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Thursday, July 31, 2008
Movie Review: There Will Be Blood
This review has been moved to the R. S. Martin website. Click here to read.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Civilization Review: The Book of Exodus
All references and quotations are from the King James translation of the Bible, with chapter and verse numbers indicated.
Previous Civilization Saturday discussion:
Subsequent Civilization Saturday discussions:
God is a maddening figure in the Book of Genesis: capricious, perverse, with an inconsistent sense of justice and a consistent tendency towards favoritism, regardless of how deserving or undeserving the beneficiary might be. The God of the Book of Exodus redeems his predecessor; the negative attributes of the Genesis figure are largely transposed onto an Egyptian pharaoh, and the God of Exodus earns the Hebrews' allegiance by championing their cause against this tyrant. He reaffirms His commitment to the covenant with the Hebrews whereby he grants them dominion over the land of Canaan, "a good land and a large, [...] a land flowing with milk and honey" (3:8). He also establishes a codified set of laws, a rigorous means of defining justice and governing behavior divorced (somewhat) from the arbitrary whims of an all-powerful decision-maker.
In The Western Canon, Harold Bloom remarks that the J writer (a figure so named by Biblical scholars as the one who authored Genesis, Exodus, and a subsequent book, Numbers) was so scandalous in the portrayal of God "that the J Writer deserves to be called the most blasphemous of all authors ever." One might wish the portrayal was more blasphemous; after the depiction of God's arbitrariness and favoritism in Genesis, it would seem most fitting for codified laws be set up in response to a call for juster treatment by the Hebrews along the lines of Abraham's challenge to God before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18). But, as remarked above, the J writer shifts the exemplum of the arbitrary and unjust ruler from God to Pharaoh, and one infers that God still maintains the right to be arbitrary; the law is being established so man, rather than God, will have to administer it. He insultingly tells the Hebrews' leader Moses that they are too disagreeable a people for Him to tolerate on a regular basis: "I will not go up in the midst of thee; for thou art a stiff-necked [i.e. stubborn] people: lest I consume thee in the way" (Exodus 33:3).
In The Western Canon, Harold Bloom remarks that the J writer (a figure so named by Biblical scholars as the one who authored Genesis, Exodus, and a subsequent book, Numbers) was so scandalous in the portrayal of God "that the J Writer deserves to be called the most blasphemous of all authors ever." One might wish the portrayal was more blasphemous; after the depiction of God's arbitrariness and favoritism in Genesis, it would seem most fitting for codified laws be set up in response to a call for juster treatment by the Hebrews along the lines of Abraham's challenge to God before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18). But, as remarked above, the J writer shifts the exemplum of the arbitrary and unjust ruler from God to Pharaoh, and one infers that God still maintains the right to be arbitrary; the law is being established so man, rather than God, will have to administer it. He insultingly tells the Hebrews' leader Moses that they are too disagreeable a people for Him to tolerate on a regular basis: "I will not go up in the midst of thee; for thou art a stiff-necked [i.e. stubborn] people: lest I consume thee in the way" (Exodus 33:3).
The core of the laws is the Ten Commandments, or the Decalogue (20:1-20) (above). The first four assert the primacy of God's authority in all things, and they establish the terms of the Hebrew fealty to God. The latter six are of more general interest, as they govern proper behavior within the community.
The first four Commandments are the first principles for establishing the Hebrew people as "a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation" (19:6), as God describes it. The dedication to belief in the one God is an important aspect of establishing the Hebrews as an exclusive community. They lived in what was essentially the eastern Mediterranean region, and anyone even remotely aware of the dominant Greek, Egyptian, and, later, Roman cultures knows that pantheism and pantheistic influences flourished. The lapse of the Hebrews into worshipping the divinity icon of the golden calf (32:1-35) shows the danger these influences and traditions posed in terms of undermining the identity of the Hebrew nation. The declaration of the sanctity of the Sabbath--the day upon which man must rest in honor of God--is to some extent a synecdoche for the sanctity of cultural traditions (e.g. circumcision for males, the Passover feast) and guidelines for worship and the Hebrew priesthood, which are the exclusive focus of the final sixth of the book.
The community guidelines in the Commandments are expanded on as well, although not at as great a length. Degrees of heinousness are established for such crimes as homicide and assault, and crimes against property have their degrees of severity as well. The basic principle is that the punishment should fit the crime, or as it is decribed in Exodus, "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, [b]urning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe" (21:24-25), although one must make restitution for theft that is many times over what is originally stolen (22:1-14). One rule (and it is a property rule; Hebraism is, after all, a patriarchal culture) is that "if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife. If her father utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins" (22:16-17). This functions as an implicit rebuke to the insane retribution of Simeon and Levi for the deflowering of their sister Dinah (Genesis 34); murdering the offending party and his father, looting their belongings, and pressing the rest of the family into slavery is, perhaps, seen as a bit much.
