Month: July 2010

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Old Testament

More details on the fittings of the temple. This section of the reading makes a lot more sense once you realize that the books of Chronicles were written after the temple was destroyed. Writing this was one of the ways the exiled people of Judah tried to preserve their memories and this important cultural and religious site.

We also read about the bringing of the ark to the temple and Solomon’s words on this occasion. This stresses that the main point of the king, from the point of view of the authors in exile, was to provide religious leadership (which is different from being a priest). Stressing the religious rather than the military and political importance of the king probably helped the exiles to reinterpret their religious world view, which had always rested on a basic of the political and military success of the Jewish people, in a world where it was obvious that the political and military might of Israel and Judah had ended.

New Testament

Paul argues that the followers of Jesus are not subject to the law, because the law is meant to apply to the living, not the dead, and the followers of Jesus died with him. Now, I know this is meant to be a metaphorical argument, not a formal one, but it still seems pretty obvious to me that we would rethink the relationship between the dead and the law if the dead were still active in the world like these Christians are. Just sayin’.

Paul then goes on to make a rather ridiculous argument that it is only because of the law that we know what is and is not sinful. If we did not have the law, then we would not be tempted to sin. Now, if by the law Paul means moral intuitions, then his point is almost coherent, but even in that case, it still seems that Paul is conflating cause and effect. Do we desire to sin because the law (or moral intuition) says it is wrong? Or do we just mark certain behaviors and desires as sinful because of the negative effects they have been perceived to have? The later does a much better job of explaining the cultural diversity of the concepts of right and wrong.

Psalms and Proverbs

Nothing of particular note.

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Old Testament

The content of today’s reading is pretty much what we have seen before with details added to make Solomon seem better and even more dedicated to God.

Solomon son of David took firm control of his kingdom, for the Lord his God was with him and made him very powerful.

That’s the nice way of saying that he killed a bunch of people to consolidate his power. Now, these may have been necessary killings, but we lose something from this story if we forget that it was not just a joyous and peaceful transition from one powerful king to another.

There in front of the Tabernacle, Solomon went up to the bronze altar in the Lord’s presence and sacrificed 1,000 burnt offerings on it.

That must have taken awhile. If we estimate at least half an hour of non-parallelizable time per sacrifice, that’s 500 hours of sacrifice (about 21 days, 24 hours a day). That’s a lot of time spent sacrificing.

After reading about how Solomon asks for and gets wisdom, we start reading about the building of the temple.

Solomon decided to build a Temple to honor the name of the Lord, and also a royal palace for himself.

Solomon decided to build a temple? I thought David had already told him he had to do it. It is also worth noting that this passage does not seem to mention the fact that David had already done lots of preparation and gathered lots of the materials. Also, Solomon’s letter to King Hiram of Tyre was much more extensive than the first time we saw it.

We then read,

Solomon took a census of all foreigners in the land of Israel, like the census his father had taken, and he counted 153,600. He assigned 70,000 of them as common laborers, 80,000 as quarry workers in the hill country, and 3,600 as foremen.

“Like the census his father had taken”? So it caused a plague on the land? Was prompted by God and/or Satan to cause punishment? Or was it just like David’s census in so far as it counted people (which, you know, is what censuses do).

I also find it somewhat appalling that simply being a foreigner in the land of Israel was considered sufficient reason to conscript you as a laborer. Maybe the chronicler meant foreign slaves? Foreign prisoners of war? If it includes foreigners who voluntarily moved into the land of Israel, then the idea of forcing them to work on the Temple is pretty despicable.

And then, architectural details.

New Testament

Most of the actual content of today’s reading is, once again, targeted at the believer and like unicorn grooming to the non-believer.

But I will pull out one detail which I think is interesting independent of the believing in Jesus thing:

Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey?

I think there is some truth to this idea, although I would not choose to express it in terms of slavery and obedience. But it is true that those things you consider most important profoundly influence how you live your life. If you consider service to others most important, you will notice and act on opportunities to serve others. If you consider influencing others most important, you will live your life in such a way as to make that happen.

Overall I think this focus is good because it can act as a guiding filter through the many directions your life can take. However, it can also be harmful.

First, if you are unaware of what is driving you or if what drives you is considered inappropriate by the norms of your community, you may experience conflict or guilt, either internal or external.

