Organizational Challenges, Moses, I Kings 21

1. Zosia Zaks, Life and Love: Positive Strategies for Autistic Adults, page 27:

Some autistic people have difficulty managing all the tasks that go into maintaining a home. What has to be done first? Where do you begin? What are the steps involved in cleaning a tub? Which chores are mandatory? Which are optional? And how do you schedule your time so everything is completed thoroughly without sacrificing other life activities?

Zosia offers suggestions.

2. I watched Moses, a 1995 movie starring Ben Kingsley. What went through my mind was Moses’ complexity as a character. Moses was slow of speech, reluctant to be in the spotlight, and meek and humble. Yet, there were plenty of times when he took bold action: he killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew, and he drove away shepherds who were bullying Jethro’s daughters. I identify with Moses in terms of his shyness, but not as much in terms of his boldness.

Moses depicts Moses as a shy and socially-awkward outcast when he was in Pharaoh’s court, which may have been one reason that Moses felt more comfortable among the Hebrews, even though he was officially the grandson of the Pharaoh. But Moses gained confidence as the movie went on, to the point that he could give orders and eloquent speeches to the Israelites in the wilderness.

In the 1956 movie, The Ten Commandments, by contrast, Charlton Heston depicts Moses as someone who was loved in the Egyptian court, to the consternation of his cousin, Raamses, who feels overshadowed by Moses. Moses was a hero because he had conquered Ethiopia and built Sethi a city. If Moses got to the point where he was slow of speech and lacked confidence, it was because he had become burnt along life’s path, not because he was always that way. Suffering an identity crisis and being expelled from his home, family, and the woman he loved were what burned him. But, with God’s help, he found his way.

3. For my weekly quiet time this week, I studied I Kings 21. King Ahab of Northern Israel wants Naboth’s vineyard because it is close to his palace in Jezreel, and he desires to make it into an herb garden. He offers to purchase it from Naboth, but Naboth refuses to sell it, for it is his family’s inheritance. There are commentators who suggest that Naboth was honoring God’s law through his refusal, for the Torah bans the sale of land in perpetuity, requiring sold land to be returned to its original owner in the Jubilee year (Leviticus 25). And the Torah is sensitive to keeping tribal land in the tribes (Numbers 36:37-38). I doubt that the Torah banned Naboth from selling his vineyard, for the Israelites sold land. But Naboth may have felt that he was honoring the Torah through his refusal to sell it, for, under Ahab, Naboth wouldn’t have gotten his vineyard back. Ahab probably didn’t enforce the Year of Jubilee. Consequently, Naboth was honoring the Torah’s principle of keeping land in the family.

Ahab pouts because Naboth won’t sell him his vineyard, and his wife, Jezebel, is baffled because Ahab is the king. Many commentators contend that Jezebel was accustomed to the monarchy of her home region of Phoenicia, where a king could simply take a subject’s property. The IVP Bible Background Commentary states that “Israelites believed that all the land was Yahweh’s land, while the Phoenicians would have seen the land as royal fiefdoms—all land was on grant from the king” (383). And, several years before, the prophet Samuel warned the Israelites who desired a monarchy that a king would take their vineyards (I Samuel 8:14). As bad as Ahab was, I have to give the Northern Israelite system credit because there was some rule of law, which limited even the leaders. Ahab couldn’t just take Naboth’s land: he had to purchase it. And, when Jezebel plotted to take Naboth’s vineyard, she did so by getting two witnesses to testify that he’d blasphemed God and the king, which were capital crimes. So she couldn’t just take Naboth’s property either: she had to go through legal channels.

VV 9, 12 say that Jezebel ordered the false witnesses to set Naboth high (be-rosh) among the people, before testifying that Naboth blasphemed God and the king, leading to Naboth’s execution by stoning outside of the city. Jimmy Swaggart says that the false witnesses were pretending as if they were exalting Naboth by setting him high among the people, right before they pulled the rug from under him. This could be true, for I Samuel 9:22 refers to Saul being placed be-rosh, meaning he was exalted. If that’s what Jezebel did to Naboth, then that was cruel. It reminds me of something I heard on Dr. Phil, where a girl said that some bullies called her and pretended to be her friend, right before they proceeded to trash her. It’s wrong and callous to toy with people’s emotions.

Naboth was stoned to death, and II Kings 9:26 indicates that Jezebel killed Naboth’s sons as well, since they were entitled to Naboth’s vineyard, which was their inheritance. Jezebel didn’t want Ahab to have any competitors for Naboth’s vineyard! As Ahab enjoys his vineyard, Elijah the prophet comes to him to deliver God’s stern message. According to Elijah, Ahab will die, and the dogs will lick Ahab’s blood in the very place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth. Because Ahab repented, however, this did not literally happen, though it did occur to Ahab’s son, whose blood was licked in the field of Naboth (II Kings 9:21-26). Still, Ahab’s blood was licked by dogs in another location, at the pool of Samaria, as we will see in the next chapter. I Kings 22:37-38 treats that as the fulfillment of Elijah’s prophecy, so a prophecy doesn’t always have to be fulfilled exactly to be fulfilled.

