Isaiah 29: Creating the Future

Human creativity (and our fear of being wrong about anything) make prophetic passages like Isaiah 29 potentially dangerous. Not all prophecy is prediction about the future, but this chapter clearly is intended as such. Whether the authors are predicting a literal future or are figuratively depicting a hopeful future is up for debate, but it is clear that the chapter is intended to predict a future that is different from current reality. 

We have some funny tendencies when we hear or read prophecies. Whether the predictions are coming from a financial "expert," a passage of ancient text, or the horoscope, we have a tendency to want to apply those words as directly as we can to our own lives, so that we can draw conclusions and make decisions that are in line with what is "supposed" to happen -- or even "destined" to happen. Even many people who would never put stock in a fortune teller or Tarot card reader look into the Bible and believe that they read "promises from God" about their personal lives. Entire religious communities take verses out of their original context and misapply them as personal promises relevant today. Jeremiah 29:11 is a prime example. It reads,  "For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope." This is not a personal promise to all believers, as a casual reading of Jeremiah reveals, and yet many people seem greatly comforted by this "personal promise from God," misappropriated though it may be.

Our creativity may become doubly engaged when we place confidence in prophecies. We begin to interpret exactly what is meant by the words, and we may begin seeking out ways to cause the prophecy to be true. If a horoscope tells us, "You will receive a gift today," we might be sure to check the mail and keep all of our appointments. If we don't actually receive a physical gift, we might start thinking through the day to discover what the intangible gift was. Perhaps it was the moment when someone sat and deeply listened to us, or perhaps it was the kind person with a full cart of groceries who let us go ahead of them with our three items. Most likely, we can figure out something that we would consider a kindness if we have been engaging with people all day expecting to receive something. 

Some predictions are more vague, however, and place things a bit more in our control. What if, instead of passively receiving a gift, I told you that you would find a treasure? Now, the responsibility is even more on your shoulders to make the prediction true. Even if you find a quarter on the ground, you can prove the prediction correct. The question is whether you are more likely than usual to find a quarter on the ground if you are expecting to find a treasure. It may be that once you hear such a prediction, your subconscious is more attuned to finding something even if you aren't consciously seeking it out. Prophecies are sometimes even more vague than that, though. Instead of telling you that you will a treasure, I might say, "A portion of your wealth will spring up from the ground." You could interpret that in such a way that finding a quarter makes it true, but your mind might also do a great many things with that statement. Maybe you will invest more in fossil fuels. Maybe you will plant a garden, so that you spend less on groceries. Maybe you will be entrepreneurial and leave your job to start a palm tree farm. 

Of course, you may be thinking, "I wouldn't do anything at all. I don't believe in your ability to make such predictions." Fair enough. The trustworthiness of the source certainly would seem to be an issue. This is why biblical prophecy is so problematic. The empirical trustworthiness of the Bible is fairly low when it comes to prophecies. The problem is that people have proclaimed that the source is infallible, and therefore every bit of biblical prophecy that seems not to be true is interpreted as symbolic or yet to come. Each of these has its own pitfalls.

Interpreting biblical prophecy as symbolic is a convenient way of not having to address inaccuracies and false predictions. Perhaps it is convenient that there is no way to verify the symbolic meaning. If a hundred people point to a hundred different events as the "fulfillment" of a particular passage of prophecy, there is no way to determine which of them, if any, is "correct." We have to rely on how much we trust the person making the claim, and we have to decide whether the claim makes sense to us. We are relying on our own emotions and intellect to draw these conclusions, not the source of the prediction. There is no way to take the event back to a biblical author and say, "Is this what you meant?" In reality, biblical authors making predictions were probably either (a) commenting on events relevant to their own people in their own time, or (b) forecasting vague hopes for the future in order to quiet the minds of powerless oppressed people with wavering faith. 

When we interpret biblical prophecy as "yet to come," we run into even more problems, however. Just like the person who would decide to start a palm tree farm if told, "A portion of your wealth will spring up from the ground," people can start looking for ways to make prophecies true. Or, at least, they can behave as if their interpretations of the prophecies are true -- as if all of their actions have foregone conclusions. Isaiah's prophecy that all peoples would stream to the "holy mountain" Jerusalem for wisdom and guidance from Yahweh was intended to offer comfort and hope to people, not to inform geopolitical decisions thousands of years into the future. Yet, there are some who continue to believe in the inevitability of this prophecy. If the interpretation is that this prophecy has not yet come to pass, this interpretation directly influences the way one views and deals with modern Israel and other nations in the Middle East. There is thus a dangerous potential for a misappropriated ancient text to inform military and political decisions, perhaps even overriding a clear sense of what would bring the greatest good to the greatest number of people. 

