Cherry Pie

I might not literally have sprayed my coffee over my keyboard, but my reaction was as near as doing so. The 2016 American presidential election campaign was still in full swing, and I was listening to a reporter on the BBC World Service gather public opinions on the candidates. A woman in Colorado Springs was quizzed about her reaction to Donald Trump’s now-notorious ‘locker room’ tape in which he allegedly bragged about his sexual groping activities. An ardent Trump supporter, she breezily admitted with a laugh that she “tended to quickly forget about such things”.

Now Colorado Springs, I know, is regarded as a bastion of good Christian values, but here was someone who in a moment was entirely prepared to betray both her own gender and what she presumably regarded as her God-given sense of moral worth. This woman simply turned a blind eye to what by any yardstick were gloatingly smutty and demeaning sexual remarks made by her favoured candidate. Since the woman already had declared both her political and her religious allegiance to the reporter, I was left scratching my head. How could she possibly reconcile her political stance with her religious one? Clearly she did not form her political opinion on what was morally right, but on what was expedient. And if this was so, then by extension this presumably also applied to her religious beliefs. And then the penny dropped.

‘Cherry picking’ is a term used, usually in the context of a debate, to describe the glossing-over or outright omission of facts which you know would weaken the case that you are presenting. It is a form of deliberate self-censorship designed to bolster your beliefs or world view, and its effect is one of self-deceit. [1]Cherry picking keeps you in your comfort zone, and although the practice can apply generally, it is often found in the sphere of religious beliefs. I would even suggest that a religious belief might not actually survive were it not subjected to cherry picking, however overtly or subtly the practice is deployed.

If we need to hear that God is love, then we prefer not to be reminded that this same God intends to force us to suffer terrible and agonizing torments without hope of reprieve forever merely for [2]blaspheming against Him. The two concepts are directly contradictory, for love – and certainly the magnanimity of deific love – can surely have nothing to do with the eternal torturing of the souls which are its own creation? Such an act, or even just the stipulation of it, would make God, not a god of love, but a god who would take all the prizes for sheer unbridled sadism: a god whom anyone with even a stroke of moral decency would reject out-of-hand.

We are rescued from this impasse by cherry picking. We might gloss over this darker side of God (and it is a very dark side indeed) to instead concentrate our thoughts upon the love and redemption aspects of our beliefs, and thus reassured, move swiftly on. We might even attempt to excuse it by claiming that this simply proves that God is a ‘just’ god, which is the apologist’s stance. But if this is justice, then it is the ruthless justice of the lynch mob, of the kangaroo court – or of the Inquisition. It is justice devoid of compassion. It is as if religion, by its very nature, contains paradoxes which overwhelm us. And perhaps they do.

The paradoxes in scripture are indeed overwhelming. I have read many passages which give every indication of positively reveling in the slaughter of ‘God’s enemies’, and demand the grimmest of [3]punishments, such as the stoning to death of your own son for mere wayward disobedience. How about making a human sacrifice of your daughter? Absolutely, if you have vowed to God to do just that. Since this is Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age tribalism, such rough justice need not surprise us. What should rightly appall us is that we still regard such writings as ‘holy scripture’ right here in our own 21st-century.

Ah, but that’s the problem with scripture: it’s all in, or all out. If you want love and redemption, you also have to have stoning to death, slavery, forcing a rape victim to marry her rapist, and other horrors sanctioned by its assorted texts. Redaction of these texts already has taken place, so if you want to change something to which you might object then you’re already too late. Which is what makes cherry picking a near-indispensable activity. If you cannot discretely edit out the less palatable passages, then just brush over them, because no man of the cloth is going to mount his pulpit to deliver an uplifting sermon on how Moses ordered the massacre of the women and children who already had surrendered to his soldiery.

And this, as I finally understood, is what presumably prompted my good Christian citizen of Colorado Springs to react as she did to [4]Donald Trump’s unsavory and uncouth remarks. Her religious beliefs already had put her in cherry picking mode. It must have been an easy switch to apply that same activity to her political affiliations. Moral or not, cherry picking is an entrenched and much-used practice, and when it comes to religious beliefs, cherries, apparently, are always in season.

Hawkwood

Notes:

[1] The term apparently derives from the idea that if someone sees a basket of freshly-picked and delicious-looking cherries, they might assume that all the cherries still on the tree are just as good, whereas the fruit that is left on the tree might actually be too inferior to harvest.

[2] This is specifically stated in Mark 3:29 – “But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.” Good luck to anyone who has ever muttered “Jesus Christ!” as an expletive.