Is the Seder about Christ?

I’m going to muse a little bit about the Passover seder. I’ll use as my lauch-pad an article that Rachel Held Evans references in her latest post, That’s a good question…. The article is Do Christian celebrations of the Passover offend Jews? It’s about Christians and Messianic Jews who celebrate their own versions of the Jewish seder, as they interpret the seder’s rituals in light of Christianity. Here’s a quote from the article:

“They take our symbols, our holiday, our ritual and start investing them in Christian meaning,” said Rabbi Stuart Federow, who leads Congregation Shaar Hashalom and speaks out against the evangelization of Jews on his Web site, WhatJewsBelieve.org. “It’s spreading out through the more liberal Christian churches. The Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians are doing this without understanding the hurt it causes to their Jewish friends.”

As with most things, my reaction to this quote is mixed. Let me start with the negative, since (as usual) that’s the stronger part of my reaction. Is it me, or is the word “hurt” a little overused in our day and age? I’m sorry if you stumbled on this post expecting political correctness, but I have a hard time either sympathizing or empathizing with what Rabbi Stuart Federow is saying. If there are Jewish people who are “hurt” because Gentiles and Jewish believers in Jesus want to interpret Passover rituals in light of Christ, then they need to develop thicker skin! A prominent element of Christianity is that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the Passover lamb. I realize that Jews who don’t believe in Jesus as Messiah reject this notion, but, news flash, there are people in this world who accept it, and they’re not obligated to drop that belief or to ignore the Jewish roots of their faith just because some may find it offensive. Sheesh, you’d think that Christians observing seders is equivalent to vandalizing synagogues, from what Rabbi Federow is saying!

On that note, here’s a post I wrote way back in September 2007, defending Christian observance of the Passover: But It Is My Tradition, Too.

Now for my positive reaction to Rabbi Federow’s comments. I think that some evangelicals who profess to “love the Jewish people” are a little condescending. They go to seders and claim to see Christ in the afikomen, while they consider the Jews around them to be spiritually blind for not interpreting it that way. I once heard an evangelical talking about his pastor who went to a seder, and he said that his pastor loves the Jewish people because their beliefs and rituals were a preparation for the coming of Christ. “It’s like appreciating the first hammer, which is rudimentary,” he said. “It’s not as good as the subsequent hammers, but we can still appreciate it as a first step.” Hey, in my opinion, it’s fine to believe that way, for many of us think that our way of believing and doing things is superior to others’. But I doubt that many Jews are thrilled to hear that their rituals are “rudimentary,” or “a first step,” while the person claiming that is patting them on the back as if he appreciates them.

I watched an annoying (yet well-done) movie on the Trinity Broadcasting Network yesterday, called The Messiah: Fulfilled Prophecy. It’s about a first century rabbi named Yehudah, who embraces Jesus as the promised Messiah, and he conducts his family’s seder after Jesus’ death and resurrection. Two of his brothers think he’s a heretic, while one of them believes in Jesus. And Yehudah’s father doesn’t agree with Yehudah, yet he admires him as a sincere pursuer of truth. Basically, Yehudah conducts the family’s seder and tries to ramrod Christianity down everyone’s throats, by interpreting the Passover lamb in reference to Yeshua’s death, and the afikomen in terms of Yeshua’s resurrection, while the women are looking at him like he’s a profound sage.

One of Yehudah’s skeptical brothers argues that Yehudah is making the Scriptures say what he wants them to say, and he asks how Yehudah can be so sure that his interpretation is the right one. But this skeptical brother is at a disadvantage, for he’s in a setting in which the events of the New Testament Gospels actually happened! In his reality, darkness covered the land and the temple curtain was rent in two during Jesus’ death. And Yehudah was one of the men who saw Jesus on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24). Non-Christians today can say those were merely stories, or apocalyptic imagery, or attempts at apologetics, or whatever. But the skeptics in this movie didn’t have that option!

Does the seder have anything to do with Jesus Christ? My dad and I used to attend a small Armstrongite offshoot, and there was a woman there who was a Messianic Jew, trying to learn about our beliefs. She knew that we kept the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread, in some fashion, and so she asked us if we observed a seder. The leader replied that we do not, for the seder has nothing to do with Christ. “Oh, but it does,” she responded. The leader then said, “Don’t tell an orthodox Jew that!” And she retorted, “They don’t see how it relates to Christ, but it does. I’ve been celebrating the seder since I was a little girl!”

