Ishmael on Hagar’s Back

Genesis 21:14 says (in the King James Version): “And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away: and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.”  The context is that Abraham is sending out Hagar and her son Ishmael because Abraham’s wife Sarah does not want for Hagar to share in the inheritance with Sarah’s son, Isaac.

Genesis 21:14 is often lampooned, or it is cited to show that the Bible has different sources, or that an editor clumsily threw together different stories in Genesis.  The reason is that Genesis 21:14 appears to say that Abraham put Ishmael on Hagar’s back.  Why would Abraham put Ishmael on Hagar’s back?  He wasn’t a baby at this point!  Earlier in the Book of Genesis, in Genesis 17, Ishmael was circumcised at the age of 13!

I found two attempts at a solution to this problem.  First, there’s that of the Protestant commentator John Gill.  In the Hebrew, it says (in my literal translation) “And Abraham rose early in the morning, and he took bread and a water-skin of water and he gave to Hagar.  He put on her shoulder, and the boy, and he sent her and she went and she wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.”  According to Gill, the text is not saying that Abraham put Ishmael on Hagar’s back.  Rather, Gill thinks that “the boy” goes with “he gave to Hagar”, not “He put on her shoulder”.  It’s almost as if Gill treats “He put on her shoulder” as parenthetical.  For Gill, Abraham gave Hagar bread and a water-skin and put those on her shoulder, and he also gave Hagar Ishmael, which means that Abraham “delivered him into her hand, to be taken care of by her; and very probably she led him in her hand”.  Whether this works, I don’t know.  I have to admit that “and the boy” is in a pretty awkward place in the verse!

The second solution is that of Genesis Rabbah 53:13.  It says that Sarah gave Ishmael the evil eye, and so Ishmael got sick.  As a result, Hagar had to carry Ishmael on her back.  I do admire the rabbis for their creativity!

Imperfect, Yet Understandable?

I’m reading the Flood story in Genesis.  I was trying to justify the Flood, since I reasoned that God is perfect and thus his acts should inspire me, as they inspire so many evangelical Christians who read the Bible.  But I had a hard time arriving at a justification for the Flood that satisfied me or made me feel good.

Then, I considered: Perhaps I am right to feel sad about the vast bulk of humanity and animals perishing in the Flood.  God himself may have regretted sending it, for God promised never to send another Flood again, and God resolved to put up with humanity’s sinfulness after the Flood had subsided.  God even put his war-bow in the sky, perhaps as a sign of peace that indicated that he would not wage war against humanity.

Once I considered the possibility that God in the Bible was not absolutely perfect, even his sending of the Flood appeared to be understandable.  Extreme, mind you, but understandable.  God regretted creating human beings when he beheld their corruption, their violence, and the way that the boundary between humans and the divine was being breached, as the sons of God married the daughters of men.  God appreciated the one righteous man he could find.  Perhaps God went too far in wiping out most of life with the Flood, but God’s love for righteousness and disgust with wickedness was understandable.

There are Christians who will have a problem with what I just wrote.  They claim that God changing his mind is not literal but is figurative, for God is perfect and does not need to change his mind.  Why can’t they take the Bible at face-value, when they criticize others for not taking the Bible literally, in areas?

Where Did Cain Get His Wife?

Where did Cain get his wife?  Many contend that Cain married his sister, for Genesis 5:4 affirms that Adam had sons and daughters.  But I’m skeptical of this, for a variety of reasons:

1.  After Cain killed Abel, God gave Eve Seth as a replacement for Abel (Genesis 4:25).  Eve was elated that God gave her other seed!  In my opinion, that makes more sense if Cain and Abel were her only children prior to that point: she was sad that she lost both of her children (Cain left and Abel was killed), and so she viewed God giving her Seth as a consolation.  But why would that be the case, if she had other sons and daughters at that time?

2.  Genesis 5:4 says (in the KJV): “And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters”.  That appears to me to be saying that Adam begot those sons and daughters after he had begotten Seth.  Is not Seth mentioned in this genealogy because he is technically the firstborn, after Cain left the family and Abel was killed?

(UPDATE: As I look at the genealogies in Genesis 10-11, my impression is that genealogies do not necessarily focus on the firstborn.  Rather, they focus on the figure who can get them where they want to go.  Arpachshad was probably not the firstborn of Shem, for other sons of Shem are mentioned before him in Genesis 10.  But he is listed as the son of Shem in Genesis 11 because he’s the ancestor of Abraham, and the genealogy wants to arrive at Abraham.  Similarly, I think that the people listed in Genesis 5 are not listed because they are the firstborn, but rather because the genealogy aims to culminate with Noah, and so it mentions his ancestors.)

3.  Genesis 4:16 says that Cain left to go to the land of Nod.  There is no mention of a wife leaving with him.  Then Cain is in the land of Nod in v 17, and he has a wife!

TV preacher Arnold Murray, if I understand him correctly, teaches that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 describe two separate creations: God created one set of human beings in Genesis 1, and another set in Genesis 2.  In this scenario, Cain went to the land of Nod and took a wife there, and she was one of the offspring of the first creation.  But I have problems with this view for two reasons.  First, Genesis 2:5 says that, prior to Adam, there was no man to till the soil.  Why would this be, when God already created human beings in Genesis 1?  Second, Genesis 5 essentially equates Adam—-the man of Genesis 2 who eventually begot Seth—-with the man who was created in God’s image in Genesis 1.

Perhaps there are responses that can be made to my reasons for my dissatisfaction with the argument that Cain married his sister.  Maybe Eve had a daughter (who married Cain) before Cain left, and she was the only child Eve had at that time apart from Cain and Abel.  When this daughter left with Cain, Eve was bereft of seed.  And Eve did not mention her perhaps because Eve didn’t think that daughters were as important as sons.  Regarding my third reason, perhaps Cain’s wife was not mentioned as departing with Cain because Cain was the head of the family.  Similarly, in the story of the akedah in Genesis 22, we read in v 19 that Abraham came down from the mountain, and there is no reference to Isaac coming down too.