[3] It is usual for me to give chapter-and-verse citations in any post where they apply, but as the citations for the various scriptural incidents mentioned in this post already are given in full on previous posts, I’ll link to those posts here. For misdeeds by Moses, and ‘cruel and unusual’ punishments in scripture, please see my post Frontier Justice in the Promised Land. For the full story of the sacrifice of his daughter to God, please see my post Jephthar's Daughter: Darkness in Gilead. For the God of scripture’s own dubious morality, please see my post Profiling a Psychopath. For scriptural approval of the wholesale massacre of ‘God’s enemies’, please see my post The Butcher of Canaan.

[4] Making America great again? It is interesting that, in addition to his cavalier dismissal of the importance of climate change issues during his campaign (as witnessed by his ‘climate is just weather’ remark: apparently he does not even understand the vital difference between the two), Donald Trump chose for his campaign slogan the phrase: “Make America great again!” which itself is an example of presupposition. Presupposition, like cherry picking, is a debating ploy in which a statement ‘pre-supposes’ that something is true without providing further evidence to support that statement. To say ‘make America great again’ is to presuppose that America is not great now. You can agree or disagree that it might not be great anymore, but such sleight-of-hand word trickery can so easily go unnoticed and unchallenged.

What is neo-Fascism? The 'Make America great again' slogan expresses core neo-Fascist sentiments: that of a preoccupation with the perceived or actual regeneration of a nation, the running of a country as if it were a business venture, repression by bullying or intimidation in some form of any opposing voices, the encouragement of a personality cult towards the leader, and the promotion of go-it-alone xenophobic isolationism.

Attacking the person: A third debating ploy was self-evident during the campaign: that of ad hominem attacks. That is: you attack the person, rather than the issues or principles for which that person stands.

Pro-life? I will not sit on my hands on the issue supported by born-again Christian Mike Pence, soon to be the new vice president, when it comes to ‘pro-life’, or as it is less coyly and more realistically called: anti-abortion. Outlawing abortion does little to wholly prevent the practice (as we know from the example of Ireland). All it really does is drive women either over a border to a country with different legislation, or into back alleys where other women are waiting for them with one hand outstretched for cash and with a metal knitting needle clutched in the other. In practice, outlawing abortion at best makes having an abortion a medically unsupervised and traumatic experience, and at worst can endanger young women's lives. Taking this stance does not make me a rabid pro-abortion liberal; it just makes me a realist, and I for one would question whether faith-driven pro-life protesters who voice their righteous indignation have even seriously thought through such practical considerations.

A recent actual Russian billboard.

Are Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin really such strange bedfellows? I have written these notes in the time before Donald Trump is sworn in as president, and the following year inevitably will bring more clarity as to which way the wind is really blowing. 'Fascist' is a term that tends to be loosely slung around in a pejorative sense, which is why I tend to be careful about using it. But I do find that in considering whether Donald Trump's views really are 'Fascist' that it's possible to tick all the boxes. It's worth repeating here that one of the central tenets of Fascism is the perceived regeneration of a nation. The slogan 'Make America great again' fits this tenet like a glove.

A kindred spirit? The man himself, I am sure, does not see himself in this way, but calling a duck an eagle doesn't mean that it stops being a duck. Trump's views are essentially Fascist, and the ultra-right wing stance of Fascism (witness the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party, both of whom firmly endorsed Trump's candidacy) have previously in history made bedfellows of the ultra-left wing ideology of communism. Hence Trump's apparent perception of Vladimir Putin as a kindred spirit.

The chink in America's armour? My own view is that in reality Putin, the ex-KGB master of manipulation, is already playing Trump like a violin. Trump's Achilles' heel is his vast vanity, so that is what Putin plays on, and it's working. Trump's political world stage naivety and inexperience has him thinking that Putin is, after all, a pretty okay guy, but history might well record that Trump was the chink in America's armour through which Putin managed to wriggle, and America will be left anything but 'great again'.

Living in hope? As someone who can remember all the presidents (and their election campaigns) as far back as Eisenhower, I can never recall feeling so apprehensive about a coming presidency, both for my friends in America and on the global stage. All we can really do now is hope and trust that 'President Trump' will turn out to be a more civilized person than the uncouth, obnoxious, racist, misogynist, xenophobic, disability-mocking bully so shockingly visible on the campaign trail.
Hawkwood

Stop press: Make China great again! Today, 22 November 2016, carries the news that on his first day in office Donald Trump will pull America out of the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership). Since the partnership of Pacific nations allowed America to have an influence in the region at the expense of China, it doesn't take rocket science to predict that China will now rush in to fill the vacuum left by the U.S. and expand its influence in the region. My own comfortable prediction based on this one myopic decision is that the coming Trump presidency will see a considerable weakening and even a reduction in America's power as a player on the world stage.

Sources:

All photos have been adapted from uncredited sources. The vision of Hell is adapted from a painting by Hans Memling. The sacrifice of Jephthar’s daughter is adapted from a painting by Edwin Longsden Long.

