I’ve read a few editorials in the National Post recently that argue for the legalization and normalization of prostitution in Canada.  The argument goes something like this:  Prostitution is essentially a woman selling what belongs to her.  So why should the government prohibit the transaction?  Why not regulate it instead?  In this way, the laws of supply and demand are allowed to function – and a state agency will be there to protect women.  Similar arguments are used to justify the legalization of drugs.  Those who make these kinds of arguments appeal to pragmatic and scientific considerations rather than moral ones (a false dichotomy), an approach that G. Bruun traces back to the French Revolution,

 “The radical thinkers of the Enlightenment were rebels against an ecclesiastical tradition fifteen centuries old, a tradition which insisted that man is a sinful creature, living in hourly danger of death and an after-judgment, and powerless to save himself without the assistance of divine grace and intervention.  To substitute for this view the more pagan and more rational concept that the virtue of an act depends upon its consequences implied a revolution in ethical thought, for it made reason, not conscience or tradition or revelation, the supreme authority in moral decisions.”  (Bruun 1938, 237)

The French Revolution sought to marry statecraft with science, believing that social problems could be solved by discovering the natural laws that govern human interactions.

“Mankind, they agreed, stood on the threshold of a new and glorious era. All that was needed to unlock the millennium was a supreme legislator, a Euclid of the social sciences, who would discover and formulate the natural principles of social harmony.”  (Bruun 1938, in loc.)

We have adopted the same supposedly pragmatic and scientific approach to managing our economy.  Rather than purge economic excess and send criminals to jail, we have chosen rather to view our economic troubles as a set of technical challenges that must be overcome with the help of experts.   It seems to me that the economist, J.M Keynes, was one of the foremost proponents of this approach.   Keynes argued that in deflationary periods, like that of the Great Depression, only the government has the power to stimulate demand and put the economy on an upward trajectory.  Keynes said that it doesn’t matter where demand comes from, as long as it generates further demand.  Bury jars filled with money and send men out with shovels to dig them up, or go to war, whatever it takes to get money moving again!   And so we have almost every central bank in the world setting interest rates at near zero and purchasing long dated securities.

But the whole premise of Keynes’ theory begs the question, “Why is our financial system so fragile in the first place?”  Shouldn’t a healthy economy be able to withstand a protracted period of declining prices?  How is it that the very survival of our financial institutions is predicated on 2% inflation – or more?  The answer to these questions can be summed up in one word – debt.   It doesn’t take a Nobel Prize in economics to see that excessive debt makes our system fragile.  When a crack appears, we hastily patch it with another wasteful government program or resort to statistical wizardry.   Thus when Spain, Italy and Great Britain  exceeded their budget deficit cap of 3% of GDP, they revised GDP upwards by including the sale of sex and drugs in their calculations!

It is the height of hypocrisy to speak of the degradation of our environment without addressing the fact that our entire economic system is built around ever increasing amounts of debt and consumption.  I recently had a chance to look at a house in Levittown that a friend of mine purchased and renovated.   Levittown was America’s first suburb.  The developer, Levitt & Sons, mass produced these homes at a rate of 1 house every 27 minutes!  The houses sold for under 8,000 USD each, zero money down.   This might be considered a great economic achievement –  capitalism at its most efficient!   But go back and look at those homes today.  Their concrete floors have broken away from the foundations and have sunk over 4” in places, their walls are barely insulated.  Mice in the attic have gnawed exposed electrical wires bare.   The giant oil tank buried in the front yard is in the process of disintegrating, and its heating oil steadily leaches into the soil.  Take these problems and multiply them by the 20,000 homes built in Levittown and you have a problem!  My friend bought that house in Levittown for 90,000.  It took another 60,000 to make it inhabitable.    All of the money that was spent building that house in the first place, gutting it, and essentially rebuilding it again, shows up in a nation’s GDP but how much of that activity created real value and how much of it was essentially the equivalent of digging a hole and refilling it again?  One could ask the same question about the mini-fridge whose freezer comes with a brittle, polystyrene door; or the electric drill whose metal gears have been replaced with nylon; or the hot water tank whose lifespan has been reduced from 20 to 7 years.  Our GDP measures only what is tangible, and we formulate our policies based on these numbers.  But real value cannot be measured.  And technocrats do not know what it is.

We have chosen to put our faith in experts who make decisions based on what is pragmatic instead of what is moral.  But the consequences of ignoring the intangibles are all to real.  Man does not live on bread alone, and neither, apparently, does an economy.

The evolution of the capitalist spirit still proceeds upon its course, a course in which we can clearly distinguish two phases: until the end of the 18^th century, and since then to the present day.  In the first epoch, which comprised the period of early capitalism, the character of the capitalist genius was essentially restricted and repressed, in the second its expression was essentially free.  Its bonds had been the restrictions of a code and a morality riveted by all the Christian catechisms…  It may well be that, among the many stimuli which the Revolution provided for the encouragement of capitalist enterprise, none was more pervasive in its effect than the substitution of a climate of opinion frankly secular, as an alternative to a social philosophy which had been, until the later eighteenth century, laden with theological preconceptions. (Bruun 1938, 145)

 

References:

Bruun, G. (1938). Europe and the French imperium, 1799-1814. New York, London,, Harper & Brothers.

