John 4:43-54 Who We Know and What We Know

Much of the "travelogue" passages in the Bible are easy to gloss over, since Westerners living in the twenty-first century have little awareness of or attachment to the cities of ancient Israel. John 4:43-54 has a bit of that travelogue feel to it, but it may help to note that many people have compared the area in which Jesus was traveling to the size of New Jersey. That's not a value statement one way or the other. The two areas are just very similar in size. You don't have to know the locations of the geography and how they relate to one another to get the gist of the story. People are not traveling in particularly awkward or unusual paths here.

This passage follows immediately after the story of Jesus' encounter with the woman in Samaria. On the surface, it probably seems that the main point of this passage is about Jesus' power to heal. This may have been a part of the intention of the author, but healing stories like this are abundant and are told about a wide variety of people in the ancient world. Rather than picking apart the healing story itself, it may be beneficial to dig down to different level and notice another focus of the passage: belief.

First we see that people in a prophet's hometown are not likely to believe what he has to say. Then, we see that people who have witnessed something first hand have a persistent belief. The Jesus character levels an accusation that unless some demonstration of power is offered, then people will refuse to believe. Yet, the royal official believes Jesus' words, seemingly because they are spoken with authority. He then receives information that seems to confirm that his belief was well-founded. Let's look briefly at each of these problems of belief.

"A prophet has no honor in the prophet's own country." Once people think they know you, it's challenging to get them to see beyond what they think they know. Likewise, once you think you know a person, it's tough to notice when that person develops in new ways. There is some truth to the observation that people don't change, which makes it all the more challenging to recognize when a person does change. The reality is that many people continue along a predictable path in their lives, journeying toward a "default future." People who become more intentional in their lives, however, have the capacity to journey in new directions.

Sometimes, we form snapshots of people -- we get an impression of them based on a particular moment in time, and we draw conclusions about their entire being from that impression. In our minds, those people always look like their snapshot. Often, we might wind up being pretty much on target when we do this, because many people keep following the same unconscious patterns throughout their life. A prophet is someone who has something important to say, though. And prophets learn their wisdom somewhere. They are changed people once they learn something they didn't know before, and they have the potential to express what they've learned in a meaningful way. People who are only willing to hold an old snapshot in front of them aren't able to hear something meaningful, though. They are stuck on an old impression of the person.

We may have some prophets in our lives. It's important for us to listen. There may be people who have learned something and are living their lives differently as a result. If we mentally trap them in an older version of themselves, they don't suffer from that -- we do. They have learned what they have learned, and they're going to use that knowledge in their lives. By dismissing them, we miss out on sharing in their wisdom. It pays to be awake to the people around us -- to pay attention to people and notice when they seem to be outgrowing our old impressions of them.

We may be prophets for others. We may have learned some things in our lives that we want to share with the people close to us. Some of them aren't going to listen. They have an impression of us that was formed a long time ago, and they aren't able to see past that. We could spend an inordinate amount of time trying to get through to people who can't see us clearly, or we can spend our "prophetic" energies on people who are more willing to listen intentionally. The choice the authors of John commend is to speak to those who will listen.

"Until you see signs and wonders you will not believe." This statement has a double edge to it. On the one hand, it seems to suggest that if you don't see something with your own eyes, you will doubt that it happened. On the other hand, it seems to accuse people of wanting to be entertained and amazed -- "If I don't entertain and amaze you, you won't place any value on the spiritual truths I have to offer." Both of these concerns are problematic in their own ways.

Taking the latter issue first, it still seems to be a problem that we are more willing to accept "truth" from someone who can entertain and inspire us than we are willing to accept a potentially less appealing "truth" from someone who doesn't take the time to amaze and captivate us. From mega-churches to TED talks, we are more prone to believe things said by people who in some way entertain us and keep our attention. Entertaining delivery does not make something more true, however. We connect a person's ability to be entertaining with their ability to have meaningful insights, and there is simply no connection there.

If we want to know truth, we have to assess truth statements based on our experience of those statements and our thoughtful evaluation of those statements, not based on how entertained we were when we first heard them. We are swayed by shock jocks and talking heads because we are in some way being impressed and entertained. They could say anything that generally fits with our worldview, and we believe it because we are being entertained. This is irresponsible on our part. If we never seek objective sources to verify what we are told by an entertaining person, we are most likely believing a number of things that are not true. It is better to evaluate our beliefs carefully, so that we can have a more accurate assessment of reality.

Seeing is believing? The other issue of not believing something if we don't see it with our own eyes is problematic for different reasons. To begin with, what we see with our eyes is not always what we interpret with our minds. The royal official in the healing story experienced a series of events that had no clear correlation -- there was no  direct link between Jesus saying something and the little boy's turn toward better health. The official's mind, however, interpreted a cause-and-effect relationship for which there is no evidence. This is, apparently, the interpretation of events that the authors of John intend.

It is popular among some circles of believers to discount empiricism -- the idea that knowledge comes from sensory experience. Some people create a straw man definition of empiricism in order to demonstrate a perceived flaw. "We can't see oxygen in a room, and yet we know that there is oxygen in the room. See, empiricism is bogus." Just in case it needs stating, empiricism includes sensory experience that is provided by all senses, and it includes information that we can collect through machinery. If we can measure the oxygen levels in a room in any way (including by using a piece of scientific equipment or by breathing comfortably enough to assert that the air is breathable), we can have empirical knowledge that there is oxygen in the room, If we can't measure it in any way, we can't actually say that we "know" it.

The problem, of course, is that we rely most heavily on our natural senses, and we draw conclusions based on incomplete information. We see something or hear something and our brains fill in the gaps between what we experience and what reality must be. We see lights in the sky and sometimes our brain leaps to UFO, for instance. Just because we have seen lights in the sky doesn't mean we have seen a UFO, but we often don't make that distinction. We think we know things that we do not know because we are not clear about what we have actually experienced. Some people believe that David Copperfield actually made the Statue of Liberty disappear in 1983. They aren't clear about what they actually experienced, and so they have a belief that isn't based on reality.

With some things, we have to trust authorities. For example, scientists conduct experiments to arrive at some knowledge, hopefully under controlled conditions that eliminate their personal biases as much as possible. We can't repeat a lot of those experiments, so we are left to trust the scientists within limits. Even scientists have biases, and new knowledge emerges all the time. One facet of empiricism is that we are never done making observations about reality, which means that we are never done understanding new things and revising our beliefs about the world.

Clearly, it's a good thing that we develop a healthy skepticism about things that we don't experience and can't measure, and it's also a good thing that we develop thoughtfulness about the conclusions we draw from what we experience. The authors of John do not necessarily agree with this statement, and that's fine. Even though some of our information must necessarily come from other people's observations, our lives can be more effectively lived if we do our own thinking rather than allowing other people to think for us.

