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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Kerygmania: Jack Bauer and the OT God
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
Three caveats:
1) I know there have been umpteen threads in Kerygmania about how to deal with the sometimes very off-putting impression the Old Testament gives of God. So if this makes you want to ![[Snore]](graemlins/snore.gif) , quit reading now. (Apologies in advance to Moo and Pyx_e.)
2) I know this is too long for an OP -- if my thinking were clearer, it would be shorter.
3) I tried this idea out on my EFM group, and they thought it was nuts.
In the first year of Education for Ministry, as many of you know, you read the OT, and you spend a lot of time reading the Deuteronomist history, wherein God's people to do things like slaughter their enemies wholesale (the book of Joshua, for example), sucker an enemy into a tent and drive a tent-peg into his head (Judges 4-5 -- somewhere near Mt Tabor there's a tombstone that reads "Killed by a girl") and other equally fun things. All along, we're reading the EFM commentary which keeps telling us that the point of all this is that God is running the show: "The Deuteronomist never looks from the standpoint of political theory. As far as D is concerned, YHWH ruled. If his people were faithful to him, all went well. The ills and misfortunes that befell the people were caused by faithlessness to the covenant with YHWH" (EFM, Year One, p. 324).
So I have been trying to get with the program and stop feeling sorry for the poor Moabites, Amorites, Edomites, et al. who are in the way of God's people, which is hard. I think I finally got it, though, while watching a recent episode of 24 in which the main character, Jack Bauer (played by Kiefer Sutherland), threatens someone with torture in order to get the guy to give up information Jack needs to save the country. It was a great scene in a great episode, with Jack pressing a knife into the guy's cheek and saying, "You've read my file [i.e., you know I'll really do this]. First I'll cut out your right eye. Then I'll cut out your left eye. And then I'm going to keep cutting you till you tell me what I want to know!"
Now, in real life, I would want Jack Bauer locked up in a heartbeat. His propensity for beating up and killing his fellow human beings is more than a little bit scary, not to mention wrong. But in the context of the narrative, I accept that he is the hero of the piece, that he has the country's best interests at heart, and that he is doing the Right Thing, because the show just doesn't work for me if I don't buy into that.
So if I simply accept the narrative viewpoint that the various heroes of Israel are heroes when God says they are (and aren't when God says they aren't -- poor Saul), that the Israelites are supposed to be the good guys and all the other -ites would in a Hollywood movie be the Russians (the leader to be played by a British actor, naturally ![[Biased]](wink.gif) ), then the Deuteronomist's history works. As soon as I try to resist the point of view the narrative is pushing, it unravels.
I tried reading this way for a few weeks, and so far it has helped me a lot, though it feels a bit strange to be going along with the narrative when I got so much training as an English major in reading against the grain. What I'm wondering now:
1) Is this idea really as nuts as my EFM group thought it was?
2) I go along with the narrative viewpoint of 24 because it's more entertaining that way. The OT is certainly more entertaining when I'm not thinking that it's completely unfair that the Philistines get stuck being the Hollywood Russians of the OT, but what am I learning about God when I don't resist the narrative? I know when I watch 24 that I don't in real life think it's okay to torture people or that a rogue counter-terrorist agent is likely to save the US by throwing aside rules and protocols every 30 minutes and doing what he thinks is best. If I truly went along with 24, I'd be going along with a lot of things that go against my basic beliefs, starting with the fact that I don't think the good guy vs. bad guy distinction is very useful in real life. Even with my very liberal approach to the Bible, which accepts a narrative with a high level of fictionalization and mythologizing, I expect to be learning something about God when I read it, and I expect it to be real on some level and to have a bearing on my real life. The EFM commentary keeps telling me that I'm learning about God's rule, about God's call to his people and about God's responses to the faithfulness and faithlessness of those people. But I keep feeling like I'd be learning a whole lot of really nasty things as well, possibly without even noticing, if I persisted in going along with the narrative -- starting with a belief in the existence of "good guys," i.e., chosen people, something that is vital to the Biblical narrative, but that in real life seems like the basis for things like the horrible American triumphalism espoused by some Christians.
[ 07. January 2007, 23:13: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
The EFM commentary keeps telling me that I'm learning about God's rule, about God's call to his people and about God's responses to the faithfulness and faithlessness of those people. But I keep feeling like I'd be learning a whole lot of really nasty things as well, possibly without even noticing, if I persisted in going along with the narrative -- starting with a belief in the existence of "good guys," i.e., chosen people, something that is vital to the Biblical narrative, but that in real life seems like the basis for things like the horrible American triumphalism espoused by some Christians.
Ruth, I love how you put all this. I also get the connection with Jack Bauer, having seen that particular episode and having the exact thoughts you describe.
I guess I both agree with the EFM and your gut instincts about this.
The way to resolve it, in my opinion, is to realize that in reality the Israelites were in no way the "good guys." In reality the residents of Canaan, who were not necessarily any better or worse than Israel, got a raw deal. God doesn't really "give" people physical property.
At the same time, just as Jack Bauer "does the right thing" in the narrative flow of 24, Israel plays a similar role in the Old Testament. All narratives like this are metaphors. They set up situations that play out as classic struggles between good and evil.
So Israel isn't really the "good guys." Instead, Israel merely plays that role, illustrating the classic struggle between good and evil.
But it only works if you go with the flow of the story. David therefore has to be a hero, even though, if you really examine what he does, he is anything but. Same with Samson. If you can accept them as heroes, you can get a lot out of the stories, and their struggles. They are said to pre-figure Jesus' struggles.
To my mind the key is to grasp the peculiar symbolism that runs like a thread through all of the Old Testament stories. God took a very ordinary people, the Israelites, and made their story into His story. The point was not to glorify them, but to provide a narrative that could be imbued with meaning, and made into the story of how good can triumph over the power of darkness.
So I like the EFM's advice, and I also agree with your instincts about this. Go with the stories, and their judgment of right and wrong. It just seems more palatable to me when seen metaphorically.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
RuthW: quote:
So if I simply accept the narrative viewpoint that the various heroes of Israel are heroes when God says they are (and aren't when God says they aren't -- poor Saul), that the Israelites are supposed to be the good guys and all the other -ites would in a Hollywood movie be the Russians (the leader to be played by a British actor, naturally ), then the Deuteronomist's history works. As soon as I try to resist the point of view the narrative is pushing, it unravels.
I think there's an analogy here with Deut. 13 which looks like a set of criteria to establish what and who a real prophet is. Butit boils down to "A real prophet is one who said what YHWH told him to." In other words, there is no criterion independent of what God wanted, which is what actually happened.
As with so much else, the glory of the Deuteronomistic History is also its biggest problem. It understands the historical traditions of Israel as the organ through which the body of Israel learns about God - a bit like animals which use the whole of their skins, the whole of what's in contact with "outside reality" to sense what's out there. However, when the Deuteronomists (sic) theorize an understanding of God from the historical traditions of Israel, they then re-apply it to their own narrations of that history They acquire a "God-point-of-view" from the stories they are custodians of, and then assume it, and re-tell the story from it.
In that sense, if we're singing from the same hymn-sheet, I think the OP is substantially correct. And will shamelessly purloin it for a sermon ASAP. (You'll be in the credits, RuthW)
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
Posts: 5433 | From: pOsTmOdErN dYsToPiA | Registered: Feb 2002
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
I said: quote:
It understands the historical traditions of Israel as the organ through which the body of Israel learns about God
It would have been better put like this: quote:
It understands the historical "experience" of Israel deposited in her traditions as a sort of "group memory" as the organ through which the body of Israel learns about God
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
Posts: 5433 | From: pOsTmOdErN dYsToPiA | Registered: Feb 2002
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
I think we are singing from the same hymnsheet, psyduck. But what do you do with the problem presented by the glory of the Deuteronimist history?