 

In an article that discusses the supposed conflict between Biblical theology and Israelite religion, William Dever berates a number of his predecessors for their lack of professionalism.  He laments that flotation analysis was not used in more places. He argues for a more scientific approach to cataloging and analysis.  Furthermore, he argues that Syro-Palestine Archaeology has been compromised by its reliance on the Bible.  Dever concludes,

“Instead, I propose, as a working hypothesis, that early Israelite religion developed gradually out of the Late Bronze and early Iron Age fertility cults of greater Canaan, and that despite the growth of a royal/priestly cultus and its theology in Jerusalem, local cults continued to flourish and some of them reflected a highly syncretistic blend of Yahwism and pagan practice until the end of the Monarchy. “Normative Judaism,” as portrayed in the Deuteronomic and Priestly literature, is a construct of the late Judean Monarchy and in particular of the exilic period.

So ‘normative Judaism’, as Dever calls it, was the construct of an elite faction in Jerusalem; an idea that never really took root in the Iron Age.   What is so surprising about this statement is that it comes on the heels of a very helpful summary of Israelite material culture in which Dever acknowledges that there is a marked lack of pagan religious artifacts in strata belonging to the time of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

“no monumental Israelite art survives. No Israelite statuary or sculpture, large-scale iconographic representations, or paintings are known to us, save two 10th century cultic stands from Taanach… It may be significant that no representations of a male deity in terracotta, metal, or stone have ever been found in clear Iron Age contexts, except possibly for al El statuette in bronze from 12th century Hazor and a depiction of an El-like stick figure on a miniature chalk altar from 10th-century Gezer, and neither is necessarily Israelite.” (Dever, 574)

Go ahead and tabulate bones and seeds.  It will not change the overall picture.  We have uncovered vast portions of Iron II cities and found no metal deities.  We have many, many Late Bronze Canaanite temples and only one (debatable) Israelite temple.  We have a fairly exhaustive onomasticon of 8th-6th century BC Israelite names and found none that incorporate the name of a goddess and very few that are overtly pagan.  This evidence suggests that normative Judaism was established early in the Iron Age.  The fact that Dever is unable to draw reasonable conclusions from the data is due to his dogmatic reliance on 19th century theories of ‘higher’ criticism.

References

Meyers, C. L., et al. (1983). The Word of the Lord shall go forth : essays in honor of David Noel Freedman in celebration of his sixtieth birthday. Winona Lake, IN, Eisenbrauns.

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The story of Masada is fairly well known.  A small number of Jews made one last desperate stand against the Romans on an isolated desert fortress.   One might debate the number of defenders, the size of the siege ramp, or how long the siege actually lasted, but anyone who has been to Masada knows that a remarkable drama unfolded there.  The story of Masada raises some interesting questions.  How did the Romans view the war with the Jews?   Did they see it as just another region that needed to be subdued?  Or was there a religious aspect to the war?

The Romans raised a substantial army, equal to about one-seventh of the whole Imperial army, to fight against the Jews. None of the other cities in the region joined in the rebellion or any of the other Semitic peoples. Tacitus notes that the Arab forces who served under Titus were imbued with ‘hatred characteristic of neighbors’.  (Millar 1993, 78)  After Titus conquered Jerusalem, he made Jewish captives fight in gladiatorial games or fed them to wild beasts in arenas throughout Syria.  In this way, Josephus says, Titus provided “lavish displays in all the cities of Syria through which he passed, using the Jewish captives to demonstrate their own destruction.” (Josephus, Jewish War)

After their defeat, Jews were no longer allowed to contribute money towards the temple, a privilege allowed them under Julius Ceasar.  Instead, they were made to pay a tax to the Capitoline Jupiter.  A special series of coins were minted that depict a woman mourning under a palm tree and the words ‘Judea Capta’.  The ultimate symbol of defeat was the triumph celebrated in Rome and commemorated on the Arch of Titus.   This arch portrays items taken from the temple in Jerusalem paraded through the via Sacra in Rome.  According to Fergus Millar, Titus was the only emperor “ever to celebrate the subjugation of the population of an existing province”. (Millar 1993, 79)  Avidov adds, “All this was meant to send a clear message throughout the Roman domain: Jewish superstition had been rooted out at its very source, and the pax decorum restored; no longer would the adherents of the pernicious cult enjoy the peaceful existence accorded to all civilized religions of the empire.”  (Avidov, 2009)

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When viewed in its larger historical context, the uprising of the Jews, and the crushing defeat inflicted on them by Vespasian and Titus, were the continuation of a longstanding conflict between the imperial powers of the Greek and Roman world and the Judeans (and later, the Christians) who rejected the values and religion of Greece and Rome.

Just as Titus and Vespasian sought to impose uniformity across the lands conquered by Rome, so too did the Seleucid king, Antiochus IV, and the Roman emperor, Hadrian.   These rulers were cosmopolitan in their outlook.  They believed in the universal brotherhood of all men united by Hellenistic culture. Who could wish otherwise? Hellenism was both attractive and enticing, and gave opportunity for the expression of almost every human impulse.

It was natural for those nations that adhered to a polytheistic belief system to assimilate the prevailing ideas of the Hellenistic world.  But the Jews and Christians could not accommodate the dictates of Rome without also denying the essential tenets of their faith.  They were different.  And this created the very real potential for conflict.

The Romans thought that the destruction of the temple was the final victory of Imperial Rome over the religion of the Jews.  But the conquering armies of the Roman empire were several decades late.  The real temple was destroyed in 33 AD (John 2:19).  The world had already changed.

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References:

Avidov, A. (2009). Not reckoned among nations : the origins of the so-called “Jewish question” in Roman antiquity. Tübingen, Germany, Mohr Siebeck.

Millar, F. (1993). The Roman Near East, 31 B.C.-A.D. 337. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press.

