YHWH in the Underworld

I checked out the Alan Cooper article that I discuss in my last post, Avoiding a Suffering God; YHWH in the Underworld. Basically, Cooper's argument is that Psalm 24:7-10 is about YHWH entering the Underworld to defeat death. Psalm 24:7-10 is well-known to people who listen to Handel's Messiah over and over (as I used to do). It says (according to my memory):

"Lift up your heads, O ye gates, that the King of Glory may come in."

"Who is this King of Glory?"

"The LORD of hosts, mighty in battle, he is this King of Glory."

Interpreters have applied this Psalm to cultic festivals or God entering Jerusalem after returning from battle. But, as Cooper points out, ancient Near Eastern gates did open by means of lifting. Therefore, Cooper looks for another option. Based on ancient Near Eastern parallels (e.g., Egyptian and Ugaritic literature), Cooper concludes that the Psalm presents YHWH going to the Underworld to defeat death. A herald exhorts the gatekeepers to lift up their heads (stand proud) and let YHWH, the King of Glory, enter. They scornfully respond, "Who is this King of Glory," and are told "The LORD of hosts, mighty in battle." YHWH then does his business and returns to his sanctuary, which is connected to the Underworld.

Cooper sees a continuation of this myth in ancient Christian stories about Jesus going to hell to set free the righteous, thereby defeating death. And, although many scholars would argue that the Hebrew Bible lacks a clear notion of the afterlife, Cooper seems to suggest that we shouldn't regard this scholarly presupposition as iron-clad.

I didn't do a full research project on the descent of gods to the Underworld, but I glanced at wikipedia's article, Descent to the underworld. It is a common theme in the ancient Near East, Greek and Roman mythology, and Asia. Sometimes, a goddess would descend into the Underworld to perform funeral rites (as did the Canaanite goddess Ishtar). Sometimes, a god or goddess would attempt to rescue someone from the Underworld. From my elementary school days, I learned that these kinds of myths were often symbols for the seasonal cycle: winter was death, but spring was life. Maybe YHWH descended into the Underworld to bring life to nature, also known as the spring season, a time of crops and food and celebration.

Some have tried to contrast YHWH with ancient Near Eastern gods by saying that the latter were more concerned about the cycles of nature, whereas YHWH's realm was history. This is true in a sense, but YHWH was also concerned about nature, just like other ancient Near Eastern gods. The Torah has a lot about Israel receiving agricultural blessings: rain in due season, crops, etc. And YHWH in the Hebrew Bible keeps the waters at bay so that life and order are preserved. Granted, the Hebrew Bible applies the "chaotic waters" myth to historical events, such as the threat of Israel's enemies. But one cannot exclude the natural element.

Whatever the Psalm meant in its original context, I like the concept of God being above death. In many of the myths about the Underworld, it's a pretty scary and intimidating place! At Jewish Theological Seminary (where Dr. Cooper currently teaches), I watched an animated depiction of Ishtar's descent to the Underworld for my Akkadian class, and, although it was rather cheesy, the Underworld still didn't strike me as a place I'd want to go! The same went with the cartoon Thundercats, which on one episode depicted an ancient Egyptian view of the Underworld. But YHWH and later Jesus Christ could go there boldly and without fear, with an authority that commanded respect from the gatekeepers of death.

Avoiding a Suffering God; YHWH in the Underworld

Hi everyone! This will be a quick post. My home computer isn't working, so I'm using one at the public library, and I only have 51 minutes left. So this will be fast! Anon15:5 and Elna: I read your comments, but I may not be able to respond to them today. Good comments, though!

At Latin mass this morning, the topic was Jesus suffering on the cross. Philosopher priest talked about various heresies in the early days of Christianity, and how they tried to avoid God suffering on the cross. Apparently, they had the same problem with the concept that Ken Pulliam talked about: based on Greek philosophy, they believed that God was always happy, so the idea that God could suffer was unthinkable for them! And so some said that the human Jesus suffered on the cross, while the divine "Christ" part of him left by then. Or some maintained that Simon of Syrene suffered on the cross in place of Jesus.

