Noting Now: Bible

Showing posts with label Bible. Show all posts

Monday, November 4, 2013

supple

My first big girl Bible was a pale pink Precious Moments NIV softcover. I'm pretty sure I drew ballerinas on the inside cover and doodled my name and a few verses in colorful marker. I faithfully studied my memory verses for Sunday school. I could sing all sixty-six books to a catchy tune by age three, I'm told.

As a tween (we didn't have that word yet then, but still), my parents gave me a thick, brown leather Spirit Filled Life Bible. That was my Bible all through high school. I carried it to school, camp, conventions, and church. I wrote enthusiastic, sincere notes in the margins, followed by exclamation points. I highlighted favorite passages, and then underlined them when I came across them again. (The highest grade I ever received for a college course was a 98, for The Bible as Literature. I attribute that to my time of intense study as a teenager.) By the time my senior year of high school was coming to a close, the spine of this Bible was broken and chunks of pages would fall out easily.

Next came a navy blue slimline New King James Version, given to me upon my high school graduation by my pastors on May 20, 2001, with the inscription may the Lord bless you and keep you scrawled in the front. It's not falling apart, and the notes are a bit quiet, followed by more question marks than exclamation points. This is the Bible with which I've struggled. Its supple leather cover remains intact; I've been the one in pieces.

I can mark the seasons of my life by these books. I keep them all, but I think I'd like to get another one soon.

For the new season.

Monday, March 25, 2013

skipping ahead, for now

As you might imagine, I'm getting pretty behind on my Lent Bible-reading adventure thingy. I'm just up to Ezekiel, should have finished Luke yesterday (and trust me, I really wish I was in the New Testament already.) Realistically, I don't see how I can catch up in six days, so I'm going to skip ahead to the Gospels and focus on those this week, then return to my good friend Ezekiel and 'dem bones (tangent: that was almost Nicky's name, because I thought Zeke would be the cutest nickname ever, but when he was born he looked more like a Nicolas) next week and finish up from there. I really want to keep blogging about it too, but it may be a little slower than before. This whole night shift thing is taking its toll, and in my spare time I like to do things like sit on the couch and stare off into space (and occasionally other stuff like tickle my kids and make food.) And, to be honest, I don't want to spend Holy Week with the Minor Prophets (sorry, Minor Prophets, but I need some Jesus, fast, or I might call the whole thing off.)

So for now, it's on to Matthew. Happy almost Easter :)

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Reading the Bible for Lent: Psalms

Psalm 3. A Psalm of David. When he fled from his son Absalom.

LORD, how many are my foes! How many rise up against me! Many are saying of me, "God will not deliver him."

But you, LORD, are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high. I call out to the LORD, and he answers me from His holy mountain.

I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the LORD sustains me. I will not fear though tens of thousands assail me on every side.

Arise, LORD! Deliver me, my God! Strike all my enemies on the jaw; break the teeth of the wicked.

From the LORD comes deliverance. May your blessing be upon your people.

In all the years I've been in a relationship with the Bible, I've often turned to the Psalms for comfort. The words are so beautifully put together, and some so familiar that when I read them, it's like coming across an old friend.

I lift my eyes up to the mountains, where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the maker of heaven and earth. (Psalm 121)

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. (Psalm 23)

I waited patiently for the LORD, he inclined and heard my cry. (Psalm 40)

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. (Psalm 91)

and this one:

you, LORD, are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high.

Arguably, some of the most beautiful poetry ever written is contained in the Psalms.

But as anyone who has read them knows, the Psalms are not just a collection of beautiful words. They are a collection of the words of David. Sometimes I get frustrated by all that David in the text.

(Seriously, David, I'm trying to get some comfort here, trying to read some beautiful old words and you have to come along and ruin my morning with your violent Tony Soprano fantasies.)

What I used to do was just ignore the parts I didn't like, or just employ a little snark to balance them out. I had no use for them; I have no enemies whose heads I wish to dash against a rock.

Of course, he was a man of his time, with his own cultural constraints. If someone was chasing me down I'd probably be praying for some protection too.

I've been looking for the humanity in the Bible, and it's opened up a new richness in the text that I didn't see before. Now, I appreciate seeing all that David in the text. It's the human condition--we are capable of such beauty, such poetry....and also such violence and anger.

David spent so much of his time fleeing from people. He grew up in the country, tending sheep and writing songs, and was thrust into the public eye at a young age. He loved God and wanted to please Him, but messed up over and over. I look at his story and wonder if he missed the simplicity of his early days. I wonder, in his later years, how often he picked up the harp.

The lesson here for me is this: we're all David. Living in different times, with different ways of solving problems, but with the same fundamental problems of the human heart. Poetry and violence all mixed together, longing for communion with God.

The Bible is so much more interesting with the humanity left in. Maddening too, just as my own humanity is to me at times.

Monday, March 18, 2013

Reading the Bible for Lent: Job

This may come as a surprise, but I've come to love the book of Job. It validates the feelings of anyone who has ever suffered and wondered. There's something comforting about finding out that many of your deepest, darkest questions are contained in a book written thousands of years ago; that people were scratching their heads about the same things back then.

The book addresses many of the fundamental questions of the human experience. Why do people suffer? Why some and not others? How should we respond when tragedy falls? And the big one: why do bad things happen to good people?

The book reads like theater, so that's how I like to imagine it. The characters appear, and say their pieces, and an invisible narrator gives insight from a chair in the shadows, to the side of the stage. All the while, an uncomfortable tension hangs in the air, and we're all sitting in the audience biting our fingernails, hearing our internal conflicts voiced by the self-assured, the wounded, the pitiful, the glib, knowing they're getting to a deeper truth about the human condition that we'd rather not dwell on too much. Eerie echos of Ecclesiastes show up in Job's words, or maybe it's the other way around: is everything meaningless, are we chasing after the wind, do we simply work and go to our graves and then.......cease? What can we know? We begin with assurances and end with a big question mark, and the audience shuffles out, unsatisfied. I'll explain why I think that in a bit, but first here's the rundown:

The Characters:

Job: a "blameless, upright man who fears God and shuns evil" (1:1)
Job's children: seven sons and three daughters
The Adversary/Satan ("the adversary" is the literal translation)
The LORD
Job's wife
Job's three friends: Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar
Elihu: a friend of Job who shows up later in the text

The Events:

Job is blameless, wealthy, and pious: so much so that he offers sacrifices on behalf of his children in case they sin.
The Adversary goes before the LORD. The initial reason for his visit isn't clear, but for some reason the LORD asks him if he's considered Job, and describes him to The Adversary, offering him as an example of righteousness. This is the first puzzling moment of the book (why did the LORD offer him up?) but there are plenty more to come. The Adversary responds that Job only worships the LORD because his life is good; if harm comes to him then surely he would curse the LORD. The LORD gives The Adversary permission to do whatever he wants to Job's family and possessions, but not to touch Job. Essentially, this is a bet, with a human plaything.
Job's sons, daughters, and livestock are all killed in one day.
Job hears of his great loss, falls to the ground and utters these admirable words: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD" (1:21). Then we're told, "in all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong."
Unsatisfied, The Adversary returns to the LORD. He argues that Job wouldn't remain faithful if his own health was affected. So, the LORD gives The Adversary permission to afflict Job, with the condition that he spare Job's life.
Job gets "painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head", and again responds in a admirable fashion when his incredulous wife (who, interestingly, is also spared) suggests he should just "curse God and die". He responds: "Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?" (2:10) And again, we are told that Job does not sin with his lips.

