Jericho

 As we pass out of Deuteronomy, we leave the Pentateuch and enter what is known as the "Historical" books of the Old Testament which continue through Nehemiah.  It is important to note, however, that they were not written as a history in the way that modern people think of a history, scrupulously researched and attempting to be nonbias.  They are still a religious text, written to teach religious principles.  The question modern scholars have is how much of the Historical books are actually historical in the modern sence.  I had wondered this question about the story of the capture of Jericho.  Did the Isrealites really circle the walled city for six days and then on the seventh day all shout and blow horns until and the walls of the city fell down?  Or is this some kind of symbol or type?  In one of the podcasts I listened to this week they mentioned that, according to archaeology, Jericho was not a walled city during the time that the Israelites entered Canaan. Other sources I read said that Jericho is considered by some to have been the first ever walled city, having been built about 8000 BCE, but by the time the Israelites arrived, around 1300 BCE it had fallen into ruin. All the scientific sources I read said there was no thriving walled city at Jericho at the time of Joshua.  Could they all be wrong? Certainly, but I think the archeological evidence invites us to ask ourselves, if the story is not based on history, why was it written as it was and what symbolic meaning might it hold. 

First of all, why Jericho?  It was located in one of the lowest spots, geographically, of the area that was to be conquered by the Israelites. They were starting at the bottom and working their way up.  Also, by the time that the story of Joshua was edited and cannonized by Josiah, it was probably again a thriving and impressive walled city.  It would have represented to that group a significant first hurtle for the success of the Israelitish conquest. 

The first we hear of Jericho is when Joshua sends in two spies who are sheltered by Rahab, a prostitute, of the city.  In return for her help, the spies promise to save her and her family when the rest of the city is destroyed.  This story is significant because Rahab is later listed as an ancestor to King David.  Since Jewish identity is passed through the mother, there needed to be a story the explained how and when this Canaanite woman converted to Yaweh worship.  

The instructions given to Joshua about how the city was to be breached is full of symbolism.  The army was given very exact instructions on what they were to do.  The whole process was steeped in covenental symbolism.  They carried the Ark of the Covenant, which represented the throne of God, before them. They circled the city seven times.  In the Pentateuch the number seven is connected to the creation of the world, and to covenant making.  In Exodus 20:8 the Lord tells his people "but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns.  For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." By circling the city seven times the people are reminded both that the LORD is the god who created everything, and that He was the one who would be doing the work that they were not supposted to do, i.e. bringing the walls of the city down.  The whole story gives the message that Israel will only prevail if they carefully follow the commandments of the Lord and trust him to fight their battles for them.
This interprestion is reinforced when you consider the next story in the narrative.  In Chapter  8 of Joshua, the Israelites, flush with their victory in Jericho, go to invade the city of Ai.  They are surprised when they are easily defeated, and 32 warriors killed.  Joshua inquires of the Lord why they lost the battle, and the Lord tells Joshua that somebody disobeyed the command to turn over all the booty from Jericho, and this disobedience was the cause of the loss in Ai.  Joshua does a careful search and finds the man who has horded booty from Jericho and has him executed by stoning.  Once Israel is free from the "abomination" of the horded booty, they are able to return to Ai and conquer.  The story of the battle of the city of Ai stands as a foil to the story of the Battle of Jericho.  In Jericho, they do everything right and they win a battle with little effort of their own.  In the battle of Ai, they do everything wrong at first, and lose a battle they should have been able to win.  When they repent and rid the army of the one who was disobedient, they are able to be victorious once more. 
If you think of this "History" as part of the religious works commisioned by Josiah during and shortly after the Babylonian captivity, you can see that Josiah is including (or maybe manufacturing) these two stories to teach his people what he considered a valuable lesson.  The only way they could reclaim their homeland (i.e. the promised land) was to be as obedient as Joshua's army was at Jericho, and rely on the Lord to fight their battles.

Deuteronomy

This week in the Come Follow Me curriculum we focused on the book of Deuteronomy.  I don't know if this is anyone's favorite book in the Old Testament.  It contains a lot of detail about specific aspects of the Mosaic Law.  It is surprising, therefore, to realize that it is often quoted by Jesus in the New Testament. One website I saw found 34 references. There were two things I want to discuss this week that I think are important for the study of Deuteronomy. 

