I Kings 3: At the Library

I’m at the downtown public library right now. Because my own computer has broken down, I’m doing my weekly quiet time and weekly quiet time write-up at the library. I realize that several of you can’t make it without my weekly quiet time write-up, so I’d be selfish not to write it, right?!

In some cases this Sabbath, I used different sources from what I ordinarily use. Most Sabbaths on my computer, I consult John Gill, John MacArthur, and the Nelson’s Study Bible, and I listen to Calvary Chapel sermons and sermons from a Calvinist web site. Today, however, I read commentaries, mostly scholarly ones that have a Christian, homiletical twist.

One thing I ordinarily miss out on in my weekly quiet times is the ancient Near Eastern parallels. I’d like to correct that somewhat when I return to my usual manner of doing my weekly quiet times, without adding tons of commentaries to my reading list. I may scan the Anchor Bible each Sabbath or order a cheap copy of the IVP Bible Background Commentary.

What were some of the parallels between I Kings 3 and other ancient Near Eastern writings, or literature from other cultures? In both I Kings 3 and other areas of the ancient Near East, a king humbly asks a deity for wisdom, while taking the stance of a small child. His goal is often to protect the most vulnerable members of society. Wisdom is also called “hearing” in both I Kings 3 and ancient Near Eastern literature, implying perhaps that we are wise when we listen to God and to other people. The story of someone in authority proposing to divide a child in half to see which professing mother is the true one also has parallels, which have a similar theme but aren’t exactly like the story in I Kings 3. Probably the closest parallel is a story from India.

Do the parallels between I Kings 3 and other cultures mean that God was at work in non-Israelite religions? Perhaps. The view that Israel was righteous because of her religion whereas other nations were carnal and selfish is an over-simplification. At the same time, one theme that most of the commentaries harped on was the complexity of Solomon as a character: he could be carnal and selfish, but also spiritual and selfless. The commentaries treat Solomon as bad where I (and also the biblical text) tend to give him the benefit of a doubt. They present the Solomon of I Kings 1-2 as a blood-thirsty power-grabber who ruthlessly eliminated his political opponents, but, as far as I can see, Solomon tried to be merciful to his political opponents, in some cases being more merciful than his father David wanted him to be! Only when they abused his mercy did Solomon take drastic action. And Solomon had to do so, since how could he govern the nation if people were continually seeking to overthrow him? The exception to Solomon’s policy of mercy would be Joab, whom Solomon put to death without hesitation. But I Kings 2 treats this as justice for Joab’s shedding of innocent blood.

But the commentaries draw a contrast between the ruthless politician Solomon of I Kings 1-2 and the meek, humble, spiritual, “put his nation above himself” Solomon of I Kings 3. I agree with their view that Solomon made poor decisions even before he turned to the dark side. Last week, I talked about how Solomon in I Kings 2 had Joab killed in the holy place, showing no concern for God’s laws of purity, which seek to separate the contamination of human death from the sanctuary. I said that such an attitude set the stage for Solomon’s later disregard for God. So I agree with the commentaries’ overall point, even though I disagree with how they support it.

I thought about the complexity of Solomon last night as I watched Mysteries of the Bible. According to the episode that I saw, Solomon put the glory of his kingdom, his building projects, and his foreign wives ahead of God and the nation of Israel, which was why most of Israel revolted against his son and seceded from the union. In I Kings, we see that Solomon made Israelites into corvee laborers and imposed heavy taxes. That contrasts with the Solomon of I Kings 3, who put his nation before himself by asking God for wisdom rather than wealth and glory, and who also heard the case of two prostitutes, who were in one of the most vulnerable and disdained groups of Israelite society.

I struggled a little with I Kings 3:1, which states that Solomon married the Pharaoh’s daughter and let her stay in Jerusalem until he finished building his own house, the temple, and the walls of Jerusalem. Commentaries came down hard on Solomon for this. Some said that he was delaying the construction of the temple, or that he placed his own palace or Egyptian bride before God’s house and the security of the nation. I don’t sympathize much with the claim that he didn’t build the temple fast enough, since, heck, he had just come into power! Give the man some time! Maybe there’s something to the argument that he prioritized his palace over the temple, for I Kings 3:1 mentions the palace before the temple. And, although I Kings 6-7 discusses Solomon’s construction of the temple before that of his palace, it also says that Solomon spent more years on his palace.

I think the point of I Kings 3:1 is that Solomon let Pharaoh’s daughter stay in Jerusalem (the holy city) because she didn’t have another place to crash. Things were pretty chaotic at that time, for Solomon hadn’t yet launched his massive building projects. The following verses illustrate this point further, for they say that the Israelites and Solomon sacrificed at the high places, for there was not yet a temple in Jerusalem. When Solomon launched his building projects, he made a house for his Egyptian wife and moved her out of Jerusalem (I Kings 7:8; 9:24). Before that time, things were pretty disorganized! I Kings 3:1 may be trying to justify Solomon letting an Egyptian live in God’s holy city, something that interpreters (including the Septuagint) considered scandalous.

While I Kings 11:1 criticizes Solomon marrying an Egyptian and other foreign women, for the reason that they turned him from God, Solomon actually strikes me as rather magnanimous. According to the commentaries that I read, the Pharaoh usually didn’t marry his daughters off to foreigners (Amarna Letter no. 14 ln. 14), so he must have been pretty desperate to give his daughter to Solomon. Commentaries speculate that Egypt was weak in the tenth century B.C.E., so it sought an alliance with Israel, a power to its north. And Solomon helped her out as the friendly neighbor that he was! But, while it’s good to help people out, there may be a need to be careful.