At my Jewish school, the message that I usually get is that the Passover seder was a rabbinic invention, designed to preserve the Passover after the temple had been destroyed, and with it the possibility of offering a Passover sacrifice. You see that in Professor Jonathan Klawans’ article in Biblical Archaeology Review, Was Jesus’ Last Supper a Seder? I don’t remember my password for the Biblical Archeology Review web site—or even if I’m still subscribed to it—so I’m not sure if I can read Baruch Bokser’s piece on whether or not the Last Supper was a Passover seder. But his book, Origins of the Seder, seems (if I’m reading it correctly) to lean towards the argument that the seder was a rabbinic innovation after the destruction of the Second Temple. How can a rabbinic custom foreshadow Christ, when it originated after Christ?

At the same time, neither Klawans nor Boker disproves the existence of some sort of Passover meal before the destruction of the Second Temple. Exodus 12 prescribes that for the very first Passover. Could some of the seder rituals have been part of that?

The part of the seder that Christians most attach to Jesus Christ is the ritual of the afikomen. What happens is this: You have three Matzos. The leader breaks the middle one and hides a piece of it. The children then look for it, and the one who finds it gets a prize. Christians have interpreted the three Matzos as the trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The middle one is the Son, Jesus Christ, who is broken for our sins. And wrapping the middle matzo up and finding it symbolizes Jesus’ resurrection, for Jesus’ corpse was wrapped in garments, and he was found by his followers.

The first seder that I attended was a Messianic one, and the rabbi told us that the Jews have alternative explanations, such as the one that claims that the three Matzos represent Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But I could tell that he didn’t think their explanation was as good as his Messianic interpretation.

I tried to do some research on the afikomen—on the Internet, in Bokser’s book, in my Jastrow rabbinic dictionary, etc.—but I was hitting my head on a wall. Some say that it existed before the coming of Christ. Others claim that it’s late and post-dates the historical Jesus. Some say afikomen is a Greek word. Others say it’s Aramaic. Some say it means “he who comes.” Others say it means “dessert.” In the Babylonian Talmud Pesachim 119, there is a debate about what it means in Mishnah Pesachim 10:8. Some rabbis say it’s the practice of going to another party after finishing up the seder, which the rabbis prohibit. Others treat it as a dessert, whether that be fruit and nuts, or a matzo. As I looked at modern-day Jewish sites, I saw the view that the afikomen was intended to replace the Passover lamb as the last thing to be eaten at a Passover meal. So could the ritual of the afikomen exist in a seder that had a Passover lamb, as I saw on the movie, The Messiah: Prophecy Fulfilled? I’d guess not, but the only thing I can say with certainty right now is that my head is spinning with uncertainty about what the afikomen is, let alone what it means!

I’ll stop here.

Sensory Issues and Disclosure, Age of Levitical Service, Tacitus’ Job-Change, Pilgrim’s Odyssey, Origin of the Septuagint

1. Zosia Zaks, Life and Love: Positive Strategies for Autistic Adults, page 19:

I’ve also learned that you usually do not need to launch into a full explanation of autism or disclose your disability if you don’t want to. A few key phrases seem to do the trick. For example, if you need to flip on your sunglasses, just say something like: “I have an extreme sensitivity to light. You might think it’s weird for me to wear sunglasses in your home, but they help reduce the pain in my eyes.” Or, if you are invited to a restaurant: “I know you’d like to take me out to your favorite restaurant. But restaurants are hard environments for me to relax in because I have a lot of sensitivities to sound.” One or two sentences are usually enough to get the message across.

2. Sara Japhet, The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles and Its Place in Biblical Thought, page 229:

In 1 Chr 23:3, the age of service [for the Levites] is “thirty years old and upward,” which conforms to Num 4:3, 23, etc. Yet in 1 Chr 23:24 and 27, the age is “twenty years old and upward”—the usual age in a census; see Exod 30:14; Num 1:3, 18, and elsewhere.

I have in my weekly quiet time notes for Numbers 4 that the Levitical age of service was lowered from thirty to twenty because more Levites were needed to handle the increasing amount of work. Or so says Matthew Henry. But, as far as I can see, he doesn’t touch on why David in I Chronicles 23:3 numbers the Levites from thirty years of age and upward. Maybe David decided to lower the age of service during his reign.

3. D.A. Russell, Criticism in Antiquity, page 62:

It has been held that Maternus represents Tacitus’ own views: the dialogue is said to be an apology for turning to history, on the ground that free eloquence is no longer possible. This is unlikely. Tacitus had a distinguished public career, and the writing of history, to the Roman way of thinking, was a proper activity for the statesman, not an escape from the world.

The topic here is Tacitus’ Dialogus de oratoribus, written in the late first-early second centuries C.E. In the dialogue, Maternus defends his decision to abandon oratory to become a poet, contending that eloquence leads to license and sedition and is unnecessary is a well-ordered state. Maybe the point here is that, when things are going hunky-dory, why should we have to talk well to promote political change?

4. R.P.C. Hanson, Allegory and Event, page 56:

…there is no doubt that these Stoic philosophers did allegorize Homer, in order to derive Stoic philosophy from his text. Indeed Stanford says that ‘through their ingenius use of allegorical interpretation, the Odyssey became a kind of Pilgrim’s Progress.’

