R.P. Nettelhorst's Blog, page 105

Song of Songs, Chapter One

Over the next seven days, my plan (we’ll see how it works out) is to give a commentary on the biblical text called the “Song of Songs,” or sometimes, the “Song of Solomon.” I’ll start this post with a brief introduction and outline of the biblical text, followed by an analysis and commentary on the first chapter. Tomorrow, I hope to continue with the second chapter, and so on.

Brief Introduction to Song of Songs

I. Title

The book is called “Song of Songs” in Hebrew and in most modern English translations (NIV, for instance); in the King James Version, it received the title “Song of Solomon”. The Latin Vulgate called it “Canticles”.

II. Author and Setting

Its Solomonic authorship is widely credited, though the occurrence of some apparent Persian and Greek terms has led some to postulate a post-exilic date. Tradition would argue that since the book lays claim to Solomonic authorship, it is best to assume that is the case. Those who argue for Solomonic authorship point to the reference to Tirzah in Song of Songs 6:4, which was the capital of Jeroboam I and his successors (1 Kings 14:17). They suggest that it would not have been set in parallel with Jerusalem by a poet in either Israel or Judah, after the division of the kingdom. Therefore, traditionalists argue, the latest possible date for the book would be the outbreak of war between Jeroboam and Abijam, c. 915-913 BC (1 Kings 15:7). The reference in 6:8 to sixty queens and eighty concubines contrasts the figures of 1 Kings 11:3, which speaks of Solomon’s “seven hundred wives” and “three hundred concubines.” This is why traditionally it is believed that the Song of Songs composed early in Solomon’s reign: he hadn’t accumulated quite so many women, yet.

Also, traditionalists who favor of Solomonic authorship, point to the use in Song of Songs of the natural imagery and the use of the names of many plants and animals. They suggest this imagery would be consistent with Solomon’s interests according to 1 Kings 4:32.

Most modern scholars, however, do not believe that the book was actually composed by Solomon. Instead, they would argue that it comes much later. They would argue that whoever composed it, therefore, calls it the “Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s” because the poem is set during his time, using his reputation with many women as the jumping off point for creating this erotic love poem.

The Song of Songs, more than any other book, has been kept in the dark ages in the thoughts of many interpreters, who continue to insist on the medieval approach of allegorical interpretation — even though they would never approach any other book of the Bible allegorically. The allegorical approach to the Song of Songs results in teaching that the story is figurative, representing Yahweh’s love for Israel, and by extension, Christ’s love for the church. Those who cling to this approach would argue, that if a wholly literalistic approach is taken to the poem, it is impossible to see why the Song of Songs would have been included as part of Scripture.

Like Esther, the Song of Songs never once mentions God. However, only if one takes the odd position that sex is an evil thing, would one find such a book as the Song of Songs inexplicable. As important as male-female relationships and romantic love are to human beings, it should not at all be surprising to discover that there is at least one book in the Bible devoted to the topic.

Therefore, the outline will follow the historical-grammatical interpretation of Scripture, and take the Song of Songs at face value — as an erotic love poem.

III. An Outline of Song of Songs

I. Title 1:1

II. First Poem 1:2-2:7

III. Second Poem 2:8-3:5

IV. Third Poem 3:6-5:1

V. Fourth Poem 5:2-6:3

VI. Fifth Poem 6:4-8:7

VII. Sixth Poem 8:8-14

To begin then:

Chapter One:

Solomon’s Song of Songs.

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth–

for your love is more delightful than wine.

Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes;

your name is like perfume poured out.

No wonder the maidens love you!

Take me away with you–

let us hurry!

Let the king bring me into his chambers.

We rejoice and delight in you;

we will praise your love more than wine.

How right they are to adore you! (1:2-4)

In the first verse, the phrase “song of songs” means “greatest song.” In Hebrew, to make something superlative, to mark it as the best, one would express the concept this way. Thus, “holy of holies” means “Holiest” or “Most Holy”; Lord of lords means “highest lord” or “most high lord” and so on.

Following the identification of the author, or the setting (depending on how you take it) the actual poem begins.

It opens with the woman speaking. I think that is a very important thing to notice; in fact, a remarkable part of the whole poem is the fact that it is told mostly from the woman’s point of view. The poem is a dialogue, but the woman is the primary focus, I believe.

Notice that it is set in a polygamous environment; there are other women involved with him: “no wonder the maidens love you!” and “how right they are to adore you.” Also the use of the plural pronoun “we” seems to fit that notion.

The man in view is portrayed as a king; in the story of the poem, he is Solomon, but the point is, I believe, to illustrate her admiration and how much she adores him. Notice that she is not shy about what she wants; and there is no shame or embarrassment here in what she wants. She wants him to take her away and have sex right now. She adores, rejoices and delights in him and the prospect of being with him. Too many people, women especially, have been brought up to feel ashamed of their own desires; they are taught to be quiet, and in earlier generations in this country at least, though perhaps not so much now, they were taught that sex was at best a duty, and certainly not something to be embraced passionately and enjoyed and celebrated.

