In the Wilderness

 The wilderness, the untamed space between human settlements, plays an enormous role in the Bible. One entire book, the one that we today call Numbers in English, is titled Bemidbar, meaning “In the Wilderness” in Hebrew. It takes place entirely in the area between Egypt, the place from which Hebrew slaves fled, and the land that God promised in His covenant with the Israelites. 

In our human-dominated biome, wilderness exists between constructs, whether they are gardens or cities or agricultural areas. Wilderness may be avoided, it may be explored, it may be traversed. In the Bible it serves as a place of refuge, of contemplation, of isolation, of passage, of rest, of conflict. In Leviticus, it is where the scapegoat is released, carrying away with it the sins of the Israelites. In the Gospels, it is the place where Jesus is tempted by the devil. 

At times, it is the where humans make contact with God. It is where we are given the opportunity to grow, to see God’s intentions more clearly, to receive His instructions to us.

In Chapter 2 of Genesis, the second creation story, human life begins in a garden. Not in the wilds of nature, but in a defined place where nature is contained, tamed. We are told that God fills this garden with “every tree lovely to look at and good for food.” (We are told that this garden is “in the east” but the east of what is not made clear – we can surmise it is east of the Levant where the Israelite audience of the time lived. Geography is uncertain in this Biblical episode but the river Euphrates is named, which could suggest a Mesopotamian setting for Eden). I have spent a lot of time over the years thinking about gardens as an architectural element, and contrasting the garden with the wilderness, where nature is not cultivated and tamed, where things that may not be lovely to look at or good for food may thrive. 

When Adam and Eve are expelled from the garden, they presumably are sent into the wilderness outside of the garden’s boundary, where God has told them life will be tough. It would appear that at this time, everyplace that was not Eden was wilderness. 

After Adam and Eve settle again in this wilderness and bear two sons, the first murder occurs when Cain slays Abel. Like his parents before him, Cain is banished into the wilderness where, we are told, he and his offspring create cities and, presumably, civilizations that provide refuge from the surrounding wilderness. 

The most elaborate and important wilderness story in the Bible is the aforementioned story of the Israelites’ journey from Egypt to Canaan, the Promised Land. This journey, which comprises the last four books of the Torah, is the foundation of both the state of Israel and the Jewish religion.

The five books of the Torah have a structure that may be diagrammed as A-B-C-B-A, where A – Genesis and Deuteronomy – are about the creation of the nation; B – Exodus and Numbers – are the stories of transit; and C is an internal climax, where God approaches the incipient nation most closely and gives it the structure and regulations needed for it to serve as His home on Earth. 

Exodus and Numbers – or, to be more accurate, the first 60 percent or so of Exodus and the last two-thirds of Numbers – depict in great detail the human story of the Hebrews’ liberation from enslavement in Egypt and their 40-plus yearlong migration to the Promised Land. I stress that this is a human story, because so much of its contents reveal the mental and emotional state of the people as they make this arduous journey. 

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in his brilliant series of Torah commentaries, Covenant & Conversation, brings in a notion from political science to help elucidate what is happening in the hearts and minds of the Hebrews. Sacks cites Ronald Heifitz’s theory of technical and adaptive challenges. Heifitz, a scholar at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, posits that these technical challenges are difficulties that can be resolved by external means – medicine to treat an illness, for example – while adaptive challenges require a person to change internally – a doctor’s recommendation to lose weight, exercise more, or alter one’s diet, for instance. 

In Exodus, Sacks writes, we see multiple examples of technical challenges resolved via God’s intervention. The escaping slaves are trapped at the edge of the Red Sea; God instructs Moses to divide it to allow safe passage. When the Israelites have eaten all of the food they brought with them and complain of hunger, God provides manna from Heaven. When they are thirsty in the desert, God tells Moses how to draw water from a rock. This works quite well for the sojourners until they reach Mount Sinai, where God calls Moses to the mountaintop, leaving the people behind for 40 days.

Without Moses, who has been their intermediary with God, the people languish. In desperation for the presence of God, they talk Moses’s brother Aaron into making an idol, the golden calf, for them to worship. This of course, is a disaster, a pivotal event that changes the entire course of history. But it is the first time the Israelites have attempted to set their own course, solve their own problem. As wrong-headed as their solution was, it was the first time the people have tried to take hold of their destiny, to adapt to circumstances. How many of us have floundered terribly the first time we tried, unprepared, to solve a difficult problem? 

In the Bible, the narrative is broken off at this point to focus on creating a religious structure – literally – to bring God close to the people. The last part of Exodus is devoted to the construction of the Tabernacle. The entire book of Leviticus details the rituals of worship as well as the religious calendar. And the first chapters of Numbers describe the people’s preparations to resume their travel. 

In the rest of Numbers, the people face challenge after challenge, and Moses as their leader becomes frustrated, even distraught, at one point asking God to “just kill me.” These challenges are more difficult because they require the people to change. They must shake their slave mentality in which decisions were made for them, and learn to become self-directed. 

In response to hardships, we see the people become nostalgic for their lives in captivity. Growing tired of their diet of manna, they long for life along the Nile, where at least they had fresh vegetables and fish to eat. They stage a rebellion and look to name a leader to take them back to Egypt. A team of scouts sent to scope out the Promised Land comes back and reports that it is inhabited by fearsome giants who will surely defeat them in battle. Even Moses’s siblings turn against him at one point. 

God ultimately realizes that the people are not ready to become free and shape their own destiny. It will take generational change, and so He tells the people that those who fled Egypt will not enter the Promised Land. Only the next generation will do so, led by Joshua and Caleb, the only two of the scouts who gave an honest report about the current population of Canaan. God sets them wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. 

The point of all this, in Sacks’ analysis, is that adaptive change takes time. Self-transformation is not easy. And once again I am staggered by the brilliance of the Bible in elucidating the intricacies of the human mind. 