Jephthah's Daughter: Darkness in Gilead

There stands great Jephthah of Gilead, dumbstruck. The [1]Ammonites who had been harassing his people finally had been defeated at his hand. Before the conquest he had made a [2]vow to God that if victory would be his, then he would offer to God whatever first happened to come out of his house when he returned home. Now the victorious returned warrior watches horrified as his beloved only daughter emerges joyfully from his house and comes dancing to greet him.

Distraught, the father tells his daughter of his vow to God. We are told that the daughter [3]urges her father nevertheless to keep his vow, but asks for two months to sojourn in the mountains with her companions to lament her virginity (that is: her unmarried state), at the end of which time she promises to return. She duly and dutifully does so, and the vow is fulfilled. We are not told the manner of the daughter’s death, and neither is the [4]killing even mentioned by name. We merely are discreetly told that “at the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had made.”

But supposing that scripture instead were to confront us with specifics? Supposing, instead of merely ‘doing with her’, we were to read that “at the end of two months, she returned to her father, who according to his vow then slipped a cord about his daughter’s neck and tightened it fast until the veins of her throat burst, and her life blood flowed away.” This [5]scenario of the manner of her death is one likely reality, but reading it might not hold our sympathies either for Jephthah or God as much as the sanitized version which scripture offers us, as the unknown writer of this passage appears well to have realized.

During her two-months sojourn in the mountains with her companions, the daughter contemplates her coming fate and seeks some form of reconciliation with events.

The daughter was a young woman in the bloom of life. She had to be killed somehow. Scripture introduces her father by telling us that he was [6]‘a mighty warrior’. But the text then informs us that he had a background in common brigandage: this was a man used to killing with weapons, to taking life with his own brute strength. However he killed his daughter, it would have been a grim and bloody hands-on business. But the actual killing only fulfilled the first part of Jephthah’s vow. He also had promised God that he would make a burnt offering of whatever he sacrificed. We must assume that this was done as well, although scripture discreetly leaves the deed unmentioned once the killing has taken place.

A burnt offering is exactly what the term implies: it is the carcass of an animal or the corpse of a human that has been slain for sacrificial purposes, which is then completely burned on a pyre so that the smoke from the burning flesh can waft heavenwards to give pleasure to the god or gods in whose name the sacrifice has been made. Since this was a part of his vow, and since Jephthah ‘did with her according to his vow’, he must have done this also. Having killed his daughter, he would then have burned her corpse, not as a cremation, but as part of the sacrificial ritual. But again the clear impression from the text is that the writer sensed the grim distastefulness of this final act of the vow, and so deliberately avoided mentioning it after the killing had occurred.

Smoke from the daughter's pyre begins to drift heavenwards. As a burnt offering, the burning is not a cremation, but a part of the sacrificial ritual.

Intriguingly, we instead learn from the text that from that time ‘the daughters of Israel’ observed a four-day period of lamentation each year for the daughter of Jephthah. The yearly observation (by women, nota bene) is for the slain daughter. There is no mention of any observance of the father’s obedience to God in keeping his vow, and neither the vow nor the sacrifice are further mentioned in Jephthah’s continuing story. When reading this passage in scripture, there is an unstated undercurrent that the writer sensed that things had gotten way off track, that Jephthah went too far, but that the basic message of obedience to God nevertheless had to be pushed home. The undercurrent is felt, not so much in what is openly said, but in the grim details which have been discreetly omitted. 

Another detail which has been omitted is painfully obvious: we never [7]learn the daughter’s name. One might perhaps argue that this is incidental to the point of the story, but would it have been overlooked if the object of the sacrifice instead had been Jephthah’s only son? It certainly is not the only [8]story in scripture in which the name of a principal female protagonist remains unmentioned. This young woman who became a human sacrifice to God remains forever anonymous.

And the most distasteful aspect of the story is not that the daughter was the victim of sacrifice (however reconciled she might have been to her fate), but that the apparent point of including the story in scripture is instead to laud her father’s obedience, however misguided, to his vow to God. Nowhere in scripture are this man’s actions condemned, or even critically scrutinized. In fact, when Jephthah is mentioned in the New Testament (Hebrews 11:32-33) it is not to condemn him for his inhuman actions, but to praise him for his faith.

When Abraham was moments away from sacrificing his son Isaac, the angel of the Lord made a timely appearance to stay the hand that held the knife. The same angel seems to have been strangely reticent to save Jephthah's daughter when she found herself in the same situation, and the knife was thrust home.