So, we recognize that our beliefs are fraught with challenges. We dismiss people and the things we might learn from them because we think we know them well enough based on where they came from. Some people will do the same to us. We sometimes mistake being entertained for being enlightened, and the two experiences are not synonymous. We have to trust authorities on some matters. Yet actual knowledge only comes to us through experience, and even our experience can be misinterpreted by our minds. We have to be thoughtful, then, and examine our beliefs to make sure that we aren't living by a set of ideas that don't line up with reality.

A Little Experiment: Listen. Take some time and listen to someone you've known for awhile. Reevaluate your "snapshot" of that person and see if it might need some revision. Is there any growth or change in that individual that you haven't noticed until now? What can you learn and apply in your own life?

Another Little Experiment: Cause and Effect. Pay attention the next time you interpret a cause and effect relationship. Is it possible that you are seeing a connection where none exists? Or is it possible that there are other causes for the results that you notice? Sometimes our assessment of cause-and-effect is spot on, and sometimes we unintentionally let our brains fill in gaps in our knowledge with assumptions.

A Big Experiment: Knowing. Sharpen your sense of what you know. Examine your beliefs and ask yourself "How do I know this?" Maybe some of your beliefs have been handed to you by sources you trust. Is there a better word than "knowledge" you could use for these beliefs? Maybe some of your beliefs are based on personal experiences that you have interpreted a specific way. Are there other ways your experience could be interpreted? Are there other things that could be true about your experience? If you become sharper about asking and honestly answering "How do I know?" it could change your life.

John 2:13-25 Building a Temple in Three Days

In 70 CE, the Romans destroyed the Jewish temple in Jerusalem and scattered the Jews across the Roman Empire to disrupt their persistent pattern of insurrection. The gospel of John was written some time after this event, so when the authors relate a story about the Temple, they are looking back through the lens of history. The Temple has been destroyed and can no longer be a focus of worship for the Jewish people. Jews manage this reality by shifting toward local synagogues rather than a singular geographic focus. The Christian sect believes that it has a more meaningful response.

Thus, the story of Jesus at the Temple in John 2 has a couple of underlying messages about Judaism, at least as it was historically expressed. First, there is a clear message that the system was corrupt. People were profiting from the spiritual practices of others, and this compromised the integrity of Jewish spiritual identity. Second, the system focused on the wrong things. The temple building was not intended to be the most important feature of spiritual identity, but it had become so. The perspective of people -- particularly people in power -- was so skewed that they missed the very point of having a spiritual identity in the first place.

When Jesus raises a ruckus, then, the authors are commenting on how corrupt and misguided the Jewish system had become. They connect this to a resurrection legend and equate Jesus with the "real" temple where sacrificial offerings are made to a supernatural. We might interpret some different meanings from the story if we start out with a different set of assumptions, and we have been approaching the stories in John from the perspective that the Jesus character is in some way an exemplar.

What observations can we make about Jesus in this story? He clearly did not hold making money as the highest priority. He had an understanding of spiritual integrity that did not prioritize physical buildings. He acted publicly on his principles with impressive conviction. He knew himself well enough that he didn't seek approval from others -- he didn't need external validation.

Jesus' perspective isn't made explicit in this story, but he obviously disagrees with the perspective of the Jewish religious leaders. This seems to be a difference of how one ought to relate to the divine. The Jewish people had a system of well-defined sacrificial acts that they believed connected them to their supernatural -- where they believed divinity was situated. If we consider the possibility that what we call "divinity" is really a set of inward human qualities, then relationship with the divine is really about being connected with that deepest, most noble part of ourselves. Sacrifices don't make any sense in that context. Does what Jesus suggested make any sense from that perspective of inner divinity?

Well, he starts off suggesting that there is something wrong with making money off of the sacrificial system. This has to mean that there is something wrong with the system itself, because many people could not offer the appropriate sacrifice from their own possessions. That's why the livestock and money-changers were there in the first place. So, if there is something wrong with the sacrificial system, this means that there is something amiss about the prevailing view of relationship with the divine -- something off about the common understanding of spiritual identity.

When challenged, he states that if the Temple is destroyed, he will raise it up in three days, which the disciples in the story interpret as a reference to the resurrection. What if these words mean something else? What if the most important thing about spiritual identity is meaningful connection within ourselves, followed closely by meaningful connection with other people? Without the building to distract people, they might start to recognize their own deepest, most noble selves -- their own identities. And they might be able to connect in community with other people in a more sincere and meaningful way. Without the sacrificial system to distract them, people might begin to grasp the true heart of spiritual identity rather quickly. The groundwork for meaningful community had already been laid in the culture. Within three days, all of the necessary elements for spiritual identity could be brought together without the need of a physical structure or a complex system of sacrifices.

After all, what does it take for people to develop clarity about their spiritual identity? They would need to be confident in their ability to engage in that process, and -- because human beings are relational -- they would need a community within which to develop that personal clarity. Perhaps a spiritual leader or guide is also an important element in the mix. They don't need a building, to be sure. They don't need to follow a prescribed set of rituals, particularly when those rituals become rote practice instead of personally significant. They certainly don't need to pay people for the means to connect with divinity. Within a relatively short amount of time, all the essentials for meaningful spiritual community and meaningful personal development could be put in place. True understanding takes a lot longer, but it starts from having a useful foundation.

It bears repeating that we never need to pay for spiritual integrity. We may choose to pay for the services of a coach or guide. We may choose to contribute resources to a community in which we have found meaning. There is something off, however, if we are ever compelled to give money that we aren't giving out of our own desire. Our spiritual well-being does not have a price tag. Our spiritual well-being is our responsibility. No matter what promises are made about more money coming back to us if we give beyond our means or beyond our comfort, our financial well-being is our responsibility, too. When money is coerced from us, there is something wrong with the situation. When we offer money out of our own sense of abundance -- out of our own identity as generous people -- then we can most meaningfully connect that to spiritual integrity.

There is little else to this scene apart from pointing out that the current system was flawed. It will take some time for the overall story to reveal a better way. From this little bit, though, we might take away that we need to clarify for ourselves what is most important, and we need to be clear that it isn't money. We might recognize that our personal development and our sense of community are not about the physical trappings of architecture or prescribed ritual. We might commit ourselves to allowing our guiding principles to source our public actions, and we might begin to build our conviction in that area. Most importantly perhaps, we might begin to develop a sense of self that isn't based on external validation from other people. We can learn from other people's perspectives, even their perspectives about who we are or who we should be, but we don't need to base our decisions on what would make other people happy. There is a more authentic way of being that we can embrace.

Little Experiments: What can you do in three days? If you want to build up your spiritual identity a bit more, there are some meaningful actions you can take that do not require a lot of time. These are steps in a journey, not the destination, but they can still be incredibly meaningful and important.

