fact, from this standpoint, the Mormons are on the most sure footing. They claim that God verified his writings a mere 150 years ago! You have 4000 years of human intervention.
Even by the time Jesus lived, the Judaism he learned had ALREADY been bastardized for a thousand years. It would have made far more sense for him to say, "that commandment about 'eye for an eye'? It doesn't exist. God never said it. Aaron added that himself."
--bibletoenail
Other notes: After seven chapters of tedious blueprints for alters, we go back to the good author of the bible, the one that writes about sex and death. The notes taught me something important about the bible. The last several chapters have been these boring detailed plans for the altar, tent, and so on. They don't fit, they don't belong. This has been happening throughout the bible so far--Gen. 1:1 and 1:2, for instance, totally different versions of the same story. Why? My rather confused assumption to this point has been that the editors simply didn't know what they were doing--it was like competing factions in Congress, they have to add some language here, other language there, to keep everyone happy, and the result makes no sense. But the notes in these sections tell a different story.
They say that there is a reason why these chapters were inserted in the middle of the otherwise compelling narrative. It's pure politics. It is, in fact, exactly what George Bush is doing now, a public relations campaign to convince people he was a good president. At some point after the original Exodus story was written, Aaron and the Levites came to power. The problem is, Aaron was the obvious bad guy in the Exodus story! He's the one responsible for the golden calf. So the Levite priests added these chapters in order to soften the impact of that story. To show that Aaron was special, and so perhaps his decision was special also, not sinful.
The point for me is a lesson that I have to reteach myself often: it's too easy always to assume the worst of people. Here, it's easy to assume the editors of the bible were just incompetent. It's infinitely more rewarding, however, to assume they did have a reason for the decisions they made, and try to figure out what those reasons are. That's not to say any of it's true; it's just to say that the authors were purposeful in their decisions.
By the way, God is characteristically insane in chapter 32. He kills THOUSANDS of the Israelites he just delivered from Egypt, mere days after rescuing them, and for getting tired of waiting for Moses to come back down. I really like the Israelites, they are consistently completely unimpressed by God. Remember that this new covenant is unenforceable; the Israelites already have a covenant with God that does not require their obedience of the ten commandments, and nothing whatsoever has invalidated that covenant. God repeatedly, viciously lies.
Lastly, there's something very gay about these chapters of the bible, all about the wonderful beautiful frilly clothes that Aaron will wear. And the book lately has been reminding me of Moby-Dick, how half the book was the narrative, and half was random chapters on rope and sitting in giant vats of fat holding hands with the other sailors.
By the way, if God keeps killing off the willful Israelites, it's no wonder by the time Jesus came around all that was left were these simpering weaklings. They were all that was left! The old testament was one big artificial selection experiment. Look at a Christian today: it is proof that evolution works.
Quotables:
"Who is on the Lord's side? Come here to me." --Exod. 32:26
"These are the words of the Lord the God of Israel: 'Arm yourselves, each of you, with his sword. Go through the camp from gate to gate and back again. Each of you kill his brother, his friend, his neighbor.'" --Exod. 32:27
"The Levites obeyed, and about three thousand of the people died that day." --Exod. 32:28
"Today you have consecrated yourselves to the Lord completely, because you have turned each against his own son and his own brother and so have this day brought a blessing upon yourselves." --Exod. 32:29
"If thou wilt forgive them, forgive. But if not, blot out my name, I pray, from thy book which thou hast written." --Exod. 32:32:
Textual Notes
- Exod. 29:1n -- This note says that these passages ascribe the origin of the Aaronite priesthood to the Mosaic period (got to use the vocabulary words! Another one is coming shortly). But, it says, in early Israelite history, a priest could come from any tribe. But later the Levites came to be recognized as the priestly tribe. Later still it came to be only the descendants or Aaron within the Levite tribe. It says in the "postexilic" period.--"postexilic" I think means after the Exodus. I think I still am hazy on the history of Israel (well, that's putting it mildly--I have no idea what happens after Exodus!). I thought at first "postexilic" only referred to the book of Exodus, but now I think perhaps their time "in the wilderness" will be longer than that. . . . Actually, I just looked up "exilic"--it means period of exile not period of exodus. My dictionary says "exilic" refers to a period in the 6th century B.C. when the Jews were exiled from Babylon--that might be a time entirely different from the time period of the current story. In fact, the "exilic" period might not even be recounted in the bible, it might be another time altogether in the history of Israel.
- Exod. 29:13 -- The notes for most of Exodus have referred to the tribe of Israel as a "cult." Mostly, I assumed it's just a general term for a religious group. But at times I think the notes may very well mean it in the more pejorative sense. Look at the detail, the relish, with which these passages are wallowing in the gore. Even though God in the last two books has killed hundreds of thousands or even millions of people, many his own followers, the death has always been rated PG--he smites them, but without much detail. Look at this passage, by comparison: "Then take the fat covering the entrails, the long lobe of the liver, and the two kidneys with the fat upon them, and burn it on the altar." Uh, wow. To our eyes, of course, this sounds barbaric, but the truth is probably that they had hard lives and used every bit of an animal that they slaughtered, and so were intimately familiar with every piece of a cow's insides.
- Exod. 29:14 -- Look at this: "the flesh of the bull, and its skin and offal, you shall destroy by fire outside the camp. It is a sin-offering." "Sin-offering"? I wish they explained that! It sounds like there's a whole complicated regime of rituals that are only touched on here in the bible. You don't just make offerings to God, you can somehow do the opposite--what exactly does that mean? It doesn’t mean "Satan," he doesn't exist yet. Is it also an offering to God, but it's a sin-offering to God? Very intriguing.
- Exod. 29:16 -- "Then slaughter it, take its blood and fling it against the sides of the alter." This enterprise does not sound very sanitary. And there is nothing in the bible about how to clean the walls of the temple after the bloodbath!
- Exod. 29:20 -- "Then take some of its blood, and put it on the lobes of the right ears of Aaron and his sons, and on their right thumbs and big toes." Earlobes, right thumbs, and big toes. Oh my.
- Exod. 30:15 -- It's interesting here that God enacts a regressive tax (all the same amount, no matter if rich or poor). It's completely the opposite of the socialism that Joseph imposed in Egypt.
- Exod. 31:2 -- Hey, another mention of the tribe of Judah!
- Exod. 31:15 -- I know some observations/criticisms of Christians and the bible are so obvious the only objection a Christian can muster is "come on, it's not all meant to be taken literally!" But here in the middle of very specific laws, hardly the time for flowery poetic language, is a law that anyone who works on the Sabbath day shall be put to death. It's right there in black and white. Which is worse, more sinful--to disobey the bible when it is very clear about something, or to read into the bible something that is not there (like that a fetus is human when it is clearly not (21:22))?
- Exod. 32:9-10 -- "So the Lord said to Moses, 'I have considered this people, and I see that they are a stubborn people. Now, let me alone to vent my anger upon them, so that I may put an end to them and make a great nation spring from you.'"
- Exod. 32:11-12 -- Again the humans are the reasonable ones.
- Exod. 32:9-14n -- This is a Christian note. The note says that God accepts Israel through grace, not because of her merits. But that's not what the story says at all. Moses argues with God, as Abraham did on behalf of Sodom, and convinces God not to do what he wants. And, indeed, God does not in fact save Israel through grace at all. What God wanted to do was kill the innocent along with the guilty. Moses intervenes to say that's wrong. So what God does instead (32:35) is kill only the guilty, not the innocent. This passage is exactly the opposite of salvation through grace. God wants to kill people without discernment--humans convince him to at least be just. It's the opposite of grace--it's God's "mysterious" murderous intent.
- Exod. 32:24 -- Keeping with the Israelite tradition, Aaron lies about his part in the golden calf incident. Moses is almost unique in his lack of mendacity.
- Exod. 32:26-29n -- More stuff showing Levites are special. Why? Because they were willing to murder their family and neighbors.
So I wrote to this guy, the original guy, to ask him what he thought of that explanation. It was clear, simple, easy to understand, and eliminated one of the guy's ten questions. As I wrote back and forth to the guy it became increasingly clear, surprise, surprise, that the guy isn't the least bit reasonable, and that no amount of evidence would ever prevent him from claiming it still hasn't been proven completely.
There are of course a million things wrong with that "argument." But anyway, I still write to him sometimes when I see something particularly obvious in the bible that needs to be explained. I just wrote to him about Exodus, this post will just be mostly my email to him.
Old Testament
Book Two: Exodus
Israel at Mount Sinai (cont'd)
Chapter 29: Instructions for the installation of the priests
Chapter 30: The incense altar, taxes, other instructions (the sacred sink, recipes for incense)
Chapter 31: The holy carpenters
Chapter 32: Edward G. Robinson's big moment!
If you simply read the bible, the book is so bizarre that to claim it was written by God is nothing short of insulting to him.
Just look at Exodus. God, and the book, change personality about ten times. First he goes insane and tries to kill Moses right after he hires him. Then the ten plagues. Then the book COMPLETELY changes character, and goes on and on in the most minute detail about things that are utterly unimportant for any future reader, the plans for the tabernacle, the ark, and so on. These passages of the book are completely different from anything that came before it, and then, of course, in chapter 32, it goes back to the old style!
The historical explanation of this explains it readily: later on, after the exodus story was written, the Aaronite/Levite priests came to power. Since Aaron was the bad guy in the older exodus story (with the golden calf), they needed to add some passages to prop him up, so they just inserted some chapters about God installing Aaron as his priest.
That explanation makes sense. Here's a really really interesting question for you to contemplate. You are very comfortable condemning certain translations in favor of others. Should you not be equally skeptical of certain verses of the bible themselves? Are these Aaronite verses really the word of God? Or are they written by bad humans in order to prop up themselves?
And HOW CAN YOU KNOW? Isn't that what the whole bible is? Where do you draw the line? And you are so big on the "fossil record," where's your "fossil record" proving the authenticity of these versus that are in our bible? We can only trace them back to 500 or 1000 A.D.! There's an enormous gap between the version we think of as the bible, and the original writing. How do you know what (if ANY) of it is real?
