2017-09-07

Comparing Biblical Laws on Marriage, Inheritance and Sexual Relations with Other Ancient Codes

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by Neil Godfrey

As per the previous posts, the table here is a simplified summary of some of the points Russell Gmirkin discusses in Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible. It is far from being a complete representation of his discussion. It is best read as an easy reference guide in conjunction with the detail covered in the book. The table is only a starting guide: it will be expanded and modified as the details of laws are further explored. I expect to do a few more similar tables for other types of laws. (Still putting on hold the discussion of the final chapter of Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible as I backtrack to sections I covered too briefly earlier or inadvertently omitted altogether.)

ANE = Ancient Near Eastern laws

Greece/Plato = Laws as implemented in Athens and/or Laws presented as ideals by Plato in Laws

MARRIAGE & INHERITANCE Bible ANE Greece/Plato
Two wives permitted X*
Bride-price custom (groom paid the father of bride) X
Dowry custom (bride had property from father, managed by her husband)
State cared for widows and orphans without near kin X
Bride could be won by heroic deeds (in myth and legend) X
Heiresses (where there are no sons to inherit) X
Levirate marriage (deceased husband’s next of kin to marry widow) X
!
PERMISSIBLE SEXUAL RELATIONS (Some acts tolerated though frowned upon)  Bible  ANE Greece/Plato 
With spouse
Husband with his concubine or servant/slave girl
Man with prostitutes
Man with companion (hetaira) X X
Married woman or betrothed virgin, with husband
Foreign women permitted to be prostitutes
Temple prostitution X  ?  
!
 PROHIBITED SEXUAL RELATIONS Bible ANE Greece/Plato
Consensual male homosexuality X X/
—- Penalty: death    /X
Homosexual rape and/or seduction/rape of minors     ✓
Bestiality
—- Penalty for bestiality: death   X/^
Cross-dressing X^^ X^^
Incest and other inter-familial relations
Prostitution of priest’s daughter, death by burning
Prostitution by native free woman and men X
—- Penalty for being prostitute, “cut off from people” / loss of civic rights    X  
Adultery, meaning sex with another man’s wife
Caught in the act, death # #
Suspicion of wife, wife to undergo Trial by Ordeal X 
Other extra-marital sex
— If consensual with another’s betrothed virgin still living with father pending marriage
—- Death penalty for both parties above  X
— If in city (or house), and girl/married woman did not cry for help    
—- Both were stoned  
— If in country, assumed girl/married woman was raped  
—- and the man was executed
— If the girl was not betrothed,    
—- man had to pay bride price and marry her and never divorce    @
— If the betrothed virgin was a slave,  
—- she was scourged and man had to offer trespass offering of a ram  X@@
Other Penalties
—- Parent could slay a pregnant daughter whose seducer was unknown X%
—- Adulteresses subject to public shaming  
— False accusation that bride was not a virgin – financial penalty to father  
— True accusation that bride was not a virgin – the bride was stoned for prostituting herself in father’s house

.

* 4i3 BCE Athenian assembly voted to allow men to have concubines for legitimate children (to compensate for war losses)

Hittites ruled sexual acts with some animals was capital crime; otherwise, disqualified from priesthood or palace service
^^ Transvestites had special positions in temples or religious rituals

Husband permitted but not obligated to kill the adulterer

@ Man agreed to marry the daughter or give her a dowry
@@ Man paid financial penalty

% Father or brothers could sell the girl into prostitution

.


Biblical assault and theft laws compared with Mesopotamian and Greek counterparts

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by Neil Godfrey

As per the previous post, the table here is a simplified summary of some of the points Russell Gmirkin discusses in Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible. It is far from being a complete representation of his discussion. It is best read as an easy reference guide in conjunction with the detail covered in the book. The table is only a starting guide: it will be expanded and modified as the details of laws are further explored. I expect to do a few more similar tables for other types of laws. (Still putting on hold the discussion of the final chapter of Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible as I backtrack to sections I covered too briefly earlier or inadvertently omitted altogether.)

I have added more illustrative and explanatory notes at the end of the table this time.

ANE = Ancient Near Eastern laws

Greece/Plato = Laws as implemented in Athens and/or Laws presented as ideals by Plato in Laws

ASSAULT Bible ANE Greece/Plato
1. General principle: lex talionis (eye for an eye) X
2. Compensate loss of income and medical expenses *
3. Assault on parent punished by amputation of hand X X
4. Assault on parent punished by death X **
5. Maiming a slave entitles the slave to freedom X
6. Class based penalties:
–greater penalties for commoners against nobles;
–lesser penalties for nobles against commoners
X X***
7. Lesser (or no) punishments for assaults on slaves
!
 WHEN MEN FIGHT (with a woman nearby)….  Bible  ANE Greece/Plato 
And one injures a pregnant woman:
— Money compensation for loss of fetus
 
And one injures a pregnant woman so that she later dies:
— Execution of the man
And a woman grabs/crushes the testicles of one to assist the other:
— Cut off her hand or finger
 
 !
THEFT Bible ANE Greece/Plato
Thieves breaking into a house at night to be slain ^  ^
Highwayman — death penalty
“Normal” daylight theft — financial penalties
Kidnapping — death penalty
Temple theft — death penalty
Public property theft — death penalty
Stealing from a house on fire — get thrown into the fire ^^
All property theft — only financial penalties, no death penalty ^^^ X X

.

