The Binding of Isaac Revisited

During my cyber journeys this morning, I came upon a blog post called A Girardian Interpretation of Genesis 22:1-14 on a blog called Faynights. It looks like the last post was sometime in 2007 so it is not a currently updated blog. The post about the Binding of Isaac was written as an essay for the author's Hebrew class. It brought out a few Girardian points I have not seen mentioned anywhere else. Isn't it amazing what you can find on google!!!???

One of the points she brings concerns the knife referred to several times in the text:

As Abraham prepares to kill Isaac, the language used is not that of ritual but that of butchery. In his translation of the Pentateuch, Robert Alter points out that the word מאכלת, which is used throughout for the knife, usually refers to a cleaver used in butchering rather than a weapon used for sacrifice. Likewise, עקד (verse 9), while it does not appear elsewhere in the Old Testament, is used in rabbinic Hebrew to mean trussing the legs of animals, and שחט (verse 10) means not “sacrifice” but “slaughter.” 5 It is difficult to see the attempted killing as having the dignity of a divinely approved ritual when this brutal vocabulary is used.

Now that is interesting indeed, eh? Makes me think of comparisons of Scripture to an onion...layer upon layer upon layer. Or another way of looking at it is that the deeper we dig, the more we find.

Another interesting facet of the tale when examined from a Girardian perspective is that Isaac is identified as the victim/sacrifice and the text clearly stresses his innocence. Scapegoats are usually perceived as guilty of something...and in fact, it is because of the belief in their guilt that the whole thing works as a kind of catharsis for the mimetic rivalry that is threatening to erupt into the all against all scenario. In this essay she says:

Indeed, it may be to emphasize his innocence that the author depicts him as if he were a young child, even though the timescale of Genesis suggests he would have been an adult. Girard believes that this acknowledgement of the victim‘s innocence is the first step in dismantling the sacrificial process:

She also discusses the "name change" of God in the text. I think I discussed this in one of the posts in the "series." I originally got the idea from the Girardian Lectionary...which she also quotes in her essay. About this name change she says:

Another very significant change in vocabulary occurs when the angel saves Isaac. Up to this point, the word used for God has been אלהים. While often used in the Old Testament to mean the God of Israel, this is really a generic term that can refer to any god or goddess. Only when Isaac is rescued does the true name of God -- יהוה, “the Eternal” -- appear in the text.

She also discusses some very interesting thoughts about the ram that was caught in the thicket....things I have never pondered before. Why a ram? If Isaac is a "picture of Christ" as many believe, then why not a lamb...a sheep? Why a ram? A wild animal? And although it is thought astounding to many that the ram was caught in a thicket, in nature it happens often during mating season when they are in a mating frenzy. She says:

How did the ram come to be caught by its horns? This sort of accident is not uncommon among wild hoofed mammals during the battles of mating season. It usually happens either when the animal is ‘horning’ vegetation to intimidate a rival, or as it charges in a blind rage. An animal caught this way is doomed: it will either be killed by a predator or starve. 8 Could it be that the ram appears in the story, not to provide Abraham with a “surrogate victim" 9, but as another warning of the destructive effects of rivalry and violence?

There's that onion again...layer upon layer. Then she goes on to mention the name Abraham gives the mountain....not "God spared my son" but rather "The Eternal Sees." I have not checked this out in any other resource. I am taking her word for it. It does make sense...and what is it that the "Eternal Sees" that we don't yet...even still to this day? This whole mimetic rivalry thing...pent up anger...the need to find a scapegoat...a victim to hang all societies ills upon. We still scapegoat as surely as they did in ancient times. The ritual is different, less crude, perhaps more subtle and hidden, but the heart of it, the purpose is still the same.

Lastly, in the footnotes, she cites some sources that discuss the ram:

In her classic account of the wildlife of the American Southwest, The Land of Little Rain, Mary Austin describes finding the skeleton of a young ram with its horns still embedded in the trunk of a tree (p. 58). And Richard Despard Estes, an expert on the hoofed mammals of Africa, tells a true story that could just as well serve as a parable. Two fighting springboks found their horns inextricably locked; each spent the rest of its life face to face with its rival as they starved to death together (African Mammals, p. 83).