If, as you readily admit, indeed, insist on, current translators (going back at least to King James) made mistakes, or even worse, purposefully translate a passage in a certain way to make the point they want to make--why wouldn't that have been happening 2000, 3000, 4000 years ago? There's an enormous, 1000s-of-years-long gap in the "fossil record" of the bible. You should, if you have any intellectual integrity about it, have zero confidence in the veracity of the bible whatsoever. Not because you doubt the existence of God, but because you have absolutely no reason to believe that the book we have now is anything other than bullshit a bunch of humans wrote long after the original was written.
Just one more reason a belief in the whole enterprise is so unfounded and intellectually dishonest.
In fact, from this standpoint, the Mormons are on the most sure footing. They claim that God verified his writings a mere 150 years ago! You have 4000 years of human intervention.
Even by the time Jesus lived, the Judaism he learned had ALREADY been bastardized for a thousand years. It would have made far more sense for him to say, "that commandment about 'eye for an eye'? It doesn't exist. God never said it. Aaron added that himself."
--bibletoenail
Other notes: After seven chapters of tedious blueprints for alters, we go back to the good author of the bible, the one that writes about sex and death. The notes taught me something important about the bible. The last several chapters have been these boring detailed plans for the altar, tent, and so on. They don't fit, they don't belong. This has been happening throughout the bible so far--Gen. 1:1 and 1:2, for instance, totally different versions of the same story. Why? My rather confused assumption to this point has been that the editors simply didn't know what they were doing--it was like competing factions in Congress, they have to add some language here, other language there, to keep everyone happy, and the result makes no sense. But the notes in these sections tell a different story.
They say that there is a reason why these chapters were inserted in the middle of the otherwise compelling narrative. It's pure politics. It is, in fact, exactly what George Bush is doing now, a public relations campaign to convince people he was a good president. At some point after the original Exodus story was written, Aaron and the Levites came to power. The problem is, Aaron was the obvious bad guy in the Exodus story! He's the one responsible for the golden calf. So the Levite priests added these chapters in order to soften the impact of that story. To show that Aaron was special, and so perhaps his decision was special also, not sinful.
The point for me is a lesson that I have to reteach myself often: it's too easy always to assume the worst of people. Here, it's easy to assume the editors of the bible were just incompetent. It's infinitely more rewarding, however, to assume they did have a reason for the decisions they made, and try to figure out what those reasons are. That's not to say any of it's true; it's just to say that the authors were purposeful in their decisions.
By the way, God is characteristically insane in chapter 32. He kills THOUSANDS of the Israelites he just delivered from Egypt, mere days after rescuing them, and for getting tired of waiting for Moses to come back down. I really like the Israelites, they are consistently completely unimpressed by God. Remember that this new covenant is unenforceable; the Israelites already have a covenant with God that does not require their obedience of the ten commandments, and nothing whatsoever has invalidated that covenant. God repeatedly, viciously lies.
Lastly, there's something very gay about these chapters of the bible, all about the wonderful beautiful frilly clothes that Aaron will wear. And the book lately has been reminding me of Moby-Dick, how half the book was the narrative, and half was random chapters on rope and sitting in giant vats of fat holding hands with the other sailors.
By the way, if God keeps killing off the willful Israelites, it's no wonder by the time Jesus came around all that was left were these simpering weaklings. They were all that was left! The old testament was one big artificial selection experiment. Look at a Christian today: it is proof that evolution works.
Quotables:
"Who is on the Lord's side? Come here to me." --Exod. 32:26
"These are the words of the Lord the God of Israel: 'Arm yourselves, each of you, with his sword. Go through the camp from gate to gate and back again. Each of you kill his brother, his friend, his neighbor.'" --Exod. 32:27
"The Levites obeyed, and about three thousand of the people died that day." --Exod. 32:28
"Today you have consecrated yourselves to the Lord completely, because you have turned each against his own son and his own brother and so have this day brought a blessing upon yourselves." --Exod. 32:29
"If thou wilt forgive them, forgive. But if not, blot out my name, I pray, from thy book which thou hast written." --Exod. 32:32:
Textual Notes
- Exod. 29:1n -- This note says that these passages ascribe the origin of the Aaronite priesthood to the Mosaic period (got to use the vocabulary words! Another one is coming shortly). But, it says, in early Israelite history, a priest could come from any tribe. But later the Levites came to be recognized as the priestly tribe. Later still it came to be only the descendants or Aaron within the Levite tribe. It says in the "postexilic" period.--"postexilic" I think means after the Exodus. I think I still am hazy on the history of Israel (well, that's putting it mildly--I have no idea what happens after Exodus!). I thought at first "postexilic" only referred to the book of Exodus, but now I think perhaps their time "in the wilderness" will be longer than that. . . . Actually, I just looked up "exilic"--it means period of exile not period of exodus. My dictionary says "exilic" refers to a period in the 6th century B.C. when the Jews were exiled from Babylon--that might be a time entirely different from the time period of the current story. In fact, the "exilic" period might not even be recounted in the bible, it might be another time altogether in the history of Israel.
- Exod. 29:13 -- The notes for most of Exodus have referred to the tribe of Israel as a "cult." Mostly, I assumed it's just a general term for a religious group. But at times I think the notes may very well mean it in the more pejorative sense. Look at the detail, the relish, with which these passages are wallowing in the gore. Even though God in the last two books has killed hundreds of thousands or even millions of people, many his own followers, the death has always been rated PG--he smites them, but without much detail. Look at this passage, by comparison: "Then take the fat covering the entrails, the long lobe of the liver, and the two kidneys with the fat upon them, and burn it on the altar." Uh, wow. To our eyes, of course, this sounds barbaric, but the truth is probably that they had hard lives and used every bit of an animal that they slaughtered, and so were intimately familiar with every piece of a cow's insides.
- Exod. 29:14 -- Look at this: "the flesh of the bull, and its skin and offal, you shall destroy by fire outside the camp. It is a sin-offering." "Sin-offering"? I wish they explained that! It sounds like there's a whole complicated regime of rituals that are only touched on here in the bible. You don't just make offerings to God, you can somehow do the opposite--what exactly does that mean? It doesn’t mean "Satan," he doesn't exist yet. Is it also an offering to God, but it's a sin-offering to God? Very intriguing.
- Exod. 29:16 -- "Then slaughter it, take its blood and fling it against the sides of the alter." This enterprise does not sound very sanitary. And there is nothing in the bible about how to clean the walls of the temple after the bloodbath!
- Exod. 29:20 -- "Then take some of its blood, and put it on the lobes of the right ears of Aaron and his sons, and on their right thumbs and big toes." Earlobes, right thumbs, and big toes. Oh my.
- Exod. 30:15 -- It's interesting here that God enacts a regressive tax (all the same amount, no matter if rich or poor). It's completely the opposite of the socialism that Joseph imposed in Egypt.
- Exod. 31:2 -- Hey, another mention of the tribe of Judah!
- Exod. 31:15 -- I know some observations/criticisms of Christians and the bible are so obvious the only objection a Christian can muster is "come on, it's not all meant to be taken literally!" But here in the middle of very specific laws, hardly the time for flowery poetic language, is a law that anyone who works on the Sabbath day shall be put to death. It's right there in black and white. Which is worse, more sinful--to disobey the bible when it is very clear about something, or to read into the bible something that is not there (like that a fetus is human when it is clearly not (21:22))?
- Exod. 32:9-10 -- "So the Lord said to Moses, 'I have considered this people, and I see that they are a stubborn people. Now, let me alone to vent my anger upon them, so that I may put an end to them and make a great nation spring from you.'"
- Exod. 32:11-12 -- Again the humans are the reasonable ones.
- Exod. 32:9-14n -- This is a Christian note. The note says that God accepts Israel through grace, not because of her merits. But that's not what the story says at all. Moses argues with God, as Abraham did on behalf of Sodom, and convinces God not to do what he wants. And, indeed, God does not in fact save Israel through grace at all. What God wanted to do was kill the innocent along with the guilty. Moses intervenes to say that's wrong. So what God does instead (32:35) is kill only the guilty, not the innocent. This passage is exactly the opposite of salvation through grace. God wants to kill people without discernment--humans convince him to at least be just. It's the opposite of grace--it's God's "mysterious" murderous intent.
- Exod. 32:24 -- Keeping with the Israelite tradition, Aaron lies about his part in the golden calf incident. Moses is almost unique in his lack of mendacity.
- Exod. 32:26-29n -- More stuff showing Levites are special. Why? Because they were willing to murder their family and neighbors.
Friday, December 19, 2008
The Holiest of Holies
Old Testament
Book Two: Exodus
Israel at Mount Sinai
Chapter 25: Blueprints for the Ark
Chapter 26: Blueprints for the Tabernacle
Chapter 27: Blueprints for the Court of the Tabernacle
Chapter 28: Patterns for the priests' posh frocks
Uh, wow. I've been warning you the narrative was going to fall off a cliff. It was approaching like a Gathering Storm of Tedium, and it finally arrived. Four solid chapters of nothing but descriptions of the temple in excruciating detail. It completely put my brain to sleep, so I have almost nothing to say about it. Two things:
One: Why are these chapters here? I don't get it. They seem to be instruction for the one-time construction of these objects--they don't need to be included in our bible for all time. Who besides me would ever bother to read them?
Two: the lavishness and holiness of the ark and the tabernacle come awfully close to breaking commandment number 2 against worshiping idols and images of god. The entire point is to focus the worshiping on these objects rather than on God. Also, the narrative is completely broken up once again by later writings being inserted into earlier ones. At the end of chapter 24 Moses went up to the mountain. We don't return to that story until I think chapter 32.
There are a couple of interesting moments. One is the mention of the Holiest of Holies (26:33). The holiest of holies was mentioned in Pulp Fiction! If that's the holiest of holies, I'll leave it to your imagination what the holy place (also mentioned in 26:33) must be.
--bibletoenail
PS. Oh, I forgot one thing. 28:42 includes instructions for Aaron's underwear in order to hide his privates, proving two things. One, the Israelite women did indeed go around in miniskirts without panties; and two, Aaron had an ENORMOUS penis--his linen drawers had to reach to his thighs!
