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Having mentioned them in a previous post, I got to thinking about the tribe of the Ammonites, and, by extension, the other tribes pottering around the Near East at the time of the early Israelites. They appear only as bit-players in the great drama of the Hebrews played out across the Old Testament Histories, popping up in the text only for the purposes of being slaughtered in great numbers by whichever king happened to be running the Israeli war-machine at the time. So who were the Ammonites, and what gave them the audacity to live in lands which Yahweh had promised to his chosen people?
The Bible identifies them as the descendants of Benammi, a relative of Abraham. How close a relative? Well, remember the story of Sodom and Gomorrah? Fleeing the scene of Yahweh’s burning-sulphur-based wrath, Abraham’s nephew Lot escapes (minus his now-composed-of-condiment wife) to the mountains, along with his two daughters. Said daughters, believing that the cataclysm they’ve just high-tailed it away from represents the end of humanity, see it as their duty to re-populate the world with their offspring. Only problem is, there’s a distinct lack of eligible bachelors around, on account of them all perishing in the aforementioned rain of sulphurous death. So they hatch a plot to sleep with the only available male around…
“And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth: Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.
And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.
Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father. And the first born bare a son, and called his name Moab: the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day. And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Benammi: the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day.” Genesis 19:31-38
In a rather amusing bit of propaganda, the Hebrew scriptures make the point that their enemies are the offspring of an incestuous father-daughter relationship – you have to wonder how often that taunt came up on the battlefield.
Of course the Ammonites were’t really the spawn of Lot’s over-randy daughter. They were a small kingdom located to the east of the Dead Sea, in the north of modern-day Jordan. It seems likely that there were close genealogical relationships between them, the Israelites, the Moabites and the other small Semitic tribes knocking around Canaan at the time, and there was probably a good deal of intermarrying going on as well (which, as the Bible makes very clear, God was not pleased about). They were certainly much more closely related to the Hebrew tribes than the pesky Philsitines, Israel’s other major bugbear at the time (the Philistines, who occupied what is now the Gaza Strip, were most likely an offshoot of the Mycenaeans – making them, ironically, far more culturally refined than the Israelites of the time). The kingdom of Ammon was predominantly agricultural – their lands were highly fertile and the number of ruined settlements in the area attests to a settled and agrarian population.
The Ammonites had close diplomatic ties with their neighbours and kinsmen, the Moabites, and they banded together to defend against the aggressive Israelite expansionist policies, to the extent that they were often referred to as a single group (the “Children Of Lot”). They were excluded from “the congregation of the LORD” because they supposedly prevented the Israelites from crossing their lands during the conquest of Canaan – in spite of the fact that the kingdom of Ammon lay to the east of Canaan, and the Israelites (supposedly) invaded from the west. This charge smacks of Hebrew propaganda, but was clearly a popular belief among the ancient Israelites, who needed a good excuse to vilify their neighbours.
Among their other excuses was, naturally, the fact that the Ammonites followed a different religion, worshipping a pantheon which included Baal and Yahweh, but set them under the jurisdiction of the Ammonite deity Milcom. So disapproving were the Yahweh-worshippers that they actually co-opted Milcom (under the slightly different pronunciation Molech) as part of the demonic hierarchy – an idea expounded upon by Christianity, which made him a major figure in the Fall and a Prince of Hell. It’s worth noting that Milcom/Molech was also worshipped by the Moabites (as Chemosh), by the Edomites (as Quaush) and was sometimes seen as an aspect of Baal by the ancient Semites, so he was a pretty major figure in ancient Near-Eastern religion.
Unfortunately, most of what we know of the Ammonites is from the Old Testament itself (and other Israelite sources, plus a few mentions in the records of the Assyrians). Only a few fragments of their own texts survive – a short inscription, a bronze bottle and a few scraps of pottery are all we have. As a result, most of what we know about the Ammonites comes from their enemies, who naturally portray them in the worst light possible. With the aid of archaeology, some additional pieces of the puzzle appear, but we will probably never know the full story of the Israelites’ ancient foe.
I’ve just been excoriating mantisdave on Proud Atheists for this comment, in which he claims:
“I looked up this passage in the ‘message’ translation of the Bible (which in my opinion is the most accurate translation from the original texts into english.. unlike King James that has many mistakes in the translation).”