My sincere thanks and accolades to Laura Brown, the author of this essay. She brought out several points that peeled another layer off the onion. And my sincere thanks, as always, to google, for the many vistas it has opened for me....the information that came to me with the click of my mouse. Someone told me that yesterday was "shut it off" day...a challenge to turn off your computer for 24 hours to see if you could do it. Now why would I ever want to do such a thing??

Thinking Some More About This Old Testament Stuff....

Some of these recent posts (inspired by recent reading) have really got me thinking. Even though in the past, I have alluded to the belief that God had nothing to do with the violence in the OT. That can't quite be true because it is pretty obvious...if only by his inaction...that he did. In other words, even if he did not directly order the wars and pillaging and plundering, he let it all happen and is therefore responsible for it. Ultimately, the buck stops with God. I am musing here. What follows are random thoughts that are not refined...are not thought out. Much of this blog is made up of research and random thinking. I am on a journey, an exploration. Sometimes in determining what we do not believe, we come to find out what we do believe and hold it nearer and dearer to our hearts.

At this point, I do believe that something pivotal happened in the garden...or a very early part of our human journey began there. (There is the question of pre-existence...which cannot be tackled in this post...but might make a good series at some point in the future) When we ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it began the process whereby we would become acquainted with evil and by which God would make us into his image and likeness. Girard thinks the fall had to do with mimesis...mimetic rivalry....when the serpent enticed Eve by telling her that God possessed something she did not...something that would open her eyes and make her like God and that he was trying to keep it for himself. She fell prey to mimetic rivalry and the whole scapegoating process began. Tolle believes that the fall took place when we acquired the ability to think and our thoughts overtook us and alienated us from God. Tolle's beliefs are not necessarily incompatible with Girard's. Did we have a choice in the garden? I don't know. Someone who used to post on some of the same forums as I did believed that we did have an element of choice, but that if mankind had not "fallen" in the garden, they would have fallen sooner or later.

Perhaps to take us from where we were after the fall to where God wants us to be (a process that is still taking place) mankind had to go through all the wars, the OT atrocities, the sacrificial system etc. But the flaw, the weakness, the propensity toward violence and mimetic rivalry, the vengeance etc. is in the heart of man, not in the heart of God. He endures with long suffering the vessels of wrath (us) fitted for destruction. Us.

It is still hard to reconcile the God we see in Jesus with the warrior God of the OT. Perhaps, like the God Quest site proclaims, satan was the one who handed down most of the commands in the Old Testament. I am thinking, perhaps, God allowed him the liberty to direct mankind for a while. He gave satan some slack in the leash he is on, similar to the slack God gave him when he tormented Job. Granted, God called satan's attention to Job and when "prompted" gave satan permission to torment Job. God did set clear limits on how far satan could go but did not specifically say just what those tortures and torments would entail.

Or perhaps it was just mankind's carnal nature that orchestrated most of the violence in the OT...with God coming to the rescue when they got themselves in too big of a bind to get out of.

Just musing here....lots of thoughts running through my mind...including the fact that it is time to make dinner.

Other Thoughts and Resources on the OT Atrocities 2

As I mentioned in "part 1", Greg Boyd is doing a series of articles about the OT atrocities. In the last two posts he focused on the book "The Problem of War in the Old Testament" by Philip Craigie. Boyd says, "

"Craigie’s small book contains a number of insights that I believe can help us begin to reconcile the "God as warrior" motif of the Old Testament with the self-sacrificial God revealed in Jesus Christ."

Hmmmmm....isn't that what almost everyone has to somehow come to terms with at some point in their Christian walk? I am doing it right now....and with perhaps a bit of a paradigm switch because of some of the ideas I've read in Boyd's blog entries and especially in the article I mentioned in part 1 of this post.

In Christians and Violence the author states that he sees two possible hypotheses. that might explain what appears to be profound differences between the God of the OT and Jesus. Hypotheses A is that:

"God's unabashed involvement in war signals that the God of the Old Testament is in essence a deity that thrives on war and violence."

The problem with that, however, is that it conflicts with a God of love and compassion. Yep, sure does. His hypotheses B entails three points:

1) God has a project...to make men and women in his own image who will ultimately serve him out of love.