Self-referential systems and "hey, it's just a metaphor, it didn't really happen that way" bug me when we're talking about the Bible. If we're talking about Paradise Lost or 24, I love them. But self-referential systems are self-justifying systems, and while reading lots of the OT stories as extended metaphors, as Freddy suggests, seems really great to me for a while, and a lot of things make a heck of a lot more sense that way, as soon as I realize that logically I have to extend this to the NT, I come to a screeching halt. My faith would quite honestly be at risk if the resurrection stories and the book of Acts were all just metaphors for how the disciples got the idea that Jesus' teachings could live on after his death. (Though I think Freddy's discussion of metaphor is really helpful, especially what he says about heroes.) I feel stuck between knowing that the Biblical accounts have been re-written, edited and re-edited, fictionalized, and mythologized (in the good sense -- I think myths carry the deepest truths we know) and wanting something in all of that to be real.
And what do we do with the Deuteronomist history if it's supposed to have some bearing on our lives? What is it that Israel learned about God, through their nifty reapplication of the lessons of their stories to the stories themselves, that we're being told about? Do I get to work that same nifty trick? (It would come out differently if I did, I imagine.) And do the wonders of this history also carry the basis for things like American and Christian triumphalism that I really loathe?
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
RuthW
You've found a very helpful way of looking at the OT stories. Essentially, they are partisan, and contain, therefore, a view that God is partisan. (Why does that remind me of a certain strand of Christianity to be found in the US? I think it was Jim Wallis's wife - who is English - who observed that 'God Bless America' was not in the Bible).
And perhaps that is a good consequence. From the comic Jonah/Ninevah tension through the much more serious "light to the Gentiles" and the "Samaritan"-type references in the gospel, we reach, eventually these two references is our understanding of partisanship.
quote:
Acts 10:34 (New International Version)
34Then Peter began to speak: "I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism
quote:
Galatians 3:28-29 (New International Version)
28There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Through which an unthinking partisanship seems to me to be firmly set aside.
Loyalty is a good thing, partisanship is a dangerous thing. I think we can get that from the Bible, but only if we are prepared to accept that part of its inspiration is that it reveals, sometimes very clearly, the limitations of its human authors. And some people are always likely to have difficulty with that POV.
"God's politics - why the Right gets it wrong and the Left doesn't get it" has just been published in the UK and I've just started to read it. Apparently it has sold very well in the US. I'm rather hoping that one of the reasons is that people are waking up to the partisanship and privatised religiosity often to be found in some US expressions of Christianity. So I think you may be making a political point as well as a religious one.
[ 26. February 2006, 08:35: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Should have said "references to help our understanding". Sorry
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
RuthW: quote:
Self-referential systems and "hey, it's just a metaphor, it didn't really happen that way" bug me when we're talking about the Bible. If we're talking about Paradise Lost or 24, I love them. But self-referential systems are self-justifying systems, and while reading lots of the OT stories as extended metaphors, as Freddy suggests, seems really great to me for a while, and a lot of things make a heck of a lot more sense that way, as soon as I realize that logically I have to extend this to the NT, I come to a screeching halt. My faith would quite honestly be at risk if the resurrection stories and the book of Acts were all just metaphors for how the disciples got the idea that Jesus' teachings could live on after his death.
We're still singing from the same hymnsheet. My attitude to this, crudely, is that "narratives are generated", because stuff happens. One of the difficulties that standard liberal* approaches to the stories of the faith run into - and shares with standard conservative approaches - is that this™ either did or didn't happen. For a liberal approach it didn't happen, because it couldn't because it's scientifically impossible. For a conservative one, it did happen because it's in the Bible and God can do anything.
But what we have are stories. Something generated them. We have no access to what that was except through - or rather in - the stories themselves. But here's the postmodern thing. We can't know in principle. And - this is the postmodern mindset - that's OK. What we need to do is to believe what the stories tell us. And what the stories tell us isn't That This Definitely Happened (a la conservative approaches) or That What Happened Was/Meant/MightActuallyHaveBeen This (a la liberal approaches. What the stories tell us is - well, what they tell us. I think that's the meaning of Karl Barth's point that the Bible invites us into a strange alien and different world - and I think that that, in 1919, was a prescient postmodern point. (It's also why, I suspect, John Baillie spent a whole afternoon tryng to persuade Barth that surely Methuselah didn't really live to 969 years old.)
Our faith is contained in the stories, not in abstractions from them. Our faith is fed by receiving them, not by turning them into Enlightenment fact, which is what both conservative and liberal approaches do.
Works for me, anyway.
Lets me say "Christ is risen" and mean it.
Jesus loves me, this I know/For the Bible tells me so.
*I use the term in a technical sense, as a modernist theological mindset that subordinates Biblical narrative to a scientistic world view and, in this area, the assumption that "That sort of stuff doesn't happen, so that can't have happened."
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
Posts: 5433 | From: pOsTmOdErN dYsToPiA | Registered: Feb 2002
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
while reading lots of the OT stories as extended metaphors, as Freddy suggests, seems really great to me for a while, and a lot of things make a heck of a lot more sense that way, as soon as I realize that logically I have to extend this to the NT, I come to a screeching halt. My faith would quite honestly be at risk if the resurrection stories and the book of Acts were all just metaphors for how the disciples got the idea that Jesus' teachings could live on after his death.
I'm in agreement about the resurrection stories.
But don't misunderstand me. I'm not suggesting that the OT stories are in any way untrue. They weren't just a written metaphor, they were a true life metaphor. As I understand, it these things, miracles and all, had to actually happen in order to pre-figure Christ.
And the metaphor does not need to extend into the NT. The life of Christ is the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets. He made the OT meataphor real. So the two Testaments are parallel. While Jesus certainly did symbolic things, and told metaphoric stories, He taught the truth at a much higher and clearer level than was possible before.
The point is that Jesus came to bear witness to the truth, and so to overcome the power of darkness in this world, setting us free of its power so that we can choose to believe in and obey Him. The Old Testament depicted this as a struggle for territory against wicked nations, complete with setbacks, but with the repeating promise of future victory and glory. Jesus had similar struggles and the apparent setback of the crucifixion. But He rose again and promised a future return followed by everlasting peace.
All of this has to do with reforming the world, and bringing peace to the human race - a process that will take a long time to complete. Jack Bauer will hopefully bring something similar to 24, but it may take several more seasons.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
The Old Testament is God's word filtered through the understanding of very imperfect human beings. Everyone who has a story to tell tells it as they see it. By our standards their viewpoint was distorted, but it's very interesting that even while they slaughtered babies, they still believed in a God of justice. They weren't amoral; they simply had a lot to learn about justice. They loved God and said things like, "Taste and see, that the Lord is good."
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy
David therefore has to be a hero, even though, if you really examine what he does, he is anything but.
I disagree with you on this. I was once part of a Bible study that read all the passages about David to see why he was so special.
That is tangential to this thread, so I will start a new thread when I get back from church.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Calvin Beedle
Shipmate
# 508
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Posted
Hello, I'm new here so please bare with my inexperience. I also apologise for raising more questions than I attempt to answer.
1st. Earlier Ruth said:
"My faith would quite honestly be at risk if the resurrection stories and the book of Acts were all just metaphors for how the disciples got the idea that Jesus' teachings could live on after his death".
I understand this but would ask why we seem to be able to view the O.T as metaphorical, whatever we may mean by that, but are much less happy to do this with the N.T. Is there really anything qualitatively different about N.T scripture? It still contains some disturbing ideas that many of us struggle with and it's still a record written and formalised as scripture by people. Much like the O.T.
2nd. Rowan Williams talks about not seeing the past as "the present in fancy dress". It's not surprising to find weird ideas in any ancient literature and both conservative and liberal Christians have been guilty of missing the strangeness of scripture in order to make it more accessible. Sometimes we have to admit that we simply don't understand how some parts of scripture can function today without radically changing their meaning to suit. This doesn’t mean ditching the parts we don’t like, but being fair with ourselves and not getting too hung up.
