And Citing My Doctoral Thesis on John's Gospel . . .

Amazon Books

I thought that I'd long been forgotten by the world of religious studies, but as I was doing some vanity Googling, I stumbled upon this recent book, published only last year by Dr. Esther Kobel, that cites my doctoral thesis, Food as Synecdoche in John's Gospel and Gnostic Texts, rather extensively in fact, often with approval, though parting ways where I go too far . . . in Kobel's opinion. There's no need to take my blog readers through each citation, but the summary provided might be of interest . . . even if the Kobel does get my name rather radically wrong, e.g., "Jefferey H. Hodges," "Jeffery Horace Hodges," and so forth:

The challenge of considering all Johannine passages containing meal scenes and food issues has been met by Jefferey H. Hodges in a doctoral thesis entitled Food as Synecdoche in John's Gospel and Gnostic Texts. Hodges explores the ingesting images in various religious traditions including Gnosticism. To date, this is the most comprehensive study of Johannine food imagery and its symbolic interpretation. Hodges suggests that basically all food passages explored are to be understood as eucharistic. Hodges also identifies a synecdochical use of food in the Gospel of John, according to which food signifies and is part of the heavenly as well as earthly realms. This dualism related to food is then compared to dualisms in Gnostic texts and texts of late-antiquity Judaism and Early Christianity. Although there are obvious parallels between John's food-related dualism, and the respective dualism found in Gnostic texts, Hodges affirms that the latter significantly differ from the former. The Johannine understanding presupposes an ethical dualism: a righteous God and a world that has grown sinful. The Gnostic texts, however, presuppose the dualism to be ontological: a perfect spiritual realm, versus the evil, material world. Thus, Hodges suggests, there is a different meaning to Jesus' avoidance of food[,] different from the abstention revealed in Gnostic texts. Drawing on his investigation into early Jewish traditions, Hodges suggests that vinegar symbolizes the corrupted world. By accepting the earthly vinegar at the crucifixion, Jesus synecdochically consumes the entire world, and thereby eliminates its sinfulness. The fact that this happens willingly points to an irreconcilable difference when compared with Gnostic thinking. Johannine uses of food, Hodges argues, derive not from Gnosticism (despite the obvious parallels) but from Jewish traditions. (Esther Kobel, Dining with John: Communal Meals and Identity Formation in the Fourth Gospel in its Historical and Cultural Context, Brill Academic Publishers, 2011)

For any readers interested in pursuing this further, there's an online pdf copy of the book on Google Scholar, where one can use the search function to look for "Hodges" and see what Dr. Kobel says about my thesis.

I just wish I knew why my name is so difficult for everybody, for Kobel is neither the first nor that last to stumble over its spelling and the order of its first and middle names (and even my surname here in Korea) . . .

Muslim Mirror of Insults . . .

Thomas L. Friedman

Photo by Josh Haner
New York Times

After posting yesterday's blog entry, I discovered Thomas Friedman's very similar NYT column, "Look in Your Mirror" (September 18, 2012):

On Monday, David D. Kirkpatrick, the Cairo bureau chief for The Times, quoted one of the Egyptian demonstrators outside the American Embassy, Khaled Ali, as justifying last week's violent protests by declaring: "We never insult any prophet -- not Moses, not Jesus -- so why can't we demand that Muhammad be respected?"

Friedman noted much the same hypocrisy as I had, and he called Mr. Ali and his ilk on it:

Mr. Ali and the young Egyptians, Tunisians, Libyans, Yemenis, Pakistanis, Afghans and Sudanese who have been taking to the streets might want to look in the mirror -- or just turn on their own televisions. They might want to look at the chauvinistic bile that is pumped out by some of their own media -- on satellite television stations and Web sites or sold in sidewalk bookstores outside of mosques -- insulting Shiites, Jews, Christians, Sufis and anyone else who is not a Sunni, or fundamentalist, Muslim.

One correction to this. Shiites can be equally as radical and are just as prone to insulting non-Shiites as Sunnis are to insulting non-Sunnis. That quibble aside, I want to quote Friedman's examples:

Hasan Rahimpur Azghadi of the Iranian Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution: Christianity is "a reeking corpse, on which you have to constantly pour eau de cologne and perfume, and wash it in order to keep it clean." - July 20, 2007.

Sheik Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi: It is permissible to spill the blood of the Iraqi Christians -- and a duty to wage jihad against them. - April 14, 2011.

Abd al-Aziz Fawzan al-Fawzan, a Saudi professor of Islamic law, calls for "positive hatred" of Christians. Al-Majd TV (Saudi Arabia). - Dec. 16, 2005.

The Egyptian Cleric Muhammad Hussein Yaaqub: "Muslim Brotherhood Presidential Candidate Mohamed Morsi told me that the Shiites are more dangerous to Islam than the Jews." - June 13, 2012.

The Egyptian Cleric Mazen al-Sirsawi: "If Allah had not created the Shiites as human beings, they would have been donkeys." - Aug. 7, 2011.

The Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan video series: "The Shiite is a Nasl [Race/Offspring] of Jews." - March 21, 2012.

Article on the Muslim Brotherhood's Web site praises jihad against America and the Jews: "The Descendants of Apes and Pigs." - Sept. 7, 2012.

The Pakistani cleric Muhammad Raza Saqib Mustafai: "When the Jews are wiped out, the world would be purified and the sun of peace would rise on the entire world." - Aug. 1, 2012.

Dr. Ismail Ali Muhammad, a senior Al-Azhar scholar: The Jews, "a source of evil and harm in all human societies." - Feb. 14, 2012.

A shrine venerating a Sufi Muslim saint in Libya has been partly destroyed, the latest in a series of attacks blamed on ultraconservative Salafi Islamists. - Aug. 26, 2012.

To quibble again . . . these aren't precisely directed against prophets. But they will suffice to demonstrate that insults from the Muslim world are hardly rare, thereby providing a context within which to set the insults that I noted yesterday. That Muslim world is a world replete with malicious insults and insulted honor.

In Friedman's curt words to Muslims, "[L]et's cut the nonsense that this is just our problem and the only issue is how we clean up our act."

Criticizing Religion: Illegitimate?

Jonathan Freedland

Guardian Journalist

Jonathan Freedland recently published an article for the Guardian denouncing critics of Islam, "I stand with Mehdi Hasan against the torrent of Islamophobic abuse" (July 10, 2012), and he offers some examples of objectionable abuse leveled against Islam:

Islam "is not a religion worth protecting. I would welcome its extinction," wrote one. Another, preferring to play the man rather than the ball, declared, "You ARE a sh*t-head." And there were lots more, often dressed up in pseudo-intellectual language, branding Islam backward or denouncing its beliefs and practices as "odious," and culminating in an ultimatum by which Islam's, and therefore Muslims', place in Britain was deemed conditional on adaptation to suit the critics' tastes: "If Islam is to be truly accepted as part of British society it must embrace science. It must embrace rationality, sexuality and reason."

Let me think out loud about this. The ad hominem attack in which an opponent is called, for example, a "sh*t-head" is certainly objectionable abuse that says more about the speaker than the spoken to. But as for the other criticisms, the ones leveled at Islam as a religion, how should we take them? Freedland offers a rule of thumb for evaluating such criticism:

Each time I come across the kind of abuse [cited,] . . . I mentally replace the word "Islam" with "Judaism" and "Muslim" with "Jew".

