Genesis 10-11: Setting Tounges A Wagging

Confusion of the tongues by Gustave Doré (1865)

This part provides us with a whole load of begatting, however, (alas) those events are not illustrated in any Bible of which I am currently aware, which makes it into a fairly dry account of which tribes came from whose loins. I defy any pastor to do a homily chapter 10 without dwelling on the only interesting figure found therein: Nimrod. Thanks to him we have the ancient idiomatic expression "as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD" a turn of phrase by which one could render praise. Later extrabiblical folktales were to tarnish his name quite a bit, which may help explain why it is currently considered a term of abuse in American English.

Next we have the old and familiar folktale about the confounding of the languages of man by the gods. According to Josephus, this unprecedented tower was commissioned by King Nimrod, and may well have come in on time and under budget, if only the king wasn't being such an impious tyrant, setting his face and his followers against the gods.

This particular tale really makes one wonder why Allah is allowing the all those ludicrously tall structures to remain standing in Dubai. Can anyone gaze upon the Burj Khalifa for more than a moment or two without immediately recalling the artistic depictions of Babel? Possibly the Arabs are just pious enough as a people to get away with these architectural shenanigans without having their language split apart into various mutually incomprehensible dialects.

Speaking of how languages naturally evolve into dialects, why is it that the science of comparative linguistics is not constantly under attack from the religious right? Not unlike the clever biologists, these cunning linguists are making scientifically testable claims about the gradual evolution of new forms over aeons, and in the process directly contradicting the literal interpretation of how these forms arose suddenly via divine intervention. I'd expect that the Biblical literalists should at least try for equal time in the science classrooms wherever modern linguistics are being taught in lieu of ancient folktales. Perhaps a disclaimer sticker on undergraduate linguistics books? Probably I'd best stop giving them ideas now.

Genesis 6-9: God Poureth Forth Mighty Wrath, Noah Poureth Out Strong Wine

I don't bother overmuch with those who maintain there is ample scientific evidence for a truly global inundation, because doing science means following the evidence to conclusions rather than dragging the evidence along to wherever you were hoping to arrive. That said, what we have here is a mythic parable about the wrath and power and mercy of God. The key passage is this: "And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark." If we had to define the term "overkill" using only one ancient myth, this story would be the way to go.

I've always wondered why a putative God would use a natural disaster to get His message across. I mean, wouldn't it be quicker and easier just to magically kill all the offending humans, as God allegedly did with the miserly and dishonest Ananias and Sapphira? Surely the use of a global flood (whether metaphorical or literal) sort of sets the unfortunate precedent that any given massive natural disaster will be assumed to be divine retribution? For that matter, why not just zap all the offending humans into nonexistence and leave the animals alone?

Now this is a more-or-less universally familiar story, at least up to Gen 9:17, wherein God promises never again to destroy all life with water, and provides the rainbow as a symbol of his friendship with men. Presumably, though, the Lord has an infinitude of other means at His disposal (including everything listed in Death From the Skies) and thus this covenant ought not be particularly reassuring to the theologically inclined.

After this point in the story, things get a bit more obscure and obscene. You have to read this bit for yourself or else you'll think I'm just making it up:

And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.

So Noah goes to a great deal of personal effort to make a bit of wine (this is the guy who built the entire Ark after all) and then he overindulges and finds himself laying around naked in his tent. I'm not saying anything negative about Noah here. It's his tent, after all, and it's not as if we Americans never lay around the house naked drinking wine. Evidently, though, the ancient Hebrews considered nakedness to be a Very Big Deal, so much so that Noah immediately curses his grandson (who was nowhere on the scene during this story) when he discovers that his grandson's father has seen him naked. Maybe it's because Noah is more than 600 years old by this point, and his body hasn't held up so well over the centuries. Maybe it's because the authors of the book wanted to dishonor the Canaanites early on in the narrative. Either way, it seems a bit extreme to lay down a perpetual curse upon so many tribes on such a *ahem* flaccid pretext as one's own nakedness, exposed entirely by accident, to someone other than the object said curse.