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There has been an alarming increase in the number of things about which I know nothing
Posts: 71 | From: Kent, the garden of England | Registered: Jun 2001
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Hi, CB - welcome! Good to have on board a person of taste, who starts off in Kerygmania. No doubt a host will soon etc. etc., yadda yadda - it is their place to do the official welcome thing, and we must fulfil all righteousness!
Interesting post, too. I'll get back to you later, when I get back in.
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
Posts: 5433 | From: pOsTmOdErN dYsToPiA | Registered: Feb 2002
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LutheranChik
Shipmate
# 9826
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Posted
Ruth, I went through much the same thought process reading the OT for my lay ministry training (very analogous to EFM, from what I've heard from my 'Piskie friends). Getting through the Pentateuch was rough sledding for me because I kept thinking, "I really dislike this Yahweh maniac."
What was interesting to me was taking a short online class on Torah/Talmud/Mishnah with a rabbi (a female lesbian rabbi no less) who identified herself as Conservative at heart if Reform on paper. She acknowledged a lot of the really difficult passages in these texts...but the way Jews on the Conservative-Reform end of the continuum do Torah is very loose and fluid and intuitive, and they don't seem to obsess over these incongruous, vicious images of God that we do...for one thing they don't sign onto the same truth-vs.-factuality false dichotomy that many Christians labor under, but...I can't even really describe this, it's such a different, non-Western way of thinking, but...she got me to a point where I wasn't hating the texts and the images of God in them anymore.
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Simul iustus et peccator
http://www.lutheranchiklworddiary.blogspot.com
Posts: 6462 | From: rural Michigan, USA | Registered: Jul 2005
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Rossweisse
High Church Valkyrie
# 2349
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Posted
A great OP, Ruth. Thank you for presenting an interesting concept so well; I hadn't thought of it in that way.
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
I find it helpful to remember, while I'm trying to digest the Israelite viewpoint on slaughtering their neighbors with Yahweh's blessing, that -- as you know -- an awful lot of the icky stuff recorded in the OT didn't really happen. There is no archeological evidence for the supposed destruction of all those cities when the Israelites were moving in. So this is projection about how they WISHED it had gone. (I find that disturbing, too, but in a different way: at least God didn't really bless all that infanticide and whatnot.)
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I'm not dead yet.
Posts: 15117 | From: Valhalla | Registered: Feb 2002
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Calvin Beedle:
I understand this but would ask why we seem to be able to view the O.T as metaphorical, whatever we may mean by that, but are much less happy to do this with the N.T. Is there really anything qualitatively different about N.T scripture? It still contains some disturbing ideas that many of us struggle with and it's still a record written and formalised as scripture by people. Much like the O.T.
Welcome, Calvin Beedle. I see what you mean. I guess there are a lot of the same types of stories, such as Jesus' parables of people being destroyed because they wouldn't come to a wedding feast.
Most of the New Testament, though, in my opinion, is qualitatively much different than the OT. Jesus' qualifications and explanations of Old Testament laws reveal a much more humane and compassionate ideal than that presented in the Law and the Prophets. Similarly, the idea of God is strikingly different. At least most people seem to think so.
Of course, the Apocalypse are something else again.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
If I'm understanding the thought process correctly, I was thinking the same kind of thing whilst reading LOTR. There are quite a lot of bad things that go on - but it is ok cos the Orcs et al. are horribly deformed, smelly, and so on.
And in the context of a fast-moving narrative story of good vs evil, elf vs orc, I think the bible stands up. At least it did when I was 13 and reading LOTR and the OT side-by-side.
On the other hand, you get somewhat bogged down if you try to interpret and extrapolate from particular instances into life situations. But then I'm guessing you probably would if you tried to do the same with LOTR.
A few years back I was involved in a notorious series of bible studies looking at OT characters and situations. Things boiled for a while until we hit Ruth. Things became completely unhinged when we tried to discuss what it meant for Ruth to lie at the feet of Boaz. The idea that it could be a euphamism for Ruth sexually 'throwing' herself at the potential suitor was more than some could take. It is very easy to see what we want to see and become completely immune to what the text is actually saying.
Soon after, I studied the same passage from a different perspective (ie who was the 'Goliath' in my life, what kind of 'Ruth' risks was I prepared to take, etc) which were much more helpful.
I guess I'm saying that I very irregularly read these stories, and am a bit concerned about the way they are taught to my children.
C
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Calvin Beedle
Shipmate
# 508
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Posted
Hi Freddy,
I agree with you on that but perhaps I wasn't clear enough. What I was getting at was the nature of Scripture itself which obviously has a bearing on how we read certain parts. I can’t really see why the N.T is different as Scripture. I wonder if the main reason we’re more reluctant to question say, the gospels, is because it cuts much nearer the heart of the Christian faith story. It’s also easier to talk about loving enemies (note, I said talk, not actually do it) than it is to discuss slaughtering entire nations. But I think I’m going down the Dead Horses road a bit here so I think I’ll leave it there.
Also, while I’m here,
Good point Cheesy. I remember leading a small church group for people with learning difficulties and some of the material was appalling. I still don’t know how we got from the plagues of Egypt to Jesus loves you all in one easy ten minute session.
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There has been an alarming increase in the number of things about which I know nothing
Posts: 71 | From: Kent, the garden of England | Registered: Jun 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
I think I have a similar set of concerns to the OP. Post-modernism is all very well, but I think the old questions are still important, as are the new ones that postmodernism teaches us (e.g. whose interest is this story in?).
I think one thing to think about is that (providentially?) the separate books of the Bible are clearly by different authors. Therefore, they all come with this fact about them attached. Just as we realise that 'there is no God' in the Psalms is spoken by the fool - not God - so we can realise that 'blessed will he be who dashes your children against a rock' is spoken by a captive in Babylon - not God - and so when we learn from the Deuteronomist we do so factoring in the fact that it's by the Deuteronomist. (I find that consideration helpful in understanding Psalm 137 for instance.)
Samson and David are heroes in some sense. But they're also pretty flawed characters and I think the Deuteronomist agrees. The Deuteronomist's storytelling instincts sometimes override his? didactic instincts. (Compare Chronicles.)
I think we need both readings: with the grain and against, and then put them in dialogue with each other. Not a brilliant insight I know.
Dafyd
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
I feel stuck between knowing that the Biblical accounts have been re-written, edited and re-edited, fictionalized, and mythologized (in the good sense -- I think myths carry the deepest truths we know) and wanting something in all of that to be real.
I don't doubt there's reality in the Bible stories, but not the direct correlation with historical fact. Is this what you want to be there?
It seems to me it's belief in this kind of correlation that renders faith fragile, because it relies on the rightness of other people's interpretation of history. Letting go of that, shifting the focus onto the stories themselves, frees up the possiblility of connecting with the reality of the human experience behind them undiluted by the need to decide "if this really happened".
Of course this raises the question of why go with the Bible, and Christianity in general, rather than some other inspirational book or religion. I'm still working on this, but I think it only comes up short if we're looking for something with which to refute all the alternatives.
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:
But I keep feeling like I'd be learning a whole lot of really nasty things as well, possibly without even noticing, if I persisted in going along with the narrative -- starting with a belief in the existence of "good guys," i.e., chosen people, something that is vital to the Biblical narrative, but that in real life seems like the basis for things like the horrible American triumphalism espoused by some Christians.
I suppose a near equivalent would be accounts of history which is seen as progress, or at least where one side are definitely the good guys. A democrat writing about the French Revolution, for example, would deplore what happened to the poor old Princess de Lamballe, the Terror and the rise of Bonaparte whilst feeling confident that, nonetheless, the right side won the Battle of Valmy. Nowadays, this is deeply unfashionable, and the dominant view is what Neal Ascherson once referred to as the Amnesty International school of history, whereby the historian laments the pain and suffering which history deals out impartially.