This is morality turned on its head. A sordid story of actual human sacrifice in God’s name is presented as a scriptural morality tale of observance of one’s vow to God. Unlike the story of [9]Abraham and his intention to sacrifice his son Isaac (again at God’s demand), no angel of the Lord miraculously appears to stay the hand holding the knife once the protagonist had shown his full intention to carry out the deed. In the story of Jephthah, the knife is actually driven home. The daughter actually dies. It is a story unrelenting in its gothic grimness.

But whether or not the incident actually happened, whether it is history or metaphor, is irrelevant to the reality of the moral question which it presents. The moral values of Jephthah are in reality those of a murderer. That the story happens to appear in scripture does not in some obscure way change those moral values for the good, and if we think that it does, what does that say about our own moral values?

Jephthah's daughter: a ghost without a name. Her sacrifice to God at the hands of her father creates a moral darkness which apparently left the writer of the Book of Judges avoiding uncomfortable details.

Well, such ‘moral values’ are exemplified in a Christian Apologist [10]website article about this incident which, in striving to justify what is actually morally reprehensible, makes the guarded observation that [11]“no indication is given in the text that God actually approved of the action.” Really? God, I was always told, is all-knowing, so he would have known at the time that Jephthah made his vow who was going to come out of the house first. And God is also [12]all-powerful, so if he saved the day before by having his angel intervene to spare Isaac, then he could have done so on this occasion as well – or just shuffled the deck by having a chicken run out of the house instead. He did, after all, manipulate the previous situation to ensure that a ram was substituted for Abraham’s son.

Tacit inaction, to paraphrase Archbishop Desmond Tutu, is tantamount to action in support of injustice. In this light, and in spite of what the above apologist article attempts to excuse, God seems to have been pretty okay with the way things went down on that dark day in Gilead. And for Jephthah’s daughter, whose very name remains unknown to us, there was to be no timely last-minute intervention by the angel of the Lord. 

Hawkwood

The complete story of Jephthah’s daughter can be read in The Book of Judges 11:29-40. The quotations from scripture in this post are from the Revised Standard Version. An abridged version of this story can be read in my post Frontier Justice in the Promised Land.

Notes:

[1] Two Tribes: The Ammonites were one of two tribes (the Moabites were the other) founded by the sons of Lot’s two daughters resulting from their incest with their father. The Ammonites’ incursions into Jephthah’s territory were not invasive. They previously had been displaced eastward by Joshua’s earlier conquest of the area, and three centuries later made this bid to reclaim their lost homelands.

Three Ammonite cities - Aro'er, Abel-keramim and Minnith - are mentioned by name as being conquered by Jephthah, although scripture assures us that twenty cities in total were overrun 'with a very great slaughter'. Jephthah then returns to his home city of Mizpah, the site of the sacrifice.

[2] What is Really Sacrificed? One pro-scriptural argument is that the story is a salutary lesson in making rash promises, particularly to God. I would suggest that it is a salutary lesson in the reckless folly of keeping a vow when holding to that vow means not only sacrificing one’s daughter, but also one’s own humanity. The Book of Judges maintains a stony silence about the morality of Jephthah’s actions, and any ‘salutary lessons’ which are supposed to be drawn from the story are passed over.

[3] Who Consoles Whom? In this emotion-charged scene it is actually Jephthah who tears his clothes in despair, even to telling his daughter that by her actions it is she who is “the cause of great trouble” to him. While her father indulges in despairing self-pity, it is the daughter who remains resolute and strong, even to the point of consoling her distraught father and then calmly making a plan for the coming event. When push comes to shove, the woman is stronger than the man. Just like in real life.

[4] Words as well can be Sacrificed: In fact, at no time does scripture actually use the word ‘sacrifice’, either about the daughter or in relation to what takes place. But since a burnt offering clearly must first be sacrificed as part of the ritual, this is a further indication that the original writer of the text and all subsequent translators were aware of how distasteful this incident was, and were attempting to gloss over the difficult reality in order to make the story more palatable. 

[5] Knife or Rope? Although a burnt offering was usually sacrificed with a knife, a female human victim could have made strangulation a possible alternative option. My description of the act is loaned from the author Cormac McCarthy in his book No Country for Old men. It is always possible that the original unknown writer assumed that his readers would be aware that a knife would have been used as the traditional means of sacrificing a burnt offering. 

[6] A Man of Valour? The phrase “a mighty warrior” appears in the Revised Standard Version (Judges 11:1). In the King James Version the phrase is “a mighty man of valour”. You may choose whether or not you consider ‘warrior’ to be equitable with ‘valour’ in relation to Jephthah.

[7] Where is the Mother? The text is also mysteriously silent about someone else. No mention is made of the daughter’s mother. Perhaps Jephthah was a widower, or perhaps his wife was anonymously present: another unnamed woman who has remained a cypher, a shadowy presence whose existence is confirmed only obliquely by the existence of the daughter. I tend to assume that Jephthah was a widower, or at least a man living without the mother of his child. His misguided and callous behaviour lacks a woman’s restraining hand.

