Transcription
Okay, good morning. We are continuing the Hebrew Bible today. Um, last class, we talked about King David of Israel and how he created the Bible, the, the project of the Bible, in order to create legitimacy and authority. Okay, we're continuing along this theme today. So, let's go over the chronology of the Bible.
Okay, um, so in the beginning, there was God. Okay, in the Bible, his name is Yahweh, and he created the world. And then he created Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. And people who took the Bible literally believe this was about 4,000 BC. Okay, as we know, Adam and Eve, because they disobeyed God, they were banished from the Garden of Eden. And then they had two sons, Cain and Abel. And then, uh, their family started to populate the Earth.
But then humans started to misbehave. We went to war, we were greedy, and so God decided to destroy the world, something called The Great Flood. And this is the story of Noah's Ark. Remember, Noah, uh, was beloved by God, so God told him to build a great ship, and then he will be able to live. Okay.
Um, after Noah's Ark, um, came along a man named Abraham. And this was about 2,000 BC. Abraham was born in the city of Ur in Mesopotamia. And he was beloved by God because he was a righteous and decent man. And God made a covenant with him. Covenant, and a covenant is a contract. It's a promise. And the contract is this: If you, Abraham, swear allegiance to me, Yahweh, I will make you and your descendants founders of a great nation called Israel that will stretch from the Nile to the Euphrates. That's a promised land. And, uh, as a mark of this covenant, Abraham and his ancestors will engage in circumcision. Okay, basically, the foreskin of their penis will be surgically removed at birth. Okay, so that's the covenant.
Abraham had a son named Isaac, and Isaac had a son named Jacob. Okay, um, Jacob is the younger son of, um, Isaac. So Esau should have inherited the birthright and the blessing from his father, Isaac. But Jacob played a trick on Esau and stole the birthright. Esau was very angry, so Jacob had to run away and live with a relative for, um, a couple of decades. And while there, he married two sisters named Leah and Rachel. And then together, they had 12 sons. And these became the 12 sons became the 12 founders of the 12 tribes of Israel. Jacob will be renamed by God as Israel. So Jacob really is the founder of the nation of Israel.
Jacob's youngest son is named Joseph, and he is beloved by, um, Jacob so much that his brothers became jealous of him and sold him into slavery in Egypt. Joseph was also beloved by God, and he had a special gift of reading dreams. And he became a special advisor to the Pharaoh and he became very wealthy. Meanwhile, back in the land of Israel, Jacob and his sons, their family are facing this massive famine. So Joseph comes and rescues them, and the entire nation of Israel moves down to Egypt. Okay, where they become very wealthy and prosperous. And because they have many children, eventually, after a couple of decades, they become a threat to the establishment. So the new Pharaoh, who has no memory of the contributions of Joseph, enslaves the Israelites. And he wants them to die. So he basically forbids them to have, uh, sons. And he, um, um, basically tries to sanction the Israelites as much as possible.
Eventually, a man named Moses is born into the Israelites in Egypt. And because he's a boy, he has to be killed. So his mother puts him in a basket, and then this basket drifts down the Nile and into the hands of an Egyptian princess. So Moses grows up to become, um, an Egyptian prince. But eventually, God informs them of who he really is, and he's the prophet, um, who will deliver the Israelites back into the promised land.
The Pharaoh refuses to let the Israelites go. There's a major contest, a duel between Moses and the Pharaoh. And then God sends down like 10 plagues, okay, 10 plagues to force the Pharaoh to release the Israelites. Moses is taking the Israelites into the promised land, and then Pharaoh has a change of heart and he wants to destroy the Israelites before they can escape. So the Pharaoh chases them. Moses causes the sea to part. They, they cross the valley, and when Pharaoh and his army are about to enter the sea, the sea closes in on them and drowns them. Okay.
And then, when Moses and the Israelites are in the desert, Moses ascends the mountain to receive the law of God. And this is what we call the Ten Commandments. But while Moses is away, the Israelites created an idol to celebrate Yahweh. And Yahweh hates this because Yahweh does not want to be represented on Earth. So Yahweh, um, sends him to a long exile in the desert. And he tells Moses, you will deliver the people from Egypt, and that is your mission, but you will not enter the promised land. You can see the promised land, but you will not enter the promised land.