Questions About Genesis 1:28-29

Each night, I pray ten minutes before I go to bed, and I decided a few days ago to incorporate Bible reading into that.  Essentially, I will read a passage, and then I will talk about it in my prayer.  I figure that it’s better for me to do that than it is for me to struggle to find things to say, or to talk primarily about my day and my plans (which is not to say that I can’t talk to God about those things).  I may blog about some of my thoughts from those daily quiet times, but I won’t obligate myself to do so.  For one, I don’t want to impose on myself another blogging obligation.  Plus, there are some thoughts that I like to keep personal—-rather than displaying them on the Internet for the public.

What has amazed me about my reading so far is that I have had questions rather than answers.  I was expecting to go through the same-old stories and to say the same-old things about them—-things that I have learned from biblical scholarship and other sources.  Instead, I’ve had questions.

Let me give you an example.  Genesis 1:28-29 states (in the KJV): “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.  And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.”

The word translated as “replenish” is rendered as “fill” in many other translations because the root m-l-aleph often relates to filling.  I have two questions (or categories of questions):

1.  So the first man and woman are to fill the earth.  That appears to contradict what I was taught about Genesis, which is that, had Adam and Eve not sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, they would have stayed in the Garden of Eden for all of their lives, as would their descendants.  Is there a contradiction between Genesis 1, in which God at creation tells the man and the woman to fill the earth, and Genesis 2, in which Adam and Eve leave the Garden and inaugurate the process of filling the earth only after their transgression of God’s command?

I realize that many scholars say that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 have different creation accounts—-that Genesis 1 is by P and that Genesis 2 is by J (or whoever).  But they disagree about whether or not P knew of J’s creation account and was trying to supplement it, thereby creating a sort of “Fall” story in which human beings fall from a state of being good.  Does P in Genesis 1 manifest any awareness of Genesis 2, in which God appears to intend for humans to obey him and thus be cooped up in a Garden for the rest of their lives?  Or would P think that the transgression was the means by which humans could begin to obey God’s command to fill the earth?

2.  Many maintain that Adam and Eve were to be vegetarians, and that human beings were allowed to eat meat only after the Flood, as a concession to human brutality.  This view makes a degree of sense, for, in Genesis 1, God tells human beings that they can eat plants, without mentioning eating animals.  But God specifically tells humans that they can eat animals in Genesis 9:3.

But here’s my question: What does God mean when he tells the man and the woman to have dominion over fish and fowl?  Why would we want dominion over fish and fowl, except to eat them?  Does God granting the first man and woman dominion over fish and fowl imply that he was allowing them to eat those creatures?

The Messiah in Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs

Yesterday, I finished my daily quiet time on the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. The Testaments have a history that may extend from the second century B.C.E. to the second century C.E. Scholars debate whether it is a Jewish document with Christian interpolations, or a Christian composition that uses Jewish traditions. How they can tell the difference between the two, I have no idea.

I did not feel that I did justice to the Messianic expectations in the Testaments, and so I’m writing this post to compensate for that. There are obviously Christian elements, such as their statements that God will become a man and be rejected by Israel. There are also elements that may be either Jewish or Christian, such as the idea that Israel can repent in her exile and bring about her restoration under the Messiah. The Testaments’ notion that God will reach out to the Gentiles may also be Jewish or Christian, for parts of the Hebrew Bible had such an expectation, and Christianity tended to emphasize it (to say the least).

If the Testaments are Christian, then they are not Christian in a supersessionist sense, for (as far as I can see) they do not maintain that the church will replace Israel. Rather, in the Testaments, God is faithful to Israel, and he will raise up her tribes in the last days. The messianic expectations of the Testaments correspond with Romans 11, which affirms that God will one day restore “Israel after the flesh.”

What’s puzzling are the Testaments’ statements that Levi and Judah will bring about the salvation of Israel, indicating that (for them) the Messiah will come from both tribes. In the Anchor Bible Dictionary, Marinus de Jonge says this obviously refers to Jesus, but Jesus did not come from the tribe of Levi. Hebrews 7 emphasizes that fact!

Could this reflect another form of Messianic expectation within Judaism? Qumran expected a priestly Messiah and a royal Messiah–two separate individuals. But maybe there were Jews who thought the Messiah would be descended from both Judah and Levi.

Or perhaps Testament of Levi 3:23-27 contains the answer to my confusion. It says that the seed of Levi will be divided three ways, and the third part will technically be from the tribe of Judah. Maybe the Testaments think Jesus is a Levite the same way that Paul views Gentile Christians as Abraham’s seed (Romans 4; Galatians 3), even though, physically-speaking, they are not. Christianity has a concept of spiritual descent.

At the same time, I can imagine Testament of Levi 3:23-27 as a Christian interpolation to a Jewish document. In this scenario, the Testaments say that the Messiah will descend from Levi and Judah, and the Christian interpolators take great pains to apply that to Jesus. I’m not sure if any scholar sees it that way, though.