Job's three friends come to him, and sit with him in his sorrow. They sit and say nothing for seven days and nights. (I really love this detail.)
Job starts to talk. He wishes he hadn't been born. He utters poetry; one can imagine his weak gravelly voice raising in sorrow, in shock.
Job's friends start to talk too. Eliphaz goes first, and tiptoes around the idea that Job must have some un-repented sin in his life to have such calamity fall on him. He asks: do the innocent perish? don't those who sow trouble reap it? can a mortal be more righteous than God? He encourages Job to seek the LORD's forgiveness: "Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects; Therefore do not despise the chastening of the Almighty. For He bruises, but He binds up. He wounds, but His hands make whole" (5:17-18). Bildad follows suit, insisting that Job must need to repent. "If you were pure and upright, surely now He would awake for you", he says (8:6). Repent, and the LORD will restore you, he promises.
Job doesn't accept the premise on which his friends are operating: essentially that good things happen to the righteous and bad things happen to the unrepentant. He insists he's innocent, over and over. We see a shift in Job's tone. Remember how earlier the narrator says Job didn't charge God with wrong? He does now, in no uncertain terms:

6:4 For the arrows of the Almighty are within me; My spirit drinks in their poison; The terrors of God are arrayed against me.
7:11 Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
7:20-21 Have I sinned? What have I done to You, O watcher of men? Why have you set me as your target, so that I am a burden to myself?
9:16-19 If I called and He answered me, I would not believe that He was listening to my voice. For He crushes me with a tempest, and multiplies my wounds without cause. He will not allow me to catch my breath, but fills me with bitterness. If it is a matter of strength, indeed He is strong. And if of justice, who will appoint my day in court?

That last line hits me like a punch in the stomach. Yes, the LORD is powerful, Job says. His friends have been emphasizing this point, and Job agrees with them. But, he wonders, and this is probably the biggest question of the book: is justice possible?
The idea of a court meeting emerges, and the themes of justice and power come into play. Job wonders how he could approach the LORD without a mediator. He's powerless, and suffering, and oh so aware of the LORD's powers and yet insists he would plead his case before Him. But....how? This is a cry for a Messiah, a wish for a way to approach this LORD who punishes, in this case, to simply prove a point. In chapter ten, Job begins to describe all that he would like to say to the LORD, if he could. He wonders why the LORD would fashion his body only to destroy it. He's wrestling here with whether the LORD is truly good or not. We see a cadence in the text: these are your attributes, show yourself to be good/ but this is what you've done, it doesn't make sense/these are your attributes, show yourself to be good. Back and forth, forth and back. Surely, surely. This is faith: the insistence that something else is going on, something we don't understand.
Zophar responds, again urging repentance. He introduces another theme: we can't understand everything. He asks, "Can you search out the deep things of God? Can you find the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than heaven--what can you do? Deeper than Sheol--what can you know?" (11:7-8). What can you do, what can you know?

And so it goes on. Job acknowledges the mysteries of the universe, the unknowable things of God. He says, I know, but then he asks why again. The cadence continues in rich and descriptive poetry. In chapter thirteen, we see Job come to a stubborn new conclusion (I love how this book shows us his process, his wondering): "Though he slay me, yet I will trust Him. Even so, I will defend my own ways before Him" (13:15). He's not giving up on his faith in the LORD, but he's not admitting to things he hasn't done either, which is baffling to his friends. And so the questions continue, chapter after chapter.
Elihu enters the scene. He's more harsh with Job than the other three friends, who suggest Job needs to repent in a much more gentle manner. Elihu lays it out bluntly: "What man is like Job, who drinks scorn like water, who goes in company with the workers of iniquity, and walks with wicked men? For he has said, 'It profits a man nothing that he should delight in God'." Job is messing with the beloved ideal that if you follow the law and do right, God will bless you, and Elihu doesn't like it one bit. Because, let's face it: if you have to let go of that ideal, life has a lot less certainty, and you have to face your fears. But this is what Job has managed to do. He's looking his fears in the face, and yet not letting go of his faith.
Finally, the LORD responds to Job "out of the whirlwind, and [says]: 'Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me" (38:1). I really recommend reading chapters 38 and 39; there's just no way I can do them justice here. The LORD asks Job question after question, like: by what way is light diffused, or the east wind scattered over the earth? Does the hawk fly by your wisdom, and spread its wings toward the south? And the grand finale: Shall the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him? He who rebukes God, let him answer it. Boom.
The LORD is sounding a lot like Job's friends here. Job answers, meekly, that he is vile and cannot answer. "I lay my hand over my mouth. Once I have spoken, but I will not answer. Yes, twice, but I will proceed no further." (40:4-5) Then, the LORD goes on to question Job some more.
Then, something happens that is kind of shocking. Job repents.

I know that You can do everything,

And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You

You asked, 'Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?'

Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,

Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.

Listen, please, and let me speak;

You said, 'I will question you, and you will answer Me.'

I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear,

But now my eye sees You.

Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. (42:1-6)

Then, another surprising thing happens: the LORD rebukes Job's friends! He tells them "you have not spoken of Me what is right, as my servant Job has" (42:7) and commands them to offer up sacrifices and have Job pray for them.
As the book closes, we learn that the LORD gives Job twice as much as what he had before. He gains more livestock than he lost, and again has seven sons and three daughters. He lives to see them grow and have grandchildren. So Job died, old and full of days. The curtain falls, the actors take a bow.

So we in the audience, what lessons do we take home? Are we meant to? The LORD answers Job's questions with more questions, and Job finds a strange comfort in this.

............................................................

I don't find much comfort in the LORD's response; if anything He's even less approachable after His tirade of questions. And to be honest, the hasty happy ending feels contrived and empty. Nevertheless, I find a sacred space between the lines (and I'm finding, as I make my way through the Old Testament, that's often where the sacred space exists.)

Here's my comfort: this book is not the last word on God's character. It is a wondering, a question mark, a universal throwing up of the hands. I see this book as an amazing product of the imagination, a historical treasure, and an incredibly brave statement about how much we don't know. Is it to be taken literally? Are we the playthings of heavenly beings, bound to suffer and then grovel in the dirt when we have the courage to ask why?

That sacred space between the lines whispers no, no, no. Imagine we're living alongside Job. It will be a long time before we meet the God who weeps with us, who bleeds for us. We don't even know He's there yet, and so we cower before this tyrant of our imagination. There's so much we can't explain. We see hints of mercy, but who dares to believe it? Who would ever believe it was Him, unless He showed us?

I've heard plenty of sermons about Job: how it's a lesson to praise God in all circumstances, how God rewards the faithful, how God is God and we are not.....the thing is, I don't think that's what this book is about at all.

When you turn poetry into a formula, you kill it. We used to say jokingly, leave a little room for the Holy Spirit and tsk-tsk about sitting too close in church or slow-dancing at the prom, but isn't that just a good motto for life? Leave a little room for the Holy Spirit; leave the poetry to speak to us as it will. We may hear different things; we carry different burdens to the cross.