Second, if you are shaping your life due to a particular set of concerns, you may, like Paul, come to believe that your way is right and all other ways are wrong. This can lead to all sorts of bad things, not the least of which is the development of an “us verses them” attitude.

Psalms and Proverbs

Two proverbs that are good with a little substitution.

[Always continue to] get all the advice and instruction you can,
so you will be wise the rest of your life.

You can make many plans,
but the Lord’s purpose [the rest of your life] will prevail.

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Old Testament

Not a list! Hurrah!

That said, reading this is downright bizarre. If I switched up the names in the characters involved, I don’t think I would recognize this as the same story of succession told in 2 Samuel. There is no sibling rivalry, no sick bed declaration of Solomon’s kingship, no instruction to Solomon to kill the enemies that David has spared, no violent consolidation of the throne. Instead, we just have a well orchestrated succession with a focus on the temple and religious observances.

It’s one thing to tell the story of a past from a different viewpoint. It is another and much more annoying thing to completely rewrite the past to fit an agenda.

New Testament

Today’s whole reading, and especially the first passage, demonstrates that Paul is writing for believers.

When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.

In fact, the Bible as a whole seems to be written for an audience of believers. In the Old Testament, that is people who believe that the Israelites are God’s chosen nation. In the New Testament, that is people who believe Jesus is the Messiah.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with writing for a particular audience. Often it’s the only way to get into any real depth. That said, over and over again I have been told that if only I read the Bible, I will see how obvious it is that it is true. I will see how clear the arguments of the Biblical authors are. But that’s most distinctly false. The Biblical authors are writing for an audience that already agrees with their basic premises and trying to convince them of the details.

And because of that, readings like today’s are about as interesting to me as discussing the right way to groom a unicorn.

Psalms and Proverbs

Nothing of particular note.

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Old Testament

More boring lists. Chronicles is my least favorite book of the Bible so far. The only thing remotely interesting today is this statement:

When David took his census, he did not count those who were younger than twenty years of age, because the Lord had promised to make the Israelites as numerous as the stars in heaven.

It is interesting only in so far as it makes no sense. The first part does not, in any way that I can understand, follow from the second part.

New Testament

Paul talks about the importance of faith in having a right relationship with God. While I have not done a through study, it seems to me that faith in the Bible (at least so far) is applied differently than faith today. Faith is never considered necessary for belief in God or belief in Jesus’ power to perform miracles. Rather, faith applies to the idea that God will keep his promises or that Jesus is the Messiah.

Consider this fragment from today’s reading:

God will also count us as righteous if we believe in him, the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead

In isolation, I think the modern English speaker would assume that “believe in him” means “believe in his existence”. However, in context, it is pretty obvious that Paul is referring to believing in God’s promises.

To some degree, faith was not applied to the idea of God’s existence because the idea of some sort of deity or deities was taken as a background fact. Until we advanced enough in our ongoing development of finding better ways to explain things, the idea of external conscious beings was as defensible an explanation as any.

But still, I find the contrast between modern and Biblical usage interesting.

Psalms and Proverbs

Nothing of particular note, although I do agree that helping the poor is a good idea.

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Old Testament

Boring day! The reading talks about various roles at the temple and how they were assigned. In short, it’s more lists.

The most interesting aspect of today’s reading is that all of these roles were assigned using sacred lots. I’ve talked about lot casting before, and I still think it’s a silly way to make decisions and am glad that most churches these days agree with me.

Actually, I would love to see churches that do not believe in letting women in leadership roles assign roles by sacred lot. The set the lots were being chosen from would have both men and women. If, across many such churches, the lots choose only men for leadership positions, then that would be an indication that choosing by lot is a valid way to determine God’s will and that their interpretation of scriptural pronouncements on leadership were correct. If not, they would know that at least one of those things was wrong.

New Testament

Paul discusses how the faith of Abraham shows that it is faith, not adherence to the law, which justifies one with God. This is probably the least annoying passage from Romans yet. Actually, while I certainly do not agree with it*, it is not really that annoying at all. While other Jews may not agree with Paul’s exegesis, it is not disrespectful of the Jewish interpretation in the way that yesterday’s reading was.

* Nor do I disagree with it. It is hard to do either when someone is discussing the subtleties of something that you think is irrelevant.