I like the comparison. Through allegory, the Odyssey was no longer a mere mythological adventure tale about the travels of Odysseus. Rather, like Pilgrim’s Progress, it became a guide for us on how to navigate our way through life: what virtues to pursue, what vices to avoid, etc.

5. F.N. Marcos, The Septuagint in Context, page 40:

…the date of the [Greek] translation of the Pentateuch cannot be put back too far (in fact before direct or indirect association with Ptolemy II Philadelphus in the first half of the third century BCE seems likely, although the work itself was begun by the Jews of the diaspora and for the Jews and was not an official undertaking of the Egyptian court). The translation was made basically for liturgical and didactic, but not expressly literary, reasons, as can be gathered from a simple comparison of the Pentateuch with the style of Josephus, Philo and even of [the Letter of Aristeas]. The language of the Pentateuch belongs to the first half of the 3rd century BCE in Alexandria, as the studies by A. Deissmann have shown. Furthermore, there are witnesses of Pap Rylands 458 (with fragments of Deuteronomy 23-28) which comes from the 2nd century BCE, and of Pap Fouad 266 (Dt. 31:6-32:7) from the 1st century BCE. To these indications can be added the fact that the Jewish-Hellenistic historian Demetrius, from the end of the 3rd century BCE, certainly knew Genesis in Greek. The knowledge that we have from other sources of the reign of Ptolemy II make this hypothesis likely, and in 132 BCE the translator of the book of Sira already alludes in the prologue to the Torah, the Prophecies and other writings as integral parts of the Alexandrian Bible.

I find this passage important because it tells me why scholars date the Septuagint to the third century B.C.E. Apparently, Marcos doesn’t consider the story in the Letter of Aristeas to be a sufficient ground for such a date, for he doesn’t buy its claim that the Egyptian court in the third century B.C.E. ordered a Greek translation of the Torah that it could include in its library. Rather, Marcos believes that the Septuagint arose to meet the liturgical needs of Jews. But I wonder who made the translation, in his opinion. Kahle also thought that Jews in the Diaspora made translations of the Torah into Greek for liturgical purposes, but he derived from this the conclusion that there were a variety of Greek translations out there, and that the Septuagint came along later to bring about unity and standardization. But Marcos doesn’t agree with Kahle (page 43). So does Marcos believe that an official body made a Greek translation of the Pentateuch for liturgical purposes, as opposed to different congregations or Jewish communities making their own translations?

Great Egypt, God on Earth

I watched Moses, a 1975 movie starring Burt Lancaster. One scene that stood out to me was when the Pharaoh was praying to the statue of a god who had a man’s body and a bird’s head. The Pharaoh’s son had just died in the final plague, and he wanted this god to raise his son back to life. He told the god that his son came from the god’s flesh, so the god should pity him. The Pharaoh then concludes that this god is merely a statue, not a god, and he asks Moses to bless him (Exodus 12:32), indicating his belief (albeit short-lived) in Moses’ God.

This movie probably got the idea for this scene from The Ten Commandments, in which Pharaoh Raamses (played by Yul Brynner) asks the “dread lord of darkness” to show that he’s more powerful than the God of Moses by raising to life the Pharaoh’s dead son. This dread lord had a bird’s head and a man’s body.

I had questions about Egyptian religion after watching the scene from Moses. First, who was the god with the bird’s head and the man’s body? Second, did the Egyptians believe that the Pharaoh and his son came from the flesh of this god? And third, on a related note, in what sense did the Egyptians believe that the Pharaoh was a god? This question will probably come to me again tomorrow, when I watch the Moses movie that starred Ben Kingsley, for, there, the Pharaoh (played by Frank Loggia) refers to himself as “Great Egypt, God on earth.”

I did some reading in the Anchor Bible Dictionary and on the Internet. The former is considered reliable by scholars, whereas the latter—well, it depends. I found a web site with this comprehensive article, Complete Section on the Ancient Egyptian Religion, but I couldn’t find the academic credentials of the people who wrote the site’s articles on ancient Egypt.

But I’ll tentatively answer my three questions, with the disclaimer that I could be wrong. First of all, the god with the bird’s head and the man’s body was most likely Horus, the god of the sky, who was the protector of the Pharaoh. Horus was considered the son of Osiris (god of the underworld) and Isis at one point, and at another point he was deemed the son of Re, the sun-god, who created the cosmos. Horus continually battles his uncle Set, a chaotic god, to maintain the stability of the world. So Horus appears to be like Baal in Ugaritic religion: he defeats chaos and has a lot of power in terms of the maintenance (and perhaps rulership) of the universe, but he’s not the top deity.

Second, did the Egyptians believe that the Pharaoh and his son came from the flesh of Horus? I’m not sure. What I did find is that they thought that the spirit of Horus entered the Pharaoh at his coronation, and that the Pharaoh after his death was united with Osiris, the god of the Underworld.