In the next three days, you could:
Start in on that personal development book you've been meaning to read.
Connect with someone with whom you haven't spoken in a while.
Commit to a practice of meditation.
Decide to give out of your abundance to a cause that you care about.
Seek out a community of like-minded people who are challenging and supporting one another.

If you wanted to, within the next three days, you could plan a simple dinner and invite people who have helped you clarify your own identity, people you have inspired and empowered, or others with whom you would like a deeper connection. That could even be the start of a meaningful community of individuals who are willing to be intentional about their own identities and their relationships with one another. Everything has to start somewhere. You could start something in the next three days.

2 Samuel 6-10: Beliefs Are Worth Examining

The story of Yahweh's promise that David's throne would be established forever was nearly as important to the ancient Israelites as the legendary agreement made between Moses and Yahweh. After the kingdom of Israel split, the promise to David was understandably more important to Judah, the Israelite kingdom that kept the temple and the throne. Although David wanted to build a great temple to the Yahweh, it is his son Solomon who gets credit for that achievement in the book of Samuel. By the time the book of Chronicles was written, however, David was seen as having a much greater role in the temple planning. David's legendary status for the culture led the author(s) to leave out his human mistakes and failings that were recorded in Samuel. Incidentally, 1 Chronicles records the promise of Davidic rule in chapter 17 more or less identically to the version in 2 Samuel.

The challenge for the Israelites was the same as it is for many people today: Once you take a stand on a particular belief, you look at the world through that lens. If the belief and the world seem to be in conflict, we try to figure out why. Typically, we don't want to give up our belief (because then we would have to admit that we were wrong about something), and we can't change the world. So, we invent some reason that the conflict might exist. The ancient Israelites eventually had to invent reasons why their kingdom was overthrown and they were taken into exile. Some people decided that the promise to David was not unconditional, and that the nation's unfaithfulness toward their cultural religion had landed them in hot water. Others decided that the promise to David meant that restoration was imminent. Later, some people in the Christian sect would trace the lineage of Jesus back to David, thus establishing Jesus as the fulfillment of that promise of eternal rule.

History is a strange and liquid creature. We do not report every detail when we recount history; we concentrate on those events that seem to form a pattern. We look at events that seem significant, either because of their impact on the world or because of their place in a sequence of events. We learn about the inventors of significant machines or processes, but we do not learn about the inventor of the spring or specialized wing nut that allowed the larger machine to function. We remember the names of assassins or generals, the dates of battles and victories, and when we delve into the systems and subcultures to gain a clear understanding of what led up to significant events, we know what we're looking for. We seek to understand the cause-and-effect relationships that make sense of history. Some people recording the history of the ancient Israelites saw certain cause-and-effect chains, while other people had a different perspective. In the biblical narrative, both are preserved to a certain extent, but they are every bit a product of their culture.

Israelite historians -- at least the ones that wrote anything that wound up in the Bible -- always traced their cause-and-effect chains back to God. When God was pleased, he allowed their country to prosper. When God was angry, he allowed foreign powers to destroy their cities. We have the same kind of thinkers in our world today. "I'm wealthy, and therefore God must want me to be prosperous while others struggle." "I'm sick or injured, so God must want me to suffer for some reason." Hurricanes become messages from God rather than natural events. Elections are interpreted as punishment or blessing rather than democratic process. Our personal lives become mysterious chains of cause-and-effect that are beyond our control if God is seen as the one moving the pieces on the board, while we are left to figure out why. When we look back at history, whether it is our own personal history or the history of a larger community, are we honestly seeing rational chains of events? Or are we crediting supernatural forces with some intelligent purpose in the course of history that we can only observe?

In the biblical narrative, when David hears the promise from Yahweh for the first time, it is delivered by the prophet Nathan. There haven't been a lot of prophets in the narrative before this point, but they become more important in the generations that follow David. Prophets in the Bible speak for God. They call people to accountability, and they make predictions based on the signs of the times. Sometimes their prognostications are intended to tell people to shape up, and sometimes they offer messages of hope. Ancient peoples relied upon prophets because they didn't believe that just anyone could have direct access to the divine. Of course, people didn't always listen to the prophets' messages. It all depended on how much the prophet was challenging something the people believed.

Many people today have very adamant beliefs. Some of these are religious beliefs, but most people wind up with a whole catalog of beliefs about themselves, other people, life in general, the government, the economy, and on and on. Most people are not well practiced at examining those beliefs when something in reality doesn't line up with their beliefs, however. It's easier on some level to concoct another auxiliary belief to explain any discrepancies between our beliefs and reality. We might wind up with an enormous pile of beliefs all designed to support one thing about which we've decided to dig in our heels, never examining how reasonable or beneficial those beliefs are. Our entire view of reality -- including our view of ourselves -- may be clouded by a mass of beliefs we've never really examined.

The divine is somewhere underneath that pile of beliefs. If there is any guidance to be had from the divine, we have to clear away some of the irrationalities to which we've grown accustomed and make sure that our beliefs make sense. No prophet can come along and tell you what the divine wants from you. No one knows what the divine is doing in someone else's life. When anyone claims to know what God wants for somebody else's life, that person is lying, whether they realize it or not. The prophets in our lives might point us toward the divine within us. Our prophets can hold us accountable to the agreements we have made. But people can not know what the divine intends for anyone but themselves. Whenever someone claims to speak for God, all they are expressing is their own personal values and desires. They are speaking from within their own big pile of unexamined and unquestioned beliefs, describing their own clouded view of reality as if their perspective is the only possible way to see the world. It is an understandable perspective. After all, their view is honestly the only possible way for them to see the world in that moment.

Here is a view of reality for you to test against your own beliefs:

People matter.
What we do has an impact on other people, and since people matter, what we do matters.
And if what we do matters, then it's worth being conscious of what we are doing.
It's worth being conscious of what we are doing because the people we touch matter.

And if people matter, then we matter.
If we matter, then we are worth our own care and attention.
What we do is informed by what we believe,
so our beliefs are worth some care and attention as well.
If we take the time to examine what we believe and consider the impact of what we do,
we stand a better chance of living the kinds of lives we want to live,
because if people matter -- if we matter -- then it only makes sense to live like people matter.

If we insist on believing and doing things that devalue ourselves or other people,
why?
What purpose does it serve in our lives to believe that people don't matter?
What purpose does it serve in our lives to believe that we don't matter?
Are we alright with that?

I believe that there is no intelligent supernatural being orchestrating events in history or making promises for the future. I believe that our stories as individuals and as a people are accounts of human success and failure, of intentional and unintentional human actions that have consequences. Our histories and our futures are stories about us, not merely stories that we witness from the sidelines. And since all of our stories are human stories about people, I must conclude that people matter. I cannot do otherwise. For me, this is truth. Against this truth, all of my beliefs can be weighed, all of my actions evaluated.

