What does the Creator want?: a review of Noah (2014 film)

Jewish date:  8 ’Iyyar 5774 (evening) (Parashath BeHar Sinay).

Today’s holidays:  Day 23 of the ‘Omer (Judaism), Feast Day of St. Peter Lorre (Church of the SubGenius).

What does the Creator want?:  a review of Noah (2014 film)

by Aaron Solomon Adelman

The story of Noaḥ (Noah) is one of the most familiar stories in the Hebrew Bible.  This is probably because it is in the early chapters of the first book, Genesis, so  it is one of the most likely to be read, especially by people who fail to read very far in the Hebrew Scriptures.  Due its familiarity, it is periodically dramatized and adapted.  Already on this blog I have reviewed Noah’s Ark (1999 miniseries) and the quasi-adaptation Evan Almighty.  Considering the publicity and number of reviews of the recent Noah movie (titled המבול, “The Flood” here in Israel), I could not ignore it.  As with previous reviews, the story of Noaḥ will be treated as a literal story, even though it is arguably esoteric.

The makers of the film clearly apparently read the original text (Genesis 6-10) and tried to get some things right.  The general outlines of the story are all there—Noaḥ, his wife, his three sons Shem, Ḥam (Ham), and Yefeth (Japheth), building the ark, the flood, the sending forth of the raven and the dove, and the restarting of human society.  The genealogical context of where Noaḥ comes from is correct, including his grandfather Methushelaḥ (Methuselah) and his father Lamekh (Lamech) and there being two competing lines of humanity from Qayin (Cain) and Sheth (Seth).  The ark is correctly depicted as an ark in the literal sense:  a box.  (Think about it.  The term used in the original text, תֵּבָה (tevah) means “box”, and there is no mention of anything one would expect specifically on a boat, such as oars, a sail, or a rudder.)  There was also a lot of work put into the visual effects and some thought about the logistics of life on the ark.

But when one goes into the behavior and reasoning of the characters that the film goes horribly wrong, as the writers violate a cardinal unwritten rule of good religious thought:

YOU WILL NOT TAMPER WITH TRADITION.

And the tampering is not for the better, dramatically or religiously, and the worst of it lies at the very heart of the story.

The writers of the film botched the theology of the original text.  The Hebrew Bible consistently depicts YHWH as clear about what He wants.  Yes, there are some mysterious prophecies about what will happen in the future, but He is explicit about what He wants humans to do in the present.  And when He is angry at humans, it is because humans are disobeying the commands He has given them—and in the age of prophecy, He sent periodic messages about what people were doing wrong.  Being a god, YHWH is quite capable of communicating, so humans do not have to guess what He wants.  (I am well aware of the inherent problems of interpretation.  But when YHWH is ready to smite someone, it is always over “big picture” issues, such as murder, idolatry, sexual immorality, theft, abuse of the sacrificial system, and violation of Shabbath, not minutiae.)  Thus YHWH tells Noaḥ in Genesis 6:13-21 why humanity is doomed, how the doom is going to happen, and what He wants Noaḥ to do about it.  Noaḥ is to build an ark according to a specific plan, stock it with two or seven of each species of animal (the number depending on species), and he, his wife, his sons, and his sons’ wives are to ride out the flood in the ark.  Humanity is meant to survive.

The film, in contrast, depicts the Creator—His name is never mentioned—as having abominable communication skills; He never says anything.  In the film, the Creator sends Noah a vision of drowned people.  He has to go to his grandfather Methuselah to make any sense of what he saw and discover that a flood is coming.  There is no explicit message of why the Creator is sending a flood, what Noah is supposed to do, or what the Creator plans for the future.  Noah has to fill in the gaps with inference, gut feelings, and sheer guesswork—with the emphasis on gut feelings and guesswork.  This leads humanity to the brink of disaster.  Noah guesses that the Creator intends for those on the ark to be the last humans.  Because of this, he refuses to find wives for Ham and Japheth—or even let Ham bring a girl with him onto the ark.  When Shem’s (presumedly) barren wife Ila gets miraculously pregnant, Noah is determined to kill the child, should it prove to be a girl, lest humanity have a chance of continuing.  This idea is unpopular among the rest of the humans on the ark.  Shem builds an escape craft for himself and Ila, but Noah destroys it.  When Ila gives birth to twin girls, Noah only relents at the last second.  He initially feels unbearably guilty for not killing the babies and lives apart from the rest of his family; he has a cave to himself and indulges in wine until Ila argues to him that the Creator really meant for humanity to continue, thus choosing Noah for his being sufficiently moral to show mercy on his granddaughters.  At that point the Creator shows the rainbow, and the movie ends.  This change in the relationship between the Creator and humans makes some sense dramatically, as it creates serious problems to be overcome.  But the problems it creates only serve to make the Creator and Noah look worse:  the Creator due to His inability to plainly say what he wants, rather than forcing Noah to guess what He wants him to do, and Noah due to him making desperate, misanthropic guesses which could easily be wrong.  For this change alone the writers deserve condemnation.

The lack of clear Divine communication is also evident in the question of why the flood is brought.  In Genesis 6:11, the answer is explicit:  destruction (or corruption) of the Earth and violence; Noaḥ is told exactly that soon afterwards, so he has no reason to express doubt.  But in the film the Creator leaves Noah to figure out what He is thinking.  And the solution that Noah comes up with is environmental destruction.  The Cainites have created a civilization advanced enough to produce iron weapons, and in the process they have wrecked much of the environment.  Part of this is due to mining for a flammable mineral known as “zohar”.  Another part of this is due to the extensive consumption of meat; they are never shown eating anything else on their own initiative.  The Cainites are shown as cruel, enslaving each other to trade for meat, and waging war, but Noah puts the emphasis on their disregard for the environment.  Noah views his mission as an environmentalist one:  once the flood is over, he is to restock the Earth with animals and plants—and humans are to go extinct so that they can never wreck the environment again.  Noah sees evil as inherent in humanity—essentially the Christian doctrine of original sin—thus his insistence on human extinction.  

Moving the emphasis for the flood to environmental destruction, rather than immorality, is not an improvement.  The Hebrew Bible is overwhelmingly filled with laws about and preaching on human behavior, but almost all of it deals with how humans treat each other and YHWH; very little is said on animal welfare, and one has to read between the lines to see any concern for the environment.  The paucity of environmental material is demonstrated by the book Ecology in the Bible by Nogah Hareuveni and Helen Frenkley, which is a mere 52 pages, 30 of which consist of photographs; the actual text consists of material on animals and plants as part of the world of the Hebrew Bible, but not really environmentalism per se.  Environmentalism, to someone steeped in the Hebrew Bible is a matter of human welfare, as we humans have to live on this planet; acting stupidly about our home is something we should not need a deity to tell us to not do, and we are not allowed to act in ways that hurt other people.  The film, on the other hand, inverts the priorities.  Environmentalism is changed from a means to an overriding goal; Noah considers animal “innocent”, unlike humans, so their existence must be assured.  In contrast, human existence, much less welfare, is precariously threatened, rather than assumed.  Furthermore, the flood is not a good way to help the environment.  Yes, the environment sucks, but parts of it are still there.  After the flood there is nothing, and “sucks” is still better than “nothing”.  While all terrestrial animal species are saved on the ark (except those that, according to the film, went extinct there), the populations preserved are very small.  In real life, this is recipe for extinction.  The loss of one member of a species can mean the loss of the whole species, and those which survive end up severely inbred.  And if the animals are truly innocent, as Noah thinks, why do only a tiny number of them survive?  Would it not be fairer for the Creator to instead send a plague to kill off humanity and spare everything else?  Without a doubt, the writers failed to think things through when introducing the theme of environmentalism into the film, and the result is morally perverse.