The priest seemed to agree that God could not suffer, for he made clear that the Father didn't suffer, and also that Jesus as God did not suffer (if I heard him correctly). Yet, he also didn't believe that Jesus' human nature suffered while his divine nature did not, for that's the heresy of Nestorianism, which held that Jesus had two separate natures, divine and human, which didn't really have much to do with one another.

Personally, I don't see what the big deal is about God suffering. The New Testament is clear that suffering produces character. God doesn't need that, but I'd expect a loving and compassionate God to become sad at many things he sees in this world. Suffering is an indicator of love, sympathy, and empathy. Evangelicals have often prayed, "May my heart break at the things that break yours, Lord."

So that's my church write-up. For my Fishbane write-up (on Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking), Fishbane on page 80 refers to an article by Alan Cooper, "PS 24:7-10; Mythology and Exegesis," which appeared in the Journal of Biblical Literature 102 (1983) 37-55. Cooper argues that there are biblical passages that suggest that YHWH entered the netherworld. I find this interesting. It reminds me of the Christian idea that Jesus went to the underworld to preach to the spirits in prison. Off the top of my head (since I don't have immediate access to BibleWorks), Psalm 139 says that, if the Psalmist goes to Sheol, God is there. For that passage, God is omniscient! Yet, there are other Psalms that suggest that God is absent from Sheol. Why would God go to the underworld? What would he try to accomplish?

I may get back to this, or I may not. Tomorrow, I'll be covering another Fishbane topic! The HUC library opens in a half hour, so I may read the Cooper article.

Have a blessed Sunday!

I Kings 2: Mentoring the Wise, A Fresh Start, God's Plan B

For my weekly quiet time this week, I studied I Kings 2. Here are four thoughts:

1. David calls Solomon "wise" (vv 5, 9), even though Solomon later asks God for wisdom in I Kings 3. Why would Solomon ask God for what he already had: wisdom? Plus, David's belief in Solomon's wisdom does not prevent him from walking Solomon through what he should do. In v 6, David tells Solomon to act according to his wisdom, right before he commands him to bring Joab's hoary head to the grave. In v 9, David tells Solomon that he (Solomon) is wise and knows how to handle Shimei, who cursed David years before (II Samuel 16). Still, David feels a need to instruct Solomon to bring Shimei's hoary head to the grave with blood. If David thinks Solomon is wise, why's he hold Solomon's hand?

Also, whatever wisdom David sees in Solomon, there are others who view Solomon as a big-time dunce. Adonijah asks Bathsheba to request from Solomon that he give Adonijah David's maidservant, Abishag, as a wife. Because Abishag was technically in the harem of David (even though David didn't sleep with her, I Kings 1:4), Adonijah was making a claim to the throne. In the ancient Near East, kings inherited the harem of their predecessors (see II Samuel 3:8; 12:8; 16:20), so Adonijah was adding an item to his resume for the Israelite monarchy: "People of Israel, you should support me for king," Adonijah was planning to say. "After all, I'm David's oldest son, and I have one of his concubines!" For some reason, Adonijah thought Solomon wouldn't recognize what he was trying to do, even though King Saul's weak son Ishbosheth years before got upset when his general, Abner, was sleeping with Saul's concubine (II Samuel 3:8)! Sleeping with the king's concubine was more often than not a claim to the throne, and Adonijah obviously didn't think Solomon was politically astute enough to realize that.

But Solomon did recognize it, so, despite his youth and inexperience, he did have a degree of political wisdom. David was right to notice wisdom in Solomon, but David wasn't confident enough to let him figure out everything on his own. For David, Solomon needed to be pointed in the right direction. And, even though Solomon made some astute decisions in the first few days of his reign, he still felt that he was in over his head, so he asked God for wisdom in I Kings 3. After all, one can be smart a few times, but a good king needs to be smart all of the time, for the sake of his people's well-being. There's a lesson here, about how even smart and talented people need training from other people, as well as guidance from God.