So it is an exciting opening, and completely at odds with the notion that women are second class, or that sex is unclean.

So now, another couple verses of Song of Songs:

Dark am I,

yet lovely,

O daughters of Jerusalem,

dark like the tents of Kedar,

like the tent curtains of Solomon.

Do not stare at me because I am dark,

because I am darkened by the sun.

My mother’s sons were angry with me

and made me take care of the vineyards;

my own vineyard I have neglected. (1:5-6)

The only sense of shame that the female protagonist of the poem suffers, is one of class; in the ancient world, the upper classes lived lives of ease, stayed in the shade, and did little physical labor; they tended toward obesity (in fact, the word translated “honor” in the old testament is a word meaning “heavy”, derived from the heavy-set nature of the upper, “honored” classes), because they always had plenty to eat, and their skin (in places like Israel, where the bulk of the Jewish population was essentially white) remained pale. The lower classes worked the fields, and so they were the ones that got the nice tans. Today of course, for the most part things are reversed; a tan indicates that an individual has enough free time to be able to spend it outdoors, either lying by a pool or playing some sport. But essentially, we feel no class sense from a tan; we just like how a tan makes us look; a man or a woman will usually be attracted to someone who is nice and tan. It makes us think “healthy” and “young”. And so the concern that this woman in the poem has for being “dark” is a cultural thing which no longer resonates (to try, as some have, to see some racial thing in this verse is obviously not quite right, though perhaps if we use that to illustrate a class or social stigma attaching to a relationship, then it can work). Oddly enough, in our culture, even the wealthiest of men, if he sees an attractive woman who’s working, say a fast food drive out, he might ask her out on a date, and might even think about developing a serious relationship with her. The fact that she has a crappy job wouldn’t bother him. In contrast, the odds of a wealthy woman asking out a guy working the fast food, thinking in terms of a serious relationship, are not as high. A double standard, that still exists, obviously.

But, in any case, in this poem, we have a class thing going on; she feels, briefly, a sense of “maybe I’m not good enough for him”, but then she overcomes it quickly enough by “explaining” why she looks as she does. And she says, that, despite her “neglected” appearance, she’s really one hot babe, anyhow.

We also, with the phrase “My mother’s sons were angry with me and made me take care of the vineyards; my own vineyard I have neglected” run across the first example of this double entendre, which will become a theme of the poem. She describes herself as a vineyard; it is unlikely that either the vineyard of her mom’s sons, nor her own vineyard have anything to do with actual grapes or wine. Think instead of a Cinderella situation, where she was forced to care for siblings and their needs, working while they primped and made themselves lovely, while she slaved to provide them their leisure. But in the end of this poem, it is this dark one, this “unworthy” one, who will live happily ever after in the prince’s palace.

The story of Cinderella shows up in several forms around the world. It is also a part of the story of this erotic poem.

Tell me, you whom I love,

where you graze your flock

and where you rest your sheep at midday.

Why should I be like a veiled woman

beside the flocks of your friends?

If you do not know, most beautiful of women,

follow the tracks of the sheep

and graze your young goats by the tents of the shepherds.

I liken you, my darling,

to a mare harnessed to one of the chariots of Pharaoh.

Your cheeks are beautiful with earrings,

your neck with strings of jewels.

We will make you earrings of gold,

studded with silver.

(1:7-11)

The woman wants to know where she can find him, where he might “graze his flock”; given that she follows this line with the question, “why should I be like a veiled woman”, she is not likely talking about where he’s keeping furry animals that go “baaaaaa”. A “veiled woman” was a prostitute; it is an idiom, like our “street walker” and she is concerned, I think, that she be more than a simple one night stand for him. Hence, the next few lines, which are placed in the mouth of the man she has the hots for: he is essentially telling her that “of course I’ll respect you in the morning”; so he tells her she is beautiful, and that the beauty of her cheeks deserves to be enhanced by earrings danging from her lobes, and that her lovely neck deserves the added beauty of a necklace. The women around him (remember the polygamous setting) are agreeable, and suggest that “we” will do this for you. So the willingness of the man to give her some jewelry, and for his other paramours to participate, is again designed as reassurance to her that she’ll get more from him than just a single night of pleasure. She’s looking for actual love, not just a momentary release of some tension.

The shepherd and sheep imagery will repeat periodically through the poem, together with the garden imagery; all of it is sexually oriented and is being used to romantic and erotic intent. I don’t think that actual shepherding and farming are ever the point in this poem. Heh.

While the king was at his table,

my perfume spread its fragrance.

My lover is to me a sachet of myrrh

resting between my breasts.

