Henry Imler December 3rd, 2008

I am in the middle of reading a book on 1st Corinthians that is intimately concerned with the construction of the body in Antiquity.  I came across something that I found hilarious in there tonight and I want to share it with you.  However, some persons who are squeamish or otherwise offended with sexual material might wanna skip the post. There is nothing crude or explicit in the post however.

In Antiquity, there was a widespread perception that when one released sperm, they released a measure of their power out into the world.  After all, sperm is hot and hot was active, powerful, male.  That is why for several ancient doctors, such as Galen, too much sex would feminize a person.  As the Hippocratic On Generation put it:

The sperm represents the human male comes from all the humor in the body; it consists of the most potent part of the fluid, which is secreted from the rest… [As a result of a release is of sperm, one] becomes pale, loses strength, and is consumed.

You have to remember that for the Greeks and the Romans, Masculinity and Femininity were two poles on a spectrum that could be traversed.  On one end, you have the masculine, rational, self-mastery, the hot, the active, the powerful; on the other you have the feminine, the erotic, the erratic, the cool, the passive, the weak.  One was not granted a spot on the line by their genitalia; rather, it was their role in society that determined how masculine or feminine a person was.  Granted, males were much more likely to be on the hot, powerful, active side of the scale, but women could gain masculinity in rare cases if they broke out of their stereotypical societal roles.  It was very rare, but it did happen on occasion. We even see it in early Christian authors.  Jerome says:

“As long as a woman is for birth and children, she is different from man a body is from soul [1] .  But if she wishes to serve Christ more than the world she will cease to be a woman and will be called man.”

This is a very different way of viewing men and women than we have today and needs to be noted when we are reading early Christian [2] texts.  How Christians today should deal with this is something I am working on.

(Ronan the Accuser “feminizing” Rick Jones during the Kree-Skrull War under the Greco-Roman sexual rubric)

‘I promised you the funny… let me get to it.  So prevalent was this attitude towards sperm that doctors would “prescribe regimens that [would maintain] the proper strength of sperm necessary for energetic living” [3]   Some athletes went so far as to “weight their testicles down with cold metal while they slept to avoid the genital heat that lead to nocturnal emissions” [4]   before their matches.

Binding your balls at night to conserve your power?  That is hilarious to me.

1. notice how body is (female) is lower than the soul (male) [↩]
2. or Greek, or Roman, maybe Jewish [↩]
3. Martin, The Corinthian Body 202. [↩]
4. Martin, The Corinthian Body 204. [↩]

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Henry Imler December 3rd, 2008

It looks like I’ll have to go to Germany now to see the Anti-Creationist [1] Museum :: Für die Bibel kein Platz: Urzeit-Park im Saarland  (For the Bible has no place: Prehistoric Park in Saarland)

Das "Creation Museum" in Kentucky hatte bereits im ersten Jahr eine halbe Millionen Menschen angezogen. Es will demonstrieren, dass die biblische Schöpfungsgeschichte nicht im Gegensatz zu moderner Wissenschaft stehen müsse. Nun eröffnet im Saarland ein ähnlicher Erlebnispark. Der will allerdings genau das Gegenteil: die Erdgeschichte und die Evolution so darstellen, wie die Mehrheit der heutigen Forscher sie sieht.

Check here for an crude English translation of the article.

Hat Tip :: The ever-gentle Dr. Jim West.

1. I appreciate what Recent Earth Creationists are trying to do.  I understand where they are coming from; I just think their noble approach has gone horribly wrong in every way. [↩]

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Henry Imler November 19th, 2008

I often hear a lot of talk about America and her Christianity, whether it be discussions on her roots or current mission to bring democracy to the world, in the circles I run.  I hear it both ways.  I get emails about Obama being the Antichrist and read blog posts on how Christians should disavow the government.  Well, with all of that in mind, I came across this explosive quote for your consumption and perhaps discussion.

We’re not a city on a hill. We’re temple prostitutes at the altars of materialism and neo-imperialism. – via Lingamish

Whaddya think?  Is that a fair assessment?  Regardless if you think it is or not (it is a bit polemical, but there is some warrant there), I suggest reading the whole thing, especially when it comes to his ideas of what do do now (listed here to generate convo)

1. First of all then, pray for kings and all who are in authority that we might lead quiet and peaceful lives. (I Tim 2:2)
2. Here’s how you handle forwarded emails – reply with “THIS MESSAGE IS STUPID AND UNTRUE. Get a life, people!!!”
3. Mock apocalyptic preachers
4. Let go of abortion as the litmus test for candidates
5. Build God’s kingdom through acts of mercy not political activism

I’m a huge fan of 1, 4, and 5.  It’s really hard for me to insult and mock the ideas of people that I know.  I’d rather just talk with them, rather than attack them.  (at least in the abstract)

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Henry Imler November 14th, 2008

I guess I am a false teacher who will bear the wrath of God for leading my students astray:

But, if you have difficulty believing in the power of God to create this universe as he said he did, without some millions of years’ worth of trial and error, then you are worshiping a false and weak god, who would leave it to mankind to compile a "canon" of scripture; that by religious power-plays and politics, we ended up with what we call the Bible. This link is an example of the sort of teaching going on, in case you don’t believe me.