2. Commentaries like to point out the political ramifications of David's advice to Solomon: David was advising Solomon to subordinate people who could potentially threaten his reign. Joab and Abiathar were influential and had sided with Adonijah for the monarchy rather than Solomon. They could be a threat to Solomon's reign if Solomon did not deal with them, as Solomon appears to recognize in I Kings 2:22, 26. Moreover, Shimei was a powerful and influential man from Benjamin, who could muster a thousand Benjamites to meet David when David returned to Jerusalem years earlier (II Samuel 19:17). But Shimei was of the family of Saul, so he had a personal vendetta against David (II Samuel 16:8). Would Shimei take advantage of Solomon's inexperience and try to return the kingdom to the house of Saul? In addition to David's desire to avenge himself on Shimei for his cursing (see I Kings 2:9), David was probably thinking of Solomon's political well-being.

But there was another issue as well: David wanted Solomon to have a fresh start spiritually. In I Kings 2:31-33, Solomon says that Joab's murder of two innocent people was on the house of David and Solomon. In a sense, by allowing Joab to live, David and Solomon were partakers of his guilt, even though Joab killed the men without David's knowledge. Solomon put Joab to death, therefore, so that David and his house would be clear of guilt and have peace from the LORD. (David was most likely dead when Solomon executed Joab, so did he receive a posthumous peace?) There may be a lesson here about dealing with the past in order to have a fresh start.

3. In I Kings 2:28-31, Solomon's hit-man (if you will) Benaiah kills Joab while Joab is clinging to the horns of the altar, which is within the tabernacle. Benaiah does so in obedience to Solomon. Was Solomon right to order this? Leviticus 21 and Numbers 19 go out of their way to keep human death away from the sanctuary, mandating ritual purification for those who touch a human corpse; while animals were slaughtered for sacrifices in the tabernacle, human death could defile God's holy place. Exodus 21:14 may be sensitive to this belief, for it commands that a presumptuous killer be removed from the altar before his execution. Yet, Solomon has Joab killed while Joab is still clinging to the altar, thereby defiling the sanctuary with a human corpse.

Did Solomon want to appear decisive before Benaiah to gain his respect? Did Solomon's disrespect for God's sanctuary in the early days of his reign desensitize him to God, making him the sort of person who later apostasized to please his foreign wives? C.S. Lewis once said, “Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible” (see Randy Olds' post, Good and Evil at Compound Interest). God was giving David's house a fresh start spiritually, a chance to get rid of a murderer who was bringing guilt on the monarchy of Israel. Yet, Solomon failed to acknowledge and correct a character flaw that he had---a disrespect for the things of God---and this seed grew into a poisonous plant later on in his reign.

4. Solomon removes Abiathar from the high priesthood. Abiathar is from the house of Eli, which God cursed in I Samuel 2. In fact, I Kings 2:27 states that Solomon's removal of Abiathar fulfilled God's curse on the house of Eli. In I Samuel 2:30, a prophet tells Eli that God had promised that Eli's house would serve God forever, but Eli's sons pretty much blew that promise through their sins.

Abiathar's replacement was Zadok, who, according to I Chronicles 6:4ff. and 24:3, was descended from Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron. Phinehas had a special place in God's heart, for Phinehas killed a couple of idolaters in his zeal for the LORD, prompting God to promise him an everlasting priesthood (Numbers 25:11; Psalm 106:30-31). For a while, Phinehas had control of the sanctuary (Judges 20:28), but it somehow got removed from his family and fell to the family of Ithamar, another son of Aaron, from whom Eli was descended (I Chronicles 24:3). Now that Abiathar has been removed by Solomon, the priesthood has returned to the house of God's favored priest, Phinehas, since Zadok is a descendant of Phinehas.