Now, I’ll grant that there are some problems with the KJV. Notwithstanding the crazies who think that it’s the “only” truly inspired Word of God, and that all other versions, including the original texts, are fallacious, the King James is an imperfect translation. Commissioned as it was for the Church of England, it is doctrinally skewed towards Anglicanism, and it relies entirely upon the Masoretic Text for it’s version of the OT – and a single, arguably inaccurate version of the Masorah at that (the translators worked from the text of the tongue-twistingly-titled Jacob ben Hayyim ben Isaac ibn Adonijah, which has been the subject of debate ever since he put it together). For the NT, the KJV used the Textus Receptus of Erasmus, which is again of dubious quality (it is often thought that Erasmus created the Greek Textus only to show off the superiority of his Latin Vulgate New Testament). Compounding these issues is the fact that the KJV is written in the English of 1611 (its year of publication), which, with all its “theeing” and “thouing”, can be pretty incomprehensible to us modern bods.
mantisdave’s choice of The Message as “the most accurate translation” actually made me snort coffee through my nose, though. Alright, he does quantify that it’s only his opinion, but if I opine that the Lambrini Bianco in my local offie’s bargain bin is superior to a 1787 Chateau Lafite-Rothschilde, that just indicates that I know fuck-all about wine.
The Message was a project by Presbyterian pastor Eugene H. Peterson, and is an attempt to “bring the Bible to life” for a modern generation by paraphrasing it into contemporary language. The problem with this is threefold. Firstly, it results in inaccuracies in translation – the example in mantisdave’s Proud Atheists comment is the difference between The Message’s: “…clear them out of here. I don’t want to see their faces around here again” and the precisely translated: “kill them in front of me.” That’s a major change!
Secondly, it results in severe doctrinal bias – much more so than in the King James Version. Consider the KJY version of John 3:5-6:
“Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God”
Then compare with The Message:
“Jesus said, “You’re not listening. Let me say it again. Unless a person submits to this original creation—the ‘wind-hovering-over-the-water’ creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life—it’s not possible to enter God’s kingdom.”
Peterson has reworded the original (which is closer to the KJV passage) to reflect his particular personal interpretation of the lines. In doing so, he completely removes the necessity for water-baptism – a fundamental tenet of the Baptist Church. Because Eugene H. Peterson doesn’t believe in baptism by water, now, neither does Jesus, and screw the Baptists who thought that Jesus said otherwise.
Finally, The Message suffers from the rapid progress of modern colloquial English. Even though it was only published seven years ago, its language already seems dated in 2009. It reads like your Dad’s attempts to relate to your mates – out-of-touch, uncool and really a bit embarrassing. The KJV is a product of its time, but it is sufficiently removed from modern conversational English that it remains timeless. The Message already looks like a product of the late 1990s, and will no doubt be mentally filed by most people with the Teletubbies, Pogs, the good series of Friends and the Macarena.
As a tool for Bible scholarship The Message is about as valuable as the CliffsNotes. For Taming of the Shrew. Citing it is a sure sign that you haven’t thought out your position very deeply. The only instance in which it might be useful is for someone for whom English is a second language – but only if they wanted to pepper their scholarly discussions with the occasional “dude” or “gnarly.” However, if you want to really fail at Bible scholarship, you need to get yourself a copy of The Word On The Street…
I found an interesting book review at the Baha’i Competitive Society website, in the form of Stephen Phelps’ take on Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. You can recognise where it’s going fairly early on:
“while Dr. Dawkins and other new atheists believe the way forward lies in a world without religion, Bahá’ís approach the issue of God, nature, and religion from an entirely different perspective.”
The over-arching theme of the review is effectively, “yes, religion is bad, but what we do is different, so it doesn’t apply to us.”
“When set against traditional religious understandings of God, Dr. Dawkins’ arguments are quite powerful. But against the Bahá’í understanding of God and nature, the contradictions that he identifies between science and religion simply dissolve.”
So what is “the Baha’i understanding of God,” which is so in tune with science and reason? Well, the first argument in their arsenal is that God transcends human understanding – that “[t]he very categories of “being” and “existence,” which underpin logic itself, are inadequate when referring to God”. At which point, one has to ask, why do you even bother speaking about this “God” thing, then? There must be some unity to your idea of God, since all Baha’is sing from the same hymn sheet, so to speak. Once you start claiming that a thing is beyond all human understanding and definition, you remove the concept from discussion entirely. Not only that, but by making the demand that we view God as a supernatural concept, beyond the ken of the natural sciences, the Baha’is place themselves firmly in the camp at which Professor Dawkins directs his spleen; those that insist there is “something more” than the natural world. To then claim that the Baha’i God is compatible with science and reason is completely contradictory.