The first was best addressed in the podcast Talking Scripture with Mike Day and Bryce Dunford.  They talk about the theory that Deuteronomy was the "Book of the Law" discovered during Josiah's reign, just before the Babylonian captivity.  Josiah embraced the then ancient practices it described, and made a major religious reformation.  Mike and Bryce quote scholars that argue that as part of the reformation some principles that are now part of Mormon theology were removed.  They claim that the doctrines Lehi was professing were contrary to the reformation, and that is why he was threatened and driven from the city.  Some of the changes were a belief in a single God, instead of God the Father and Jesus Christ. Another was a denial of a corporial God.  Earlier stories talk of Moses seeing God face to face, but in Deuteronomy is says noone can see God.  Deuteronomy also focuses religious practice exclusively on the Tabernacle (and later the Temple by association).  But earlier accounts of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob show them setting up memorials, pillars or wells, wherever they had a spiritual manifestation. They take the fact that Lehi set up an altar in the wilderness as evidence that he opposed the Deuteronomistic reforms of Josiah.  They acknowledged that Josiah was generally a better king than many of the past kings of Israel because he was a least trying to worship the Lord, but that he didn't get everything right.

The second question I want to address is whether the Lord ever commanded his people to commit genocide. Repeatedly throughout Deuteronomy, the Lord tells Israel to "Utterly Destroy" the people of the land (e.g. Deuteronomy 13:15-16).  This will happen again in Joshua as the Israelites cross the river Jordan and start conquering one city after another.  It seems like there are two possible answers to this question, both of which have complicated implications. I will investigate them here and give my opinions on their strengths and weakness.

1. The Lord did command his people to destroy the other cities.  

Strengths: That is what the text says. If you are a literalist, then you are compelled to believe that the Lord did command the people to kill thousands of prior residents of the land.  People who believe it justify it in a couple of ways.  They say that it is not as big of deal to the Lord for people to die, because the Lord knows they are just being moved from one kind of living to another.  So it isn't as bad as it sounds.  Other people say that is was so important to wipe out pegan worship, the Lord was willing to let some people die to save the souls of his chosen people. 

Issues: I personally have serious issues with both of these arguments.  Even if it isn't a big deal to the Lord to move someone from this life to the next, what affect does it have on the person doing the slaying?  When you violently kill someone, it damages your soul.  If you are commanded to kill women and children, it damages your soul even more.  If it was important to clear the land of wicked people the Lord could have sent a plague or flood of pestilence and done the job without making his chosen people do the dirty work.  Also, this is a dangerous kind of argument, that was probably employed by all those who have in more recent history committed atrocities in the name of God. Mike and Bryce also pointed out that this kind of warfare goes against the doctrine of divinely sanctioned warfare as described in the Book of Mormon, e.g. that you should not wage war for gain but only to defend your rights and your families. 

2. The Lord didn't command his people to destroy the cities.

Strengths: This better fits with a New Testament view of God.  Jesus taught that if a man strike you on the right cheek, you should turn to him the left. He reached out with compassion to the sinners he met. It better matches the Book of Mormon account of God's views on war.  Mike and Bryce also point out that this matches the historical/archeological evidence.  Archaeology doesn't support the idea that whole civilizations were destroyed during the time period and replaced with Israelites.  There is evidence that Israelites started influencing preexisting groups, but not replacing them. 

Weakness: If the Lord didn't command them, why does the Bible say that he did.  Do we too often adopt the "merciful" view of the Lord and forget his "just" side.  If we are willing to bend the text to our view in this respect, is it a slippery slope to make all scriptures just mean what we want them to mean. 

What is my opinion?  I don't know.  I tend to lean toward the second option.  I think that Israel came into the land as conquerors and then later claimed that the Lord made them do it.  Or, perhaps, they didn't do much conquering at all, but later, during the Babylonian captivity, claimed that they did to boost cultural confidence and morale. But if, some day, I receive a strong spiritual confirmation that the Lord really did command the Israelites to commit genocide, I will accept it on faith that the Lord knew best. 