Psalms and Proverbs

Lazy people sleep soundly,
but idleness leaves them hungry.

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Old Testament

Dude! I mean really, come on! David was not allowed to build a temple, so he just gathered all of the materials for it and had the workers start preparing them. What’s up with that? First, how is that not violating the spirit, if not the letter, of God’s command that David not build the temple? Second, why have we not heard about this before? There was not even the smallest hint of this in the books of Samuel or Kings, not even when we read about Solomon’s building of the temple.

It’s also worth noting that we seem to have heard nothing about David’s instructions to Solomon about building the temple in the books of Kings. It seems that the chronicler has two modes of writing: nearly word for word quoting from the Deuteronomic History and complete fabrication.

The rest of today’s reading is concerned with the genealogy and duty of the Levites. Chronicles claims that 24,000 Levites were required to supervise the work at the Temple. That seems rather excessive, in my opinion. 24,000 is a huge number of people. Even if there was a lot of work at the temple and supervision was needed 24/7, 24,000 people is a lot!

New Testament

Paul quotes a number of Old Testament verses to “prove” that all people are sinners. According to the footnotes, he is citing from the psalms (14:1-3/53:1-3, 5:9/140:3, 10:7, and 36:1) and Isaiah (59:7-8). The links I have provided are to the quoted verses in context.

First, note that Paul strings these all together as if they are a single continuous quotation from the scriptures. Obviously, they are not. Second, note that note that, as usual, the Greek Scriptures that are quoted differ dramatically from the Hebrew that our translation comes from. Third, note that everything Paul quotes from is poetry, which is generally known for hyperbole and other non-literal use of language. Fourth, note that three of the four quoted psalms are quite obviously referring to only the wicked or David’s enemies, not all of humanity. The forth is arguably only referring to us fools who do not believe in God. (I can’t say on the Isaiah passage since we have not got there yet.)

Put all this together and Paul’s appeal to scripture is not only unconvincing; it almost seems as if Paul either must have been dishonest or ignorant of the scripture he was using to prove his point.

Paul then goes on to say why the Mosaic law is valuable:

its purpose is to keep people from having excuses, and to show that the entire world is guilty before God. For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are.

Let me rephrase that for you. Paul is saying that the purpose of the Mosaic law was to be impossible to keep to show the sin of humanity.

Let’s unpack that a little. God, according to the Torah, entered into a covenant with the people of Israel. This covenant said that if the people upheld the law that God gave them, then God would bless them. If they did not, he would punish them.

Now Paul was claiming that God knew from the beginning that the law was impossible to keep. Furthermore, God made it impossible to keep on purpose.

This is like saying to someone, “If you can find me Shakespeare’s original manuscript to Twelfth Night within a year, then I will pay you $50 billion. Otherwise, I will kill you.” right after you secretly burned the manuscript you are asking someone else to find. It’s a dishonest deal.

And yet Paul is claiming that that is the deal God made with the Israelites. God dishonestly made an impossible covenant just to prove a point. In addition to this painting a rather distasteful picture of Paul’s God, it makes a mockery of the message of the Tanakh, the same scriptures Paul was just quoting to prove his point.

Oh, and the only way to get right with God is faith in Jesus. Apparently, God demanding the death of his own son somehow shows his righteousness and fairness. I guess if you repeat that enough, you’ll eventually come to believe it is true.

Psalms and Proverbs

I have not been mentioning the psalms lately since we are on our second time through, but a bit from today’s psalm seems appropriate given Paul’s attitudes towards God’s promises:

The Lord’s promises are pure,
like silver refined in a furnace,
purified seven times over.

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Old Testament

Fascinating, fascinating. Today’s reading is almost exactly the same as the books of Samuel, sometimes word for word. The chronicler leaves out anything that is uncomplimentary to David including a time he was injured in battle and all of the family drama.

The phrasings, at least in translation, are so similar to those in Samuel that it seems the chronicler must have been working from the scroll for Samuel. The degree of similarity makes some of the differences between the two narratives even more perplexing.

Some of the differences are small differences of phrasing (“David has sent them to spy out the land” verses “David has sent them to spy out the city“). Others may be attributed to scribal error (700 charioteers killed becomes 7000 charioteers killed), others are obviously motivated from a desire to present David a certain way, and yet others are just bizarre.