I also struggled some with the issue of high places. I Kings 3 goes out of its way to apologize for Solomon worshipping at the high place of Gibeon, but I Chronicles 1 says that the Tabernacle and the bronze altar were at that location. There are scholars who may argue that Chronicles is trying to make Solomon look more godly than I Kings 3 presents, but I have problems with that idea. Joshua 9:27 portrays the Gibeonites as helpers in the sanctuary, possibly implying that the sanctuary at Gibeon was considered legitimate. And II Samuel 6:27 says that David built a tent for the ark in Jerusalem, which indicates that the Tabernacle had to be elsewhere, since it wasn’t covering the ark in Jerusalem. Why else would David build a tent? Would the Tabernacle have been if Gibeon? But if that were the case, then why’s I Kings 3 so uncomfortable with Solomon sacrificing there (“but he still loved the LORD…”)?

These are my thoughts on I Kings 3! The next two weeks, I won’t be doing my weekly quiet time, since I’ll be in Indiana, and I don’t want to lug all my books back there. But I have a book by Mary Gordon on Jesus, and one by Tim Keller about idolatry, so I’ll be doing some Sabbath spiritual write-ups. Stay tuned!

The Mishnah: Tithes from Ammon and Moab

Yesterday, I started Martin Jaffee’s Torah in the Mouth: Writing and Oral Tradition in Palestinian Judaism, 200 BCE-400 CE (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). What stood out to me was Mishnah Yadayim 4:3, which Jaffee partially quotes on page 80. So I read the passage in my trusty Danby Mishnah, along with Danby’s notes.

The passage asks what tithes Israelites in Ammon and Moab must pay in the seventh year. Rabbi Tarfon says they have to pay the Poorman’s Tithe, and Rabbi Eleazar b. Azariah decrees that they pay the Second Tithe. Part of the basis for their decisions is the tithe requirement for Israelites living in Egypt and Babylon, which, like Ammon and Moab, are outside of the land of Israel. According to the passage, the rule that Israelites in Egypt pay Poorman’s Tithe in the seventh year is the decree of authoritative people known as the elders, whereas the prophets were responsible for the decree that Israelites in Babylon pay the Second Tithe every seventh year. The new elders voting on the policy for the Israelites in Ammon and Moab decide to go with the previous elders rather than with the prophets: they vote for them to pay the Poorman’s Tithe every seventh year. When Rabbi Eliezer (different from Rabbi Eleazar b. Azariah) hears the decision, he weeps for joy, for he has a tradition going back to Moses at Mount Sinai that Israelites in Moab and Ammon should pay Poorman’s Tithe every seventh year. The deliberations of the elders actually corresponded with God’s revelation on Sinai! This passage is an example of what appears to be Jaffee’s thesis: that rabbinic literature initially treated halakah as the work of the sages, but they tried over the years to tie it to God’s revelation to Moses at Mount Sinai.

Some background information is in order. The Torah mandates two tithes (technically-speaking) for the children of Israel. The first tithe goes to the Levites (Numbers 18:20ff.): it’s their due for the work that they do for God, and it also supports them because they don’t have an inheritance of land on which they can grow crops or raise animals. In Deuteronomy 14:22-29, we read about the second tithe. The Israelites are to bring the tithe of their corn, wine, oil, flocks, and herds to the central sanctuary, the place that God will choose. If the central sanctuary is too far, then they can convert that stuff into money and take that instead. At the central sanctuary, they are to use the money or tithe to rejoice before God, as they eat, drink, and be merry. But they are supposed to remember the Levite, who has no inheritance. Every three years, they are to devote all of the second tithe to the poor Levite, the resident alien, the orphan, and the widow, all of whom are economically vulnerable and lack the means for self-support. They pool their tithes into a location within their local gates, and the poor come to it to be satisfied.

According to Leviticus 25:1-7, the Israelites in the Promised Land are to let the land lie fallow every seventh year: they are neither to sow nor prune their vineyard. They cannot reap, but they can still eat the increase (which I don’t entirely understand), which is also for their servants and the resident alien, who lacks his own land. The land rest of the seventh year and the Jubilee (also in Leviticus 25) both make an important point: the Promised Land belongs to God, so the Israelites are to obey God’s instructions regarding it.

Because the Israelites in the Promised Land do not grow anything in the seventh year, they don’t pay tithes during that period of time, since ten per cent of zero is, well, zero. But what about the Israelites who live and farm (or ranch) outside of the Promised Land, in Babylon, Egypt, Ammon, or Moab? For them, the rules are different, for they have to pay some tithe. It may be the second tithe, which the Israelites from those locations would preumably bring to the central sanctuary in Israel (if they indeed made that long journey). Or it could be the Poorman’s Tithe, meaning perhaps that they’d have to pay it in years 3, 6, and 7 of the seven year cycle.

I thought this was interesting because of the debates over tithing within Armstrongite and ex-Armstrongite circles. Rabbinic literature is sometimes cited in these debates. I remember reading an article in The Journal by Steven Collins (not Eric Camden from 7th Heaven) that cited the Mishnah to support his point of view, which (I think) was that Israel didn’t have to pay three tithes, but only one. Some who believe that tithing is not for today have argued that it related solely to the land of Israel. And so it’s interesting to see what the Mishnah actually says: it presumes that there’s a second tithe (and thus a first one as well) and a “Poorman’s Tithe,” and it also holds that Israelites outside of the land of Israel need to tithe in some capacity.

As far as my practice goes, I don’t pay a full ten percent, but I try to apply the principle of charitable giving, in some way, shape, or form.

Great Is Peace…Even When Israel Worships Idols?

For my Fishbane reading (Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking), a rabbinic passage caught my eye. It’s Sif/Num Naso’ (H, 46), and it reads as follows (in the English translation that Fishbane uses):

R. Eleazar son of R. Eleazar ha-Qappar says: Great is peace, for even if Israel worships idols but there is peace among them—the Omnipresent said, Satan does not harm them; as it is said, ‘Ephraim is bound to idols; leave him alone’ (Hos. 4:17). But when they are divided, what is said of them? ‘Their heart is divided, let them now be punished’ (Hos. 10:2).