Genesis 4-5: The Parable of Cain and Abel

A friend of a friend once knew a telepathic gorilla, who thought it was plainly obvious that the story of Cain and Abel was a parable about the interaction between the sons of Cain (agriculturalists) and the sons of Abel (herders) and how it all went down in the Fertile Crescent between those two competing modes of human existence. The gorilla is reported to have said "The Semites were telling their children, 'God is on our side. He loves us herders but hates those murderous tillers of the soil from the north.'" This is about as much sense as a gorilla has ever made, in my experience, when doing Scriptural exegesis.

In particular, the gorilla's take on this makes sense of the question that will occur to most modern readers , "Why does God seem to arbitrarily prefer shepards to tillers?" If you think you can best the telepathic gorilla on this point, I'd be interested in hearing other theories.

Blogging The KJV

So, it's the four hundredth anniversary of the finalization of the original 1611 King James Bible, which would eventually supplant earlier translations of the Bible into English. Accordingly, this seems as good a year as any to read through the KJV, as suggested by Bruce. I'm going to have a go at this here on this blog, and my friend Paul is also posting a few of his thoughts here.

Acura Declares War on Xmas! (not really)

Okay, so check these out:

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/jref-news/789-the-season-of-reason.html

http://www.acura.com/vb/tlp/tlp_allmodels.aspx

The catchy phrase "Season of Reason" is in both cases is being used to promote and raise money for the corporate cause, while telling the customer/donor that she is a bright person who makes rational choices. That's all well and good, but doesn't Acura have anyone in the PR dept who can translate from English to Midwestern? Such blatant pandering to the rationalist crowd will surely draw a harsh backlash from the culture warriors on the far right.

Cue FauxNews hissy fit in 3... 2... 1...

Liveblogging Dinesh D'Souza

Q&A time starts around 21:07 or so. Woo hoo!

21:05 - Back to Romans 1:18-25. Given the preponderance of Sunday School teachers and students here, this argument seems a bit unoriginal and superfluous. Evidently I'm not taking advantage of the real joy of religious unbelief, which is unfettered debauchery. Damn!

21:01 - He does a better Bertrand Russell than Sam Harris impression.

21:00 - Now we've moved on (slightly) to atheism = communism. My brain is bleeding.

20:55 - Back to the argument that (1) Western culture rules :. (2) Xn doctrine is true.

20:50 - Now we're on to fine-tuning of the universe. Nothing new or surprising here.

20:45 - Arguing that the Big Bang in particular supports Augustinian cosmogony. He makes an incredible (some might last inordinate) amount of hay over this, then makes a poop joke at Hawking's expense.

20:42 - Evidently modern science overwhelmingly supports theism. Don't tell the NAS!

20:40 - Now he is getting into the argument that methodological naturalism has slowly displaced faith-based thinking.

20:35 - Turns out Christianity hated slavery all along. Who knew?

20:33 - Dinesh does his Sam Harris impression. Evidently Sam has a significantly deeper and manlier voice than Dinesh. :)

20:30 - Starting in on the argument from his bestselling apologetic book that Xn culture is compassionate and good, thererfore Xn doctrine is true. Is is true that Eastern cultures don't believe in compassion and the dignity of life? Don't tell the Jain!

20:25 - He has covered the "accident of birth" argument for one's faith, and the problem of childhood indoctrination. So far so good.

20:20 - Claims he is going to answer the "best arguments " of the Gnu Atheists, appealing solely to evidence and reason.

20:15 - Now he is telling us about the New Atheists and Hitch's hairdo. He claims that atheists want to convince people that atheism is correct. How very un-Xn of them! It is not as if Christians are evangelical about their worldview.

20:10 - He looks even goofier in person. Starts off with a joke and an anecdote about Churchill.

I've never had the chance to see Zaltzman in person, so it may be said that D'Souza is the most consummate bullshit artist that I may ever get the chance to see live. Probably I should not be this excited about it, but here we go!