Thus it is that Isaiah 29 is a dangerous piece of writing, not because the authors were malicious, but because they were wrapped up in their own ethnocentricity, and twenty-first century readers misapplying the words to themselves find justification for closed-mindedness and self-aggrandizement. Consider, 

And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel,
    all that fight against her and her stronghold, and who distress her,
    shall be like a dream, a vision of the night.
Just as when a hungry person dreams of eating
    and wakes up still hungry,
or a thirsty person dreams of drinking
    and wakes up faint, still thirsty,
so shall the multitude of all the nations be
    that fight against Mount Zion. (Is 29:7-8)

In verse 2, Isaiah identifies Ariel as Jerusalem, and for twenty-first century people, this might be interpreted as the city of Jerusalem (although probably only the Jewish and Christian portions of the city!), the nation of Israel, or the whole of Christianity. Enemy nations might be interpreted literally or figuratively, but the gist of the prophecy is that what seem to be powerful foes will disappear like a dream. This will happen because of something Yahweh does -- because of a supernatural will -- and thus can be beyond the explanation or understanding of human beings. What would you decide to do in your life if you believed that everyone who could possibly oppose you would eventually just disappear? This could be a very empowering idea. However, some opposing forces can help us maintain our integrity. We could become quite bull-headed, failing to see the long-term consequences of our actions, failing to see how what we decide affects other people, if we took this mandate to extreme.

The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord,
    and the neediest people shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.
For the tyrant shall be no more,
    and the scoffer shall cease to be;
    and those alert to do evil shall be cut off --
those who cause a person to lose a lawsuit,
    who set a trap for the arbiter in the gate,
    and without grounds deny justice to the one in the right. (Is 29:19-21)

Again, this seems quite nice. The neediest people shall have reason to celebrate, and there will be justice. The problem is that very few of us cast ourselves in the role of villain in our own story. We believe that we are the one in the right. We believe that we deserve to win our lawsuits. We are the meek and humble sufferers who will eventually be lifted up. And if that is how we cast ourselves, that means that the people who find fault with our way of thinking are the scoffers. Those who keep us from doing what we want (and from forcing others to do what we want) are the tyrants. If we have a promise that those scoffers and tyrants will be taken care of, then we have no reason to listen to their perspective now. If we have confidence that justice will eventually be done, then we can obviously (egotistically) trust that we will be exonerated.

Please bear in mind, I am not attempting to interpret the words of the authors of Isaiah as they intended them to be interpreted. I am not even attempting to provide an interpretation that is viable in light of the entirety of biblical scripture. I am simply demonstrating the way that prophecy can be twisted and manipulated into self-legitimizing "promises," based on what I have personally read and heard from believers. It is important to understand that there is no viable way to talk someone out of a belief or "debate someone into reasonableness" when they have confidence that their personal scoffers, enemies, and tyrants will one day vanish into nothing because of God.

One more short verse, the final one of the chapter: "And those who err in spirit will come to understanding, and those who grumble will accept instruction," (Is 29:24). This is, for some believers, a blatant promise that one day everyone else will understand things as they do. It is confirmation that they are right, and that everyone who has a different interpretation of reality is erring in spirit or grumbling, but only temporarily. Perseverance without questioning one's perception is thus made into a virtue.

I've alluded to a couple of problems with thinking that we know the future, but let me clearly state the three biggest ones that seem to emerge from trusting biblical prophecy as yet to come. Then, I want to propose a better option. The first big problem is that we can be thoughtless about our own actions and beliefs if we believe that we know the future. This even counts for thinking that we know about an afterlife. If we believe we know what's going to happen, we have less reason to be thoughtful about what we do and believe right now. When we are willing to examine our own beliefs and actions, we have the opportunity to grow. When we grow, we get better at being the kind of people we actually want to be. If we don't grow, we stagnate.

Second, we stop listening when we think we know what is going to happen. If we believe that we know the way to eternal life, we stop caring what anyone else thinks about it. If we believe we know the way to happiness, we stop listening to anyone else's ideas. Once we think we know what is going to happen, it seems like the only reason we have to listen to other people is to tell them that they are wrong if they disagree with us. We need other people. It isn't that case that other people are just useful tools for us to gain knowledge and can be discarded once we know all we need to know. First off, we never know all we could possibly learn from other people, but beside that, we need relationship one another as human beings. We need connection with one another. When we stop really listening, we stop connecting.

Finally, we might stop making a difference when we think we know what is going to happen. Belief in an afterlife is one of the greatest detractors to justice and equity in the world. If you believe that good people (whatever your definition of that is) will go to heaven for eternity, you have less reason to make sure that their life here on earth is worth living. "Those people may suffer now, but they'll be able to celebrate for eternity if they just believe as I believe." What drivel! Even the belief that God is going to take care of things here in this reality is a bit demotivating. If God's will will be done no matter what, then we have no reason to act. If we believe that God will take care of all our enemies and scoffers and tyrants, then we are probably under the impression that he will do that when he's good and ready, and we need not worry our little heads about it. Meanwhile, we can also just wait for God to take care of all the other problems we see around us. Hunger, violence, slavery, disease -- they seem like insurmountable challenges, and it's understandable why we would just want to believe that one day, they will supernaturally disappear. Human problems won't just go away. We have to act, to whatever degree we are capable, if we want to see a better world.

Since prophecies are so problematic (particularly since so few risky prophecies ever turn out to be true), and since we cannot know what's going to happen, we have to base our beliefs and our actions on something different. Believers and non-believers alike can do this. If there is an afterlife, you don't know anything about it. You might think or hope or believe some things about it, but you honestly only know about this reality. You don't know the future. You might be able to make some reasonable predictions, and you might hope for some less reasonable things, but you honestly do not know the future. Recognizing that is the first step.

