Random Ramblings on Hermeneutics: On Cultural Differences Between the Bible and Modern America

Posted on April 7, 2013 by

Emphasis on rambling. Also, these are simply preliminary thoughts. Stuff to consider when thinking about biblical interpretation.

Some examples of cultural differences between the Bible and Modern America:

1. Monarchy
2. Cities of Refuge for those guilty of killing someone to flee to; avenger of blood hunting them down to kill them in vengeance.
3. Polygamy/Concubines (see Exodus 21)
4. Slavery (See Exodus 21)
5. Leverite Marriage
6. No punishment by imprisonment prescribed in the Law
7. Sacrifices for Sin

What else? (suggestions for consideration: Sabbath, Tithe, hair styles, clothing styles, Nazarite vow, kosher laws, primogeniture)

1. What barriers to understanding do our differences in culture create?
2. How do we decide when something in the Bible is culturally limited, and is not to be taken as prescriptive for us today?

When Jesus tells Peter to go catch a fish, pull a coin out of the fish’s mouth, and to pay the temple tax with it, (Mat. 17:24-27) why do we take that as limited to a specific person and a specific time and place, and do not attempt to universalize it; but when we see Paul write to Timothy that he “does not permit a woman to teach” do we take that as a universal commandment?

Or what about those who take the relationship of slave and master in Paul’s writings and attempt to apply it to employer/employee relationships. Is this valid?

How, practically, are we to apply Paul’s words “All Scripture is God-breathed and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work”? Does this passage require an understanding of all the laws that were prescriptive for Israel or the first century church being prescriptive for us today? And if not, how do we decide what is prescriptive? That is, how do we know that murder is forever and always forbidden while we can happily eat pork and ignore the Sabbath? Or why do we forbid polygamy or slavery today when it was permitted in ancient Israel?

Can we really see American “family values” in the Bible? Or are we really just trying to read our cultural norms (or even a specific, 1950’s stereotype) into the ancient text?

Basic Hermeneutical Principle:

All the data relevant to the topic (general and special revelation) must be addressed. Any interpretation of a given passage must make sense of all the data. Any interpretation of a given passage which results in a contradiction is wrong somewhere — either the particular passage is being misinterpreted, or the other passages are being misinterpreted. Only when harmony is achieved between all relevant passages can an interpretation potentially be correct.

Illustration:

“Spare the rod and spoil the child.” – such a phrase does not appear in the Bible. What does appear is as follows:
Proverbs 13: 24 – He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.
Proverbs 22:15 – Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.
Proverbs 23:13-14 – Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die. Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death.
Proverbs 29:15 – The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself disgraces his mother.
Thus I must spank my children — use corporal punishment.
Question: Do you use a big old stick on your children?

No! Those who believe in corporal punishment use:

a. hand
b. wooden spoon
c. switch
d. strap

But the passage talks about using a rod, which is a apparently a big old stick.

Thus:

Even those who use corporal punishment are taking the passage metaphorically, which is arguably the point: i.e., “rod”, as in Psalm 23, “Thy rod and they staff, they comfort me” is a metaphor for “discipline.” So, the passages in Proverbs may be properly understood to speak to the issue that children must be disciplined. How that is best to be accomplished is debatable, but I would suggest that these passages do not require corporal punishment, unless you want to insist on a literal interpretation, in which case you’d better be taking a “rod” to the backs of your kids from here on out.
Consider, too, that Proverbs is poetry, and the likelihood of metaphor grows that much stronger.

Working Considerations

The solution to this basic hermeneutic conundrum should be:

1. Simple. A complex, difficult to understand solution is going to be neither satisfying nor a solution at all. God intended to communicate, not confuse (one of our basic presuppositions)
2. Consistent. The solution must be universally applicable, and should never result in absurdity.
3. Not a tool for special pleading. That is, it should not be developed to explain away a command that we would prefer not to have to obey, or that we find objectionable.
4. Thus, it should not be subjective. It should eliminate the charge that we are willy-nilly picking the commandments we want to obey (thou shalt not murder) and ignoring those we don’t want to obey (thou shalt keep the Sabbath).

Proposals

One proposal that has some merit is that those commandments reinterpreted or “fulfilled” by the New Testament are no longer applicable.

This is somewhat of an oversimplification, and we must be careful that we are not guilty of violating the spirit or intent of Jesus’ words that “not one jot or tittle of the law” would pass away. Whatever we do with the NT’s handling of the OT, we must not assume that it is “explaining away” or “undoing” or “invalidating” the commandments of the OT. A simplistic approach (and the most commonly used approach) creates contradictions and tends to be inconsistent in its application — that is, tithing is encouraged in the Church, even though it would seem unlikely to be a legal requirement, based on the normal Christian understanding of the Israelite laws.

Circumcision we reject as a requirement for Christians, taking the words of Paul in various places as proof against it. Yet, in practice, we see Paul circumcising Timothy (Acts 16) right after his brouhaha over the very issue of circumcision! What are we to make of this?

Plus, if we read the OT regulations regarding circumcision, which predate the law, no less (consider the support of tithing often is based on its prelaw status), we find little apparent wiggle room. Moses’ son was nearly killed by God for not being circumcised (again, prior to the law being given). So how are we to reconcile Paul’s words, and the actions of the early church, with such explicit OT statements?

Does this have anything to say to us about a method for handling the rest of the OT in relation to the Church?

And what NT “commandments” are relevant to the church? Is the Jerusalem Council’s letter the norm, and nothing more — why didn’t it list murder or stealing as prohibitions, for instance? Or speak of the status of women or homosexuality?

Where exactly do we start? What is foundational?

1. Love God, love people. What Jesus says about the theme of the Old Testament (and I believe, of the Bible and God’s workings with humanity in general) are expressed quite clearly in Matthew 22:34-40:

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (cf. Galatians 5:14, Romans 13:9-10, Luke 10:25-28ff, Mark 12:28-34)

This seems to sum up God’s intentions and commandments. Just as physics seeks a Theory of Everything for General Revelation, in Special Revelation I would argue that the Theory of Everything — what it all boils down to — are these two commands, which, are essentially one (cf. Paul’s comment in Galatians 5:14 and Romans 13:9-10).

a. Love must be carefully defined, therefore. It must be understood in its two-sided nature, both affiirmative and inhibitive; that is, as both warm and harsh. In Deuternomy 28-31, the two sides are presented: blessing for obedience, cursings for disobedience — but both reactions are the consequence of love, as in the disciplining of one’s own children. It is also seen in Psalm 136, where the perception of God’s love as positive or negative was dependent upon the observer’s relationship to God. The Israelites, for instance, saw the death of the first born in the tenth plague in Egypt as a loving act; surely the Egyptians had a different attitude.

2. Do the demonstration, the living of these two commandments change depending on circumstances?

The answer must be affirmative. Three examples come quickly to mind:

a. Greet one another with a holy kiss? (see Rom. 16:16, 1 Cor. 16:20, 2 Cor. 13:12, 1 Thess. 5:26) Not in the US you don’t. To keep this command (repeated in the New Testament), we greet others warmly, not necessarily by giving them a peck.

b. Washing Feet? (cf. John 13:14) We don’t have this custom any more, since there is no need for it. So how to keep this command? Various ways — for instance getting someone a cup of coffee, getting them something to eat or drink, etc., when they visit.

c. Worship in the Temple. Demonstration of our love of God is not the same today as it was when there was a temple. Jesus himself saw this coming when he was speaking to the Samaratin woman at the well. He told her that a time would come when people would no longer worship God in the temple, but rather simply in spirit and in truth. (John 4:21-24). A change, thus, in how the first of the ten commandments is practiced.