I'm not sure this is the best rule of thumb, for the term "Jew" also includes an ethnic meaning and thus raises the possibility that the critic of "Judaism" is antisemitic. I therefore propose that one substitute "Christianity" and "Christian," respectively, and also slightly tweak such criticisms to make them fit, as in the following:

Christianity "is not a religion worth protecting. I would welcome its extinction," wrote one. Another, preferring to play the man rather than the ball, declared, "You ARE a sh*t-head." And there were lots more, often dressed up in pseudo-intellectual language, branding Christianity backward or denouncing its beliefs and practices as "odious," and culminating in an ultimatum by which Christianity's, and therefore Christians', place in [modern] Britain was deemed conditional on adaptation to suit the critics' tastes: "If Christianity is to be truly accepted as part of [modern] British society it must embrace science. It must embrace rationality, sexuality and reason."

The ad hominem attack remains objectionable, of course, but it should be protected speech. People just have to grow thicker skins. As for the desire for Christianity's extinction, I'd need to know how the critic would undertake that aim. By physical attacks upon Christians aimed at their extermination? Clearly objectionable. By verbal criticism of Christian doctrines aimed at disabusing Christians of their beliefs? Welcome to modernity and free speech, sir. And concerning the denunciation of Christians' beliefs and practices as "odious," I would offer the same response. Likewise to the insistence that Christianity accept modern sexual freedom and scientific rationality. If Christians and Christianity cannot endure such expressions of free speech as these, then Christians and Christianity do not deserve to endure in the modern world.

Welcome to modernity, friends . . .

J. Todd Hibbard on Benjamin D. Sommer's Bodies of God

Benjamin D. Sommer

The Jewish Theological Seminary

One of my friends from the postdoctoral year (1998-99) that I spent in Jerusalem has published what sounds like a very interesting book: The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel (New York: Cambridge, 2009). I've read only J. Todd Hibbard's review of Ben's book in the Journal of Hebrew Scriptures (Volume 11, 2011), but I'm sufficiently fascinated to consider purchasing the expensive text. Meanwhile, I'll just quote from the review concerning the part that I find especially relevant to my interests, the chapters on what he calls "divine fluidity":

In Chapter 1 Sommer examines conceptions of divine fluidity broadly in the ancient Near East [ANE] (he points out that no such notion apparently existed among the Greeks). The idea was based on a radical contrast in the ANE between humans and gods. The divine self was fluid in two ways: first, through the fragmentation of divine beings (e.g., Ishtar); and second, through the overlap of divine beings (e.g., Asshur). He points out that it was also the case that some gods possessed the ability to be embodied in multiple objects in the ANE. For example, in the pīt pî and mīs pî rituals one can see how idols or ṣalmu were established as embodiments of a god. These were not simply representations of the god, but incarnations of the divine. These embodiments did not mean, however, that the god's body ceased to exist in heaven nor that other earthly embodiments were impossible. In the Northwest Semitic tradition, the betyl presents a similar picture: it is both a god and an animated stone with life (not just a house). Canaanite texts reveal similar notions of multiple embodiment centered on a multiplicity of Baals (and, to a lesser extent, El): "[T]hey, too, have shifting and overlapping selves" (p. 28). Interestingly, however, archaic and classical Greece (as well as Virgil) does not evince similar portrayals. This suggests that the idea Sommer is pursuing is not characteristic of all polytheistic religions.

Sommer's task in Chapter 2 is to address how the fluidity model outlined in the previous chapter was manifest in ancient Israel. In support of the idea he notes the multiple geographical manifestations of YHWH found in inscriptions (e.g., YHWH of Teman and YHWH of Samaria in the Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions). In addition to geographical multiplicity, Sommer argues that YHWH fragments himself (think avatar) such that he takes on multiple embodiments. Two such cases include malāʾkh, which he argues is an example of YHWH's self-fragmentation, and YHWH's multiplicity in divine wood such as the asherim. On the basis of the latter, he argues that the much-discussed Kuntillet Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom inscriptions are not references to a goddess, but rather to wooden cultic objects that are repositories of YHWH's fragmented self. He also argues that YHWH's multiplicity is present in stone such as maṣṣēbôt and stelae, embodiments that render YHWH's presence on a scale safely accessible for human beings. In Sommer's view, the two notions of divine fluidity and multiple embodiment reinforce each other and appear together. He concludes the chapter by noting that these twin conceptions appear to have been especially present in the northern kingdom.

Where this analysis gets really interesting appears in Ben's application of this fluidity model to Christianity:

The final chapter finds Sommer donning his theologian hat in order to answer the question, "What do the Hebrew Bible's fluidity traditions teach a modern religious Jew?" (p. 126). After noting that the antifluidity traditions in P [=Priestly Source] and D [=Deuteronomist] dominate the final form of the Hebrew Bible, he notes that fluidity traditions found elsewhere (notably in JE [=Yahwist-Elohist]) are still present. He briefly explores the development of these traditions in the postbiblical rabbinic literature, the kabbalah and early Christianity. With respect to the latter, Sommer insists that core Christian assertions -- the trinity and incarnation -- are not theologically impermissible within the world of Judaism, but rather are faithful to the fluidity model of divinity found in ancient Israel. For modern Jews, Sommer demonstrates how biblical notions of fluidity and antifluidity pose challenges for both liberal and conservative Jews, though not in the same way. He concludes by insisting that, contrary to customary positions, it is the fluidity model that offers the strongest statement of monotheism consistent with the personhood of God.

I actually recall Ben discussing something of this sort one Saturday morning in a synogogue that I sometimes attended in my attempt to learn more about Judaism, and he even hinted at its relevance for a proper understanding of Christianity and how it could have arisen out of Judaism, specifically mentioning St. Paul.

I'm glad that he's finally clarified that connection . . .

Maybe teaching's like this . . .

Erica Brown

Image from The Jewish Federation)

I've not blogged at length for a couple of days, just brief bloglets, because I've been so busy about 'Christmas' grading, that time at fall semester's end when all good little students get the good little grades that they deserve . . . and all bad little students get grades better than they deserve. Ah, well, that's Christmas grading, a time for generosity of intellectual spirit. But maybe teaching should be more like how David Brooks describes the intellectual approach of Erica Brown:

[T]here is the matter of how she speaks. Somehow (and I’m not going to be able to capture this adequately), she combines extreme empathy with extreme tough-mindedness.

Perhaps that's what I ought to aim at in my own teaching. Maybe teaching's like this. Anyway, if that quote intrigues you, go to the Brooks column "The Arduous Community" for the December 20, 2010 issue of The New York Times, and read the entire article about Dr. Erica Brown, scholar-in-residence for the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington.

Meanwhile, from here in Lesser Seoul, Merry Christmas Eve to all who celebrate this holiday . . . and a merry time as well to all who don't.

Adam Garfinkle on the 'Jewcentric' Personality

Jewcentricity?