One thing we can know is what we value. As I have repeated many times, we all have a deepest, most noble self that reflects our innate truth, beauty, and creativity. We also heap on a pile of lies and fears about ourselves, other people, and the world we share. We have to dismantle those fears and lies and recognize what we really value -- the principles that we most want to guide us. We can't know the future, because we haven't created it yet. And we can't create the future we most want unless we know what we value most.

This is the point at which our defensive mechanisms kick in and we get sarcastic. "What I value most is for all the idiots to just leave me alone." "What I really value is a warm day with a cool margarita when I can just kick back and relax." "I want to create a future where I keep my paycheck instead of paying more taxes than all those other people." When your mind starts in with those defensive routines, recognize them for what they are. You're trying to protect yourself from realizing what really matters most to you. If you recognize what really matters most to you, you might have to do something about it. You're trying to protect yourself from dreaming big. If you dream big, you might get disappointed or hurt.

Even though they had no control over how twenty-first century narcissistic believers would twist their words, the biblical prophets knew how to dream big, and they knew what they valued. They were products of their time -- more than 2500 years ago in the case of Isaiah's authors -- so their values may look a little different from ours. We can be just as bold, however, in casting vision for what could be. Casting vision isn't the same as claiming to know the future. Casting vision is saying, "This is what I wish the world were like, and this is what I'm willing to do to move it a little bit closer to that vision." Powerful vision isn't based on our fears or lies about ourselves and other people, and it isn't based on our defensive routines. Powerful vision is based on our deep guiding principles -- the things that we most want to guide our behavior and decisions, even though we often let other things get in the way.

Guiding principles aren't complicated. For me, the idea that all people have inherent worth is a guiding principle. I don't always carry that idea forward into my life as well as I would like, but my values are all tied back to that principle. As I cast vision for the future, that principle is at the heart of what I envision. Your guiding principles don't have to match mine, but whatever they are, your guiding principles and your values are what empower your vision for the kind of world you want to create. We cast vision and create a better world by starting in our own lives. If you envision a world with greater compassion, what needs to happen in your life to start making that a reality? If you envision a world where clean water is available to all, what do you need to do to move things in that direction?

What principles do you most want to guide your life?
What do you value most deeply?
What would a world built on those principles and values look like?
What can you do to allow your life to embody that vision?

We do not know the future. We create the future. We can choose to create a future based on our deeply held values, or we can continue forward on auto-pilot. I know which one seems most compelling to me.

Isaiah 18-20: Visions of a Different World

The oracles against Ethiopia and Egypt in Isaiah 18-20 are more of the same kinds of prophecy as other proclamations against nations around Judah. The author of these passages predicts that Ethiopians will bring gifts to Yahweh's temple in Jerusalem, and that Egyptians will be plagued with infighting, drought, and eventually a harsh king. Later, the author claims, Egypt will experience mercy from the Israelites' supernatural, and several cities will be dedicated to Yahweh. Egypt and Assyria will be alongside Judah, reconciled and claimed as Yahweh's chosen people. The short passage that follows depicts Isaiah's sign-act of walking around naked for three years, interpreting that act to symbolize the captivity of Ethiopia and Egypt.

Scholars have a difficult time with these oracles, because there is no apparent place in known history that can match up with the implied events of the prophecies. Some aspects and details may seem to have relevance, but then other details would be out of place. This limits the application of the text as a historical testament of events or as an accurate forecasting of events that were yet to happen when the oracles were written. Since it's obvious that some editorial work has been done to create the existing versions of the book of Isaiah, some scholars attempt to rearrange passages to get a more accurate or sensible account. None of this work has any bearing on whether one can find meaning in the passage for life in the twenty-first century. If passages like this are about historical events, then their usefulness is exclusively past tense, since the events they describe either happened or failed to happen centuries ago. If one insists that the predictions are simply to demonstrate the power and authority of the Israelite deity, one must take into consideration that it's not clear that all of what is predicted here ever came to pass. In addition, a reader who already has a theistic bias doesn't need a passage about ancient nations to serve as evidence for God's power and authority, and a reader who doesn't have a theistic bias won't be convinced by the vague (and in some cases inaccurate) predictions of this passage.

A we've seen before, there are some problems with assuming that God is responsible for military conquests and natural disasters. Although the authors of Isaiah and other prophets had their reasons for seeing their supernatural as head over all nations' war efforts, they didn't understand the ramifications of their claims. They saw their society as unjust, with the wealthy and powerful neglecting their responsibilities toward the poor and disenfranchised. They saw their society as immoral, offering disingenuous religious sacrifices while they maintained systems of greed and self-indulgence. A foreign army at their doorstep was a clear indication to these prophets that Yahweh was unhappy, and that he was going to use whatever means were at his disposal to effect the  curses for disobedience proclaimed in the Sinai covenant. These same prophets trusted that Yahweh would also gladly bless the Israelites, if the people fulfilled the supernatural's expectations.

