A Serious Case of the Ass

Tags

teabaggers, women's rights

And you thought she would go quietly into the still dark night, returning to her lair, climbing into her sarcophagus, bidding adieu to Marcus, after relinquishing her role as beard to his hetero pretensions.

Nah.

Bat shit crazy don’t play that way.

She continues to play the game of stupid queen of the mountain better than such noteworthy rivals as Sarah, Phyllis, and Marsha, all rolled into one. Michele Crazy Eyes Bachmann once again wins the gold metal for craziest damn woman to ever have a vagina.

But then she doesn’t. See that’s the really fine thing about this new pronouncement by the bible in one hand, gun in the other, reparative theory is your friend, nut job, is that it truly is shocking. See, while Marcus has always been firmly wedged into his closet of gayness, his beard, was really a man all along.

Yes, Michele, nobodies, Belle, is a guy. It’s a fact.

Here’s how we came to know.

She spilled the beans…or shall we say she spilled the gonads for all to see.

She ‘splained it this way: See, your Barack…being all Black and all, now he was elected because there was all this guilt floatin’ around, and him being only “half” ya know, black, it was like getting rid of that black angst thing, without technically ya know, havin’ to actually elect one of them. (I had this explained to me by a couple of Christianist ladies, one of whom howled that Obama isn’t black, he’s only half-black, having a white mother. Another explained that  questioning his citizenship was not racist, because she had taken in a black girl to care for during her pregnancy’ and she was WAY darker than Obama, which proves I guess, in the mind of a racist, that well, only shades of color matter, but somehow that has nothing to do with RACE-ism)

But, Michele, intoned in her cutie little voice, tis not the same when it comes to women. Nah, America is not yet “ready for a woman President”, and for a coupla reasons. One, there ain’t no guilt in America over women, and two well, there is just no “pent-up desire” which is Michele’s way of saying there ain’t no stinkin’ hard-on for a woman.

And she oughta know, since she RAN FOR PRESIDENT. And since she did, and since she appears to believe her own slimy brain farts, well, it can only be that Michele is really Michael and no woman at all.

That’s the logic of it as far as I can see.

It all just was the “last straw” if you get my drift.

I’ve been reading an essay on a critical examination of the phrase “Sarah laughed” in Genesis. Done from a feminist point of view and gathering the linguistic evidence and the EARLIEST manuscripts, we learn that Sarah was actually laughing at the possibility that her old and dried up vagina might become that moist Eden once again and her old and flaccid husband might actually be able to get it up at his age. As such, it violated the shame/honor society of the Egyptian Jews who were translating the Septuagint into Koine Greek–the same version that would be used by the likes of Jesus and Paul as they read Torah in the synagogue of Jerusalem in the early years of the Common Era.

And if it were not for a long line of women starting with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who just oddly enough thought that maybe God and the baby Jesus thought as highly of them as it did about all the men it focused on, well, we’d still be in the kitchen, barefoot no doubt and with a child at each elbow and one on the hip as we prepared a feast for the menfolk who were out and about “important” business.

And then, just then, before that I have to contend with a Neanderthal male who,without a single modicum of biblical training purports to bolster his ill-conceived notion that it was solely the “Jews what kilt our Lord,” by suggesting that I was not the least bit attractive from his arrogant pig-oinking position, well, I’m getting the feminist juices all fired up again.

So Michele, pseudo-woman, and Phyllis Schafley and her idiotic “be a good wife” while I make millions writing books and speaking for large fees, and Marsha Blackburn, with her “I’ll say whatever you tell me to if I can just be on camera” drivel, you can all go take a massive flying leap cause ladies, and I do use that term most advisedly, you are FUCKING NOT HELPING HERE as some of us are trying to make a world where girls can grow up to be anything they want and make as much as any man, and that child rearing is EVERY BODY’S business and responsibility, and that women’s ideas about compromise, caring, and compassion just might, JUST MIGHT add a segment to the conversation that MIGHT, JUST MIGHT result in fewer wars and less death, and more freakin’ happiness for all.

So THAT’S what I’m thinking about today.

How ’bout you?

Serendipity Do, I Love You, or Words to That Effect

Tags

bible, dominionists, exegesis, fundamentalists, Ted Cruz, US government

There is a definite payoff to being an eclectic. I think all great minds are actually. Not that I am comparing myself to being a great mind. I am all too aware of my limitations to do that, but at least my nose is pointed in the right direction.