The Book of Numbers

By about last Tuesday, I was wondering what I might post about in this week's blog.  Nothing was really standing out to me. Then by Saturday, I had learned so many interesting things, I didn't know what to choose for my post. An obvious area of focus is the story of the brazen serpent.  It is a small side story in the Numbers narrative, but it is mentioned at least twice in the Book of Mormon.  Because of that story, I decided to pick Numbers 21 as my chapter to read in Hebrew this week, and made an interesting translation discovery.  I would also like to mention, briefly, a passage, Number 6: 24-26 which wasn't included in our readings.

The Firey Serpent:

As the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness, they started to complain about the lack of food and water.  They had manah, but they were tired of it.  The Lord then sends "firey serpents" to bite them, and many died.  The people begged Moses to advocate for them before the Lord, asking him to take the serpents out of their midst.  The Lord did one better.  He removed the serpents, and asked Moses to make an image of a serpent and put it on a pole.  Anyone who would look at the serpent would live.  That is the end of the story in Old Testament.  In the Book of Mormon (1 Nephi 17:41, Alma 33:18-22) we learn that some people refused to look, and died.  Alma saw the serpent as a type of Christ.  My questions were, why would a serpent be a symbol of both Satan (Genesis) and Christ.  So here is what I came up with.  

1. The serpent wasn't just a serpent, it was a "firey" serpent.  When I was reading in Hebrew I came to that term "firey serpents" and it was הנחשׂים  חשׂרפים, or the seraphim serpents. Of course, my mind went to Isaiah when in vision he saw Seraphim near the throne of God. (Isaiah 6:2). The word Seraph just means firey, so there may not be any association here to Isaiah's vision.  One commentator said the serpents were probably called firery because their bite caused a burning sensation.  But fire has been a symbol of the presence of God all through the narrative of the Exodus.  It was a pillar of fire that indicated that God was in the tabernacle, a Moses first met God in a burning bush.  In Egypt at the time of the captivity of Israel, Pharoah would wear a Ureus, or cobra, on his crown as a sign of his power and right to rule.  In later Egyptian iconography, the Ureus was displayed as having wings. I am not sure how or if these symbols relate, but one symbol was clearly mentioned in Alma, that the serpent being lifted up symbolized Jesus being lifted up on the Cross.  If a flying firey serpent was a symbol the Israelites would have associated with divine power and right to rule, and then that symbol was lifted on a cross, that is a strong Christian symbol. Some have claimed that a serpent could represent Jesus in another way as well, because just as a snake sheds its skin but emerges alive, Jesus shed his mortality but lives on in a renewed body.  It is all a bit muddy, but maybe a little bit interesting. 

The other thing I wanted to comment on is Number's 6:24-26.  This is known as the Aaronic Blessing or Priestly Blessing.  It is familiar to Christians, and a very important prayer to Jews, perhaps equivalent to the Lord's prayer to Christians.  I have heard that this is the ending prayer in a Jewish service each week. 

24The Lord bless thee, and keep thee:
25 The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:
26 The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.

There is a lovely musical version of this on youtube that I have memorized.  So if you want to learn a passage in Hebrew, this song is a good way to do it.

The Israelite Tabernacle

 I really enjoyed listening to my podcasts about the Israelite Tabernacle this week.  All of them walked through what the tabernacle was like and the basics of the Levites' and Aaron's clothing and duties.  My favorite was probably Follow Him by Hank Smith and John Bytheway, special guest, Matthew Grey.  Matthew Grey looked at the worship in the Tabernacle from both a ancient and modern perspective that I appreciated. I won't restate all the things they talked about, but I did want to mention a few things that stood out to me.

First, I was impressed about how almost everything in the ancient Tabernacle and the ceremonies done there pointed to either Jesus, God, or the Plan of Salvation.  The symbolism is so rich and meaningful!  The high priest represents Jesus because he is the advocate for the people with God.  The sacrificial animals represent Jesus because they are sacrificed to take away the sins of the people. The structure of the Tabernacle represents the journey of fallen man back into the presence of God, from a Telestial state in the outer courtyard, to the Terrestrial state inside the tabernacle tent, and the Celestial state in the Holy of Holies. The colors of cloth, the materials the implements are made of,  all the objects and their orientations,  the sacred clothing, all have symbolic meaning.  It made me think that I need to look more closely at modern LDS temple worship for an eye to symbols. During this weeks study, I gained a greater understanding of the LDS temple worship and its symbolism.