What is your truth? Really? Do your beliefs and actions reflect that truth? Are you happy with that? Does it lead you to the life you most want to live? To the world you most want to create?

Judges 10-12: When Breaking an Agreement Might Be a Good Idea

A couple of leaders get a mention after the wicked Abimilek meets his end, but the next judge of the Israelites that gets any real attention is Jephthah.  His story is a reminder that sometimes people are going to base their actions on personal prejudices rather than a person's capability.  Even though there is some debate about how literally to interpret a vow that Jephthah makes, there is something to be taken from the story regarding the agreements we make.

The story of Jephthah is another tale of an unlikely savior.  He isn't a southpaw or a woman, but he is a bastard.  When his legitimate half-brothers thought he posed a threat to their inheritance, they sent Jephthah away.  Then, when there was a threat from the Ammonites, they wanted him to be commander-in-chief of the tribe of Manasseh.  He was understandably suspicious, but with the agreement that he would be put in a position of power if he was victorious, he set his sights on turning back the Ammonites.

His initial diplomatic message to the Ammonite king suggests that either Jephthah had a sketchy idea of Israelite history or he was trying to pull the wool over the Ammonite's eyes.  Or perhaps the writers of Judges and the writers of the book of Joshua were working from different historical perspectives for different purposes.  Whatever the case, Jephthah's version of history isn't the main point to his message.  His primary thrust is, "Our god gave us this land.  Be happy with what your god gave you and stop trying to take our land."  Since the history is a bit fuzzy, there isn't a great deal to be gained from considering how boldly ironic this statement is.

The Ammonite king, of course, disregards the message, battle ensues, and Jephthah is blessed by the Spirit of the Lord.  He vows to sacrifice the first thing that comes out of his house if he returns victorious, and he wins the battle.  Unfortunately, the first thing out of his door is his daughter, but being a man of his word, he sacrifices her.  It isn't entirely clear what this means, since translators disagree about some of the nuance.  Obviously, sacrificing anyone as a burnt offering has never been an approved act of worship in the Israelite tradition.  The only thing that came close was Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac, but in that story, God intervenes and stops the sacrificial act, distinguishing his values from the supposed values of the other gods of the area.  As the story reads, God seems to be fine with Jephthah's vow -- he doesn't intercede in any way.  But it may be that Jephthah's daughter was simply dedicated to God in some less brutal way.

Still, killing one's daughter because of a vow doesn't seem that far out of context for the behavior of the ancient Israelites.  They committed some fairly barbaric acts when it comes down to it.  When the men of a fellow tribe challenge Jephthah for not letting them in on the opportunity to claim some Ammonite spoils, these two tribes of Israel become adversarial, with the Gileadites killing an astonishing forty-two thousand Ephraimites before all is said and done.  It's perhaps a small comfort that when someone makes fun of the way you pronounce a word these days, you usually have only a bit of pride at stake.

In any case, the Israelites' view of God is different here.  Yes, bad things are punishments from God, and good things are rewards from God.  Human endeavor is given very little weight in the grand scheme of things.  It is a pervasive cultural dismissal of personal responsibility.  "If we killed all those people, then obviously God wanted us to kill all those people.  Otherwise he would have done something about it."  "If God let insects eat your crops, then obviously he was angry at you."  I suppose one could say that the Israelites were in the position of power because they could stop their worship of other gods at any time and be the kind of people Yahweh wanted them to be, but they were obviously getting something out of their decisions.  That something may have been freedom from responsibility.

When we are criticized or looked down upon because of who our parents are, or because of our accents, or because of what our leaders have said, it's important to remember that the people doing the criticizing aren't seeing us.  They are seeing a characteristic that represents a personal fear for them somehow.  When we can behave in a superior way toward something that represents fear, we think we are being courageous.  Many times we are just being bullies to people.  Other people don't deserve to be punching bags for us to work out our innermost fears in an outwardly violent way.  Whether they take the shape of judgments, prejudices, or outright hatred, our fears are ours to own.  When we recognize the symptoms of fear gone out of control, it's our responsibility to manage that fear in a way that doesn't bring harm to other people.  That becomes easier to do when we recognize our personal responsibility for our actions and beliefs.

We make all sorts of agreements with ourselves.  Some of those agreements are based on fear, but some of them are based on legitimate striving for a more satisfying, fulfilling existence.  We want to protect ourselves, or we want to give ourselves incentive or encouragement, and so we start making deals.  "If I get this job, I will allow myself to celebrate."  Or "If I lose this job, I'm going to give myself permission to get revenge."  We don't necessarily do this consciously, but we are making deals like Jephthah all the time.  If you want to think of it as making deals with God, that's fine.  At the end of the day, though, God isn't going to hold you accountable to reckless vows.  You will.  Or you will let yourself be human and realize that you can break the vows with yourself that are harmful to you and other people.

It's easy for us to dig in our heels when we think that there is some divine power looking down on us and rigidly judging what we do and think.  We think we are obligated to follow through with something because we've made a commitment, even after we realize that what we've committed to may not be the wisest course of action.  Whether you believe that the divine is within you or outside of you, the character of the divine is not unreasonable, unyielding, or unforgiving.  We often misplace those characteristics on the divine because we are unwilling to be reasonable or forgiving with ourselves.  We think that it means something horrible about who we are if we go back on our word.  Breaking the reckless, harmful agreements with ourselves actually means that we are able to learn, that we are able to be wise, that we are able to forgive.

There will be more opportunity to look at the character of the divine, and more opportunity to look at the agreements we make with ourselves.  For now, the story of Jephthah seems to be saying these three things: Verify that your information is accurate before you go to war in your life.  Deal with your fear (judgment, prejudice, hatred, ...) in a healthy way, not in a way that brings harm to you or any other person.  Examine the agreements you've made with yourself about who and how you must be, and develop a willingness to break those agreements that do not reflect the deep truth, undeniable beauty, and inspiring creativity you possess.  You are capable of creating more in your life than strict adherence to reckless vows.

Numbers 25, 31: No Matter Who Commands It, No Amount of Violence Can Erase the Value of Human Life

After Balaam blessed the Israelites (several times over), the women of Moab started seducing Israelite men and enticing them to worship the Moabite god with them.  As one might imagine, this led to death and violence.  The Israelites suffered a plague sent by their god, so they first killed the offending Israelite men, which ended the plague.  Then they sent a force into Moab and slaughtered the men, women, and boys.  The young girls they kept for themselves, along with all the livestock and wealth of the Moabite people.  At least this is how the Israelites tell the story in Numbers 25 and 31.  

We'll go back to the intervening chapters, but it makes sense to put these two together because of the connected narrative.  Plus, the violence of the Israelites and their god is honestly starting to get a bit predictable and tiresome.  It is a problem though.  For those who want to promote the Bible as the infallible and inerrant word of an almighty, omniscient, and perfect divine being, it should be especially troubling.  Here's why.