Which all goes to say nothing more than that my interests are myriad and lets just say, broad, broad, broad. I read a lot of stuff in any given day or week. And I’m convinced that because of that, I draw a parallel sometimes or should I more perfectly say, an idea seems to form, informed by all that flotsam free-floating around just waiting and looking for a hook to grab and attach itself.

Utterly confused? Yeah, I know, I get so in love with the flowery shimmer of words kissing that I end up just babbling. I would compare myself with Sarah Palin, but unfortunately she never manages to ever reach an idea ever, just snippets of phrases strung together in some effort to look Wall Street Journalish.

Back to business.

So my friend Tim is going to the Chicago Theological Union working on a Masters in Divinity and he sent me his book list for the semester, and I’m reading one of those (figuring out that textbooks required from that place are certainly useful for my scholarly endeavors). It’s a dry subject to most but fascinating to me–biblical exegesis–methodology to be exact. It’s called Method Matters: Essays on the Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible.

And given the political landscape, I’m reading a lot of crap about Ted Cruz, that lunatic genius from Texas who has designs on America the Beautiful that should they comes to realization would make you cry.

And I just finished reading another tome about creationism and the crazy people who believe in it, which I hated for a variety of reasons that we don’t have to go into here, but nonetheless offered real nuggets of truth too.

And can you believe that those three things all swirled around in me old head for a few days, and is now busting out in urgent spews of words and phrases all because something important is to be learned in all this? And since you haven’t (unless the universe is way more crazy than I think) been reading these same things, I just got to let you know all about it.

So let’s start at the bottom and work up. About these creationist believers. You know the one’s I mean, the silly folks who are just sure that Genesis (chapter 1, 2 or together) describe in REaLitY just exactly how the earth and everything around it were created? Them? The cognitive dissonance folks? The compartmentalized fools? Them.

They like their bible their way, as has been pointed out innumerable times. God said it, I believe it, ‘nuf said. God actually said it in the pages of the King James Bible, the only one worth reading from their point of view. And he said it, dictated it, so that the average, only sorta educated person could easily understand it. Why do they know that? Because they understand it, just fine.

No amount of showing them that they don’t understand it will be allowed. Mostly that is true, because they way they understand it suits them just fine. It allows them to hate whom they naturally hate, and condemn whom they naturally wanna condemn, and look down upon those they think should be looked down upon.

Now to suggest to them that they are wrong in their understanding is well, easily dealt with. That’s where the red guy comes in.

See, Satan is a real dude, and he is everywhere, making it his personal job to screw all mankind and womankind as well, after raping them no doubt. Satan is behind everything bad.

Satan is also the most devious trickster ever invented (and God did that, but a good fundamentalist doesn’t dwell on why too much–it was no doubt for our own good). Satan gets in people’s heads and messes them up.

Fundamentalists are pretty sure that any time somebody–anybody–says something that they don’t like, Satan is behind it.

Are you getting the drift?

So, if somebody tries to present actual facts that the bible is not as they say–that’s SATAN working again. They actually call you that to your face if you aren’t careful. Or words to that effect. I was once asked, “Sherry, why do you hate Jesus so much?” all in response to my trying to explain why evolution was actually true and believing in God and believing in EVOLUshun was really okay.

Which all led to this remark by a geologist (a real one) speaking at a creationist convention:

“. . .I am a young-age creationist because that is my understanding of the Scripture. As I shared with my professors years ago when I was in college, if all the evidence in the universe turned against creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate. Here I must stand.” (Amongst the Creationists, pg 213)

That pretty much tells you that these people are not to be trifled with.

Now, Ted Cruz is a fundamentalist of the first order. His daddy is a preacher who talks about Ted being a royal priesthood, a king, and Obama of course being a Kenyan devil. These folks are serious about their fundie ways. Ted is also a dominionist among other things.  A dominionist is defined as:

The theocratic idea that regardless of theological view or eschatological timetable, heterosexual Christian men are called by God to exercise dominion over secular society by taking control of political and cultural institutions. Competes in Christianity with the idea of Stewardship, which suggests custodial care rather than absolute power. Used here in the broader sense, some analysts use the word only to refer to forms and offshoots of Reconstructionism.