In this light I would like to look at the figure of Hagar, whose story is related in Genesis 16 and 21. She is an Egyptian and a slave, who works as a handmaid to Sarai, the wife of Abram. We are not told how Abram and Sarai acquired her, although one might speculate that the couple picked her up when they traveled to Egypt to escape a famine in the Levant. We don’t know how old she is, or what she looked like. She clearly is still in her child-bearing years, and is in some favor with her mistress, who selects her to bear a child for her husband, a child the mistress has grown to old to produce. But that’s about it.

Because the Bible reveals so little about Hagar, her “back story” has been filled in by numerous other writers. Some rabbinical sources have speculated that she was actually an Egyptian princess, given to Abram and Sarai by the Pharoah whose hospitality Abram and Sarai enjoyed until the king found out that they had lied about being brother and sister rather than husband and wife (they later are revealed to be half-siblings). 

One Islamic tradition holds that she was the daughter of an early prophet. 

But let’s focus on what the Bible actually says about Hagar. Twice, in Genesis 16 and 21, she is found by God in the wilderness. The first time, she is pregnant by her master, Abram, and has fled due to abusive treatment from her mistress. Sarai’s complaint is that now that she is pregnant, Hagar “looks down” on Sarai. Sarai goes off on Abram, blaming him for the situation even thought it was Sarai herself who engineered the coupling. Abram takes the passive route, telling Sarai she is free to do as she pleases with the slave girl. 

The second time, Sarah (God has given her a new name by now) has succeeded in convincing Abraham to drive Hagar and her son, Ishmael, away, so that there can be no question about who will be Abraham’s heir. 

Hagar addresses God using a name that occurs nowhere else in the Bible: El Roi, the God who sees me. That’s a fascinating detail, coming from a slave who, despite having been impregnated by her master, is essentially not seen as human. Sarai and Abram determine her fate without her input or her consent. The child she is to bear is expected to be raised as the child of Abram and Sarai, not of Hagar. It is only her hostility that draws attention – and that is suspect, given the way Sarai also lashes out at Abram over the results of Sarai’s own scheming. 

One of the things that distinguishes the Judeo-Christian God is His focus on the weak and the poor, a characteristic also strongly present in the Islamic tradition. Hagar is not held up as a heroine in the Bible, although she is in Islamic tradition. 

It is not surprising, in light of all this, that Hagar has become a revered and much-studied figure in African-American womanist theology (see Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk, by Delores S. Williams). Williams writes of Hagar’s encounters with God: “The two times that God relates directly to Hagar are in the context of helping her come to see the strategies she must use to save her life and her child’s life. The first strategy is to go back to her oppressor and make use of the oppressor’s resources. The second survival strategy not only has to do with the woman and child (family) depending upon God to provide when absolutely no other provision is visible, but also includes, upon God’s command, the woman Hagar lifting up her child and “holding him fast with your hand.” 

In other words, Hagar is told that she must change in order to survive and to realize her potential and that of her son. God promises to “make him (Ishmael) a great nation.” But in order for that to happen, Hagar must develop the survival skills to keep herself and her son alive in the wilderness. When she does so, we are told that Hagar raises Ishmael and secures him an Egyptian wife. No more is heard from them until Ishmael returns to Canaan for his father’s burial. 

Two great nations, Israel and Arabia, survive to this day. Arguably, both exist because their founders were able to adapt.

Protection

Defining boundaries is the great work of the creation. Maintaining and honoring those boundaries is the great challenge of Leviticus. The first days of the Genesis 1 creation story depict God creating the boundaries between heaven and Earth, the waters aove and the waters below, land and sea. In Leviticus we are given explicit instructions on how to keep separate the holy and the profane, the clean and unclean, the pure and impure.

Some of the more mystifying strictures in Leviticus 19 – the heart of what has come to be known as the Holiness code -- have to do with the prohibition on creating garments from mixed fabrics, interbreeding livestock and planting diverse seeds in a single field. The best explanation I have read for these prohibitions is that this mixing would weaken the boundaries God set in place at creation, and thus weaken God’s intentions for the universe. 

The sexual prohibitions in Leviticus 18 and 20, which surround the code’s central chapter, appear to be put in place to distinguish the Hebrews from the Canaanites, whose land they are to take over, as well as the Egyptians, from whose land they have fled. Child sacrifice, sodomy and bestiality are dealt with in one compact passage of chapter 18, after which God tells Moses that the land itself was defiled by the practitioners of these deeds: “And the land was defiled, and I made a reckoning with it for its iniquity, and the land spewed out its inhabitants.” Israelites as a whole will not be “spewed out” for these offenses, God says, but the perpetrators will be “cut off from the midst of his people.” 

 In chapter 20, he makes makes it even more explicit. After pronouncing death sentences for a host of sexual transgressions, he orders Moses to tell the Israelites: “And you shall not go by the statuses of the nation which I am about to send away before you, for all these things they have done, and I loathed them. And I said to you, it is you who will take hold of their soil, and as for Me, I shall give it to you to take hold of it, a land flowing with milk and honey. I am the Lord your God Who set you apart from all the peoples.” 

Boundaries. I’m telling you. 

 It makes sense that the Torah, a work whose overarching purpose is to define a nation, would be preoccupied with boundaries and with specifying what is allowed and what is forbidden within those boundaries. Many of the rules of Leviticus focus on things that may be considered to pierce, or to blur, those boundaries. Included are things that violate the boundary between the creator and the creation: God and the people. 

The anthropologist Mary Douglas is one of many who have commented on the “squeamishness” of the priestly author of Leviticus when it comes to blood and other bodily fluids. Blood, identified with the life force, is intended to stay on the inside, and when it is released, as in ritual slaughter of animals, it must be reserved for dedication to God, most often sprinkled around the sacrificial altar. It is strictly forbidden to consume blood. Menstrual discharge and sexual emissions also release inner fluids to the outside and are considered to make the emitter unclean, unready for admittance into the presence of God. Childbirth, with its emission of not only the baby but voluminous contents of the pregnant body, renders a woman unclean for a long period of time – thirty-three days for a boy and double that for a girl. It requires an offense offering before the woman is seen as fit to re-enter the community. It may seem strange that the very act for which God intended humanity is one that renders the chief actor unclean, but holiness operates in strange ways, at least in Leviticus. 