My lover is to me a cluster of henna blossoms

from the vineyards of En Gedi. (1:12-14)

The woman is speaking, of course; there is more than one word for breast in Hebrew; this is the one with the most obviously erotic connotation; of course, that’s apparent even in English translation.

As is the norm in Hebrew poetry, the first two lines of this section introduce the concept, which will then be expanded upon in what follows. The point is seduction. Her “perfume” goes out, grabs her intended, and draws him close to her; she links herself so closely to him, that he becomes the seduction itself, or perhaps, she feels seduced by him as much and as strongly as she attempts to seduce him; the two become inextricably mixed, and inseparable. She and he are both perfume to one another.

Again, notice the imagery of a vineyard appearing. It should also be noted the important part that scent will play in this poem, as well as the visual images. Actually, all the senses are appealed to in this poem: visual, tactile, taste, smell, sound. All are, or will be, aroused to erotic effect.

The first chapter of the Song of Songs ends as follows:

How beautiful you are, my darling!

Oh, how beautiful!

Your eyes are doves.

How handsome you are, my lover!

Oh, how charming!

And our bed is verdant.

The beams of our house are cedars;

our rafters are firs. (1:15-17)

The first three lines are spoken by the man, the last five by the woman; again, this is not hard to tell in Hebrew, thanks to the gender specific nature of that language. The man expresses how beautiful she is; her response then is to praise his appearance; the word translated beautiful and handsome are both the same word in Hebrew, only the gender is different; the first is feminine, the second masculine. But we generally don’t refer to guys as beautiful or pretty (didn’t we just have this discussion?), hence the way the translation has been made.

Now, I’ve been using the NIV translation for this commentary/lesson for you, but the last three lines just don’t quite have what it takes, so here’s a better way of putting it:

Our couch is grass,

we are shaded by cedar trees for a roof

and spreading firs for a ceiling.

The point being, we have a continuation of the garden theme; and she is very ready and willing for him to have sex with her, any time, anywhere. They’re under these trees; that’s good enough for her; all he needs to do is ask. She adores him; the setting doesn’t matter much. Of course, in some sense you get a double entendre here, too, since he and she are presented in terms of a garden, especially later in the poem. So in some sense the couch of grass may also be her, while the cedar and fir above the grass are him.

Keep Writing

If you are a writer, then you should be writing regularly. And when you submit a work for publication, you should be starting to work on your next project. You don’t want to have all your eggs in one basket as it were. Rejections are much easier to handle if you have multiple items out at multiple publishers. Then, if you get a rejection, you still have other works out. And when you do get a rejection, make sure you turn right around and send it out to another publisher. Don’t rework the story, don’t change it—just send it out again. The only time you change a story once you’ve decided to start submitting it is if an editor tells you they want the story, you sign a contract, and he or she asks for changes. If you’re getting paid, then you can start changing stuff to make the editor happy. Unless there’s some important reason not to make a change, there’s no reason to resist the requests. Most of the time, the changes an editor requests are going to be an improvement.

That said, sometimes an editor might be wrong. On two of my books, I resisted suggested changes. One book the changes were being requested by an outside “expert” and they were flat out moronic and wrong. My editor thought they were stupid, too. But given the complex nature of the situation, my editor and I worked at rewriting the offending sentence in such a way that it said what I wanted while not offending the idiot “expert.”

Once you turn in a book, you’ll get back what are called “queries” which will be questions an editor or editors have about things that seem problematic to them. Most of the time these will be useful, if annoying; no one enjoys getting pages and pages of queries. But that’s the nature of the business. However, on occasion, the editor will be flat out wrong, as one questioned a statement in one of my books where I had mentioned that people were vegetarians until after Noah’s Great Flood. His query was “then what about Cain sacrificing the sheep?” Obviously there are two problems with the query. First, Cain didn’t sacrifice a sheep; that was Able. Cain was a dirt farmer. Second, Genesis 9 is rather explicit:

The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. (Genesis 9:2-3)

I pointed this out and the editor acquiesced. This is important to recognize: editors are human and they can make errors–just like you can (which is why you should always listen to editors; most of the time they are going to be right about your screw-ups). So learn to take criticism. Be polite. Be thankful. Make the changes quickly. The years of getting rejection letters will help thicken your hide for when you get published and have to respond to those queries from editors—and worse, quietly enduring the harpoon lances tossed by readers who give you one star reviews on Amazon.

One last thing about rejections: they are not personal. There is no grand conspiracy to keep you from getting published. Don’t write back and don’t post nasty things on your blog. Take it like an adult and move on: keep writing.

Warp Drive Update

Below is a video from the third day of this past week’s Icarus Interstellar Starship Congress. Dr. White of NASA updated the progress of his experiments (at the NASA Houston space center) to create a tiny warp bubble (yes, like the warp drive in Star Trek); the data is very preliminary but, as he says in the video, it is a “non-null” result. If the results pan out, then perhaps the stars will not forever be out of reach of humanity.

