Psalm 77

For my weekly quiet time this week, I will blog about Psalm 77.  I have three items.

1.  A theme that I heard in sermons and read in commentaries was that Psalm 77 is about the Psalmist’s movement from self-absorption and self-pity to trust in God.  I especially enjoyed a story that Pastor Chuck Smith told about an alcoholic he counseled (see here).  The alcoholic had a stormy fight with his family while he was drunk, and Pastor Chuck then prayed with him.  At first, the alcoholic was complaining to God about how his family mistreated him and did not love him, but, gradually, the alcoholic’s prayer changed its focus, as the alcoholic confessed to God that he had not served God as he ought.  According to Pastor Chuck, the alcoholic needed to get his self-pity out of his system before his eyes could be opened, and this occurred within the context of prayer, as was also the case with the Psalmist in Psalm 77.

2.  Psalm 77:10 is a difficult and much discussed verse.  In the KJV, it states: “And I said, This [is] my infirmity: [but I will remember] the years of the right hand of the most High.”  Keil-Delitzsch presented four interpretations of this verse (which I encountered elsewhere in my reading), and, in this item, I will give the four interpretations and also justifications for them.  Then, I will look at how the Septuagint renders the verse, and what two Christian interpreters did with the Septuagint’s translation of it.

a.  The word that the KJV translates as “the years of” is shenot, which is from the root sh-n-h and can mean “to change”.  (The KJV, however, assumes that it’s the construct plural of shanah, which means “year”.)  The second half of the verse, therefore, can be translated as “the change of the right hand of the Most High”.  According to Keil-Deltizsch, Martin Luther said that the point here is that the right hand of the Most High can change everything for the better.  As far as I could see, Keil-Deltizsch did not say how Luther understood the first part of the verse.  Here, though, is Luther’s translation of it into the German: “Aber doch sprach ich: Ich muß das leiden; die rechte Hand des Höchsten kann alles ändern.”  Based on what I found on Google Translate, that means: “But I said; I must suffer; the right hand of the Most High can change everything”.  I’m unclear as to how the second part of the verse follows from the first part, in this reading.

b.  The second interpretation is that Psalm 77:10 is saying that the Psalmist’s affliction is that the right hand of the Most High has changed, which presumably means that the Psalmist is upset that God is no longer delivering him.  This interpretation assumes that the Hebrew word that the KJV translates as “my infirmity”, chaloti, is from the root ch-l-h, which often relates to sickness, but at times pertains to grief (I Samuel 22:8; Jeremiah 5:3).

c.  The third interpretation is that Psalm 77:10 is saying that the Psalmist’s supplication is for the years of the right hand of the Most High, which means that the Psalmist is asking God to deliver him as he did in times past.  This interpretation holds that chaloti (only without the vowels that the Masoretic Text added) means “my supplication”, for ch-l-h in the piel is used for supplicating (Exodus 32:11; I Samuel 13:12; II Kings 13:4; II Chronicles 33:12; Jeremiah 26:19).  One can mix and match and say that Psalm 77:10 is saying that the Psalmist’s supplication is for the change of the right hand of the Most High, which would mean that the Psalmist is asking God to change his inactivity and to save him with his right hand.

d.  The fourth interpretation is that the Psalmist’s affliction is the years of the right hand of the Most High, which means that the Psalmist feels afflicted by God’s right hand (perhaps because the Psalmist feels that God is punishing him for some sin).

e.  Brenton’s English translation of the Septuagint has: “And I said, Now I have begun; this is the change of the right hand of the Most High.”  According to Marvin Tate, the Septuagint’s Hebrew manuscript has a word in Psalm 77:10 from ch-l-l, which can mean “to begin” in the hiphil.  What can one do with this reading?  What did the Psalmist begin?  Augustine says that the Psalmist is having a fresh start as he thinks beyond himself and focuses on God.  Theodore of Mopsuestia, however, thinks that the verse is saying that the Psalmist began to think that God had changed his favorable attitude towards him.

3.  Psalm 77:19 states (in the KJV): “Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known.”  What is the Psalmist communicating when he says that God’s footsteps are not known?  I liked how the Orthodox Jewish Artscroll commentary handled this (and the subsequent) verse.  It said that God split the Sea after the Exodus, but God left no physical traces of that miracle, for the Sea closed up again and reverted back to how it was before.  Consequently, because there are no physical traces of the miracle reminding us of it, we have to take the initiative to remember it and to pass it on to our children.  Moreover, notwithstanding the absence of evidence for the miracle, God continues to guide his people.  God did so after the Sea-event through Israel’s leaders, Moses and Aaron.

Susan Faludi, Backlash 18

In my latest reading of Susan Faludi’s 1991 book Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, Faludi was critiquing therapist Robin Norwood.  The name doesn’t ring any bells to me, but the reason that Faludi’s critique intrigued me so much was that Norwood had an Alcoholics Anonymous sort of model to help women deal with difficult husbands—-a program that included reliance on a higher power, sharing in meetings one person at a time (with no cross-talk allowed), trying to see where one is at fault rather than just blaming other people, etc.

Faludi disagrees with much of this.  She thinks that women should find power inside of themselves rather than just relying on a higher power, and that women should share with men the problems that they have with them rather than passively trying to cope with the relationship.  And Faludi expresses her issues with the rule against cross-talk in meetings: she states on page 348 that this is not real sharing since people cannot comment on each other’s problems, and that “the women seem more like children in a sandbox, engaged in parallel play.”

I do not know how Norwood’s groups worked.  In most twelve-step recovery groups, however, many people have sponsors, who can share with sponsees their experience, strength, and hope and hopefully provide some guidance.  That’s quite different from parallel play.  At the same time, my understanding is that sponsors are technically not supposed to tell sponsees what to do, but rather to share their own experience, strength, and hope with sponsees and then allow the sponsees to make their own decisions.

I somewhat like the set-up of no cross-talk being allowed.  I hate social situations in which I am trying to speak, and one or more know-it-all is quick to respond with his or her opinion about what I should do or how I should think, without really listening to me.  THAT, in my opinion, is not true sharing.

