innerThoughts

April 7, 2011

The “Why’s/Where’s, & What’s? of Absalom

In my reading of 2 Samuel’s story of Absalom, involving his older brother Amnon and his sister Tamar. Ambsalom’s older half brother Amnon raped Absalom’s full sister Tamar, so Ambalom murdered Amnon, and a lot of contextual detail questions jump out at me. Like,

1. Why does Absalom wait?
2. Why does he run to Geshur?
3. Why does Absalom start his bid for kingship at Hebron?
4. What’s the significance of the fact that the guy who gave Amnon the idea to rape his half sister, Jonadab, is also the guy who also announces the minimal murder by the hand of Absalom, and declares the rest of David’s son’s safe return?
5. Why is Absalom described in more detail than any other son of David, when he is just the third son?
6. And lastly what is the deal with that description sounding like the “unblemished” sacrificial lamb or calf description of the “first born male” which belongs to God and so is sacrificed?

So many crazy question from one of if not the longest narrative section of 2 Samuel. Questions, questions, question.

Well like always, since I do not have Dr. in front of my name, and I haven’t studied the Old Testament as long as Dr. Brueggemann has, I don’t have all the answers for you. However, I would like to point out some interesting contextual correlations I discovered in cross checking some hunches I had from prior biblical texts.

Absalom runs to Geshur. Geshur is the land of his mother. In fact Absalom’s mother is Maakah, daughter of the King of Geshur and the Geshurites,Talmai. These Geshurites were the long time ancient foes of the Israelites ever since they entered into Canaan. Israel and even David himself fights them often, from Deuteronomy forward. So I find it interesting that after David married a foreign princess, and after a three year time with His grandfather, the foreign king, Absalom rises up to take the throne from his Israelite father David.

The next why/where, Hebron, whose discovery, took me back to the book of Joshua, and an earlier blog actually, for the city that Absalom makes an oath to go to just so happens to be a “city of refuge.” In Joshua Ch. 20:7 it lists as the third city of refuge as “Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron) in the hill country of Judah.” Here the texts uses an anachronism to give the later name for that city/region, and it just so happens to be Hebron, where Absalom, son of David, from the tribe of Judah, swore to go during his three year exile in Geshur. He then establishes his kingdom there for a parallel three years. So, why a city of refuge, you ask. Well, remember a city of refuge is where one can go to escape retributive justice and death for killing someone accidentally in Israelite law. In fact the justice seeker is referred to as “the avenger of blood,” for they get justice by taking a life for a life, eye for an eye as the Deuteronomy/Leviticus law would have it. Interestingly enough, the women whom Joab send to speak to king David, to get him to forgive Absalom, and let him return uses that exact phrase, “the avenger of blood,” in her pleas to have him save her son in the fictitious parallel story which mirrors the murder between Absalom and Ammon.  So, Absalom runs to and establishes his kingdom in a place where he is free from harm. Yet, the one who conceived “the avenger of blood” story that stated all this is also “the eventual avenger of blood” because Joab is the one who spears Absalom, interesting.

The last funny correlation maybe more in my head than in the text, but as I stated, in 2 Samuel 14:25 Absalom is described in almost the exact same way as the consecrated first born livestock sacrifices and or Hebrew children which are said to belong to God. Absalom was not THE first-born son of David, but he was the first-born son of David with his wife Maakah. Well, David refused to fight/kill Absalom just like he refused to kill Saul, as the Lord’s anointed. Yet we know David has no real problems with taking lives, 100 Philistine foreskins, and we remember how 2 Samuel started with David killing the men who killed Saul, his children, and another enemy leader. Maybe that’s why David was so against killing Absalom.