3. What is the purpose and context of the commandments that are given?

Why keep the Sabbath? What was its purpose? Are the Seventh-Day Adventists right? Is going to church on Sunday the mark of the beast? After all, isn’t this one of the ten commandments? How can we ignore one of the ten commandments! Will we start murdering people next? Why this one commandment and not the others?

Simply because it isn’t mentioned? The NT doesn’t say anything about beastiality, child sacrifice, or marrying our sisters, either, and yet we don’t think those practices are okay now, do we? How come? The list of commands found only in the OT that we still practice is relatively long. And what of the other of the ten commandments not mentioned in the NT: misusing the name of the LORD? Can we start doing that now? Simply arguing that if it is or isn’t reiterated in the New Testament that it is normative is insufficient.

The Sabbath, according to Jesus, is for us, not us for the Sabbath. Taking a day off is good for you. Romans 14 must be brought to bear on the issue.

What of the guy who was killed because he picked up sticks on Saturday? He was being rebellious, one would argue.

How about tithing? Why tithe? What was its purpose? To provide for the temple and support the priests. Modern context is similar: the pastors and administration of the church’s property requires that its members provide for it. The same thing is seen in the NT, even though a specific amount is not given as a requirement.

To make it possible to love God and love people is the ultimate purpose — the commands beyond the first two explain in practical terms how loving God and people is accomplished. If you love someone, you’re not likely to kill them or steal from them or turn them into an adulterer.

Moreover, the context needs to be taken into account. We recognize that we are not physically with Jesus now, and so his command to Peter to catch a fish and pay the temple tax with the money he takes from the poor creature’s mouth is obviously localized. But, we do translate the specific command to the general principle that we should live by faith and that we should do what God tells us to do.

Thus, perhaps, when Paul is prohibiting teaching by women, we should take it more as a general prohibition on teaching being done by those unqualified, than as a general rule regarding the place of women, since women of Paul’s day were generally uneducated and thus ill equipped to take on a public teaching role.

(What of the use of the woman being duped by the serpent that Paul uses to illustrate his point? Just that, it illustrates the point: that the women of Paul’s day, like Adam’s wife, were naive and easily lead astray. Would this be the case with all women? And how does a prohibition on teaching by all women reconcile with the examples of women teaching in the Bible (Pricilla) or even serving as prophets (Huldah, the four daughters of Philip [Acts 21:8-9]). Remember the fundamental principle: an interpretation that is correct must not create contradiction. If it creates a contradiction, you know its wrong. Only those interpretations that do not lead to a contradiction can be correct (this does not mean, of course, that just a lack of contradiction means the interpretation is correct; it might still be wrong).

4. So, has culture shifted in ways that require a shift in the practical outworkings of a given command?

Obviously, and a good example can be illustrated with the command in John 13 to wash one another’s feet. Some churches actually have such foot washing ceremonies, and while there is nothing objectionable in that, I believe the point of the command has been missed. That is, Jesus was speaking more metaphorically, giving a universal commandment: submission to one another (an expression of love and devotion). The cultural outworking of that command changes based on the culture: in first century, the washing of feet was a demeaning task, and thus served his purposes well. Today, a different metaphore would be wanted. What might be a modern equivalent? Several come to mind:

a. serving food at a meal
b. cleaning up afterward
c. parking the car for guests
d. setting up chairs, and tables, taking them down, general clean up

To insist on taking a first century cultural act and to literalize it in the present I believe is unwarranted and misses Jesus’ actual point.

Therefore

The question to be asked about any command, is the same as that to be asked about anything in the Bible. What did it mean in its context? Understand it thoroughly.

Then, what is the current context? Is it equivalent? Are there equivalent contexts. If not, is there something similar? Can it be translated to something like the modern setting?

What of slavery, polygamy, etc.? — where modern standards seem more than biblical? Are we guilty of being more holy than God? We point out that the Bible doesn’t prohibit drinking alcohol, so does that mean that those who don’t drink alcohol are like those who don’t practice slavery or polygamy?

The difference is that slavery and polygamy are social and societal, unlike drinking, which is a matter of individual conscience.

Slavery in the OT was either:

a. indentured servitude — i.e., limited to a particular period of time, and entered into voluntarily
b. permanent bond servant — but again, entered into voluntarily

These are not the same as the slavery that one saw in the United States prior to the Civil War, which was both permanent and involuntary.

Although polygamy is not generally prohibited, it is regulated and it is prohibited to those in “leadership” positions in the church — both elders and deacons are charged with only having a single wife. From a practical point of view, it is useful to notice that monogamy was the norm in Jewish society, with polygamy being limited principally to the rich, and more principally to the king. The expression in Genesis of a husband and wife being one flesh also seems to presuppose monogamous relationships, and from the general revelatory standpoint, monogamy is the most common arrangement among human societies, with polygamy being a somewhat unusual variant.

That polygamy is illegal in modern western societies makes the issue moot for discussion, as is slavery, which is also prohibited.

Summary

1. Love God, love people.
2. Does the demonstration of these two commandments change, depending on circumstances?
3. What is the purpose and context of the commandments that are given?
4. Has culture shifted in ways that require a shift in the practical outworkings of a given command?

It is necessary that we do something along these lines; there is no temple, thus there is no practical way to perform much of the ceremonial law. The New Testament provides the basic process.

The concept of cultural shift and the changes it can create in the practical understanding and practice of commandments may be disturbing, but we already do it without thought. The OT, prior to the law, enjoins circumcision and requires that all those who are not circumcized be cut off. Yet Paul, in the NT, argues that Gentiles should not be circumcised. How do we move from a clear do to an equally clear do not. To simply say that the NT supercedes the OT is to ignore the underlying question of how. It is still an apparent contradiction.

The only solution is to recognize the cultural shift, to ask for the purpose of circumcision, and how that purpose is universalized now in the indwelling Holy Spirit — i.e., the OT concept of the need to be “circumsized in the heart”.

The same thing occurs as we think about the temple and its related rituals. Why don’t we do any of them? Regardless of any theological or theoretical considerations, there is the simple practical reality that there is no temple, there has not been a temple for nearly 2000 years, and there are also no priests and no way of identifying who the priests should be. Again, a significant cultural shift, that result in practical differences in keeping the commandments of God.

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How to Write a Novel

Posted on April 6, 2013 by

The first thing to understand about novel writing is that autobiography does not sell. Unless you’re an ex-president or otherwise famous, people beyond your family and friends are unlikely to be all that interested in your story, no matter how fascinating you might imagine it to be. After years of experience, publishers have learned that most autobiographies simply don’t sell very well.

Still, your novel can actually be adapted from your life’s story. You simply need to transform it into a story concept that is interesting. Writing what you know is good advice. But increase the level of conflict and action. Put your story into a time and place that are out of the ordinary.

And create a plot. There are only a handful of plots that exist. In fact, most can be broken down to what the mythologist Joseph Campbell called “the Hero’s Journey” or the monomyth. In his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell writes, “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.” Campbell describes seventeen stages along the way of this myth or story format. If you watch movies or read novels, you’ll find that they generally follow this basic pattern that Joseph Campbell noticed. The first Star Wars movie is a very good example of this, since Lucas consciously adapted Campbell’s format. But you’ll generally find the pattern exists in everything from romance to mysteries to westerns. So study some movies or books and pay attention to the structure. Analyze how the story was told and how the whole thing works. Remember, too, that your primary goal in novel writing is to entertain your audience: make them want to keep turning the pages.