Quotables:
"Thus the veil will make a clear separation for you between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies." --Exod. 26:33
"Make the breast-piece of judgment." --Exod. 28:15
"Make for them linen drawers reaching to the thighs to cover their private parts." --Exod. 28:42
Book Two: Exodus
Israel at Mount Sinai
Chapter 25: Blueprints for the Ark
Chapter 26: Blueprints for the Tabernacle
Chapter 27: Blueprints for the Court of the Tabernacle
Chapter 28: Patterns for the priests' posh frocks
Uh, wow. I've been warning you the narrative was going to fall off a cliff. It was approaching like a Gathering Storm of Tedium, and it finally arrived. Four solid chapters of nothing but descriptions of the temple in excruciating detail. It completely put my brain to sleep, so I have almost nothing to say about it. Two things:
One: Why are these chapters here? I don't get it. They seem to be instruction for the one-time construction of these objects--they don't need to be included in our bible for all time. Who besides me would ever bother to read them?
Two: the lavishness and holiness of the ark and the tabernacle come awfully close to breaking commandment number 2 against worshiping idols and images of god. The entire point is to focus the worshiping on these objects rather than on God. Also, the narrative is completely broken up once again by later writings being inserted into earlier ones. At the end of chapter 24 Moses went up to the mountain. We don't return to that story until I think chapter 32.
There are a couple of interesting moments. One is the mention of the Holiest of Holies (26:33). The holiest of holies was mentioned in Pulp Fiction! If that's the holiest of holies, I'll leave it to your imagination what the holy place (also mentioned in 26:33) must be.
--bibletoenail
PS. Oh, I forgot one thing. 28:42 includes instructions for Aaron's underwear in order to hide his privates, proving two things. One, the Israelite women did indeed go around in miniskirts without panties; and two, Aaron had an ENORMOUS penis--his linen drawers had to reach to his thighs!
Quotables:
"Thus the veil will make a clear separation for you between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies." --Exod. 26:33
"Make the breast-piece of judgment." --Exod. 28:15
"Make for them linen drawers reaching to the thighs to cover their private parts." --Exod. 28:42
Boiled Mother's Milk
"When, in the course of a brawl, a man knocks against a pregnant woman so that she has a miscarriage but suffers no further hurt, then the offender must pay whatever fine the woman's husband demands after assessment." --Exod. 21:22
Old Testament
Book Two: Exodus
Israel at Mount Sinai
Chapter 21: More Comprehensive Laws
Chapter 22: More Laws
Chapter 23: More Laws
Chapter 24: Moses goes up the mountain for forty days to get the tablets
It must be because I am a law student now, but I found these chapters fascinating. The ten commandments are not the basis for our morality; as Christopher Hitchens said, they are hardly moral at all, ranging from obvious to irrelevant. These next chapters, however, contain laws that are not nearly so obvious, and they reveal a particular system of tort and criminal law. There are many striking similarities between modern common law torts and the rules presented here. I found most interesting the "wild beast" provisions. If an ox suddenly goes crazy and gores someone, the owner is not responsible. However, if the owner has had previous warning that the ox has problems, then he is responsible. One could fairly convincingly spin the rules of tort law from the provisions presented here.
Of course that in no way means our common law is derived from this biblical law. (And of course squared, it doesn't mean these laws came from god.) What it does mean is that there is something deeply obvious about the laws we have. I think that is fascinating, because when it comes to apportioning liability when no one is to blame, the rules are far from obvious, and are indeed quite debatable. Yet humans seem frequently to come to the same conclusion no matter the time period or context. It would be interesting to compare western law to Arab law or east Asian law--I wonder if their tort law is the same as ours? These are fascinating questions, because there is a fundamental divide between the aggressive individualism of western culture and the eastern "part of nature" philosophy. Well, if I were going to live 200 more years, I might read a book about it!
This discussion raises a question for me. Where did the Romans and Greeks come from? I mean in bible terms? What "tribe" are they from? It's interesting that historically there is such a large break between the old and new testament. Enormous leaps in technology and sophistication were achieved between the two testaments, and the Jews went from being a tribe moving around as one to just being a minority in these other cultures. I wonder what happened to the tribe of Israel between the old testament and the new? Well, I guess we'll find out! I'm only on page 76--still have over 900 to go just in the old testament. This is also interesting: I really have no idea what happens in the rest of the bible! I know a handful of scattered stories--David and Goliath, Samson and Delilah, the Wisdom of Solomon--but I don't know the narrative in the slightest way. Well, let's get to it! (I have half a guess that there is hardly a narrative at all, and the book continues to be as repetitive as it has been to this point. The footnotes have ominous portents to that effect, they have made repeated mentions along the line that "in Numbers, this rule is formulated differently." I am afraid the next 200 pages might be nothing but rules. We'll see.
I must point out one more important aspect of these rules. Exodus 21:22 states quite clearly that a fetus's "life" has no value. If there's a fight and a pregnant woman is struck and she loses her baby, the only punishment is a fine. If on the other hand, a human being is killed, the punishment is death. (It's slightly more complicated than that, because there's a distinction between accidental and purposeful actions, but that distinction isn't important here.) The bible simply does not value a fetus as a human.
There's a concept in science called Occam's Razor. "All things being equal, the simplest solution is best." Something I have found entertaining as I read the bible for the first time, with an un-jaundiced eye, is how these inconsistencies and absurdities LEAP off the page. And the observations I'm making are not original--they have been observed repeatedly by everyone who has simply read the text. It's amazing that every independent reading of the text comes up with the same complaints. Consequently, every earth-shattering passage I come across, such as "fetus's are not worth the life of a human," has already been debated ad infinitum by religious apologists trying to fit the square peg of their beliefs into the obvious round hole of a simple reading of the text itself. So, of course, if you search for Exod. 21:22 on google, you'll find a million pages explaining why the text that so obviously says one thing in fact says the opposite.
You can gauge how devastating your observation is by how tortured is the explanation why you are wrong. Exod. 21:22 is a big one. Here is the first page I came across purporting to explain the true meaning of Exod. 21:22. I don't feel right now like going into all the fallacious tactics they use to defend their positions. Suffice it to say for now that Occam's Razor goes against the Christian reading of the passage in almost every instance.
In a larger sense, the old testament view of life itself was dramatically different than ours. There was no sense of equality. The chapters in question here go on at great length about slaves, which are clearly okay, and just as clearly a slave is not valued as much as a human being--indeed a slave is property not human life. More importantly, women too are valued less than men. I want to make one point that the article I cited above fails to notice. Even if the baby were born alive, the injury then would be to the woman, right? She suffers a miscarriage but no other harm--the injury is to her. The retribution goes not to her but to her husband! It's not important that she was injured; what's important is that the man's property was harmed. In such a value system it is impossible to imagine that a fetus was given the value of an adult male, when women were not, slaves were not, and children were not.
--bibletoenail
Old Testament
Book Two: Exodus
Israel at Mount Sinai
Chapter 21: More Comprehensive Laws
Chapter 22: More Laws
Chapter 23: More Laws
Chapter 24: Moses goes up the mountain for forty days to get the tablets
It must be because I am a law student now, but I found these chapters fascinating. The ten commandments are not the basis for our morality; as Christopher Hitchens said, they are hardly moral at all, ranging from obvious to irrelevant. These next chapters, however, contain laws that are not nearly so obvious, and they reveal a particular system of tort and criminal law. There are many striking similarities between modern common law torts and the rules presented here. I found most interesting the "wild beast" provisions. If an ox suddenly goes crazy and gores someone, the owner is not responsible. However, if the owner has had previous warning that the ox has problems, then he is responsible. One could fairly convincingly spin the rules of tort law from the provisions presented here.
Of course that in no way means our common law is derived from this biblical law. (And of course squared, it doesn't mean these laws came from god.) What it does mean is that there is something deeply obvious about the laws we have. I think that is fascinating, because when it comes to apportioning liability when no one is to blame, the rules are far from obvious, and are indeed quite debatable. Yet humans seem frequently to come to the same conclusion no matter the time period or context. It would be interesting to compare western law to Arab law or east Asian law--I wonder if their tort law is the same as ours? These are fascinating questions, because there is a fundamental divide between the aggressive individualism of western culture and the eastern "part of nature" philosophy. Well, if I were going to live 200 more years, I might read a book about it!
This discussion raises a question for me. Where did the Romans and Greeks come from? I mean in bible terms? What "tribe" are they from? It's interesting that historically there is such a large break between the old and new testament. Enormous leaps in technology and sophistication were achieved between the two testaments, and the Jews went from being a tribe moving around as one to just being a minority in these other cultures. I wonder what happened to the tribe of Israel between the old testament and the new? Well, I guess we'll find out! I'm only on page 76--still have over 900 to go just in the old testament. This is also interesting: I really have no idea what happens in the rest of the bible! I know a handful of scattered stories--David and Goliath, Samson and Delilah, the Wisdom of Solomon--but I don't know the narrative in the slightest way. Well, let's get to it! (I have half a guess that there is hardly a narrative at all, and the book continues to be as repetitive as it has been to this point. The footnotes have ominous portents to that effect, they have made repeated mentions along the line that "in Numbers, this rule is formulated differently." I am afraid the next 200 pages might be nothing but rules. We'll see.
I must point out one more important aspect of these rules. Exodus 21:22 states quite clearly that a fetus's "life" has no value. If there's a fight and a pregnant woman is struck and she loses her baby, the only punishment is a fine. If on the other hand, a human being is killed, the punishment is death. (It's slightly more complicated than that, because there's a distinction between accidental and purposeful actions, but that distinction isn't important here.) The bible simply does not value a fetus as a human.
There's a concept in science called Occam's Razor. "All things being equal, the simplest solution is best." Something I have found entertaining as I read the bible for the first time, with an un-jaundiced eye, is how these inconsistencies and absurdities LEAP off the page. And the observations I'm making are not original--they have been observed repeatedly by everyone who has simply read the text. It's amazing that every independent reading of the text comes up with the same complaints. Consequently, every earth-shattering passage I come across, such as "fetus's are not worth the life of a human," has already been debated ad infinitum by religious apologists trying to fit the square peg of their beliefs into the obvious round hole of a simple reading of the text itself. So, of course, if you search for Exod. 21:22 on google, you'll find a million pages explaining why the text that so obviously says one thing in fact says the opposite.