In its original context, Hosea 4:17 probably means “leave them alone and let them wallow in their iniquity—so that I might punish them. They’re a lost cause!” And Hosea 10:2 may mean that the hearts of the Israelites are not complete and whole, since they worship other things than the God of Israel. But Rabbi Eleazar applies these verses differently, saying that God blesses Israel when she has peace and unity, even if she worships idols.

I agree with Rabbi Eleazar that “Great is peace.” There’s something that disturbs me when I see strife and hatred. For example, I used to get a kick out of bashing Bill Clinton and seeing others do so, and I was expecting to have the same sort of fun once Barack Obama became President. But things didn’t quite turn out that way. I actually get disturbed when Obama is called a “Communist,” or when people angrily shout down our elected officials at town-hall meetings.

It’s not that I think everyone should agree for the sake of peace. People are different, so they have different opinions. But it’s one thing to articulate a disagreement in a respectful and articulate manner. It’s another thing to be hateful.

A conservative Christian in the blogosphere has an intriguing web-name: “Truth unites…and divides.” It’s nice when people can gather together, get along, cooperate, and have fun, without dwelling on the things that divide them. And, in a sense, the Christian faith promotes that, for it advocates love: genuinely valuing the well-being of other people, encouraging them, not being mean or rude, etc. (I Corinthians 13). But, according to Scripture, truth also divides. Exodus 23:2 says we’re not supposed to follow a multitude to do evil. Deuteronomy 33:9 praises the Levites because they did not acknowledge their own family, a reference perhaps to the scene in Exodus 32, in which the Levites slaughter their fellow Israelites for worshipping the Golden Calf. Jesus says in Luke 14:26 that those who follow him must hate members of their very own family. It’s not the case that Jesus in the Gospels expects his followers to be obnoxious to their family. In many cases, a Christian’s family would be the aggressors because of its opposition to the Christian faith (Matthew 10:36).

I have a hard time with how some fundamentalists apply these sorts of passages, particularly when they are stridently “zealous for the truth” without a concern for whose feelings they might hurt, or they start debates and shouting matches with those who disagree with them or live differently than they do. But I like how Brian McClaren applies the passages in A Generous Orthodoxy: there are times when the majority is just wrong, when it’s engaged in an activity that hurts others or exploits them. In these situations, I can understand why a Christian may need to make waves and stand against the majority. But that’s my bias.

Pleroma, Angels Ascending and Descending

For my Fishbane reading today (Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking), two points stood out to me:

1. The Babylonian Talmud Chagigah 12a presents Rab saying, “By ten things the world was created: By Wisdom, by Understanding, by Reason, by Strength, by Roar, by Might, by Righteousness, by Judgment, by Loving kindness, and by Compassion” (243). Fishbane says that, for Rab, these appear to be qualities of God’s own nature, rather than things that he creates.

In a comment about a similar statement in ‘Abot de-Rabbi Natan, however, Fishbane states that such qualities in the passage “are primordial entitities brought into being by God (as is Wisdom, according to Prov. 8:22), or are some other embodiments of divine attributes that ’serve’ God as agents of His cosmic command” (246).

This reminds me of a post I did a while back, Tertullian the (Semi-)Arian? For the church father Tertullian, the Word who became Jesus Christ was the Logos Prophorikos. What’s that mean? For Tertullian, God the Father had wisdom inside of him, and that wisdom is called the Logos Endiathekos. But, when God decided to create the cosmos, he emitted that wisdom so that it became a person, the Logos Prophorikos, who later was incarnated as Jesus Christ. In a sense, Jesus is the expression of God’s wisdom. God produced a person who had his wisdom to be his agent, who would create the heavens and the earth.

And that appears to be some of the issue in these rabbinic texts. God has all of these good attributes inside of him, but did he create separate beings who embodied particular attributes and mediated them to creation? Is there an angel of justice, and an angel of mercy, etc.? We know from Exodus 12 that there is a death angel, a Mashchit. For many scholars, ha-Satan was a prosecuting attorney, someone who encouraged God to act according to strict justice. Is the rabbinic idea of different entities in a plenorama biblical?

In ancient thought, the Pleroma was a realm of various deities or supernatural beings. What’s interesting is that Colossians 2:9 uses that word for Jesus Christ, saying that in him dwells all the Pleroma of the Godhead bodily. The passage may very well mean that there weren’t a bunch of sub-deities (or, for certain Jewish thinkers, angels) in a Pleroma whom people had to appease. Rather, there’s Jesus Christ.

That brings me to something else that Fishbane says. In commenting on Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer 3, Fishbane states: “The world is thus not the haphazard result of diverse divine attributes (like justice and mercy), but rather the product of reason and deliberation” (243). Many evangelicals define justice as strict punishment, as in burning in hell for all eternity, which people deserve if they aren’t covered by the blood of Christ. For them, God punishes people in eternal hell if they aren’t morally perfect, and that’s God’s justice. Mercy, however, is forgiveness. Rabbinic literature assumes this sort of polarity, for there’s a passage that says that God did not create the world in strict justice or strict mercy. If there were strict justice, then nobody would be alive, since we’re all sinners. If there were strict mercy, then the evildoers would be let off, and evil would be rampant.

But could justice be something other than God sentencing people to eternal hell for their imperfection? In her post, Just to forgive, Jamie Kiley refers to I John 1:9, which affirms that God is just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness. So is justice necessarily the polar opposite of forgiveness? Maybe it’s God’s righteousness, which is made evident both when he punishes and also when he forgives. And perhaps God does not have a split-personality with two conflicting attributes of justice and mercy (see my post, Does God Have a Split-Personality?), for the two are integrated with each other in some sense. Just a thought!

