Category Archives: Biblical Reflections

Mark’s Portrait of Jesus and The World He Lived in Part 4

1 Reply

Mark’s Portrait of Jesus and The World He Lived in Part 4: A Scripture Shaped World

Scroll of the Book of Isaiah

Scroll of the Book of Isaiah

When I originally did my presentation on the Gospel of Mark and the way that it interacts with the world in which Jesus lived and breathed I left out a very important part, the way the Gospel of Mark interacts with the Scriptures (at this time the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament most likely in its Greek translation the Septuagint) and uses the language and world of the scriptures to find a way to talk about who Jesus is and what the Kingdom of God means in a world of the Roman empire, Second Temple Judaism and a world where the conflict between good and evil was viewed in terms of conflict between various spiritual forces. Inhabiting a Jewish world where the language of the scriptures would have been a critical part of that world it is not surprising that Mark uses scriptures to help illuminate who Jesus is and to allude to a deeper engagement with the story of the God of Israel and the people of that God.

The question of Mark as a reader of scripture is normally handled by looking at the explicit places where the gospel quotes the scriptures and often without taking some time to examine the broader question of how Mark is using these scriptures to show who Jesus is. Richard B. Hay’s recent work on the way that the gospel authors utilized scriptures is a helpful and generative study of this question in a much more holistic light. In examining the interaction between the way that the Hebrew Scriptures were read by Mark and the way they form a linguistic world that the gospel is able to access Hays argues:

And upon rereading, we discover numerous passages scattered through this Gospel that offer intimations of a disturbing truth: Jesus’ identity with the one God of Israel. Unlike the Gospel of John—which explicitly declares that Jesus is the Logos, the Son who is one with the Father—Mark shies away from overt ontological declarations. Nonetheless, Mark’s Gospel suggests that Jesus is, in some way that defies comprehension, the embodiment of God’s presence. Mark never quite dares to articulate this claim explicitly; it is too scandalous for direct speech. For Mark, the character of God’s presence in Jesus is a mystery that can be approached only by indirection, through riddle-like allusion to the OT. (Hays, 2014, p. 19f.)Emphasis authors.

From the first direct citation in Mark 1: 2-3 which weaves together Malachi 3.1, and Isaiah 40.3, both passages which link back to the LORD, the God of Israel being the one who is coming, Malachi pointing to the LORD coming in judgment and Isaiah who proclaims the LORD God coming with might to rule and to gather together the people of Israel. Right at the very beginning there are the audacious and bold claims about the one who is coming, and yet throughout the narrative of Mark the characters in the story will wonder and will have the secret kept from them who this Jesus is. The demons may know who Jesus is but they are silenced, others may have flashes of who Jesus is but they are also told not to speak to anyone about it, Jesus’ identity is a mystery that is ultimately revealed by his actions and the way these actions resonate with the story of who God is in relation to God’s people.

Many of the conflicts that emerge between Jesus and the Pharisees early in the gospel revolve around Jesus doing things that are reserved for the God of Israel. In Mark 2.1-12, when Jesus heals the paralytic man who is lowered through his roof the accusation is, “Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” And the scriptures do highlight in several places that the God of Israel does forgive sins, for example Hays lifts up Exodus 34.6-7:

The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s children to the third and fourth generation.

A similar dynamic is at play with Jesus declaring he is Lord of the Sabbath at the end of chapter 2, where now Jesus is able to interpret what the commands of God mean and becomes an authoritative interpreter of the scriptures. Perhaps this is some of the wonder that Mark records in 1.22 where the crowds are amazed at him teaching as one with authority.  Mark continues, through Jesus’ actions, to invite us to wonder who Jesus is and how he is connected with the God of Israel, from his healings and exorcisms to the walking on water in Mark 4. 35-41 where the disciples wonder, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” and whether Mark directly evokes Psalm 107 or not, it provides an evocative answer to the question, “Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress; he made the storms be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed.” Psalm 107. 28f. Continuing in the story of the feeding of the five thousand with the evoking of the image of the people as sheep without a shepherd there are numerous allusions to the LORD, the God of Israel being the shepherd of the people, most memorably Psalm 23, but more pointedly Ezekiel 34 which rails against the leaders of Ezekiel’s time who have not proved to be faithful shepherd and in response the LORD declares, “I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the LORD God.” Ezekiel 34.15.  We are left to wonder after each event who is this Jesus, and how is he able to speak in ways that reflect God’s speech, how is he able to act in ways that reflect God’s actions and how does he embody the presence of the God of Israel who has drawn near with God’s kingdom. Mark points us continually to the suggestive but never overt answer that Jesus is fulfilling the role that God has promised to fulfill in the scriptures. That Jesus can forgive, can be Lord of Sabbath, can master the elements and the demonic forces that threaten God’s people and can be the faithful shepherd that the people has longed for.

Mark continues to invite those with eyes to see and ears to hear to sit and wonder about who Jesus is and to listen to the frequently allusive way in which the language of scriptures helps to paint this picture in a suggestive way. Yet it is a mystery that Mark invites his readers into, the mystery of the kingdom of God that arrives in parables rather than outright proclamation. Most of Jesus’ overt quotations of scriptures come at the end of the book of Mark where the question of who Jesus is comes to its ironic and sharply contested conclusion. Jesus’ authority is continually questioned by the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the scribes and the chief priests and Jesus continues not only to allude to scripture but to embody it. Whether it is the allusion to Jeremiah’s temple sermon when Jesus enters the temple in Mark 11.17 and contrasting it with the vision of Isaiah in 56.7 and Jesus continuing to embody the role of Jeremiah in conflict with the temple of his day (see the previous post particularly on Jesus and Jeremiah), and the way this plays into the image of the cursed fig tree and the oracle of Jeremiah 8.13. The allusion to Isaiah 5 with both the parable of the wicked tenants in Mark 12. 1-12 and the denunciation of the scribes in Mark 12. 38-40. The language of Daniel 7 forms the answer to the High Priest in the trial where Jesus is accused of blasphemy, but also forms the background for the Son of Man imagery used throughout the gospel.  Mark uses these images poetically and sometime Jesus seems to take on the role of the God of Israel, other times Jesus walks in the place of Israel and is able to cry out to their God, sometimes he is the fulfillment of the hope of Israel and the scriptures, and yet in every place Mark leaves us with the mystery of the kingdom of God. Yet the use of scriptures continually points that somehow, evocatively, in Jesus we in some way encounter the divine presence of the God of Israel. Mark is not interested in explaining how this comes to be but rather inviting us into the journey and experience of the new people of God trying to find the language to explain who this Jesus was and what he did and finding in the language of the Hebrew Scriptures a vast set of hopes and expectations and words that describe the relationship of God to God’s people. And into that web of images the experience of Jesus mysteriously seems to fall and we wonder with the first hearers of the message what that means for our experience of this Jesus Christ the Son of God whose gospel we receive from Mark.

Mark’s Portrait of Jesus and the World He Lived In: Part 3

2 Replies

Mark’s Portrait of Jesus and the World He Lived In: Part 3 Second Temple Judaism: Pharisees, Sadducees and Zealots, oh my

James Tissot, Reconstruction of Jerusalem and the Temple of Herod, painted between 1886 and 1894

James Tissot, Reconstruction of Jerusalem and the Temple of Herod, painted between 1886 and 1894

The time of Jesus’ ministry takes place within a time scholars call Second Temple Judaism. Second Temple Judaism is named this simply because it is the time after the destruction of the first temple when the city of Jerusalem is captured and destroyed by the Babylonian empire in 588 BCE and the time after the temple is rebuilt as a part of the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the return from exile of some of the Jewish people beginning in 520-515 BCE. The world would change dramatically for the Jewish people over the 500 years preceding the time of Jesus’ life but with one exception (the time after the Maccabean Revolt (140 BCE). By the time of Jesus, the Jewish people have been under Roman rule (although indirectly ruled by client kings)since Pompey’s invasion in 63 CE.  For the time around Jesus’ life you will see some of the religious and political power struggles continuing to play out on the pages of the gospels between Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, Herodians and other groups that are trying to figure out how to live out their political and religious philosophies in the context of Roman and Herodian rule.

The Pharisees

James Tissot, Woe Unto You Scribes and Pharisees

James Tissot, Woe Unto You Scribes and Pharisees

The Pharisees and the Sadducees are both political and religious movements that go back to the time of the Maccabean revolt. Both at various times would occupy greater or lesser authority based upon the ruler at the appropriate time, but by the time of Jesus the Pharisees and Sadducees have been in conflict for well over 100 years. The Pharisees according to the Jewish historian Josephus, a Pharisee himself, had more of their support in the common people and probably more in the rural areas, like Galilee, than within the city of Jerusalem itself (although there were certainly Pharisees within Jerusalem). Politics and religion are not separate in the ancient world, so the Pharisees exercise both political and religious authority. The Pharisees were more centered on the reading of the scriptures and the practicing of those scriptures as boundary markers for the people in contrast to the world around them.

The Pharisees are often only looked at from a Christian perspective for their disagreements with Jesus, and they are present from very early in the narrative of Jesus because they are present in Galilee where Jesus begins his ministry. You often see the conflicts with Jesus center around the tabernacle, reading of scripture, and particularly Sabbath and other distinctive practices that served as boundary markers in the Pharisees eyes for the Jewish people from the Gentiles. Both they and the Sadducees emerge from a time of forced Hellenization of the Jewish people under the Selucid Empire and to they hold onto these boundary markers as distinctive practices of every faithful Jew. For the Pharisees they attempt to heighten the religious practice of the people in order to bring about a closer coherence with God’s torah, God’s law. Instead of being focused primarily on the priestly practices of the temple they were focused on the actions of the everyday person to live a holy and righteous life.

The Pharisees did believe in the resurrection of the dead, which is a belief that emerges in the time of Second Temple Judaism. They were not in the positions of power and yet they believed that ultimately God would intervene and set the world right and the righteous would share in this world that God had liberated. With their focus more on individual practices, the reading of scriptures centered around the synagogues and their practice of trying to discern God’s will through the law they would survive the collapse of the temple in the wake of the First Jewish Revolt against Rome in 70 CE and eventually evolve into Rabbinic Judaism.

