Christian Reproof

Sirach 32:17 states: “The sinner will shun reproof, and will find a decision according to his liking” (NRSV).

When I read this verse yesterday, it got me thinking about Christian reproof.

Here’s my problem with it: A lot of time, it amounts to Christians criticizing me, without offering me any support or encouragement to help me to overcome whatever problem I may have.  Oh, some Christians love to criticize, since that makes them feel righteous and authoritative.  But are they actually going to help those they are criticizing, or will they essentially leave those people alone, to deal with their struggles all by themselves?  In my opinion, if those Christians are not willing to provide encouragement, support, and guidance, then they have no business rebuking.  I’m not saying that as an absolute, for there are probably exceptions, but just as a rule of thumb.

On the other hand, do I really want what I am talking about here?  Suppose that a Christian rebukes me, and I say “You’re right” just to get that person off my back.  Do I seriously want that person to be nagging me continually about whether I am living up to his or her standards?  Not particularly.  That’s the thing about spiritual mentorship: the spiritual mentee has to be willing to receive guidance.

Ramblings on Anonymity, Being Alone with God, and Forgiveness

Sirach 16:17 states (in the NRSV): “Do not say, “I am hidden from the Lord, and who from on high has me in mind? Among so many people I am unknown, for what am I in a boundless creation?”

The point of this passage, of course, is that sinners should not think that God does not notice their sins and will not punish them.  But the passage stood out to me because it highlights how it is possible to feel lost in the big world—-to be anonymous.

Some people feel comforted that there is a God who notices them personally.  I think of the song, “His Eye Is On the Sparrow.”  But there are others who do not like such an idea: they feel that it invades their privacy, or they recoil from the prospect of being under someone’s judgmental eye all of the time.

Both ideas are in Scripture, in some sense.  Psalm 8 marvels that God notices man amidst the vast creation, and it goes on to talk about how God exalts and dignifies human beings.  On the other hand, Job, while he was suffering and thinking that God was afflicting him, was wondering why God pays so much attention to human beings (Job 7:17).  God is great and powerful, right?  Human beings are no threat to God, right?  Why, then, does Job have to be under God’s watchful eye, suffering affliction from God?

Anonymity itself can be a mixed blessing.  On the one hand, when we are anonymous, we don’t have to meet other people’s expectations.  On the other hand, when we are anonymous, we may feel lonely and unloved.

After I read Sirach 16:17, I was thinking about the concept of being alone with God.  I remembered a sermon that I heard years ago.  The pastor was referring to Max Weber’s study that showed that suicide was higher among Protestants than among Catholics.  The reason, Weber said, was that Catholics had a greater sense of community, whereas Protestants felt alone with God.  I would not say that Catholics have “community” in the manner that is pushed by evangelicals—-you have to have “intentional” community, socialize, and be vulnerable (sometimes, perhaps often, to judgmental people who may think that you don’t have the Spirit if you have certain issues).  But Catholics have a confessional where people can confess to a human being and receive absolution.  In the book that I recently read, The Sacred Year, Michael Yankoski talked about how he suggested to his Protestant pastors that they set up a confessional!

It would help me to be told by an authoritative human being that my sins are forgiven.  Trying to get that assurance in a setting where it is just me and God is difficult, especially since God in the Bible sets up so many conditions to receive forgiveness, and it is hard to know if I have truly met them: I need to forgive others, I need to repent (turn away from sin), etc.  It would be nice to go to a priest, confess my sin, and go back out feeling forgiven and trying to be good.

Of course, many have had problems with the Catholic system.  When forgiveness of sins is vested in a church, what happens when a church abuses that authority?  Consider the kings who got excommunicated by popes for not doing what the popes wanted.  Because human beings can be so judgmental, I can understand why some would like to make confession and forgiveness solely a matter of them and God: they figure that God will cut them more of a break.  And then there is the potential of abusing forgiveness.  You know of the stereotypical Catholic mafia boss, who kills others yet receives absolution because he confesses his sins to a priest.  Of course, Catholicism may say that it is not for that, that it promotes repentance and good works, and some Catholics may even say that it is Protestantism that gives people cheap grace—-the hope that they will go to heaven as long as they believe in Jesus, even if their lives are full of sin.

Anyway, those are some ramblings for today.

Jesus ben Sira on Hanging Out with Rich People and Generosity

Some Jesus ben Sira passages stood out to me yesterday and today.  Allow me to quote  and to comment.

1.    Sirach 13:9-10 states (in the NRSV): “When an influential person invites you, be reserved, and he will invite you more insistently.  Do not be forward, or you may be rebuffed; do not stand aloof, or you will be forgotten.”

These verses are ironic in light of what comes earlier in Sirach 13.  Jesus ben Sira discourages people from associating with those who are mightier or richer than them, and the reason is that the mightier or richer could use that lowly person for their own purposes, and the person would be powerless to do anything about it.  This is actually a theme that has recurred in my reading of Sirach thus far: that it’s better just to stay off of some people’s radar—-for them not to know who you are.  As I read Jesus ben Sira’s cynical description of the rich, I thought of J.R. Ewing on Dallas!  I would rather not be on the radar of someone like him!

But, in vv 9-10, Jesus ben Sira talks about what one should do if one is invited by an influential person.  So now a person can associate with a rich person?  Is there a way to reconcile all this?  Is Jesus ben Sira talking about rich people who are invited by other rich people?  I doubt that, for v 11 says that the invited one should not try to treat the influential person as an equal.  Maybe Jesus ben Sira is not giving us rigid rules but things to think about, in terms of how he understandings the realities of life.

On Jesus ben Sira’s advice in 13:9-10, it just shows how delicate social interaction can be.  One wants to be reserved—-not to appear overly eager.  One does not want to be too forward, for that can be off-putting.  But one also does not want to be aloof, because then one can be forgotten (and I’ve been guilty of both extremes).  One has to walk a fine line!  It’s not easy for everyone!

2.  Sirach 14:5 states (again, in the NRSV): “If one is mean to himself, to whom will he be generous? He will not enjoy his own riches.”

Jesus ben Sira is criticizing being a stingy miser, and he makes the interesting point that one who is not generous to oneself will be less likely to be generous to other people.  I have heard that one cannot love others if one does not love oneself, but I have never thought of this principle in relation to stinginess and generosity.

I can somewhat understand and identify with this principle, for I can envision generosity to self and generosity to others flowing from the same stream (not to mention from a sense that one has enough money to be generous to oneself and others).  I would not treat it as an absolute, since there are plenty of frugal people who give to others, and there are plenty of luxurious people who do not give to others.  In terms of myself, nowadays, I tend to be very frugal, or I try to exercise discipline.  That means that I am not particularly generous to myself or others.  I can beat up on myself for that in this post, but what would be the point?

Sometimes, being frugal actually can help someone else.  I think of trying to save electricity, eating lower on the food chain, or cutting certain things out of one’s diet because of the effects these things have on vulnerable people in the world.  But being a just consumer can also be pretty pricey, in some areas.

Anyway, I thought that Jesus ben Sira has an interesting insight, there.

Jesus Ben Sira and Self-Esteem

I’ve been reading Jesus Ben Sira for my daily quiet time.  It is part of the Deuterocanonical writings, the books that Catholics accept as canonical but that Protestants and Jews do not.  Ben Sira’s book has been labelled “Ben Sira”, “Sirach”, and “Ecclesiasticus”.