2. On pages 247-249, Fishbane discusses rabbinic passages about God ascending upon Abraham and Jacob. He brings in peculiar ideas that occur in rabbinic literature, such as the one that there’s a heavenly form of Jacob engraved on the Chariot that God rides, and that, in Genesis 33:20, God actually calls Jacob God on earth (Babylonian Talmud Megilliah 18a; also, Genesis Rabbah 47:6; 69:3; 82:13).

I thought about John 1:51, where Jesus tells one of his disciples that he will see angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man. Within the history of biblical interpretation, people have read John 1:51 in light of the story of Jacob’s ladder in Genesis 28. There, Jacob is on the run from his brother, Esau, and he sees a ladder that leads to heaven, with angels ascending and descending on it.

I found Raymond Brown’s comments in the Anchor Bible for John to be quite interesting. Brown states that some have interpreted John 1:51 in light of the passages that Fishbane discusses—the ones about God ascending on Jacob:

In the Midrash Rabbah LXVIII 12 on Genesis xxvii 12, we find that Jacob’s true appearance is in heaven while his body lies on the earth, and the angels are traveling back and forth between them. Applying this to John, some suggest that Jesus is really with the Father as Son of Man, and yet he is on earth at the same time; the angels constitute the communication between the heavenly and earthly Jesus…It should be pointed out that the rabbinic source for the theory is no earlier than the third century A.D., although the interpretation of Genesis may be earlier. (90)

A heavenly Jesus and an earthly Jesus existing at the same time? That reminds me somewhat of a conversation I had with Polycarp, whom (if I’m correct) was saying that God was in heaven yet manifesting himself on earth, while being the same person. Polycarp can correct me if I’m misrepresenting him. But the idea also reminds me of something I encountered in the Shepherd of Hermas, an early Christian document from the first-second centuries C.E., if I was interpreting it correctly. See my post, The Shepherd of Hermas’ Christology.

Brown discusses other ideas, though, such as the one that Jesus in John 1:51 was referring to himself as the ladder between heaven and earth. Others have asserted that Jesus is the new altar, since Jacob built the altar of Bethel in Genesis 28. The idea of a heavenly Jesus and an earthly Jesus, however, is intriguing to me, even though it looks strange and has a “heresy” feel to it! But perhaps one can still understand John 1:51 in light of certain rabbinic passages: Jacob was God on earth as God’s representative (cp. Exodus 7:1), and so was Jesus (though many would argue he was much more than that).

God’s Home

For my Fishbane reading (in Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking), what stood out to me was the issue of God’s location, or, more accurately, the location of his divine glory (Shekinah).

In my post yesterday (A Comforting Presence), I touched a little on the biblical and rabbinic notion that God goes with Israel into exile. There was an earlier rabbinic view, however, that stated that God’s presence was perpetually in Jerusalem. That’s why Psalm 68:7 says that God brings the solitary ones home, Lamentations Rabbah Petichta 29 argues: God was not with Israel in exile, but he stayed behind in Jerusalem, his resting place. And the rabbis could cite Scriptural passages that supported this position. In Ezra 1:3, for example, the Persian king Cyrus affirms that the LORD is in Jerusalem at that time, even though the Jews are in exile and the temple is in ruins.

I encountered this view here at Hebrew Union College. A professor of mine said there was an ancient view that a God of a country was in some sense confined to his particular country. That’s why God in Genesis 12 told Abraham to go to Canaan: that’s where God was.

I can think of passages that lean somewhat in that direction. In I Samuel 26:19, David tells Saul that he has driven him out from abiding in the inheritance of the LORD (the land of Israel), telling David in essence to serve other gods. The implication here seems to be that the worship of God is in Israel, God’s location, so Saul driving David from that location pushes him away from the true God.

In II Kings 17:24-28, after the Assyrians had conquered Northern Israel, they bring in foreigners to inhabit the land. The foreigners did not fear the LORD, so God sent lions among them. The Assyrians then realize that the foreigners know not the manner of the God of the land, so they get Israelite priests of Bethel to teach it to them. This passage is interesting for the purpose of this post, for it shows that God is attached to the land of Israel, even when his people are not. It’s also interesting because it doesn’t seem to coincide with other themes of the Deuteronomistic History (Joshua-II Kings), notwithstanding the Deuteronomistic elements of II Kings 17. The Deuteronomists desired to limit worship to Jerusalem, but here, there is some sense that the worship of Northern Israel could be legitimate, even though it wasn’t in Jerusalem.

One narrative I’ve often heard is that the Jewish religion survived whereas other ancient Near Eastern religions did not because the Jewish religion found a way to exist in exile, away from the land of Israel and its temple. Other ancient Near Eastern religions, by contrast, were limited to their lands, so they did not survive. But the Jewish religion said God was everywhere and could be worshipped in any location, even in exile.

This may be true in a big-picture sense, but there are counter-examples. One that Fishbane cites is from the Marduk Prophecy, dated to 1124-1103 B.C.E., in which “we read of three self-determined exiles which the God Marduk underwent (to Hatti, Assyria, and Elam)—leaving Babylon in distress and benefiting the new lands of residence” (144). So other ancient Near Eastern religions believed that their god could survive in exile. And, although there was a notion that the defeat of a nation proved that its god wasn’t all that powerful, there was also a view that a god could punish his nation for its sins, so its defeat did not prove his lack of power. Marduk showed that when he benefitted his new lands of residence!

