Book Write-Up: The Tao Te Ching

I recently read the Tao Te Ching.  The version that I read was Dr. Wayne W. Dyer’s Living the Wisdom of the Tao: The Complete Tao Te Ching and Affirmations. Dyer draws from a variety of English translations.

The book is like a daily devotional.  You read a verse of the Tao Te Ching on one side of the page, and Dyer offers a take-home application point on the other side.  I decided to read this version because I expected the Tao Te Ching to be very abstruse and complicated, so I figured that it would help me if someone provided a concise take-home point, and Dyer seemed well-read on Taoism.

In this post, I will talk about my exposure to Taoism prior to reading this book, then I will list some of my reactions to the Tao Te Ching.

I first learned about the Tao Te Ching in college.  I was a Christian fundamentalist at the time, and a fellow student wanted to enlighten me about another religion, namely Taoism.  I was not as backward as he thought, though, since I was asking him questions about Taoism, and I observed common ground between Taoism and Christianity.  The theme of the Tao Te Ching that he emphasized was that of observing the natural order and gaining wisdom from that.  He said that he read the Bible and it never made a connection with him, but the Tao Te Ching made a connection.  When I asked him what a particular line of the first verse of the Tao Te Ching meant, he responded that he thought about that, and he shared with me his conclusion.  That reminded me of how Christians read and meditate on verses in the Bible.

My second exposure to Taoism was in a college philosophy class.  We were reading Lao-zu, and some of the students in the class were baffled.  Some thought that the reading was rambling.  Another student believed that it addressed an obvious and unnecessary question: Would you prefer a long life without fear or pain, or a short life with fear or pain?  “Of course I would prefer a long life without fear or pain!”, he said.  “A better dilemma would be whether you would choose a long life with fear or pain, or a short life without it!”  The question in the reading indeed looked obvious, and yet it reflects central themes of Taoism: going with the flow, not stressing out, and partaking of a lifestyle that can lengthen life and lessen pain, even if that lifestyle may look counter-intuitive to possessive, accumulating people like us.  The readings also shared a scenario of what one can do when one is experiencing illness and death: simply take a step back and say, “This looks interesting!”

My third exposure to Taoism was during my first year of divinity school.  One of my roommates had a copy of Benjamin Hoff’s The Tao of Pooh.  Another roommate shared that he struggled to read the Tao Te Ching, so he fell back on The Tao of Pooh.  I borrowed The Tao of Pooh out of curiosity.  I wondered if Christianity was a better religion than Taoism, or if there were overlapping themes between Taoism and Christianity.  Hoff in the book treats Winnie the Pooh as a Taoist.  Whereas Tigger is high energy, Eyore complains, and Rabbit intensely calculates, Pooh just is.  Pooh is relaxed and has no pretense, and things usually fall into place when he is the protagonist.

This background equipped me to read the Tao Te Ching, without being utterly confused by what I was reading.  At least it provided me with an idea of some of Taoism’s basic beliefs.  Some passages still perplexed me, though, and I am sure that there are still gaps in my understanding.

That said, here are some of my reactions to the Tao Te Ching:

A.  According to the Tao Te Ching, where was the Tao, and the material world is a manifestation of the Tao.  That made me wonder if Taoism is panentheistic or pantheistic.  In reading the Tao Te Ching, I was reminded of Proverbs 8, which presents wisdom as a key figure in God’s creation of all things; wisdom, in a sense, is like the Tao: both are orderly, both bring shalom, both are moral, both relate to the natural order, etc.  The Tao Te Ching does not explicitly say that the Tao created the cosmos, however, but rather that the cosmos came from the Tao.  That could be consistent with emanationism: the idea that the cosmos is an emanation from God, rather than God’s creation.

B.  In reading the Tao Te Ching, I had “problem of evil” questions.  If Taoism regards the natural order as good, I inquired, how would it account for the apparent evils of nature: animal violence, sickness, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc.?  On one occasion, the Tao Te Ching seemed to regard vicious elements of nature (i.e., storms) as a brief gliche, as if the overall tone of the cosmos is one of peace and order and the violent elements are mere interruptions.  On another occasion, it said that humans interfere with the Tao and bring havoc as a result.  The Tao Te Ching has a clear answer for why there is human evil: humans disregard the Tao, with its path of peace, virtue, generosity, and humility, and they choose greed, violence, pride, and stress instead.  It was a little more obscure in accounting for natural evil.

C.  That said, there was an indication that people who are especially in touch with the Tao can manipulate nature.  Verse 50 says that, with respect to such a person, “tigers and bulls keep clear[,] weapons turn from him on the battlefield, rhinoceroses have no place to horn him, tigers find no place for claws, and soldiers have no place to thrust their blades.”  Dyer’s take-home application point is that “I am an immortal spiritual being having a temporary human experience.”  He may be interpreting this passage to mean that, when we do not fear death, we are invulnerable to threats: even if a tiger mangles us to death, so what?  We live forever anyway!  Indeed, eternal life and not being afraid of death are significant themes in the Tao Te Ching.  But, in my mind, verse 50 seemed to be saying more than that: that people can be so in touch with the Tao, that nothing in this life can hurt them.  They can be bullet-proof!  I thought of different things in reading this verse: the movie The Matrix (with the invulnerable Neo), the Star Trek episode “Spectre of the Gun” (bullets went right through the Enterprise crew at the OK Corral!), Psalm 91’s affirmation that God will preserve God’s people from destruction and pestilence, and a statement I once heard from a pastor that, when you serve God, all of creation will serve you.

D.  The Tao Te Ching exhorts people to look within.  A number of conservative Christians recoil from such advice.  Look within?  Does not the author know that the human heart is deceitful and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9), that from it proceed all manners of sinful propensities and actions (Mark 7:21-23)?  Maybe, but the Bible also says that humans are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), and that the requirements of God’s law are written on people’s hearts and in their consciences (Romans 2:15).  In light of that, should we treat looking within as an utterly fruitless exercise?  In any case, in reading the Tao Te Ching’s exhortations to look within, I thought of the Hellenistic distinction between the logos within and the logos without: there is an order to the universe, but there is also an order inside of us that coincides with the order in the universe.

E.  Related to (D.), verse 67 has a puzzling statement: “The Tao is not something found at the marketplace or passed on from father to son.  It is not something gained by knowing or lost by forgetting.  If the Tao were like this, it would have been lost and forgotten long ago.”  I contrasted this passage with the Book of Proverbs, in which wisdom cries out in the marketplace and is passed down from parents to child.  There are some passages in the Tao Te Ching that reminded me of Proverbs—-verse 6, for example, presents the Tao as a female to which one should listen, which is similar to Proverbs’ portrayal of Lady Wisdom.  But verse 67 appeared different from Proverbs.  The Tao Te Ching may have a problem with wisdom being conceptualized as a path that is taught through tradition and family, seeing it instead as something that is inside of us and all around us.  At the same time, it does value teachers: humble people who highlight the way, often through their demeanor and their lives more than their words.

F.  The Tao Te Ching is critical of trying to become virtuous through rigorous obedience to rules.  It wants for people to yield to the Tao, which has a moral/ethical component, but it seems to believe that, if people have to obey rules to be moral, then something is wrong.  Virtue should flow more naturally than that.  There are verses that are rather explicit about this (i.e., 18, 67), but I think that this concept sheds light on an odd statement in verse 38: “When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.  When goodness is lost, there is morality.  When morality is lost, there is ritual.  Ritual is the husk of true faith, the beginning of chaos.”  In reading these passages, Pauline concepts come to mind: the idea that the law was a temporary measure to respond to, expose, and restrain sin.  The law could not cure sin, in Paul’s mind, but now believers have the Holy Spirit, who enables them to conform to God’s righteous requirements through a transformed nature.

G.  The Tao Te Ching struck me as politically libertarian.  I do not want to go so far as to suggest that it would support the government eviscerating the social safety net and allowing social Darwinism to take its course.  But it is critical of government intrusion.  To quote verse 75: “When taxes are too high, people go hungry.  When the government is too intrusive, people lose their spirit.  Act for the people’s benefit; trust them, leave them alone.”  Incidentally, the college student who exposed me to the Tao Te Ching was a libertarian Republican.

H.  That said, I have read concerns that Taoism slows economic progress and is incompatible with capitalism.  Taoism supports a relaxed attitude, which lets things happen rather than making things happen, and which is contrary to greed and ambition.  These attitudes arguably run counter to the rushed pace of dog-eat-dog capitalism.  In reading the Tao Te Ching, I wondered how practical it was.  It advocated keeping a low profile, painting a picture of the humble being exalted.  Can people truly succeed in this world without promoting themselves?  And do things really happen without us working and trying to influence them to happen?

There is overlap between Taoism and the Bible.  Proverbs 27:2 says that we should let others praise us and not our own mouth, and the Book of Proverbs often extols the virtue of silence.  Jesus in Matthew 6:34 says that we should not be worried about tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself.  At the same time, the Book of Proverbs also stresses the work ethic, which can be reconciled with Western capitalism.

I think that there is some wisdom to the Tao Te Ching and the Bible, on these issues.  Humility can be attractive, for people may trust those who humbly desire to be of service rather than seeking their own exaltation.  I just wonder if such a path should be absolutized.  In this world, people who express and promote themselves are often the ones who advance.  And things do not always work well on their own, without some effort to influence things to happen through action.

