Twelve Passages from the Book of Jeremiah

Inspirational Christian images are very, very common.  You have almost certainly seen them all your life, with or without noticing.  They consist of a short biblical verse printed over a photograph that may be thematically linked to the quotation, or may just be a sunset, a rainbow, or some similar attractive scene.

In addition to their substantial brick-and-mortar presence, these images are also widely displayed, offered, and sold (!) here online.  I run into them constantly when I am working on MRtB, and over time I have come to find them a little troubling.  So I thought I would make a little game.

What follows are:

Six typical inspirational religious images based on quotes from the first half of Jeremiah, found randomly on the internet.

Six additional images, also based on quotes from the first half of Jeremiah, that I assembled myself (I used one a few posts back).

And the three questions, if you are playing the game, are: "Can you tell the difference? How? and What, if any, are the implications?"

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Happy New Bible Year!

The story thus far: After creating the world, God focused on a small tribe of people, the Israelites; much of the book of Genesis concerns the adventures of their early leaders. The next four books concern their activities and their laws under the great leader Moses. In Joshua and Judges, they conquer a modest parcel in the Eastern Mediterranean. The books of Samuel tell of the rise of King David, and the books of Kings and Chronicles tell, in separate narratives, of his many successors in two separate kingdoms until the eventual collapse of both states.

Last year, in Ezra and Nehemiah, we read of the return from Babylonian exile of some fairly radicalized Israelites, who impose a strict program of cultural renewal back in the homeland. We read a story about a Jewish queen in Babylon in Esther, and then hit three non-narrative books: Job, a long, abstruse, and not entirely coherent theological conversation; Psalms, a very long series of hymns with moods ranging from ecstatic joy to fierce paranoia; and Proverbs, a minimally structured set of pieces of wisdom -- a sort of biblical self-help text.

So it is here -- in the "Books of Wisdom," the collected non-narrative papers ascribed to David, Solomon, and other First Temple leaders -- that we resume our reading. Ecclesiastes is on deck.

But First....

Reader Elaine lobbied hard for a compare-and-contrast of Psalm 139 and Margaret Wise Brown's charming children's classic "The Runaway Bunny," so after having a copy of the latter out from the library all holiday season, I finally mustered the 45 seconds it takes to read. It's a short dialogue between a restless baby bunny and his mother; the younger rabbit makes up various magical ways he could escape parental control, and mom comes up with responses to the effect that she would always follow and keep tabs on him. The general mood is more nurturing than totalitarian, although with a different set of illustrations a mischievous culture jammer with parent issues could have some fun subverting the text.

Psalm 139 is a prayer from a human to God marveling about the size and scope and all-knowingness of the deity. It is indeed similar to "Bunny" in that the Psalmist lists possible modes of escape -- flying, burrowing, crossing the sea, hiding in the dark -- and confesses that God is going to see right through all of these ruses. There is also an explicit maternal link in Verse 13, which reads: For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.

Are they the same story? Your answer to that will correspond to how closely you associate divine omniscience with maternal love. If you think those two things are broadly analogous, as many modern liberal Christians do, then the two narratives are all but identical. But I suspect that King David, to whom the Psalm is ascribed, would be horrified by the comparison. For the Old Testament writers, God is less about comfort and safety and more about pure, awe-inspiring power. There is plenty of talk about God's love in the Old Testament, but it is anything but unconditional. God's love, unlike Mother Bunny's, comes with strict rules, explicit contracts, and death sentences for entire populations.

At the end of "Bunny," the baby bunny realizes that he can't get away from mom -- or, perhaps, that she passes his test of her devotion -- and figures he might as well not bother running away. "Shucks," he says, invoking a mild oath that once, I've heard, was actually used in real life. Then his mom gives him a carrot. At the end of Psalm 139, David invites God's scrutiny and guidance -- but not without a quick burst of his characteristic angry paranoia. If only you would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men! (19) Personally, I find Ma Bunny's carrot a little more compelling than King David's stick, but then I think that David and I would find a lot about which we'd have to agree to disagree.

Next Time: The Bible is for the Byrds

Blog Sabbath 2009!

And with the conclusion of the Book of Proverbs, it's time for the annual November - December MRtB Sabbath!

I read only six Books this year, but that included the massive and in some ways daunting Book of Psalms. In total, I've finished 20 of the Bible's 66 Books now, so I'm 30.3% of the way in. I read 256 chapters, though, which brings me up to 659 out of 1189, well over halfway through (55.4%). I'm at 55.7% of the way through in Verses, having completed a whopping 16401 out of 31102.

I stayed on task pretty well in 2009, despite the trouble that the Books of Job and Psalms gave me. I covered 5299 verses over the course of the year, down from 7124 last year but well over the 4687 in 2007 and 206 in 2006). I have 5829 verses to go to reach the New Testament, which would be a nice break point; it's an ambitious goal, but I will see if I can finish off the Old Testament in 2010. That would put the end of the whole project sometime in 2012. Mercy.

