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