After you’ve come up with a story idea—usually a “what if” scenario—and after you’ve plotted the basic structure of the story—then you need to come up with your characters. You’ll need conflict, so you’ll want good guys and bad guys. They can be conflicted and complicated if you’d like—the more depth the better—but there need to be clearly defined “sides.”

Be sparing in your descriptions. Avoid an overuse of adverbs and adjectives (that is, avoid words that end with “ly”, such as “really” or “badly” or “lovingly.” Let your verbs and nouns do most of the heavy lifting. Keep your sentences active, rather than passive. “Sherman punched Joe in the face.” is much more interesting than “Joe was punched.” Remember, you’re writing a novel, not a bureaucrat’s explanation of why he needs funding this year. Passive voice should be used very sparingly.

Begin the story in the middle of the action. Don’t begin with just one character—have at least two. Don’t begin with the character in bed or taking a shower–or doing any sort of wool-gathering. Avoid the “information dump” where you think you need to tell the reader everything you imagine they need to know in order to understand the story. Comprehending the story, getting to know the characters should be more like real life. Walk into the room and discover a fight going on: you don’t know why they’re fighting or who the good guys or bad guys are. As the story unfolds, you’ll find out. Don’t give it away up front. Keep the reader a bit off-kilter, like your first day on a new job.

Watch your point of view. Decide whether you want to write in first person-–that is “I was walking across the street and then I saw her.” Or third person, “He was walking across the street when he saw her.” And then, once you’ve decided on a point of view, stick to it. If it is first person, remember that unless you’re God, you don’t know anything more than you can see or hear around you. If you’re writing third person, don’t jump from one character to another. Stick to one character’s point of view through the entire scene or chapter.

Make certain that the characters are distinguishable from one another. They shouldn’t all sound just like you. Imagine you’re an actor. You’re not playing yourself. If the characters come alive in your mind, become individuals, like your friends, and you recognize them by how they act, what they are interested in, by their mannerisms and quirks, then you’ve done your job right. You may find, in fact, that the characters actually take on a life of their own and gain a certain amount of autonomy. That is, you realize that given their nature, they must sometimes behave differently from your initial expectation for them back when you first planned the novel.

Finally, you must actually begin to write. Find a time and place to write every day that fits your schedule and then discipline yourself to do it. Never go back and rework any of the pages you wrote until after you have finished writing the entire novel. This is very important. Let me say it again: do not rewrite anything until you finish the whole book. Don’t look at what you’ve done; just keep pressing ahead.

Remember too: (this is a mind game I play with myself) so what if you think what you’ve written is bad? You can fix it all after you’ve finished the book. You can always rewrite…later on. For now, just write. Don’t stop. Don’t worry about how bad it is. Maybe it is all horrible. Don’t stop. Just fill up the page with words. Keep on pounding away (you’ll discover, when you’re done, that it isn’t really as bad as you imagine.) And one other thing. Don’t wait for inspiration. Ditch diggers don’t wait to be inspired. Surgeons don’t wait for the muse. This is a job. Just do it. Some days it will flow, some days it won’t. In the end, it all sounds the same. Writing is a job; it is a craft. Treat it as such.

If you write even one page a day, after a year you’ll have a completed first draft, which will be just the right length for an average novel: about 90,000 words (365 double spaced pages). At that point–and only at that point–you may begin the process of rewriting. Keep rewriting until you are fully satisfied with it. Read it out loud to yourself and listen to it. Does it sound right? If not, fix it. Find a friend who will read it and give you honest feedback. Make more changes. Maybe inflict your creation on multiple friends who you know will tell you what’s wrong with it. You don’t want pats on the back. You want cold hard reality. Develop a thick skin and don’t fall in love with your own words. That thick skin will serve you well. You will get rejected by agents, editors, and even after you finally sell your masterpiece, you’ll find some readers will give you one and two star reviews on Amazon. The more pain you get now, the more calluses you build on your heart now, the better you’ll be able to survive your actual career as a writer. If you think people will praise you, fawn over you, and be impressed that you’ve published: buy a clue now. No one will care, any more than they care about anyone else’s career path. Get used to rejection; get used to making little money. You write because you like writing, because you have to write. Not because you’re looking for praise, money and affection.

When you’ve finished, get a copy of Writer’s Market from your library or bookstore and follow the advice there for proper format for your manuscript, for how to write query letters to agents or editors, and use the book to find the agents or editors who might be interested in the sort of book you’ve created. And as you’re shopping that book around, start work on your next novel. Then be persistent—and don’t give up! The only writers who fail are the ones who give up.

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Hobbies

Posted on April 5, 2013 by

As I grew up I collected several hobbies. Some involved actual collecting. I collected rocks and fossils. Later, I came to be interested in collecting coins and stamps, and then I started playing with model trains and rockets. I love astronomy and I own a good telescope. My love of reading has never left me and now I read, on average, at least one book a week, usually more, on top of daily reading of two newspapers, news on the web, and monthly, a handful of magazines.

In college, and then during my graduate work, model trains and rockets were not the sorts of things I could find the time to pursue—let alone find room for in a dorm (especially the model railroad layout). Marriage and children that followed also got in the way of finding the extra time or income for trains or rockets. Stamps and coins disappeared into boxes in my closet.

Every Christmas my roommate from college still gives me the yearly proof sets issued by the US Mint of the coins they produced for that year. But otherwise, I have not done anything with my coin collection in years. Through college and my graduate years, my roommate and I would visit the post office regularly to get blocks of each new stamp that was issued. For awhile, I received first day covers of each stamp when it came out. But it’s been at least twenty years, perhaps more, since I’ve actively collected.

It is not that my interest in stamps or coins has waned, necessarily. It is, instead, that other things took priority: things like paying a mortgage and taking care of my children. They had homework, soccer practice, girl scouts, and the like.

A couple of years ago my daughters were shocked when they discovered that I had a stamp collection and a coin collection. They spent hours looking at them.

As to model rockets, the last time I launched one was when my middle daughter had to launch a rocket for her astronomy class last year. I helped her build one and that then got me involved in building a couple more rockets. For my birthday this year my wife bought me another model rocket kit. I have yet to put it together, however.

Every so often I start to think about video games. I enjoy video games, and yet it has been years since I’ve played any of them for more than five minutes. There was a time when I would spend several hours a week playing games like Doom or Duke Nuke’m. I managed to finish the game of Myst. During my graduate work at UCLA I was an early adopter of computers and spent endless hours playing text adventures such as Suspended, Zork, Station Fall, and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Later, I actually programmed a couple of text adventures for a contest offered by Q-Link (the Commodore-specific forerunner of AOL). I managed to win both second and third place.

For awhile I had trouble figuring out why the various hobbies and things that I have derived so much pleasure from have fallen by the wayside over the years, like leaves falling from a tree in autumn. Even television receives less than five hours a week of my time each week now; that’s much more than I watched during college and grad school.

But as I started analyzing my days, I discovered pretty quickly what the problem is.

Obviously, I work during the day, like everyone else. In my case, spending eight hours, five days a week in front of my computer writing and rewriting. I have a weekly newspaper column to put out. I teach classes in the evenings sometimes (Hebrew, Bible, Theology). Work takes the largest chunk of time outside of sleeping. Obviously, when I was younger, work didn’t take up nearly so much time. Then I also spend time each day helping my youngest daughter with her school work: she’s on directed study due to her mental health issues.

Then I started factoring in the hours I devote to driving my children to various activities, the time that my wife wants to spend with me, such as occasionally going out for an evening, and it no longer is so odd that I have so little time left for hobbies. Reading remains the single non-work activity that I love the most and so the limited free time I have gets swallowed by that first of all. Since very few hours are left after reading, my other hobbies receive short shrift.