This is kind of weird. God promised Eli that his house would serve forever, but years before, God also promised Phinehas an everlasting priesthood. Eli's sons blew God's promise to their house, so God got to go with his original promise, the one to Phinehas, depending on how you read that. In Numbers 25, God technically didn't say that Phinehas would be high priest, but that he'd have an everlasting priesthood. Yet, where was the line of Phinehas when Eli was running the tabernacle? It didn't seem to be around! What kind of priesthood is that? In a sense, the house of Phinehas got back the priesthood when David appointed Zadok to be co-priest with Abiathar (II Samuel 8:7).

It's kind of like the deal with Saul. In I Samuel 13, Saul disobeys Samuel's instructions, and Samuel says that God would've given Saul an eternal dynasty had he simply obeyed; instead, God will seek out a replacement for Saul, a man after God's own heart (vv 13-14). David looks like God's Plan B! Yet, was he God's Plan B? God had promised years before that the scepter would not depart from Judah (Genesis 49:10), which was David's tribe, whereas Saul's was Benjamin. Moreover, God evidently had a special concern for David's family, for he was involved in the life of David's ancestors, Ruth and Boaz.

Historical-critics would probably see different voice in the Hebrew Bible, and that's a possibility. But can there be a lesson here? Tim Keller liked to teach that what appears to be God's Plan B is actually his Plan A. After Jacob disobeyed God and got sent away from his family to be with his relatives in a faraway place, he married Leah and became the ancestor of the Messiah. Was Jesus Christ God's Plan B, a result of Jacob's mistake? Tim Keller said that the lesson here is that nobody can ruin our life, not even us! Even if we make a mistake, God can redeem that for his purposes.

That could be. I don't think that should be an excuse for carelessness, though, since mistakes can have serious consequences. The sins of Eli's sons had ripples on his descendant Abiathar decades later. But God still has a plan, and his Plan B can be redemptive, like his Plan A.

Rebellious Son, Peaceful Antichrist, Sermon on the Mount

I read some excellent posts yesterday. Here are three that stood out to me:

1. Polycarp reviews Karen Armstrong's The Case for God in Review: The Case for God (1). I enjoyed the following:

This book was simply not written to me, for me or about me. Instead, the author has written a compelling argument to those unbelievers who see religion only through the eyes of fundamentalism. Currently, the most militant and loudest atheists, while they don’t believe, see religion, especially Christianity, as one does who believes, and stands in 19th century rural America. Everything is extremely literal, with no room for progression in Scripture. No, we no longer kill unruly children. Why? Because in Scripture we have moved past that. Yet, believers and nonbelievers still will focus on the Levitical Law as something which should still be enforced, much to the detriment of the Christian message.

I liked the part about "we have moved past that." It's blunt, and it makes a degree of sense: Christians are at a maturer stage of religion than were the people under the Old Testament law. I guess I tend to go with something I heard R.J. Rushdoony say when he was interviewed by Bill Moyers: the passage about stoning a son concerns how to deal with a young man who is a perpetual hell-raiser (see Deuteronomy 21:18-20), meaning it's not about a kid who happens to mouth off to his mom a few times (not that kids should do that). But it's obvious that certain authors in the New Testament don't think that we should go with everything in the Old Testament law: we're no longer under a schoolmaster (Galatians 4), and Hebrews says we don't have to offer animal sacrifices anymore. But what about the parts of the OT law about swift justice? Should we go with those, or should we take a more merciful approach, imitating the God who puts up with the wicked and hopes they will repent? But suppose we shouldn't practice the "swift justice" approach nowadays: why did God command it at a specific point in time? Was he trying to teach people the seriousness of sin? Or were there few alternative means to deal with a perpetual hell-raiser who wouldn't accept correction from his parents?

2. From James McGrath's reading list, I encountered a post by Wes Ellis entitled The Irony of Dispensationalism. Wes and a commenter said that they were raised on the Left Behind series, which took me aback, since, from my perspective, the series is rather recent. But I guess they're ten years old, so people now in their early twenties conceivably could have been raised on them!