Something else that Fishbane discusses is a rabbinic view that Israel’s exile actually casts doubt on God’s power (154-155). Granted, God goes with his people into exile, and that’s all well and good. But God displays his power when he delivers Israel from her enemies and guarantees her presence in the Promised Land. The relevance of this point to my post here is that God is most at home in Israel, even though he may travel into other countries to be in Israel. But there’s another profound message here: According to this view, God at some point has to cease being a wanderer to deserve Israel’s worship and the admiration of the nations. This overlaps with my post yesterday, which said that God being with us in our suffering doesn’t really solve the theodicy problem. At some point, we need a basis to trust in God’s power and love, some hope that things can and will get better and that God will deliver us from our miserable cycles.

A Comforting Presence

For my reading of Fishbane yesterday (in Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking), I came across three concepts that stood out to me. They’re in rabbinic literature.

1. Exodus 12:41 states that, at the Exodus, “all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.” This probably refers to the Israelites themselves, but Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael Bo’ 14 interprets the “hosts” as angels. That’s most likely because there are biblical passages that present the hosts as such (e.g., I Kings 22:19).

I like the idea of a host of angels going out with the children of Israel when they left Egypt—going out to be with them, to protect them, to guide them. The children of Israel are not alone as they embark upon an unpredictable journey.

I think about the show Touched by an Angel. Tess once said that the people in the story were surrounded by angels. On an episode in which Satan blew up a building, masses of angels of death dressed in white went into the building to escort the casualties to the afterlife.

When I was in Massachussetts, I was faraway from home for the first time in my life, and I was embarking upon an unpredictable journey. I was lonely and depressed. But my Grandma sent me a book that nourished me, Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul. In one of the stories, a man is walking the streets at night, and some dangerous thugs look like they’re going to jump him. But they end up running away instead. The author says that they must’ve seen protecting angels standing behind him. This story has been in my mind as I’ve walked streets at night, which I try to avoid nowadays.

In a cartoon after that story, a man is praying at his bedside, and a couple of angels in T-Shirts that say “Help Squad” (or something like that) rush into the room. The man asked for help, and God immediately sent his angels.

Why are angels popular? Maybe because they give us assurance that we’re not alone.

2. There’s a slight bit of tension within the Bible and rabbinic literature about who delivered the Israelites from Egypt: was it God alone, or one of his angels? When I was at Harvard, someone gave a lecture about Exodus 12: part of the passage says that God himself will go through Egypt and smite the firstborn, whereas another part states that an agent of God (a mashchit, or destroyer) will do so. Jon Levenson saw a theological development here, though I don’t remember in which direction: Was it a movement towards monotheism, removing agents of God so God does the work himself? Or was it a move towards seeing God as so great and removed that he uses agents?

In Exodus 33, the Israelites had just upset God by worshipping the Golden Calf. God says that an angel will lead them to the Promised Land, but he himself will not, for they make him sick. But Moses pleads for God himself to accompany the Israelites. There’s something comforting about angels being with us, but it’s even more reassuring to know that God himself is personally with us, that he cares for us that much.

This reminds me of something I read about St. Augustine. I think it was in one of Philip Yancey’s books. Augustine asked us to imagine if we were to go to heaven and hear that we’d experience eternal bliss, but we’d never be able to see God’s face. According to Yancey, many of our responses would be “Never???”, since we’re relational creatures.

I watched a video about the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ belief about Jesus, and it said that they don’t think people during the millennial reign will actually see Jesus. That sounded like a bummer to me, to tell you the truth! There’s something reassuring about the Protestant belief that we’ll be in heaven with Jesus. As Dauber from Coach said on the Stand, his mom is in heaven, “eating the bread of life with Jesus” (which doesn’t make much sense, since Jesus isn’t eating that bread, but the idea of being with Jesus is comforting).

3. The rabbis said that God was suffering with the Israelites in Egypt, almost as if he himself were enslaved and delivered. I remember a young seminary student praying to God, “When we hurt, you hurt.” And something that often drew me to Christianity was its idea that God became a human being and experienced the same hurt that we do.

Does this solve the problem of theodicy? Not really. God can stop evil anytime he wants, but he doesn’t usually, at least not right now. It’s a mystery why he doesn’t. But the old evangelical mantra of “God will be with you in your suffering” gets me through some rough days.

YHWH in the Underworld

I checked out the Alan Cooper article that I discuss in my last post, Avoiding a Suffering God; YHWH in the Underworld. Basically, Cooper’s argument is that Psalm 24:7-10 is about YHWH entering the Underworld to defeat death. Psalm 24:7-10 is well-known to people who listen to Handel’s Messiah over and over (as I used to do). It says (according to my memory):

“Lift up your heads, O ye gates, that the King of Glory may come in.”

“Who is this King of Glory?”

“The LORD of hosts, mighty in battle, he is this King of Glory.”

Interpreters have applied this Psalm to cultic festivals or God entering Jerusalem after returning from battle. But, as Cooper points out, ancient Near Eastern gates did open by means of lifting. Therefore, Cooper looks for another option. Based on ancient Near Eastern parallels (e.g., Egyptian and Ugaritic literature), Cooper concludes that the Psalm presents YHWH going to the Underworld to defeat death. A herald exhorts the gatekeepers to lift up their heads (stand proud) and let YHWH, the King of Glory, enter. They scornfully respond, “Who is this King of Glory,” and are told “The LORD of hosts, mighty in battle.” YHWH then does his business and returns to his sanctuary, which is connected to the Underworld.

Cooper sees a continuation of this myth in ancient Christian stories about Jesus going to hell to set free the righteous, thereby defeating death. And, although many scholars would argue that the Hebrew Bible lacks a clear notion of the afterlife, Cooper seems to suggest that we shouldn’t regard this scholarly presupposition as iron-clad.