Retreating from the idea of God as an ineffable, extra-real mystery, the reviewer then turns to the argument from design, aka: the Argument From Personal Incredulity. We all know and love that one, don’t we, boys and girls?
“Bahá’í writings suggest that God’s action and the laws of nature are folded together — and that the natural laws that, say, guide evolution, are merely an extension of God’s will.”
Lacking a Genesis to interpret literally, the Baha’i faith naturally has little problem with evolution, but still tacitly refuses to accept that the diversity of species could have come about without a Designer. ““Nature is the expression of God’s will in and through the contingent world,” writes Bahá’u’lláh”, or in other words, “goddidit”. This argument, like the standard Christian argument from design, basically revolves around its proponent’s inability to cope with the idea that natural processes can be explained by science. Baha’i ideas are at the opposite end of the scale to Christianity’s, but they still find it necessary to invoke a supernatural cause for a natural phenomenon. The writer states that:” God’s action in the world looks more like physics than magic” – which is hardly surprising, given that it is physics.
Jumping back to the idea that Baha’ism is compatible with a naturalistic worldview, Phelps’ goes with the Argument from Somebody I Respect Said It, So It Must Be True:
““Religion must conform to science and reason; otherwise, it is superstition,” said ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.”
No argument from me there, Mr Baha. However, I would be at pains to point out that your religion does not conform to science and reason, since, as your reviewer so helpfully pointed out, he can’t deal with the idea that natural process occur without some sort of divine motivation – despite the fact that all empirical science suggests otherwise. Essentially, Stephen Phelps wants the Baha’is to have their cake and eat it too – to posit a god who only appears in the form of completely naturalistic, scientifically explicable phenomena; a god who isn’t a god, in other words.
The rest of the review goes on to argue that laws come from God, and that this too supports Dawkins argument, in that religious memes are predicted by the Baha’i worldview. Again, it exemplifies the fundamental weakness of Stephen Phelps’ Baha’ism. I get the distinct impression that he (and the other Baha’i) are desperate to believe in something, and so shoehorn their concept of God into smaller and smaller boxes, or define it in more and more nebulous ways, until finally they end up with a deity who is so abstract, or does so little, that they no longer need to find any evidence for his existence. So my message to the Baha’is is – give it up. Be free. Read The God Delusion again, and pay particular attention to the title.
God: Delusion. That includes yours.
Recently unearthed documents from North Africa have brought to light a previously unknown letter of Saint Paul. The text is surprisingly complete, and archaeologists are hailing it as the most important Biblical find of the century. It provides a whole new picture of the problems faced by the fledgling Christian movement, and gives an insight into Paul’s own personality. I’m proud to bring this exclusive excerpt from the newly discovered Epistle To The Condominiums…
11What ho, chaps! Greetings from Paul, an apostle of Christ, to all those in the church at Condiminia, blessings and grace, etc. etc. Hope you’re all well, and that the plague hasn’t caught up with you yet.
2Now, to business. It’s a bloody awkward thing to try and stay on top of so many churches all at once – I possibly shouldn’t have been quite so eager to get things underway in such a lot of geographically distinct cities – but it seems that you, like those damned Galatians, have been doing the whole Christianity thing wrong again. 3Look, it’s really simple. NO false gods, NO shagging around outside of marriage, and most emphatically NO listening to anyone who isn’t me. How do you people manage to screw this up?
4My pal Timothy tells me that he dropped in on your church about a year ago, and he has all sorts of issues with the way you lot are going about the whole worshipping process. What, he bids me ask you, was the deal with those pygmies? Why do you need so much chocolate syrup, and who in the hell gave you the idea of wearing paper hats on a Thursday? Did Jesus wear a paper hat? Did he? No, he bloody didn’t, and I should know, I’ve met him (in a spiritual sense, of course). 5It was given to me to preach the Good News about Christ Jesus, not some chocolate-syrup salesman from Athens, so why you’re paying attention to his cocoa-inspired ravings I do not know.
21It isn’t as though I didn’t give you a straightforward message to preach. Jesus, who was the son of God, but also God, died for your sins, which God (Jesus) decided were too great for him (them) to allow you into Heaven, so he (they) sent his son (him (them)) to be a sacrifice to himself (themselves), thereby expiating your sin and enabling you to reign in glory with God (Jesus) (him (them)). 2Then he (they) sent the Holy Spirit (also God (Jesus)) to bestow upon me and the other apostles the Good News about Jesus (God) (him (them (all three of them (but there’s still only one)))). It’s so obvious, a child could understand it, so I fail to see where you’re having difficulties. 3Don’t make me come over there.