Now please, don’t take my discovered links and THE ONLY ANSWERS, or as the answers at all. Remember I’m no Dr. so and so. I just like seen detail links in the text. This was like a biblical treasure hunt. I don’t have all the answers. But, maybe what I’m here for and what this blog is here for is to ask the questions that most of us are afraid to ask, have been trained not to ask, or just haven’t cared to ask. Maybe it like a wise man once said in a Tyler Perry movie I just watched. “Having all the answers is not as important as being able to ask the right questions.” Maybe you, blog reader, need to have a biblical treasure hunt of your own?

April 5, 2011

Is the Location of “Sheol” Important?

Class this semester has really challenged my preconceived notions about the beginning of our Bible. There have been many historical arguments as to the authorship. One of the more interesting arguments I have recently read about and discovered in my biblical commentary research for my Scriptures 1 Old Testament class, as well as have heard my professor refer to, is Walter Brueggemann’s Davidic influence on Genesis’ writer. Here Brueggemann postulated that since much of the themes and plot lines of Genesis match or mirror the events of the Davidic dynasty then Genesis’ author must have been writing at a later date, via the historical influence of the Judah’s first king, David.

Well as I read through 1 & 2 Samuel and 1 & 2 Kings I noticed that the name and concept of “Sheol” reentered the text, and I remembered that I first remember seeing it in Genesis and then it disappeared from the text till now.

Sheol as I have come to understand it is the Hebrew word/understanding for the grave and or the abyss that all mankind got to when they die, regardless of their moral/religious choices. In looking trough a concordance I discovered that Sheol actual come on the scene in the last few chapters of Genesis, then makes a short cameo appearance in both numbers ad Deuteronomy, but vanishes from the text till 1 & 2 Samuel and 1 Kings. Then it vanishes again from the text till the later prophet books of Job and Psalms.

1. Genesis 37:35 Then all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. And he said, “Surely I will go down to Sheol in mourning for my son.” So his father wept for him.

2. Genesis 42:38 But Jacob said, “My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he alone is left If harm should befall him on the journey you are taking, then you will bring my gray hair down to Sheol in sorrow

3. Genesis 44:29 ‘If you take this one also from me, and harm befalls him, you will bring my gray hair down to Sheol in sorrow.’

4. Genesis 44:31 when he sees that the lad is not with us, he will die. Thus your servants will bring the gray hair of your servant our father down to Sheol in sorrow

5. Numbers 16:30 “But if the LORD brings about an entirely new thing and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that is theirs, and they descend alive into Sheol, then you will understand that these men have spurned the LORD.

6. Numbers 16:33 So they and all that belonged to them went down alive to Sheol; and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly.

7. Deuteronomy 32:22 For a fire is kindled in My anger, And burns to the lowest part of Sheol, And consumes the earth with its yield, And sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.

8. 1 Samuel 2:6 ” The LORD kills and makes alive; He brings down to Sheol and raises up.

9. 2 Samuel 22:6 The cords of Sheol surrounded me; The snares of death confronted me.

10.  1 Kings 2:6 ” So act according to your wisdom, and do not let his gray hair go down to Sheol in peace.

11.  1 Kings 2:9 “Now therefore, do not let him go unpunished, for you are a wise man; and you will know what you ought to do to him, and you will bring his gray hair down to Sheol with blood.”

1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 Kings are the primary texts of king David. David first comes on the scene in 1 Samuel, and is the chief character of 2 Samuel and his old age and death opened up 1 Kings.  I find it very interesting that it is not found in Judges where everyone is dying in battles, are being killed out of revenge, or because of foolish promises sworn to God. There is so much death in these books that lack the concept and name of Sheol in them. The interesting linguistic link of Sheol, either being in a particular section of texts or not being in other texts, bodes well for Brueggemann’s argument for Davidic influence on the early books of the Old Testament, particularly Genesis.

But when did Sheol start to move from being the inevitable resting place for all man, to being linked with hades and then later Hell? When and why did fire become a part of it? Was it an early version of hell or heaven since it was the only Hebrew concept of an afterlife, and since Christianity sees revelation as progressive? So many questions, and so few answers, sorry. I guess we will just have to wrestle with these and more questions together, but the important thing is that we read the texts together as a community and ask these hard questions and not avoid them. At least that is one of the best advices the Vatican II documents gave us.