The following reflects the chapter and verse division of The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden (United States: World Bible Publishers, 1926-1927), and the translation is that of R.H. Charles (see here).
——————–
Testament of Simeon 3:1-12: Behold I have told you all things, that I may be acquitted of your sin. Now, if ye remove from you your envy and all stiff-neckedness, As a rose shall my bones flourish in Israel, And as a lily my flesh in Jacob, And my odour shall be as the odour of Libanus; And as cedars shall holy ones be multiplied from me forever, And their branches shall stretch afar off. Then shall perish the seed of Canaan, And a remnant shall not be unto Amalek, And all the Cappadocians shall perish, And all the Hittites shall be utterly destroyed. Then shall fail the land of Ham, And all the people shall perish. Then shall all the earth rest from trouble, And all the world under heaven from war. Then the Mighty One of Israel shall glorify Shem, For the Lord God shall appear on earth, And Himself save men. Then shall all the spirits of deceit be given to be trodden under foot, And men shall rule over wicked spirits. Then shall I arise in joy, And will bless the Most High because of his marvellous works, [Because God hath taken a body and eaten with men and saved men]. And now, my children, obey Levi and Judah, and be not lifted up against these two tribes, for from them shall arise unto you the salvation of God. For the Lord shall raise up from Levi as it were a High-priest, and from Judah as it were a King [God and man], He shall save all [the Gentiles and] the race of Israel. Therefore I give you these commands that ye also may command your children that they may observe them throughout their generations.

Testament of Levi 1:13-14: And when thou hast ascended thither, Thou shalt stand near the Lord, And shalt be His minister, And shalt declare His mysteries to men, And shall proclaim concerning Him that shall redeem Israel. And by thee and Judah shall the Lord appear among men Saving every race of men.

2:6: And there shall be given to thee a blessing, and to all thy seed, Until the Lord shall visit all the Gentiles in His tender mercies for ever.

2:10: And He said to me: Levi, I have given thee the blessings of the priesthood until I come and sojourn in the midst of Israel.

3:23-27: And they said to me: Levi, thy seed shall be divided into three offices, for a sign of the glory of the Lord who is to come. And the first portion shall be great; yea, greater than it shall none be. The second shall be in the priesthood. And the third shall be called by a new name, because a king shall arise in Judah, and shall establish a new priesthood, after the fashion of the Gentiles [to all the Gentiles]. And His presence is beloved, as a prophet of the Most High, of the seed of Abraham our father.

3:43-47: Now, therefore, observe whatsoever I command you, children: for whatsoever things I have heard from my fathers I have declared unto you. And behold I am clear from your ungodliness and transgression, which ye shall commit in the end of the ages [against the Saviour of the world, Christ, acting godlessly], deceiving Israel, and stirring up against it great evils from the Lord. And ye shall deal lawlessly together with Israel, so He shall not bear with Jerusalem because of your wickedness; but the veil of the temple shall be rent, so as not to cover your shame. And ye shall be scattered as captives among the Gentiles, and shall be for a reproach and for a curse there. For the house which the Lord shall choose shall be called Jerusalem, as is contained in the book of Enoch the righteous.

3:24-29: And now I have learnt that for seventy weeks ye shall go astray, and profane the priesthood, and pollute the sacrifices. And ye shall make void the law, and set at nought the words of the prophets by evil perverseness. And ye shall persecute righteous men, and hate the godly the words of the faithful shall ye abhor. [And a man who reneweth the law in the power of the Most High, ye shall call a deceiver; and at last ye shall rush (upon him) to slay him, not knowing his dignity, taking innocent blood through wickedness upon your heads.] And your holy places shall be laid waste even to the ground because of him. And ye shall have no place that is clean; but ye shall be among the Gentiles a curse and a dispersion until He shall again visit you and in pity shall receive you [through faith and water].

5:11-29: And in the seventh week shall become priests, (who are) idolaters, adulterers, lovers of money, proud, lawless, lascivious, abusers of children and beasts. And after their punishment shall have come from the Lord, the priesthood shall fail. Then shall the Lord raise up a new priest. And to him all the words of the Lord shall be revealed; And he shall execute a righteous judgement upon the earth for a multitude of days. And his star shall arise in heaven as of a king. Lighting up the light of knowledge as the sun the day, And he shall be magnified in the world. He shall shine forth as the sun on the earth, And shall remove all darkness from under heaven, And there shall be peace in all the earth. The heavens shall exult in his days, And the earth shall be glad, And the clouds shall rejoice, [And the knowledge of the Lord shall be poured forth upon the earth, as the water of the seas; And the angels of the glory of the presence of the Lord shall be glad in him. The heavens shall be opened, And From the temple of glory shall come upon him sanctification, With the Father's voice as from Abraham to Isaac. And the glory of the Most High shall be uttered over him, And the spirit of understanding and sanctification shall rest upon him [in the water]. For he shall give the majesty of the Lord to His sons in truth for evermore; And there shall none succeed him for all generations for ever. And in his priesthood the Gentiles shall be multiplied in knowledge upon the earth, And enlightened through the grace of the Lord: In his priesthood shall sin come to an end, And the lawless shall cease to do evil. [And the just shall rest in him.] And he shall open the gates of paradise, And shall remove the threatening sword against Adam. And he shall give to the saints to eat from the tree of life, And the spirit of holiness shall be on them. And Beliar shall be bound by him, And he shall give power to His children to tread upon the evil spirits. And the Lord shall rejoice in His children, And be well pleased in His beloved ones for ever. Then shall Abraham and Isaac and Jacob exult, And I will be glad, And all the saints shall clothe themselves with joy.

(See Testament of Naphtali 2:24; Testament of Gad 2:17–Salvation for Israel will come from Judah and Levi.)