* financial compensation for damages if unintentional or double the amount if willful
** Death was a maximum penalty but judges were to decide if it was warranted in each case
*** Greek laws in fact reversed the principle; hubris, the crime of humiliating another person to aggrandize oneself was worthy of death

.
the house owner himself was free to kill the thief
^^ this appears to me to be an obvious example of a theoretical or literary law; one presumes the fire would have burnt itself out by the time the trial was held.
^^^ See below

Illustrative and explanatory notes follow….. Continue reading “Biblical assault and theft laws compared with Mesopotamian and Greek counterparts”


2017-09-06

Table Comparing Homicide Laws: Biblical, Mesopotamian and Greek

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by Neil Godfrey

The table here is a simplified summary of some of the points Russell Gmirkin discusses in Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible. It is far from being a complete representation of his discussion. It is best read as an easy reference guide in conjunction with the detail covered in the book. The table is only a starting guide: it will be expanded and modified as the details of laws are further explored. I expect to do a few more similar tables for other types of laws. (Still putting on hold the discussion of the final chapter of Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible as I backtrack to sections I covered too briefly earlier or inadvertently omitted altogether.)

ANE = Ancient Near Eastern laws

Greece/Plato = Laws as implemented in Athens and/or Laws presented as ideals by Plato in Laws

GORING OX Bible ANE Greece/Plato
Ox stoned X
Carcass not to be eaten X
Money compensation for loss
If ox kills a man after owner was warned and failed to act,
— money compensation
X
If ox kills a man after owner was warned and failed to act,
— owner executed
*
HOMICIDE Bible ANE Greece/Plato
A homeowner justified in killing a night burglar X  
Blood pollution of the land to be cleansed X
Kin to the victim required to prosecute the murderer  X
Kin to the victim required to carry out the punishment   X **
Asylum cities / temples for refuge X
Exile for unintentional homicide X
Execution by Burning X X
Execution by Drowning X X
Execution by Impalement X X
Execution by Beheading X X
Execution by Stoning X
State officials carry out the penalty X
Community carries out the penalty X

* owner tried for murder
** if the accused prematurely returned from exile

See also Plato and the Hebrew Bible: Homicide Laws

 

 


2017-09-04

Meet Paul and Enoch; both come from the same place

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by Neil Godfrey

Warning: If you are looking for snazzy gotcha type parallels that demonstrate a genetic relationship between the letters of Paul and Enoch you will be disappointed. This post is not about direct imitation or identification of “a source” for Paul’s letter. The first page addresses form parallels; to see the content and ideas click “read more” to see the remainder.

Professor James M. Scott compares two letters, one by Enoch and the other by Paul, and identifies a few points in common that help us understand a little more clearly the thought-world of both figures. Of course our real interest is in understanding Paul since we tend to see him as having more relevance to our Christian heritage than the evidently mythical Enoch. 

Scott’s essay, “A Comparison of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians with the Epistle of Enoch” is a chapter in The Jewish Apocalyptic Tradition and the Shaping of New Testament Thought (2017, edited by Benjamin E. Reynolds and Loren T. Stuckenbruck). The central argument is that both Paul’s letter to the Galatians and the epistle of Enoch (1 Enoch 92-105) share the same apocalyptic motifs in a common letter format, and that it follows that Galatians belongs to the “apocalyptic tradition” as much as does the letter of Enoch. My interest is in the shared motifs per se, and what they indicate about Paul’s intellectual world.

1 Enoch is generally thought to be made up of five texts that have been stitched together, and one of these initially discrete texts consists of chapters 92 to 105, dated around 170 BCE. If you have sufficient time, patience and interest to read those chapters and have just a vague recollection of Paul’s letter to the Galatians you will wonder how on earth anyone could see the slightest resemblance between the two. Enoch’s letter is full of Old Testament style pronouncements of prophetic woes and doom on sinners while Paul’s letter is about struggles with Judaizers coming along to his converts in Galatia and undermining the pristine faith by telling them they had to be circumcised and follow a few other Jewish observances, too. But a glance at James Scott’s publishing history shows he has spent a lot of time studying all of this sort of literature so let’s continue in faith.

First, look at some “technical” similarities to see that, despite major differences, we are comparing a works of the same genre, a letter form. (The text follows Scott’s chapter closely, though of course the table format is mine.)