Second, after reading Leviticus 1, I was thinking, wow, why did ancient worship involve the shedding of so much blood?  Every day animals were slaughtered and blood must have been everywhere.  I can imagine the smells and the muck. Why did so many animals have to die?  And then I got it. When Jesus came, the Jews were expecting a Messiah that would free them from captivity from Rome, not die for their sins. In Matthew 16: 21-23 when Jesus started telling his disciples that he would have to die, Peter rebuked him.  Even after Jesus died, his disciples were distraught and thought he was just gone. The hardest thing for them to understand was that for Jesus to fulfill his mission, he had to die.  Jesus must have just shook his head.  He gave them a form of worship that they had been performing for centuries, that basically said, if you want to be cleansed from sin, something is going to have to bleed and die. They had seen things die, and die, and die, and die, and then when it was time for the great sacrifice that all the other sacrifices had been foreshadowing, the disciples said, "What, you have to die?" Head palm. 

Finally, I always look for a little bit of the divine feminine when I read the scriptures.  I was delighted to find a little in the block of reading this week.  As I mentioned before, the High Priest at times represents the Lord, because he helps the people be cleansed from sin.  He also represents all the house of Israel when he comes into the Holy of Holies and asks for forgiveness for the people, and is ritually admitted back into the presence of God. I was interested in the special clothing of the High Priest.  He has the white garments that all the Levites wear, but on top of that he has a breastplate with twelve stones that represent the tribes of Israel. The breastplate is part of his role of representing his people before the Lord.  He also has a crown that says "Holiness to the Lord" which symbolizes his role as representing the Lord to the people.  The thing that caught my attention were the symbols on the fringe of his robe.  All around the bottom hem he has little bells and pomegranates.  These are both very feminine symbols.  The bells, primarily because they are concave, but more so the pomegranates.  They are a powerful symbol of feminine fertility.  They are like a womb because they are full of seeds and red juice that looks like blood.  On the outside they very much look like a woman's breast. So here is the High Priest, the alpha male of religious worship in ancient Israel, and he is wearing a very feminine symbol.  Does that mean that in representing the people of Israel to the Lord, he is representing the men and the women, or does it mean that as representing the Lord to the people, the Lord has a feminine element?  I kind of think both apply. I also think that when the woman of the issue of blood touched Jesus, the author specifically mentioned that she touched the hem of his robe.  The hem was the feminine part.

Exodus 24

The passage I decided to read in Hebrew this week is Exodus 24.  It is an amazingly transcendant account of when the Elders of Israel were admitted into the presence of the Lord and saw him, with a human shaped body, standing on a pavement of sapphire (24:10).  Not only that, but they seem to have had some kind of meal with Him (24:11).  It is no wonder that the Lord had Joseph Smith do a careful reading of the Bible before revealing to him the modern temple ceremonies.  Even though the details have changed over time, the pattern is there. 

One pasage that all the podcasts I listened to this week kind of apologized for was Exodus 24:8.  "And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, "Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD hath made with you concerning these words."".  All the podcasters mentioned that this seems really strange, and off-putting to modern readers and then gave reasons why it would have significance to ancient people.   They are right, of course.  Being sprinkled with blood would probably not make any modern person comfortable. We understand the symbolism of blood when we take the sacrament, and we have read lots of scriptures that say we are cleansed by the blood of Christ, but actually getting blood on us seems gross.  

I was thinking about this as I read the passage in Hebrew.  Reading in Hebrew somehow helps me see the people I am reading about as real people, part of a real culture. I was thinking about all the Hebrew women, saying, "oh great! how am I going to get that stain out?"  In modern times, when I get a blood stain on cloth, I rub in some laundry detergent and then add a little bleach.  It takes effort, but the stain comes out.  In ancient times they weren't carrying around bleach. When the people got sprinkled with blood, it probably would have resulted in a permanent stain. Then I was thinking, how many changes of clothes did these people have? Maybe one?  Then the light went on.  When the people made the covenant with the Lord, Moses stained their clothes with blood, so that after that almost everytime they got dressed, they would see the marks on their clothes and remember the covenant that they had made.  Hummm... sound familiar?  In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, people who have received their temple blessings commit to wear special underclothing which reminds them daily of their temple covenants.  What Moses/the Lord was doing here was making "instant" temple garments.