 The Sadducees

James Tissot, The Chief Priests Take Counsel Together (1886-1894)

James Tissot, The Chief Priests Take Counsel Together (1886-1894)

There is the old saying that the Sadducees didn’t believe in the resurrection so they were sad, you see-and while memorable the saying misses the point. The Sadducees, while they didn’t believe in the resurrection, were far from sad. They were predominantly the priestly class that were in a politically and economically more affluent position than their Pharisee counterparts. For the Sadducees, they understood that God was blessing them in their current life and that were the ones charged with maintaining the temple worship and sacrifice to God. For them the center of their life flows out of the first five books of the Bible and they become the cultic leaders of the temple, offering sacrifices and living a holy life in a priestly manner. The Sadducees to maintain their political power do have to maintain relationship with the Roman powers of the day, whether Herod the Great at the time of Jesus’ birth or Pontus Pilate at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion. They are accused by the Pharisees of being collaborators at times, but with their focus on maintaining the temple function and sacrifice they see that as their primary task.

The Sadducees do come into Jesus when he enters into Jerusalem because Jesus does challenge the temple as the source of Jewish authority. For the Sadducees maintaining the temple and by extension Jerusalem are at the center of their life. When the temple is destroyed in the First Jewish Revolt against Rome in 70 CE the Sadducees begin to fade away. Without the temple and its worship they lose their reason for existing and do not have the distributed power base or the focal points of the Torah and the synagogue to be able to recast their identity as easily as the Pharisees do.

Essenes

A much smaller group that do not play directly into the story of Jesus but who have come to prominence with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls are the Essenes. The Essenes pulled away in a monastic way from society and formed smaller groups of dedicated disciples who were practicing a more rigorous form of Judaism. There appears to be both and ascetic and mystical side to the Essenes and they consider the temple compromised to the point where the only option is to separate themselves and form a new community of the righteous.

Zealots

Describe by Josephus as the ‘fourth philosophy’ the zealots were those who felt that the Roman Empire was to be resisted by force. The time of Jesus’ life was not a peaceful one and the zealots make their way into the story in a number of ways. In both Mark and Matthew the apostle Simon is known  as Simon the Cananaean but Luke he is know as Simon the Zealot and it is certainly possible that among the followers Jesus there were former freedom fighters. It is also possible that Judas Iscariot’s title may refer to the Sicarii, the knife men and assassins who targeted Roman targets. Perhaps it is Luke’s gospel with the parable of the Good Samaritan, where the man is beaten up by the side of the road by bandits (who may well have been freedom fighters-the road from Jerusalem to Jericho was very instable much like the airport road in Bagdad) but many of Jesus’ teachings at the end of his ministry seem to be directed specifically against the revolutionary messages that the zealots were spreading even in his day. Perhaps this could be one reason, although this will never be more than suggestive, why Judas makes the decision to betray Jesus.

Focal Points of Jewish Identity

The Temple by Radojavor@deviantart.com

The Temple by Radojavor@deviantart.com

Throughout the history of the Jewish people they had different focal points of identity and authority (I deal with this more in depth in my posts of The Place of Authority, particularly parts 1-5). Family and tribe, land, the temple, Jerusalem, the Davidic king and the Torah and more broadly the scriptures at various points become the focal point of Jewish identity. Among the groups in conflict in Jesus day there are different variations on these points of identity. For the Sadducees for example the temple is a central point, for the Pharisees it focuses more on the Torah and the scriptures, and for the zealots there is a focus both on the land and the hope for a Davidic messiah that will lead them out of their captivity under Rome. Within the focal points are various practices and beliefs that help center each group and reinforce these beliefs.  Judaism had adapted to various situations throughout its life that would enable them to place their focus in different places to maintain their identity. The situation after the destruction of the temple would again be a time where the focus would again become focused on the Torah and on the Hebrew scriptures and the debating on what they would mean for their identity.  This was not the first time the Hebrew people encountered this challenge, previously in the Babylonian exile they had to reengage their stories to figure out who they were as the people of God.

Jesus and Jeremiah

Those who have read much in this blog know I spent an extended period of time with the book of Jeremiah, and because of that time there are a number of ways in which Jesus embodies parts of the prophet’s life and struggle. Both Jesus and Jeremiah stand at the edge of a major crisis in their respective times where there are people calling for resistance to the empires of their day, Babylon in the time of Jeremiah and Rome in the time of Jesus. Both would struggle with the temple and its hierarchy that had a vested interest in things remaining the way they were. Both would be considered traitors by their own people. Jesus is seen by those around him as a prophet, that is not to limit his identity to that but he was seen as at least that by most of the people of his time.  In Mark when Jesus asks, who do people say that I am the response is , “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” (Mark 8.28) but I found in intriguing that the Gospel of Matthew this is expanded to include Jeremiah specifically mentioned as one of the prophets.  Jesus comes into conflict with both the Pharisees and the Sadducees in his day and will ultimately be crucified by Rome under the title the King of the Jews, but the primary reason for his crucifixion in Matthew, Mark and Luke is his opposition to the temple and his challenge to both the Sadducees and the Pharisees sources of authority.

Jesus’ Temple Problem in the Gospel of Mark

The Gospel of Mark dedicates most of chapters 11, 12 and 13 to Jesus’ struggle with the temple and it’s authorities in his time. After the entry into Jerusalem, the following day Jesus curses a fig tree a symbol of the Jewish people and then proceeds to turn over the tables in the temple, quoting Isaiah as the vision for what the temple should be (Isaiah 56.7) and Jeremiah for what the temple has become (Jeremiah 7.11).  On the way out of town Jesus and his disciples pass the now withered fig tree and in the text that follows Jesus says, “if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass it will be done for you.” (Mark 11. 23) Jesus is probably not talking about an abstract mountain, but rather the temple mount where they have just come from.  Later in chapter 12 after Jesus  had warned his disciples to beware of the scribes that devour widows houses we encounter the story of the poor widow who gives the two small copper coins. Perhaps this is simply a parable of the widow’s piety who gives all she haves to live on or perhaps this is a condemnation of the temple which devour all she had to live on.  Regardless of how this passage is interpreted in the following passage at the beginning of Mark 13 Jesus must deal with his own followers becoming impressed by the temple structure and Jesus remarks to them that the temple will be thrown down and they are not to place their trust in it, but they are not to become revolutionaries like many others who will be led astray.

Jesus will also struggle with both sets of religious authorities particularly in these chapters which lead up to the crucifixion narrative. Jesus has challenged their authority and they attempt to undermine his authority and shame him or have reason to accuse him of being a revolutionary. Jesus is eventually accused by the high priests and the elders who are assembled of blasphemy, of claiming authority for himself that rested either with the religious authorities or specifically with the God of Israel. Jesus will be a voice struggling within the Jewish people of his day for how people were to order their lives as the people of God and ultimately his vision would not be embraced by the leaders of his day. But for his followers Jesus would in various ways become the focal point of his follower’s devotion to God. As Richard B. Hays argues in his recent work Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness (Hays, 2014) each of the gospel writers envision Jesus as embodying the mystery of God (Mark), the fulfillment of the hope of the Hebrew Scriptures (Matthew), the one who redeems the chosen people of God (Luke) and the embodiment of the Jewish temple, sacrifice and festivals (John).  It is to Mark as an interpreter of the Jewish story that we will turn next.

Mark’s Portrait of Jesus and the World in which He Lived Part 2

2 Replies

Mark’s Portrait of Jesus and the World in which He Lived Part 2: The Pax Romans and the Peace of Christ

Statue of Caesar Augustus

Statue of Caesar Augustus

In the 1990s and early 2000s there was a vast amount of writing done by New Testament scholars that was taking into account the world of the Roman empire and its impact on both Jesus and the gospel writers. Prior to this time it was no secret that the Roman empire was a part of the context of the gospels but nobody seemed to take seriously the implications of the language of the empire or the context of nations who had garrisons of Roman soldiers stationed in them or the reality of conflict between the Jewish people and Rome as a context for the writing of the gospels. Yet, once one begins to look hard at the gospels in this light it is hard to imagine not seeing the impact of Rome upon these communities and the way they viewed the world. The conflict that would emerge between the Pax Romana and the Peace of Christ would come out of two different views of what the world was all about and two different dreams of different kingdoms.

Roman Empire in 117AD

Roman Empire in 117AD

At the time of Jesus and at the time of the writing of the Gospel of Mark the Roman Empire was near the peak of its power and influence. The Roman Empire at its height in 117 CE would stretch from modern day Portugal and Spain, through part of England, France, Italy, Greece, and the Balkans, Turkey, Iraq, Egypt and the Northern Coast of Africa. Its impact is still felt today in many ways, even in language where the Romance (from Rome) languages of Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French all share common vocabulary and form while the defiant Germanic tribes would not have a unified language until the time of the Reformation. Commerce flowed effectively throughout the empire which built extensive networks of roads and managed commerce in Latin in the Western half of the empire where Greek remained the language of the western half of the empire (hence the New Testament being written in the language of commerce of the people of the western half of the Roman empire rather than Hebrew or Aramaic). The very genre that we refer to these stories as being, gospel, takes their background as the proclamations of the Roman emperor when an area was conquered or a feast or major event was being declared. The Romans believed and executed peace through continued conquest. The heart of the Roman Empire was the legions that were, for their day, an effectively trained fighting force that worked together as units and not as individuals. The individual Roman legionnaire is not equipped well for one on one conflict, but rather the typical soldier’s primary weapon was a lance or spear and not the sword (swords were short and used for defensive measures) and their large shields not only covered the individual soldier but the soldier to their left. Discipline was essential to this type of fighting and the legions relied upon individual soldiers acting as a part of a unit and not as self contained warriors. For the Romans the idea that the U.S. Army used in its advertising a couple years ago, “an army of one” where the individual soldier was able to call upon the resources of the rest of the army as a force multiplier of their capabilities would have been unimaginable. The individual only existed as a part of the unit and only fought as an extension of the person to their right and left.