 

Genre
Self conscious reference to his own writing as a letter Galatians 6:11 See what large letters I make when I am writing in my own hand! 1 Enoch 93:2 these things I say to you and I make known to you, my sons, I myself, Enoch.

1 Enoch 100:6 And the wise among men will see the truth, and the sons of the earth will contemplate these words of this epistle

Author
The superscription of both letters names the author of the letter, and then, adds an impressive description of the author: Paul is an “apostle” sent by God; Enoch is a “scribe” who writes “righteousness and truth”.

Both Paul and Enoch present themselves as authors who communicate God’s will.

Galatians 1:1 Paul …. an apostle—[sent] not from men nor by man but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead ” This further description of who Paul is establishes from the outset the divine origin and agency of his apostolic commission, and thus, underscores his special authority. 1 Enoch 92:1 Written by Enoch the scribe (this complete sign of wisdom) (who is) praised by all people and a leader of the whole earth.
Addressees
Both Galatians and the Epistle of Enoch are circular letters meant to be passed along to multiple readers in more than one location over the course of time. Enoch’s letter purports to be written in the seventh generation after Adam to be read by Jews and gentiles in the last days.  Galatians 1:2 to the churches of Galatia 

 

1 Enoch 92:1 to all my sons who dwell on the earth, and to the last generations who will observe truth and peace.

 

Both Galatians and the Epistle of Enoch address their respective readers throughout in the second person plural.  Galatians 4:19 My dear children 1 Enoch 92-105  Enoch refers to his addressees as “my children
Salutation
In Galatians, the salutation is clearly identifiable.

The situation in the Epistle of Enoch is more complicated. The typical salutation or greeting is missing in 1 Enoch 92:1. Nevertheless, as Nickelsburg suggests, “it may be hinted at in the word ‘peace'” which comes at the end of the adscription in the same verse.

Galatians 1:3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ

 

1 Enoch 92:1 to all my sons who dwell on the earth, and to the last generations who will observe truth and peace.

Nickelsburg also takes the final reference to “peace” in the Epistle (“And you will have peace,” 105:2) as “an epistolary conclusion.”

“Peace” is referenced at the beginning and ending both letters Galatians 1:3; 6:16 1 Enoch 92:1; 105:2
Very last word of both letters is “Amen” Galatians 6:18 1 Enoch 105:2

Okay, that’s done with the “formalities”. We may say that technically we are comparing apples and apples. James Scott’s next section is more interesting for an insight into how much we read in Paul’s letter was part of the wider thought-world of the day and not “just Paul”. Scott turns to their common “apocalyptic elements”. Continue reading “Meet Paul and Enoch; both come from the same place”


2017-09-03

Time to reflect on conspiracy theories, once again

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by Neil Godfrey

Derek Arnold

Twenty years since Princess Diana’s accidental death in a car crash, or is it the anniversary of her murder by British Intelligence acting on behalf of the royal family? The Royal Family certainly had motive enough to want her dead. She was destroying their reputation as a bastion of conventional morality and without that bastion the royal family could not survive. So — arrange for a drunken chauffeur, lots of paparazzi, a narrow tunnel on the route, a pre-positioned strobe-light and alert operator,  and plots to delay ambulances, and the deed is done.

Salon.com alerted me to a Conversation article by Derek Arnold, Why Princess Diana conspiracies refuse to die. Excerpts I find especially pertinent:

I’ve found that belief in conspiracy theories is more about a refusal to accept the randomness of life and tragedy than it is about the existence of evidence (or lack thereof).

Sounds like the same reason “we” believe in God, ghosts, angels, superstitions, fate, diets.

As political scientist Michael Barkun details in his book “A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America,” conspiracy theories usually hinge on three core beliefs:

  • Nothing happens by accident. For this reason, the horrible machinations of “evil” conspirators become more believable than a fluke or an accident.
  • Nothing is as it seems. Successful conspirators hide their identities and actions; we must, therefore, always be wary, even when there’s little reason for suspicion.
  • Dots can always be connected. Though conspirators attempt to hide their actions, patterns exist everywhere.

Another book I would like to read.

Today’s 24-hour news cycle also cultivates an opening for conspiratorial thinking. Among journalists, the race to break a story can lead to gaps or errors in reporting. We also tend to forget that as readers, many stories, especially breaking ones, are a work in progress. It can take months – even years – to ever know the full story.

Oh yes. One really notices the differences among various media here. A few (less popular ones, unfortunately) conspicuously stress how little is known in the early days, and they do not broadcast speculative figures of “numbers dead” or “suspected identities” of perpetrators of atrocities in the first twenty-four hours of an event — which I suppose is why they are too boring for a wider audience.

But perhaps the biggest reason we tend to give credence to conspiracy theories is our own mortality.