One cannot maintain a view of a god worth worshiping and also insist that such a deity was at the head of every military and ordaining the decisions of every government. It was fine motivation for change that the Israelites saw Yahweh behind their exiles, because in doing so they understood something about how their society had failed its own people. They also had the luxury of seeing their god behind their return from exile. In our time, we would have to see God as the one who ordained the many genocidal acts of the twentieth century, some of which continue in parts of the world today. We would have to see God as the true commander who ordered atomic bombs to be inflicted upon thousands of non-combatants in Japan. If God is the kind of deity depicted in Isaiah and other prophets of Hebrew scripture, all atrocities of war can be justified by a simple acknowledgment that the people who suffered or died did not live up to the demands placed on them by a supernatural.

The authors of Isaiah weren't necessarily off-base regarding what they wanted for their society, and even for their neighboring societies. This passage on Egypt has some pretty favorable predictions for what Yahweh will eventually do for that nation. The view of society's potential presented in Isaiah places justice, equity, and compassion high on the list of desirable qualities, and it sees these qualities as attainable by a people, particularly the people in charge. The authors may have been displaying a perspective that their supernatural was superior to every other nation's, but they were equally critical of their own people for failing to live by the standards that supernatural had set for them.

Israelite understanding of their agreement with Yahweh was not unlike other treaties between unequal powers in the Ancient Near East. The more powerful entity essentially tells the less powerful entity, "This is what you're going to do, and this is what I'm going to do." Basically, if the less powerful nation does everything that that the powerful ruler demands, then they get the benefits of the arrangement. However, if the less powerful nation fails to do everything the powerful ruler demands, then the curses of the treaty were valid responses by the ruler. There were perhaps phrased in colorful and symbolic terms, but essentially the ruler would take military action against the disobedient weaker subjects. That's how Israel and Judah saw their relationship with Yahweh. The supernatural said, "Here are my demands. Meet them and live prosperously; fail to meet them and die."

Through all of this proclamation of doom though, there is an undercurrent of hope. Isaiah 19 forecasts a future in which peaceful relations and unity exist between nations, at least between Egypt, Assyria, and Judah. This is a bit humorous, considering Judah's insignificance as a political power. Egypt was the seat of the previous empire, and Assyria was the seat of the current empire. Perhaps the prophet was hopeful that Judah would be the seat of a future empire; such a vision of the future is certainly suggested by other passages in Isaiah. Of course, that never happened, and it isn't likely to happen. The basic gist of that future alliance, though, was that justice and peace would be the rule rather than the exception. The vision of an empire ruled by Yahweh was that it would be the sort of place any person would want to live: where no one would go hungry, and no one would be afraid (Micah 4:4).

The values are a bit inspiring. The way the authors of Isaiah thought it would happen is a bit disappointing. They didn't think that people were actually capable of creating such a reality. They asserted that their god would make it so. Perhaps one could say that, just as Yahweh was seen as the primary actor when a foreign army swept in, Yahweh can also be seen as the primary actor when people make decisions that lead toward peace and justice. The tendency, however, is for people to abdicate responsibility for creating peace and justice. If we do not place the responsibility on a supernatural, perhaps we place responsibility on the government to make the kind of world we most want to live in. We may laugh at the suggestion, but that doesn't change our expectations.

There is, of course, another way of seeing the covenant promises and curses without assuming the existence of a supernatural. However the ancients thought of their world and society, they understood intuitively what characteristics and practices helped a society thrive and what characteristics and practices tore a society down. That their supernatural does not exist has no bearing on the value of justice, equity, and compassion. The view toward a world in which people are safe and have enough is still an inspiring vision. Human beings have to take responsibility for their actions in order for our reality to approach that vision.

God is not at the head of the military; human beings are. God is not in control of who has wealth and power; human beings are. God doesn't commit war atrocities; human beings do. God doesn't effect genocide; human beings do. God cannot respond compassionately to the world; human beings can. God is not capable of creating justice and equity; human beings must.

Whatever our vision of the world is, we are responsible for moving toward that, even if our only sphere of influence is our own lives. When we set aside fear, I suspect that most of us want the same kind of world, and I suspect that we value the same sorts of things that the prophets valued: justice, equity, and compassion. Aside from irrational fear, why wouldn't we all want to live in a sustainable world where no one went hungry and no one was oppressed? If that is our most noble vision for the planet, that is what we are called to create. We aren't called by some supernatural outside of ourselves; we call ourselves by the values we hold. When you set aside fear, what is your vision for the world? What will you do today to bring your life a little bit closer to that vision?

Numbers 12-14: Trusting in Divine Inspiration

These chapters of the book of Numbers once more reflect a supreme being with menacing and punitive tendencies.  It's a view of God that still exists in many ways today, perhaps because it's easier for us to notice our struggles and mistakes than it is for us to take delight in our accomplishments.  Chapter 12 begins with an accusation against Moses, brought by his brother and sister.  Speaking for the Israelite god, Moses had commanded that the people remain pure by not intermarrying with the "unclean" people of the land around them.  And yet, Moses himself had married a Cushite.  This wife may have been Zipporah, whom Moses married before he became the leader of the Israelites, or this may refer to a second wife.  The important part of the story is the response to the accusation.

