1 Kings 14-16: Using God as an Explanation Rarely Leads to Wisdom

John the Baptist was certainly not the first prophetic individual to operate outside the organized Jewish church. The Jewish scriptures reflect an evolution of people (mostly men) who boldly proclaimed truth as they saw it, under the auspices of being chosen by God as special messengers. Often, these men were spiritual advisers to kings, as was the case with Nathan, who served as David's voice of conscience. In the historical interpretations of Kings and Chronicles, other prophets begin to appear, speaking for God. For whatever reason, Yahweh seems only to select certain people as his messengers, and this special honor is rarely bestowed upon people who have positions of power and authority. The historians themselves were acting as self-appointed prophets, speaking for and defending God in a way, since they interpreted the events they recorded through the lens of God's presumed intentions. Eventually, many of the prophets who figured into Jewish history would have books dedicated to them, perhaps even written by these holy spokesmen, and these writings are best understood in light of the historical context within which they were conceived.

Some of the stories recorded as historical accounts are clearly folklore, such as the tale in 1 Kings 14 in which the prophet Ahijah predicts the death of everyone in Jeroboam's family because of God's anger. Obviously, transitions of rulership of Israel were more conflict-ridden than the passing on of the hereditary crown in Judah, but to claim that God decided certain people had to die is to miss the very human motivations for events. In fact, Baasha (whose ascension to Israel's throne is mentioned in 1 Kings 15:25-31) had all of Jeroboam's family murdered when he usurped the throne after killing Jeroboam's son, Nadab. It was an understandable decision, since it eliminated any people who could be perceived as legitimate heirs and it drastically reduced the likelihood of someone seeking vengeance for the death of a family member. Murdering Jeroboam's family was a very human act that didn't require God's involvement at all, but looking back at historical events, the writers of Kings apparently felt the need to elaborate above and beyond actual data and create a prophecy to foreshadow the murders.

This literary technique accomplishes a few things, not all of them desirable. It places accountability for all events on an untouchable deity. People are not ultimately responsible for who lives and who dies if God is the one who decides such things. Even if a man murders his next door neighbor, who can really fault him if God had already decided that his neighbor needed to die? If a general loses a battle, it is because God determined that course of events. If a foreign king invades a land, it is because God prompted him to do so. Except that the Israelites are constantly doing the very things that God does not want them to do, not in the rampant violence and warmongering, but rather in the worship of other spiritual forces. The spiritual lives of his chosen people are apparently outside of God's purview, but a large number of military and political decisions are squarely under his control.

Except when things turn out badly, as they did for Asa, king of Judah. The writer(s) of Kings look a bit more favorably upon Asa, because he was a descendant of David, and there is an obvious favoritism toward Judah in the book of Kings. The writer(s) of Chronicles also favor Judah, since the kingdom of Israel is barely mentioned, but Asa is described much less favorably. After a promising beginning, Asa is chastised for relying on a foreign government for aid rather than relying solely on God (even though God is said to be able to influence the decisions of foreign governments and the actions of their armies). At the end of his life, it is implied that Asa died from a foot condition because he sought the aid of doctors rather than the aid of God. Incidentally, his obituary in Kings is less judgmental.

It is certainly understandable that the ancient Israelites understood very little about the fallacy of false cause. When something happened in their lives, they looked for an explanation, and if an explanation was not readily apparent, the easy answer was God. Their God could be manipulated into doing good things for them if the general populace worshiped him properly, but this was historically a tough row to hoe for the Israelite people. Thus, bad things were always happening because enough people just would not fall in step with the whole monotheistic organized religion policy. In reality, religion most likely had very little to do with the things that happened to the Israelite people. It is far more probable that poor decisions, greed, and fear on the part of the Israelite leaders were largely to blame for the challenges they faced. On top of that, there were some serious empire builders emerging at the time. While the Israelites never seemed interested in widespread military conquest, the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, and eventually the Greeks and the Romans all took an interest in adding the Israelites and their lands to a larger imperial body. That wasn't any sort of god at work; it was people.

The Israelites wrote their histories from their own limited perspectives, just as we interpret the events of our lives in our own very limited ways. Two things which have been said before bear repeating: First, we are responsible for who we are in the circumstances of our lives. Second, we are prone to inventing supernatural causes when logical, rational causes escape us. While there may be very straightforward causes for the events and circumstances of our lives, nothing is ever as it is because a supernatural entity decided that it should be so. We cannot control everything around us, but we can have some measure of control over our responses to everything around us. When we are willing to dismiss the easy dismissive answers like, "God must want things to be this way," we can look deeper for real, meaningful answers. While those answers are not always easy to discern, we can safely start from the assumption that rational answers exist. Nothing is magic, even the things we don't understand. Our lack of knowledge or understanding does not constitute evidence of the supernatural. Said another way, our not knowing does not make something unknowable.