The time of Jesus was the time of Rome becoming the empire. Most people learned a little bit of Roman history in English class where they had to learn William Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’ where Julius comes and takes over the empire with his army and then is appointed Emperor and shortly executed. After Julius Caesar the empire erupts into a civil war between Mark Anthony and Cleopatra in the south and Octavian, the son of Julius Caesar in the north. Octavian is victorious, Mark Anthony and Cleopatra vanquished, the empire is united and Octavian attains the title, Caesar Augustus son of the divine Julius. Throughout the empire this is the time of the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome that is attained by the legions and other allied forces of Rome continuing to push the boundaries of the empire outward. Unlike modern warfare in America where we can talk about the economic cost of forces involved in conflicts in Afghanistan or Iraq, which run into the billions of dollars, in the ancient world war was a profitable enterprise. Armies were financed by the spoils of war and by the addition of agricultural property (since most wealth was agriculturally or extraction (mining) related). In addition to providing revenue, the legions also served as one of the primary builders of roads throughout the empire and through their building and protection they enabled trade and taxation to flourish. Even though many of the individual Roman emperors may not have been successful the empire flourished in spite of their exuberance or sometimes madness. Whether it was Nero at the time of the execution of St. Paul and St. Peter and his suspected burning of much of Rome and using Christians as a convenient scapegoat or whether it was the year of four emperors, where Vespasian has to leave his command of the legions in the Jewish war to bring stability back to Rome and become Emperor the wheels of the empire continued to function.

Gladiators Crucified after the Third Servile War (73-71 BCE)

Gladiators Crucified after the Third Servile War (73-71 BCE)

There are two sides to the Roman Empire, the Corinthian column and the crucifixion. The Romans built incredible engineering structures from aqueducts to temples to coliseums. Their road network far outpaced anything else in the ancient world and some of these roads are still visible today, others became paved over to become roads used in the modern world. Yet, they reigned through fear. For all the beauty of Rome there is an intensely dark experience of life if one opposed Rome or where not one of its beneficiaries. Crucifixion was more than an instrument of death and simply trying to equate it to the electric chair or lethal injection miss the point that this was about not only killing the individual but wiping out their honor and instilling fear in the rest of the population. In our day we are, rightly, offended when ISIS, for example, has beheaded people it has captured and considers infidels. In the ancient world beheading was considered a humane and honorable way of death. This for example is why St. Paul, a Roman citizen according to tradition is beheaded while St. Peter, who is not a Roman citizen, is crucified. Crucifixion took an individual, placed them on the ways into and out of town to where the person was exhibited and made a public spectacle while they slowly died of suffocation. The Romans were good at this. They were not evil, not any more than any other empire of the day, but they were ruthless. If a person could be made an example of they would be, whether in the crosses or in the coliseums. The Romans did not put up with rebellion, like Babylon or Persia or Greece before them they knew responded quickly and brutally to any attempted uprising.

First Century Palestine

First Century Palestine

At the time of Jesus’ birth Galilee, Samaria, Judea, Idumea, Perea, the Decapolis were all under the reign of Herod the Great. Herod, like the Romans was a study in the contrasts of the age. Herod did build some incredible structures including the temple in Jerusalem that Jesus would encounter in his day as well as great fortresses like Masada which would play into the Jewish War after Jesus’ death but in the time of the writing of the Gospel of Mark. Herod during the civil war was one of the few leaders who chose the wrong side (he sided with Anthony and Cleopatra) and maintained his position and actually increased his power after he went and directly appealed to Caesar Augustus. Herod was a shrewd politician within the Roman world but also very paranoid, killing some of his own sons who he perceived as threats to his power.  When he died shortly after the birth of Jesus the empire was divided among his sons (many of which who are also named Herod), but many proved to be ineffective administrators. At the time of Jesus ministry, Herod Antipas reigns in Galilee and Perea, but Jerusalem is under a Roman administrator, Pontus Pilate.

The first Jewish-Roman War, 66-73 CE, where the Judeans rose up in revolt against the Roman Empire and enjoyed a brief success, embarrassing Legion XII Fulminata at the Battle of Beth Horon, but the Romans responded decisively sending in Vespasian with his son Titus as second in command. By 69 the Romans are have defeated much of the resistance in Galilee and have moved into Judea, but Vespasian is called back to Rome to become the emperor and his son Titus completes the campaign. After a seven month siege, Jerusalem falls to Rome in 70 CE and mop up operations continue, including the final stand of the Jewish rebels at the mountain stronghold of Masada in 73-74. The result of the campaign would be a destroyed Jerusalem and temple and a demoralized Judean and Galilean people. The Christians would be scattered throughout the empire, not taking an active part in the Jewish war by this point but by the end of the Jewish War the connection of the early followers of Jesus were no longer being considered by many as a part of the Jewish religion.

Section of the Arch of Titus showing the Spoils of Jerusalem

Section of the Arch of Titus showing the Spoils of Jerusalem

The Romans were also very good at publicizing their victories. Whether on public structures like the Arch of Titus, or through commemorations or through the coins of the empire like the ones below where Emperor Vespasian is on one side and the Judea is shown as a conquered woman on the other. The Romans wanted people to see and understand that their empire was now at the apex of history. That resistance to the Roman regime would end up with defeat and that the way forward was to accept the Pax Romana that was offered. It is into this world that the gospels speak of the kingdom of God or as Paul’s letter’s can say the peace of Christ.

Coins Depicting Emperor Vespasian on one side and the Captivity of Judea on the other

Coins Depicting Emperor Vespasian on one side and the Captivity of Judea on the other

My Name is Legion

1They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. 2Andwhen he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. 3He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain;4 for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wretched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. 5Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. 6 When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him; 7and he shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” 8 For he had said to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!”9Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion; for we are many.”10 He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country.11Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding;12and the unclean spirits begged him, “Send us into the swine; let us enter them.”13 So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered into the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and were drowned in the sea. 14The swineherds ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came to see what it was that had happened.15They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had the legion; and they were afraid.16Those who had seen what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine reported it.17Then they began to beg Jesus to leave their neighborhood.18As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed begged him that he might be with him. 19But Jesus refused, and said to him, “Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you.”20And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed. Mark 5: 1-20

Tiles of Legion X Fretensis showing a Pig as a part of their emblem

Tiles of Legion X Fretensis showing a Pig as a part of their emblem

This is one of those passages that captured my attention for a long time and I always wondered about the demons using the title of Legion in a context of Roman rule. The reading is made stronger when one realizes that Legion X Fretensis has the swine as one of its major emblems, and Legion X Fretensis was one of the major legions involved in the Jewish War. So what is happening here? Is the demon trying to pick a fight between Jesus and Rome? Is the Roman Empire demonic? There were certainly Jews who believed so. For me the text is suggestive of the questions that were certainly swirling around the heads of the readers of Mark as they wondered how they were to navigate the reality of the Roman empire, but it is also an exorcism which is a central part of the spirit filled ancient world we mentioned in the previous post on Mark.  There is much more that could be said but at this point I am going to leave this ambiguous just as Mark does. Mark does a far better job of suggesting and hinting at things but prefers to leave us with a mystery to wrestle with.

There are many places where the reality of Rome plays a foil in the story, for example when Jesus sets aside the 12 apostles on the mountain in chapter 3 he is suggestively setting up a new nation of Israel, what part will they play in the empire of Rome? When Herod Antipas, a Roman puppet king orders the beheading of John the Baptist is this one more way in which the Pax Romana is ill at ease with the kingdom of God? When Jesus feeds 5,000 and 4,000 in Mark is this also a political act which works against the control of the food supply and distribution by the empire? Perhaps this is one of the factors behind Mark’s messianic secret where Jesus never allows people to speak of him as the Messiah until the end of the story and the crucifixion?  The calling of tax collectors to be a part of the kingdom of God and away from the taxation mechanism of Caesar is certainly a political act. If Judas Iscariot’s name is a part of the Sicarii, a group of Jewish assassins who targeted Romans, which is not conclusive but an interesting question, it poses a very interesting dynamic within this group of 12. Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem certainly among other things also parodies the entry processions of Roman emperors and dignitaries as well as the Herodian kings. One of the challenges to Jesus in Jerusalem is over paying taxes to Caesar; Jesus spends almost all of chapter 13 talking about the destruction of the temple and the effects of the Jewish War. Jesus is put on trial ultimately before Pilate, a roman administrator and crucified on a Roman cross by Roman soldiers. The empire has a part to play in the narrative. It is the world in which the gospels are heard and which Jesus did his ministry. Next time we will look at the Jewish setting of the gospels and the world of second temple Judaism.  

Mark’s Portrait of Jesus and the World He Lived In: Part 1

1 Reply
Icon, St. Mark the Evangelist by Emmanuel Tzanes (1657)

Icon, St. Mark the Evangelist by Emmanuel Tzanes (1657)

Mark’s Portrait of Jesus and the World He Lived In

 

This is originally a class I did with my congregation in February and March of 2015, where I looked at several different ways to approach Mark’s gospel and the way it paints a picture of both Jesus and the world in which Jesus lived.  Originally this was a four session class; my plans are to add a fifth reflection based upon Mark as an interpreter of scripture.

Why do we have the Gospel of Mark?

The gospel of Mark in codex Sinaiticus, one of the earliest complete copies of the New Testament dating to the fourth century

The gospel of Mark in codex Sinaiticus, one of the earliest complete copies of the New Testament dating to the fourth century

Mark is the briefest of the gospels and the reality that almost the entire gospel of Mark is also in Matthew in Luke meant that for much of the history of the early church Mark received comparatively little attention. In recent years that has changed because most scholars believe that Mark was the first gospel written with Matthew and Luke using Mark as a pattern for their own gospels. Mark reflects a highly aural form (having to do with the ear and hearing) of literature and it is a masterful composition (which I will deal with in part 5) but before I go any deeper perhaps it is worth asking the question ‘why do we have Mark or any gospel in the first place?’ There could be a much longer discussion about the process in which we went from the texts of Mark’s gospel and the other writings that make up the New Testament to the Bible we have today but at some point somebody who we now attribute as Mark compiled these stories into a written form.

The gospel stories probably were told orally for quite a while before the Gospel of Mark as we have it today. Jesus’ crucifixion probably took place around 30 C.E. (or A.D.-C.E. stands for Common Area which is the more commonly used in scholarly writing, but it reflects the same dating as A.D. which is the old Latin abbreviation for the year of our Lord). In the time after Jesus’ death the message begins to spread throughout the Roman Empire and the dynamics of the early church began to change from a Jewish community centered in Jerusalem and Palestine to a predominantly non-Jewish/Gentile community located throughout the Roman Empire. As both time and distance separated these early Christian communities from the life of Jesus and the land Jesus lived in there was a need to maintain some continuity of the story. Most scholars believe Mark’s gospel was written sometime around 70 C.E. which is the time of the Jewish War with Rome and with the collapse of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the followers of Jesus there is also the loss of a central place where the original witness of the story could be referred to. This is also the time when many of Jesus’ original followers begin to be martyred and the first witnesses to the story are being lost. Christianity was also increasingly finding itself on the outside of the Jewish people and with the collapse of the temple and Jerusalem it was a time where the followers of Jesus began to seek construct an identity now as Christians and no longer directly connected with Judaism.