This book is a collective wondering; it asks the questions that were bound to come up eventually and have never yet gone away. And I suspect that, like all good art, it's supposed to make us feel something more than it's supposed to make us able to explain something.

When you're hurting, I mean really low, do you want someone to give you a chipper, trite answer or do you want someone to sit with you in your sorrow? Do you want to know why? Absolutely. Will any answer ever really satisfy your grief? No.

Sometimes, poetry is the best we have to offer, because despite what we know or think we know, we still wonder all the time. Even the staunchest fundamentalist wonders, in his or her moments of solitude. Job's friends seem afraid to admit any doubt at all, and so they channel that fear into certainty, while Job asks the deepest questions of his heart and freely admits his fear. That is why I love the book of Job. It is poetry in response to human suffering, and poetry is where I hear Him.

Friday, March 15, 2013

Reading the Bible for Lent: Esther

Instead of writing about Esther myself, I'd like to link to a great series on the book: Rachel Held Evans' Esther Actually. I learned quite a lot reading it--about the historical context, details I never noticed before, and the feast of Purim which commemorates Esther's bravery. Esther is a fascinating book. Here's an excerpt from one of the posts in the series, but really, read the whole thing; it's worth it.

As we discussed last week, the book of Esther is a diaspora story. It is meant to help the scattered Jewish people come to terms with their identity and their faith when they are in exile, when they no longer have an independent homeland or temple. What does it mean to be Jewish--to be the people of Yahweh--when the Jews are being ruled by violent, opulant, and godless pagan kings? Is God still on the throne when the fate of his chosen people seems left to the whims of kings like Xerxes? How are the powerless to respond to power?

This, I believe, is why we encounter that strange juxtaposition between darkness and comedy in the book of Esther, and why, perhaps, we never read God’s name. Power, the author seems to be saying, is ultimately an illusion. Beneath the golden chairs and packed harems and drunken parties and patriarchal edicts are a bunch of sinful, insecure, and weak people...people whose attempts to puff themselves up only make them look silly.

In fact, you will notice that those with the most power in the story are the ones who behave with the most weakness. Not once in the story of Esther, for example, does Xerxes actually make a decision on his own. He is coaxed and coddled by his advisors, by his eunuchs, by Haman, and ultimately by Esther. Major decisions in Persia are made not after prayer and fasting, but on whims, in response to petty personal sleights, by the of casting lots. It is an empty, foolish power.

This would all be terribly frightening were it not for the quiet, and at times hidden, hand of God, working all things together for good. I suspect that this is why the Jews dress up in costume, feast, celebrate, and laugh in response to a story about their near destruction as a people.

They laugh because they are in on the secret: that they serve a God who uses indentured eunuchs to change the course of history, orphan girls to reverse the decisions of kings, and rebellious pagan queens to put it all in motion.

They laugh because they know earthly power - be it patriarchy or the Persian Empire - is just a big show. In the end, it is God who uses the weak to humble the powerful. It is God who makes all things new.

Reading the Bible for Lent: Ezra & Nehemiah

After Cyrus the Great overthrows Babylon in 539 BC, making it part of his enormous empire, he decrees that captives there may return to their native lands. This of course includes the Jews, and some of them make the trek back to Jerusalem and begin the process of rebuilding the temple there. There's a tender scene as the people gather to lay the foundation of the temple:

When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, the priests stood in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the LORD, according to the ordinance of David king of Israel. And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the LORD.

"For He is good, For His mercy endures forever toward Israel."

Then, all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and heads of the father's houses, old men who had seen the first temple, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this temple was laid before their eyes. Yet many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people, for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the sound was heard afar off. (3:11-13, emphasis mine)

The process is halted until the reign of King Darius of Persia, and the rebuilding is resumed. Ezra is a priest and scribe living in Babylon under the reign of King Artaxerxes, and a direct descendant of Aaron (7:5) who returns to Jerusalem to oversee civil and religious matters there. We read that he has "prepared his heart to seek the Law of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel" (7:10). He's there to clean house, so to speak. He urges the importance of exclusivity after learning that the "people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the people of the lands"; they've been intermarrying with them. Ezra is devastated (see 9:3-15), and wonders how Israel can be blessed when they've violated the LORD's specific instructions to remain separate. The people weep and confess, and then they make a covenant to "put away all these wives and those who have been born to them" (10:3). And so they do (I have to say, "those who had been born to them" sounds a bit more cold than "their children". Can you imagine?) This is how the book ends. It's sort of an in-between time for Israel, so it seems fitting that the book ends without any real resolution.

Nehemiah is a cupbearer to King Artaxerxes, and is also allowed to return to Jerusalem to help build the walls surrounding Jerusalem, after he tells the king about the state of things there. The temple had been rebuilt at this point, but the city's walls are in a state of ruin (Nehemiah 2:13) and the people can't defend themselves effectively from outside attackers.

Nehemiah reminds me a little of Joshua: he's charismatic and good at stirring up the people to action. He encourages the people as they rebuild the wall, even as they have to fight off attackers while building (see 4:18-22). Persevering against opposition is a recurring theme in the book; amazingly, they rebuild the walls in just 52 days.

The rebuilding of the wall is a motif, or backdrop, for Nehemiah's work of setting things to right. He works for justice and a return to the Law. Underneath all this work is the same idea and longing that's been present all along in the Old Testament: if we do right, if we return to the LORD, He will bless us again.

In chapter eight, Ezra reads to the people from the books of the Law, and they gain a better knowledge of it because it's explained to them by Ezra and others who understand it. The people weep, and Nehemiah tells them "Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet, and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not sorrow, for the joy of the LORD is your strength." (8:10)

After this celebration the people repent, perceiving their history a little differently in light of reading the books of the law and considering how they've strayed from it over time. There's a nostalgia to it, although our reading so far demonstrates that the glory days never really existed. Nevertheless, I get. It's what we humans do. We mess up and hope for better, and set up impossible standards to try and avoid ever messing up again.

I wonder why we're so stubborn about that. One of the reasons I can't look away from Jesus is that I don't think humans could have conceived of grace on our own. Law, consequence, punishment, cause-and-effect: we get those things. That's our default.

The people dedicate the wall, and "separate all the mixed multitude from Israel", and Nehemiah leaves for a season. When he returns, the people have begun to break the laws again: breaking the Sabbath, ignoring temple laws and intermingling with foreigners. As the book comes to a close, Nehemiah is once again setting things to right, reforming.

There's a great hopefulness to these books, and a great sadness. Both end without resolution. The ever-present question is echoed here too, into the void: can we ever be good enough? Energy, building up, loss, rubble, sackcloth, repentance, understanding, energy, building up, loss, rubble.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Reading the Bible for Lent: Kings and Chronicles

I'm feeling like my posts are starting to resemble book reports, so for this one, I thought I might just share a list of interesting bits of story, anecdotes, and details I found while making my way through the books of Kings and Chronicles.

First, here's how the handy notes in my Bible describe these books:

First and second Kings are the history of the monarch from Solomon to the Exile. Solomon's glory, the building of the temple, the division of the kingdom, the destruction of the two kingdoms, and the rise of prophecy (Elijah and Elisha) are important themes in these books. Faithfulness to God is described in social and political terms as well as religious.