(Image from Wiley)

I receive regular articles emailed from the FPRI (Foreign Policy Research Institute) and yesterday received one in the "Footnotes" series (The Newsletter of FPRI's Wachman Center) with the odd title "Zionism and 'Jewcentricity' in American History" (Vol. 14, No. 12, August 2009). Written by Adam Garfinkle (editor of The American Interest) and based on a fascinating presentation, "The U.S., Zionism, and Israel," at a conference "U.S. Foreign Policy and the Modern Middle East" held in Philadelphia on June 25-27, 2009, the article and presentation are both advance reports from his upcoming book Jewcentricity: Why the Jews Are Praised, Blamed, and Used to Explain Just About Everything (Wiley, September 2009).

As I noted, the article has the odd title "Zionism and 'Jewcentricity' in American History" -- a rather disconcerting title, actually -- but here's Garfinkle's definition of the disconcerting term:

Jewcentricity is the tendency to exaggerate the role of Jews and Judaism in consequential human affairs.

As he notes, this can be expressed in antisemitic or philosemitic ways. Indeed, I've long considered these to be two sides of the same coin, and I've noticed that very little is sometimes needed for an individual to flip almost at random from one side to the other.

Mark Twain was a good example of this sort of 'Jewcentric' individual, for he wrote an essay published in Harper's Magazine, "Concerning the Jews" (September 1899), that expressed both attitudes. After writing the arguably antisemitic words that the "Jew is a money getter, and in getting his money he is a very serious obstruction to less capable neighbors who are on the same quest," Twain went on to write these rather more positive, arguably philosemitic words:

The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rule, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away . . . . [T]he Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit together in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now who he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal except the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains.

This could, of course, easily flip back over into an antisemitic attitude, for the two attitudes share the view that the Jews play an overwhelming role in world affairs. Interestingly, even Jews can show both tendencies. Recall Garfinkle's definition:

Jewcentricity is the tendency to exaggerate the role of Jews and Judaism in consequential human affairs.

In the article, he then immediately observes:

Non-Jews do it, and Jews do it, too. Sometimes the exaggerations are philo-Semitic . . . sometimes anti-Semitic.

With that in mind consider our modern-day "Spengler" -- who has recently revealed himself to be David P. Goldman, associate editor of First Things -- for "Spenger" wrote an article published on September 17, 2007 in Asia Times, "It's easy for the Jews to talk about life," in which he expresses positive views that recall Twain's positive remarks about the Jewish talent for survival and success against the odds:

It's easy for the Jews to talk about delighting in life. They are quite sure that they are eternal, while other peoples tremble at the prospect impending extinction. It is not their individual lives that the Jews find so pleasant, but rather the notion of a covenantal life that proceeds uninterrupted through the generations . . . . What makes the Jews different is their unique belief that the Covenant gives them eternal life, a belief grounded, to be sure, by thousands of years of history, and survival against all odds against the depredations of the Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Alexandrine and Roman empires, not to mention more recent unpleasantness. It is not changing the baby's diapers or changing grandma's bedpan to which the Jews refer when they speak of delight in life, but rather the idealized, perpetual life of a kinship community.

Goldman is of course Jewish, but his 'Jewcentric' views have at times been expressed in less positive ways, for in 1978, he was associated with Lyndon LaRouche and co-wrote an article with Uwe Henke von Parpart for LaRouche's paper New Solidarity (November 18, 1978) titled "Israel Got H-Bomb From Wall Street Zionists -- USLP Readies Dossier" (pdf). The acronym "USLP" stands for "United States Labor Party," which was at that time the name of LaRouche's organization, and Goldman's views in this article are less than positive:

Operating under the cover of partnerships in Wall Street Brokerage Firms, executive positions in industrial companies, and hole-in-the-wall "scientific" firms scattered throughout the New York Metropolitan area, members of the Nuclear Club of Wall Street are the core of the atom spy network of Israel's foreign secret intelligence, the Mossad. These men are the most dangerous traitors in circulation now in the United States. Through their efforts, Israel has the means to provoke a third World War and destroy the United States.

The LaRouche organization is known for this sort of conspiracy-mongering. Goldman has long since left that organization, and his views on the role of Jews and Israel have grown far more positive -- as his "Spengler" articles attest -- but he remains a fascinating example of what Garfinkle might refer to as "the Jewcentric personality."

Not that Garfinkle ever mentions Goldman, for the name doesn't appear in Garfinkle's book Jewcentricity: Why the Jews Are Praised, Blamed, and Used to Explain Just About Everything, but the man fits the type.

"Stoning . . . is the introduction, by contemporary Islamic leaders, of a Jewish custom"?

(Korea Herald)

The British scholar Chris Williams, who seems to be writing a regular column for the Korea Herald these days, had an article in yesterday's Herald that promised to apply lessons learned from the recent events in Iran to an analysis of North Korea: "Could 'Iran' happen in North Korea?"

Despite the headline, Williams actually had relatively little to say specifically about North Korea -- though he did make the following remark:

Hope for Iran, and North Korea, lies in two things. Despotic regimes inevitably score own goals, appear foolish and inept, and alienate their own supporters. But paradoxically, it is unfortunate that those who rule North Korea seem less inept than those who rule Iran.

I gather that North Korean 'eptness' means that the answer to the question posed in this article's headline as to the possibility of massive popular resistance in North Korea is: "Maybe not." I suspect, however, that if the North Korean leadership seems less inept than Iran's leadership, this is because the North Korean leaders do not flirt with democracy and therefore have no ballots to obviously and crudely miscount. Williams did have some otherwise interesting things to say about Iran, despotism, and democracy, but his article contains the following, confounding passage:

Stoning is not, as many believe, Iranian tradition. It did not happen during the Shah's era, and the practice is not Persian or proposed in the Koran. It is the introduction, by contemporary Islamic leaders, of a Jewish custom. The practice is closer to Zionism than Zoroastrianism.

That last line is perhaps indicative of an Anglo-Saxon love for alliteration, and thereby 'poetic', but the entire paragraph is a cognitive snarl that would appear to hold Jews in some way responsible for the un-Islamic application of stoning as punishment in Iran. Let us therefore look a bit closer at this issue.

Is stoning a Jewish custom? I don't currently see many Jews involved in stonings. To be frank, I don't see any. Jewish laws in Leviticus and Deuteronomy do indeed mandate stoning for some crimes, and these might be what Williams was thinking of, but the laws on stoning haven't been applied for perhaps 2000 years. There may have been some exceptions, for isolated cases can probably always be found, but one can hardly call stoning these days a Jewish custom.

Moreover, stoning surely has nothing to do with Zionism, which is a secular political philosophy. I can't imagine that Williams thinks that the state of Israel has laws to mandate stoning for capital offenses. As for the reference to Zoroastrianism . . . well, why is that thrown in? Except for alliteration, of course . . . and, I suppose, because the Iranians used to be Zoroastrians, who apparently didn't use stoning as a punishment. But Iranians haven't been Zoroastrians since the Islamic conquest nearly 1400 years ago.

And that is the crux, for stoning is both law and custom in Islam. Williams is correct that the Qur'an does not mandate stoning, but Islamic law, shariah, certainly does, for shariah is based on three sources: Qur'an (Allah's revelation), Sira (Muhammad's life), and Hadith (Muhammad's sayings). Muhammad practiced stoning, and he condoned it. Stoning is not a recent introduction to Islam by contemporary Muslim leaders. It is decidedly no innovation.