Wow, I am the very example used to illustrate the “worshiping of a false and weak god”!  Looks like I need to head out to Hillshire Farms for a millstone fitting.

But, in all honesty, I like and hate when these charges are leveled against me.  I am trying my hardest to be faithful to both God and the historical record.  As a religious scholar and a person of faith who studies and works in a secular university, the line between my job and my faith can be difficult one to traverse.  It is so very easy to slip into full secularization mode, with my hermeneutic of suspicion in overdrive, Crossan style.  I painfully recognize this problem – it is something I am wrestling with in the last few unpublished posts in my series on the Theclan Christian tradition.  The historical evidence points me in one direction, but my faith points me in another.

I fully maintain that there is no distinction between the truth of God’s story and what we see in history and science.  However, just as the Bible used to insist on a flat earth, perhaps we need to mold our expectations of the text to fit what we see in the world and in history.  In a very intimate way, I am inspired by Galileo’s motivations.  He was afraid that scores of souls would leave the Church when they discovered that the world was indeed round while the Church was insisting it was flat.  I’ve seen our tightly constructed theological shells crack and fall away because we insist on shutting out all other viewpoints, even those of other Christians who are just as dedicated to God and his Word as we ourselves are.  I seek to understand and foster an understanding of the text unbeholden to anyone – secularists or past interpretations be damned. 

As I indicated a couple of posts ago, if we interpret the world and the Word from a position of theological comfort, then we have a serious problem. 

The word of God is like a roving lion – untamable and majestic in its beauty and power; it destroys both woman’s wisdom and man’s deeds.  The moment you think you have tamed the great lion is the moment you should fear for your life.

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Henry Imler November 14th, 2008

Magneto, after skewering Xavier in Ultimate Origins 5.  No relation to the post, I just thought it was a cool pic.

Conservative scholars and practitioners have a lot invested in biblical prophecy.  For them it is a great confirmation that the Bible was divinely inspired.  After all, if your God tells you what is going to happen in 30 or 200 years, and it happens, then that can only bolster your claims. 

For many scholars and practitioners [1] if a text is written ex eventu, then the implication is that the text is somehow less inspired.  After all, you can’t really make the appeal to prophecy then, now can you? 

For this reason, when it comes to the dating of texts such as Daniel, Jeremiah, and Mark, conservative scholars are beholden to forcing the texts to be written before the events in the prophecies. [2]     Ironically, this approach actually neuters the text they are wanting to save.

You have to remember that just about all ancient texts are propaganda.  I don’t mean that in a negative sense, only that these texts are being written for a specific purpose – to influence people to buy into their message.  Nothing, not even so-called “histories” are just reporting the facts, ma’am.  Prophecies are huge in terms of their rhetorical effects.  As Mark Goodacre puts it, “The prediction only gains traction because the reader is saying, ‘Hey, yes! I know what that’s about!’”  It is a powerful argument in favor of the text in the reader’s eyes.  The writers of the text know this and skillfully employ the use of fulfilled prophecy to this end.

Now, lets assume that the text is written down and disseminated before the event in question happens.  The once powerful effect of prophecy loses its power.  Now, in the reader’s eye, doubt is summoned and laid over the text.  Here, our imaginary reader says to herself, “Man, Jesus is saying that the temple is going to be destroyed, but… just look at it!  It is still standing!”  Prophecies only gain rhetorical power after they are fulfilled.  Thus, in forcing the writers to pen unfulfilled prophecies, scholars deny the texts their original power over the reader.

Now, notice what I am not saying.  In no way does this assume that the writers are inserting fake prophecies onto their characters.  From a position of faith, I believe that Jesus, Jeremiah, Daniel and others uttered their prophecies beforehand.  However, this is a different question than when the texts were written.  And when we are dating texts, we need to let the evidence speak louder than our theological preconceptions which may or may not be artificial.  If we date from a position of theological comfort, then we need to reevaluate our methods.