Dr. White also talked about Q-Thrusters, which he also helped develop for NASA; they are a deep-space thruster that does not require any propellants. Instead, it uses quantum vacuum fluctuations: that is, the virtual particles that are constantly popping into and out of existence. If I understood the video, it sounds as if they’ve already built some of these and they actually work–and they will be useful in their experiments with warp drive. All q-thrusters need is energy, such as something like a nuclear reactor in a submarine or air craft carrier: they only have to be refueled every 20 years or so. Besides not requiring any propellant, another advantage of Q-Thrusters is that they significantly reduce the travel time for space ships within the solar system; instead of taking five years to get to Pluto (the current New Horizons space craft which will fly by Pluto in 2015), a Q-Thruster reduces travel time to only 167 days; instead of 9 months to Mars (how long it to Curiosity to get there), a Q-thruster gets you there in less than one month.

All in all, I found it very interesting. So check it out:

Misunderstandings

A commonly held opinion expressed on the internet goes more or less as follows: “The bible is a poorly translated transcription of poorly translated oral history and folk legends told by stone age goat herders plagiarized from the religious texts of ancient Egypt and Babylon.”

If you think this is right, then I’ve got news for you: you’re both gullible and closer to being an ignorant goat herder than any biblical author.

1. Where the Bible came from:

David was famously a shepherd, but then he also became a soldier and later the king of Israel. Other professions show up among the scriptural authors. Paul was a rabbi, Peter, James and John operated fishing boats that they used to catch fish in large nets. So far as we can tell, none of the biblical authors were noted for being goat herders. None of them were notably ignorant: after all, they could read and write well and they used rather complex narrative and poetic techniques. All that being said, most of the Old Testament authors are actually unknown, so perhaps some of them were rather literate, well-educated goat herders.

Modern scholars do not believe that the Bible was plagiarized from the religious texts of ancient Egypt and Babylon. In fact, the one culture and religious documents that the Israelites clearly did not make use of were the Egyptian documents. For instance, one of the better known of the Egyptian creation stories has the god creating the human race by masturbating. Not quite like anything we see in Genesis or anywhere else in the Bible.

But certainly there is a common cultural heritage between some of the Old Testament materials and the civilizations of Mesopotamia (of which Babylon was one), but most scholars think that is more a consequence of common heritage rather than from any copying from one another. In some cases, the biblical materials are actually consciously criticizing some of the well-known Mesopotamian stories. For instance, the creation narrative of Genesis is a conscious attack on one of the prevailing and popular Babylonian mythologies of the time known as Enuma Elish. Where the Babylonian creation epic posits gods in conflict who created humans as slaves, the Genesis account presents the gods of the Babylonian myth–the Deep (Babylonian Tiamat), the sun, moon and stars–not as gods, but as inanimate objects created by God. Meanwhile, human beings are made not as slaves, but in the image and likeness of God. God then gives the world to humanity to rule over it.

2. Translation and transmission of the texts:

The Bible has better manuscript evidence than any other ancient text, with thousands of copies floating around. There was no grand conspiracy, no control over them, no fiddling or voting on their contents. The books that make up the Old Testament were originally written in either Hebrew or a closely related language, Aramaic. An early translation into Greek was completed around 200 BC. Until 1946/1947, the oldest complete Hebrew and Aramaic text of the Old Testament dated to about 1000 AD. With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1946/1947, scholars suddenly had at their disposal texts a thousand or more years older than any biblical texts they had up until that point. Guess what? The texts are virtually identical. What’s different? Mostly the spelling, here and there. And the Dead Sea texts are not restricted or suppressed. You can go into any library just about and get them in photographic reproduction or translated. For that matter, you can see them all online at The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library without even leaving your chair.

As to translation, the Bible is not poorly translated. Quite the opposite. There have been numerous translations made over the years and new ones come out all the time. It has, in fact, been translated multiple times into just about every language on the planet. Additionally, most Catholic priests, rabbis and protestant ministers have been trained in the languages of the Bible themselves. The Bible is as well translated as any other work of literature. Certainly some things will get lost in translation—like the puns—but that hardly makes them bad translations. Or do you insist that one can read Goethe only in the original German and Tolstoy only in the original Russian and Homer only in the original Greek, and … well, you get the picture. And the translations differ among themselves in the same way that translations of Homer, Tolstoy, Dante or Gothe differ among themselves. Chances are, if you want to read Dante, you’re better off choosing a recent translation than one from the time of Shakespeare, unless you, for some reason, have a hankering for Elizabethan English. Same goes for translations of the Bible. The still popular King James Version (made in 1611) can be a tough slog for a 21st century English speaker. Just saying.

