{"id":10426,"date":"2012-09-26T14:19:34","date_gmt":"2012-09-26T18:19:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=10426"},"modified":"2012-09-26T21:07:04","modified_gmt":"2012-09-27T01:07:04","slug":"one-confusing-story-two-stories-confused-and-three-versions-of-10-commandments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/09\/26\/one-confusing-story-two-stories-confused-and-three-versions-of-10-commandments\/","title":{"rendered":"One confusing story, two stories confused, and three versions of 10 commandments"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Richard Beck is teaching through the book of Genesis<\/a> and, like most readers, trips over the very weird bit at the beginning of chapter 6<\/a> on \u201cthe Nephilim.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Nifty photoshop fake via Snopes.com.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u2019ve never figured out what to make of that, or how this odd fragment from the Silmarillion<\/em> wound up in the Hebrew scriptures. But it is one of the big flashing signals that these early chapters of Genesis do not invite or allow a \u201cliteral\u201d reading in the style of modern-day American fundies.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t just mean because giants and talk of \u201cheroes of old\u201d are huge screaming clues that this is a bit of legendary narrative. There\u2019s also the problem that this bit defies the anachronistic journalistic reading that is referred to as \u201cliteralism.\u201d Consider that these inexplicable \u201cNephilim\u201d show up again later, in Numbers 13, when the Hebrew spies returning from Canaan say, \u201cWe saw Nephilim there\u201d and the text says, parenthetically, \u201cthe descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim.\u201d<\/p>\n

A creationist-style \u201cliteral\u201d reading says that\u2019s impossible \u2014 the Nephilim all died in Noah\u2019s flood. (Somewhere, I\u2019m sure, some \u201cscientific creationist\u201d crypto-archaeologist \u2014 Ron Wyatt, perhaps<\/a> \u2014 is collecting money for an expedition to search for Nephilim fossils.)<\/p>\n

If you want to take a trip through the looking glass, Google around to read some of the more imaginative things written by those who insist that this story is a \u201cliteral,\u201d historical account. It\u2019s entertaining, and somehow appropriate, to see folks like Ken Ham and Henry M. Morris<\/a> cited alongside Erich von Daniken<\/a> and Zecharia Sitchin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So what does<\/em> this weird little passage mean? I have no idea.<\/em> Beck guesses that \u201cthis strange text\u201d expresses some early \u201cconcern over illicit mixing\u201d \u2014 going on to note that such concern is something later prophets, Jesus and Paul took pains to condemn.<\/p>\n

Beck is teaching through Genesis at a prison Bible study. The next book is Exodus. The idea of studying Exodus in a prison reminds me of that scene from Shawshank<\/em> where they\u2019re sorting books for the prison library and come across The Count of Monte Cristo:<\/em><\/p>\n

ANDY: You know what it\u2019s about? You\u2019ll like it, it\u2019s about a prison break.<\/p>\n

RED: We oughta file that under \u201cEducational\u201d too, oughten we?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

* * * * * * * * *<\/p>\n

In another discussion of the early chapters of Genesis, Scot McKnight writes<\/a>: \u201cI heard Tom Wright say election is at work in God choosing Adam and Eve from others to be the ones with the image of God.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wright seems to have his chapters mixed up. The bit about the \u201cimage of God\u201d is not part of the story of Adam and Eve, it\u2019s from the previous story and applies to all of humanity \u2014 to adam<\/em> but not to \u201cAdam.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGod choosing Adam and Eve from others to be the ones with the image of God\u201d is something that never happens in the Bible. That\u2019s the opposite<\/em> of what happens in the Bible. The first story says that all of humanity is made in the image of God, and we can apply that to the second story to infer that, because Adam and Eve are humans, that is also true of them. But these two stories cannot be made to say that Adam and Eve bear the image never attributed to them in their story while \u201cothers\u201d do not<\/em> bear the image attributed to them in theirs.<\/p>\n

Any attempt to explain why \u201cGod [chose] Adam and Eve from others to be the ones with the image of God\u201d is bound to be as helpful and insightful as trying to explain why God chose Adam and Eve to build an ark, or why God chose Adam and Eve to face Goliath armed only with a sling. Wrong story.<\/em><\/p>\n

* * * * * * * * *<\/p>\n

At Internet Monk, Chaplain Mike looks at the three main different ways of numbering the Ten Commandments<\/a>. He picks a favorite, preferring the Talmudic approach of regarding the Decalog as the \u201cTen Words.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a different numbering than the one used by Lutherans and Roman Catholics, and it\u2019s also different from the numbering preferred by most Protestants, Greek Orthodox and some Jews.<\/p>\n

The fact that different branches of Christianity and Judaism number these commandments differently isn\u2019t a big deal. The text itself doesn\u2019t number them, and regardless of how they\u2019re numbered, the content<\/em> of the Ten Commandments doesn\u2019t change. How you prefer to number them only matters if, say, you wanted to make a plaque or a monument with the commandments engraved on it.<\/p>\n

Uh-oh \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

This point is largely ignored by those who imagine they can put such a plaque or monument in a public building without establishing anything more than a vaguely non-sectarian \u201cJudeo-Christian\u201d form of ceremonial civil religion.<\/p>\n

Nope. If you want to hang the Ten Commandments in a courtroom, you\u2019re going to have to pick sides \u2014 privileging one Christian sect over another. Before you commission such a plaque or monument you first have to decide if it\u2019s going to hang in a Lutheran<\/em> courtroom or in a Methodist<\/em> courtroom.<\/p>\n

Does the First Amendment allow for such a thing as a sectarian courtroom? No, it really does not.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Beck tackles one of the stranger sections of the Bible — the deliriously weird passage in Genesis 6 about “the Nephilim.” I’ve never figured out what to make of this odd passage, which reads like a fragment from the Silmarillion. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"One confusing story, two stories confused, and three versions of 10 commandments","description":"Richard Beck tackles one of the stranger sections of the Bible -- the deliriously weird passage in Genesis 6 about \"the Nephilim.\" I've never figured out what to make of this odd passage, which reads like a fragment from the Silmarillion. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}