For more reading on this topic, see NTWong’s Scholarly dating of Daniel to After the ‘Prophecies’ were ‘Fulfilled’ and Mark Goodacre’s Dating Sacred Texts on the Basis of Fulfilled Prophecy. 

1. at least ones I have heard in lectures at Central Christian College of the Bible and others in person and in print [↩]
2. And really, as a person of faith, this is attractive, even if I think it prejudices this theological implication over other more concrete forms of evidence. [↩]

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Henry Imler November 5th, 2008

via Comics should be Good.

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Henry Imler October 20th, 2008

The results from Dr. Jones’ tenure evaluation are in.  They do not look good. 

Excerpt:

The committee concurred that Dr. Jones does seem to possess a nearly superhuman breadth of linguistic knowledge and an uncanny familiarity with the history and material culture of the occult. However, his understanding and practice of archaeology gave the committee the greatest cause for alarm. Criticisms of Dr. Jones ranged from “possessing a perceptible methodological deficiency” to “practicing archaeology with a complete lack of, disregard for, and colossal ignorance of current methodology, theory, and ethics” to “unabashed grave-robbing.” Given such appraisals, perhaps it isn’t surprising to learn that several Central and South American countries recently assembled to enact legislation aimed at permanently prohibiting his entry.

Moreover, no one on the committee can identify who or what instilled Dr. Jones with the belief that an archaeologist’s tool kit should consist solely of a bullwhip and a revolver.

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Henry Imler October 17th, 2008

 

 unSacred Texts: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The following is a general outline of the lecture I gave over canon lists last month for the Intro to Religion.  It was the first lecture I have given beyond teaching section.  I was quite nervous in front of 150+ undergrads, so don’t be too hard on me.

Let me begin by asking you all what makes a text sacred? While different groups have defined “sacred texts” in different ways, for our purposes, we are going to use the following definition:

“a sacred text is a text set apart by a religious community for the purposes of instruction or exhortation.”

Ok, that is a nice working definition. Let me ask you all another question. How do we go about figuring out what a given religious community used as sacred texts? [Field answers] A good way to get a feel for a community’s set of religious texts is to look at what they call their “canon.” C-A-N-O-N, with one N, not two N’s, like the weapon. What do we mean by “canon”? [Field answers]. The term is not easy to define. If you look it up, you’ll find several definitions, most of which sound similar to “any officially recognized set of sacred books,” which isn’t very helpful for nailing down what a sacred text is. Well, formal definitions aside, there is one fundamental property of canon that I want to highlight.

“a canon is that which defines the boundaries of a given system”

It establishes what is in and what is out. Any of you all read comic books? Or better yet, anyone read the Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings? Have you seen the corresponding movies? For those of you that have, what do you do with the differences between the two sets of materials? Which one is official and which one is unofficial? Which one is canon and which one is not? [Field Answers] For most people, the books are the official version and the movies are interpretations. The same thing is going on here with religious texts and canon.

In the years following the death of Jesus of Nazareth, a variety of traditions developed around the figure in a community context. Usually they slowly took shape, moving from oral traditions to written ones. These written texts were circulated and gradually became accepted and used by larger and larger groups of people. As different groups grew, they had to find ways to define their borders of what was acceptable practice. They first few centuries of Christianity were marked by very diverse groups, all of which were competing with one another for the dominant position in Christianity. One of the ways in which Christian groups could separate themselves from the pack was by making canon lists, or lists of works that were inspired by God for the teaching of humans.

Big and Little O Orthodoxy

Before I go on about canon lists, I need to mention is what I mean by “orthodox.” What I don’t mean is the “Big O” Orthodox Church, which refers to the one of branches of Christianity that resulted from the “Great Schism of 1054CE and is referred to day by the terms Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, or Eastern Orthodox. Instead, I mean the “Little O” orthodox, which refers to the traditions that beat out the other competing traditions and became the dominant form of Christianity and the heir of most of the forms of Christianity we see today. Orthodox Christianity before they achieved this dominant position is referred to as “proto-orthodox Christianity.” Those people that defined themselves as “orthodox” defined everyone else as “heretical” Today, when I am talking about orthodox and heretical I am not talking about an objective stance on their theological systems, I am only referring to the historical winners and losers. What is the best way to refer to the heretics? – Call them by the names they used themselves. This goes back to one of Dr Flanagan’s points on how to do the study of religion in a public university – Self-Description. Because of this, no matter how disparate their social practices or theological systems, if they describe themselves as Christians, that is how we categorize them.