I was reading a passage yesterday that touched on self-esteem.  It’s in Ben Sira 10:28-29:

“My child, honor yourself with humility, and give yourself the esteem you deserve.  Who will acquit those who condemn themselves? And who will honor those who dishonor themselves?” (NRSV)

That somewhat caught me by surprise.  For one, I had assumed that the exhortation that people have a positive self-esteem or self-image was a modern concept, not an ancient one.  Second, I had thought that the biblical writings encourage humility more than having a positive self-image.

Jesus Ben Sira is actually promoting humility.  He does not want people to be proud, to think that they are better than others, or to be so enamored with themselves that they forget God and others.  My impression is that he wants for people to look honestly at themselves and to recognize that they have weaknesses and that they have to play by the rules like everyone else.  But he also seems to think that people should love themselves: they should remember that they are people of value and should treat themselves well, rather than sinning against or dishonoring themselves.

I think also of a saying attributed to the first century Jewish leader Hillel: if I am not for myself, who will be for me?  Hillel, too, believed that people should have regard for themselves.

I was trying to remember if there are any other passages in the Bible about self-esteem.  So many biblical passages encourage humility, but do any promote having a positive self-concept?  I thought of what Samuel told Saul after Saul sinned: “Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The LORD anointed you king over Israel” (NRSV).  A lot of times, pride is the downfall of kings, but, in Saul’s case, his low self-esteem arguably was.  Samuel was telling Saul that, while Saul may not have a very high opinion of himself, his actions and inactions actually carry a lot of weight, for he is the king.

Completing the Anchor Bible Commentary on Ben Sira

I finished the Anchor Bible commentary on The Wisdom of Ben Sira.  In this post, I will discuss an item from my latest reading of this book, and then I will talk about another item that is from my previous readings.

1.  In Ben Sira 48:1-15, the topic is the prophet Elijah.  Not only is the prophet Elijah's past deeds praised, but Ben Sira also has the eschatological expectation that Elijah will return to (in the words of Patrick Skehan's translation) "put an end to wrath before the day of the LORD, [t]o turn back the hearts of parents toward their children, and to reestablish the tribes of Israel."  And, because Ben Sira says "it is written" when discussing his belief that Elijah shall return, he probably has in mind Malachi 3:23-24.

And yet, Ben Sira does not believe in the resurrection from the dead, nor does he have a rigorous conception of the afterlife.  Ben Sira 48:11b affirms that "we too shall certainly live", but Skehan's argument appears to be that the verse originally meant something quite different: that some people would see Elijah before they die and then come to rest, which means that they are comforted at their deaths by the realization that Elijah has come and is doing his part to renew the world.

I find it interesting that eschatology can co-exist with a traditional view that denies the resurrection from the dead.  At times, one can get the impression that those things are incompatible.  At one time, it was believed that the Pharisees believed in eschatology, the resurrection, and the prophetic writings, whereas the Sadducees denied those things.  But, while the Sadducees most likely denied the resurrection, that does not mean that they rejected the prophetic writings (see here).  Perhaps they, like Ben Sira, held to some sort of eschatology, in accordance with prophetic writings, even as they denied the resurrection.

2.  In my posts thus far on Ben Sira, I have not gotten into the political situation of Ben Sira's day, at least not in much detail.  Alexander Di Lella does not know if Ben Sira wrote when the Ptolemies had power over Palestine, or when the Seleucids had power over it.  Di Lella says that both regimes promulgated Hellenism, and Ben Sira was reacting to that by saying that Jewish tradition is as good as (and better than) Greek philosophy.  At times, Ben Sira quotes Greek sources, which may show that he's not entirely against the wisdom of the Greeks.  And yet, when Ben Sira condemns speculation about things that are hidden, Di Lella interprets that to be a criticism of Greek philosophy.

I think that Di Lella is probably right to argue that Ben Sira is seeking to present Jewish tradition, which includes the Torah and the biblical writings, as better than Greek philosophy.  Ben Sira equates wisdom with the Torah, elevates the scribes, and lauds the historical heroes of Israel.  Ben Sira asserts that Israel is in special possession of God's wisdom, the Torah.  Wisdom, for Ben Sira, was around at creation, but Adam did not fully know wisdom because the Torah had not yet been revealed (or so Di Lella interprets Ben Sira 24:28, which is about how wisdom is so deep that we cannot completely fathom it).  Wisdom sought a home in the world among every people and nation, but then God commanded wisdom to dwell in Israel (Ben Sira 24).  According to the prologue by Ben Sira's grandson, scribes are to teach the laity about wisdom.  And yet, while Ben Sira is all for manual labor and wants for the wise to work with their hands, he desires for them to spend most of their time contemplating the depths of wisdom (Ben Sira 38-39).  Wisdom is for every Israelite, but blessed is he who has the opportunity to study it more deeply!

But is Ben Sira's book only a defense of Jewish tradition?  Why does it also have a bunch of pithy, proverb-like sayings, which appear to be unrelated to Jewish tradition?  Perhaps Ben Sira believes that he derived those principles from a study of the Torah, or that he got them from divine inspiration, or observation of life.  His point may be that Jewish leaders have the resources to come up with wisdom about life, and so one should not think that the Greeks have a monopoly on wisdom.

But onto the political situation of Ben Sira's day!  Ben Sira condemns the arrogance of rulers (Ben Sira 10:14).  According to Di Lella, Ben Sira may have the Seleucid Antiochus III in mind when he asks God to smash rulers who say "There is no one besides me."  And yet, Ben Sira offers wisdom on how the Jews should interact with their Gentile captors.  Ben Sira 9:13 exhorts Jews to keep away from those with the power to kill, but, if they find themselves near such people, to avoid offending them so as to preserve their own lives.  Di Lella states on page 220 that "In Egypt, the Ptolemaic king, who was considered to be a god, had the absolute right of life or death over his subjects; military commanders had this right over their troops, and governors of subject provinces over the people."

I have a few questions about Di Lella's scenario.  First, I wonder why Ben Sira would criticize Antiochus III, when, as Di Lella points out earlier in the commentary, Antiochus III provided the Jews with wood to repair their temple after a war, exempted temple officials from certain taxes, and allowed the Jews in Palestine to live according to their own laws.  Di Lella says that Antiochus III was presumptuous and fell to the Romans due to his presumption, but I have a hard time believing that Ben Sira would lambaste a ruler who had been so good to Israel.  Perhaps Ben Sira didn't care for being at the mercy of foreign rulers, even if they were relatively benevolent!

Second, how would Ben Sira have gotten by with criticizing his Gentile rulers?  In ancient and medieval Jewish literature, there were many times when the Gentile captors are not referred to explicitly, but in code, and the basis for that was supposedly that the Jews did not want to be viewed as subversives.  But the Gentile rulers are criticized, and I'd be surprised if agents of the Gentile tyrants couldn't figure out that the Jews were talking about the Gentile tyrants!  Perhaps the Gentiles did not monitor everything that occurred in Israel, and thus Ben Sira had some leeway to write a document that criticized the Gentile rulers.

Women; Fairness

I have two items for my write-up today on the Anchor Bible commentary on The Wisdom of Ben Sira.

1.  Patrick Skehan's translation of Ben Sira 41:21c, 20b, and 22a says that one should be ashamed of the following:

"Of gazing at a man's wife, and of entertaining thoughts about another woman; Of trifling with a servant girl of yours..."