Testament of Judah 4:11-32: And the Lord shall bring upon them divisions one against another. And there shall be continual wars in Israel; And among men of another race shall my kingdom be brought to an end, Until the salvation of Israel shall come, Until the appearing of the God of righteousness, That Jacob [and all the Gentiles] may rest in peace. And He shall guard the might of my kingdom for ever; For the Lord sware to me with an oath that He would not destroy the kingdom from my seed for ever. Now I have much grief, my children, because of your lewdness and witchcrafts, and idolatries which ye shall practise against the kingdom, following them that have familiar spirits, diviners, and demons of error. Ye shall make your daughters singing girls and harlots, and ye shall mingle in the abominations of the Gentiles. For which things’ sake the Lord shall bring upon you famine and pestilence, death and the sword, beleaguering by enemies, and revilings of friends, the slaughter of children, the rape of wives, the plundering of possessions, the burning of the temple of God,] the laying waste of the land, the enslavement of yourselves among the Gentiles. And they shall make some of you eunuchs for their wives. Until the Lord visit you, when with perfect heart ye repent and walk in all His commandments; and He bring you up from captivity among the Gentiles.
And after these things shall a star arise to you from Jacob in peace, And a man shall arise [from my seed], like the sun of righteousness, walking with the sons of men in meekness and righteousness; And no sin shall be found in him. and the heavens shall be open unto him, To pour out the spirit, (even) the blessing of the Holy Father; And He shall pour out the spirit of grace upon you; And ye shall be unto Him sons in truth, And ye shall walk in His commandments first and last. [This Branch of God Most High, And this Fountain giving life unto all.] Then shall the sceptre of my kingdom shine forth; And from your root shall arise a stem; And from it shall grow a rod of righteousness to the Gentiles, To judge and to save all that call upon the Lord. And after these things shall Abraham and Isaac and Jacob arise unto life, and I and my brethren shall be chiefs of the tribes of Israel: Levi first, I the second, Joseph third, Benjamin fourth, Simeon fifth; Issachar sixth, and so all in order. And the Lord blessed Levi, and the Angel of the Presence, me; the powers of glory, Simeon; the heaven, Reuben; the earth, Issachar; the sea, Zebulun; the mountains, Joseph; the tabernacle, Benjamin; the luminaries, Dan; Eden, Naphtali; the sun, Gad; the moon, Asher. And ye shall be the people of the Lord, and have one tongue; And there shall be there no spirit of deceit of Beliar, For he shall be cast into the fire for ever. And they who have died in grief shall arise in joy, And they who were poor for the Lord’s sake shall be made rich, And they who are put to death for the Lord’s sake shall awake to life. And the harts of Jacob shall run in joyfulness, And the eagles of Israel shall fly in gladness; And all the people shall glorify the Lord for ever.

Testament of Zebulon 2:29-38: And your enemies shall lead you captive, And ye shall be evil entreated among the Gentiles, With many infirmities and tribulations. And after these things ye shall remember the Lord, and repent, [And He shall cause you to return]; for He is merciful and compassionate. And He setteth not down in account evil to the sons of men, because they are flesh, And the spirits of deceit deceive them in all their deeds. And after these things there shall arise unto you the Lord Himself, the light of righteousness, [And healing and compassion shall be in His wings. He shall redeem all the captivity of the sons of men from Beliar; And every spirit of deceit shall be trodden down]; And he shall bring back all the Gentiles into zeal for Him. And ye shall return unto your land. And ye shall see Him in Jerusalem, for His name’s sake. And again through the wickedness of your works shall ye provoke Him to anger, And ye shall be cast away by Him unto the time of consummation.
And now, my children, grieve not that I am dying, nor be cast down in that I am coming to my end. For I shall rise again in the midst of you, as a ruler in the midst of his sons; and I shall rejoice in the midst of my tribe, as many as shall keep the law of the Lord, and the commandments of Zebulun their father. But upon the ungodly shall the Lord bring eternal fire, and destroy them throughout all generations.

Testament of Dan 2: 8-15: Therefore shall ye be led away [with them] into captivity, And there shall ye receive all the plagues of Egypt, And all the evils of the Gentiles. And so when ye return to the Lord ye shall obtain mercy, And He shall bring you into His sanctuary, And He shall give you peace. And there shall arise unto you from the tribe of [Judah and of] Levi the salvation of the Lord; And he shall make war against Beliar. And execute an everlasting vengeance on our enemies; And the captivity shall he take from Beliar [the souls of the saints], And turn disobedient hearts unto the Lord, And give to them that call upon him eternal peace. And the saints shall rest in Eden, And in the New Jerusalem shall the righteous rejoice, And it shall be unto the glory of God for ever. And no longer shall Jerusalem endure desolation, Nor Israel be led captive; For the Lord shall be in the midst of it [living amongst men], And the Holy One of Israel shall reign over it [in humility and in poverty; and he who believeth on Him shall reign amongst men in truth]. And now, fear the Lord, my children, and beware of Satan and his spirits. Draw near unto God and unto the angel that intercedeth for you, for he is a mediator between God and man, and for the peace of Israel he shall stand up against the kingdom of the enemy.

2:19-20: And it shall be in the time of the lawlessness of Israel, that the Lord will not depart from them, but will transform them into a nation that doeth His will, for none of the angels will be equal unto him. And His name shall be in every place in Israel, and among the Gentiles.

Testament of Naphtali 1:30-32: And after ye have become diminished and made few, ye shall return and acknowledge the Lord your God; and He shall bring you back into your land, according to His abundant mercy. And it shall be, that after that they come into the land of their fathers, they shall again forget the Lord and become ungodly. And the Lord shall scatter them upon the face of all the earth, until the compassion of the Lord shall come, a man working righteousness and working mercy unto all them that are afar off, and to them that are near.

Testament of Joseph 2:74-78: And I saw in the midst of the horns a virgin [wearing a many-coloured garment, and from her] went forth a lamb; and on his right (was as it were a lion; and) all the beasts and all the reptiles rushed (against him), and the lamb over came them and destroyed them. And the bulls rejoiced because of him, and the cow [and the harts] exulted together with them. And these things must come to pass in their season. Do ye therefore, my children, observe the commandments of the Lord, and honour Levi and Judah; for from them shall arise unto you [the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world] one who saveth [all the Gentiles and] Israel. For His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, which shall not pass away; but my kingdom among you shall come to an end as a watcher’s hammock, which after the summer disappeareth.

