Oleson Vs. Oleson

I just watched the Little House on the Prairie episode, Oleson vs. Oleson.

What happens is this: A woman comes to Walnut Grove to give a lecture against a law that gives a woman’s property to her husband once they marry. She circulates a petition to the state legislature to change that law. Percival, Nellie’s husband from New York, signs the petition, for New York has a law that says the woman gets to keep her property when she gets married. But Charles doesn’t support that kind of egalitarian policy, for he believes that sharing and mutual trust are important to a marriage, whereas a policy of “what’s yours is yours and what’s mine is mine” can be detrimental. Other husbands feel that women need their husbands to support them, and that’s their basis for supporting the status quo. And Nels Oleson, whose wife, Harriett, continually runs all over him, feels empowered when he hears that the law regards him as the sole owner of his family and its property.

The women revolt by leaving their households. Their husbands prove inept at housework, cooking, and the rearing of their children, so they see that they need their wives, who make a genuine contribution to their homes. And Nels, who ordinarily does the cooking anyway, learns that he needs his wife to run the mercantile effectively. Charles concludes that a law allowing women to keep their property may be necessary because of the husbands who could abuse their legal power, and he leads the men of Walnut Grove to sign the petition. They all get their wives back, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Some people don’t like this episode because they regard it as too feminist. They prefer nice, mild-mannered Mrs. Ingalls to Ms. Ingalls, the women’s-libber!

But what would Betty Friedan think about this episode? She liked the pioneers, as I discuss in Feminine Mystique 11, so she would probably appreciate Caroline Ingall’s little speech to Charles about how they came to the frontier and were partners in building a house, a farm, and a new life, so why not have a law that recognizes that partnership? At the same time, would she have thought highly of Percival’s implication that New York was more progressive on gender equality than back-woods Walnut Grove? I’m not sure. I mean, if that’s the way it was in the area of property laws, then she probably wouldn’t have minded Percival saying that. But her point in the Feminine Mystique was that pioneer states were ahead of the game on women’s rights, for, there, men and women worked together to tame the frontier, almost as equals. As she points out, Wyoming was the first state to give women the right to vote!

I doubt that she would’ve appreciated the theme of the women boycotting their housework and leaving that to their inept husbands. The subtext here is that men and women have clear gender roles. The women do a good job as homemakers, whereas men stink in that role and should focus instead on bringing home the bacon. So the episode glorifies a feminism that assumes traditional gender roles, which is an essential part of the Feminine Mystique that Friedan criticizes on page after page of her book. At the same time, however, I can’t be absolute about this. Nels was the homemaker of his household, whereas Harriett was the shrewd business-woman, and, even then, they worked together at the mercantile. Betty Friedan would probably like that. And Caroline worked outside of the home—as a cook at Nellie’s Hotel. Yet, that’s somewhat of a feminine role, and Caroline did that to bring income to her family, not out of a desire for self-fulfillment. Betty Friedan probably wouldn’t like that.

But the episode was enjoyable, even though I got a nagging feeling that scenes were cut out. Of course, scenes that I saw as a child are not shown on the Hallmark Channel, but I have a nagging feeling that even the Hallmark Channel is cutting out scenes that it used to show, in order to make room for advertisements.

The end was classic. Laura Ingalls Wilder narrates that her mom says women will one day get the right to vote, but she (Laura) doubts it. Yet, we all know that they did!

Van Seters Vs. Levinson on Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread (In Van Seters’ Telling)

I finally finished John Van Seters’ A Law Book for the Diaspora! In this post, I want to look at pages 163ff., in which Van Seters interacts with B.M. Levinson’s Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation.

It takes a great deal of concentration to follow Van Seters’ argument, and, quite frankly, I’m not even sure right now if I got it! But here’s my impression of his scenario. In his view, we have Deuteronomy 16:1-4, which talks about the Passover, then gives instructions about eating unleavened bread for seven days, as well as the de-leavening of one’s home. Following that, in vv 5-7, we read that the Passover is to be eaten in the central sanctuary. Then, v 8 says that the Israelites are to eat unleavened bread for six days (which, with the Passover, make seven days in all, the duration of time in which the Israelites are to eat Unleavened Bread). In v 16, in which there is a summary of the festivals, we see a reference to the Feast of Unleavened Bread, but not the Passover.

