Readers Reply

002

Ten Commandments

Drives Him up the Wall

Every time a new issue of Bible Review arrives at my house, my wife has to explain to my children why their father reads three pages of the magazine and then throws it against the wall. Then she speculates on what drives him to pick up the magazine and repeat the cycle, all the while muttering to himself, “This is interesting” or “Oh, phooey!”

This month, however, the scenario was a little different. I read only one page before I threw the magazine against the wall. It was Michael Coogan’s article (appropriately) entitled “The Ten Commandments on the Wall” (Insight, BR 15:05). Coogan thinks public posting of the commandments imposes “a narrow view of biblical tradition on the nation as a whole.” He argues that there are three versions of the commandments. He also deduces that the Hebrews were not really monotheists from the start, and he concludes with the hope that posting the commandments will actually have “a subversively salutary effect.”

I wonder what Coogan wants to subvert. I hope it is not the “narrow” tradition of Judaism-Christianity-Islam that takes these commandments seriously. I hope it is not the faith of people like me, who think these are something more than the work of mere humans.

Whatever his goal, however, Coogan is not convincing. First, his claim regarding three different versions of the commandments is mere speculation. Only the text of Exodus 20 is explicitly described as the Ten Commandments. In Exodus 34, God re-creates these same commandments on the tablets and also provides additional instructions to Moses over a 40-day period (why should the Hebrews expect God to say nothing more to Moses during that time?). Never in Exodus 34 are these additional instructions confused with the original Ten Commandments. Finally, in Deuteronomy, Moses recapitulates and comments on the Ten Commandments. A quick application of Occam’s razor to speculation about hypothetical editors and nonexistent texts leaves us with one version of the commandments—the version in Exodus 20.

Coogan also contends that the first commandment “implicitly recognizes the existence of multiple gods.” I suppose I’ll have to accept this, provided Coogan acknowledges a few distinctions between the Hebrew God and all others. The Hebrews thought their God created the heavens, the earth, the sun, the moon and all the stars. They thought He made light. They thought this God made every living thing, including all humans. They thought this God was able to change everyone’s language. They thought He could rain fire down on cities that offended Him. They thought He judged the whole world and drowned everything associated with humanity. Aside from this, He was just like every other god.

In his essay “Modern Theology and Bible Criticism,” C.S. Lewis (an accomplished literary critic and no fundamentalist) wrote of Rudolf Bultmann and other modernistic critics, “These men ask me to believe they can read between the lines of the old texts; the evidence is their obvious inability to read (in any sense worth discussing) the lines themselves. They claim to see fern seed and can’t see an elephant ten yards away in broad daylight.”

Please continue my subscription. You print a lot of good articles; and while the bad ones are hard on my walls, they don’t harm my faith.

But Who’s Counting?

Would that Michael Coogan’s article be posted in every teacher’s lounge (see Insight, BR 15:05). I would like to add to his question regarding which version of the Ten Commandments will be posted. In addition to the three biblical possibilities, I wonder whether it would be the Jewish, Catholic or Protestant version? The Jewish Decalogue 006begins with, “I am the Lord your God.” The Catholic version skips that verse and begins with “You will have no other gods besides me” and divides “coveting” between no. 9 and no. 10. The Protestant version also begins with “You will have no other gods besides me” but restricts “coveting” to no. 10, dividing no. 2 and no. 3 between “You will not make a graven image” and “You will not take God’s name in vain.”

Marcus Borg and Ray Riegert’s article “East Meets West,” BR 15:05, was fascinating. I was particularly interested in Borg’s elaboration of Buddha and Jesus as “teachers of wisdom who taught a ‘way’ or ‘path.’” It should be noted that the foundation of rabbinic Judaism is its interpretation of halacha, which is usually translated as “rabbinic law” but in reality means “walking in the way.” The word halacha is derived from the verbal root that means “to walk,” or “to go.” Thus halacha is “going on the proper path,” or “walking in the way of God.” It is a foundational principle that certainly fits alongside the message of Jesus and Buddha.

I’d also like to make a correction to the Insight column in the August 1999 issue, which says that Esther is the “only biblical book that makes no mention whatsoever of God.” Song of Songs does not as well.

On the numbering of the commandments, see also Ronald Youngblood’s “Counting the Ten Commandments,” BR 10:06, and the letters in the April 1995 issue (Readers Reply, BR 11:02). You can find links to both on our Web site, www.bib-arch.org.—Ed.

Government-Mandated Sin

Michael D. Coogan suggests that despite the Supreme Court decision to the contrary, the Ten Commandments should be put on every classroom wall because “they could have a subversively salutary effect.” That is, they may provoke discussion rather than impose doctrinaire religious orthodoxy, as intended. As an illustration, Coogan cites the fourth commandment’s injunction to rest on the Sabbath—the seventh day. Christians, disregarding the biblical text, changed it to Sunday. That, the author contends, should make students question the practices of Christianity, rather than accept them as the intent of God.