Studies have shown that many of us feel that we have little control over our own lives. This leads to something called “anomie,” a type of weariness that makes us view the world as an adversary, with people and systems out to get us.

Return to the similar reasons for believing in god.

To simply think of Princess Diana’s death as a “tragic accident” gives us less control over own fate. No matter how logically messy the details of a conspiracy theory might be, they do, strangely, soothe our own sense of worth and place in our world.

Like asking Jesus or Mary or God, lords of the universe, to take time to interfere with a burst of rain to allow us to get to an important appointment on time.

(I bet the Queen really did order MI6 to get rid of Diana, though.)

 

 


Flawed Counter-Terrorists

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by Neil Godfrey

Maajid Nawaz

A autobiography I found of special interest in understanding how a British Muslim became radicalized and eventually de-radicalized was Radical by Maajid Nawaz. I discussed one aspect of it in the post The Conflict between Islamism and Islam. From his biography and in his online writings and talks I have read and heard since there is absolutely no way I could ever think of Maajid Nawaz as an “anti-Muslim extremist” as the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has branded him. (My reading of the SPLC’s justification is that key persons in that organization fail to understand the difference between Islam and Islamism, and it is such persons whom Nawaz and others warn against. Incidentally, I have had to ask at least one Islamist to stop using the comments on this blog as a platform for spreading that ideology.)

Maajid Nawaz comes across to me as a flawed leader in the constellation of counter-extremist efforts. There is no one cause for radicalization and different motivations propel different persons in that direction. I once posted that I saw Maajid Nawaz as an example of a “status seeking” radical, following the descriptions of a wide range of historical extremists by Clark McCauley and Sophia Moskalenko in Friction. Such a motivation would explain what I think has been Maajid Nawaz’s biggest mistake — collaborating with a genuine “anti-Muslim extremist”, Sam Harris, with the publication and promotion of  their jointly authored book, Islam and the Future of Tolerance. The association has certainly lifted Maajid’s public profile at a time when reports that he had not fully honest about his past began to surface, but it would have been, well, possibly more appropriate for him to admit and apologize for past errors and move on by building on his experiences instead of offering opportunities for the Sam Harris’s and Jerry Coynes to falsely use him to promote prejudices he himself opposes. But, then again, there is money involved, and the need to sustain a cash flow for his organization, Quilliam. He has put himself in a difficult position.

Wheh! After all of that introduction, now to the point of this post. Salon.com has posted an interview with Maajid Nawaz where he is given a chance to explain himself and what he stands for, along with a commentary on the term he coined, “regressive left”, that has taken on entirely new connotations among Islamophobes like Sam Harris and Jerry Coyne.

Former Islamist radical Maajid Nawaz on “regressive leftism” — and why the SPLC has labeled him an “anti-Muslim extremist”

 


2017-09-02

Life and views of a war correspondent

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by Neil Godfrey

A most interesting fifty-minute long interview with British journalist based in the Middle East, Robert Fisk:

Robert Fisk: life as a war correspondent

  • He does not believe a journalist should be neutral, but that he should take a position on rights and wrongs.
  • He offers interesting commentary on the media, how reporting practices have changed, and the consequences for the type of news the public receives.
  • For memory buffs, he has some interesting biographical commentary on his father’s experiences in war.
  • Contrasting today’s Western leaders who have not had personal experience with war with those of a previous generation.
  • He talks about his interviews with Osama bin Laden.
  • Lots of interesting personal anecdotes.
  • A great insight into one of the better journalists reporting on the Middle East today.

 

 

 


2017-09-01

More on Islamophobia as an analog of Anti-semitism

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by Neil Godfrey

Following on from Islamophobia Really Is a Twin of Anti-Semitism . . . .

I find it interesting to compare the various attitudes towards Jews in France between 1780 and 1880 (chapter 8 and others of Jacob Katz’s From Prejudice to Destruction: Anti-Semitism, 1700-1933) with attitudes towards Muslims that we are witnessing today.

In Australia (and the situation does not seem to me to be very dissimilar in other Western countries) we have divided social attitudes towards Muslims. Some of us are willing to welcome the Muslim community, especially recent refugee arrivals, with open arms. Others are worried that too easily accepting them brings problems: their values are too different; they do not assimilate; they protect would-be terrorists; they sympathize with terrorists; they pose a threat to the future cultural landscape of the country; they threaten to introduce sharia law.

So it is interesting to read of a similar divide in nineteenth century French society. Though a minority, it appears, were willing to carry on the hopes of rights for the Jews that the French Revolution seemed for a moment to promise, others could not put aside their fears and suspicions concerning the consequences of Jews being fully accepted as equals with equal rights. Their values were too different; they did not assimilate; they were capable of any crime imaginable, “cheating, forgery, treason” (after all, they were all the children of deicides); they posed a threat to the wellbeing of non Jews — they would reduce other French people to destitution; they cheated and robbed in their business dealings; they had no moral principles worthy of a civilized community; etc.