Of course, the AI school of history has a point (to put it midly) and we should be asking awkward questions about the morality of Joshua's campaining tactics, once in a while, but there ought still to be a role for the progressive school of history. When, this Sunday, we remembered Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration with Moses and Elijah, instead of being embarassed by the company He was keeping we should be grateful that Moses carried off his slave revolt successfully and that Elijah stood up to Ahaz and Jezebel and the Prophets of Baal. Without those victories we would not be able to indulge in the Amnesty International school of history. "I come not to abolish the Law but to fulfil it..."
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Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Skinhead
Shipmate
# 10658
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Posted
Hi All, I must thank you for such a profound discussion, I hope I can add to it a little. RuthW, it seems to me that you described the central issue when you wrote about Biblical accounts having been re-written, fictionalized and mythologized. I'd like to suggest that the further back we go in history, the greater is the bardic influence of oral repetition, the bard modifying the tale along the way to hone various points, or to interact with the audience. By the time we get to the NT period, the bardic influence is giving way to a more historical approach, as typified by Luke. As traditions and techniques of copying manuscripts have developed, it has become harder to change the record. However, even in our modern world, politicians and others still use the power of myth - think of Che Guevara, for example. Modern myths are developed somewhat more cynically, using selective or embellished reporting and re-telling. So maybe when we read the Bible we need to be aware of the different writers and their contexts, as Dafyd suggested; and also see each story as having a different level of mythologization. I do believe, however, that the Bible is an incredibly rich spititual resource.
One issue that worries me is that we may transpose the partisanship of the Israelites into our Christianity. So, in the OT, the narrative assumes that Israel are the good guys and the Canaanites are the enemy. And maybe some Christians are in danger of assuming that once they Admit, Believe and Confess (and maybe get baptized!) they have become Christians, are OK, they're on God's side. You know, a bit like when the pastor tells you at the end of the service to go out into all the world and share your Christian joy!
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Rossweisse:
I find it helpful to remember, while I'm trying to digest the Israelite viewpoint on slaughtering their neighbors with Yahweh's blessing, that -- as you know -- an awful lot of the icky stuff recorded in the OT didn't really happen. There is no archeological evidence for the supposed destruction of all those cities when the Israelites were moving in. So this is projection about how they WISHED it had gone. (I find that disturbing, too, but in a different way: at least God didn't really bless all that infanticide and whatnot.)
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
I don't doubt there's reality in the Bible stories, but not the direct correlation with historical fact. Is this what you want to be there?
I know it didn't all happen the way it's told in the Bible, and that doesn't bother me in the least. I used to be an English professor; reading the Bible the way I read literature comes quite naturally. It's the stuff that is implied by the way the story is told that bothers me.
quote:
Originally posted by Skinhead:
One issue that worries me is that we may transpose the partisanship of the Israelites into our Christianity. So, in the OT, the narrative assumes that Israel are the good guys and the Canaanites are the enemy.
Exactly. When reading the Deuteronomist history, I have to accept the narrative conventions of a foundational epic tale in order to keep from hurling the book out the window. But with those conventions comes the ideology of good guys vs. bad guys, one I find extremely troubling. I don't see how what we're supposed to be learning about God from the Deuteronomists -- God's faithfulness, for instance -- can be separated from the good guys vs. bad guys thing. God is faithful to his people -- and everyone else gets screwed. God's spirit is with David -- and Saul spends the end of his life in torment and madness.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
You still seem to be reading it as if God had written it, RuthW, rather than a very partisan Israelite.
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
No, I'm not. What I'm trying to figure out is whether what we might learn about God from the text can be separated from the partisanship. Given how intertwined they are in the narrative, I don't see how. Because the narrative is so partisan, I find it hard to trust it to tell me anything useful or true about God.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
No, I'm not. What I'm trying to figure out is whether what we might learn about God from the text can be separated from the partisanship. Given how intertwined they are in the narrative, I don't see how. Because the narrative is so partisan, I find it hard to trust it to tell me anything useful or true about God.
Well, consider a newsmagazine with a known editorial slant. You can expect it to color everything in a certain way, and perhaps if the slant is slanty enough, you can't trust that anything that is printed in it is in fact historically accurate. But you can still learn a lot from it about the people who wrote it, and what they thought about the things that happened, can't you?
Maybe you can't trust 1 Kings to be an accurate history, but you can trust it to be, in spite of itself, a chronicle of what the author(s) and editor(s) wanted to say about what happened, which tells you something about them.
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
RuthW: quote:
What I'm trying to figure out is whether what we might learn about God from the text can be separated from the partisanship
Surely the answer to this can only be; "Yes, of course it can - but we have to do the separating." The reading of Biblical texts as literature is only one tranche of what we're expected to do. There's also the naive reading of the texts - and I suspect that the conflicts you are speaking of are generated between the naive and the literary readings, which are mutually deconstructive - and the theological application of these texts, which is governed by the particular tradition you stand in, yourself, now. This, it seems to me, is quite analogous to the identification of the multiple "senses" of Scripture which form the ways in which it has been read since antiquity - Aquinas's literal, spiritual, analogical and anagogical, for instance. Or dear old Origen. These schemata aren't just arbitary - they arise at the interface of Brain, Bible, Faith and Real World. Seems to me that this thread is evidence that Christians still need something like this, and tend to produce it spontaneously.
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
Well, consider a newsmagazine with a known editorial slant. You can expect it to color everything in a certain way, and perhaps if the slant is slanty enough, you can't trust that anything that is printed in it is in fact historically accurate. But you can still learn a lot from it about the people who wrote it, and what they thought about the things that happened, can't you?
Maybe you can't trust 1 Kings to be an accurate history, but you can trust it to be, in spite of itself, a chronicle of what the author(s) and editor(s) wanted to say about what happened, which tells you something about them.
Sure, you can learn a lot about the people who wrote it. But I'm honestly not all that interested in the people on their own. I'm interested in learning about God, and don't know why I should trust Thing One these people say about God.
psyduck: so how would you separate what the Deuteronomist history says about God from its partisanship, and what do you learn about God when you do that?
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by psyduck:
The reading of Biblical texts as literature is only one tranche of what we're expected to do. There's also the naive reading of the texts - and I suspect that the conflicts you are speaking of are generated between the naive and the literary readings, which are mutually deconstructive...
Actually, come to think of it, my presumably naive reading of the text at about 14 and my current conscious attempt to read the narrative as narrative have left me with the same impression: Israel's enemies get the short end of the stick because God is a bastard.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Maybe what you can learn is that God puts up with a lot from very imperfect people? Not saying I have all the answers, just trying to help.
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Skinhead
Shipmate
# 10658
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Posted
quote:
Actually, come to think of it, my presumably naive reading of the text at about 14 and my current conscious attempt to read the narrative as narrative have left me with the same impression: Israel's enemies get the short end of the stick because God is a bastard.
Ouch, RuthW. Actually, it isn't fair to come to such a conclusion, given that we've already accepted that the Biblical perspective is hopelessly biased towards that of a bunch of Bronze age tribesmen.
Mind you, I'm sure most of us have struggled with this issue, and you've brought it to the fore beautifully through the "24" analogy. In fact, why watch "24", even accepting that it is blatant fiction? The obvious reason is that it gives us a nice feeling. No doubt Psyduck could explain why nice people get a kick out of identifying with a desperado like Jack Bauer. Another reason for watching the series is that you have something in common with other devotees, so it enhances community. It could even be used to illustrate a point in a discussion or sermon, so it enhances communication. On the negative side, I personally find some of the more "shocking" bits, like when the bloke was interrogated using a defibrillator in an earlier series, to be gratuitous and off-putting. But at least "24" comes with a clearly implied "don't try this at home" label, whereas the Bible is often claimed to be the ultimate moral authority, the penalty for disobedience being eternal torment.
To me, the Bible is still precious as it helps us to learn about God from a historical perspective . Some of those insights still apply today, although one has to be discerningly selective about what one takes on board. Most Christians, even Evangelicals, are conveniently selective about stuff from the NT as well - e.g. Paul's unambiguous instructions re women speaking or wearing headgear in Church.