To recap:

“’little o’ orthodox refers to the tradition of Christianity that became dominant in the Roman empire”

“proto-orthodoxy refers to the orthodox Christian traditions before they achieved dominant status.

Some Canon Lists

On your hand handout you will find three of such lists. The first one is the list of books that the Marcionites, an early Christian group. The Marcionites were followers of Marcion, a Christian dualist. Marcion was a fascinating character who we only know about through the writings of his opponents. We know that he was excommunicated from the Church in Rome because he threatened to cause a rift in the Church by seeking to expunge all Jewish features of Christianity. Take a couple of minutes to look at the canon lists that I gave you. What interesting features do you notice in comparing the Marcionite canon with the canon we use today?

The Marcion Canon¹
(Aprox 150 CE)

One Narrative The Evangelion ( a pared down version of Luke) Ten Pauline epistles, the Apostolikon. Galatians 1st Corinthians 2nd Corinthians Romans 1st Thessalonians 2nd Thessalonians Laodiceans Colossians Philippians Philemon

Features to highlight:

1. It was composed of two “books,” the Evangelion Greek for the Gospel or good news, and Apostolikon, Greek for the Apostle.
2. Only used one gospel and a pared down version at that.
3. Only used the “letters of Paul”
4. Nothing outside of Paul, no Johns, nor Peters, no Hebrews, no Apocalypse of John.
5. Marcion’s canon lacks the more Jewish NT Texts, such as the Gospel of Matthew, the Letter to the Hebrews, the book of James, etc…
6. Another interesting note, Marcion edited his copy of Luke’s Gospel, taking out all Jewish references to Jews, especially all prophecies concerning him which the text claimed were fulfillments of Jewish prophecies found in the Old Testament.
7. There is also the curious letter to the Laodiceans – does anyone know what this letter contained? No? Don’t worry, no one knows. The only mention of this letter is found in Tertullian’s work entitled “Against Marcion.”

By examining Marcion’s canon list, we can see how Marcion and his followers adopted Pauling theology and rejected any sort of Jewish-Christian theology.  He edited out all references to Old Testament prophecies out of Luke and rejected wholesale any book that gave a stamp of approval of the Jewish God.  What was the reason for this?  Marcion, along with scores of early Christians, looked and Jesus’ teachings and the Old Testament Narrative.  They saw in the former a God of love and peace and in the latter a God of hate and war.  The reconciled this by equating Yahweh with Yaldabaoth, a gnostic demiurge.

The Euseubian Canon²

(Aprox 320 CE)

The next canon list on the sheet is the Eusubian Canon. It is taken from the Early Church historian, Eusebius of Caesarea, in his work History of the Church. It dates around 320 CE. This is a fascinating list because of all the categories Eusubius draws out. Again, take a couple of minutes to look at it. What do you notice?

Points to highlight:

1. We see four gospels here and the Acts of the Apostles instead of Marcion’s heavily edited one gospel.
2. We also see four more letters assigned to Paul, the letter to the Laodiceans is missing and the two letters to Timothy, a letter to Titus, and the Letter to the Hebrews has been added.
3. Also, there are the letters of John on the list.
4. Look in the 2nd column. What do you notice here? Yeah, he lists several other categories, the first of which is a list of disputed works, ones which some Christians accept and some don’t. Here we find
   1. Epistle of James
   2. Epistle of Jude
   3. Epistle of 2nd Peter
   4. Epistle of 2nd and 3rd John
   5. The Apocalypse of John (the Book of Revelation)
5. Next we have a list of rejected works. Here we find such works as the Acts of Paul, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Didache (an early instructional work that gave advice on traveling Christian preachers, and the liturgy, among other things). We also find two rejected Gospels, the gospel of the Hebrews and the Gospel of the Shepherd of Hermas. These are lost works, just like the Marcion’s letter to the Laodiceans.
6. We see an acceptance of both Pauline and Jewish Christian texts, in contrast to the Marcionite Canon.

There is a final list here, a list of “Spurious Works” ones that were considered “so very far from the true orthodoxy … [that they] ought therefore not even to be ordered among the illegitimate [books], but shunned as altogether improper and irreligious.” In this category we have several more Gospels (Peter, Thomas, and Matthias) and Acts (of Andrew and John).

Now that we have glanced over the features of the Eusubian canon, I want to spend a few minutes talking about the implications of Eusubius’s canon list. We could spend some time talking about what made it into his canon, but I think it is far more interesting to talk about what was excluded from the canon! What’s this canon saying about the illegitimate and spurious books? [Field answers] That’s right; it is saying that these are the things that people should stay away from. And if people in power are telling people out of power what they should not be doing, guess what that means? Yup, it means that the people were doing these things. So, if a Eusubius, a bishop, is telling people not to read something – it’s because they were reading it – and enough of them were reading it to make it a threat and warranted a prohibition.

