Category: One Year Skeptic

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Old Testament

First off, we get a little more info about the temple:

• it’s east gate must never be used because that is where God’s glory entered
• no foreigners will be allowed in it unless they have been circumcised and have surrendered themselves to the Lord
• it will be set on a piece of larger land dedicated to the Lord; at the end of today’s reading, we get a detailed description of that land.

they do not endanger anyone by transmitting holiness to them through this clothing.

I had not realized that holiness was a dangerous thing to transmit.

These priests will act as judges over the people, must avoid the dead unless one of their close family members have died, and will not own any property. Instead, the priests are to be provided for by the people. (If I commented on current events, I might here express surprise that Glenn Beck and the Tea Party types have not seized upon this as proof that the Bible is socialistic. Oh wait, no I wouldn’t; we all know they selectively interpret the world around them.)

After this, we read about the allocation of the holy parcel of land that I mentioned above. One interesting aspect of this is that land is given to the rulers so that they do not have to oppress the people. These princes are, furthermore, told to treat the people fairly.

Not a super interesting day, but definitely better than what we have been getting.

New Testament

New book! We start 1 Peter today. Let’s see what Harris has to say about it.

Often compared to a baptismal sermon, 1 Peter reminds Christians of their unique privileges and ethical responsibilities.

… The majority of scholars agree that 1 Peter, like James and the pastoral epistles, is pseudonymous, the work of a later Christian writing in Peter’s name. The consensus is based on several factors, ranging from the elegant Greek style in which the epistle is composed to the particular social circumstances it describes. As an Aramaic-speaking Galilean fisherman who had little formal education, the historical Peter seems unlikely to have produced the work’s exceptionally fine Greek. Critics defending Peter’s authorship note that the epistle was written “through Silvanus”, perhaps the same Silvanus who accompanied Paul on some of his missionary travels and who was presumably skilled in preaching to Hellenistic audiences. According to the minority, Silvanus acts as Peter’s secretary, transforming his Aramaic dictation into sophisticated Greek.

Regarding the argument that Peter used a highly literate secretary as unverifiable, most scholars conclude that too many other factors combine to cast doubt on Peter’s authorship. If Peter — a member of Jesus’ inner circle — was the author, why does he not reveal personal knowledge of Jesus’ teachings, as an apostle would do? …

A date after 70 CE is indicated because the author writes “from her who dwells in Babylon”. “Babylon” became the Christian code name for Rome after Titus destroyed Jerusalem, thus duplicating the Babylonians demolition of the holy city.  

I am guessing a reminder of the unique privileges and ethical responsibilities of Christians will not be that interesting to a non-believer. Let’s move on to today’s reading and see!

So far, nothing super interesting. After a greeting, the author, who claims to be Peter (presumably, the apostle), praises God . The author assures the believers that they will someday be rewarded for the ordeals and trials they must now suffer. The believers will be rewarded for trusting Jesus even though they could not see him. Finally, today’s reading ends with a reference to the prophets of the past.

Psalms and Proverbs

This proverb confuses me:

Income from charging high interest rates
will end up in the pocket of someone who is kind to the poor.

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Old Testament

We finally finish the description of the temple complex. Ezekiel would have benefited from some skill drawing architectural diagrams.

After the main description, the glory of God returns to the restored temple. Apparently, the purpose of this detailed description was to make the people of Israel ashamed of their sins:

Son of man, describe to the people of Israel the Temple I have shown you, so they will be ashamed of all their sins. Let them study its plan, and they will be ashamed of what they have done.

I am not quite sure how studying architectural descriptions would make them ashamed of their sins. Maybe because thinking about the temple in general made them ashamed and so God wanted Ezekiel to mention it as much as possible? In any case, I wonder if this description actually ever accomplished that goal.

In any case, Ezekiel is not done with boring descriptions yet. Now that the buildings of the temple have been described, we get to be subjected to a detailed description of the altar and how it was to be used. Goody.

Two things I wonder (but not hard enough to look them up) are: how do these descriptions compare to the descriptions of the old temple and how do these descriptions compare to the actual temple that was rebuilt?