Leviticus also evidences an obsession with the skin, and in particular diseases of the skin. Although classic translations of the Bible typically refer to these as leprosy, modern translators more often say that the skin diseases that render men and women impure and subject to isolation are not leprosy, which was not known in the Middle East until centuries later, during the Hellenistic period (according to a note in Robert Alter’s Hebrew Bible translation). The skin being the primary boundary that keeps us separate and intact, It makes sense that skin conditions would be treated as uniquely important. Consider also that along with skin diseases, Leviticus discusses mildew in clothing and mold in the walls of houses, and it becomes clear that the overriding concern is with these protective coverings that preserve our bodily integrity. 

The integrity of the skin is the subject of other restrictions, such as chapter 19’s ban on tattoos as well as laceration of the skin to mourn the dead. 

The pivotal Leviticus 19 begins a directive from God to Moses that is repeated throughout the chapters of Leviticus that have come to be known as the Holiness Code: “Speak to all the community of Israelites, and you shall say to them: You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” 

The distinctive feature of the Holiness Code is that its pronouncements are meant to be delivered to all Israelites, not just to the priestly caste – the Levites, particularly Aaron and his descendants – or to Moses as their prophet. Just as Moses was selected from among all of humanity to be the bearer of the Law, and as the Levites were selected from all of the Israelites to serve as priestly intermediaries between the Israelites and God, so the people of Israel were selected from amongst all of humanity to be holy, close to God. A series of boundaries is drawn, concentric circles, each of which contains fewer members as we move toward the singular figure of Moses. 

Successive boundaries separate the spaces of the Tabernacle

The boundary encircling Israelites is one of holiness. And that is a distinction fraught with risk. Holiness requires adherence to a broad set of behavioral rules, and transgressions against them – piercing of the boundary defining holiness – elicits consequences that may range from the need for washing to banishment (either temporary or permanent, depending on the transgression) to death. The boundary of holiness must be protected, as are the successive boundaries of the Tabernacle and of the body. Holiness allows the people to come near to God – but not too near. The separation of God from humanity is strictly enforced. 

Repeatedly, examples are made of people who transgressed the boundaries, whether the sons of Aaron who were incinerated for an unspecified transgression of the Tabernacle’s rules, or Miriam who was stricken with a skin condition after questioning God’s decision to distinguish Moses from all others, or a man who touched the Ark in an effort to steady it during transport. 

The boundaries protect both God and the people. The importance of separation – protection of people from God and God from people – is given additional weight in Chapter 4 of numbers, with its detailed instructions on how the Ark of the Covenant and other contents of the innermost sanctum of the Tabernacle – the Holy of Holies – must be wrapped in cloths for transport as the Israelites move through the wilderness. 

The boundaries set out in Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy provide the definition of the Jewish people, and may be one of the reasons this population has survived millenia of oppression, ill treatment and hatred. By remaining separate and distinct, their identity is protected and preserved.

Leviticus as Literature

A footnote in Robert Alter’s masterful translation of the Hebrew Bible referenced what I saw as an unlikely title: Leviticus as Literature, by the British anthropologist Mary Douglas. I have thought about Leviticus as many things over the years – a book of laws and regulations, a guide to proper living as a Jew (at least an ancient one), the source of much of the repellant weaponization of the Bible that we are forced to deal with in today’s society – but literature would not have been one of the ways I would have characterized the third book of the Torah. 

 Coming after the stirring narratives of Genesis and the first half of Exodus, the second half of Exodus and Leviticus together are like stumbling blocks put in the way of enjoyment of the Bible. Exodus’s long, detailed instructions on construction of every detailed aspect of the Tabernacle at least captured the part of my attention that has always drawn me to architecture and woodworking. I have sometimes wanted to try to follow these instructions to see what would result. But Leviticus has been a book I have had to force myself to slog through; I recognized its importance in the history of the Jewish people, but have found little in its repetitive instructions for animal sacrifice and priestly ritual, or its strictures regarding sexual behavior and other human interactions, to hold my attention. It has seemed the most ancient of books, and the least relevant to modern life. So this unexpected title intrigued me. 

 When I read -- especially when I read the Bible -- I follow trails of footnotes as a detective might follow clues in solving a mystery. One reference often leads me to another, and pretty soon I have accumulated a reading list that I may or may not be inclined to tackle. This footnote sent me straight to Amazon, where I found this 1999 title available as a Kindle book. 

Thus I got my hands on a book that has had a greater impact on my reading of the Bible than any since John Shelby Spong’s The Fourth Gospel a decade ago. 

Douglas approaches Leviticus as a cultural artifact rather than as a holy object. She situates it in its time and place – the Middle East, probably at the end of the Babylonian exile, when the author we refer to as the Priestly writer was active. (The Priestly writer also is credited with the first creation story, In Genesis chapter 1). Douglas expends much effort in contrasting Leviticus with Deuteronomy, which she sees as a work of rational, scientific, modern thought. Leviticus, by contrast, operates by analogy, a more ancient form of understanding than science. Although she briefly addresses the question of which writer was earlier – the Priestly writer or the Deuteronomist – she knows that would be an endless debate and instead focuses on the difference in perspective. 

The fundamental analogy she sees at work in Leviticus is the structure of concentric circles, which are applied to Mount Sinai, to the Tabernacle and to the animal body. The innermost circle in all of these, in her analysis, is the dwelling place of God: The peak of the mountain (think of it as the center if looking down from above), the “Holy of Holies” in the Tabernacle, and the guts – the reproductive organs and the intestines – in the body. The latter may be difficult for us to comprehend. Douglas explains:

“Bashfulness apart, it is important to ask why the innards should be at the point of highest esteem, the position that corresponds to the holy of holies, instead of the face or head or heat to which we accord more honour. The question calls for difficult comparative psychography, but at least recall that there has always been in the Jewish culture a strong association between body and tabernacle in respect of fertility. 