Life is just that way. We prioritize and manage the few hours we are granted each day, often without even thinking about them. But occasionally, it is useful to stop and reconsider what we’re doing and decide if maybe some reshuffling of priorities might not be a bad thing.

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God: Harsh Disciplinarian or Permissive Parent?

Posted on April 4, 2013 by

For the second time in as many years, I was tasked with preaching this year’s Palm Sunday service. I chose as my sermon title “God: Harsh Disciplinarian or Permissive Parent?” I suggested that mercy matters more to God than judgment, which should surprise no one. Consider our own thinking. As teenagers, if we came home past curfew and our parents caught us, what did we do? We told mom and dad that it would never happen again, it was an accident. We begged for mercy.

But if someone eats some of our food that we stored in the break room at work, what do we want? We want to see some punishment. We want justice!

In examining the Bible, it seems to me that God mostly treats people the way we hoped our parents would treat us, not how we’d treat someone who ate our last cupcake.

In the treaty God made with his people Israel, he told them that he was not giving them the Promised Land because of their righteousness, but because he loved them (Deuteronomy 9:4-6). It’s rather similar to what Paul later writes to a church in Rome, when he reminds them that God loves us and sent his son to die for our sins while we were still sinners and still his enemy. (Romans 5:6-11)

Therefore it is not so surprising that God regularly warns his people of punishment, and then is likely to forgive them and not punish them at all. For instance, in Exodus 33:1-3, after the golden calf incident, God told the Israelites that they would have to go to the Promised Land by themselves, without him. But by Exodus 33:15-17, Moses begged and so God agreeed to go along with them after all.

Each week I teach an adult Sunday school class; currently we are studying the book of Judges. We’ve very quickly discovered that the Israelites kept repeating the same bad behavior over and over. At least twelve times the Israelites worshipped idols, God sent trouble, they begged for help, God sent a rescuer, and when the rescuer died, they reverted to worshipping idols all over again. They kept doing the same bad thing. And it didn’t stop during the time of the Judges. They kept at it, year after year, decade after decade, century after century.

When kings like David and Solomon came along, did they change their ways? No. In fact, David’s wife worshiped idols (1 Samuel 19:13) and later, so did Solomon (1 Kings 11:4-8), and later still, so did most of the kings, queens, and people of Judah and Israel.

So what did God do about it?

What most of us do with our children: God just yelled at them–by means of prophets. He sent prophet after prophet warning them that he would bring judgment if they didn’t stop worshipping idols. This continued for about nine hundred years, until God finally had the Babylonians haul them into captivity starting in 605 BC. They remained in captivity only seventy years, and then went back home.

To put this into perspective, this would be like yelling at your teenager from the time she was 13 until she was 15 and a half—and then grounding her for a week.

Mostly, this is how God handles his people throughout the Bible. Once in a great while, God drops brimstone. Ananias and Sapphira lied to their church and they dropped dead (Acts 5). But most of the time, people lie and nothing much happens to them at all. Except they keep getting re-elected.

Frankly, God usually just lets people get away with murder. Quite literally.

Moses killed an Egyptian. Did God see to it that justice was served and that he got the death penalty or at least life in prison? No. He spent forty years tending sheep and then came back and rescued the Israelites from Egypt.

Jephthah (one of the Judges from our Sunday School studies) sacrificed his daughter as a burnt offering because of a foolish vow (Judges 11). Did God kill him? Nope, he made Jephtha successful and established him as a leader in Israel. In the New Testament he is listed as an example of a great man of faith (see Hebrews 11:32).

David committed adultery with Bathsheba and then murdered her husband. Did God see to it that David was executed as the law of Moses required? Nope. David remained the king of Israel. And the second son that he had with that hussy Bathsheba was Solomon –who became the next king.

How many crimes have been committed this past year, just in California? Did God strike even one miscreant with lightning? Did he lift a finger to prevent their misbehavior? Where was God when the Nazis slaughtered 6 million of his people in gas chambers?

And look at you! Those awful, unfriendly words and gestures you shared with that driver who cut you off on your way to work. Even now, some of you are fantasizing about eating a whole Costco cake even though you’re on Weight Watchers. And how many guys just “accidentally” stumble upon certain pictures on the internet? Fifteen times. Every day. And I’m sure most women are just thinking about how much they love their husbands while they watch that periodically shirtless actor in the TV series Chicago Fire.

But, perhaps surprisingly, you are still breathing and going about your daily business. No brimstone has fallen on your head. You probably had a nice weekend.

What’s it all mean? It means that God is not a harsh disciplinarian. Quite the opposite. God loves us. He thinks our freedom trumps making us behave.

In Genesis 3 God gave Adam and Eve the freedom to make the wrong choice with the forbidden fruit. All of human history: every war, every murder, every act of genocide, all the lies, abuse, slavery, and more—flowed from that bad decision.

But God thinks that was a price worth paying for freedom. And think about it this way: there is very little crime in Saudi Arabia, where they kill and maim people for the most mild of offenses. So everyone is well behaved. You can leave your doors unlocked and you purse unattended. But tell me, where would you rather live? Here, or there? Dictatorship or democracy? Do you want mercy—or do you want justice?

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Life’s Choices

Posted on April 3, 2013 by

Life is what happens while you’re trying to figure out what to do with it. After completing my graduate work in Semitic languages at UCLA I took a teaching position at the small private institution where I had done my undergraduate work.

My first two years they only gave me a part time teaching schedule so that the school would not have to pay me benefits or much of a salary: three hundred a month versus fifteen hundred. Full time faculty taught twelve units. They had me teach eleven. Of course occasionally they had me teach more, as when they had me substitute for a month without pay for one particular professor’s class. He happened to be the president of the institution and asked me to do it for him as a personal favor. I figured it might benefit my career if I helped him out.

My third year there, the college finally broke down and gave me a full time position. How come? My third year there was the year that a new president began running the place. His philosophy was radically different from that of the previous president and all the other members of the particular department I taught in, the Bible department, had promptly left the school. So they needed someone to teach those classes; they also made me the acting head of the department.

Not that this seemed to mean anything. Within a month of the beginning of my first semester, they fired my secretary, leaving me without one for the remainder of the year. And then, later during the year, they decided to reorganize the entire department and managed to eliminate all the classes that I taught (upper division language, history and theology courses). So, my first full time teaching year as a college professor was also my last year. Not that it came as much of a surprise, given the early departure of my secretary, of course.

I was, to say the least, a bit annoyed by having been treated this way (especially when I found out that the “full time salary” they had given me was actually the salary they normally paid the janitors). I could not help wondering if I had been making the right choices in my life. Three years earlier, I had been offered a full time position at a different institution. But this college which had mistreated me had been my alma-matre. I knew everyone there. I had given them my word already. It seemed a perfect fit. And I had mistakenly assumed that they would treat me fairly. In my unemployed hindsight, it seemed obvious I had made a poor choice.

My wife and I wound up both being unemployed for about nine months. She’d been teaching elementary school at a private institution and had decided not to sign a new contract. It had been, to put it bluntly, a very bad place to work and had paid her even less than I had been making at my alma-matre.

We managed to survive, somehow, while we both hunted for new positions. While I hunted, I decided to try my hand at writing. The writing went well, but the hunting proved fruitless. But come autumn, my wife managed to land a position with a public school some forty miles away. The upshot of it all was that her new salary was now more than what our combined salaries had been at the two private schools at which we’d been teaching.