2) God is fully committed to the principle of partnership with humanity...meaning that he not only works ON us and IN us to achieve his purpose, but he also works WITH us.

3) Because he has chosen to work in cahoots with sinful man, he meets us where we are...with all our foibles, warts and weaknesses. We are trapped in history and although he probably could magically transform us to a higher level of awareness, morality etc, he has chosen not to work that way. There is a verse in the Psalms that declares, "he stoops down to make me great." Perhaps in the OT times he had to stoop very low, indeed, to meet mankind where we were in our in development.

The author of this article, uses as an example, a father playing on the floor with his young sons....rolling around, tickling, carrying on. If one were to judge him infantile, they would not understand he has condescended to the level of the kids. And so, perhaps it is with God.

A father cannot expect little children to come up to his level; if he really wishes to relate to them in a significant manner, he must take into account their limitations and adapt himself to their
reality.

Now this is starting to make a bit of sense. Even though I still cannot reconcile the thought that God actually ordered the carnage in the OT, I can accept that he did not stop it and that he actually used it to achieve his purposes. If there was some supernatural help there in some of the situations, I'm not sure. Will have to ponder that a bit more.....

This author points out that God's involvement in war in the OT:

.....does not suggest that God is essentially violent in character. On the contrary, his willingness to intervene and participate in human history, a history profoundly and irrevocably tainted by sin, broadcasts his infinite love for humanity.

And to stress the point that God is not afraid to get down and dirty with humanity, he reminds us that God, in Jesus, condescended enough to take on human flesh and dwell among us in. He stooped down to make us great.....

It All Begins In The Garden 2

I've been reading Eckhart Tolle's "A New Earth" for the past few weeks. I'm only on Chapter 3, just ready to begin Chapter 4. It is slow going because on almost every page, I mark, asterick, underline, comment in the margins. It is amazing how this is hitting home. I have been reading the message boards at Oprah's site, watching the podcasts and pondering the questions on the personal workbook provided for members. Since I am a Christian, I substitute carnal/adamic man for "ego" and the christ within for the rather new agey terms he uses to describe the same thing. The Source, Being, Universe is....to me...God. I do not accept everything he says in his book...but a lot of it is profound!!!

He thinks that when we ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil we became separated from God and our egoic mind was formed. We were no longer eating from the tree of life...and we were alienated from God (as Colossians 1:21 says) in our minds. Sounds like "the Fall" to me.....

Other Thoughts and Resources on the OT Atrocities

Gregory Boyd is doing a series on the OT on his blog, Random Reflections. His latest post, Craigie: The Problem of War in the Old Testament, Part I discusses the views of C that are outlined in his book , The Problem of War in the Old Testament dealing with the warrior God of the OT. It was out of stock at Amazon, although there were used copies available. I googled the title and came upon an article called Christians and Violence, written by Pierre Gilbert an Associate Professor of Old Testament Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary. His article is based upon Craigie's book. Early in the article he expresses the "thorny problem"

A Thorny Problem
The problem of war in the Old Testament represents one the most critical theological problems Christians. It seems to be in absolute contradiction with the spirit of peace and non-violence Jesus displayed in his ministry. The link between Yahweh and war in the Old Testament creates the image of a violent, vengeful and bloodthirsty divinity. In fact, this problem has been so serious that many have, throughout the centuries, not only repudiated the Old Testament but sometimes even the Christian faith. For example, Marcion, in the second century AD, was so revolted by the Old Testament portrayal of God, that he rejected the entire corpus as inspired Scripture.

And that is the problem isn't it? Keith and I talked about this in the car on the way home yesterday. We were at a yearly conference this week that is hosted by a traveling ministry Keith has supported for quite a few years. I told him my thoughts that the God of the OT is the antithesis of Jesus. We discussed it in more depth....but we did not see certain aspects of this discussion eye to eye (big surprise there) and it ended up in a sort of argument. Armed with the principles I've gleaned in the first three and a half chapters of Tolle's book, A New Earth, I did my best to separate my "real" self from my "egoic" self which needed to defend my truths at all costs and told him I couldn't discuss it with him anymore . I retreated to a neutral zone for a while by listening to some Christian music on my MP3 player. I plan to write some posts on A New Earth after I've read it.