“The Bible locates the emotions and thought in the innermost parts of the body; the loins are wrung with remorse or grief; the innermost part is scrutinized by God; compassion resides in the bowels … The temple was associated with the creation, and the creation with fertility, which implies that the innermost part of the tabernacle was a divine nuptial chamber. Even from complete ignorance of mysticism, the analogy of the inner sanctuary with the centre of creation is intelligible. It was fitting that the sanctuary was interpreted as depicting in a most tangible form the union between God and Israel.” 

This central idea, the association of the tabernacle with “creation and … ‘abounding fruitfulness’,” should inform our reading of the entire book of Leviticus, Douglas contends. 

“Deuteronomy distances God, he does not abide in the tabernacle, only his Name and the glory of it are present, whereas Leviticus and Numbers believe God to be present, close to his people at all times, and meeting with them in the tent of meeting.” 

One mistake we make, Douglas says, is to view Leviticus as a laundry list of rules and regulations and not as an overall composition: 

“Leviticus has been read in an itemized way, items of law corresponding to elements of morality, or to elements of narrative, or to elements of hygiene, but not to their place in an integral composition.” 

For today’s readers, familiar with modern astronomy, the theory of concentric circles may bring to mind our understanding of the solar system, which after all of an interconnected systems of concentric circles in rotation and revolution. 

Douglas extends the analogy linking Mount Sanai to the Tabernacle to the body to the book of Leviticus itself, comparing its first seven chapters, which focus on sacrifice, to the forecourt of the Tabernacle, where the entire community could gather and where the sacrificial rites took place. The next three chapters comprise a narrative leading up to God’s killing of Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu for a vaguely defined offense having to do with bringing “alien fire” toward His altar. Douglas sees these chapters as an analog to the screen that separates the forecourt of the Tabernacle from its interior, the sanctuary, which can be inhabited only by the priestly caste. 

Douglas's diagram of Leviticus superimposed on the plan of the Tabernacle

Although these chapters bring us to the first screen, Douglas contends that the next 6 chapters, which give us the series of law, regulations and strictures regarding food; bodily emissions, including both sexual fluids and blood; and diseases of the skin, continue a circuit around the forecourt. Chapter 16 provides detailed instructions for the preparation that Aaron must make before entering the sacred space where the ark presides. And in chapter 17, we get a more explicit prohibition on the slaughter of animals in any context except sacrifice, as well as the rationale for the high degree of concern – she calls it squeamishness -- over blood. From Leviticus chapter 17: 

“The life of the flesh is in the blood … for it is the blood that ransoms in exchange for life. Therefore, have I said to the Israelites: no living person among you shall consume blood, nor shall the sojourner who sojourns in your midst consume blood.” 

With chapter 18 and its delineation of prohibited sexual practices, we move into the sanctuary, where we stay through the middle of chapter 24. In these chapters we learn, among other things, about righteous living, first for the people and then for the priestly caste; the importance of using only “unblemished” livestock in the sacrifice as well as the importance of human cleanliness in these situations; and the holy calendar. 

In chapter 24, we get the second piece of storytelling in Leviticus, the story of the man who curses God and is stoned by the people. Douglas sees this as analogous to the second screen, the one that separates the interior of the Tabernacle from the Holy of Holies, where the Ark of the Covenant resides, and where only the high priest may enter, on only the holiest of occasions. Finally in chapters 25-27, we are in the Holy of Holies, where we learn about the Jubilee to be celebrated every 50 years, when debts are forgiven, slaves are freed, and the world is “reset” to one of equality for humanity. 

Unlike the narrative books of the Bible, which are grounded in time, Leviticus is grounded in space. Reading it as a whole, we move deeper into the Tabernacle until we reach its most holy space. The importance of the narrative components as screen is that they serve as barriers to the next chamber. In Douglas’s words: “They are warning clear enough against sacrilegious approach.” 

Given the climactic importance of the Jubilee, it may strike us as odd that instead of this celebration and return to equality lasting through history, it has been abandoned while the strictures on sexual behaviors have been so thoroughly weaponized that they have informed public policy in many places. By carefully reading and digesting Leviticus, one might get the idea that the “radical socialists” have it right, while the tsk-tsking church ladies and gentlemen are focused on less serious matters. Oh, well. That’s human nature for you. 

Like many commentators, Douglas identifies chapters 18-20 as the “heart” of the book, with the two chapters identifying sexual offenses and their penalties framing a chapter on righteous living. Here is what Douglas has to say about that structure: 

“There could not be a stronger framing of the central chapter at the apex of the pediment. Leviticus’ scheme very deliberately puts the laws of righteous and honest dealings at the centre and the sexual sins at the periphery. Less a pedimental composition, these two chapers are more like two massively carved pillars on either side of a shrine, or like a proscenium arch.” 

Noting that this structure is introduced by a passage cautioning that, “You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you dwelt, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you,” Douglas sees the entire structure as one leading away from the idolatrous Egyptian and Canaanite cultures, which indeed were known for incest, in the case of Egypt, and temple prostitution, both heterosexual and homosexual, in the case of Canaan. Douglas summarizes it this way: “These chapters contrast the pure and noble character of the Hebrew God with the libidinous customs of the very strange false gods.” 

Douglas’s innovative and insightful reading of Leviticus gives us new perspective on many of the familiar prohibitions, but perhaps none is more startling than her take on animal life. Connecting Leviticus back to Genesis, she reminds us that God created all of the creatures, and pronounced there that all of his creations were “good.” Keeping that in mind, she argues that conventional readings misinterpret many of the words and practices detailed throughout Leviticus. 