Wes says the following about the portrayal of the Antichrist by Joel Rosenberg and Tim Lahaye:

For example, when they talked about the Antichrist (by the way, they never mentioned that such a word does not show up at all in the text of Revelation) they portrayed him as someone who will be "such a lover of peace" (which hurt my heart because that made people like John Dear, Desmond Tutu, and all of our Mennonite brothers and sisters sound like candidates for the position) that people will want to follow them. They never bothered to mention that Caesar, in the original context of the scripture, was all about Pax Romana which means the Peace of Rome... They didn't even consider that the beast of Revelation could have something to do with Caesar or someone like him--someone who promotes peace but conducts war and conquest.

Why do we have to see the Antichrist as someone who will promote peace? Whenever someone expresses a desire for peace, proposes cooperation or diplomacy among nations, or seeks to address world hunger and environmental degradation, some think that red flags should go up: "Oh, this will lead to a one-world government, the Antichrist!"

But why should we see it that way? Indeed, there are passages that say the mantra of "peace and safety" will precede sudden destruction (I Thessalonians 5:3), and the KJV of Daniel 11:21 says a vile man will come in peace and "obtain the kingdom by flatteries." But there are also passages that present the Beast as a man of war. Daniel was originally referring to Antiochus Epiphanes, who was a military conqueror. And Revelation may have been talking about Rome, an empire that secured peace through imperialism and military might. The very image of "beast" suggests a violent animal who conquers.

Granted, Lahaye doesn't exactly dismiss that, for he presents the Antichrist (Nicolae Carpathia) as gaining control of the world through an appeal to peace, after which he gets the nuclear weapons of the world and uses them against all who oppose him. For Lahaye, the Antichrist may appear peaceful at first, but his true colors will soon come out! But I'm concerned about how this kind of apocalypticism casts suspicion on those who try to help people, who suggest that we actually should be concerned about world hunger, poverty, environmental degradation, and war.

3. Michael Westmoreland-White continues his series on pacifism with A Biblical Case for Christian Pacifism: The Sermon on the Mount II. I like this post for two reasons. First of all, Michael shows that the Sermon on the Mount is practical and reasonable. I've always had a dislike for the Sermon on the Mount, for I thought that it was imposing unreasonable demands on me. "Don't hate, don't lust, be perfect" was how I saw it. But, actually, the Sermon offers practical steps on how to deal with our flaws: try to be reconciled with your brother, remove causes of temptation, etc. I'm uncomfortable doing that stuff, to tell you the truth, but it makes some sense to me!

Second, Michael argues that the Sermon on the Mount is not about people becoming a doormat so people can walk all over them. Rather, it's about peaceful resistance to evil, one that affirms the dignity of the victim while also shaming the persecutor. You'll have to read the post to see how that principle underlies specific parts of the sermon!

Helel Ben Shachar: Satan

Michael Fishbane, Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003) 74-75.

Fishbane states the following about Isaiah 14:4-21's description of Lucifer, who tried to ascend to heaven and be like the Most High, only to be brought down to Sheol (the Underworld):

Other cases of metamorphosis report myths of the punishment or descent of heavenly beings into earthly existence. The cause of the demotion is not always indicated. For example, in Isa. 14:4-21 the king of Babylon is rebuked for his hubris and divine pretensions, and mockingly identified with Helel ben Sha[ch]ar, a luminous day star who was cast out of heaven. It is not stated just what that astral deity did to be brought down; but one may perhaps reconstruct the underlying myth from the diatribe in which the king is ironically identified with the god. 'How you have fallen (nafalta) Helel ben Sha[ch]ar'---you who 'thought ('amarta) in your heart, "I shall ascend ('e'eleh) heaven, raise my throne above the stars of El, and sit in the mountain of (the divine) assembly in the recesses of Saphon; I shall ascend upon a cloud and be like Elyon"!' (vv. 12-14). For this rebuke it may be assumed that the god fell because of his pretension for high estate in the pantheon. That such a mythic structure existed in confirmed in Canaanite sources from a halk-millennium earlier. Here too we read of an astral deity (named Athar) who 'ascended (y'l)' beyond his station to the recesses of Saphon; and when he sat upon the throne of Alyan Ba'al he proved inadequate and descended to rule the underworld. The theme of punishment is not found here, but enough of a resemblance exists to conform that the political diatribe in Isa. 14:4-21 has reworked the myth of a pretensious god who undergoes a change of status and leaves the heavenly hierarchy.