I.    There is a lot of emphasis in the Tao Te Ching on emptiness.  A number of conservative Christians criticize Eastern religions for this.  “Eastern religion says that we should empty our minds, whereas the Bible says that we should fill our minds—-with God’s word.”  Some conservative Christians go so far as to suggest that emptying one’s mind creates a void that demons will be happy to inhabit!  The Tao Te Ching stresses positive concepts, such as virtue, generosity, and love for enemies.  It also suggests that people can enjoy the Tao, whatever their station is in life.  That sounds like something positive, not nothingness or emptiness.  Why, then, does the Tao Te Ching advocate emptiness?  I do not entirely understand this, but it may be using the concept of emptiness to highlight certain values: there is a value to clearing one’s mind every so often, for that can encourage relaxation; there is also the value of emptying oneself of pride.

J.  Verse 41 took me aback.  The first paragraph states: “A great scholar hears of the Tao and begins diligent practice.  A middling scholar hears of the Tao and retains some and loses some.  An inferior scholar hears of the Tao and roars with ridicule.  Without that laugh, it would not be the Tao.”

This may conflict with some of what I said in (E.), assuming I knew what I was talking about in (E.), which is not a guarantee!

This passage took me aback because it seemed to be criticizing the inferior scholar who laughs at the Tao, and yet it appeared to see value even in that laughter!  When a person laughs at the message of the Tao, then you know that you have the genuine article!  The reason may be that the Tao does advocate a counter-intuitive life, one of humility, generosity, and love for enemies.  Moreover, it maintains that such a path benefits the person who practices it.  A domesticated version of the Tao, which does not draw laughter or inspire a response of perplexity, is not the genuine article.  There are Christians who claim that the same can be said of Christianity.

K.  Verse 70 had some odd lines: “My words have an ancestor; my deeds have a lord.  The people have no knowledge of this, therefore they have no knowledge of me.  This is why the sage dresses plainly, even though his interior is filled with precious gems.”

How does the sage’s modest apparel relate to people’s lack of knowledge about the antiquity and majesty of the Tao?  If the sage wanted people to see the Tao as majestic, would he not wear fancy clothes rather than modest apparel?  Perhaps the passage is saying that the sage is approaching people where they are rather than attempting to dazzle them.  Dazzling them, when they are in no position to be dazzled, would be like throwing pearls before swine (Matthew 7:6).  Jesus himself came to the world as a humble human being, rather than parading his exalted status.  People could relate to that and be more open to his teaching.

Bible Question: Why Didn't Joseph Contact Jacob?

I have heard a particular Bible question three times in my life.  The question concerns the story of Joseph in the Book of Genesis.
 
You may know the story.  Jacob loved his son Joseph more than his other sons.  Jacob's other sons hated Joseph and sold Joseph to Ishmaelites, who took Joseph to Egypt.  Joseph had his highs and lows in Egypt, but he rose to a position of great power after interpreting two of the Pharaoh's dreams.  The Pharaoh put Joseph in charge of preparing for the coming famine and administering grain during the famine.

The question that I have heard is this: Why didn't Joseph contact his father Jacob after rising to power in Egypt?  Why didn't Joseph let his father know that he was still alive?  Why didn't Joseph try to see his father?  Joseph had the ability to do so.  He could have sent a letter to Jacob, or a chariot to Jacob.  Why didn't he do that?  Instead, the reunion occurred only after Joseph's brothers came to Egypt in search of grain, years after Joseph had risen to power.  And, for a while, Joseph's brothers did not even know that their long lost brother Joseph was the Egyptian official with whom they were interacting.

A. I first heard this question in an academic Bible class over a decade ago.  The professor asked it, and the question puzzled me.  I thought: "That's a good question, but it is not explicitly addressed in the biblical story, so why wrestle with a question for which there is not an answer?  Maybe that issue did not enter the biblical author's mind."  But, like I said, it's a good question, and I assumed that, if the professor asked it, then it must have an answer.  I was eager to hear what her answer was.

Her answer disappointed me, to tell you the truth.  I was expecting something deep, spiritual, and profound, or at least an answer that would highlight the character's motivations.  Instead, she answered that Joseph couldn't contact his father, because then we wouldn't have much of a story.  We wouldn't have the story of Joseph putting his brothers through highs and lows, while they were unaware of who he was.  The story would be rather boring, without much drama.  The reason was purely literary!

I figured that she was probably right, and that maybe there was not a better answer than that.  I wanted more, but I doubted that more was out there.  It still puzzled me why the professor was asking the question, for this is not the sort of question that academic scholars of the Bible ordinarily ask.  I shelved that experience in my mind, seeing it as an example of how the academic study of the Bible does not always lead to sexy conclusions.

B. Years later, I was reading Demetrius the Chronographer, a work from the third century B.C.E.  Demetrius actually asks the question of why Joseph did not contact his father, and he offers his own answer.  Demetrius states:

"But though Joseph had prospered for 9 years, he did not send for his father, because he was a shepherd, as were Joseph's brothers; and to the Egyptians it is disgraceful to be a shepherd.  That this was the reason he did not send for him, he himself had made clear.  For when his relatives came, he told them that if they should be summoned by the king and asked what their occupation was, they should say that they are breeders of cattle."  (Translation by J. Hanson, in James Charlesworth's Old Testament Pseudepigrapha)

Demetrius believes that Genesis 46:34 contains the answer for why Joseph did not contact Jacob after rising to power in Egypt.  The Egyptians regarded shepherds as an abomination, and Jacob was a shepherd.  Jacob would not fit in were he to come to Egypt.  Thus, Joseph did not contact him.

(Incidentally, Demetrius is interpreting Genesis 46:34 in an unusual manner.  The text reads, in the KJV: "That ye shall say, Thy servants' trade hath been about cattle from our youth even until now, both we, and also our fathers: that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians."  Demetrius interprets this to mean that Joseph was instructing his brothers to say that they were breeders of cattle to hide the fact that they were shepherds.  The passage probably means that they were to dwell in Goshen, away from the Egyptians, because they were shepherds, and the Egyptians regarded shepherds as an abomination.  In the very next chapter, Genesis 47, Joseph tells the Pharaoh about his brothers' flocks, and the brothers tell the Pharaoh that they are shepherds.)

C. The third time that I heard the question about why Joseph did not contact his father was last weekend.  I was watching the third lecture by Professor Gary Anderson on the story of Joseph.  Professor Anderson was one of my professors over a decade ago, and I was watching his lectures on the Joseph story on YouTube last weekend.

Professor Anderson was saying that the question of why Joseph did not contact Jacob was often asked in medieval times by Jewish interpreters, even though modern interpreters generally do not ask it.  That explained to me why my professor, the professor I mentioned earlier in this post, asked the question: it has been a common question within the History of Biblical Interpretation.  This was not just something that she was wondering about, but was a prominent question that interpreters have asked.

A student in Professor Anderson's class was offering his idea about why Joseph did not contact Jacob, and Professor Anderson affirmed that his idea was actually what medieval Jewish interpreters said.  The idea was that Joseph realized that he would disrupt his family were he to inform Jacob that he was still alive.  Joseph's brothers would get into trouble with their father, since they had sold Joseph into Egypt and then told their father that Joseph was dead.  Were Jacob to learn the truth, that would alienate him further from his sons (except Benjamin, his favorite).  Plus, Joseph did not want his father to learn the truth, until Joseph could be sure that his brothers had repented of their past behavior.  According to Professor Anderson, Joseph was putting his brothers into situations to see if they had repented: would they sell their brother Benjamin down the tubes to save their own skin, or would they actually care for somebody other than themselves, their father, even though their father loved them less than Benjamin?  To their credit, they passed the test.

All three of these ideas have merit, in their own way.  We would not have much of a story had Joseph contacted his father right after ascending to power in Egypt.  The story was actually necessary for the brothers to grow in character, and for true reconciliation to occur.  The reason that Joseph did not contact his father may have been that he realized that it was not the right time.  Demetrius may also have a point: Joseph doubted that his family would fit in at Egypt.  But this was not just because his father and brother were shepherds, but also because they worshiped the LORD alone, whereas Egypt was a pagan nation.  Joseph may have doubted that his family would like the Egyptians, and that the Egyptians would like his family.  God ensured that the Israelites came to Egypt, however, where they could be a light, and where they could be where they were supposed to be for the next stage of God's plan.

UPDATE: See also here and here, courtesy of Doug Ward.  There are other explanations.  One explanation is that Joseph did not send word to his father because Joseph wanted the dream of the sheaves to be fulfilled.  Joseph dreamed that his brothers' sheaves would bow before his sheaf (Genesis 37:7), and that was fulfilled when his brothers came to him when he was an authority in Egypt and bowed before him, seeking grain (Genesis 42:6-9).  In this interpretation, had Joseph sent word to his father, that would have disrupted the fulfillment of his dream.  This interpretation is debated, as you can see from the link.

Another explanation is that Joseph thought his father had disowned him----that Jacob's wife Leah convinced Jacob to do so, and that is why Joseph's brothers sold Joseph.  

Book Write-Up: From Topic to Thesis, by Michael Kibbe

 Michael Kibbe.  From Topic to Thesis: A Guide to Theological Research.  Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2016.  See here to buy the book.