When we look back at history, we can invent some hidden conspiracy theory tying events together if we like. We can assume a hidden supernatural agenda at work and connect imaginary dots to form a picture we invent. Human beings are by nature creative creatures, and our propensity for creativity can sometimes lead us to some strange and irrational conclusions. When we embrace the notion that there is no supernatural hand guiding decisions and events, but rather very real, natural, logical causes for the effects we observe, we will not be disappointed. There are no events in history that cannot be explained through rational means, and there are no events in our lives that require a supernatural explanation. The challenge is one of proximity. Sometimes we are too close to the events in our lives to engage in detached inquiry. We need a starting premise that can guide us toward realistic meaningful assessment of the decisions and events of our lives without being tempted toward the easy and unprovable supernatural. One possible starting point is our own personal responsibility for who we are in the midst of our circumstances.   

Very few of us will ever be in a position to murder people and take their positions of authority, just like we do not have the occasion or need to personally send a nation's supply of gold and silver to foreign powers for protection. Still, we know the kind of people we most want to be, if we take a little time and really think about it. We know when our actions are out of sync with that vision we have of our potential. Inventing a supernatural justification or excuse will not get us any closer to being the people we most want to be. At a certain level, we have to get real about our personal responsibility in our lives. By claiming our personal responsibility, we gain the power to change the things we most want to change -- in ourselves and in the world around us.

1 Kings 12-13: Reading History through Smudged Lenses (or How Beliefs Cloud Our Vision)

A simple search on the phrase, "God told me to do it," will yield all sorts of news stories (most of them rather disturbing) about people breaking into homes, kidnapping people, killing people, and even committing acts of cannibalism, claiming that they only did what they did because of a directive from on high. While we have no way of knowing what is going on inside the heads of other people, it seems fairly safe to assume that there was something psychologically amiss, and not a deity directing their actions. Of course, one strong alternative is that some of these folks knew exactly what they were doing when they pointed the finger of blame at an invisible all-powerful being with whom one cannot argue or debate. And it's worth pointing out that just as many disturbing stories include the claim that the devil is to blame.

We don't like being at fault. We don't like being blamed for something. Even when we haven't decapitated anyone or committed acts far outside the cultural norms, we frequently look for a way to justify or defend our behavior when it feels like we're being accused. This is not new behavior for human beings. Recall how Solomon had allegedly used fellow Israelites for slave labor when the temple was being constructed, and imagine the situation his successor would have to manage.

According to the biblical narrative, when Solomon died and his son Rehoboam took the throne, the people who had been subjected to forced labor under Solomon sent a representative to humbly request Rehoboam treat them with a bit more respect. Rehoboam was too dim to see the correct path on his own, so he asked for guidance from his trusted wise advisers. He didn't like what they had to say, so he sought advice from his young friends. Taking their advice (or perhaps doing what he wanted to do all along), he rashly insulted the representative and ended up losing a significant portion of his kingdom when ten tribes (out of twelve) revolted against his leadership. This is the story of 1 Kings 12, which is duplicated almost word for word in 2 Chronicles 10.

Is there a not-so-hidden moral to the story about age and youth and wisdom and folly? The older men who wrote down the story may have had an axe to grind. On top of that, they were looking back at a failed kingdom and trying to explain it in a way that made sense to them. Rehoboam's failure makes sense when you read their version of the story. Of course, we will never know the objective reality of the situation. (Readers who believe that the Bible does, in fact, provide a narrative of irrefutable historical data are humbly encouraged to read previous entries on the topic.) Something very interesting happens next, however, scribed by the same religious-minded hands who were trying to make sense of why their society was faltering.

Jeroboam (the leader of the revolt against Rehoboam) set up some idols in a couple of northern temples so his people wouldn't have to go to the temple in Jerusalem, which Rehoboam still controlled. This was a no-no, of course, since it implied the worship of a god other than Yahweh, or at the very least, honoring a graven image instead of honoring their actual cultural deity. In 1 Kings 13, a unnamed prophet appears on the scene.  He claims to have a message from God condemning the religious practices Jeroboam had instituted, and he produces a few miraculous signs to back up his claim. Then another unnamed prophet invites this traveler for a meal, but the traveling prophet has been told by God to return home by a different route without eating or drinking any of the food near the heretical temples. The insistent prophet with a penchant for hospitality responds that God told him that the traveling prophet should stick around for a meal, so they share a meal, at which time God pronounces judgment for the traveling prophet's disobedience and a lion kills him on the road.

Now, looking at history, the northern kingdom of Israel was conquered by a foreign empire before the southern kingdom of Judah. In looking back at why the northern kingdom failed, the Israelite historians concluded that it must have been because God was displeased with the kingdom. Why would God have been displeased? Well, among other things, their worship was all wrong. That's why they fell to a foreign army. It had nothing to do with military or political leadership; it was entirely the result of religious ineptitude. Thus, the story needs to reflect that the traveling prophet who pronounced God's judgment was the true mouthpiece of God, and the man who insisted that God wanted the traveling prophet to stay for dinner was a false prophet, claiming that God said something he didn't really say.