I didn’t do a full research project on the descent of gods to the Underworld, but I glanced at wikipedia’s article, Descent to the underworld. It is a common theme in the ancient Near East, Greek and Roman mythology, and Asia. Sometimes, a goddess would descend into the Underworld to perform funeral rites (as did the Canaanite goddess Ishtar). Sometimes, a god or goddess would attempt to rescue someone from the Underworld. From my elementary school days, I learned that these kinds of myths were often symbols for the seasonal cycle: winter was death, but spring was life. Maybe YHWH descended into the Underworld to bring life to nature, also known as the spring season, a time of crops and food and celebration.

Some have tried to contrast YHWH with ancient Near Eastern gods by saying that the latter were more concerned about the cycles of nature, whereas YHWH’s realm was history. This is true in a sense, but YHWH was also concerned about nature, just like other ancient Near Eastern gods. The Torah has a lot about Israel receiving agricultural blessings: rain in due season, crops, etc. And YHWH in the Hebrew Bible keeps the waters at bay so that life and order are preserved. Granted, the Hebrew Bible applies the “chaotic waters” myth to historical events, such as the threat of Israel’s enemies. But one cannot exclude the natural element.

Whatever the Psalm meant in its original context, I like the concept of God being above death. In many of the myths about the Underworld, it’s a pretty scary and intimidating place! At Jewish Theological Seminary (where Dr. Cooper currently teaches), I watched an animated depiction of Ishtar’s descent to the Underworld for my Akkadian class, and, although it was rather cheesy, the Underworld still didn’t strike me as a place I’d want to go! The same went with the cartoon Thundercats, which on one episode depicted an ancient Egyptian view of the Underworld. But YHWH and later Jesus Christ could go there boldly and without fear, with an authority that commanded respect from the gatekeepers of death.

Avoiding a Suffering God; YHWH in the Underworld

Hi everyone! This will be a quick post. My home computer isn’t working, so I’m using one at the public library, and I only have 51 minutes left. So this will be fast! Anon15:5 and Elna: I read your comments, but I may not be able to respond to them today. Good comments, though!

At Latin mass this morning, the topic was Jesus suffering on the cross. Philosopher priest talked about various heresies in the early days of Christianity, and how they tried to avoid God suffering on the cross. Apparently, they had the same problem with the concept that Ken Pulliam talked about: based on Greek philosophy, they believed that God was always happy, so the idea that God could suffer was unthinkable for them! And so some said that the human Jesus suffered on the cross, while the divine “Christ” part of him left by then. Or some maintained that Simon of Syrene suffered on the cross in place of Jesus.

The priest seemed to agree that God could not suffer, for he made clear that the Father didn’t suffer, and also that Jesus as God did not suffer (if I heard him correctly). Yet, he also didn’t believe that Jesus’ human nature suffered while his divine nature did not, for that’s the heresy of Nestorianism, which held that Jesus had two separate natures, divine and human, which didn’t really have much to do with one another.

Personally, I don’t see what the big deal is about God suffering. The New Testament is clear that suffering produces character. God doesn’t need that, but I’d expect a loving and compassionate God to become sad at many things he sees in this world. Suffering is an indicator of love, sympathy, and empathy. Evangelicals have often prayed, “May my heart break at the things that break yours, Lord.”

So that’s my church write-up. For my Fishbane write-up (on Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking), Fishbane on page 80 refers to an article by Alan Cooper, “PS 24:7-10; Mythology and Exegesis,” which appeared in the Journal of Biblical Literature 102 (1983) 37-55. Cooper argues that there are biblical passages that suggest that YHWH entered the netherworld. I find this interesting. It reminds me of the Christian idea that Jesus went to the underworld to preach to the spirits in prison. Off the top of my head (since I don’t have immediate access to BibleWorks), Psalm 139 says that, if the Psalmist goes to Sheol, God is there. For that passage, God is omniscient! Yet, there are other Psalms that suggest that God is absent from Sheol. Why would God go to the underworld? What would he try to accomplish?

I may get back to this, or I may not. Tomorrow, I’ll be covering another Fishbane topic! The HUC library opens in a half hour, so I may read the Cooper article.

Have a blessed Sunday!

I Kings 2: Mentoring the Wise, A Fresh Start, God’s Plan B

For my weekly quiet time this week, I studied I Kings 2.  Here are four thoughts:

1.  David calls Solomon “wise” (vv 5, 9), even though Solomon later asks God for wisdom in I Kings 3.  Why would Solomon ask God for what he already had: wisdom?  Plus, David’s belief in Solomon’s wisdom does not prevent him from walking Solomon through what he should do.  In v 6, David tells Solomon to act according to his wisdom, right before he commands him to bring Joab’s hoary head to the grave.  In v 9, David tells Solomon that he (Solomon) is wise and knows how to handle Shimei, who cursed David years before (II Samuel 16).  Still, David feels a need to instruct Solomon to bring Shimei’s hoary head to the grave with blood.  If David thinks Solomon is wise, why’s he hold Solomon’s hand? 

Also, whatever wisdom David sees in Solomon, there are others who view Solomon as a big-time dunce.  Adonijah asks Bathsheba to request from Solomon that he give Adonijah David’s maidservant, Abishag, as a wife.  Because Abishag was technically in the harem of David (even though David didn’t sleep with her, I Kings 1:4), Adonijah was making a claim to the throne.  In the ancient Near East, kings inherited the harem of their predecessors (see II Samuel 3:8; 12:8; 16:20), so Adonijah was adding an item to his resume for the Israelite monarchy: “People of Israel, you should support me for king,” Adonijah was planning to say.  ”After all, I’m David’s oldest son, and I have one of his concubines!”  For some reason, Adonijah thought Solomon wouldn’t recognize what he was trying to do, even though King Saul’s weak son Ishbosheth years before got upset when his general, Abner, was sleeping with Saul’s concubine (II Samuel 3:8)!  Sleeping with the king’s concubine was more often than not a claim to the throne, and Adonijah obviously didn’t think Solomon was politically astute enough to realize that.