 

Approximately 140 Iron Age tombs have been found in the Jerusalem area.  They belonged to wealthy families who could afford to have a tomb cut from the rock.   Most of the tombs found in Judah consist of a rectangular chamber cut from limestone.  Flat benches were carved along three of the walls of the chamber upon which the body was laid.  After a period of time, the bones were gathered and placed in an adjoining bone repository.  The deceased was quite literally “gathered to his ancestors”. Only one such repository has been discovered undisturbed in Jerusalem and this was at Ketef Hinnom, south-west of the city walls of Jerusalem.  Many of the tombs in this area were destroyed by quarrying in Roman times.  But in the process of quarrying, the entrance to one large bone repository was buried in rubble where it remained undisturbed until Israeli archaeologist, Gabi Barkay, began exploring the area in the late 1960’s.  For those interested in Biblical history, this bone repository at Ketef Hinnom was a more spectacular discovery than even King Tut’s tomb.   Although the tomb was not rich, the items it contained speak volumes about the history and culture of  Judah in the period just before the Babylonian Exile.

This particular burial chamber was probably hewn in the 7^th century BC and was used until the early Persian period. It was an unusually large chamber with room for 9 people to be buried simultaneously. A large chamber located under the benches served as the bone repository. Over 1000 objects were found in this repository:

• 300 pottery vessels
• 100 objects made of silver
• 150 beads – semi precious stones
• 40 iron heads

Most of the pottery vessels were lamps, bowls and decanters. These items are commonly found in tombs throughout the ANE although their significance is not particularly clear.  Noticeably absent from the tomb at Ketef Hinnom were figurines or amulets.  The period spanning the 8^th-6^th centuries was a time of intense pressure to assimilate foreign ideas and yet, during this same time period, we do not find a single item in Ketef Hinnom that can positively be identified with a foreign cult.  In this respect, at least, the lack of figurines accords well with the Bible which denies any sort of magical basis for the continued existence of the soul after death.

The only items from the grave that might have functioned as amulets are two small silver scrolls made from silver leaf and etched with abridged versions of the priestly benediction.

[For PN, (the son/daughter of) xxxx]h/hu. May h[e]/sh[e] be blessed by Yahweh, the warrior [or:helper] and the rebuker of [E]vil: May Yahweh bless you, keep you. May Yahweh make his face shine upon you and grant you p[ea[ce. (Ketef Hinnom 2)

…]YHW… the grea[t…who keeps] the covenant and [G]raciousness towards those who love [him] and those who keep [his commandments…]. The eternal? […] [the?] blessing more than any [sna]re and more than Evil. For redemption is in him. For YHWH is our restorer [and] rock. May YHWH bless you and [may he] keep you. [May] yHWH make [his face] shine…” (Ketef Hinnom 1)

We usually think of the priestly blessing as a benediction for the living but the words of the benediction could equally apply in death.  It is probably not a coincidence that this passage was buried with the dead.  Several of the Psalms express a similar hope of beholding the LORD’s countenance upon death.

… Deliver my soul from the wicked by your sword, from men by your hand, O LORD, from men of the world whose portion is in this life. You fill their womb with treasure; they are satisfied with children, and they leave their abundance to their infants. As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness. (Psa 17:13-1 ESV)

The Psalmist recognizes that his portion is not in this life and he looks forward to a day when he shall ‘awake’ and be satisfied with the ‘likeness’ of YHWH.

The silver scrolls contain several names for the LORD: Restorer (mashivenu – cf. Ruth 4:15), Rock (tsur), the Rebuker of Evil (ga’ar ba-ra), and the Helper (ha-azer).   Redemption (ga’al) is found in the LORD.

In the book of Job, it is the LORD as Redeemer whom Job hopes to see with his own eyes ‘at the last’.

For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me! (Job 19:25-27 ESV)

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References:Gabriel Barkay; Marilyn J. Lundberg; Andrew G. Vaughn; Bruce Zuckerman; Kenneth Zuckerman, The Challenges of Ketef Hinnom: Using Advanced Technologies to Reclaim the Earliest Biblical Texts and Their Context, Near Eastern Archaeology, Vol. 66, No. 4 (Dec., 2003), pp. 162-171

(updated Sept 3, 2014)

“Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?   You shall take up Sikkuth your king, and Kiyyun your star-god– your images that you made for yourselves, and I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the LORD, whose name is the God of hosts. (Amos 5:25-27 ESV)

One of the difficulties in interpreting these verses in Amos is that the deities mentioned are obscure.   Kiyyun is usually taken to be a Mesopotamian deity named Kaiwan which means “the steady one”, a name for Saturn.  We know nothing about this deity except that the name appears in a list of Mesopotamian gods from a cuneiform text .  Sikkut is usually thought to be Sakkuth, another obscure deity whose role in the pantheon was cupbearer to the gods.  Sakkuth’s temple was in the city of Der, on the border of Elam –  a long ways from Israel!  (DDD – Dictionary of Deities and Demons)  It may be that these obscure deities, Sakkuth and Kaiwan, are actually mentioned in this passage, but it is also possible that the MT is a little garbled here and that the LXX preserves a better reading,

Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Raephan, the images of them which ye made for yourselves. (Amo 5:26 LXE)