If we look at all of history, all of the kingdoms and nations and empires that have risen and fallen, perhaps we would see consistency in this idea that a kingdom's success is based on the propriety of its worship. But then, we see that the southern kingdom of Judah, which had instituted religious reforms to be as precisely in line with what Yahweh required as they could, also fell to a foreign power. The temple was destroyed and the people were taken into exile. The Roman Empire, which established Christianity as the state religion, fell to hostile invading forces. The Byzantine Empire fell as well. Obviously orthodox Christianity can't keep a political body safe either. When the Muslim Empire conquered much of the world, it was eventually driven back, and yet it still holds power in many countries. Japanese culture has existed since before the Common Era and survived even the devastating bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Perhaps, by the standards of the ancient Israelite historians, we should look to Islamic practices or the syncretic Shinto-Buddhism practiced by the Japanese to understand how best to worship God, since they characterize resilient political entities where the nation of Israel fell time and time again.

But the point is not to determine the ideal religious practice to provide political resilience. That is merely the smudged and tinted lens through which Israelite historians gazed at their history. Likely, we can point to specific decisions and practices that had a measurable and verifiable impact on the survival of any culture or nation, without resorting to supernatural phenomena and schemes. Anyone who looks back at history and discerns the will of a supernatural entity is creating an explanation that isn't needed or warranted. The actual facts of history create a feasible enough explanation without inventing an overarching plan from on high. Such inventions inevitably run into problems when scrutinized, but the inventors are not likely to acknowledge those challenges, since they often believe that they have discerned what God wants, which brings us back to our unnamed prophets.

It is possible that prophets in the story are just literary constructs, used to comment on the state of affairs as the writer saw things. Assuming we can analyze the characters at all, we still don't know whether either of them actually believed that they were mouthpieces of the divine. From personal experience, it would seem that people who think they know what God wants are not likely to be swayed by someone else's idea of what God wants, even if a delicious meal is involved. Once a person becomes convinced that the will of an almighty supreme being is known to them, it's tough for them to keep an open mind. It's safer to blame God if something bad happens. If I say, "It was God's will," then no one should hold me personally accountable. I can't get blamed for something that God wanted to happen.

If only everyone agreed on what God wanted, it might be easier to take such assertions seriously. Instead, there is a whole array of claims about what God wants, and although most of them do not involve decapitations or cannibalism, some of them do involve some rather hateful and violent positions. On the other side of the spectrum are those who claim that God wants peace and unity. It seems impossible that an almighty, omniscient deity could want so many different and contradictory things as is suggested by a survey of those who claim to know God's will.

What seems more possible is that everyone who makes such a claim is wrong. Not necessarily intentionally misleading, just wrong about where their information originates. Some people may believe fervently that God wants all war to cease, and others may believe wholeheartedly that God wants all infidels slaughtered. There is amply evidence in various religious scriptures to justify either stance. There is actually evidence for nearly any claim anyone may make about what God wants. Some people are just lying, as the biblical writers suggest of our hospitable prophet. Maybe he thought that he would get some sort of blessing or benefit from his act of hospitality, so he said that God wanted it -- a claim that could not be refuted. Who knows? In any case, it doesn't matter whether or not someone who claims to know what God wants is intentionally lying; the premise in and of itself is faulty.

Within us all, there is a way that we think the world should be. We have created an idealized impression of how people should behave and how events should turn out, and if our idealized impression is challenged by circumstances or by other people's behavior, we get rather put out. Our ideal can't be wrong, so we assume that other people are wrong. The problem is that our idealized impressions of how things should be is not based on any sort of objective analysis. It's based on beliefs into which we have been indoctrinated or that we have gradually accepted over time. And beliefs are often not much better than opinions. We all have beliefs that are not based on any sort of verifiable facts, they are just the things that we believe.

When we determine how the world should work through the smeared, biased lenses of our beliefs, we do not see the world as it is. We try to fix things and people that do not need to be fixed, only because they do not fit with the way we want the world to be. We see trajectories of purpose and intention in coincidences because we want our perception of cause-and-effect to apply to all that we survey. Yet, it's obvious when reality doesn't line up with what we want that something is off kilter. Instead of trying to fix everything else, perhaps our attention should be drawn to our own lenses -- our beliefs. It really is alright to be wrong about something and to adjust beliefs as necessary to accommodate new information. We are not obligated to cling to what we have believed in the past beyond the point at which the beliefs no longer make sense in light of reality. We are free to align our beliefs with the reality of the world around us, to wipe a little bit of the smudge off our lenses, so to speak.

We cannot ethically and morally blame God or the devil for our behavior. We are each personally accountable for our words and actions. This is not always pretty, but it is honest. We don't always know all that we would like to know, and we don't always listen to the wisest counsel. Ultimately, though, our lives and choices are up to us. Even if you believe that there is a God, you do not know what he wants better than anyone else does. You might know what you want better than anyone else, but that's the extent of it. Clarity comes from exercising a bit of honesty about the source of our problems, our beliefs, and what we want the world to be like. Hint: It comes from inside us.