As long as Jews kept to themselves they were seen as incorrigibly unfit for mainstream French society; when some Jews took advantage of certain liberties introduced with the French Revolution and gained positions as heads of major companies or teachers in universities, they were seen as an even greater threat to the long-term well-being of society.

Interestingly throughout the years up to 1880 the authors of major works warning the French nation about the Jewish threat to society did not see the “degenerate nature” of the Jews as racially determined. They viewed the problem as primarily a cultural and religious one; the Jews were “damaged” by their primitive religious beliefs and customs. Many anti-semites, among socialists like Fourier and among the clergy of the church, believed that Jews could become worthwhile citizens eventually, but only through being isolated from their communities and undergoing thorough “re-education”, or by becoming Christians and leaving their Jewish ways and associates entirely.

The biological determinism concept — what we tend to think of as the essence of racism — emerged only later in France.

Anti-semitism was not at this time a “racist” phenomenon. But it was anti-semitism no less.

So those today who insist that their “Islamophobia” or their “critical pronouncements about Muslims” and the threat they pose to society today is not racism and therefore cannot be compared with anti-semitism are not quite correct.

Another interesting contemporary rhyme with history is the few names of the minority group who do come over to the mainstream society and turn against their former religious group.

The anti-Jewish front received unexpected reinforcement from a type of Jewish convert peculiar to the first decades of postrevolutionary France. . . . France produced a type of convert . . . who himself became active in propagating Christianity and assailing his former coreligionists, his “brethren in the flesh.” The emancipated Jew in France had, seemingly, no reason for changing his religion. But paradoxically it is in France that we meet a whole category of converts who demonstrated their conviction by becoming active in missionary work and joining hands with other detractors of Jews and Judaism. (pp. 116f)

Some of these converts (e.g. Theodore and Alphonse Ratisbonne) had in fact grown up with an education that contained relatively minimal Jewish content, or had had negative experiences that estranged them from their Jewish communities, so it was easy for such persons to break away and turn on their fellow Jews. But their Jewish history nonetheless gave them a prominent status within the Church and wider society as “Jews who had seen the light”. These converts, we can well imagine, were excellent propaganda value to “proving” just how degenerate the Jews they left behind really were.

One thinks of a number of prominent names of ex-Muslims who today share public platforms with bigoted Islamophobes. Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s past history with her Muslim family and community is shrouded in unanswered questions and checkered with moral ambiguities, for example. No doubt some other ex-Muslims really have suffered terrible injustices that nothing can excuse, but we become part of a wider problem if we brand all Muslims as abnormally abusive. (More positive voices I have found are Maryam Namazie and Elham Manea.)

Just some passing thoughts as I continue to read Katz.

 

 


2017-08-31

Skeptical of Mythicism, Fine; But Scholarly Carelessness, Not So Fine

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by Neil Godfrey

Back in June I noticed the following blog post by a certain professor of New Testament studies and “progressive Christian” but being overseas and away from my little library I was unable to check the details and respond at the time…..

Skeptical of Mythicism

The post begins with a quotation of a Facebook post by Ron Huggins directed to James McGrath personally:

The French scholar Charles Guignebert, Professor of Christian History at the Sorbonne in Paris, wrote a very critical book on Jesus in the 1950s. He was far more skeptical of the value of historical data on Jesus than most New Testament scholars liberal or conservative would be today. . . . 

(James McGrath knowing how much you love the mythicists, I thought you might appreciate this quotation)

. . . .[A]s skeptical as Guignebert was of the New Testament evidence, he was even more skeptical of the fanciful reconstructions of the Mythicists (historical Jesus deniers). I don’t think I’ve ever run across a better summing up of why scholars as a whole tend to reject the theories of the Mythicists . . . . 

James McGrath loved the quote and even placed it against another quote by Christ Myth scholar Robert M. Price to make it appear that Price was ignorantly claiming some small support from Guignebert without any justification.

Well, I’ve returned home now and had a chance to check my Guignebert and was both surprised and not surprised to find that the Huggins-McGrath quotation just happened to stop short of a sentence that backfired on what they were claiming the quote said about “mythicism”. Here are the words of Guignebert selected by Huggins and McGrath to make their case:

“It is evident that if the personality and influence of Jesus disappeared from history, the birth of Christianity has still to be explained, and it is to this task that those who deny his historicity have applied themselves, with a confidence only equaled by the variety of their theories and the flimsiness of their arguments. Popular opinion, always susceptible to novelty, and entirely indifferent to the cautious reservations of scientific exegesis, impressed by their air of conclusiveness [64] and originality, has more than once given an enthusiastic reception to such theories, and encourage the amateurs by its admiring applause. For “amateurs” they nearly all are who uphold the negative and mythological point of view; some naïve and superficial, quite unconscious of the pitiful inadequacy of their knowledge, others well documented, that is to say, conversant with the subject, sometimes even learned in it, but equally ignorant or impatient of the humble and patient discipline of exegesis. They are ever ready to thrust aside or mishandle the texts instead of cautiously and respectfully attempting to extract truth from them; to impose upon them whatever conclusions their own convictions demand, instead of keeping within the limits to which a scrupulously critical and historical sense would confine them. Such flimsy and unfounded speculations may perhaps yield interesting works of the imagination, and exhibit a fascinating ingenuity, but they do no service to science.”