So, whatever readers there may be: Have lovely winter holidays of your choosing. I may well be back for a few pieces of unfinished business -- Elaine's request for me to read the book about the rabbit, for instance -- but we'll get back to actual Bible-readin' sometime around the new year. Ecclesiastes ho!!!

Anniversary!

Michael Reads the Bible is two years old today. "I'm guessing it will take more than a year, all told," I said, and it turns out I was right.

The project has turned out a lot different than I thought it would be. I'm working at a much finer level of detail than I expected, and perhaps not coincidentally getting a lot more out of the process than I expected. Too, I've been surprised by how quiet things have been. When I started the project, I imagined that there would be LOTS of Bible-reading blogs around, and that mine would attract a loud cluster of mostly very negative commenters and detractors. Instead, we've long since settled into an extremely modest and steady nine or ten readers a day, and the few comments have on the whole been very peaceful and respectful.

If a little lonely, though, the process has been continually rewarding. The Bible is, as I say almost every week, full of surprises, and its a rare session when I find in it what I expect. There's a lot of strange logic and a very alien cultural perspective on the world, and yet human behavior is very recognizably on parade, often at its sordid worst. Reading the Bible is like travelling to a faraway country where they think differently, act differently, and have created a different way of living in the world, and yet you recognize your shared humanity through and through.

Current expected completion date: Fall, 2012.

The Blog Sabbath

Another landmark! With tonight's post, I completed the Book of Numbers, the fourth book of the Bible.

After I started on this project in July 2006, I managed only six entries before taking an unplanned 5 1/2 month hiatus. Okay, that was lame. But since I fired things back up again in February, I've been on task every Sunday night, pretty much just like clockwork. I've been happy about that.

Now, though, I think it's time for an official Michael Reads the Bible Blog Sabbath. I'm going to take November and December off from the project. I'll be back in the first week of January, we'll do some brief review, and then we'll start the new year in the fresh terrain of Deuteronomy.

Thanks to those few of you who are reading along as I go. I know that you are out there, and that makes the whole thing more fun and interesting for me.

Best, and see you in the new year,
M5K

"Passion": Not Enough Passion

Regular readers will note that this is the first entry in more than five months. Real sorry, man. How's YOUR Bible blog coming?

I gave into a longstanding temptation last week, and watched "Passion of the Christ." You'll recall that there was plenty of hype about this movie a few summers back. Literal busloads of conservative Christians packed theaters in a frank effort to boost the film's box office, the thinking being that a high gross would be equivalent to a high score in the culture wars. Well, whatever.

Having now watched the film, I feel that there was an important point missed in all of the discussion of the time. That point is this: It's bad. To be sure, it has some good elements. The musical score is steller. The photography is exquisite. Props and costuming were slick. But "Passion" manages to transcend its elements of excellence to become a real stinker.

And before we go any further, let me just say that I have no particular problem with Mel Gibson. He has, to be sure, painted a pretty big target on himself with his pathetic personal shenanigans of the past year, but honestly I didn't detect anything like anti-Semitism in "Passion." Nor do I think he is incompetant as a director. I feel his "Hamlet" is the best movie adaptation of that Shakespeare play to date. Gibson put a much-needed dose of physicality into the role, and got amazing performances out of his supporting cast. I expected something of the same might happen with "Passion." No such luck.

"Passion" is a telling on film of the arrest, trial, and execution of Jesus Christ. I'm pretty sure that Gibson hoped we would be thinking while we watched about Christ's assumption of the sins of all mankind. What you actually think about, though, is that the guy on the screen gets the crap beat out of him, ceaselessly, for nearly two hours straight. The beatings start in earnest only a few minutes in, and from then on you are watching the continual brutalisation of a man who is, realistically enough, already in shock. And we are talking about the rawest possible sorts of beatings here, flesh and skin torn away from the body in gory chunks. After the cat-o-nine-tails comes out, at about minute 40, the part of Jesus might as well be played by an unusually stoic side of beef. Now, this might be what a particularly brutal Roman execution would actually look like, but the religious passion, as I understand it, is supposed to be a little more than that.

Where religious content is present, it is embarassingly unsubtle. Satan wanders in and out around the events, passively observing, looking for all the world like one of them smooth, cynical secular humanists with too much education, except that worms and vermin occasionally flicker out from his nostrils. He cradles a grotesquely deformed child. He does not wear a name tag that says "Hello, my name is Satan," but we get the point.

Other actors stand in tableaus, watching pensively, until they march forward to deliver a line from scripture. The fact that the movie is in Aramaic and Latin serves to further distance you from any "passion" in the acting. It moves the movie, again, towards realistic historical reenactment of an execution -- which, again, means away from any spiritual depth. (It also turns Pilate's famous pronouncement of "Ecce homo!", which in English would have gone unnoticed -- "Behold, the man!" -- into a real money line.)

I have not mentioned the flashbacks to happier times which continually and artlessly interupt the flow of the beatings. Example: Mary, watching her already half-dead son being whipped where he lies in the street, recalls a time he fell down as a little boy and she was able to run to him and pick him up. Except she can't save him now that he is being savaged by the Roman Legion. This kind of thing is simultaneously maudlin and emotionally implausible, simultaneously absurd and way too obvious, and gets annoying very quickly. There is even a Back-to-the-Future style gag crediting Jesus the carpenter with inventing the dinette set. No, really, there is.