In times of crisis where people are attempting to construct their identity some basic questions come up: Who are we? What do we believe? Where do we find our sources of authority? And there are many ways that the New Testament wrestles with this, there are the letter of Paul for example to the early communities he was connected with which tell their own story and through a dialogical exchange try to form identity, but for the communities of the early church they also went back and told stories of Jesus. With losing of some of the early witnesses there was a need to collect together these stories in a way that could be passed on to ensure the continuity of faith from generation to generation. The gospel of Mark through telling these stories became an enduring witness to the faith and the questions of a people who came together and wondered about the mystery of the way that God had met them in Jesus of Nazareth.  Unlike some of my other documents, this will not go step by step through a book of scripture but will instead suggest some different windows to help understand the world the scriptures are written in and what they might say about Jesus and how they might highlight the story in new and interesting ways. As I mentioned before I intend for this to be a five section inquiry with the following parts:

  1. Binding The Strong Man: The Kingdom of God/The Kingdom of Satan and the Porous World of Scriptures
  2. A World of Empire: The Pax Romana and the Peace of Christ
  3. Second Temple Judaism: Pharisees, Sadducees and Zealots (oh my)
  4. Reading Backwards and Forwards: Mark as an Interpreter of Scripture
  5. The Storyteller and the Cross: Mark as a Master Storyteller and How the Cross Shapes the Story

Part 1: Binding the Strong Man: The Kingdom of God/The Kingdom of Satan and the Porous World of Scriptures

We live in a very different world than the early church did in many ways. One of the ways it is very different is we live in what Charles Taylor calls a ‘disenchanted world’ where we don’t think about most of our lives being influenced by angelic or demonic forces (Taylor, 2007). The spiritual world for us is something that is not keenly felt, but the ancient world was much more porous with good and evil external forces acting upon both communities and individuals. While we might think about things in terms of fantasy and enjoy entering in an imaginary way into world filled with magic and danger most of our lives spend very little time in reflection upon the supernatural. We also live in a very scientific world where diseases for example are caused by certain germs or viruses and there are treatments we can use to counteract these things that we can now see under a microscope. The ancient world saw things much differently, sickness may be either inflicted demonically or as a judgment for one’s sins (where one is receiving the cost of some action one has done against one’s community or by extension the deity one’s community worshipped).

The gospel of Mark inhabits this porous world where Satan, demons unclean spirits, hostile storms and the demonic power of sickness keep people separated from community. Healing and exorcisms were the province of the religious authorities, there were doctors at the time but their ability to heal was very limited. Wounds could be bound up and broken bones healed, but modern medicine is a very recent phenomena. On the other hand there was a much tighter bond among the community and the community and their devotion were a strong ward against the intrusion of evil. This is a time where there are very real fears of contamination and that if someone was feared to be a contamination agent (by either ethical or physical symptoms) they were excluded from the community. In a world of magic and exorcisms Jesus is, among other things, presented as a healer and exorcist in the gospel of Mark.

Binding the Strongman

20 and the crown dame together again, so that they could not even eat.21When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.”22 And the scribes who came from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts our demon.” 23 And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom will not be able to stand.25 And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 26 And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. 27But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered. Mark 3: 20-27

Jesus Healing the Gerasene, medieval image

Jesus Healing the Gerasene, medieval image

When Ched Myers wrote Binding the Strongman (Myers, 1988) in the late 80s he called attention back to the reality that for Mark’s gospel there is a continual presence of the demonic and the attention that is paid to Jesus’ role as an exorcist. For Myer’s the above passage provided a key to understanding the gospel of Mark, where Jesus is able to do the healing and casting out of demons because he has already bound the strongman and stands victorious over those demonic powers.  How does this type of reading make sense of the world of Jesus as it is presented in Mark’s gospel? It helps illuminate why Mark spends so much time focusing on the actions of Jesus as a demonstration of the reality of the kingdom of God being present in the midst of the world.

Unlike the other gospels, Mark begins with a very terse and loaded entry into the gospel. Matthew begins with an extended genealogy, Luke with an extended birth story for both John the Baptist and Jesus, John with a poetic introduction to Jesus as the Word of God made flesh, but Mark begins simply: The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God. Mark 1.1 and then launches into the story of Jesus as an adult. Yet in this short little verse there is a lot to unpack.  To call this a gospel to us is simply to declare it as good news, but in the ancient world gospels were royal proclamations and often declared that an area was now under the power of Caesar or one of Caesar’s vassals, but this begins as the gospel of Jesus the Christ, and Christ is the Greek word for messiah (anointed one) which is also a title for king. To declare Jesus as son of God also has some implications in the Roman context which I will address in the next post on this, but it also had implications for the porous world of ancient Palestine as the source of Jesus’ authority. Mark’s gospel will wonder about the mystery of who Jesus is and will allude to things strongly in some areas and more elusively in others, but that there is a connection between Jesus and the God of Israel is never in doubt for Mark’s readers.

Mark quickly moves us into the baptism scene where we get to see what Jesus sees. We get a glimpse that those around Jesus do not get into who he is and we begin to wonder what this will be. We get to hear the voice from heaven declare of Jesus, ‘this is my Son, the beloved one with who I am well pleased’ we get to see the heavens ripped open and the spirit descending upon Jesus. Mark wants us to know that the world is now changed and that the separation between the heavens and earth are now opened up (irreparably- Mark’s use of the unusual word for ripping is unlike Matthew and Luke where the heavens open up for a moment) and the kingdom of God is at hand has to do with God’s proximity to the world. The God of Israel is no longer distant or detached but is now present in the world and that changes the way things are. Mark wastes little time with Jesus being out in the wilderness, there is no long temptation narrative like in Matthew or Luke, but rather Jesus is simply cast out into the wilderness, tempted by Satan and the angels minister to him. But from this point forward the demonic forces have no power over Jesus and the strongman has been bound and the kingdom has drawn near.

Jesus’ basic proclamation that the kingdom of God has drawn near is now witnessed to by the evidence of God’s power pushing back the domain of the demonic. So for example just within the first chapter of Mark Jesus will cast out an unclean spirit who challenges him in the tabernacle, cure Simon’s mother-in-law of a fever, heal the sick and all those possessed throughout Capernaum, go throughout the region healing and finally heal a person with a skin disease, frequently referred to as leprosy which kept him out of the community. In this new reality ushered in by the divine presence overcoming the demonic struggles of the people many who were once excluded now have a place: lepers (and others excluded for medical and purity concerns), tax-collectors (viewed as traitors and thieves) and other sinners as well as the injured and the disabled now have a place in the community. It changes the relation of people to Sabbath and many other boundary markers of the Jewish community where they attempted to distinguish themselves from the other people around them to maintain their relationship with God. Now with God’s approach the Sabbath is for humankind and not humankind for Sabbath.

This will create conflict because people have invested the religious authorities of their day (which I will speak about more in part 3) with the task of maintaining these boundaries and keeping them secure in an insecure spiritually dangerous world. It is not surprising that the Pharisees come into quick conflict with Jesus about Sabbath, eating, who is in and out of the community and authority. Jesus does a number of things that indicate he is setting up a new community, for example the setting aside of the 12 apostles on the mountain which seems to foreshadow the creation of a new Israel (a new 12 tribes). Even Jesus’ own family is unsure what to think of him and in the portion of Mark 3 quoted above is coming to restrain him and try to get him to conform more to the expectations of the community. Into this world Jesus tells parables which are suggestive of the mysterious Kingdom of God which is unexpected in its nature. A sower who sows regardless of the soil type knowing the harvest will be complete, a lamp that some would hide but is meant to be for all to see, a growing seed, and then a mustard seed, all of these parables point to an unexpected reality of the presence of God in the midst of their world. The parables and the healing all point to the invasion of the world by God’s power precisely in the person of Jesus. Mark doesn’t answer all the questions this raises but instead lets the story stand on its own and speak with its own voice to the world both of Jesus’ time and the world of the readers of Mark. It is to this world of empires that we will turn next, specifically the world of the Pax Romana where Jesus’ message of the kingdom is proclaimed.

Deuteronomy 16: Celebrations, Remembrance and Justice

3 Replies
Painted Sukkah with a view of Jerusalem, Late 19th Century, Austria or South Germany

Painted Sukkah with a view of Jerusalem, Late 19th Century, Austria or South Germany

 

Deuteronomy 16: 1-17: Passover, the Festival of Weeks, and the Festival of Booths

1Observe the month of Abib by keeping the passover for the LORD your God, for in the month of Abib the LORD your God brought you out of Egypt by night. 2 You shall offer the passover sacrifice for the LORD your God, from the flock and the herd, at the place that the LORD will choose as a dwelling for his name. 3 You must not eat with it anything leavened. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it– the bread of affliction– because you came out of the land of Egypt in great haste, so that all the days of your life you may remember the day of your departure from the land of Egypt. 4 No leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory for seven days; and none of the meat of what you slaughter on the evening of the first day shall remain until morning. 5 You are not permitted to offer the passover sacrifice within any of your towns that the LORD your God is giving you. 6 But at the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name, only there shall you offer the passover sacrifice, in the evening at sunset, the time of day when you departed from Egypt. 7 You shall cook it and eat it at the place that the LORD your God will choose; the next morning you may go back to your tents. 8 For six days you shall continue to eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a solemn assembly for the LORD your God, when you shall do no work.

9 You shall count seven weeks; begin to count the seven weeks from the time the sickle is first put to the standing grain. 10 Then you shall keep the festival of weeks for the LORD your God, contributing a freewill offering in proportion to the blessing that you have received from the LORD your God. 11 Rejoice before the LORD your God– you and your sons and your daughters, your male and female slaves, the Levites resident in your towns, as well as the strangers, the orphans, and the widows who are among you– at the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. 12 Remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and diligently observe these statutes.