The Bible claims that God is unchanging.  The New Testament actually says that Jesus  is "the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow," but the Old Testament also credits God with the quality of consistency in many passages.  Thus, if God had a specific opinion about a certain behavior thousands of years ago, it is assumed that he feels the same way today.  And that he will always feel that way.  Otherwise, there would be no predicting what God wants or thinks.  There is no actual credible conversation happening with the God of the Bible in the 21st century, so the words written in the Bible must be viewed as dependable by those who want to know about the Christian God.  Since the words are static, it must also be assumed that God's opinions and feelings are fairly static.  Or perhaps "consistent" is a less loaded word.

So, God became angry and told the Israelites that, in order to end the plague he had sent, they had to kill all of the Israelite men who had indulged in sexual immorality and worshiped foreign gods with the Moabite women.  This makes sense, because the death penalty has already been established as punishment for just about anything an Israelite could do wrong.  On top of that, they had to kill all the Moabite women these Israelite men brought back to the Israelite camp with them.  Then the plague ended.  Then, God instructs the Israelites to take revenge on the Moabites by going in and killing everybody (except the young girls who hadn't yet had sex with anyone) and claiming the spoils of the slaughter as Israelite property (including the aforementioned young girls).

If we are to believe that the Bible is a legitimate depiction of God's character, we must assume that God still thinks like this.  This is a problem.  On the surface, it entitles believers to execute anyone in their midst who disobeys the rules of the faith community.  It comes close to permitting believers to murder any outsiders who potentially lead their brethren astray, to the point of ethnic cleansing.  To top it off, it suggests that it's alright to kidnap young girls and plunder the wealth of the people you've slaughtered.  If followed explicitly, it would seem that only Jews are entitled to this kind of violence and plunder, since they are the racial and cultural heroes of the story -- the Chosen People, as it were.  But many Christians today believe that they have been "adopted" into this prestigious covenant, since the New Testament teaches that people are equal under God.  (Paul wasn't actually suggesting that people should live by Old Testament cultural standards when he wrote that, though.)

Obviously, no one thinks like this.  Except that people do.  We frequently hear about fundamentalists in various faith traditions committing deplorable acts of violence against family members or neighbors, and although we may wince and decry Islam or some other religion alien to our own, the problem is in the dehumanizing factor of fundamentalism itself.  Even when American Christians don't outwardly condone murder, some people still dehumanize "outsiders" to their belief system -- primarily the subcultures who disagree with the values of the social ultra-conservative.  When read through a particular lens, the Bible seems to support their behavior.  As it happens, the narrative of the Bible often reveals more about human failure than it reveals about the divine.

The Bible still contains some incredibly insightful messages, however.  All of the meaning placed on a father's blessing back in Genesis still has its reflection in our society.  A father's blessing doesn't have magical power because some supernatural being somehow infuses it, but our relationships with our fathers do have tremendous psychological impact on our lives -- how we see ourselves, other people, and the world.  There is value in understanding the importance of that relationship, without the trappings of divine mystery and moral absolutes.  What a father says isn't necessarily true or right just because a father says it, but it's often going to be meaningful just because a father says it.

At a certain point in our maturity, we start looking for our own answers rather than accepting without critique the words of our elders.  That process of maturing is hampered by claims that a book of scripture is infallible and unquestionable.  This belief keeps people emotionally, psychologically, and morally stunted.  It is a way of controlling people who are willing to remain thoughtless and immature, but it is no way to build a society of people who can create a better world.  How can people create anything of value in the face of a god who commands destruction of everything and everyone who threatens the status quo?

We cannot think of God like this and thrive as a society.  We cannot look at the cultural records of a group of people who habitually engage in barbaric behavior and assume that their understanding of the divine is a legitimate depiction of a perfect deity.  It even runs contrary to Jesus' teachings in the New Testament of that very same Bible.  The god who commands death to all outsiders, whether they are outsiders by choice or by genetics, doesn't have a valuable place in our world.

Not only does it limit what kind of world we can create, it hurts us as a society.  Sending people off to "fight for our freedom" has become a euphemism for the precise kind of barbarism the Israelites engaged in: kill the people who are hindering you from getting what you want, then lay claim to what they leave behind.  And yet, we don't even see the benefits of that violence as a society.  At least the Israelites divided the spoils equally and got a generation of men who were more likely to be upstanding citizens instead of running off with some foreign trollop.  In fact, over the past few years, more American soldiers have committed suicide than have died in the line of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq combined.  It's a stark fact that points to the more subtle psychological cost of viewing the world through a dehumanizing lens.

We cannot ultimately reconcile the idea of slaughtering people with the deep knowledge that human life has value.  We do not need any scripture to tell us this, and we don't need anyone to interpret the character of any god to gain this knowledge.  It is true.  Human beings have value.  Whether they agree with you or not.  Whether they do what you want them to or not.  You cannot carelessly (or carefully) rob people of their humanity without it taking a toll on your own psyche.  A part of us cannot ignore that there is something worthy behind the eyes of every person with whom we share existence.  Perhaps when we begin to doubt that truth, it becomes easier to doubt that there is anything worthy within us, but doubt doesn't make it any less true.  Human beings have value.  You have value.  Everyone who agrees with you has value.  Everyone who disagrees with you has value.  Nothing can steal that, although some people may try.  It is an innate human quality.  We can wrestle with it.  We can deny it.  Or we can accept it and live in that truth.

Numbers 18-20: Tithing as a Priestly Pyramid Scheme and the Smoke Screen of Religious Rhetoric

In between all the stories about the Israelites complaining and getting punished for it, Numbers 18-20 describes how tithes were to be distributed and tells the story of the first passing of the high-priest torch.  On the surface, it looks like a sweet deal for the Levites, who get temple-related jobs.  They get to keep everyone else's tithes, the 10% of their wealth that the Israelites were obligated to offer to their god.  And 10% of that tithe went specifically to Aaron, the high priest.  Of course, the Levites were presumably doing work for this payment, and since doing tasks for the temple didn't have as direct a source of payment as raising livestock, this was a way of making working at the temple a reasonable career.  One might even say lucrative, since 10% of the community’s wealth was being concentrated in less than 3% of the population.

The chronology of establishing the priesthood is a bit odd.  After the Israelites leave Egypt, Moses counts everyone except the members of his own tribe, the Levites, presumably because they were going to guard the tabernacle.  When the Levites were finally counted, they were tallied differently than the rest of the Israelites.  All the other tribes were looked at as warriors, so only able-bodied adult males were counted.  Of the Levites, every male one month old and older was counted, and still they wound up being the smallest tribe at 22,000 official people.  This was roughly equal to the number of first-born males in the whole Israelite community, so back in Numbers 3 a justification was made to set apart the tribe of Levi as a priesthood.  One potential priest for every first-born male, at least at that moment in Israelite history.