But Solomon did recognize it, so, despite his youth and inexperience, he did have a degree of political wisdom.  David was right to notice wisdom in Solomon, but David wasn’t confident enough to let him figure out everything on his own.  For David, Solomon needed to be pointed in the right direction.  And, even though Solomon made some astute decisions in the first few days of his reign, he still felt that he was in over his head, so he asked God for wisdom in I Kings 3.  After all, one can be smart a few times, but a good king needs to be smart all of the time, for the sake of his people’s well-being.  There’s a lesson here, about how even smart and talented people need training from other people, as well as guidance from God.

2.  Commentaries like to point out the political ramifications of David’s advice to Solomon: David was advising Solomon to subordinate people who could potentially threaten his reign.  Joab and Abiathar were influential and had sided with Adonijah for the monarchy rather than Solomon.  They could be a threat to Solomon’s reign if Solomon did not deal with them, as Solomon appears to recognize in I Kings 2:22, 26.  Moreover, Shimei was a powerful and influential man from Benjamin, who could muster a thousand Benjamites to meet David when David returned to Jerusalem years earlier (II Samuel 19:17).  But Shimei was of the family of Saul, so he had a personal vendetta against David (II Samuel 16:8).  Would Shimei take advantage of Solomon’s inexperience and try to return the kingdom to the house of Saul?  In addition to David’s desire to avenge himself on Shimei for his cursing (see I Kings 2:9), David was probably thinking of Solomon’s political well-being.

But there was another issue as well: David wanted Solomon to have a fresh start spiritually.  In I Kings 2:31-33, Solomon says that Joab’s murder of two innocent people was on the house of David and Solomon.  In a sense, by allowing Joab to live, David and Solomon were partakers of his guilt, even though Joab killed the men without David’s knowledge.  Solomon put Joab to death, therefore, so that David and his house would be clear of guilt and have peace from the LORD. (David was most likely dead when Solomon executed Joab, so did he receive a posthumous peace?)  There may be a lesson here about dealing with the past in order to have a fresh start.

3.  In I Kings 2:28-31, Solomon’s hit-man (if you will) Benaiah kills Joab while Joab is clinging to the horns of the altar, which is within the tabernacle.  Benaiah does so in obedience to Solomon.  Was Solomon right to order this?  Leviticus 21 and Numbers 19 go out of their way to keep human death away from the sanctuary, mandating ritual purification for those who touch a human corpse; while animals were slaughtered for sacrifices in the tabernacle, human death could defile God’s holy place.  Exodus 21:14 may be sensitive to this belief, for it commands that a presumptuous killer be removed from the altar before his execution.  Yet, Solomon has Joab killed while Joab is still clinging to the altar, thereby defiling the sanctuary with a human corpse. 

Did Solomon want to appear decisive before Benaiah to gain his respect?  Did Solomon’s disrespect for God’s sanctuary in the early days of his reign desensitize him to God, making him the sort of person who later apostasized to please his foreign wives?  C.S. Lewis once said, “Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible” (see Randy Olds’ post, Good and Evil at Compound Interest).  God was giving David’s house a fresh start spiritually, a chance to get rid of a murderer who was bringing guilt on the monarchy of Israel.  Yet, Solomon failed to acknowledge and correct a character flaw that he had—a disrespect for the things of God—and this seed grew into a poisonous plant later on in his reign.

4.  Solomon removes Abiathar from the high priesthood.  Abiathar is from the house of Eli, which God cursed in I Samuel 2.  In fact, I Kings 2:27 states that Solomon’s removal of Abiathar fulfilled God’s curse on the house of Eli.  In I Samuel 2:30, a prophet tells Eli that God had promised that Eli’s house would serve God forever, but Eli’s sons pretty much blew that promise through their sins.

Abiathar’s replacement was Zadok, who, according to I Chronicles 6:4ff. and 24:3, was descended from Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron.  Phinehas had a special place in God’s heart, for Phinehas killed a couple of idolaters in his zeal for the LORD, prompting God to promise him an everlasting priesthood (Numbers 25:11; Psalm 106:30-31).  For a while, Phinehas had control of the sanctuary (Judges 20:28), but it somehow got removed from his family and fell to the family of Ithamar, another son of Aaron, from whom Eli was descended (I Chronicles 24:3).  Now that Abiathar has been removed by Solomon, the priesthood has returned to the house of God’s favored priest, Phinehas, since Zadok is a descendant of Phinehas.

This is kind of weird.  God promised Eli that his house would serve forever, but years before, God also promised Phinehas an everlasting priesthood.  Eli’s sons blew God’s promise to their house, so God got to go with his original promise, the one to Phinehas, depending on how you read that.  In Numbers 25, God technically didn’t say that Phinehas would be high priest, but that he’d have an everlasting priesthood.  Yet, where was the line of Phinehas when Eli was running the tabernacle?  It didn’t seem to be around!  What kind of priesthood is that?  In a sense, the house of Phinehas got back the priesthood when David appointed Zadok to be co-priest with Abiathar (II Samuel 8:7).   

It’s kind of like the deal with Saul.  In I Samuel 13, Saul disobeys Samuel’s instructions, and Samuel says that God would’ve given Saul an eternal dynasty had he simply obeyed; instead, God will seek out a replacement for Saul, a man after God’s own heart (vv 13-14).  David looks like God’s Plan B!  Yet, was he God’s Plan B?  God had promised years before that the scepter would not depart from Judah (Genesis 49:10), which was David’s tribe, whereas Saul’s was Benjamin.  Moreover, God evidently had a special concern for David’s family, for he was involved in the life of David’s ancestors, Ruth and Boaz.

