Ecclesiastes: Meditating in a Charnel Ground

 I was really touched by Ecclesiastes this week. Partly because I was reading, at the same time, a novel called The Correspondent. It is about a woman coming to terms with the decline of age, and making an effort to put to rights the unresolved issues in her life. It seems like the author of Ecclesiastes is also looking back at his life from old age, but he doesn't have the satisfaction of resolving issues.  He, instead, sees all his efforts as meaningless because as soon as he dies, they will pass onto another. 

I think back to the book of Job.  In the book, Job is stripped of all his worldly possessions and even his health.  Then in the end it is all returned to him double fold. One way to look at the Job story is that it is an allegory of aging.  Do we not all begin to lose everything as we age.  Our children grow up and move away, our job ends when we retire, and we begin to lose our vitality. Eventually friends and family members of our own generation begin to die. My mother had 13 siblings and half siblings, and she has seen all of them pass away except one. Eventually when you die, you lose all your worldly possessions.  They are left behind for others to deal with or dispose of at their whim. 

There is a practice in Buddhism called Meditating in a Charnel Ground. In this practice a person pictures their own end of life.  They picture themself declining in health and beauty. They picture themselves dying and their body slowing rotting away.  It the practice is sometimes even done in the places where very devout Buddhists take their bodies and lay them out in the wilderness for wild animals to consume, or in a bone house made of human remains.  The idea is that only by confronting your ultimate demise can you live your current life fully present. 

I think that is the function that Ecclesiastes plays in the Jewish Bible.  It is a way for religious Jews to confront their own mortality. It is not surprising that they choose King Solomon as their example of a person who has risen to the heights of wealth and power as their protagonists. The writer observes that even he, perhaps the greatest of all Israelite rulers, loses everything at death.  All he did, all he accomplished is left behind.  His kingdom is broken apart at his death, and even his beautiful temple is eventually ravished and destroyed.  All his great wisdom could not change the cycle of seasons, and the whims of weather. If King Solomon couldn't create anything of lasting value, than who could?  

Is there value in meditating in a Charnel Ground, or, in the case of King Solomon, realizing that everything you ever accomplished in life is fleeting and has no lasting impact? When I was younger I thought Ecclesiastes was pretty depressing, but now that I am older I find it a little bit freeing.  It is tempting as we age to try to hang onto things.  I mourned when I had to end my career. I am dismayed sometimes when I look in the mirror and see the lines on my face and my yellow teeth.  This week I as I thought about Ecclesiastes I reached a point where I just accepted that from this time forward (and actually for some time in the past) my life will be a series of letting go.  I have already let go of my good eyesight (age 40) and good hearing (age 50).  I just accept that fact that my feet always hurt at the end of the day and  so do my hips. If I can let go of those things without mourning them, I can live my life freer and happier.  Buddhists believe that grasping, i.e. trying to hold onto things, is a cause of suffering. If in old age we mourn everything we lose, we will spend our whole time mourning. It is better to accept that we will eventually lose everything, and agree with ourselves that when it is time to let something go, we just let it go. We enjoy what we have while we have it, but when it is taken away, we let it drift off like the mist in the wind. 

I also think, like the author of The Correspondent, that the best way to spend our declining years is strengthening our relationships. Are their rifts in my friendships or family relationships that I can and should mend? Are their holes in my relationship with God that need to be filled?  In the end, relationships with man and God are the only things that we carry on to the next life. That being so, why don't we spend our time on those instead of clinging to everything else? 

Psalms: New Insight

 For the past three weeks in Come Follow Me, we have been reading the Psalms.  I was (I thought) assigned to teach the only class we would have on the Psalms and in preparation I decided to listen to all 150 over the course of the three weeks.  I also decided to write down my favorites in different categories: Hope against opposition, Praise, Prayer for Mercy, Promised Faithfulness, and Lament.  I only found out the day before that we were not having a lesson due to training about the new Sunday Schedule. I was a bit disappointed, but it wasn't all for nothing. I did gain some new insights from the process.  