So, at this point, the Levites did the temple-related work, and everyone else paid them to do it.  This is essentially what the tithe was.  It was a tax.  The Israelite government was a theocracy (much like Egypt), with the dictatorial Moses at its head and the remainder of his tribe handling the management of the tabernacle, which was the central feature in Israelite life.  What went on at the tabernacle affected life and death of thousands of people through supernatural means that the average Israelite couldn't hope to understand.  Moses' brother Aaron was the high priest over all the other Levites, so they levied a tax on the other tribes.  If an American doesn't pay taxes, the worst case scenario is that the offender could be imprisoned while the IRS takes the money to which it's entitled by force.  If an Israelite didn't pay the required tithe, a hole could open up in the earth and swallow them.  Or they could die from a mysterious plague.

Later on, it will be clear that the Levites were expected to have other sources of income.  There wasn’t really enough temple-related work to occupy the entirety of the tribe.  Levites are recorded as being doctors, teachers, judges, musicians, and law enforcement officers.  A part of the tithe also went to support people in the community who were no longer able to earn a living, essentially a form of social security.  So, although the Levites were entitled to a share in the community’s wealth, they did provide important services for the community.

Even though it's not necessarily a familiar way of setting up a society, it certainly makes sense.  The one thing that seems odd is how apologetic Moses is about the whole thing.  Instead of just saying, "I'm in charge, and this is how it's going to be," he sets up God as the source for all of these proclamations.  Maybe that's something he learned from the Egyptians.  Maybe he thought it would keep people from complaining about things.  But no matter how many plagues or fires killed off groups of dissatisfied Israelites, people kept complaining.  They complained about Moses, and they complained about God.  On the surface, they may have used language that suggested they were giving a tithe "to God," but they knew at some level that they were paying what amounted to a tax to the Levites.  Just as taxpayers feel entitled to complain about their government today, the Israelites felt entitled to complain about the way they were being governed, even if it meant being irreverent to the point of risking death.

At the beginning of Numbers 20, they complain again.  Miriam dies, and in the next sentence the Israelites complain that there isn’t any water.  It’s tempting to tie this back into the purity laws of the previous chapter regarding cleaning oneself with water after handling a dead body, but it doesn’t really seem like that was the chief complaint.  They needed water to drink just to stay alive.  In this famous story, God commands Moses and Aaron to go and command a rock to provide water.  Instead, Moses takes personal credit and strikes the rock with an angry admonition toward the Israelites.  His sister had just died, so one can understand his irritability in the face of more complaints.  Water flowed forth, and everyone was satisfied for the moment.

Everyone except God.  Moses and Aaron were admonished because they took credit for the water.  In the story, God told the two leaders that they would not enter the Promised Land as a punishment for not treating him as holy in front of the Israelites.  There are plenty of lessons that could be extracted from the 12 verses that comprise this story, but you can draw spiritual lessons from nearly any source if you are looking for them.  It’s likely that tales like this were initially told to create a justification for the names of the places involved.  This particular tale also creates a reason for why the leaders of the Israelites died before the community reached its goal.

Aaron dies just a short time after that scene at the rock, and the mantle of high priest is passed on to his son, Eleazar.  Since it was no secret that this time would eventually come, Numbers 19 is essentially a training ritual for Eleazar.  It’s a special sacrifice that involves all of the things that a high priest should be able to do confidently, and it’s specified that Eleazar will preside over the ceremony.  One chapter later, Eleazar is made high priest and Aaron dies.  The "Ordinance of the Red Heifer" was his final exam, even though the text doesn’t quite put it that way.

Just before Aaron dies, Moses sends word to the Edomites, asking for safe passage through their lands.  Not surprisingly, this request is denied.  The Edomites were the descendants of Esau, whom Jacob tricked out of his inheritance.  When Jacob ran away and came back fourteen years later, Esau attempted to rekindle their brotherly relationship, but Jacob was fearful and basically avoided his brother’s lands.  Whether the story is true or not, any Edomite who identified with his forefather Esau would understandably be suspicious of any descendant of Jacob asking for any favors.  So Aaron dies on the border of Edom, with armed Edomites prepared to defend their borders against an Israelite invasion.

Religious rhetoric provided a colorful context for early Israelite society, and it didn't prevent people from being involved citizens, vocal about their concerns and disappointments.  Some people today are more cowed than the Israelites were by the idea that God has commanded something.  It has perhaps become more dangerous than a physical plague.  Certain segments of our society hear a person claim to know what God wants and they accept it without question.  This is not a thoughtful or enlightened way to participate in one’s society.  When we take away the “infallible absolute authority” as intermediary, the people who ask us to think, spend, or vote a certain way are required to explain their platform much more clearly than a simple “God said so.”  It becomes much easier to judge ideas based on their merits and their potential benefits to society when the smoke screen of religion is taken away.  The cynic in me suggests that there are some leaders who prefer having the smoke screen, for whatever reason.

Perhaps it would have gone exactly the same for Moses if he had controlled the early Israelite society through some other means.  If he had said, “We’re going to collect a 10% tax from everyone, and that tax will be used to pay for doctors, teachers, and the officials that will settle disputes in our community,” would there have been a great public outcry against that?  Abraham knew about the Mesopotamian practice of collecting a tithe, so the concept was nothing revolutionary.  Even claiming that a god (i.e., a particular priesthood) was entitled to a portion of a community’s wealth was nothing new.  Maybe I’m crediting the Israelites with more sophistication that they actually possessed, but the real revolutionary idea would have been to say, “This is what will be best for our community, so this is what we will do.”  Then again, (if the biblical account is to be believed) Moses was never really comfortable with the idea of being responsible for so many people’s well-being.

Have we matured enough as a society to be honest about our ideas?  Are we able to set smoke screens and emotional rhetoric aside to consider the actual merits of our ideas?  Can we discern between what is the best for our society and what is simply a personal preference?  And if we have that discernment, do we also possess the integrity to put personal preferences aside for the greater good?  Whatever the answer, the way to strengthen our discernment and integrity is to expect it of ourselves and of one another.  There are ways to gently invite the religious and emotional rhetoric to be put aside for a moment, to reassure an individual that ideas can be considered without resorting to personal attacks.  We don’t always have the opportunity to have such frank conversations with our leaders today, but they also don’t have the power to make the earth swallow us whole.  As often as we do share ideas with one another, though, we have the opportunity to become more discerning and honest – to be better citizens of our society, and more effective participants in our own lives.