Testament of Benjamin 1:21: In thee shall be fulfilled the prophecy of heaven [concerning the Lamb of God, and Saviour of the world], and that a blameless one shall be delivered up for lawless men, and a sinless one shall die for ungodly men [in the blood of the covenant. for the salvation of the Gentiles and of Israel, and shall destroy Beliar and his servants].

2:4-27: And I believe that there will be also evil-doings among you, from the words of Enoch the righteous: that ye shall commit fornication with the fornication of Sodom, and shall perish, all save a few, and shall renew wanton deeds with women; and the kingdom of the Lord shall not be among, you, for straightway He shall take it away. Nevertheless the temple of God shall be in your portion, and the last (temple) shall be more glorious than the first. And the twelve tribes shall be gathered together there, and all the Gentiles, until the Most High shall send forth His salvation in the visitation of an only begotten prophet. [And He shall enter into the [first] temple, and there shall the Lord be treated with outrage, and He shall be lifted up upon a tree. And the veil of the temple shall be rent, and the Spirit of God shall pass on to the Gentiles as fire poured forth. And He shall ascend from Hades and shall pass from earth into heaven. And I know how lowly He shall be upon earth, and how glorious in heaven.] Now when Joseph was in Egypt, I longed to see his figure and the form of his countenance; and through the prayers of Jacob my father I saw him, while awake in the daytime, even his entire figure exactly as he was. And when he had said these things, he said unto them: Know ye, therefore, my children, that I am dying. Do ye, therefore, truth and righteousness each one to his neighbour, and judgement unto confirmation, and keep the law of the Lord and his commandments. For these things do I leave you instead of inheritance. Do ye also, therefore, give them to your children for an everlasting possession; for so did both Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob. For all these things they gave us for an inheritance, saying: Keep the commandments of God, until the Lord shall reveal His salvation to all Gentiles. And then shall ye see Enoch, Noah, and Shem, and Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, rising on the right hand in gladness. Then shall we also rise, each one over our tribe, worshipping the King of heaven, [who appeared upon earth in the form of a man in humility. And as many as believe on Him on the earth shall rejoice with Him]. Then also all men shall rise, some unto glory and some unto shame. And the Lord shall judge Israel first, for their unrighteousness; [for when He appeared as God in the flesh to deliver them they believed Him not]. And then shall He judge all the Gentiles, [as many as believed Him not when He appeared upon earth]. And He shall convict Israel through the chosen ones of the Gentiles, even as He reproved Esau through the Midianites, who deceived their brethren, [so that they fell into fornication, and idolatry; and they were alienated from God], becoming therefore children in the portion of them that fear the Lord. If ye therefore, my children, walk in holiness according to the commandments of the Lord, ye shall again dwell securely with me, and all Israel shall be gathered unto the Lord. And I shall no longer be called a ravening wolf on account of your ravages, but [a worker of the Lord, distributing food to them that work what is good. And there shall rise up from my seed in the latter times one] beloved of the Lord, [hearing upon the earth His voice] and a doer of the good pleasure of His will, [enlightening with new knowledge all the Gentiles, even the light of knowledge, bursting in upon Israel for salvation and tearing away from them like a wolf, and giving to the synagogue of the Gentiles. Until the consummation of the age shall he be in the synagogues of the Gentiles, and among their rulers, as a strain of music in the mouth of all. And he shall be inscribed in the holy books, both his work and his word, and he shall be a chosen one of God for ever. And through them he shall go to and fro as Jacob my father, saying: He shall fill up that which lacketh of thy tribe].

Will God Stay?

I’ve been thinking a lot about prayer, specifically the issue of why I enjoy it more now than I did several years ago.

I don’t want to go through my entire prayer history here, since I already did so in my post, Me and Prayer. Suffice it to say that my prayer life has taken a variety of forms: dry and satisfying, feeling God and not feeling God, using the Bible and not using the Bible, transformative and ineffective.

I’m trying to identify what made a good prayer time good. At first, I thought it was reading the Bible and commenting on what I read. Before I did that on a regular basis, my quiet times were dead and aimless. But then I remembered: there were times when I had dead, uninspiring quiet times while I was reading Scripture, so I’m not sure if the Bible reading component is what makes a quiet time good, at least not all of the time.

But the deal is this: Right now, I’m not reading the Bible for my daily quiet time. After I finished the Protestant canon, I went on to the deuterocanonical writings, then early Christian writings (e.g., Ignatius, Barnabas, Shepherd of Hermas), then the Koran, and now the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, which I will finish today. My next stop will be the Mishnah. I still read the Bible, however, only not in my daily quiet time. I do a daily Bible reading, and my weekly quiet time goes through a book of the Bible.

In my daily quiet times, there are times when I talk about the text I am reading, but there are many times when I do not. Still, my quiet times are pretty good. I can usually think of something to say, and, when I can’t, I just remain silent in case God wants to tell me something (not that I’m sure he actually does that). I enjoy talking to God about life, movies, shows, personal frustrations, etc. And an hour of prayer usually makes me feel better when I’m in a bad mood.

But I fear that my prayer times will return to the way they were before I used the Bible: dry, seeking inspiration but never quite getting it, hungry, unsatisfying, aimless. What will guarantee that my prayer times will not go in that direction? God? God didn’t seem to be present during my bad quiet times!

Why are my quiet times good now even when I don’t use the Bible, whereas they weren’t as good back then? I’d like to identify the secret ingredient so I can use it and never have a bad quiet time.

Maybe one factor is that I’m a deeper thinker now than I was then. I’ve been reading the Bible and feeding my soul for years, so I have things now upon which I can draw. That wasn’t as true back then.

“God” or some form of inspiration seems to permeate my quiet times right now. How can I be sure that this won’t go away?

Joseph’s Slander

Years ago at Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Pastor Tim Keller was preaching through the story of Joseph. His thesis was that none of its characters is morally good, yet God loves them and fulfills his righteous purposes through them anyway.