First, many of the podcasters I listened to talked about the Psalms as songs, like an ancient hymnal.  They talked about how they were sung as feast days and in the temple.  I think this is an important an valuable idea to remember, but it wasn't a new idea to me.  The new insight I heard from Rabbi Grover on "The Scriptures are Real" podcast. He said, "Of course the psalms were sung, but so was the rest of the Hebrew Bible." Of course I learned that when I was studying Hebrew, but it hadn't really registered.  The Hebrew Bible has every verse marked with musical notation so the Cantor and sing them correctly. Every time Hebrew Scripture is presented in synagogue, it is sung or at least chanted with a consistent intonation that is marked in the text.  So to say the Psalms were a hymnbook only makes sense to a Christian who isn't familiar with Jewish worship. 

The thing that was helpful for me this year, was to think of the Psalms as prayers instead of hymns.  All through the Old Testament up to this point we have been reading the history of a civilization as a whole.  Except for a few prophets, we haven't yet gotten a sense of what an individual's relationship with God its like. That is what the Psalms offer, a glimpse into ancient individual Hebrew's relationship with God. So, if we look as Psalms as personal prayers instead of hymns, what do we learn?

First we learn that the psalms represent communication to God about the whole range of emotions.  Some are exultant, and some depressive. Some are full of anger and thirst for vengeance, and some are full of faith in the creator. I think we can gather from this that we need not tone down our emotions when we pray.  It is not as if God doesn't already know what we are feeling and thinking. Hiding strong emotions from him is futile and only results in failure to acknowledge them in ourselves. If we confess to God all our feelings, we will process them better and improve our emotional connection with God. 

Second, we must remember that when we read the Psalms we are only getting the part that the people are saying to God.  We aren't getting his response. So when people pray that God will destroy their enemies, that doesn't mean that God wants to destroy anyone.  It only means the person praying wishes their enemies would go away. 

This is a totally natural feeling, especially for the people in the time of the writing of the Psalms.  They had no sense of security.  At any time an enemy might overrun their home, take all their possessions, and even capture or kill family members. If you lived in constant threat like that, you would probably want your enemies destroyed as well.  

We have to remember that Jesus taught "Love your enemies." Reading the Psalms we see what a revolutionary teaching that was for the Jewish people. How much of the Old Testament gives us examples of loving our enemies?  Not much.  That is why Jesus was seen as such a revolutionary, and such a threat to the established Jewish religious beliefs and practices. In summary, when there are ideas in the Psalms that go against what Jesus taught, remember where they come from and give the ancient Israelites a little grace.  Just because they are in the Psalms, doesn't mean they represent God's view of right and wrong.

So there are my insights.  I hope they are useful for someone (since my class isn't going to hear them. Ha ha.)

More Thoughts on Job

 Back in 2022, I did a long post about the Book of Job.  It contains many of the same ideas I have been thinking of this week as we have studied Job again.  Job really is a masterful work, and so intriguing. There are so many unanswered questions: When was it written? Who wrote it and why? Why was it specifically preserved in the cannon?  I think that the fact it is included in the Jewish Bible shows something about the Jewish psyche. 

None of the stories of the Old Testament are simplistic.  Each one involves layers of philosophical questions and ethical issues.  The contrast with other philosophical writings is remarkable. The Buddhist writings, for example, have clear directions in list form that if you follow, you will have a good life and draw closer to enlightenment. The stories in the Jewish Bible are messy, and often contradict each other's doctrines. None of the heroes are perfect, and none of the victories are without controversy.  The Jewish culture seems to embrace the idea that the only way to learn how to wrestle with complicated life questions is to watch others wrestle with complicated life questions. 

I think that one way to look at the Book of Job, then, (and I got this idea from one of the podcasts I listened to this week, though I can't remember which one) is to see it as an example of developmental states of a testimony. 