Third, the Egyptians believed that the Pharaoh was divine in that he was possessed by Horus, and later they said the Pharaoh was the son of Re (the sun-god, who created the cosmos). Like Horus and Re, who defeated chaos and upheld order, the Pharaoh tried to preserve maat, the order of the world. He did so by sacrificing to the gods, keeping enemies out of Egypt, and doing his own part to weed out corruption from his government. I didn’t read anything about social justice, but I have heard from people that the Pharaoh’s just judgment and protection of the poor was pro-maat.

Writing this is a good start for me in terms of understanding ancient Egypt, even if I should use better sources.

UPDATE: the gods to whom Raamses prays in the 1956 Ten Commandments is Sokar, who at one point was the god of the Underworld. Eventually, he was meshed with Osiris. See Sokar, an Egyptian God of the Underworld.

Kicking Off Autism Awareness Month, Warning Before Guilt, Good Jesting, Bad Jethro’s Hierarchy, Universal Law (Until the Gentiles Rejected It)

1. For Autism Awareness Month, I’ll be reading and blogging through Zosia Zaks’ Life and Love: Positive Strategies for Autistic Adults. Today, I want to post her dedication:

This book is dedicated to my father, Arthur Zaks. He told me once that it was in fifth grade when he noticed the gulf between him and his peers. He said it was as if he couldn’t figure out how they knew what to say and what to do to be among each other. He was sure he could find a book that would explain how, or have the rules in it, and when he found the book he would save it and give it to his children so they wouldn’t have the same problem.

Well, Dad, I know you never found that book, but now we can write ourselves into our own book. Thank you for always understanding and loving me.

2. Sara Japhet, The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles and Its Place in Biblical Thought, pages 185-190. In the Book of Chronicles, prophets and other people (even Pharaoh Neco in II Chronicles 35:21-22) warn Israelites not to sin. Japhet sees in this the principle that “The sinner is forewarned, and his reaction to the warning determines whether or not he will be punished.” Japhet sees a parallel between this and the rabbinic view that “a man cannot be punished unless he has been warned” (Sifrei to Shophetim, paragraph 173). That’s one thing that distinguishes an intentional from an unintentional sin, in rabbinic thought: was the sinner warned before he committed his act? If not, then he’s not punished, and he can offer a sacrifice to atone for his sin (Numbers 15:22-31).

3. D.A. Russell, Criticism in Antiquity, page 32.

Aristotle in the Ethics contrasts wit with vulgarity…

Russell cites Eth. Nic. 4.14. I checked out Book 4 on the Internet, and—lo and behold—there were only nine chapter! I hate it when that happens. I think Russell has in mind the following passage from Chapter 8:

To the middle state belongs also tact; it is the mark of a tactful man to say and listen to such things as befit a good and well-bred man; for there are some things that it befits such a man to say and to hear by way of jest, and the well-bred man’s jesting differs from that of a vulgar man, and the joking of an educated man from that of an uneducated. One may see this even from the old and the new comedies; to the authors of the former indecency of language was amusing, to those of the latter innuendo is more so; and these differ in no small degree in respect of propriety. Now should we define the man who jokes well by his saying what is not unbecoming to a well-bred man, or by his not giving pain, or even giving delight, to the hearer? Or is the latter definition, at any rate, itself indefinite, since different things are hateful or pleasant to different people? The kind of jokes he will listen to will be the same; for the kind he can put up with are also the kind he seems to make. There are, then, jokes he will not make; for the jest is a sort of abuse, and there are things that lawgivers forbid us to abuse; and they should, perhaps, have forbidden us even to make a jest of such. The refined and well-bred man, therefore, will be as we have described, being as it were a law to himself.

Aristotle prefers “innuendo” in comedy to “indecency of language.” He reminds me of friends who prefer Woody Allen to Nutty Professor movies because Woody Allen is “ironic,” or those who like British comedy because it understates things. Personally, I wonder if I’d get British comedy, since I prefer for things to be laid out plainly in front of me, rather than having to think and do guess-work about what a person means.

4. R.P.C. Hanson, Allegory and Event, page 48.

[Philo] takes Jethro in his words to Moses when he paid him a visit (Ex. 18) to have advised Moses to leave the Law and devote himself to unjust arbitration in lawsuits…

In the passage in question, On the Change of Names 103-105, Philo is trying to force an allegory out of Exodus 18. He says that Jethro means “superfluous” and that pride is superfluous because it honors excess and covetous. For Philo, Jethro is encouraging Moses to be superfluous by abandoning the Ten Commandments to “study the covenants and contracts of men with one another” (Yonge’s translation).

This passage stood out to me because, in Armstrongite circles, Exodus 18 pops up in discussions about church hierarchy. Pro-hierarchy people maintain that the church should be like Old Testament Israel, which had a hierarchy, with one person on the top. Anti-hierarchy people contend that the idea for a hierarchy in Old Testament Israel came from Jethro and not God, so why should we heed Jethro’s advice as if it’s from the mountain-top? Philo’s anti-Jethro interpretation of Exodus 18 reminded me of the anti-hierarchy side.