We moved, and I continued to write since our financial situation had become stable again. And a handful of years later, with the backing of the local church we had joined when we moved north, I decided to start a college. In the more than twenty years since I founded the new college, in addition to administrative duties, I have taught the same variety of courses that I had taught before, and I also managed to get a lot of writing done and ultimately, to get professionally published. In fact, the way I was “discovered” was by way of the school I’d started, Quartz Hill School of Theology. An editor in London saw my work there and asked me to write a book for them. It was published in 2008 by Reader’s Digest Books in the English speaking world, and was subsequently published in 13 languages. There have been 2 Dutch editions, and it was recently reissued in English (in 2012) by Chartwell Books.

Certainly this turn of events, from being unemployed, to the writing, to the establishment of a new theological institution, to become a professional writer was not in my head when I decided to take up a position teaching at my old undergraduate institution. And certainly many events along the way didn’t seem like good things. None of the choices I’ve made have ever made me much money (though had I intended to make a lot of money I don’t suppose I would have chosen to major in dead Semitic languages as a graduate student at UCLA). But perhaps, in the long run, the choices I’ve made were okay after all. We simply can never predict what our life might ultimately bring us, especially while we’re still living it.

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The Equality of Women

Posted on April 2, 2013 by

Pastor Ralph Drollinger, who used to be a minister associated with Grace Community Church in Southern California, was quoted in 2004 as writing that a woman is scripturally and specifically “prohibited from leadership in the institutions of marriage, family and church.” Furthermore, he wrote, “She is not explicitly prohibited from leadership in government or commerce—that is, so long as she does not have children at home.” Otherwise, according to him, she is sinning. (His relationship with Grace Community Church ended in 2009.)

Many years ago I briefly taught at the Master’s College. This was during the first year after Grace Community Church took over what had formerly been called Los Angeles Baptist College. While I was teaching there, I came across a copy of a little anonymous booklet that Grace Community Church had printed and distributed called, The Role of Women. Drollinger’s comments are consistent with what that booklet argued. One particular passage from the booklet stands out to me in this regard:

The biblical pattern for raising and instructing children in God’s truths was established in Deuteronomy 6 where children are to be taught by parents “when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.” Parents are responsible for the spiritual education of their children, and mothers who work full-time outside their homes usually lack the quality time to instruct their children adequately. Nor can the responsibility for this instruction simply be transferred to someone else. (The Role of Women, p. 10)

I’ll ignore the odd leap from “parents” to “mothers” in the passage. More significant is the author’s interpretation of the repeated use of the word “you.” “You” is who the passage in Deuteronomy 6 is directed. Since I can read biblical Hebrew I couldn’t help laughing at the booklet’s incredibly bizarre interpretation of Deuteronomy 6. Something that neither that author nor Grace Community Church apparently know is that the passage from which they are deriving their warped ideas about what women can and cannot do is not even addressed to women at all! You see, the words of Deuteronomy 6 are written exclusively to men. In Hebrew there are four forms of the pronoun “you” available: masculine singular, masculine plural, feminine singular, feminine plural. Guess which is used in Deuteronomy 6? Masculine singular. The role of women is simply not being addressed by this passage. Instead, it is addressing the role of men and only men.

Drollinger’s whole argument, as well as that of Grace Community Church, is based on a ludicrous and incredibly ignorant misreading of the Bible.

In fact, if the author of The Role of Women wants to argue, based on this passage, that a particular parent shouldn’t be working outside of the home if there are children in that home, then he better start tongue-lashing most of the men. They are the awful sinners since they aren’t home with their kids. They abandon them and go off to work on a regular basis. For shame!

Frankly, I have found that many of those who argue against women working outside the home believe that the world has corrupted women with worldly, sinful notions. Somehow, they think that when women want to work outside the home, get careers and the like, it is because the feminist movement has filled them with wrong-headed dreams and aspirations. Those darn feminists are the ones who’ve made women unhappy and dissatisfied with their “proper, God-given roles” in the home. They’ve decided that the world of the 1950’s era sitcom is scriptural, and they don’t like uppity women–so they try to find a scriptural justification for their bigotry and hatred.

Those who believe in the oppression of women frankly remind me of the slave holders of a different era, who complained that “If it weren’t for those durn abolitionists filling the slaves with wool-headed ideas they wouldn’t be near the trouble; getting them all riled up about liberty and equality and who knows what other gosh durn foolishness!”

The reason a woman might like a career and be dissatisfied fulfilling the role of a slave is because she is a human being, created in the image of God, with the same common ideals and aspirations, hopes and fears, that fill the male half of humanity, since a woman, too, is as much a part of humanity as a man. People like Drolinger and the leaders of Grace Community Church just don’t get it (besides not even knowing how to read Hebrew and spouting nonsense as a result). Abraham Lincoln told people to ask themselves a simple question: would you care to be a slave? If the answer is no, then clearly slavery is obviously evil. I would suggest that those men who believe women should be excluded from positions of authority, who must not work outside the home, and so on should ask themselves the same question that those who wondered about the goodness of slavery asked: would you want to be treated the way you think women should be treated? Would you care to have such restrictions imposed on you? Would you like being told what jobs you can and cannot have simply by virtue of your gender? When you think certain people, certain groups, must be restricted, must behave, must do certain things that don’t apply to you—then probably you’re wrong.

“Do to others as you would have them do to you,” said Jesus (Luke 6:31). And likewise, Jesus said that all the laws and regulations of the Bible come down to two things: to love God and love people (see Matthew 22:36-40; Romans 13:8-10; Matthew 7:12; Colossians 3:14). Grace Community Church’s position on the status of women–and those who agree with them–are interpreting certain biblical passages so that they violate the rest of the Bible: both the Golden Rule and the primary commandment to love others. Here’s a clue: when your interpretation of scripture leads to a violation of “love your neighbor as yourself” and “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” then you have misinterpreted the text. Go back and try again.

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Intelligent Design

Posted on April 1, 2013 by

I’ve disliked the Intelligent Design concept since I first heard about it several years ago. From the theological standpoint, I believe that the theory is deeply flawed. It is simply a new version of a very old error: the God of the Gaps fallacy. To put it simply, the God of the Gaps fallacy argues that God is to be defined as mystery. Where there is mystery, there is God: if we find something in the world we don’t understand, the explanation is always the same: God did it.

This is an incredibly lazy approach to the world. When explanations for objects and events are found—as they must always be—the God of this fallacy inevitably shrinks. Needless to say, those caught in the grip of this fallacy inevitably fear explanations. Each time humanity’s understanding of the universe grows, a little piece of their God chips away. They little realize that they’re worshiping a false God who needs to disappear.

Most theologians, along with most scientists, discarded the God of the Gaps fallacy a long time ago. God is not dependent for his existence on ignorance.

I recently read someone who wrote, in thinking about God, that “since natural laws are His, presumably He can violate them any time He feels like it.” This reflects a widespread assumption regarding omnipotence which I don’t think is correct.

I do not think it is accurate to say that omnipotence means God can do just anything at all. I also disagree, therefore, that “miracle” in any way is a violation of natural law. The eighteenth century philosopher David Hume’s comments on miracle are devastating to that traditional concept of miracle, but only assuming this widely accepted definition of miracle is accurate. At least since the late nineteenth century, most theologians who have thought about the issue have attacked Hume’s conclusions by dismantling this key presupposition (one that most people, unfortunately, still believe) that “miracle” means “violation of natural law.” A more precise definition is that a miracle is a “sign,” or an “intervention” by God, by which he hopes to get the viewer’s attention.