First and second Chronicles were written after the destruction of Jerusalem to try and answer the question "Why did God choose to punish his people in such a way?" The answer is found in history. God's people were unfaithful and what happened in social and political history is an expression of God's judgement on an unfaithful people.

The Reign of Solomon

While David's reign was characterized by war, Solomon's was characterized by peace and prosperity: "Judah and Israel dwelt safely, each man under his vine and his fig tree, from Dan as far as Beersheba, all the days of Solomon." (1 King 4:25)
It took Solomon seven years to build the temple (the one that David envisioned) and thirteen years to build his palace.
Solomon's famous for being wise. In 1 Kings 3:9 he asks the LORD for wisdom, and in 4:29 we learn that "God gave Solomon wisdom and exceedingly great understanding, and largeness of heart like the sand on the seashore."
Remember the story of the two women and the dead baby? (See 1 Kings 3:16-28 if not, it's a classic.) I never realized these two women were prostitutes.
One of Solomon's wives was the Pharaoh of Egypt's daughter. She had her own personal palace.
Speaking of which, Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines (seriously, who has the time?). This is pretty much his Achilles' heel. We're told his wives "turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the LORD his God, as was the heart of his father David." (1 Kings 11) So the LORD raises up adversaries against him.
Solomon reigns forty years, and his son Rehoboam succeeds him.

Ahab, Jezebel, and Elijah

Ahab becomes king of Israel, marries Jezebel (an archetypal evil queen without a single redeeming quality) and "does more to provoke God to anger than all the kings of Israel before him." (1 Kings 16:33) Ahab and Jezebel worship Baal, and Jezebel is making prophet-killing her own personal hobby. Remaining prophets, we're told, are hiding in caves.
Elijah is one of those prophets you can imagine to be scraggly, wind-worn and a bit wild. He stands up to Ahab and Jezebel in a bold way, challenging their high priests to a showdown on Mt. Carmel. This was my absolute favorite Old Testament story as a child. It's found in 1 Kings 18 and 19.
After Elijah's victory on Mt. Carmel, he's despondent and alone, hiding in a cave. I love this part: it's one of those delightful little portraits of God that has stuck with me, especially when I wish I had a cave to hide in. God has Elijah look for him: in a strong wind that breaks the rocks on the mountain (not there), then an earthquake (not there), then a fire (not there), then a still small voice. That's where He's found, and He tells Elijah what to do. For some reason, that one little passage does more to make me trust God many, many pages of the Bible combined.
Both Ahab and Jezebel eventually die quite violent deaths.

Elisha

Don't mess with prophets. Don't mock their hairlines. Just don't do it.

Then he went up from there to Bethel, and as he was going up the road, some youths came from the city and mocked him, and said to him, "Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!" So he turned around and looked at them, and pronounced a curse on them in the name of the LORD. And two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths. Then he went from there to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria. (2 Kings 2:23-25)

Good Kings, Bad Kings

Israel and Judah endure many bad kings, and prosper under a few good ones.
We find one queen in the text who reigns without a king: Athaliah reigns over Judah for six years. She's found in chapter 11.
The few who "do what is right in the sight of the LORD": Jehoash, Amaziah, Azariah, Jotham Hezekiah, and Josiah.

Captivity

King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon captures Israel and takes its people captive, "except the poorest people of the land" (2 Kings 24:14)
Judah is also taken captive later, by the same king.

By the rivers of Babylon, we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. Psalm 137:1

Chronicles

these books are a re-telling of the histories found in the books of Samuel and Kings, but from a different perspective, trying to see what went wrong, what mistakes led Israel and Judah to lose the LORD's favor and fall into captivity.
This verse is often quoted as an argument for a national return to godliness in the USA:

"If my people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7:14)

a few observations about his verse:

this is the LORD speaking to Solomon, after his dedication of the temple. He's repeating the all-important theme: if you follow the LORD and do right, you'll be blessed, and if you don't, you'll be punished.
"My people" refers to Israel here; this is a covenant between the LORD and Solomon.
ultimately, this is a way for Israel, looking back in its time of captivity, to explain why such bad things have happened to them. They broke the covenant, thus they are being punished.

These covenants are ultimately hopeless; people can never live up to their side of the covenant for long. There are times of better leaders, and renewed energy, and emphatic promises, but ultimately people fall short and will continue to do so. That's what I take from these books. A yearning for a better way, for hope, is tucked in between the lines of these stories: the inspiring, the entertaining, the absurd, the revealing.

Next up: Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

The Bible on The History Channel

Have you heard of this series? Very rarely, I find myself wishing we had cable. This is one of those moments, even though I'm barely keeping up with the reading as it is. Maybe I'll order the box set once I'm done reading.

There are some gorgeous pictures on the website, and a few video clips.

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Reading the Bible for Lent: 1 & 2 Samuel

O LORD of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, and not forget Your maidservant, but will give Your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life, and no razor shall come upon his head. (1 Samuel 1:11)

Hannah conceives, and names the child Samuel, meaning "heard by God." She keeps him until he is weaned (I believe this was about age five in those times) and then presents him to Eli, the high priest at the temple. So Samuel grows up in the temple, under Eli's care, and we also learn that Hannah and Elkanah have three more sons and two daughters.

As a character in this story, Samuel is a figure of hope, for Hannah and for Israel. Hannah longs for a child and Israel desperately needs a leader to unify them. Samuel is special; he hears from the LORD although "the word of the LORD was rare in those days; there was no widespread revelation." (3:1) His first direct word from God is that He is going to destroy Eli's household for its wickedness, but Samuel is honest about what he heard. We read:

So Samuel grew, and the LORD was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel had been established as a prophet of the LORD. (3:19-20)

So, Samuel enters the scene as a central, unifying figure. He will be greatly influential in Israel's future.

Golden Tumors and Rats

This story's a little random, but too interesting (not to mention bizarre) not to share. Israel goes to battle with the Philistines, and the Ark (which held not only the Ten Commandments and other sacred items but carried the actual presence of God) is captured by the Philistines. This brings them nothing but trouble: they are stricken with tumors and their land is ravaged by rats. So, they decide to try to get rid of the Ark, but they want to make sure they send it away with a trespass offering in an effort to prevent any more punishment. (6:3) They make golden images of their tumors and rats for this offering, and place the Ark on a cart pulled by two milk cows, and send it in the direction of Beth Shemesh, so the Israelites can reclaim it.

The people of Beth Shemesh rejoice at the return of the Ark, and sacrifice the two cows as a burnt offering to the LORD. So all seems well, but then we're told in 6:19 that the LORD kills 50,070 of the men because they looked into the Ark, "and the people lamented because the LORD had struck the people with a great slaughter."

This is a good example of the type of story where it's useful to think of the human perception of God as an evolutionary process. It seems a little like a father spanking his children for playing with a hose and getting water inside the house on a hot summer day. Again we see that this LORD is not slow to anger in the slightest, not rich in mercy. Because of that, I choose to take it with a grain of salt.