As for the history of stoning's application in Islamic Iran, I know little about that. Possibly, Williams is correct that it was not practiced in the past and was only introduced into Iran's Islamic Penal Code in 1983. Be that as it may, stoning has certainly always been part of Islamic law, and when one considers that Iran's Islamist revolution took place in 1979, then the fact that stoning was made law merely four years later looks less like innovation and more like an opportunity grasped.

In no way should one blame the Jews for stoning in Iran . . . or for stoning in Islam.

Sarah Palin and the Jewish Question

David Brickner

Head of Jews for Jesus

(Image from Jews for Jesus Blog)

Yesterday's blog entry discussed the controversy over Governor Palin's remarks on the Iraq War, and for those remarks, I don't think that she can be seriously faulted, not any more so than Lincoln for making similar remarks during wartime, for neither she nor Lincoln claimed to know God's will.

The other controversy recently swirling about Palin is not directly about her but about David Brickner, leader of the organization Jews for Jesus, because of some remarks that he made while visiting her home church in Wasilla, Alaska. Brickner has helpfully posted the message that he gave that day: "The Jerusalem Dilemma," Wasilla Bible Church, August 17, 2008 by David Brickner

By dilemma, Brickner explains that although Jerusalem means "City of Peace," the irony is that it has no peace:

[This is] the Jerusalem Dilemma. Here is this city that represents a people, that represents a move of God; the name itself -- Ir Shalom -- means 'City of Peace.' And yet, what irony that there has been no peace, and there is no peace in the city of peace.

I think that Brickner is misusing the word "dilemma" to mean "irony," but perhaps I've misunderstood him. More importantly for our understanding of Brickner's talk in Palin's Wasilla church is this point:

Israel is an example of what all humanity has been saying to God since the beginning of time, shaking its fists at the heavens and saying, "You'll not rule over us."

And so all of the controversy that we see swirling in Jerusalem is really a mirror that the world looks in to see the controversy within. The Jerusalem Dilemma is the Wasilla Dilemma; it's the dilemma of the human heart.

I take it that Brickner is using Jerusalem, and therefore also Israel, as a symbol for all of 'rebellious' mankind, so we ought to keep this in mind as we come to his controversial words about "judgment":

But what we see in Israel, the conflict that is spilled out throughout the Middle East, really which is all about Jerusalem, is an ongoing reflection of the fact that there is judgment. There is judgment that is going on in the land, and that's the other part of this Jerusalem Dilemma. When Jesus was standing in that temple, He spoke that that judgment was coming, that there's a reality to the judgment of unbelief. He said "I long to gather you, but . . ." what? "You were unwilling." God never forces His way on human beings. And so because Jerusalem was unwilling to receive His grace, judgment was coming. He says, "Look, your house has left you desolate!" What did He mean by that? Remember where He is. He's standing in the temple there in Jerusalem, the place where God had promised, through Moses,

"There I will meet with you, there I will hear your prayers, and there I will forgive your sin."

And now Jesus in that temple, just before going to the cross, says, 'From now on this place is desolate.' And Jesus' words have echoed down through the centuries. Not a generation after He uttered this promise, Titus and his Roman legions marched into that city and destroyed both the city and the temple. And from that day until this very present there has been no temple, and there is therefore no sacrifice in Judaism. Only we could sacrifice in . . . the only place was in the temple. And therefore there has been, and there is today, no confidence of atonement, no confidence of forgiveness. If you were to stand outside of a synagogue on the day of atonement and ask those leaving the service, "Did God hear your prayers? Were your sins forgiven on this most holy of all days?" the answer would be, "I hope. I hope, but who can know?" Who indeed but those of us who have come under the wings of the Almighty, who've entered into that place of grace where forgiveness is assured for the dilemma of human life. Judgment is very real and we see it played out on the pages of the newspapers and on the television. It's very real.

When Isaac [i.e., David Brickner's son] was in Jerusalem he was there to witness some of that judgment, some of that conflict, when a Palestinian from East Jerusalem took a bulldozer and went plowing through a score of cars, killing numbers of people. Judgment -- you can't miss it. And Jesus talks about it, but He didn't leave us there. There's a promise of a return from this judgment. Jesus concludes His message there in the temple by saying this -- 'I tell you, you will not see Me again, you will not experience what I have come to bring, this place of grace which I have and will soon establish . . . you will not see Me again until you say, until you’re able with conviction to articulate, these words: "Baruch hab-ba bashem Adonai -- 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord."' Once again quoting again from a Psalm, this time Psalm 118:

The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief . . . the chief corner stone. And this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.

Well, what are we to make of this? Is it antisemitic? Brickner himself is ethnically Jewish, but some Jewish converts to Christianity throughout history have turned against their own people in a hatred that is perhaps self-hatred. From my reading of Brickner's words here and elsewhere, I don't clearly sense hatred. We should also keep in mind that Brickner is using Jerusalem and Israel as symbols for all of humanity's relation to God. God offers either forgiveness or judgment, and each individual chooses one or the other. That's pretty standard evangelical language. But the example is problematic, and raises some troubling questions:

When Isaac was in Jerusalem he was there to witness some of that judgment, some of that conflict, when a Palestinian from East Jerusalem took a bulldozer and went plowing through a score of cars, killing numbers of people. Judgment -- you can't miss it.

In the context, since Brickner had first discussed the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. as judgment on the Jews for their rejection of Jesus's offer of God's message, this also would seem to be offered as an example of God's judgment upon the nation of Israel. That would be problematic, for it would imply that the Jewish-Muslim conflict as a whole is God's judgment on the Jewish people. Would this mean that the American-Islamist conflict is God's judgment on America? That 9/11 was God's judgment on America?

Or was Brickner offering the bulldozer example as an instance of God's judgment upon specific individuals? That would also be problematic.

Brickner would have done better to place the bulldozer story in the context of the Christian belief in the fallenness of the world rather than using it as an example of God's judgment on unbelief.

Brickner has gotten a lot of criticism for his remarks, and I must say that I think the criticism appropriate. Apparently, Brickner himself sees the some validity in the criticism, for he has posted a response:

The notion that the terrorist, bulldozer attack in Jerusalem this summer was God’s judgment on Israel for not believing in Jesus, is absolutely not what I believe. In retrospect, I can see how my rhetoric might be misunderstood and I truly regret that.

Of course I never expected the kind of magnifying glass scrutiny on a message where I was speaking extemporaneously. Let me be clear. I don't believe that any one event whether a terrorist attack or a natural disaster is a specific fulfillment of or manifestation of a Biblical prediction of judgment. I don't believe that the newspaper should be used to interpret the Bible. The Bible interprets the Bible.

I love my Jewish people and the land of Israel. I stand with and support her against all efforts to harm her or her people in any way. Please feel free to read my further explanations, in my Realtime article and in the interviews I did with Christianity Today and NBC.

I'll leave the reading and analysis of those links to others, but we should keep in mind that the controversy is David Brickner's controversy based upon David Brickner's words.

On the other hand, Governor Palin is reported to have been present during Brickner's presentation, so a question about her opinion concerning his words is a fair one. I haven't actually seen a direct, explicit statement by Palin on this issue, but I did find an article by Ben Harris, "McCain team: Palin rejects views of church's Jews for Jesus speaker," The Jewish Journal (September 3, 2008), which states this:

Vice presidential pick Sarah Palin says she doesn't share the views of a Jews for Jesus leader who in a speech at her church suggested that violence against Israelis resulted from God's judgment against Jews who have failed to embrace Jesus.