4In other news, Timothy tells you there’s been a spate of unlawful sexual relations amongst the church elders there. 5I don’t care what you do in the privacy of your own homes (that’s between you and Jesus, who is watching you all (yes, I mean all) the time. I’m just saying…), but there’s a certain degree of decorum to be maintained in my in Jesus’ church, and I expect you to buck your ideas up. 6Less screwing and more covering women’s heads in church, please.
31Has anyone there seen my good yellow sandals? I’m sure I had them when I last visited your church. They’re a size 10, with leather braiding on the thongs. I’d really appreciate having them back, if they turn up. Your reward in Heaven will be great, I promise.
2My greetings to shit, sorry, bloody pen ran out. As I was saying, my greetings to Thoetonias and Jethaniel, and please tell Kleptas to keep his thieving mitts out of the offering box. Yeah, Jesus knows, Kleptas. 3That money funds my travel expenses – you nick it, and I’ll be stranded amongst the filthy Romans for months. And that will really piss me Jesus off.
4Yours in Christ, etc.
Paul
PS. I really mean it about the illicit sexual relations. Keep your trousers on for five minutes, you filthy perverts.
PPS. Thanks for the flowers.
Some scholars argue that this epistle does not merit inclusion in the New Testament canon, owing to certain stylistic aspects that do not appear to be characteristic of Paul’s writing. Others point out that some of the detail seems to be anachronistic – the sandal braiding mentioned in Condominiums 3:1 did not come into fashion until at least 80 CE, which seems too late a date for Paul to have authored the letter. However, it has been noted that, since the books of Colossians, Ephesians, Hebrews, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus all bear similar aberrant features which throw doubt on their authorship, there’s no real reason not to consider this a genuine letter of Paul. From it, we can gain a fascinating insight into the life of the greatest of the apostles – his shoe size is mentioned in Chapter 3, and Chapter 2 sheds a new light on his theology. Theologians and scholars will likely be studying the book of Condominiums for many years to come.
Now here’s something I’ve never considered using my blog for… begging for money to fund my trip to South Africa. I’m a bit disappointed by the lack of tangible return on the investment, though. As Mark says:
“You can expect some miracles… but mostly, expect the money to be spent on food and mundane life-type stuff.”
Only some miracles? I want something a bit more concrete than that before I commit my hard-earned cash… Why do you need cash to fund miracles, anyway? Aren’t they, you know, miraculous? Also, whilst he will be doing some practical work (talking to people – oh wait, I mean, proselytising to people), much of his mission statement involves praying – for rain, for an end to war, or just generally that everything will be nice. Because we know how well that works, don’t we?
I don’t know, Mark – I’m just not seeing this as a particularly wise investment in the current economic climate. I mean, yes, your work in Australia has clearly borne fruit:
“If you have been a reader for a while, you will know that much blessing came to Australia in the last 12-18 months… and I have no reason to see anything less happening to South Africa. And beyond.”
you know, massive bush fires, suppression of free speech, that sort of thing, so clearly you’ve got form, but since all you’ll basically be doing (by the sounds of it) is praying all the time, do you really need to be in South Africa to do so? I mean, God can hear you just as well in Australia, can’t He?
Mind you, the idea of you eating straw off the floor like an ox might tempt me to supply some funds – it would look great on YouTube…
Two recent anonymous comments from Dan Silverman’s blog, All For Freedom (which I strongly encourage you to read – the story of his deconversion and the subsequent fallout is heartbreaking, but the strength and conviction he shows is inspiring) demonstrate far better than any argument I could muster why Christianity fails:
Anonymous said…
People, please read carefully 1 John 5 and see that when a brother sins a sin unto death, you are no longer to pray for him (since it is impossible to renew him again unto repentance – See Heb. 6 and Heb. 10 and 2 Pet. 2:19,20; the latter end is worse for them than the beginning). Dan would have been better off not being born. You are to pray all prayers in the Spirit (Jude and Eph. 6). Did God the Holy Ghost lead you to pray for Dan contrary to His clear Bible teaching? No. This is not unloving or hostile, but simply THE BIBLE. You are giving false hope to reprobates (rejects) and encouraging more reprobates. Once they have smitten the Rock twice, they will not enter into the Promised Land. The Holy Ghost, being grieved, SWORE that those who believed not (after being saved – see Jude) would NOT enter into His rest (Heb. 3). Pray til you are blue in the face. Dan is a GONER based upon God’s word. And he won’t care. He’ll be an atheist for life. Do pray that God will interfere with his newfound ministry of infidel-converting. Pray for his family too. Read 1 John 5 which commands you NOT TO PRAY FOR THE LIKES OF DAN.