It is not difficult to reconcile the first clause of the LXX with the MT.   With just a small change in vowel points, Sikkut becomes sukkat, which means a tent or dwelling.  Likewise, malach can easily be repointed to read Molech –  a deity often attested in the OT.   So the LXX reading ‘tent of Molech’ seems better than the MT reading ‘Sikkuth your king’.    The second phrase in the LXX  reads ‘star of your god Raephan’.  This is more difficult to reconcile with the MT.  It is hard to say if the LXX is simply trying to smooth a difficult text or if it is preserving a more reliable Hebrew text.  M. Pope notes that Ugaritic texts often speak of underworld spirits called the rephaim and the malku.   They seem to be equivalent to the Annunaki in Mesopotamian texts.  In Amos they appear together in the singular with the root letters MLK (Molech) and RPU (Raephan?).  Pope argues that MLK and RPU were underworld deities that rose to receive the sacrifices offered to the dead during the marzea feast.   (see below)

The naming of these two deities is further strengthened by the fact that Amos places the idolatrous worship of these deities in the context of Israel’s 40 years of wandering in the desert.   He asks the rhetorical question, “Did you bring sacrifices and offerings during your 40 years in the wilderness?”    (see note 2).  In asking this question, Amos reminds Israel of the purity of their worship before reminding them of what happened next.  “Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Raephan, the images of them which ye made for yourselves.” (Amo 5:26 LXE)  The worship of these images is best understood in connection with the events that took place at Baal Peor as narrated in the book Numbers.   In this case, Baal Peor is equivalent to the MLK and RPU.

Although the book of Numbers does not suggest that the deities worshiped at Baal Peor were connected to the underworld, a verse in the Psalms connects the worship at Baal-peor to sacrifices for the dead.

They joined themselves also unto Baal-peor, And ate the sacrifices of the dead. (Psa 106:28 ASV)

We can learn more about this feast from Ugaritc texts that link the rephaim to a funerary feast called the marzeah.   According to M. Pope, the name of the feast is probably derived from the root word rzh which in Arabic means “to fall down from fatigue or other weakness and remain prostrate without the power to rise.”  (Pope, M. H. and M. S. Smith (1994). Probative pontificating in Ugaritic and biblical literature : collected essays. Münster, Ugarit-Verlag)  The goal of the marzeah feast was to get hammered.

Probably the best known reference to the marzea feast comes from an Akkadian text found at Ras Shamra (13th BC) in which El gets so drunk he sees an apparition and ends up ‘wallowing in his excrement and vomit’.   (Pope 1994, 155 ff).  A cup found in the same room as the text illustrates the marzea.

Another Akkadian text refers to an invitation to a marzea feast sent to the rephaim by the hero Danel after his son, Aqhat, is killed.  (Pope 1994, 171).

The Bible also makes reference to the marzea.  Jeremiah is forbidden to enter the ‘house of mourning’ (bet marzeach) because God had purposed to bring disaster on his people (Jer 16:5-9).    Jeremiah is also commanded not to make a bald spot on his head or to cut himself – practices that were forbidden in Deut. 14:1.  Thus it appears that the bet marzeah is associated with other forbidden forms of mourning for the dead. The prophet Amos also mentions a marzea feast but in this context, it clearly means ‘revelry’ and is associated with wine and music. Was it also associated with a feast for the dead?  Amos doesn’t make this connection but it is possible that the meaning of marzea was originally confined to a funerary feast but was broadened to include all kinds of revelry.

The marzea feast also appears in later, non Biblical texts and inscriptions.  For example, texts from Palmyra that date to the Hellenistic period make reference to a marzea feast held “at the houses of celebrated hetairai and served by beautiful girls as waitresses and musicians; the affair, understandably, often ended in sacrifices to Aphrodite Pandemos.” (Pope 1994, 170 citing Guhl and Koner, The Life of the Greeks and Romans)   Interestingly enough, Rabbinic texts refer to the sacrifices offered to Peor as marzehim (Pope 1994, 169; Sifre Numbers 131) and also relate the idolatrous worship at Peor with the mayumas festivals that were “observed along the Mediterranean, especially in port cities like Alexandria, Gaza, Ashkelon and Antioch, with such licentiousness that Roman rulers felt constrained to ban them.”  (Pope 1994, 169)  It is noteworthy that these festivals were particularly associated with coastal cities on the eastern Mediteranean.  Is it possible that the feast was transmitted to the Roman and Greek world through the Carthaginians?  R. Good cites several Carthaginian stelae that make reference to the mayumas festival.

“for the mayumas of the people of Carthage”

Good suggests that the etymology of mayumas is found in the semitic terms: mai = water;  yumas = carry, and thinks that this was a water carrying ceremony. This is probably the same ceremony described by Lucian writing in the 2nd century BC.   Lucian describes a ceremony that was practiced at a Syrian temple called Hierapolis renown for the antiquity of the religious worship practiced there.  He writes that twice a year (the solstices?) an image of gold, crowned by a golden pigeon is carried down to the sea.  Water from the sea was brought back to the temple in Hierapolis.  Furthermore, Lucian states that pilgrims from all around the world would carry sea water to the temple to pour it down a fissure in the rock in the floor of the temple to commemorate the receding of the Flood.  Lucian thought that the temple at Hierapolis was dedicated to Atagartis (Syrian fertility goddess) but was built by Dionysus based on his eyewitness report that a “pair of phalli of great size are seen standing in the vestibule, bearing the inscription, “I, Dionysus, dedicated these phalli to Hera my stepmother.” (The Syrian Goddess http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/tsg/tsg07.htm#fr_97)

The Athenian Festival of Anthesteria shares many similarities to the mayumas festival.  It was a three day long festival that was foremost a drinking festival dedicated to Dionysius.  During the feast, a sacred marriage was performed.  The dead were believed to roam the streets during the three days of the festival.   It might seem strange to have a sacred marriage connected to a funerary feast but these two elements are often connected in pagan ritual.  John Garstang writes,

The conception of the Great Mother as goddess of the dead is by no means strained or unnatural, for the resurrection and future life is a dominant theme in the universal myth associated with her. And just as the dead year revived in springtime through her mediation, so she may have been entreated on behalf of the dead for their well-being or their return to life.  (http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/tsg/tsg04.htm)

The idolatrous worship at Baal Peor also combined sacrifices for the dead and fertility rituals.  But can the Anthesteria, Mayumas or Marzeah festivals be related in any way to the idolatry at Peor?  Apparently the makers of the Byzantine Madaba map thought so, for on the map they identify Baal-Peor as “Betomarseas alias Maioumas” (the house of Marzeah or Mayumas).  (Pope 1994, 169)  Thus the Byzantines connected the worship of Baal Peor with the Marzeah festival and the Mayumas festival.  I think that is pretty amazing!