Arguably the reason for warping the story is to make it more suitable for action and drama.  Noaḥ in the original text is not an action hero.  He does not fight with other humans or struggle with the commands of YHWH.  To transform him into the Noah of the film, he has to have problems which cannot be dealt with quietly and gently.  Hence the writers made the messages of the Creator hard to understand, leading to drama which should not be there.  The Cainites are co-opted as villains, and their leader, Tuval-Qayin (Tubal-Cain, Genesis 4:22), preaches everything which is abominable to Noah, actively fights against Noah, stows aboard the ark, proves a bad influence on Ham, eats animals on the ark, and has a final showdown fight scene with Noah, all for the sake of extra drama and action.  The mysterious Children of ’Elohim (Genesis 6:2) are metamorphosed into the Watchers, rock monsters who are really fallen angels who find forgiveness from the Creator for daring to help humanity by helping build the ark and dying spectacularly fighting the Cainites.  And, of course, the flood itself is depicted horrifically, with the Cainites screaming as they seek higher ground to escape the rising waters and ultimately drown.  The film does succeed in creating an adrenaline rush—but only at the cost of wrecking the letter and spirit of the original story.

Overall classification:  CGI-heavy action movie.

Theological rating:  F.  Darren Aronofsky is hereby banned from making religion-rated films for life.

Review of One Night with the King

Jewish date:  8 ’Adhar 5733 (evening) (Parashath Teṣawweh).

Today’s holidays:  First Sunday of Lent (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Isaac Asimov (Church of the SubGenius), Feast of Giordano Bruno the Martyr (Thelema), Quirinalia (Roman religion)

Greetings.

Considering that Purim is a week from now, I would like to give a review on a relevant movie, One Night with the King.

I have been told that I tend to give negative reviews.  Fair enough.  This is Divine Misconceptions, the blog which concentrates on religious fallacies and misinformation.  Thus I often read or watch material containing religious fallacies and misinformation—material I know full well has something wrong with it—and report on it, thus leading to negative reviews.  I am thus happy, for a change, to review a movie based on a book of the Hebrew Bible which I consider done well.

One Night with the King is an adaptation of the Book of Esther, and the people who made it thought a lot about what they were doing, and they took care to go back to the original material.  The basic plot, most of the characters, and much of the dialog are taken straight from the text of Esther.  In doing the work of adaptation, the adaptors were very careful to interpret the original story in a psychologically plausible manner rather than rewrite it.  For example, some examples of interpretation:

• How was Haman descended from ’Aghagh when all of ‘Amaleq was wiped out?  ’Aghagh’s queen, pregnant with his child, escaped.
• Why did Haman hate the Jews so much?  ’Aghagh’s queen passed on a multigenerational grudge.  (That does happen at times.)
• Why was Mordokhay sitting in the palace gates so much?  He was a palace scribe.
• Why did Washti refuse to come to ’Aḥashwerosh’s banquet?  She was protesting ’Aḥashwerosh’s plans to go to war against Greece in revenge for for his father dying in war against them.
• Where was Haman to get that huge amount of money he promised ’Aḥashwerosh in return for being able to destroy the Jews?  He proposed to get it from the Jews by killing them and taking all their money and property; the money would be used to finance the war.

There was a lot of thought put into elaborating on the characters.

• Mordokhay is well aware of the inconsistency between his religion and his remaining in Persia.  (This was a very real problem in the Second Temple Period, when most Jews remained in the Diaspora rather than return to Israel, and the inconsistency is a major problem today.)  He wavers between hiding his Jewishness and taking pride in it.  (This happens a lot today, too.)  
• ’Ester has been blown up into a multilingual, literate, and educated character who wants to run off to Yerushalayim with her boyfriend.  After being conscripted into ’Aḥashwerosh’s harem, in the finest of human fashion, she becomes a writhing mass of contradiction.  She tries to make the best of her situation and becomes romantically entangled with ’Aḥashwerosh.  And she also cannot ignore the politics being worked about her; she has to become involved.
• ’Aḥashwerosh is portrayed as torn between his love of art and learning, on one hand, and on the other hand the need for following protocol and wreaking revenge.  His attraction to ’Ester is not just based on her beauty, but her mind as well.  (He has taste in women and finds less-intellectual women boring.)
• Haman is portrayed not only as carrying on a family tradition of hatred, but also as a master political schemer.  His ultimate goal is to become king, and he is quite willing to step on anyone who gets in the way of that goal.  About the only thing that matters to him other than revenge and political ambitions is family—and his wife Zeresh encourages Haman in his wickedness.  Haman repeatedly gives eloquent political speeches, spreading conspiracy “theories” about the Jews and the Greeks secretly plotting to destroy the Persian Empire.  He comes off as a truly evil and dangerous villain.

Are there inaccuracies in One Night with the King?  Yes.  For example:

• ’Aghagh’s queen passes down to her descendants a symbol which is a variant on the swastika.  While this is an obvious reference to the Nazis, the swastika did not originate with anti-Semites and has been used by a variety of cultures throughout human history.
• The anachronistic use of the swastika is balanced by an anachronistic use of the hexagram (Star of David, Shield of Solomon) as a symbol for the Jews.  Until Jews adopted the hexagram in the 1800s, it was a geometric and magical symbol.
• ’Ester probably did not have a boyfriend before she was abducted.  The concepts of “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” do not appear in the Hebrew Bible at all.
• The Book of Esther makes no mention of the conscription of young men to become eunuchs.  Thus the undesirable fate of ’Ester’s boyfriend in the film probably never happened.
• ’Ester in this film claims to have read The Epic of Gilgamesh in the original.  Your humble blogger is under the impression this may be anachronistic.
• Haman is unaware that the names of the months are not Jewish.
• In the film, it is repeatedly claimed that the Greeks practice democracy, as if this were a universal for them.  Your humble blogger is under the impression that Greece in the ancient world, at least before Alexander the Great’s conquests, was a collection of city-states with a variety of styles of government.
• ’Ester’s fast is too short, and she only has one feast in the film.

However, none of the inaccuracies are large enough to make much of difference in an overall story which largely follows the original Book of Esther.  As such, they are for the most part forgivable.

Peace.

’Aharon/Aaron

Christian missionary literature in Israel

Jewish date:  9 Siwan 5772 (Parashath Naso’).