Standardization of Christian Literature and Christian Thought

When the proto-orthodox bishops began to standardize church teaching and practice, they did the best they could to eradicate those works they deemed illegitimate and spurious. They were tremendously effective. Remember how we don’t have copies of the Letter to the Laodiceans, the Gospel of the Hebrews, or the Gospel of the Shepherd of Hermas? It is because they were systematically eradicated or edited. Some of the texts were whitewashed with orthodox theology or all the copies that they could find were burned. ∴ We are very lucky to have some of the noncanonical texts that we have today.

Now, given the fact that no one today uses these noncanonical texts and that they were rejected by the “official” church, is there any use of studying these texts?  Well, we do know that people were using these texts, and that these people were not among the powerful, the official church, but they were used on a more popular level. And there is often a difference between the official religion of a people and the popular religion of a people.

The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles

Studying these texts will give us a window into the lives and religions of the popular people and leaders of the other, non-proto-orthodox movements. I want to spend the rest of the time talking about a particular group of ancient Christian literature called the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles. There were a variety of types of early Christian literatures, but we only have time to look at one. This is group of books were all written around 150CE – 250CE all around the Mediterranean coast.

All of them center around the same theme – one of the twelve apostles is sent to a particular region for the purpose of converting that region. They are not histories as we think of history. They are fantastic adventures. For instance, the Acts of Matthias and Andrew finds Matthew being sent by Jesus to the “City of the Dogs” which is inhabited by cannibals. Matthias is captured and drugged as soon as he approached the city. Andrew is sent to the city to rescue him 27 days later.

[5 Min Narration of the Contents of the Book, highlighting

• Killing the guards
• Opening the Jail Cell
• Disarming more guards (numb hands and melting weapons)
• After capture, the prayer and escape from prison
• The flooding Statue
• The wall of fire that prevented the escape of the cannibals and the swallowing up of the cannibals by the earth
• The sudden conversion of the whole city
• The giving of laws and the resurrection of all of those that were killed]

The other Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles contain similar stories. For instance, in the Acts of Philip, a new Jewish convert is killed by a jealous Jewish community. They bury him to hide their deed. However, God has the earth move the body of Hananya to the bay where Philip was hanging out on his boat. A dolphin then gets the body from the shelf of the bay and brings it to Philip.

Now, these are obviously fantastical stories, very similar to our fantasy novels that we have today. Now, given the fact that there is next to zero historical value of the narrative itself, is there anything these texts can tell us – besides the fact that the popular Christians liked to read religious novels?

Legitimizing certain traditions

There are three very important things that these texts can tell us about the early Christians that read them. First, the texts sought to legitimize or delegitimize certain traditions. Notice that the Acts of Matthias and Andrew end with the giving of laws by Andrew. They are tying the validity of the law with the divine power of Jesus. ∴ The underlying argument is that if one accepts the power of Jesus then they should also accept the laws of this particular city. Compare this with the giving of the LAW to Moses in the Old Testament. Same thing is going on here.

Communal Relationships

Secondly, they tell us about the relations between different communities where these texts were written. Remember how the Jews killed a new Jewish convert? The rest of the story centers around Philip exposing the murder to the Roman governor and the divine punishment of the Jewish leaders by an Angel of the Lord. What do you think the relationship was between the Christian community and the Jewish community there? Think of all the anti-soviet propaganda during the cold war or perhaps anti-jihadist media since 2001. We can compare this with the way Jews are depicted in the Acts of Thomas. Often the Jews are the first persons to either convert or get what Thomas was saying. Interestingly enough we are able to trace the Acts of Thomas back to the city of Edessa. We also know through other sources that the Jews and the Christians there enjoyed a peaceful and tolerant relationship there. This is substantially different from what we see in the Acts of Philip.

Early Christian Practice

Lastly, we can piece together snippets of Christian practice. We often come across hymns, baptism rites, and doctrinal statements. When taken together, we are able to get a glimpse into early Christian liturgical practice. In the Acts of Thomas we find all three of these present. The ones I want to mention are the “Hymn of the Daughter of Light,” the “Baptism of the King and His Brother,” and the “Monologue of the Youth.” You can find excerpts of these on your handouts. We could spend all day analyzing what is going on here – but for the sake of time, we will just point to their existence in these texts.

If we take all of these things together, the liturgical elements, the legitimizing and delegitimizing of traditions, and statements of the relationship the various communities a much

more robust picture emerges of these early Christians outside the “official story” of the early Church fathers.