Anonymous said…
I beg to differ with the blogger who has conveyed only doom and gloom to Dan. I believe the Bible teaches once you are saved you are ALWAYS saved. I do not believe the Bible teaches that you can loose your salvation. As for the “sin” Dan has commited – do you think Jesus died for ALL the sins of the world, EXCEPT ONE?? No, He died for all the sins of the world. If Dan was never saved, he could get saved – Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (no exceptions). If he was saved, he can ask for forgiveness and under the blood of Jesus (the blood He shed on the cross), he can be forgiven. He died for EVERY sin. Dan has not lost his salvation if he was truly ever saved. I can denounce my blood parents all I want but the fact will always remain that they are my parents. The same applies to people who ask Jesus into their hearts – once saved always saved. Jesus will forever be their heavenly Father. The real question is whether or not Dan was ever really saved. Did he ask Jesus into his heart and establish a personal relationship with Him. Only Dan knows.
Back in the days when I supplemented my meagre bookseller’s pay-packet by teaching t’ai chi on the side, I subscribed to a number of t’ai chi related periodicals. I was rummaging through a stack of as-yet-not-unpacked boxes yesterday when I came across a box file full of old copies of T’ai Chi Magazine, probably the best and most noteworthy of them, and I thought it would be a nice trip down memory lane to flick through an issue or two. One of the articles I encountered was an absolutely perfect example of what a woo-ist might call a “scientific study” – and what any right-thinking scientist would call “utter bobbins”.
The article purported to be a study of the effects of t’ai chi practice on sporting performance, and was constructed as follows: A team of university basketball players (the Winona Warriors) were taught to practice t’ai chi movements for ten to thirty minutes per week. The team’s stats were then compared with those of the previous year’s team, and slight improvements in some areas were discovered. Therefore, this study proves that t’ai chi practice improves sporting performance.
Yeah, right.
Okay, let’s go through exactly why this so-called study proves nothing of the sort. Firstly, note the small sample size. The team consisted of only 14 players, not a statistically significant sample in any way. Next, observe the lack of a control group – the team’s performance was measured against that of the previous year’s team, which was made up of different members, played different numbers of games against different opponents in a different season, and, in short, had no common factors to speak of with the test group. That’s a bit like doing an RCT for a new drug on a sample group of ten overweight, transvestite Guatemalans, then comparing against a control group of fifteen Indian tennis-players with gall-bladder problems, ie. utterly without point.
Speaking as an ex-professional t’ai chi practitioner, I can safely say that a ten-minute to half-hour per week practice time is absolutely insignificant, especially when one considers that the study specifically notes the inability of the players to perform the t’ai chi movements unassisted. This suggests that they had not actually “learned” any t’ai chi, but were merely copying the movements of other practitioners. In other words, they might as well have been practicing ballet movements for all the difference it would have made. To give a comparison, the basketballers were taught the sequence of t’ai chi movements in a series of fifteen 45-minute lessons. When I was teaching (and I was a particularly fast and demanding teacher!) I would expect my students to learn the sequence over a course of forty two-hour lessons – more than seven times as much study, and that was just to get the rudimentary shapes correct!
I realise that you’re probably already as flabbergasted at this study’s ineptitude as I was, but let’s finally just take a look at the results which suggest t’ai chi’s effectiveness as a sporting aid. The various factors measured did indeed all show some slight improvement – team assists were up by 2.8 per game, the number of turnovers went from 415 to 452 over the year, and the team’s free throw percentage increased by 2.7%. No comparison was made, however, with any season other than the previous year’s one – meaning that, whilst the figures may show that the t’ai chi team were better than their immediate predecessors, no records are given as to whether those predecessors were a team of good, average or downright dismal skill. For all we know, they may have been the worst basketball team in WSU’s history, meaning that the t’ai chi players would have had to be phenomenally shit in order to show zero improvement.