In particular, Michael Goldfarb, a spokesman for the McCain campaign, announced:

"Governor Palin does not share the views he expressed, and she and her family would not have been sitting in the pews of this church for the last seven years if his remarks were even remotely typical."

Although I'd prefer to hear Palin's own words, I don't see this controversy about Brickner's words having much traction in generating controversy about Palin.

The Zohar on the rope tied to the high priest's ankle

Title Page of First Edition of the Zohar

Mantua, 1558

Library of Congress

(Image from Wikipedia)

As a follow-up to yesterday's post, I decided to find The Zohar online and post the actual passage stating the fabled practice of tying a rope to the priest's ankle.

I found the passage even though the numbering in the online version was different from that given by Arden on the Ioudaios List (but this could be a different edition): The Zohar: Volume 15, Acharei Mot, Section 32, Number 198:

198. Afterwards, he [i.e., the high priest] washes his body and sanctifies his hands to enter into another holy service. Then he aims to enter another most holy, lofty place; NAMELY, THE HOLY OF HOLIES. Three rows surround THE HIGH PRIEST -- his colleague priests, Levite and the rest of the people. THEY REPRESENT THE THREE COLUMNS, PRIEST AND LEVITE REPRESENT RIGHT AND LEFT AND YISRAEL REPRESENT THE SECRET OF THE CENTRAL COLUMN. They raise their hands towards him in prayer. A knot OF ROPE of gold hangs from his leg, FROM FEAR PERHAPS HE WOULD DIE IN THE HOLY OF HOLIES, AND THEY WOULD NEED TO PULL HIM OUT WITH THIS ROPE.

The original text is in Aramaic and can be seen online at the link. The translation -- as one will have noted -- presents some phrases and clauses in upper-case letters. I presume that the translators think that these serve as commentary upon the phrases and clauses written in lower-case letters. The Aramaic, of course, makes no such distinction between upper and lower case.

I know very little about The Zohar, but the passage above would purport to describe part of the high priest's actions on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, a day for the ritual forgiveness of the sins of the Israelites, which can be read about in Leviticus 16. The above passage seems connected with the washing of the high priest's body mentioned in verse 4 of Leviticus but has a lot more detail added, presumably from other sources.

The website for the online version of The Zohar makes some extravagant claims for the origins of such details:

Zohar is a Hebrew word that means splendor. In its simplest form, the Zohar is a commentary on the Bible, structured as conversations among a group of friends, scholars, and spiritual masters. Although the wisdom available in its pages is older than Creation itself, the text of the Zohar was composed approximately 2000 years ago. It was then that the great Kabbalist Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai revealed the Zohar to his student, Rabbi Abba who transcribed it in the ancient language of Aramaic. In the centuries that followed, the Zohar was often suppressed by religious and secular authorities who feared its power to transform the lives of those who gained access to the sacred writings. The sages of Kabbalah, too, realized that the Zohar must wait until humankind was ready to receive it.

Scholars such as Gershom Scholem, however, hold less extravagant views:

[T]he Zohar with its various strata was without doubt composed in the years that immediately preceded its publication, since it is impossible to uncover any section that was written before 1270. (Gershom Scholem, "Zohar," Encyclopaedia Judaica)

Scholem analyzes The Zohar carefully and argues that it was composed "by the Spanish kabbalist Moses b. Shem Tov de Leon, who died in 1305."

Rope tied to the high priest's ankle?

John Gill

Exposition of the Entire Bible

(Image from Wikipedia)

The New Testament scholar Jeffrey B. Gibson posed an interesting question today on the "First Century Judaism Discussion Forum":

Can anyone tell me the origin of the (so far as I know) wholly apocryphal idea, apparently prominent amongst certain fundamentalist groups, that the high priest had a rope tied around his ankle when he went into the holy of holies so that his body could be pulled from the HofH if he died while he was inside it?

The abbreviation "HofH" stands for "Holy of Holies," the most holy place in the Jewish Temple. Since God's holiness was believed to pose a danger to sinful human beings, then entering the Holy of Holies supposedly could prove fatal unless one were authorized to enter and even then only if one were in a sufficiently purified state. The story of a "rope" tied to the high priest's ankle does not occur in the Bible, but I've often heard it cited as though it were biblical.

Anyway, another list member, known to me only as "Arden," replied to Gibson's query:

The only source is the Zohar (Acharey Mot 67:1) and is therefore fairly late. One wonders why fundamentalist groups would attach themselves to this particular source and story... I'm assuming that you are referring to Christian fundamentalists because modern Jewish haredim take it as metaphorical because it contradicts other halachic requirements for the high priest on that day.

I added a bit from my store of knowledge:

I've heard this anecdote about the high priest rather often among evangelicals (as well as among fundamentalists), and so far as I recall, it was cited as evidence of the danger that God's holiness poses for sinful human beings, i.e., for everyone, even the high priest.

I doubt that these evangelicals or fundamentalists have been reading the Zohar, so I suspect that they get it from some Protestant commentary, such as John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible (An Exposition of the New Testament, 3 vols., 1746–8, and An Exposition of the Old Testament, 6 vols., 1748–63).

John Gill lived from November 23, 1697 to October 14, 1771, and the anecdote appears in his remarks on Hebrews 9:7:

Hebrews 9:7

Ver. 7 But into the second went the high priest alone, once every year,.... Though this is not expressed in so many words in Le 16:2 only it is said that "Aaron came not at all times into the holy place within the vail"; yet it is the constant and generally received sense of the Jewish writers, in agreement with the apostle here, that the high priest went into the holy of holies but once a year {q}, on the day of atonement, which was on the tenth of the month Tisri, and answers to part of September; not but that he went in more than once on that day, for he went in no less than four times {r}; the first time he went in to offer incense; the second time with the blood of the bullock, to sprinkle it; the third time with the blood of the goat; and the fourth time to bring out the censer {s}; and if he entered a fifth time, they say he was worthy of death; wherefore Philo the Jew {t} seems to be mistaken when he affirms that, if he went in three or four times on the same day, he suffered death, nor was there any pardon for him; and as it was but one day in a year he might enter, so when he did, no other man, either Israelite or priest, might go in along with him; he went in alone without any attendance: the Jews say {u}, that a cord or thong was bound to the feet of the high priest when he went into the holy of holies, that if he died there, the rest might be able to draw him out; for it was not lawful for another priest to go in, no, not an high priest, none besides him on the day of atonement. Pausanias {w} makes mention of a temple of Minerva into which the priests entered once every year; which very likely was observed in imitation of this custom of the Jewish high priest; who in it was a type of Christ, and of his entrance into heaven, and of his constant and continued intercession there:

not without blood; for he went in with the blood of the bullock and the blood of the goat; which was typical of the blood of Christ, by which he entered in once into the holy place, into heaven, when he had obtained eternal redemption by it, Heb 9:12 which he offered for himself and for the errors of the people; the bullock was offered by the high priest for himself and his family; and the goat for the sins of the people of Israel, even all their iniquities, transgressions, and sins, Le 16:11, but Christ the antitype having no sin, had no need to offer for himself, only for the sins of the people; See Gill on "Heb 7:27".

