Those were some tough Jews

Old Testament

Book Five:  Deuteronomy

Primary Charge of Moses to the People (cont’d)

Chapter 3:  A review of Israel’s journey (cont’d)

Chapter 4:  An exhortation to obey the law

Deuteronomy is apparently mostly Moses talking to Israel before they go into Canaan.  It’s funny, because last time I was conned into thinking, oh, look, God finally did fulfill his promise and now they are in Canaan.  But of course that’s not true!  They aren’t in Canaan yet at all, they’re still on the other side of the valley.  What’s with all the stalling?  Well, we’ll have to wait and see.  It’s interesting that Moses was supposed to be the one to lead them out of slavery to the promised land, and he doesn’t actually get it done.  Instead, here, he tells them that Joshua will be their next leader.  Apparently the book of Joshua is going to be the record of their conquest of Canaan—if it actually happens, we’ll have to wait and see.

These are just some random thoughts I had reading these two chapters.  I might have to limit my reading to two chapters for the time being.  It’s just too brutal to read four chapters in a day.  Oh, this is interesting.  Apparently reading the bible in a year is something fundamentalist Christians like to do to show how devout they are.  It fits nicely at 4 chapters a day, it takes around eight or nine months.  (The idea that someone would read this book in order to get inspiration for their lives is really laughable to me, but whatever.  What in the world does Jane Christian get out of reading Leviticus?!)

Something occurred to me reading today.  There is nothing in the Old Testament about salvation, or heaven and hell.  It just doesn’t exist.  The word “heaven” appears frequently, but it doesn’t mean “the place you go after you die”; it just means out there, the other place, God.  We’ll see.  Moses is going to die in a few days, at the end of this book.  Let’s see what happens.  It’s interesting that Jesus is the only one who ever “ascended” to heaven, because the very concept makes no sense in the Old Testament.  What’s interesting about this is just how insanely disconnected the Old and New Testaments are.  They have nothing to do with each other.  It’s just bizarre that Christians believe the Old Testament is part of their religion.  But they have to, because it is the entire way ALL religious movements exist, right?  You don’t argue that everything they ever thought is wrong, and so here, I’m going to tell you the truth.  You say exactly what Jesus said, they’re not wrong, they just don’t quite get it right.  I am the one who can properly interpret YOUR religion.  Not forget yours, follow mine.  It’s exactly what Paul did with Jesus.  Muhammad did the same thing.  Joseph Smith did the same thing.  David Koresh did the same thing.  It’s all the same thing.  Even the Jewish priests do it book by book in the Old Testament.  They reinterpret the rules to fit the new situation.

Another thing, it is simply amazing that we ended up with this religion rather than some other one.  It is clear from the Old Testament there were tribes running around the Middle East, and that each one had its own similar dumb religion.  (And as I’ve talked about may times, the Old Testament is in fact an conglomeration of older beliefs reimagined to support this new religion.)  Is there anything to learn from the fact that this one survived?  Or is it truly random?  And of course, while Judaism is still with us, it’s not even Judaism that survived, it’s Christianity.  And it’s only half Christianity, it’s also half Islam.  But it all stems from these dumb tribal disputes 5000 years ago.  WHY?  Here is one theory.  Sort of gets back to Nietzsche.  There is something particularly weak about the European mind, and Paul hit on the perfect message for them:  don’t worry that you’re a loser, it will all be better after you die.  What a fantastic message for someone too weak not to take that drink, huh?  And in a weird way, the defeated other tribes in Arabia, the Canaanites and Moabites and so on, they didn’t go anywhere.  They stayed right where they were, and they did this amazing judo move to flip the whole thing on its head and use Christianity to go back to saying no we are in charge.  It’s all amazing and amazingly pointless.

I have another question.  What the hell is really going on with this story.  Is there really a nomadic tribe running around winning battle after battle, apparently taking over a city, raping the women, then leaving to move on?  It’s so bizarre!  And it sounds from this book like they could never lose.  This is the way the Middle East (the Bedouins and so on) were—they were nomadic.  (I get this from Seven Pillars of Wisdom, which I haven’t read in a long time, so I may be drastically misrepresenting it.)  These nomadic tribes were just the way of life on the Arabian peninsula for a long time.  But so did the Israelites really always win?  Or did the always lose?  Did they really stage themselves above Canaan and then attack?  With what?  HOW did these battles go?  It’s all so weirdly false sounding, but at the same time maybe not.  I don’t know, it’s just a very interesting question.

I have one thought, here in Deuteronomy we may still be back in pre-historic times.  These stories may still be legend more than factual record.  It may be that all this is leading up to Joshua’s attack on Canaan, to sort of explain why the Israelites took over Canaan?  That’s a possible—these five books give the Israelites a reason to believe in themselves and obey their leaders.

Oh yeah, something that supports this hypothesis, the notes say that Deuteronomy appears to have been written as an address to the kingdom of Judah.  If that’s true, this may all be exactly what I just said it was.  Tall tales you tell your children about previous conquests in order to instill pride and obedience.

--bibletoenail