According to the tale, Miriam's lack of respect for Moses got her cursed with leprosy, and she was confined outside of the Israelite camp for a week.  She wasn't punished for noticing that Moses' own marriage broke orders everyone else was supposed to live by.  The punishment came because of her lack of respect for Moses.  The ability to curse people with leprosy seems a bit of an unfair advantage, though.  Coming from a perspective that rejects the existence of a supreme being, particularly one who would feel the need to get angry and punish someone for insulting Moses, the simplest explanation is that Moses himself had a few tricks up his sleeve. 

Leadership is tough to begin with.  When you're trying to tell people to behave one way while you are behaving differently, it becomes even tougher.  Aaron and Miriam weren't really making an astounding observation, but the way they went about their accusation was to grumble and gossip behind Moses' back.  Had they gone to him and pointed out the discrepancy with a modicum of concern for his own well-being, the story might have gone differently.  Sooner or later, the issue of living differently than what you're demanding of other people has to be addressed.  You can't just afflict everyone with leprosy after all, and Moses quickly had his hands full with more complaining from people.  Quite simply, people are better leaders when they are open to criticism without stooping to petty retaliations, and their followers are more likely to get what they want when they approach the person in charge with love and respect.

Once again, in Numbers 14, the Israelites cry out that they should have stayed in Egypt instead of following Moses out into the wilderness to die.  A special team of spies had gone to investigate the land of Canaan, the "promised land" where the Israelites were headed.  They came back with a report that the place was indeed bountiful, but it was also inhabited by peoples who were stronger and more numerous than the Israelite forces, willing and able to defend their lands against invasion.  So, the people were understandably demoralized.  The response from some of the spies was, "If we trust God, there is nothing to fear."

The Israelite god spends a lot of time being angry in this book.  He threatens to unleash his wrath on the Israelites, and Moses appeals to his sense of pride, suggesting that if the Egyptians were to hear about all the Israelites dying in the wilderness, they would think that the Israelite god was unreliable and weak.  As if The One True God would actually care what the Egyptians think.  So God relented and decided that he wouldn't kill the Israelites outright, he'd just deny them access to the land of milk and honey and force them to wander for forty years until they died of natural causes in the wilderness.  Because that would look good to the Egyptians.  God does strike down the spies who brought back doom-and-gloom reports about the Canaanites, and when the Israelites attempt a foray into Canaan the next day despite the proclamation of divine punishment, they are chased off by the local denizens.

There's a big problem with the whole "God is on our side" philosophy that still infects international politics today.  Every military and paramilitary force in existence seems to claim in one way or another that they are in the right, that God is on their side.  Can God really be on everyone's side in a war?  I suppose betting on all the horses in a race would guarantee that you pick a winner, but it seems ludicrous to assume that a perfect divine being is hedging his bets.  Do people actually believe they're going to win in combat because of divine intervention?  Or is the whole thing just intended as morale-boosting rhetoric?  If taken seriously, false belief can lead people to take some otherwise ill-advised actions, purely on faith that their god will work out the details in their favor.  I would like to believe that if there was an intelligent higher power that took an interest in humanity, our ability to reason and work out diplomatic solutions peacefully would be more impressive than our ability to effectively slaughter one another.  From the right perspective, a god that promises military victory in this day and age seems like a brutal, bloodthirsty primitive compared to a god that promises the ability to reach a satisfying compromise with minimal bloodshed.  Honestly, which seems like more of a miracle?

But the issue for the Israelites boiled down to trust.  When the odds seemed against them, were they willing to trust divine guidance, or were they going to doubt every step of the way?  Trust eventually led some of them to their destination.  Doubt prevented others from realizing the divine promise.  The underlying spiritual truth of the story really has nothing to do with plagues and punishments, it has to do with trust.

Within each of us, there is a spark of inspiration that grants us a vision of what we could accomplish.  For some people, it's just a momentary glimpse, seemingly little more than wishful thinking.  For other people, it becomes a detailed goal, a lifelong aspiration.  Sometimes, people create goals that are motivated by greed, that take advantage of other people, that capitalize on loopholes in an unfair system.  These kinds of goals reflect a lack of faith in oneself to actually do good in the world.  When you believe that it's unrealistic to actually achieve your dreams, it's easy to settle for the next best thing.  There are a lot of unhappy, dissatisfied wealthy people in the world who lost sight of their vision of what really mattered to them.  Some people manage to accomplish impressive feats without ever realizing the goal that truly inspires them. 

It all has to do with how we respond to that "divine" inspiration within us.  When we glimpse that inspiration that matches with our most noble intentions for ourselves and other people, we can either trust it or doubt it.  When we doubt it, we wind up punishing ourselves, in a way.  Denying ourselves the thing that we most deeply desire for ourselves and the world.  Settling for less.  Sometimes we convince ourselves that we are just being realistic.  But when we trust that spark of inspiration and feed it, we can start to see ways to move closer to it.  The initial idea may seem out of reach, but when we trust ourselves to create a path toward that inspired target, the very process nourishes the vision.