The suggestion is educationally sound, but Coogan overlooks the more obvious lesson of the fourth commandment. Both versions, Exodus 20:9 and 34:21, command, “Six days you shall work.” The latter puts the command before the requirement for rest on the seventh day. Exodus 20:11 explains that God worked six days and his congregation must do likewise.

Therefore, state Blue Laws prohibiting work on Sunday force observant Jews to violate the fourth commandment. That is, the Torah requires rest only on the seventh day; the government allows no work on the first. That contention was advanced by an Orthodox Jew prosecuted criminally for working on Sunday, which the statute denominated “the Lord’s Day.” The defense was rejected by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 1817, because prior to the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, the First Amendment right to freedom of religion did not apply to the states. And when it did, in more recent Blue Law cases, the argument was not made—presumably because in relying upon the Sabbath provision of the fourth commandment, counsel overlooked the command to work six days.

Posting the Ten Commandments in the classroom would prompt some alert student to ask how pious Jews could be so disadvantaged in a country that prides itself in protecting freedom of religion.

The writer is past president, ACLU, Greater Philadelphia Branch.

God’s Bad Example?

I always read Readers Reply. There are many very intelligent people who read and respond to the articles you publish.

Michael D. Coogan states that God’s second commandment prohibits the making of “a graven image.” But did God set a bad example for us? Please read Exodus 25:18–21 [which commands the making of two cherubim.—Ed.]

See Victor Hurowitz’s “Did Solomon Violate the Second Commandment?” BR 10:05, which was, in fact, inspired by a reader’s query.—Ed.

Jesus and Buddha

The Twain Meet

Just a word of thanks for your October 1999 issue. I want to especially thank you for Marcus Borg and Ray Riegert’s “East Meets West,” BR 15:05. That in itself was worth the subscription price.

Their Crucial Differences

Marcus Borg suggests that “frequent experiences of the ‘sacred’” led Jesus and Buddha to know “the way things really are.” Thus the similarities in their lives, their priorities and their exhortations on how to live flow from this undefined “sacred” fount of truth. But Borg failed to discuss the truly enormous (and most sacred) issues on which they differed: the existence of God, the cosmos, the individual personality, the forgiveness of sins and eternal life—all of which Buddha denied and Jesus affirmed.

Well-Known Connection

In “East Meets West,” BR 15:05, Marcus Borg and Ray Riegert state that they can find no proof of a connection between Buddhism and Christianity. To this I can only say that they did not look far enough or in the right places.

The late mythologist Joseph Campbell offers ample documented proof that such a link did exist. Buddhist missionaries penetrated the Middle East, Italy and Egypt, according to Campbell.

Both Royal Figures

The article that compares Jesus with the historic Buddha, though not a revelation, was probably the best effort I have read to date, except for one small, though very significant, error.

Jesus was not born into a “peasant family” as described by Borg and Riegert. A peasant is a person of low social status and/or one who tills the land. Surely Jesus, whose lineage was recorded generation by generation, was a member of the royal House of David. Both his parents (Joseph in Matthew 1, and Mary in apocryphal tradition) are listed in that royal lineage. Given the problems of translating from Hebrew to Greek, Joseph was unlikely to have been a carpenter (the word can also be translated as “scholar”). Even if he was, a carpenter is not a peasant. Spiritual humility has often been confused with economic humbleness.

Furthermore, Jesus, as an adolescent, is reported to have had easy access to Temple priests and scholars at a time when they rarely mixed with common 008folk. Jesus was educated, could read and probably spoke Greek as well as Aramaic (and maybe Latin), since Judea was multilingual. These are not characteristics of peasants. Given the plethora of prophets and healers in Judea at that time, Jewish religious authorities and Roman civil authorities could only have found him a threat if he was something more than a peasant: a charismatic man with an impeccable royal lineage that gave him the credibility to gain a following, and a legitimate claim to the throne of Israel should a “vacancy” occur.

It is perhaps miraculous that two persons of privileged status with the material comforts of the world should retain their personal humility, identify with the common folk of the world and create such an impact on the world scene.

Jesus’ Temptation

What Jesus Rejected

I would not change a jot or a tittle of Jerome Murphy-O’Connor’s “Triumph over Temptation: The Historical Core Behind the Testing of Jesus,” BR 15:04. It was the high point of this issue, both in tracing scriptural sources and in linking the temptations to the real-life experiences of Jesus. May I share some thoughts?