Numbers 11: Replacing the Lesson that Complaining Will Get You Killed with Something More Useful

Chapters 7-10 of the book of Numbers recount more of the details of sacred paraphernalia, offerings made by different bloodlines, and the roles of different tribes within the Israelite community.  It may be useful to organize a society by predetermining what duties each person will have according to heredity.  All of the necessary tasks are covered and everyone knows what is expected of them.  This isn't how most civilizations work in the twenty-first century.  We've given up the idea that a deity has prescribed what our contributions to society will be based on our parentage.  Some people still believe that God has a plan for their lives.  People are just more free to individually interpret what that plan is in a well-established society which holds personal freedom as an ideal.

People still like to complain, however.  Even though our lot in life is not nearly as restrictively defined as the Israelites', we still find things to complain about.  One of the advantages of belief in an all-knowing deity who has a plan for your life is that you have someone to complain to when you don't enjoy the direction your life is taking.  In Numbers 11, when people complained to God, he took umbrage to the extent that he doled out poisonous food.  Nowadays, not many people seem to think that complaining to God will get them killed, but maybe the God in the story also had a valid point.

First, let's look at what the people were complaining about.  If we just assume the truth of the biblical story and leave archaeological research out of it, the Israelites had left what appeared to be a fairly cushy existence in slavery, with all the fish and cucumbers they could eat.  Life had been stable, even if they weren't as respected as the native Egyptians.  The human race still hasn't outgrown its propensity for looking down on foreigners, so before we think too ill of the Egyptians we might take a hard look at our modern sensibilities.  Once they left Egypt, the Israelites were not living the high life, but they also didn't take much personal responsibility for their predicament. They blamed Moses for convincing them to leave, and since Moses was God's spokesman, they blamed God too.  Never mind that they proudly looted the Egyptians as they willingly crossed the border into a barren wasteland which turned out to have no reliable food source and little water.

They discovered a substance that was edible.  It was there on the ground every morning, and they could grind it up and make little cakes out of it.  Since they didn't know what it was, they called it "what is it?", and since they didn't know where it came from, they quickly determined that it came from their god.  People trying to identify manna today have theorized various possibilities, from plant lice (what plants?) to hallucinogenic fungus.  The Israelites knew it as bread from heaven.  Their god was taking care of them.  But that's all there was.  Eating the same thing day after day, living as tent-dwelling nomads, not knowing where there would be another source of potable water -- it understandably wore on people who were used to a stable life and a stable diet.  Personal responsibility wasn't on their minds, though.  According to the biblical narrative, they didn't put their heads together and come up with viable solutions.  They complained.  Moses was the one in charge, so they complained to Moses.  God was the one responsible for guiding Moses, so they complained to God.

Moses complains to God, too.  In a mirror of an earlier passage from Exodus, Moses complains that God has made him the nurse maid of the Israelite multitude and asks how he is supposed to feed them.  Perhaps it was his way of goading God into action.  God's first response was to have Moses appoint elders to assist him.  Now, Moses' father-in-law, Jethro, had given this advice back in Exodus, and elders got appointed, so it's likely that this is simply a different version of the story about how the first elders got appointed.  God gets all the credit for the idea in this one.  Sorry, Jethro -- your part's been cut.

God's other reactions to the Israelites are quite hostile, though.  When he first hears them complaining, he gets angry.  So angry that he burns part of their community.  Then, a "wind from the Lord" brings flocks of quail to the Israelites, and "while the meat was still in their teeth" he sends a plague among them and kills off a bunch of the complainers.  What!?  He gives them meat (which was obviously within his power to provide) and then punishes them for eating it.  The underlying messages to this are manifold, but among them are: Don't make God angry.  Don't complain.  Don't trust gifts from a divine source.  Appreciate what you have...

That last one's not actually a bad thing to remember.  While we may not like the way the Israelite god taught the lesson, the lesson is still valuable.  Even when we want to see some things improve in our lives, the place to start is by appreciating what we have.  What we have may just be a fabric roof over our heads, a meager water supply, and bushels of insect residue, but that's still food and shelter.  It's worth appreciating what we have, even when we aren't willing to settle for it.  When we utterly reject our circumstances, we waste energy on denying reality.  It's hard to find a way forward if you won't even accept where you are.

The rest of the story is frankly ludicrous.  A fire gets started, maliciously or by accident, and some people get sick because they didn't cook their food properly.  Because these things happened on the heels of some rampant complaining, the events get connected.  It's understandable that the human mind works that way, but it's nonsense.  The divine characteristics we all possess are not out to get us or punish us.  More to the point, the divine is personal -- it's not capable of wiping out communities of people or burning outposts.  There may be other parts of a person's psyche that contrive punishment, but the divine is simply the sense of deep truth, beauty, and creativity that we all possess.  So, it's not going to punish us for complaining.  Our divine self may actually be the source of some complaints, especially when we are complaining about a real injustice taking place around us.  How we deal with our complaints is the real issue.

We could sit on a bar stool and tell the guy pouring us drinks all of our problems.  We may call a friend and gripe for hours.  We might write angry letters or emails just to vent our frustrations.  There are so many unproductive things we can do with our complaints.  When we have a complaint about something, though, we also have the ability to evaluate our complaint.  If we are willing to start by really appreciating what we already have, our evaluation will be more accurate.

A complaint always arises from a desire.  So, instead of just declaring the wrongness of a situation, identify what it is that you want.  This may be coming from a very shallow part of your personality, or it may be a very deep-seated need that you've been ignoring.  If all of the Israelites did this, they might come up with hundreds of different actual desires underneath their complaints.  Some of them may have just wanted to find a spice plant to add some flavor variety to their hallucinogenic fungus.  Some of them may have wanted to wander closer to a larger body of water so they could fish.  Their solutions would not be universal.  Knowing the desire underneath the complaint is crucial to creating a solution.

Once you know what it is that you actually want, you can assess that desire based on reality and your core beliefs, which emerge from that divine character we've been talking about.  If what you realize you want is a more reliable vehicle, buying a new car may not be within the reality of your current finances.  In that case, you'll need to create a plan that will be a little more involved that going down to the dealership and throwing down your credit card.  If what you realize you want is to do bodily harm to another human being, you aren't done defining what you actually want.  When you are honestly tapping into your inner sense of truth, beauty, and creativity, it affects the way you see other people.  You may be so angry that you don't want to think of another person as a vulnerable, beautiful, inspiring human being.  That anger has a deeper desire beneath it.  What is it that you actually want?

This takes practice for anyone who isn't accustomed to defining their desires so precisely.  The good news is that there is no actual punishment for complaining to yourself, and you are the only person who can ultimately determine what desire is behind the complaint.  Once you have clearly defined that desire, and it matches with your deepest sense of truth and beauty with no indignation or machismo or emotional buffers, you can use your own personal creativity to determine a course of action.  You create the solutions to your complaints, and you have a capacity to do so in a way that is honors reality and honors the other people around you.  Some solutions are simple changes in your own behavior.  Some solutions may involve organizing other people, or becoming more involved in an existing organization, in a campaign against a larger injustice.  When you keep yourself grounded in the character of the divine, you'll be able to make adjustments to your plan whenever it veers away from reality or threatens to ignore the beauty and value of other people.