The feedback we get along the way may not always be what we would like it to be.  We may have to adjust our path to fit with reality, but that doesn't necessarily mean setting our sights lower in the long run.  It may mean changing the benchmarks along the way, not the ultimate goal.  New information may lead us to conclude that what we initially envisioned actually isn't a beneficial target for ourselves and others, in which case we have an opportunity to fine tune our target based on that new information.  But we have to first trust our inspiration in order to get to the point of clarifying or fine tuning targets and benchmarks.  The journey is rarely a straight line, but the first step is always to trust the inspiration. 

Rewriting Leviticus, the Little Book of Legalism that No One Really Likes

The book of Leviticus gets its name from the descendants of Levi, who had special religious and political responsibilities among the Israelites. While there are certainly spiritual lessons to be gleaned from the Bible, the book of Leviticus has a very legalistic message that largely has little bearing on modern life. There are a few verses here and there which have merit as sage advice, as we’ll see, but even within the overall context of the Bible, the legalistic approach didn’t work. That’s the whole point of the New Testament, actually.

Which is a point worth mentioning, since there are those apologists who promote the concept of biblical inerrancy and insist on using the Bible as proof of its own veracity. A large portion of the book of Leviticus deals with the appropriate way to handle blood sacrifices: which animals are appropriate for what kind of sacrifice, how the sacrificial animals are to be handled, and how soon it has to be eaten by the priests. If the Bible is absolutely true and without contradiction, then these regulations (from God, mind you) have to be addressed. Most Christians would say that all the business with sacrifices was nullified by Jesus, and that’s all well and good. Except that it means a portion of the inerrant, infallible scripture has been improved upon and rendered obsolete. Which is not to say that the New Testament has it “right” either, but merely to point out an obvious discrepancy.

Another large portion of the book of Leviticus is about cleanliness, as in what kinds of things make a person clean or unclean and what a person must do to regain purity. Among the things that make a person “unclean” are: leprosy, menstruation, having a discharge of any kind below the waist, giving birth (especially giving birth to a girl), touching certain animal carcasses, or eating a creature found dead. Ritual washing after a waiting period is typically enough to cleanse a person from those impurities. Mold is also unclean, and if washing moldy clothing or walls doesn’t get rid of it, a priest can order the moldy object to be destroyed. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. We still have issues with mold in our homes today. Some of the ideas about what makes a person “unclean” reflect a certain level of ignorance within the culture, however.

Of particular interest are the regulations about what can be eaten. Orthodox Jews today still follow many of the prescribed dietary laws of Leviticus, if not all of them. Americans will be disappointed to learn that fat is prohibited, along with pork, rabbit, shrimp, monitor lizards, and “flying insects that go about on four legs.” The laws even go so far as to dictate something of a “resting period” for fields, years in which nothing is harvested so that the land will continue to be bountiful. That part’s not actually a bad idea. Most people wouldn’t have a problem giving up bats and weasels from their diet, although they may not be keen on adding grasshoppers to the menu. The biggest problem with this whole topic (aside from the idea that what a person eats can make them innately impure) is once again with regard to the issue of inerrancy.

In the New Testament, it is proclaimed that all food is clean. Peter reportedly had a vision about it, and Paul wrote explicitly that all food is clean and people should stop getting hung up on such insignificant issues. I’ll just come out and say that I agree with this point of view. It bears noting, however, that the same Bible that declares all food to be clean also declares that, according to God, eating some things will make you unclean and could get you kicked out of the community of chosen people. Both statements cannot be true. And if God is infallible, then how can he have changed his mind on the subject? Since the Bible obviously holds contradictory information, it doesn’t make sense to cling to the concept of a completely inerrant body of scripture. And, truth be told, most self-proclaimed Christians use a certain amount of personal discernment and judgment about such things anyway.

The last big topic in Leviticus is sexual impurity. We don’t really need divine guidance to tell us that we shouldn’t sleep with our close relatives, but it’s understandable given what we know about Abraham’s family tree that this was important information for the Israelites to clarify. And it is clarified in great detail. It is spelled out exactly with whom (and what) a person should not be having sexual relations. Punishments for disobedience range from being ostracized or childless (which their god could obviously determine), to being burned or stoned to death. If nothing else, it certainly offers some insight into how the Israelites were tempted to pass the time as they were wandering in the wilderness.

Leviticus also records some very wise advice, though. For instance, it recounts the commandments about not stealing from each other, not deceiving one another, and not lying about people. It commands employers to deal with their workers honestly and justly, and it instructs people not to hold grudges. One of my favorite lines urges people to confront people directly and earnestly instead of sugar-coating things or just standing by and watching someone’s unhealthy behavior. In fact, it is here that the Bible first admonishes, “love your neighbor as yourself.” It’s a shame that these tidbits of wisdom are scattered in and amongst rules about not trimming the sides of your beard. It can be easy to lose sight of what’s important when confronted with the legalism of exactly how a purification sacrifice has to be done and exactly which of your family members you can’t sleep with.

But it isn’t all threats of punishment from on high. There is a short passage in which God expresses what the reward will be for following all of the laws. He’ll send rain to nourish the earth, and he’ll make their harvests plentiful. He’ll make the land peaceful, eradicating all the wild beasts and keeping invaders out. In fact, he’ll make the enemies of the Israelites fall by the sword before them. He’ll increase the Israelites in number, and he won’t hate them. If they just do everything properly.