3. The Bible is misogynistic, encourages slavery, and encourages violence and human sacrifice

Because, says our enlightened and well versed critic who imagines goat herders wrote complex poetry: look at all the stories that have douchebags in it doing those horrible things.

Um.

The science fiction author Larry Niven once got a letter from a reader excoriating him for what some of the characters said and did in one of his books and accused him of being a horrible person. Niven responded: “There is a technical, literary term for those who mistake the opinions and beliefs of characters in a novel for those of the author. The term is ‘idiot’.” Those who criticize the Bible as if it advocates murder, rape, female oppression, slavery and the like are the sort of people that fit the technical, literary term Niven so aptly applied to his own critics. Now I suppose, for example, that one could read the story about the Levite who allows his wife to be raped and murdered and then chops her into twelve parts (see Judges 19-20), not as a horrible indictment of the anarchy that existed in pre-monarchical Israel, but instead, contrary to all reasonableness, as an instruction manual on how women wish to be treated. But I suspect most people, your average reader, would get the actual point of the story. Those who don’t—well, Niven already explained their problem.

Likewise, slavery is not encouraged in the Bible, though the Bible does mention slavery quite a bit: after all, the Israelites spent some 480 years as slaves in Egypt. And they didn’t seem to much enjoy it. Which may have colored their perception of the institution. Thus, slavery is portrayed as an evil, while getting freed from slavery is recognized as a really good thing–and those who failed to free their slaves tended to get criticized. The image of slavery is subsequently used in the Bible as a metaphor for slavery to sin–and just as God freed the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, so He can free people from sin and death. Even the theological term “redemption” used in the New Testament (in Greek) means “to be set free from slavery.”

And yeah, Abraham admittedly tries to sacrifice his son Isaac. Try being the operative term. God doesn’t let him actually do it. And the Bible more than a few times later condemns human sacrifice in the harshest terms.

If you read the Bible like Niven’s idiot, then yeah, you can make it out to be a horrible misogynistic, anti-human book. Otherwise, not so much.

4. The Bible contradicts modern science; it says that the world and universe were created 10,000 years ago, that the world is flat, and that the sun goes around the earth

Um, no.

The point of the creation narrative in Genesis (see above) was to attack and criticize the prevailing myths of the time (especially the Babylonian Enuma Elish) and to argue that there was but one God, who made people to rule over the earth, who are all related, and that the one God was everyone’s God, not limited to only one geographic spot or one particular group of people. Despite those who wish to argue otherwise, the Bible doesn’t actually say anything about how or when the universe was made.

Likewise, the Bible doesn’t discuss cosmology, biology, electronics, carburetor repair, whether you should prefer the products of Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, or many of the other things seem to be such a focus of so many. The Bible’s primary focus throughout, as Jesus would later tell an inquirer (see Matthew 22, among other spots), was to teach people to love each other and to love God.

So it’s really not so complicated—except that Bible uses stories to make its point, and the stories, unsurprisingly, are made up of both good guys and bad guys and lots of bad stuff happens as well as good stuff (stories tend to capture the interest of readers more if there is some conflict, maybe some violence, even some explosions, like Sodom and Gomorrah or the bad guys getting swallowed up by the earth opening beneath their feet). Only a, uh, idiot would imagine that the point of the Bible was to encourage people to do the bad stuff. Do you read Orwell’s 1984 or The Handmaid’s Tale and think, “yeah, 1984 is a how-to guide for totalitarians, and the author of the Handmaid’s Tale thinks women should be oppressed and be used only for breeding purpose.

The Bible is a work of literature. It uses the same sorts of techniques as any other literature. I’m not sure why this is so hard for people to grasp. But then, some people really are idiots. So I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s not as if no one ever misread any other book, magazine article, or newspaper story, never misunderstood a speech, or pulled a politicians words out of context. And I suppose people even, as hard as it is to imagine, misunderstand and misinterpret the clear words of their spouses, children, parents, friends, bosses, and employees. Who knew?

Responsibility

I awoke to read this headline on MSNBC.com: “Australian politician blames ‘gun culture’ in US for baseball player’s death”. Every time someone is shot and killed and it becomes big news, someone, somewhere will say something stupid like that. But when someone dies in a car crash, I have yet to hear a politician announce, “I blame the car culture.” When someone wins an Academy Award, I have yet to hear the winner stand up and shout, “I stand here a winner because of the ‘entertainment culture’ in America.”

And then there was this headline: “Ballplayer’s slaying: ‘Illogical’ gun laws blamed”

Really? His slaying had nothing to do with the nihilistic gunslingers who actually pulled the trigger? Somehow it was the laws that shot him? Or maybe the “culture” put the bullet in his body? Really? Or maybe “we’re all responsible.” Right.

Perhaps this is what President Obama meant when he said, “You didn’t build that.”