So, can we learn anything new from the Bible? I believe so - I think we do recognize something that's true. As a falling fundamentalist, I used to call it the witness of the Spirit.
The Bible also provides a common narrative for people of Judaeo-Christian background, providing a medium for community and communication.
Psyduck, what do you think about the Bible being a repository of archetypes, which enables us to relate more effectively with our unconscious? - e.g. Samson the dumb hulk, Solomon the wise, Peter the hothead, etc.
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
RuthW: quote:
Actually, come to think of it, my presumably naive reading of the text at about 14 and my current conscious attempt to read the narrative as narrative have left me with the same impression: Israel's enemies get the short end of the stick because God is a bastard.
I presume that it's clear that I'm not using "naive" as a pejorative term. I think that it's important to grasp that God really is portrayed in some of these texts as a bastard. The "naive reading" is presumably situated where we are - i.e. at the end of 2,000 years of Christian tradition (including the venerable Christian tradition of antisemitism, ironically fuelled by some of the more bastardy bits of the OT - and supremely ironically by the Passion Narrative.) The naive reading is just how it strikes us.
Of course, the point is also that we read these things in terms of an "intertextuality" which includes everything else we've ever read, and a whole lot of stuff we've never read mediated to us by all the stuff we have.
And some of this stuff actually gets in the way of the "naive reading". It's highly non-naive to read the Joshuan genocide texts and think "That's cool! It's God telling them to, after all..." And highly perspectival. As is everything. But unless we can hold together the tension, and contradiction, between different levels of reading, so that even (or especially) when we're "spiritualizing" these stories into God's help enabling us to overcome anything, we don't lose sight of the fact that there are genocidal underpinnings here. But also that this isn't Mein Kapf. But also, that after Auschwitz, there are things here that we can never afford to see the same way again.
I must say that, re-reading the OP, I find myself agreeing with the posters who seem to feel that you want things either to be different, or somehow to be made different, RuthW. I'm not entirely clear how.
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
When reading the Deuteronomist history, I have to accept the narrative conventions of a foundational epic tale in order to keep from hurling the book out the window. But with those conventions comes the ideology of good guys vs. bad guys, one I find extremely troubling. I don't see how what we're supposed to be learning about God from the Deuteronomists -- God's faithfulness, for instance -- can be separated from the good guys vs. bad guys thing. God is faithful to his people -- and everyone else gets screwed. God's spirit is with David -- and Saul spends the end of his life in torment and madness.
I think something I posted on the David thread is relevant here. quote:
I think that among the earliest OT characters loving God covered a multitude of sins. I've already mentioned Abraham. Jacob was much worse. Yet God was willing to overlook a great deal in these men who loved him.
Perhaps the idea was to get the Israelites familiar with God before teaching them ethics.
This idea has occurred to me quite recently, and I'm still thinking it through.
God wanted the Israelites to be his people and live as he wanted them to. Since what he wanted was very different from the culture of the times, he had to teach them step-by-step. Theology is the why of ethics, so that's where God began.
Those of you who have cared for small children know that there is a limit to how much you can teach them at one time. You have to find out where they are and then ask them to take one step away from that, then another.
When our daughters were very small, they did not want to share their toys. We told them, "If you don't want to share your toys you don't have to, but if you don't let her play with your toys, you may not play with hers." This is not a statement of ethics; it is a crass bargain. The only good thing about it is that it makes perfect sense to a two-year-old.
I think that God dealt with the early Israelites in the way that we dealt with our children. Then the Israelites wrote about their understanding of God's dealing with them.
We have two filters here. One is God's dealing with one thing at a time. The other is the Israelites defective reporting of events.
Moo
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Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Psyduck:
I must say that, re-reading the OP, I find myself agreeing with the posters who seem to feel that you want things either to be different, or somehow to be made different, RuthW. I'm not entirely clear how.
I'm trying to figure out why I shouldn't be a Marcionite.
I know it has to be read in historical context, I know it takes a highly partisan viewpoint, I know they were bronze age people, I know it's far more theology than history, and I know it's their highly colored conception of God we're getting. Let's say for the sake of argument that it's entirely fiction; no matter how you read it, I think the text yields up a very ugly God. I don't see that different levels of reading give us things we have to hold in tension. No matter which way I turn this thing, it seems to come up wrong.
I went back to Brueggemann's Theology of the Old Testament last night; he has a very nice little chapter in the middle of the book about holding Israel's positive testimony about God's "faithful sovereignty and sovereign fidelity" in tension with the negativity expressed by things like Psalm 22 and the wisdom literature. The thing is, the Deuteronomist history is supposed to be putting forward the positive testimony about God's sovereignty and fidelity -- and sure, God is sovereign and mostly faithful to his people (except not to folks like Saul), but how is this a good thing when so much crap inevitably and inseparably comes along with it?
quote:
Originally posted by Skinhead:
quote:
Actually, come to think of it, my presumably naive reading of the text at about 14 and my current conscious attempt to read the narrative as narrative have left me with the same impression: Israel's enemies get the short end of the stick because God is a bastard.
Ouch, RuthW. Actually, it isn't fair to come to such a conclusion, given that we've already accepted that the Biblical perspective is hopelessly biased towards that of a bunch of Bronze age tribesmen.
As far as I can see, the bias of the Biblical perspective can't be separated from what it's trying to tell us about God, so this is completely fair.
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Skinhead - I hadn't noticed this bit of your post. until now: quote:
Psyduck, what do you think about the Bible being a repository of archetypes, which enables us to relate more effectively with our unconscious? - e.g. Samson the dumb hulk, Solomon the wise, Peter the hothead, etc.
It's maybe a bit Jungian for me, but I can imagine it producing some fascinating readings in the right hands.
RuthW: quote:
no matter how you read it, I think the text yields up a very ugly God.
This seems to be a move on from, and a rejection of, the insight you offer in the OP. I'm not quite sure how your position now pans out.
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Psyduck:
RuthW: quote:
no matter how you read it, I think the text yields up a very ugly God.
This seems to be a move on from, and a rejection of, the insight you offer in the OP. I'm not quite sure how your position now pans out.
Well, I thought I was at least questioning the insight of the OP in the OP:
quote:
... I keep feeling like I'd be learning a whole lot of really nasty things as well, possibly without even noticing, if I persisted in going along with the narrative....
I don't have a position worked out. I'm trying to figure something out. And resist my impulse to be a Marcionite. And make it through the whole first year of EFM.
I'm still wondering how you would separate what the Deuteronomist history says about God from its partisanship, because I haven't figure out a way to do that. I keep turning this over in my head, and I keep coming up with this: The Deuteronomist history is very clear on the point that God is faithful to his people, but inevitably tagging along with that point is the fact that it sucks to be you if you're not one of God's people. It sucks to be you if you're not on Jack Bauer's side in the universe of 24, but it doesn't matter, because it's fiction. The OT is telling us something that on some level is supposed to be true -- not historical fact, but real truth. Most great literature tells us something true about people, or "the human condition" if you like that phrase. The Bible is great literature that purports to tell us something true about God.
