I shall be on Iowa Public Radio‘s “Talk of Iowa” today (Jan 22, 2015) at 10am (central) to discuss the Ten Commandments as literature, religious law, and political symbol with host Charity Nebbe.
We are scheduled to discuss the history of the commandments, what they (actually) are, what they mean, how they are interpreted today, the ethics of the Ten Commandments, and how they are used as a symbol in politics today, especially in ongoing debates about church and state relations.
Dr. Robert R. Cargill is Assistant Professor of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Iowa, specializing in Second Temple Judaism and the rise of early Christianity.
UPDATE: You can read about the interview here, or listen to an mp3 of the broadcast here.
Posted on September 11, 2013 by bobcargill (@xkv8r)
Syrian Dictator Bashar Al-Assad
Question of the day:
If we discovered that Syrian Dictator Bashar Al-Assad gave an order in a military dispatch to,
“utterly destroy all that [the rebels] have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel, and donkey,”
would that be considered genocide?
Regardless of whether we label it “genocide”, would we at least agree that it is a horrific act perpetrated by a murderous tyrant intent on destroying anyone who might challenge his rule and/or authority?
I welcome your answers/responses and rationale in the comments section below.
Has anyone ever noticed that in the Bible, God slaughters thousands of Egyptian children in order to free his people from slavery (Exod 12:29-30), BUT then immediately instructs his people on how to make slaves of their own (Exod. 21:2-7; Lev. 25:44-46)?
Exodus 12:29-30
“At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. (30) Pharaoh arose in the night, he and all his officials and all the Egyptians; and there was a loud cry in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.” (NRSV)
Exodus 21:2-7
“When you buy a male Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, but in the seventh he shall go out a free person, without debt. (3) If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. (4) If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s and he shall go out alone. (5) But if the slave declares, “I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out a free person,” (6) then his master shall bring him before God. He shall be brought to the door or the doorpost; and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him for life. (7) When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do…” (NRSV)
Lev. 25:44-46
“As for the male and female slaves whom you may have, it is from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves. (45) You may also acquire them from among the aliens residing with you, and from their families that are with you, who have been born in your land; and they may be your property. (46) You may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property. These you may treat as slaves, but as for your fellow Israelites, no one shall rule over the other with harshness.”
So God is OK with slavery, as long as they are foreigners.
[And in the NT, slaves are commanded to continue to obey their masters.]
Col. 3:22
“Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything, not only while being watched and in order to please them, but wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord.” (NRSV)
1 Pet. 2:18
“Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.” (NIV)
Eph. 6:5
“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ” (NRSV)
So, tell me again how God is the objective moral foundation for all time?
(And please don’t claim “prooftexting” or “out of context”: these verses mean exactly what they say, and they mean the very same thing in their fuller context. Besides, in what context would the supreme God of the universe ever say that it’s OK to own other people as property?)
(And quick, someone tell me how I am not reading this properly because I do not “possess” the seer stone Holy Spirit. Please tell me that this “revealed Scripture” doesn’t really mean what it says.)
(And before you make the “slavery was totally different back then” argument, read here.)
NonStampCollector (@nonstampNSC; YouTube; blog) has just posted a short comment on attempts to use Christianity – and especially Christian appeals to biblical mythological accounts like the story of Adam and Eve – in the fight against same-sex marriage in the modern state.
In short, the reason so many otherwise sensible Christians oppose same-sex marriage is Jesus’ appeal to the “marriage” of Adam and Eve in Matthew 19:4-6. In this passage, Matthew records Jesus as speaking about divorce, and in doing so, citing the mythological story of Judaism’s primordial humans, Adam and Eve.
Matthew 19:4-6 reads:
Matt. 19:4 He answered, “Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’”
Matt. 19:5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?
Matt. 19:6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” (NRSV)
Note that Matthew records Jesus as having done a little prooftexting of his own, pulling from the summaries of the two different creation accounts in Genesis.
Gen. 1:27 So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (NRSV)
and
Gen 2:24 Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. (NRSV)
Matthew records Jesus as pulling from two different texts to defend his stance on divorce, specifically, that Christians should NOT divorce.
AND YET, we see no constitutional amendment on state ballots banning divorce, and prohibiting divorced individuals from remarrying, but rather, we find conservative and fundamentalist Christians lining up and spending all kinds money to ban and prohibit same-sex marriage, EVEN THOUGH the text is CLEARLY talking about divorce.
It is yet another example of conservative and fundamentalists deliberately ignoring the glaringly obvious context of the biblical passage (divorce), and instead using said verse to prooftext against something the passage is not at all addressing (same-sex marriage).
So to clarify, conservative and fundamentalist Christians are citing a scientifically debunked primordial religious creation myth from nearly three millennia ago, and then using it out of context in an effort to suppress the modern rights of gay Americans in a state that is founded on the principle that the church and state should be separate.
That is just how far conservative and fundamentalist Christians must stretch – how far they must contort the Bible as well as the founding principles of this country – just to suppress the rights of other Americans. They must cite:
“a moral imperative implied (out of context I might add), within an ancient Middle Eastern story involving a woman made of a man’s rib, being convinced by a talking snake to eat the fruit of a magical tree.”