[8] More Unnamed Daughters: In the story of Lot and his escape from the city of Sodom (Genesis 19:1-38) we never learn the names either of Lot’s wife (who turned into the famed pillar of salt) or of his two daughters who feature prominently in the story as their father's seducers, although the names of their sons from this incest (Moab and Ben-ammi) are supplied as soon as they appear on the scene. Painting (right) of Lot being Seduced by his Daughters, by Robert von Stutterheim. Please see my post Lot and his Daughters: The inside Story.

[9] Jephthah’s Only Son? Abraham’s only beloved son Isaac was saved from sacrifice by God’s intervention. The point needs to be made that the angel of the Lord might have been more readily prompted to swing into action and intervene on Jephthah’s only daughter’s behalf had she been Jephthah’s only son. Please see my post Abraham, Isaac and a Stressed Out Ram.

[10] Where is the Body? The apologist article in Apologetics Press (Jephthah's Daughter, by Eric Lyons, M.Min.) on the sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter (left, by Pietro Vecchia) strives to wriggle out from under by instead suggesting that her father did not actually kill her at all, and that the ‘sacrifice’ is a mere figure of speech referring to offering her (as the article suggests) for “religious service in the Tabernacle.”

[10 cont.] Hence this Apologetics Press article’s astonishing conclusion that: “Jephthah was not upset because his daughter would die a virgin. He was upset because she would live and remain a virgin.” Seriously? This startling apologist claim that no killing actually took place because the ‘sacrifice’ is intended to be read as a mere euphemism, collapses when we remember that the sacrifice became a burnt offering: difficult to achieve with no body to burn. The scriptural text is unambiguous: Jephthah vowed a burnt offering. The daughter became the unwitting object of the vow. Jephthah "did with her according to his vow which he had made". Therefore: the daughter became the vowed burnt offering. This conclusion drawn from the text leaves no room for 'nicer' interpretations, however much apologists might wish it so.

[11] Taking Sides: The logic of such apologist arguments is wholly partisan. As I point out in my post on the Book of Joshua about that particular Israelite ‘hero’, had Jephthah happened to have been ‘on the other side’ (that is: a non-Israelite), and had he nevertheless acted exactly as he does in the Book of Judges, apologists would be falling over themselves to piously condemn him as a despicable monster, and his murder of his own daughter in the name of his god as a wretched deed of truly heathen darkness. 

[12] An Interventionist God: I am all too aware that, in their attempts to find some justification for such dark deeds in the name of God, apologists will protest that God allows us (and therefore Jephthah) to exercise our own free will: that he gives us the freedom to determine our own actions and so learn by our errors. But the God of scripture is an interventionist God. He intervenes to drown his own creation. He intervenes to destroy Sodom and other Cities of the Plain. He intervenes to feed his starving people in the wilderness of the Exodus. He intervenes on the battlefield to fight alongside Joshua. He intervenes to save Abraham’s son. He does not intervene to save Jephthah’s daughter.

Daughter on Pyre. A powerful image by contemporary artist Barry Moser, from his illustrated King James Bible. Here all 19th-century romanticism and melodrama have been stripped away to confront us with a difficult reality that scripture shies away from mentioning.

Sources:

Top image: Jephthah and his Daughter, painted for this post by Hawkwood for the David Bergen Studio © All Rights Reserved. based upon the sculpture by Emil Wolff, from a photo by Haffitt. 2nd image; The Lament of Jephthah's Daughter, by George Hicks. 3rd image: Jephthah's Vow: The Martyr, by Edwin Longsden Long. 4th image: Abraham and isaac, by Laurent de la Hyre. 5th image: marble statue of Jephthah’s Daughter in the Art Institute of Chicago, by Chauncey Bradley Ives, photographer unknown. Map and other graphics by Hawkwood for the © David Bergen Studio.

Abraham, Isaac and a Stressed-out Ram

If ever a ram was in the wrong place at the wrong time, it was this one. It already was having a rather rough day, having somehow managed to entangle its horns in a thicket. With the desperation which any animal feels when it knows that it is stuck fast, it must have been feeling pretty stressed out as it struggled to free itself. But for this particular ram, a day which already had begun badly was about to get a whole lot worse.

This is, naturally enough, how things must have seemed from the ram’s side of things. From the point of view of the two humans who appeared on the scene, this particular ram was - quite literally – heaven sent. The two humans were Abraham and his beloved [1]only son Isaac, and they were there on that mountainside because God had commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac to him as a [2]burnt offering. This story in [3]Genesis is traditionally put forward as a shining example of ultimate obedience to God’s will – although any parent will fully appreciate the mental anguish that Abraham must have endured upon hearing God’s command.