Should people in general share with others what it is about them that is problematic?  I think that there’s a time and a place for that.  Faludi presents examples of horrible husbands of some of the women in Norwood’s groups—-husbands who got angry with their wives over the slightest thing.  I think that there may be a place for divorce in that situation.  At the same time, I do admire women who try to cope with difficult husbands and seek their strength in a higher power through their ordeal.  That’s not to say that every woman should do that, in every situation.  When a husband is abusive, for example, a woman should probably be strong and find some way to leave rather than timidly enduring the abuse.

On lesser issues, I think that women should share with their husbands their concerns about what the husband does that annoys them, but they should not expect to change their husbands.  In my opinion, there should be a middle ground between not being assertive at all and expecting the rest of the world to conform to our desires.

Something else that interested me about Faludi’s discussion of Norwood was that Norwood ended up putting herself in a sort of solitary confinement, by living in a remote cottage, away from human contact.  I think that Norwood may have come out of exile (at least slightly) since 1991, however, for this says that she has written books for 2008.

I apologize if my tone in this post is bossy—-as if I have any authority at all to tell people what to do.  I’m just expressing my opinion, for what it’s worth.  I find value in both what Norwood is saying, and also in Faludi’s critique.  And I say this in terms of my own life, for what both say about women can probably apply to men, too: I myself wonder how to deal with difficult people, when to be assertive, when not to be, etc.

Upset Over Speculation

For my write-up today on Stephen King’s Needful Things, I will focus on Hugh Priest, the town alcoholic.  Hugh has gotten a fox-tail from the new store in town, Needful Things, and he is thinking of getting a fresh start in life by going to AA.  He’s about to go to the American Legion building where meetings are held, but he fears that some kid will steal his fox-tail while he’s at the meeting.  Page 127 says: “Hugh felt a frustrated anger creep into his chest, as if this were not simply speculation but something which had already happened.”

I find that I can be like Hugh: upset over speculation.  I envision people saying this-or-that, when they did not actually say this-or-that, then I get upset.  Sure, they’re the types of people who could say this-or-that, but why do I get mad over something that’s purely imaginary or speculative?  There’s enough for me to be mad about in the realm of reality, so why should I add wood to the fire?

Orderly Confession

At Latin mass this past Sunday, we didn’t have the priest who speaks about love, political priest, or philosopher priest (whom I haven’t seen in a long time).  Rather, we had another priest, whom I’ve heard on a few occasions.

His topic was confession.  He said that we don’t have to confess sins that occurred before baptism, since baptism washes sins away.  That caught my attention.

But he also talked about confession and children.  He said that the Catholic church has abandoned the idea that kids should enter the confessional and say “Bless me father, for I have sinned.”  Rather, the priest talks with the child and tries to move the conversation into confession, somehow.  The priest also said that priests should wait until the children say that they’re finished with their confession, rather than cutting the confession off when they pause, for they might still be thinking about sins to confess.

I like the concept of order.  I’m not big on, say, therapy sessions that start with small talk and then get onto who-knows-what.  I like what you see in AA meetings: a person brings up a topic, and discusses that topic.

More on the Exiles’ Language; Torah and Prophets in Services; Healing in Community

1. In my reading of Rolf Rendtorff’s The Old Testament: An Introduction, Rendtorff refers to the view that Ezra 6:3-5 contains a decree for the royal administration and is thus in Aramaic, the language of the Persian Empire. Ezra 1:2-4, by contrast, was addressed to the Jewish exiles, so it’s in Hebrew. That relates to an issue I discussed last week, in my post, The Language of the Returning Exiles; Following Jesus: in what language did the returning Jewish exiles speak?

2. I finished Charles Perrot’s French article, “The Reading of the Septuagint in the Hellenistic Diaspora.” I could be wrong, but what I got out of today’s reading was that the Pharisees and the Essenes read the prophets along with the Torah in their services, as if the prophets were a commentary on the Torah. The Hellenistic Jews, by contrast, focused on the Torah, and used commentaries on that in their services. If I’m not mistaken, Perrot views Philo’s books of questions on Genesis and Exodus as such commentaries.

3. I went to Latin mass this morning, and here’s a quotation from my bulletin:

Who are these people of the harvest who are coming to our church in record numbers and what draws them to us? One thirty-three-year-old man explained: “My best friend growing up was Catholic. It wasn’t anything he said to me. It was just who he was. Even when we were young he seemed as if he had the answer to life’s puzzle.”

A shy young woman added, “For me, it was the handshake of a priest. I was feeling particularly down so I went to Mass at the Catholic church in my neighborhood. On my way out, the priest excused himself from a conversation and sought me out. After he introduced himself, he invited me back again. That was an important part of my journey of faith.”

Personally, I don’t feel compelled to act as if I have the answer to life’s puzzle, when I don’t. I do hope, however, to gain wisdom that I can share with others.

As far as extending hospitality in church goes, I’m reluctant to do so, because I’m not sure if others will accept it. I’m more prone to do that in AA meetings, where strangers go up to each other and introduce themselves.

Finding healing in community has been a topic that I have encountered this week. In this article, Tim Keller describes his faith journey. In college, Keller was depressed, socially-awkward, and very introverted, and yet faith in Christ and the Christian community gave him an opportunity to find peace and reach out to others. In his May 19, 2010 sermon (see http://revthom.blogspot.com), Thomas Belote discusses how Unitarian-Universalism saved his life: at one point, he was angry at the social dynamics and exclusion within his high school, but his UU church allowed him to serve people, and that brought him healing.

Christian community can also be a place that wounds. That’s why I like Adam McHugh’s Introverts in the Church: it’s about how the church can welcome introverts and acknowledge their value to the community, rather than putting them down for not being spiritual enough. Over the next week, I will continue to discuss this book.

Petichta; Symbolist; Confession; Unclear Foresight; Revisiting the Politeia

1.  The first essay I read today was Lewis Barth’s “The Midrashic Enterprise”.  What I’ll share from that article is that there’s a debate among scholars about the petichta in midrashic literature.  What is a petichta?  Let’s take Leviticus Rabbah.  It’s interpreting a passage from Leviticus.  But it introduces its exegesis of the Leviticus passage with a verse from (say) Psalms.  Then, it tries to tie that verse from Psalms into the Leviticus passage.