Collectivism is nonsense. The village did not raise my children; it did not pay for their braces, it did not stand with me in the hospital at three in the morning when they were sick, it did not help them with their homework. The village did not participate in the latest hit and run; the village had nothing to do with murdering anyone. When someone is stabbed to death, or beaten to death with a baseball bat, politicians do not make fools of themselves by shouting about “the knife culture” or that “bat culture.” They don’t demonize butchers or the Dodgers.

I’m sorry, but the choices you make, the things you accomplish, whether good or ill, they are your responsibility. You did that, not the culture, not the people, not your neighbors. I doubt that you’d appreciate being arrested along with Lindsey Lohan just because you’re part of the “car culture” and you had a beer last weekend. And I doubt the President would let you move into the White House with him because “we’re all in this together.”

Regarding Misanthropy

In the current National Geographic, a hater of humanity wrote a letter to the editor denouncing the attempt to extend human lifespans. She also condemned an earlier article on space exploration. Why? Because she believes human beings are destroying the planet, destroying other life forms, and how dare we try to live longer or spread our “mayhem” about the universe.

I’m curious as to whether people who think this way are planning to commit suicide; after all, to be consistent with their point of view, they should volunteer to take the first step to solve the “human problem.” But she probably thinks that because she holds such “enlightened” viewpoints, she is not part of the problem she deplores.

She is, of course, uninformed and irrational. That other species have failed to survive because of human beings, while perhaps sad, is inevitable in the ongoing struggle for survival. Species are constantly in conflict over scarce resources; human beings are not alone in crowding out and devastating other populations. Inevitably some species win, while others lose. Dinosaurs, for instance have not survived so well; neither have woolly mammoths. Neanderthal didn’t make it, either. Why this letter writer to the National Geographic imagines that the survival and prospering of the human race is a bad thing is, frankly, hard to fathom. Likewise it is a puzzle as to why she thinks that, say, beavers building their dams and changing the environment are more deserving of life than her fellow human beings. I doubt she is consistent in her thinking, however. I suspect that even the letter writer, should she face a conflict between her baby and an animal would pick her child. I would hope that if she saw a wolf trying to eat a friend or family member that she would want to do everything she could to make sure that animal, at the very least, went hungry.

She is very clear that she does not wish to have science find ways to extend our lifespans. If she’s consistent with her beliefs, then if one of her family members should contract some illness, I would expect her to make certain that the loved one gets absolutely no medical care so that the relative can remove his or her carbon footprint from the neck of Earth’s biosphere, the sooner the better.

Me on the other hand: I want my children, my loved ones, and myself to live as long as possible.

And, as to her concern about humanity’s effect on the universe: even if we are a plague, I think she can relax. The universe is kind of big. I doubt we’ll clear cut the whole thing any time soon. Besides, I doubt that human beings, alone among all sentient species, are uniquely troublesome destroyers of rain forests and baby seals. Chances are, any species that is intelligent is likely to share our attributes, both good and ill. Any intelligent species that has survived and reached the top of the food chain is likely to be a predator rather than a prey, and to be similarly aggressive.

Bottom line, I simply do not agree that human beings are a curse. From a Christian standpoint, the letter writer’s point of view is not viable. God made humanity in his image, then gave it the ability, power, right and responsibility to rule creation. God loves human beings, he became one of them, and he died for them. Misanthropists who see human beings as simply the spreaders of mayhem and a blight, who think human beings shouldn’t be allowed to live or spread, are frighteningly similar to those monsters who believed that certain groups, certain races, certain faiths, certain beliefs were a disease to be contained or exterminated for the betterment of a nation and a world.

Misanthropy is a pernicious doctrine.

Of Numbers and Genealogies

It can be disturbing for people to discover that the Bible, though the Word of God, is also a human document, written by human beings and subject to all the issues that afflict any human created material. Over the years, the text has been copied and recopied and it has suffered the normal sorts of issues that any multiply copied text experiences. This does not negate its value or contradict that it is authoritative for faith and practice. But the reality of the nature and quality of the text of scripture must be accepted. Ignoring reality is never a good idea.

Consider one small section of the Bible in the book of Exodus, a section that many might skip over simply because it is, to be honest, rather boring:

 These were the names of the sons of Levi according to their records: Gershon, Kohath and Merari. Levi lived 137 years.

The sons of Gershon, by clans, were Libni and Shimei.

The sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, Hebron and Uzziel. Kohath lived 133 years.

The sons of Merari were Mahli and Mushi.

These were the clans of Levi according to their records.

Amram married his father’s sister Jochebed, who bore him Aaron and Moses. Amram lived 137 years.

The sons of Izhar were Korah, Nepheg and Zikri.

The sons of Uzziel were Mishael, Elzaphan and Sithri.

Aaron married Elisheba, daughter of Amminadab and sister of Nahshon, and she bore him Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar.