And Isaac? Well, young Isaac does not actually know of God’s – or his father’s – intentions. And neither does his father tell him. On the way up the mountain he actually innocently carries the load of wood for his own funeral pyre on his back. One wonders how willingly he would have shouldered the load (if at all) had he known that he would play the central role in the coming sacrifice. But clearly he has his suspicions, because he asks his father where the sacrificial animal is. To which Abraham guardedly replies that the Lord will provide. Which, considering that Abraham already knows that (as far as he was aware) the Lord already had provided, is a cruelly cryptic response, to say the least.

But at what exact point in the story does Isaac sus the awful truth? We are only told that, when the place of sacrifice is reached, Abraham ‘bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood’. Well, if poor Isaac didn’t know before, he sure must have tumbled to the way things are by now. But what happened? Did he struggle when he felt the rope tighten around his arms? Did he feel a terrible sense of betrayal at the way in which his father had tricked him into accompanying him? We are not told. What we know is that, just as Abraham raises his knife to do the deed, the angel of the Lord stays his hand and draws his attention instead to the ram.

Ah, yes… the ram. It was, apparently, ‘behind’ Abraham the whole time – and presumably struggling to break free from the thicket. Did Abraham neither see it nor hear its struggles during the whole episode? Apparently not. Of course, the reason might well have been because Isaac was at the time screaming his lungs out in anguished protest, both at his father's betrayal of trust and at the realization of his own unexpected mortality, which, though unbiblical in sentiment, would certainly be plausible as a normal human response to the situation.

So the ram is predictably sacrificed in Isaac’s stead, and we are left with a hatful of questions. What does this story say about Abraham, who was quite prepared, not merely to sacrifice his son, but to trick him into attending his own funeral service? And what does it say about a God who was fully prepared to let a father think that he must kill his own son, and then at the supreme moment turns around and says that it was all just a test?

This story has become an irresistible soft target for scripture’s detractors, with its apparently bizarre standards of morality and its flirting with human sacrifice in God’s name. But what I find disturbing on a more profound level is the way in which those who accept scriptural authority seek to justify the events. I have just read on one such [4]website the statement which urges us while reading this story to remember that “sacrificing children was neither against the law nor uncommon especially in the land of Canaan.” As if that in some obscure way makes things okay. It does not, and if you think that it does, then somewhere along the line you have made a sacrifice of your own – to what is morally and humanly decent – for the sake of your beliefs.

Hawkwood

Please Note:

If you who are reading this imagine that such a misguided and reprehensible action as sacrificing one's own child to one's deity belongs to a safely remote past, then consider this: My wife has drawn my attention to a column in today's newspaper (Trouw, 7 July 2013) in which the communications advisor Ton Planken (right) underscores the situation here in the Netherlands' Bible Belt. Their religious beliefs dissuade strict Calvinists from having their children vaccinated. In the last outbreak of measles here in 2,000, three children from such families died - each one an easily preventable death had those children received the available vaccination. With the first outbreak since that time now current, one hundred and sixty one children in the region have already fallen ill. One holds one's breath to see how many children will this time be offered up in the name of the religious beliefs of their parents. The full article in Dutch can be read here: Measles and Human Sacrifices.
Note added 20 January 2014: I overlooked adding this note at the time, but one girl died of measles in the area in this new outbreak - another easily-preventable death as a direct result of the parents' religious convictions. Were it in my power I would hold them culpable for death by neglect. 

Notes:
[1] It is puzzling that Genesis describes Isaac in these terms when we also are told by scripture that he in fact had an older brother named Ishmael.  

[2] A burnt offering was any corpse of a human or carcass of an animal which, having been slaughtered, was then ritually burned so that the smoke would waft heavenwards to please the deity in whose name he, she or it had been killed. Please see my post Frontier Justice in the Promised Land for an example of actual human sacrifice in God’s name. Yes, as related in Judges 11:29-40, it was another infanticide: in this case of a father sacrificing his daughter.  

[3] Genesis 22: 1-18.

[4] http://nowthinkaboutit.com/2010/09/abraham-sacrifices-isaac-not/

Top image: Abraham and Isaac, by Anthony van Dyck.

Other images: Abraham and Isaac, by Gerhardt Willem von Reutern.

Profiling a Psychopath

Here is a profile: the subject is petulant, petty-minded and vengeful: someone who demands attention, and becomes darkly jealous as soon as he thinks that anyone else is getting more attention than he is. He also lays down impossible demands which he insists that others follow, but does not follow them himself. Oh, yes: I should also mention that this man is a mass murderer responsible for thousands of deaths. Who is he? Some despotic Idi Amin-style tyrant? Some brutal Pol Pot dictator ruling through fear? No, this dangerously psychotic individual is of course the god of the Old Testament described in human terms. I can now add that this god also appreciates blood sacrifices made in his name (as the [1]Cain and Abel story dramatically underscores), up to and including [2]human sacrifice.