The substitution of Gezer for Gob for the location where the Israelites battled the Philistines may also be a scribal error, or it may be a case of the Chronicler updating the location to be more relevant to the times. Other differences are harder to explain. David takes a census again, but this time, there are 1,100,000 able warriors in Israel (as opposed to 800,000 before) and 470,000 in Judah (as opposed to 500,000 before). David paid 600 pieces of gold for the threshing floor where he built an altar to God as opposed to in Samuel where he paid 50 pieces of silver.

Some changes are obviously motivated by the message the chronicler wanted to communicate. For example, Chronicles changes the one who prompted David to take a mysteriously evil census from God to Satan. It also contains an additional passage which explains why David built an alternate altar to stop the post-census plague even though, supposedly, he was well aware of the requirements to only make sacrifices at the Tabernacle (he was terrified by the angel).

It is hard not to notice all of these differences when the two accounts are so very very similar. Parallel passages like this should cast great doubt on the idea of the Bible being the directly inspired, inerrant word of God (as if enough doubt has not been cast already).

First off, the inconsistencies are not what you would expect from God. But even if you manage to explain all of those away with scribal errors and later redactions, you still have to wonder, why would God inspire the Biblical authors to write almost exactly the same thing twice? Is this information really so key that it needs repetition? It seems much more plausible that the non-inspired human authors were rewriting the traditional scriptures for their own purposes.

New Testament

Paul rants at the Jews. Circumcision is only valuable in so far as it is a sign of what is truly important: a changed heart. In fact, uncircumcised Gentiles will be declared God’s people if they obey his law, Yet there is benefit in being a Jew, because God chose to give his revelation to the Jews, and God will be faithful to them.

Paul then goes on to what might be a legitimate complaint against those around him but what, given Paul’s track record with correctly representing the beliefs of others, I would not be surprised to find out is Paul attacking a straw man:

“But,” some might say, “our sinfulness serves a good purpose, for it helps people see how righteous God is. Isn’t it unfair, then, for him to punish us?” (This is merely a human point of view.) Of course not! If God were not entirely fair, how would he be qualified to judge the world? “But,” someone might still argue, “how can God condemn me as a sinner if my dishonesty highlights his truthfulness and brings him more glory?” And some people even slander us by claiming that we say, “The more we sin, the better it is!” Those who say such things deserve to be condemned.

The argument above, as Paul presents it, does seem rather silly. However, his version seems like nothing more than a parody of the very legitimate disagreements over how God’s justice interacts with predestination (whether complete or partial as in the case of Judas or the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart).

Psalms and Proverbs

I read recently that many of the proverbs seem to support the status quo of the ruling elite. Today’s first and third ones certainly fit that bill:

It isn’t right for a fool to live in luxury
or for a slave to rule over princes!

Sensible people control their temper;
they earn respect by overlooking wrongs.

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Old Testament

Today in Chronicles, we get to see what happens when history is written hundreds of years after the fact by people whose goal is to communicate a theological message, not what actually happened.

They sacrificed the regular burnt offerings to the Lord each morning and evening on the altar set aside for that purpose, obeying everything written in the Law of the Lord, as he had commanded Israel.

That sounds well and good until you remember the Law of the Lord referred to was, at best, nothing more than an oral tradition at this point. According to Wikipedia (and in agreement with Harris’s Understanding the Bible):

Traditionally seen as recording the words of God given to Moses, modern scholarship dates the book to the late 7th century BC, a product of the religious reforms carried out under king Josiah, with later additions from the period after the fall of Judah to the Babylonian empire in 586 BC.

Next, we reread the story of David wanting to build a temple for the Ark, asking Nathan the prophet about it, and having Nathan first say yes and then say no to the request. We also read about God’s covenant with David and his descendants.

Furthermore, I declare that the Lord will build a house for you—a dynasty of kings! For when you die and join your ancestors, I will raise up one of your descendants, one of your sons, and I will make his kingdom strong. He is the one who will build a house—a temple—for me. And I will secure his throne forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. I will never take my favor from him as I took it from the one who ruled before you. I will confirm him as king over my house and my kingdom for all time, and his throne will be secure forever.