Today’s holidays:  Wednesday of the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of Marcina (Greek Orthodox Christianity), Feast Day of St. Winnie Ruth Judd (Church of the SubGenius), Feast Day of Joan of Arc (Thelema)

Greetings.

I would like to note something before I forget about it.  I have requested free books from missionaries before.  (Why should I not take advantage of their generosity for my research?)  Recently I requested a number of books from Christian missionaries again.  And I received quite a lot:

This time most of what I requested was in Hebrew, though there is a copy of the American Standard Version (in English) and الكتَابُ الُمقَدّسُ, which is the Christian Bible (Hebrew Bible + New Testament) in Arabic.  (I started working on Arabic again, and I am not looking forward to reading the Qur’an in the original.) Two of the books are copies of the entire Christian Bible in Hebrew (the New Testament part being a translation), and another two are just the New Testament.  (Actually I got three, but one is a duplicate.)  The other books include topics such as Christian theology, religion and science, history, and fiction.  Interestingly, everything was sent to me in plain envelopes whose return addresses were post office boxes.  In no case did any envelope give any indication that Christian missionaries were the senders.  I am aware that Jews in Israel tend to hate missionaries, but this level of secrecy suggests extreme fear or paranoia.  Also, I got a rather high rate of fulfillment of my requests, indicating that these cautious missionaries are also very serious about spreading their message.

If anyone knows where I can request a free Zohar, Tanya’, Arabic Qur’an, or Greek New Testament (the one I have is interlinear), please let me know.  I have not been able to acquire any of these for free yet.

Peace.

’Aharon/Aaron

GCB is not as bad as I feared it would be

Jewish date:  20 Nisan 5772 (Parashath Shemini).

Today’s holidays:  Ḥol hamMo‘edh Pesaḥ (Judaism), Day 5 of the ‘Omer (Judaism), Thursday in the Octave of Easter (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Print Olive (Church of the SubGenius), Feast of Mary d’Este Sturges (Thelema).

Greetings.

And now for another attempt at getting caught up blogging.  Today’s topic is the TV series GCB, which I have been watching on Hulu ever since Barry made me aware of the show’s religious nature.

The pilot episode struck me as something largely stereotyped and poorly thought out.  The main protagonist of the series is Amanda Vaughn, a woman whose husband Billy runs a scam, tries to flee with the money, and dies in a car crash with his mistress due to them doing something blatantly stupid and disgusting while driving.  Even though Amanda is not involved in the scam, the government seizes most of her and Billy’s property.  Nearly penniless, Amanda and her children, Laura and Will, return to a high-socioeconomic status section of Dallas to live with her (Amanda’s) mother Gigi.  This has two big downsides:

1) Gigi is crazy and acts in ways which drove Amanda to leave Dallas in the first place.  E.g., she dresses up Laura provocatively (and your humble blogger is strongly tempted to use much more derogatory language than that), teaches Will to mix (alcoholic) drinks, and fakes Amanda having a secret admirer in order to be able to give her expensive presents.

2) Amanda was a “meal girl” back in high school, and many of those people she was mean to still live in Dallas.  The list of regulars whom she offended is long enough to require a scorecard to keep track of:

• Carlene Cockburn:  Chief antagonist, formerly called “Kitten”, formerly very plain, now a plastic surgery addict and very vindictive.
• Sharon Peacham:  Ex-beauty queen, now food-obsessed housewife with self-esteem issues.  (The people making this show are trying to make it seem she is overweight, but one would never know it without the dialog.)
• Heather Cruz:  Realtor.
• Cricket Caruth-Reilly:  Business woman.  Formerly Bill’s girlfriend until Amanda stole him from her.
• Ripp Cockburn:  Carlene’s husband.
• Zack Peacham:  Sharon’s husband, car salesman.
• Blake Reilly:  Cricket’s husband and business partner, rancher.

These characters are all serious, church-attending Christians, but Amanda is on the receiving end of a lot of rather unpleasant payback.  Carlene, despite frequently citing the Christian Bible (giving book, chapter, and verse), is particularly vindictive and rationalizes immoral behavior (such as “borrowing” a gift card from Amanda in order to be able to determine who her secret admirer is), intimidating Sharon into helping her.  Heather lies to Amanda to keep her from getting a good home and away from Gigi’s bad influence.  Cricket makes backhanded deals to keep Amanda from getting a good job.  And if all this mean-spirited stereotyping of observant Christians was not bad enough, Zack tries putting his moves on Amanda, and it is strongly implied that Blake is homosexual and is having an affair with his head rancher.

To make things worse, despite deeply regretting what she did in high school, Amanda is something of a hypocrite herself.  Despite Cricket’s efforts, Amanda does land a job—at a Hooters clone called Boobylicious.  And considering that Amanda is downright shocked when Gigi dresses up Laura indecently, the cognitive dissonance should be so huge that even fairly unintelligent people should be able to notice it.  (Those who wonder what is wrong with using sexuality to sell food may wish to reread the Coyote Ugly Sermon.)  The dress which Amanda wears to the Longhorn Ball is also immodest and tasteless.  Clearly Amanda is not being a good role model for her children, especially her daughter.  Admittedly dressing immodestly is not as bad as stealing (according to most of us, so far as your humble blogger can tell), but being less bad is not the same thing as being good.

Add to this that it is revealed that Carlene and Ripp are the real owners of Boobylicious and that the name for the show was originally planned to be Good Christian Bitches, and the initial impression is that the writers are a bunch of mean-spirited hacks who hate Christians and think that compared to them even someone who regularly does something sleazy is better.  And that impression would be wrong.

The writers do carry over everything from the pilot into the succeeding episodes, but the characters are not simple, unchanging cardboard cutouts.  Heather reconciles with Amanda very quickly, and her other “enemies” slowly develop better relations with her, even though so far in the series there has been plenty of friction.  While Carlene is the slowest to improve, she can be moved by argument—preferably citing appropriate scriptural sources—and she does have a conscience and care about other people.  (Her reactions may not always be the most sensible, but she does try.)  Sharon, while the most passive of the main characters, has been on a self-improvement kick since doing some volunteer work at the church and is taking more initiative.

The lack of cardboardness is particularly prominent in romantic relationships.  “Bad guys” in GCB can and do have loving, committed relationships.  To be sure, they have problems, but they work to overcome their problems.  The aforementioned business of Zack hitting on Amanda turns out to be due to some inner turmoil stirred up by her arrival; he repents his mistake and constantly works with Sharon to improve their relationship.  Carlene and Ripp also have some rocky moments, but they remain committed to each other.  Notable is the relationship between Cricket and Blake.  Blake is indeed homosexual, while Cricket is heterosexual.  While they satisfy their sexual urges with other people and do not hide the fact from each other, they are emotionally very intimate.

Also breaking cliché:  So far in the series, Amanda has not been sexually active, despite being the central character, and the only man she has ever been with is her husband Bill.  Carlene has been a little worse, only having gone all the way with Ripp, but having done some things in high school which she is not proud of.  (No details are available; the writers seem to want the viewers to use their imaginations.)  Neither currently violates Christian sexual mores, despite how they dress.