She urges us, for example, to disassociate the emotions of disgust and revulsion from the term “unclean,” which she argues is a technical term related to inappropriateness for the temple, applied to menstruating women and men who have had wet dreams as well as to certain animals. Again, she notes differences between the ways Leviticus and Deuteronomy use words such as “unclean,” “impure,” and “abomination,” this last of which she sees as applying (in Leviticus) to the act of consumption rather than to the animal under discussion. 

Douglas’s take on prohibition grows most interesting when she discusses the “swarming” creatures whose consumption is prohibited. These she sees as prolific breeders exemplifying God’s command to be fruitful and multiply. She also notes that many of these have few natural defenses, so that the prohibition on killing and eating them may be a way of protecting them and allowing them to thrive. 

On the other hand, she is pretty much mystified about the ban on consumption of pork – arguably the most famous and widely heeded food proscription, detailing a variety of hypotheses without really coming to a satisfactory explanation. 

While connecting the practice of sacrifice itself to the milieu of the ancient Middle East where sacrifice was endemic, she contends that sacrifice is a moment at the border between life and death where the animal is both killed and honored. The details of the butchering and the order of placement on the sacrificial altar is critically analogous to the three levels of Mount Sinai and the Tabernacle. The ban on killing and consumption of land animals outside the sacrificial setting – an important distinction from Deuteronomy – is testament to the reverence for the life of God’s creations. 

In a fresh take on the ritual of the scapegoat, described in chapter 16, Douglas points out that while conventional readings suggest that the scapegoat is sent out into a fearsome wilderness where it will surely become prey and suffer an awful death, Leviticus itself makes no such prediction. It simply says that the scapegoat is sent away; it does not at all suggest a fate, positive or negative. It is God’s creature, not punished but set free, released into God’s wilderness, just as its partner, the sacrificial goat, is turned to smoke – which Douglas sees as transformation rather than destruction – allowing it to rise to God. 

This essay could go on and on, becoming like Lewis Carroll’s ever more detailed map that ends up recreating the landscape it sets out to describe. To avoid that, I’ll stop here. I’ll save Douglas’s insights on skin and penetration (both sexual and not) for another time. But in resting, I hope that I have provided a reason for others to open this remarkable book and develop and understanding that moves beyond the widespread weaponization of some of its messages.

Banning the Bible

It has finally happened. In a season of frenzied book bannings, a Utah school district has banned the Bible as inappropriate reading for elementary and junior high school students. In its decision, the David School District cited “vulgarity or violence.” According to The Salt Lake Tribune, a parent had asked for review of the “sex-ridden” book last December, on the basis that the Bible contains, “incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape and even infanticide … You’ll no doubt find that the Bible, under Utah Code Ann. 76-10-1227, has ‘no serious values for minors’ because it’s pornographic by our new definition.” 

As ironically humorous as we may find the situation, it is appalling that children in the district’s 59 elementary schools and 17 junior high schools will not have access to the western world’s greatest work of literary art. Knowledge of the Bible is not simply a matter of religion. It is a vital key to understanding the visual arts, literature, music, and drama. 

It’s also important to acknowledge the truth in the parent’s contention. The Bible has some of the most horrifying stories of sexual violence ever put on paper. The story of the Gibean concubine in Judges gets my vote for the most terrible, but the Biblical narrative also includes the rapes of Jacob’s daughter Dinah and David’s daughter Tamar, the rape and forced child-bearing of Abram and Sarai’s slave Hagar, the decision by Lot’s daughters to get their father drunk and have sex with him, the human sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter (also in Judges).

Gustave Dore: The Levite Carries the Woman's Body Away

Even some of the comic episodes, such as the story of the Mandrake root involving the sister-wives Leah and Rachel, and the theft of Laban’s household gods, which Rachel hides by placing them under the pillow on which she is seated and then claiming that she is menstruating, are sexually charged.

March Chagall: Rachel Hides Her Father's Household Gods

These are not the stories we hear about in Sunday school – and I am willing to bet that many cafeteria “Christians” are unfamiliar with them -- yet they are critical pieces in the extraordinary tapestry of the Bible. Yet it is undeniable that, coupled with Leviticus’ detailed inventory of proscribed sexual practices, these Biblical stories could expose a child to a a thorough, if eccentric, education in sexual practices and mores. That’s not surprising. 

If there is a predominant theme in the Hebrew Bible -- what Christians call the Old Testament – it is God’s command in Chapter 1 of Genesis to, “Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it.” God forms covenants with Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, and Moses in all of which He promises enormous fertility in return for faith and good behavior. It would be far too simplistic to characterize the Abrahamic religions as fertility cults, yet fertility is never far from the center in the Biblical narrative. The complainant in Utah is not wrong in contending that the Bible is "sex-ridden."

To quote the anthropologist Mary Douglas, writing of Leviticus's many regulations about sexual matters:

"Religions which ritualize sex are usually more in favour of it than against. To suppose that the numerous sexual regulations of Leviticus exhibit a narrowly puritanical attitude to sex would be like expecting a culture with numerous food rules to condemn good food. It is where sex is recognized as a potent elemental force, at once the source of desire, fulfillment, and danger, that religion seeks to appropriate sex and to bind it with rules."

So what’s the answer for a school district concerned with protecting children from sexually charged material? Well, one good answer would certainly be to be less obsessed with children being exposed to material with sexual content. The Utah case is a perfect illustration on how that obsession can (and should) backfire. Another would be to understand that children ask questions honestly when they encounter new ideas. Hiding things from them and/or lying about their meaning is never a good idea. Honest discussion in the classroom with a well-informed, caring teacher could help to undo the damage that ill-informed and prejudiced parents and clerics can inflict.

The Bible ban in Utah's second-largest school district is in a Mormon community, but lest anyone feel comforted by that, it should be noted that another parent has challenged the Book of Mormon (the sacred text, not the musical) in Utah schools.

In my opinion, what is lost in banning the Bible -- and many other important works of art and literature --  far outweighs any the challenge of answering uncomfortable questions a child might ask.