That quote finishes mid-sentence. “Science” is not the last word of the sentence. It appears, furthermore, that both Huggins and McGrath were interrupted before they could read the very next sentence which I quote here:

We are not here referring to the position that Jesus had no historical existence, which is in itself a perfectly legitimate theory entitled to serious discussion.

So when the “Religion Prof” (as the author calls himself) set up the Guignebert quotation against Robert M. Price as he did….

Compare that quote with how Robert Price apparently spoke of Guignebert’s perspective:

 

The Religion Prof asks his readers to compare the selected words of Guignebert with those of Robert M. Price, and they do make Price look a bit foolish, dishonest even.

But Guignebert’s very next sentence after the words selected for quotation actually belie the claim by both Huggins and McGrath and substantiate the quote by Price. Price said Guignebert took the hypothesis seriously and we see that Guignebert indeed used the words “entitled to serious discussion”.

Guignebert was critical of what since Sandmel is labelled uncontrolled “parallelomania”, a fault that too often accompanied the “history of religions” school at that time and that some mythicists fall into today.

I know you are getting all of this second hand and you can’t check for yourselves what Guignebert wrote, so I have scanned the relevant pages and attach them below. Continue reading “Skeptical of Mythicism, Fine; But Scholarly Carelessness, Not So Fine”


2017-08-30

Ten Commandments: Where Did they Really Come From?

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by Neil Godfrey

The Ten Commandments are a strange mix. They proscribe not only stealing and even the craving to have any property belonging to your neighbour. (And neighbour’s property includes his wife.) The command not to kill is certainly not meant to be interpreted literally as a general law since God elsewhere commanded lots of killing of people and animals. Actual laws relating to killing need to cover situations of accidental, impulsive and premeditated killing and the Pentateuch does set out laws covering those variables as we saw in Plato and the Hebrew Bible: Homicide Laws.

I had expected to be posting one of my final posts on Gmirkin’s book, Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible by now but my study of the final chapter has directed me to a section I covered all too sketchily earlier. So here we are. Back at chapter 4, “Greek and Ancient Near Eastern law collections”.

The Ten Commandments certainly have a distinctive reputation unequalled by any of the other laws in the Hebrew Scriptures. God even commanded for them to be kept in the ark of the covenant, translated as “coffer” in the Everett Fox translation of Deuteronomy 10:1-5, but I have changed “coffer” for the more familiar “ark”:

10:1 At that time YHWH said to me:
Carve yourself two tablets of stone, like the first-ones, and come up to me, on the mountain, and make yourself an ark of wood.

2 I will write on the tablets the words that were on the tablets, the
first-ones, that you smashed, and you are to put them in the ark.

3 So I made a ark of acacia wood,
I carved out two tablets of stone, like the first-ones,
and I went up, on the mountain, the two tablets in my arms.

4 And he wrote on the tablets according to the first writing, the Ten Words
that YHWH spoke to you on the mountain, from the midst of the fire,
on the day of the Assembly, and YHWH gave them to me.

5 And when I faced about and came down the mountain,
I put the tablets in the ark that I had made,
and they have remained there, as YHWH had commanded me.

And they do appear to be as much wisdom saying as law, or even more wisdom saying than law. Not only in content, but even in style since, like proverbs they are addressed to the second person “you”. They even address attitudes or feelings that are not even acted upon, which of course is not the sort of thing a “law” typically addresses. Further, their structure facilitates learning and recitation:

The Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5:6–21 are an excellent example of teaching structured for memorization. The rules focus on central values of ancient Israel. As Erhard Gerstenberger observed decades ago, their “apodictic” form most closely resembles that of gnomic instructions inside and outside Israel. In addition, the ordering of the list into ten items—however this is done in various streams of tradition—allows the beginning student to use his or her fingers to count off and see whether he or she has included all of the key elements of this fundamental instruction. This combination of elements—focus on central values, simplicity of form, and memorizability—has contributed to the ongoing use of the Ten Commandments in religious education up to the present, along with the focus on them as an icon of central values in contemporary cultural battles over the biblical tradition. (Carr, David M., Writing on the Tablets of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 137 — referenced by Gmirkin, page 204)

Again with the Everett Fox translation, Deuteronomy 5:6-18:

6 I am YHWH your God
who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of a house of serfs.
7 You are not to have other gods beside my presence.