In any case, the debate is over whether the petichta was originally an introduction to a sermon, or was a sermon by itself.  I’m not sure what the arguments are for each side.  But the debate appears to be this: Was the petichta leading up to the action of interpreting Leviticus and drawing lessons from it, or was the whole process of tying the petichta verse back to Leviticus in itself a sermon, intended to teach the Jewish people lessons?  Personally, I like the idea of meandering around and learning stuff along the way.

2.  My second reading for today was from pages 68-82 of Saul Lieberman’s Hellenism in Jewish Palestine.  What stood out to me from that was Lieberman’s discussion of the exegesis of dreams, and how the rabbis applied some of those techniques to their interpretation of Scripture.  But did the rabbis believe that dreams mattered?  Lieberman quotes a rabbinic passage stating, “If the contents of dreams which have no effect may yield a multitude of interpretations, how much more then should the important contents of the Torah imply many interpretations of every verse.” 

This viewpoint holds that dreams have “no effect” (if I’m interpreting it correctly).  And Lieberman notes that the rabbis condemned the superstitious belief that encountering a weasel is a bad portent.  They weren’t too big on superstitions!  Yet, Lieberman refers to rabbinic statements that dreams were significant.  There were rabbis who thought that seeing certain letters in a dream was a good omen.  Some maintained that the presence of barley in a dream meant that the dreamer’s sins were forgiven, for the Hebrew word for “barley” sounds like a Hebrew phrase for “sin is removed”.

And so there were rabbis who tried to decode Scripture, and other signs in the universe that may be significant (such as dreams).  There were people whom Lady in the Water would call “symbolists”.  But there were other rabbis who opposed superstition, and the fear in which it held people captive.  They probably looked down on superstition because they believed that God was the ultimate power in the universe, so who cares about your bad dream, or if a weasel crosses your path?

3.  I read more of G.A. Kennedy’s New History of Classical Rhetoric.  Kennedy refers to Plato’s dialogue, Gorgias, in which Socrates says that a guilty person can help himself more if he uses rhetoric—not to get himself let off—but rather to get himself convicted, since then he’s helping himself out more.  But Kennedy goes on to say that Socrates wasn’t being overly serious when he made that point, but he was just trying to get Ponus to think. 

But Socrates’ point reminds me of some Desperate Housewives plots.  Orson ran over Mike Delfino, and his wife, Bree, wanted him to confess his crime and to go to jail.  In Season 1, her son, Andrew, accidentally ran over Carlos Solis’ ”MaMA” (as Carlos calls her), and left the scene.  In the last season, someone was using that to blackmail Bree so she’d sell him her company.  Andrew told Bree that it was time for him to pay for running over Carlos’ mother—by going to jail.  That demonstrated a lot of growth on Andrew’s part—from the cocky kid of the early seasons to the responsible adult of this past year.

Then there are Dostoevsky novels, such as Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, in which a character decides to go to jail to pay for what he did, and to let God prune him and make him spiritually fruitful.

Jail can be a place of growth, as one encounters people who have experienced problems, and learns empathy as a result.  But it can also be a place that hinders growth.  My sister knows someone who went to jail for many years for burning down his fraternity house when he was drunk.  When he got out, he dated younger women, for jail had placed him in a sort of time-warp, if you will, in which he was away from society.  When he got out, it was like he was the same age as when he went in, in his mind.

The Big Book tells alcoholics that they may need to go to jail as a result of making amends, but not everyone chooses to follow that rule.  For some, the best way to make amends is to try to be a better person.

But Socrates was probably criticizing the sort of person who successfully defended himself in court, and learned nothing.  He had no intention of using his freedom to become a better person. 

I’ll tie into this item my church for this morning.  I went to two masses: one at 12:00, and another at 12:30.  The Scriptures and the homilies were about forgiveness: the importance of us knowing that we’re forgiven (which, to me, sounds rather Protestant, since some Protestants harp on assurance of salvation), and of seeing every sinner as a potential saint.

4.  I read a few essays be Renee Bloch on midrash.  Bloch talks about various versions of a midrash about Exodus 1.  In one version, the Pharaoh decrees that every newborn baby boy—Egyptian and Hebrew—is to be drowned, for he wasn’t sure if an Egyptian or a Hebrew would deliver the Israelites out of Egypt.  According to the midrash, the reason that the Pharaoh chose to kill the babies by drowning them was that the astrologers foresaw “that the Savior of Israel would be punished by water, and they thought that he would drown in the water.”  Moses was punished on account of water—he struck the rock and claimed credit for the water coming out of it, rather than speaking to the rock and giving God the glory.  But the astrologers misinterpreted what they saw, I guess.  And apparently they tried to hasten Moses’ downfall through water—back when he was an infant!

5.  While the maintenance man was vacuuming gallons of water from my wet apartment carpet (I’m serious—it was gallons!), I was reading more of Lee Levine’s Judaism and Hellenism in Antiquity.   In a footnote on page 39, Levine distinguishes between maximalists—who believe that Hellenistic influence was great right before the Maccabean revolt—and minimalists—who believe it was not so great.  In the maximalist camp, he has Elias Bickerman and Martin Hengel.  In the minimalist camp, he has Victor Tcherikover.  He has other names too, but these were the scholars I used in writing my Politeia Paper.  And, in retrospect, I find Levine’s characterizations to be accurate.  My problem with Tcherikover was that he acted as if the Hellenizers merely changed Judea’s political structure, while leaving the Jewish religion intact.  I wondered how that would incite a revolt!  Hengel overlapped with Tcherikover on this issue, but at least he argued that the change in Judea’s political structure had profound ramifications, which offended religious conservatives.

Dennis Hopper

Dennis Hopper has passed away.  I was reading the wikipedia article on him, trying to see if I’ve seen him in anything.  I haven’t seen him in much, since I haven’t gotten around to watching James Dean movies (though I did watch the James Dean Biography, back when I had my DVR).  But I noticed that there was one role in which I did see Dennis Hopper, a role that has been in my mind for probably more than a decade.  Hopper played Shooter in the movie, Hoosiers. 