The sons of Korah were Assir, Elkanah and Abiasaph. These were the Korahite clans.

Eleazar son of Aaron married one of the daughters of Putiel, and she bore him Phinehas.

These were the heads of the Levite families, clan by clan.

It was this Aaron and Moses to whom the LORD said, “Bring the Israelites out of Egypt by their divisions.” They were the ones who spoke to Pharaoh king of Egypt about bringing the Israelites out of Egypt—this same Moses and Aaron.

The genealogy takes this basic form from Levi through Moses:

Levi

Kohath

Amran

Moses

The number of years from Levi to Moses, assuming the genealogy is complete, was not that many. It is, in fact, the distance from my great grandfather to me. Perhaps a hundred years stand between the birth of Levi and Moses, if that. So perhaps by the time Moses brought Israel from Egypt, 150 years had passed. If the genealogy is complete.

But the genealogy is certainly not complete. Why? Because the text says in Exodus 12: 40 that the Israelites had spent 430 years in Egypt (cf. Gen 15:13, Acts 7:6, and Galatians 3:17) Some might suggest that, if one adds up the lifespans of the people mentioned in Exodus 6:16-27 one gets a figure of 407 years (137 + 133+131 = 407). However, it is clear that they did not each have a child their last year of life; there would be considerable overlap in those years, especially given that most children are born when people are in their 20s and 30s. It is better to assume either that the genealogies are selective or that the numbers are off—or perhaps both, since that isn’t mutually exclusive. And that there are problems with the numbers throughout the Old Tesatament is demonstrable. Compare the numbers between the following:

2 Kings 24:8 with 2 Chronicles 36:9

Ezra 2:5 with Nehemiah 7:10

Ezra 2:69 with Nehemiah 7:70-72

1 Kings 7:16 with 2 Kings 25:17

2 Samuel 8:13 with 1 Chronicles 18:12

1 Samuel 18:25, 27 with 2 Samuel 3:14

2 Samuel 8:4 with 1 Chronicles 18:41

Kings 6:2 with 2 Chronicles 3:4

1 Kings 9:23 with 2 Chronicles 8:10

2 Samuel 23:8 with 1 Chronicles 11:11

1 Kings 4:26 with 2 Chronicles 9:25

This is a common textual issue that afflicts all sorts of manuscripts, not just the biblical texts. The problems are not as commmon since about the middle of the 900s AD or so, when–at least for the Old Testament–the Hebrew copiests developed a system to check their copying: they counted the letters and the words of each OT book, as well as other parts of each text. The copying issues also have decreased even more since the advent of the printing press. However, there have been some notorious errors over the year, even in printed texts of the Bible. For instance, an edition was produced that instead of saying “thou shalt not commit adultery said “thou shalt commit adultery.” And even with computers, my high-end Bible program by Logos (an excellent program, incidentally; highly recommended) periodically issues updates to the various texts to make occasional corrections. Such errors are of little consequence and we can even laugh about them since sometimes–as in the adultery Bible–they are amusing. Such typos are to be expected in a document that people have been involved with. Remember, the Bible is both divine and human.

Regarding the passage in Exodus: the primary point to notice is that the purpose of such genealogies is not to give us a chronology. Rather, they are there to show the connections between people in the Bible. They are selective, just as when Jesus is referred to as “the Son of David.” That leaves out a lot of other names, obviously.

It is important, in reading the Bible, to pay attention to the point that the text is attempting to make; it is not designed to be read by lawyers as if it were a legal deposition.

Paul wrote:

For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Grace Unplugged

Monday night my wife, youngest daughter and I were invited to a free screening of the movie Grace Unplugged, which is scheduled for release on October 4. My wife and I enjoyed the movie very much; more surprising to me was how much my daughter liked it. I asked her if she wanted to go to the movie and showed her the trailer; within the first twenty seconds of the trailer, she gave me an enthusiastic yes and told me the movie would be great! She was right.

My youngest daughter is 16, suffers from severe ADHD and other mental illness (she was exposed to crack among other things in utero; we adopted her out of foster care). A couple of years ago, before a subsequent change in her medication, she ran away for nearly 36 hours. So my wife and I could identify some with the movie, as could my daughter.

The movie is well-written, the acting is superb, and I would recommend it to anyone who would like to see a good movie—a good movie that also happens to be Christian-themed. It should spur some interesting discussion after viewing.

I will admit that once or twice the movie made me cry. I think my wife teared up, too. Not sure about my daughter. I suspect she’d never admit it. But she has praised the movie on Facebook to her friends.

Battling Through It

Thankfully life has a certain amount of inertia. That is, sometimes you wonder how you keep going, and the answer is that it would be considerably more difficult to stop. In general, what real choice do we have?

You live in a certain place, you have a certain family, there are certain people in your life, and you have certain responsibilities. Although one might fantasize about just walking away from it all, where, exactly, would you actually go? How would you pay for it? What would you do there? And in the end, wouldn’t you simply wind up with only slightly different scenery?