 13 You shall keep the festival of booths for seven days, when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and your wine press. 14 Rejoice during your festival, you and your sons and your daughters, your male and female slaves, as well as the Levites, the strangers, the orphans, and the widows resident in your towns. 15 Seven days you shall keep the festival for the LORD your God at the place that the LORD will choose; for the LORD your God will bless you in all your produce and in all your undertakings, and you shall surely celebrate.

 16 Three times a year all your males shall appear before the LORD your God at the place that he will choose: at the festival of unleavened bread, at the festival of weeks, and at the festival of booths. They shall not appear before the LORD empty-handed; 17 all shall give as they are able, according to the blessing of the LORD your God that he has given you.

 

One of the gifts of the congregation being located next to a Hindu temple is seeing the way their community orders their lives around the various festivals that come up throughout the year. Especially since we share some of our parking spaces with them we can see the way their community swells around festivals like Diwali. The festivals we celebrate as a Christian church may look very different from our neighbors but our community is also significantly larger around our high festivals of Christmas and Easter. The Jewish festivals of Passover, weeks and booths were intended to be ways in which the community gathered together to share their story, to share their prosperity and give thanks to their LORD for the bounty of the previous year and to pass on the faith from generation to generation. It is an extension of the sabbatical way of living where the people are not to work on the Sabbath day, to forgive debts in the Sabbath year and then also there are these three weeks within the year set apart from the working in the fields to celebrate their identity as the people of Israel.

The Passover celebration is originally outlined in Exodus 13 and it is a ritual enactment of the beginning of the exodus journey out of Egypt and into the wilderness, away from slavery and into the dangerous freedom of being the people of the LORD. The people are called to enter into the story themselves, and much as the emphasis throughout the book of Deuteronomy insists that it was not a previous generation that the LORD gave the law to or spoke to or performed wonders on behalf of, so now the people who celebrate the Passover become a part of the story with their ancestors who were once slaves in Egypt. They are a people redeemed by the action of the LORD, not by their own military muscle or economic might. They are to gather together around the tabernacle or temple of the LORD.

The festivals remind the people each year of who they are and where their abundance comes from. They in their ritual action hope to reduce the amnesia that will come when the people enter into the abundance of the Promised Land and forget the way the LORD was present with them in the journey. They are symbols of hope as Rabbi Mark Dov Shapiro states when he says:

Our story is instead a vision that promises something better can always happen…True there is much sadness in our Jewish experience and the overall human experience. That is why you can’t have a Seder without salt water and maror. But you also can’t have a Seder without sweet charoset and freedom bread matza, without four cups of wine, and without the ultimate punch line-L’shana ha-ba-a b’Yershalayim (next year in Jerusalem). (Thompson, 2014, p. 133)

            The festival of weeks and the festival of booths are agricultural festivals which celebrate the harvest of the grain and the completion of the work of the harvest of the year. They are times to bring together the blessings of the year and an annual reminder that the harvest is a blessing of God rather than primarily a result of their own hard work or practices. Again they are to set aside a week of rest and celebration as they bring the harvest in and celebrate with those who are the vulnerable in their communities. The stranger, the orphan, the Levite and the widow are all to be included in the celebration of the landowners along with their children and their slaves. Everyone is to have a time of celebration and an ending of labor. Everyone is to share in the festival and the eating and drinking.

The early community of Israel did not come together every Sabbath to worship in the central place and while there was practices that probably did take place within the home these festivals were also intended to be a major part of the community’s act of passing on the traditions and faith. Amazingly the Hebrew Scriptures (or Old Testament as Christians sometimes refer to it) very rarely refer to the Passover, much less the other festivals. It seems probable that there were times where the celebrations were not widely practiced, and the narrative that runs from Judges through 2 Kings seems to be a narrative of amnesia with moments of remembrance. In the Christian calendar the festivals of Christmas, Easter and Pentecost also become festivals which enact central parts of the Christian story and serve as ritual reminders of the stories that Christians are a part of. Yet, as Christmas and Easter increasingly adopt a more secular tone in the United States there is the continued threat (and reality) of amnesia in the midst of our own prosperity.

 

Deuteronomy 16: 18-20: The Necessity of Justice

18 You shall appoint judges and officials throughout your tribes, in all your towns that the LORD your God is giving you, and they shall render just decisions for the people. 19 You must not distort justice; you must not show partiality; and you must not accept bribes, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of those who are in the right. 20 Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue, so that you may live and occupy the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

 21 You shall not plant any tree as a sacred pole beside the altar that you make for the LORD your God; 22 nor shall you set up a stone pillar– things that the LORD your God hates.

This is one of the places where the chapter break should be at a different place because verses twenty one and twenty two are more related to what comes at the beginning of chapter seventeen than what closes out chapter sixteen and I will address them in the next section.

From the very beginning of Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 1: 9-18) there has been an emphasis on the need for a fair legal system to ensure that justice is done. One of the constant cries of the prophets is the way that justice is not being done for the people and particularly those who are vulnerable. Even today in our modern legal system it is difficult for people with limited economic means to receive the same type of treatment as those with the financial resources to ensure the best legal representation. Among the ancient world the people of Israel were to be a community of justice that did not favor the powerful over the powerless and ensured that the vulnerable communities, the orphans, widows, and the foreigners in their midst would receive justice as well. Even though bribes were common practice in the ancient world those entrusted with judging on behalf of Israel are not to accept them. The judges become an extension of God’s justice and the judges who are called upon to be a part of God’s law being lived out in community are to be unwilling to accept a bribe just as the God of Israel it.

Deuteronomy 15: A Life of Covenant Generosity

7 Replies
Roman collared slaves-Marble relief from Smyrna (Izmir, Turkey), 200 CE

Roman collared slaves-Marble relief from Smyrna (Izmir, Turkey), 200 CE

Deuteronomy 15: 1-18 Forgiveness of Debts

1 Every seventh year you shall grant a remission of debts. 2 And this is the manner of the remission: every creditor shall remit the claim that is held against a neighbor, not exacting it of a neighbor who is a member of the community, because the LORD’s remission has been proclaimed. 3 Of a foreigner you may exact it, but you must remit your claim on whatever any member of your community owes you. 4 There will, however, be no one in need among you, because the LORD is sure to bless you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you as a possession to occupy, 5 if only you will obey the LORD your God by diligently observing this entire commandment that I command you today. 6 When the LORD your God has blessed you, as he promised you, you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow; you will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you.

 7 If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor. 8 You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be. 9 Be careful that you do not entertain a mean thought, thinking, “The seventh year, the year of remission, is near,” and therefore view your needy neighbor with hostility and give nothing; your neighbor might cry to the LORD against you, and you would incur guilt. 10 Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. 11 Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, “Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.”

12 If a member of your community, whether a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you and works for you six years, in the seventh year you shall set that person free. 13 And when you send a male slave out from you a free person, you shall not send him out empty-handed. 14 Provide liberally out of your flock, your threshing floor, and your wine press, thus giving to him some of the bounty with which the LORD your God has blessed you. 15 Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; for this reason I lay this command upon you today. 16 But if he says to you, “I will not go out from you,” because he loves you and your household, since he is well off with you, 17 then you shall take an awl and thrust it through his earlobe into the door, and he shall be your slave forever. You shall do the same with regard to your female slave.

                18 Do not consider it a hardship when you send them out from you free persons, because for six years they have given you services worth the wages of hired laborers; and the LORD your God will bless you in all that you do.

 

There is a narrative that is heard frequently in some political circles and among many conservative religious groups that reflects a privatized view of reality. The belief that an individual’s prosperity is possible without any obligation to the neighbor or the safety net for the vulnerable among us. Sometimes this privatized view of reality and faith is endorsed with the idea that, “there will never cease to be some in need on the earth,” (see verse 11) or Jesus’ saying in John’s gospel, “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” Pastors who preach with an emphasis on social justice issues, or who advocate for legal protections for vulnerable portions of the society are often accused of being too political. And perhaps this is on my mind after seeing several of my colleagues in Houston who were brokenhearted at the failure of the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance after actively working to assist with addressing some of the fear based misinformation that often was circulated by other Christian groups. Perhaps this particular ordinance may not align with what Deuteronomy 15 is talking about, but Deuteronomy’s call for a society that practices debt forgiveness is opposite of a community that can endorse a privatized view of economics or of a religion that is uninvolved in advocating on behalf of those who are economically and politically at risk.

The type of economic forgiveness that is outlined here in Deuteronomy challenges the privatized world of economic gain. The people are called to live a life that is generous towards their neighbors, lending to them and providing for them in the time of need but not allowing for people to become bondservants into perpetuity. The life of the community is not to be tied to the ability of the people to acquire more property and wealth at the neighbor’s expense or parsimoniously trying to address the need of the neighbor because a time of remission of debt is near. Their identity is tied to the story of the Exodus, they were once enslaved and were liberated by the LORD of Israel and now they are not to return to the economic system of Egypt that they were liberated from but rather are to liberate their fellow Hebrews every seventh year. Also they are not to send them out empty handed but rather to give them the resources they need to not immediately be returned into slavery.

The demands of Deuteronomy 15 were a challenge for the people of Israel to enact. The enticement of being able to secure one’s own wealth and future by increasing one’s holdings or having more slaves to bring in more agricultural produce in ancient times (or the ability to keep people perpetually indebted through high interest in many people’s lives today) are difficult issues to address. An example from the book of Jeremiah tells about the people of Judah releasing their slaves only to enslave them once again during the days leading up to the exile in Babylon (Jeremiah 34: 8-22). It is much easier to allow amnesia to set in and believe that “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.” (Deuteronomy 8:17). Yet for the people of Israel, and Christians who are also bearers of this story and message it is the LORD who provides. As the Lord’s Prayer can remind us we are to forgive our debtors as we want our debts to be forgiven.

What does this look like in a contemporary secular setting? This is a challenging question since the society that Deuteronomy envisions is not a secular society but a unified society where the people shared in a common covenantal identity. But perhaps in the secular and privatized society there is a great need for people of faith who take seriously the need to advocate for a just society. There will be disagreements about what this type of society might look like and there will be those who advocate for similar things for non-religious reasons. Yet, this vision that Deuteronomy shares (which may or may not have every been realized) is a vision that echoes throughout both the Old and New Testament and still continues to come back into public discourse today.  Yet even more than advocating for humane policies, which is important, perhaps we need to learn to be humane people. Rather than giving up because “there will never cease to be some in need on the earth,” as people of faith perhaps the first response is learning to “Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.”