Conclusion

Today I have touched on several topics. What I want to stress as I end my time are three things.

1. There were many more sacred texts and traditions than the brand of Christianity that won out over the second through fourth centuries

2. One of the methods Christian groups used to define themselves was the use of canon lists which told them what was acceptable sacred texts and what was not and therefore helped to create their sense of identity.

3. Even though they are not histories in the modern sense of the word, the study of excluded texts can tell us a great many things about the lives and religion of “heretics” and laypersons

Footnotes:

1. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.27.2 and Tertullian, Against Marcion Books 4 and 5. While we are only looking at New Testament canons, it is worthwhile to note that Marcion rejected the Old Testament in its entirety. [↩]
2. Eusebius, History of the Church 3.25.1-7 [↩]

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Henry Imler October 5th, 2008

Something about the nature of early Christianity made it a movement of letter writers.  We possess more than 9,000 letters written by Christians in antiquity.  Twenty-one of the twenty-seven writings of the New Testament take the form of letters.  Two of the remaining works, the Acts of the Apostles and the Apocalypse, contain letters within them.  If the interpreter is willing to understand early Christian letters as Greco-Roman letters, they can provide a fascinating window in to the world of those Christians.

– Stowers, Stanley Kent. Letter Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity. Westminster John Knox Press, 1988. p. 15.

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Henry Imler September 29th, 2008

Keith Ward, in chapter 6 of Is Religion Dangerous, deals with the issue of morality and the Bible.  He addresses the charge that religious morality is based on an unthinking acceptance of old religious laws.  As his example, he brings up one of the most notorious of religious injunctions – Deuteronomy 20:15-18.

“But these instructions apply only to distant towns, not to the towns of the nations in the land you will enter. 16 In those towns that the Lord your God is giving you as a special possession, destroy every living thing. You must completely destroy the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, just as the Lord your God has commanded you.  This will prevent the people of the land from teaching you to imitate their detestable customs in the worship of their gods, which would cause you to sin deeply against the Lord your God.

Geno-what did you say?  Isn’t that the very piece of evidence that we use to indict the Nazi’s, their attempted genocide of the Jews?  If we are to be morally consistent, shouldn’t we reject this piece of the Old Testament and anything/anyone that relies on this passage/the book/the collection of books that uses it.  Any religion that accepts this as part of their canon (read: Jews and Christians) are guilty of blindly basing their morality on old and outdated religious laws.  There are three ways that religious adherents have approached this problem. 

Approach One : The Morally Primitive Imagining History

This approach looks at the historical record first.  They notice that the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites keep popping back up in the narrative and the archeological record.  As such, the ban was not actually implemented.  Secondarily, they note that the text itself was “written” [1] around 700BCE, but are describing events that are much, much older.  Taking these two points in tandem, they hypothesize that scribes and priests wrote into the narrative God commanding the slaughter of “present day” rival groups to delegitimize any territorial claims they might have.  This moral tradition (that it is ok to slaughter your opponents wholesale for the protection of your group) is morally primitive and is later corrected by the Prophets. [2]  

Pros:

• The Genocide did not happen historically
• God is not a mass murderer

Cons:

• The Text is a pack of lies
• The authors of our text are a bunch of evil liars

Approach Two: A Unique Situation

This next approach bites the bullet(s).  They say – our text says that God gave the command.  However, this is a unique situation and not universally applicable.  God only intended it for the Israelites in this particular situation, which was necessary for the perpetuation of the Israelites.  We see that it is unique because of all of the other moral injunctions in the Hebrew Bible contradict “the Ban.”  This allows us to maintain the integrity of the text while cutting off this law from the others that we can abstract moral principles from.  It was said and it happened [3] but it was only for one situation and one time.

Pros:

• Maintains the integrity of the text and its authors
• The Ban was a one-time affair and not repeatable nor abstractable.

Cons:

• God is evil and bipolar
• We have mass murderers in our religious tradition.

Option Two point Five: A developing God

Ward does not mention this, but it is possible that God is developing along with his creation.  In order for him to know how and what to be and act, he must have something to act and be contrasted against.  After all, how can I know what red is if I have never seen it?  Likewise, how can God know what wrong is unless he has done it?  This is a Hegelian view of God.  Under this view, God had not fully developed his morals yet.  The narrative reflects God’s moral at that point in time.  Later on his morals developed and he understood that all life had value and that it was wrong of him to order the genocides.