From Topic to Thesis is about how to write a research paper about theology or biblical studies.  What Michael Kibbe says could apply to undergraduates or graduate students.  It could also apply to scholars who want to do research so that they can get published.  Kibbe differentiates between the types of research papers that he is discussing and dissertations.  The latter have to be original, interact with secondary sources in foreign languages (depending on one’s discipline), and keep up with the very cutting-edge of the scholarly discussions; the former, not so much.  Still, Kibbe’s discussion of research and trying to find a topic can apply to people doing dissertation work or writing scholarly papers.

On some level, I have done some of the things that Kibbe suggests, without realizing it.  It is still good for Kibbe’s principle to be in my mind, though, so that I can consciously identify productive ways to do research.  Kibbe talks about starting with tertiary sources, which include theological dictionaries and encyclopedias.  They usually give people a survey of scholarly discussions.  When one continues to read and starts to see the same sources cited over and over again, that could be a sign that one has consulted enough secondary sources.

Kibbe does not necessarily hold students’ hand.  Students who read this book may still feel that they need more guidance.  For example, Kibbe on page 63 talks about the importance of integrating different relevant sub-disciplines (i.e., literary, geographical, theological) rather than just focusing on one.  A student may need more help in going about this.

At the same time, Kibbe does use two papers that he wrote as examples of his process in action—-a process of having a general interest and narrowing down one’s topic until one arrives at a thesis.  One paper was about the tearing of the Temple veil in the Gospel of Mark.  The other concerned John Calvin’s concept of divine accommodation and whether the Sinai theophany in Exodus 19-34 supports it.

Especially helpful are the appendices, in which Kibbe identifies for readers the sources that can help them in their research.  Many were familiar to me.  Some, not so much.  I was somewhat surprised that Kibbe did not mention that one can find parts of the Patrologia Latina and the Patrologia Graeca online.  Still, his lists are invaluable for theological and biblical research.

I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.

Reflections on Justice Scalia

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia passed on unexpectedly last week.  I have been wanting to write a post reflecting on him and his approach to constitutional law.  Here it is!

A.  I do not know exactly when I first heard of Justice Scalia.  I know that it was sometime when I was in high school.

We watched the TV program Picket Fences in the 1990s.  There was an episode in which lawyers Douglas Wambaugh and D.A. John Littleton (played by Don Cheedle) go to the Supreme Court to argue a case.  Wambaugh gets some coaching from the legendary Alan Dershowitz about what to expect from the justices.  Dershowitz said that Scalia likes to interrogate lawyers, like professors do to their law students.  Scalia enjoys good legal sparring!  And, sure enough, that’s what the Scalia character did on the Picket Fences episode.  And that is what the Scalia character did in the movie The People vs. Larry Flint.  And that is what the real Scalia did whenever I had the opportunity to listen to oral arguments before the Supreme Court (i.e., on C-Span).  I read an article sometime this past week that said that this did not happen that much in Supreme Court oral arguments before Scalia came along.  I do not know how true that is.  One thing I will say, though: lawyers probably felt that their mettle was being tested when they were being questioned by Justice Scalia!

B.  When I was in high school, there was a Scalia decision that I thought might affect me.  I was part of an Armstrongite church, so I took a few weeks off from school to attend the Feast of Tabernacles.  That got me in trouble with the public school’s attendance policy: you miss such-and-such days, and you could be suspended, maybe even expelled, and it would go on your permanent record.  We believed that this rule should take second place to our religious freedom.

Well, in 1990, there was the Supreme Court case of Employment Division vs. Smith.  Justice Scalia wrote the majority opinion.  The case was about Native Americans who got fired for smoking peyote, which they used in religious observances.  The state of Oregon refused to provide them with unemployment benefits because they had smoked peyote.  The question before the court concerned whether the Native Americans’ religious beliefs should take precedence over the law.  Well, Justice Scalia sided with the state of Oregon in that case.  He put the law ahead of the religious beliefs of the Native Americans.

We did not care for that decision.  Neither, for that matter, did a lot of other people, on both sides of the political spectrum.  Congress responded by passing RFRA, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.  It was supported by the ACLU, but also the right-wing Concerned Women for America.  As a conservative at the time, I was disappointed with Scalia’s decision, especially because I knew Scalia was one of the conservative justices on the court.  But I was happy that conservatives were supporting RFRA.  Later, in 1997, the Supreme Court said that RFRA was unconstitutional because the Supreme Court, not the Congress, is what defines the rights under the U.S. Constitution.

A lot of debates today—-about whether conservative Christian bakers should be required to bake cakes for same-sex marriages, or about whether conservative Christians have the right to refuse service for religious reasons, etc.—-have their roots in RFRA.  In 2014, Scalia himself joined the majority in striking down an HHS provision that would have required Hobby Lobby to pay for contraceptions it considered abortifacients, in violation of religious beliefs.  There, Scalia supported the law taking second place behind religious convictions.  Whether Scalia in that case was contradicting his stance in Smith, I do not know.  He could probably have referred to nuances or differences between the cases to justify his position.

C.  In college, we had a place where we could put our favorite quotes.  I posted something Justice Scalia said: “We are fools for Christ’s sake. We must pray for courage to endure the scorn of the sophisticated world.”  That was essentially me giving the middle-finger to the liberals at the school!

D.  I read some of Justice Scalia’s writings in college.  For an Honor Scholar’s meeting, we had to read Scalia’s explanation of textualism.  As a senior, I took a class on civil rights and civil liberties, and our textbook included opinions and dissents from Justice Scalia.  Scalia was probably the clearest writer of all of the justices.  And, in my opinion, his arguments were usually pretty good, as were the arguments on the other side.  I do not remember everything that I read back then, though, which explains my point in (E.).

E.  I struggle somewhat to define what exactly Justice Scalia’s principle of legal interpretation was.  Was he a textualist, one who focused on what the text itself explicitly said?  Was he an originalist, one who thought that we should go with the original meaning expressed by the law’s writers?  Were there any times when he believed that changing times should affect one’s interpretation of the Constitution?  He is usually distanced from that last approach, but people can be inconsistent, at times.

There have been times when Scalia prioritized textualism over originalism (see here).  Textualism itself is usually contrasted with intentionalism (see here).  Yet, Scalia did appeal to original intent.  And that did not always lead him to ultra right-wing conclusions: for example, he said that there were traditional laws that banned people from waving firearms in public, and so there were limitations on the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.  Scalia also disagreed with strict constructionism, saying that we should neither interpret the text strictly nor leniently, but reasonably (see here).

This is hearsay, but Ralph Nader wrote a piece about a time when he challenged Scalia’s view that corporations were persons.  Nader asked Scalia how that was consistent with Scalia’s originalism.  According to Nader, Scalia “added that, like Social Security, which he believed to be unconstitutional, the according of corporations the rights of personhood is so deeply embedded in our socio-economic fabric, that it is unlikely the status quo could be reversed” (see here).  Is that allowing the Constitution to be a living, breathing document—-or at least giving it a little breathing room?

There is a lot out there that I can read on this, I am sure.  Sometime, I would like to listen to a public debate that Scalia had with the more liberal justice, Stephen Breyer.  Maybe then, I could have a more nuanced understanding of their positions.  Does textualism mean absurd literalism?  Scalia did not always think so.  Does seeing the Constitution as a living, breathing document mean allowing the Constitution to mean anything one wants it to mean, as many conservatives allege?  I have my doubts that Breyer would go that far.

R.I.P., Justice Scalia.

Book Write-Up: Philosophy in Seven Sentences, by Douglas Groothuis

Douglas Groothuis.  Philosophy in Seven Sentences: A Small Introduction to a Vast Topic.  Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2016.  See here to buy the book.

In Philosophy in Seven Sentences, Christian philosopher Douglas Groothuis discusses the thought of seven Western philosophers.  Groothuis focuses on seven quotations.  The quotations (in whatever translations Groothuis is using) are as follows:

Protagoras: “Man is the measure of all things.”

Socrates: “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Aristotle: “All men by nature desire to know.”

Augustine: “You have made us for yourself, and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in you.”

Descartes: “I think, therefore I am.”

Pascal: “The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.”

Kierkegaard: “The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all.”

There were things in this book that I already knew, from my undergraduate education and personal reading.  But I did learn things that I did not previously know (or know too well), such as Pascal’s emphasis on knowing apart from analytical reason and Kierkegaard’s views on the self.

The book is a decent introduction to Western philosophy.  It gives details about the seven philosophers’ lives and their significance within the history of Western philosophy.  Overall, it summarizes and interacts with their thought clearly, though a few passages may require a little more concentration on the part of the reader (i.e., in my case, brief passages in the chapters on Descartes and Kierkegaard).

Perhaps the most endearing quality of the book is how Groothuis brings himself into the discussion.  He talks about his teaching experiences, his students’ reactions to some of the philosophers, the philosophical insights he particularly loves, and his experiences as a student.  He writes with a sense of humor.  He evaluates the quotations from his Christian perspective, yet he appreciates each philosopher and tries to understand the philosophers on their own terms (though he largely disagrees with Protagoras).  Groothuis’ book is introductory, yet he clues readers in about the larger discussions and debates within the academic community.

Groothuis’ tone was pleasant, as if he were offering readers things to think about rather than dogmatically trying to force them to believe a certain way.  I think of the final chapter in which Groothuis is discussing what he gains from the insight or perspective of each philosopher.  He disagrees with Protagoras because, if all we have are ourselves and our own perspectives, can we rise any higher than ourselves?  Good question.