 

Deuteronomy 15: 19-23 Giving the Best To God

19 Every firstling male born of your herd and flock you shall consecrate to the LORD your God; you shall not do work with your firstling ox nor shear the firstling of your flock. 20 You shall eat it, you together with your household, in the presence of the LORD your God year by year at the place that the LORD will choose. 21 But if it has any defect– any serious defect, such as lameness or blindness– you shall not sacrifice it to the LORD your God; 22 within your towns you may eat it, the unclean and the clean alike, as you would a gazelle or deer. 23 Its blood, however, you must not eat; you shall pour it out on the ground like water.

 

Sometimes working in a church you get used to receiving castaways. A friend told a story how a woman drove up to church, dropped off a box and was irritated when they flagged the woman down to find out what was going on. The woman had dropped off a large box of water damaged books and very ratty toys figuring they could go in the church library or nursery. They were not good enough to be in her own home anymore but maybe they were good enough for the church. Yet, one of the reasons this discussion about sacrifices comes up multiple times throughout the book of Deuteronomy is to address various issues around the eating of these animals. While the animals are to be eaten together in community as a part of the festival, it is also not to be done with the ‘runt of the liter’ or the animal that is damaged in some way. The people were charged to bring their best to God and the community. Their actions in celebration and worship were to model their calling to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul and might. (Deuteronomy 6:5)

 

Deuteronomy 14: Boundary Markers and Celebrations

5 Replies
Grigory Mekheev, Exodus (2000) artist shared work under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

Grigory Mekheev, Exodus (2000) artist shared work under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

Deuteronomy 14

1 You are children of the LORD your God. You must not lacerate yourselves or shave your forelocks for the dead. 2 For you are a people holy to the LORD your God; it is you the LORD has chosen out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession.

 3 You shall not eat any abhorrent thing. 4 These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, 5 the deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the mountain-sheep. 6 Any animal that divides the hoof and has the hoof cleft in two, and chews the cud, among the animals, you may eat. 7 Yet of those that chew the cud or have the hoof cleft you shall not eat these: the camel, the hare, and the rock badger, because they chew the cud but do not divide the hoof; they are unclean for you. 8 And the pig, because it divides the hoof but does not chew the cud, is unclean for you. You shall not eat their meat, and you shall not touch their carcasses.

 9 Of all that live in water you may eat these: whatever has fins and scales you may eat. 10 And whatever does not have fins and scales you shall not eat; it is unclean for you.

11 You may eat any clean birds. 12 But these are the ones that you shall not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the osprey, 13 the buzzard, the kite, of any kind; 14 every raven of any kind; 15 the ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, the hawk, of any kind; 16 the little owl and the great owl, the water hen 17 and the desert owl, the carrion vulture and the cormorant, 18 the stork, the heron, of any kind; the hoopoe and the bat. 19 And all winged insects are unclean for you; they shall not be eaten. 20 You may eat any clean winged creature.

21 You shall not eat anything that dies of itself; you may give it to aliens residing in your towns for them to eat, or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a people holy to the LORD your God.

 You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.

                22 Set apart a tithe of all the yield of your seed that is brought in yearly from the field. 23 In the presence of the LORD your God, in the place that he will choose as a dwelling for his name, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, your wine, and your oil, as well as the firstlings of your herd and flock, so that you may learn to fear the LORD your God always. 24 But if, when the LORD your God has blessed you, the distance is so great that you are unable to transport it, because the place where the LORD your God will choose to set his name is too far away from you, 25 then you may turn it into money. With the money secure in hand, go to the place that the LORD your God will choose; 26 spend the money for whatever you wish– oxen, sheep, wine, strong drink, or whatever you desire. And you shall eat there in the presence of the LORD your God, you and your household rejoicing together. 27 As for the Levites resident in your towns, do not neglect them, because they have no allotment or inheritance with you.

 28 Every third year you shall bring out the full tithe of your produce for that year, and store it within your towns; 29 the Levites, because they have no allotment or inheritance with you, as well as the resident aliens, the orphans, and the widows in your towns, may come and eat their fill so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work that you undertake.

 

If we look upon this chapters as merely a set of prohibitions of a couple practices and a lot of animals the people of Israel were not to eat we would miss the point. If we try to come up with rational explanations for why they shouldn’t eat certain things or imagine that the only reason these animals and practices are forbidden is because the Canaanites and other nations around them did it we would also miss the point. For the Israelites these are a part of bearing the identity of being a treasured possession or a people holy to God. As a people who bear the place where God’s name will dwell these practices also become a people whose identity is formed around certain practices that set them apart as holy. Part of being holy for Israel is living out of these practices for no other reason than they have been asked. As the Jewish writer Ruth Sohn can state:

According to Torah, God asks that we abstain from eating certain foods, not because they are unhealthy or intrinsically problematic, but simply as an expression or our devotion…These prohibitions are like the requests of a beloved; we may not understand them, but we are, in essence, asked to follow them purely as an expression of our love. (Thompson, 2014, p. 122f.)
The practices become boundary markers between the people of Israel who are called to be holy in a special way and who are to enjoy a special relationship with the LORD their God and the rest of the people. They are not called to impose these practices on others, in fact even within this section here we see ways in which these allowances can be used for mercy for the outsider, the provision that an animal that has died on its own may be used to feed the aliens residing in their town. It doesn’t mean that these are painless for the people who are living out of them. In a culture where meat was a luxury, as it is in most ancient agrarian communities, the prohibition of certain food sources that may have been readily available would have proved a constant temptation. Yet these eating practices proved to be one of the distinctive marks of Jewish identity for hundreds, even thousands of years. For example much later 2 Maccabees refers to the Jewish struggle against persecution under the Seleucid Empire in the reign of Antiochus IV with a specific reference to diet:

Eleazar, one of the scribes in high position, a man now advanced in age and of noble presence, was being forced to open his mouth to eat swine’s flesh. But he, welcoming death with honor rather than life with pollution, went up to the rack of his own accord, spitting out the flesh, as all ought to have the courage to refuse things that it is not right to taste, even for the natural love of life. (2 Maccabees 6: 18-20)

These practices of what to eat and what not to eat may seem strange to people who are not Jewish and have been a way in which others sought to get the Jewish people to relax their boundaries, yet for many Jewish people the food rules remain in practice in some form today.

The tithe, which is discussed in the final seven verses of the chapter is also a distinctive practice of the people but it is more about celebration than a burdensome requirement. The practice is in a sense a tax and a way to acknowledge the sovereignty of their God, yet God doesn’t need the grain and the wine and the animals. They are to bring them together and to enjoy together in God’s presence the produce of their flocks and fields. To take the ten percent of an accounting of the field and the firstlings of the flock are to be used to celebrate. Acknowledging the spread out nature of the community there is the provision to be able to convert the produce into money and then come and spend the money for whatever the family wants to use to celebrate. Meat in the ancient world would be eaten primarily at celebration times when a large group is gathered because there is no refrigeration to preserve the meat and so it would be an invitation for a large number of people to gather together around an ox that had been slaughtered. God allows for the people to purchase wine and strong drink as a part of the celebration as well. This is not a burdensome practice but rather a joyous one.

Within the celebration is also the provision for the needs of the unsupported ones of the community. The Levites who have been set aside for the operation of the tabernacle or temple need to be provided for so out of every third year’s tithe they are to be taken care of. Those who are the vulnerable of the community are also to be cared for out of this third year tithe: the resident alien, the orphan and the widow. They are to be the beneficiaries of this practice as well. As the claimed ones of God the people are to be the ones claiming responsibility of caring for those no one claims.

 Deuteronomy 13: The Challenge of Exclusivity

2 Replies
Willem de Poorter, 'De afgoderij van konig Solomo'-Solomon's decent into idolatry (between 1630 and 1648)

Willem de Poorter, ‘De afgoderij van konig Solomo’-Solomon’s decent into idolatry (between 1630 and 1648)

Deuteronomy 13

1 If prophets or those who divine by dreams appear among you and promise you omens or portents, 2 and the omens or the portents declared by them take place, and they say, “Let us follow other gods” (whom you have not known) “and let us serve them,” 3 you must not heed the words of those prophets or those who divine by dreams; for the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you indeed love the LORD your God with all your heart and soul. 4 The LORD your God you shall follow, him alone you shall fear, his commandments you shall keep, his voice you shall obey, him you shall serve, and to him you shall hold fast. 5 But those prophets or those who divine by dreams shall be put to death for having spoken treason against the LORD your God– who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery– to turn you from the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

 6 If anyone secretly entices you– even if it is your brother, your father’s son or your mother’s son, or your own son or daughter, or the wife you embrace, or your most intimate friend– saying, “Let us go worship other gods,” whom neither you nor your ancestors have known, 7 any of the gods of the peoples that are around you, whether near you or far away from you, from one end of the earth to the other, 8 you must not yield to or heed any such persons. Show them no pity or compassion and do not shield them. 9 But you shall surely kill them; your own hand shall be first against them to execute them, and afterwards the hand of all the people.10 Stone them to death for trying to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.11 Then all Israel shall hear and be afraid, and never again do any such wickedness.

12 If you hear it said about one of the towns that the LORD your God is giving you to live in, 13 that scoundrels from among you have gone out and led the inhabitants of the town astray, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods,” whom you have not known, 14 then you shall inquire and make a thorough investigation. If the charge is established that such an abhorrent thing has been done among you, 15 you shall put the inhabitants of that town to the sword, utterly destroying it and everything in it– even putting its livestock to the sword.16 All of its spoil you shall gather into its public square; then burn the town and all its spoil with fire, as a whole burnt offering to the LORD your God. It shall remain a perpetual ruin, never to be rebuilt.17 Do not let anything devoted to destruction stick to your hand, so that the LORD may turn from his fierce anger and show you compassion, and in his compassion multiply you, as he swore to your ancestors, 18 if you obey the voice of the LORD your God by keeping all his commandments that I am commanding you today, doing what is right in the sight of the LORD your God.