When I revisited Exodus 18, I noticed that the chapter never explicitly says that Moses received God’s permission to establish a hierarchy. Moses just heard Jethro’s advice (which Jethro qualified with “if God commends you” in v 23), and then he followed it. So there is room for Philo to view Moses’ action negatively.

In Deuteronomy 1:9-18, we see a different version of the story. The Israelites are numerous, and Moses can’t bear them alone, so Moses comes up with the idea of appointing a hierarchy, which the people accept. Jethro is out of the picture, and a Teaching Assistant at Harvard suggested this was because Deuteronomy had problems with Moses taking advice from a pagan such as Jethro. But, in Deuteronomy 1:9-18, the idea for a hierarchy is not God’s idea, but that of Moses.

The third version of the story is in Numbers 11:10ff. Moses complains that he cannot bear the burden of the people alone, so God commands Moses to take seventy Israelite elders and officers with him to the tabernacle. There, God takes some of his spirit from Moses and places it onto the seventy elders, so that Moses doesn’t have to bear the burden alone. Here, the idea for a hierarchy comes from God.

5. N.F. Marcos, The Septuagint in Context, page 19.

…the ideological background that made the translation of the LXX possible was in germ in Jewish thought itself, as the Torah which Israel received on Sinai was originally considered to be a guide for the whole of humankind, since ‘God did not speak in secret’ (Isa. 45:19). In fact—according to a rabbinic tradition—it was offered first to the Gentiles but they gave it the cold shoulder. The rabbis also state that Joshua had buried the Law under the stones of the altar (Josh. 8:30) not only in the original but in all the languages of the world; the nations received a copy of the Law, but after reading it they paid it no attention.

Ten Commandments (2006): Egyptian Religion, Revelation of the Torah

I just watched the 2006 movie, The Ten Commandments, starring (among others) Dougray Scott, Naveen Andrews (Sayid from Lost), and Omar Shariff. In this post, I want to discuss two issues:

1. The movie made certain claims about Egyptian religion. First, we have a priest telling little Moses that there are as many gods as there are people, and that they had no origin, for they’re part of the nature of things. The priest is actually baffled when Moses asks him who made the gods.

Second, a priest tells little Moses that Pharaoh Akhenaten did not believe that the Egyptians had their own gods while other peoples had theirs. Rather, according to the priest, Akhenaten held that there is only one God.

Third, when little Moses sees the tomb of Joseph, he asks the Israelites if that is their god. An old Israelite replies that they do not worship corpses, unlike the Egyptians.

Fourth, somewhere in the movie, the Egyptians boast that they can actually see their gods (as idols), whereas the Israelites could not.

Edward F. Wente has an article in The Anchor Bible Dictionary on “Egyptian Religion.” I will consult that (and other articles) to evaluate these claims about ancient Egyptian religion.

First of all, did the Egyptians believe that the gods eternally existed as part of the nature of things, meaning that they were not created? The answer to that is “no.” Wente states the following:

The Egyptians organized their deities hierarchically, with the creator assuming the role of king of the gods. According to the Heliopolitan, or solar, version of creation, the Sun God emerged on the primal mound from Nūn, the abyss, and by masturbation or spewing forth created the first pair of deities, Shu and Tefnut (air and moisture). In turn this couple produced Geb and Nūt (earth and sky), from whom issued two pairs of deities, Osiris and Isis, and Seth and Nephthys, whose natures were less elemental and more political-cultural. At Memphis the role of creator was assigned to Ptah, and a spiritual mode of creation by thought (heart) and word (tongue) was stressed. A further elaboration of the solar version was developed at Hermopolis, where attention was given to four pairs of primordial elements that, lying dormant in Nūn, were activated in the production of the Sun God, who emerged on a lotus.

So, according to Wente, the Egyptians believed that a god emerged and created other gods, some of whom were associated with nature.

Second, did Pharaoh Akhenaten believe in the existence of only one God? In the course of my studies, I have heard that there is debate on that: some say “yes,” while others maintain that Akhenaten acknowledged the existence of other deities, but wanted Egypt to worship only the sun god. Donald Redford’s Anchor Bible Dictionary article on “Akhenaten” goes with the former point of view. Here are some passages from Redford’s article:

That the predilection for one god constituted something more than mere henotheism is strongly suggested in an early “speech from the throne” in which Akhenaten introduces his god to the court. Therein he describes his celestial deity in terms of uniqueness, transcendence, and permanence that were to become common throughout the reign, while at the same time accusing the gods of having “ceased one after the other” (Redford 1981).