Basically these folks believe to one degree or another than they should impose a Christian government over the US, based on biblical law as they understand it, and go on to do so across the world. People who are not Christian or don’t adhere to proper beliefs are to be eliminated (How that is to be done  depends on how hard-core you really are.)

Where do they get this notion? Why they get it from Genesis 1:28 where in God gave Adam “dominion” over all the earth.

See, they read this and define it as the way we would use the words today. Subdue involves or can involve force. Dominion means dominance, power and control over.

So they feel very righteousy in all their planning to destroy the Constitution as it is, in favor of what it really always was, but somehow got perverted by the LIBERALS, those heathen God-haters, also known as the N word of all words SECULARISTS, which is really an S word, but no matter.

And they mean business and no bigger proof of that is grifter girl Annie Coulter, who probably could care less, unless she can see a way to make a dime off it, but anyway, she in seriousness or jest said this:

And well, we don’t know how close to Mr. Cruz this is or isn’t, but for some, this is what they really believe, and if you try to explain to them that they are probably pretty wrong in this, well, as I said, you get Satanized.

So what is the truth about all this dominion stuff?

Well, I was reading my Method Matters and I was reading about the methodology called Comparative Methodology which to make a long story very very short, means comparing biblical texts with other textual material from other areas and groups such as Egyptian or Mesopotamian, Babylonian, and so forth. Do we find similar stories say to the flood story? And of course we do. And that helps us understand the Hebrew flood story in some context. Get it?

So when we look at the “man made in the image of God” we wonder what that means. And it suggests that in Mesopotamia, the king made images of himself for the temple (to be worshipped) and in territories taken in war. So if God made an image of himself (in man) is this similar to showing off one’s victory–humans are the capstone of God’s creation. Except that in Mesopotamia, the images are cast to revel in war victories or hunting victories, the latter reflecting on the former. They reflect violent acts by the King.

Is this the same in the bible or different. The author of that essay, argues different. Why? Because when we read Genesis 2:16, we see that the “dominion” previously alluded to, is tempered in the second Genesis story using the Hebrew words šmr (serving) and ‘bd (preserving). We can see that the Hebrew writer who joined the two creation stories changed the royal rhetoric of violence which we see in Mesopotamian texts to a non-violent image of caring and nurturing of the earth by this image of God–humanity. (*please note I am not suggesting that the Genesis redactor was aware of the Mesopotamian textual or iconographic rhetoric)

The lesson is quite different. And rational people thus informed and having a better idea of what dominion means in the Hebrew bible, no longer can or should use it as a basis for a forceful control over others.

But of course we run into that old demon Satan once again.

I might be telling you the truth, and honestly I am, but then again, my mind might be so warped by my companion Beelzebub that I only THINK that I’m telling you the truth, and I’m really doing Satan’s handiwork. Or as they say in Star Trek: Everything I say is a lie–I’m lying.

You have now entered a circular argument and will never be released–or a black hole–or the inside of true-blue fundamentalist.

Related articles

• Rafael Cruz is an avowed creationist (dailykos.com)
• Ted Cruz’s Father is a Dangerous Religious Fanatic (politicususa.com)
• Creationist Ken Ham: Vote for godly candidates, not for policies that benefit you (rawstory.com)

 

Ho, Ho, Ho, Witchy Poo is Back!

Tags

Advent, bible, birthers, Christine O'Donnell, Christmas, Frankincense, fundamentalists, Genesis, GOP, Jesus, Michael Steele

She learned at the knee of the Wasilla Wombat. She learned that when the electorate rejects ya, get up, dust yourself off, and keep on yappin’. You will surely find enough poor souls to pay your way.

So Christine O’Donnell, finding the cupboard most bare, formed a PAC and, now her bills taken care of, she can utter profound (in her ditzy mind) quips, and otherwise try to interject herself into adult conversations.

Not content to get two of the top ten quotes of the year, she’s after more. She’s in a friendly race with sista Sarah to be both the most obnoxious, won’t go away buffoon and the biggest butcher of the English language to date.

If enough isn’t being said about the tax bill being decided Ms. Chatty Christie has weighed in. Of course she’s all for the Bush tax cuts being extended and she hates all the stuff for those in economic free fall. According to the non-witchy one, tragedies come in threes–Pearl Harbor, Elizabeth Edwards death, and now these confounded extensions of unemployment benefits. She then tried to explain what THAT meant, and of course failed. Halloween can’t return fast enough.