Pros:

• God was not evil – only immature and is now mature through his interaction with his creation
• Maintains the integrity of the text

Cons:

• God is a developing being and is not always right and moral

Approach Three: Morally Primitive People Acting on a Self-Correcting Partial Understanding of God

This third approach tries to address the weaknesses of the other two.  It suggests that we have a roughly accurate reporting of what these people think was happening.  That is to say, the ancient Israelites thought that God wanted them to purge all peoples who threatened their identity.  After all, surviving and maintaining your identity was an incredibly difficult thing to do in the ancient world – something we cannot fully grasp in this blessed age of comfort and inconvenience.  They had part of God figured out – that she wants total devotion, but they also had part of him wrong – that he has deemed all human lives of worth and the wholesale slaughter of peoples is wrong.  In time, they would discover more and more about God and come to understand this, but at this time in their development, they had not reached this understanding.   There is some perception of the divine will, but a limited one.  Under this interpretive model, the Bible contains humanity’s developing understanding of God.

Pros:

• God is not evil
• Maintains the integrity of the text and the developing moral understanding of its authors
• The Ban was based on a partial but flawed understanding of God

Cons:

• The Bible is something to be wrestled with, not a direct perfect view of God and its interaction with history (can’t take it at face value)

Out of these three [4] views that Ward presents, I am uncertain as to which I follow.  My background tells me that all live is Gods and he can do with it as he pleases.  Based off of that, option two seems the most viable.  However, I also maintain that God is morally consistent and always has been.  This forces me to at least consider option three.  If I am forced to choose, this is the option I am going with right now, even though I am uncomfortable with how this view forces me to hold the Bible.  As Ward notes on page 138, “Believers have no magical route to moral certainty, nothing that undercuts the hard process of moral analysis and reflection.”  But it is the same for nonbelievers.  They have to give an account of how life can have meaning in the face of nothingness – or at least fleetingness.  If my flame flickers and then is snuffed out – does it really matter what it burned while it was here?  I am not saying atheists cannot give such an account [5] – only noting that it too is a path forged through analysis and reflection and is not self-evident.

1. that is, the “final” version was edited together around this time – not that these traditions were invented at this time. the traditions behind the text are much, much older [↩]
2. see Ezekiel 18:20 [↩]
3. or at least was attempted [↩]
4. four, if you add 2.5, the one that I added [↩]
5. even though I freely admit that I ultimately reject their account [↩]

• Ethics , Religion , history
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Henry Imler September 23rd, 2008

Tonight [1] I was reading Colin Wells’ The Roman Empire when I came across this passage:

Any attempt to relate ancient monetary units to modern ones is nugatory in an age of inflation… At one end of the scale, a cheap prostitute at Pompeii could be had for two asses; at the other, the Emperor Tiberius is said to have left 2,700 million sesterses. [2]

I gotta wonder why Wells went with the example of the cheap prostitute.  Perhaps fruit? A small measure of grain?  I have to wonder which of the following is the more likely scenario:

1. Wells lost a bet to his drinking buddy and had to include it.
2. Wells was drinking when he wrote it.
3. Wells did not write it, but has a 13 year old boy as an editor who made the change after Wells had turned in his final manuscript.
4. Wells’ editor lost a bet to his drinking buddy. or lastly
5. Well’s editor was drinking when he edited it.

1. toniggggght, tonight, tooonight, toniight, tonight – pumpkins anyone? [↩]
2. Colin Wells, The Roman Empire: Second Edition (Harvard University Press, 1995), 8 [↩]

• Humor , history
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Henry Imler September 23rd, 2008

These are the books I am currently reading and my take on them so far. 

Brueggemann, Walter. Theology Of The Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy. Fortress Press, 2005.

• While I could do without Brueggemann’s eager dismissal of the Catholic interpretive tradition, his history of scholarship of the OT in the modern era has been a joy to read.  This is supposed to be one of the (new) classics of Old Testament interpretation.  We will see.  Thanks to JR for letting me borrow his copy.

Enns, Peter. Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. Baker Academic, 2005.

• I am still working through this book.  So far I really like it.  Enns does a good job of presenting the evidence, but a poor one of drawing out the full implications of what the evidence.  I am leading a lifechange group the the BSU centered around this book.  I recommend it to anyone working though ones view of the Old Testament.

Kallenberg, Brad J. Live to Tell: Evangelism in a Postmodern Age. Brazos Press, 2002.

• Just started this one; JR and I are in the process of adapting it to a Sunday School series.  So far it is a short, but great book.  Very accessible; very useful.

Segal, J. B. Edessa ‘The Blessed City’. Gorgias Press LLC, 2001.