The Hymn to the Sun-disc (Auffret 1981; Bernhardt 1969; AEL, 96–107; von Nordheim 1979), echoes of which seem later to be heard in Psalm 104, describe the solar deity as the creator and sustainer of the universe, the guarantor of life and the eternal hypostasis of pharaonic monarchy in the heavens. In the latter capacity the deity is granted the double cartouche, hailed in royal terms, and conceived in art as the mirror image in the heavens of king Akhenaten upon earth. Pursuant to his iconoclastic urges, Akhenaten rid the cult of images of deity as well as mythology, and even the decorative arts and the script were purified of anthropomorphic and theriomorphic elements (Redford 1984: 173ff.). The great Hope of all Egyptians, the multifarious world of the Beyond, the Underworld over which Osiris and his congeners presided, was done away with; and although outward forms, such as shawabtis, mortuary texts, and sun hymns were retained, they were expurgated of all allusions to the Underworld (Assmann 1972; Redford 1980; Redford 1984: 169ff.).

I don’t understand the part about the gods ceasing one after another. Was Akhenaten saying that the gods were dying off, or that he was about to get rid of them, or what? I found an article on the Internet, Akhenaten: A Brief Biography, which contains a translation of Akhenaten’s court speech. The author of the article interprets it as follows: However, we can surmise from what exists of [the text] that the king was claiming that the gods in the traditional Egyptian pantheon were nothing but material representations which could be destroyed...However, the god that he promoted (indubitably the Aten, or sun-disc) was unique, untouchable, undeniable and indestructible.

Third, did the Egyptians worship corpses? Wente states the following:

One aspect of the afterlife was the simple continuation of existence in the tomb. Already in archaic times natural dehydration of the body in a shallow grave suggested the permanent existence of the deceased, but as tombs became more elaborate and natural desiccation of the corpse ceased to be effective, mummification was developed as a means of preserving the body. Initially only the king and elite had their bodies mummified, but after the Old Kingdom mummification was gradually extended. The superstructure of the tomb contained a cult place where offerings could be made to the deceased’s spirit, which was believed to emerge from below through a false door. Sometimes elaborate contracts were drawn up with mortuary priests to ensure the perpetuity of the cult. In the absence of real offerings, the recitation of an invocation offering was considered a valid means for satisfying the deceased’s needs. But there was more to the afterlife than continued existence in the tomb. In the Old Kingdom the king’s afterlife involved his spiritual participation in cosmic processes such as the course of the Sun God or the motion of the stars. At first only the dead king became identified with Osiris, lord of the netherworld; but with the collapse of the Old Kingdom, royal funerary prerogatives were gradually extended to deceased commoners, whose names were preceded by the epithet Osiris. Funerary texts that had been for the dead king’s use now became the domain of a broader segment of the population. Many new spells were composed, inscribed in the interior of coffins or, later, on rolls of papyrus, known as the Book of the Dead. Included in this funerary literature were spells effecting the deceased’s identification with some of the highest gods, such as Rē, Atum, and Horus. The myth of Osiris’s murder, the finding of his body and revivification by Isis, and the posthumous procreation of their son Horus had an especial appeal. At Abydos, the burial place of archaic kings and Osiris, cenotaphs were erected along the processional route of the god Osiris, enabling the commoner to participate in the celebration of the god’s triumph and renewal.

According to Wente, the Egyptians gave food to the deceased to satisfy their needs, yet they also held that the departed king participated in “cosmic processes such as the course of the Sun God or the motion of the stars.” Gradually, even non-royal people who died were believed to participate somehow in the activity of the gods.

Fourth, did the Egyptians equate their gods with the idols? My hunch is “no,” for they believed that a god created the cosmos and other deities, before there even were human-made images. But they did view the idols as a sign of the gods’ presence on earth, which guaranteed prosperity. As Wente states: The purpose of the ritual was to ensure the god’s continued presence on earth, thus guaranteeing the bounty of the land and success in state endeavors, both at home and abroad. Tutankhamen’s (Amemophis IV) restoration inscription claims that, under Akhenaten, when the cult images were destroyed, neither gods nor goddesses could respond to people’s prayers and even the army could achieve no success abroad.

Also, there was an Egyptian belief that gods could appear to people in dreams as cultic images. So, in a sense, the idols were like a temple for the gods—how the gods ate and received honor and prayers. My hunch is that the Egyptians would be hard-pressed to relate to their gods without the idols.

2. On my WordPress blog, under my post, Divorce and Virginity in Deuteronomy 22, April proposes that Moses came up with much of the Torah himself, but God allowed the Torah to become the law of Israel so that the Israelites might learn their need for Christ’s grace and mercy. She bases her argument on Jesus’ statement that Moses allowed the Israelites to divorce their wives out of the hardness of their hearts (see Matthew 19:8), and she apparently interprets that to mean that Moses (not God) came up with the Torah’s law against divorce. Her proposal is essentially how the 2006 Ten Commandments movie depicted the origin of many laws in the Torah: the Israelites needed a law because of disputes among themselves, and Moses followed his heart: that’s why the Torah has a death penalty for murderers. But Moses comes to believe that he was wrong to rely on his heart and should have consulted God—who likes for Moses to figure out things on his own, yet is there when Moses needs him. And so Moses goes up the mountain and receives from God the Ten Commandments. It’s a little bit like Lost: Jacob wants people to figure things out on their own without him having to baby them, yet he makes a concession by appointing Richard Alpert his spokesman and intermediary.