Keller said Joseph himself was a spoiled brat. He didn’t use that term, but his interpretation of Genesis 37:2 gave that impression. Genesis 37:2 states that Joseph gave his father an evil report about his brothers, more specifically the sons of Jacob’s maidservants, Bilhah and Zilpah. At first, I thought that meant that Joseph was telling his father something bad that his brothers had actually done. Keller maintained, however, that Joseph was slandering them.

Keller may be right, for the Hebrew word for “report” in Genesis 37:2, dibbah, often means “slander” in the Hebrew Bible (see here). But such a view about Joseph’s act also occurs in the history of interpretation. I’m not going to research every treatment of this story, at least not in this post, but here are two:

1. The Testament of Gad is part of the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, whose history probably extends from the second century B.C.E. to the second century C.E. In Testament of Gad 1, Gad states that he delivered a lamb from the mouth of a bear, and he killed the lamb because it was mangled and in pain. Joseph then told his father that the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah were slaughtering and eating the best of the flock. As a result, Gad hated Joseph. The book is about why hatred is wrong.

2. Genesis Rabbah 84:7 doesn’t really say that Joseph was lying about his brothers, but rather that he was telling his father any evil about them that he could find. Rashi summarizes this rabbinic tradition as follows:

“evil tales about them: Any evil he saw in his brothers, the sons of Leah, he would tell his father: 1) that they ate limbs from living animals, 2) that they demeaned the sons of the handmaids by calling them slaves, and 3) that they were suspected of illicit sexual relationships. For these three [tales] he was punished: For [the report that his brothers ate] limbs from living animals, ‘they slaughtered a kid’ (Gen. 37:31) when they sold him, and did not eat it alive. For the report that he told about them that they called their brothers slaves, ‘Joseph was sold as a slave’ (Ps. 105:17), and concerning the illicit sexual relationships that he told about them, ‘his master’s wife lifted her eyes, etc.’ (Gen. 39:7).” (Source: http://www.chabad.org/.)

According to this passage, God disapproved of Joseph slandering his brothers, so he punished Joseph in a manner that resembled the slander.

James Kugel states in The Bible As It Was that ancient interpreters tried to make certain biblical characters look good. That may be the case with the patriarchs, but we don’t really see it with Joseph, at least not in these two sources.

The Koran

I finished the Koran a few days ago, and here are some reactions. Since the book is so big, I can’t really document every claim that I make with a specific reference, so please don’t put too much stock in what I have to say!

1. The God of the Koran is not as emotional as the God of the Old Testament, and its author does not rhapsodize about the love of God like the apostle Paul. He appears to be a cool, detached judge who wants people to do the right thing. I can’t say that the Koran lacks a God of love because it holds that people should trust him, and you can’t really trust a deity who is not good and loving. Moreover, like Judaism, the Koran appears to advocate a just society, one in which men take care of their divorced wives and help the poor and the vulnerable. I can respect and fear the God of the Koran, but can I love him? I find that difficult, especially since he doesn’t passionately proclaim his love for me.

2. The Koran is really big on the resurrection from the dead, such that it becomes its main topic near the end of the book. Apparently, a lot of people in Muhammad’s day (even the Jews the Koran criticizes) did not believe in the resurrection from the dead. But such a concept is important in the Koran, since one needs to be raised from the dead in order to be judged in the afterlife. And God as judge is perhaps the most salient theme in the book. The Koran rhapsodizes a lot about God’s power in creating the heavens, the earth, and human beings, but its aim in doing so is usually to convey a message of “See, God is powerful, so why do you say he can’t raise the dead?” I like to celebrate God’s majesty as creator, but it’s usually a bummer when that idea leads to God as a judge. I’d much prefer it to lead to God as love, or God as glorious, or God as lover of beauty.

3. I eventually got to the point where I didn’t meditate on my daily reading because it was the same thing that I’d read before: God can raise the dead, so he will judge you in the afterlife. I’m sure that religious people are gasping at this statement, for the last judgment is a very serious thing. Who am I to trivialize it as if I’m merely reviewing a book or a movie? That’s a legitimate criticism, and I should remember to take seriously the religions that I study. Still, while I acknowledge that judgment is good because there are unjust people in the world who need to be punished, I have problems with a God who scrutinizes everything I do. I think I arrived at the point where I acknowledged that I’m just not perfect, and I don’t beat up on myself every day on account of that. At the same time, the Koran’s path to salvation looks fairly manageable: do your devotions to God and help other people. Then, at the last judgment, God will weigh your good deeds and your bad deeds (as in Judaism) to determine if you go to a nice, pleasant afterlife (with good drinks and virgins, though I didn’t see the number seventy) or an ever-burning hell (which is paradoxically hot and cold).

4. God sends prophets to turn people from sin, but I can tell that Muhammad got pretty frustrated with people’s rejection of his message. At some points, God tells him to preach the word and not worry about other people’s reactions, something we also encounter in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Near the end of the book, there’s a recognition by Muhammad that he really can’t change the hardened sinner. And the subject of hardening appears throughout the Koran, which affirms that those who reject God’s message are only setting themselves up for further spiritual darkness. It’s kind of like many Christians’ portrayal of the Pharaoh of the Exodus (whom the Koran also sites as an example): he hardened his own heart by rejecting God’s message, so God sealed his hard heart and made it a permanent condition. That doesn’t entirely resonate with me, since I prefer a God who never gives up on anyone. But we see that sort of idea in the Bible (Isaiah 6; Jesus’ parables obscuring the truth; Hebrews’ statements about Christians who turn their back on Christ).

At the same time, when God hardens certain people’s hearts in the Bible, he often seems to have a beneficent end in mind. God hardened Israel and thereby enabled her destruction and exile, but maybe she needed that turmoil to become spiritually pure. Sure, she could have offered God a shallow and superficial apology accompanied by a short-lived reformation, as she did during the time of Josiah, but what good would that have done? She may have needed to be left in her sins so she could receive chastisement and become more spiritually fit for God’s purposes. Moreover, in Romans 11, Paul says that Israel’s temporary hardening will lead to the salvation of the Gentiles and ultimately herself.