• Just started this pappy too.  Now that I have my guest lecture and sermon out of the way, I can get back to working on the history of Roman Edessa.  If you are wanting to write on the history of Edessa in 200CE, you need this book.  Rent it, don’t buy it, because it is 89 damn dollars.

Suetonius. The Twelve Caesars. Revised. Penguin Classics, 2007.

• Love it.  Read it in conjunction with Wells’ The Roman Empire.

Ward, Keith. Is Religion Dangerous? Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2007.

• Here is an interesting book.  Designed specifically to counter the New Atheist’s claims that religion is fundamentally dangerous.  I am  only through 2 of three parts.  He has done a mostly a great job so far, with religion is violent and religion is unreasonable.  He kinda dropped the ball with religion gives a free pass on the afterlife.  It just did not seem like he knew where he was going with that chapter.  He tries to write from a faith-neutral perspective, but his Anglican bias shines on through.  This will strengthen the work for members of the Christian tradition and be a distraction for those outside it.

Wirzba, Norman. Living the Sabbath: Discovering the Rhythms of Rest and Delight. Brazos Press, 2006.

• Some friends and I are reading this book together in order to get a handle on our draining lifestyles.  I was expecting a book that argued for setting aside time for rest each week.  Instead, the book seems to be about living in harmony with God’s creation.  Sabbath is not the escape of the week, but the culmination of it.  I like about 2/3 of what I have read.  Wirzba often jumps the gun and almost drifts into hyperbole with his examples.  This will be effective for some, but for others it will only serve to constantly distract.  Also, Wirzba is prone to insert his pet issues as examples, so don’t let that distract you too much.  He does have quite a bit of good things to say.

• Christianity , Reading Reviews , Religion , history
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Henry Imler September 15th, 2008

The more I learn in the specific about how Rome shifted from a imperial [1] republic into an empire and how much we patterned our institutions off of the Romans, I cannot understand why we have not incorporated the Fall of the Roman Republic into our cautionary myths. I’d be a complex myth to be sure, but you could build all kinds of ideological warnings in there.

After all, we and the Romans shared the same hatred of the “Tyrant.” We both have erected power sharing systems to prevent the Tyrant from coming to power.

You could highlight Julian’s skirting of the Roman “constitution” during his rise to power and how Octavian was able to slyly consolidate power while not ever upsetting the consuls and not ever appearing to be a monarch.

I think the Star War’s prequals come the closest to mythologizing the end of the Roman Republic. As flat and as poorly executed it was at times, I still love the line, “So this is how liberty dies… with thundering applause.” [2]

1. they were an empire far before they had an emperor… wait… CRAP! [↩]
2. or something similar [↩]

• history
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Henry Imler September 2nd, 2008

It’s actually not a bad debate if you block out Strobel the host.

• Christianity , Religion , history
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Henry Imler August 30th, 2008

reading: On the Life of the Caesars [1] - Suetonius

listening: The American – Martin Sexton

Is the myth of the Roman Republic employed much in American culture?  The founders certainly meditated and drew off of the Roman res publica and their desire to retain the benefits of the rex without falling into the most hated of ruling methods, the despotism that comes with kingship.  Do we retain any of the story of the roman republic and its fall into empire in our political myths?  It seems like a perfect cautionary tale, given how we imagine ourselves.  Is it employed by our internal and external critics?  Or are we too scared of naming our imperialistic tendencies and power structures as such to invoke Rome?  Has Rome become a great satan in our popular culture?  I know many Xians that only employ Rome in terms of the Roman Empire and the internal tyranny of its emperors and the imagined tyranny it held over those that it ruled. Now, to be sure, the myth of the Roman Empire is a useful one, but I sometimes get a sense that this is the only way we see Rome and that in doing so, we miss out on some powerful story-telling and teaching.

If we aren’t doing these things in our enculturation education, I think we should include this. It’d require a distinction between the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. And creating the myth of a republic breaking away from kingship, building an unprecidented power sharing system, and decending back into despotism.

Anyway, if you have any input you wanna share on this – drop me a comment below.  I really don’t know what I am talking about – I am just thinking out loud.

1. Yeah, the modern English title is The Twelve Caesars, but it’s real title is De Vita Casesarum [↩]

• Notes , Politics , history
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Henry Imler August 27th, 2008

…If an angel of of the Lord were to strike the balance whether the domain ruled by Serverus Alexander were governed with the greater intelligence and the greater humility at that time or at the present day, whether civilization and national prosperity generally have since that time advanced or retrograded, it is very doubtful whether the decision would prove in favor of the present.

• Politics , history
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