Shooter was an alcoholic, who continually embarrassed his son, a high school basketball player.  But he knew a lot about basketball.  Shooter could sound really learned about it in the barber-shop, discussing strategy.  And so Coach Norman Dale (played by Gene Hackman) decided to make Shooter his assistant coach. 

Shooter was definitely a rough diamond in the works!  He showed up at one basketball game drunk, again embarrassing his son.  Coach Norman dunked Shooter’s head into the bathroom sink a few times, telling him that he wouldn’t tolerate that sort of behavior! 

On another occasion, Coach Norman was thrown out of the game because he argued with the referee, and so Shooter was left holding the bag.  Shooter didn’t know what to do or say, so he just stood there.  Again, his son was embarrassed.  Shooter made Coach Norman promise never to do that again!  And Coach Norman promised.

But some promises are made to be broken, and Coach Norman understood that Shooter had potential that needed to be brought out.  And so Coach Norman had another outburst, and was again thrown out of the game at a crucial point.  Again, Shooter was left holding the bag.  Shooter’s son melted the ice a little bit by offering his father some advice.  Shooter then develops a solid winning strategy for the team.  Shooter wasn’t as glib at that game as he was in the barber-shop, but he had a little more confidence, compared to the last game in which he was left holding the bag!

I identify with Shooter because of the alcoholism, and also because I too can freeze up and appear dumb in certain situations.  But is there a diamond underneath all that, as there was with Shooter?  I hope it’s that way for all of us!

Culpable Eddie?; War Is Hell; Authors of Anti-Oppression Psalms; Eratosthenes on Homeric “Errors”; Origen on Christ’s Imminent Coming; Inductive and Neat; Flashing Light

1.  Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People, page 154:

Dale Carnegie says that our backgrounds have influenced how we’ve turned out.  If we had the same body, temperament, mind, environment, and experiences as Al Capone, Carnegie states, then we would have turned out just as he did.  Carnegie also says that the “only reason…that you are not a rattlesnake is that your mother and father weren’t rattlesnakes.”  His conclusion is that we shouldn’t look down on people who are “irritated, bigoted, [or] unreasoning”, but we should pity them, for we could have ended up just as they are, had we had their backgrounds.

This reminds me of last Sunday’s Desperate Housewives, which was about Eddie, the strangler of Fairview.  The conclusion of the narrator, the late Mary Alice Young, is that monsters are created by other monsters.  Eddie had a bad mother.  She was a drunk, and she told Eddie throughout his life that she did not want him.  She also made fun of him, telling him that the only woman he’d ever get was one who was blind or inflatable. 

Add to this Eddie’s frustration with the opposite sex.  He could never get a woman, and many women in his life (his mother, Gabby, Susan, Danielle Van de Camp, the girls at his school) rejected him.  He didn’t just want sex, for he desired a relationship, a woman who would love him.  After Bree told him that he’d some day find a woman who would say “yes” to him, he went to a prostitute on a street-corner.  When she says “yes”, he gives her a bouquet of flowers, and she laughs him to scorn.  And so she becomes Eddie’s first victim.

One can understand how Eddie became as he was, and I certainly have compassion and empathy for this fictional character.  One of the themes of Desperate Housewives is that we should not judge other people, for we all have skeletons in our closets, and we’ve done our share of sin, sometimes with good intentions.  But what are the implications of this?  Should a court let Eddie off-the-hook because he had a hard life?  Is there a way for us to be compassionate, without compromising our moral standards and the well-being of society?   

2.  Robert Heinlein, Sixth Column, page 154:

“…you are too soft and mush-headed for this job.  You apparently think that the United States can win this war without anyone getting hurt—you don’t even have the guts to watch a traitor die.”

This reminds me of last night’s V, which was an excellent episode on so many levels.  I’m thinking of the scene in which some of the sympathizers of the Fifth Column—the aliens who are resisting the attempts of their fellow aliens to take over the earth—have captured and tied up a man who has killed on behalf of the evil, invading aliens.  His reason was that the aliens healed his daughter of paralysis, and he felt that someone needed to fight for them, since they were pacifists (in his mind).  A torturer among the Fifth Column sympathizers wants to beat this guy up to get information out of him about the location of Fifth Column members, so he can help them out.  Before he proceeds to torture the captive, he says, “It is now time for all decent people to leave the room!”  The priest, played by Joel Gretsch, then leaves the room.  Earlier, the priest told the torturer not to beat the captive up.

The torturer had no self-delusion that he was a decent man.  He knew he was scum, and he wanted to use that attribute for his cause.  He had resigned himself to being a scum years ago!

This quote from Heinlein also reminded me of a conservative statement that often got on my nerves, even when I supported the war in Iraq.  Whenever a liberal would point out the innocent casualties and disastrous consequences of the war, a conservative would blithely blow that point off with “War is hell.”  Yes, war is hell, which is why we should try to avoid it if there are other ways to deal with the problem. 

3.  Erhard Gerstenberger, Psalms, Part I with an Introduction to Cultic Poetry, pages 31-32:

Gerstenberger narrates that the Israelite monarchy created a feudalism through the centralization of economic and military interests, and that this feudalism “ruthlessly exploited the small landowners and the agrarian and urban proletariat”.  The stratification between rich and poor continued into Israel’s post-exilic period, as Nehemiah 5:1-13 indicates.  In Israel’s pre-exilic period, there were “group chiefs and ritual experts who attended the needs of the individual and the family.”  They included men of God, prophets, and priests of local sanctuaries.  (I see such figures in II Kings!)  These “lower ranks of the prophetic and sacerdotal hierarchy assumed responsibilities in counseling persons and groups in distress.”  According to Gerstenberger, they were the ones who composed the Psalms that ranted against the oppression of the poor. 

I often wondered who would compose those sorts of Psalms.  Would the establishment?  Why would the establishment acknowledge the existence of social ills under its auspices?  I’m glad that Gerstenberger attempted some answer to this question that has baffled me. 

4.  R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship, page 166:

To the scientific rationalistic mind of Eratosthenes the unrealities in Homeric geography were obvious.  He did not blame the poet; the fault was in the interpreters who made the fundamental mistake of identifying epic localities with certain places in the Mediterranean and supposing that Homer made it his business to teach people geography or anything else such as theology, ethics, or military tactics.  Homer’s geographical passages, for instance the wanderings of Odysseus, were to be regarded as purely imaginary; the aim of the poet was there and elsewhere not to instruct but to give pleasure.