GCB is not what your humble blogger would consider an ideal series, and the content is not for everyone.  But it certainly is not as bad as first impressions suggest it is.

Peace and happy Pesaḥ.

’Aharon/Aaron

The writers for Glee fail exegesis forever

Jewish date:  8 ’Adhar 5772 (Parashath Teṣawweh).

Today’s holidays:  Friday of the First Week of Lent (Roman Catholicism), Bahá’í Month of Fasting (Bahá’í Faith), Feast Day of St. Wonder Woman (Church of the SubGenius).

Greetings.

The goal of this project is the examination of religious fallacies and misinformation.  This happens a lot in popular culture, and one of the shows I am monitoring, Glee, seems particularly prone to this problem whenever it deals with religion.  One of its recent episodes, “Heart”, shows especially bad religious reasoning that is going to annoy me until I report on it.



This is a Valentine’s Day episode.  Among other things, the “God Squad”, a sort of Christian religious club in the high school, decides to raise money by selling “singing Valentines”.  The God Squad has a new member who is a sort of goth until-recently-homeschooled Christian and who notes that Valentine’s Day is a religious holiday.  (It least it was a Catholic holiday.)  Meanwhile, a “Bible thumper” complains to the principal about Santana and Brittany kissing at school, leading him to be paranoid about homosexual public displays of affection.  (Cliché 1:  Thinking one has a right to keep anyone from doing anything which might offend them.)  Santana is understandably annoyed at this, and so she hires the God Squad to give a “singing Valentine” to Brittany.  (Cliché 2:  Petty revenge, the pettiness being that Santana has no evidence that any of the God Squad complained to the principal in the first place.)  The God Squad then discusses among themselves about whether they will actually sing to gay people.  Distressingly, none of them shows any decent understanding of how to interpret the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament, jumping immediately into stereotypes and atrocious excuses for reasoning:

1) Mercedes:  Since one in ten people is supposed to be gay, one of the 12 Apostles might have been gay, presumably Simon since he has the “gayest” name.  This assumes that the Apostles were sexually normal, not a foregone assumption.  Also not forgone assumptions are that the incidence of homosexuality in Second Temple Period Israel is the same as in 2012 America and that there is no distinction between having homosexual desires and practicing homosexuality.  Not to mention that the presumed gayness of any Apostle is purely hypothetical, not something actually known.  Thus Mercedes has no argument.

2) Sam:  It is (purportedly) an abomination for a man to lay down with another man.  This is actually a misinterpretation of Leviticus 18:22, which prohibits male homosexuality, but a man simply lying next to another man is not prohibited.  Sam, however, grossly misinterprets this as banning sharing a tent in the Cub Scouts.  Thus he starts off with one of the few sources actually relevant to the question of homosexuality in Christianity and then shoots himself in the foot rhetorically when he has no reason to do so.

3) Quinn, trying to counter Sam:  Other abominations (purportedly) include eating lobster, planting different crops in the same field, and giving someone a proud look—but not slavery, and Jesus never mentions slavery.  The prohibition of eating lobster (along with all water-dwelling animals which do not have fins and platelike scales) is Leviticus 11:10, which uses a different term of disapproval, sheqeṣ, than that used for male homosexuality, to‘evah.  The prohibition of planting two different species of seed together is found in Leviticus 19:19 and Deuteronomy 22:9; in neither verse is it referred a to‘evah or sheqeṣ or any other term of disgust.  I have no idea where Quinn got this alleged prohibition of giving someone a proud look.  Slavery is never called a to‘evah or sheqeṣ by the Hebrew Bible or mentioned by Jesus.  (Paul is a different matter.)  None of this, however, is relevant in the least to question of homosexuality in Christianity.  This is pure rhetoric, not reasoning, and to make things worse, it is clichéd rhetoric.  At best, there is an implied argument that since modern Christians do not think they are bound to keep the Torah, they should not be forbidden to commit homosexuality, which among males is explicitly prohibited by the Torah.  However, none of the characters has the sense to cite even Paul’s specious antinomian arguments.

4) Sam:  Perhaps Jesus was trying no spare Simon’s feelings.  This is just an assumption that there was a gay Apostle.  There could have just as easily been no gay Apostle, so there is no real argument here.

5) Mercedes:  Given that everyone in the God Squad really sucks when it comes to exegesis, Mercedes says she does not want to hurt Santana’s feelings or make anyone do anything they are not comfortable with.  The other members of the God Squad can accept this, but this does not solve the problem of whether to deliver the “singing Valentine” or not.

What do they eventually decide to do?  They deliver the “singing Valentine” on the basis that “Love is love.”  Is there any source for this in the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament?  No.  The God Squad may have satisfied Santana, but their rationale is poorly justified.  The writers could have done much, much better than this.

Anyone writing about homosexuality, please, please, please do not do anything as lame as what the writers for Glee did.

Peace and Shabbath shalom.

’Aharon/Aaron

Romans 5-12 is no better than Romans 1-4

Jewish date:  29 Shevaṭ 5772 (evening) (Parashath Terumah).

Today’s holidays:  Shrove Tuesday (Christianity), Feast Day of Peter Damian (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Boris Karloff (Church of the SubGenius).

Greetings.

I have previously posted my notes on the Epistle to the Romans 1-4.  Reading and taking notes on the New Testament is going slow but I have gotten myself caught up with writing notes on Romans, and I posting those on chapters 5-12 below.  The contents and Paul’s incompetence (or dishonesty) in citing the Hebrew Bible should give a good idea why reading the New Testament is going so slow.

Romans 5—Paul introduces the concept that Jesus suffered and died for us as a demonstration of God’s love in order that we may be justified through faith.  Paul also introduces the concept of original sin.  This makes sense in terms of his delusion that we are all corrupt; no matter how good someone behaves, Paul ascribes the sin of ’Adham to him/her in order to rationalize the need to believe in Jesus for this person to receive grace and be saved.  Paul sets up a symmetry that ’Adham introduced death and sin into the world and Jesus introduced life and and justification.  Paul even goes so far as to claim that the Torah was given to increase wrath, all the more to increase grace as well.  Original sin, as a taint on all humanity, is not present in the Hebrew Bible; rather everyone is to be punished for their own sins and for failing to learn from the mistakes of their ancestors.  That one person should die for others has no basis whatsoever in the Hebrew Bible.  That the Torah should be only to increase sin makes no sense, as large portions of the Torah, not to mention the rest of the Hebrew Bible, are given over to discussing and requesting repentance; there is no need for faith in Jesus if YHWH has already given a solution to the problem of sin.

Romans 6—Having thrown himself behind justification through faith in Jesus, Paul insists we are “dead” to sin but “alive” to Jesus.  There is a subtext that the natural animal desires of humans are evil.  Paul tries to temper his antinomianism by denying that we should sin but simultaneously claiming that by grace were are freed from sin.

Romans 7—Paul makes a questionable comparison of the applicability of the Torah with marriage.  Paul affirms the goodness of the Torah, citing Exodus 20:13/Deuteronomy 5:17, but denies that one can actually keep it.  Yet again, Paul fails to deal with the question of why YHWH should bother giving the Torah if it is not meant to be kept.