Right now I think that the Jack Bauer thing -- accepting Israel as the heroic center of the Deuteronomist history -- works really well if the Bible is just literature about people. But it's attempting something which most literature that depends on a strong heroic center (most epic poetry, for example) doesn't try to do -- it's trying to tell us something about God. Beowulf, The Iliad and The Odyssey, The Aeneid, Gilgamesh, etc, use the hero to tell us about humanity. There are gods in some of these stories, but they're just characters with special powers and not the point of the story. And there's no God in 24! But where Beowulf is the hero of that epic because he is the greatest warrior, and we just accept that as cultural convention, there's a whole nother thing going in the Bible when David, for instance, is the hero, because God chooses him, just as God chooses the whole people of Israel. Beowulf is the hero because he just is; he has the requisite skills and exploits a hero of his day is supposed to have, and we don't say, gee, maybe the bard ought to be the hero, or one of the women who don't get to do much besides pass the mead around. Similarly, Jack Bauer is the hero of 24 because he just is; he's going to save the country (again) with little more than his wits, nifty technology, and his hand-to-hand combat skills. And we can learn a lot about that culture and our own from studying the fictional heroes. But Israel and its patriarchs, leaders and representatives are heroic not simply because the narrative establishes them as such, and certainly not because they have the right skills and exploits, but because God said so. So accepting the narrative convention of the hero in the Bible is fundamentally different from accepting it in other narratives. And accepting that the Hollywood Russians led by Julian Sands in 24 are Bad Guys Who Must Be Killed because the narrative says so is fundamentally different from accepting that the Philistines are Bad Guys because the narrative says God says so.
Or at least, that's what I think tonight.
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
Ruth, I might suggest you read The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels by Thomas Cahill. I found it very enlightening in how the Judeo tradition moved step by step toward a very revolutionary theological position. I've been told that Cahill isn't necessarily the best historian, pushing and pulling to make his case a bit. But I think he does help keep in perspective primitive Judaism and its maturing sense of who God is and what he wants. The early writers and storytellers who were they were and understood what they understood.
Reading the book gave me a sense of how far they were on the path from the Middle-Eastern religious norm even at the point Abram made his leap of faith. The early Hebrews knew their God was great, the greatest god, faithful, had a plan for them that took them beyond mere revolving cycles of time. All true. But did they really need to consider other peoples chaff to be mowed down in their path? We don't think so, but their world was very different than ours. They couldn't conceive of a God who was for them yet would not humble their enemies, enemies who could well annihilate them. They couldn't see around that corner. But they could see a God worthy of trust and worship, and not one based on manmade images but an ineffable one. They got some things quite right.
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Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Ruth W: quote:
The OT is telling us something that on some level is supposed to be true -- not historical fact, but real truth. Most great literature tells us something true about people, or "the human condition" if you like that phrase. The Bible is great literature that purports to tell us something true about God.
I think this is the problem. Firstly, I have the same problems with "The OT" as I do with "The Bible". "The OT" is a collection of Scriptures, yes organically interlinked in all sorts of ways, but highly polyvocal. It isn't one voice saying one thing.
Secondly, if we confine ourselves to the Deuteronomistic History, I don't see that it's purporting to "tell us something true about God" in the sense of offering an insight into God's nature. The Book of Judges, for instance, clearly suggests that when things were OK, Israel slipped into defection from God. Things then got bad, God handed them over to the power of their surrounding enemies, and they got trashed. At this point, they turned back to God, who raised up a judge to lead them against said enemies and re-establish them. Surely this is a theory of charismatic leadership in the technical sense of the recognition by the confederate communities of the tribes that one person had the gifts to lead them in the emergency in which they found themselves, and the re-operationalizing of a religious-political framework which allowed them to be led together by one person authorized by their shared identity. Which was a religious identity. It's not in the first place about God, it's about what kind of society they were. Martin Noth argued that they were an "amphictyony", a confederation of twelve tribes organized round a cultic focus, a shrine or whatnot, like those found in ancient Greece. The focus of the Israelite "amphictyony" was the Ark of YHWH. You don't have to buy into Noth's theory to see the potential for understanding early Israel as a grouping of semi-nomadic people for whom religion,. politics and sociology were all the same thing. The historical traditions these arrangements generated - more or less successful tribal warfare (they didn't all turn out to fight against Sisera, as the Song of Deborah in Judges 5 makes clear) were subsequently rationalized by someone who came along and applied not the most subtle of theologies to the process - behave and God trashes your enemies, defect and he lets them trash you - to this part of the Deuteronomistic History. Later on in the work, we get kings of Israel and Judah assessed by equally politico-theological criteria.
When you talk about "not historical fact, but real truth" you're making a distinction that doesn't apply to this material, or properly, I suspect to the OT as a whole - with the possible exception of the Shema. And maybe Ecclesiastes - but don't that say it all! I thought of including the Psalms, but they are different again. The prophets certainly present God's demands, and these reflect conceptions of God in terms of his expectations. But they, too, are historicized and politicized. Everything else is conditioned by Israel's historical experience, understood (with varying degrees of subtlety) as the experience of being YHWH's people.
Surely it's as misplaced to be disappointed that God is professed by tribes committing genocide in the OT as it is to believe that God, in the OT, validates certain genocides. What we get, is where Israel went. One thing that classical Christianity and Judaism seem to be completely agreed on is that you can't de-historicize the OT. It's a trace, multiple traces, of a community's experience. It's not about what God is like, as much as it is about a people's identity and history being bound up with YHWH. And how they fall apart when they defect, however much they suffer when they don't.
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
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Janine
The Endless Simmer
# 3337
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Posted
Ruth said: quote:
... it sucks to be you if you're not one of God's people... Israel and its patriarchs, leaders and representatives are heroic not simply because the narrative establishes them as such, and certainly not because they have the right skills and exploits, but because God said so...
Well, yeah. This is hard to take because...?
I guess the whole potter/clay, noble/common concept is useless? The idea that we won't be able to tidily reconcile every factoid and thought and apparent truth about God, with our own inner picture of "fairness" and what/who we think God ought to be --
No such thing as simply accepting that we can't see the whole picture now-right-now because we have finite minds? I mean, without chucking out the concept of a basically true and (*gasp*) actually inspired Bible?
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Posts: 13788 | From: Below the Bible Belt | Registered: Sep 2002
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
First, many thanks to those bearing with me and reading these monster posts. Many more thanks for those responding -- I very much appreciate your willingness to wrestle with me over this, as it's one of the few ways I learn the really important things.
quote:
Originally posted by Psyduck:
Firstly, I have the same problems with "The OT" as I do with "The Bible". "The OT" is a collection of Scriptures, yes organically interlinked in all sorts of ways, but highly polyvocal. It isn't one voice saying one thing.
Forgive my sloppy writing. I got tired of typing "the Deuteronomist history." I was thinking just last night that the view of narrative I'm applying here is going to break down because it assumes an attempt at a unified whole. I would really like to read some good stuff on oral traditions this summer -- if anyone has suggestions, I'd be grateful.
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Secondly, if we confine ourselves to the Deuteronomistic History, I don't see that it's purporting to "tell us something true about God" in the sense of offering an insight into God's nature.
<big snip>
The historical traditions these arrangements generated - more or less successful tribal warfare (they didn't all turn out to fight against Sisera, as the Song of Deborah in Judges 5 makes clear) were subsequently rationalized by someone who came along and applied not the most subtle of theologies to the process - behave and God trashes your enemies, defect and he lets them trash you - to this part of the Deuteronomistic History. Later on in the work, we get kings of Israel and Judah assessed by equally politico-theological criteria.
No argument from me here. Humor me, though, and tell me why we should read this stuff! I honestly am not all that interested in these people and their simplistic and arguably untrue theology if their experience doesn't have any bearing on my life. I'm not reading the Deuteronomist history for its own sake -- I'm reading it because I'm a Christian, attempting to follow the way of one for whom it was a part of Scripture.
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When you talk about "not historical fact, but real truth" you're making a distinction that doesn't apply to this material, or properly, I suspect to the OT as a whole - with the possible exception of the Shema.
I suspect you're right. Which leads me right back to the question of why we should read this.
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Surely it's as misplaced to be disappointed that God is professed by tribes committing genocide in the OT as it is to believe that God, in the OT, validates certain genocides.
I'm no more disappointed that these people professed God than I am that John Milton (one of my favorite poets, but a sexist bastard) professed God. Milton's sexism has to be understood in historical context, and important points in Paradise Lost depend on understanding that Milton assumes a secondary status for women, but that doesn't make sexism okay. I don't believe that God thinks Milton's sexism is okay, and I don't believe that God actually validates genocide. Paradise Lost and the Deuteronomist history each have a point to make which is to my mind inseparable from certain unacceptable assumptions they make. And I think it taints the points they're making.
