Chaotic Lalessness in a Postmodern Society

As we study the numerous and specific laws of an Old Testament society I can't help but consider the laws of our current society (or should I say the lack thereof).

We read through Deuteronomy and Numbers through the lens of an "over-lawed" generation. To us laws seem unnecessary and pushy and are all together to much related to the dislike of authority we have all come to hold dear. We forget that in the time of Moses what we would consider common decency was not part of the cultural conversation. In the society we live in today moral codes can seem almost inborn when in fact they are but tiny pieces of an overall structured and unchanging puzzle we like to think of as postmodern society.

I propose that we have built a house of cards and that what seems to be a well run law abiding society is in fact riddled with chaos. Laws are not taught anymore. It is assumed that humans of the 21st century, specifically in the developed Western World, know how they should act and why they should act that way. But it seems to me that this is merely a curtain being drawn over the larger problem. In the time of Moses there were clear black and white reasons, rules, and consequences...the world we live in is gray. Each person is free to develop their own black or white and at the end of the day each person has their own set of laws.

I am a product of this society and as such I can not imagine life any other way but gray and I admit to enjoying the freedom of thought and choice that goes along with that...but I can't help but wonder if life would be much simpler if we all had the same black and white...all be it boring...laws to live by.

I ask you....what would society be today if we all lived by the same code? 

Love and Fear

Currently, I find myself living in two biblical worlds. Scriptures one puts me decidedly in the Old Testament while Scriptures three flips the page and throws me into the New Testament causing me to consider the parallelisms and divergences of these two halves of Holy writing we call our Bible. I would like to bring to attention the character of God in the Old in comparison with the character of God in the New.

The God we read in Genesis and Exodus is a decidedly different character than that of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In the Old Testament we meet a deity surrounded by mystery. It seems as if Old Testament God  has a bit of a problem with violence and thus a problem relating to his creation on a human level. When we read of this God I can not help but think that the God we worship today must not be the same guy...or at least if it is he got some serious counseling in the middle ages. The God of the Old Testament invokes fear and awe. One can not look upon his face or bear to be in his presence. The world of this God is inhabited by giants, mysterious appearances of food, disappearances of the pious, slavery, fire raining down for the sky, and water wiping out the world. Who wouldn't be afraid?

But then I go to the Gospel and I read of God incarnate. Though Jesus is mysterious, powerful, and a little bit frightening he is also a man. A man that can relate to the plight of humanity in a way that the God of Noah, Moses, and Abraham could not because this time around God didn't just make humans...he was human. He had friends and relatives. He slept, ate, and wept. He was that guy from Nazareth who knew how to make chairs. This all elementary stuff but reading the Old and New Testaments parallel has brought to light the necessity and outright brilliance of the incarnation.

While we tend to fear the God of Old and revere the God of the New I say we should remember that they are one in the same...both deserving of love...and fear.

The Silence of Dinah

Genesis chapter 34 recounts the disturbing tale of Dinah, daughter of Jacob and Leah. This story has come to be known as “The Rape of Dinah”. What intrigues me is that there is no mention of rape at all…Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite (who was a prince) is depicted as a man who loved Dinah and wanted her for a wife. It is even mentioned that “his soul was drawn to her”. The trouble comes when Jacob hears that his daughter has been defiled. But Hamor means to make things right and goes to negotiate a marriage between the families. At this point in the story it is said that “the men were indignant and very angry” about what had happened. Let’s take a moment to unpack that verse. “The men were indignant and very angry”…”the men”…there is no mention of how the women viewed this supposed love affair. It is very likely that Dinah had no objection to the union; after all, he was a prince. Marriage in the time of Jacob would have meant that Dinah was nothing more than property. Her marriage to Shechem would have been very profitable if done in the Israelite custom. But as she was now “defiled” perhaps she would have fetched a much lower price…thus making the men indignant and very angry. The story continues that Dinah’s brothers answer Hamor’s plea deceitfully and tell him that if all the men of Hamor’s city will be circumcised Jacob will grant Dinah in marriage. Hamor agrees and he and Shechem go to convince the men to go along with this plan…soon all the men are circumcised and Dinah’s brothers Simon and Levi attack the city while the men are still in pain, kill every Hamor and Shechem, and remove Dinah from their house. Then the rest of the brothers show up to pillage and plunder…they effectively take everything, including the women. So, now in the stead of a marriage price they have received Hamor’s life, Shechem’s life, and everything in their city all under the guise that they are defending the honor of their sister. Dinah’s thoughts or actions are not recorded in this story. After her brothers kill her husband three days after their marriage she is now effectively a widow and is even less valuable than before.

The silence of Dinah represents holes in the narrative of the Old Testament that we must consider. To read her story and not think of how she acted and felt through it all cheapens her life and thus cheapens the knowledge we glean from reading the texts.

For further study regarding silent stories of the Bible (specifically Dinah’s story) may I suggest The Red Tent by Anita Diamant.

He who writes history-makes HIStory

As we read through Genesis it occurs to me that the role of women within these first 50 chapters of our Holy Scripture is worthy of exploration. Does it not seem curious that the women we happen upon within these narratives are cast as easily swayed, conspiratorial, or lacking in faith? It is true that the men are not much better…but…please consider the abundance of material in relation to the stories of men compared to the minuscule amounts of material in relation to the stories of women. At least the men get the opportunity to redeem themselves; after all it’s the women who trick them. It is Eve who gives Adam the fruit, it is Sarah who sends Abraham to Hagar’s bed, it is Lot’s wife who looks back to Sodom as well as Lot’s daughters who conspire to procreate with their father, it is Rebekah that conspires for her favorite child to receive the first born’s blessing, etc. So, I ask…is it not possible that the men of this world long gone who wrote these stories wrote them out of a social and cultural setting in which the role of women could be used to add honor and credit to their male counterparts?

I don’t argue that the mere fact that women are mentioned at all isn’t extraordinary, or that the men must have been worse than portrayed. I argue that when we read these texts we should remember the social setting from which they come and try to see the narrative through the eyes of the women…who didn’t write history.