{q} T. Hieros. Yoma, fol. 42. 4. & 43. 1. Bab. Pesachim, fol. 86. 1. {r} Bemidbar Rabba, sect 7. fol. 188. 4. Maimon. Biath Hamikdash, c. 2. sect. 3. Moses Kotsensis Mitzvot Tora, pr. neg. 303. {s} Maimon. & Bartenora in Misna Celim, c. 1. sect. 9. {t} De Legatione ad Caium, p. 1035. {u} Zohar in Lev. fol. 43. 3. & Imre Binah in ib. {w} Arcadica, sive l. 8. p. 531.

I have to admit that I didn't actually know that this story about the cord on the high priest's ankle was apocryphal until Jeffrey Gibson pointed it out, but as soon as Arden noted that the story appears in the Zohar, I knew that evangelicals must be getting it from John Gill, for I'd used Gill myself in some research on John Milton's use of dove imagery in Paradise Lost, and I had seen how steeped Gill was in Jewish sources.

Gill's Exposition continues to be read among evangelicals today.

Obama: Does he have a prayer?

Prayer Notes in Western Wall

(Image from Wikipedia)

Since this is a Sunday morning, let's talk about prayer . . . Barack Obama's prayer.

While Obama was visiting Jerusalem's Western Wall, he followed the tradition of leaving a written prayer in one of the cracks between the stones. According to Wikipedia:

There is a much publicised practice of placing slips of paper containing written prayers into the crevices of the Wall. The earliest account of this phenomenon is recounted by the Munkatcher Rebbe and is recorded in Sefer Tamei Ha-minhagim U'mekorei Ha-dinim. The story involves Rabbi Chaim ibn Attar who died in Jerusalem in 1743. A certain man came to him in great distress after he had become so destitute that he couldn’t afford to buy food for his family. The Ohr Ha-chaim wrote him an amulet in Ashuri script on parchment and instructed the man to place it between the holy stones of the Western Wall.

This passage cites page 270 of Avraham Yitzchak Sperling, Sefer Tamei Ha-minhagim U'mekorei Ha-dinim; Inyanei Hilula D'Rashbi (Jerusalem: Shai Le-morah Publishing, 1999). My Hebrew's not very good, but "sefer" means "book," "tamei" looks to be related to the word for "taste" ("taa'm"), "ha" is the definite article (the), "minhagim" looks to be the plural for the nominalized form of the verb "nahag" (conduct), "u" is the conjunction "and," "mekorei" is the nominalized form of the verb "karaa" (call), and "dinim" is plural for "judgment" ("din") . . . I think. Anyway, this is the title of the Hebrew text translated into English as The customs and ceremonies of Judaism, their origins and rationale, which was first published in 1890 by Avraham Yitzchak Sperling, a rabbi.

The main point is that this custom of slipping written prayers in the cracks between the stones of the Western Wall goes back only about 300 years, so far as we know.

While these prayers don't have the 'sanctity' of long-established tradition, they are considered a sanctioned practice and to be respected as private. Despite the custom of respecting the privacy of such prayers, curiosity apparently overcame one Jewish seminary student present at the wall when Obama placed his prayer in a crevice, for this student removed the prayer and passed it along to Israel's second-largest newspaper Maariv (Hebrew: מַעֲרִיב‎, lit. Evening), which published a photograph of the prayer on its front page.

Ordinarily such a prayer would be private, but since the milk got spilled when the cow escaped the barn, I might as well join other 'journalists' and publish Obama's prayer:

Obama's Prayer

(Image from Sense of Events)

For those who have difficulty reading cursive, Yahoo! News has conveniently provided this prayer in print form:

Lord -- protect my family and me. Forgive me my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will.

This is a pretty good personal prayer. Did Obama expect this 'private' prayer to be made public? Maybe not. It doesn't strike me as the sort of prayer intended for public consumption. This prayer does, of course, offer up the words of a very public man, and his words reflect his position and his concerns. As prominent as he is -- and given the historic significance of who he is -- he and his family will need protection. I won't speculate on what his "sins" might be -- if he gets elected in November, all of those sins will soon become very public -- but his asking for God to guard him against pride and despair is excellent, and very understandable for one in his position. Asking for wisdom to do what is right and just is also good.

But asking to be an instrument of God's will? That's asking for trouble, isn't it? Admittedly, this is a typical expression in prayers offered up by evangelicals, but I can almost hear Obama's critics cite these closing words as evidence for Obama's supposed messianic complex. While I don't think that Obama has a messianic complex, I do worry a bit about any political leader -- especially one who might become president of the United States -- considering himself an instrument of God's will.

It sounds kind of familiar.

Islam as a 'pagan' religion?

Nicolas Poussin, The Adoration of the Golden Calf

Worshipping a false god as the true one?

(Image from Wikipedia)

I've somewhere read that Aquinas wrote his Summa contra Gentiles to be used in efforts toward converting Muslims to the Christian faith, the term "Gentiles" thus referring to "Muslims" and implying that Muslims were pagans, with whom one could not use the Old Testament for prooftexting and for whom one therefore had to turn to the light of natural reason.

Perhaps natural reason also wouldn't work if Allah is a radically voluntarist deity . . . but let that be.

I'm more interested in the Aquinas's implication that Islam is a sort of 'higher' Paganism rather than a 'lower' Christianity, if such is his view. Islam viewed as a pagan religion has recently resurfaced in the argument put forth by Alain Besançon in his article "What kind of religion is Islam?" for Commentary (May 2004), whose central point is that:

[W]hen Christians and Jews approach Islam . . . [they] may well be struck by the religious zeal of the Muslim toward a God whom they recognize as being also their God. But this God is in fact separate and distinct, and so is the relation between Him and the believing Muslim. Christians are accustomed to distinguish the worship of false gods -- that is, idolatry -- from the worship of the true God. To treat Islam suitably, it becomes necessary to forge a new concept altogether, and one that is difficult to grasp -- namely, an idolatry of the God of Israel. To put it another way, Islam may be thought of as the natural religion of the revealed God.

Besançon's point is an intriguing one but not easy to grasp. Perhaps he means that from a Christian perspective, Muslims have focused on the correct 'God' but that they worship Him in the manner that 'pagans' worship an 'idol'. You'll not my 'scare quotes', intended to alert the reader to a special use of these terms. Go and read Besançon's article at Commentary, for which one needs a subscription, unfortunately.

But while one is waiting for that subscription to take effect, one can read another online article that treats Islam as a sort of pagan religion. This article is now available to nonsubscribers and can be found at First Things, where the pseudonymous "Spengler" (of the Asia Times Online) has published "Christian, Muslim, Jew: Franz Rosenzweig and the Abrahamic Religions" (October 2007). As implied by the title, Spengler presents Rosenzweig on Islam (along with Christianity and Judaism).

Spengler notes that:

At first glance, Rosenzweig's characterization of Islam as pagan appears strange, for we habitually classify religions according to their outward forms and identify paganism with manifestations of polytheism or nature worship. Insisting on the uniqueness of Allah and suppressing outward expressions of idolatry, Islam appears the opposite of a pagan religion. Rosenzweig, however, requires us to see faith from the existential standpoint of the believer, who in revealed religion knows God through God's love. For Rosenzweig, paganism constitutes a form of alienation from the revealed God of Love; Allah, the absolutely transcendent God who offers mercy but not unconditional love, is therefore a pagan deity.