 

As modern people the language of Deuteronomy, particularly the voices heard in sections like this can be difficult to hear. This does come from a different set of experiences and a very different time and culture and so I’m going to deal first with what it says and then reflect on how we might engage this within our own time, culture and struggles in a modern (or postmodern), secular and pluralistic world. If Deuteronomy reaches its final form in the aftermath of the Babylonian exile, which many scholars believe, as the people are wrestling for answers for how they retain their identity in a foreign land then Deuteronomy provides a voice arguing strongly against accommodation with the surrounding culture and provides a blame on the previous generations’ unfaithfulness to this as the reason for their current desolation. Deuteronomy is not the only voice in this conversation but among the scriptures that make up the Hebrew Bible they form one of the dominant voices.

We often think of decisions in terms of individual choices in a disenchanted world, but that was not the worldview of the people in the ancient world who received the book of Deuteronomy and who passed it on from generation to generation. This was a world in which belief was a communal activity which kept the demonic forces at bay, some of these forces like disease or famine would be looked upon today as a part of the measurable scientific worldview but in ancient times they were either ‘acts of God’ or acts of some other divine or demonic forces. If one person either turns away from or refuses to participate in the communal worship, beliefs and practices then it endangers everyone. As Charles Taylor says about the ancient worldview, “Villagers who hold out, or even denounce the common rites, put the efficacy of those rites in danger, and hence pose a danger to everyone.” (Taylor, 2007, p. 42) In more recent history this may be some of the paranoia behind witch hunts, or why the church as it entered into the crusades or the conquest of the new world often had a ‘convert/be baptized or die’ mentality. It may be alien to our time and as Walter Brueggemann states:

Church readers of this text might conclude that a large measure of accommodation is preferable to even a small amount of brutalizing vigilance. Deuteronomy of course is unpersuaded by such a judgment, unpersuaded but not self-critical about its own urgings. (Brueggemann, 2001, p. 156)

The text begins with prophets or dreamers who lead the people astray both by their words and by the actions that come to pass. No longer is merely the efficacy of a prophecy the measure of a prophet’s truthfulness but also now is introduced the reality that they must also remain faithful to the LORD. This leading astray is treason, and in a world where the religious and political authorities are merged as they are in Moses and the judges that will follow him, betrayal of God is also betrayal of the people. There is an interesting interpretation that the LORD is testing the faithfulness of the people through these false prophets, and throughout the telling of Israel’s story in Joshua, Judges, 1&2 Samuel and 1&2 Kings (commonly known as the Deuteronomic history because these books share a common perspective with Deuteronomy) there are numerous times where military leaders, religious leaders and kings will lead the people into the worship of other gods, which is the ultimate betrayal in Deuteronomy’s perspective. The penalty for this is harsh, it is death. That these decisions of loyalty for the people of Israel are matters of life and death for them as individuals and for them as a nation.

In the ancient world the closest bond is family, and so the second set of instruction in verses 6-11 involve a family member or a friend who tries to introduce unfaithful practices. The two examples that come to mind immediately is Solomon who begins to practice what his foreign wives practice and Ahab and Jezebel in their struggle with the prophet Elijah. Deuteronomy is unyielding even toward these closest of relationships and enhances the closeness by highlighting with terms like ‘the wife of your embrace’ or ‘your most intimate friend.’ In a culture where a husband may have many wives it is highlighted that even the favorite must be shown no accommodation, nor any child or intimate friend. In an uncompromising set of negative commands: do not yield, do not listen, do not pity, do not have compassion and do not shield; the family member is commanded to not only participate with the community in the execution of the offender but to throw the first stone. The peoples’ loyalty to the LORD is to be stronger than their loyalty to blood or companionship.

Finally the situation is discussed where a village or a community turns away from following the LORD to following other gods. The people who lead others astray and those led astray are together to bear the judgment of the broader community.  Yet, with a village or community there is to be a thorough investigation to discover the truth of the charges, but if true the entire village, all of its people, animals and wealth are to be destroyed. On the one hand this seems harsh, especially to the animals who had no choice in the matter but perhaps there is a gracious edge in this. If the spoils of the destruction of the village, both the animals and the wealth, are denied to the ones carrying out the destruction perhaps there is less incentive to make an accusation of unfaithfulness. Especially if they are also unable to rebuild the cities but are expected to leave them as a perpetual ruin. The reality is that if this sentence was ever carried out the city probably did not remain a perpetual ruin, and there are many stories in the book of Joshua and throughout the story of Israel where the people are to consign everything to destruction and hold back taking either the livestock and wealth or the women as a part of their conquest. This will be an ongoing struggle in the story of the people.

As modern people, who can look back upon the Salem witch trials, the Crusades and conquest of the new world, and countless other events where the practice of an exclusivist faith led to a betrayal of the practice of faith that would be consistent with many people’s reading of the person of Jesus, passages like this are difficult to read. We live in a world where faith is an individual decision and we can look upon people of different faiths or no faith and not see them as traitors or uneducated and so this exclusivist world of Deuteronomy seems alien to us, so how do we approach it in our time? Part of the answer for Christians I think does rely on the understanding that not all scripture holds equal weight. Different traditions approach this differently, but as a Lutheran Christian what lifts up Christ becomes central as a revelation of the character of God. For the Jewish people the first five books of the Bible may occupy a central place but for Christians there is the mutual flow of the New Testament interpreting the Hebrew Scriptures but the Hebrew Scriptures also helping us to understand the New Testament. That does not mean we can cast aside the parts or either set of books we disagree with, but it does give us a different set of tools to engage and wrestle with them. As Martin Luther could understand correctly that the first commandment does mean that “We are to fear, love and trust God above all things.” But we no longer live in a society where killing a person because they are of another faith is acceptable. We live in a much more secular world. Yet, I do think the wisdom that is present in texts like this is to highlight the seductiveness of alternate worldviews which encourage us to trust in other gods, which may not have a religious system associated with them in our time. We live in the constant struggle for where our trust and allegiance will lie and the temptation can come from others whose words seem to be trustworthy in other things, or a close friend or family member, or from the community around us. It is perhaps more challenging to live a faithful life in a secular world where the plethora or alternatives are paraded before us in diverse media and the ancient struggle of the people now becomes the internal struggle of the individual to live a faithful life. Yet, we need the communal aspect and I believe this is where the community of faith comes in to help and support us in our struggle to be faithful to the God who calls us.

Deuteronomy 12: Expounding on the Law

5 Replies
Grigory Mekheev, Exodus (2000) artist shared work under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

Grigory Mekheev, Exodus (2000) artist shared work under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

 Deuteronomy 12

1 These are the statutes and ordinances that you must diligently observe in the land that the LORD, the God of your ancestors, has given you to occupy all the days that you live on the earth.

                2 You must demolish completely all the places where the nations whom you are about to dispossess served their gods, on the mountain heights, on the hills, and under every leafy tree. 3 Break down their altars, smash their pillars, burn their sacred poles with fire, and hew down the idols of their gods, and thus blot out their name from their places. 4 You shall not worship the LORD your God in such ways. 5 But you shall seek the place that the LORD your God will choose out of all your tribes as his habitation to put his name there. You shall go there, 6 bringing there your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and your donations, your votive gifts, your freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herds and flocks. 7 And you shall eat there in the presence of the LORD your God, you and your households together, rejoicing in all the undertakings in which the LORD your God has blessed you.

                8 You shall not act as we are acting here today, all of us according to our own desires, 9 for you have not yet come into the rest and the possession that the LORD your God is giving you. 10 When you cross over the Jordan and live in the land that the LORD your God is allotting to you, and when he gives you rest from your enemies all around so that you live in safety, 11 then you shall bring everything that I command you to the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and your donations, and all your choice votive gifts that you vow to the LORD. 12 And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you together with your sons and your daughters, your male and female slaves, and the Levites who reside in your towns (since they have no allotment or inheritance with you).

13 Take care that you do not offer your burnt offerings at any place you happen to see. 14 But only at the place that the LORD will choose in one of your tribes– there you shall offer your burnt offerings and there you shall do everything I command you.

15 Yet whenever you desire you may slaughter and eat meat within any of your towns, according to the blessing that the LORD your God has given you; the unclean and the clean may eat of it, as they would of gazelle or deer. 16 The blood, however, you must not eat; you shall pour it out on the ground like water. 17 Nor may you eat within your towns the tithe of your grain, your wine, and your oil, the firstlings of your herds and your flocks, any of your votive gifts that you vow, your freewill offerings, or your donations; 18 these you shall eat in the presence of the LORD your God at the place that the LORD your God will choose, you together with your son and your daughter, your male and female slaves, and the Levites resident in your towns, rejoicing in the presence of the LORD your God in all your undertakings. 19 Take care that you do not neglect the Levite as long as you live in your land.

                20 When the LORD your God enlarges your territory, as he has promised you, and you say, “I am going to eat some meat,” because you wish to eat meat, you may eat meat whenever you have the desire. 21 If the place where the LORD your God will choose to put his name is too far from you, and you slaughter as I have commanded you any of your herd or flock that the LORD has given you, then you may eat within your towns whenever you desire.     22 Indeed, just as gazelle or deer is eaten, so you may eat it; the unclean and the clean alike may eat it. 23 Only be sure that you do not eat the blood; for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the meat. 24 Do not eat it; you shall pour it out on the ground like water. 25 Do not eat it, so that all may go well with you and your children after you, because you do what is right in the sight of the LORD. 26 But the sacred donations that are due from you, and your votive gifts, you shall bring to the place that the LORD will choose. 27 You shall present your burnt offerings, both the meat and the blood, on the altar of the LORD your God; the blood of your other sacrifices shall be poured out beside the altar of the LORD your God, but the meat you may eat.

                28 Be careful to obey all these words that I command you today, so that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, because you will be doing what is good and right in the sight of the LORD your God.

                29 When the LORD your God has cut off before you the nations whom you are about to enter to dispossess them, when you have dispossessed them and live in their land, 30 take care that you are not snared into imitating them, after they have been destroyed before you: do not inquire concerning their gods, saying, “How did these nations worship their gods? I also want to do the same.” 31 You must not do the same for the LORD your God, because every abhorrent thing that the LORD hates they have done for their gods. They would even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods. 32 You must diligently observe everything that I command you; do not add to it or take anything from it.

 

In the first eleven chapters of Deuteronomy we heard the story of the people of Israel re-narrated, the Ten Commandments re-stated and some of the central practices highlighted for the people to hear and know. Beginning in chapter twelve we begin to see these practices expanded upon and within these commandments the practices that form the people to live out of this command are expressed. The exposition of chapters 12-26 roughly follows the pattern of the Ten Commandments with twelve and thirteen referring back to having no other Gods. As the author of Deuteronomy reflects upon how the people of Israel will live out these commandments in the Promised Land they will impact the everyday life of the community. As Deanna Thompson can state, “These laws concern practical matters of worship, politics, economics, business and judicial practices, sexuality and marriage, family life and relationships.” (Thompson, 2014, p. 113)  The people of Israel were not attempting to create a community that happened to have a few religious practices but rather a community shaped by the covenant with their God and practices deriving from the Ten Commandments and the Shema where their lives are oriented around serving and loving their LORD. This is the beginning of a contextual theology where they try to understand how to form a people around these principles.

Part of covenant loyalty is celebration and feasting. It may seem strange to us that a chapter which is oriented on not worshipping other gods is so heavily concerned with eating together as a community but this is part of where identity is formed. The people are to come together for their offering and the offerings are not just burned up, they are eaten together with the priests and with others around the gathering place. Much like people gather together and tailgate before sporting events and they celebrate their common identity around a sports team, eating has always been a part of the celebrations around worship. One of the struggles of religious communities in a secular world has been the displacement of festival eating to other places, but it is not something that is gone from every religious tradition. My congregation is located next to a Hindu temple and they gather together to eat together frequently, especially on Saturdays. Orthodox Jews have a festival almost every month where they come together as community and part of that celebration is eating. Rather than allowing family and friendships to be the only places where people gather to eat if this is going to be a community that is able to love God and love their neighbor they need to come together to worship and eat together.

Priests for the Hebrew people also served a functional role as butchers in the land. Their job was not isolated from the dirty aspects of life, they may not have had farms and flocks to manage but they were woven into the agricultural system through their cultic role of preparing and offering the sacrifices of the flocks and fields. There will be stories of wandering Levites throughout the Hebrew Scriptures and while a part of their role was probably as story teller, the other part of their role is to make sure that the meat is properly prepared.

Deuteronomy also recognizes the struggle of distance in a larger community prior to the advent of motorized transportation. Most people probably did not make it in to the tabernacle or later temple for more than the occasional festival. People who lived in the rural areas certainly could not worship weekly at the tabernacle once the people were dispersed in the land. Distances made the journey impossible on foot very frequently while managing fields and flocks. So people are allowed to eat meat at times other than celebrations if it is available, and they are given only the restriction that they are not to eat the blood. These practices had less to do with health concerns and were about a recognition of their lives dependence upon the provision of the LORD. These actions have meaning assigned to them: “Only be sure that you do not eat the blood; for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the meat.” (Deuteronomy 12: 23) The blood is to be poured out before the LORD since the LORD is the source of life, but the people are not to consume the life since their life is derivative not of the animals that are killed but on the LORD their God.

The worship of the LORD is contrasted with the worship of other gods in relation to their practices as well. They are to come together, to offer their first fruits, their goodwill offerings and other offerings and to eat together and enjoy they bounty of the LORD in their land. The worship is primarily a gift to the gathered people and a celebration of their unity under the LORD. The worship of other gods may have been attractive in many aspects to the Hebrew people, but ultimately those practices are not to be followed. Especially the practice of child sacrifice is lifted up as something abhorrent to their LORD. In many cases the offering of a child was viewed as offering the very best to the deity which it was offered to, but the LORD is not a God who demands child sacrifices. Even the troubling story of Genesis 22 where the LORD commands Abraham to offer Isaac ends with the angel of the LORD providing the lamb instead of Isaac for the offering.

Often our identity is formed by the things we don’t do and the things we consciously do. As people of the LORD they do:

  • Gather together at a common place of worship and offer sacrifices
  • Gather together to eat and celebrate around this worship and sacrifice
  • Bring their donations to the LORD
  • Eat meat in their communities when they desire

But there are also things they do not do:

  • They do not allow other worship sites to remain in their land
  • They do not eat blood
  • They do not worship other deities
  • They do not sacrifice children.

Deuteronomy 11: Blessings and Curses

4 Replies
Ivan Aivazovsky, Passage of the Jews through the Red Sea (1891)

Ivan Aivazovsky, Passage of the Jews through the Red Sea (1891)

Deuteronomy 11

1 You shall love the LORD your God, therefore, and keep his charge, his decrees, his ordinances, and his commandments always. 2 Remember today that it was not your children (who have not known or seen the discipline of the LORD your God), but it is you who must acknowledge his greatness, his mighty hand and his outstretched arm, 3 his signs and his deeds that he did in Egypt to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and to all his land; 4 what he did to the Egyptian army, to their horses and chariots, how he made the water of the Red Sea flow over them as they pursued you, so that the LORD has destroyed them to this day; 5 what he did to you in the wilderness, until you came to this place; 6 and what he did to Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab son of Reuben, how in the midst of all Israel the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, along with their households, their tents, and every living being in their company; 7 for it is your own eyes that have seen every great deed that the LORD did.

8 Keep, then, this entire commandment that I am commanding you today, so that you may have strength to go in and occupy the land that you are crossing over to occupy, 9 and so that you may live long in the land that the LORD swore to your ancestors to give them and to their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10 For the land that you are about to enter to occupy is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sow your seed and irrigate by foot like a vegetable garden. 11 But the land that you are crossing over to occupy is a land of hills and valleys, watered by rain from the sky, 12 a land that the LORD your God looks after. The eyes of the LORD your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

13 If you will only heed his every commandment that I am commanding you today– loving the LORD your God, and serving him with all your heart and with all your soul–14 then he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, and you will gather in your grain, your wine, and your oil; 15 and he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you will eat your fill. 16 Take care, or you will be seduced into turning away, serving other gods and worshiping them, 17 for then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain and the land will yield no fruit; then you will perish quickly off the good land that the LORD is giving you.

                18 You shall put these words of mine in your heart and soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and fix them as an emblem on your forehead. 19 Teach them to your children, talking about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. 20 Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 21 so that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the LORD swore to your ancestors to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth.

 22 If you will diligently observe this entire commandment that I am commanding you, loving the LORD your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him, 23 then the LORD will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations larger and mightier than yourselves. 24 Every place on which you set foot shall be yours; your territory shall extend from the wilderness to the Lebanon and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the Western Sea. 25 No one will be able to stand against you; the LORD your God will put the fear and dread of you on all the land on which you set foot, as he promised you.

                26 See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: 27 the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am commanding you today; 28 and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn from the way that I am commanding you today, to follow other gods that you have not known. 29 When the LORD your God has brought you into the land that you are entering to occupy, you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. 30 As you know, they are beyond the Jordan, some distance to the west, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal, beside the oak of Moreh.

                31 When you cross the Jordan to go in to occupy the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and when you occupy it and live in it, 32 you must diligently observe all the statutes and ordinances that I am setting before you today.

The author of the book of Deuteronomy approaches the same topics multiple times in similar ways over the first eleven chapters, and throughout the rest of the book. Because of this, on a topical level, there is not a lot of new material in this eleventh chapter, yet I also think it is important to consider the implied narrative that the book of Deuteronomy is set within. The book of Deuteronomy opens by telling us, “These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan.” And the book portrays itself as primarily an oral speech rather than a written text. For most people in a literate or even post-literate context (post literate coming from the assumption that most people now receive information more through digital images rather than written text) our attention span for a spoken text is fairly short, but this is written for an aural culture (aural-information is received through hearing) where the majority of the hearers are not literate. Speech in an aural culture is repetitive so that is can be remembered and just as the words are connected to concrete actions to enhance remembrance (binding the words upon the forehead and on the hands, writing them on doorposts as a visual reminder of the spoken word) the repetition of certain critical words and phrases should continue to enhance the memory of the speech event. Music does this all the time by repeating a chorus or using certain patterns to fit words within. So while Deuteronomy may be an unwieldy written text as an aural presentation its continual re-narrating of the story, emphasis on the commandments, statutes and ordinances laid down for the people to live by serve to enhance its effectiveness.

Figurine of a Semitic Slave, Acient Egyptian figurine, Hecht Museum

Figurine of a Semitic Slave, Acient Egyptian figurine, Hecht Museum

There strong contrast set throughout Deuteronomy, and particularly here in chapter eleven between the people of Israel and the land they are to enter and their former masters and land in Egypt. Part of the story of their people is their being exploited as slave in the nation of Egypt. Egypt is the first major power and they are able to be a successful people because of the waters of the Nile. Yet to provide for food in this hot and arid land it required the irrigation of crops and this is a very labor intensive process. The Israelite people were probably a part of the slave labor force that used foot pumps to pull water out of the Nile to irrigate the fields of the Egyptians and to pull from a hot and unforgiving environment by the exertion of human will a harvest each year. Yet the system in Egypt was dependent upon slave labor and provided great agriculture riches for the owners and the elite on the backs of the enslavement of others. The Israelites are not to have this type of economic relationship where their culture is dependent upon the enslavement of other people. They are also entering a land of milk and honey, a land of abundance. The availability of water is not dependent upon the exertion of human labor but instead is dependent upon the God of Israel who provides the rains in their season and allows the waters of the heavens to provide for the crops of the Promised Land. In this land of abundance they are called to be attentive to the commands of their God, for the eyes of the LORD are always on the land but also always watching them as a people in their obedience.

The obedience to the commandments and to the words spoken here are a matter of blessing and curse for both the people and the land. They do not have a great river like the Nile that they can utilize to irrigate in the drought years, instead they are dependent upon their God granting them rain at the appropriate time. Obedience, as continues to be stressed over and over in Deuteronomy, means blessing for the people and their children and their children’s children. Disobedience means the loss of prosperity and ultimately the loss of the land. The book of Deuteronomy constructs a world of sharp alternatives in a tightly ordered universe. It is a matter of life or death importance that the people of Israel hear again their story, remember who they are and remember their LORD, and then live out of the commandments, statutes and ordinances of their God. They are to be a people who live in justice, not taking advantage of the exploitable to form a new class of slaves. They have this story and these words read to them again and again to reinforce the imperatives that Moses is putting before them in speech. It is speech that is reinforced by not only the emblem on their foreheads or sign on their hands but by the sight of Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal where blessing and curse symbolically reside.