New Testament

The author of the epistle talks about the sorrow and destruction that riches bring. I highly suspect there are modern American believers of predictable political persuasions whose heads would explode upon contemplating these passages too closely.

The author then goes on to encourage the believers to be patient as they wait for the Lord’s return. This discussion touches on patience in suffering and also on how believers should not take oaths. Echoing the words attributed to Jesus, the author says that they should, “Just say a simple yes or no”.

He also discusses the power of prayer and encourages believers to bring back those who have strayed. Contrast the latter instructions with the statement from Hebrews that those who have strayed can never be brought back to repentance. I suppose you could say that’s not a contradiction, but I would be hard pressed to buy it.

And apparently that’s the end of this letter. I have to wonder if the original ending was lost since this seems rather abrupt.

Psalms and Proverbs

Today’s first proverb seems like one the author of James would have liked:

Better to be poor and honest
than to be dishonest and rich.

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Old Testament

Further descriptions of the future temple. Or the present temple? I’m not completely sure.

In any case, we can add another day and a half to the completely and utterly useless readings. I wish I had kept track of this throughout so that I could tally how many weeks we would save if we through out all of the word-for-word redundant passages and all of the passages (like today’s) which contain needlessly detailed descriptions.

New Testament

Today’s reading contains a number of pronouncements against certain behaviors

• quarrels and fights among believers: which are due to evil desires within
• friendship with the world: which will make you an enemy of God
• judging others: because it amounts to a criticism and judging of God’s law
• self confidence, especially in predictions about the future: because you don’t know the future

Psalms and Proverbs

Today we have one of those proverbs where I cannot puzzle out the connection between the first and second lines except in so far as both are bad:

A poor person who oppresses the poor
is like a pounding rain that destroys the crops.

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Old Testament

Reading and writing about the Bible is hard after watching some Cosmos. When I hear about the richness of the vision of universal origins proposed by science (the rich, factually plausible visions of universal origins), the view of the world and the universe presented in the Bible seems so flat, petty, uninspired, and without basis. But in any case, less than a month and a half of the Bible left, so I will persevere.

And with that I bring you… more prophecy against Gog. Goody gumdrops. Once God has destroyed Gog, the Israelites will gather all of the weapons for 7 years worth of firewood. Then they will spend months burying the dead. Birds will be called to eat the dead flesh. And this, of course, is all so God can prove how powerful he is. (If God were really godlike, you would think he would realize he has nothing to prove.)

And then Israel will be restored. This is sounding almost painfully familiar. Although today’s reading does have the interesting variation that Ezekiel’s God claims that none of his people will be left behind when Israel is restored. This seems at contrast with the many declarations that only a remnant will be restored.

We end today’s reading with a list of detailed measurements of the restored temple.

New Testament

The author of James continues to emphasize the importance of good deeds as a demonstration of faith. Unfortunately, he rather weakens his case by bringing up Abraham’s willingness to murder his son when so ordered as an example of a “good” deed. The author’s point was that faith and actions complete each other, but still, bad example in my opinion.

The author of Hebrews then discourages most people against becoming religious leaders because they will be held to higher standards (by other people? by God? it is not specified). This leads in to a discussion about the importance of controlling what you say, summed up with:

For if we could control our tongues, we would be perfect and could also control ourselves in every other way.

Not a bad piece of advice generally although the author starts to wander into the woods a bit when he starts talking about how the tongue is evil and full of poison. That seems to be a bit of rhetorical exaggeration. Like people, the tongue is not all good or all evil.

Today’s reading ends by contrasting wisdom from God (peace loving, gentle, willing to yield, merciful, full of good deeds, etc.) with bad wisdom (jealous, selfish, earthly, unspiritual, demonic). Not surprisingly, I think this is, once again, something of a false dichotomy. The very same traits that can be good in some situations (e.g., being willing to yield) can be terrible in others, and sometimes bad traits (e.g., selfishness) can be beneficial.

Psalms and Proverbs

Rotten governments are easily toppled; wise governments are stable.

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Old Testament

Back to visions and performance art. These are much more entertaining than the prophecies of doom. The theme of all of this is the eventual restoration of Israel. Ezekiel has a vision of bones brought back to life. The bones represent the people of Israel whose hope is dead. The restoration of the bones represents the restoration of the people and their hope.