The story of the fall of Lucifer was often a key theme in my own religious background. I remember when I was little, and I saw a cartoon about Satan on Bugs Bunny. (I think he may have been judging Yosemite Sam.) I asked my mom who the devil was, and she told me to ask my father. And so I did so that night, and my dad told me the enthralling story about how an angel named Lucifer tried to lead other angels in a revolt against God, only to be cast out of heaven. Lucifer then became Satan, my dad said. Whenever we watched the World Tomorrow TV show and the topic was Satan, the announcer would cite Isaiah 14 as the story of the fall of Lucifer.

Seventh-Day Adventism was much the same way. I don't know how many times I heard the story of the fall of Lucifer, but it was a lot, I can tell you that! The Adventist speakers often said that God didn't destroy Lucifer because that would confirm Lucifer's lie that God is mean and unjust, a lie that (for Adventists) God has been trying to refute from creation until now.

When I checked out Isaiah 14 for myself, I learned that it's about the king of Babylon, which wasn't exactly highlighted (or even mentioned) whenever I heard Armstrongites or Adventist teachers expound the passage. For them, it was about the origin of Satan, period! And some Christians have asserted that Isaiah 14 has nothing to do with Satan because it's about the king of Babylon, as this passage from John Calvin's Isaiah commentary demonstrates (see here):

The exposition of this passage, which some have given, as if it referred to Satan, has arisen from ignorance; for the context plainly shows that these statements must be understood in reference to the king of the Babylonians. But when passages of Scripture are taken up at random, and no attention is paid to the context, we need not wonder that mistakes of this kind frequently arise. Yet it was an instance of very gross ignorance, to imagine that Lucifer was the king of devils, and that the Prophet gave him this name. But as these inventions have no probability whatever, let us pass them as useless fables.

But I liked something that Adventist scholar Samuele Bacchiocchi said about Isaiah 14: it's about the king of Babylon, but it's also about Satan, for Isaiah is likening the king of Babylon to Satan. Both tried to elevate themselves to the status of God and were humiliated as a result.

As a side issue, I wonder something: What does the Bible say about Satan's exact location after he was cast out of heaven? I was taught that he roams the earth or is in outer space, below the highest heaven. Job 1:7 presents Satan in heaven saying to God that he'd just been roaming to and fro about the earth, and I Peter 5:8 states that he roams about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Jesus says in Luke 10:18 that he saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven, which many Christians apply to the fall of Lucifer before the creation of the heavens and earth, and many scholars relate to the ministry of Jesus, who bound Satan by bringing people to repentance, healing their diseases, and casting out demons. So is Satan here on earth? Revelation 12:10 seems to present Satan's expulsion from heaven as future: right now, he's in heaven before the throne of God accusing the Christians, but there will come a time when he'll be cast down to earth.

But Isaiah 14 says that Lucifer is in Sheol, the underworld. People at my elementary school pointed to the ground as the location of Satan, assuming that he was under the earth in a fiery place called hell. My religious background dismissed that idea as popular mythology, asserting instead that Satan was active on planet earth. But, if Isaiah 14 is indeed about Satan, then one biblical tradition says he's underground, meaning popular mythology didn't come out of the clear blue sky.

At the same time, Isaiah 14:16 says Lucifer will be cast down to Sheol. Maybe he's not in Sheol right now but is still trying to take the place of God and be like the Most High. Perhaps his "casting down" to the Underworld will occur in the future.