***

You and I are much alike. Therefore, I feel confident that you too have spent countless hours? maybe even days, wondering what the hell frankincense  is or was. Given the season, well, I went a lookin’ for an answer for us both.

I tried Senator Franken, but he demurred, pointing out that there is an “e” after the K in his name, not an “i” as in frankincense. So I figured Slate would have the answer, and they did. Read all about it here, and surprise friends and family with your new-found sparkling intellect.

***

I think a lot like Keith Olbermann I guess. At least two of his items from last night’s show were links on my blog. We, meaning me and he and his researchers must be reading some of the same bloggers online. That’s comforting to me. And of course, you can know that you’re getting the “best” when you come here. *snicker* and “toot”.

***

It appears that Michael, I’m da black man in the Repiglians world, Steele, has decided to give it another go round. Shocking all the Repoopers with the news he was not gonna go “quietly into the night” he threw his hat in the ring to be the paper tiger in the GOP once again.

Now this pissed off tons of the GOP regulars, since they thought that two years was enough to prove they aren’t the bigots everybody says they are. They were tired of Mr. Steele’s general stupidity, hoof and mouth disease, and all around big spender attitude.

Ain’t it just fun watching the GOP fracture along so many different lines?

***

Let those with brains, think. We, with regularity, point out that fundigelicals are guilty mostly of reading biblical texts in a manner that supports their own needs and general beliefs about the world. They accept as literal those things that seem right to them anyway, and reject/ignore/explain away other quite direct statements when they cut against their needs and beliefs.

A provocative post at Biologos explains how early Jewish theologians were pained to clothe Adam and Eve, to protect their ideas of cultural “rightness” in their day. Indeed, we are all subject to that influence. Read, Genesis, Creation and Ancient Interpreters: Adam and Eve’s Nakedness.

***

If you just want to read something sweet and uplifting and well, Christmasy, then read Five String Guitar’s post about he and his wife’s latest Christmas shopping trip. It will warm your heart! Try it!

***

Hold onto your shorts folks. I have a major announcement to make! I do not DO NOT DO NOT have an opinion on the Julian Assange/Wikileaks affair. Nope, I surely don’t. Stand by: I may have one tomorrow. But so far, I don’t.

***

Take a look at this face, and if you ever see it, you will be looking into the face of a modern medical miracle. This man can actually walk and speak.

This buffoon, a Lt. Col. in the Army just pled guilty at his court-martial and faces eighteen months in prison, all because he refused to go to Afghanistan because the President is not a citizen and thus cannot legally give such an order.

What is worse, he was not ordered to Afghanistan but VOLUNTEERED, just to force this case. It is simply stunningly amazing that anyone can be this stupid, and be a surgeon.

Do not, repeat, do not, allow this man near you with a scalpel. No doubt his medical licence is also at risk due to his felony conviction.

***

The Contrarian is installing plastic sheeting over the bay windows in the living room. Plenty of naughty words are emanating from there. I am not going out there to see. The cats have all gone into hiding. Brandy wouldn’t come up the steps again, the rain/slush/snow had her carpet all frozen up and slick. So now there are towels down, until it warms enough to de-ice. This is all no big deal, except when it’s 4 below zero and 2:30 am and you are out there begging and pleading with her to “try.”

***

What’s on the stove today?  Tostados! Hurrah.

Related Articles

• Christine O’Donnell: unemployment benefits deal a ‘tragedy’…like Pearl Harbor, Elizabeth Edwards (pinkbananaworld.com)
• Christine O’Donnell: Pearl Harbor, Unemployment Benefits Extension Both ‘Tragedies’ (huffingtonpost.com)

What’s Up? 05/25/10

Tags

appetizers, Arizona, atheism, bible, Cain and Abel, cheese, daily news links, Dalai Lama, immigration, Lost, Marilynne Robinson, philosophy, recipies, what's up?

What’s up here, is weather. Finally a break in the two-day swelterfest! A nice manly thunder boomer went through awhile ago and we got some nice rain for a half hour or so. A good soaker as they say.

I can almost hear the sounds of “thanky neighbor” from the crops. Hopefully we have also stymied the turkeys that we now are sure were the culprits in the tomato thievery.  The Contrarian has vowed that he may set out and bring home the bacon (or in this case gobbler) if they persist in not stayin’ on their own turf.