THAT’S the rationale for denying homosexual Americans the same right of marriage that heterosexual Americans enjoy: magic trees, talking snakes, rib-women, and primordial mythology.
Of course, the real reason this argument is even entertained at all is the much larger problem, which just also happens to be the reason why so many conservative and fundamentalist Christians still cling to the historicity of the six-day creation and worldwide flood myths, despite all of the scientific and contradictory intertextual biblical evidence against them: Jesus quoted them both!
Jesus refers to Adam and Eve in Matthew 19:4-6, and their child Abel in Luke 11:50-51 (and their parallels), and to the flood in Luke 17:27 (and its parallels). And if Jesus referred to things that are mythological or ahistorical or simply did not happen, then people might question his all-knowingness, and maybe even his divinity. And thus, many conservative and fundamentalist Christians cling to scientifically debunked primordial myths, despite all the evidence to the contrary, just so they don’t have to deal with the problem that Jesus is recorded as having appealed to debunked creation and flood myths.
So while they’re at it, why not just take the quotes out of context and use them to oppress gays as well. It makes just as much sense…to fundamentalists.
NonStampCollector (@nonstampNSC; YouTube; blog) has just released his latest provocative video. This time, he addresses the issue of biblical slavery.
Definitely watch this video! It is a GREAT encapsulation of the very weak arguments many people make in defense of slavery in the Bible. The “it’s totally different” refrain is particularly priceless (and quite accurate).
It’s also another excellent contribution to his larger argument that the ethics and morality dictated in the Bible cannot and should not be used to regulate a modern society simply because they are “biblical”. Rather, we should recognize that we have evolved and matured as a society over the past 2000-3000 years, and that many of the so-called “ethical” commands in the Bible are reprehensible and worthy of disregard.
Slavery was God-ordained and God-regulated in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, and the practice was retained and re-endorsed in the New Testament (e.g., Col. 3:22; 1 Pet. 2:18; Eph. 6:5). Claiming that it was “totally different” from slavery in the US South is a weak, easily debunked, and rather disturbing argument made in the defense of God’s ethical character.
Watch the video. I invite your comments.
(Also, for those of you wanting to read the script (or use it in a class), you can find the script and references here.)
NonStampCollector (@nonstampNSC; YouTube) has published his latest movie on YouTube, which is actually a remake of “Yahweh’s Perfect Justice”, a film he published in 2009 based on Numbers 15:32-36, but which was banned because it depicted the biblical act of stoning a person to death.
NonStamp asked viewers to contribute images of people stoning a person to death, and many did.
Numbers 15:32-36 reads (NRSV):
Num. 15:32 When the Israelites were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the sabbath day.
Num. 15:33 Those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses, Aaron, and to the whole congregation.
Num. 15:34 They put him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him.
Num. 15:35 Then the LORD said to Moses, “The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him outside the camp.”
Num. 15:36 The whole congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death, just as the LORD had commanded Moses.
I encourage you to go and watch the video, and then ask yourself these two questions:
1) Should ‘working’ on the Sabbath have EVER been punishable by death?
2) Should we use the divine commands given by God in the Bible to legislate our modern secular ethics?
Go watch. This is how some still punish many crimes in barbaric parts of the world, simply because a holy book says so. So I ask: should a holy book that prescribed death for working on a particular day of the week be used to legislate other aspects of our modern lives? Should the judgements of a God that commanded death for gathering sticks on Saturday be consulted for issues like same sex marriage?
Go watch. Then try and justify the actions taken the Bible. And then try and apply those ethics to our modern world. If you can justify the actions taken in the Bible, and can reconcile them with a modern ethic, and offer a prescription for our modern legislation, then congratulations – you’re a fundamentalist.
My favorite YouTube author, nonstampcollector, has produced his latest film entitled, “The Ten Commandments: the basis of our laws and morals.”
The movie raises the question of the relevance of the 10 Commandments as the supposed fundamental basis for the ethics and morality of western civilization. Specifically, the video cleverly highlights those who argue that ALL Ten Commandments serve as the basis of modern morality (especially those who argue that said Commandments should be publicly displayed in courthouses and public places).
The incongruity of the 10 Commandments with modern foundational ethical concepts like freedom, liberty, and democracy is exposed in the following exchange:
Moses: “Surely, the way to nurture a society towards becoming amazingly advanced and prosperous is by having theocratic prohibitions against working on certain days of the week and graven images and all that.”
God: “Well, that’s where the problem lies, see. The more humanity progresses, the more it will base its laws and constitutions around things like freedom, liberty…”
Moses: “Freedom??!!”
God: “…democracy and self rule, opportunity, human rights, justice for all.”
Moses: “W…well, you haven’t commanded any of that here yet.
God: “Yeah, and I’m not about to either!”
Moses: “So the laws and morals of this mighty, advanced, western civilization aren’t going to come out of these commandments at all then.”
I shall be on Iowa Public Radio‘s “Talk of Iowa” today (Jan 22, 2015) at 10am (central) to discuss the Ten Commandments as literature, religious law, and political symbol with host Charity Nebbe.
XKV8R: The (Retired) Blog of Robert R. Cargill, Ph.D. 