Historical-critics would probably see different voice in the Hebrew Bible, and that’s a possibility.  But can there be a lesson here?  Tim Keller liked to teach that what appears to be God’s Plan B is actually his Plan A.  After Jacob disobeyed God and got sent away from his family to be with his relatives in a faraway place, he married Leah and became the ancestor of the Messiah.  Was Jesus Christ God’s Plan B, a result of Jacob’s mistake?  Tim Keller said that the lesson here is that nobody can ruin our life, not even us!  Even if we make a mistake, God can redeem that for his purposes.

That could be.  I don’t think that should be an excuse for carelessness, though, since mistakes can have serious consequences.  The sins of Eli’s sons had ripples on his descendant Abiathar decades later.  But God still has a plan, and his Plan B can be redemptive, like his Plan A.           

Rebellious Son, Peaceful Antichrist, Sermon on the Mount

I read some excellent posts yesterday.  Here are three that stood out to me: 

1.  Polycarp reviews Karen Armstrong’s The Case for God in Review: The Case for God (1).  I enjoyed the following:

This book was simply not written to me, for me or about me. Instead, the author has written a compelling argument to those unbelievers who see religion only through the eyes of fundamentalism. Currently, the most militant and loudest atheists, while they don’t believe, see religion, especially Christianity, as one does who believes, and stands in 19th century rural America. Everything is extremely literal, with no room for progression in Scripture. No, we no longer kill unruly children. Why? Because in Scripture we have moved past that. Yet, believers and nonbelievers still will focus on the Levitical Law as something which should still be enforced, much to the detriment of the Christian message.

I liked the part about “we have moved past that.”  It’s blunt, and it makes a degree of sense: Christians are at a maturer stage of religion than were the people under the Old Testament law.  I guess I tend to go with something I heard R.J. Rushdoony say when he was interviewed by Bill Moyers: the passage about stoning a son concerns how to deal with a young man who is a perpetual hell-raiser (see Deuteronomy 21:18-20), meaning it’s not about a kid who happens to mouth off to his mom a few times (not that kids should do that).  But it’s obvious that certain authors in the New Testament don’t think that we should go with everything in the Old Testament law: we’re no longer under a schoolmaster (Galatians 4), and Hebrews says we don’t have to offer animal sacrifices anymore.  But what about the parts of the OT law about swift justice?  Should we go with those, or should we take a more merciful approach, imitating the God who puts up with the wicked and hopes they will repent?  But suppose we shouldn’t practice the “swift justice” approach nowadays: why did God command it at a specific point in time?  Was he trying to teach people the seriousness of sin?  Or were there few alternative means to deal with a perpetual hell-raiser who wouldn’t accept correction from his parents? 

2.  From James McGrath’s reading list, I encountered a post by Wes Ellis entitled The Irony of Dispensationalism.  Wes and a commenter said that they were raised on the Left Behind series, which took me aback, since, from my perspective, the series is rather recent.  But I guess they’re ten years old, so people now in their early twenties conceivably could have been raised on them!

Wes says the following about the portrayal of the Antichrist by Joel Rosenberg and Tim Lahaye:

For example, when they talked about the Antichrist (by the way, they never mentioned that such a word does not show up at all in the text of Revelation) they portrayed him as someone who will be “such a lover of peace” (which hurt my heart because that made people like John Dear, Desmond Tutu, and all of our Mennonite brothers and sisters sound like candidates for the position) that people will want to follow them. They never bothered to mention that Caesar, in the original context of the scripture, was all about Pax Romana which means the Peace of Rome… They didn’t even consider that the beast of Revelation could have something to do with Caesar or someone like him–someone who promotes peace but conducts war and conquest.

Why do we have to see the Antichrist as someone who will promote peace?  Whenever someone expresses a desire for peace, proposes cooperation or diplomacy among nations, or seeks to address world hunger and environmental degradation, some think that red flags should go up: “Oh, this will lead to a one-world government, the Antichrist!”

But why should we see it that way?  Indeed, there are passages that say the mantra of “peace and safety” will precede sudden destruction (I Thessalonians 5:3), and the KJV of Daniel 11:21 says a vile man will come in peace and “obtain the kingdom by flatteries.”  But there are also passages that present the Beast as a man of war.  Daniel was originally referring to Antiochus Epiphanes, who was a military conqueror.  And Revelation may have been talking about Rome, an empire that secured peace through imperialism and military might.  The very image of “beast” suggests a violent animal who conquers.

Granted, Lahaye doesn’t exactly dismiss that, for he presents the Antichrist (Nicolae Carpathia) as gaining control of the world through an appeal to peace, after which he gets the nuclear weapons of the world and uses them against all who oppose him.  For Lahaye, the Antichrist may appear peaceful at first, but his true colors will soon come out!  But I’m concerned about how this kind of apocalypticism casts suspicion on those who try to help people, who suggest that we actually should be concerned about world hunger, poverty, environmental degradation, and war. 

3.  Michael Westmoreland-White continues his series on pacifism with A Biblical Case for Christian Pacifism: The Sermon on the Mount II.  I like this post for two reasons.  First of all, Michael shows that the Sermon on the Mount is practical and reasonable.  I’ve always had a dislike for the Sermon on the Mount, for I thought that it was imposing unreasonable demands on me.  “Don’t hate, don’t lust, be perfect” was how I saw it.  But, actually, the Sermon offers practical steps on how to deal with our flaws: try to be reconciled with your brother, remove causes of temptation, etc.  I’m uncomfortable doing that stuff, to tell you the truth, but it makes some sense to me!

Second, Michael argues that the Sermon on the Mount is not about people becoming a doormat so people can walk all over them.  Rather, it’s about peaceful resistance to evil, one that affirms the dignity of the victim while also shaming the persecutor.  You’ll have to read the post to see how that principle underlies specific parts of the sermon!