The performance art consists of Ezekiel bringing together two pieces of wood, one which represents Judah and another which represents Israel. This symbolizes the eventual reuniting of the two kingdoms in everlasting peace and prosperity. How nice.

And then we’re back to prophecies of doom and gloom against countries we don’t care about. Ezekiel’s God is really terribly consistent in his unpleasantness. Even his restoration of Israel comes gains a tingle of the unpleasant in so far as it arises from his desire not to let other nations think badly of him.

In any case, the main point of interest for today’s gloom and doom prophecies is that they are about how Gog will be destroyed because they will take advantage of Israel in the future. This is in contrast to most of the prophecies which say that countries will be punished for things they have done to Israel in the past or are doing in the present.

New Testament

We start out with some good advice,

Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.

After that, the author goes on about how you are just fooling yourself if you do not take action based on God’s word in your heart. Given that I am a big fan of action, I suspect I would like this if I were a believer.

I also like the bit about how people do not hold their tongue or care for widows and orphans have a worthless religion. As an atheist, I have been on the receiving end of many a tiresome lecture from people who think that they are superior to me just because they believe even if they are rude, condescending people who resist helping others as much as they can. Certainly, not all believers (not even all lecturing believers), are like this, but the ones who are could afford to spend some time reading this epistle.

And while they are at it, they might notice the next bit about not preferring some people over other. Judging people based on their appearance and social status is presented as a clear wrong. And if I were in the business of commenting on current events, I might make reference to these verses in a discussion on tax cuts for the rich and welfare for the poor.

This is followed by a short discussion about breaking laws: people will be judged for breaking any of them, not just for breaking all of them. It’s also interesting to see a reference to any Old Testament laws as “the law that sets you free.” While the laws referred to are not the detailed Levitical laws that Paul rails against, this author’s attitude toward the law seems like another potential point of contrast between him and Paul.

Speaking of contrast, today’s reading ends with the crux of the contrast between Paul and the author of this epistle.

What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? … So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.

I certainly would not go so far as to call this contradictory to Paul’s view of faith, but it certainly provides  a strong counterpoint.

Psalms and Proverbs

Super short psalm. And today’s proverb declares the wicked to be cowards.

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Old Testament

Edom will be destroyed for taking advantage of Israel’s misfortune. Israel will be restored. I did like the imagery of Israel as a land which devours its children. It’s a depressing image, but a well painted one.

We also get this gem which shows, once again, that God is more concerned with his reputation than with people:

They polluted the land with murder and the worship of idols, so I poured out my fury on them. I scattered them to many lands to punish them for the evil way they had lived. But when they were scattered among the nations, they brought shame on my holy name. For the nations said, ‘These are the people of the Lord, but he couldn’t keep them safe in his own land!’ Then I was concerned for my holy name, on which my people brought shame among the nations.

And this, apparently, is the reason he is restoring the people. To save his reputation.

I am bringing you back, but not because you deserve it. I am doing it to protect my holy name, on which you brought shame while you were scattered among the nations.

God could do more for his reputation if he brought about world peace and gave everyone a new heart as he says he will do for the returned Israelites:

And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.

Also, it’s funny how this heart transplant doesn’t seem to be considered any sort of violation of free will. Other than the lack of choice, the bit above could be considered to be proto-Christian, but that lack of choice makes a vital difference (unless you’re a believer in predestination, but that opens its own can of worms).

New Testament

A new book means it’s time for background! Let’s see what Understanding The Bible has to say about the Epistle of James:

A Jewish-Christian anthology of ethical instruction, James defines both religion and faith in terms of humanitarian action. 

So far so good. Humanitarian action is generally a good thing. What else does Harris have to say:

Although relatively late church traditions ascribe this epistle to James, whom Paul called “the Lord’s brother”, most scholars question this claim. The work reveals no personal knowledge of either Nazareth or Jesus, to whose life or gospel the author never refers. … Scholars regard it as an anonymous compilation of early Christian ethical advice made between about 80 and 100 CE. Accepted only reluctantly by the Western and Syrian churches — perhaps because of the writer’s attack on the Pauline doctrine of faith — it was one of the last New Testament books to obtain canonical status. 