5. The Koran’s interaction with the Bible and rabbinic traditions is interesting (to say the least). At some points, there is significant overlap, as when the Koran refers to God’s tests of Abraham (a midrashic theme) and makes statements that evoke Jesus’ parable of Lazarus and Dives (Luke 16:19ff.). At other times, its knowledge of the Bible appears rather skewed or indirect, as when it places Haman in the time of the Exodus. A colleague of mine speculates that Muhammad heard these stories from travelling caravans, which sometimes conveyed the Bible and rabbinic stories accurately, and sometimes did not.

Muslims who believe the Koran is inerrant have their answers, as Christian fundamentalists do for those who talk about the “errors” in the Bible. Some say that the Haman of the Exodus was not the same as the Haman in Esther, and others assert that the Book of Esther is just plain wrong about when it places Haman.

6. Like Romans 1, the Koran maintains that God’s creation and sustenance of the cosmos is evidence that he is the one true God. Those who reject Allah by worshipping idols, therefore, are rejecting God’s clear signs. Muhammad was probably speaking to people who believed in Allah and saw him as the creator, but they also worshipped idols.

But there are other signs: Muslim victory in battle, the Koran, etc. At one point, the author asks people to produce a sura if they think the Koran is simply of human origin. In these days, I don’t think that would be too hard, since there are a lot of literate people who can produce beautiful compositions. But was that as true back then? I don’t know. The author of the Koran made that argument for some reason!

Was God involved in the foundation of Islam? I don’t know. Near the end of the book, there’s a story about how certain warriors were uniting to destroy the Caba, and God sent down birds to defeat them (or so said the footnote). The Muslims had a miraculous victory! Should I give that account any credence? On one hand, it is probably proximate to the time of the battle, so I have a problem blowing it off completely, since people may not write something that is so blatantly untrue to their contemporaries. On the other hand, there are also medieval stories with miraculous elements, which historians don’t take all that seriously.

7. There are several chapters on war, which is presented as self-defense, or as the spread of social justice. The Koran really stigmatizes Muslims who don’t go out to fight God’s battles. We also see that sort of thing in the Bible, as when the Song of Deborah criticizes those who didn’t fight with their fellow Israelites (Judges 5). At the same time, Deuteronomy 20:8 allows those who are afraid to sit out of the war. In this case, the Bible seems to be more understanding of human foibles than the Koran. Usually, it’s the other way around, since the New Testament strictly prohibits divorce, whereas the Koran allows it, provided the man take care of his ex-wife.

8. The Koran’s depiction of Satan is interesting. According to the Koran, Satan was an angel named Iblis, who refused to bow down to Adam when God commanded all the angels to do so. A Harvard colleague of mine said a while back that Iblis was passionate for the glory of God and didn’t want to compromise that by worshipping a human being. But that’s not what I see in the Koran. Rather, Iblis thinks he (Iblis) is superior to Adam, since he is made of fire, whereas Adam is made of dirt. After his fall, Iblis aims to be a stumbling-block in the path of human beings. While people may worship Satan and his jinns in the here-and-now, the Koran maintains, these spirit beings will act like they don’t even know their worshippers at the last judgment. At the last judgment, it will be every man (and spirit) for himself, so we’d might as well trust God and not evil spirits who will ditch us!

9. I didn’t find a lot of wisdom in the Koran: how to live a successful, happy, and righteous life and overcome your sinful passions. I encounter more of this in other writings, since the Bible has wisdom literature, and rabbinic midrashim present Torah study as a cure for man’s sinfulness. But the Koran doesn’t seem to do this as much, for its message is “Be righteous, or else.” It tells you to go somewhere, but it doesn’t offer much guidance on how to get there. But I could be wrong on this, since more readings of the same book can easily produce a different impression.

Keep Coming Back

I went to a couple of AA meetings this evening, and someone said something that I had heard before, but it stuck out to me this time around. He said that he was upset with AA a long time ago, but his higher power arranged things so that he heard something at each meeting that made him want to come back.

But do all people hear something interesting or profound at meetings that makes them want to come back? No, according to a woman at the same meeting. She said that she stopped going to meetings for a while because she was bored with them. “I got sick of hearing the same old thing, over and over,” she remarked. Then why was she at this meeting? Because she felt she needed meetings to keep sober. When she was using, she wasn’t holding down a job. When she came to AA meetings and made a commitment to keep sober, her life was better. Certainly she could put up with some boredom for that!

All of this resonated with me because of one of my insomniac quiet times last night. An insomniac quiet time is when I can’t sleep and pray to God for an hour. I usually go into the prayer time with discontent, anger, and inner turmoil, and I come out of it in a state of serenity and inner peace–the sort of mindset that helps me get to sleep!

One of my topics in last night’s prayer was why I go to church. Do I do so because I like it? Is it a matter of forcing myself to go? Is it a little of both?

There have been times when I have literally forced myself to go to church. When I was in New York, I made myself go to a particular place for four solid months. I felt like an outsider during the “passing the peace” part of the service (which was more than just shaking hands–it was practically a party!). And, while the sermons were artful in deriving practical applications from some of the most obscure sections of the Torah, they really didn’t feed me that much. Usually, they amounted to “mush, mush, mush–support the work!,” or they emphasized the cozy topic of fire and brimstone. The preacher was humorous, but I concluded that I wasn’t getting much out of that particular church.

For a while, I felt guilty because I wasn’t attending church every week. I felt pretty rootless as I was searching for churches! I just wasn’t feeling “fed” at a lot of the Adventist places that I was visiting. So there were some Sabbaths in which I didn’t attend church at all, and I felt as if I was displeasing to God. Plus, my weekends were pretty empty without church!