There were occasional times when I winced a bit.  Groothuis was talking about the law of non-contradiction and was using that to argue that we cannot say that all religions are right, or that no religion is wrong.  True, but can one embrace some form of religious pluralism while still believing in the law of non-contradiction?  Groothuis says that Socrates at times referred to God rather than a specific god.  I was not sure what Groothuis was implying in saying that: Was he implying some overlap between Socratic thought and Jewish/Christian monotheism?  The Greeks often spoke of God in the singular, while still believing in many gods.  Groothuis may have done well to have included an endnote explaining this phenomenon.

I am still trying to wrap my head around at least one point that Groothuis makes.  Groothuis raises the question of whether Descartes has undermined empiricism.  Empiricism states that “all knowledge is based on our experience of the space-time world of objects, events and processes” (Groothuis on pages 89-90).  In essence, under empiricism, knowledge is gained solely through one’s senses of the outside world.  But Descartes claimed that he arrived at a truth through reason alone, apart from the senses: “I think, therefore I am.”

Of course, one could say that there are still truths that people gain through the senses, and even that some knowledge that certain philosophers believe are ascertained purely by reason (a priori) actually have their roots in sensory experience (i.e., I believe 1+1=2 because I have seen examples of that in real life).  But Groothuis, perhaps like other philosophers, believes that the debate is more absolutist than that: if one can find any example of knowledge that is not empirical, then that undermines empiricism, which claims that all knowledge is empirical.  Is self-consciousness an example of knowledge that is not empirical?  I wrestle with that, somewhat.  Granted, I am not aware of my thoughts or my existence specifically through the five senses, even though what I learn from the five senses does provide things for me to think about.  Would I say, then, that “some knowledge is given to the self apart from the outside world” (page 90)?  Maybe, but self-consciousness is pretty basic, isn’t it?  Groothuis also refers to Noam Chomsky’s view that “basic structures of grammar are innate”, as in “hard-wired” into us (page 93, Groothuis’ words).

Although Groothuis is more advanced than I am in the academic study of philosophy, I was comparing what he said with my own experiences in philosophy and religion classes, and that was enjoyable.  Groothuis criticized how some philosophers focus on Descartes’ skeptical discussions while ignoring how Descartes tries to get people out of skepticism through a belief in God (i.e., one believes in a good God who does not deceive us but places us in a knowable world).  Groothuis later talked about an atheist professor who ignored spiritual aspects of philosophers’ thought: Kierkegaard’s Christianity, or Hegel’s belief in a world spirit.  Fortunately, I had an atheist philosophy professor who did not ignore the spiritual dimension to philosophy.  She did not find Descartes’ argument for the existence of God to be convincing, but she did appreciate the dilemma that Descartes was presenting: either there is solipsism, or a God who makes a world that is knowable to us.

I would like to offer a few areas of disagreement with Groothuis, primarily on matters of taste.  First of all, Groothuis laments that the TV show Dexter is popular, for it heroizes a serial killer.  Contrary to what may be Groothuis’ understanding, the show is not really saying that people can do whatever they want, whenever they want.  Dexter does wrestle with a moral code, which requires him only to kill murderers.  Second, Groothuis does not care for Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz.  I love that book, even though I would agree with Groothuis that it falls short of Augustine’s Confessions!

Groothuis says in an endnote that he may write a similar book about the Eastern philosophers.  I look forward to reading it!

I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.

Movie Write-Up: Ragamuffin (2014)

I watched the 2014 movie, Ragamuffin, a couple of nights ago.  Ragamuffin tells the story of award-winning Christian Contemporary musician Rich Mullins.  It goes from his childhood, through his success and the time that he spent on a Native American reservation, up to his tragic death in an automobile accident in 1997.

I was familiar with Rich Mullins’ music before I was familiar with Rich Mullins himself.  If you attend an evangelical event of praise and worship, you will probably sing at least one Rich Mullins song, and maybe more.  The songs that I particularly remember are “Step by Step” and “Awesome God.”

Rich did a concert at my undergraduate institution in the 1990s, and I went to that.  We sang “Awesome God.”  He did his simulated “rain” trick, in which people in the audience simulated the sound of rain by snapping their fingers and slapping their thighs.  What was ironic was that it actually did rain after that!  Someone told me that Rich Mullins’ response to that was, “Yeah, that was awesome, wasn’t it?”  He sounded to me like a nice guy, not the sort of celebrity who puts on airs.

Rich Mullins did not just sing at the concert, but he also shared his reflections about faith and life while he was playing the piano.  He was honest and funny.  I remember him sharing about how he can develop his own worldview of how life is, and then the Bible comes along and unravels it!  He referred to that verse in Psalm 137 in which the Psalmist blesses those who dash babies’ heads on rocks.  (The Psalmist is wishing that this might occur to Babylonian babies, since the Babylonians had done the same thing to the Israelites.)  “Imagine sharing that at a pro-life meeting!”, Rich said.

Later, listening to the radio, I gained more insight into how Rich Mullins did not just talk the talk, but walked the walk.  Rich donated most of his money to charity.  He also lived on a poor Native American reservation, teaching music there and helping people out.  It was sad that he died in that automobile accident in 1997, at the young age of 42.

The movie, Ragamuffin, looks into the side of Rich Mullins that I did not know about.  Yes, he was friendly, open, and approachable.  But he was also very lonely, to the point of being needy.  He had friends, but he felt hurt when a friend went somewhere without telling him.  He was what people in Alcoholics Anonymous would call “restless, irritable, and discontent.”  And, speaking of that, there were seasons in which he drank a lot, even when he was a Christian celebrity.  He had unresolved issues with his father, since the two of them did not get along.  He and his college girlfriend also broke up, but he still loved her and did not marry after that.

Rich was not easy to work with because he wanted to do things his way, rather than conforming to the Christian music business’s expectations.  People thought his songs were too brooding and that his running commentary at his concerts was too controversial.  (The songs that I knew never struck me as particularly deep and brooding, but some of his songs apparently were.)  His business superiors tried to appeal to the “toys” that Rich got to buy to get him to conform, but it got to the point where those things did not matter to Rich anymore.  As one of his managers said, “Someone who doesn’t want anything is a dangerous person.”  But Rich was searching for something: authenticity, healing, and fulfillment.

He did not spend all of his time feeling sorry for himself and having an existential crisis, however.  He sought out mentors.  One mentor was the father of his college roommate, a likable, humble fellow, and a strong Christian.  Another was Brennan Manning, a preacher, author, and  recovering alcoholic.  Manning popularized the term “Ragamuffin” (someone who realizes he needs God’s mercy) and taught Rich that God loved him as he was, not as he should be.  Rich also served people at the Native American reservation, and his own brokenness helped him to minister to others at his concerts.  For example, he played and sang the song, “Hold me Jesus, I’m shaking like a leaf.”

Rich obviously did not have everything together.  Perhaps that is what made him accepting, honest, and open with others.

His brother is in the movie, playing the DJ who interviews Rich Mullins.  I thought that the DJ looked like Rich but realized that he couldn’t be him because Rich died about a decade ago.  But it was Rich’s brother Dave.

I found this movie worth watching.  It is a bit long: two hours and seventeen minutes.  But it was an interesting look at the man.  I am still sad that he died.

Wikipedia’s article about Rich Mullins may give you more insight about Rich and his significance.  The article links to some articles that suggest that Rich, soon before his death, was thinking of converting to Catholicism.  (That stands out to me because I remember a Catholic friend telling me that he liked Catholic liturgy rather than “Awesome God.”)  See also wikipedia’s article about Brennan Manning.

The Dialogues in the Testament of Job

I recently read the Testament of Job. In my Charlesworth Pseudepigrapha, the Testament of Job is dated from the first century B.C.E. to the first century C.E.

I first heard of the Testament of Job when I was an undergraduate. I was interested in Judaism, and I checked out from the college library an anthology of Jewish works. The Testament of Job was among the earlier works in the book, and the editorial introduction to that work contrasted the Testament of Job with the biblical Book of Job. In the biblical Book of Job, God permits the Satan to afflict Job as a test: to determine if Job will curse God or not. But, in the biblical Book of Job, there is a distraction from that story: the dialogues. Job’s three friends allege that Job must have done something wrong for him to suffer his misfortune, whereas Job affirms his innocence and even criticizes God. The Testament of Job, however, depicts Job as one who is faithful to God through all of his sufferings.

Years later, I am reading my Charlesworth Pseudepigrapha for my daily quiet time, and I decide to read the Testament of Job. I notice in thumbing through the book that Job’s dialogues with his three friends, and also Elihu, are depicted in the Testament of Job. I wonder how exactly the Testament of Job will present them, since, in that anthology that I read years before, I read that the Testament of Job departs from the biblical Book of Job by focusing on Job as one who is faithful to God through his suffering, not as one who defends himself and questions God.

Overall, in the dialogues as they are depicted in the Testament of Job, Job’s friends are marveling at Job’s misfortune, whereas Job holds fast to God. I thought of Colossians 3:2 in reading Job’s speeches: “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth” (KJV). Job particularly focuses on the blissful afterlife that he will receive. (And, on a side note, the Testament of Job is interesting in what it says about the afterlife, as it presents the themes of future resurrection, the bodily ascension of Job’s dead children to heaven, and Job’s soul leaving the body to go to heaven).