Saul

In chapter eight, we learn that an aging Samuel has made his sons judges in Israel. They're not like Samuel, though: they're dishonest and take bribes. The people of Israel beg Samuel to have a king to rule over them "like all the nations." (8:5) Samuel doesn't think this is the right course of action for Israel, but as he prays, the LORD tells him to basically give the people what they want (the LORD really resembles an exasperated parent at times.) To make a long story short, Saul is crowned king. However, after a few years as king, makes a big mistake. He and his army attack the Amalekites, and are given orders from Samuel that the LORD wants them to "utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey" (15:3). Saul seems to have no problem killing the infants and nursing children, but he leaves the king alive, and keeps the best of the livestock. When Samuel confronts him ("what then is this bleating of sheep in my ears, and this lowing of oxen which I hear?") Saul says the animals are for sacrificing to the LORD, and gets this verbal smack down from Samuel:

Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He has also rejected you from being king. (15:22-23)

We've seen this before. Any deviation from the exact instructions given results in very bad news. Saul begs for forgiveness, but Samuel is resolute. He proceeds to "hack Agag to pieces before the LORD" (15:33). Saul's days are numbered.

David & Saul

David is anointed king by Samuel long before Saul gives up the throne. The Spirit of the LORD descends upon David from the day of his anointing, and the Spirit of the LORD departs from Saul, and he's troubled by a "distressing spirit from the LORD." (16:13-17:1) Saul asks for someone to play soothing music to help calm his troubled spirit, and David is brought into the court. "And so it was that whenever the spirit from God was upon Saul, that David would take a harp and play it with his hand. Then Saul would become refreshed and well, and the distressing spirit would depart from him" (16:23). Thus Saul and David's tumultuous relationship begins.

David proves himself over and over to be a wise and capable leader, while Saul continues to rule the nation officially. Saul is suspicious of David, and tries to kill him repeatedly, and even gives his daughter Michal to David in marriage with the hopes that she can help bring him down (Side note: David brings Saul 200 Philistine foreskins as a bride price for Michal, after Saul demands just 100.) Saul also tries to get his son Jonathan to betray David, but Jonathan and David are dear friends. Jonathan helps him escape Saul's wrath on more than one occasion.

Samuel dies, and Saul is facing yet another battle with the Philistines. The LORD isn't responding to his inquiries about how the battle will go, so he disguises himself and visits a medium to call up Samuel from the dead. Samuel foretells Saul's death:

Now Samuel said to Saul, "Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?" And Saul answered, "I am deeply distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God has departed from me and does not answer me anymore, neither by prophets nor by dreams. Therefore I have called you, that you may reveal to me what I should do."

Then Samuel said, "So why do you ask me, seeing the LORD has departed from you and has become your enemy? And the LORD has done for Himself as He spoke by me. For the LORD has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbor, David. Because you did not obey the voice of the LORD nor execute his fierce wrath upon Amalek, therefore the LORD has done this thing to you this day.

Moreover the LORD will also deliver Israel with you into the hand of the Philistines. And tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. (1 Samuel 28:15-19)

Samuel's prophecy comes true. Saul is badly wounded in battle, and falls onto his own sword. Three of his sons, including Jonathan, die as well.

David

David becomes king of Judah, but Saul's son Ishbosheth becomes king of Israel. I had to research the difference between Judah and Israel: here's a brief explanation. Later, Ishbosheth is murdered, and David rules over both kingdoms.

The dream of a temple begins with David, and is later fulfilled by his son Solomon. The LORD tells David, "Moreover I will appoint a place for My people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own and move no more; nor shall the sons of wickedness oppress them anymore..." (2 Samuel 7:10).

David, like so many characters in the Old Testament, is a complex person. He's a poet, a musician, a warrior, a womanizer, a loyal friend, a father, a deceiver, a worshiper, a person capable of sincere repentance. He impregnates another man's wife and then has him killed. Still, Samuel calls him a man after God's own heart. It could be that in spite of all of his shortcomings and mistakes, he knew how to access an inner place of contrition and brokenness, of wanting to do right. There are shades of grace here.

As 2 Samuel winds down, David's family is rife with conflict. His son Amnon rapes his half-sister Tamar, and her brother Absalom, David's son, kills Amnon for it. Tamar is left desolate (2 Samuel 13). Absalom goes on to attempt to steal the kingdom from his father, and Israel is split for a time. Absalom dies: he's riding his donkey under a tree, his head gets caught in the branches, and he's left hanging there. David's men kill him when they discover him hanging in the tree. David's sorrow for his son is great; he had asked the men previously to "be gentle with him for my sake" (2 Samuel 18).

David goes on to fight more battles. At the end of the book, Israel has again been struck by a plague, and David again repents of his sin and pleads for mercy on the people, saying, "surely I have sinned, and I have done wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Let Your hand, I pray, be against me and against my father's house" (24:17). So we see David once again as a shepherd, a sacrificial leader.

David pays for an offering to the LORD, and builds an altar, and sacrifices his offering. "So the LORD heeded the prayers for the land, and the plague was withdrawn from Israel." (24:25) And so the book comes to a close with one last heroic act of David. Later, in Kings, we read over and over about the kings who didn't do right like David or did do right like David. David eventually becomes a sort of larger-than-life moral yardstick; a legend.

Next will come the rule of Solomon: unprecedented wealth and excess, a long season of peace, and ultimately more tragedy.

Friday, March 1, 2013

more on Judges

I'm not saying that the Bible is free of passages that depict God as competitive, superficially exacting, exclusive, deterministic, and violent. But neither am I saying that those passages are the last word on the character of God. I am not saying that the Bible reveals a process of evolution within God's actual character, as if God used to be rather adolescent, but has taken a turn for the better and is growing up nicely over the last few centuries. I am saying that human beings can't do better than their very best at any given moment to communicate about God as they understand God, and the Scripture faithfully reveals the evolution of our ancestors' best attempts to communicate their successive best understandings of God. (Kindle loc.1786, emphasis mine.)

I'm chewing on this too.

If you care to comment, I'd like to know where you land on this, or if you've landed for that matter. I lean more toward McLaren's point of view, but I wouldn't say I've fully landed. Feel free to de-lurk :)

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Reading the Bible for Lent: Judges and Ruth

{I'm attempting to read the whole Bible during Lent this year, and blogging my way through it. The Bible is an old friend, but we fight sometimes. Ever hear of quitting something cold turkey? Well, this is my way of starting something cold turkey, if that makes sense. I'm facing it head on, with my eyes open, and a new way of reading. My hope is to read the entire text through the lens of Jesus (I'm figuring out what this means as I go along) and attempt a balance of honesty and charity, both of which I've lacked in the past. See also: The Pentateuch and Joshua.}

Moving right along! Phew.

Judges

Israel's a big mess after Joshua dies. The people are scattered, and the LORD has allowed other tribes to defeat the Israelites in battle because they keep worshipping the Baals and Asherahs (gods and goddesses) of other people.