ֳRomans 8—More of the justification through faith in Jesus business.  ’Abba’ is Aramaic for “father”.  Cites Psalms 44:23 out of context.

Romans 9—Paul admits that the Jews are the chosen people, but he tries to turn this into a mere Divine whim and cites various verses out of context as if Divine displeasure at one time means Divine displeasure ever afterwards.  Cites Genesis 21:12, Genesis 18:14, Genesis 25:23, Malachi 1:2-3 (botched), Exodus 33:19, Exodus 9:16, a botched variation on Isaiah 29:16 or Isaiah 45:9, Hosea 2:23, Hosea 1:10, Isaiah 10:22-23 (botched), Isaiah 1:9, and a really botched combination of Isaiah 8:14 and Isaiah 28:16.

Romans 10—Paul promotes justification of faith and downplays actually practicing what is written in the Torah.  To this extent he dishonestly cites out of context Leviticus 18:5, Deuteronomy 30:12, Deuteronomy 30:13, Deuteronomy 30:14, Isaiah 28:16 in botched form, the nonexistent Joel 2:32, Isaiah 52:7 in botched form, Isaiah 53:1 in botched form, Psalms 19:5, Deuteronomy 32:21 in botched form, Isaiah 65:1, and Isaiah 65:2 in botched form.  Deuteronomy 30:12-14 blatantly refers to the Torah and not Jesus as Paul would have us believe.

Romans 11—Paul defames the Jews (again) by quoting the Hebrew Bible out of context (a botched version 1 Kings 19:10 or 1 Kings 19:14, a botched version of 1 Kings 19:18, something which could be a botched version of Deuteronomy 29:3 or Isaiah 29:10, and a botched version of Psalms 69:23-24) and tries to argue for their salvation by their being branches grafted on Israel.  He admits that Israel will be saved (citing a botched version of Isaiah 59:20-21 and Isaiah 27:9), but he has the bizarre notion that it will happen because they are disobedient and thus may receive mercy.  This fits in with his untenable notion that none of us can really do what YHWH has told us to do.  Paul further cites Isaiah 40:13 in botched form and something which is allegedly Job 41:11 but bears no resemblance.

Romans 12:1-2—Paul preaches the idea that we should view ourselves as “living sacrifices”, which sounds from the phraseology that he advocates separation from the world.

Romans 12:3-8—Paul advocates we think of ourselves as members of a single body in Jesus.

Romans 12:9-21—Paul preaches a morality of love, one taken to extremes of pacifism, as advocated by Jesus, citing Deuteronomy 32:35 and Proverbs 25:21-22.

Peace.

’Aharon/Aaron

Ezekiel 4:9 is not about health food

Jewish date:  23 ’Av 5771 (Parashath Re’eh).

Today’s holidays:  Feast Day of Rose of Lima (Roman Catholicism), Nuclear Accident Day (Church of the SubGenius).

Greetings.

A while ago, Barry sent me some pictures of some unusual bread and asked me to post on it.  Unfortunately, Blogger is not being cooperative about loading pictures, so instead I am going to direct you towards the Web-site for the bread:  Ezekiel 4:9® | Food For Life.  Thus is it written in Ezekiel 4:9 (my translation):

And you, take for yourself wheat and barley and beans and lentils and millet and spelt, and you will put them in one vessel, and you will make them for yourself into bread; [for] the number of days that you are lying on your side, 390 days, you will eat it.

The people making bread based on this seem to be taking it as a recipe for health food, claiming “This Biblical Bread is Truly the Staff of Life”.

Now, as an epidemiologist and thus someone who has been exposed to a good deal of health-related information, I am all for variety in one’s diet.  However, healthy eating is not what this verse is about.  Let us consider the context of this verse.  Yeḥezqe’l (Ezekiel) was living at the end of the First Temple Period.  When he prophesied, he was on the shore of the Kevar in Babylonia, as he had already been exiled.  Yeḥezqe’l’s prophecies deal with the transgressions (severe enough to cause major social problems) that ultimately led to the destruction of the First Temple, the 70 years of exile, and the eventual  return of the Jewish people and rebuilding of the Temple.  In publicizing these prophecies, YHWH instructed Yeḥezqe’el to act in some truly bizarre ways, thus getting people’s attention.  Ezekiel 4:9 is part of a set of instructions that Yeḥezqe’l is to lay siege on a brick and spend over a year lying on his side.  The recipe is representative of what people eat in times of siege; not being able to freely import food, they eat whatever they have available, even if it turns out to be unusual mixture.  Please note that Yeḥezqe’l is supposed to ration his food and water during this time (Ezekiel 4:10-11), and what he is supposed to use as fuel for cooking his food is something that no one with any sense (of hygiene, at least) would use unless they had no other choice (Ezekiel 4:12, 4:16).  (I presume the Food and Drug Administration does not permit that level of authenticity.)  Taking the recipe as being meant as health food is nothing less than a gross violation of context.

Even more far-fetched is their Genesis 1:29® sprouted grain and seed bread.  Thus is it written in Genesis 1:29 (my translation):

’Elohim said, “Behold, I have given you every herb bearing see that is on the face of all the Earth and every tree that on it is the fruit of the tree bearing seed; for you it will be for food.”

This verse is talking about plants in general as food, but somehow the Food for Life people have taken it as inspiring bread made with 19 different plant-based items from around the planet.  Note that at no point does this verse talk about any form of cooking or even of mixing different ingredients.  I have no idea what these people are thinking.

Theological rating for these products:  F.

Peace.

’Aharon/Aaron

The Coyote Ugly sermon

Jewish date:  22 Siwan 5771 (Parashath Qoraḥ).


Today’s holidays:  Birth of John the Baptist (Christianity); Feast Day of Elizabeth,  Mother of the Forerunner (Greek Orthodox Christianity); Feast of the Lesser Mysteries (Thelema); Feast Day of St. Anton LaVey (Church of the SubGenius).


Greetings.


Given that I recently posted a review of the utterly dreadful song “Judas” by the utterly tasteless performer Lady Gaga, one may now assume that anything which I can stand to read or watch without losing my lunch or going insane is now a legitimate target for review and commentary.  And so, after six years, I am going to finally publish what may be first and last sermon ever written on Coyote Ugly, here and now.  I have chosen this time because the sermon is directly relevant to this week’s Torah portion.


Peace and Shabbath shalom.


’Aharon/Aaron

---

I have boasted that I give sermons stranger than anyone else’s, and to this end I will attempt to tie together Qoraḥ, the exoteric and esoteric meanings of Song of Songs, and (of all things) the movie Coyote Ugly.  (I know it sounds like a circus stunt, but please, bear with me.)

One evening at a joint CSEB-SER conference in Toronto (28 June 2005), the guy I was sharing a hotel room with decided to watch television, and after flipping through channels, he settled on Coyote Ugly.  From what I saw of the movie, it was mainly about conventionally beautiful, immodestly dressed women who dance on top of bars.  The point of this is to attract customers to the bar, and these have to purchase alcoholic beverages to stay there.  Though there were clear attempts at a plot and character development, my intuition insists these were not the point of this film or why anyone would deliberately see it; indeed, what little I can remember of how it was marketed was “women dancing on bars” and not “the struggles of an aspiring songwriter”.