Most of Jacob's mendacity is rebuked as well, although not as clearly as his sons' actions in response to their sister's seduction. "Honour thy father and mother" would seem to prohibit Jacob's defrauding Isaac's blessing from him, and the commandment "Thou shalt not covet" appears to prohibit Jacob's opportunism and swindling with regard to his brother Esau and his father-in-law Laban. It's been mentioned to me that Jacob's story is a microcosm of the dark side of the Hebrew experience, and that his conduct is deliberately rebuked in Exodus, both by the secular Commandments and the oppression of the Hebrews while in exile in Egypt. His actions and the actions of his children are what led the Hebrews away from the land promised them in God's covenant.
In closing, what Exodus shows is the evolution of the Hebrew people from a loose-knit tribe to a culture and civilization. For me, the most heartening section of the book is not the establishment of the law with the Commandments; rather, it is the establishment of a hierarchy of authority within the Hebrew people. After the escape from Egypt, Moses decides to subordinate his authority for arbitration to a select group of judges (18:13-27). The Hebrews are no longer a nation defined by their leader; they are a community with responsibilites and are authorities within the law over themselves. With his delegation of authority, Moses makes them a commons, an identity necessary for the establishment and maintenance of any nation. It makes on worry about the United States, which seems to be slipping further and further away from that notion, as the lionization of the individual over all is becoming more and more prevalent.
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The reading list for Civilization Saturday is here.Previous Civilization Saturday discussion:
Subsequent Civilization Saturday discussions:
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Poetry Review: The Troubadours
This review has been moved to the R. S. Martin website. Click here to read.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Civilization Review: The Book of Genesis
Welcome to Civilization Saturday. The purpose is to read and discuss the major texts in the development of Western thought and social theory, with the works ranging from classical sources like the Old Testament, Plato, and Aristotle to such contemporary voices as Hannah Arendt, Robert Nozick, and Noam Chomsky. It is essentially an autodidactic Great Books course, structured--at least at first--as a historically organized survey of the texts in question. My expectation is that I will be isolating the books' central ideas, and then interrogating them by relating those ideas to present-day circumstances. If the works are as worthy as their statures indicate, I should have little trouble finding relevance to contemporary life.
The first work to be considered is the Book of Genesis, the foundation text of the Abrahamic traditions embodied today in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. All references and quotations are from the King James translation of the Bible, with chapter and verse numbers indicated.
Genesis is essentially divided into four sections: the creation myths and the stories of the three great Hebrew patriarchs Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph. (Isaac, the other significant patriarch, is mainly depicted in terms of his relationships with his father Abraham and his son Jacob.) The creation myths cover the stories of God's creation of the Earth, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Great Flood, and the Tower of Babel. The stories of the patriarchs provide accounts of the lives of the founders of Israel and the Hebrew tradition. Man is identified as God's privileged creation, with dominion over all others on Earth (1:26), and his purpose, beyond the worship of God, is to accumulate as much property as possible.
The most striking aspect of Genesis as a foundational text for a culture is the near-absence of societal rules and codified values. The one constant throughout the text is that God's authority is absolute. Creation, destruction, mercy, punishment--they are His decisions and He is not to be questioned. All well and good, but His authority and favor are quite arbitrary and even unjust. The God of Genesis imposes tests of faith upon men, such as the directive not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden, or the order to Abraham to slaughter and sacrifice his son Isaac as proof of obeisance. He capriciously favors Abel over his brother Cain, with tragic consequences, and divine favor shockingly excuses and even justifies fraud against one's father and brother, as it does with Jacob. At one point, even Abraham questions God's sense of justice, asking Him, with regard to the fairness of destroying all the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah, "Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right?" (18:25)
I'll grant that this ancient culture had values that seem outright bizarre to one now. The most grotesque instance is the episode where hospitality compels Lot to offer his daughters up to a mob to be deflowered and gang-raped--this is considered preferable to acceding to that mob's demand to forcibly bugger the male guests in his home (19:4-8). But the absence of law (and, therefore, justice) is felt throughout. The lack is especially felt with regard to Jacob, whose propensity for greed, deceit, and opportunism seems to infect everyone and everything around him.
As in our society, property is the principal definition of a man's worth, and the governing of contracts and claims to property is one of the key functions of the law. Jacob may have the shield of God's blessing in Genesis, but many societieis regard this sort of unscrupulous person as a predator and even a criminal. Jacob extorts his brother Esau's inheritance from him (25:29-34), tricks their father into giving Jacob the blessing intended for Esau (27:6-41), and uses his position as the manager of Laban's livestock to effectively swindle Laban out of the offspring of the herds (30:31-43). Jacob rationalizes this embezzlement as God's doing, complaining that Laban has deceived him and "changed his wages ten times" (31:7). He's not a person one can trust to deal with one fairly.
Those around Joseph seem particularly inclined to deceit as well. His mother Rebekah is his co-conspirator in the cheating of Esau. Laban tricks Jacob into thinking that he is marrying Laban's youngest daughter Rachel when he is actually marrying her sister Leah, all in defiance of Laban's agreement with Jacob for Rachel's hand (29:15-26). Rachel steals icons from her father's home and uses the excuse of her period to impede a search for them (31:19-37). A neighbor's son forces himself on Jacob's daughter Dinah, yet despite her brothers' subsequent arrangements for the two to marry and the conversion of the boy's family to Hebraism, the brothers murder the boy and his father out of revenge, loot the family's belongings, and enslave the family's women and children (34:1-31). When Jacob complains about their actions, the sons respond, "Should he deal with our sister as an harlot?" (34:31) These sons also sell their brother Joseph into slavery, telling Jacob he was killed by a wild animal (37:3-35). Frankly, Jacob's sons make their father look like an eminently upstanding citizen.