March 24, 2011

The Lord’s “EVIL spirit?”

This semester I have been greatly blessed to be forced to read through the 1^st half of the Old Testament, OT, in greater detail than in years past of my Christian faith by my Scriptures 1 professor. I have also been encouraged to ask and wrestle with the ugly and often-neglected questions that often pop up in the mind of readers like myself.

Well this post is one of those questions, resulting from one on my times of scripture reading and reflection.

In reading the story of how David comes on the scene of 1 Samuel one often too quickly jumps to his protagonist character trial and mighty deeds and passes over a huge yet probably and purposefully ignored statement that when God rejected Saul as His chosen king and governor of the Israelite people, He, that is God, also sent a an evil spirit to torment Saul. In fact the text specifically states the evil spirit is from God or the Lord six times:

1 Samuel 16:14

“14 Now the Spirit of the LORD had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD tormented him.”

1 Samuel 16:15

“Saul’s attendants said to him, “See, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you.”

1 Samuel 16:16

“Let our lord command his servants here to search for someone who can play the lyre. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes on you, and you will feel better.”

1 Samuel 16:23

“Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.”

1 Samuel 18:10

“The next day an evil spirit from God came forcefully on Saul. He was prophesying in his house, while David was playing the lyre, as he usually did. Saul had a spear in his hand.”

1 Samuel 19:9

“But an evil spirit from the LORD came on Saul as he was sitting in his house with his spear in his hand. While David was playing the lyre,”

What are we to do with this text’s testament? We have theologically defined God and His characteristics as/with “Omnipotent, Omnipresence, Omniscience, and Omnibenevolence” or “good” with no evil in or among Him.  Yet how do we deal with this “evil spirit” sent directly coming from God? It reminded me of the thoughts and questions I had when I read through Exodus, which had God continually harden pharaoh’s heart so more plagues were needed to bring the Hebrew people freedom from slavery in Egypt.

At first I thought it might just be an “over-translation” by the biblical text makers, for every bible translation we read is filtered to us by someone’s opinion via translation calls they make while translating. But when I looked up the literal translation of the words they did equal evil spirit. So, for those of you faithful blog readers I must apologize here, for truly I have no great deep researched answer for you. But, I do have my slightly educated opinion’s guess or hypothesis. The great scholarly minds and commentaries we have read and discussed in class have said that many times these stories especially this one are used to “legitimize” David as king and “de-legitimize” Saul. So maybe if Saul was so easy entangled by and evil spirit, after multiple “Dueteronomistically” unethical deeds than David looks like an awesome and rightful replacement. However, theologically I have no idea what to do with this text, sorry. So just wrestle with the idea yourself, read some commentaries, or ask a trusted bible theologian about it.

March 22, 2011

Chosen… Lack of Patience

As one reads through 1 Samuel it is far too easy to identify with the chief protagonist, David, if one finds oneself in the cultural context of the Western world. It, that is the West, like David resides in this assumed “chosen” place of power and privilege as the dominant victorious figure. However, I humble argue maybe we might gain a little more knowledge and depth if we pay a little more attention to the plight of Saul in this biblical book.

1 Samuel 9:1-17

“1 There was a Benjamite, a man of standing, whose name was Kish son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Bekorath, the son of Aphiah of Benjamin. 2 Kish had a son named Saul, as handsome a young man as could be found anywhere in Israel, and he was a head taller than anyone else…17 When Samuel caught sight of Saul, the LORD said to him, “This is the man I spoke to you about; he will govern my people.”

1 Samuel 13: 7b-14

“Saul remained at Gilgal, and all the troops with him were quaking with fear. 8 He waited seven days, the time set by Samuel; but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and Saul’s men began to scatter. 9 So he said, “Bring me the burnt offering and the fellowship offerings.” And Saul offered up the burnt offering.