You can gauge how devastating your observation is by how tortured is the explanation why you are wrong. Exod. 21:22 is a big one. Here is the first page I came across purporting to explain the true meaning of Exod. 21:22. I don't feel right now like going into all the fallacious tactics they use to defend their positions. Suffice it to say for now that Occam's Razor goes against the Christian reading of the passage in almost every instance.
In a larger sense, the old testament view of life itself was dramatically different than ours. There was no sense of equality. The chapters in question here go on at great length about slaves, which are clearly okay, and just as clearly a slave is not valued as much as a human being--indeed a slave is property not human life. More importantly, women too are valued less than men. I want to make one point that the article I cited above fails to notice. Even if the baby were born alive, the injury then would be to the woman, right? She suffers a miscarriage but no other harm--the injury is to her. The retribution goes not to her but to her husband! It's not important that she was injured; what's important is that the man's property was harmed. In such a value system it is impossible to imagine that a fetus was given the value of an adult male, when women were not, slaves were not, and children were not.
--bibletoenail
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Upskirt
"You must not mount up to my altar by steps, in case your private parts be exposed on it." --Exod. 20:26
Old Testament
Book Two: Exodus
The Exodus from Egypt (cont'd)
Chapter 17: War with Amalek
Chapter 18: The Original Judiciary
Israel at Mount Sinai
Chapter 19: Security around Mount Sinai
Chapter 20: The Eleven Commandments!
Metaphorically, I think as soon as Israel is delivered from the wilderness, the story itself enters its own wilderness of boredom. We're not there yet, we're at the point in chapter 12 where Israel moved to the edge of the wilderness--we've seen all the action, now for a long, dreary time we're going to hang out at the foot of Mount Sinai and be told what to do.
Here are the ten commandments (they're in chapter 20), for reference:
Chapter 20 doesn't quite make sense. First of all, there are no stone tablets. What's weird is that when the 10 commandments are spoken, God just speaks them, from the top of the mountain. It's a funny moment, he goes into great detail--this is the culmination, he's delivered Israel from Egypt, this is the big covenant, follow these rules and you will be my people forever (19:5). So he gives a big speech, telling Israel the ten commandments they follow.
As soon as he's done, the scene switches to the base of the mountain. To the Israelites, it just sounds like thunder and lightning! They don't hear a single thing that God just said! (20:18). It's very funny, it reminds me of the scene from Hardware Wars where Darph Nader is telling Princess Anne-Droid he's about to blow up her planet Basketball. They don't understand a word God is saying, so they send Moses up to listen. (So maybe the tablets come later--what a shock if we have to read these same commandments ten more times!)
You know how lately, some retarded judges and others are trying to put the ten commandments in courts, claiming that the ten commandments are the origin of all justice? I read a really good analysis of that claim one time; I can't remember where. Here it is. Christopher Hitchens, no less. He says a lot of what I've already said, but it's true that to think these ten commandments are the basis of our own law is ridiculous--the first four have nothing to do with law or morality at all, "honor your parents" is nice, but not in fact a part of our law, and "don't covet" if it were passed would immediately be struck down as unconstitutional.
One interesting lawyerly argument is to examine what is missing, and what exactly that means. Nothing against rape, nothing against sodomy, nothing against child abuse, nothing against slavery. Does that not imply that those things are allowed? Surely, at a minimum, abstaining from them is not required by God in order to remain one of his chosen.
Here they are:
1. Have no other god before me.
2. Worship no idols or images of god.
3. Do not take the Lord's name in vain.
4. Keep the Sabbath holy.
5. Honor your mother and father.
6. Don't murder.
7. Don't commit adultery.
8. Don't steal.
9. Don't commit perjury.
10. Do not covet your neighbors "things" (wife and ox).
I thought Hitchens's point about #5 was particularly good: honor your mother and father is fine, but what about children? Why have a commandment about being nice to mom and dad, but nothing to adults to treat children well?
As I read the bible, I see more and more ways the story doesn't make sense. Something that occurred to me this morning is the existence of these other gods that God prohibits. How in the world did they come about? God has been doing amazing things for thousands of years by this point. He's been causing floods, plagues, death, destruction of every kind. It's OBVIOUS he exists--how would it ever even come about that someone would think there is some other god out there? Imagine a group of people believing in some sun other than our Sun--why would they? It seems quite bizarre to me that, at a time when God was making almost daily appearances on earth, that people would make up other gods to worship.
Anyway, as a writer--okay, I know what you're saying, when did you ever write anything. Well, I haven't. My undergrad degree is in creative writing, but you're right, I've only written a dozen short stories in my whole life, and never had anything published. I haven't written a short story in probably 10 years. Still, I was at a reading one time, and I asked the author a couple questions, and afterward he asked me if I was a writer. I stuttered around and told him, well, I'd like to be, but not really. He chastised me that I'm a writer if I consider myself a writer--success isn't the measure of a writer. Got it?
So, AS A WRITER! I have been tending to focus a lot on the actual writing of the book. It strikes me there's a real point of view problem right here (as in the beginning). If God is up there thundering to himself, and no one can understand him, how do we know that's what he said?
Anyway, there are actually eleven commandments in chapter 20, and the eleventh is by far the most interesting. (There are actually far more commandments in Exodus, but even in this one episode, there is another one on the heels of the first ten. It is:)
11. You must not mount up to my altar by steps, in case your private parts be exposed to it.
Well, Exodus has gotten really boring compared to the ribaldry and lasciviousness of Genesis, so we have to make the most of what we have. Most obviously, women in Exodus times didn't wear underwear. That's something. And they must have worn short skirts, otherwise nothing would be visible. That's kind of hot.
Warning: I think things are about to get really boring.
--bibletoenail
Textual notes:
- Exod. 17:9n -- Joshua appears out of nowhere. Another episode inserted from another time.
- Exod. 17:11 -- A silly little story. Israel is fighting the Amalek. Moses is watching. When he raises his hands, Israel gains the advantage, when he lowers his hands, Amalek does. Moses' arms get tired! So Moses sits down and Aaron and Hur hold up his arms for the rest of the fight.
I want to ask one question about this, another thing that goes unexplained. What exactly is the science behind this episode? Is there some mechanism, some natural mechanism, by which Moses' arms are actually influencing the fight? Or is it that God is doing it? If God is doing it, then why in the world does he make Moses raise his arms?! What in the world is God's game there? It's kind of a funny joke, is that what God is up to?
- Exod. 18:1n -- More mistakes. In 2:16-21, Jethro's name was Reuel. Same character, different name. Bad find-and-replace.
- Exod. 18:2 -- Moses' wife's name is "Zipporah." That's kind of hot too.
- Exod. 18:17-24 -- This is very interesting. Jethro invents the judicial system. Moses was listening to all cases himself. Jethro said he should set up a system of "judges," one for every hundred people or so, to listen to their disputes. Then the hard cases they could bring to him. The notes here put an interesting spin on this story that I did not get from the actual text, which is that the civil courts are under religious authority. That the lower civil courts can decide simple cases, but the system is kept ultimately in the hands of religious leadership. I took the story to be more practical than that, although it is true that before the system, what Moses was doing was interpreting religious law.
- Exod. 19:4 -- Another silly thing about the bible--God is on Israel's side. Why in the world would that be? All of humanity is his creation, his children, why would he conspire so completely just with the Israelites? It really makes no sense.
- Exod. 19:5 -- God AGAIN tries to renegotiate his contract. The whole contract is void for several reasons, first because God did not offer new consideration for the new terms.
- Exod. 20:5n -- The note points out more intratextual contradiction. Not all biblical writers agree with this idea of inherited sin. See Jer. 31:29-30, Ezek. 18:19-20. What is particularly striking about that here is that these are the actual ten commandments that even other biblical writers disagree with!
- Exod. 20:11 -- "In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and on the seventh day he rested. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and declared it holy." I think the creationists' claim that the "six days" Genesis 1:1 are long god-days does not make sense. If that's true, why constantly emphasize these earth six days with the rest on the seventh? I don't know, that just doesn't ring true to me.
Quotables:
"The whole community of Israel set out from the wilderness of Sin" --Exod. 17:1
"Moses cried to the Lord, 'What shall I do with these people? In a moment they will be stoning me.'" --Exod. 17:4
"Is the Lord in our midst or not?" --Exod. 17:7
"The Lord is at war with Amalek generation after generation." --Exod. 17:16
"I have become an alien living in a foreign land." --Exod. 18:3
"You have seen with your own eyes what I did to Egypt, and how I have carried you on eagles' wings and brought you here to me." --Exod. 19:4
"Be ready by the third day; do not go near a woman." --Exod. 19:15
"For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous god I punish the children for the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. But I keep faith with thousands, with those who love me and keep my commandments." --Exod. 20:5
"You must not mount up to my altar by steps, in case your private parts be exposed on it." --Exod. 20:26
Old Testament
Book Two: Exodus
The Exodus from Egypt (cont'd)
Chapter 17: War with Amalek
Chapter 18: The Original Judiciary
Israel at Mount Sinai
Chapter 19: Security around Mount Sinai
Chapter 20: The Eleven Commandments!
Metaphorically, I think as soon as Israel is delivered from the wilderness, the story itself enters its own wilderness of boredom. We're not there yet, we're at the point in chapter 12 where Israel moved to the edge of the wilderness--we've seen all the action, now for a long, dreary time we're going to hang out at the foot of Mount Sinai and be told what to do.
Here are the ten commandments (they're in chapter 20), for reference:
Chapter 20 doesn't quite make sense. First of all, there are no stone tablets. What's weird is that when the 10 commandments are spoken, God just speaks them, from the top of the mountain. It's a funny moment, he goes into great detail--this is the culmination, he's delivered Israel from Egypt, this is the big covenant, follow these rules and you will be my people forever (19:5). So he gives a big speech, telling Israel the ten commandments they follow.