Any and all of the above character traits and actions can be read in [3]scripture. This god even describes himself as a [4]jealous god. He is an appropriately primitive Bronze Age deity with all-too-human emotions and failings. Although surely being ‘God’ excuses all of these things, right? I mean, being God means you get to make up the rules as you go along, doesn’t it? Being God means that everything you do must be inherently ‘right’, because, well… you’re God, after all. And if you’re God, then everything you do apparently can be excused on the grounds that you have this inscrutable and mystical thing called a ‘plan’.

No, not in my book. Following such a god means that you have lowered the bar of your own moral values down to those of this petulant and jealous dictator god. This god who demands that ‘thou shalt not kill’, and then proceeds to lay down a hatfull of transgressions for which the punishment is cruel and bloody death, either by [5]stoning or by being [6]burned alive. Not to mention that he decides to rub out his entire creation (with the exception of a single extended family and the animals they take on board), apparently for no better reason than that [7]‘the wickedness of man was great in the earth’ – as if things are any different now.

Of course, being omniscient as well as omnipotent, God would have known that he’d be destroying his creation a little way down the road even at the time that he brought it into existence. But trying to plot the twisted logic of a psychopath is a dangerous road to tread. Or to paraphrase what [8]Clarise Starling’s FBI boss advised her prior to her interview with the intellectually brilliant but barkingly psychotic Hannibal Lecter: inside this god’s head is not a place that you want to be.

I remember once remarking to someone who bought into all this that if the scriptural God were a person, he would be incarcerated in an institution for the criminally insane. That was several years ago. I dearly wish that I could write here that I have changed my mind, that I now have come round to seeing things in a different light, and that I now understand the god of scripture more. But I cannot. And I do not. Because scripture has that writ-in-stone immutability, and what is in there cannot be changed or spun in some other more acceptable way. It is as it is. And the actions of God are as they are described there, as anyone who doubts me can check for themselves through my chapter-and-verse citations below. 

Faith is not something that you can cherry-pick. If for you it governs your moral compass and the very fabric of your life, then it’s way too important for that. Unless, of course, you view your faith on an only-choose-the-nice-bits basis. In which case it must be something other than the faith which you claim it to be. Because with true faith, it’s all in, or all out. And when all’s said and done, a Bronze Age god is and remains a Bronze Age god. 

But what is a Bronze Age god doing in the 21st-century?

Hawkwood

From Ken Russell's Altered States

PLEASE NOTE:

I am aware that I have not even touched on the God of the New Testament, where the concepts of Heaven and Hell hold sway. A New Testament god who actually uses such savagely crude reward-and-punishment mind games to keep things in line, who subjects any souls who refuse to bend a knee to him to agonizing torments which last for all eternity with neither hope nor possibility of any reprieve or relief, lays claim to being….... ...a god of love?

Notes:
[1] Genesis 4:1-5

[2] Judges 11:29-40.

[3] Please see my post Frontier Justice in the Promised Land.

[4] Exodus 20:5, and Deuteronomy 4:24. 

[5] Deuteronomy 21:18-21 and numerous other instances.

[6] Leviticus 20:14.

[7] Genesis 6:5.

[8] In Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs – of course!


Sources:
Images of Anthony Hopkins in the role of Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs, from the novel by Thomas Harris, distributed by Orion Pictures Corporation.

Frontier Justice in the Promised Land

I recall attending enough church services whose sermons related various Biblical miracles and uplifting messages of hope. But how many ministers mount their pulpit and deliver a sermon on Moses’ instructions to his forces to execute a My Lai-style massacre, or relate to the listening congregation the scriptures' heartless treatment of women as victims of rape and spoils of war? And yet these and other dark themes are as much a part of the Bible as those stories which get all the attention, and rough and ruthless frontier-style justice is not in some mysterious way made more morally acceptable simply because it appears in scripture. And I, who have in my career illustrated such dark gothic classics as Frankenstein, Dracula, The Phantom of the Opera and others, am still somewhere struggling to get my head around the realization that it is the Bible, of all books, which reaches into darker places even than these. You doubt me? Then please read on...

This post grew out of the notes which I made for my previous post to reference specific Biblical passages. The more I buried my nose in my [1]Bible to double-check the accuracy of my references, the more surreal everything seemed to become. Was I really still reading canonical scripture? Was I still reading the presumed word of God? Well, yes I was, as anyone reading these cited texts can check for themselves. These passages are mostly either God speaking in the first person, dictating the various laws or Commandments to Moses (yes, there are considerably more than ten), or Moses speaking to the Israelites, and are intended as instructions for social conduct in the Promised Land.