But is Isaiah 14 really about Satan? At DePauw, a philosophy professor of mine said that the story of the fall of Lucifer is not in the Bible but is from John Milton's Paradise Lost. Yet, she pointed out that it's become a widely-accepted story among Christians! But people long before Milton associated the fallen Lucifer of Isaiah 14 with Satan (see here, here, and here).

When I asked my Hebrew Bible professor at DePauw about Isaiah 14, he replied the same way Fishbane addresses the issue: Isaiah 14 is about an ancient Near Eastern god who tried to overthrow El and got cast to the underworld. Actually, if my memory is correct, my professor said that tales about an ancient battle between the gods were common in the ancient Near East, and we do see one such example in the Babylonian Enuma Elish.

As Fishbane states, the story of a god trying to enroach his way into a higher god's throne was common in some way, shape, or form and for quite some time in the ancient Near East. Remember that not all of the writers of the Hebrew Bible were adverse to the existence of other gods besides YHWH (see Deuteronomy 32:8; Psalm 82:1), so the author of Isaiah 14 may have accepted an ancient Near Eastern story about an astral deity named Helel ben Shachar who sought to be like the top god, the Canaanite deity El (whom Israelite religion identified with YHWH). And he compared the Babylonian king with this Helel. He apparently didn't see a need to explain who Helel was, so he probably assumed that most of his audience knew about him, presumably through the ancient Near Eastern story.

But, even if Isaiah 14 originally may not have viewed Helel ben Shachar as the Lucifer/Satan of our understanding, can we still apply Isaiah 14 to Satan? The New Testament has the theme of Satan being cast out of heaven, and I wouldn't be surprised if it got that idea from Isaiah 14! Maybe the story of the astral deity Helel who tried to be equal with God is a piece of a larger puzzle of who Satan is. And, somehow, that sort of story was in the minds of people who lived before the earliest books of the Bible were even written!

Justice, Justice You Shall Pursue

I went to the public library today and looked through a book about Jimmy Carter's "crisis of confidence" speech, also known as the "malaise" speech. The book is by history professor Kevin Mattson and is entitled, What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?: Jimmy Carter, America's "Malaise," and the Speech That Should Have Changed the Country. Mattson tries to argue that the malaise speech should be put on par with the Gettysburg Address, for it exhorted the American people to affirm certain basic values, such as humility and a regard for their fellow human beings. Michael Moore makes a similar point in Capitalism: A Love Story, in which he features an except of the speech where Carter laments materialism in America and the tendency to honor people not for what they give, but for what they make.

Ironically, the book says that Jimmy Carter's message actually overlapped with that of Jerry Falwell, who was conducting "God Save America" rallies at the time. Both disliked the shallow culture of America, with all its self-centeredness. The difference was that Falwell didn't support the sort of "humility" that Carter advocated, for Falwell tried to incorporate his critique of American society into a larger patriotism and optimism. And that's essentially what Reagan played on: he encouraged Americans that they were good and could pull through together, rather than putting them down for being selfish and lacking confidence.

One part of the book that caught my eye concerned Jimmy Carter's admiration for the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, who had a significant influence on Carter's worldview. Niehbur emphasized that human beings are sinners who seek to dominate, yet he also believed that a just society was possible. He wasn't a utopian, mind you, but he thought that society could be fairer than it currently is. At the same time, he maintained that we should always have an attitude of humility, for our nature is sinful, and even our best intentions can go awry because of our selfish desire to be number one.

My religious background (Armstrongism) was always skeptical about the ability of humans to create a just society. We're sinners, after all, incapable of self-government! According to Herbert Armstrong, God gave us 6,000 years to rule ourselves, all to show us that we couldn't rule ourselves, for we're corrupt. That would set the stage for the second coming of Jesus Christ, the only one (besides God the Father) who can rule us in a righteous fashion.

