1. Today, for Black History Month, I watched volume 1 of Roots. On this episode, we meet Kunta Kinte (played by Lavar Burton), the African ancestor of Alex Haley. He is abducted and put on a slave ship, which is run by a devoutly Christian captain (played by Ed Asner), who struggles over his job. Lavar Burton was nominated for an Emmy for his portrayal of Kunta, and Asner received an Emmy. O.J. Simpson also played in this episode, long before he had his legal problems. And you also see Ralph Waite from the Waltons, only he’s nothing like John Walton, Sr. on this show!
What stands out to me is that the African people were proud—and I don’t mean that in a bad sense. They valued hunting, manhood, survival, tenacity, and defending their tribe, family, and loved ones. Yet, Kunta’s tribe often tried to tame men’s pride by reminding them that Allah was the only thing greater than them. It must’ve been extremely difficult for them to be treated as less-than-human by slave-masters, and to be up against a culture (white Europeans and Americans) that they didn’t have the resources to defeat. That’s the basis for a major theme in the entire Roots miniseries, which includes Roots: The Next Generation: Kunta’s descendants tried to remember who they were. People around them told them that they were inferior; but Kunta’s descendants looked back to the time when Africans were chiefs.
As I think more about the movie Amistad (which I watched yesterday—see Amistad, I Kings 13), I realize that the “noble savage” idea is big in Hollywood. On Amistad, the African leader Cinque came from a place where chiefs were honored and could not be displaced. He had a hard time understanding America, where an ex-President such as John Quincy Adams could be regarded as a joke. Cinque’s culture also didn’t have a word for “should,” for people in his tribe either did or didn’t do something; there was no “should” about it! Consequently, Cinque didn’t get John Quincy Adams’ vague deliberations about the legal process (even though Cinque asked pointed legal questions). “This man has more questions than answers—are you sure he can help us?”, Cinque asked his translator about Adams.
Adams probably looked down on Cinque’s tribe, while simultaneously regarding it with a sense of romanticism. It would be nice if America respected her chiefs, Adams may have thought, but with advancement came cynicism, a mistrust of power. That’s why Martin Van Buren said that independent courts were so important! Adams also drew from Cinque’s regard for his ancestors, using that concept to evoke the memory of America’s forefathers in his speech to the Supreme Court. But he may have still regarded Cinque’s religious ideas as quaint, while Adams was using them for a more sophisticated purpose.
I’m not sure where to go from here. I too see values in the African tribal system, and I think it would be nice if we imitated some of them. But I’m also a product of American culture, which is jaded and cynical.
2. In Ancient Israelite Religion, I read David Noel Freedman’s “‘Who Is Like Thee Among the Gods?’ The Religion of Ancient Israel.” On page 329, Freedman says that Moses existed. He states that YHWH as “redeemer of a new people from bondage in Egypt is clearly new,” as is God lacking a consort, and the prohibition of images of the deity. For Freedman, Moses was the originator of such Yahwism.
I thought about Deuteronomy 4:34, in which God asks if any god has taken one nation out of another. The implied answer is “no.” For the author of that passage, an Exodus was a unique concept that ancient Israelite religion held. Amos 9:7 may offer a slightly different viewpoint, however, for it says that the LORD brought the Philistines out of Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir, after mentioning Israel’s Exodus from Egypt. But I’m not sure if that’s totally parallel to the Exodus, for were the Philistines a separate people-group from the other Caphtorites, as the Hebrews were a separate people-group in Egypt? Or were they Caphtorites who decided to ship out for greener pastures?
I’ll toss my Theodore Mullen reading into this section. On page 210 of Ethnic Myths and Pentateuchal Foundations, Mullen refers to attempts to offer a “comparative study of aniconism in the ancient Near East.” He cites T.N.D. Mettinger’s No Graven Image? Israelite Aniconism and Its Ancient Near Eastern Context, which I have not read. Did other ancient Near Eastern nations besides Israel have aniconism, on some level, or in certain contexts?
The origin of Israel’s aniconism is debated. Mullen refers to a scholar who said that Israel was reacting against Canaanite idolatry. A professor I met in Israel attributed the prohibition of metal images to the dearth of metal in the ancient Near East at a certain period. The region lacked metal, so it needed all it can get. So they decided to save some by not using it to make images. Many would prefer a deeper theological explanation, but perhaps that came after the practical motivation for the commandment. I don’t know!
3. In Reading Between Texts, I read Jan Granowski’s “Jehoiachin at the King’s Table: A Reading of the Ending of the Second Book of Kings.” At the end of II Kings, exiled Judahite king Jehoiachin was lifted up, got to eat with the Babylonian king, and received an allowance (II Kings 25:27-30). Is this a positive indicator that God has remembered exiled Israel and will bring her captivity to an end? Or is it a negative account of Jehoiachin’s humiliation before the Babylonian king? Granowski offers a mixed reading. But this is another example of how hard it can be to read the Bible. We’re not always told in the biblical text whether an event or a character is right or wrong, good or bad. I guess all we can do is to try our best. As Augustine said, if our interpretation leads us to love God and neighbor, then it’s a good interpretation.
That dovetails into my comment on John Dillon’s The Middle Platonists. On page 121, Dillon contrasts two perspectives on where to begin in the study of philosophy. Aristotle and the Stoics said new philosophy students should first learn how to conduct logical arguments. Antiochus, however, said that they should start with ethics, so that they know the goal of philosophy. I think both reason and ethics are important, but I somewhat prefer Antiochus’ approach. I like for education to have a point, one being to help us to become better people. Moreover, reason and argument can be used to support all sorts of weird ideas. One can argue that there’s no meaning in the universe, but what am I supposed to do with such an idea? I’d like for philosophy to be about feeding the soul, not just engaging in logical gymnastics.
4. At Latin mass this morning, the homily was kind of boring. We had political priest, and he was telling us how we can become better Christians during Lent. My dad would call this “bootstrap religion,” the type that focuses on our performance, as opposed to relying on God to sanctify us.
Political priest was telling us that we should have patience, for impatience is a big problem that he encounters in confessionals. I thought about this because I’ve had a lot of seething rage over the past week. I just now came out of it, but I’m afraid someone will upset my delicate emotional applecart.
For there to be patience, does there have to be hope? Many have defined patience as waiting for good to come, rather than demanding it right here and right now. And, while I definitely want things right here and right now, my problem with patience is that I don’t know if good things will come in the future—if people, places, and things will get better. I tend to live in the past and get into a pit of bitterness on account of it. But I also become discouraged because I wonder if things will get better. On what basis should I believe that they will? And will they stay better?