10 Just as he finished making the offering, Samuel arrived, and Saul went out to greet him. 11 “What have you done?” asked Samuel. Saul replied, “When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Mikmash, 12 I thought, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the LORD’s favor.’ So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering.” 13 “You have done a foolish thing,” Samuel said. “You have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. 14 But now your kingdom will not endure; the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people, because you have not kept the LORD’s command.”

1 Samuel 15: 7b-14

“26b You have rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD has rejected you as king over Israel! … 35b And the LORD regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.”

The tragic tale of the Benjamite king Saul one encounters a quick turn around of events. Saul is chosen King and governor of all Israel by God because the Israelite people begged God for a king. Yet soon after, in the narrative chapters of 1Samuel, Saul’s entitled impatience costs him his appointed leadership and hereditary kingdom, as one can read in the quotation from above.

I believe many times when we feel and maybe even know that we are “chosen” to do a set task, we, especially in the West, like Saul, get a sense of entitlement. This can lead us to not be patient and wait on God when He has made it clear we need to do just that. Sometimes it is unclear, because God seems to be silent to our inquisitions, but may that silence means we need to wait a longer for God to speak and to guide us in the correct choice of action. “Be still and know I am God,” He says. This doesn’t have to be an awesome parting of the clouds type moment in our lives, though it can be, but more times than not for me it has been God revealing/reminding me of His already chosen guidelines for my actions/choices in the complete message of His word. “The greatest commandment is love the Lord your God with [everything you’ve got] and the second is like it, love your neighbor as your self [the golden rule…do unto others as you would have done to you].”

Maybe we need to stop thinking we know as much or better that God. Maybe we, especially those in the west, need to be less hasty and entitled and wait on or listen to God’s guidance, or else we too may end up like Saul, rejected by God.

March 17, 2011

What’s with the Violence?

Judges: 19: 22-29

As one reads through Judges there multiple cases of what we would today call excessive and pervasive violence. Often this violence is perpetrated against women. But, the one case that stands out more than anything else is the fate of the “Levite’s concubine.” It is also interesting to see that this female character, along with a majority of the other female protagonists, never receives a name and is only identified by her relation to her Levite counter part.

In this story the Levite throws his concubine outside to appease an angry mob bent on sexual violence. This story brings up memories of Sodom, where a similar angry mob descended on Abraham’s nephew Lot’s home, and Lot tried to placate the mob with his two daughters. But in that case they left the two girls alone. Here in Judges the Levite’s concubine is gang raped all night long until here almost lifeless body crawls back to the door where her Levite, possible husband, for the word concubine come from the Hebraic basic word for wife, resided. Does he thank her for being his sacrificial substitute, no, nor does he try to nurse her back to health. Instead he puts her on his horse and heads home, where, once there he cuts her into 12 pieces and then sent all over Israel.

Now a war and sanctions does come of this egregious act against morality and humanity, but the fate of the concubine and crimes committed against her are so flippantly addressed, and were the ones who raped her are not the only ones who look bad ethically in this story. Yet these are not the big and ugly questions that come out of such a text. Why is this text included in the biblical text and canon? Why was this considered an appropriate action to take to save one’s own life? Why does she not have name? What beneficial purpose does this text serve in the biblical narrative?

Truthfully, in reading Judges I have come to many more questions and uneasy feelings than I have had in reading any other Old Testament book so far this semester. And the only thing I can look to as a rational for this type of story, as well as its inclusion into biblical narrative is that this whole book of judges, with all of its cycles of injustice, pleading for relief, liberation, and then a fall into injustices again, begins with the death of Joshua the prototype of a just and Godly king, who succeeded Moses, another great leader, yet this entire book speaks of new generation arising out of the Hebrews, who like the Pharaoh in Egypt who begins the book of Exodus, forget the great and good deeds of the men that came before them. The bad pharaoh forgot Joseph’s work to save all of North Africa. And this generation forgot the singular love and focus of and on Yahweh by Joshua and Moses. Maybe such atrocities are just par for the course when wrongful and forgetful leaders are in places of power and influence. Maybe we are destined for tragedy when we forget God. Maybe all this is a foreshadowing of the great need for a great king on earth who is a man visible and tangible for a people who chose long ago on Sinai, first with Moses, to have some always be between them and God because they just couldn’t take the heat of God’s kitchen.