The term 'pagan' is again being used in a particular sense, this time by the Jewish thinker Franz Rosenzweig, writing in The Star of Redemption (1921), as reported by the apparently Christian "Spengler," who comments approvingly upon this use.

From a secular perspective, of course, Islam is yet another monotheism . . . like Judaism and Christianity. But from a Jewish or Christian perspective, what is one to make of it since its status as a 'revealed' religion is highly suspect, to put things mildly?

I leave it to the readers to decide, but you'll first have to read Besançon and "Spengler" to see for yourselves.

Adrian Pabst: Real Debate on Christianity and Islam?

Adrian Pabst

Stirring the pot...

(Image: Dept. of Theol/Relig Stds,

University of Nottingham)

A scholar of religion and politics at the University of Nottingham, Adrian Pabst (who also holds a position as research fellow at the Luxembourg Institute for European and International Studies), has written an interesting column for the November 13th edition (2007) of the online International Herald Tribune (IHT):

"Christianity and Islam: We need a real debate, not more dialogue"

A provocative title . . . though not the sort to provoke violence, I hope. Pabst was responding to a Muslim letter to the pope:

Last month, 138 Muslim scholars addressed an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI and other Christian leaders in which they call for a new dialogue between Christianity and Islam based on sacred texts.

Entitled "A Common Word Between Us and You," the document claims that the shared Muslim and Christian principles of love of the One God and love of the neighbor provide the sort of common ground between the two faiths that is necessary for respect, tolerance and mutual understanding.

The letter was a response to Pope Benedict's remarks about Islam in his talk at Regensberg, Germany about one year ago:

The publication of this letter coincided with the anniversary of a previous open letter in response to the pope's controversial Regensburg address on Sept. 12, 2006, when he appeared to link violence in religion to the absolute transcendence of God in Islam. His point was that according to Muslim teaching, God's will is utterly inscrutable and therefore unknowable to human reason -- with the implication that divine injunctions cannot be fully understood and must be blindly obeyed.

Against this background, the latest initiative by Muslim scholars marks an attempt to move interfaith dialogue away from debates about reason and revelation towards scriptural reading. Christian-Muslim relations, so their argument goes, are best served by engaging in textual interpretations that highlight shared commandments and common beliefs.

Pabst thinks that this suggestion in based on some mistaken assumptions:

But to suggest, as the authors of "A Common Word" do, that Muslims and Christians are united by the same two commandments which are most essential to their respective faith and practice -- love of God and love of the neighbor -- is theologically dubious and politically dangerous.

Theologically, this glosses over elementary differences between the Christian God and the Muslim God. The Christian God is a relational and incarnate God. Moreover, the New Testament and early Christian writings speak of God as a single Godhead with three equally divine persons -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Interesting. Does the New Testament speak so clearly in this way? A generous reading of Pabst's remark would parse his statement to mean that "the New Testament and early Christian writings" taken together -- and "early" taken to include the first several centuries -- "speak of God as a single Godhead with three equally divine persons." Joseph Cyr (of Tucson, Arizona), in a letter to the IHT editor, does not read him quite so generously:

Careful analysis of the New Testament, though, shows that the idea of a triune God does not exist in its pages. In fact, it was not until the fourth century that the doctrine of a Trinity was firmly established as Church dogma . . . . Rather than state, as a matter of fact, that scripture supports a Triune God, Pabst would do well to say that it is a result of tradition and church dogma. That would be a piece of truth to throw into the debate about God and holy writings.

I agree that the New Testament does not refer to a "Triune God" or to a "Trinity," and I wish that Pabst had been more clear (though he doesn't actually use the terms "Triune" or "Trinity"), but I'll continue to read him generously so as not to miss his point, which is:

This is not merely a doctrinal point, but one that has significant political and social implications. The equality of the three divine persons is the basis for equality among mankind -- each and everyone is created in the image and likeness of the triune God.

As a result, Christianity calls for a radically egalitarian society beyond any divisions of race or class. The promise of universal equality and justice that is encapsulated in this conception of God thus provides Christians with a way to question and transform not only the norms of the prevailing political order but also the (frequently perverted) social practices of the Church.

By contrast, the Muslim God is disembodied and absolutely one: there is no god but God, He has no associate. This God is revealed exclusively to Muhammed, the messenger (or prophet), via the archangel Gabriel. As such, the Koran is the literal word of God and the final divine revelation first announced to the Hebrews and later to the Christians.

Again, this account of God has important consequences for politics and social relations. Islam does not simply posit absolute divisions between those who submit to its central creed and those who deny it; it also contains divine injunctions against apostates and unbelievers (though protecting the Jewish and Christian faithful).

Moreover, Islam's radical monotheism tends to fuse the religious and the political sphere: It privileges absolute unitary authority over intermediary institutions and also puts a premium on territorial conquest and control, under the direct rule of God.

These (and other) differences imply that Christians and Muslims do not worship or believe in the same God; in consequence, across the two faiths, love of God and love of the neighbor invariably differ.

This latter statement will certainly generate some debate. Already, a letter to the IHT editor has taken issue with Pabst's remark about Christians and Muslims not worshipping the same God. Bianca Schlesinger, of Tel Aviv, demurs:

Pabst writes "These (and other) differences imply that Christians and Muslims do not worship or believe in the same God." How can they believe in different Gods if there is only one? If there is only one God, as declared by the monotheistic religions, than they all worship the same God; they only conceive of Him differently.

Schlesinger has responded as Pabst might wish, i.e., theologically, and thereby raised a crucial point. Do Muslims worship the same God as Jews and Christians. Schlesinger -- who is, I take it, Jewish -- argues that Muslims do so, based on the theological position that there can be only one God. The argument might need some refining, however, for by a similar intellectual move, I could argue that polytheists also worship the same God as Jews and Christians because there can only be one God, and the polytheists "only conceive of Him differently" -- radically differently, of course, but they nevertheless recognize the divine and treat the divine as an object of reverence. Yet, polytheism and monotheism can only worship the same 'God' at a very general, very abstract level (if at all). As Pabst himself says:

By ignoring these fundamental divergences, the authors of the open letter perpetuate myths about Christians and Muslims praying differently to the same God. Worse, they exhibit a simplistic theology of absolute, unmediated monotheism.

Anyway, go read the entire article and see what you think about Pabst's theological, political, and ethical points.

Natural Law and Limits on the Divine Will

Allah

Humanity Confronted by Divine Will

Eski Cami (The Old Mosque) in Edirne, Turkey

(Image from Wikipedia)

In 1999, Edward T. Oakes published an interesting article in First Things, "Natural Law in Judaism," in which he looked at the work of David Novak (Natural Law in Judaism) on the "Euthyphro problem" in Judaism.

The "Euthyphro problem" refers to Socrates's dialogue with the Athenian seer Euthyphro, in which Socrates subjects the Greek gods to an ethical critique on the basis of the abstract norms of moral law, in the light of which, the behavior of gods like Zeus appear decidedly immoral.

The problem -- reputably a dilemma for revealed religions like Judaism and Christianity -- can be posed as follows: "Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?"

Oakes argues that in Judaism and Christianity, abstract moral law has triumphed over the conception of God as omnipotent Divine Will.