When Jesus in Matthew 5:28 criticized lusting after women and equated that with adultery, was he condemning the male sex drive in general, or was he simply making the same point as Ben Sira: that a man should not look at another man's wife or a woman other than his wife with lust?  According to Hans Dieter Betz, that was the point of Matthew 5:28, but Jerome translated the passage as condemning looking at any woman, not just another man's wife.  But, according to Betz, Jerome himself thought that the passage was against looking with lust at other women besides one's own wife.  See here.

I think that the difference between Ben Sira and Jesus in Matthew 5:28 is this: According to Alexander Di Lella, Ben Sira believes that lust can lead to adultery, whereas Jesus in Matthew 5:28 holds that lust is adultery.

Something else that interested me was that Ben Sira was against masters sleeping with their female slaves.  Even if Ben Sira believed in slavery, he thought that there was such a thing as an unacceptable abuse of power.

2.  According to Skehan's translation of Ben Sira 42:2, one should not be ashamed "of justice to acquit the godly."  Di Lella says this means that one should acquit the ungodly person when he is innocent of a charge.  I like seeing fairness.  I think of a movie about a medieval disputation between a Christian and a Jew, called The Disputation: in judging who won, the king (a Christian) decided for the Jew because he felt that the Jew made better arguments.  The king could have upheld Christianity by deciding for the Christian, but he chose to be fair rather than ideological.

An Orderly Mind?

For my write-up today on the Anchor Bible commentary on The Wisdom of Ben Sira, I will talk about Alexander Di Lella's discussion of Ben Sira 33:4-6.  The passage says, according to Patrick Skehan's translation:

"Prepare your words and you will be listened to; bind your training to your person, and then give your answer.  Like the wheel of a cart in the mind of a fool; his thoughts revolve in circles.  An unscrupulous friend is like the distracted stallion that neighs, no matter who the rider."

Di Lella states the following:

"'The mind of the fool' is like a cartwheel, and 'his thoughts revolve in circles' (33:5)----strong and distasteful images----because he lacks instruction, discipline, and firm convictions.  In other words, because his folly makes him incapable of weighing his words before speaking, as the wise are urged to do in 33:4, he constantly changes his mind like a wheel that is revolving.  Hence, what he says makes little or no sense.  'An unscrupulous...friend is like the distracted [lit., rutting...] stallion'----another forceful image----'that neighs, no matter who the rider,' i.e., such a 'friend' speaks up or acts impulsively, no matter who is present; considerations of time or place, of courtesy or confidence, mean nothing to him."

I have two reactions to this:

1.  I think that people can get the impression that my thoughts revolve in circles----that I do not have firm convictions, and that my thoughts are not exactly linear.  Some have applied to me Ephesians 4:14, in which Paul (or, for liberal scholars, "Paul") exhorts his congregation not to be tossed about by every wind of doctrine.  For those who apply that verse to me, I need to make a decision about what I believe and act according to it, rather than entertaining different perspectives and evaluating their strengths and weaknesses.

I do not believe that my thinking in circles is a sign that my mind lacks instruction.  Actually, it's because I think things through that I am reluctant to consider one dogmatic perspective to be the end-all-be-all.  I have difficulty committing to one perspective and thinking in a linear fashion because a "Yes, but" or a "What about this?" interrupts me from doing so.  And I should note that Ben Sira himself acknowledges that there are shades of gray.  For example, is modesty a good thing?  At one point, Ben Sira says that it is, but he also believes that too much modesty is not that good.

But do I believe in any black and white?  Is everything for me a shade of gray?  I think that there is better and worse when it comes to how I live my life.  In some cases, there is black and white----I should not harm somebody else.  In other cases, there is better and worse, and that can be adaptable based on the situation.  Instruction perhaps can help me to learn what to do in different situations.

But, when it comes to doctrinal issues, such as whether everyone has to keep the Sabbath on Saturday, or if there is a true religion, or what not, I tend to leave that up in the air.  I have some convictions.  I just don't think that some of the issues that people expect me to have convictions on are overly vital, or can even be successfully arbitrated.

2.  Thinking before you speak.  Well, I admit that there are times when I say socially-inappropriate things.  It's difficult when I'm pressured to talk in order to fit into a social situation and to stand out, and when I don't have much time to think before I speak because the conversation is moving rapidly from one topic to another.  So why should I beat myself up if I flub things up, at times?

Ben Sira on Adultery

For my write-up today on the Anchor Bible commentary on The Wisdom of Ben Sira, my focus will be on the topic of adultery.  The text is Ben Sira 23:18-26.

Ben Sira 23:18 criticizes the "man who dishonors his marriage bed" (Patrick Skehan's translation).  My impression is that Alexander Di Lella thinks that this passage is criticizing a man who cheats on his wife----what we today call an adulterer.  The reason that this stands out to me is that I've often read scholars who maintain that the Hebrew Bible regards adultery as a woman cheating on her husband or a man sleeping with another man's wife----but not as a man cheating on his own wife.  Some have heralded Jesus as revolutionary because Jesus contends in his teachings on divorce that a man can commit adultery against his wife by being with another woman (Mark 10:11-12).  But did Jesus come up with that concept?  In Ben Sira 23:18, we see the notion that a man can dishonor his own marriage bed.

Something else that stood out to me in my reading of his commentary was Di Lella's comments on page 325 about the penalty for adultery: "Apparently, in Ben Sira's day death by stoning, the penalty the Law decreed for adulterers (cf. Lev 20:10; Deut 22:22-24; Ezek 16:36-40; John 8:4-5), was not enforced since it is not alluded to in v 21 or in vv 22-26.  Under Talmudic law the adulterer was scourged."  At the same time, Ben Sira 23:24 affirms that the punishment of an adulteress will "extend to her children" (again, Skehan's translation), and Di Lella interprets that in light of B.T. Qiddushin 78b's statement that the offspring of adulterous unions was to be excluded from the Israelite congregation.  This is probably based on Deuteronomy 23:2, which prohibits the mamzer from entering the congregation of the LORD.

The reason that this stood out to me is that I'm interested in how elements of ancient Judaism simply regarded some biblical laws as null-and-void.  You would think that they'd see all of the Torah as eternally-binding, but that's not necessarily the case.  Some thought that certain laws were not binding anymore due to new circumstances.  For example, there is one rabbinic teaching that says that Deuteronomy 23's prohibition of certain foreigners from Israel's congregation no longer applies because people have mixed ancestry and ethnicity.

The Greeks and the Poor

For my write-up today on the Anchor Bible commentary on The Wisdom of Ben Sira, by Patrick Skehan (translator) and Alexander Di Lella (commentator), I will focus on what Di Lella says about Greek attitudes regarding the poor.

Ben Sira promotes generosity towards the poor in Ben Sira 3:30-4:10.  On page 168, Dil Lella states regarding Greek attitudes toward to the poor:

"A final observation with regard to the ethical sensitivity toward the disadvantaged expressed in 3:30-4:10: the Greeks, despite their unquestioned accomplishments in philosophy, ethics, and law, had such a low regard for the poor that according to Plato (The Laws, ii) a certain Athenian actually proposed that each state enact a law banishing the poor..."

That Athenian brought to my mind what critics of Rudy Giuliani say about his treatment of the homeless----see here and here.

Were the Greeks anti-poor?  I checked out The Oxford Classical Dictionary, and what I read in the article on "Euergetism" coincided with what Peter Brown says in this article: that there was a high regard for generosity in Greek thought, but philanthropy was believed to be for the society-at-large, not for the poor, specifically.  Granted, the poor may have benefited from the philanthropy, but they were not the ones who were in the wealthy giver's mind when he was making his donation.