March 16, 2011

Testing God?

Judges: 6: 17-22, 36-38, and 39-40

First I feel as if I must apologize for not updating my posts, to the normal schedule I usually do. Things have been a little crazy lately, which made the biblical words and contextual situation jump of the page and into my memory and psyche in a new and more passionate way.

In these texts cited above one of the most popular and heroic stories of the Old Testament, find its foundation. Gideon, the “mighty warrior” himself who commands thousands, yet conquers with only a few hundreds, is first the timid “testing” twerp. In fact as God comes to talk to Gideon through his messenger, an angel, Gideon’s response is one to “test” God to see if this messenger and his story is “for real.” Then he “tested” God two more times just to see if his assigned task will come to a successful outcome. This triad of testing screamed out at me from my bible pages. Anytime a text repeats a narrative element three times, it usually holds some important significance.

When reading these “testing tails” from the story of Gideon I couldn’t help but think of the tempting of Jesus Christ in the beginning of the Gospel Matthew. The second temptation laid before Christ by the devil in Matthew chapter four is one in which Christ would through himself of the top of the tallest building, the temple, and see if God would save him since he was God’s son. Jesus refuses to do this and quotes the Torah scriptures to validate his stance. He sites Deuteronomy 6:16 “Do not put the LORD your God to the test.” So this is a law the Israelite people know and fear that was established with all the other laws in Deuteronomy as God revealed Himself to Israel in the wilderness at Sinai. Knowledge and Hebrew tradition known by the writer of Judges and the people of that time, right?

Yet, why then does God first of all allow Gideon to test him three times, and then reward him still with a victory? What is different in Gideon’s testing and the testing that is forbidden by the law? Well to be completely honest I really have no full and complete answer for you. However, I do have an inkling of an answer derived from my own personal experience.

Before “surrendering to fulltime ministry,” aka Christian church work, I was sure if I was supposed to. I had a very finically promising and socially respected career complete with important connections all lined up in front of me. So leaving it was not easy, thus I asked God if he really wanted me to do this to make it abundantly clear to me by the upcoming Sunday. That Sunday the sermon was about God using anyone regardless of his or her pedigree. So I surrender to fulltime ministry. Then I didn’t know where to go from there, and a ministry Job opened up for me in a large church with a comfortable salary at the church of my brother-in-law, whom I really got along with. But as one who did not major in Christian religious studies, I felt I didn’t have all the knowledge one needed to be a minister right off the bat. So, I again asked God to make the decision for me by an upcoming Sunday. My first supposed answer came when I realized that I didn’t receive a full ride scholarship to the seminary I wished to go to, so I thought God wanted me to take the ministry job. Then on the deciding Sunday my dad called and said he received a letter at his house, my permanent address still that said I had been awarded a full scholarship to the seminary of my choice. Therefore I went to seminary instead of taking the job. So I said all that to say this maybe testing God is not a completely black and white issue, maybe testing or asking for signs to discern God’s will for you is ok, while testing God just to test Him and His promises instead of taking His word like in the case of Jesus in Matt. 4:5-7 is wrong. But that line between the two seems to be very fine.

March 11, 2011

We Have a Choice!

Joshua 24:14-15a “Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living.”

In reading the closing remarks of Joshua in the book of Joshua I saw many of the house decorations of friends and family, plaques and plates with the words of Joshua 24:15b etched into their polish vineries, “As for me and my house we shall serve the Lord.” To be completely honest, I even had those exact words adorning the top of my “open bible” grooms cake at my wife’s and mine wedding three years ago.