In chapter four, we learn that "Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, was judging Israel" (v. 4). At this time, Israel has been under the oppression of the Canaanites for twenty years. As far as I can tell, Deborah is the first woman of authority to be mentioned in the Bible. I've got to wonder how the heck she got to a position of power in such a misogynistic culture, but it's nice to see nonetheless. Deborah gives orders to a man named Barak to deploy troops to fight against Jabin's army (the king of Canaan), under a man named Sisera. So, they go out to fight Sisera and his army, and Sisera flees on foot. He comes to the tent of an Israelite woman named Jael, who plays innocent and lures him into her tent for a rest. He falls asleep, and not-so-innocent Jael drives a tent peg through his temple. Barak comes along, pursuing Sisera, and Jael's all like, oh he's here with a tent peg in his head. So the Israelites gain favor with the LORD once again, and eventually defeat King Jabin. In chapter five, Deborah sings a song of victory and praise to the LORD. So it's the same old blood and gore, but refreshing because the women get to represent for a change.

Chapters six through eleven tell the story of Gideon, also known as Jerubbael. Gideon's an unlikely hero. The LORD calls him to defeat the Midianites, who are now ruling over the Israelites since they again "did evil in the sight of the LORD" (v. 1). Gideon says, "O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house." But the LORD says, "Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man." (v. 15-16)

What follows is the account of Gideon subduing the Midianites with a small army of just 300 men. It's a good story, and reinforces the recurrent idea in the Old Testament that if the Israelites follow the LORD's commands, He will protect them and fight alongside them. The Israelites have a time of peace until Gideon's death, when they again begin to worship Baals. As a side note, Gideon had 70 sons "for he had many wives." One of his sons, Abimelech, rules Israel for three years after Gideon's death, followed by Tola for twenty-three years, and then Jair for twenty-two years. Then, the Israelites again "do evil in the sight of the LORD and fall under the rule of the Ammonites.

After this, one of the most tragic stories in the entire Bible takes place. A man named Jephthah raises up an army against the Ammonites, and makes a vow to the LORD as they prepare to fight:

"If You will indeed deliver the people of Ammon into my hands, then it will be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD's, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering." (v. 30-31)

Jephthah is successful, and upon returning to his home, "there was his daughter, coming out to meet him with timbrels and dancing, and she was his only child....And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he tore his clothes, and said, 'Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low! You are among those who trouble me! For I have given my word to the LORD, and I cannot go back on it." (v. 34-35)

Seems to me that he's troubling her, not the other way around. She's given two months to roam the hills and "bewail her virginity" with her friends, at her request, and then she's put to death by her father. "And it became a custom in Israel that the daughters of Israel went four days each year to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite." (v. 40) We never learn her name.

If you can recover from that, we move on to learn about Samson, who was a judge over Israel for 20 years (15:20). He has supernatural strength, which comes from the LORD but is also dependent on his hair not being cut. (This has to do with him being called a Nazirite, which I'd like to study more later.) He takes a Philistine wife, but it's not Delilah. She comes later. One day, Samson makes a bet with 30 men concerning a riddle. If they can solve the riddle, he has to give them 30 linen garments and 30 changes of clothing. If they cannot, they have to give Samson those things. They get his wife to find out the answer and tell them, and so they solve the riddle and Samson becomes very angry, saying "If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle!" (ahem). Then, we're told, "the Spirit of the LORD came upon him mightily, and he went down to Ashkerlon and killed thirty of their men, took their apparel, and gave the changes of clothing to those who had explained the riddle." (v. 18-19) I say lack of impulse control, you say Spirit of the LORD. Let's call the whole thing off. Angry, he goes home to his father's house and has a little cooling off period. When he returns to see his wife, she's been given to another man. So, he lights 300 foxes' tails on fire and sends them running through the Philistines' grain fields, vineyards and olive groves. The Philistines respond by burning his wife and her father to death. Samson responds by killing 1000 Philistines with a donkey's jawbone.

The Philistines get revenge when Samson falls in love with the devious Delilah. He discloses to her that if his hair is cut, he will lose his strength, and so she cuts his hair while he's sleeping and the Philistines capture him. They put out his eyes, and bind him, and put him in prison. At the very end of chapter 17, though, Samson has the final revenge. He's brought out to perform for the Philistines, and he's standing between two pillars. He prays for the LORD to strengthen him just one more time, and pushes the pillars, causing the temple to fall on everyone in it. So he dies with the Philistines.

I know this is getting really long, but there's one more story that I'll share, before we move on to Ruth, which thankfully is only four chapters long. Trigger alert: if you've been raped or sexually abused, you may want to skip this part.

In chapters 19 and 20, we learn of a Levite man, un-named, who has a concubine. I'm not sure about the specific events, but the text says that she "played the harlot against him", and then went away to her father's house. Four months pass, and he goes after her, and stays at her father's house for several days. They start their journey home, and stay the night in "Gibeah, which belongs to Benjamin." (v. 14) I'm just going to quote what happens next:

While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, “Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him.”The owner of the house went outside and said to them, “No, my friends, don’t be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don’t do this disgraceful thing.Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But to this man, don’t do such a disgraceful thing.”But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight.When her master got up in the morning and opened the door of the house and stepped out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, “Get up; let’s go.” But there was no answer. Then the man put her on his donkey and set out for home.When he reached home, he took a knife and cut up his concubine, limb by limb, into twelve parts and sent them into all the areas of Israel.Everyone who saw it said, “Such a thing has never been seen or done, not since the day the Israelites came up out of Egypt. Think about it! Consider it! Tell us what to do!” (v. 22-30)

Sound familiar? The first part of the story mirrors the experience of Lot and the two angels of the LORD in Sodom, found in Genesis 19. The difference, of course, is that there are no angels here to protect the concubine by blinding the mob, so she's gang-raped and left to die. Her status as an expendable female stands in stark contrast to the authority and position of Deborah the judge. Perhaps the most maddening thing is that the Levite turns her out to the mob, unprotected, and then has the nerve to be upset when he finds her dead.

As the Israelites see the pieces of the concubine that her husband sent out, they are angry and go to war with the people of Gibeah. I'm guessing the Levite's call for revenge is much more about personal honor than love for her, since his actions show no love or concern whatsoever, even to the point of defiling her corpse by cutting it into pieces. There is usually some moral we can lift from the stories of the Old Testament, but it's hard to find anything here other than my own disgust. If I impose my own morality on the story and ignore a few things, I guess I could say it's about preventing injustice rather than just avenging it. That seems naive, though, within this cultural context.

Judges is a tough book. As I read these stories, I think of what Jesus said: "those who live by the sword will die by the sword." Violence begets violence begets violence. I really have nothing new to say about these texts that I haven't said before. It's just more of the human condition, with a view of God that fits the times.

Ruth

One of the most interesting things about Ruth is that she's a Moabitess. That means the Israelites aren't supposed to have anything to do with her. The backstory: a man named Elimelech, along with his wife Naomi and their two sons travel to Moab because of a famine in Bethlehem, where they're from. They settle there, and Elimelech dies and the two sons marry Moabite women. Then, tragically, the two sons die as well. This leaves Naomi with no male relative to care for her, which in this society is a really big problem. She tells her two daughters in law to return to their families, but Ruth refuses to leave her, and speaks these famous words:

Entreat me not to leave you, Or to turn back from following after you;
For wherever you go I will go; And wherever you lodge I will lodge;
Your people shall be my people, And your God, my God.
Where you die, I will die, And there I will be buried.
The LORD do so to me, and more also,
If anything but death parts you and me. (1:16-17)

So Ruth and Naomi return to Bethlehem, and Naomi (meaning "sweet") tells the women there to call her Mara (meaning "bitter"). Ruth goes to a field to glean what the harvesters have left behind, hoping to gather enough for herself and Naomi to eat. She meets Boaz, who owns the field, and is also a relative of Naomi's late husband. He is very kind to her, and even commands the harvesters to drop extra for her. So begins the romance.