Canon

I started Alexander Di Lella's Anchor Bible commentary on The Wisdom of Ben Sira.  (Patrick Skehan provided the translation and the notes, whereas Di Lella wrote the Introduction and the commentary.)  Di Lella contends that Jesus Ben Sira published his book "to convince Jews and even well-disposed Gentiles that true wisdom is to be found primarily in Jerusalem and not in Athens, more in the inspired books of Israel than in the clever writings of Hellenistic humanism" (page 16).  Yet, Ben Sira made use of Gentile thought.  Di Lella states that he did this "to show others how the best of Gentile thought is no danger to the faith but could even be incorporated into an authentically Jewish work, the purpose of which was to encourage fidelity to their ancestral practices" (page 50).

I found Di Lella's section on "Canonicity of the Book and Place in the Canon" to be interesting.  Here are some things that De Lella says that I found to be significant:

----Until some point in the 1960s, a prominent scholarly view was that there were two canons: the Alexandrian or Septuagint canon, which included the Deuterocanonical books, and the Palestinian or Hebrew canon, which excluded them and only contained the books that the Pharisaic rabbis later said were canonical.  But that view was challenged because it was argued that many Greek-speaking Jews lived in Palestine and used the Septuagint prior to 90 C.E., which was when the Pharisaic canon had been established.  As Di Lella says on page 18, "Thus there never was an actual Alexandrian (LXX) canon at all or a Palestinian (Hebrew) canon before ca. AD 90."  Di Lella also refers to a Hebrew copy of Ben Sira at a first century B.C.E. "Jewish community at Masada", and Hebrew fragments of Ben Sira at Qumran (page 20).


----In terms of Christianity, Di Lella affirms that the church got Scriptures from Judaism, but not an actual canon.  Di Lella states on page 19 that "the final determination of the Christian Old Testament canon was an activity of the Church that took place in the West at the Council of Hippo (393) and two Councils of Carthage (397 and 419)."  Yet, there was some difference of opinion even in the fifth century C.E.  After Jerome moved to Palestine and was influenced by Jewish teachers, he differentiated between canonical books and "ecclesiastical books", which (I think) were books that were read in churches yet were not deemed to be canonical.  The ecclesiastical books were the Deuterocanonical ones.  But Augustine disagreed with Jerome and believed that even what we label as the Deuterocanonical books were authoritative.  In the sixteenth century, Martin Luther sided with Jerome and relegated the Deuterocanonical writings to a special section of his Bible, taking them from "their logical and time-honored locations in the canon (e.g., Tobit and Judith from the historical books and The Wisdom of Solomon and The Wisdom of Ben Sira from the Wisdom books)" (page 18).

----Regarding rabbinic Judaism, its treatment of Ben Sira is (to use Di Lella's word) "complex".  In Jerusalem Talmud 28a, we find an opinion attributed to the second century C.E. Rabbi Akiva that Ben Sira is non-canonical and that whoever reads it will be excluded from the World to Come.  (Wow!  That's heavy!)  And Tosefta Yadayim 2.13 (third century) says that the Book of Ben Sira does not defile the hands, which means that it is not canonical.  And yet, according to Di Lella, the Book of Ben Sira seems to have influenced the Talmud, Midrashim, and Derek Etetz, and it is quoted eighty-two times "with approval in the Talmud and other rabbinical writings" (page 20).  Sometimes, the quotation is preceded by the phrase "it is written", a phrase often "reserved only for quotations from the canonical Scriptures" ([Ch]agiga 12a; Niddah 16b; J. Berakot 11c).

As I write about these points from Di Lella's commentary, I'm reminded of a debate that I saw between Protestant James White and a Catholic on the canonicity and inspiration of the Deuterocanonical writings.  What I remember is that White was arguing that Judaism even before 90 C.E. had a canon that excluded the Deuterocanonical writings, for Josephus refers to twenty-two books.  If I'm not mistaken, White also said that the church father Athanasius (third-fourth centuries C.E.) differentiated between inspired canonical books and the Deuterocanonical writings (see here for Athanasius' discussion of the canon).  I'm open to correction on this, but I think that White was emphasizing the sixteenth century Council of Trent as the place where the Catholic canon (which included the Deuterocanonical books) was solidified.

The Catholic debater, by contrast, maintained that even first century Palestinian Judaism was open to the Deuterocanonical writings.  He said that the New Testament itself alludes to the Wisdom of Solomon at some point (see here for a list of supposed allusions to the Deuterocanonical writings in the New Testament, as well as patristic references to the Deuterocanonical writings).  And, if I recall correctly, he held that Athanasius was not dismissing the Deuterocanonical writings but other writings (though, in my link to Athanasius above, you will see that Athanasius did not include the Deuterocanonical writings in the twenty-two books of the Old Testament).  For the Catholic debater, the rabbis in the late first century excluded the Deuterocanonical writings from the canon, and this was partially because the Christians were using them.

I think that things were messier than either White or the Catholic debater presented them in that debate.  In my opinion, there was probably diversity within first-century Judaism and early Christianity about whether or not to accept the Deuterocanonical books as authoritative.  But why was there controversy?  A professor of mine once said that a reason that rabbinic Judaism excluded the Deuterocanonical books from the canon was that they were not in Hebrew, but in Greek.  Perhaps, but Ben Sira was in Hebrew before it was translated into Greek.

The date of the writings probably had something to do with whether they were accepted or not.  The Deuterocanonical writings were late, and there are statements in Jewish writings that inspiration ceased at some point in the past, and so those who believed this way most likely dismissed the Deuterocanonical writings as uninspired.  Early Christians, however, felt that inspiration was still going on, and so that could have opened many of them up to accepting the Deuterocanonical works.  Moreover, perhaps early Christians were drawn to elements of certain Deuterocanonical works, such as the Wisdom of Solomon's description of the righteous sufferer, which reminded them of Jesus.

Lord's Prayer, Booting the Quartos, Sabbath as Eden

1. Source: David Flusser, "Psalms, Hymns, and Prayers," Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period, ed. Michael E. Stone (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) 560-561.

"Of special interest is line 11b-12a: 'Do not bring me into difficulties insurmountable for me; keep me far from the sins of my youth.' This does not only resemble the rabbinic prayers of the apotropaic type, but also the last sentence of the Lord's prayer: 'And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil' (Matt. 6:13; cf. Luke 11:4 and see especially Luke 10:13)."

Flusser is referring to the Syriac Psalms, whose Hebrew originals he places at Qumran. I don't know much about this topic, but I've heard that Flusser sort of has a thing for hypothetical Hebrew originals. He believes that the New Testament was originally in Hebrew.

"Lead us not into temptation." When I lived in New York, I attended the New York Metro Adventist Forum, which is a liberal Seventh-Day Adventist group. A lady there asked me what "Lead us not into temptation" means. For her, it was a pretty problematic statement. We actually have to ask God to lead us not into temptation? Why would he lead us into it in the first place? God is good, right?

To be honest, I'm still not sure how to answer her question. On the one hand, there are clear passages denying that God tempts people to sin. James 1:13 affirms, for example, that "God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one" (NRSV). On the other hand, there are other passages in which God seems to lead people into sin. God hardens Pharaoh's heart (Exodus 4:21 et al). He incites David to conduct a census (II Samuel 24:1). He sends a lying spirit to deceive King Ahab (I Kings 22). God also tests his people, for Deuteronomy 13:3 states that God uses idolatrous prophets to put Israel to the test. Does God lead people into temptation? Maybe so.