A collection of ethical precepts and proverbial counsel, it strongly resembles Hebrew wisdom books. Its tone is impersonal and didactic; its advice is extremely general. Without a discernible controlling theme, James present practical exhortation on a series of miscellaneous topics ranging from gossip to the misuse of wealth. 

Although this books lacks a unifying theme, one principle that lends some coherence to the work is James’ conception of religion, which he defines as typically Jewish good works, charitable practices that will save the soul and cancel a multitude of sins. The religion God approves is eminently practical

I am a big fan of practical. =)

Finally, on the relationship between this and the Pauline epistles:

James’ conclusion that faith without actions is as dead as a corpse without breath seems to repudiate Paul’s distinctive teaching. Some commentators point out, however, that James may have intended only to correct a common misuse of Paul’s doctrine. 

Today’s reading reminds me of “The Secret”:

If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.

Why does this remind me of “The Secret”? Like “The Secret” this verse leaves an out for things not going as expected. If you don’t get wisdom, your loyalties were divided. If you don’t get whatever your intentions point to, it’s because you actually held contrary intentions. It’s a perfect unfalsifiable system.

In any case, the point of this is to celebrate hardship as God’s way of testing them.

After that we get to read the claim that

Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens.

This is often used as justification for saying that non-Christians cannot love or do good. Fortunately, most people, even most Christians, realize that such a claim is idiotic.

Psalms and Proverbs

Proverbs about the pastoral life.

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Old Testament

Today’s reading is relatively cheery for Ezekiel.

Ezekiel is declared to be Israel’s watchman. His responsibility is to declare the coming doom. Following this, we read a repeat of declaration that the righteous will be punished if they turn to sin and the wicked will be rewarded if they turn to good.

The essence of this idea, individual responsibility, is clearly an improvement upon the idea of group guilt that seems to have characterized most of Israel’s past. However, taken to the extreme, or even put up against reality, it becomes brittle. No person is all righteous or all wicked. So by this explanation, they will be forever flip flopping between righteous and wicked, marked for destruction or marked for life. And if you believe that these consequences become fixed after death, then it’s semi-random whether someone is in a good phase (and lives) or a bad phase (and is destroyed). Taking this idea of personal responsibility too far also seems to defeat the idea of personal responsibility. To have true individual responsibility you have to have some amount of continuity between the past and present.

After a brief interlude about the fate of Jerusalem and those who come to listen to Ezekiel, we read an extended analogy between Israel and a herd of sheep. The leaders of Israel were like bad shepherds who neglected their sheep and let them suffer. God is like a good shepherd who will take care of his sheep.

The analogy starts to fall down a bit when God talks about how he will punish the fat sheep and take care of the thin sheep. These are meant to represent, respectively, the people who take advantage of others and those who were taken advantage of. The analogy falls down because no shepherd would punish his best sheep even if they did crowd out the other sheep. They might, I suppose, isolate them or something, but sheep are dumb creatures and cannot be held accountable for their health. Since humans can be held accountable, the analogy suffers.

In any case, God will eventually bring peace and prosperity to his people again. Since he supposedly gave them that the first time around, one wonders why God thinks things will turn out any better this time.

New Testament

We finish Hebrews today. The book ends with a number of suggestions for good behavior, a warning against being attracted to new ideas, and a revisiting of the core idea of Jesus as the perfect sacrifice.

The suggestions for good behavior include a command to

Obey your spiritual leaders, and do what they say.

Although a reasonable statement on its own, I have seen this statement used to disturbing ends where churches use it to teach their members that they should obey the church leadership even if it goes against the best judgement of the church member. Any church that teaches that is, in my opinion, immediately suspect.

The book ends with a fairly standard letter closing. Some scholars believe this closing was added to the book to make it seem more letter like (and, perhaps, through its reference to Timothy, to make it seem like Paul wrote it).

Psalms and Proverbs

Fire tests the purity of silver and gold,
but a person is tested by being praised.