Yet I feel we miss a beautiful point and maybe the big picture that the author of Joshua is trying to make with us if we only pay attention or cite the latter half of this great stance and ending ultimatum of Joshua’s life and book of the Bible. For here in Joshua 12: 14-15a we get the significant context of such a summit statement. Joshua is calling the people, a people who have profound respect for the traditions and memory of their ancestors and lineage, and who are the heirs to their rich inheritance to “throw away” a part of it.

These people whom he is talking to are a people who have strict regulated laws and customs to ensure that what they have is passed down to the next generation and how that transmission takes place, only through male heirs or daughters who marry within the tribe. People where it is much easier to just take all that our histories and families give them and make it their own.

Additionally this Israelite audience Joshua is addressing also seems to have a real problem of assimilating into what ever culture they seem to find themselves in. As one can see in the above text, the Israelites, while in Egypt, adopted worship of false gods. Plus, just a book away in Numbers chapters 25 & 31, the Israelite men fall to worship the false gods of Midian and Moab because the women of those regions are just so “hot” that the Israelite men cannot help themselves.

All this shows us that what Joshua was requesting, was something that his audience struggled with. Are we not a similar people to this ancient Israelite plight? We, far too easily take in the “negative false gods” inheritances of our reluctant family legacies, as if that is our lot in life. If our parents were alcoholics, pessimists, abusive, debt builders, or criminals, we have to become one as well, or at least that is what modern “pop” sociology and psychology tell us. Then, as Americans we have the “keeping up with the Jones’s” mentality where we want to be like the collective, whether that collective is the majority or the “ragging against the man/machine” minority, we still want to “fit in” somewhere around us.

We are the susceptible audience Joshua is calling out, and the good news is we don’t have to follow or take ownership of the negative inheritances of abuse, debt, and failure our families try to force on us. We don’t have to assimilate into a culture full of idols calling us to worship false gods who will not return the love and energy we put into them to “fit in.” We have a choice “to serve/worship the Lord,” God, Jesus Christ. The problem is that “serving the LORD seems undesirable to” us, and therefore we do what our families and everyone around us have done, but such things are not a punitive sentence we must carry out. I am speaking to myself as mush as I am to you, as a former child of abuse and hatred, I know how easy it is “to go with the flow” of the “hand we may find ourselves to be dealt.” But I, as Joshua, submit to you readers that you have a choice and the power to be a “new creation” in Jesus Christ and a new people, who are the true radicals and rebels of society, as Christian rapper Lecrae proposes in his song “Rebel.” Let us be the holy and different people of God, the church, serving Him only, by loving completely, forgiving willingly, and living righteously. Amen.

March 1, 2011

Why Cities of Refuge?

Joshua:
As I have read through the first few books of the Old Testament, I have come to notice an interesting and personally disturbing issue. Though I have tried to avoid it in the Biblical texts, it has been reiterated for the third time in Joshua, so I guess I better address it. What is with these cities of refuge?

Starting in the book of Numbers, then Deuteronomy, and again/now Joshua, we get these new laws providing for “cities of refuge” where men and women can go to escape the sever punishment for “killing someone” “unintentionally” or accidentally as I see it. Yet, in my 21^st century contemporary understanding this is not a case that should arise too often in ancient Israel or pre-Israel.

I mean, please excuse me for the crudeness as these statements may sound, it’s the curse of formerly working with law enforcement, but it is not like ancient Israel had access to automobiles, so they could commit “involuntary manslaughter” when they fell asleep at the wheel, and hit, and killed someone. Nor did they have guns, particularly handguns, which accidentally kill many people every year due to improper use or accidental access by children. They didn’t even have huge machinery like cranes, which if misused or defective can harm or kill people in the everyday workman hazards. These are ancient non-industrial, non-technological, and primitive people, without today’s multiple accidental death hazards. But, then again, maybe that is the “real problem” and the precise need for the “cities of refuge.”