All in all, this is an absolutely perfect example of how not to conduct a scientific study, but it’s also a good illustration of how the woo-meisters seek to gain scientific credibility for their chicanery. T’ai chi may well contribute to improved sporting performance – but until it’s properly studied in a national trial, rather than one season of a backwater university basketball team, we will never know one way or the other.
When the Spanish and Portuguese Conquistadors were knocking seven bells out of the Aztecs and Incas, introducing those Stone-Age tribes to the exciting and lethal possibilities offered by gunpowder, smallpox and mounted cavalry charges, they were keen to introduce the natives to the Catholic faith. In defence of their invasion, mass-murder and forcible conversion of the South Americans, Pizarro, Cortes and their followers pointed to the depraved rites of human sacrifice practised by their enemies. Surely, they reasoned, we would be doing these guys a favour by introducing them to the religion of civilised folk? Plus, they’ve got all this gold… Bring on the priests!
I don’t have to remind anyone of how very bloodthirsty the Judaeo-Christian God can be. We all know of His proclivities for violent conquest, bloody offerings, genocide and mass smitings; it’s all well recorded in the books of the Old Testament. What you may not be aware of, though, is that, much as Jews and Christians might frown on the idea of sacrificing actual real-live people to appease their vengeful deity, Yahweh Himself does not appear overly bothered by the concept. In fact, it is possible to pinpoint four specific instances where He apparently give the go-ahead for human sacrifice, or at least seems “well pleased” with the smouldering savour of long-pork.
First up, the book of Numbers. Numbers tells an ugly, brutal tale of conquest, in which Moses and his army “vex” the Midianites and various other tribes. One of Yahweh’s personal high points comes in Numbers 31:17-18
“Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.”
Nice. But divinely-mandated rape is not what I’m looking at here. For our purposes, let’s look at verses 37-41, from the same chapter:
“And the LORD’s tribute of the sheep was six hundred and threescore and fifteen. And the beeves [cattle] were thirty and six thousand; of which the LORD’s tribute was threescore and twelve. And the asses were thirty thousand and five hundred; of which the LORD’s tribute was threescore and one. And the persons were sixteen thousand; of which the LORD’s tribute was thirty and two persons. And Moses gave the tribute, which was the LORD’s heave offering, unto Eleazar the priest, as the LORD commanded Moses.”
Eleazar was the guy in charge of killing and burning stuff for God, according to the rites laid out in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. He would certainly have barbecued the sheep, cattle and probably the asses – and then there are thirty-two (presumably virgin, since Moses had everyone else slaughtered earlier in the story) people standing there as “the LORD’s tribute” as well… It isn’t spelled out, but given the amount of killing going on at the time I don’t see how the Israelites would have had a problem with toasting these poor sods as well. Human sacrifice was a popular pastime amongst the heathen tribes which surrounded them – is it too much to believe that they might have added it to Yahweh’s repertoire as well?
Okay, it’s possible (though not stated) that the tribute of people might have been put to work as slaves or some such – Numbers isn’t clear on the point. Moving on, then, what about 2 Samuel 21? This chapter tells of how Yahweh was laying down some serious famine mojo on Israel because Saul (who is dead by this point) killed a tribe called the Gibeonites, with whom Israel had previously signed a peace treaty. David asks the remaining Gibeonites what he should do to appease his pissed-off God (who, I might remind you, is pissed at David’s predecessor, not at David himself. Bit late with the retribution there, eh, God?). They reply:
“Let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up unto the LORD in Gibeah of Saul, whom the LORD did choose. And the king said, I will give them.” 2 Sam 21:6
So David proceeds to hand over seven of Saul’s descendants (sparing Jonathan’s son Mephibosheth, for obvious reasons), and the Gibeonites:
“hanged them in the hill before the LORD: and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of barley harvest.” 2 Sam 21:9
As a result, “God was intreated for the land” (2 Sam 21:14) – in other words, the famine was lifted as a result of the Gibeonites human sacrifice. Pretty cut-and-dried, there – kill people (not those who have actually offended God, but their relatives), appease Yahweh. There’s more, however…
Leviticus 27 is, by and large, a tedious litany of accountancy and legal codes, but it does contain, in verses 28 and 29, provision for human sacrifice:
“Notwithstanding no devoted thing, that a man shall devote unto the LORD of all that he hath, both of man and beast, and of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed: every devoted thing is most holy unto the LORD. None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be redeemed; but shall surely be put to death.”