As soon as he's done, the scene switches to the base of the mountain. To the Israelites, it just sounds like thunder and lightning! They don't hear a single thing that God just said! (20:18). It's very funny, it reminds me of the scene from Hardware Wars where Darph Nader is telling Princess Anne-Droid he's about to blow up her planet Basketball. They don't understand a word God is saying, so they send Moses up to listen. (So maybe the tablets come later--what a shock if we have to read these same commandments ten more times!)
You know how lately, some retarded judges and others are trying to put the ten commandments in courts, claiming that the ten commandments are the origin of all justice? I read a really good analysis of that claim one time; I can't remember where. Here it is. Christopher Hitchens, no less. He says a lot of what I've already said, but it's true that to think these ten commandments are the basis of our own law is ridiculous--the first four have nothing to do with law or morality at all, "honor your parents" is nice, but not in fact a part of our law, and "don't covet" if it were passed would immediately be struck down as unconstitutional.
One interesting lawyerly argument is to examine what is missing, and what exactly that means. Nothing against rape, nothing against sodomy, nothing against child abuse, nothing against slavery. Does that not imply that those things are allowed? Surely, at a minimum, abstaining from them is not required by God in order to remain one of his chosen.
Here they are:
1. Have no other god before me.
2. Worship no idols or images of god.
3. Do not take the Lord's name in vain.
4. Keep the Sabbath holy.
5. Honor your mother and father.
6. Don't murder.
7. Don't commit adultery.
8. Don't steal.
9. Don't commit perjury.
10. Do not covet your neighbors "things" (wife and ox).
I thought Hitchens's point about #5 was particularly good: honor your mother and father is fine, but what about children? Why have a commandment about being nice to mom and dad, but nothing to adults to treat children well?
As I read the bible, I see more and more ways the story doesn't make sense. Something that occurred to me this morning is the existence of these other gods that God prohibits. How in the world did they come about? God has been doing amazing things for thousands of years by this point. He's been causing floods, plagues, death, destruction of every kind. It's OBVIOUS he exists--how would it ever even come about that someone would think there is some other god out there? Imagine a group of people believing in some sun other than our Sun--why would they? It seems quite bizarre to me that, at a time when God was making almost daily appearances on earth, that people would make up other gods to worship.
Anyway, as a writer--okay, I know what you're saying, when did you ever write anything. Well, I haven't. My undergrad degree is in creative writing, but you're right, I've only written a dozen short stories in my whole life, and never had anything published. I haven't written a short story in probably 10 years. Still, I was at a reading one time, and I asked the author a couple questions, and afterward he asked me if I was a writer. I stuttered around and told him, well, I'd like to be, but not really. He chastised me that I'm a writer if I consider myself a writer--success isn't the measure of a writer. Got it?
So, AS A WRITER! I have been tending to focus a lot on the actual writing of the book. It strikes me there's a real point of view problem right here (as in the beginning). If God is up there thundering to himself, and no one can understand him, how do we know that's what he said?
Anyway, there are actually eleven commandments in chapter 20, and the eleventh is by far the most interesting. (There are actually far more commandments in Exodus, but even in this one episode, there is another one on the heels of the first ten. It is:)
11. You must not mount up to my altar by steps, in case your private parts be exposed to it.
Well, Exodus has gotten really boring compared to the ribaldry and lasciviousness of Genesis, so we have to make the most of what we have. Most obviously, women in Exodus times didn't wear underwear. That's something. And they must have worn short skirts, otherwise nothing would be visible. That's kind of hot.
Warning: I think things are about to get really boring.
--bibletoenail
Textual notes:
- Exod. 17:9n -- Joshua appears out of nowhere. Another episode inserted from another time.
- Exod. 17:11 -- A silly little story. Israel is fighting the Amalek. Moses is watching. When he raises his hands, Israel gains the advantage, when he lowers his hands, Amalek does. Moses' arms get tired! So Moses sits down and Aaron and Hur hold up his arms for the rest of the fight.
I want to ask one question about this, another thing that goes unexplained. What exactly is the science behind this episode? Is there some mechanism, some natural mechanism, by which Moses' arms are actually influencing the fight? Or is it that God is doing it? If God is doing it, then why in the world does he make Moses raise his arms?! What in the world is God's game there? It's kind of a funny joke, is that what God is up to?
- Exod. 18:1n -- More mistakes. In 2:16-21, Jethro's name was Reuel. Same character, different name. Bad find-and-replace.
- Exod. 18:2 -- Moses' wife's name is "Zipporah." That's kind of hot too.
- Exod. 18:17-24 -- This is very interesting. Jethro invents the judicial system. Moses was listening to all cases himself. Jethro said he should set up a system of "judges," one for every hundred people or so, to listen to their disputes. Then the hard cases they could bring to him. The notes here put an interesting spin on this story that I did not get from the actual text, which is that the civil courts are under religious authority. That the lower civil courts can decide simple cases, but the system is kept ultimately in the hands of religious leadership. I took the story to be more practical than that, although it is true that before the system, what Moses was doing was interpreting religious law.
- Exod. 19:4 -- Another silly thing about the bible--God is on Israel's side. Why in the world would that be? All of humanity is his creation, his children, why would he conspire so completely just with the Israelites? It really makes no sense.
- Exod. 19:5 -- God AGAIN tries to renegotiate his contract. The whole contract is void for several reasons, first because God did not offer new consideration for the new terms.
- Exod. 20:5n -- The note points out more intratextual contradiction. Not all biblical writers agree with this idea of inherited sin. See Jer. 31:29-30, Ezek. 18:19-20. What is particularly striking about that here is that these are the actual ten commandments that even other biblical writers disagree with!
- Exod. 20:11 -- "In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and on the seventh day he rested. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and declared it holy." I think the creationists' claim that the "six days" Genesis 1:1 are long god-days does not make sense. If that's true, why constantly emphasize these earth six days with the rest on the seventh? I don't know, that just doesn't ring true to me.
Quotables:
"The whole community of Israel set out from the wilderness of Sin" --Exod. 17:1
"Moses cried to the Lord, 'What shall I do with these people? In a moment they will be stoning me.'" --Exod. 17:4
"Is the Lord in our midst or not?" --Exod. 17:7
"The Lord is at war with Amalek generation after generation." --Exod. 17:16
"I have become an alien living in a foreign land." --Exod. 18:3
"You have seen with your own eyes what I did to Egypt, and how I have carried you on eagles' wings and brought you here to me." --Exod. 19:4
"Be ready by the third day; do not go near a woman." --Exod. 19:15
"For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous god I punish the children for the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. But I keep faith with thousands, with those who love me and keep my commandments." --Exod. 20:5
"You must not mount up to my altar by steps, in case your private parts be exposed on it." --Exod. 20:26
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Full of Maggots and Stank
"Some day God will show his care for you." --Exod. 13:19
Old Testament
Book Two: Exodus
The Exodus from Egypt (cont'd)
Chapter 13: The Rules of Passover Again
Chapter 14: The Big Moment! Moses Parts the Sea
Chapter 15: Beats
Chapter 16: Moan, Moan, Moan
As difficult as this is to believe, I'm actually starting to like God! Everything in the bible is backwards. The regular everyday humans are clearly the heroes of the bible--the ones who build the tower of Babel, Abimelech. The main characters of the bible are almost always deceitful a-holes: Abraham, Jacob. And of course God is the antagonist. But lately all of Israel is becoming obnoxious whiny children. They are giving God a run for his money. It's become a real clash of the passive-aggressives.
God is downright cool in these chapters. In the previous chapters, God came across as an insecure douche, hardening Pharaoh's heart in order to make himself look good. Here he does the same thing, but it comes across differently. Now he's just hard-core God, he's doing it purposefully to be a dick. He could just kill the Egyptians, or he could just let them go. But neither of those things are good enough. He takes great delight in making them run under the wall of water then drowning every last one of them, just to show them who's boss. This is a god you could actually get behind, kind of a wrestler version of God. The God in these chapters has a mullet and wears a tank-top with his nipples showing.
Here's what makes this story particularly appealing, cool enough that you could imagine actually taking part. The Israelites here are almost on a par with God. They are not fearful of God; rather, all they do is complain! God can do no right. Like a down-trodden husband, nothing he does is good enough. He delivers them from slavery! but the Israelites would prefer that to living in this disgusting wilderness. He feeds them to keep them from starving! but they complain because he makes them save up for the Sabbath. God is constantly trying to gain their favor, and Israel are as capricious as 15-year-old girls (but, being Israelite, 15-year-old girls with giant vaginas).
But like any good co-dependent, God doesn't do what he should do, which is say, "You want to go back to Egypt? More power to you! Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way back." Instead he sets up one little test after another to see if they really like him, like not feeding them every day, but only six of seven, to see if they will obey his rule of not working on day 7.
What I love is that that is all the Israelites have to do to prove their love for him. No worshiping, no accepting anyone as your lord and savior, just don't go shopping on Sunday and you're good to go. This is a very good religion. A hard-core God whom you have eating out of the palm of your hand. I like it.
(In case you're only reading this blog, without reading the actual text along with me, chapter 14 is the climax of Exodus, when Moses parts the sea and drowns the Egyptians.)
--bibletoenail
Textual Notes:
- Exod. 13:17 -- Just interesting--God is worried that the Israelites might change their minds about leaving Egypt!
- Exod. 13:19 -- "Some day God will show his care for you." I love that quote. Not any time soon, but some day.
- Exod. 13:21 -- God must be a pretty damn bright light to light the way for 600,000 people!
- Exod 12:40n -- 12:40 says the Israelites had been settled in Egypt for 430 years. But this number differs from Gen. 15:13 (four hundred years), and Exod. 6:16-20 lists only four generations between Jacob and Moses. It's just interesting to me that textualist Christians put so much faith in the precise language of the bible, counting exactly this and that (like the age of the earth), and yet the book is so self-contradictory repeatedly.