Innocent Enthusiasm

When the story begins, Job is a zealous follower of God. He faithfully observes religious obligation, and even does extra sacrifices for his children, just in case they have sinned. (Job 1:5).  God calls him a "perfect and an upright man, one who feareth God, and escheweth evil." (1:8)

Endurance of initial trials

When Job loses his possessions and his children, he still clings to his simple faith. "The Lord giveth and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." (1:21)

Questioning

When Job is then cursed with physical pain, in addition to his loss, he begins to question, not the existence of God, but his motivations. "Why died I not in the womb? shy did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?" (2: 11) During this period he is confronted by the philosophies of men that try to convince him that he is unworthy, and that he should give up. His friends tell him "Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished being innocent? or where are the righteous cut off?" (4:7)  Job still clings to his belief in God, but begins to question his worthiness, "If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me; if I say I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse." (9:20)

Submission coupled with mature faith

During his trials, Job finally submits to the will of God by admitting that he doesn't understand his ways. "I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee,..I have heard thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eyes seeth thee. Therefore, I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." (42: 2, 5-6)

The story of Job seems to communicate that path to mature faith is not easy. There will never be a time when we understand the reasons why terrible things happen to us or to those we love. Once we acknowledge God's supremacy in our lives--that he oversees both the good and the bad with infinite wisdom--we can find peace. 

Esther the "Hidden" Heroine

 Four years ago I made a blog post about the book of Esther that used the four fold interpretation method.  In it I explored the literal, symbolic, contextual, and secret/sacred interpretations of the story.  This time I would like to delve more into the contextual interpretation.

What I learned this year was that the name "Esther" in Hebrew אסתר,  has as its root the word that means "hidden."  As is often the case in the Hebrew Bible, the meaning of the name is the meaning of the story.  Esther's true cultural identity is hidden from the king. He does not know that she is a Jewess until the big reveal at the end of the story.  I think there is an additional significance to her name as well. 

In my original blog, I stated that the story of Esther occurs during the time of the Jewish captivity. That is not strictly true.  Instead, she is a member of the diaspora.  In other words, she is living in Persia about 75 years after the time of Cyrus the Great freed Jews to return to Jerusalem.  The majority of the Jews taken into captivity did not return, but chose to stay in Babylon or other areas. Esther is one of these. 

Esther is therefore "hidden" from the center of Jewish worship, i.e. the Temple. As a result, God's power and influence, which is centered in Jerusalem once more, is "hidden" from those in the diaspora. In fact, although the story talks about Esther fasting and praying for deliverance, none of the words for "God" appear in the entire book. He is not overtly credited for helping Esther or saving the people. 

Yet, the people were saved. God's help is implied throughout the story. When Esther is chosen as queen, when Mordecai thwarts the assassination attempt, when the king can't sleep and asks to be read the history of his reign, all these elements of the story that lead to the salvation of the Jews are understood to be divine intervention, without being outwardly identified as such.

The story of Esther answers a few questions: Does God still watch over his people when they are away from the center of worship?  What does that aid look like?  What does it look like to be a worshiper of Jehovah in the diaspora?  The answer the story gives is that God still loves and watches out for his people, but in subtle, yet powerful ways as long as they live standards of high moral character and religious devotion.

Ezra and Nehemiah: the Influence of Empire.

 We studied books of Ezra and Nehemiah in Come Follow Me this week.  I did a pretty good (and long) post about it four years ago and I don't have a lot to add here.  

The main thing that I noticed as I read (beside what I wrote in my earlier post) is how the rise of empires stabilized the region.  Before the captivity, all disputes seemed to be solved through warfare. This or that tribe would attack a different tribe, and then that tribe would unite with their neighbors to rebuff the attack. It is hard for a small tribe like Judah to experience prosperity when their resources are constantly being used for military campaigns.

In the stories in Ezra and Nehemiah, when there is a dispute, the lawyers send letters to the central government to mediate.  Once the authoritative ruling comes back, the question is basically settled. There is none of the tribal inter-fighting that you see earlier. In Nehemiah, the workers felt some peril from their neighbors, (Nehemiah 4:7) but it was nothing like the long sieges and massive attacks we hear about in Kings and Chronicles. 

After the Assyrians took over the whole region in the 700 BCE, there were a series of "superpowers" that dominated the levant. As one conquered the previous ruler, they took over control of the whole region.  Israel was never again an independent state, Here is a very rough timeline (remember that the BC numbers are counting backwards down to zero)

700's BC Assyria

600's BC Babylonians

500-400 BC Persians (Cyrus was the first Persian)

300-100 BC Greeks (Think Alexander the Great)

100 BC -300 AD Romans (Julius Caesar and his successors)

Even though the Jews were not independent, the stability of the imperial system allowed the Jewish culture to grow. The empires after Assyria did not try to do away with regional cultures and allowed for easier trade and a general growth of wealth and prosperity.  This was especially true of the Greek and Roman empires. Herod the Great who built the massive temple complex that existed in Jesus' time was able to do so because he was a vassal ruler under Rome. The Jewish hierarchy of Priests, Scribes and Pharisees developed in this period, underneath their Greek and then Roman overlords.