While I don’t believe that public education should ever embrace a single religious doctrine (or sexual orientation), I believe that we owe our children exposure to the world of ideas, and that emphatically includes religion. I believe in teaching religion in public schools in the same spirit that we teach literature: Examine important ideas that run through human culture, and look at the different ways that religious traditions deal with them. 

Allowing children to explore, especially a work as central to western culture as the Bible, gives students a license to inquire, something many parents seem to be afraid of, but which should be encouraged in any society.

We might actually end up with a generation of students less ignorant about religion, sexuality and other sensitive subjects than are today’s leaders.

The Chosen

When I sat down, belatedly, to watch the crowd-funded biblical series “The Chosen,” I hoped to find it as entertainingly ridiculous as I find most Bible-based dramatizations. But while it certainly has a few cringeworthy moments comparable to Hollywood classics like “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” I have mostly found it to be thoughtful and absorbing. Most biblicaldramatizations seem to me to be at least a little infused with faith (the primary exception being Mel Gibson’s homoerotic S&M fantasy, “The Passion of the Christ”, which has maybe 15 seconds of inspirational content). 

This series is thoroughly immersed in faith, and yet is far less self-righteous than most biblical entertainments. The writers are not only familiar with the storylines of the Gospels, but are confident enough in their faith to allow questions and interpretation. 

 The episodic, series format gives the Gospel stories breathing room that allows for development of context around the scriptures. This is not merely a rushed, two- or three-hour tour, but an extended contemplation of the meaning behind the narratives . And perhaps because of the expansive format, now in its third season, Jesus comes across much differently here than in the many movies, and even in Franco Zeffirelli’s mini-series “Jesus of Nazareth”, that also have drawn their plotlines from the Gospels. 

 One of the problems with portrayals of Jesus is that He never seems quite human – although many of us have learned that He is both fully human and fully God, that doesn’t seem to be the case in when He is portrayed as a sad, stoically suffering sphynx. Whether portrayed by Max Von Sydow, or Jeffrey Hunter, or Jim Caviezel, Jesus has always been a man without a personality. By contrast, the Jesus of “The Chosen” actually talks to people and listens to what they have to say, gets angry, smiles and laughs. At one point he tells a "too soon?" joke. He clearly enjoys His ability to bring joy into the lives of the beneficiaries of His blessings. The only comparable portrayal I have seen is the impatient, short-tempered Jesus played by Chris Sarandon in the long-forgotten (although not by me) TV movie, "The Day Christ Died." In that take on the Passion, Sarandon played Jesus much as he is depicted in the Gospel of Mark, I think.Granted, we haven’t gotten yet to the Passion story, in "The Chosen," but I’m going to predict an eventual, fresh take even on that most overtold climax. 

 Also unlike most dramatic portrayals, the apostles are shown here as having distinctive personalities, and given back stories that help to explain their willingness to follow this nonconformist hero. Peter’s relationship with his wife, here called Eden, is explored; Matthew is depicted as an autistic man whose condition gives him the mathematical abilities that have made him a successful tax collector. We see Matthew at his work, wheeling and deadling with his Roman overlords, in a way that gives real color to the scene where Jesus defends His association with those shunned by Jewish society (it is not the healthy who need healing but the sick). 

The first season of "The Chosen" ends with the story of the Samaritan woman at the well, from the Gospel of John. The second season begins with John conducting interviews to document Jesus' life for what will become his Gospel; that episode ends with a lovely scene that marries the opening of Genesis with the opening of John; two magnificent texts brought together in a logical and heartfelt way. Although episodes unique to John are prominent in the series -- the wedding at Cana, the nighttime visit from Nicodemus -- all four Gospels figure into the episodes. The series format gives space, I think, for the stories to be woven together more gracefully than in movies that rush to give a complete depiction of the events of Jesus's life. The second-season opening, for example, while elaborating on the backstory of the Samaritan woman, takes time to provide context for Luke's parable of the Good Samaritan.

 There is a lot more that could be said about this series, but I think it is better for me to recommend it to anyone interested in the Gospels. Enjoy it for yourselves, and most of all, think about the depictions of the characters and the stories as they are portrayed here.

I was convinced to check out this series after reading the opening paragraphs of a New York Times interview by Tish Harrison Warren with Jonathan Roumie, the actor who plays Jesus. Unlike Warren, I love Biblical dramatizations, but mostly because I so often find them ridiculous -- white men in frayed robes speaking an uneasy English meant to simulate, I suppose, Biblical language. But on many points I am in complete agreement with her. Having been duly impressed, I was inspired to revive this ten-years-dormant blog. I salute Tish Harrison Warren for providing this inspiration; if I have at times hewed too closely to her words, I apologize. The intent was not to plagiarize but to spread the good news.

A Couple of Johns

One of the pleasures resulting from an obsession with the Bible is the opportunity to read some of the superb writing about the Bible that is produced every year. This summer, for example, we have seen a very good book about Jesus, Reza Aslan’s Zealot:The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, climb to the top of the best-seller lists. But more importantly for me, it has seen the publication of a remarkable new study of the Gospel of John, John Shelby Spong’s The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic.

The Fourth Gospel was my introduction to the writings and perspective of Rev. Spong, the long-time Episcopal bishop of Newark, now retired. But following my discovery of this refreshingly down-to-earth cleric and scholar, I have been voraciously devouring his works. The Fourth Gospel is his 23^rd published book, and I look forward to reading them all, because this one has altered my perspective in  way that few written works ever have.

John can be a troubling gospel for those of us who question the supernatural content of the Bible. For us, it can be relatively easy to read the other three gospels, called collectively the synoptics, for their philosophical wisdom, focusing on the brief, pithy, parables and beatitudes as evidence of Jesus’ incomparably beautiful philosophy, and to gloss over the recounting of miracles as so much filigree added unnecessarily to embellish His brilliant teachings. But the gospel of John is a different animal; it is distinguished by what is called its “high Christology,” its insistence on the godly and timeless nature of Jesus, characterized as the “only begotten son” of God. There are no parables in John, and few brief statements of wisdom. Instead we get that gorgeous prologue, a poem of unsurpassed beauty, followed by a narrative of Jesus’ ministry that focuses on seven “signs”, in turn followed by several lengthy chapters of monologue known as the “farewell discourses,” and finally the passion, crucifixion and resurrection. Much of what is told in John is told only in John, and the telling has an altogether different feel than do the other three narratives (which are called synoptic because they view Jesus “with the same eye”).