Van Seters’ conclusion is that the Feast of Unleavened Bread emerged in the exile as “a temporary substitution for the Passover”. That’s why we only see the Feast of Unleavened Bread mentioned in Exodus 23:15 and 34:18, without a reference to the Passover (Exodus 23:15). In the exilic setting of those passages, Van Seters maintains, there was no Passover, for the Feast of Unleavened Bread was replacing it. According to Van Seters, Exodus 23:15 and 34:18 are based on Exodus 13:1-10, which is about eating bread for seven days and de-leavening one’s home. In the Second Temple Period, however, the Feast of Unleavened Bread was combined with the Passover, which made a comeback at that time.

So I’m taking it that Van Seters is proposing this scenario. We have Deuteronomy 16, which focuses on the Passover. During the exile, somebody adds the Unleavened Bread stuff to Deuteronomy 16, perhaps to show that Unleavened Bread is a replacement for Passover, and can function as such in exile because it was once associated with the Passover. Then, once Unleavened Bread was established as replacing the Passover in exile, we have texts such as Exodus 13:1-10; 23:15; and 34:18, which mention the Feast of Unleavened Bread alone—without the Passover.

Levinson’s scenario is slightly different. Levinson says that Deuteronomy 16 reflects an attempt to combine the Passover with the Days of Unleavened Bread. So Exodus 12:21-27 (about the Passover alone); 13:3-10 (about Unleavened Bread alone); and 23:14, 17 (about Unleavened Bread alone) were passages that existed prior to the composition of Deuteronomy 16, which put the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread together.

But Exodus 34:25 mentions the Passover! If Deuteronomy 16 combined the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread and came after the time of the Exodus passages about the Days of Unleavened Bread, as Levinson proposes, then why does Exodus 34:25 mention the Passover? Levinson views that as a late, post-Deuteronomistic revision. After Deuteronomy 16 was written, Levine argues, someone went back to the early text of Exodus 34 and added to it a stray reference to the Passover.

For Levinson, Passover was originally an “apotropaic ritualized slaughter by each household”, as we see in Exodus 12. Basically, each homehold killed a lamb to protect itself from harmful spirits! We see these sorts of rituals in other cultures. But the author of Deuteronomy came along and moved the ritual to the central sanctuary. Van Seters seems to agree with Levinson on this. But they differ in that, whereas Van Seters says that the Exodus passages about the Days of Unleavened Bread emerged after the composition of Deuteronomy 16, Levinson asserts the opposite. Van Seters’ view here gels with his overall argument: that the Covenant Code came about later than the Book of Deuteronomy.

Conservative Judgmentalism

Rachel Held Evans had a post, The Christian Response to Health Care Reform, in which I got a little heated. She closed the thread, so I’ll be ranting on my own blog on the issue of conservative judgmentalism.

You know, one of my problems is that I often react against an amorphous blob in my mind rather than to specific statements. In the process, I can sound like a raving lunatic. So allow me here to cite specific statements.

1. On Facebook, a conservative friend of mine posted an article by David Hogberg, entitled, “20 Ways ObamaCare Will Take Away Our Freedoms.” The article had some of these gems:

You are young and healthy and want to pay for insurance that reflects that status? Tough. You’ll have to pay for premiums that cover not only you, but also the guy who smokes three packs a day, drink a gallon of whiskey and eats chicken fat off the floor. That’s because insurance companies will no longer be able to underwrite on the basis of a person’s health status. (Section 2701).

You are an employer and you would like to offer coverage that doesn’t allow your employers’ slacker children to stay on the policy until age 26? Tough. (Section 2714).

2. On Rachel’s blog, Anon1 wrote: The issue you raise is an important one. Public hospitals have to service the uninsured because they receive public money (we are taxed so the poor can receive free care). Should some uninsured be turned away? Some yes and some no. Some should not be turned away and some should be because some have chosen to spend money on unnecessary things such as cable television or Taco Bell or a cell phone instead of setting money aside for a visit to the doctor. If a person has squandered the money they have had or refused to get a job should we as a nation feel compelled to service them? If so, to what degree? Are there any lines which we as a society should draw? If so where and why?