It all led up to the perfect conditions for Christianity to spread throughout Europe. Even though Rome is seen as the "bad guy" in most of the New Testament, the Pax Romana allowed Paul and other early church leaders to travel safely and extensively around the Mediterranean to spread the "good news." 

It is easy to draw a comparison between these events to the events leading up to the restoration of the gospel in the 1800's. Just as the Reformation and founding of America allowed the religious freedom needed as an incubator of the Gospel in the latter days, the stability of the Roman empire enabled the rise and spread of Christianity throughout Europe. Both show God's hand and foreknowledge in accomplishing his work.

Hezekiah and the Siege of Jerusalem: A Pivot Point in History

 Last week I failed to post anything about Elisha. That was mostly because I did a good post about Elisha four years ago and didn't really have any fresh insights.

This week, though, I had quite an epiphany about the importance of Hezekiah and the siege of Jerusalem found in 2 Kings 18 and 19.  

Background

Hezekiah was one of the kings of Judah that tried to follow Jehovah.  He took down the places of idol worship and followed the current prophet, Isaiah (2 Kings 18:3-6).  During his reign, a terrible force, the Assyrians lead by Sennacherib, swept through the Levant destroying every town they came to, and leading their inhabitants into captivity. This is one part of Biblical history that is well attested by archaeology because the Assyrians left inscriptions of their deeds throughout their conquered territories. 

The Assyrians are the civilization that carried the northern 10 tribes into captivity in 721 BCE.  One of their methods of conquer was to try to neutralize the culture of the conquered peoples.  They would split them up and send them into different areas to work as vassals. They would even split up couples, sending the man to be a soldier, and settling the wife and children far away. They did this so that they wouldn't rally, gather support among their own people, and try to overthrow their oppressors. It is this policy of cultural destruction that caused the 10 northern tribes of Israel to become "lost".  They are called "lost" not so much because their physical location became unknown, but because they lost their identity as Israelites and were absorbed into other cultures. 

At the time of the Northern captivity, Hezekiah had been a joint ruler with his father in Judea for six years. He was a firsthand witness to what Assyria planned to do if they ever captured Jerusalem. He was sole ruler of Judah for 20 years when Sennacherib laid siege of Jerusalem. The people of Jerusalem were able to withstand the siege longer than other cities in the region because Hezekiah had built an underground aqueduct that brought fresh water into the city, but eventually the food ran out.  They couldn't survive the siege much long when Sennacherib sent Rab-shakeh to demoralize Jerusalem with taunts.  Like any good propagandist, Rab-shakeh warned Judah that they had no hope of withstanding an attack, but if they would surrender, they would live. Logic seemed to be on the side of the Assyrians.  It did seem that Judea were grossly outnumbered and had no chance in their weakened state to survive a direct attack. 

Of course, Hezekiah did the brave and faithful thing.  Instead of giving in, he went to the temple and called for the prophet Isaiah to council him. Isaiah went to the Lord and the Lord told Hezekiah not be be afraid. (2 Kings 19:6-7)  The Lord would take care of Assyria. Hezekiah headed the prophet and Jerusalem was saved when the Angel of the Lord went into the hosts of Assyria and destroyed them.

Impact

The importance of this moment is what struck me this week.  If Jerusalem had fallen to the Assyrians, what would have happened? As far as scholars know, the Hebrew Bible, the Tanach, didn't exist yet.  Scholars believe it was compiled during or shortly after the Babylonian Captivity. If Jerusalem had fallen to the Assyrians at this time, and if they had scattered them among other peoples so that they lost their cultural identity like the Northern tribes, there would have been no Bible. Judaism with its monotheism would have been lost. If there was no Judaism, would there have been Christianity? Christianity grew from Judaism as did Islam. Think of the impact of these two major religions on the western world. What would Europe be like if there was no Christianity to turn it from its polytheism? What would the middle east and northern Africa be like without the stabilizing moral framework of Islam? What would America look like if it had been founded by polytheists instead of Christians?  Even though many in the Western culture are no longer practicing any religion, Western culture was founded on Judeo-Christian principles. 