A blogger who wrestles with this issue is Ryan, a conservative Christian who comments here every now and then. In one of his blogs, Ryan's Notes From God's Word, he has a post: "Difficult Passages: Do 2 Sam 24:1 and 1 Chron 21:1 Contradict?" Ryan's argument seems to be that God may lead into temptation those who are already sinful and unrepentant. For example, Pharaoh was a jerk before God hardened his heart. So God may harden people's heart in judgment of their sins, as Isaiah 6:9-10 appears to indicate.

Another point: the Lord's prayer may be based on previous Jewish ideas. If I'm not mistaken, I've read things in Ben Sira about God not tempting people (although I also vaguely recall an acknowledgement in that book that God hardens people's hearts). And Ben Sira 29:2-5 says that God will only forgive those who forgive others, an idea that appears in the Lord's prayer.

Some may say that Jesus' command to love your enemies was revolutionary. On some level, it was. The Qumran community didn't really follow that idea. But the concept does appear in the Hebrew Bible. An Israelite was to return the lost ass of one who hated him (Exodus 23:5). And Proverbs 21:25 says, "If your enemies are hungry, give them bread to eat; and if they are thirsty, give them water to drink."

Maybe Jesus was preaching new stuff, but he proclaimed old truths as well.

2. Source: Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1910) 217.

"Victor turned a deaf ear to this remonstrance, branded the Asiatics as heretics, and threatened to excommunicate them. But many of the Eastern bishops, and even Irenaeus, in the name of the Gallic Christians, though he agreed with Victor on the disputed point, earnestly reproved with for such arrogance, and reminded him of the more Christian and brotherly conduct of his predecessors...who sent the eucharist to their dissenting brethren."

Schaff is discussing the Quartodeciman controversy, which occurred in the second century and concerned a question of the festival calendar: will the church observe Easter Sunday, as Rome desired? Or would it commemorate Jesus' death on the Jewish Passover, as many Christians in Asia Minor did? Victor excommunicated the Asiatics who observed the Passover.

I'm surprised that Irenaeus challenged the pope. One thing I don't know is this: How much power do Catholics think the pope has? Sometimes, they talk like the pope has ultimate authority on faith and practice. God tells Peter in Matthew 16:19, after all, that Peter has authority to bind and loose, and there are Catholics who read Acts 15 to mean that the church had to accept the Gentiles after Peter gave his little speech, since Peter was pope.

At the same time, they don't exactly treat Peter or subsequent popes as infallible. They recognize that Paul challenged Peter's alienation of the Gentiles in Galatians 2, and they acknowledge there were corrupt popes in history. If memory serves me correctly, they usually address this by saying that these were mere foibles. In matters of faith and practice, however, God will guide the pope to make the right decision.

But, here, we see a pope exercising his authority to excommunicate, and a church father tells him that he's not acting very Christian. Maybe Irenaeus respected Victor's authority and decision, but he didn't think it corresponded with how Jesus would handle the situation. For Irenaeus, Jesus would still treat the Asiatics as brethren, rather than excommunicating them.

3. Jacob Neusner, Judaism's Story of Creation: Scripture, Halakhah, Aggadah (Boston: Brill, 2000) 40.

"The household on the Sabbath recapitulates Eden..."

Neusner may be discussing the rabbinic rules for the table, and how they treated a meal like a mini-temple service. I'm intrigued by his statement that the Sabbath recapitulates Eden. In a sense, I've felt that way when I have gone to Jewish Sabbath services: it's an atmosphere of peace and relaxation, in which God seems to be present. In a world of continual chaos, it's good to have a mini-Eden in the week.

I wonder, however, if the rabbinic rules of the Sabbath are conducive to this or not. We read in the New Testament that Jesus was critical of Pharisaic regulations regarding the Sabbath, since he believed that they subordinated human well-being to a day (e.g., Mark 2:27). But there are Jews who have argued that such rules are designed to protect the peace and sanctity of the Sabbath. Maybe they do. Maybe they don't. Personally, I wouldn't be too at peace if I had to worry about rules about a Sabbath days' journey, or what technically constitutes work, etc.

Canon and Ben Sira

Source: M. Gilbert, "Wisdom Literature," Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period, ed. Michael E. Stone (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) 300.

On Ben Sira:

"In the first century C.E. the book continued to circulate, as at Masada and Qumran. But nothing is known about the use made of it or the interpretation it was given in Judaism. There is no trace of its canonicity being debated at the synod of Jamnia (Yavneh) at the end of the century. One even has the impression that no objections were raised to its not being part of the Jewish canon of scripture. The opinion of Rabbi Akiba (d. after 135 C.E.) is of great importance. According to P.T. Sanhedrin 10, 28a, Akiba held that the book of Ben Sira was one of the 'exterior books, the reading of which excludes from the world to come.' According to Moore, the 'exterior books' would be the equivalent of 'the books of the minim', meaning those of heretics, as can be seen from B.T. Sanhedrin 100b, and probably according to T. Yadaim 2:13, Christian books. But Ginsberg has shown that 'exterior books' are simply 'books which are not part of the canon of scripture'. According to Rabbi Akiba, they could not be used for public reading or for school instruction. But Ben Sira could be read in private. And the many quotations from it given by the Tannaim and the Amoraim show that it was highly esteemed."

Ben Sira may have considered himself divinely-inspired. In Sirach 24:33, he says that he will, "pour out teaching like prophecy, and leave it to all future generations" (NRSV).

I'm not sure why some believed he belonged in the biblical canon, or why others did not. I've learned at least one thing from my study of the deutero-canonical writings: the post-apostolic fathers disagreed about the status of what Protestants call the "apocrypha." And scholars usually seek ideological reasons that Jews rejected the deutero-canonical writings: Ben Sira, for example, doesn't believe in an afterlife.

But there are books that made it into the Jewish canon, and they don't really believe in an afterlife either. Job is one example. Ecclesiastes is another. And, as we saw in Uninspired Canonical Books?, rabbis debated about Ecclesiastes' inspiration.

Some think that the deutero-canonical writings were excluded because the Christians used them. That's what a Catholic apologist said in a debate with James White. Maybe, but I don't see how the "apocrypha" supports Christian doctrine more than other books of the Hebrew Bible.

One professor told me years ago that the problem was their language: they weren't in Hebrew or Aramaic. But some of them had Hebrew or Aramaic originals (i.e., Ben Sira, possibly Tobit), so language can't be the only factor behind their rejection.

I've read somewhere that the rabbis closed the canon with Ezra, implying that they viewed Ezra as the last prophet. And that fits the Jewish canon quite well. The Hebrew Bible does not contain a prophet after the time of Ezra. While liberal scholars date Daniel to the second century B.C.E., the book presents itself as exilic, and that's probably what the rabbis went with when they included it in the canon. And Jewish tradition affirms that Ezra wrote Chronicles, the last book of the Hebrew Bible.

Why did Christians accept the deutero-canonical writings? I'm not sure. Maybe it was because Jews in the diaspora embraced them (for whatever reason). Or perhaps they weren't eager to close the canon with Ezra, since they believed that prophecy still continued. After all, they had their own set of new biblical books, which post-dated Ezra by over five centuries. We call it the New Testament. So why wouldn't they believe that books after Ezra could be inspired?