In today’s newsy world I thought you might be interested in the following:

***

Yeah, I said I wasn’t going to preach here, but really if you haven’t signed up for 3quarksdaily.com you are missing something. They have such a wide range of subjects that you will just come across the most amazing stuff. Who knew there was a site called: AskPhilosophers.org? Amhurst College has it, and well, I find that the longer I’m blogging, the more interested I get in sites that really make me think–open my horizons if you will. The upshot is that they have an app for your Iphone.

Everybody loves Mozzarella Sticks right? Pioneer Woman gives us a new take with panko crumbs. They make them special so she swears.

An interesting opinion on the Cain-Abel problem entitled Abel: Murder or Sacrifice at Bible and Interpretation.

The Dalai Lama did an op-ed in the NYTimes. You can read that here.

MTV has an article about Lost and the religious implications of the show. Our friend James McGrath from Exploring our Matrix is featured.

Is atheism required for one to be a good scientist? The New Atheists say yes, some scientists say Nay. Read this thoughtful article at USAToday.

A book you may want to take a look at is Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of Self, by Marilynne Robinson. A review of it can be found here. It’s about science and religion and what can be understood of human consciousness.

Some world leaders give opinion on the Arizona anti-immigration laws. Thanks to Think Progress.

An excellent run down of the attempt to enact a law deporting the children born in the US of undocumented aliens is discussed here, via Crooks and Liars. Some excellent links to more information as well, especially the attempt to circumvent the 14th amendment.

The Devil Made Me Do It

Tags

biblical literalism, creation stories, devil, fundamentalism, personal responsibility, the Fall

I have said that the Jewish people have never taken the Hebrew bible stories literally insofar as they related to times in which there were no written records. The stories of creation, emanating from the northern and southern tribes were of ancient origin, handed down orally from generation to generation.

 There is no way to know of course, but we know from today’s exercise of repeating gossip,  that the end story can be quite different from the beginning.

Jeremiah, the prophet, always had a rough way to go in Jerusalem. Not only did he prophesy the downfall of Jerusalem, he claimed that it would be at the hand of Yahweh himself, punishment for the continuing sin of Judah. (The Northern Kingdom of Israel had already been destroyed by Assyria and disbursed.)

Jeremiah ended up in Egypt, taken there against his will, for his own protection. That remnant remained in Egypt during the fall of Jerusalem at the hands of Babylon, and that remnant grew. Out of it was produced the Septuagint, the first translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek.

Philo was to become the preeminent Christian theologian of Alexandria, ironic since he was a Jew. Philo, who lived at the time of Paul, introduced the idea of allegory into the interpretation of scripture. This he borrowed from philosophy. This idea, that the “bible” was not to be read literally, thus stems from very early on, and  was basically adhered to by  all Christian thinkers from then on.

We know at least from John’s Gospel, that he either was influenced by this allegorical approach himself as a proponent of the approach, or at least he used it to communicate effectively with his audience.

The idea that the Fall had more to do with the evidenced failure to take responsibility for one’s own actions has serious value to us today. And yet, we too, often fail to accept our part in events that occur in the world. Sadly, we were encouraged to do that by the introduction of the concept of original sin and Satan.

There is nothing in the bible that speaks directly of original sin, though the doctrine is drawn from writings of Paul usually. Iranaeus, was its first formal proponent in his attempt to show the errancy of Gnosticism. It seemed to gain adherence from that point on, and has existed in some form in most all Christian denominations as a precept of the faith. The Eastern church has never accepted this doctrine as such, and certainly the Jewish faith has never claimed the doctrine as its own.

In Jewish teaching, Satan (ha-satan) has no power except that  attained when humans do evil, or expressly given by God (Job). In the New Testament, Satan is commonly used, and has been interpreted as the culprit in the guise of the serpent in the creation story, at least as from the time of the writing of Revelation. 

The devil or Satan has come to be known as the causative factor of evil in the world. The devil fights over the souls of humans, and is constantly tempting humankind to do his bidding.  It is also common to accuse those whom you disagree with as being “possessed” by the devil. Various fundamentalists are likely to so identify any group that adheres to “pagan” religions.

What is fundamentally wrong, it seems to me, is the transfer of some of our own responsibility for our behavior to Satan. After all, we can at least claim that the origin of our actions resided outside ourselves. We were tempted, and being not God, of course, we can sometimes fail to do as we should.