What these incidents all highlight is that no figure in Genesis feels particularly governed by societal rules. There is certainly no means of enforcing those rules beyond taking matters in one's own hands, and, as in the case of Dinah, punishments meted out may be grossly out of proportion to the underlying crime. A society needs something more than dedicated worship of God and circumcision as an expression of one's faith.
Subsequent Civilization Saturday discussions:
The first work to be considered is the Book of Genesis, the foundation text of the Abrahamic traditions embodied today in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. All references and quotations are from the King James translation of the Bible, with chapter and verse numbers indicated.
Genesis is essentially divided into four sections: the creation myths and the stories of the three great Hebrew patriarchs Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph. (Isaac, the other significant patriarch, is mainly depicted in terms of his relationships with his father Abraham and his son Jacob.) The creation myths cover the stories of God's creation of the Earth, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Great Flood, and the Tower of Babel. The stories of the patriarchs provide accounts of the lives of the founders of Israel and the Hebrew tradition. Man is identified as God's privileged creation, with dominion over all others on Earth (1:26), and his purpose, beyond the worship of God, is to accumulate as much property as possible.
The most striking aspect of Genesis as a foundational text for a culture is the near-absence of societal rules and codified values. The one constant throughout the text is that God's authority is absolute. Creation, destruction, mercy, punishment--they are His decisions and He is not to be questioned. All well and good, but His authority and favor are quite arbitrary and even unjust. The God of Genesis imposes tests of faith upon men, such as the directive not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden, or the order to Abraham to slaughter and sacrifice his son Isaac as proof of obeisance. He capriciously favors Abel over his brother Cain, with tragic consequences, and divine favor shockingly excuses and even justifies fraud against one's father and brother, as it does with Jacob. At one point, even Abraham questions God's sense of justice, asking Him, with regard to the fairness of destroying all the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah, "Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right?" (18:25)
I'll grant that this ancient culture had values that seem outright bizarre to one now. The most grotesque instance is the episode where hospitality compels Lot to offer his daughters up to a mob to be deflowered and gang-raped--this is considered preferable to acceding to that mob's demand to forcibly bugger the male guests in his home (19:4-8). But the absence of law (and, therefore, justice) is felt throughout. The lack is especially felt with regard to Jacob, whose propensity for greed, deceit, and opportunism seems to infect everyone and everything around him.
As in our society, property is the principal definition of a man's worth, and the governing of contracts and claims to property is one of the key functions of the law. Jacob may have the shield of God's blessing in Genesis, but many societieis regard this sort of unscrupulous person as a predator and even a criminal. Jacob extorts his brother Esau's inheritance from him (25:29-34), tricks their father into giving Jacob the blessing intended for Esau (27:6-41), and uses his position as the manager of Laban's livestock to effectively swindle Laban out of the offspring of the herds (30:31-43). Jacob rationalizes this embezzlement as God's doing, complaining that Laban has deceived him and "changed his wages ten times" (31:7). He's not a person one can trust to deal with one fairly.
Those around Joseph seem particularly inclined to deceit as well. His mother Rebekah is his co-conspirator in the cheating of Esau. Laban tricks Jacob into thinking that he is marrying Laban's youngest daughter Rachel when he is actually marrying her sister Leah, all in defiance of Laban's agreement with Jacob for Rachel's hand (29:15-26). Rachel steals icons from her father's home and uses the excuse of her period to impede a search for them (31:19-37). A neighbor's son forces himself on Jacob's daughter Dinah, yet despite her brothers' subsequent arrangements for the two to marry and the conversion of the boy's family to Hebraism, the brothers murder the boy and his father out of revenge, loot the family's belongings, and enslave the family's women and children (34:1-31). When Jacob complains about their actions, the sons respond, "Should he deal with our sister as an harlot?" (34:31) These sons also sell their brother Joseph into slavery, telling Jacob he was killed by a wild animal (37:3-35). Frankly, Jacob's sons make their father look like an eminently upstanding citizen.
What these incidents all highlight is that no figure in Genesis feels particularly governed by societal rules. There is certainly no means of enforcing those rules beyond taking matters in one's own hands, and, as in the case of Dinah, punishments meted out may be grossly out of proportion to the underlying crime. A society needs something more than dedicated worship of God and circumcision as an expression of one's faith.
* * *
The reading list for Civilization Saturday is hereSubsequent Civilization Saturday discussions:
Friday, July 18, 2008
Comics Review/Art Review/Politics: Barry Blitt, "The Politics of Fear"
This post has been moved to the R. S. Martin website. Click here to read.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Movie Review: Hard Candy
This review has been moved to the R. S. Martin website. Click here to read.
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