8 You are not to make yourself a carved-image of any form
that is in the heavens above, that is on the earth beneath, that is in the waters beneath the earth.
9 You are not to prostrate yourselves to them, you are not to serve
them,
for I, YHWH your God, am a jealous God, calling-to-account the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons to the third and to the fourth (generation) of those that hate me,
10 but showing loyalty to thousands
of those that love me, of those that keep my commandments.

11 You are not to take up the name of YHWH your God for
emptiness,
for YHWH will not clear him that takes up his name for emptiness!

12 Keep the day of Sabbath, by hallowing it, as YHWH your God has commanded you.
13 For six days you are to serve and to do all your work;
14 but the seventh day
(is) Sabbath for YHWH your God— you are not to do any work:
(not) you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your servant, nor your maid, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your animals, nor your sojourner that is in your gates— in order that your servant and your maid may rest as one-like- yourself.
15 You are to bear-in-mind that serf were you in the land of Egypt, but YHWH your God took you out from there with a strong hand
and with an outstretched arm; therefore YHWH your God commands you to observe the day of Sabbath.

16 Honor your father and your mother,
as YHWH your God has commanded you, in order that your days may be prolonged, and in order that it may go-well with you on the soil that YHWH your God is giving you.

17 You are not to murder!

And you are not to adulter!

And you are not to steal!

And you are not to testify against your neighbor as a lying witness!

18 And you are not to desire the wife of your neighbor; you are not to crave the house of your neighbor,
his field, or his servant, or his maid, his ox or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor!

Of particular significance for Russell Gmirkin’s thesis is that these Ten Commandments have no known parallel in ancient Near Eastern law codes.

So were the authors of the Decalogue bestowed with a superior gift of spiritual insight?

Images from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Santuario_Delfos.jpg and https://simanaitissays.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/mapgreece.jpg

Or were they influenced by “best ideas” of sacred law and wisdom found in a culture to their west? Should we consider a set of “laws” or “sacred sayings” inscribed in stone at Greece’s principal temple at Delphi? The Delphic sanctuary was the centre for Apollo and city-states would send ambassadors to the site to seek guidance from Apollo’s prophetess there.At that holy site was a world-renowned inscription of wisdom sayings that took on the status of sacred laws. Continue reading “Ten Commandments: Where Did they Really Come From?”


2017-08-28

The Necessity of being Divisive

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by Neil Godfrey

Prominent bloggers are picking on Sam Harris again.

First there is P.Z. Myers,

There he [Ed Brayton] goes again, picking on the distinguished and august Thought Leaders of Atheism, in this case Sam Harris. It’s easy to do; there are a lot of buzzwords that trigger my rage, and Harris is fond of trotting out indicators of inanity like “identity politics” and “politically correct” and, of course, “divisive”.

I’m not on board with everything I read by PZ so of course I waited till I read Ed Brayton’s post myself:

I am not going to accuse Harris of being a white supremacist, as many have done. I’m going to take his argument at face value and presume, for the sake of argument, that he means well by it. But he’s still utterly, flagrantly, dangerously wrong. A quote from that podcast:

“My tweet was actually fairly carefully written. I mean, it starts with ‘In 2017 all identity politics is detestable.’ And of course I’m thinking about the West, and I’m thinking primarily about America, I was commenting on Charlottesville. And I believe this, you know, I think Black Lives Matter is a dangerous and divisive and retrograde movement, and it is a dishonest movement. I mean, that’s not to say that everyone associated with it is dishonest, but I find very little to recommend in what I’ve seen from Black Lives Matter. I think it is the wrong move for African Americans to be organizing around the variable of race now. It’s *obviously* the wrong move, it’s *obviously* destructive to civil society.”

Ed proceeds to dissect the details of the above but I quote and comment on just one point: Continue reading “The Necessity of being Divisive”


Reading the Bible Like a Fundamentalist: What Does That Mean?

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by Tim Widowfield

I had meant to say something about this subject over a month ago as it popped up in my Facebook feed, when Benjamin Corey over on Patheos asked, “Why Do Intelligent Atheists Still Read The Bible Like Fundamentalists?

I was a fundamentalist until my mid-teens, and even though that was quite a long time ago, I still remember what it was like to think and believe like one. Longtime Vridar readers may recall serious scholars like Maurice Casey bemoaning the supposed fundamentalist nature of mythicism. Once a fundie, always a fundie, eh wot? For the sophisticated polyglot like the late Dr. Casey, what could be worse than calling one’s enemy a closed-minded fundamentalist?

My early warning systems start honking whenever I see someone accuse another person of doing anything “like a fundamentalist,” since it often signals a sweeping dismissal. Not only that, but often, at the heart of it, the accusation seeks to terminate rather than continue the debate.