Over the past 2000 years, John seems to have been the loudest voice inviting us to worship Jesus rather than to learn from him. And as one who views Jesus primarily as a teacher, a “rabbi”, who meant for his words to be listened to rather than his life fetishized, I sometimes found John’s gospel a little bit hard to take.

The new John in my consciousness, Rev. Spong, has blessedly corrected my view. Indeed, Spong says, he had to correct his own view of the gospel, which he had often found “repellent,” due to the creeds and dogmatic thinking and abuses done ‘in the name of the Lord’ for which he blamed John.

“Because this book was thought to have spelled out ‘orthodox Christianity,’ John’s gospel also helped to fuel such dreadful events in Christian history as heresy hunts and the Inquisition. As the centuries rolled by, John’s gospel seemed to make meaningful discourse on the nature of the Christ figure almost impossible.”

He goes on to say:

“Throughout most of my career, both as a priest and as a bishop, I saw John’s gospel more as a problem in ministry than as an asset. So my tactic was to avoid it, if possible, to ignore it whenever I could not avoid it, and simply to resign myself to the reality that it was in the canon of scripture. Sometimes I walked around this gospel. At other times I attacked it or at least attacked those I thought misunderstood and/or misused its message. I certainly never wanted to spend much time on it.”

The change in his thinking came about, Spong says, when he began to view the fourth gospel as a Jewish book and to examine its connections to Jewish experience, Jewish history and, especially, Jewish mysticism. He describes his journey in some detail, but the climax is this:

“I began to rethink and ultimately to dismiss the theistic definition of God and started moving away from an understanding of God as ‘a being’ to an understanding of God as ‘Being itself,’ or as Paul Tillich, the formative theologian of my early training, would say, as ‘the Ground of Being’ … John’s gospel began to unfold before me as a work of Jewish mysticism and the Jesus of John’s gospel suddenly became not a visitor from another realm., but a person in whom a new God consciousness had emerged. Now, seen from that new perspective, the claim of oneness with the Father was not incarnational language, but mystical language.”

And, because I can’t keep myself from quoting this amazing volume that has resulted from Spong’s years of study:

“John’s gospel is about life – expanded life, abundant life, and ultimately eternal life – but not in the typical manner that these words have been understood religiously.”

From what I have gleaned so far in his writings, Spong has built his notable career on an effort to free Christianity from a literalism that he believes imposes first-century thinking on contemporary life, to no good end. A heaven that is above the sky and disease caused by demons are not concepts we can tolerate in the face of today’s science, but a literal reading of the Bible – an atrocious insistence that the words and events of the gospels are “literally true” – demands that we accept what we know to be nonsense.

Thus, it is no surprise that his new approach takes on the issue of literalism. One of the most striking aspects of The Fourth Gospel is Spong’s illumination of the many passages in this gospel that speak directly to this issue, and which ridicule or dismiss the notion that its words should be taken literally. For example, when Jesus tells the Pharisee Nicodemus, who in chapter 3 has come to visit him in the dark of night, that, “Unless you are born from above, you cannot see the kingdom of God,” Nicodemus’ response is a comically literal reading of Jesus’ words:

“How can one be born when one is old? he asked. “One cannot enter a mother’s womb a second time and be born.”

In the next chapter, the Samaritan woman at the well reacts in a similar manner to Jesus’ statement that,” Whoever drinks the water I give them will not be thirsty again. The water I give them will become in them a fountain of water springing into eternal life.” Taking His words literally, the Samaritan woman sees the “living water” as a great labor-saving innovation:

“Sir, give me this water so that I won’t be thirsty or have to come here to draw it up.”

Once Spong has pointed it out, it’s clear from these passages that those who apply literal meaning to the words given to Jesus by John are meant to be seen as foolish, misguided. The Samaritan woman, whose visit with Jesus happens in the light of day, comes to understand what Jesus meant and goes on to convert her townspeople, while Nicodemus chooses to retreat back into the darkness from which he briefly emerged (and from which he will make additional brief appearances).

So, if we aren’t meant to take this gospel as literal history, what does it mean? Does it have any meaning for us? Oh yes, Spong says. The meaning derives from Jewish mystical tradition. The magnificent prologue to this gospel, which I consider to be among the most beautiful words ever written, is often said to reflect Greek thinking, but Spong argues that this tone-setting poem reflects instead a deep understanding of Jewish spirituality. The prologue is shaped, of course, by reference to Genesis 1, the priestly creation story in which God creates the world entirely with words. Since this gospel, like all of the others, appears to have been written in Greek, the word “logos” has been given primary importance, and with it all of the connotations in Greek thought and Greek usage that come with it. But Spong urges us to look at the Hebrew word for word, “dabar,” and to understand that, “The Hebrew concept of dabar indicated that this ‘word’ had power to shape the world, to reveal the presence of God, to call people to a heightened sense of selfhood, a heightened consciousness.”

And so it makes great sense for John to say that, ”What came to be in the word was life, And the life was the light of the people.”

The equation, then, of the word to life and to light and to Jesus tells us that Jesus brought the light of life to the people he encountered, that in fact his mission was to bring this light in the form of a new consciousness that allows us to experience life fully, abundantly, gloriously.