A puzzling aspect of the dialogues in the Testament of Job, however, is one of the dialogues between Job and Baldad (who is called Bildad in the biblical Book of Job). This dialogue occurs in Testament of Job 37-38.

In Testament of Job 37, Baldad asks Job in whom Job hopes, and Job answers that he hopes in God. Baldad then asks who is causing Job’s suffering, and Job replies that God is. Baldad then says the following (and I am quoting R.P. Spittler’s translation for all quotations of the Testament of Job):

“Do you hope upon God? Then how do you reckon him to be unfair by inflicting you with all these plagues or destroying your goods? If he were to give and then take away, it would actually be better for him not to have given anything. At no time does a king dishonor his own soldier who bears arms well for him. Or who will ever understand the deep things of the Lord and his wisdom? Who dares to ascribe to the Lord an injustice?”

Baldad then asks Job a question: Why do we see the sun rise in the east, set in the west, then rise in the east again? Baldad asks Job to answer this, if Job is of sound mind and is God’s servant.

Job in Testament of Job 38 responds to Baldad. Job affirms that his own mind is sound, and so he is justified to “speak out the magnificent things of the Lord”. Job says that fleshly human beings have no business meddling in heavenly matters. Job then asks Baldad a riddle about the human digestive system: who separates the water and the food that enter the mouth when they arrive at the latrine? Baldad responds that he does not know, and Job retorts, “If you do not understand the functions of the body, how can you understand heavenly matters?”

What I understand to be going on here is this: Baldad is questioning whether Job is right to be faithful to God. That is why Baldad asks Job a riddle to test Job’s sanity: Baldad thinks that Job is insane to follow a God who is mistreating his own servant. Job responds, however, by affirming that his mind is sound, that he is right to glorify God, and that humans cannot judge God because they are limited in their understanding. In the biblical Book of Job, God actually conveys to Job the third lesson, saying that Job was wrong to judge God on account of Job’s limited knowledge. In the Testament of Job, by contrast, Job does not need for God to teach him that lesson, for Job already knows that people should not judge God on account of their limitations in knowledge.

My interpretation of Testament of Job 37-38 (though I probably am not the first person to come up with it) runs into problems, though. For one, Baldad in Testament of Job 37 asks Job, “Then how do you reckon [God] to be unfair by inflicting you with all these plagues or destroying your goods?” Second, Baldad states: “Or who will ever understand the deep things of the Lord and his wisdom? Who dares to ascribe to the Lord an injustice?” It seems from these statements that Job is the one accusing God of injustice, whereas Baldad is the one who is saying that we cannot judge God because our understanding is limited. This is the opposite of what I am arguing.

I do not believe that these problems are insurmountable, however. Regarding Baldad’s question of how Job can reckon God to be unfair, the note in my Charlesworth Pseudepigrapha states that the “text is corrupt.” The note refers to the Paris manuscript, which renders the passage as “How then can he be unfair by inflicting…?” In this reading, Baldad is not saying that Job is accusing God of injustice, but rather that God himself is unjust. Baldad is wondering why Job trusts in a God who would afflict him in this way. On Baldad’s statements about understanding the deep things of the Lord and ascribing to God an injustice, perhaps Baldad is being sarcastic. Baldad looks at the situation and thinks that God is being unfair, and Baldad mocks the idea that we cannot question or judge God because our understanding is limited. But Job continues to hold on to his faith.

(Rambling)Book Write-Up: Only a Theory, by Kenneth R. Miller

Kenneth R. Miller.  Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul.  New York: Viking, 2008.  See here to buy the book.

Kenneth Miller teaches biology at Brown University, and he has been a prominent figure in debates about evolution and Intelligent Design.  I first heard of him when I was a student at Harvard Divinity School.  I was taking a class about religion and American education, and, for my final project, I decided to create a curriculum that would teach about evolution and Intelligent Design.  I talked with my professor, and one of the sources that she recommended to me was Kenneth Miller’s Finding Darwin’s God, in which Miller attempts to reconcile evolution with a theistic belief system (or such is my understanding of his goal in that book).  I did not read the entirety of Finding Darwin’s God, but I found what I did read of it to be entertaining, lucid, and informative.  Miller told personal stories, and he also explained how things in nature that ID proponents claim needed a designer could have had a natural cause.  I also read a debate between Miller and Phillip Johnson about evolution, and I thought that Miller made the stronger case for his position.
I saw Only a Theory in the library in 2009, but I did not check it out at that time.  It still caught my attention and stayed in my mind, though.  I recently decided to read the book because I read a book not long ago that was against evolution, and I was curious to learn more about the evidence for evolution.

Here are some thoughts about Only a Theory.  My treatment of this book is not comprehensive, but I talk about what particularly interested me.  You’ll probably pick up really quickly that I am not a scientist, but I am interacting with the book from where I am sitting, as I do with a number of books.

1.  Miller talks about the many species of horses in the fossil record, and he wonders how ID would account for them.  He says that ID would posit that the designer designed each species separately.  I wondered if that was an accurate representation of the ID position.  I remember watching William Dempski on C-Span a while back, and I vaguely recall him expressing an openness to macroevolution, or at least saying that macroevolution is not inconsistent with Intelligent Design.  I had read that Michael Behe believed in macroevolution and acknowledged that species had a common descent (see here).  My impression was that they may accept macroevolution, but that they did not think that evolution, chance, and natural causes by themselves were sufficient to account for the existence and complexity of life, implying that there had to be some designer starting the process, guiding it, or tinkering with it.  On the other hand, I had also read ID-proponents who questioned evolution.  Phillip Johnson wrote a book entitled Darwin on Trial, and I recalled him saying in his debate with Miller that a lot of mutations are harmful, a common creationist argument that I have heard against evolution.  Years ago in a class, I read an essay by David Berlinski in Commentary Magazine, and Berlinski seemed to endorse Genesis 1’s picture of God creating different kinds of animals separately.  Does Intelligent Design believe in evolution or not?  I did a search on this yesterday, and I found a Q and A page of the Discovery Institute, which supports Intelligent Design.  On the one hand, the article says, “If one simply means [by evolution] ‘change over time,’ or even that living things are related by common ancestry, then there is no inherent conflict between evolutionary theory and intelligent design theory.”  On the other hand, the article later takes potshots at evolution.
2. Miller, a good teacher, tells personal stories to set the stage for his scientific explanations.  I think of the stories about the mousetrap, and the two students who cheated.  Let’s start with the mousetrap.  Michael Behe, a scientist who advocates for Intelligent Design, likens certain aspects of nature to a mousetrap: they need all of their parts simultaneously in order to work, and thus it makes more sense to believe that a designer designed them whole, than to say that they evolved on their own through unworkable stages.  Miller, however, tells his own story about a mousetrap: back when he was a high school student in study hall, some students would use parts of a mousetrap to launch spitballs at students in the balcony.  In this situation, the mousetrap did not need all of its parts simultaneously to perform some function.  Behe believes that something similar is going on with some of the aspects of nature that ID proponents appeal to.  I only vaguely understand what Miller is getting at here.  Let me use “mousetrap” as a code-word for these aspects of nature: Is Miller suggesting that a mousetrap originally had only two parts but was used for another function besides catching mice, but that it later evolved that third part that made it able to catch mice?  But what if “catching mice” is, in some cases, a code-term for supporting life, or making life possible?  Does Behe’s point remain on the table?  I hope that I am clear in where my problem lies.
3. Onto Miller’s story about the two cheating students!  Miller tells a story about when he caught two of his students cheating on an exam, as one student was looking at the essay of the other.  Miller called the two students into his office, and they said that they studied together, and that was why their essays were similar.  Miller responded that the reason that he thinks they were cheating was that both essays made the same spelling mistakes—-out of all of the spelling mistakes that could be made, why do these essays make the same particular spelling mistakes?  The students admitted defeat!  Miller compares this with certain features of nature.  We share with the primates that are our closest evolutionary relatives some “mistakes,” if you will.  We and these primates need vitamin C, for example, whereas a number of other creatures have bodies that do not need vitamin C.  One can respond, “Well, God just decided to make us and these primates with bodies that needed vitamin C!”  Miller finds that problematic, however, and the reason is that we and the primates do have that same feature that the animals that do not need vitamin C have, but it is broken within us and those primates.  Why would a designer design us this way?  For Miller, evolution explains this, and similar, phenomena.  I found this part of the book to be particularly convincing.
4. Miller talks about evolution that is actually observable, and he refers to a specific bacteria that became able to eat nylon.  Creationists would probably respond to this with: “That’s adaptation, or microevolution, not macroevolution, which we cannot observe!  It’s the same bacteria, only now it can eat nylon!”  They would have a point: that by itself does not demonstrate macroevolution.  One can appeal to other things, as Miller does, to support macroevolution: the fossil record, the no-longer-missing links, the genetic record, and the phenomena in nature that evolution can account for better than ID can.  Still, the case of the nylon-eating bacteria does demonstrate that species change and mutate, and that these changes and mutations can be conducive to their survival.  That is an essential basis for evolution, both micro and macro.
5. On page 66, Miller says the following in response to Behe’s claim that blood-clotting shows that there had to be a designer: “A designer, of course, could have created the clotting pathway from scratch, which is exactly what the proponents of intelligent design claim.  But if that were indeed the case, then why do we find the raw materials for clotting exactly where evolution tells us they should be, in the last group of organisms to split off from the vertebrates before blood clotting appeared?”  I, as someone with little aptitude in the natural sciences, did not entirely follow Miller’s scientific discussion, but he looked to me like he was making a strong point here.  Here are these creatures: they have the parts that are necessary for blood to clot, but their blood does not clot.  Why would a designer design them this way?  If they are in that evolutionary spot that precedes blood-clotting but is moving in that direction, however, this phenomenon would make sense.
6. Miller disagrees with biologist Stephen Jay Gould on how random evolution is.  Or that was my impression of the debate.  Gould believed that things could have turned out differently, from an evolutionary perspective.  Miller, however, believes that evolution works under certain constraints—-location, occurrences, evolutionary history, natural selection, etc.—-and thus it is not very random.  (I am surprised that Gould disagreed with this, assuming that he did.)  Miller seems to be arguing that things turned out as they did for a reason: that we, human beings, are not mere accidents.  Miller elsewhere in the book speaks in support of fine-tuning and the anthropic principle.  He asks why God would wait millions of years to create the earth and life, and Miller’s response is that the universe as it is—-with its age, its vastness, and its organization—-is how it needs to be for life to exist on earth.  Miller also notes that nature produces a lot of positive mutations, which are essential for evolution to be successful, and Miller appears to find this worthy of wonder.  What is Miller’s point in saying all this?  Is this Miller’s way of defending the existence of God—-to say that some benevolent force made the universe and nature conducive to life, when things could have turned out otherwise?  Part of Miller’s point is that God does not need to be continually interfering in the course of nature for things to turn out all right, for nature is doing a fine job on its own, thank you very much; still, does Miller believe that God started the process, while having in mind (or intending) the way things turned out, on some level?  There is another consideration to note: Miller says near the end that evolution should make human being humble.  We are not above nature, but we are related to it, and we are a part of it, and we can easily be replaced by another species in the future.  Does that contradict, in some way, Miller’s view (if I understand it correctly) that humans are somehow a part of God’s plan, or intention?
7. On page 234, Miller quotes a profound point that Phillip Johnson makes: “It seems to me that the peacock and peahen are just the kind of creatures a whimsical Creator might favor, but that an ‘uncaring mechanical process’ like natural selection would never permit to develop” (Darwin on Trial, 1995, pages 30-31).  This inspires within me a question: When I see something beautiful in nature, should I see that as a special creation from God, or could it have come about naturally?  I thought about this not long ago when I visited some waterfalls.  Those waterfalls are very beautiful.  Yet, I seriously doubt that even young-earth creationists would say that God made them through special creation, for they would probably acknowledge that they came about through geological developments after the Flood.  Can randomness, or natural causes, result in beauty?  Or maybe God guides the process, and I can still give God glory when I see the waterfalls!
8. Miller seems to present the natural sciences as a “Just the facts, maam” sort of enterprise.  They are free from political or ideological bias, as far as Miller is concerned.  Miller believes that ID advocates, and also liberal relativists, are undermining this important principle.  While I can see Miller’s point, I think that he should have mentioned, at least in passing, the issue of climate change.  This is a scientific issue on which people on both sides (if there are two sides) claim that there is bias: one side accuses the other side of being beholden to the oil companies, and the other side claims that defenders of climate change being a human-caused reality are distorting the evidence to get more grants, or to pursue some liberal agenda.
9. I identified with something that Miller said on page 219, about the times when he explains evolution to audiences, some of which disagree with him: “The crowds did not always like what I had to say, but they were transfixed by the subject.  Americans love science, and they are fascinated even by a science that more of them reject than accept.”  I found this to be true in my own life.  When I was an undergraduate in college, I did not believe in evolution (at least in those first two years), but I was fascinated by the evidence for it.  I read the Gish-Saladin debate, and what Saladin had to say intrigued me.  I also read the lengthy article about evolution in the Encyclopedia Britannica.  I am still interested in evolution—-the evidence for it, and how to make sense of it in light of religion—-even though I have much more to read about it.