What precipitated the temptation in the desert? The baptism by John. Jesus felt within himself a surge of power totally new to him, and probably even frightening. If ever there was a moment when it first occurred to him that God had chosen him to be Israel’s Messiah, this may have been it. But responding to this call required that Jesus have some sense of mission. At the time, there were at least four schools of thought in Israel in which he might have found answers to this momentous question: Essenes (conservative, nonpolitical, ascetic, eschatological), Zealots (liberal, political, patriotic, revolutionary), Sadducees (conservative, political, priestly, collaborationist) and Pharisees (liberal, nonpolitical, popular, pious). At the risk of oversimplifying, let’s say that the Essenes expect signs and wonders (which Jesus rejects); the Zealots want a military leader (out of the question); and the Sadducees deny the validity of the expectation and focus all their efforts on preserving Temple worship. Only the Pharisees appear to be open to the possibility that Jesus is the Messiah. In the series of temptations, we may see a series of options being rejected: (1) the ascetic way of the Essenes (Matthew 4:1–4); (2) Temple worship as the ultimate value (Matthew 4:5–7); and (3) the Zealots’ belief that “the government shall be upon his shoulder” (Matthew 4:8–10). As it turned out, the actual mission was none of the above: the role of the suffering servant. To try to pinpoint the moment when Jesus knew this himself would be presumptuous in the extreme.

Family Ties

In his probing article, Jerome Murphy-O’Connor refers to the tension between Jesus of Nazareth and his family as 010indisputable fact (see “Triumph over Temptation: The Historical Core Behind the Testing of Jesus,” BR 15:04). He quotes from Mark 3 to conclude that “they believe he is ‘out of his mind’—that he is mentally ill,” and that “this episode reveals the hostility of the family of Jesus to his mission.” I wonder whether this analysis gives sufficient consideration to the special circumstances in which Jesus was raised in Nazareth.

The small community of Nazareth was located in a valley just 4 miles downhill from Sepphoris, the central garrison city from which Herod Antipas controlled Galilee. During the early days of the first century, Herod enlarged and rebuilt the fortress, located on the flat summit of a hill, to make it the “ornament of Galilee.” How would the close proximity of this pagan, military enclave have affected the lives of the Jewish citizens of Nazareth? Certainly it must have made them fearful. It is also safe to assume that parents taught their children from their earliest years to avoid any disorderly conduct in the streets that might attract the attention of mercenaries on their way to and from Sepphoris or of the watchmen on its walls. Such restraint was essential to safeguard not only individual freedom but the security of the community.

With this background, I can readily understand the reactions of Jesus’ family when they heard that he was attracting large crowds throughout Galilee and that there were scenes of unruly conduct and confrontations with religious leaders. It must have seemed to them that such a careless attitude towards authority was demented. If this was, indeed, how they felt, their attempt to “arrest” Jesus was motivated by love and concern for his safety. They were upset about his method, not his mission. In the same way, it is easy to understand the less-than-enthusiastic reception Jesus received when he visited Nazareth (Mark 6:1–6). Some must have felt his method constituted a rejection of the code of behavior they practiced and which he had been taught.

I believe this interpretation makes it easier to understand why Luke, in Acts 1, could describe the mother of Jesus and his brothers as being part of the close community of believers, meeting together with the apostles in the period immediately following the execution. Additionally, James, his brother, was leader of the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem until he was executed by stoning. These later events indicate the breach between Jesus and his family was transitory and not fundamental in nature.

Most Tempting of All

Jerome Murphy-O’Connor summarizes effectively the testing of Jesus. There is another side to the temptation coin, however, that Murphy-O’Connor left unturned: The most insidious temptation that the Jesus of history faced throughout his adult life was the temptation to attempt to reduce the oppression of his fellow Jews by using his leadership abilities to cooperate fully with the Roman oppressors and to urge his fellow Jews to do the same.

The Romans wanted bread, not stones, from Galilee and Judea. The Romans watched the activities of the oppressed Jews in the Temple court from the tower of their citadel. The inhabited world known to Jesus and to the writers of the Synoptic tradition was the Roman Empire.

Through whom did “Satan” exercise power over all of the kingdoms of the world known to Jesus and to his followers, and who was the principal agent of “Satan” with glory and splendor in those kingdoms? The only adequate answer is “Caesar!” Only Caesar and Caesar’s representatives could share that power and glory with Jesus, the followers of Jesus, and anyone else who would cooperate fully with them and serve them as their “Lord.”

Murphy-O’Connor’s article tells only half of the story, the part that is most obvious (see “Triumph over Temptation: The Historical Core Behind the Testing of Jesus,” BR 15:04). Unfortunately, that side of the coin invariably deprecates the Jewish tradition, presenting Jesus as successful in areas in which the Israelites had failed, especially in resisting all temptations. The symbolism of the subtle anti-Roman cryptogram in the temptation accounts has not been readily apparent during the past 16 centuries. Nevertheless, informed readers—alerted to the symbolism of double meanings that conceal references to Caesar, Roman power and the oppressive Roman political and military presence behind words such as “Satan,” “the diabolical one,” “the tempter” and “wild beasts”—can recognize the anti-Roman cryptogram in these accounts.

For more on this, please see my Anti-Roman Cryptograms in the New Testament: Symbolic Messages of Hope and Liberation (Peter Lang, 1997), especially pages 97–102.