At first, I thought that Eratosthenes was trying to argue as some Christians do when they are confronted with “errors” in the Bible: “The Bible’s not a history or science book, but its intention is to teach us how to live, and to bring us closer to God.”  But Eratosthenes doesn’t believe that Homer intended to teach people about theology and ethics, so that impression of mine goes out the window!  He seems to contend that Homer is just great literature.  That’s how some people today treat the Bible: “Why worry about whether it’s factually accurate or inaccurate?  It has good stories!”  The stories definitely draw me to the Bible.  They have since I was a child who read Bible story books, listened to Bible story tapes, and watched Superbook.  But I also see the Bible as a guide on how to live and become closer to God.

5.  R.P.C. Hanson, Allegory and Event, page 342:

Words of our Lord apparently suggesting a Second Coming to take place very soon [Origen] explains away: ‘Henceforth ye shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power’ (Matt. 26:64) does not in his view imply a return of Christ in the near future, for in the first place Christ’s disciples saw him ‘sitting at the right hand of power’ when they saw him risen from the dead, and in the second place an immense period of time is only a day in God’s sight anyway.

I’ve wondered how church fathers dealt with passages in which Jesus appears to say that his second coming is near.  Well, now I know how one church father dealt with them!  I don’t find his first argument about Matthew 26:64 all that convincing, for Jesus was talking in that verse to the Jewish leaders, not his disciples.  But N.T. Wright and many preterists have contended that the Jewish leaders did see Jesus sit on the right hand of power, with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E.  That event confirmed to them that Jesus had authority and judgment, or so the argument runs.  I don’t know.  Rabbinic Judaism didn’t conclude that from this event!  Neither did Josephus.  I doubt that conclusion was in the minds of the Jews experiencing it.

6.  Richard Sarason, A History of the Mishnaic Law of Agriculture: A Study of Tractate Demai, page 20:

Each formal unit must be analyzed on its own terms, and not forced to conform to an a priori literary theory of the document.  My work therefore strives to be rigorously inductive.

I like that.  I’d prefer to read a writing that has a thesis and proceeds from there, since it’s easier on me, the reader.  But an inductive approach is probably better because it allows the texts to speak for themselves, rather than hammering them into a neat thesis.  I once voiced that opinion to a DePauw Honor Scholar class, to laughter: “I think reality’s too complex to reduce to a thesis.”  At the same time, it’s okay (in my opinion) to ask a question, and to look for answers.  That can produce a neat paper.  But there are all sorts of approaches. 

7.  Ken Pulliam had some good posts last week: Did Paul Hallucinate on the Road to Damascus?–Part One and Did Paul Hallucinate on the Road to Damascus?–Part Two.  His conclusion was that Saul of Tarsus and the people with him may have seen a solar flare, and that Saul hallucinated the voice of Jesus, as a result of his inner conflict over the message of Christianity and his persecution of Christians (his kicking of the goads, to refer to Acts 26:14).  Ken referred to psychological studies to argue that such was within the realm of possibility.  Ken also had a post before that, Are Religious Experiences Evidence for God?, where he refers to studies indicating that the inner peace that comes from religious exercises (i.e., prayer, meditation) has a natural explanation, meaning we don’t have to attribute it to the supernatural.

I thought of Ken’s posts as I watched My Name Is Bill W. yesterday, and I also recalled the CBS movie that was on Sunday night, When Love Is Not Enough: The Lois Wilson Story.   Bill Wilson was the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, and his wife, Lois, started Al-Anon, which helps the families of alcoholics.  In both movies, the character of Bill Wilson talks about seeing a light in his hospital room and feeling a sense of peace washing all over him.  Whereas, before that event, he continually promised to stop drinking and ended up breaking his promise, that event placed him on a solid ground of sobriety.  He still needed to build on that ground, however.  He couldn’t rely on an out-of-the-ordinary experience in his past, for he had to take the necessary action to keep sober: reach out to other alcoholics, rely on a higher power, take a moral inventory, let go of resentment, make restitution, etc.

In My Name Is Bill W., Bill is explaining his Saul of Tarsus experience to his doctor, William Silkworth, who wrote the “Doctor’s Opinion” in the Big Book.  Silkworth says that he cannot account for Bill’s experience from a scientific perspective, but at least Bill is in a better place than he was yesterday.

Nowadays, there are scientists who contend that they can account for such an experience from a scientific perspective.  Perhaps so.  But, in my humble opinion, Bill was still in a better place than he was before his “flashing light” experience, as was the apostle Paul.   

Unloaded Questions; Outsider’s Test; Thank You; Smart Guy; Reason for Origen’s Universalism; Allowed This Time; Self-Acceptance

1.  Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People, page 136:

Carnegie quotes Dr. Overstreet, who states: “It often seems as if people get a sense of their own importance by antagonizing at the outset.  The radical comes into a conference with his conservative brethren; and immediately he must make them furious!  What, as a matter of fact, is the good of it?  If he simply does it to get some pleasure out of it for himself, he may be pardoned.  But if he expects to achieve something, he is only psychologically stupid.”

This describes me in a nut-shell: I love to challenge the mindset of the status quo.  At DePauw and Harvard, I was a conservative!  In conservative Christian settings, I was a liberal.  But Dale Carnegie exhorts us to find common ground with another person and to ask her questions to which she can answer “yes”, leading her towards our point-of-view.  This is what Socrates did: he didn’t march up to a person and say “This is the way it is.”  Rather, he asked questions.

Many people who try to practice this approach don’t do it all that well, in my opinion, because their questions are loaded and ideologically biased.  “And which political party is more pro-American—the Republicans or the Democrats?”, a person once asked me, expecting me to answer “Republican.”  That’s not an effective use of the Socratic method, unless you know for sure that the person you’re asking the question will answer “Republican”!

But I think that it’s appropriate to ask people about what we consider the weaknesses in their positions, to see how they handle them.  For example: “President Obama, what do you think about all this debt?”  That’s not a loaded question.  His policy was to do deficit spending in order to get our economy out of its economic hole.  What’s his view on the debt that such a policy created?  I’m sure it has crossed his mind!  He’s a smart man!