Some of us have high deductible insurance – $5,000 or more. Such a deductible brings the insurance cost down, forces us to save, and keeps us personally responsible for ourselves and for our needs. I think our government as well as some individuals have the tendency take the element of personal responsibility away from many people in our society. Let us take care of you is a message many have heard almost all of their lives. That is not compassion it is evil.

It’s not that conservatives don’t make some good points—about the deficit, the government’s coldness, the importance of competition, the need for tort reform, the fact that government health care can lead to a degree of rationing, since the government has finite resources, etc. I just feel that there are conservatives who have a “you made your bed, now sleep in it” attitude, even if that bed is illness and death. And there are conservatives who judge the poor and the sick. They act as if they deserve their problems. You don’t know how many times I hear “If you don’t work, you don’t eat” (II Thessalonians 3:10) from conservatives whenever someone suggests that the government should help somebody out—with health care, with housing, with food. But there are people who work their tails off, and they’re still poor! They’re called the “working poor.” And the cost of health care is heavy on the middle class as well.

Robert Culp, Helicopter Parents, Democratizing Priestly Food Laws, Copying Cuneiform, A Scholar Is Moved, Tyconius the Proto-Preterist?

1. Actor Robert Culp has passed away. I mentioned him last month in a post on Roots: The Next Generation, for he appeared in an episode of that miniseries (see Roots TNG 4-5, Reward and Punishment in Wisdom Literature?, YHWH Alone, We’re Rodents!, Pythagoreans on the Cosmos’ Origin). I read today that both he and his co-star on I-Spy, Bill Cosby, were active in the Civil Rights Movement. I remember Robert Culp on an episode of the Cosby Show, in which he played a person with heart problems whose wife wanted him to improve his diet. And, as viewers of the Cosby Show realize, that was also a struggle for Dr. Cliff Huxtable! But the two of them were in the kitchen, going wild over pizza and potato chips, until their wives walked in!

Robert Culp usually played a no-nonsense type of character. It’s too bad that he died in his 70’s.

2. On the Eagle Forum’s blog, Phyllis Schlafly has a post, More Youth Are Depressed Now. Mrs. Schlafly states:

Other mental health professionals have chronicled the mistakes of so-called “helicopter” parents, who hover over their children to protect them from every perceived slight and failure. Such children don’t develop the real-life coping skills needed to stick to a budget or accept criticism from a boss.

That sounds a lot like Betty Friedan in the Feminine Mystique! See Feminine Mystique 10, under number 1. I wrote that on Mrs. Schlafly’s Facebook page, and a lady wrote underneath my comment that she’s glad that she grew up in the 1950’s. Her implication was that the 1950’s didn’t have the problem of a high number of depressed youth. But that’s a decade in which, according to Betty Friedan, the Feminine Mystique (the view that women are only fulfilled as wives and mothers) was in full swing. So there’s a difference of opinion about whether or not the Feminine Mystique produced children who can’t cope with life. As always, reality is complex, so maybe both views are correct, in some way, shape, or form.

3. In A Law Book for the Diaspora, John Van Seters states on page 154: It is quite possible that the special food laws of Deuteronomy originally applied to priests as holy persons and that Deuteronomy has extended this principle to all Israelites.

Van Seters is talking specifically about not eating an animal that has died of itself or been torn by another animal. In Leviticus 22:8, that law applies to priests. Elsewhere in the Torah (Leviticus 17:15; 22:8; Deuteronomy 14:21), it applies to all Israelites. Could we assume that the law applied to everyone simultaneously—both priests and lay Israelites? Perhaps, but it’s also possible that a priestly law was applied to all of Israel, as there emerged a belief that Israel was to be a kingdom of priests to God. I wonder how other ancient Near Eastern countries were on this. Did they apply priestly laws to the populace, or not?