I can see, and the text lays partial claim to certain incidents of occupational wrongful deaths. For instance an ox, which goes “buck-wild” and gores and kills a person or people, I could definitely see this happening. This would and should equal an unintentional killing. I guess you could hold the ox owner responsible; these three Biblical texts do tend to lean that way. But, I mean as one who has married a “ranch girl,” and has worked with these behemoth bovines bent on destruction, I know that such things should be seen as accidents with no retribution sought. I once was inconveniently injured while working with such animals, and I just knew it to “just come with the territory” of such work, and I offered grace not anger towards my father-in-law. Then again what choice did I have, right, just kidding.

But, maybe in “there lies the rub,” as Shakespeare’s Hamlet stated. Maybe the whole reason or need for “cities of refuge” is the fact that once harmed we humans are very unlikely to forgive, and more likely to seek “equivalent justice,” an eye for an eye, life for life.

This isn’t just a problem for ancient “primitive” Israel. Today we are still such “primitive” people who are slow if not almost completely incapable to forgive as God forgives. So, God created in His law, cities of refuge where one could go until time for restitution or forgiveness could be completed. I mean this is the Old Testament here; God’s followers didn’t have access to the Holy Spirit’s power to love as Christ loved and forgive as Christ forgave. Just, maybe these ancient “cities of refuge” were the “church-like” places where a sinner can cry out to God and man “sanctuary!” and be safe from “retributionary” harm. Maybe that’s what the church today needs to be, a place of forgiveness which goes beyond normal human capability, being a testament of the true God’s love in relation to his Justice, for it does always require and bring a change on the one who cried out to receive a “sanctuary” of “forgiveness.”

February 22, 2011

Prophesy, Prediction, and the Monarchy

Deuteronomy:

In read through Deuteronomy, it struck me how much of it is a repeat, or retelling of the Israelites’’ story from Exodus through Leviticus. Yet there were some very different and important differences and new interpretations of the events. The “12 spies” story was slightly different. Unlike the Numbers version, God is not the motivation of the adventure, it is the idea of the people, “which seems to be a good idea to Moses, so he sends them.” Also, Moses places the blame for his inability to enter into the Promised Land by crossing the Jordan on the people. Deuteronomy additionally adds new laws into the laws established from Exodus-Numbers. Laws involving engaged virgins, as well as laws about prophets and kings. These last to aspects are the ones who caught my attention the most.

The text brings up the new idea of prophecy, and how one is to judge a prophet. The general rule for judgment, given in Deuteronomy, is that whether what a prophet says come true or not is the way to gage the falseness of a prophet. This law of Deuteronomy reinforces the popular identification of prophesy with fortune or future telling. This view of prophesy contrasts greatly with the work of the latter prophets found in scripture. Where the prophets chief role is to call the people back into attention and understanding of the laws of God, particularly those in which involved the treatment of the “low” and powerless, the disenfranchised, examples from the biblical text being the poor, window, orphan, etc.

Yet, the most vivid role of prophesy I saw in Deuteronomy is in chapter 17, when the book speaks to the future fact that the people of Israel will want a “king…just like all the nation that will surround them.” Because of this desire, the Lord through Moses establishes some regulations for this future king, “He must be from among your fellow Israelites…The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself…He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray…He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold…and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.” Comically, these are many of the things that the first two kings of Israel, Saul & David, did do, and it therefore “led their hearts astray.” These issues lay credence to the authorship and dating of the Pentateuch of the renowned Old Testament scholar Dr. Walter Brueggemann, that the texts were written during the monarchy period.

A second important prophetic utterance of Deuteronomy comes in Ch. 28, and then an actual prediction of Israel’s rebellion and subsequent exile in Ch. 31. These predictions are dead on and Israel does suffer these curses for rebelling like they are predicted to do. This issue here makes the argument for the authorship of these texts to be during or right after the period of Israel’s exile. Yet, these ideas may create unrest in people who have taken church tradition’s views of authorship of these texts as the only possible truth.