The Palestinian Jews, however, may have desired a clear cut-off point because of the instability of prophecy. As a professor at Hebrew Union College once said, prophets create instability, since they can claim a divine revelation that undermines the social structure. And, in the time of the Romans, the Jews felt they didn't need prophets who continually instigated political revolution. That may be why they made Ezra the cut-off man.

Elitist Wisdom Literature

Source: M. Gilbert, "Wisdom Literature," Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period, ed. Michael E. Stone (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) 283.

"Solomon played a still more important part in the development of wisdom in Israel. As organizer of the new state, he had to have capable administrators around him, and it is possible that schools or academies were set up for this purpose, to train the flower of the youth adequately, since they were called to take on responsibilities in the city or state."

I'm not sure what biblical scholars say about the authorship of Proverbs, but M. Gilbert treats wisdom literature as an elitist exercise. And I've heard this from other sources as well. For example, Proverbs and Ben Sira say that people shouldn't provide surety for someone else's debt, since the indebted one may not be able to pay his debtor back. A TA at Harvard said such a perspective reflects the elitist, conservative worldview of wisdom literature. And it wasn't always too generous (though it does have a lot supporting almsgiving)!

I think an elitist mileau may play a role in how wisdom literature addresses evil. Proverbs assumes that the wicked are punished and the righteous are rewarded. And Ecclesiastes seems to think it strange that life has problems and unfairness, when that would be pretty obvious to your average Israelite.

At the same time, Ben Sira writes as someone who sees social mobility: the poor can easily become rich, and the rich can easily become poor. For him, it all depends on God's favor to a person. Would Ben Sira write this, if he could take his comfortable position for granted? And Ben Sira also prays for deliverance from his enemies. How comfortable was he, socially speaking?

I'm not sure what role wisdom literature played when Ben Sira wrote. At that time, Israel did not have a monarchy, and I assume she was ruled by a foreign power, since the Hasmoneans had not yet declared Israel's independence. But maybe he was still part of an elite that trained people for power, for some Judeans had to run the show, even though ultimate power laid overseas.

My Dawkins Mood (and It's Unrelated to Dating)

Source: Malcom Schofield, "The Presocratics," The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Philosophy, ed. David Sedley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) 52:

"One clue to the distinctive focus of the Pythagorean way of life is the fact that Herodotus associated it with the rites and writings of Orphic religion. By the fifth century BC the name of Orpheus had become attached to the doctrine that the body is a prison in which the soul serves out its punishment for sin, and to practices designed to purify initiates and ensure their happiness before and after death (these included renunciation of animal sacrifice). A similar belief as to how and why the soul must be purified if it is to achieve ultimate escape from the cycle of reincarnation is what seems to have animated Pythagoreanism."

That's one view of life and the afterlife. And how do we know it's wrong?

I'm sorry. I'm in a skeptical mood today.

I was thinking today about different beliefs about the afterlife. To be honest, none of them really satisfy me. I'll state my reason before I go into them: there are people who die at birth. Infant mortality exists here and in other parts of the world. Okay, now let's see how this poses a problem for various views on the afterlife:

Evangelical view: God either sends the babies to hell, or he lets them into heaven because they didn't reach the age of accountability. Why would God create them if they were going to die so quickly?

Armstrongite view: God will give them a chance to receive salvation after their resurrection. Why couldn't God have given them a chance the first time around--by allowing them to grow up?

Reincarnation view: The souls are in the body to learn lessons, and their afterlife depends on how they do in this life. Well, well, well. The souls sure had a short stay when they were in the bodies of the babies who died. They're in, then they're out. Hasta la vista!

No afterlife religious view: Here, I think of Ben Sira, much of the Hebrew Bible, and various strands of Judaism, which don't really believe in an afterlife. According to this view, God created human beings and rewards or punishes them in this life. But why would God create someone who would die at birth? It makes absolutely no sense!

I just feel sometimes that religions try to get around the absurdity of life. They act like they're making sense of everything, or that they're needed for life to make sense. Actually, it seems like they're trying to add meaning to a reality that's absurd.

That's my first point. Here's my second one:

You know, people for generations have had various ideas about life and the afterlife. Why should I assume that they're wrong, while embracing a belief system that is 2,000 years old--Christianity? I get so sick of Christian dogmatism, when it seems that Christianity is one belief among many in the history of ideas. And its ideas are historically placed. You don't see much about bodily resurrection in many parts of the Hebrew Bible. But Daniel talks about it, the Pharisees picked it up, and the belief formed part of the cultural context in which Christianity emerged. Christianity looks like it was floating on the currents of its historical context--at least in this case. It absorbs an idea from its time, which wasn't held in every era of biblical composition. What's that do to the idea of the entire Bible conveying one absolute truth from beginning to end?

Don't worry, folks. I'm not an atheist. I just have questions every now and then.

Ben Sira's View of the Afterlife

I finished Ben Sira last night. Something that many scholars point out is that Ben Sira didn't really believe in an afterlife. He told his readers to enjoy the pleasures of life and the fruits of their labors, since they won't be able to do so in Hades (Sirach 14:10-16). At the same time, he doesn't promote gluttony, drunkenness, or fornication, since such activity can have bad effects in the here-and-now (Sirach 9; 23; 31:27-28; 37:29-31).

And his focus is not exactly "eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow may bring pain or death," for he also believes people should enjoy spiritual pleasures while they still can. He says in Sirach 17:27-28: "Who will sing praises to the Most High in Hades in place of the living who give thanks? From the dead, as from one who does not exist, thanksgiving has ceased; those who are alive and well sing the Lord's praises" (NRSV). His message there is "Repent while you still can, for you won't always be able to enjoy God." You don't hear that message in a lot of pulpits! There, it's often "Repent, or else!"

There is one passage that presents a fiery hell for the wicked, Sirach 7:17: "Humble yourself to the utmost, for the punishment of the ungodly is fire and worms." The deuterocanonical writings show some movement in the direction of eternal torment, for Judith 16:17 states regarding the nations: "The Lord Almighty will take vengeance on them in the day of judgment; he will send fire and worms into their flesh; they shall weep in pain forever." But Sirach 7:17 appears so out-of-sync with Ben Sira's overall view of the afterlife, that Alexander A. Di Lella views it as a later addition in his Anchor Bible Dictionary article, "Wisdom of Ben Sira."

Overall, Ben-Sira maintains that God punishes the wicked in this life, often with premature death (Sirach 21:10). Granted, there are wicked people who prosper up to the end of their lives, but God is able to give them a miserable death so that they forget their past pleasures (Sirach 11:26-28). And because we all live so short a time, God shows a lot of patience towards us so we have time to get things right (Sirach 18:9-13).

What is the hope of the righteous? According to Ben Sira, because wisdom disciplines us, we may go through difficult times, but God will reward us if we persevere in obedience (Sirach 2). God is able to lift the poor out of poverty, while bringing down the rich (Sirach 11:12-19). As Di Lella states, "In the long run...the upright will enjoy long life (1:12), good health (1:18), a good marriage (26:3), happiness (26:4), joy in their children (25:7c), and a good and lasting name (37:26; 39:11)."

Two puzzling verses about immortality are Sirach 46:12 and 49:10:

46:12: "May [the judges'] bones send forth new life from where they lie, and may the names of those who have been honored live again in their children!"