So, complain away.  Your complaints are most likely valid expressions of something you truly want.  Just be sure to complain to the one person who can actually do something about your complaint.  Ultimately, you are personally responsible for defining what you want, even if thousands of other people seem to have the same complaint as you.  When you respond from a place of deep truth, beauty, and creativity often enough, you may find that you skip over the complaining and cut straight to defining what you want.  That's alright, too.

Numbers 1-4: Counting People and Organizing a Society

Thus far, we've looked at the first three books of the protestant Christian Bible, which are traditionally attributed to Moses, although scholars have determined that the books were authored by several different contributors over a long period of time.  Thus far, the books have largely been about the preservation of Israelite culture, primarily through belief in an external divine being who favors the Jewish people somewhat arbitrarily.  Part of the establishment of this religiously rigorous culture involved elaborate sacrifices for various things, essentially giving up something personal to make amends when one acts contrary to the culture's policies.  A special group of people were assigned to oversee the religious life of the Jewish people, and these were the Levites, those men descended from Levi, Jacob's third son.  More about the Levites in a moment.

Rather than accept the culture-specific deity suggested in the Old Testament, most Christians primarily rely on the story of Jesus and the teachings of the New Testament to bridge the gap.  Essentially this reflects the belief that over time, as culture changed and developed, spiritual truth evolved as well.  It is no longer necessary to offer elaborate animal sacrifices whenever a person does something wrong, because Jesus eliminated that requirement.  It is no longer necessary to adhere to strict dietary guidelines, because Peter had a holy vision.  And in some cases, people just assume that the Bible's earlier teachings are invalid because we have grown in our understanding of how the world works.  We don't hang twisted sticks by a water trough in order to make livestock be born with curly hair because we know that biology doesn't work that way, and we don't worry about whether a person is "clean" or "unclean" because hygienic and medical practices have become more robust in the thousands of years since these laws were written.  What's odd is that many people seem to be just fine with the idea that some "laws" can change with the culture, while other laws are immutable, even though they are all declared with the same authority in the biblical text.

In my own language, I have been suggesting a redefinition of the divine as something within us rather than something apart from us.  Rather than eliminating the idea of what people consider divine, to a certain extent I am merely repositioning those qualities in our cosmology.  I believe that there is no external intelligence watching, guiding, punishing, and rewarding humanity.  The guidance and punishment and reward comes from within us, from a part of ourselves of which we aren't always aware.  Psychologists have given different names to this piece of our psyches, but it carries the characteristics of the divine.  This part of us does not fear, and therefore it does not deceive.  It is the part of us that sees the deep truth about ourselves and the people around us, the vast similarities that lie under the superficial differences.  It is the part of us that understands the beauty and value of who we are and seeks to discover that beauty in other people and in the natural world.  It is the part of us that creates, whether it is creating works of art, practical solutions to problems, or connections with other people.  The divine is within us and it is us, and when we are in tune with it, we realize how little we actually have to do to be at peace with ourselves.

Being at peace with ourselves is important, because all of our experience hinges on whether we are accepting and loving toward ourselves.  The beginning of the book of Numbers reflects how the Israelites expected to interact with the people around them.  Their god, through Moses, had proclaimed that other nations would fall before them.  Other nations were essentially infidels, although the translators of the Christian Bible don't often choose to use that term.  The preservation of a pure Israelite culture required the prevention of intermingling, so anyone who wasn't an Israelite was an enemy of the Israelites and their god.  Thus when the first census is taken among the Israelite community, they count only the men at least twenty years old who could serve in the army.  They didn't need to know how many women or children were in each tribe because the warriors were the ones who would be driving away the non-Israelites.  At the time, women and children were essentially property, not fully recognized people.

It's interesting to note that when a command in the Bible is attributed to God, he often seems to adopt the worldview of the people through which he's speaking.  Since the men of the day saw women and children as property, God saw no point in counting women and children in the census.  There are also plenty of other examples in the previous books and in the books that follow.  Wouldn't it have made more sense for God to maintain a sense of the value of all human life, even when the people to whom he was speaking didn't?  This is the problem with relying upon any person's declaration of what God wants.

Moses meant well.  After all, he wanted to preserve his people and their culture.  The authors who wrote the Old Testament meant well.  They were striving to keep their culture sacred.  They probably actually believed the righteousness of their words.  But when a person sets out to control other people's behavior, it is usually more from an inward fear than from any sense of what is true.  Moses tapped into some divine guidance from within and sought to impose order on a people who hadn't reached any measure of spiritual awareness.  And instead of training people to look within themselves and discover the truth about how to live with one another in a productive and healthy society, Moses and the early Israelite leaders attempted to lock the culture down.  Only a select few were allowed to be in touch with the divine, and all the rest – hundreds of thousands of men, plus their women and children – were supposed to be good followers and do what the religious leaders told them to do.

These religious leaders, at the beginning of the book of Numbers and beyond, were the Levites.  The Levites were counted differently from the rest of the Israelites, because the Levites were not going to be fighting in any battles.  Instead of counting every male of twenty years and older, the Levite census included every male of one month and older.  One month out in the world was when a male Levite became a legitimate person according to God.  Not at birth.  Not at conception.  Not at some age of reckoning.  One month.  Inerrantists and militantly religious anti-abortionists, take note.

We know more now than the Israelites knew.  We know more about the natural world, we know more about how individuals behave and why, and we know more about how societies and subcultures function.  When someone tells us something intended to sound factual, we know how to check our sources and verify the truth of what we're told.  And when someone tells us something spiritual, we know how to test that within ourselves.  We are not incapable of thought.  We don't need someone else to think for us, but that often seems easier than digging into ourselves and discovering something of value.  When you allow someone else to think for you, though, you give up personal power and you make yourself vulnerable to whatever ulterior motives another person may have.  Don't just drift along on other people's assertions.  At least be aware of your own beliefs.  Think for yourself.

The Israelite leaders may have wanted what they thought was best for their society, but that doesn't mean they had the only solution.  Many people today are willing to go to war against all manner of things in order to do what they think is best for society, and many people simply want to preserve power.  It isn't always easy to tell the difference, but fortunately we don't have to.  Here is something few people realize: You cannot be at peace with yourself and at war with other people.  When you are at war with other people, you must vigilantly defend yourself against them.  And when you are vigilantly defending yourself, you are not really aware of that deep sense of truth, beauty, and creativity.  Your focus is outward, at what threats may be coming.  When you are peace with yourself, you are aware of the truth, beauty, and creativity within you and you are simultaneously able to recognize those qualities in the people around you.  This is the most powerful spiritual position a person can assume.