The Anthesteria was the precursor for All Souls that is still celebrated in Latin American countries in November.

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(MAA Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology – Cambridge)

A write up from the museum describes the Day of the Dead in this way:

Celebrations last for 3 days and begin with the construction in each house of an altar for the spirits of a family’s dead, both adults and children. The altars are decorated with fruits and flowers and later dishes of food are added to sustain the souls of the dead. Special breads, sweets and toys are made in the form of skeletons and are to be seen everywhere.” The Day of the Dead in early November emphasizes death as Carnival in the Spring celebrates regeneration.  (MAA Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology – Cambridge)

Both the Anthesteria and All Souls have the dead as participants in the celebration.

Notes

(1)  qubba (Num 25:8) – Phineas pursues an Israelite man and a Midianite woman into a ‘tent’ or ‘chamber’ and executes them.  The sin here seems to be compounded in that the tent may have been a sacred shrine called a qubba and usually translated as tent.  The word quBBâ is only found here.  It is probably referring to a Midianite sacred shrine.  According to Epiphanius the chief deity of the Arabs was Dhu l-Shara and had his chaabou in Petra.  It is not clear from Epiphanius whether the temple in Petra was meant or the quadrangular black stone which represented Dhu l-Shara.  Al-Bakri relates that the tribe of Bakr b. Wa’il together with the main body of the Iyad tribe had their centre of worship in Sindad in the region of Kufa and that their holy tent (bayt) there was called Dhat al-Ka’abat.  A similar word is used to describe the most sacred Islamic shrine in Mecca – the kaaba – and also appears in an Arabic dedicatory inscription on a wall mosaic in the Dome of the Rock where the Dome of the Rock is referred to as a kubba – a word that apparently refers to a sacred shrine.

(2) One of the central tenets of Wellhausen’s documentary hypothesis was that the elaborate instructions for sacrifice are the invention of disenfranchised priests writing in the Exilic period.  Wellhausen designates these late priestly texts ‘P’.  He argues that in the pre exilic period, there was no well defined ritual for sacrifice but that the people offered sacrifices in the tradition of the Patriarchs.  Amos 5:26 is used by Wellhausen to support his contention that sacrifice was not a central feature of Israelite ritual, which of course contradicts the Priestly documents in which sacrifice plays a central role.   Wellhausen thinks that the obvious answer to Amos rhetorical question is ‘no’ – the Israelites did not offer sacrifices in the Desert.  According to Wellhausen, they knew nothing of the Mosaic code.  But the burden of proof falls to Wellhausen to explain why the Israelites would have ceased offering sacrifices in the desert.  Sacrifices were offered continually in the Biblical text and in the ANE in general.  The only reason one would not sacrifice is if one did not have meat.  Perhaps such a condition did prevail at times during the sojourn of the Israelites in the wilderness but this has nothing to do with the date of Mosaic legislation.

For the truth is, that the tabernacle is the copy, not the prototype, of the temple at Jerusalem.  The  resemblance of the two is indeed unmistakable, but it is not said in 1Kings vi. that Solomon made use of the old pattern and ordered his Tyrian workmen to follow it.  (Wellhausen, Prolegomena)

Although Wellhausen accepted that a tent sanctuary may have existed before the temple, he argues that the description of the tabernacle in Exodus is nothing more than a pious fiction.  But the evidence points in the opposite direction.  The description of the temple in the Bible relies upon information found already in the description of the tabernacle and not vice versa.  Here are some reasons why:

1. Only the two inner rooms of the temple are included in its measurements.  The porch (vestibule) and side chambers (a three tiered side structure called the yaso) are not included.  It stands to reason that the general layout of the temple is based on a two room structure (ie. the tabernacle) to which the vestibule and side chambers were additions.
2. The overall proportions of the temple are very close to those of the tabernacle, and may have been exactly the same depending on how the corner frames of the tabernacle fit together.  It is reasonable to assume that Solomon’s temple was twice the length and twice the width of the tabernacle but was three times its height.  Despite the extra height of Solomon’s temple, the inner sanctuary (dbîr) was 20 x 20 x 20 cubits.  These cubic proportions match that of the ‘holy of holies’ in the tabernacle.   It seems that the cube was important enough that a 10 cubit space was left above the inner sanctuary of Solomon’s temple or the inner sanctuary was raised by 10 cubits.  The likely reason for this is that Solomon’s temple wished to maintain certain ideal proportions (the cubic proportions of the inner sanctuary) while taking liberty with others (such as the height of the building).  If the cube is the ideal proportion for the inner sanctuary, then it is more likely that the temple gets its proportions from the tabernacle and not vice versa.
3. Unlike the tabernacle, there is no indication in the account of the building of the temple that it was made according to a divinely revealed pattern.   The reason for this is most likely because the account in Kings assumes that its readers know that the pattern for the sanctuary was already given in the Sinai theophany.  Thus, the construction of the temple follows an already established tradition.
4. When considered alone, the description of Solomon’s temple has gaping holes in it.  For example, it goes into great detail about the pillars that stood in the porch of the temple, the cherubim that stood in the inner sanctuary, the bronze sea and stands, but it gives no description of the altar, the ark of the covenant, the tables, the incense altar, or the menorahs.  The detailed parts of the description are limited to those items that are not already described in the tabernacle pericope.   It is reasonable to conclude that the temple description relies on the elaborate description of the tabernacle found in the last chapters of Exodus.