Eventually, I found the New York Metro Adventist Forum and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. The institutions were radically different from each other–one was liberal, and the other was pretty conservative–but both of them supplemented each other and fed me spiritually. Every week at the Forum, we discussed an interesting topic, and I also valued the fellowship, since these were open people (their political liberalism notwithstanding). At Redeemer, I enjoyed the way that Tim Keller tied the Bible to God’s love in Christ. I felt like I learned something every week at both churches!

When I moved to Cincinnati, I wasn’t eager to look for another church, so I didn’t go for three years. I visited some, but they usually bored me. Then I discovered the Latin mass near my apartment. I didn’t really like the priest’s sermons the first few times, since they sounded so dry and legalistic. But I came to enjoy his interaction with the church fathers, philosophy, Aquinas, Catholic eschatology, etc., etc. I feel as if I’d miss something by not going to those services, and that’s what motivates me to get out of bed on Sunday mornings!

Sure, there have been times when I’ve gotten up half-asleep, gone to church, and found that my favorite priest is not the one speaking. But I still sit through the homily because there’s always a chance that I’ll get something out of it. I usually want to give a service a chance rather than walking out because it’s not exactly what I anticipated.

I don’t really force myself to go to church anymore. I go because there’s always a possibility that I will get something out of it, and that I will be missing something by not going. Is this enough to sustain my church attendance over a long period of time. I don’t know. It helps me now.

America, Christianity’s Nutritional Value

Here are a few thoughts, before I go outside to enjoy this beautiful day:

1. I watched America last night. You know, there are some settings in which I actually like Rosie O’Donnell. I couldn’t stand her on the View or her own show, particularly the one in which she was grilling Tom Selleck for being a member of the NRA (heaven forbid!). That just screamed “self-righteous liberal”! But, on the movie last night, she was caring, humble, serious yet hip, patient in the midst of rejection, eager to listen. People called her “Dr. B.” She reminded me of a lesbian teacher I once had, who helped me overcome a learning disability when I was a child. And Rosie cares about the issue of foster care, since she has adopted a number of kids.

Rubie Dee was also on it. I mentioned her in my post, Queen vs. Roots: The Next Generation, but I wasn’t entirely sure who she was. Actually, she’s Mother Abigail in the Stand, a 1990′s miniseries based on Stephen King’s novel. “Folks around these parts call me Mother Abigail…” To be honest, I can’t recall ever seeing her play a young person. In all of the movies in which I’ve seen her, she plays an old lady: Queen in Roots: The Next Generation (which was in 1977!), Mother Abigail, Miss Harvey in America. She did a good job in her role last night, playing the sweet old lady who raised America.

I taped over the movie this morning, since I probably won’t watch it again. It was good, but there are good movies, and there are keepers. America reminded me too much of Antwone Fisher!

2. I was thinking of something my Aunt C. wrote under my post, Goodness: “Helping innocent children find hope (in Christ) in spite of their situations is something the government can’t do. Relying on the government to fix the problem is like eating potato chips. Might fill you up, but no nutritional value.”

Although Barack Obama and Aunt C. would probably disagree on a number of issues, he can see the same point. He states in Audacity of Hope: “…I also believe that when a gangbanger shoots indiscriminately into a crowd because he feels somebody disrespected him, we have a problem of morality. Not only do we need to punish that man for his crime, but we need to acknowledge that there’s a hole in his heart, one that government programs alone may not be able to repair” (215).

This morning at church, the priest was talking about Lent, saying that we give up certain things so we can learn to hunger after God. I wonder what exactly there is about God that I should hunger after? What about Christianity can fill me up and give me nutritional value?

Is it the belief that God is powerful? I don’t want to offend my Muslim reader, but that doesn’t always fill me up. The message that recurs over and over in my reading of the Koran is, “Do good, or the all mighty God will judge you harshly and throw you into hell” (my paraphrase). There are times when the Koran inspires me, as when it describes God’s power and glory in creating the heavens and the earth. But that doesn’t really fill me up at a deep, personal level.

Is it God’s love, or the hope of an afterlife, or the belief that things in this life will turn out all right, or the sense of purpose that accompanies Christianity, or the actual activity of doing good to others? What is it about God or Christianity that can nourish us?

A while back, I read a book called Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment, by Phil Zuckerman. Zuckerman’s thesis was that people can be happy without religion, since there’s plenty of contentment in the secularist nations of Sweden and Denmark. The secularists there are not necessarily hostile to religion: they just don’t think about it all that often! They cope Stoically in the face of death and other adversities, and they are happy because of their friends and a political structure that guarantees them financial security.

Zuckerman’s book is valuable because it shows that nations without a firm religious belief are not necessarily moral cesspools, and that not everyone on the face of the earth asks religious questions about God, the meaning of life, and their place in the universe. Many are just content to plug through their day-to-day lives, thank you very much!

But I wonder something: Is the picture that Zuckerman presents an ideal that we should desire? Isn’t it shallow not to care about God and life’s meaning–to search for something deeper in life? Sweden and Denmark are probably not totally like the society in Brave New World, in which people go on their happy way, enjoying pleasures and medicating their pain with soma. But that’s the picture that enters my mind when I think about Zuckerman’s thesis, notwithstanding my realization that everyone encounters problems in life, even those in Sweden and Denmark.

I think about something I heard Lee Strobel say on the Bible Answer Man a couple of years ago, as he discussed a book that he and his wife wrote about their marriage. Basically, Lee’s wife became a Christian before Lee did. Lee remarked that their lives and their marriages were not bad before their conversion, but they were incomplete. He compared the situation to the difference between black-and-white and color television. In his eyes, there’s something richer that religion can add to one’s life. I wonder what it is.

Any thoughts and musings?