To set this in context, this part of Leviticus contains instruction on which of a person’s possessions rightfully belongs to God, and how those items might be disposed of or redeemed. Here, it states that the Israelites can devote both men (slaves, presumably, but possibly children) and animals to Yahweh, and that such devoted beings cannot be redeemed, but must be killed. Now this is a pretty unclear passage (coming as it does at the end of a chapter which opens with specific redemption costs for people and animals), and it isn’t helped by the KJV’s archaic grammar, but it still seems, at nearly any level of interpretation, to permit the sacrifice of people.
Finally, the clearest-cut case of human sacrifice in the whole Bible – an instance where a virgin is clearly and unambiguously slaughtered as an offering to Yahweh. I’m speaking, of course, of Jephthah’s daughter, whose sad tale is found in Judges 11. You probably know the story, but for those that don’t, here’s the gist.
Jephthah is a leader of the Israelites during their conquest of Canaan. Determined to take out those pesky Ammonites (the tribe, not the fossilised snail-things), he makes a rather rash vow in the heat of the pre-battle moment:
“And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the LORD, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.” Judges 11:30-31
He then heads off to war, and kicks the shit out of the Ammonites, “from Aroer to Minnith”, taking out twenty cities-worth of infidels. Pleased with himself, Jephthah heads home, expecting to be greeted by his faithful dog/ass/favourite cow, presumably. God, having a strongly developed sense of tragic irony, sees to it that Jephthah’s own daughter is in fact the first living being to come out to meet her triumphant daddy. “Ah, crap,” says Jephthah, but being a dutiful sort, he can’t go back on a vow to the Lord. After allowing his daughter a two month period to “mourn her virginity”, he kills her in Yahweh’s name (no Isaac-style last minute replacement ram for Jephthah). That’s pretty unambiguous – in the Judges account, God definitely accepts a human sacrifice, and from the other passages mentioned above, it looks like he may well have done so more than once. The Conquistadors were on pretty shaky ground when they criticised the Aztecs’ religious practices – their Jewish forebears were doing much the same thing back in the Old Testament.
The storm shook the sky. Lighting slashed across the roiling black cloudscape like a flint knife drawn across a deerskin. The thunder roared and crashed and, well, thundered, I suppose; and the rain fell in sheets so thick that it seemed a curtain had been drawn across the mouth of the cave.
The brothers Thag and Hrug and their families huddled together around the smoky firepit and pulled their rudely-stitched deerskin blankets tightly around their hunched shoulders. With tired eyes, they stared out at the maelstrom crashing against the cliffs outside, and waited patiently for the raging storm to move on.
To help pass the time, Thag recited the story of the gods who caused the thunder, Grug and Bugrug, two giant brothers whose incessant warfare tore the sky and made the trees shake and split. He was getting to one of his favourite parts of the tale (in which Bugrug seduced his brother’s wife by assuming the form of a small rodent) when Hrug cleared his throat loudly, and spat into the fire. Thag suddenly remembered – Hrug was one of a small group of heretics (tolerated by the tribe, but not encouraged) who refused to believe in the Gruggish pantheon. It was clear from the set of his sibling’s overhanging brow that Thag was about to hear another a-Gruggian heresy.
“Hrug not believe that thunder caused by fighting giants,” Hrug grunted. “Me think giants just made up story, like magic flint pigeon or ‘wheel’. Me think better explanation must exist for big storm-noises.”
“Hrug big nincompoop. Thunder made by Grug’s troublesome bowel condition agitated by Bugrug’s lighting-spear,” opined Thag. “Is not ‘other explanation’ – Grug and Bugrug story make most sense to Thag, so is true.”
One of Thag’s children sneezed loudly.
“See what Hrug do! Hrug’s bad words remove gods’ protection from cave, let sneeze-demon in!” howled Thag. “Now Small Thag all snotty and crying. Hrug must see this prove existence of gods!”
Hrug shifted sulkily. “Me not believe in sneeze-demon either.” He stared hard at his brother. “Hrug think maybe sneeze not caused by demon – maybe sneeze result of really small animals, so small Hrug and Thag not able to see. Maybe sneeze caused by bits of flower-seed in air. Me not see reason to think sneeze caused by demons.”
He sat back, flicked an engorged louse from his hairy arm, and continued. “Hrug think maybe, many seasons from now, other people find real cause for sneeze, and real cause for thunder. Me think explanation must exist, be found, and then Grug not good explanation anymore.”