I keep reading Milton, though, partly because the poetry is fantastic, and partly because he really is trying to tell us something about his understanding of God ("to justify the ways of God to men"), and that's valuable to me, however flawed his understanding is. I'm looking for a reason to keep reading the Deuteronomist history.
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What we get, is where Israel went. One thing that classical Christianity and Judaism seem to be completely agreed on is that you can't de-historicize the OT. It's a trace, multiple traces, of a community's experience. It's not about what God is like, as much as it is about a people's identity and history being bound up with YHWH. And how they fall apart when they defect, however much they suffer when they don't.
Good for them! Why should the rest of us care? If it doesn't tell us about God, why shouldn't we be Marcionites?
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
But did they really need to consider other peoples chaff to be mowed down in their path? We don't think so, but their world was very different than ours. They couldn't conceive of a God who was for them yet would not humble their enemies, enemies who could well annihilate them. They couldn't see around that corner. But they could see a God worthy of trust and worship, and not one based on manmade images but an ineffable one. They got some things quite right.
So we get to just separate out the right things from the wrong? On what basis? Using what criteria? Admittedly, the line of argument I'm pursuing at the moment will logically let me reject the whole thing on the basis of what I think is right, but that seems more respectful of the narrative than sifting through it looking for the things I think are cool and dumping the rest.
quote:
Originally posted by Janine:
Ruth said: quote:
... it sucks to be you if you're not one of God's people... Israel and its patriarchs, leaders and representatives are heroic not simply because the narrative establishes them as such, and certainly not because they have the right skills and exploits, but because God said so...
Well, yeah. This is hard to take because...?
Because the non-chosen people never had a choice in the matter. In the Deuteronomist history, at least Israel got to decide whether or not it wanted to behave and prosper or misbehave and get its collective ass kicked. Everyone else is doomed from the start.
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No such thing as simply accepting that we can't see the whole picture now-right-now because we have finite minds?
Nope, not for me, at least not "simply" accepting -- I resign myself to this sometimes, but I think there is great danger in this -- it can lead to accepting tremendous injustices. Yes, we only see through a glass darkly now, but we still have to live our lives as best we can, which includes applying our sense of fairness. If we're going to accept that the Philistines are bad guys because God said so, who do we see now as the bad guys designated by God as our acceptable targets for trashing when we're living right in the eyes of the Almighty?
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Luigi
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# 4031
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Posted
Ruth you said quote:
And we can learn a lot about that culture and our own from studying the fictional heroes. But Israel and its patriarchs, leaders and representatives are heroic not simply because the narrative establishes them as such, and certainly not because they have the right skills and exploits, but because God said so. So accepting the narrative convention of the hero in the Bible is fundamentally different from accepting it in other narratives. And accepting that the Hollywood Russians led by Julian Sands in 24 are Bad Guys Who Must Be Killed because the narrative says so is fundamentally different from accepting that the Philistines are Bad Guys because the narrative says God says so.
Now if I understand you right you are asking how can we trust a book that, at times, seems to affirm positions that are thoroughly repugnant. (Or at least they are to me.) Do tell me if this is right.
Because when I started asking that question about 6 years ago - I found the answers given, that were pretty similar to some of the ones given here, to be unconvincing. They smacked of evasion. (I normally agree with Psyduck - but I am not sure whether I do here.)
The only answer that I came across that came close to answering it was when I read Walsh and Middleton's 'Truth is stranger than it used to be.' (Middleton is an ot scholar.)
In it they argued that we should be willing to go against the text. Indeed they set out to demonstrate how 'going against the text' has a biblical pedigree. (You could argue that we would still be avoiding menstruating women like the plague if our tradition hadn't found ways of going against the text.)
Now whilst the idea was clear to me it left me with more questions than it answered. It seemed that I needed a leitmotif that helped me to know when to go against the text.
It took me another 5 years to find that leitmotif.
Will expand on that in the morning if my understanding of you is on the right lines.
Luigi
PS cross posted with Ruth W's post above - will read it now
[ 04. March 2006, 20:40: Message edited by: Luigi ]
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Luigi: quote:
It seemed that I needed a leitmotif that helped me to know when to go against the text.
It took me another 5 years to find that leitmotif.
Will expand on that in the morning if my understanding of you is on the right lines.
Talk about a cliffhanger!!! J R Ewing, eat your heart out!! ![[Cool]](cool.gif) ![[Help]](graemlins/help.gif)
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
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Luigi
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# 4031
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Posted
Psyduck - didn't mean to seem a tease. It was just that I wanted to know if I really understood Ruth's position.
This is the problem as I see it. I was brought up to believe in a revelatory God. Also, ISTM, it matters enormously to God how we live on earth. So why on earth does he reveal himself in such misleading ways? Considering the unstable and potentially violent nature humans have, given half a chance, we will look to justify the most horrific of acts. So to have God apparently justifying genocide - and that is just one example - was enormously problematic to me. I couldn't make the pieces fit.
Walsh and Middleton argue that the redemptive voice in the OT is at times the minority voice but that it never gets totally silenced.
This seemed right to me, but hardly helped me to see how the forward momentuum of the OT worked. Also I was left with Ruth's question, how do I know the redemptive voices from the voices of those who got God totally wrong?
I couldn't make it work until I saw it as the story of mankind extricating itself from sacrificial logic and sacrilised violence. Put simply the reason all these terrible things are in there - the marginalisation of women, the demands for genocide etc - is because the Bible is a truly anthopological book. It shows us, for example, why when humans are given the choice between a God who demands we sacrifice our children and one who abhors such practices, nine times out of ten, humans will choose the God who demands child sacrifice. Consequently, we find human sacrifice was ubiquitous in early human history. It shows us the cancer at the heart of the human condition and its link with ancient (and sometimes not so ancient) religion.
That still leaves some pretty important questions - but does this make sense so far. (My guess is that so far you probably come at things from a fairly similar angle.)
Luigi
PS Walsh and Middleton use Trible's 'Texts of terror' and Brueggemann's thinking quite a bit.
[ 05. March 2006, 16:34: Message edited by: Luigi ]
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Luigi: quote:
I couldn't make it work until I saw it as the story of mankind extricating itself from sacrificial logic and sacrilised violence... Walsh and Middleton use Trible's 'Texts of terror' and Brueggemann's thinking quite a bit.
Am I also detecting some subtle notes of Girard in this rich bouquet?
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
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Luigi
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# 4031
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Psyduck:
Luigi: quote:
I couldn't make it work until I saw it as the story of mankind extricating itself from sacrificial logic and sacrilised violence... Walsh and Middleton use Trible's 'Texts of terror' and Brueggemann's thinking quite a bit.
Am I also detecting some subtle notes of Girard in this rich bouquet?
You certainly are - though I do wonder if he allows the logic of his position to fully develop. For me Gil Bailie (an unashamed Girardian) - was the one who made it clear to me exactly how this works.
His position is that all mankind has been prone to sacrificial logic (trying to buy off the Gods) and sacrilised violence - we all have the ability to commit appalling acts of violence, particularly when operating as a group / tribe / mob in an extreme situation - and we then have to justify it. Indeed the lengths we go to justify it is genuinely disturbing. And the first people we have to justify it to, is ourselves. Which leads me to....
Another author who really clarified things for me was Stanley Cohen - who wrote a study of 20th century genocides. (Not a Christian author at all.) As I understand it 'States of Denial' is one of the definitive works on the subject. In it he explores how denial is central to being human and iss essential for even those least involved in the acts of violence. You see Cohen's anthropology and Bailie's anthropology were essentially the same. The difference was that one got their anthropology through reading the pentateuch the other found that the worst 20th century violence mirrored the mindset of the writers of the Torah, in truly alarming ways. Though, of course, that wasn't his intention.
Another way of putting it would be to say that wherever religion is infected by superstition it cannot look at itself and see itself as it really is.