These sorts of promises seem somewhat problematic. How many people have to do things right in order for the harvest to be plentiful? If it doesn’t rain, how do we know whose fault it is? And if it does rain, does that mean that we’ve been perfect? If our numbers increase, does that mean we’ve done everything right? Or right enough, at least? Or is it only the actual number of Jews that we should be keeping track of? While there are some people who still believe that natural cycles are a direct measure of God’s satisfaction with humanity, most people understand that weather patterns are not based on whether my neighbor eats fat or sleeps with his aunt. The abundance of our food supply depends on a lot of factors, but none of those factors has to do with whether we have properly put our community’s sins into a goat and set it free in the wilderness.

The book of Leviticus reminds us how ludicrous we can be sometimes when we start trying to control every detail and ensure perfection in how we orchestrate our lives. For those who are Christian, the book shows the need for a savior, since it would be impossible for anyone to do everything precisely according to the law. From another standpoint, perhaps it is worth looking at the few rays of insight that shine through the legalism. Which basically boil down to one thing. Respect people. Just respect other people. Not for any particular reason. Just because they are human beings. We don’t need magical rituals to purify us, and we don’t need to stone people or burn them when they make mistakes. We have done and will do some things that we’re not proud of. We’re all in the same boat as far as that goes. If we could just cultivate a little respect for other people, we might eventually even be able to make a few more laws obsolete.

So, the book of Leviticus rewritten? Respect people. All people. And if you fail to do so, forgive yourself and go back to respecting people again.

The Morality of Being Willing to Kill a Child Doesn't Change Just Because You Think God Told You to Do It

Continuing with the narrative of the Old Testament story, Abraham and Abimilech make peace, the elderly Sarah gives birth to Isaac and promptly becomes too jealous of Hagar to bear having her around, and Abraham sends Hagar and Ishmael (Abraham’s firstborn) out on their own into the wilderness, with God’s blessing. Which brings us to Genesis 22, in which Abraham takes his son Isaac to a mountaintop with the intention of sacrificing him to God. He reportedly does this because God told him to, and thus Abraham is willing to go through with it. At the last minute, a ram caught in a nearby bush (seen to be provided by God) is substituted for the boy, and God makes a promise about the future of Abraham’s bloodline.

Supposedly, the promise God makes to Abraham at the end of this horrifying story is the seventh promise God has made to him, but the promises are all strikingly similar: God grants Abraham a stretch of land (although he doesn’t provide any legal documentation that anyone else would honor), he promises Abraham lots of “children”, and he makes promises about how mighty and prosperous those children are going to be. Since the Jewish people are the ones who scribed all of this after passing it down through word of mouth for generations, one would expect them to be the heroes of the story. The promise by God is obviously intended to be indisputable, except that this story calls into question God’s morality and trustworthiness.

First of all, why did God find this test to be necessary? Abraham had already made a pact with God involving sacrificing animals, and then he made a further pact with God requiring physical mutilation, for which Abraham and his descendents really didn’t get anything further from God for the additional requirements. It is as if an insurance company decided to add an enormous fee onto the premium while offering no additional benefits, simply because they don’t quite trust their customers. Even though Abraham is faithful with the requirements of previous agreements, God decides he needs to be tested. The primary reasons to test people are either because you want to verify they know the material or because you don’t trust them. Abraham obviously knew the content and requirements of the previous arrangements, because he did what God had requested of him. So, this test can only be about God not trusting Abraham, which seems remarkably insecure for an all-powerful deity, but there it is.

Readers of this story may see spiritual lessons about trusting God in difficult times or about God providing what one needs or about God honoring the faithful. Such lessons are much easier to accept if one doesn’t think too much about the motivations of God in the matter. It’s one thing to think of a being as all-powerful and deserving of respect, but the all-powerful being’s behavior in this story is petty and manipulative. Who challenges someone to see if he will kill his own son, just to prove a point about divine might? Later on, Christians would see this story as a mirror of God’s own sacrifice of his son, which is an obvious narrative parallel, except that the God of this story in Genesis seems to have some psychological issues, not the least of which is a profound insecurity that leads him to require further evidence of Abraham’s faithfulness, just so God can renew a promise that wasn’t made with an expiration date.

So, apparently to satisfy his own ego, God commands something immoral, confirms that Abraham is willing to do this immoral thing without question, and then steps in and saves the day. Say what you will about God’s provision or trustworthiness, but the entire situation wouldn’t have existed unless God had contrived it and the sacrifice wouldn’t have needed to be provided if God hadn’t required it. Certainly, there were other gods worshiped in the area at the time, and there are reports of other people sacrificing children. The archaeological evidence of any widespread culture of child sacrifice in the area is scarce, but the Jews certainly accused some neighboring peoples of the practice. To the casual observer, the willingness to sacrifice one’s child is evidence of equal moral depravity, whether a ram gets substituted in the end or not.