And since I always have more thoughts than time, I must end this post but I will delve deeper into these resources and any assorted thoughts they might instigate.......soon........

It All Begins in the Garden

I think a very good case could be made for mimesis gone bad as the reason for the fall. The serpent entices Eve....whispering seductively..."did God really say?" "He knows that the day you eat thereof your eyes will be opened and you shall be like God. God has something he isn't willing to share with you, something he is trying to keep for himself. Something you can't have!! "And then Adam "caught" his desire from her. And acquisitive mimesis was born.

I've heard people question why God put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden to begin with. Perhaps it is symbolic of mimesis. (JUST musing here...this is all hot of the press ponderings) Mimesis is necessary for us to learn to do all the things we need to learn to grow from a baby to a full grown adult. It is by mimicking others (our parents, grandparents, siblings) that we learn to talk and eat and all the other eccentricities that form our cultures. If the tree of good and evil is symbolic for mimesis, God couldn't have "left it out of the Garden." I'm not sure how that fits with the Tree of Life...will have to ponder that a bit more.

So anyway, mimetic rivalry may very well have begun in the Garden and we all know "the rest of the story" (Thanks, Paul Harvey)

More to follow.....

A Girardian Look at the Old Testament

In my meanderings and web journeys and here and there and everywhere surfing, I came across an article written by John Hemer called Violence and the Bible. It is from a series of post Easter talks and it takes a look at the violence we see in the Bible from a Girardian perspective...especially the violence in the Old Testament.

He starts by pointing out:

There are in the OT roughly three hundred passages which talk of people doing violence to each other, either a report or a threat or a command, or a lament. There are roughly a thousand passages which talk of God’s violence or wrath; either a report of his slaying someone, or his threatening people with violence or descriptions of him as a man of war.

Violence is a huge part of the Old Testament. We cannot ignore it. We can not chose to focus on the "good" passages in the OT. Neither can we justify the violence by acknowledging that it was acceptable because so much of it was God ordained/ordered. The violence that was not God ordained/ordered was dealt with by violently punishing the perpetrator at "God's command"

He goes on to say that:

Violence is not peripheral to the Bible it is central, in many ways it is the issue, because of course it is the human problem. The central icon of our faith depicts an act of mob violence against an innocent victim. The Bible is in fact the story of the slow, painstaking and sometimes faltering escape from the idea of a God who is violent to a God who is love and has absolutely nothing to do with violence.

And so Girardians believe that one of the main reasons for the Bible is to hold the mirror up to our dirty little faces and make us look our dirty little secret right in the eye. We are mimetic creatures...who form our desires based on the desires of others. When obtaining these desires is thwarted (by others who are trying to obtain the same things we are) we become frustrated and bitter and our anger burns within us. It leads to violence, both private and collective....and takes many shapes and forms from relatively benign to apocalyptic. I often wonder if mimes is the "vanity" creation was subjected to not willingly? (interesting choice of wording) Is it what is meant by original sin? If the dawning of acquisitive mimesis was the fall?

Mr. Hemer explains it this way:

Almost all human conflict is the result of people modeling themselves, (albeit unconsciously) on others and then entering into rivalry with others. All human conflict is about wanting what someone else has and desires – money, land, prestige, a spouse, a friend, power etc. every human society is threatened by this desire which becomes rivalry which leads to conflict.

Girard thinks it was quite by accident that societies (and individuals) stumbled upon a way to ease the tension and avert the displaced anger that is the result of mimetic rivalry. We scapegoat. We find a victim to either oust or sacrifice. And it eases the frustration and releases the pressure as people who were formerly rivals and enemies join together against a common enemy. Peace reigns...but it is a temporary peace because mimesis is part of who we are...and the cycle begins again.

So, the point of this article that I mentioned many paragraphs ago is to look at some of the events in the OT from this Girardian perspective....to see the violence there, not as God ordained but rather for what it is. Man's dirty little secret. Violence, blood lust, sacrifice, the me, me it's all about me attitude we have, looking out for number one....the antithesis of what Jesus meant when he said, "Follow me." And the antithesis of what his Father desires for us.

I think we make a huge mistake when we try to make God the instigator of all the OT violence and try to somehow justify it with types and shadows and his ways are higher than our ways kind of thinking.

More on this to follow....