Given that the books of Chronicles were written after the people of Judah were exiled to Babylon, this is a very interesting passage. By the time this book was written, the line of David had already ended forever, but the writers of the book still held hope that the Davidic throne would be reestablished. I.e., God’s eternal promise failed to be eternal. (And before anyone chimes in, yes, yes, I know that Christians think Jesus fulfilled the promise.)

David prays a prayer of thanks to God and, in the process, makes an interesting comment on prayer. Remember that in the Old Testament world only special individuals, such as priests and prophets, were the only ones able to communicate with God. In that light, consider this comment from David,

O my God, I have been bold enough to pray to you because you have revealed to your servant that you will build a house for him—a dynasty of kings!

Now, perhaps this comment is rhetorical, but even if it is, it shows that, in some sense, prayer was a bold move. How different this is from modern attitudes toward prayer which, coming from some people, treat it more like requests to a genie in a bottle.

Today’s reading ends with a listing of military victories.

New Testament

Paul, oh Paul. This is going to be tough, isn’t it? We just don’t have compatible world views. You see the world in black and white. I see it in gloriously ambiguous color. You see disagreement as a sign of evil. I see it as a sometimes frustrating but inevitable effect of different view points. You see humans as inherently depraved and sinful. I see them as subject to cognitive biases, evolutionary pressures, and circumstance. You think that some other being is going to eventually dispense judgment. I realize that if we want justice, we are going to have to dispense it ourselves.

I guess we’ll just have to put up with each other for awhile, but I think it’s going to be an exercise in frustration.

Psalms and Proverbs

To acquire wisdom is to love oneself;
people who cherish understanding will prosper.

Reference links:

Old Testament

The Ark finally makes it to Jerusalem. As before, David brought it into the city with much dancing and rejoicing. Details that were not given before (and probably fabricated to fulfill a particular theological purpose) are

• the problem the first time was that the people carrying the Ark were not all Levites
• all the Levites were called together for the return of the Ark
• David assigned a bunch of musicians at this time

New Testament

I had already started to remember why I dislike Paul, but today’s reading really highlights my dislike for him.

Today’s reading is an extended exercise in Paul’s inability to understand that what is obvious to him may not, in fact, be obvious to others. That, even if he is right in his beliefs, people can disagree with him without willfully denying the obvious. It is passages like this that propagate the annoying attitude that non-Christians must be wicked, terrible people. Obviously, in Paul’s world view, everyone knows that God exists, but some people deny it because they are wicked.

Paul shows the classic signs of someone who does not really want to engage in those who disagree with him. He fails to assume those he disagrees with are honest, and he implies that only evil people can disagree with him.

Now, Romans was a letter to believers, not an attempt to engage nonbelievers. Nonetheless, such attitudes make me dislike Paul.

Psalms and Proverbs

Rather a depressing proverb today:

The relatives of the poor despise them;
how much more will their friends avoid them!
Though the poor plead with them,
their friends are gone.

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Old Testament

I want to take the time to look back at the books of Samuel and the books of Kings and compare them to the accounts in Chronicles but, realistically, I’m probably not going to. So I’ll start off on the right foot (wrong foot?) by not looking back today.

We read about all the men who joined David at Hebron. The main point of this list, at least from my point of view, is to show that he had support from all of the tribes.

After describing how these men joined David at Hebron because they wanted to see him become king, the chronicler (thanks to Kim for the name) jumps to a time after David has become king and is bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem.

As before, this story makes God sound like a pouting toddler. After being neglected by Saul, the Ark is regaining its place of honor. When it almost tips over, a man, Uzzah, reaches out and steadies it (probably reflexively). This pisses God off and so he kills Uzzah. David, understandably, is a little put off at this, and abandons the Ark for awhile, as before.

We also read more about David’s ever growing family and his battles against the Philistines.

New Testament

The main theme of this letter is the Salvation offered through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul argues that all persons are guilty of sin and therefore accountable to God. It is only through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that sinners can attain salvation. Therefore, God is both just and the one who justifies. In response to God’s free, sovereign and graceful action of salvation, humanity can be justified by faith. Paul uses the example of Abraham to demonstrate that it is by faith that humanity can be seen as righteous before God.

Onward to today’s reading!

Psalms and Proverbs

Unlike some proverbs, which seem like they just comment on how things are, others declare how things ought to be:

A false witness will not go unpunished,
nor will a liar escape.