2.  Robert Heinlein, Sixth Column, page 116:

“…All religions look equally silly from the outside…Sorry!  I don’t mean to tread on anybody’s toes…Take any religious mystery, any theological proposition: expressed in ordinary terms it will read like sheer nonsense to the outsider, from the ritualistic, symbolic eating of human flesh and blood practiced by all the Christian sects to the outright cannibalism practiced by some savages.”

This is the “outsider’s test of faith” that atheists talk about.  See Ken Pulliam’s summary of John Loftus’ discussion of this test here.  The idea is that we’re supposed to step outside of our religion and take a look at it as if we were outsiders, the same way that we would evaluate a religion that is not our own.  The conclusion Loftus wants us to reach is that it’s all nonsense!

I have some sympathy for the “outsider’s test of faith”, for I’m sick of Christians who apply their razor-sharp reasoning to other religions—to show that they’re silly or irrational or immoral in comparison with Christianity—and yet they give a free pass to their own faith.  Either they say “Just have faith, for God knows more than we do” when they’re discussing the problematic aspects of Christianity, or they offer apologetic “answers” that not everyone finds convincing.

 At the same time, I’m open to a degree of mystery, so I don’t automatically blow something off just because it doesn’t make complete sense to me.  Believing in a good God with all of the evil that exists in the world is an example.

Interestingly, the “outsider’s test of Christianity” runs counter to some of the things that I’ve learned about the academic study of religion.  Not completely, mind you, for, when we apply (say) an anthropological analysis to a religion, we are acting as detached outsiders, looking at it from the perspective of a field of study.  But I was also encouraged to try to understand a religion from the perspective of its practitioners—to try to enter into their mindset.  And this would apply to any religion. 

But the “outsider’s test of faith” isn’t really about the study of religion—it’s about the evaluation of a religion to determine whether or not we should accept it.  Personally, I’m not big on getting on any high horse and pronouncing all religions as “wrong”.  Maybe they have something to teach us.  Maybe their practitioners have experienced things that many of us haven’t!  I don’t want to become a complete relativist, however, for cannibalism strikes me as cruel.

3.   Erhard Gerstenberger, Psalms, Part I with an Introduction to Cultic Poetry, page 15:

“I give thee thanks” means exactly “I am handing over to you my thank offering” (see Pss. 52:11…; 57:10-11; 86:12; 118:21; 138:1-2). 

This just stood out to me.  Maybe it’s because the ancient Israelites had a concrete way to say “thank you” to God.  I either forget to say “thank you” in my prayers, or I say it, it feels empty, and I soon forget about it.  But the ancient Israelites offered an animal.  Rituals solidify things, in my opinion.

4.   R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship, page 153:

But who is courageous enough to measure himself even as editor against the universality of Eratosthenes, philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, chronographer, geographer, grammarian, and poet?

Smart guy!  A jack of all trades! 

You can probably tell that I’m really struggling to find interesting things in this book.  I’m sure there are people who love it.  It just doesn’t interest me! 

5.  R.P.C. Hanson, Allegory and Event, page 335:

The fact is that universalism in Origen’s thought is a necessary conclusion from his basic premises, and not, as it is in most modern thought, a ‘larger hope’ grounded on a strong belief in God’s love and a kindly feeling toward all humanity, however degraded.  In Origen’s view for God to fail in reconciling into their original state as pure spirits wholly obedient to his will any beings at all, even only one or two, would be for God, the single, simple, primal, unalterable One, to compromise himself with change and becoming and corruption.  This is inconceivable, and therefore all must be saved.

I don’t entirely understand this, but it addresses a question that has come to me.  Why was Origen a universalist?  Was it because he believed in the love of God for all humanity and could not conceive of a good God torturing sinners in hell forever and ever?  That’s a big reason that I’m drawn to universalism, but, in line with what I said in (2), my job in studying the ancients should be to figure out what they think, not project onto them what I think. 

Maybe I can use some of what they think to inform my own thoughts.  For example, I believe that Origen’s view that hell is a place of correction accords with my understanding of the love of God, who prefers not to throw his creation into the garbage, but deeply wants them to become righteous and reconciled with him.  But was that Origen’s reason for seeing hell as a place of correction?

According to Hanson, the answer is “no”.  I don’t entirely understand what Origen’s reason for believing in universalism is.  It has something to do with God being one, so, apparently, in some manner, God’s creation must also be one: united with him.  Origen referred to I Corinthians 15:28, which affirms that, after all things have become subjected to the Son, the Son will subject himself to the Father, making God all in all.  So all will become one, in a manner of speaking. 

Many Christians believe that God will be “all in all” because he will destroy or eternally punish his enemies, so what will be left will be subordinate to God.  And the righteous remnant will be “all” that there is!  Or perhaps the believers in eternal torment hold that the sinners in hell are subordinate to God, so God is all in all that way.  In this view, everyone will be subordinate to God, but some won’t care for their state of subordination.  But Origen held that all will be subordinated to God in reconciliation to him.

6. Richard Sarason, A History of the Mishnaic Law of Agriculture: A Study of Tractate Demai, page 15:

[Mishnah Demai 4] now turns to the case of purchasing produce from someone who is not deemed trustworthy.  In certain well-defined circumstances we may believe his word that the produce has been tithed, and therefore need not tithe it ourselves…The major principles are as follows: We may believe someone not deemed trustworthy (1) in an emergency (as on the Sabbath, 4:1-2), or (2) when we have no sure way to verify his statement (4:5), or (3) when he testifies concerning someone else, and thus has no personal interest to be served by lying (4:6).  But if two men give testimony concerning each other, we suspect collision (4:6-7).

This highlights the issue of Tractate Demai.  We’re supposed to eat food after it has been tithed.  The problem was that not every Jew tithed scrupulously.  So Jews had to be careful about whom they bought their produce from.  What if the Jewish salesman of produce did not tithe mint, dill, and cummin?  You will be eating untithed produce, and God won’t like that very much!