Being a religious Jew, I naturally was soon mentally contrasting this tasteless movie with something vaguely similar in any respect out of the world of Judaism, namely the exoteric meaning of Song of Songs.  Song of Songs on the simple level also deals largely with sexuality, but in a vastly different manner than Coyote Ugly.  Sexuality in Song of Songs is all about love between a husband and wife, with the goal being that through appreciation of each other the lovers become closer.  This socially functional sexuality is private, shared by them alone and not with other people.  In contrast, the sexuality of Coyote Ugly is public and exploitative.  It is out there for anyone to see—as long as they are paying customers.  Sexuality is turned into a tool to hawk a product, perverting its whole point.  Sex evolved as a means for reproduction and was later adapted as a means to keep couples together for their mutual benefit for long periods of time.  In contrast with this, in Coyote Ugly men come to the bar, lured by sexuality, but they are never ever allowed to progress past looking.  Instead, they are coerced into buying drinks of questionable hygiene and a deleterious effect on judgement, and ultimately they leave alone, cheated of sexuality’s promise.  This exploitation occurs on a higher level, too.  Men go to see the movie, lured by sexuality, but it is a sham.  They see the pretty sights, but two hours later the movie is over.  There are no beautiful women—in fact, they never were any, so there is no chance of a relationship, and the movie-goers have to go home with nothing but ticket stubs and $5.50 less in each of their wallets.

The real fun happens when we move from the exoteric to the esoteric.  The esoteric meaning of Song of Songs is about the relationship between YHWH and Yisra’el; He loves us, and we love Him.  The practice of Judaism is how we express our love for YHWH.  If we apply this symbolism to Coyote Ugly, we end up with a situation straight out of the Torah, namely the story of Qoraḥ (Numbers 15:1-17:28).  Qoraḥ, like most evil people, depicted himself as righteous.  He stood in public for all to see, calling for everyone to gather around him and see how righteous he was; in fact, he claimed to be even more righteous that Mosheh.  In the text of the Torah alone he accuses Mosheh of ignoring that all of Yisra’el is holy and instead resorting to nepotism in appointing the priesthood.  In midhrash, he argues that Mosheh’s teachings are inconsistent and biased against the most vulnerable people in society.  Like sexuality in Coyote Ugly, Qoraḥ’s righteousness is a sham.  He puts on a big show, but it has nothing to do with expressing his love for YHWH; he is just trying to exploit people.  He promises the great religious concepts of holiness and equality, but he never intends to do anything but grab power and send his followers home no better off than they were previously.  In short, Qoraḥ is the esoteric meaning of Coyote Ugly.

I do realize that the connection between Qoraḥ and Coyote Ugly was almost certainly never intended by the creators of the latter, but the phenomenon of exploitative superficiality which underlies both of them has, so far as I know, been common throughout human history, and it is still common today, to the point where we often expect it.  In movies, we expect great special effects and sex rather than good plots or believable characters.  We expect overblown claims in advertising; if something is labeled “low-fat”, it is high in sugar, and if it is “low-sugar”, it is high in fat—and we expect this.  In the domain of religion, there are cults, the whole purpose of which is to let the clergy exploit the laity.  In science, there are “junk science” and “creationism/intelligent design”, the point of which is to create doubt where none exists and obscure truths rather than reveal them.  In politics, we expect politicians to lie whenever they open their mouths and make promises they never intend to keep, yet we still vote for them.  In short, the World is filled with Qoraḥs, and the question before us is whether we will continue to fall for their lies, thereby perpetuating exploitative superficiality.

Religious miscellany

Greetings.

Jewish date:  9 Tishri 5771.

Today’s holidays:  ‘Erev Yom Kippur/Eve of the Day of Atonement (Judaism), Paryushana (Hinduism), Feast Day of Robert Bellarmine (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. William Shatner (Church of the SubGenius).

NOTE:  Starting tonight is Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.  For information on this holiday, see the relevant part of the Orthodox Union’s site.

Today’s topic:  Miscellaneous more or less religious things I saw in Israel.  We will start off with two signs found on buses:

This one reads “Before hoariness you will stand”, a quote from Leviticus 19:32.  Evidently it is intended to mean here than one should give up one’s seat to any senior citizen who needs it.

I apologize for the poor lighting conditions.  This one reads “And you will love your driver like yourself”.  This is a play on Leviticus 19:18.

Only in Israel:  a ṣedhaqah [more or less equals charity] box out in public, such as this one I found at a bus station in Ramath Gan.

This display at the Yerushalayim Central Bust Station quotes Psalms 137:5, wishing bad things on oneself if one forgets Yerushalayim (Jerusalem).

This building in Tel ’Aviv bills itself as “Binah [= Understanding], the secular yeshivah [= institution of Jewish learning]”.  I have no idea whatsoever what this institution is collectively thinking, but there is an obvious logical difficulty here.

The restaurant being advertised on this sign is named after the parah ’adummah [= red cow, or more archaically, red heifer], which is ritually slaughtered and burned, and its ashes are used in purification rituals (Numbers 19:1-19).  I have no clue what the connection is other than the cowness of both.

T-shirts, some of which we have encountered before, are found commonly on sale in Israel, including vaguely Jewish-themed ones, such as “DON’T WORRY.  BE JEWISH” and “GUNS AND MOSES”.

Gan ‘Edhen (the Garden of Eden) is a natural metaphor for people to hit on, especially when they quit reading the Hebrew Bible in Genesis right after ’Adham and Ḥawwah (Adam and Eve) are kicked out of ‘Edhen or they do not have a clue what ‘Edhen might possibly mean.

This bottle of water has the brand name of “Waters of ‘Edhen”.  The advertisers apparently wish to cash in on the idea of something pure, natural, and uncontaminated.  This is a variant on the appeal to nature, a logical fallacy.  Not to mention that bottled water for the most part is a scam to get people to shell out money for a product they can get for a lot less money out of a tap.

I am murky on what “The Gan Eden of Jewish Books” is supposed to mean.  Gan ‘Edhen doubles as a Jewish equivalent of Heaven, so the intention may be that Pomeranz Bookseller is some sort of book Heaven.  Which would be odd, since that ought to mean the books are free—something in contradiction to selling books.

Kodak appears to be trying the same image stunt.  The alternative, that they specialize in photographs of naked people, is unlikely to be tolerated in Yerushalayim.

I am not sure what to make of this “Lion in Zion” graffiti.  The lion is probably a reference to the lion as a symbol of Yehudhah (Judah), and Ṣiyyon (Zion) is another name for the Temple Mount.  But exactly what the vandal was trying to communicate is left murky.

OK, this is not really a religious fallacy or misconception.  I just cannot understand why a shop in the Old City of Yerushalayim would be called “ALABAMA:  THE HEART OF DIXIE”.