Worse, we assume that we are constant sinners, and that may well be, since we are not God. (While it is nice and pleasant I suppose to attach such an appellation as sinlessness to Mary, there is no actual proof of this–it is but a philosophical reasoning, and faith dogma for some.) But by allowing for an entity who is pursuing us constantly to wrongness,  it makes it rather inevitable that we will sin more than we would otherwise, and this is a dangerous doctrine.

If the allegory of irresponsibility as our greatest error in the Garden is true, then we continue to magnify this irresponsibility by our adherence to an evil force in the world. What are we, but mere frail human individuals against this power? Is it surprising that Satan gains the upper hand? Other than sitting in a church 24 hours a day, how can we resist all the time?

Much as Flip Wilson looked coyly into the camera and chortled, “the devil made me do it,” as an exculpatory refrain, we too are apt to reduce our culpability for our wrongs by reminding ourselves that we were “powerless” to hold out against such a power. I would suggest that this is a stumbling block to our own re-entrance to the Garden.

We thank our Creator for the granting to us of freewill, but that comes with a price and that price is having the spiritual maturity to own up to our own failings as ours and ours alone. It didn’t work with mother to blame the dog, and it won’t work with God either.

We remain unworthy as creature to stand in the shadow of our God until we can look God in the metaphorical eye and claim that it was our greed, our fear, our pride that caused the disasters big and small that we cause day by day. When we can do that, we can truly begin the work of changing ourselves from the inside, growing in Spirit, and aligning ourselves with the will of God.

Piercing the Light

Tags

creation, Genesis, God, Light, Satan, sin

I seem to be revisiting the Genesis stories of creation a lot lately. And that’s a good thing I think, because they always temptingly (pun!) offer us new and deeper insight.

Megan McKenna, world renown storyteller, author, peace activist, and some say prophet, tells a wonderful story about the opening of Genesis, the story coming from the Priestly tradition, compiled into written form during the Babylonian exile in the 580’s BCE.

She relates the first verses of Genesis 1 in dramatic style, bringing forth a evocative quiet as one listens with breathless awe at the scene.

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “let there be LIGHT”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. (NRSV)

McKenna claims that Jewish tradition has it that in that moment God created every soul that was ever  to be for all eternity. Think of that. Now transport yourself for a moment to that ever repeated visual seen so often on every program about the universe and its beginnings–the explosion of matter into existence during the Big Bang. Combine the two, and you have a most powerful and elegant metaphor for God’s creation. Now add the beautiful mystical words of John 1:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the LIGHT OF ALL PEOPLE.

The second Genesis story is the older of two probably. Both of course originated as oral tradition handed down from times hazy in distant memory, changed and added to as needed to reflect meaning to each generation. The second story, found at Genesis 2-4, was put into written form during the Davidic dynasty in Jerusalem.

It reflects a quite different story, a God much the less Godly if you will, portrayed as more human, who walks and talks much like the humans he creates. He creates the male first, yet the woman will take center stage in this story.

It is the story of the Fall of mankind, brought upon humanity through the act of faithlessness of the woman and acquiesced in by the man. It is all about sin and human failing. We are introduced to Satan, the fallen angel.

Yet, read properly, (I would say, not literally, but then I would be giving an opinion–NOT me!), it tells the tale of failure to take responsibility for one’s own actions. God, being all patriarchal and such, asks the man what he has done, and the man blames the woman, and when asked, the woman blames the serpent.

Some have suggested that what God punishes here is not human failing. If one accepts that God formed humans exactly as he wished, then he apparently gave them the ability to fail in doing right. It would make God rather unfair and unjust to then punish mankind for all time with some mark of sin just because it actually exercised what was in its very nature.

No, the issue here is not the disobedience in eating of the tree of good and evil. The issue here, the failing that God cannot excuse is the failure to take personal responsibility for one’s own actions. Adam blames Eve, Eve blames the snake, and the snake shrugs and wonders, “what did they expect  of me, being a mere reptile?”

God drives out the two from the Garden to live lives of toil and trouble. And so it goes. And we, are born into sin and live as sinful creatures all our lives. While I have no quarrel with the idea that we are all sinful, for indeed we are, I have always been troubled at the idea that a mere child would carry this burden. It seems both unnatural and unjust. (If you hadn’t figured it out, I take a dim view of my God being unjust.)

So it makes sense to me that God’s punishment was for the irresponsibility of the two. It was a harsh lesson to be sure. But the alternative, rather literal interpretation, seems fraught with problems.