Genesis 3:3: Neither Shall Ye Touch the Fruit

I am reading the Sibylline Oracles in my Charlesworth Pseudepigrapha.  The Sibylline Oracles were female prophetesses at various points in history, and Jews and Christians produced editions of their prophecies.  I am currently reading Book 1 of the Sibylline Oracles, and, according to John Collins’ discussion of its date, scholars have dated the Jewish stage of this book to the second-third centuries C.E. (while debating which century works better: the second or the third).

What stood out to me in my reading a couple of days ago was this book’s treatment of Genesis 3:3.  In Genesis 3:3, Eve encounters the serpent, who will tempt her to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, in violation of God’s command.  In telling the serpent her understanding of what God’s command is, Eve states: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die” (KJV).  More than one reader has noted that what Eve says about God’s command does not match up identically with what God actually commanded Adam.  God’s command to Adam appears in Genesis 2:16-17, and God says: “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (KJV).  God told Adam that he was not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Eve, however, understood the command to be, not just that she could not eat the fruit from that tree, but also that she could not touch it.

I have heard various things about this point.  My high school Bible literature teacher said that this was an example of a fence around the law.  Jews, she said, did not want to get to the point where they were close to disobeying God’s commands, and so they set up a fence that would keep them a few steps removed from a tempting situation.  Eve, in this case, could not eat from the tree, but she also felt that she could not touch it, and the prohibition on her touching the forbidden fruit would supposedly keep her from eating it.

Some people have had a negative reaction to Eve’s statement of “neither shall ye touch it.” These were evangelical Christians, and they accused Eve of adding to God’s command, with disastrous results.  Her addition of “neither shall ye touch it” meant that she saw God and God’s command as overly strict.  Moreover, by adding to God’s command, Eve was setting herself up to sin.  She said that she would die if she touched the forbidden fruit?  But she did touch it, and she did not die.  She could then easily conclude that eating the fruit would not be fatal, since touching it apparently was not!

In Sibylline Oracles, Book 1, lines 38-39, we read: “To these [Adam and Eve] did God then address commands and instruct them not to touch the tree” (John Collins’ translation).  According to this passage, Eve was not adding to God’s command when she said “neither shall ye touch it,” but rather was being faithful to God’s command, for God himself told Adam and Eve not to touch the forbidden fruit.

I decided to do a quick study of how various ancient interpreters have understood Genesis 3:3, specifically what they have thought about Eve’s statement of “neither shall ye touch it.”  I looked at my Judaic Classics Library, and I also did a search on the Scripture index of Phillip Schaff’s compilation of the works of the Ante-Nicene and Post-Nicene church fathers.  There are a lot more sources out there—-there are patristic sermons about Genesis that I cannot find online!  But I worked with what I had.  And, even then, there is more out there!

I looked at how Midrash Rabbah handled Genesis 3:3, and, essentially, it said the same thing that evangelical critics of Eve would say centuries later.  In the Soncino English translation of Genesis Rabbah 19:3, we read: “SHALL NOT EAT OF IT, NEITHER SHALL YE TOUCH IT, LEST YE DIE (III, 3). Thus it is written, Add not unto His words, lest He reprove thee, and thou be found a liar (Prov. XXX, 6). R. Hiyya taught: That means that you must not make the fence more than the principal thing, lest it fall and destroy the plants. Thus, the Holy One, blessed be He, had said, For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die (Gen. II,17); whereas she did not say thus, but, GOD HATH SAID: YE SHALL NOT EAT OF IT, NEITHER SHALL YE TOUCH IT; when he [the serpent] saw her thus lying, he took and thrust her against it. ‘ Have you then died?’ he said to her; ‘just as you were not stricken through touching it, so will you not die when you eat it, but For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof,’ etc. (ib. 5).”

According to this rabbinic passage, Eve was wrong to add to God’s command.  The passage quotes Proverbs 30:6, which warns people against adding to God’s command, for then they may be found to be liars.  In the case of Eve, Eve thought that she would die by touching the forbidden fruit, and so the serpent made her touch it and showed her that she was still alive.  That made her more open to disobeying God’s actual prohibition on eating the fruit.

At the same time, Judaism does have a concept of establishing a fence around the law, which is stated in Mishnah Avot 1:1.  That could mean protecting people from getting to the point where they are in danger of transgressing God’s commands, by adding additional rules.  That may be the understanding of it in Genesis Rabbah 19:3, for the passage quotes R. Hiyya as saying that one should not make “the fence more than the principal thing, lest it fall and destroy the plants.”  The passage accepts making a fence around the law, but it believes that there should be limits on that practice.  There is an alternative understanding of making a fence around the law in rabbinic Judaism, however, and I talk about that in my post here.  According to Louis Finkelstein, Avoth de-Rabbi Nathan believes that making a fence around the Torah is not adding regulations, but rather protecting the Torah itself from additional, non-Scriptural prohibitions.  Finkelstein states that the Avoth de-Rabbi Nathan appeals to the story in Genesis 3 about Eve and the serpent to show the dangers of adding additional prohibitions to what God has already commanded.

So we have a Jewish version of the Sibylline Oracles that says that God actually forbade Adam and Eve to touch the forbidden fruit.  And we have rabbinic passages that say that Eve (or Adam in telling Eve the command) was adding to God’s command, with disastrous results.  Where do the patristic sources that I searched land on this issue?