4. Speaking of Van Seters, Mordechai Cogan says the following on page 91 of his Anchor Bible commentary on I Kings: Thus, the somewhat whimsical picture drawn by Van Seters…of the author of Kings traveling around the country reading and copying cuneiform (!) inscriptions so as to tell the story of the Assyrian conquest of Samaria and their battles in Judah can be set aside. We are thus having spared having to credit him with a knowledge of hieroglyphs and/or demotic…

Cogan believes the the author of Kings (or one of them, anyway) had Israelite source material (“records of wars, tribute payments,” etc.).

I wonder why Van Seters thinks that the author of Kings copied cuneiform inscriptions. That reminded me of a minimalist I read, who stated that biblical writings only look historical because their authors copied stuff from other histories. But it’s been years since I read that, so I may be fuzzy on the details.

5. I finished H.I. Marrou’s A History of Education in Antiquity. My quote for today is from page 446:

There is a charming passage in one of St. Basil’s writings describing the joy of the children in Caesaria in 368 on being allowed to forget school and writing tablets for a day so that they could take part in the prayers ordered by the bishop on the occasion of a famine caused by a drought, thus in their innocence turning a time of general sorrow into a holiday (Hom. VIII, 72, PG, 31, 309); this suggests an atmosphere of confidence and co-operation between parents and teachers and the church.

I like Marrou’s use of the term “charming,” for it shows that he can be emotionally affected by the things that he studies. Many scholars write in a manner that so sterile that I wonder if they even do care about their subject!

6. I also finished Manlio Simonetti’s Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church. On page 95, Simonetti refers to the African Donatist Tyconius, who lived in the fourth century C.E. Tyconius believed the following about Daniel 2:

The stone cut from the mountain which annihilates the kingdoms of the world (Dan. 2:34) is a figure of Christ, but when it becomes a mountain, which fills the whole earth, it specifically prefigures the church.

I can somewhat understand Tyconius’ perspective here. In Matthew 21:42-44, Jesus calls himself the cornerstone that the builders rejected, saying that, on whomever the stone will fall, it will grind him to powder (KJV); that echoes Daniel 2, in which a stone from heaven falls on the image representing the Gentile powers. Also, if the feet of clay in the image of Daniel 2 was Rome, which was the belief of Jews and Christians in those days (at least from the first century C.E. onward), then wouldn’t the Messiah come during the time of the Roman empire? Wouldn’t his kingdom spread at his coming? Christ hasn’t returned for 2,000 years, but his church spread over the earth. When I was researching for my power-point presentation on Byzantine Jerusalem, I learned of a Christian belief that the reign of Constantine was actually the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies about the coming paradise.

Personally, I have a hard time considering the church the fulfillment of Daniel 2, since it’s had a lot of sin and oppression in its ranks (and it extended that oppression outside of its ranks as well). But it’s interesting to find a belief that says Daniel 2 was fulfilled near the time of the Roman empire.

Dtr Forgiveness, Exilic Enemy’s Ox, Theodore on Galatians 4:24, Divinized Scribes

1. Two quotes stood out to me in my reading today of John Van Seters’ A Law Book for the Diaspora:

Page 135: It is not typical of Dtr, who in one late instance in Deut 4:31 uses the epithet “merciful God”…to suggest Yahweh’s forgiving nature toward his people.

This is an interesting point, but it would be nice to read a scholarly treatment of the Deuteronomistic stance on divine forgiveness. God forgives in Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History. Deuteronomy 30 says that God will restore Israel if she returns to him. In the Book of Judges, we see this in action, over and over again. At the same time, God doesn’t necessarily forgive totally in the Deuteronomistic History, for, even though Josiah repented, God still destroyed Judah on account of the sins of Manasseh (II Kings 23:25-26).

Page 140: Exodus 23:4 states that, if an Israelite sees his enemy’s ox or donkey wandering off, he’s to take the animal to its owner. Van Seters says that this shows the exilic context of the Covenant Code. Van Seters takes “enemy” to be Gentile nations, for Leviticus 26:34-35 calls the land of Israel’s exile “the land of your enemies.” And, although Van Seters doesn’t mention this, Exodus 23:22, 27 means hostile nations when it refers to “enemies.” Prior to the exile, Van Seters argues, it would be “extremely rare that [Israelites] would be able to identify a wandering ox as belonging to a particular Moabite, Ammonite, Aramean, etc.” But, during the Babylonian exile, when Israelites live close to the “enemy,” they’d probably encounter their enemy’s ox or ass.