But there are exceptions.  You can eat the possibly untithed produce on the Sabbath, perhaps because you’re not allowed to perform the business of giving it back to the seller on that day, and that may be all the food that you have.  Then, for the rabbis, there are ways to tell if a person is telling the truth, on the basis of his self-interest or the possibility of collusion.  Christian apologists use this approach when they argue that the early Christians were telling the truth about Jesus’ resurrection: they can’t think of any motive for the early Christians to lie, especially when they were suffering persecution for their faith, and so they conclude that they were speaking the truth.

7.  AA Daily Reflection, April 26: Instead of demanding that people, places, and things make me happy, I can ask God for self-acceptance.

The bad part is me to a T.  I get so bent out of shape when people, places, and things are not the way I want.  I even get bent out of shape when I look back and think of times in the past when they were not as I want.  And so I allow the problems of yesterday to spoil my today.  What I need to learn is to accept myself even when things are not as I desire—when people do not accept me, when I feel looked down on, etc.  I wish I had that kind of peace.

Is Dale Carnegie Biblical?; Compromise for God; Pagan Roots; Callimachus; Priests and Allegory; Israelite Welfare System; Lois Wilson

1.  Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People, page 118:

By the way, I am not revealing anything new in this chapter.  Nineteen centuries ago, Jesus said: “Agree with thine adversary quickly.”  In other words, don’t argue with your customer or your husband or your adversary.  Don’t tell him he is wrong, don’t get him stirred up, but use a little diplomacy.

Carnegie usually treats the Bible as a part of the wisdom of the ages, which encompasses Socrates, Confucius, Zoroastrians, and others.  But are Carnegie’s principles consistent with the Bible?  Carnegie teaches that we’re to be diplomatic and let others talk about themselves.  I’ve heard preachers take swipes at Carnegie’s approach.  One preacher was talking about Elijah, who could be pretty bold in his criticisms of King Ahab.  This preacher remarked, “Elijah obviously didn’t read How to Win Friends and Influence People.” 

Indeed, a prominent element of the biblical tradition is that false prophets tell people what they want to hear, whereas true prophets speak the truth, often in the form of a rebuke.  In Luke 6:26, Jesus says, “Woe to you, when all men shall speak well of you!  For so did their fathers to the false prophets” (KJV).  II Timothy 3:12 states that all who live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.  I’ve heard preachers say that, if we’re truly living godly lives, we won”t be all that popular, for people would resent us for our righteousness.  And so there’s a trend in Christianity that says that the godly will not win friends and influence people.

Yet, we see other trends as well.  The Book of Proverbs is about how we can win friends, avoid conflict, and impress kings.  Wisdom literature was the How to Win Friends and Influence People of ancient times.  And Luke 2:52 affirms that Jesus grew in favor with God and man.

Dale Carnegie’s book is about giving and putting others before ourselves, which, paradoxically, can actually be a means to our own elevation.  When we practice biblical principles, that can attract people to us.  Yet, the Bible also suggests that it can repel people as well.

2.  Robert Heinlein, Sixth Column, pages 106-107:

The Sixth Column, a group of Americans that is resisting Pan-Asian conquerors of the United States, is operating under the guise of a religious group.  According to this religion that the Sixth Column contrives, God has a thousand mysterious attributes and relates to each class and people-group in a different way.  There is Lord Mota, who acts through Dis, the Destroyer, as Tamar, the Lady of Mercy, intercedes for worshippers.  This religion also does humanitarian work, which appeals to the Pan-Asians, who have a number of poor and sick people in their midst. 

Alec is an American who is reluctant to go along with this religion, for he doesn’t want to do anything in the name of a false God.  Ardmore responds to him as follows:

“But is it a false God?  Do you think God cares very much what name you call Him as long as the work you perform is acceptable to Him?  Now mind you…I don’t say that this so-called temple we have erected here is necessarily a House of the Lord, but isn’t the worship of God a matter of how you feel in your heart rather than the verbal forms and the ceremonials used?”

Ardmore’s point appears to be that the Sixth Column is helping the poor and the sick, while also fighting for the freedom of the United States.  Wouldn’t Alec be honoring God by doing these things, even if it’s in the name of a made-up religion? 

Ardmore then lays things on the line for Alec.  If Alec doesn’t want to participate in a false religion, then Ardmore will understand, for Ardmore doesn’t want anyone to violate his or her conscience.  But, if that is what Alec decides, then Alec can’t participate in any activity of the Sixth Column, including cooking.  Alec is either in or he’s out. 

This reminds me of excuses I have heard for (say) working on the Sabbath: “God wants me to provide for myself, right?  We’re allowed to do good on the Sabbath day.  Well, what’s wrong with helping myself, or my family?”  I can envision Christians in the Roman empire saying the same sort of thing, as they were told to offer incense to a pagan deity.

I don’t judge people for using Ardmore-like excuses.  There’s a degree of logic in what Ardmore is saying: In his attempt to honor God, was Alec keeping himself from fighting for principles that were consistent with God’s character?  Sometimes, we may need to compromise our beliefs for a greater good.  At other times, we should stand for our beliefs, come what may.  When to do which, I don’t know.  I guess that’s between the individual and God.

3.  Erhard Gerstenberger, Psalms, Part I with an Introduction to Cultic Poetry, page 8:

The most important feature of Israel’s adaptation to Canaan was her adopting the cycle of regular, seasonal festivals with its system of sanctuaries, sacrifices, and rituals that was customary in that sedentary society.  Israelite herdsmen did bring along their own traditions, but merged them freely with Canaanite rites.  One seminomadic group, for instance, contributed to this composite its tradition of the sojourn in Egypt and the marvelous deliverance from the “house of bondage,” with its Passover and blood rites…All this heritage was placed into the system of Canaanite agricultural feasts.

I was one time discussing Christmas with some Christian students, and I said that I could understand the perspective of Christians who oppose the observance of the holiday.  Deuteronomy 12:30, after all, forbids the Israelites to worship God using the customs of the Canaanites.  A Christian student then replied, “Well, James, as a good biblical scholar, you know that’s exactly what Pesach is!”