The wedding at Cana, a story specific and unique to John’s gospel, takes on a new cast in this new light. A wedding marks the beginning of new life, the life of a new family. This wedding takes place significantly on the “third day,” a reference that may seem mysterious because we have just been told about three preceding days, which would make this at least the fourth. But again, don’t take the reference literally. The third day is, as we know from all of the gospels as well as from Paul, the day of resurrection, the day when new life is given to something or someone that has died. So we can understand this a symbolic setting, one that is about the moment of new life, a reading which may help to explain why in this wedding story we are told nothing of the bride and groom or why Jesus, his mother and the disciples have all traveled to attend.

We see that the wedding has run out of wine. The old wine is gone. After his mother’s urging, Jesus directs the servants to a set of six large jugs meant to hold water for ritual use. But the jugs are empty. Not only is the old wine gone, the ritual water is gone. Jesus tells the servants to fill the jugs with water (the jugs are said to hold two or three measures, an amount equivalent to 20 or 30 gallons each) and then to dip from them and take the liquid to the master of the celebration, who congratulates the bridegroom effusively on his brilliance in serving a superior wine late in the celebration. The new wine, brought on by Jesus, is a superior wine as well as a transformation of old, empty ritual into new life. Jesus, we are being told, is bringing new life to replace old, tired traditions and rituals that have lost their meaning.

I’m going to end this post here, because I know I will write about the Rev. Spong and his wonderful books again soon. And I can’t tell this story with anything like his brilliance.

Read The Fourth Gospel. Buy it, borrow it, steal it if you have to. But read it.

The Bible I Love

The Bible is the greatest achievement of western culture. I say that without a touch of irony, because I believe it – if I have a reservation, it is only about whether ancient Israel should be considered “western.” But I’ll move past that reservation because the Bible is foundational to the west. It is the bedrock upon which our art, literature, music and philosophy rest. Our world would be unrecognizably different were it not for the Bible.


The wonder of the Bible is in its vastness, its complexity, its vivid narratives, its passionate polemic and its gentle expressions of love. An anthology – some would say an anthology of anthologies – spanning more than 1,000 years of the greatest writing of the ancient Middle East, the Bible takes us from the beginning of the world to its end. It’s hard to be more comprehensive than that.

The Bible is endlessly enjoyable, filled with familiar stories that form the background of our lives and less familiar ones that may shock people who think they know what’s within its covers. It is both high art and lowdown, raucous entertainment.

It is important, I think, that it be appreciated as art. The many authors of this text were adults writing for adult audiences. They wrote complex texts that can support a multitude of readings; they are meant to be studied, torn apart, argued over. They span a wide variety of styles – prose and poetry, fable and fairy tale, domestic and wartime drama, thoughtful and probing essays, warnings and celebrations.

The Bible is many, many things. What it is not is a factual history or a science textbook – and it is the insistence that it fill these roles that leads to the intolerance and demagoguery that is too often associated with those who claim to live by “the Book.” I would argue that taking the Bible literally as either history or science is in fact an insult to its authors, a manifestation of deep disrespect for their achievements as artists.

Yes, the Bible is meant to teach us, but not in this literal fashion. Various portions of the Bible – in particular the Gospels – are in fact quite direct in pointing to the parable as their preferred form of storytelling. It’s not just the stories Jesus told directly that should be understood as parables.

I’ve spent most of the past year teaching about the story I consider to be the heart of the Bible – the David narrative in the books of Samuel . In my view, everything that comes before David in the Bible looks forward to his reign, and everything after looks back. Seen in this light, the stories of the patriarchs, of the exodus, and especially the tales of the judges all are told to prefigure the coming of David, whose kingdom represents the height of earthly power for the sons and daughters of Israel. Afterward, beginning with the reign of his son Solomon, things begin to fall apart and nothing that subsequent rulers, prophets and military leaders can do will restore the glory of the time of David.

It is, of course, a story that has strong parallels to the much later legend of Arthur. But the David story as told in Samuel (and the first few chapters of I Kings) is more complex, more believable and more memorable than that of Arthur (which I also love, but which has to yield ground to the David narrative). David combines domestic drama -- his many wives; the betrayal that allows his marriage to Bathsheba; the rape of his daughter Tamar by her half-brother Amnon; the revolt led by his son Absalom – with the military exploits of David and Saul, and the religious narrative focusing on the life of the prophet Samuel, the anointing of Saul and David, and the subsequent prophecies of Nathan.

The storytelling in Samuel is vivid, the detail is stunning. Although there is no undisputed archaeological evidence of the united, prosperous kingdom of the Jews described in these texts, the power of the narrative is so strong that I tend to believe there was a real David, and that his story – a prime example of a “warts and all” biography – was written down close to the time of his life. Although a popular theory holds that Samuel is part of what is called the Deuteronomistic history, composed or compiled after the Babylonian exile, I suspect that the David story was an existing narrative that was edited and woven into the larger narrative cycle.

That doesn’t mean I believe the David story is accurate history, just that there is a core of truth on which the story is built, much in the manner of a historical novel.The author of Samuel shaped the David story as a work of art, designed for impact. We are meant to see -- and we do see -- David as Messiah, as the pinnacle of Israelite history and culture. We are meant to understand that his unwavering faith in Yahweh places him there, despite his otherwise very human failings.

Chronicles retells the David story without the warts. It's still a majestic story, but it doesn't have the immediacy or the impact of Samuel. It's respectful and respectable -- as the Samuel telling manifestly is not. Chronicles contains no hint of the betrayal of Uriah, for example. We don’t hear about Saul’s gradual descent into madness, leading to his deadly pursuit of David through the wildernesses of the Holy Land. When David’s first wife, Michal, the daughter of Saul, watches the procession that brings the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem, Chronicles dutifully repeats the Samuel author’s observation that while watching David dance ecstatically she “despised him in her heart,” but leaves out the compelling detail that a good part of the reason for her displeasure was that while David was dancing, his short ephod flipped up, exposing his genitals to the view of everyone in town.

It’s details like that that make the David story so absorbing. Like all great literary art, the David story transports us into its world and crowds out doubt. By itself, it would be a staggering achievement. That it is one of so many powerful stories in the collection that is the Bible, makes its existence all the more astonishing.