Blue Cord

Last week I made reference to an article by Denis Prager in which he claimed that you could predict where someone would stand on certain political issues by knowing whether or not they accepted the authority of the Torah. One of the issues he mentioned was “the willingness to label certain actions, regimes, even people ‘evil’.”  This was the one issue from his list on which he and I agreed.

But it is always good to check yourself when quoting the Bible.  If you are going to claim that the Bible supports your position, you better make absolutely sure that you know what the Bible says on that issue.  And if you are going to use the Bible to attack others the way Prager did, your responsibility to do so is even higher.  So, I went to see what the Torah had to say about evil people and evil nations.¹Â Â  I am limiting myself to the Pentateuch because Prager makes his claim based on the Torah.

The word “evil” appears 30 times in the NIV translation of the Pentateuch.  Of these, not a single one refers to a person as evil.  Only once is a group referenced as evil, and that group is the people of Israel (Deut. 1:35) .  Nor are any nations or regimes called evil.  Instead, what the Torah labels as evil are actions and intentions.

In the rest of the OT, the story is pretty much the same.  The only place that a nation is called evil is in Jeremiah 8:3, where the nation is Judah.  People are called evil in a number of verses, usually in Wisdom Literature and in the Psalms.   But the vast majority of instances of the word evil refer to actions and intentions.

The Torah, therefore, does not support calling any people or nation evil except your own, and even in that case I would recommend not doing so unless you have divine revelation.  I am more than willing to call actions evil, but calling people evil seems to move into the realm of judging people.  It is God, not we, who will judge.

Prager may or may not be correct that someone’s position on calling people evil can be predicted by knowing that person’s position on the authority of the Torah, but the willingness to call people evil is not something people get from the Torah.

1. I am writing this while I am on lunch break at work, so I don’t have a Hebrew Bible handy.  I am relying on on-line copies of the NIV. [back]

Airton Jose da Silva from Observatorio Biblico (a blog I am able to read only though the grace of the Firefox gTranslate add-on) has created a list of the best biblioblogs on Amazon.com’s new UnSpun.  The list began as his opinion of the best, but people are able to log in and vote on the blogs.  The list is worth checking out if you are looking to expand your reading in the bibloblogosphere.

Hat tip:  Claude Mariottini

Although a few bibliobloggers have noted it (including Jim Davila and Tyler Williams), there has been very little discussion of the announcement by Eilat Mazar that she has found a section of a wall from the first temple.  The story has been reported in the Jerusalem Post.  Mazar first announced parts of this find in 2005, when she claimed to have found King David’s palace.

Obviously,  I would like to read a much more detailed report than what was contained in the Jerusalem Post article, but I thought I would make some preliminary comments here.  First, the wall she describes is not a small wall.  They have already uncovered 20 meters worth of the wall, and the wall itself is 7 meters across.  That is a pretty good sized wall.  It seems to me to be more on the scale of a city wall than a building, but again I am not familiar with the details of the find.  It certainly seems possible that it could be a monumental building.

Second, the interpretation of this find will be interesting.  What other evidence do they have for the use of this building?  I am assuming they are going on something other than size to determine that it is a palace or a temple.  What associated objects are being found with it?  Keep in mind that it is a rule in archaeology that finding a floor is more important than finding a wall.  People live on floors.  Flies live on walls.  If you want to know the date(s) and function(s) of a building, finding the floor is much more important — and more difficult.

Third, I am sure the dating of this will be debated for quite a while.  Being able to solidly date something to the time of King David would be huge.  But for most things in this period we can usually only date them within a wide range.  Barring the ability to associate a stratum with a known event, such as a destruction of the city, it is very difficulty to assign something with enough specificity to say that it came from David or Solomon or Reheboam.  Such specificity comes in only when we have a well established series of strata, and it does not seem that Mazar’s dig is wide-spread enough to find this.  It may be that the best we can do is give a century.  But of course, you get more press coverage by saying you have found a building associated with King David than you do by saying you have found one from c.10th-9th centuries BCE.

I can’t wait to read more details.  If it is from the 10th century, it will have important impact on current historical debates.  It is way too early, however, to begin drawing conclusions about the implications of this find for historians.

On his Town Hall blog this Wednesday, Michael Medved posted an article entitled “Biblical Liberation from Liberalism”. In the article, he echos the claim of Denis Prager that Leviticus 19:15 is “the most crucial conservative verse in the whole Bible” (emphasis his). For those who don’t know Leviticus by heart, that verse states:

You shall not commit a perversion of justice: you shall not favor the poor and you shall not honor the great, with righteousness shall you judge your fellow.

He goes on to say that liberals should note that Leviticus identifies favoring the poor as a perversion of justice. Since Leviticus is one of my favorite books and chapter 19 is a crux chapter, I wanted to address this.

I think Prager and Medved are wrong about this being an important conservative verse for a couple of reasons. First, what they are doing is prooftexting. Conservatives did not arrive at their conservative opinions based on this verse. Instead, they have simply found a verse that agrees with what they already believe. Liberals sometimes do this as well, but it is wrong in both cases.

Second, it seems that this verse also condemns showing preferential treatment in court for the rich, but I rarely hear conservatives arguing that this should be changed. Instead, they go along with a system where the rich can afford better lawyers and are acquitted even when guilty, while the poor cannot afford adequate legal representation.

Third, this verse is only talking about what happens in a court case. It does not mean that government should not help the poor in other cases. Medved states:

As I argued in my recent townhall column about the essence of liberalism (posted on March 21st), the outlook of the left insists upon favoring the poor and the unfortunate—and thereby injecting unfairness and discrimination into the very core of politics and government.

This has nothing to do with Leviticus 19:15. Favoring the poor out of court is not condemned by this verse. In fact, favoring the poor is illustrated in other instances in the Bible, including Jesus’ words that the kingdom of God belongs to the poor (Luke 6:20). Does Medved think that Jesus was going against Leviticus 19:15 in saying that the poor will inherit the kingdom? What about when Jesus told people not to invite rich neighbors to their parties but instead invite the poor (Luke 14:12-14)? Isn’t that giving the poor preferential treatment?¹

In short, Leviticus 19:15 does not support the burden that Medved and Prager want it to hold. Conservative positions may or may not be correct, but they have little to do with Leviticus 19:15.

1. For those who would point out that Medved is Jewish and doesn’t follow the New Testament, I agree. But at the same time, Prager — whom Medved is quoting — felt free to write a column explaining to Christians that Jesus would not support Democratic policies. [back]

It has been ten years since I changed from a Baptist to an Episcopalian. I am now very steeped in the liturgy of the Episcopal church and can’t imagine Easter without the call of “Christ is risen!” and the response of “The Lord is risen indeed!”

There are some things, however, that I miss from my Baptist days. Perhaps the biggest on is the hymn Low in the Grave He Lay, by Robert Lowry. For those of you who don’t know the song, the verse verse and refrain are:

Low in the grave He lay, Jesus my Savior,
Waiting the coming day, Jesus my Lord!

Up from the grave He arose,
With a mighty triumph o’er His foes,
He arose a Victor from the dark domain,
And He lives forever, with His saints to reign.
He arose! He arose!
Hallelujah! Christ arose!

The verse starts out low and sad, but then speeds up with the refrain. And to sing it right, you have to get a good glissando on the word “up”, starting down low and sliding up to the right note. It is embedded in my psyche as the sine qua non of Easter. It is a shame I can’t get it in the Episcopal church.

In any event, I want to wish a blessed Easter to all my readers.  May the light of Christ shine on you this season!