This is an interesting proverb. Upon reading, one immediately notices that being tested by fire is generally considered painful but praise is not. Thus, the connection between the two lines cannot be that pain tests a person. Instead, it seems that the emphasis is on the idea of how pure silver or gold responds to fire. Like with these metals, this proverb seems to be saying that flattery is a tool that can be used to reveal the true nature of a person. I am not quite sure I buy it, but the comparison is interesting.

The second proverb highlights the first, although it may not seem so at first:

You cannot separate fools from their foolishness,
even though you grind them like grain with mortar and pestle.

Together, I read these two proverbs as saying that there are tools for testing the purity of a person, but there are not tools for separating out impurities. This says nothing, however, about whether or not a fool can change himself.

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Old Testament

Today we read about how Egypt is like Assyria. Like Egypt, Assyria once prospered. Like Assyria, Egypt will fall. Pharaoh is once again compared to a sea creature that will be pulled onto land to die. This bit contains some gruesome imagery of the earth being drenched with blood. And, apparently, Babylon will be the cause of this destruction. Egypt will join other fallen nations in some pit. You wouldn’t think all this would be boring. Blood and violence sells, as they say. But enough repetition makes even those tedious.

New Testament

After our lovely reading from Ezekiel, the first line of today’s reading provides an amusing contrast:

Work at living in peace with everyone

The author of Hebrews then goes on to make Esau the villain of the story where Jacob tricked Esau out of his birthright. I suppose you can say Esau should have known better, but I think that the original story made no pretense of pretending that Jacob had not unfairly taken advantage of his brother.

Then we get a declaration of how believers have come joyfully to the heavenly Jerusalem and the audience is admonished not to refuse to listen to Jesus or God or whoever the “One who is speaking” is.

Psalms and Proverbs

Some proverbs. Nothing particularly stuck out to me.

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Old Testament

Today’s prophecy is all about Egypt. Because Egypt did not effectively held Judah, God will punish them. This despite the fact that it was supposedly a terrible betrayal for Judah to ask Egypt for help in the first place. Part of Egypt’s punishment will be 40 years for desolation. Somehow I feel that would be recorded a bit more widely if it had actually happened. So once again (for the umpteenth time) either the prophecy was false, exaggerated, or symbolic. Personally, I think Ezekiel’s about as good a prophet as your average political pundit.

A side comment makes it sound like the conquering of Tyre we heard so much about did not go so well:

Son of man, the army of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon fought so hard against Tyre that the warriors’ heads were rubbed bare and their shoulders were raw and blistered. Yet Nebuchadnezzar and his army won no plunder to compensate them for all their work.

Generally plunder is the first order of business, so Babylon could not have been particularly successful if they did not even achieve that much.

In any case, because the attack against Tyre did not generate enough plunder, God gives Egypt as a replacement gift. A God who would give women into slavery to pay those who helped him seems rather a monster. Then again, we have strongly established that Ezekiel’s vision of God is angry and vengeful; cruelty and depravity should come as no surprise.

New Testament

The list of faithful folks ends with a list of names without comment. I am surprised to see Samson there since seemed to be more as an arrogant jerk than a good example of faith. I am also surprised to see Jephthah there; I guess sticking to your word enough to murder your daughter is a good thing in the eyes of God?

I would also like to point out that one of the examples of faith is Barak (worked with the prophetess Deborah back in Judges). Hmmm, something familiar about that name? Oh yes, the president of the US, whose name people thought made him sound too Muslim, is named Barack.

In any case, for some people faith resulted in triumph, in others it resulted in torture. But none of these faithful received what was promised to them. But that’s okay because Jesus also endured hardship, and God’s discipline is good for people.

I find the author’s discussion of discipline to be rather limited. On the one hand, he makes a good point that discipline is necessary for raising children. However, he neglects to mention a key point: discipline is only effective if there is a clear connection between the punishment and the wrong which caused it. If the person disciplined cannot understand the connection between the two, then the discipline effectively becomes abuse.

By that understanding, much of the so called discipline of God starts to look abusive rather than fruitful and educational.

Psalms and Proverbs

As iron sharpens iron,
so a friend sharpens a friend.

I take this to mean that friends should push and challenge each other. However, there is also an implication that you should only do this with friends who are of the same caliber as you. If, for example, you try to have an iron debate with a talc friend, neither of you will benefit.