Thag turned his back on Hrug, and started idly whittling a piece of firewood with his flint handaxe. “Hrug wrong,” he grunted. “No-one ever find better explanation for thunder. Grug and Bugrug be reason for storm.” But his heart wasn’t really in it, and he decided to change tack. “What about Thag and Hrug, and tribe, and animals?” he began, turning round again. “Where Thag and Hrug, and tribe, and animals come from if not made of clay by Grug, hmmm? What you say to that, Hrug?”
“Hrug not know where peoples and animals come from,” said Hrug sullenly. “But maybe same peoples who find real reason for thunder and sneezes know one day. It maybe take longer to find answer, but me is sure that other explanation exist.”
Thag laughed. “’Maybe,’ ’maybe’, ‘one day’” he chortled. “Grug and Bugrug is true now, so Hrug should shut up. Hrug dreams silly dreams. No peoples is ever understanding the thunder, or the sneezing sickness, or the making of peoples and animals. Is Grug and Bugrug, all whole time! Look – they has finished fighting again!”
Sure enough, the clouds were clearing, and the rain had slowed to a drizzle. Hrug lumbered out of the cave, glad to be free from Thag’s proselytising. He felt, deep down, as though he was right, and that one day the mysteries of the storm would be comprehended by humankind, but for now, as he walked over to the stream to rinse the soot from his matted hair, Hrug was content to say to himself; “Hrug not know – yet.”
With our first baby on the way, Wifeshui and I are naturally thinking a lot about child-rearing techniques. How can we instil values in our daughter-to-be? How do we ensure that she is given the social and moral tools with which to address society? How will we educate her as to what’s right and wrong?
Well, Robert Heinlein has an answer, although not one which particularly resonates with us. In Starship Troopers, he advocates corporal punishment as the “obvious” solution to juvenile delinquency, suggesting that one should train a child in the same way as one trains a puppy – by punishing them with pain when they misbehave. It’s a view which is popular not just with fascistic sci-fi societies, but with contemporary Christians as well, especially the fundies. Much of this is due to the Book of Proverbs, which contains five verses specific to the disciplining of children (Proverbs 13:24, 22:15, 23:13, 23:14 and 29:15), all of which are variations on, “spare the rod, spoil the child.” Being somewhat primitive in their paedology and pedagogy, the ancient Israelites went with a simple child-rearing system which basically amounted to: SMACK! It’s an idea which has persisted in these more enlightened times, most notably in the poisonous spew of Focus on The Fascism Family’s James Dobson.
In Dobson’s writings on child-rearing, he invariably frames the parent/child relationship as one of antagonism and conflict. Children are referred to in his case studies by such terms as: tyrant, brat, rebel, dictator, tiger, anarchist and other such stigmatising labels. By contrast, parents (pre-Dobson’s intervention) are described as nervous, frustrated, defied, defeated and embarrassed. The solution? Well, in any battle, one plays to one’s strengths – parents are bigger, stronger and quicker than their children, and so belting the hell out of a disobedient “little spitfire” seems – to Dobson – to be the obvious choice. In fairness, it was certainly the way he himself was raised – in The New Dare To Discipline he describes how his own mother used to beat him with “a multitude of straps and buckles… Believe it or not, it made me feel loved.” (You know who else talks like that? S&M fetishists. I’m just saying…) Raised in violence, Dobson has written numerous books imploring others to meter out the same treatment to their own children, and fundagelicals across the world have lapped it up. My own parents owned at least one Dobson book (I think it was Bringing Up Boys – or “How to make your sons not be gay.”) and were no slouches in the smacking department – their tool of choice was a wooden spoon on which (with no apparent irony) I had personally carved the words, “God Is Love” in a Sunday School craft lesson. As a result, I can safely say I’m in the camp he proudly describes in The New Dare To Discipline:
“I’m told Dr. Benjamin Spock is loved by millions of kids who are being raised according to his philosophy. I have an entire generation that would like to catch me in a blind alley.”
By his own admission, Dobson is responsible for a generation of children growing up with hate and violence – and the fucker is pleased about it!
So Wifeshui and I will, by mutual consent, not be following the advice of “Dr” James Dobson (medical credentials? Er… none, actually) and beating the tar out of our daughter when she comes along. There will be moments, I am sure, when it may seem like an attractive proposition, but I intend to raise our child in an environment of love and respect, not fear and blind obedience. If that eventually leads to the downfall of Robert Heinlein’s perfect society, so be it – there are better worlds in the imaginations of our great sci-fi writers (Peter F. Hamilton springs to mind) than his Nazi utopia.
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