- Exod. 12:43-49n -- Interesting: the phrases "bought slave," "hired man," and "native-born" presupposes social conditions after the later settlement in the agricultural setting of Canaan. More evidence that this book was written at certain times, and was written in the context of those times. Aaron is emphasized at one point because the Aaronite priests were in charge. Judah was added in Gen. ch. 38 because later David becomes king. And this part, written when Israel was in Canaan, described Israeli culture of that time, not the time when they were in Egypt. It's like seeing a digital wristwatch on a cowboy in a movie. Also intriguing to me, as far as I can tell there are real, actual bible scholars, who do the kind of research, textual, archaeological, historical that scholars do in any field--history, literature. They are as skeptical and scientific in their studies as anyone. What is interesting is that they are the real bible scholars. They are clearly the ones that know the most about the bible, and yet they are not the ones that Christians talk about when they talk about bible "experts." There must be journals, as in any discipline, with articles arguing new readings of some passage. That would be interesting to see. The point is again, simply, that Christian belief is by definition anti-intellectualism in every possible way.
- Exod. 13:8n -- More evidence of how the story changed from year to year as it was related orally.
- Exod. 13:9n -- Same thing--an old custom of placing a mark on the hand or forehead is reinterpreted as a reminder of God's deliverance from Egypt.
- Exod. 15:20 -- Aaron's sister Miriam sounds totally hot. I hope we get to see more of her.
- Exod. 16:31 -- Manna from heaven.
-Exod. 16:36 -- Could someone verify whether they have ever seen this passage before? I think this passage is my first personal proof of a living God. Throughout this section, they keep talking about an "omer." I kept asking myself, what the fuck is an omer. Then, in a parenthetical! At the very end of the section! God himself just added a verse to the bible to tell me! Look: "An omer is one tenth of an ephah." Oh, now I understand! Thanks, God!
Quotables:
"A land flowing with milk and honey." --Exod. 13:5
"Upon your forehead as a phylactery." --Exod. 13:16
"Some day God will show his care for you." --Exod. 13:19
"And all the time the Lord went before them, by day a pillar of cloud to guide them on their journey, by night a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel night and day." --Exod. 13:21
"I will make Pharaoh obstinate, and he will pursue them, so that I may win glory for myself at the expense of Pharaoh and all his army." --Exod. 14:4
"Were there no graves in Egypt, that you should have brought us here to die in the wilderness?" --Exod. 14:11
"'Leave us alone; let us be slaves to the Egyptians.' We would rather be slaves to the Egyptians than die here in the wilderness." --Exod. 14:12
"The Lord will fight for you; so hold your peace." --Exod. 14:14
"When Israel saw the great power which the Lord had put forth against Egypt, all the people feared the Lord, and they put their faith in him and in Moses his servant." --Exod. 14:31
"They gathered, some more, some less, but when they measured it, those who had gathered more had not too much, and those who had gathered less had not too little. Each had just as much as he could eat." --Exod. 16:18
"It became full of maggots and stank." --Exod. 16:20
"How long will you refuse to obey my commands and instructions?" --Exod. 16:28
Old Testament
Book Two: Exodus
The Exodus from Egypt (cont'd)
Chapter 13: The Rules of Passover Again
Chapter 14: The Big Moment! Moses Parts the Sea
Chapter 15: Beats
Chapter 16: Moan, Moan, Moan
As difficult as this is to believe, I'm actually starting to like God! Everything in the bible is backwards. The regular everyday humans are clearly the heroes of the bible--the ones who build the tower of Babel, Abimelech. The main characters of the bible are almost always deceitful a-holes: Abraham, Jacob. And of course God is the antagonist. But lately all of Israel is becoming obnoxious whiny children. They are giving God a run for his money. It's become a real clash of the passive-aggressives.
God is downright cool in these chapters. In the previous chapters, God came across as an insecure douche, hardening Pharaoh's heart in order to make himself look good. Here he does the same thing, but it comes across differently. Now he's just hard-core God, he's doing it purposefully to be a dick. He could just kill the Egyptians, or he could just let them go. But neither of those things are good enough. He takes great delight in making them run under the wall of water then drowning every last one of them, just to show them who's boss. This is a god you could actually get behind, kind of a wrestler version of God. The God in these chapters has a mullet and wears a tank-top with his nipples showing.
Here's what makes this story particularly appealing, cool enough that you could imagine actually taking part. The Israelites here are almost on a par with God. They are not fearful of God; rather, all they do is complain! God can do no right. Like a down-trodden husband, nothing he does is good enough. He delivers them from slavery! but the Israelites would prefer that to living in this disgusting wilderness. He feeds them to keep them from starving! but they complain because he makes them save up for the Sabbath. God is constantly trying to gain their favor, and Israel are as capricious as 15-year-old girls (but, being Israelite, 15-year-old girls with giant vaginas).
But like any good co-dependent, God doesn't do what he should do, which is say, "You want to go back to Egypt? More power to you! Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way back." Instead he sets up one little test after another to see if they really like him, like not feeding them every day, but only six of seven, to see if they will obey his rule of not working on day 7.
What I love is that that is all the Israelites have to do to prove their love for him. No worshiping, no accepting anyone as your lord and savior, just don't go shopping on Sunday and you're good to go. This is a very good religion. A hard-core God whom you have eating out of the palm of your hand. I like it.
(In case you're only reading this blog, without reading the actual text along with me, chapter 14 is the climax of Exodus, when Moses parts the sea and drowns the Egyptians.)
--bibletoenail
Textual Notes:
- Exod. 13:17 -- Just interesting--God is worried that the Israelites might change their minds about leaving Egypt!
- Exod. 13:19 -- "Some day God will show his care for you." I love that quote. Not any time soon, but some day.
- Exod. 13:21 -- God must be a pretty damn bright light to light the way for 600,000 people!
- Exod 12:40n -- 12:40 says the Israelites had been settled in Egypt for 430 years. But this number differs from Gen. 15:13 (four hundred years), and Exod. 6:16-20 lists only four generations between Jacob and Moses. It's just interesting to me that textualist Christians put so much faith in the precise language of the bible, counting exactly this and that (like the age of the earth), and yet the book is so self-contradictory repeatedly.
- Exod. 12:43-49n -- Interesting: the phrases "bought slave," "hired man," and "native-born" presupposes social conditions after the later settlement in the agricultural setting of Canaan. More evidence that this book was written at certain times, and was written in the context of those times. Aaron is emphasized at one point because the Aaronite priests were in charge. Judah was added in Gen. ch. 38 because later David becomes king. And this part, written when Israel was in Canaan, described Israeli culture of that time, not the time when they were in Egypt. It's like seeing a digital wristwatch on a cowboy in a movie. Also intriguing to me, as far as I can tell there are real, actual bible scholars, who do the kind of research, textual, archaeological, historical that scholars do in any field--history, literature. They are as skeptical and scientific in their studies as anyone. What is interesting is that they are the real bible scholars. They are clearly the ones that know the most about the bible, and yet they are not the ones that Christians talk about when they talk about bible "experts." There must be journals, as in any discipline, with articles arguing new readings of some passage. That would be interesting to see. The point is again, simply, that Christian belief is by definition anti-intellectualism in every possible way.
- Exod. 13:8n -- More evidence of how the story changed from year to year as it was related orally.
- Exod. 13:9n -- Same thing--an old custom of placing a mark on the hand or forehead is reinterpreted as a reminder of God's deliverance from Egypt.
- Exod. 15:20 -- Aaron's sister Miriam sounds totally hot. I hope we get to see more of her.
- Exod. 16:31 -- Manna from heaven.
-Exod. 16:36 -- Could someone verify whether they have ever seen this passage before? I think this passage is my first personal proof of a living God. Throughout this section, they keep talking about an "omer." I kept asking myself, what the fuck is an omer. Then, in a parenthetical! At the very end of the section! God himself just added a verse to the bible to tell me! Look: "An omer is one tenth of an ephah." Oh, now I understand! Thanks, God!
Quotables:
"A land flowing with milk and honey." --Exod. 13:5
"Upon your forehead as a phylactery." --Exod. 13:16
"Some day God will show his care for you." --Exod. 13:19
"And all the time the Lord went before them, by day a pillar of cloud to guide them on their journey, by night a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel night and day." --Exod. 13:21
"I will make Pharaoh obstinate, and he will pursue them, so that I may win glory for myself at the expense of Pharaoh and all his army." --Exod. 14:4
"Were there no graves in Egypt, that you should have brought us here to die in the wilderness?" --Exod. 14:11
"'Leave us alone; let us be slaves to the Egyptians.' We would rather be slaves to the Egyptians than die here in the wilderness." --Exod. 14:12
"The Lord will fight for you; so hold your peace." --Exod. 14:14
"When Israel saw the great power which the Lord had put forth against Egypt, all the people feared the Lord, and they put their faith in him and in Moses his servant." --Exod. 14:31
"They gathered, some more, some less, but when they measured it, those who had gathered more had not too much, and those who had gathered less had not too little. Each had just as much as he could eat." --Exod. 16:18
"It became full of maggots and stank." --Exod. 16:20
"How long will you refuse to obey my commands and instructions?" --Exod. 16:28
The Way to Succoth
Old Testament
Book Two: Exodus
Israel Enslaved in Egypt (cont'd)
Chapter 9: Plagues Number 5, 6, 7
Chapter 10: Plagues Number 8 and 9
Chapter 11: The Wind-up
The Institution of Passover; The Exodus from Egypt
Chapter 12: Passover: The rules, the genocide
This is actually a really good story. It's quite dramatic. Israel has its god, Egypt has its gods. It's god against god. And it keeps building and building. The only mistake the author makes is that the drama only goes in one direction. After each plague Pharaoh is closer and closer to letting the Israelites go. It would have been much better if there had been give and take. God seems to be winning at the first, then the Egyptian magicians come back and we think all is lost before God turns the tables and wins.
The climax is quite exciting. God has ratcheted up the pressure a little at a time but still Pharaoh won't budge. Then there is a pause, in Chapter 11, and God tells Moses that this is it, the final plague. For the final plague God of course resorts once again, as always to the murder of thousands of innocent people. And remember, not only innocent, but God himself caused the obstinacy that results in their deaths.
But then after the warning of the imminent carnage, there is a dramatic pause as God goes into great detail about the new rules for Passover. It's interesting once again how the authors took ancient traditions and recast them into the Israeli story. The notes say this ritual of sacrificing the lamb and so on was old. Many rules about unleavened bread and so on.