In chapter three, the story takes an interesting turn. We see how women get things done in a society where they're essentially powerless. One evening, Naomi tells Ruth to go to the threshing floor where Boaz is working. She tells Ruth "then it shall be, when he lies down, that you shall notice the place where he lies; and you shall go in, uncover his feet, and lie down, and he will tell you what you should do." (v. 4). Ruth follows her instructions. Basically, she seduces Boaz. To "uncover one's feet" is a euphemism. When I first learned this I was quite shocked; they didn't teach this part in Sunday School.

Things turn out quite well for Ruth and Naomi (and Boaz). Ruth and Boaz marry and have a son, and the women say to Naomi:

"Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you this day without a close relative; and may his name be
famous in Israel! And may he be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your
daughter in law, who loves you, who is better to you than seven sons, has borne him." (4:14-15)

What I love about Ruth is that she's an outsider, but she overcomes that with her love and loyalty to Naomi, and they're both blessed because of it (well, that and Naomi's clever little plan.) This story points the way to the things Jesus is going to emphasize when he spends time with people that are "other", like the Samaritan woman and Zaccheus, to name a few. It's not hard at all to find Him in this story.

It's a pretty cool redemption story. Ruth and Boaz' son is Obed, whose son is Jesse, whose son is David, whose story is coming up next.

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Reading the Bible for Lent: Joshua

I'm about halfway through the Historical Books, and things are still pretty bloody. I was going to write about Joshua, Judges and Ruth but the Joshua section is pretty long in itself, so here it is. Again, this is not comprehensive by any means, just what stood out to me.

Joshua was Moses' successor as leader of Israel. He led the Israelites across the Jordan River into the Promised Land. Joshua is an interesting character. He's an effective, energetic leader (and I would say the book of Joshua has a different energy to it than previous books, largely because of his character) and a person of great integrity within this cultural construct. He calls the people to be "strong and of good courage" repeatedly, stirring them up to take the land their ancestors were promised. In chapter six, they take the walled city of Jericho, sparing no one except Rahab the prostitute and her family and their possessions, as well as the "silver and gold, and the vessels of bronze and iron" which go into the LORD's treasury. Rahab and her relatives are spared because she had previously helped two Israelite spies by hiding them (we see Rahab again later in the genealogy of Christ.) We are told, "the LORD was with Joshua, and his fame spread throughout all the country." It's a fearsome fame; if the Israelites could take down Jericho, the other cities know they're not safe.

Joshua, like the books before it, emphasizes the importance of following the LORD's commands exactly. Like I mentioned earlier, within this cultural framework, this is what integrity looks like, and it often means killing everyone the LORD says to kill. (As a side note, this theme often used in sermons as a metaphor for living a life separate from the world, getting rid of anything in your life that's not pleasing to God, taking care who you spend your time with, etc. I would argue that Jesus modeled something very different, but that's another post altogether.) When the Israelites are defeated at Ai in chapter seven, Joshua cries out to the LORD, wondering why He didn't protect them. The LORD tells him that someone among the Israelites kept some loot for himself, and that they will be cursed until they "take away the accursed thing from among you." They find out that a man named Achan kept a garment along with some silver and gold for himself, and then:

Then Joshua, and all of Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, the silver, the garment, the wedge of gold, his sons, his daughters, his oxen, his donkeys, his sheep, his tent, and all that he had, and they brought them to the Valley of Achor. And Joshua said, "Why have you troubled us? The LORD will trouble you this day." So all Israel stoned him with stones, and they burned them with fire after they had stoned them with stones. Then they raised over him a great heap of stones, still there to this day. So the LORD turned from the fierceness of His anger. Therefore, the name of that place has been called the Valley of Achor (trouble) to this day." Joshua 7:24-26

We see again here that this LORD is not slow to anger. He's pretty much angry right away when someone disobeys His commands. Unfortunately, the punishment isn't only on Achan, but on his children and animals as well.

Israel's military success depends on them keeping up their part of the covenant with the LORD. As a warring society, this means they must destroy everything He tells them to. They fumble again when they make a treaty with the Gibeonites, other inhabitants of the land (chapter 9). The Gibeonites pretend to be from a far-off land, and ask to make a peace covenant with the Israelites, and they do, "but they did not ask counsel of the LORD." Joshua makes a covenant with them, but upon finding out who they really are, says "Why have you deceived us, saying, 'We are very far from you,' when you dwell near us? Now therefore you are cursed, and none of you shall be freed from being slaves--woodcutters and water carriers for the house of my God." (v. 23). Joshua can't break the covenant with them (kill them), so he makes them slaves.

This all leads into an interesting turn of events in chapter ten. The kings of five different tribes decide to attack the Gibeonites because they have made "peace" with the Israelites. Joshua receives word of this, and goes out to fight with his "mighty men of valor", having received assurance from the LORD that they will win. They fight, and the attackers flee, and the LORD drops hailstones on them (the text says that more die from the hailstones than are killed by the Israelites' swords.) Then, Joshua prays quite a prayer: he asks God to make the sun stand still. Then, we are told, the sun does not go down for about a whole day, and Joshua and the Israelites are able to finish killing their enemies. While I appreciate the bold nature of Joshua's prayer, I struggle with the reason for it. But it's in keeping with the commands that this LORD gives, so in this context, it makes perfect sense.

The book contains a few more conquests, along with a description of how the tribes of Israelites divide up the land. Joshua gives one more stirring speech before he dies:

Now, therefore, fear the LORD, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers had served on the other side of the River in Egypt. Serve the LORD! And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." (24:14-15)

Again, we see the emphasis on separation. The Israelites will struggle with this choice, and in the books to come we'll see a scattering and coming together, over and over, as they attempt stability under different types of leaders: judges, prophets, and kings.

So where does Jesus come in? I think what all these events point to is the fickle nature of the human heart. We fail, a lot. There's a certain hopelessness to all our striving. We need a savior. The Israelites, in all their warring and rule-making, point to that, in a longing, hopeful and yet broken way. I feel a sense of connectedness to the Israelites, even though I abhor many of their actions, because of my own brokenness. In this admittedly questionable practice of speed-reading through complex texts, I'm making contact with some of own deep sorrow as I encounter all of this darkness in the Old Testament. I feel in a way like I'm crying out for us all to be delivered. If nothing else, theological issues aside, all of this points to my need for Jesus.

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Reading the Bible for Lent: The Pentateuch

I finished the Pentateuch (Genesis through Deuteronomy) earlier this week....keeping up with the schedule decently, although I did fall a day behind after a long shift on Wednesday and very heavy eyelids the next morning.

So, I thought I'd share a few observations and unsolicited opinions. This will be super general, just because of how fast this reading has to go. I'm making some notes to go back and study in more detail later.