It comes down to a matter of blind obedience. Trust without thought can be dangerous, even dangerous enough to put people’s lives at risk. If one believes in a Creator, then surely one must assume that the Creator provided human beings with brains for a purpose. Not to use those brains for rational thought seems like an insult. Beyond that, trusting in an external source to provide a way out of difficult situations abdicates personal responsibility. If one knows that killing a child is wrong, it is ludicrous to lose one’s moral compass for the sake of trusting something outside of oneself. The concept of an omnipotent and all-loving external divine being opens the door for people to stop reasoning for themselves. And if they can pin any horrific behavior on that omnipotent and all-loving divine being, then the mindless faithful and the god are both beyond reproach.

The entire concept of trusting God, even when what he asks seems suspect, opens the door to rampant justification for bad behavior. On top of that, people often wind up with different ideas about what God wants. How does one determine who is right? It would makes sense for believers to rely on their own internal awareness of what interpretation respects other people and acknowledges the innate beauty and value of every human being. Instead, the deciding factor is often which interpretation is expressed with the greatest amount of outrage and conviction. Plenty of horrific acts throughout the course of humanity have been pinned on God, because no one can legitimately argue against God. The truly horrific part is that God did not swoop down and stop any of those actions with a ram caught in a bush. Nor will he. The conclusions believers choose to draw from that observation are likely to be different from the conclusions I come to, but the fact remains that God does not intervene when people do immoral things in his name.

Reading or hearing the story of Abraham being willing to sacrifice Isaac may convince you of God’s trustworthiness and the value of faithfulness, but the God of this story behaves in such a petty, manipulative, and insecure manner that I would find him difficult to trust if I believed in him. But where do we turn in the absence of an all-loving, omnipotent divine being? Some people are happy to believe in an external divine being, even one which displays symptoms of severe psychosis, just because there seems to be such a void without such a belief. I would suggest that human beings have value, and that we all possess the means to acknowledge and respect that value, should we choose to be thoughtful and aware. I have written these words before, but they bear repeating: Every person embodies an innate truth, beauty, and creativity, and every functional adult is capable of taking personal responsibility for honoring and respecting that innate truth, beauty, and creativity. That is the divine nature. It is not outside of us, driving us to do immoral things so that it can swoop in and save the day and gain our eternal gratitude and adoration. The divine is that truth and beauty and creativity within us, and we have the power to acknowledge it in ourselves and in every other person.

The Fear of Not Having Enough: Challenging the Scarcity Thinking of Genesis 13

I've mentioned that fear can keep us from recognizing the truth, beauty, and creativity within ourselves and other people in various ways.  It crops up again in Genesis 13, in a way that has created conflicts that have spanned generations.
 
Fear can also lead us to dig in our heels about issues of entitlement.  Whether we think we deserve something because we have worked hard for it, because someone made a promise to us, or because we deem it unfair that someone else should have something we don’t, a sense of entitlement is a sure way to work against the truth and beauty within us.  It may be a salary range, a particular car, a specific-size house, or a piece of land.  It could even be a designer purse or pair of shoes or a piece of electronic wonder.  Believing that we are entitled to it, whatever it is, can be an incredible roadblock to happiness.

One problem is that we seem never to have enough.  If we get the house we want, we need a bigger one.  If we get the land we want, we need more of it.  If we get the toys we want, we need the newer model.  And when we treat people like possessions, it works the same way.  Whatever it is that we believe we are entitled to have ultimately fails to satisfy us completely.

Here is a difficult truth, if only because it seems so harsh: Life is not fair.  Some people have more and some people have less.  Some people get sick and some people stay well.  From the outside looking in, it seems that some people have it easy and some people can’t catch a break.  There are some things we can do to improve our chances of getting what we want in life.  Insisting that our lives be different out of a sense of fairness isn’t one of them.

Not only is life not fair, life does not make any promises.  Even if parents and teachers and ministers and authors told us differently, there are no actual guarantees about what we will have or what we will lose in the course of our lives.  People who work hard often get the income they want, but not always.  People with healthier diets sometimes live longer, but not all of them.  There is no secret formula that will ensure with 100% certainty that our lives will be what we want them to be, as individuals or as a people.

There is good news in all of this, even though no one is really entitled to anything and even though there are no guarantees.  There is enough.  When we engage our innate sense of deep truth, beauty, and creativity, there is enough of whatever it is that we want.  There is enough land.  There is enough food.  There is enough money.  There is enough.  Certainly, there are some commodities that are scarce, but the things that are necessary are plentiful.  We may lack sufficient crude oil for all that we would like to do, but we do not lack sources of energy.  Recognizing opportunities and abundance simply requires a different baseline premise.

If we begin with the premise that a divine being made a promise to someone thousands of years ago, and that we are entitled to reap the benefits of that promise, immediately we run into trouble.  Other people may have just as much of a sense of entitlement as we do, and both sides may go to great lengths to defend that belief, with neither side being able to offer any real evidence toward the validity of their claim.

If, on the other hand, we begin with the premise that there is plenty, we then get to engage our creativity in an entirely different way.  We are capable of creating a multitude of solutions to any challenge of resources, but a sense of entitlement unavoidably limits what we can create.  When we start off accepting that no one is entitled to anything, no matter who they are or what promises may have been made, our true strengths as human beings have an opportunity to shine.  There is not only a way for everyone to have access to what is necessary, there is certainly a way for everyone to have access to what is desirable, if only we are willing to seek it out and engage our minds and actions in creating it.