I found only two places that address the issue explicitly.  The first is Irenaeus’ Against Heresies 5.23, and the second is the section on Procilla in Methodius’ Banquet of the Ten Virgins.  Irenaeus, who dates to the third century C.E., simply says that Eve was relaying God’s command to the serpent.  There is no hint there that Irenaeus thought that Eve was adding to God’s command.  Methodius, who dates to the third-fourth centuries C.E., says that Adam received the command not to touch the Tree of Knowledge.  Irenaeus and Methodius, like that passage from the Sibylline Oracles, hold that the prohibition on touching the tree actually came from God, and, according to this interpretation, that would mean that Eve was not adding to God’s word.

I decided to search one more source.  Over a decade ago, I read Gary Anderson’s The Genesis of Perfection.  I had taken a couple of Gary Anderson’s classes at Harvard Divinity School and thought that I would enjoy this book, and I did enjoy it.  I vaguely recall Anderson saying that, in some version of the Adam and Eve story, God gave the command both to Adam and to Eve at the same time, meaning that both heard God’s command from God himself: it was not like what we see in our Bibles, where God gives the command to Adam and then makes Eve, and then somehow Eve becomes aware of the prohibition (maybe from Adam).

I could not find that discussion on googlebooks, but I did find something else.  Anderson refers to the view of the fourth century Christian Ephrem of Syria that Eden was a holy place, and so Adam and Eve needed to keep their distance, on some level.  Anderson states:

“…Ephrem conceived of Eden as a mountain sanctuary.  His interpretation was grounded in the second half of the command given to Adam and Eve: Don’t draw too close to the tree of knowledge.  This warning, Ephrem reasoned, was modeled on the warnings given to priests.”  (Anderson quotes Hymns on Paradise 3:16.  Anderson’s discussion occurs on page 56 of his book.  See here to read it.)

For Ephrem, apparently, God was the source of the prohibition on touching the tree, for God wanted Adam and Eve to keep their distance from the holy.

It is interesting to me that the rabbinic sources that I read were critical of Eve for adding to God’s commandment, whereas the ancient Christian sources that I read tended to say that Eve got God’s commandment right.  A lot of the rabbis were for adding a fence around the law, yet rabbinic literature largely appears to disapprove of what Eve said to the serpent about God’s command.  And evangelical critics of Eve, when they criticize Eve, are probably also taking a swipe at the Pharisees and rabbinic Judaism (at least by implication), making a point of “You see what happens when people add commands to God’s word and make God seem stricter than he truly is?”  Yet, the rabbis were closer to their views on Eve than were some of the ancient Christians!

I’ll leave the comments open in case someone wants to add any information or insight.  Please limit your comment to adding information or insight, though.  Don’t criticize me for writing about this topic.  Thank you.

Scattered Ramblings on Sarcasm (With a Detour About Hell)

These past days have been the sort of days in which crap from my past enters my mind.  I was remembering an incident this morning.  I was an undergraduate in college over a decade ago, and I said something sarcastic to one of my dorm-mates, an atheist.  He replied: “That sounds pretty sarcastic.  Jesus, I think, would have a different approach!”

I don’t think I had any snappy comeback then.  Since that time, I have thought of what I should have said: “Yeah, well, it would take Jesus to live with you!”  Remember that Family Guy episode in which Stewie went back in time to give Brian a snappy comeback?  Maybe a more appropriate comparison would be the time that George in Seinfeld wanted to use his “jerk-store” comeback, and it fell flat when he had an opportunity to do so!

I don’t entirely remember why I was being sarcastic in that incident.  My dorm-mate may have been baiting me about something.  I don’t know.  He often liked to put people on the spot.

Would Jesus have even had a different approach?  Well, Jesus did use his share of sarcasm, especially against his Pharisee critics.  Of course, some people take this thought a little too far.  I remember hearing Ann Coulter speak, and she appealed to the example of Christ to justify her own sarcasm.  I don’t think that being like Jesus means never criticizing anything or anyone.  When it amounts, though, to dehumanizing the other “side” and making them out to be the enemy, well, I would say something is wrong there, from a Christian perspective.  Kindness and love are supposed to fit into the Christian life somewhere, right?  I don’t see much kindness towards liberals in Ann Coulter’s columns.  “Yeah, well, liberals aren’t kind either.”  Do two wrongs make a right, for either side?
How could I have handled that situation with my dorm-mate?  I did handle it honestly, as a human being.  Not perfectly, but honestly.

Do I regret any sarcasm on my part as I look back?  Yeah, I would say so.  Not that conversation with my dorm-mate, but I would say so.  That season in my life when I was rebelling against evangelicalism and right-wing conservatism, I could be very sarcastic, mocking other people’s positions, using the reductio ad-absurdum in caricaturing people’s views.  I could have handled that a bit better, I think.  I should at least try to respect what people say, rather than treating what they say as stupid.

This morning, though, I did somewhat venture into the realm of sarcasm.  Someone posted a meme of C.S. Lewis’ statement that hell begins as a grumble, which the grumbler himself may even criticize, and eventually he gets to the point where he cannot turn it off.  A commenter responded to that meme by saying that it shows God does not send people to hell, but people send themselves to hell, which answers the question of how a loving God can send people to hell.  I replied: “God can’t overcome people’s grumbling moods when they have a hard time turning them off?”  Sounds a bit sarcastic.  Not abusive or trollish, but sarcastic. I’ve just had a long aversion to that whole line of “People send themselves to hell.”

I’m not sure if my point will be understood—-I don’t exactly provide much context, and the commenter may wonder what exactly I’m addressing.  Well, among other things, I’m questioning his idea that we have perfect free will and that God is not responsible, at least in C.S. Lewis’ scenario, for people going to hell.  If we are grumbling and can’t turn it off, our free-will is limited!  How can I be blamed if I am grumbling and can’t turn it off?  How can people in hell be blamed for that?  Can’t God turn off their grumble?  “Yeah, but God respects people’s free will.”  What free will, in that case?  “Well, our characters are cumulative, and we should remember that deciding wrong today will make deciding right tomorrow much more difficult, and that is our fault, not God’s.”  Joshua Ryan Butler did not use those words, but he made that sort of point in his book, The Skeletons in God’s Closet.   My response to that would be: “Is not God supposed to be the God of new beginnings?”
I could have written a complex treatise that readers would probably skip.  Instead I wrote a pithy comment that readers may skip because I didn’t provide much context!

Anyway, those are some ramblings.  I know sarcastic comments can get lots of likes.  They can also be dismissed by those who want a higher level of discussion!

II Chronicles 20

In II Chronicles 20, the Moabites, the Ammonites, the inhabitants of Mount Seir (the Edomites, most likely), and possibly another group (the NRSV says “some of the Meunites,” probably basing that on what the Septuagint has) are preparing to attack Judah.  The Judahites, under King Jehoshaphat of Judah, fast and seek God’s help, and God encourages them.  Jehoshaphat puts a choir of Levites in front of the army of Judah to sing praises to God.  God fights on Judah’s behalf, for, under God’s instigation, the Ammonites and Moabites fight the people of Mount Seir, then each other.

I have three items:

1.  There is debate about whether this story is historical.  Raymond Dillard in the Word Biblical Commentary and David Rothstein in The Jewish Study Bible list different scholarly ideas about this.

a. One view is that II Chronicles 20 is a midrash of the story in II Kings 3.  In both stories, Jehoshaphat is king of Judah and is in some sort of conflict with Moab.  The stories have some similarities, but also significant differences.  In II Kings 3, Moab is rebelling against the king of Israel, and Judah and Edom join Israel to fight Moab.  The prophet Elisha says that God will help this Israelite alliance on account of Jehoshaphat, a righteous king, and this happens when the Moabites see some puddles of water and think that they are blood, and that the people of the Israelite alliance have killed each other.  Feeling secure, some Moabites rush to get some spoils, and the Israelites come out and kill them.  In the heat of battle, the king of Moab sacrifices his oldest son as a burnt offering, and the Israelite alliance departs.

We see common themes in these two stories: the theme of people on one side fighting with each other, and of God supporting one side in battle.  But the stories are different.  II Chronicles 20 may have borrowed themes from II Kings 3, but I have a hard time believing that the Chronicler there was intentionally interpreting the story in II Kings 3.

b.  Who are the Meunites who may be mentioned in II Chronicles 20:1?  (They’re not in the Masoretic Text, but the LXX mentions Minaeans.  The MT refers to the third group as people other than the Ammonites, which is a bit odd, so I can understand why there are interpreters who believe that the term was originally a proper name for a specific people-group.  It is strange, though, that v 1 does not mention the Edomites or the inhabitants of Seir, since they are presented as part of the Moabite-Ammonite alliance later in the chapter.)  One view is that the Meunites were Nabateans who were aggressive in the late fourth-early third centuries B.C.E.  According to this view, II Chronicles 20 does not reflect the time of Jehoshaphat, but rather the time when II Chronicles may have been written, a time when Nabateans were aggressive.  In this scenario, the Chronicler is retrojecting into history some elements of his own time.  The Intervarsity Press Bible Background Commentary, however, mentions alternative possibilities that may indicate that the Meunites in II Chronicles 20:1 reflect a pre-exilic setting, not a post-exilic one.  It notes, for example, that inscriptions of the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pilesar III refer to the Mu’unaya.

c.  Some think that the Chronicler used an earlier document that talked about an alliance against Jehoshaphat, but others dispute that we can draw firm conclusions about what really happened in battles from the writings of the Chronicler, for his battle stories are stylized and have common themes.  I would say that a common theme in Chronicles is dependence on God in battle: sometimes (as in II Chronicles 13-14) the Judahites take more initiative in fighting, and sometimes (as in II Chronicles 20) God does more of the work, but the Judahites still depend on God, and God helps them.  The idea of some scholars seems to be that, if a story reflects the author’s ideology, that casts suspicion on its historicity, for real life does not neatly work out according to one’s ideology.