While the description of the tabernacle and that of the temple agree in broad outline, there are numerous differences in the details of the descriptions that indicate that they have their genesis in very different contexts.    Evidence for this assertion may be found in the choice of decorative motifs, the placement of the brazen altar, the proportions of the court, the number, names and order of the gates.  The tabernacle lacks features central to the descriptions of Solomon’s temple, Ezekiel’s temple and the Temple Scroll and vice versa.  All of this suggests that the description of the tabernacle does not lie on a literary continuum somewhere between Solomon’s temple and  Ezekiel’s eschatological temple but rather predates the description of Solomon’s temple.

A more detailed presentation is found here

The main street of the city is dark and empty.  Here and there an oil lamp burns, casting crazy shadows across large smooth cobbles stones.  A drizzling rain makes the large cobbles wet and slippery.   A girl appears on the street, dragging a small case behind her.  She is wearing what was once a very fine dress, but that was long ago… a life time ago.  Tired and weak from travel, her foot slips and she falls heavily, still holding tightly to her case.  She cries out in the darkness but there is no one to hear her.  Even a bustling city must sleep sometimes.

The girl lay shivering in the street, too weak to rise.   As the night grew deeper, a cool desert wind arose.  It was bitterly cold, and she had nothing with which to stay warm.  Then a figure appeared in the distance, flitting from shadow to shadow.  The girl drew back in fright as a man approached her wearing a dark cloak with a hood pulled over a lean and crooked face.

Thief: How now, a little skirt, alone in the night, lying in the dirt.  Tis sad to see, one so frail as thee,  frightened… and oh so very helpless…

Mary: Oh Shadow of the night, you fearful figure, with eyes that glint and teeth that glimmer.  Your fingers are long, and slyly you move, like a fox in a field, eyeing a hare in a noose.

Thief: Look at the tears, that flow down her cheeks.  What have you done, girl in the night, to end up alone, and out of sight…?

Mary:  Spare me your pity you vile man.  My tapestry is woven, its ugly pattern I have chosen.

Thief:   Ah, I know who you are!  You are the one, chosen by love to marry the king’s son?  We’ve all heard the story, about the girl who listened to a charmer.  You could have been a queen!  With jewels, and gold, and ladies in waiting.  You had it all, but now you have nothing!

Mary:   Tis true! I am that one, and oh, what I have done I will take to the grave, for now there is no one left to save.

Thief:  Ah, lady of sorrow, your end has not come, there will be a tomorrow.  Your life I do not desire, but pearls and gold, or perhaps a beautiful sapphire!  [reaches for the girls purse]

Mary:  Stay back!  Have pity!  On a helpless girl, in this great big city!

Thief: [looking through the girls things]   A brick of cheese, a crust of bread.  Ah ha!  A hole in the lining!  A clever enough trick, but not for my cunning.  Now look!  Something magnificent!  A gift from the king!  To make you his own, a beautiful ring!

Mary:  Give that back you cruel man, with heart of stone, whose filching fingers and glittering eyes dare to take what I most prize.

Thief:   One seeks treasure and another pleasure.  What is the harm, if there is no measure?

Mary:  Fine! Take the ring!  It is a fitting end.  A promise was made, and a covenant broken!

[the thief walks off with the ring in his hand]

In 1997 Bill Clinton signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act that excluded same sex couples from federal benefits.  13 years later Bill Clinton disavowed that same legislation, stating that,  “…the fabric of our country has changed, and so should this policy.”   Likewise, Barak Obama initially opposed same sex marriage in his 2008 election campaign but reversed his position 6 months before his 2012 campaign for reelection. (source) Joe Biden suggests that one of President Obama’s most significant achievements will be his championing of gay rights.  (source)  Hillary Clinton did not speak out publicly in favour of gay marriage until 2013.   In an interview with NPR she observed how quickly public opinion has changed on this issue.  “I did not grow up even imagining gay marriage and I don’t think you probably did either… we are living at a time when this extraordinary change is occurring and I am proud of our country…” Clinton said in the interview.   (source)

Both Bill and Hillary Clinton acknowledge that same sex marriage was unheard of in their own generation but no longer.  The times, they are a changing!  So where do we go from here?  A study recently issued by the APA (American Psychological Association) may provide a clue.  It warns that the sexual portrayal of children (particularly girls) in the media is becoming “increasingly common’ (source).  The increasing acceptance of sexual images of children is also evident in the very lenient laws Canada has toward online sites containing sexualized images of children – the courts apparently favoring the freedom of expression over the safety of our children.    One other instance is the ‘manga’ cartoons that have successfully circumvented Japan’s laws against child pornography. (source)

Despite the increasingly sexual portrayal of children in the media, pedastery remains shockingly wrong for most people who live in the West.  But it hasn’t always been viewed this way.  It was a normal part of Greek and Roman society.

In his book, Meditations, the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher, Marcus Aurelius, thanks his mentors.  He singles out his adoptive father in particular for praise.