The reality of life is that what you are doing, who you are doing it with, and how you are living is a consequence of who you are. “Walking away from it all” would still involve taking you with you—and so nothing would actually change.

Changing one’s life is not simply a matter of dropping everything and running away. Children will say they are going to run away from home. They might make it all the way to the end of the block, but then they go back once it starts getting dark or they get a little hungry.

Most people in the the time of Jesus time were looking forward to the Messiah bringing them the Kingdom of God. They conceived of that very concretely: when they Messiah arrived, he’d kick the Romans out of Israel and restore the Davidic kingdom. But that’s now how it was actually going to be. “Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, ‘The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, “Here it is,” or “There it is,” because the kingdom of God is within you.’” (Luke 17:20-21)

Doubtless several people who heard that were disappointed. But what Jesus revealed about the nature of the Kingdom is the good news. As bad as everything might seem at the moment for you, the Kingdom of God truly is inside of you, whether you feel it or not, and no matter how bad things are just now. How you feel does not alter fundamental reality.

In Romans 12:2 Paul wrote about “renewing your mind.” And, as much as we might want to be able to run away, as much as we wish there were an “Easy Button” to press, or that we could twitch our nose and change the world around us, in fact, the way we change our lives is by changing ourselves—by being willing to make different choices today and to think differently about what we’re experiencing.

There are no easy answers. And life is often a struggle. It may sound like a cliché, but you just have to keep on struggling. And remember, as a Christian, you’re not alone. God is with you no matter where you go, no matter what you face. Don’t expect him to take you out of your circumstances; instead, expect him to walk with you through them, to give you the strength to endure.

There is a reason that the Bible speaks about the importance of encouraging one another. That’s because life is not encouraging in and of itself very often. And because we are human, it is easier to see the problems than it is to see the hope. It is easier to get down than it is to get up. It is easier to forget than it is to remember

Consider the following passages as you struggle through today; reading them regularly can help you keep things in perspective:

“And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1-2)

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:25-34)

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;

we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:18-39)

Why do you complain, Jacob?

Why do you say, Israel,

“My way is hidden from the LORD;

my cause is disregarded by my God”?

Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

The LORD is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He will not grow tired or weary,

and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary

and increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired and weary,

and young men stumble and fall;

but those who hope in the LORD

will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not be faint.
(Isaiah 40:27-31)

Miserable and Hard?

Some people say, and some people think, “It’s hard to be a Christian.”

But I don’t think they are corrrect.

Instead, I think the Christian life is not hard at all; it is remarkably easy. Unless we decide to make it hard. Which a lot of people do.

Jesus said, “my yoke is easy, my burden is light.” The gospel is “good news.” Jesus talks about loving God and loving people. And so it all comes down to that, and really, that is not complicated, it is not hard to figure out. It is simplicity itself: and it doesn’t mean warm fuzzies. “Love your neighbor as yourself” How? “if your enemy’s animal has fallen into a pit, help him get it out.” And “If you are compelled to go a mile, go two.” And “Turn the other cheek.” Love is not a warm fuzzy; it is sometimes, perhaps mostly, a cold choice: you want what is best for the other. You do to others as you’d have them do to you.

The Christian life has been described as difficult. Repeatedly from pulpits around the world, Christians are told, “It’s tough to be a Christian.” They are endlessly taught that there is a cross to bear, that discipleship is costly, that lives must be given up for the sake of the gospel.

But such an attitude creates an odd paradox with Jesus’ words that his yoke is easy and his burden is light (see Matthew 11:28-30). Yet elsewhere (Matthew 16:24-25) his words tell us that we must take up our cross and follow him. But then, although we are told that we must give up our lives, we’re also told that whoever loses his life will find it. And finally, the Greek word that gets translated into English with the word “Gospel” means simply, “good news.” How can becoming a Christian be considered good news if it means a life of burdensome discomfort?

Religion lives and breathes asceticism; that is, there is within the religious, the thought that in order to become closest to God, pleasure must be sloughed off. Christians give up chocolate for Lent, though some joke about giving up liver. Monks and nuns, the priests of Catholicism and the Bishops in Eastern Orthodoxy give up marriage—and thus sex—and are counted especially holy. Those who arise early, who spend hours in prayer, who take vows of poverty, who wear sackcloth, who sleep little and work much, are considered the most righteous of all. The more they chose to suffer, to go without, to experience deprivation, the more closely they are believed—and believe themselves—to be closer to God.

And yet, Jesus said his burden is light, his yoke is easy.

Like the old saying from the old story, “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.”

Did Jesus redefine easy and light to mean miserable and hard? I don’t think so. But perhaps love really is difficult for some folks. Maybe they really do find their brother a bothersome load.