Luigi
[ 05. March 2006, 20:26: Message edited by: Luigi ]
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Luigi
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Posted
Having said what I have Psyduck, how far apart are we? Indeed do you have any comments to make about what I have written so far?
How do we seek to live a life that pleases God if we have a polyvocal text and have no means of discerning which voices are stating truths and which aren't?
Luigi
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Psyduck
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Posted
I suspect we're not too far apart in many ways, Luigi. I find Girard's interpretation of the cross very powerful. It seems to me that the sacrificial nature of the cross actually inheres in its unmasking of the logic of sacralized violence. For me, then, what organizes the cacophony of a chaotically polyvocal text is a perspective derived from the intersection of divine love and a crucifying world in Jesus Christ. I would say that, of course. I'm a Christian.
However, the OT was my principal specialism in my first degree, and I do find myself dissatisfied with a position that seems to involve reading it on a criterion that's (just) outside its compass. It seems to me that there are particularly Jewish ways of organizing the polyphony of the OT, and that they seem to draw on an organizing principle that arises from within the OT which is profoundly reflected in the religious integrity of Judaism.
Old Testament theology has always seemed to me to be a subdiscipline that's never managed to become completely convincing. There's somehow often a forced feel to it. Some more than others. I find Bruggeman a lot more artificial, for instance, than von Rad. The most convincing articulations of what the OT is and how it works I seem to find in critical studies rather than theologies. I suppose that's reflected in my long post above.
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:
It was just that I wanted to know if I really understood Ruth's position.
Yes, quite clearly, thanks. More later -- it's been a very long day.
Psyduck: My questions from a couple of days ago were serious. If the Deuteronomist history doesn't tell us about God, why do/should we read it?
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Psyduck
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# 2270
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Posted
quote:
If the Deuteronomist history doesn't tell us about God, why do/should we read it?
Because it's a complex voice from within Israel talking about Israel's experience of God.
If our idea of revelation is of God talking to us through what people write, with all kinds of guarantees in place that what we're getting is 100% God, then we're going to be disappointed. If our idea of revelation is God doing stuff, and people responding to it - then that's perhaps what we have here.
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
Wow. I just spend 20 minutes of my life acquiring sophisticated excuses why I can just pick the nice bits from the OT and ignore the nasty stuff. To that I say: bunk. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
First, revelation does ramp up in complexity and sophistication with the cultural progress of the people. But that's with regards to what? It's with regards to human culture. Abraham has not been bested in his faith in God, just because people got a lot less primitive. At basically the earliest time when people had a chance of understanding, Jesus steps in and tells us how the human side of life should be handled. But that's His second commandment, "love thy neighbour". The first commandment of Jesus - "love God" - was understood from the beginning. And so Israel walked righteously - and stumbled one hell of a lot - according to the first commandment "Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One...", whereas the second commandment was in the works because human culture has to reach a certain point to achieve that one.
So the OT is a beautiful corrective to the good-works-righteousness that for strange reasons is particularly popular among Protestants: No, it's the Shema first, and then there's a second commandment like it that concerns humans (since humans are like God). And the OT is also a revealing record of the cultural progress that allowed Jesus to finally say what had to be said about human relations.
Second, God does not have an equity comission watching His every move. As far as we can tell, His usual modus operandi is to pick and choose. And worse, His choices are manifestly "unfair" according to human standards. The "chosen people" were hardly the guys I would have put my money on. If God had asked me, I probably would have opted for some Chinese tribe. And then, picking Jesus of Nazareth, what ever was He thinking? He could have just become the Roman Emperor or at least some well-educated Greek philosopher. And let's face it, picking that Jesus character didn't exactly lead to less slaughter till Christendom was finally established, did it now? It just reversed sides (for a while), with the quintessential Christian being a martyr. As far as I can tell God picks whoever He pleases and if a few of His children are meeting Him rather more quickly than expected as a consequence He seems not overly worried.
So second-guessing God isn't magically possible by looking back in history. We may understand a bit more of God's plan simply because we see a bit more. But that's not to say that we "get" God just because we "get" history. We "get" that the Israelites are bronze age barbarians, but we don't "get" why God would want to have anything to do with them. So what?
Third, if the Israelites had all been pacifist do-gooders, then they would have been exterminated long before NT times. It was kill or be killed, and God did want these people to survive and bring forth Jesus, so practically speaking, they had to kill. They were God's tribe. However, that cannot be used as excuse now for gunning down your neighbour or nuking Iran. Why? Because God has now made His covenant with all humanity in Jesus and through Jesus has told us how we are to deal with each other. Actually the latter follows from the former, we are now all "God's tribe" and already Israel knew that you had to treat your own well.
So history is revealed as an ever expanding covenant of God which finally brings all of humanity into "God's tribe". And so when Jesus steps up and becomes the tribal leader for us all, the rules that always applied within the family, the clan, the tribe, the nation - now apply to all. Does that mean that before all those not in "God's tribe" where second-rate humans? Not in the sense that they won't make it to heaven or God doesn't love them as much or whatever. But they were not the ones who were chosen to bring about the ultimate "Jesus tribe". That's fact. And if they happened to stand in Israel's way (at least while Israel was being faithful for once) then they may well have met their maker quickly.
Fourth, people are amazingly good at hearing what they want to hear. I assume God has encountered that phenomenon rather often, and I doubt that the ancient Israelites were an exception. So how much of the recorded will of God is accurately what God actually said is not clear to me. Is it however impossible that God said anything like "Kill everybody in that city."? I don't think so. Given ancient customs of revenging blood, killing every human being of an enemy tribe may on occasion be the only way of guaranteeing survival. In the end it remains guesswork how much of the OT God's commands is human extrapolation. But God isn't a sweet old man who couldn't hurt a fly. Look at the world, it's full of suffering, pain and death. Where's God now? Why doesn't all this crap just stop and we live happily ever after?
So the OT brings the true awfulness of theodicy into a clear focus for us because it's always easier to project moral outrage at a distance. That, too, is God. A God who at least allows genocide to happen, perhaps even commands it, if that suits Him. And that God is the Good and the Just and the Merciful. Can you grap that? Or is it perhaps getting a bit too ineffable? Feeling slightly stretched? But note how the killing and surpressing slowly changes to being killed and surpressed, until it hits a tipping point in Jesus. What is the NT martyr if not an inverted OT warrior? So perhaps the lesson of the OT genocides is to set us a question: are we ready to suffer and die for God, and perhaps one day not as individuals, but as a nation or even as the world? We are still the chosen people, but perhaps we would actually rather be chosen back in the bronze age when that meant others would bite the dust?
I think the OT is good stuff, including the nasty bits. Now what I can't deal with is the endless lists of who fathered whom and how much money each tribe offered and how many goats were killed and... Urgh. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
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Kwesi
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# 10274
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Posted
I agree with Ruth there are great problems with the OT from a Christian perspective. Those of us who are Christians need to remind ourselves that Christ is the measure of all things, including scripture.
There is no single coherent view in the OT of the nature of God. The God of Jonah, for example, is completely different from the God of Judges etc..
The OT is also inconsistent in its specific teaching. Take, for example, the opening verses of Chapter 23 of Deuteronomy where it states that Eunuchs and Moabites 'cannot be included amongst the Lord's people'.
Isaiah 56 v 3,directly contradicts the injunction of Deuteronomy. The explicit inclusion of Eunuchs is later underlined in Acts 8 where the first specifically identified Gentile convert is the Ethiopian Eunuch.
The prohibition against marrying Moabites causes a whole host of problems, doesn't it? Ruth was a Moabite, which means that her great-grandson, David, cannot be regarded as part of God's people. So much for Israel's greatest king! It also causes quite a few problems for the credibility of a Messiah emerging from David's line.
Matthew's explicit inclusion of Ruth in his genealogy of Jesus directly challenges the Law of God as revealed through Moses.
The OT should carry a health warning.
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