Corey is sort of right, up to a point. Christians have a long history of tolerance or at least ambivalence toward tattoos. Sure, there’s that verse in Leviticus (19:28) but this subject falls within the body of ritual law. Just as Christians have no problem with shaving their beards or eating dead pigs, they probably won’t have an issue with the cutting or marking of the skin. They might not like them personally, but they wouldn’t claim that tattoos will keep you out of paradise.

And that would hold true for fundamentalist Christians as well. They say they read the Bible literally and believe it to be the inerrant Word of God. But what does that mean in practice? Suppose, for example, as a child I had read Leviticus 19:28 and felt troubled about it, what do you think I would have done? Continue reading “Reading the Bible Like a Fundamentalist: What Does That Mean?”


Another Muslim Voice to Listen To

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by Neil Godfrey

Elham Manea — From her University of Zurich staff homepage.

I concluded a recent post with an acknowledgement of Maryam Namazie as a voice worth listening to in any discussion relating to Islamic and Islamist controversies today. Having just listened to an ABC’s Religion and Ethics Report interview, Muslim scholar says the burka isn’t Islamic, I have to add Elham Manea‘s name alongside Maryam’s.

The interview has been mutated as a “news story” by Siobhan Hegarty, Burkas are political symbols not Islamic ones, Muslim scholar says. You can listen to the full thirteen minute interview here 

Vm
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Key points:

  • community and political speakers targeting violent Islamist movements in public debate miss the core problem; focus needs to be on the Islamist ideology that currently gets a free pass because it professes non-violence, yet it is in fact the extremist ideology that is spawning not only the terrorist violence but also an Islam that promotes segregation and a denial of full human rights.
  • If Islamophobes say all Muslims are essentially alike in a negative sense (potentially violent, in denial of fundamental human rights, etc), so a certain liberal defence of Muslims is just as “dehumanizing” by likewise viewing them as all alike in a “positive” sense, defending their head coverings, sharia institutions, etc.
  • the full burka (total covering, including veiled eyes) and even the “moderate” head covering hijab have become identified as “Islamic” since 1979 and the promotion of Wahhabism ultimately from Saudi Arabia’s petro-dollars.

(On the first point I have posted on Jason Burke’s detailed account of how that happened. I also appreciated Elham’s comment that the 1979 Iranian revolution saw a betrayal of the Iranian middle class and left-wing movement. How that sort of thing happens too often with revolutions!)

And I’ve just bought her new book, too, Women and Shari’a law: the impact of legal pluralism in the UK

(Afterthought — I don’t really “know” that Elham is still a Muslim, but no doubt she has a Muslim background at least, and certainly addresses Muslims with understanding.)


2017-08-27

Jesus, a new Dionysus Triumphantly Entering Jerusalem?

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by Neil Godfrey

The last few days I’ve been distracted from my planned reading and posting as a result of reading something quite unexpected by Andreas Bedenbender in Frohe Botschaft am Abgrund: das Markusevangelium und der Jüdische Krieg. Since I don’t read German (except sort of through machine translators) and since most of Bedenbender’s references are in German, and since I don’t sit in a major library, that has been no easy task. But the gist of the surprising suggestion arises from one particular Greek word behind the passage in the Gospel of Mark about Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, 10:8 (RSV):

And many spread their garments upon the way; and others branches (στιβάδας), which they had cut from the fields.

Branches cut from the fields, presumably from trees in the fields. Would not they become an obstacle for any donkey trying to navigate the road? Other evangelists do not use that word, “branches”. Compare:

Matthew 21:8 uses κλάδους, also translated as “branches”, but not the same word as in Mark.

Luke 19:36 scraps that Markan detail completely and says only that the crowd spread their garments on the ground. No branches at all.

John 12:13 uses a different word again, “branches of palm trees” (τὰ βαΐα τῶν φοινίκων), and more sensibly than in Mark implies that they were waving them rather than setting up an obstacle course for the donkey.

Now it appears that Mark’s word for “branch/branches”, (στιβάς / στιβάδας), is unique in the Bible:

For στιβάς is found, for example, in Euripides and Herodotus, but in the New Testament it is nowhere except in Mark 11:8. It is missing in the LXX, in the Greek Pseudepigraphen to the AT, in Philo and Josephus. What, then, did Markus take after “straw-shafts,” when “branches” were within his reach? That κλάδος, which he used in 4:32 and in 13:28, will scarcely have disappeared! (Bedenbender, p. 312, adapted from machine translation.)

So Mark elsewhere used the more common word for “branches” and that makes his use of “stibas” in the triumphal entry scene more odd.

Andreas Bedenbender does not argue “strongly” for Jesus’ triumphal entry in the Gospel of Mark being invested with Dionysiac allusions, but he does point to some details that make the question reasonable. Continue reading “Jesus, a new Dionysus Triumphantly Entering Jerusalem?”