I’ve heard people say things like this.  I once listened to a conversation, in which a teacher referred to a book that discussed the use of blood in foreign cultures to ward off destructive spirits, which resembles the Exodus story.   And I remember Conservative Jew Harold Kushner making the same sort of claim in his book about Judaism, To Life!  But Baruch Bokser states in the Anchor Bible Dictionary (volume 6, page 760):

For some scholars extra-biblical rites, in particular those of ANE holidays, are the clue to the Passover’s prehistory. Rost (1943, see Childs Exodus OTL, 189) suggests that Passover was originally connected to a semi-nomadic festival taking place during migration and designed to protect the nomads and their flock throughout the annual spring migration from the desert to arable land. Many have adopted this approach because it nicely fits the situation of Passover, even providing an analogue to the apotropaic use of blood to protect the Israelites from the destroyer (see e.g., AncIsr, 488–90). Obviously, however, as Haran (1978: 320–21) remarks, any details about the nomadic background can only be speculative.

How much evidence do we actually have that the Israelites borrowed Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread (or concepts therein) from the Canaanites?

I’m not so hung-up of the “pagan roots” of things, for the religions of the Bible resemble aspects of pagan cultures—in the existence of sacrifices, a priesthood, festivals, etc.  But I wonder what basis there is for certain scholarly claims.

4.  R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship, page 143:

…Apollonius’ work conformed to Aristotle’s demands, but ran counter to fundamental doctrines of Callimachus; he did not attempt the same scrupulous precision and discipline of language and metre, and he could never have attained the Callimachean subtlety and graciousness combined with nervous virility.

Callimachus sounds like quite a poet!  Orderly, disciplined, subtle, gracious, yet nervously virile (whatever that means!).  

5.  R.P.C. Hanson, Allegory and Event, page 307:

[According to Origen, the] Jewish priests who served the Temple knew such allegorizations of the law as these.

Hanson cites Contra Celsum v.44, which states (see BOOK V):

But as Celsus would compare the venerable customs of the Jews with the laws of certain nations, let us proceed to look at them. He is of opinion, accordingly, that there is no difference between the doctrine regarding heaven and that regarding God; and he says that the Persians, like the Jews, offer sacrifices to Jupiter upon the tops of the mountains,— not observing that, as the Jews were acquainted with one God, so they had only one holy house of prayer, and one altar of whole burnt-offerings, and one censer for incense, and one high priest of God. The Jews, then, had nothing in common with the Persians, who ascend the summits of their mountains, which are many in number, and offer up sacrifices which have nothing in common with those which are regulated by the Mosaic code,— in conformity to which the Jewish priests served unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, explaining enigmatically the object of the law regarding the sacrifices, and the things of which these sacrifices were the symbols. The Persians therefore may call the whole circle of heaven Jupiter; but we maintain that the heaven is neither Jupiter nor God, as we indeed know that certain beings of a class inferior to God have ascended above the heavens and all visible nature: and in this sense we understand the words, Praise God, you heaven of heavens, and you waters that be above the heavens: let them praise the name of the Lord.

This is similar to my discussion about Christmas in (3): Celsus says that Judaism and Christianity are untrue because their customs resemble those of foreign nations, whereas Origen highlights the differences to stress that Judaism and Christianity are superior to paganism.  Unlike Hanson, I don’t see a statement that the priests were aware of the allegorical meaning of their rituals, however.  Rather, to me, Origen is saying that these rituals had deeper significance, not that the priests were aware of what that significance was, or even knew that it existed.   

6.  Richard Sarason, A History of the Mishnaic Law of Agriculture: A Study of Tractate Demai, page 4:

In every third year the tithe is not brought up to Jerusalem or eaten by the offerer, but stored up as a charity fund for the local poor, viz., the Levites, resident aliens, orphans, and widows.

That reminds me of Jimmy Swaggart’s comments on Deuteronomy 15:11, in the Expositor’s Study Bible:

Israel’s welfare program was the third year of tithing the produce of the entirety of the land, to be given to the poor and needy, along with the Levites.  Not failing this and, as well, lending to those who were truly in need, one can readily see that the welfare program was generous.

A conservative like Jimmy Swaggart is suggesting that ancient Israelite society under God’s law had a generous welfare program?  But I thought God was a Republican!

That said, Swaggart does use the term “those who were truly in need”, meaning that he probably distinguishes between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor.  Ancient Israelite society aimed to help those who couldn’t help themselves.  At the same time, we should remember that every Israelite under God’s law was to have an allotment of land!  On PBS’s Bill Moyers’ Journal, a lady was critiquing the slogan that a “rising tide lifts all boats”, pointing out that not everyone has a boat that can be lifted!  Under God’s law, all Israelites had a boat—a plot of land—through which they could support themselves and their families.  Those who didn’t have a boat were covered by the welfare system.

7.  Last night, I watched the CBS Hallmark Hall of Fame movie, When Love Is Not Enough: The Lois Wilson Story, starring Winona Ryder.  Lois Wilson was the wife of Bill Wilson, who founded Alcoholics Anonymous.  She started Al-Anon, a support group for the families of alcoholics.

The movie really helped me that night!  I can easily fall into thoughts of resentment and fear, and there were times during the movie when I could identify with Bill Wilson in his pre-sobriety stage, when he hid flasks of alcohol in his office at work.  That’s how he coped!  But, when I saw Bill’s former drinking buddy, Ebby, looking clean and all-together, tactfully informing Bill about the Oxford Group that eventually led to AA, I felt a peace of mind.  I was reminded of the AA principle of remaining sober, through thick and thin, good times and bad.

The author of this movie was obviously familiar with the program, including the twelve steps and the concept of staying sober by talking with another alcoholic.  But, in the meetings on this movie, there was free-flowing discussion.  That’s not how AA meetings are, however, for, in all of the meetings that I attended, only one person at a time talks, and you cannot interrupt her.  I wonder if this concept was introduced into AA some years into its existence.

I read on wikipedia that Winona Ryder had a problem with pills at some point.  I wonder if she found help, and if her role in this movie was her way of promoting a life of sobriety for addicts.  Whether this is the case or not, I applaud her for being in this movie! 

Tonight will be my Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters night, for I no longer had a DVR to tape them while I was watching the CBS movie.  I’ll be watching these shows on the Internet.  I also ordered a movie from Netflix, a 1989 Hallmark Hall of Fame movie entitled My Name Is Bill W., which is about Bill Wilson.