In my adoptive father I observed a smooth and inoffensive temper, with great steadiness in keeping close to measures judiciously taken; a greatness proof against vanity and the impressions of pomp and power. From him a prince might learn to love business and action, and be constantly at it; to be willing to hear out any proposal relating to public advantage, and undeviatingly give every man his due; to understand the critical seasons and circumstances for rigour or remissness. To have no boy-favourites.  (Meditations)

Marcus Aurelius thought it worth mentioning that his step father did not have boy-favorites.  Apparently many other rich Roman patrons did have boy-favorites, the most famous of which was Antinous, Hadrian’s boy favorite.  Antinous was only 11 or 12 when he was introduced to the aging emperor – 35 years his senior.  Within several years of their introduction, Antinous accompanied Hadrian on all his tours of the empire until he died mysteriously on the Nile on October 130 AD, at the time of festival of Osiris.  It was possible, even likely, that Antinous death in the Nile was a voluntary human sacrifice.  Dio Cassius thought so. (source) And certainly the circumstances are suspicious.   This probably explains why Hadrian deified Antinous and erected statues of him throughout the Roman world.  Over 100 such statues have been discovered.

Another source that reveals the widespread practice of pedastery in the Roman world is a work titled the Banquet of the Learned (Deipnosophistae) by written he Athenaeus in Rome (3rd century AD).  Athenaeus notes that in Greek myths, the gods “were fond of having boys” but there was a debate whether this fondness should be traced back to Zeus or to Minos (the ancient deified king of the Cretans).

And many men used to be as fond of having boys as their favourites as women for their mistresses. And this was a frequent fashion in many very well regulated cities of Greece. Accordingly, the Cretans, as I have said before, and the Chalcidians in Euboea, were very much addicted to the custom of having boy-favourites. Therefore Echemenes, in his history of Crete, says that it was not Zeus who carried off Ganymedes, but Minos. But the before-mentioned Chalcidians say that Ganymedes was carried off from them by Zeus; and they show the spot, which they call Harpagium; and it is a place which produces extraordinary myrtles. http://www.attalus.org/old/athenaeus13d.html

Young slave boys were used  to serve food in the symposium where they were they became the objects of lust.

Sophocles, too, had a great fancy for having boy-favourites, equal to the addiction of Euripides for women. And accordingly, Ion the poet, in his book on the Arrival of Illustrious Men in the Island of Chios, writes thus:- “I met Sophocles the poet in Chios, when he was sailing to Lesbos as the general: he was a man very pleasant over his wine, and very witty. And when Hermesilaus, who was connected with him by ancient ties of hospitality, and who was also the Proxenus of the Athenians, entertained him, the boy who was mixing the wine was standing by the fire, being a boy of a very beautiful complexion, but made red by the fire: so Sophocles called him and said, ‘Do you wish me to drink with pleasure?’ and when he said that he did, he said, ‘Well, then, bring me the cup, and take it away again in a leisurely manner.’ And as the boy blushed all the more at this, Sophocles said to the guest who was sitting next to him, ‘How well did Phrynichus speak when he said- ‘The light of love doth shine in purple cheeks.’ [Sophocles and an Eretrian discuss poetry] …and Sophocles again turned to pursue the conversation with the boy; for he asked him, as he was brushing away the straws from the cup with his little finger, whether he saw any straws: and when he said that he did, he said, ‘Blow them away, then, that you may not dirty your fingers.’ And when he brought his face near the cup he held the cup nearer to his own mouth, so as to bring his own head nearer to the head of the boy. And when he was very near he took him by the hand and kissed him. And when all clapped their hands, laughing and shouting out, to see how well he had taken the boy in, he said, ‘I, my friends, am practicing the art of generalship, since Pericles has said that I know how to compose poetry, but not how to be a general; now has not this stratagem of mine succeeded perfectly?’ And he both said and did many things of this kind in a witty manner, drinking and giving himself up to mirth: but as to political affairs he was not able nor energetic in them, but behaved as any other virtuous Athenian might have done.” (Athenaeus Deipnosophistae – Book 13) http://www.attalus.org/old/athenaeus13d.html

Athenaeus also describes a dance in which young boys took part.

For Demodocus sang while “boys in their first bloom” danced, and in the Forging of the Arms a boy played the lyre while others opposite him “frisked about to the music and the dance.” (Athenaeus Deipnosophistae – Book 1) http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Athenaeus/1B*.html

Pedastery was also part of the Gymnasium.

Ball-players also paid attention to graceful movement. Damoxenus, at any rate, says: “A youngster, perhaps sixteen or seventeen years old, was once playing ball. He came from Cos; that island, it is plain, produces gods. Whenever he cast his eye upon us seated there, as he caught or threw the ball, we shouted together, ‘What rhythm! what modesty of manner, what skill!’ Whatever he said or did, gentlemen, he seemed a miracle of beauty. Never before have I heard of or seen such grace.  Something would have happened to me if I had stayed longer; as it is, I feel that I am not quite well.” Even Ctesibius, the philosopher of Chalcis, liked to play ball, and many of King Antigonus’s friends would strip for a game with him. Timocrates the Laconian wrote a treatise on ball-playing. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Athenaeus/1B*.html Famous ball-players were Demoteles, brother of Theocritus the Chian sophist; also one Chaerephanes. He, when following a licentious young man, would not converse with him, and moreover prevented the young fellow from inducing his passion. So the young man said, “Chaerephanes, if you will stop following me you shall have of me everything you desire.” “What!” he replied; “I converse with you?” “Why, then,” said the young man, “do you persist in following me?” To this he answered, “I like to look at you, but I do not approve of your morals.” http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Athenaeus/1B*.html

So apparently many within Roman society would have been quite comfortable with modern attitudes towards homosexuality and even the sexualizing of children.  On at least one point, however, the ancient Romans differed from modern progressives.  There is no indications that the Romans or the Greeks ever felt compelled to change the definition of marriage.  It is doubtful that any society before our own time thought it was a good idea to have two men raise a child or two woman.