But, if we look to the new laws on prophets, and how to judge them, by whether their prophesies come true, then what better way was there for the author ensure that these important and God honoring words are taken seriously and followed. So, in actuality the by the own judgment set up in Deuteronomy, for prophesy, the book gains great authority. Maybe that is what the author’s had in mind all along. Maybe the author knew that if what he wrote was taken as the wise words of one who had lived and learned these things, because hindsight is 20/20, they would be taken as seriously or as “law-fully” as they should. I mean the primary goal in my humble observation of Deuteronomy is that, Moses, the literary narrator of the book, is reminding the people of their “Identity,” which is an identity richly rooted in God, and how to not dishonor or loose that identity by observing these statutes designed for the peoples best benefit. Maybe it will bring peace to out troubled minds if we look at the authorship and date of these texts that way instead trying do the impossible or argue about speculation, take the texts as what they were intended for and intended to do, help people identify themselves in relation to the great God of all. Maybe we should take time to do the same ourselves.

February 15, 2011

There’s Equality in the Old Testament?

Numbers:

Normally individuals like you and I, who are privy to the knowledge of the New Testament Gospels, Acts, and the letters of Paul, see them as the true texts supporting equality, impartiality, and egalitarianism.

For instance, Jesus in the Gospel of Mark chapter five heals the multiple demon possessed man on the Greek/Gentile side of the Sea of Galilee, just as he does the Jewish people on the Jewish/Hebrew side of the lake/Sea of Galilee. Then Jesus casted the many demons into pigs who ran off the cliff into the water, cleaning the Greek/Gentile land of the unclean pigs, which is how the Jews of that time referred to the Gentiles; it is easy to see these texts as egalitarian. Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan women and His “good Samaritan” parable in Luke, makes it clear the Jewish hated race of Samaritans were not beyond God’s love.  Add to that Paul, who wrote in Galatians 3:28-29, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise,” and the equality of the Bible’s New Testament is hard to deny.

Some of American’s firsts abolitionists used scripture as their rational for the end of slavery. Similar texts were the motivation and justification of many of the giants of the civil rights movement for such equality, particularly the “King” himself, that is Martin Luther King Jr. I envision such scriptural truths whispering in Dr. King’s ear as he stood on those steps in Washington, DC.

Yet, when we think of such things and the equality they were and are calling for we, or maybe just I, rarely think of the Old Testament. I mean weren’t the Jews/Hebrews/Israelites said to be the chosen people of God set apart for God’s glory to be shown, especially over the Egyptians, who treated the Jews like dogs, in the Old Testament book of Exodus, which was why God smashed on them with Moses and the 10 plagues.

But, interestingly enough, just as soon as God gets to establishing the law for these “chosen people” in Leviticus, some interesting things start rearing their egalitarian little heads. In the Old Testament’s Leviticus 19:18, God instructs the Israelites to love their neighbor as themselves; looks like Jesus did not come up with that one for the first time in the New Testament’s gospels. Then, all throughout the Old Testament book of Numbers, God tells the people multiple times through Moses that the same laws that govern and protect the Israelites will also govern and protect the aliens and foreigners. In fact Numbers also says foreigners who wish to worship God during the several Jewish festivals could do so, as long as they followed the practices exactly as the Jews did. Women were also allowed to inherit property for the first time in Numbers, giving them more equal rights, although He does then again tweak the women’s ownership right at the end of the chapter. Maybe, we, including me of course, and the church like, David Bosch a 20^th century theologian, are too quick to “judge” the Old Testament’s equality, universal mission, and evangelism. God did tell Abraham from the beginning he would be a blessing to all the nations. However, I must say the equality motif of the Old Testament is a lot harder to find than it is in the New Testament.