Right to Left, Death, Intention

1. Aaron Demsky, "Writing in Ancient Israel. Part One: The Biblical Period," Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. Martin Jan Mulder (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2004) 3.

"The most significant development in writing since its inception and phoneticization was the invention of the alphabet which occurred in Canaan in the first half of the second millennium. It then evolved over a five hundred year period from an almost completely pictographic script to a standardized linear signary conventionally written from right to left in the early Iron Age."

I don't know much about this issue. I wonder what other languages read from right to left. It's been a while since I took Akkadian, so I don't remember what direction that language goes. And I vaguely recall reading in one of Bill Dever's works that Canaanite writings have been discovered that read from left to right. Maybe some of my ANE readers know the answer to this!

2. Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1910) 289-290.

"The Roman government, although (like all despotic governments) jealous of secret societies, was quite liberal towards the burial clubs, mostly of the poorer classes, or associations for securing, by regular contributions, deeper interment with religious ceremonies. Only the worst criminals, traitors, suicides, and those struck down by lightning (touched by the gods) were left unburied. The pious care of the dead is an instinct of human nature, and is found among all nations. Death is a mighty leveller of distinctions and preacher of toleration and charity; even despots bow before it, and are reminded of their own vanity; even hard hearts are moved by it to pity and to tears."

The Torah seems to be a step ahead of Roman society on the treatment of the dead, for Deuteronomy 21:22-23 states: "When someone is convicted of a crime punishable by death and is executed, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse must not remain all night upon the tree; you shall bury him that same day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God's curse. You must not defile the land that the LORD your God is giving you for possession" (NRSV). According to Deuteronomy, even the worst criminals deserve burial.

All of us are equal in the sense that we die, but not everyone gets an equal burial. When I was in Israel, I saw a lot of tombs. People had to have money to be buried in those, whereas the poor were put in unmarked earth-tombs.

But death is rather humbling. And threatening! When I visited the Seventh-Day Adventist church last Sabbath, I happened to catch the last few minutes of the lesson study. The teacher was saying that rulers in antiquity threatened people with death, the ultimate weapon. When Jesus conquered death, however, that was no longer a threat to Christians. Ancient sources marvel at Christians' peace in the midst of their martyrdom. "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church," the slogan went. I don't entirely understand why this was the case, since other religions had some concept of an afterlife. But maybe being a disembodied soul was not all that appealing to people.

While death can be humbling, it can also encourage sin. Wisdom of Solomon talks about people who try to get as much as they can before they die--by immoral means, if they deem it necessary. But Wisdom of Solomon says that the path to immortality is clinging to wisdom, and that the immortal soul will have a glorified state. I'm not sure what type of body I'd want in the afterlife. Being able to surpass physical limitations is appealing, but I'd also want to eat good food after death. There are so many physical pleasures! If I read the Bible correctly, the resurrection body will have both physical and also spiritual components. But I've discussed this issue with Steven Carr in the past, and he thinks I'm wrong on this.

3. Jacob Neusner, Judaism's Story of Creation: Scripture, Halakhah, Aggadah (Boston: Brill, 2000) 94.

"By laying emphasis upon the power of the human will, sages express the conviction that the Israelite has the power by an act of will to restore Creation to its perfection. That is why the details of the law time and again spin out the implications of the conviction at hand, that all things depend upon Man's intentionality in a given action or Man's likely perception of an action. The direct interaction with the story of Creation cannot be missed. The tragedy of Eden came about by reason of Man's exercise of his free will to rebel against God's will. How the Israelite exercises his free will then forms the center of interest. The Halakhah stresses, in one native category-formation after another, the power of the Israelite will to dictate the issues of the material world and their outcome."

According to Neusner, many of the laws on the land Sabbath do not emphasize what the Israelites' actually do, as much as what they intended to do or thought they were doing. If they have the right intention, then they're obeying the law, the rationale runs. Neusner ties this with the Eden story because Adam and Eve deliberately disobeyed God, and the Sages want the Israelites to have an attitude that will not get them booted off their land (which happened to Adam and Eve): one that is yielded to God.

In his chapter on the Sabbath, Neusner says that Jews cannot do intentional work on that day, since they are to avoid any work that resembles God's activity at creation. When God created all things, he did so with purpose, design, and intention.

I don't exactly know how the law can measure a person's intention. One may think that it's a matter between the individual and God, as God punishes those who deliberately sinned. But that doesn't entirely work, since Numbers 15 talks about the execution of a man who deliberately sinned by breaking the Sabbath. Of course, God told Moses to put the man to death, so maybe the authorities could determine intention by consulting a divine oracle. I wonder how they did so when the Urim and Thummim ceased, however.

Even our laws look at intention. "Will the person commit this crime again once we release him from jail?" "What was his intent when he did the act?" "Was this deliberate and premeditated, or merely an accident?" I guess the authorities look at things like record, attitude, and willingness to seek help. At the same time, good intentions aren't necessarily a "get out of jail free" card in our legal system. What a person does is as important as his intention or lack thereof, since acts have consequences on people and society.