And finally, doubling as today’s religious humor, we have this rubber duck present at the home of some people whose house I had lunch at in Ḥayfah (Haifa):

This is the only rubber duck I have ever seen wearing a kippah and ṭallith.

Peace, and may you be sealed for a good year in the book of life.

Aaron

Beware of pygargs

Greetings.

Jewish date:  28 ’Av 5770 (Parashath Shofeṭim).

Today’s holidays:  Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Britishthermalunit, inventor of AC (Church of the SubGenius).

Worthy causes of the day:  “Ban New Offshore Drilling - Take Action Today @ The Rainforest Site”, “ColorOfChange.org:  Tell Google: "Don't be evil" / And to stop dealing away the Internet”, “MoveOn.org Political Action: Google: Don't Be Evil”, and “Alliance for Justice:  Congress: Repair the Damage Caused by the Corporate Court”.

Topic 1:  It has occurred to me that there is an irony in the terminology of the Arab-Israeli War.  The Muslims call Israel “Palestine” in an effort to dissociate it from Judaism.  Now, where does this term come from?  After the Romans finally crushed the Bar Kokhba’ Revolution (with much difficulty), they adapted the name of traditional rival state about where now the Gaza Strip is, the Pelesheth (= “low-country”) and started calling Israel Syria Palestina.  This was later shortened to “Palestine”.  Thus the Muslims are implicitly identifying with Israel’s oppressors and occupiers from the Roman Empire.  The irony comes in that the “Palestinians” claim to be oppressed and occupied.  They could have gone with “Canaan” instead, given that the Kena‘anim lost out to the Children of Yisra’el, but no one has any nostalgia for the Kena‘anim.

More anti-Semitism:  “Canadian Media Bark up the Wrong Tree in Lebanon Ambush (August 4, 2010)”, “Dead Photojournalist Waiting To Happen” and “Border Clash: A Case Study in Reuters Photography” deal with reporter bias, participation in an international incident, and stupidity.  (I am aware “stupidity” is a strong and undiplomatic word, but putting oneself in a position where one could easily be mistaken for an enemy soldier and get shot is pretty stupid.)  “Photo Bias Rampant In the Media” deals with the photographic equivalent of quoting out of context:

“Sky News Discovers Gaza's Middle Class” reveals that not all Gazans are suffering.

Related:  “Taqiyya - Lying For Islam” deals with lying in the name of Islam.

Image of “pygargs” via Wikipedia

Topic 2:  Some strangeness from the King James Version (KJV):  The KJV renders dishon in Deuteronomy 14:5 as “pygarg”, which is not an English word at all.  “Pygarg” is an adaptation of the Greek pygargos, meaning “white-rumped”, which is used in the Septuagint.  Why they did this, I am not really clear.  “Addax” is a perfectly good English word, though maybe they really did not know anything about addaxes in England at that point.

Topic 3:  For today’s religious humor: “Basement kitteh tabulates quarterly figures.”:


Peace.

Aaron

The Gospel According to the Pharisees

Greetings.

Jewish date:  25 Tammuz 5770 (Parashath Re’eh).

Today’s holidays:  Dedication of St. Mary Major (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Lucretia Borgia/St. Enola Gay (Church of the SubGenius).

Worthy cause of the day:  “Tell Sarah Palin to Go Back to Alaska - The Petition Site”.

Topic 1:  For someone who was supposed to be the Jewish Mashiaḥ (= Messiah), Jesus is almost totally unmentioned in Jewish tradition.  I say “almost” because there is one passage in the Talmudh Bavli which might refer to Jesus, though the story presented is very different from anything presented in the Gospels.  Thus is it written in Sanhedhrin 43a (my translation):

[Quote from the Mishnah under discussion:]  “And a herald goes out before him [one condemned to death by a court]”—before him, yes, from the beginning [forty days before], no.

But it was taught:  On the eve of Pesaḥ [= Passover] they hung Yeshu the Noṣri; and the herald goes out before him forty days:  “Yeshu the Noṣri goes out to be stoned because he practiced magic and incited [to transgression] and tempted Yisra’el; all those who know for him any merit, let him come and teach it.”  And they did not find for him merit, and they hung him on the eve of the Pesaḥ.

‘Ulla’ said:  And you will think [this is something to bring a proof from]?  Is Yeshu the Noṣri one worthy to overturn [judgement] in his merit?  He was an inciter, and the Merciful One said “You will not pity and will not cover over him [an inciter]” (Deuteronomy 13:9).  But Yeshu is different, for he was close to the government [and thus the Sanhedhrin needed to give him every opportunity to have his name cleared, even though they knew this would not actually happen].

Our Masters taught:  Yeshu the Noṣri had five students:  Matta’y, Naqqa’y, Neṣer, and Buni, and Todhah.

They brought Matta’y.  He said to them, “Will Matta’y be killed?  Isn’t it written, ‘When [mathay] will I come and see the face of ’Elohim?’ (Psalms 42:3)?”

They said to him, “Yes, Matta’y will be killed.  For it is written:  ‘When [mathay] will he die and his name be lost?’ (Psalms 41:6, as if it were ‘Matta’y will die and his name be lost’)”.

They brought Naqqa’y.  He said to them, “Will Naqqa’y be killed?  Isn’t it written, ‘And one clean [naqi] or righteous you will not kill’ (Exodus 23:7)?”

They said to him, “Yes, Naqqa’y will be killed.  For it is written:  ‘In secret he will kill one clean [naqi] (Psalms 10:8).”

They brought Neṣer.  He said to them, “Will Neṣer be killed?  Isn’t it written, ‘And a stem [neṣer] from his root will bear fruit’ (Isaiah 11:1)?”

They said to him, “Yes, Neṣer will be killed.  For it is written:  ‘And you will be throw from your grave like an abominated stem [neṣer]’ (Isaiah 14:19).”

They brought Buni.  He said to them, “Will Buni be killed?  Isn’t it written, ‘My son [beni], my firstborn is Yisra’el’ (Exodus 4:22)?”

They said to him, “Yes, Buni will be killed.  For it is written:  ‘Behold, I kill your son [binkha], your firstborn’ (Exodus 4:23).”

They brought Todhah.  He said to them, “Will Todhah be killed?  Isn’t it written, ‘A song for thanks [todhah]’ (Psalms 100:1)?”

They said to him, “Yes, Todhah will be killed.  For it is written:  ‘One who sacrifices a thanksgiving-offering [todah] will honor Me’ (Psalms 50:23).”

The elements that are the same between this passage and the Gospels are the central character’s name (Yeshu the Noṣri = Jesus the Nazarean), that he had some sort of powers and incited people to violate the Torah, that he had disciples, that one of the disciples is named Matta’y (= Matthew), the Sanhedhrin tried Yeshu and found him guilty, and (in accordance with John) he was executed on the day before Pesaḥ.  On the other hand, this Yeshu was a magician and inciter to ‘avodhah zarah (“strange worship” = idolatry and polytheism) and not a prophet or the Son of God, he was stoned and hung and not crucified, his execution was announced 40 days in advance and was not done hastily, he was close to the government, he was executed by the Sanhedhrin and not the Romans, and he had five disciples and not 12.  And four of the disciples’ names are unlike those in the New Testament.  Notably strange is that the canonical Gospels all disagree with this passage and claim that the Romans, not the Sanhedhrin, executed Jesus, even though they go out of their way to lamely pin the blame on the Jews.  Intuition suggests that the Christian version of the story may have undergone a period in which they shifted blame to the Romans and then flip-flopped back again to blame the Jews, but this is just speculation on my part.