But I wonder: can I believe that human beings are sinful, while also having hope that justice can be possible in this society? I'm not saying society will ever become perfect, but can it become more just than it currently is? Maybe we are incapable of self-government all by ourselves, but can we govern ourselves better with the help of God? And if we're simply supposed to sit on our hands, wait for Jesus Christ to return, and do nothing to promote and bring about justice in this world, then why did God command the rulers of ancient Israel to do justice? It's all over the Torah, Psalms, Proverbs, and the prophets! Was God commanding them to do something he didn't think they could do, at least on some level?

God in the Ancient Near East

I started Michael Fishbane's Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003) today. Here are two points that stood out to me:

1. On page 33, Fishbane cites an article by Morton Smith entitled "The Common Theology of the Ancient Near East," which appeared in the Journal of Biblical Literature 71 (1952) 135-147. You can read it here.

Citing sources from the ancient Near East (e.g., Egypt, Mesopotamia, areas that produced Ugaritic literature, etc.), Smith contends that people in the ANE worshipped gods who had compassion for the poor, executed justice on their patron nation and other countries, healed the sick, forgave sins, received sacrifices for atonement, heard the prayers of the righteous rather than the wicked, and exhorted people to return good for evil. Even when a god was low in the pantheon, Smith claims, people who worshipped him would flatter him as the supreme god, the god who created the other gods, even the only true god. And there are statements in ancient Near Eastern literature that predict a righteous king who will arise to set things right.

This sounds a lot like the God of Israel, who has compassion for the poor and the oppressed, executes justice against Israel and other nations (e.g., Egypt, Assyria, etc.), heals the sick, forgives sin, receives sacrifices, and honors the righteous. My assumption is that the Israelites actually did regard their God as the supreme God and creator, not that they merely said that stuff to flatter him. But I'm not sure if I can prove my assumption. Lying to a god out of flattery doesn't make much sense to me, to tell you the truth!

In an attempt to demonstrate the superiority of the religion that God gave to Israel, people have noted differences between Israelite religion and that of the surrounding nations. The Bible itself does that, for it asserts that the other nations practice child sacrifice (Deuteronomy 12:31), worship idols, and tolerate abominable sexual acts (Leviticus 18). Scholars have contrasted the Torah with the Code of Hammurapi: whereas the Torah largely treats Israelites as equal (except perhaps in Exodus 21:31-32), the Code of Hammurapi honors the upper classes over the lower ones.

I believe that God revealed himself to many nations, but does that mean that all the gods are interchangeable, meaning I can worship any god and regard him as a manifestation of the true one? Although the Letter of Aristeas (second century B.C.E.) claims that the Jews worship Zeus under a different name (see Greco-Roman Monotheism, Biblical Intolerance), the Bible doesn't exactly go that route, for it criticizes the Israelites' worship of gods whom they did not know (Deuteronomy 29:26; Jeremiah 44:3), holds that the God of Israel is the only true God (Deuteronomy, Second Isaiah), or regards the gods of the other nations as demons (I Corinthians 10:20-21). Throughout the Hebrew God, God's aim is to demonstrate to the nations that he is the LORD, that the God of Israel is the most powerful god. Why would he try to do this, if he were interchangeable with the gods of the other nations?

Can one say that God did reveal himself to the other nations, but more fully to Israel?

2. On page 33, Fishbane discusses the earliest evidence for the ancient Near Eastern motif of a god fighting a sea dragon or serpent. A Mesopotamian cylinder seal from the Akkad dynasty (c. 2400 B.C.E.) presents two gods fighting a seven-headed monster, four of whose heads are slain, while three remain aggressive. A Ugaritic myth refers to Baal slaying the mighty Lotan of the seven heads.

Revelation 12, 13, and 17 likewise refer to a monster with seven heads. Revelation 12 is about Satan (the dragon), whereas chapters 13 and 17 concern the Beast. Revelation 17:10 applies the seven heads to specific kings, but Revelation may still be drawing from an ancient legend, in which a good guy god defeats an evil seven-headed monster. Or maybe God clued people in early on about the ultimate battle between good and evil. As C.S. Lewis liked to say, the good thing about being a Christian is that we get to believe the myths are real!