Next: Satan

Remembering

Tags

bible, biblical studies, exegesis, feminist criticism, Genesis, God, Lot's Wife, pillar of salt, women's studies

I’ve never understood what Lot’s wife did that was so bad that she deserved death and the ignominy of being turned into a pillar of salt.

It goes hat in hand with any number of anomalies in various biblical stories that I cannot make sense of. I have yet to hear a coherent explanation of why Cain’s offering to God did not find favor, and indeed, I am warned that it is unprofitable to look for one.

The same can be said of why Mary’s question of “how can this be?’ was answered while Zechariah’s similar question was deserving of muteness. Ditto what Moses did that was unfaithful and caused his death before entering the promised land.

So in some sense, these questions are inappropriate perhaps. God is entitled to be arbitrary and certainly He is not required to give his explanations to me. However, we don’t like the idea of our God being arbitrary, and moreover, as evolved humans, we have discovered that the books of the bible are stories collected, edited, and arranged with commentary, to meet the needs of their time and place. Therefore, we need not shrug and conclude that our God is either arbitrary in his choices, or that in any case he deems it unnecessary to explain to us his reasoning.

Still, we have to wonder at the logic here. I would argue that humans, perhaps in our “image of God” motif, are “looking back people.” When we look at civilization today, we realize, that we are the product of all those centuries of curiosity, experimentation, and thinking that has gone before us. We don’t constantly have to re-invent the wheel. We build on looking back at past accomplishments and failures and near misses in an effort to glean from the past what will enable us to make positive choices in the future.

We have discovered that the reason so many of us, (most of us actually) have difficulty in life is because we are unable to remain “in the moment.” Our minds are a never stopping machine that is largely focused on the past and the future. Perhaps, this is why in the end we are successful in growing technologically. It has not have much effect for good it seems in personal relationships. We still war, knowing as we do, that no war has yet ended war, it just sets up a list of new antagonists for the next battle.

So Lot’s wife and her action of looking back at the destruction of Sodom was not unusual. She was looking back to set the picture in her mind, as we all might do, so that we could tell this valuable tale to others. We could categorically say that we “saw” the destruction.

Moreover, the Hebrew Scriptures are replete with instances of when God “remembered.” In fact, at the end of most every episode, when things are looking bleak for humans, especially the Israelites, God remembers “Abraham, or Joseph, or Jacob.” It is the writer’s way of announcing that the covenant first instituted between God and Abraham, had not been forgotten. God “remembers” always. We trust that remembering to this day.

Fully, if anyone should have been punished, it should have been Lot himself. For he is the one who offered his daughters are mere chattel to the townspeople who were intent on violence and rape. He is the one who argued so limply that his family members didn’t believe his call to flee the town. He is the one who whined to the angels that he didn’t want to flee to the hills but preferred a town setting. Yet the penalty falls to Lot’s wife who, heretofore, we have not heard a thing about.

I have a note next to the text in my NRSV bible. It says: “metaphor for when we dwell on the past, our spiritual growth is impeded.” I’m not sure what I meant when I wrote that. I’m not sure if I agree with the sentiment. It doesn’t seem something I dreamed up, but rather read in some book or other. I guess it is true that when we remain mired in the past, we cannot move forward, whether in our relationships, our professions, or much of anything else. This might include our spiritual life. But it seems to me that a serious,  thoughtful, and honest appraisal of one’s past is the only way to meaningfully ground a productive journey.

I think this story points up an important issue however, one we won’t address today, but will. That is, the difference between reading the bible as pastorally “given” stories, and destructuring them by way of various exegetical methodologies. Truly, I have found nothing valuable in terms of Lot’s wife (pity the poor woman was given no name!) in doing an exegetical reflection. We can dissect it no doubt in terms of the influences of J, P and E (Yahwist, Priestly, or Elohist) tradition, but frankly I saw nothing fruitful in that. 

Generally speaking the story is considered to be etiological–meaning it was created to explain the appearance of a salt pillar  that appeared in some sense to be a woman, around the Dead Sea area. The actual destruction of Sodom may reflect a story around a volcanic eruption in the area. See generally Gen. 19:1-26.

In any event, I grieve for poor Lot’s wife. She surely got the short end of the stick it would appear. I suspect a lurking patriarchal motif is at work here. What think you?