It is also interesting and important to note the things that "orthodox" religious people do not do even though the bible says to very clearly. Unleavened bread, yes they do. But what happened to smearing blood on the doorway? That's the whole point of the ritual.
And, why does God need the blood smeared--he surely already knows who's been naughty and who nice.
Then indeed God did kill every first-born in Egypt--that's what is being celebrated during Passover! How barbaric is that?! And finally Pharaoh lets the Israelites go.
The Israelites leaving Egypt would have been an amazing sight. Six hundred thousand men on foot!
Well, I know there's not much to this entry, but not a whole lot happened in this section. A few more plagues, a lot of rules regarding Passover, another genocide, and the beginning of the exodus.
--bibletoenail
Book Two: Exodus
Israel Enslaved in Egypt (cont'd)
Chapter 9: Plagues Number 5, 6, 7
Chapter 10: Plagues Number 8 and 9
Chapter 11: The Wind-up
The Institution of Passover; The Exodus from Egypt
Chapter 12: Passover: The rules, the genocide
This is actually a really good story. It's quite dramatic. Israel has its god, Egypt has its gods. It's god against god. And it keeps building and building. The only mistake the author makes is that the drama only goes in one direction. After each plague Pharaoh is closer and closer to letting the Israelites go. It would have been much better if there had been give and take. God seems to be winning at the first, then the Egyptian magicians come back and we think all is lost before God turns the tables and wins.
The climax is quite exciting. God has ratcheted up the pressure a little at a time but still Pharaoh won't budge. Then there is a pause, in Chapter 11, and God tells Moses that this is it, the final plague. For the final plague God of course resorts once again, as always to the murder of thousands of innocent people. And remember, not only innocent, but God himself caused the obstinacy that results in their deaths.
But then after the warning of the imminent carnage, there is a dramatic pause as God goes into great detail about the new rules for Passover. It's interesting once again how the authors took ancient traditions and recast them into the Israeli story. The notes say this ritual of sacrificing the lamb and so on was old. Many rules about unleavened bread and so on.
It is also interesting and important to note the things that "orthodox" religious people do not do even though the bible says to very clearly. Unleavened bread, yes they do. But what happened to smearing blood on the doorway? That's the whole point of the ritual.
And, why does God need the blood smeared--he surely already knows who's been naughty and who nice.
Then indeed God did kill every first-born in Egypt--that's what is being celebrated during Passover! How barbaric is that?! And finally Pharaoh lets the Israelites go.
The Israelites leaving Egypt would have been an amazing sight. Six hundred thousand men on foot!
Well, I know there's not much to this entry, but not a whole lot happened in this section. A few more plagues, a lot of rules regarding Passover, another genocide, and the beginning of the exodus.
--bibletoenail
Monday, December 15, 2008
Let's Get This Party Started
As you may have noticed, I stopped writing (and reading) just a couple weeks into January of this year. As I said, I've read Genesis about 30 times, but I've never gotten past Leviticus. I got busy at school and stopped. Now I'm home for Christmas break again, so I am going to continue. At the least I will get through Exodus this Christmas, hopefully more!
"You are lazy, you are lazy!" --Exod. 5:17
Old Testament
Book Two: Exodus
Israel Enslaved in Egypt (cont'd)
Chapter 5: Prologue - Pharaoh cuts the supply of straw
Chapter 6: God the Forgetful hires Moses again
Chapter 7: Moses meets Pharaoh again for the first time, and the first plague
Chapter 8: The second, third, and fourth plagues
Starting a book several times is an interesting phenomenon. It must be that certain books get really boring at a certain point, and the urge to put them down is overwhelming. Two or three books have this effect on me. I've never read past Leviticus in the bible, and I've never read past page 87 in Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea. I have read the first pages of Twenty Thousand Leagues at least a dozen times--it is my white whale! (Hey, Leviathan, Leviticus, get it?)
Speaking of which, the movie Leviathan is an amazing example of the lattice of coincidence that lies on top of everything. In that movie, the alien appears as monsters that were seen in the opening pages of Twenty Thousand Leagues. The characters finally realize that the alien is getting his shapes by reading the nightmares of one of the characters, who in turn, had read Twenty Thousand Leagues as a boy. But here's the kicker: he never got past page 87! Whoever wrote this book had exactly the same experience I did! I can still tell you precisely where on the shelves that book can be found in my grade school library. I checked it out every year, and never finished it. The book is still on my list (like the bible!), but to make it more difficult for myself, my goal now is to read it in French! And guess what: I've never gotten by about page 87 in the French version, Vingt mille lieues sous les mers."
One last thing about Jules Verne's book. As I progress through life, mysteries present themselves. One of my greatest joys is when, 20 or 30 years later, I figure out something that mystified me from long, long ago. I don't know if I'm getting smarter, or if I am just revisiting my past more lately, but I have been figuring out the mysteries of my life quite frequently in the past few years. One big mystery in my life was the title of the book, "Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea." Ever since a child, I have tried to figure that out. I would look up what a "league" is. It is about three miles. That would mean the Nautilus went sixty thousand miles under the sea! But even as a child I knew the earth is only about eight thousand miles across. How in the world did the Nautilus go that deep? At its deepest point the Pacific is only, I think, two miles deep. It never made sense, but I thought Verne must just not have known the diameter of the earth, and made up a really really deep number.
Well, a few years ago it finally dawned on me what the title means. It doesn't mean the Nautilus went 20,000 leagues straight down. It means that while under water, the Nautilus traveled 20,000 leagues! I must admit, some of my mysteries are more mysterious than that one! But I was very happy to figure it out.
Anyway, when we left off, God had just hired Moses, then tried to murder him, then Moses' wife saved him by cutting off the end of her baby's penis, rubbing it on her baby's face, and screaming "blood bridegroom by circumcision! Blood bridegroom by circumcision!"
Unfortunately, as I think I have portended, the excitement of the bible drops off precipitously after that. Each story of the bible is longer than the last. The early ones were just a chapter long (all the world was created in just a few verses), until by the end of Genesis, Joseph's story took 13 chapters. Now Moses and Aaron fight Pharaoh. I am sorry to say, in the entire four chapters of Exodus from 5 to 8, there is not a single moment of sex, not a single rape or incest, no loose pussy, no tight pussy, no bukkake, hardly any murder, absolutely nothing that makes the bible so great.
Remember that God engineered all of Israel moving to Egypt. That was the climax of Genesis. He did all that, typically, only so he could make the Israelis suffer, so he could then "save" them (sounds a little like David at the beginning of Endless Love burning down Jade's house so he can save her). Is there any doubt remaining in the dear reader's mind who is the antagonist of this book? The greatest villain in human history?
The story, very quickly, is that Israel is enslaved in Egypt. God hires Moses to go tell Pharaoh to let them go. But, and this is the important part, GOD HARDENS PHARAOH'S HEART. Then Moses performs several miracles before Pharaoh finally lets them go. Each one of the miracles is a "plague" on Egypt.
I like this story for two reasons. First, it demonstrates again how and why Christians so drastically misunderstand the bible. And second, it demonstrates what the bible actually is. The bible was written some time in our history, and it was written surrounding certain historical facts, and for a certain historical group of people. The purpose of the bible (the old testament) is to give the Israelites an identity, a common cultural memory, as we Americans have the revolutionary war, the Boston tea party, and so on. Probably 75% legend, but the point is it illustrates that "Don't Tread on Me" American attitude that makes us proud. (Speaking of which, it is for that reason I find the American dislike of Palestine so baffling. In the Israel-Palestine conflict, our obvious brothers-in-arms are the Palestinians, the Israelis are their redcoats. (It's not actually baffling--Israel has an enormously powerful Washington lobby.))
So, a couple of interesting things to consider while reading the bible are one, what factual history backs the stories, and two, what's the point? This story of Israel's "deliverance" from Egypt is fascinating for that reason. The first thing I love about the plagues Moses visits on Israel is that they are natural--not miracles at all. First, the Nile floods (plague #1). As a result frogs breed (plague #2). The frogs die, and maggots appear on the carcasses (plague #3). Flies are born from the maggots (plague #4). The flies carry disease to the animals (plague #5). This being the bible, where everything is repeated, it happens again (plague #6). (See 9:1-12. The cows that are killed during plague #5 become diseased in plague #6!)
I think this is an interesting moment. Most of the miracles to this point have been in the ancient past, and are just flat-out myths--the flood, the rainbow, the tower of Babel, and so on. This story, I have a feeling, is within more recent memory of the Israelites. And now, God's miracles aren't miracles at all--they are entirely natural occurrences, one after another. This story reminds me of an episode from Le Petit Prince. The Little Prince meets a king who is ruler of everything, even the stars and the planets. The key to being obeyed is to keep your commands reasonable. If he wants to command the sun to set, he does not do so in the middle of the afternoon; instead he consults an almanac to discover a more reasonable time to command it to set. On that particular day, the reasonable time for such a command was 7:40PM. If he commanded the sun in the middle of the afternoon, and it did not obey, that would be the King's fault, not the sun's. Same here with God. He does not order the flies to come first, that would be unreasonable. Instead he orders them to come after the maggots, and lo and behold, they do!
But this story is layered. It is also directed toward the gods of Egypt. The story is a battle of magicians, Moses versus Pharaoh's. Each time Moses "makes" something happen, the Egyptian magicians do the same thing. The frogs are making fun of the Egyptian frog-goddess Heqet. The cow-plague (the first cow-plague, #5, when the cows die (the one before the cows are diseased), is directed toward the bovine-deities Hathor and Apis. (I'm getting this information from the notes in my bible.) But there's an enormous problem with this story, for a Christian: other gods exist! WTF? How can this be? Exodus entirely, completely, and irredeemably denies Christian belief. Christians, simply, don't read the bible very carefully.
How do we explain the ten commandments, then? "Thou shall have no god before me"? Well, even that commandment implies other gods, does it not? Is God saying no other god exists? or is he saying other gods do exist, but you Israelites are only to worship me? This entire story taken as a whole, I think the latter reading is the only reasonable one. The story is straightforward. Israel has its god. Egypt has its gods. Israel escapes Egypt, and their god tells them, only worship me from now on.