2. Manlio Simonetti, Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church, page 73.

Theodore of Mopsuestia (fourth-fifth centuries C.E.) tended to interpret the Scriptures literally, in contrast to those who viewed Scripture as an allegory, pregnant with meaning beneath the surface. So how did Theodore interpret Galatians 4:24, in which Paul treats the story of Sarah and Hagar in Genesis as an allegory for justification by grace through faith versus trying to become justified through keeping the law? Essentially, Theodore says that Paul is making an analogy between the two, not that Paul maintains that the Genesis story has a deeper meaning (justification).

3. H.I. Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity, page 356.

The scribes’ veneration was also to be directed to “heroes”, i.e. divinised scribes, like the celebrated Imhotep, minister and architect to the old king Djezer who built the pyramid with steps in Saqqarah (twenty-eighth century) and later Amenhotep, the son of Hapu, a scribe under Amenophis III (1405-1370)…

This is Egypt, which had a rigorous conception of the afterlife. I’m not sure what’s meant by divinized scribes, though. I thought all of the dead went to the Underworld to be judged. Did some people go to heaven, or to a realm of the gods?

Some Reflections on the Feminine Mystique, Spilling into the Song of Songs, While El Gets Drunk!

1. One problem I have with Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique is this: it implies that women’s self-esteem should be rooted in their professional accomplishments. Granted, accomplishing stuff is a path to feeling good about oneself. But what happens during the dry stages of life, when one isn’t accomplishing that much, or doesn’t have a lot to show for his or her effort? Tides can also turn. Can one feel good when one’s economic condition takes a downturn? Moreover, what happens when a person succeeds and feels empty?

That’s why I can see the point of those who say that we shouldn’t root our identity in earthly things, which aren’t reliable, but rather in the love of God through Jesus Christ. Granted, such a concept can be abused by perpetrators of the Feminine Mystique (the view that women can only be fulfilled as wives and mothers), as preachers tell women that they shouldn’t try to establish an identity outside of the home, for they should look to Christ to feel good about themselves. This sort of thing has occurred in evangelical communities. And, granted, trusting in a being I cannot see does not strike me as a sure way to feel good about myself, even though, somehow, it works for thousands (if not millions) of people. So what’s my point? I don’t know. Maybe that the solutions people propose are ways to look at a situation, but they should not be absolutized.

2. I finished my required reading of Marvin Pope’s Song of Songs last night. Here are some quotes, along with my comments:

Page 205: Leaders of the contemporary Women’s Liberation Movement appear to have overlooked C.D. Ginsburg’s interpretation (1857) of the Song of Songs as a melodramatic manifesto for the emancipation of women.

Maybe they read Ginsburg and found him to be an advocate for the Feminine Mystique—albeit the version that acknowledges women’s intelligence to make them feel good about their role as homemaker! Here’s a quote of Ginsburg on page 139:

While man, through his superior out-of-door qualities, or physical strength and courage, is the supporter, protector, and ruler of the woman; she, through her superior in-door qualities, her endurance and her charms, ameliorates his government, and sways his inmost heart. Their different characteristics, arising from their different destinations, were designed to blend together so as to produce a happy harmony, and to make both one.

Yeah, why didn’t hard-core feminists latch onto that?

Page 206: In the interest of disavowing sexism in translation of the biblical faith, [Phyllis] Trible stresses both the asexual and effeminate traits of the biblical deity. The gynomorphic imagery, activity, and speech applied to Yahweh, especially by Second Isaiah, make him midwife, seamstress, housekeeper, nurse, and mother. Accordingly, Trible concludes that Yahweh is neither male nor female.

I’m cool with that! But it’s interesting how Trible’s feminist interpretation assumes traditional feminine roles and ascribes them to Yahweh—midwife, seamstress, housekeeper, nurse, and mother.