The Moses movie with Burt Lancaster (which I will watch this Saturday) is somewhat like that as well: Moses (not God) decides to give the land to Zelophehad’s daughters, contrary to Numbers 27:6-7’s insistence that God came up with the idea.

I’m intrigued by April’s idea because it coincides somewhat with how many biblical scholars have viewed the Bible: that there are cases in the Torah in which there are diverse (even contradictory) laws on the same subject (see Fishbane on Numbers 15, Part 1), or examples in which a scribe adds his interpretation of a law to the text, or times when the Torah resembles other ancient Near Eastern laws. Was all of this spoken from the mouth of God? If so, why does the Torah seem to betray human elements, namely, different traditions, interpretation going on in the text, and reflection of culture?

But maybe God felt that the Torah was good enough for his purposes: to teach Israel discipline, to provide the necessary law and order for Israelite society, and to prepare her for Christ. There may have been different Israelite communities that had different laws, but God felt that each of their traditions could fulfill his purposes for his people; at the same time, God allowed the different traditions to become united into one book.

And, even then, who’s to say that God wasn’t providentially involved in how the Torah came to be? Maybe the Torah is a product of human interpretation, decision-making, and culture, and yet God is behind this process in some way, shape, or form. After all, the Torah itself has a “Thus saith the LORD” around about every one of its laws!

Stuff—With a Cool Quote About the Typological Exodus

It’s late, and I’m tired, so I want to get through this academic write-up as quickly as I can!

1. Sara Japhet, The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles and Its Place in Biblical Thought, page 163:

…Chronicles cannot justify the destruction of the Temple as punishment for the sins of previous generations [which is what II Kings 23:25-26 says]…Neither Manasseh’s sinfulness nor the people’s cumulative transgressions brought about the Temple’s destruction. Only Zedekiah and his generation are responsible for the disaster that occurred in his time.

2. D.A. Russell, Criticism in Antiquity, pages 4- 5:

This disdain of the ordinary audience is known to Aristotle in the context not only of rhetoric but of poetry: it is the ‘inferiority of the spectators’ which makes them prefer happy endings in tragedy, though the principles of the art make it clear that these are really signs of inferior workmanship.

I don’t care what Aristotle says. I still enjoy a good, sappy Hallmark Channel movie!

3. R.P.C. Hanson, Allegory and Event, pages 13-14:

The Rabbis conceived of Israel’s redemption in the Messianic Age as foreshadowed in every detail by the redemption from Egypt as its type. As Israel was delivered in one night, so will Israel be delivered in one night in the Messianic times. The days of the Messiah would be forty years, as Israel was chastened forty years in the Wilderness (this from Rabbi Akiba). As Israel was fed with rich food in the wilderness, so will God feed them at the Last Time. As God took vengeance on the Egyptians at the Exodus, so will he take vengeance on Edom (Rome) at the Messianic time; he will bring upon them frogs, flies, all sorts of beasts, plague, scab, hail, locusts, darkness; and he will slay their firstborn. Though in Egypt Israel went out in haste, at the Messianic Deliverence she will not go out in haste nor flight, but God will go before her. As the first deliverer (Moses) revealed himself and then hid himself, so will the last deliverer, the Messiah. And the deliverer will lead them out of the land into the wilderness of Judah and cause them again to dwell in tents, and whoever believes in him will remain in life, but whoever does not will go to the nations of the world and they will kill him. At the end God will reveal himself to them and cause manna to come down for them. Just as Moses took his wife and sons and made them ride on an ass, so will the last deliverer come riding on an ass. As the first deliverer brought bread down from heaven, so will the last, and as the first caused water to spring forth, so will the last. Pharaoh’s daughter fostered him who was to bring vengeance on her father; so the King the Messiah who will bring vengeance on Edom (Rome) will dwell with them in the city (i.e. Rome). As God sent deliverance through two saviours (Moses and Aaron) to the tribes at the Exodus, so he will at the end (through Elijah and the Messiah).

A fitting quote for this Passover season! And several biblical passages come to mind: the comparison of Israel leaving exile with the Exodus in the Book of Isaiah; statements in Ezekiel and Hosea that Israel will have a wilderness experience; the similarity between Moses surviving the decree of a tyrant to kill baby boys, and Jesus surviving such a decree in Matthew 1-2; and the Book of Revelation’s similarity to the Exodus.

4. N. Fernandez Marcos, The Septuagint in Context, page 4.

Christianity’s ancient critics claimed that the Bible used barbaric language, and the church fathers responded to that in different ways. Some said that the Bible uses simple language so that everyone can understand it. But others tried to argue that the biblical language was actually quite sophisticated, purporting to see in the Bible the “rules of classical metrics” and “various stylistic devices.”