The old testament is a straightforward battle of beliefs. Each tribe in the region had its beliefs, and the tribes defined themselves based on their differences. The old testament made fun (repeatedly) of these other beliefs, and explained why their beliefs were better. Nothing more, nothing less. It's a wonderful, funny, inspiring book written 5000 years ago, taken in that light. But if you try to take it seriously today, you're taking it out of context and completely misunderstanding it. I think even the authors of the bible would laugh at the idea of Christians trying to defend these old stories 5000 years later as literally true.
One more detail from these four chapters, one of those things that again proves the book was man-made. In chapter 4, Aaron is a minor figure. But in 7:8-13, the same story of God hiring Moses is told again, this time with Aaron having a much larger role. The reason? According to the notes, this book "took its final shape when the Aaronite priesthood ruled Israel, and hence it enhances the role of Aaron." It's not true, for god's sake, it is simply, humanly, one group propping up their leader. The way we today have Ronald Reagan airport. How could we have an airport named after such a mediocre president? Simple: his followers took control of Congress in 1994. (Cf. Gen. ch. 38, and my blog entry on it. (The authors inserted a chapter on Judah, because much later King David comes to prominence, and he was from the tribe of Judah.))
Well, I wrote way too much today! and now I'm exhausted. I think things are going to get really boring very soon. Which might mean you will hear much rumination from me, much less about the bible until we can get to another interesting story. (After the ten commandments, I don't even know what the next good story is--we'll have to wait and see!)
--bibletoenail
"You are lazy, you are lazy!" --Exod. 5:17
Old Testament
Book Two: Exodus
Israel Enslaved in Egypt (cont'd)
Chapter 5: Prologue - Pharaoh cuts the supply of straw
Chapter 6: God the Forgetful hires Moses again
Chapter 7: Moses meets Pharaoh again for the first time, and the first plague
Chapter 8: The second, third, and fourth plagues
Starting a book several times is an interesting phenomenon. It must be that certain books get really boring at a certain point, and the urge to put them down is overwhelming. Two or three books have this effect on me. I've never read past Leviticus in the bible, and I've never read past page 87 in Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea. I have read the first pages of Twenty Thousand Leagues at least a dozen times--it is my white whale! (Hey, Leviathan, Leviticus, get it?)
Speaking of which, the movie Leviathan is an amazing example of the lattice of coincidence that lies on top of everything. In that movie, the alien appears as monsters that were seen in the opening pages of Twenty Thousand Leagues. The characters finally realize that the alien is getting his shapes by reading the nightmares of one of the characters, who in turn, had read Twenty Thousand Leagues as a boy. But here's the kicker: he never got past page 87! Whoever wrote this book had exactly the same experience I did! I can still tell you precisely where on the shelves that book can be found in my grade school library. I checked it out every year, and never finished it. The book is still on my list (like the bible!), but to make it more difficult for myself, my goal now is to read it in French! And guess what: I've never gotten by about page 87 in the French version, Vingt mille lieues sous les mers."
One last thing about Jules Verne's book. As I progress through life, mysteries present themselves. One of my greatest joys is when, 20 or 30 years later, I figure out something that mystified me from long, long ago. I don't know if I'm getting smarter, or if I am just revisiting my past more lately, but I have been figuring out the mysteries of my life quite frequently in the past few years. One big mystery in my life was the title of the book, "Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea." Ever since a child, I have tried to figure that out. I would look up what a "league" is. It is about three miles. That would mean the Nautilus went sixty thousand miles under the sea! But even as a child I knew the earth is only about eight thousand miles across. How in the world did the Nautilus go that deep? At its deepest point the Pacific is only, I think, two miles deep. It never made sense, but I thought Verne must just not have known the diameter of the earth, and made up a really really deep number.
Well, a few years ago it finally dawned on me what the title means. It doesn't mean the Nautilus went 20,000 leagues straight down. It means that while under water, the Nautilus traveled 20,000 leagues! I must admit, some of my mysteries are more mysterious than that one! But I was very happy to figure it out.
Anyway, when we left off, God had just hired Moses, then tried to murder him, then Moses' wife saved him by cutting off the end of her baby's penis, rubbing it on her baby's face, and screaming "blood bridegroom by circumcision! Blood bridegroom by circumcision!"
Unfortunately, as I think I have portended, the excitement of the bible drops off precipitously after that. Each story of the bible is longer than the last. The early ones were just a chapter long (all the world was created in just a few verses), until by the end of Genesis, Joseph's story took 13 chapters. Now Moses and Aaron fight Pharaoh. I am sorry to say, in the entire four chapters of Exodus from 5 to 8, there is not a single moment of sex, not a single rape or incest, no loose pussy, no tight pussy, no bukkake, hardly any murder, absolutely nothing that makes the bible so great.
Remember that God engineered all of Israel moving to Egypt. That was the climax of Genesis. He did all that, typically, only so he could make the Israelis suffer, so he could then "save" them (sounds a little like David at the beginning of Endless Love burning down Jade's house so he can save her). Is there any doubt remaining in the dear reader's mind who is the antagonist of this book? The greatest villain in human history?
The story, very quickly, is that Israel is enslaved in Egypt. God hires Moses to go tell Pharaoh to let them go. But, and this is the important part, GOD HARDENS PHARAOH'S HEART. Then Moses performs several miracles before Pharaoh finally lets them go. Each one of the miracles is a "plague" on Egypt.
I like this story for two reasons. First, it demonstrates again how and why Christians so drastically misunderstand the bible. And second, it demonstrates what the bible actually is. The bible was written some time in our history, and it was written surrounding certain historical facts, and for a certain historical group of people. The purpose of the bible (the old testament) is to give the Israelites an identity, a common cultural memory, as we Americans have the revolutionary war, the Boston tea party, and so on. Probably 75% legend, but the point is it illustrates that "Don't Tread on Me" American attitude that makes us proud. (Speaking of which, it is for that reason I find the American dislike of Palestine so baffling. In the Israel-Palestine conflict, our obvious brothers-in-arms are the Palestinians, the Israelis are their redcoats. (It's not actually baffling--Israel has an enormously powerful Washington lobby.))
So, a couple of interesting things to consider while reading the bible are one, what factual history backs the stories, and two, what's the point? This story of Israel's "deliverance" from Egypt is fascinating for that reason. The first thing I love about the plagues Moses visits on Israel is that they are natural--not miracles at all. First, the Nile floods (plague #1). As a result frogs breed (plague #2). The frogs die, and maggots appear on the carcasses (plague #3). Flies are born from the maggots (plague #4). The flies carry disease to the animals (plague #5). This being the bible, where everything is repeated, it happens again (plague #6). (See 9:1-12. The cows that are killed during plague #5 become diseased in plague #6!)
I think this is an interesting moment. Most of the miracles to this point have been in the ancient past, and are just flat-out myths--the flood, the rainbow, the tower of Babel, and so on. This story, I have a feeling, is within more recent memory of the Israelites. And now, God's miracles aren't miracles at all--they are entirely natural occurrences, one after another. This story reminds me of an episode from Le Petit Prince. The Little Prince meets a king who is ruler of everything, even the stars and the planets. The key to being obeyed is to keep your commands reasonable. If he wants to command the sun to set, he does not do so in the middle of the afternoon; instead he consults an almanac to discover a more reasonable time to command it to set. On that particular day, the reasonable time for such a command was 7:40PM. If he commanded the sun in the middle of the afternoon, and it did not obey, that would be the King's fault, not the sun's. Same here with God. He does not order the flies to come first, that would be unreasonable. Instead he orders them to come after the maggots, and lo and behold, they do!
But this story is layered. It is also directed toward the gods of Egypt. The story is a battle of magicians, Moses versus Pharaoh's. Each time Moses "makes" something happen, the Egyptian magicians do the same thing. The frogs are making fun of the Egyptian frog-goddess Heqet. The cow-plague (the first cow-plague, #5, when the cows die (the one before the cows are diseased), is directed toward the bovine-deities Hathor and Apis. (I'm getting this information from the notes in my bible.) But there's an enormous problem with this story, for a Christian: other gods exist! WTF? How can this be? Exodus entirely, completely, and irredeemably denies Christian belief. Christians, simply, don't read the bible very carefully.
How do we explain the ten commandments, then? "Thou shall have no god before me"? Well, even that commandment implies other gods, does it not? Is God saying no other god exists? or is he saying other gods do exist, but you Israelites are only to worship me? This entire story taken as a whole, I think the latter reading is the only reasonable one. The story is straightforward. Israel has its god. Egypt has its gods. Israel escapes Egypt, and their god tells them, only worship me from now on.
The old testament is a straightforward battle of beliefs. Each tribe in the region had its beliefs, and the tribes defined themselves based on their differences. The old testament made fun (repeatedly) of these other beliefs, and explained why their beliefs were better. Nothing more, nothing less. It's a wonderful, funny, inspiring book written 5000 years ago, taken in that light. But if you try to take it seriously today, you're taking it out of context and completely misunderstanding it. I think even the authors of the bible would laugh at the idea of Christians trying to defend these old stories 5000 years later as literally true.
One more detail from these four chapters, one of those things that again proves the book was man-made. In chapter 4, Aaron is a minor figure. But in 7:8-13, the same story of God hiring Moses is told again, this time with Aaron having a much larger role. The reason? According to the notes, this book "took its final shape when the Aaronite priesthood ruled Israel, and hence it enhances the role of Aaron." It's not true, for god's sake, it is simply, humanly, one group propping up their leader. The way we today have Ronald Reagan airport. How could we have an airport named after such a mediocre president? Simple: his followers took control of Congress in 1994. (Cf. Gen. ch. 38, and my blog entry on it. (The authors inserted a chapter on Judah, because much later King David comes to prominence, and he was from the tribe of Judah.))
Well, I wrote way too much today! and now I'm exhausted. I think things are going to get really boring very soon. Which might mean you will hear much rumination from me, much less about the bible until we can get to another interesting story. (After the ten commandments, I don't even know what the next good story is--we'll have to wait and see!)
--bibletoenail
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