49:10: "May the bones of the Twelve Prophets send forth new life from where they lie, for they comforted the people of Jacob and delivered them with confident hope."

I don't know what it means for bones to send forth new life. Is Ben Sira saying that the words of the prophets continue to have a positive impact? That God honors the people on account of the righteous lives and deaths of the judges and prophets? That the biblical figures live on through their children? I'm not sure. In any case, these verses remind me of Elisha's bones bringing a corpse to life (II Kings 13:21), something Ben Sira refers to in Sirach 49:13-14.

Overall, Ben Sira has an Old Testament view on life after death: God rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked in this life (Deuteronomy, Proverbs); when God rescues people from Sheol, that means he's saving them from death, not that he's resurrecting them (e.g., Psalm 30); people live on through their descendants and the property they pass on, explaining why the Hebrew Bible has levirite marriage and inheritance laws (Numbers 27; 36; Deuteronomy 25:5-10).

I don't understand how people could live in real life and believe that way. After all, isn't it obvious that life is messier than that--that many righteous people suffer, while many wicked people prosper? Job eventually comes along and affirms that there are wicked people who prosper up to the time of their deaths (Job 21; 24). So much for the Psalmist's view that the wicked get their come-uppance in this life! But did no one notice this injustice before the time of Job?

Maybe God at one time was more active in rewarding the righteous and punishing the wicked. In Genesis 38:7, he kills wicked Er right on the spot! Or perhaps there were biblical authors who were cloistered from society at large, so they viewed life from their ivory towers as fairer than it actually was. I don't know.

One thing that's interesting: You'd expect many of the biblical authors to judge the poor because of their poverty. After all, the poor are not prospering, so they must not have been obeying God! But virtually all of the biblical writings stress that God has a special concern for the poor, to the point that they have his ear when someone helps or hurts them (Deuteronomy 24:13, 15; Proverbs 19:17). And Sirach believes this too (Sirach 21:5).

Moreover, Marx said that religion is the opium of the masses, which means that the poor workers look to a "pie-in-the-sky" afterlife because their present situation is so miserable. And the rich love this sort of set-up, since the poor will keep on enduring their misery as they work for the rich, deluded that their afterlife will be a lot better. But if that's the sum-total explanation of religion's origin, how's it account for the Old Testament's religious strands that lack an afterlife?

These themes relate to the Feast of Tabernacles. I once read a book by Rabbi Harold Kushner about the Book of Ecclesiastes, which many Jews read on Succoth. Ecclesiastes is about life being short, and nothing really satisfying a person because of that fact. It ends with a message of "Enjoy life while you still can, and don't forget to fear God, for that's your purpose in life" (Ecclesiastes 11-12). My last post interpreted the Feast of Tabernacles in terms of waiting for the afterlife. But maybe it can also communicate a message of enjoying this life to the full, since life is a sort of temporary dwelling.

FOT 2008, Day 5

This will be somewhat of a wandering post, so be forewarned!

One Feast of Tabernacles sermon that I remember was given by Ron Dart. I don't entirely remember where it was--Florida? French Lick? Williamsburg? Kentucky? I'm not sure.

But Ron Dart brought up Matthew 6:25-34, which concerns not worrying about life's necessities. Jesus says in v 33, "But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (NRSV).

Dart told a story about a student at Ambassador College who was worried about exams. He decided to spend an hour on prayer and Bible study each day, and he ended up doing better on his exams than the other students. Dart's lesson was "Put God first, and everything else will fall into place."

I've lived by this rule for a long period of my life. I need to trust in God for academic success. Tests are intimidating. I have to remember a bunch of stuff, and I feel limited in my capacities. You don't think that I'll be going into those tests relying only on myself, do you? You know the old saying: "As long as there are math tests, there will be school prayer."

Moreover, if I had to spend my life only thinking about work or school, I'd be miserable. I need to feed my spiritual self. That's another reason I pray every day--or "put God first."

But do things always work out? You know, there are many times when I feel that God exists for other people, but not for me--or anyone else with Asperger's, for that matter. I don't feel like complaining about the specifics of that here, however, since I've done so in numerous other posts.

I always rest on the Sabbath and the holy days, because I assume that God will take care of me if I do so. This has worked so far. If I had an exam on a holy day, I could talk with my professors and take it at another time. At Harvard, there were enough Jewish students that I could take the test with a room-full of other people. And, at Jewish Theological Seminary and Hebrew Union College, I actually got the holy days off.

But how do things work in the real world? I remember reading J's blog about employment and the Sabbath and holy days. Those festivals can give a lot of employees problems, let me tell you! Does God provide in those cases? They don't always keep their jobs, if that's what's being asked. But I doubt that many of them are going homeless, so maybe he does.

While I'm pondering the existence of God, I want to comment on one of J's posts, "shiny-happy-bible-beating whitewash". One of the posters there, I think it was Byker Bob, said that he noticed that Christian ex-Armstrongites were less bitter than the atheistic and agnostic ones. I'm not going to judge either group, but it got me thinking some about my life. You know, there were times this week when I really hated God, though I must say that, in the midst of all that rancor, I told God that I didn't want to hate him. And I don't. But why do I hate him? Because this life is so hard. My life doesn't work out like what I see on movies or on television. Heck, it doesn't even work out like what I see in other peoples' lives!

Hating God does not make me feel better. But neither does telling myself happy-happy things that I have a hard time accepting. There have been many times in my life when I have tried the Christian route. I attempted to convince myself that God had a plan for my life and would bless me in the future. I sought to obey what I believed to be the will of God: to sell others a fundamentalist Christian script that I memorized, to attend church and Bible studies, etc. But my life still didn't work out. I've still never had a girlfriend. I still didn't fit into most settings. It just gets to the point where faith seems like a pie-in-the-sky delusion.

But I feel that God ministered to me through Ben Sira this week. This was one of my daily quiet times where I couldn't sleep, so I got up and prayed. Ben Sira believes that God made everything for a reason (Sirach 39:33-34). And he talks a lot about how good it is for a man to have a nice wife as his help mate (7:19; 25:8; 26:1-4, 14-18; 36:26-31). 36:29-30 exemplifies Ben Sira's positive treatment of women: "He who acquires a wife gets his best possession, a helper fit for him and a pillar of support. Where there is no fence, the property will be plundered; and where there is no wife, a man will become a fugitive and a wanderer."

Yet, there are times when Ben Sira can be downright misogynist. I think many writers focus on these incidents to the exclusion of the good things he says about women, but one has to admit that this remark is pretty bad: "Better is the wickedness of a man than a woman who does good; it is woman who brings shame and disgrace" (42:14). Yikes!

But Ben Sira explains what he means throughout Sirach 42: men have lots of worries when it comes to their daughters. Will they be raped? Will they get seduced by a scumbag? When women had sex before marriage in those days, their bridal price went down, since virgins were more valuable. And a loose woman could also bring shame to her father.

I have a variety of reactions to Ben Sira here. For one, he somewhat creeps me out, since I can see a father using what he says as a pretext for abuse. I think of what Beverley Marsh's father said on Stephen King's IT: "Bev, I need to protect you from these boys." But I also poked fun at Ben Sira in my meditation. "What's the matter, Ben Sira?" I thought. "You said God made everything for a good reason! Are you saying God made a mistake when he gave you a daughter?" Then my mind turned to how unfair life can be. When women have lots of sex, they're called whores. When men have lots of sex, they're called studs. I can understand why there are bitter feminists.