Oakes does not deal in detail with the implications of this for Christian theology (though others have more or less reconciled God with Natural Law). Instead, he observes, rather pragmatically, that this victory of natural law has an upside, one that becomes evident when compared to the absence of the concept in Islam:

That victory is not entirely a matter for dismay, in my opinion, as the example of Islam suggests. Consider the matter of the stoning of adulterers, which, to the great horror of Westerners, is part of Islamic jurisprudence. That practice, as it happens, is not required by the Qur'an. In fact, it was introduced into Islam from Jewish law, according to an oral tradition transmitted by the second Caliph of Medina, Umar ibn al-Khattab (reigned a.d. 634-644):

They brought to the Prophet, on whom be God's blessing and peace, a Jew and a Jewess who had committed fornication. He said to them, "What do you find in your book?" They said, "Our rabbis blacken the faces of the guilty and expose them to public ridicule." Abdullah ibn Salam [a convert to Islam from Judaism] said: "Messenger of God, tell the Jews to bring the Torah." They brought it, but a Jew put his hand over the verse which prescribes stoning [probably Deuteronomy 22:21-22] and began to read what came before and after it. Ibn Salam said to him, "Raise your hand," and there was the verse about stoning beneath his hand. The Messenger of God gave the order and they were stoned. . . . They were stoned on the level ground and I [Umar] saw the man leaning over the woman to shield her from the stones.

Now, Muhammad is obviously thinking of Moses when he orders the stoning of the fornicating pair, but the crucial point is that the Mosaic law being enforced here has reached the Prophet unmediated by either Talmud or New Testament. Moreover, for accidental reasons of history, Islam never passed through the "fiery brook" of the Enlightenment; its confrontation with Judaism and Christianity in the contemporary world is often intertwined with a simultaneous confrontation with the Enlightenment. The clash gets even more complicated by Islam's much higher doctrine of revelation, which makes an accommodation with secular Enlightenment morality even more painful than has proved to be the case with Judaism and Christianity. (Islam's high doctrine of revelation had such difficulty conceding legitimacy to the deliverances of reason that it eventually deprived Muslim philosophers of the oxygen needed for independent, rational reflection; and Muslim philosophy almost entirely died out with the death of Averroës in a.d. 1198.)

At least in certain formal respects, Islam can be described, after a fashion, as "Judaism without a Euthyphro problem," or Moses without a Talmud, so to speak-as the civil war in Algeria so amply testifies, where the most horrific acts of barbarity are perpetrated under religious auspices and in the name of the God of revelation. The Euthyphro problem lives on in today's headlines, and it seems to me that David Novak needs to probe this issue more deeply, for his own (admittedly quite mild) Enlightenment-bashing leaves him with more problems than he seems to realize. (Edward T. Oakes, "Natural Law in Judaism," First Things, 1999, Part IV, paragraphs 4-5)

Islam lacks a Euthyphro dilemma because it simply denies the problem, holding that what is moral is moral because it is commanded by Allah. This is what Pope Benedict XVI was referring to in his Regensberg address when he noted that the Muslim thinker "Ibn Hazm went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practise idolatry."

Quoting that got the Pope a lot of bad press, but Ibn Hazm's conclusion is the problem that the world faces in the Islamic refusal to put limits upon Allah's will.

The problem was posed with particular acuteness by the Jesuit James Schall, professor of political philosophy at Georgetown University, in an interview about the Pope's Regensberg address. Schall's words were published in ZENIT: The World Seen From Rome as the article "God as Logos, Allah as Will":

The Holy Father posed the fundamental question that lies behind all the discussion about war and terror. If God is Logos, it means that a norm of reason follows from what God is. Things are, because they have natures and are intended to be the way they are because God is what he is: He has his own inner order.

If God is not Logos but "Will," as most Muslim thinkers hold Allah to be, it means that, for them, Logos places a "limit" on Allah. He cannot do everything because he cannot do both evil and good. He cannot do contradictories.

Thus, if we want to "worship" Allah, it means we must be able to make what is evil good or what is good evil. That is, we can do whatever is said to be the "will" of Allah, even if it means doing violence as if it were "reasonable."

Otherwise, we would "limit" the "power" of Allah. This is what the Pope meant about making violence "reasonable." This different conception of the Godhead constitutes the essential difference between Christianity and Islam, both in their concept of worship and of science.

Finding an authoritative voice is not easy in a religion so decentralized as Islam, but perhaps the words of Abdul M. Omar can be cited as representative, for he was the editor of a 22-volume Encyclopedia of Islam, and in an online article, he states the following:

He is Incomprehensible, and nothing is like him, therefore the knowledge of Allâh's Reality (His Essence, Haqîqat al-Dzât), cannot be known through logical proof (Dalîl) or rational considerations (Burhân Aqlî). Revelation is indispensable as a proof of His existence. Nor can any definition or description grasp Him. (See: A. M. Omar, "2. Allâh -- The God of the Holy Qur'ân," paragraph 6, in online article, "Who is Allah?")

Although the reference to "His Essence, Haqîqat al-Dzât," might imply that Allah has a 'nature', Omar is quick to insist of Allah that "There is nothing like Him (He is beyond all comparison)" ("2. Allâh -- The God of the Holy Qur'ân," paragraph 4). If Allah is beyond all comparison, then he can be known only through revelation, as Omar also insists, but such a revelation would not touch on Allah's nature in any substantive sense but merely inform us of how he intends for us to submit to his will, which cannot be questioned.

But this is a complex issue requiring closer philosophical reasoning, and I'm not sure that I'm up to the task, though my friend Bill Vallicella would certainly be able to handle it.

"The wind bloweth where it listeth..."

It took a bit of faith ...

... and a big box kite for Lawrence Hargrave and James Swain

to demonstrate how 'man-lift' was achieved.

(From Wikipedia)

Recently, I was asked to write about my "religious views" -- and this within a context where I couldn't refuse and even had to elaborate a bit -- so I thought that I'd post the piece here ... if for no other reason than that I'm short on time this morning.

"The wind bloweth where it listeth,
and thou hearest the sound thereof,
but canst not tell whence it cometh,
and whither it goeth:
so is every one that is born of the Spirit."
John 3:8 (KJV)

Trying to describe one's religious views can be like catching the wind in a box. Too successfully boxed, the wind no longer blows and becomes mere air, without power to move. But if I send the box up as a kite, it catches and is caught in the wind, like a kite flying so high that it nearly disappears into the apophatic heavens.

This is the image for my faith. An essential, tensed link between heaven and earth, tugging to draw me higher even as I keep my feet planted firmly on the ground.

But if I myself am to be boxed in, then one box is Baptist. I was raised in the Arkansas Ozarks as a Southern Baptist, I attended Baylor University, a Southern Baptist school, and I currently belong to Seoul International Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist church.

I have attended the churches of various denominations, however, such as Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian ones, among others. Thus, a larger box is Protestant.

A larger box still is Western Orthodoxy, but with openness to other Christian traditions. I therefore find inspiration in great thinkers like Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas as well as in the early Church Fathers and even Copts like Shenouda or Syrians like Ephrem.

A yet larger box is the Judeo-Christian tradition, which encompasses not only the Hebrew scriptures and rabbinical writings but even Jewish commentaries written today on the Bible. I therefore find that I receive a great deal by reading, for example, the commentary on Leviticus by Jacob Milgrom.

All of these boxes rise or fall like kites on the wind, which "bloweth where it listeth."