Slaughter: In the Old Testament see the Book of [2]Numbers 31:7-18 for a graphic account of how, having massacred the Midianite army, the victorious Israelite forces nevertheless had mercifully spared the lives of the captive women and children - much to Moses' wrath. He then commanded his forces to put all the married women and boys to the sword as well, but the young virgin girls they 'could keep alive for themselves'. He seems quickly enough to have brushed aside the 13th Commandment ('Thou Shalt Not Kill') which God had so recently given to him personally. And so these captive women and 'young ones' were slain also. But even this brutal episode was not a one-off incident: see also Judges 21:10-24 for a very similar account. This time it was the women and young boys of Jabesh-gilead who were slain. In this case it even specifies the number of young virgins who were taken back to the Israelite camp: there were four hundred of them. Apparently even this many weren't enough to go around - or as the narrator ruefully puts it: 'they sufficed them not'. See other instances throughout the Bible of murder and massacre too numerous to cite here.

Slavery: See Exodus 21:6 and Deuteronomy 15:17, both of which describe the practice of driving an awl through the ear of a slave to mark that slave forever, while bracing him or her (it applied to both sexes) against a door. Incredibly, in both Books this act is described as a reward for loyalty. See Leviticus 25:44-47 for an exposition of slaves as inheritable possessions, and elsewhere regarding the keeping of slaves, and also in the New Testament, such as in Ephesians 6:5 (on obedience to one's master) and Timothy 6:1 (on honoring one's master). Slavery is dealt with in scripture in expositions of the various rules governing the owning of slaves, while never actually being condemned as a practice. Exodus 21:20-21 states that if you beat your servant (whether male or female) to incapacity, if the servant survives for 'a day or two', then you're off the hook because, well... after all, servants cost money. Yes, this is the actual reason given, as anyone reading this can check for themselves.

Rape: In the Old Testament see Deuteronomy 21:10-14 for a description of the treatment of women as spoils of war, which concludes that if a captive woman does not please you, and you show her the door, it is unlawful to sell her for money if you have raped her because she is then regarded as spoiled goods. See also Deuteronomy 22:28-29, which earnestly assures us that the rape victim must marry and remain with her rapist 'all his days'. I would challenge anyone to read these several chapters in Deuteronomy and other books in the Old Testament dealing with Biblical law and not feel revolted by their inhumanity, as anyone with a sense of moral human decency should.

Stoning: See Deuteronomy 21:18-21 for instructions on stoning to death your disobedient son. This particular law is just one of many such Biblical laws which break the 13th Commandment. Homosexuality, loss of virginity before marriage, blasphemy, adultery, fortune telling and swearing at or striking a parent were also among the various Biblical offences punishable by a gruesome and prolonged death by stoning. An exception is Leviticus 20:14, which specifies that if a man 'take a wife and her mother', then all three are to be burned alive. Deuteronomy 13:6-10 also specifies death by stoning for apostasy - in this case, turning away from the Israelites' God - and urges the listener that 'thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death'.

Sacrifice: Judges 11:29-40 relates the grim tale of Jephthah, who makes a pact with God. If God will grant him victory in a coming battle, Jephthah will sacrifice to God whatever is the first thing to come out of his house upon his return home. God keeps his side of the bargain, Jephthah returns triumphant – and is greeted by his daughter, his only child, who rushes joyfully to meet him. Jephthah in despair tells his daughter what he has promised to God. His daughter (whose name we never learn) is reconciled, but asks for two months reprieve. The period passes, and Jephthah then ‘did with her according to his vow’, as the Bible coyly phrases what is in reality a human sacrifice. The body is then burned so that the smoke may waft heavenwards and please the Almighty. God, being all-knowing, would of course have known at the time the pact was made who the victim would be, and being all-powerful, could presumably have arranged for a chicken or some other animal to rush outside instead. But God, as much as Jephthah – and the rest of us – made his choices.

Hawkwood

[1] The Bible referred to is my own copy of the King James Version study edition, published by Zondervan. This is a copiously-annotated Apologist edition whose annotations at times make unintentionally chilling reading, such as excusing the Biblical condoning of slavery as 'situations that were divinely-given, practical ways of dealing with the morality of the day.' (annotation to Timothy 6:5). So in the actual words of this edition's editors, for one human being to own another is considered by them to be a 'divinely-given situation'.

[2] My chapter-and-verse citations throughout this post are for others to independently check these passages for themselves should they choose to do so. For those who do not have a Bible, the full text of the King James Version is available online from several websites, including: http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/

The images for this post are adapted from Gustave Doré's illustrations for the Bible.