So where did God minister to me in all this? Look, I can't really say I know what God does. But I was reminded of two things that helped me out: (1.) God made all things for a purpose, but life is still hard and has lots of worries. Even a godly man like Ben Sira can acknowledge that, and (2.) Many people are bitter and view life as unfair, and for good reason, since society is discriminatory and unfair.

That doesn't totally make me feel better, since my mind can easily bring up, "Well, at least they have social skills, or a job, or a date, etc." But it helped me get out of my self-pity mode for just a little while.

I'm going to go outside to enjoy this beautiful day. I may finish up Ben Sira before the day is over!

Feast of Tabernacles 2008

Today is the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles. If you want to read my reflections on last year's feast, see Feast of Tabernacles 2007.

The first day of the Feast of Tabernacles is a Sabbath. Ordinarily, I do a weekly quiet time on Sabbath days. For my current one, I'm in I Samuel. I study a chapter, which includes listening to sermons about it, reading the Hebrew and Greek, and perusing Christian, Jewish, and historical-critical commentaries. At the end, I pray about what I studied. This sounds like a lot to accomplish, but I do much of it simultaneously. For example, I may read John Gill while I listen to Jake's hero, Chuck Missler. And I also do leisurely things as I study. I may play Pac-Man while listening to Jon Courson, or watch the Waltons while reading Matthew Henry.

Today, I wasn't really up to this. The weather is beautiful outside, and I wanted to enjoy it while the autumn is still here. Winter is coming, and I won't be able to relish the outdoors at that time! So what did I do? I did a few chapters for my daily quiet time, which I can do while I'm walking. That's not always the most productive way to do it, since my mind can easily degenerate into stinkin-thinkin! But I take my Bible with me to remind myself what the chapter is about. And I've started jotting down notes to jolt my memory.

This practice is especially appropriate right now because I'm reading Ben Sira, also known as Sirach and Ecclesiasticus. Reading Ben Sira is like reading Proverbs. When I was at Jewish Theological Seminary, I was doing Proverbs for my daily quiet time (among other books). It could be frustrating, for the author discussed various subjects in a given chapter, and I didn't always remember all of his topics while I was walking to school (which was my prayer time). That's why I'm trying not to make the same mistake with Ben Sira!

Today, my Ben Sira quiet times were pretty good. I did a few of them for the past couple of days, and they can be stressful, let me tell you! I feel like I have to comment on all the ramifications of what he's saying. And he contradicts himself a lot. Do you hang around with the rich and powerful, or do you not? Do you show your wisdom when you are poor, or do you hold your tongue? Following Ben Sira would be a hard task, since I'd feel like I was making a wrong step wherever I turned! But I was a little more laid back today. I looked at the chapter and summarized what it was saying, then I focused on the points that especially spoke to me. Right now, what's on my mind from my Ben Sira quiet times are two points: (1.) Don't rely on dreams as much as the Torah, wisdom, and God for divine revelation and (in turn) hope, and (2.) What's the point of becoming clean, when you'll go back out and become dirty all over again?

The second point is understandable, but I don't know how to apply it in every area of my life. I ask God to forgive sins that I have no intention of forsaking (e.g., lusting after women). Why do I ask God for forgiveness? Because I want him in my life! I want to be blessed! I want to know that someone is looking out for me. But I feel like I have to appease him and wipe my slate clean on a continual basis, even when I'm not repentant. It's like I recognize a rule, but it doesn't make sense to me, so I have a hard time beating myself up when I break it. Does that make any sense?

I ate at a cheap Italian restaurant. I can't say much for the service, since the hot waitresses never offered me a refill on my drink. But the food was good. And maybe it's nice not to go there too often, since I'm rather strapped for funds.

I took some leftovers, and I noticed a homeless lady standing outside. I gave her my leftovers. Am I saying this to brag? Partly. But I think there's a lesson in this experience. I usually feel bad when I see this lady standing outside, since I don't buy her a sandwich. But, these days, I only have money to buy myself lunch, not someone else's. Today, however, I had something to give. I realized that I had plenty of food at home, so I could give my leftovers to someone who'd really appreciate them. That reminds me of what John the Baptist said in Luke 3:11: "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise" (NRSV). We give from what we have, not from what we don't have.

At the same time, I should place all of this in perspective before I pat myself on the back. For one, sure, I gave her food for today. But what will happen to her tomorrow and the next day? I did well to give her relief for a little bit of time, but, in the grand scheme of things, that's not really enough. But it's still something.

Second, even homeless people want to be treated with dignity. She asked me if I had eaten off of the food, and I said no. You'd expect her to be happy with whatever she got, but she's like everyone else: she doesn't want people's germs! I told her to enjoy the food, and she said thanks in a cold, abrupt manner, though she was really appreciative when I first asked her if she wanted some wings and bread. I'm not sure if there was unintentional sarcasm in my voice when I told her to enjoy her food--meaning that I didn't intend to be sarcastic, but that's how I came across. Ben Sira says that coming across as a reluctant giver is a bad thing. Oh well! Ben Sira seems to be like a lot of Christians, who think that if you don't do something perfectly, then you'd might as well not do it. That's hogwash! If that were true, then no one would do anything, including those who believe this way (but, then again, they probably see themselves as perfect, so there goes that!).

What will I do for the rest of the day? I may call some of my family. There's a book on Asperger's and employment that I want to look at. I have to find my fourth step worksheet for Alcoholics Anonymous. I need to watch a few episodes of the Waltons to free up a couple of hours on the video-tape, so I can tape the Waltons tomorrow morning. And Eli Stone's season premier is tonight! We'll have another season of leftist politics with a religious twist.

But today is a day to enjoy myself. And, whatever this post may communicate, I did precisely that!

What Helps Me Love My Enemies...

Here are some thoughts that help me to love my enemies:

1. I do a weekly quiet time on holy days and weekly Sabbaths. Yesterday, on the Day of Atonement, I studied I Samuel 1. The Encyclopedia Judaica's article on Peninnah says the following about Elkanah's wife Peninnah, who had lots of children and taunted Elkanah's childless wife, Hannah:

"[Peninnah] was...ultimately punished. Two of her children died whenever Hannah gave birth; and she thus witnessed the death of eight of her ten children. The last two were spared solely as a result of Hannah's intercession with the Almighty on her behalf (PR, ibid., 182a).

That's horrible! Whenever Hanna had a child, two of Peninnah's kids died. There are plenty of people I can't stand, but I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy!

Isn't that what forgiveness is, in part? Freeing our enemies from punishment?

2. As I was fasting yesterday, some hateful thoughts entered my mind. I can be pretty mean when I'm hungry! But my hunger reminded me that I share something with the rest of humanity: I need to eat to survive. And the same is true of my enemies. That insight tended to make them more vulnerable and human in my eyes, so I didn't hate them as much at that moment. But it also made me look more human. I often see myself as righteous, and my enemies as sub-human sinners. Not so! We're all human beings, with the same needs.

I encountered the same idea this morning, when I read Sirach 8:4-7:

"Do not make fun of one who is ill-bred, or your ancestors may be insulted. Do not reproach one who is turning away from sin; remember that we all deserve punishment. Do not disdain one who is old, for some of us are also growing old. Do not rejoice over any one's death; remember that we must all die."

We're all human! We sin, we grow old, and we die. So who are we to look down on someone else? We can hope that the other person chooses a better path, but we shouldn't vaunt ourselves, as if we're superior. All of us are vulnerable.