There are questions that one can ask when trying to determine if the story in II Chronicles 20 is historical: Would not I-II Kings mention these events if they happened?  Does their absence from I-II Kings necessarily indicate that they did not occur?  I can understand why some would conclude that the events in II Chronicles 20 are made-up by the Chronicler.  Still, I draw spiritual strength from a story about people who are vulnerable and afraid seeking solace from God.

2.  In II Chronicles 20:11-12, Jehoshaphat prays to God: “And now, behold, the children of Ammon and Moab and mount Seir, whom thou wouldest not let Israel invade, when they came out of the land of Egypt, but they turned from them, and destroyed them not; Behold, I say, how they reward us, to come to cast us out of thy possession, which thou hast given us to inherit” (KJV).

Jehoshaphat hearkens back to the time soon after the Exodus, when God expressly forbade the Israelites to attack, destroy, or dispossess Ammon, Moab, and Seir (see Deuteronomy 2:5, 9, 19).  “And this is how they repay us—-by trying to attack our land?”, Jehoshaphat is saying.

Jehoshaphat may have a point: as far as he was concerned in the story, the Israelites never took and occupied land that belonged to the Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites.  The Israelites let these people-groups dwell in their own land.  But one cannot say that the Israelites never hurt these people-groups.  I Chronicles 18 mentions David subjugating Moab and Edom, and II Samuel 8:2 depicts David’s subjugation of the Moabites as very brutal.  The Moabites and Edomites could still live in their land, but they were subjects of Israel.  At the same time, though, one could refer to earlier stories in the biblical narrative, where the Moabites and Edomites themselves were hostile and aggressive towards Israel.  In the area of land-rights, in Judges 11, the Israelite judge Jephthah gets into a debate with the Ammonites over whether the Israelites took Ammonite land.  Jephthah says no, whereas the Ammonites say yes.  In II Chronicles 20, Jehoshaphat may have sincerely believed that the Israelites never took land from these people-groups, and that those people-groups were thus ungrateful; the other side, however, may have had a different perspective.

3.  Jehoshaphat put the choir in front of the army.  Raymond Dillard says that music was a part of ancient warfare, but was putting the choir before the army normal?  I have my doubts.
When I went to Harvard Divinity School, a visiting speaker at the Christian fellowship referred to this story in II Chronicles 20.  She was saying that Christians should sing praises to God.  Evangelicals at Harvard Divinity School had questions about how they should interact with their environment, which, arguably, was not particularly friendly to evangelicalism.  How can they be witnesses to Christ, in such an environment?  Some thought apologetics (defending the faith intellectually) was the solution, but others would respond that many students at HDS were already familiar with apologetic arguments and rejected them.  One could say that prayer, loving others, and praise were the ways to get God to work on campus and to attract people to Christ, but some preferred apologetics: Give others intellectual reasons to believe.  Retreating behind prayer and praise would not solve anything, some thought.

I fondly reminisce about this, for I still have some evangelical sentiments within me, as much resentment as I have against evangelicalism.  I believe that, in encouraging people to come to God—-and that can entail apologetics, albeit not obnoxious and intellectually-smug apologetics (as I may have used)—-prayer and praise are both important.  God can open people’s eyes, and evangelicals should depend on God to avoid becoming proud and pompous in their approach to others.  They should also pray for those to whom they witness because that can cultivate within them (the evangelicals) an attitude of love—-of wanting people to find a loving God—-as opposed to triumphalism and pomposity.

School Plays

I was going to write a book review today, but I did not get to it.  I’ll save it for Monday!

I was thinking about school plays that I saw, both when I was in high school and an undergraduate in college.  In high school, I went to school plays to get extra credit.  At least I went to see Bye Bye Birdie for that reason.  I think it was my Geometry teacher who was offering extra credit, and I definitely needed it in that class!  I may have gone to Auntie Mame for that reason, too.  When I saw Auntie Mame, my Grandma, brother, and sister went with me.  It was a pleasant evening.

In college, I saw The Crucible.  There were other plays that went on that I did not see, but I decided to see The Crucible because I had heard of it and knew it was about the Puritans and McCarthy (both interests of mine).

Seeing these plays was fun.  I got to see people I knew playing parts on stage.  Their acting usually was not as good as what I saw on the movie versions.  But they did fine.  And I will say that seeing The Crucible put chills up my spine.  These girls were randomly accusing people of being witches, and the authorities were taking them seriously.  Yikes!

Movie Write-Up (Sort of): Redeemed

I recently watched the 2014 Christian movie, Redeemed, which was produced (in part) by Pure Flix Entertainment, the company that gave us the movie God’s Not Dead.  As is the case with a number of Pure Flix films, David A.R. White played a significant character.

Redeemed is about marital fidelity and guarding one’s marriage from adultery.  In this movie, Paul Tyson is a Christian, a devoted husband, and a businessman, but he is tempted when a beautiful representative of a Brazilian company, Julia, visits his company to see if her company should do business with his.  Paul makes excuses to see Julia and lies to his wife about her.  In the meantime, a couple he knows from church has recently split up, and the husband, David (played by David A.R. White), tells Paul that this was because his wife fell in love with a man she met online.

Paul receives conflicting messages about what he should do.  He sees a therapist of a seedy fellow employee, and the therapist tells Paul that being attracted to another woman is natural and so Paul should not worry too much about it.  The therapist is a bit surprised that Paul considers this attraction a problem, especially since Paul has not crossed any lines and committed actual adultery.  David, however, tells Paul that Paul is treading on pretty serious territory.  David refers to Jesus’ statement in Matthew 5:28 that looking at a woman and lusting after her is adultery of the heart.  When Paul responds that nobody takes that seriously, David asks why Jesus said it if it wasn’t important: was it to hear himself talk?

There is also a Brazilian pastor, whom Paul meets on a plane to Brazil.  Paul is going to Brazil to confess and to apologize to the Brazilian company, since there have been shady dealings going on.  Paul also wants to see Julia.  On the plane, Paul unloads his story to the Brazilian pastor, who listens compassionately, asks him why he is not at home with his family, and invites him to a Brazilian church, where Paul can experience Brazilian Christian hospitality!  Paul goes to that church’s service and is convicted of his sins.

The movie had quite a bit of intrigue, but I do not want to get into that in this post, since I did not entirely follow it, plus I want to focus on the movie’s theme of adultery.  I’ve read a number of post-evangelical bloggers or listened to post-evangelical podcasts, and they have problems with the sort of message that the movie conveys.  They do not respond to the movie itself—-maybe they have heard of it, and maybe not—-but the movie expresses prominent conservative evangelical messages about marriage and adultery: that one can commit emotional adultery, and that married men and women should not get too intimate with people of the opposite sex who are not their spouse.  Some post-evangelicals say that it’s all right to be friends with people of the opposite sex.  Some go so far as to suggest that evangelical teaching on marriage and sexuality can objectify people just as badly as pornography does: when a man sees an attractive woman as a threat, for example, he is objectifying her rather than viewing her as a real person.

I can somewhat identify with what the post-evangelicals are saying.  The portrayal of women as a lure that men should resist has contributed to the stigmatization of women within Judaism and Christianity throughout history, and, yes, it has objectified and dehumanized women.  At the same time, I think that there is something valuable to the conservative evangelical message, themes that even non-evangelicals appreciate and teach.  Allow me to share with you two examples.

First of all, there was a presentation that I attended back when I was a student at Harvard Divinity School.  The presentation was about how ministers should not become romantically involved with their parishioners—-or, for that matter, people in authority should not become romantically involved with people under their authority (i.e., professors should not date students).  We watched a video, presenters offered their comments, and the class split up into discussion groups.  One of the presenters said that it is perfectly understandable for a person in authority to become attracted to someone under his or her authority, but the person in authority should establish boundaries.  If he is going to an event specifically to see the person to whom he is attracted, that is a warning sign.  If their conversation becomes a bit too hot, it is time to back off.  While the subject-matter of this presentation was a bit different from that of the movie Redeemed, both highlighted the importance of establishing boundaries.

Second, there was an anti-fundamentalist book that I perused years ago: Pathological Christianity, by psychologist Gregory Max Vogt.  Vogt tells the story about a woman whose husband was a respected and loved pastor, and this pastor would have golf games with another woman.  The pastor insisted to his wife that nothing was going on, but she still felt that he was giving another woman the intimacy that belongs to his spouse.

Any lessons here?  Probably be careful.  The conservative evangelical message offers warnings that should be heeded and that should encourage the establishment of boundaries.  But one can easily take boundaries to an extreme that is not good—-they can discourage platonic friendships and objectify people.