A few things stand out as I re-read these books. One is the sophistication of the writing. This wasn't just a crude list of do's and don'ts. There are literary devices: poetry, imagery, metaphor, suspense. There's a great deal of beauty in the language. Whoever wrote these books (most people say Moses, but there's some dispute among scholars) was educated. The characters are familiar, like childhood friends, and it's good to get to know them again, although they all seem a bit more complex than what I remember. When I read the stories of Adam and Eve, Noah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah and Rachel, of Dinah, of Joseph and his brothers, of the Israelites as slaves and then nomads, of Moses, Aaron and Miriam, I see a LOT of humanity, and a teeny tiny glimpse of divinity. I see the culture of the day and its best understanding of God. There's some pretty dark stuff in there; there are things that just don't seem compatible with the God that Jesus later reveals. I keep saying that, to myself and out loud, over and over. The LORD, as he's called in these texts, seems like a different character than the God we later get to know.

In high school, one of my more memorable assignments was to try to design a perfect society with a group. We had to think about and develop all the details of a society: where people will live, how they'll make money, what infrastructure the government will provide, what to do with people who break the society's codes, etc. Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy detail the complexity of trying to form a functioning society: chapter after chapter of case law, ledgers, protective hygiene practices, and repeated calls for justice and kindness to the foreigner (this concept of justice, though selective, seems ahead of its time.) Moses served as a judge much of the time, hearing case after case and, the text says, consulting the LORD for the answer. That's how many of the laws came to be written. He was so overwhelmed with this job that his father-in-law advised him to set up trusted men to bear some of the load.

An ever present theme in the Pentateuch is that the Israelites have special favor with the LORD. I always took that idea for granted, without questioning it--after all, the LORD is presented as saying this, not the Israelites. Now, I would really like to know why--is the purpose of excluding everyone but the Jews to later dramatically include Gentiles also? Or was it a human thing attributed to God? Then there's the idea that the LORD gives the Israelites land and possessions to plunder; that the land ultimately belongs to them and others are occupying it (not, the text says, because the Israelites are more righteous; the LORD calls them a "stiff-necked people", but because the other people are exceedingly wicked, and also because of the promises that the LORD made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.) So they wander in the desert for forty years, figuring out the whole functioning society thing and preparing to take the land that the LORD promised their ancestors.

Now, I realize that a lot of the hard stuff is setting up for a redemption or re-definition later. The animal sacrifice will be over once Jesus takes all that on himself. Paul will extend a controversial welcome to the Gentiles. Jesus will take the "eye for an eye" laws and turn them upside down. He'll tell people to love their enemies. New covenants will be made. But, in the meantime, this stuff is terrible. As a metaphor, it's tolerable I suppose. You can find applicable lessons in it. But are we to accept that God, our God, commanded all of these things? Something deep within me says no.

It's entertaining and a little sad to see what I've underlined in my Bible in past years. Lots of verses sound pretty good on their own, but read the whole passage and you might want to bang your head on the table (or maybe that's just me.) When I was younger, I approached the Bible with the assumption that it was all true, that it all happened. God really did command the Israelites to plunder and kill....it was in the text, and that made it more palatable somehow. If I read something I didn't like, it didn't really matter because if it was in there, I had to accept it. I think now, in retrospect, that that kind of reading caused a coldness, a numbness, in me.

I have to say, I did thoroughly enjoy reading Genesis, because of the stories. I think one of my favorite moments, found in Genesis 16, concerns Hagar. She is sent in to her mistress' husband (Abraham) to bear him a child, since her mistress (Sarah) is barren. She conceives, and her mistress "deals harshly with her" and she flees. She stops by a spring of water, and the "Angel of the Lord" finds her, and tells her to return to Sarah, and that she will have a son called Ishmael, "because the LORD has heard your affliction." Verse thirteen says:

Then she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, You-Are-the-God-who-Sees; for she said, "Have I also here seen Him who sees me?"

Hints of the divine, in an oh-so-human situation. The God who Sees. That's familiar, that rings true. God is not monstrous here; he's compassionate.
There's a sort of tension in the text, between the LORD as ruthless enforcer of justice and nurturing, forgiving leader. The Israelites praise the LORD as being slow to anger, loving, and forgiving, but also as just (in the sense that the guilty must be punished.) Numbers 14:18 captures the paradox of how the Israelites see the LORD:

The LORD is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation."

It's important to note that on several occasions Moses pleads for LORD to forgive guilty parties and He does. He doesn't seem very slow to anger though; His anger is often swift and fierce. Of course, I'm reading these stories with twenty-first century eyes, with a very different perspective on justice, and with VERY different ideas about women and slaves. What's heinous to one culture is commonplace to another. But the big question, the question that transcends culture is this: what is the nature of God? I personally believe that God's true nature and the human perception of it don't always line up. I hope that's the case anyway. It seems quite likely that the Israelites were giving the God credit/blame for things He didn't actually do, because of their own lack of knowledge and superstition about things like miscarriage (if a woman miscarried, she must have sinned, or if she was barren, the LORD had made her so), and natural disasters, and also just because they lived in a survival-of-the-fittest world. I've heard that our political views are shaped by what we see out our own front door; I would add that our view of God is largely shaped the same way.

The point of this whole endeavor is to read the Bible through the lens of Christ. Here's where I am with that right now: I think that maybe as long as we're human we're going to mis-characterize God. I see what I think is the Israelites doing it in the text and I see us doing it today. We're still cruel; we still use God to justify our wars and greed; we still think we're God's favorite. But, and it's a big but: Jesus makes such a difference. I'm not there yet in the text so I'm going to leave that for another post, but let me just say that as I've read these books, I've often been left with a feeling of hollowness and sadness. I think this comes from the way God/the LORD is described as such a monster in the text. But I remember that the Jesus part is coming. He's going to change the face of God; wipe off some of the weird stuff we've pasted on it. Grace will show up.

So, that was a bit heavy. Here's some interesting tidbits, to end on a lighter note. If you're still reading, I salute you :)

Did you know......

Abram and Sarai (Abraham and Sarah) were half brother and sister. They had the same father. (Genesis 20:12) The practice of marrying one's sibling, whether half or full, is later condemned in Leviticus 20:17. So, when Abraham lies to and says Sarah is his sister, he's actually sort of telling the truth.
After getting off the ark, Noah sacrificed one of every clean animal and bird (Genesis 8:20). I'm guessing they must have already reproduced on the ark, otherwise there wasn't much of a point of carrying around two of every kind on the boat for all that time.
Exodus 33:11 tells us that Moses spoke with the LORD "face to face, as a man speaks with his friend." Later, in verse 18-23, Moses asks to see the LORD's glory. The LORD tells him, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live." So Moses hides in a cleft of a rock and the LORD allows him to catch a glimpse of His back. Perhaps when Moses was speaking face to face with the LORD, His glory was hidden somehow? Pretty interesting.
In Numbers 27:1-11, a case is brought before Moses in which five daughters, whose father has died, are asking to be able to have his inheritance. They have no brothers, and so a new law is made to say that daughters may inherit if there are no sons. Seems a bit ahead of the times, although later (in Deuteronomy, I believe, I forgot to make a note of it) the law states that if a woman has inherited property, it goes to her husband when they marry.

Next up are the Historical Books.