Most people would find it difficult to commit murder. Their morality constrains their behavior. Most would argue that God is moral and thus is unable to violate his moral precepts, especially given the additional assumption that God is perfect. What if we now also assume that the laws of nature are as much a part of who God is as the moral laws? What if we modify the definition of omnipotence to then mean that “God is capable of doing anything that is consistent with his nature?” God is constrained, I would argue, by his own nature and can do nothing in violation of it; nor do I think that he can do anything that is logically absurd. God can no more make two and two be five than I can.

God then, might no more be able to violate natural law than he is able to violate his moral law. Certainly believers in God accept that he does spectacular things, but do those spectacular things require violation of natural law? An airplane would be mighty spectacular to a person living in the Middle Ages, as would flights to the moon or computers. But none of those spectacular things are violations of natural laws. We simply know the natural laws well and can manipulate them in very creative ways. God, to put it oddly, perhaps, should be seen as simply more technologically advanced than we are. And thus, in a universe where God is like this, science would be compatible with the nature of God.

Given a God constrained by his own nature, who operates in accord with his own laws and never violates them, I would expect that we could learn how the universe functions down to the smallest level. Explanations do not negate God; they illuminate Him. I thus am content with modern science. I do not feel a conflict between science and religion. I do not imagine that the unknown is God, only that it is the unknown—for now. I remain a theist who believes that God is intimately involved with his universe. I believe that God’s manipulations are no more intrusive or problematic than the manipulations of his creative creatures and differ from them perhaps in degree, but not kind. I would also point out that God made us free, and thus it is always going to be possible for us to explain Him away, precisely because we would not be free otherwise. How free are you when you are aware that your boss is watching your every move? God didn’t want us to live that way, either.

I suspect that the moral laws and natural laws are both a reflection of God’s fundamental nature and that he cannot be other than who he is. For instance, the fundamental forces of the universe (weak force, strong force, gravity, electromagnetism) must exist in a certain ratio with one another—to several decimal places—in order to have a universe capable of supporting life as we know it. We can logically posit universes where the forces are different than in our universe, but such universes would be very uncomfortable for us and incompatible with our existence. God is constrained by two and two always having to equal four. Likewise, “thou shalt not murder” is probably a necessary constraint on a properly functioning universe, too; anything else would be uncomfortable.

While God could have done and could do anything, I believe he is constrained by who he is, just as my behavior is constrained by who I am. What are the odds that I will voluntarily drive on the wrong side of the street, even though the only thing stopping me is a double yellow line painted on the asphalt? Hardly an insurmountable physical barrier. But I’m not a complete moron. And likewise, God is an intelligent being, even more than I am.

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A Memory

Posted on March 31, 2013 by

Neil Armstrong, the first human being to set foot upon the moon, passed away the afternoon of Saturday, August 25, 2012. The flags of the nation flew at half-staff in remembrance and there were outpourings of tributes. And yet, only half the people alive today have any memory of his first step on the moon. The rest hadn’t even been born yet. It is also noteworthy that no one born after 1935 has ever walked on the moon. The last person to set foot there was in December, 1972. A total of 12 people walked on the lunar surface. With the death of Armstrong, only 8 of them are still alive. The youngest of those who remain is 76 years of age.

In July, 1969 I had just moved from Oklahoma to Ohio with my parents. My father was in the Air Force and he was about to leave for Viet Nam on his second tour of duty. Come Autumn, I was going to begin Junior High—what today is called Middle School. I had just become a teenager in March.

The lunar module separated from the command module in lunar orbit shortly after 1 PM Eastern Daylight Time on July 20, 1969. At 4:18 PM Eastern Daylight Time, it touched down on the surface of the moon. My memories of the event have faded with the years. I recall that I was in a department store with my mother and watched it on a television there in the store.

About six hours later, Armstrong opened the hatch on the lunar module and began his descent to the surface. He put his boot in the lunar soil at 10:56 PM.

My family was in the living room at my great aunt’s home, so my mother, my father and my great aunt were watching the event on television. My great aunt had been born near the end of the nineteenth century. In her lifetime, she had seen the invention of the airplane, the advent of radio and television, the jet aircraft, the atomic bomb and now this. My father remembered when electricity first came to his parent’s farm house when he was a boy.

My great aunt found the whole thing barely comprehensible, so much so that she had a hard time really believing it. For my parents, it was certainly a wonder. But they’d imagined such a thing for a good portion of their lives, having grown up on movies and science fiction stories of people traveling to the moon. They were big fans of Star Trek, which had only recently ended its original television run.

What truly amazed my parents about the event was the fact that, as Neil Armstrong descended the ladder toward the lunar surface, he pulled a D-ring which activated a television camera. In all the movie versions of the moon landing that anyone had seen, in all the science fiction stories they had read, none of them had imagined that people on Earth would be able to watch the first man step onto the lunar surface live on television. It is estimated that 600 million people saw that moment: one of the largest television audiences in history. That means about 14 per cent of the human race watched Neil Armstrong make history in real time.

I had watched the launches and followed the space program all my life, having been born the same year that the first satellite was launched into orbit. I had been fascinated with astronomy and all things space from my earliest memories. And so for me, it was not so much a wonder as it was simply the way things were supposed to be. From my perspective, Neil Armstrong’s steps seemed inevitable. That humans should fly into space and set foot on the lunar surface was exciting, but not nearly as amazing as it was for my great aunt or my parents.

Like most children my age, I imagined that the future in space would be like what I saw in the books and television shows that I consumed. I believed that the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday nights revealed what would actually happen in my lifetime.

Sadly, of course, moon bases, vacations on Mars, and hotels in giant spinning wheels orbiting the Earth remain unrealized. And the reason those things never came to be had nothing to do with their feasibility. Instead, it all came down to the money.

Since the end of the lunar program, NASA’s budget has remained at about one half of one percent of the federal budget. If the United States had chosen to invest even half the money Americans spent just on beer between 1972 and today, the level of human activity in the solar system might well have matched or exceeded what was imagined in the movies.

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How to Do Research

Posted on March 30, 2013 by

My undergraduate degree was in history and one of the required courses was a course in the methodology of research. Our primary textbook was The Modern Researcher by Jacques Barzun and Henry F. Graff; the sixth edition paperback is rather expensive—far more expensive than it was when I got it in college.

Another book I read was Historian’s Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought, by David Hackett Fischer. It is much more reasonably priced. It demonstrates some of the mistakes that can be made in historical research, and uses actual works by historians to illustrate the problems.

Both books, together with the class, gave me a good foundation in how to conduct research. The principles are not difficult or complicated, and once learned, seem so obvious that it’s a wonder we have to be instructed. But instruction we indeed need.

Together with a course in logic, and an understanding of both the scientific method and Occam’s Razor, an understanding of basic research methodology could go a long way in limiting the problems that people would have in figuring out whether something is true, or if the evidence is lacking. Once you get the principles inside of you, even if you don’t know what the truth really is, it becomes pretty easy to recognize lies, stupidity, and general misinformation.

I am frequently annoyed by what I read on Facebook, what I hear from politicians, or what I endure from the poorly researched articles created by journalists and pundits.

Some Basic Principles of Research

Various basic principles have become so generally established, so tried in the fires of experience, that the scholars concerned hardly ever feel the need to even mention them in print. They include the following:

1. The primary importance of facts

Priority must always be given to tangible, objective data, and to external evidence over subjective theory or speculative opinions. Facts must control theory and not vice-versa. Source material must always be scrutinized in this light.

2. The importance of primary sources

In research, one must always seek out the original source material—seek to discover the origin of a tale or legend, or incident. For instance, the story of George Washington chopping down a cherry tree originates in a book written by Parson Mason Locke Weems entitled The Life of Washington that was published in 1800. The story appears nowhere prior to Weems’ book. He attributes it to “…an aged lady, who was a distant relative, and, when a girl, spent much of her time in the family…” He does not name her so it is impossible to verify.