The end of the movie brought two surprises. First, at the moment of Christ's death, there is a big special-effects spectacular, an Earthquake that looks for all the world like something out of "Lord of the Rings." I was appalled and outraged by this cheap cinematic trick, horrified that Gibson would have felt the need to add showy folderal to an event of such religious importance... but I decided to check the text before I opened my big mouth. Sure enough, three out of four gospel writers describe an earthquake at the moment of Christ's death. Did you remember that?

The second surprise at the end of the movie is the end of the movie. We've watched the son of God get tortured for several reels, and we are primed for his glorious resurrection. Get a fresh bowl of popcorn. Ready? We are shown the inside of the tomb. Jesus sits up. The movie ends.

Verdict: It's possible to create a passion play that explores religious issues. "Last Temptation of Christ" was brilliant. Hell, "Jesus Christ Superstar" did pretty well in the format of a pop musical. And, any village in Austria or Quebec can put on a passion play that does not really explore religious issues, but inspires a feeling of religious devotion. Mel Gibson missed both marks, creating something more akin to a documentary about the limits of the human -- not the sacred -- body.

Ground Rules

OK, let's start with some ground rules to keep me honest.

Rules for me.

I: I'll be reading the New International Version of the Christian Bible, Old and New Testaments. (Specifically, I'll be reading the copy that was given to graduating seniors by the ministerial association of my small hometown 20 years ago. Not terribly long ago, but I'm sure they didn't anticipate its use as blogfodder. Thanks for the Bible, guys.)

II: I will keep the Oxford Companion to the Bible at hand, and may (or may not) peek into it or other sources as I go.

III: There are a little fewer than 1200 chapters in the Bible. I must, at a minimum, make a blog entry for every 10 chapters read.

IV: I must not be deliberately offensive. This is tricky, since a) the entire enterprise will be offensive to some, and b) I have a fairly, um, irreverent attitude towards piety and received opinions about anything, for instance religion or the nature of God. I certainly can't promise that a reader won't be horrified by my thinking or my attitude. I will endeavor mightily, however, to avoid disparaging others, or taking mean-spirited shots at the opinions of others -- especially others whom I know to be following the blog.

V: If I find out that others don't share my beliefs, I resolve not to act all shocked about it. I already knew that others didn't share my beliefs.

VI: The timeline is loose. I don't intend to put down all other reading while I'm working on this, and the writing process will slow things down. I'm guessing it will take more than a year, all told.

Rules for Anyone Who Decides to Comment

I: No, I'm not trying to get you to read the Bible along with me, although that might be fun. Comment is welcome from deeply informed perspectives, or off the cuff.

II: First names only, please, and no overtly identifying information. It's a public forum.

III: Be civil. Feel free to tell me I'm full of shit, but try not to hurt my feelings while you're doing it. Even more so, don't go after other commenters. Be light of heart and generous.

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That's enough for now. Michael Reads the Bible, starting, well... soon. See ya then.

The Original Letter

Hello, Friends,

Having survived my summer bicycle trip, I've been contemplating my next exercise in endurance. It’s going to be another one of those things I have always wanted to do someday. But, instead of the roads of Western Oregon, this time I'm taking on the great sacred text of European civilization. That's right: over the next year or so, I’m gonna read the Bible.

In order to keep myself focused, reflective, and moving forward, I am going to blog this experience. I’m certainly not promising to have any great and riveting insights or anything like that. But, if you are interested in this sort of thing, I'm inviting you, my brilliant, insightful, and (one hopes) patient friends, to take part if you would like -- to read, to comment, and to tell me when I'm full of crap.

I am particularly interested in a few specific questions:

1. Is God a Republican? That's certainly the impression one gets from many of his most vocal advocates. Are they right? This seems important.
2. Is God good? If you're shocked to read the question, I'm awfully shocked to be writing it. But I have vague notions that there's a ton of smiting in the Bible. And, as a rule, I'm strongly anti-smiting. How does that kind of thing get resolved?
3. An afterlife? Really? This whole "hell" thing, in particular, seems like a real stretch to me. Let's take a look.
4. What are God’s family values? Does God really, as the Rev. Fred Phelps used to tell us in Kansas, "hate fags"? Is monogamous heterosexual marriage really the only way to fly? Inquiring minds want to know.

I suppose these are all really facets of a simpler question: Am I a Christian? I've been fairly content with my stock answer for while now -- "I'm one part Quaker, two parts gardener" -- but that is pretty flip, and holds questions like the ones above rather at arm’s length. I'm ready to put them under the microscope, and engage with some sacred text.

Care to join me? This subject matter isn't for everyone, and obviously neither is reading my personal prose stylings/rantings. But if you are interested in participating in the experience, or in just following along, here's the URL:

http://michaelreadsthebible.blogspot.com/

Michael