And it all hung on the decision of one man on one day in one city.  Hezekiah's decision to consult the prophet and believe what he said, despite the fact that it seemed impossible, impacted the future of the whole world. It is astounding to contemplate how much rested on that one decision.

Because Hezekiah chose faith, the Lord destroyed the Assyrian army, and Judah persisted for another 100 years. This was enough time for Babylon to rise to power and overthrow Assyria. Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and took the Jews into captivity in about 587 BCE,  but Babylon treated its captives differently. It brought them to Babylon as a group and put Jewish leaders into positions of respect in the kingdom. The Jewish religious leaders, fearing the the people might lose their religious identity, compiled and wrote what was to become the Old Testament. They were in captivity for about 70 years, and then Cyrus the Great allowed all who wanted, to return to Jerusalem and even gave them money to rebuild the temple. Admittedly, the number who returned were only a small percent of the people who were led away, but it was enough that they were able to reestablish a national identity and restart traditional systems of worship. 

The Spirit of Elijah

 This week in Come Follow Me we studied about the ministry of Elijah.  I wrote a good blog about him in 2022 that discusses why Elijah was so downhearted after he defeated the priests of Baal. 

The question I was wondering about this week is why Elijah is associated with the keys to temple worship.  There are several references to this association in the Doctrine & Covenants. 

 (D&C 2) Behold, I will reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

2 And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers.
3 If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming. (D&C  27:9 ,110:15, and others have similar language)

These all tie back to a scripture in Malachi 4: 5-6
5 ¶ Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:
6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

Both Jews and early church leaders associated Elijah to the linking of fathers to children, but why?  What event in the life of Elijah caused later believers believe he had to return in order to link families together?

The major accounts we have of Elijah are:
He caused a famine in the land because of wickedness (1 Kings 17:1)
He was fed by ravens (17:6)
He was sent to the widow of Zarephath (17:9)
Miraculously her food doesn't run out (17:16)
He raises her son from the dead (22)
He challenges the priests of Baal and Asherah. (1 Kings 18:18)
He calls fire down from heaven (18:38)
He runs away and hides under a juniper bush and an angel comes to urge him to eat. (18:4-5)
He travels to mount Horeb and talks with the Lord. (19:8)
He senses the Lord in the Still Small Voice (19:12) 

Which of these things ties him to temple work for the dead? I don't know but there are some possible clues.  

1. The way Joseph Smith quotes Malachi 4: 5-6 is different from how it appear in the Old Testament.  Joseph Smith's version says, "I will reveal unto you the priesthood by the hand of Elijah the Prophet." whereas the passage in Malachi says, "I will send you Elijah the Prophet."  So priesthood is a key.  The miracles Elijah did clearly suggest that he held the Melchizedek Priesthood with the power to command things on the earth (the famine) and in the heavens (the rain on the sacrifices). This is the same priesthood needed to officiate in modern temple ordinances. One of my podcasters even suggested that Elijah was the last Israelite prophet to hold the Melchizedek priesthood, (but what about Elisha?).

2. Elijah did a miracle to reunite a parent and a child and to exercise control over life and death when he raised the Widow of Zarephath's son from the dead. It is a temporal reunion, bringing the child back from death into life, but it might be seen as a type of a spiritual reunion enjoyed by families reunited in the spirit world. (that is a bit of a stretch I admit.)

3. Elijah definitely was trying to turn the hearts of the people back to their spiritual roots or "fathers" Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. When he built his alter in the battle against the priests of Baal, he purposefully made it of 12 stones, "according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob." (18:31) This is hardly unique to Elijah.  Didn't all the Old Testament prophets try to remind Israel of their religious foundations?

I admit that the connection of Elijah to temple work and eternal families is not clear to me, yet Malachi associated Elijah with tying generations together, and in modern scripture, he is associated with keys to do temple work. Sometimes it is interesting to have an open question like this.  Someday I will be studying or listening to podcasts, and I will figure it out.  That is always a fun moment when a long standing question is finally resolved.