3. A positive attitude toward source material

You could summarize this briefly as: the source material is innocent until proven guilty. It is normal practice to assume the general reliability of statements in our sources, unless there is good, explicit evidence to the contrary. Unreliability, secondary origins, dishonesty of a writer, or tendentious traits — all these must be clearly proved by tangible evidence, and not merely inferred to support a theory. So, given the axe he had to grind, there is reason to have some doubts about everything that Josephus wrote: he was attempting to justify his behavior at the battle where he surrendered to the Romans, and he was attempting to explain why the Romans should not dislike the Jewish nation. It is unlikely that Josephus flat out lies, but it seems probable that he selected his material and describes it in the best possible light for his purposes. It is similar to a fictional tale about a two man race between an American athlete and a Soviet athlete during the Cold War. The American won. Pravda reported the race as follows: “The imperialist American came in next to last, while the glorious Soviet worker came in second.” Nothing precisely inaccurate in the account, but the impression is another thing altogether.

3. The Inconclusive Nature of Negative Evidence

Negative evidence is commonly not evidence at all, and is thus usually irrelevant. If some person, event, etc. is mentioned only in documents of a later age, the absence of any directly contemporary document referring to such a person or event is not in itself a valid or sufficient ground for doubting the historicity of the person, event, etc.

It must always be remembered that the absence of evidence too often merely reflects the large gaps in our present day knowledge of historical periods. The gaps in our knowledge of even of the relatively well-documented culture of, say, Ancient Egypt are significant. Much relavent evidence still awaits discovery or decipherment, or else it has simply been lost. Although cuneiform tablets and fragments in the world’s museums are numbered in the hundreds of thousands, they are but a fraction of all that were written — perhaps ninety-nine percent are still in the ground. In the words of Cyrus Gorden, “for every mound excavated in the Near East, a hundred remain untouched.” For instance, the fact that there are no contemporary documents besides the Bible that mention Jesus is not surprising: Palestine was a minor province in the Roman Empire, and far from Rome. Jesus was not important or significant (at that time) to the Romans or anyone outside a small group of people in Palestine, most of whom would have been considered insignificant.

4. A Proper approach to apparent discrepancies

The basic harmony that ultimately underlies extant records should be sought out, even despite apparent discrepancy. Throughout ancient history, our existing sources are incomplete and elliptical. We must weigh and take into account all relevant sources, and make allowance for missing or ill-interpreted factors. Finally, in speaking of error or inconsistencies, one must distinguish clearly between primary errors (mistakes committed by the original author of a work) and secondary errors (not in the original, but resulting from faulty textual transmission or the like).

5. Secondary sources should not all come from one political, economic, cultural or religious point of view.

Likewise, it is important in analyzing secondary sources to make sure that they aren’t simply quoting from one another, or all saying exactly the same thing in the same way.

An Example of Bad Research

A good illustration of a failure of proper research methodology and its devastating consequences can be illustrated by the bestselling book The Coming Economic Earthquake by Larry Burkett, which appeared in 1991 and was published by Moody Press (that it won praise and awards demonstrates the failure of editors, fact checkers at the publisher, reviewers and readers alike to have any idea of how to do proper research). Someone gave me the book and told me it was a good book. I read it expecting that it would be good.

It wasn’t.

The factual errors in the book were so obvious and so bad that I was flabbergasted. Of course, the mistakes were obvious to me only because my undergraduate degree was in modern European history and because I had taken an introductory course in economics. The average, uninformed reader would not necessarily notice the problems that easily. The errors were not minor; they were so serious that they entirely undermined the point of the book and cast its conclusions into doubt.

Five examples (there were many more problems than this) can serve to illustrate the failure of his research. Remember, these are not matters of opinion. They are matters of plain fact.

1. p. 27:

“Their spokesman for this New Deal was an articu¬late aristocrat with a household family name: Roosev¬elt. Franklin Roosevelt was born to wealth, raised to wealth, and educated in wealth at Harvard, where he was exposed to the phi¬losophies of Dr. John Maynard Keynes of England. Keynes, an avowed socialist, had long advocated the use of government control over banking and business to ensure prosperity for all. This phi-losophy was not new. Karl Marx had advocated essen¬tially the same doctrine, only to a more radical group — the poor.”

a. John Maynard Keynes was not a socialist. According to the Encycopaedia Britannica:

In Cambridge, to which Keynes now returned, his reputation was rather different. He was quite simply esteemed as the most brilliant student of Alfred Marshall and A.C. Pigou, the two Cambridge economists who between them had produced the authoritative expla¬nation of how competitive markets functioned, business firms operated, and consumers spent their incomes.

Although the tone of Keynes major writings in the 1920’s was occasionally skeptical, he did not directly challenge that conventional wisdom of the period that held laissez-faire, only slightly tempered by public policy, the best of all possible social arrangements.

(Encyclopaedia Britannica, volume 10, p. 447, 1984)

b. It is impossible that Roosevelt was influenced by Keynes in Harvard because Keynes was born on June 5, 1883. Roosevelt was born January 30, 1882. Roosevelt was older than Keynes, and they were both in college about the same time. It seems unlikely that Roosevelt would be studying the philosophy of someone who was himself taking classes at the same time in Cambridge, from firmly laissez-faire capitalist economic teachers — especially when you consider that Keynes had yet to develop the economic philosophy about which Burkett is so critical.

c. Keynes’ book, in which he propounded his economic theory of unemployment (Larry Burkett terribly misrepresents and apparently doesn’t understand Keynesian economics in the first place) was called The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, which appeared in England at the very end of 1935. Roosevelt had been elected president in 1932.

This is how the Encyclopaedia Britannica summarizes Keynes argument in his book:

The central message is readily translated into two powerful propositions. The first declared the existing theory of unemployment nonsense. In a depression, according to Keynes, there was no wage so low that it could eliminate unemploy¬ment. Accordingly, it was wicked to blame the unemployed for their plight. The second proposition proposed an alternative explanation about the origins of un¬employment and depression. This centered upon aggregate demand — i.e., the to¬tal spending of consumers, business investors, and public agencies. When aggre¬gate demand was low, sales and jobs suffered. When it was high, all was well.

From these generalities there flowed a powerful and comprehensive view of economic behaviour. Because consumers were limited in their spending by the size of their incomes, they were not the source of business cycle fluctuations. The dynamic actors were business investors and governments. In depressions the thing to do was either to enlarge private investment or to create public substitutes for private investment defi¬ciencies. In mild economic contractions, monetary policy in the shape of easier credit and lower interest rates just might stimulate business in¬vestment and restore the aggregate demand caused by full employment. Severer contractions required as therapy the sterner remedy of deliberate public deficits ei¬ther in the shape of public works or subsidies to afflicted groups.

(Encyclopaedia Britannica, volume 10, p. 448, 1984.)

Whether Keynes is right or not is a separate issue. But Burkett’s presentation of him is far from accurate, therefore rendering Burkett’s conclusions very suspect.

2. p. 72:

“It was assumed that by injecting a modest amount of new currency into the economy, only a modest amount of inflation would follow. Advocates of this plan assured the Kaiser that a modest amount of inflation would be manageable and would actually allow producers to reap more profits, thus helping to repay the Weimar Repub¬lic’s debts with cheaper currency.”

a. Germany did not have a Kaiser after World War I. Therefore, how could there be advisors to this by then non-existent person? Following World War I, the Kaiser abdicated and moved to Holland, together with his family. He had no power or influence on Germany after that. Before the rise of Hitler, Germany had a popularly elected, democratic government that the Kaiser had nothing to do with–since he was in exile. In Holland. Where he died in 1941.