Rather unusual is the second part of the passage, in which every disciple gives a reason he should live, citing verse in the Hebrew Bible as word-play, and he is condemned with another verse in equal and opposite word-play.  While the first part of the passage is (so far as I know) at least historically possible, the second part is rather unrealistic and reads like fiction, and a truncated one at that since the charges against the disciples are not mentioned and neither are their executions.  Intuition suggests this section is a legend that was added to the first section.

Topic 2:  For today’s religious humor: “Cyoot Kitteh Of The Day: The Power Of Ceiling Cat Compels You!”:

NOTE:  You want to click the link for an additional LOLcat shown after the one displayed above.

Peace.

Aaron

Getting annoyed at the KJV again

Greetings.

Jewish date:  14 ’Av 5770 (Parashath ‘Eqev).

Today’s holidays:  Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Shylock (Church of the SubGenius), Guru Purnima (Hinduism).

Topic 1:  I am getting annoyed again at the King James Version (KJV) again.  Deuteronomy 4:13 is rendered as referring to “ten commandments”, a familiar phrase in English which has no basis in the original Hebrew, which uses the term ‘asereth haddevarim, which means “the ten words” (hence “Decalogue”) or “the ten sayings”.  Keep in mind that there are many more commandments in the Torah that just ten; Jewish tradition holds there are 613 distinct commandments for the ages.  Furthermore the first Saying in the Decalogue, “I am YHWH your God who brought you out of the land of Misṛayim from the house of slavery”, is not a commandment.

Deuteronomy 6:4 is rendered in the KJV as “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:”  This translation is obviously wrong to any English-speaking observant Jew.  An accurate translation would be “Hear, Yisra’el:  YHWH is our God; YHWH is one.”  The KJV seems to be translating from the Septuagint, which has a nasty habit of using Kyrios to render both “YHWH” and “lord”.

Image of Fred Phelps, who believes that God agrees with him based on selective reading, via Wikipedia

Topic 2:  For today’s religious humor, submitted by Barry: “Super Heroes vs. the Westboro Baptist Church”:  The infamous hate-filled Westboro Baptist Church recently decided to protest at Comic-Con.  Now, many have counter-protested the protests of the Westboro Baptist Church, but given the nature of fandom, the result was what may be the most absurd counter-protest yet.  Note the included video:


Peace.

Aaron

The Gospel According to Mel Gibson

Greetings.

Jewish date:  5 ’Av 5770 (Parashath Devarim).

Today’s holidays:  The Nine Days (Judaism), Feast Day of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Roman Catholicism).

Worthy cause of the day:  “Friends of Israel Initiative”.

Topic 1:  The Passion of the Christ (2004), which might be better titled The Gospel According to Mel Gibson, after the man responsible for this film.  This is the most overtly anti-Semitic of the Gospel films your humble blogger has seen, putting the blame for the death of Jesus directly on the Pharisees, Priests, and a Jewish mob.  Pontius Pilate is exonerated entirely, being backed into a situation where he has no safe option.  If he exonerates Jesus, he is afraid that Caiaphas’s followers will revolt.  If he kills Jesus, he is afraid that Jesus’s followers will revolt.  If he puts down a revolt, Caesar will be very, very angry with him because of all the killing of revolting Jews he has been doing for 11 years which his majesty wants stopped.  Pontius tries getting away with “merely” letting Roman soldiers who enjoy their work too much beat up Jesus, but as this fails to pacify the mob, he gives into their demand for crucifixion.  This is a marvelous piece of work to make Pontius Pilate a sympathetic character (albeit not the bloodthirsty monster historians think he was), but it does nothing to really explain why the Jews would want Jesus dead in the first place.  Despite that Jews are correctly depicted as speaking Aramaic, there is no sign of research into Second Temple Period Judaism or any attempt to understand what Jesus’s Jewish opponents were thinking.  Gibson uncritically buys into the blood libel of the Gospels and simply echoes it in the film.

(Parenthetical tangent:  Romans are incorrectly depicted as speaking Latin when they really should have been speaking Greek, the other common language used over there at the time.  Greek was commonly used enough that the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek for Greek-speaking Jews during the Second Temple Period.  It took a few centuries more for a Latin version to be created.  But I digress.)

Rather than work out motives for the antagonists, Gibson puts a great deal of effort into depicting the end of Jesus’s life, from the Garden of Gethsemane to the Resurrection.  Standard Christian doctrine is that Jesus suffered and died for our sins so we could receive salvation, and Gibson takes us through all that suffering, step by step, to an extent far greater than any other Gospel film your humble blogger is aware of, to show what Jesus was willing to go through for our sake.  The result is a film which is very dark, very ominous, very violent, and very bloody.  Not to mention this Jesus really looks and sounds beaten up.  Many people will find this too disturbing to watch.  The scenes of torture at the hands of the Romans are interspersed with flashbacks, mostly showing Jesus making predictions and encouraging behaviors opposed to the violence he suffers.

Also unusual in this film is the depiction of Satan.  Most depictions of Satan in Gospel films are dull, with nothing to really show him as evil.  Satan here is surreal and androgynous, neither clearly male nor female, but clearly meant to be attractive.  He(?) interacts with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, releasing a snake which Jesus stomps on, possibly meant as a reference to the Garden of ‘Edhen and the punishment of the original snake (Genesis 3:16).  Satan continues to stalk Jesus throughout the film, unseen by anyone else, evidently as a cause or symbol of the torment Jesus is put through.  Infamously, Satan holds an ugly baby thing while Jesus is being flogged, perhaps a bit of a parallel between the Father and Jesus.  (Or maybe not.)  Satan is also furious at the end, with Jesus successful in what he set out to accomplish.

The Passion of the Christ is great for reviewing all the horrible things which purportedly happen to Jesus at the end of his life.  Unfortunately, the care and detail which went into the making of this film did not go into making the story more believable.

Topic 2:  Your humble blogger is getting annoyed by the translators who created the King James Bible not knowing Hebrew well.  This past week I have come across translations/transliterations of names of groups of people such as “Anakims” (Deuteronomy 1:28, 2:10-11), “Emims” (Deuteronomy 2:10-11), “Horims” (Deuteronomy 2:12), “Zamzummims” (Deuteronomy 2:20), “Avims” (Deuteronomy 2:23), and “Caphtorims” (Deuteronomy 2:23).  The Hebrew suffix -im indicates the plural, mostly of masculine nouns.  In each of these cases the -im of a plural noun has been misinterpreted as an integral part of a collective noun.  There is no excuse for this level of grammatical incompetence in a translator.

Peace and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron