Friday, June 19, 2009

More “Aha!” Moments With the Bible

When I was in grad school at Vanderbilt, my homiletics professor, Susan Bond, taught me a way to read a text that I’ve used ever since. It has become such a habit, in fact, that I have a hard time reading the Bible any other way. You read the text four times.

1. The Naive Reading -You pretend that you are looking at the text for the first time. You underline or highlight anything that jumps out at you. Place names, characters, things you find odd or important. Jot down any questions you might have. Pay special attention to roadblocks or things that seem to derail the text.

2. The Poetic Reading - You look closely at the language. Pay special attention to repetition, metaphor, and places the text seems to break into sections.

3. The Rhetorical Reading - You look at the argument of the text. What is the author’s point? What is at stake for the writer? How does the author deploy certain kinds of rhetoric to affect the reader?

4. Reading with Commentaries - You turn to the scholarship on the text.

Even if I don’t do four separate readings, I incorporate these lenses into my usual Bible reading. Then several years ago I started using colored gel pens to highlight when I read the Bible. I use red primarily for roadblocks or things I find surprising, disturbing, or contradictory (which I use mostly on my naive reading). I use green for things I like or for things that seem important thematically. I use purple for language and structural points. I recently started using blue for social justice issues.

As I’ve continued with the Bible in 90 Days Challenge, I’ve hit upon some more things that deserve comment.

1. Joab is a total badass. Thoroughly gangsta.

2. The Kings of Israel have a penchant for getting their kit off during religious ecstasy. Not just David, but also Saul. There are several other passages which suggest that these were priest-kings. The religio-political status of the ruler of Israel was much more fuzzy than it became later. The priesthood threw its political weight behind David (especially after Saul massacred them for their perceived betrayal). 

3. It was advantageous for the priesthood to monopolize religious power at the Temple in Jerusalem, but before worship became centralized, people were putting up altars and sacrificing to YHWH all over the place. YHWH and Baal (pictured left) were not necessarily distinct entities (which is why Saul named his son “Meribaal”) until the priestly monopoly declared it so. I think there are two movements going on here. One is syncretism, in which one religion gradually adopts aspects of another. But the other movement is differentiation, in which nuances are hashed out. Israel’s God is defined as “not-Baal.” This also raised the question of “purity” of religion, since all religions borrow, to some extent, from others. The only way to maintain that one’s religion is “pure” is if it is handed down by God. While the Bible does depict YHWH-worship as originating with YHWH, and identifies Israel as YHWH’s people, it also takes plenty of opportunities to show that God is also Lord of other nations, other peoples, and reveals God’s self to people like Baalam, and chooses the kings of other nations. Regardless, the priests who were in favor of differentiation were in Jerusalem. The priests in favor of syncretism were outside Jerusalem.

3.5 Although David seems to have respected that the ark was God’s throne and refrained from making idols himself, he wasn’t above stealing them from the Philistines. This apparently bothered the author of Chronicles so much that he changed the story and had David burn them. Now, you could argue that 2 Samuel passage doesn’t say David didn’t burn them, but then I’m just going to look at you funny and tsk. Capturing idols was standard practice, just the way the Philistines captured the ark.

4. As I noted last time, human sacrifice was not uncommon. Late in his career, David impales the sons of Saul “before the Lord.” This is not only politically expedient, but it apparently appeases God who ends the famine in the land.

5. And poor Rizpah! She must be one of the most put-upon women ever. David was directly or indirectly responsible for the death of nearly every man in her family.

6. I’ve sung the praise song “I Will Call Upon the Lord” before, but it’s happy clapping tune doesn’t reflect at all David’s song that inspired it. “I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised/ and I am saved from my enemies.” Calling upon YHWH had a very specific context: the use of silver trumpets (in Numbers 10:2), which you use when the adversary oppresses you, “so that you may be remembered before the Lord your God and be saved from your enemies.” Calling upon the Lord evokes the fanfare that calls YHWH himself to battle, who comes riding on a cherub, shooting arrows of lightning at the enemy... just like Baal. This is not a song to be sung in a major key in a happy tune. This is more like something written by Coheed and Cambria.

7. The story of Saul consulting the Medium at Endor? Creepy. The Urim and Thummim were what Saul and David consulted when they “inquired of the Lord.” You ask a yes or no question, the priest pulls out one of these rocks, and that’s your answer. It’s a bit like a Magic 8 Ball, or maybe more like flipping a quarter. If I were going to make a movie of this scene, I’d have Saul ask a question, the priest flips a quarter… and it lands on its edge. Saul asks again, the priest flips the quarter… and it lands on edge again. I mean, the text says God won’t answer him. If you are using some kind of divination then the tea leaves, the Magic 8-Ball, the flipped quarter, have to tell you something, even if by chance. This would be like you shaking the Magic 8-Ball and it comes up not “Reply Hazy, Ask Again” but instead “Go $#%@ Yourself.” That alone would be terrifying. God has specifically chosen not to tell you a blessed thing. Where do you turn?