How you have fallen oh Helel, Son of the Dawn.  You said I will ascend to Heaven, I will become like the Most High…  but you have been brought to down to the farthest reaches of the pit.

When Jacob lay his head down on a stone under the starry heavens and drifted off to sleep, he thought he was quite alone in the world.  He was a fugitive on his way to a distant land.  But that night he dreamed of a ladder spanning heaven and earth upon which the angels of God ascended and descended.  When Jacob awoke from this dream, he exclaimed,

“Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.” And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”  (Gen 28:17, 17 ESV)

Jacob awoke with an overwhelming sense of God’s presence.  His statement implies that the LORD had been with Jacob before he lay his head down to sleep that night but he ‘didn’t know it’.   None of Jacob’s physical circumstances had changed but only how he perceived them.  “How awesome is this place!” Jacob exclaimed.   Jacob called the place Bethel, which means, “the House of God”.  It was the exact same title that would later be used of the tabernacle and its more permanent replacement, the temple.   The central meaning of the temple is that ‘God is with us in this place’.  But it is clear from Jacob’s dream that God’s presence was in no way conceived of being confined to a place on earth.   Interestingly enough, Jacob equates the house of God with the gate of heaven – as though an invisible ladder linked heaven and earth.  The Psalms likewise  consistently link the hope for life after death with the temple.

This is one of those passages that can be shown, with all probability, to date to a time before the divided kingdom.   The holy place is not identified with Jerusalem but with Bethel –  a high place that was later condemned by the prophets.    That means that this text must have been considered ‘canonical’ sometime before Jeroboam erected a golden calf at the site.   It is interesting that already, in this early period, this text must have been  considered sacred.  Otherwise, the name Bethel would certainly have been changed to Jerusalem, or expunged altogether, to make it fit with the centralizing reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah.

This passage is also of interest for archaeology in as much as Jacob commemorates his dream by erecting a stone (matzeva) and anoints it with oil.  It illustrates how little an artifact tells us about the beliefs of the people who made it.  Herman Melville, in his epic story, Moby Dick, tells a story about a whale that washed up on shore leaving behind an intact skeleton.  Scientists took detailed measurements of the skeleton hoping that by it they could comprehend something of the whale.  But Melville notes that the skeleton of a whale gives only the barest understanding of the creature.  Only those who have felt the sting of the salt spray, looked the beast in the eye, and hurled their harpoon… only they can tell us about the whale!  I have read a number of studies of the temple and the tabernacle that are very detailed and scientific but treat it as nothing more than an artifact – like the bones of a whale washed up on shore.  But to understand the tabernacle is to be able to say with Jacob, “How awesome is this place!”

You take the Bible seriously…? Childish fables and all?  Creation in six days, Eve and the snake in the garden, Noah’s ark, Aaron’s stick that turns into a snake, on and on?”(1)

It is easy to make a caricature of the Bible,  especially of the first chapters of Genesis.  When read as an ANE myth, the first chapters of Genesis describe man and woman discovering sex and becoming aware of themselves, the man learning his role as a toiler in the fields and the woman her role as child bearer, the reason a serpent slithers, etc, etc.    But if we read Genesis 2 and 3 in the light of the Pentateuch (and the rest of Scripture) then  we will find etiologies of a different sort.   Here is the first instance of a law; the formation of the first family unit;  the origin of guilt, shame and fear; and the first sacrifice.   The garden is the temple, the heavenly city.  The sloughing serpent is Leviathan, the dragon that rises from the sea.

In one of his Pensees , Blaise Pascal noted that our attitude towards a person (or a text) fundamentally influences  how we hear them.

If two people are talking nonsense, and one sees a double meaning understood by adepts, while the other sees only a single meaning, any uninitiated person who heard them talking like this would judge them alike.  But if the first goes on to say angelic things and the other always banal commonplaces, he would judge that the one was talking mystically, but not the other, since one has shown clearly enough that the is incapable of such nonsense and capable of a mystic meaning, while the other has shown himself incapable of a mystic meaning and capable of nonsense.  The Old Testament is a cipher.  (Pensees 276, Blaise Pascal, Penguin Edition 1995)

If we were to hear a man speaking gibberish and only later discovered that he was known to be wise, then will likely look for meaning in what we first dismissed out of hand.  Even if we don’t succeed, we will acknowledge that our failure to understand is due to our own limitations, and that with time, the meaning will become clearer to us.  On the other hand, if we hear gibberish, and later discover that the person who spoke was insane, then we will not give the matter a second thought. Pascal’s point was that the Old Testament is a Cipher that speaks of Christ.  Pascal believed that God gave enough light through nature and the Scriptures to guide sincere seekers, and enough darkness to keep rebels from being unwillingly bludgeoned into accepting the truth. (3)  This same principle is also found in the parables of Christ.

Bibliography: (1) Wouk, H. (2010). The language God talks : on science and religion. New York, NY, Little, Brown and Co.  This quote is in the context of a discussion between the author and a the Physicist and Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman. (2) Pascal, B. and A. J. Krailsheimer (1995). Pensées. London New York, Penguin Books ; Penguin Books USA. (3) MacKenzie, C. S., Blaise Pascal: Apologist to Skeptics, University Press of America: Lanham, 2008