Page 208: The sensuality of Eden is broadened and deepened in the Song. In Eden the woman presumably worked as well as the man, but in the Song she definitely works, keeping a vineyard and pasturing flocks, 1:6, 8. There is a strong matriarchal coloring in the Song. The lovers speak seven times of mother, but father is totally ignored. There is mutuality of the sexes, without male dominance, female subordination, or stereotyping of either sex. Unlike the first woman, the lady of the Canticle is not a wife and her love does not entail procreation. She actively seeks the man, desires him on her bed, rises and searches for him in the streets and squares, openly without secrecy or shame.

This is a cool quote. The woman is like an equal of man in these comments on the Song of Song. Would that satisfy Ms. Friedan? Maybe, or maybe not. She’d like the part about sex without procreation, as well as the theme of an assertive woman. But she’d probably ask why the woman is looking for a man to feel good about herself. As for the woman’s keeping of a vineyard and pasturing of flocks, she may say that this is housework for the family, so the woman’s identity is squelched when she does that stuff. On the other hand, Ms. Friedan admires the pioneers, for the women pioneers worked side by side with their husbands. So maybe she’d be ambivalent about the woman’s tasks.

Page 217: The example of the father of the gods of Ugarit, reeling in drunken delirium, wallowing in excrement and urine, and collapsing as if dead, was on occasion emulated by the Israelites, to judge from the prophet’s animadversion, Isa 28:7-9…

El the fraternity brother!

Health Care Bill

Well, the health care bill will be signed soon! I didn’t call my Congressman either in favor of it or in opposition to it. I know I’m not satisfied with the status-quo, but I’m not sure if I’m totally sold on this bill. Here are some of my questions/comments on it:

1. Will I have to pay higher premiums? If insurance companies will be required by law not to turn away people with pre-existing conditions, then that may mean that they’ll be paying for more medical procedures. And that could entail an increase in my premiums. I mean, I’m not sure if the bill aims to reduce profiteering by insurance companies, but, if it doesn’t, then I doubt that the companies will give up their high salaries and profits to pay for more medical procedures. Rather, they’ll pass the cost onto me, the consumer.

Don’t get me wrong: I think it’s atrocious how insurance companies are to people with pre-existing conditions. And it’s ridiculous. Ann Coulter tried to justify that policy by saying that covering people with pre-existing conditions is like a person buying fire insurance while his house is burning down. For one, human beings are not houses. Conservatives do well to criticize rationed care, for (if they are sincere) that reflects a concern for the sick; but when they try to justify insurance companies turning people away because of pre-existing conditions, that is inhumane, and it makes a mockery of their supposed reverence for life. Second, there are people who pay their premiums for a period of time, and then the insurance companies decide not to pay for their medical procedure because of “pre-existing conditions.” Sure, there are some who get sick and decide right then and there to get health insurance, but there are others who have had health insurance for a while, yet the company chooses not to pay for their medical procedure.

(UPDATE: To be fair, however, Ann Coulter does say the following in last week’s column: What Democrats are insinuating when they denounce exclusions of “pre-existing conditions” is an insurance company using the “pre-existing condition” ruse to deny coverage to a current policy holder — someone who’s been paying into the plan, year after year. Any insurance company operating in the free market that pulled that trick wouldn’t stay in business long. And Ann Coulter supports insurance companies operating in the free market!)

I hope that the increasing number of people who will be buying health insurance (because under the law, they’ll have to) will bring premiums down, or result in the insurance companies covering more medical needs. If more people are paying premiums, that could lessen my burden (I hope).

2. I’m not entirely sure how this bill is a federal takeover of the health care industry. Conservatives talk as if we’re moving in the direction of socialized medicine, when (as far as I can tell) we’re not. This bill requires everyone to have insurance, which they’ll get from a private provider. The government will give tax breaks—or maybe even subsidies—so that certain people will be able to purchase it. Companies with over fifty employees will have to provide it to their workers. And I take it that states will have to expand Medicaid. I guess that’s a socialistic aspect of the bill, but so much of the bill is not socialistic, for it puts people into the loving arms (sarcasm) of private insurers. But there may be some rationing going on in Medicare, in the name of cutting out the fat and waste.