3. p. 165:

“This is what George Orwell described as ‘government speak’ in his novel 1984.”

Orwell called it “Newspeak” in Orwell’s 1984, not “government speak.”

4. p. 166:

“Then in the sixties President Nixon substituted the use of base metal coins for silver coins effectively removing all fixed asset value from U.S. currency.”

The coins were changed from silver to nickel/copper sandwiches in 1965. I’m a coin collector. I have these coins. And Nixon did not take office as president until January, 1969. Thus, he didn’t have anything to do with eliminating silver from the coins, since he didn’t become President until four years after the deed was done.

5. p. 198:

“Once the word was made public, investors outside the U.S. rushed to convert their U.S. dollars into the E.C. Eurodollar, adopted as the official world currency by virtually all members of the World Economic Council, excluding the United States of course.”

Although Burkett was describing a fictionalized account of a possible future crisis in 1999, what he is described would be a remarkable trick indeed, considering what Eurodollars are, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica:

Eurodollars, deposits of United States dollars in foreign banks obligated to pay in U.S. dollars when the deposits are withdrawn.

(Encyclopaedia Britannica, volume III, p. 998, 1984.)

What does that mean? Eurodollars are simply U.S. dollars that happen to be sitting in European banks. If Burkett’s scenario took place, I suspect the Europeans would find their Eurodollars just as worthless as the U.S. dollars — since they are the same thing.

The fundamental problem with Burkett’s book can be traced back to his research methodology or lack thereof. First, facts were apparently not of primary importance for driving his theory. Second, he did not look at primary source materials. He didn’t even doublecheck the information he’d gotten. Say, in a basic reference book. Like an encyclopedia. Second, and perhaps most significant, the list of the sources he used according to his surprisingly short bibliography all came from the same economic and political point of view. Third, his source texts (which are secondary or tertiary sources) are essentially really only one source—and an unreliable one at that—because they all quoted from one another and from one author who apparently came up with the misinformation in the first place.

I wrote Larry Burkett a letter pointing out these problems. He was unconcerned. One of his associates told me that yeah, there were some typographical errors in the book, but so what? After all, the book was selling well and garnering awards.

I’ve seen similar behavior on Facebook; people will post untrue and false statements. Even after learning that their statements are false (not a matter of opinion; demonstrably, factually false, like arguing that 2 and 2 equal 73), they and their friends ignore the criticism and continue praising, sharing, and reposting the misinformation.

It puzzles me, though it no longer surprises me. If a high percentage of politicians, journalists, pundits, economists and other people in positions of power and influence are unconcerned with reality, why should I expect the percentages to be any different among any other groups of human beings?

I’ve learned that many people simply are not particularly interested in the truth. They are interested in having what they think to be the case confirmed. I’ve had people come up to me and ask me what I thought about a particular interpretation of the Bible, or theological position. When I start to show a different way of looking at things, or demonstrate that what they’ve told me simply can’t be true, nine times out of ten the reaction is not particularly positive. Instead, they quickly disengage from the conversation and walk away. Many people are not really looking for the truth; instead they are looking for a hug and confirmation. If it doesn’t fit, then they will ignore it or explain it away, or in some way justify their continued hold on illusion. Likewise, in my experience, most people aren’t interested in learning new things, nor are they willing to alter their beliefs or opinions, regardless of the data or new information–which they resist hearing or learning about and sometimes actively avoid.

People seem to approach much of reality in the same way sports fans approach their favorite teams: the umpire is always wrong, the ball was always in play, the batter was out, and their team was robbed when it loses.

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How High

Posted on March 29, 2013 by

One day when my oldest daughter was no more than about four years old, she announced that “I’m taller than any tree that’s really short.” I suppose that’s even more true of her today, when she can drive herself and has a paid summer internship in the corporate offices of Guess in Los Angeles. Even as children we seem to be obsessed with the shortest, longest, fastest and highest. The world’s highest mountain is Mount Everest, at 29,029 feet high. That mountain is the highest that a human being can walk, a height first achieved by walking by Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary at 11:30 AM on May 29, 1953. As of today, more than 3000 people have made that walk. If you’re healthy and in good physical shape, you can join one of the annual climbs—assuming you can afford the months off work and the cost of anywhere from 40,000 to 77,000 dollars for the tour service, not including the 8000 to 15,000 for your equipment and clothing and perhaps 5000 dollars to fly to Everest in the first place.

It is far cheaper, if all you’re interested in getting high, to book a flight on a commercial airliner. Your airplane will cruise above the height of Mount Everest by at least 6000 feet—more than a mile—since most cross country flights stay around 35,000 feet. Flying so high is now something we take for granted. The old Concorde supersonic aircraft, which ended service in 2003 usually flew at a cruising altitude of 56,000 feet, though its maximum cruise altitude was 60,039 feet.

We take such heights for granted now. But it hasn’t always been so easy to fly high. Only one hundred years ago this month did anyone reach even one mile high in an airplane. That happened late in the afternoon on Saturday July 9, 1910 when Walter Brookins took off from Atlantic City in New Jersey. During his brief flight, he managed to reach an altitude of 6175 feet. He was notable for having been the first pilot trained by the Wright Brothers for their exhibition team. Born in 1889, he died on April 29, 1953. By 1930, the altitude record stood at 43, 168 feet—more than eight miles. It was set by A. Soucek in a Wright Apache propeller driven plane. The highest altitude a propeller driven plane ever reached was 56, 850 feet on October 22, 1938 when Lt. Col. Mario Pezzi, an Italian Air Force pilot, flew a biplane, wearing a special electrically heated pressurize suit and an airtight helmet. That altitude record wouldn’t be broken until August 28, 1957 when Mike Randrup flew a turbojet powered English Electric Canberra B.2 with a Scorpion Rocket motor to 70,310 feet. Leroy Heath and Larry Monroe beat that in December, 1960 in a North American A-5, flying to 91,419 feet.

The current record for an aircraft was set on October 4, 2004 by Brian Binnie when his air-launched, rocket powered SpaceShipOne flew to 69.6 miles, beating the previous record set by Joseph Albert Walker in an X-15 rocket plane on August 22, 1963, when he flew to 66.9 miles.

But flying high was something that happened long before the airplane was ever invented. In fact, it happened before the United States was invented (if we assume our invention occurred when our Constitution was ratified). The first person to fly higher than a mile managed that feat in a balloon the same year that the Treaty of Paris ended the American Revolutionary War and the last British troops left New York City. On December 1, 1783, Jacques Alexandre Charles flew a hydrogen balloon to a height of 8900 feet from Paris, only ten days after the first human flight ever, by Jean-Francois Pilatre de Rozier in a hot air balloon. Benjamin Franklin was among the crowd who witnessed the event.

The record altitude for a hot air balloon is 69, 850 feet, set on November 26, 2005 by Vijaypat Singhania of India. The highest balloon flight ever was 113,740 feet on May 4, 1961. That record was set by Commander Malcolm D. Ross and Lieutenant Commander Victor A. Prather, Jr. in Strato-Lab V. On that day they became the highest flying Americans ever.

But they held that record for barely one day. On May 5, 1961, astronaut Alan Shepard flew the Freedom 7 mission in a Mercury capsule launched by a Redstone Rocket. He became the first American to fly into space on a suborbital mission which took him 116 miles up.

Currently, the “highest” ever that human beings have flown is about 240,000 miles. It’s a record held by all twenty-one astronauts who flew to the moon aboard the Apollo missions 11-17.

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