So the mission goes to Joshua, who is Moses' disciple. And Joshua and the Israelites start a massive military campaign into the land of Canaan, which is the promised land. And over the span of years, they basically massacre the people and they create the nation of Israel. And then we enter the period called the Judges. And these are 12 individuals who become the tribal leaders of Israel. And Israel at this time is at war with all the neighbors: the Moabites, the Philistines, the Canaanites. Um, and this period lasts for a long time until the Israelites pick a king named Saul to lead them. Okay, King Saul. And then, as we know, from King Saul will come David, who will usurp the throne from Saul and be the great king of Israel that we, that we remember today. Okay. And David is considered the real founder of the state of Israel, as well as the Jewish faith. So that's the chronology of the Bible.
Now, because the Bible is written almost like a historical document, for most of human history, people believed this to be literally true. Okay? But in the past 400 years, 300 years, there are many archaeologists who have tried to prove the events in the Bible. For example, Noah's Ark. If there really was a flood, well, there would be a geological record. There would be a ship. Okay? There would be a memory of this. But there was never, but, but we have never been able to find any concrete evidence to support Noah's Ark. How about the Garden of Eden? Well, if the Garden of Eden really existed, well, we could also find it. And we've never been able to find it. All right. How about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Again, no evidence that any of these individuals ever existed. How about Moses? Well, we would think if Moses really did exist, there would be some records of him in Egyptian history, right? I mean, 10 plagues is a travesty and a disaster on the Egyptian people. No record of that. Uh, the parting of the sea, no record of that. Uh, the Judges, Joshua, nothing. Okay? It's only, it is only until we get to David when we begin to see historical records and proof that David actually existed. But before that, nothing in the Bible, um, has proven to be, um, historical. Okay.
And so this is very confusing. So what I will show you today is, if you see the Bible as a historical record, you will only get confused. If you see this as a chronology, this makes no sense. If you see this as a work of fiction, like a lot of people do, this doesn't make much sense either. Okay? Because when you read the Bible, these events aren't actually interconnected with each other. David has no memory of Moses, for example. That's weird. Moses has no memory of Abraham. Okay? So these stories are not interconnected. So if this is not a historical record, if this is not a work of pure fiction, what is this thing?
Okay, what I will show you today is this is not a chronology. This is a cosmology. Cosmology. Okay. Remember last class, we talked about why things are written down in the ancient past? And as I said, kings sponsor writing projects for three major reasons. The first reason is to create legitimacy and authority. The second reason is to create a national identity, cohesion among the people. The third reason is the idea of differentiation, to tell people who they are not. We're Israelites, we're not Egyptians, we're not Canaanites, we're not Philistines. Okay? So these are the three major reasons why kings sponsor writing projects. And for the Israelites and David, these three imperatives are particularly salient. They're really necessary, right?
So let me explain why that's the case. So legitimacy. Remember, David usurped the throne from Saul. Saul came from a noble family, and he was elected by the chieftains to be their king. And then David launched a rebellion and eventually usurped the throne. So David has a major legitimacy problem. So how he solves the problem, as we discussed last class, is the Bible presents him as a poet king. Okay? This is a very important concept. Poet king. There have been warrior kings, right? Kings who go to war and they win legitimacy by defeating all their enemies. There have been priest kings, kings who are head of a major religion. But David is the first poet king. Okay? He writes poetry, he sings songs, he's a sensitive soul. That's, that's what explains his affair with Bathsheba, and that's that. And that tells us he could never have possibly been ambitious and want to kill Saul. Okay? He's the first poet king.
So why is he king of Israel? Because, guess what, guys? God is the poet God. Okay? Poet God. Yahweh is the poet God. So this is a radical conception of divinity in the ancient world. Gods previously have been priests or warriors. And this is the first time in human history where God, Yahweh, is presented as a poet God. When you read the Bible, it's very interesting how he creates the world. He speaks, and things are created. Okay? He says, "Let there be light. Let there be heaven and earth." He speaks, and when he speaks, a new world is created. And he, and then he looks at this world and says, "And this is good." Okay? So he's like a writer who speaks words and who edits his words in order to create something much more beautiful. He's a poet. And as a poet, he's very sensitive. Okay? Which means he creates Adam and Eve because he's lonely. He wants friendship. Okay? So, in other words, the Bible is fundamentally a story of friendship of two poets who are alone in the world and who found friendship and comfort in the existence of each other. Okay? And the way the Bible accomplishes this is through the idea of covenant.
So in their Bible, there are four covenants, promises. So the first covenant, um, is between Noah and Yahweh. It's what we call the Noahic Covenant. The Noah Covenant. The idea of this is this: After Yahweh destroys the world, he feels tremendous remorse for what he's done. He promises Noah, as long as humans are not too evil, I will not destroy the world. Okay? If humans stay good, I will not destroy the world. The second covenant is between Abraham and Yahweh. It's called the Abrahamic Covenant. And in this covenant, Yahweh says to Abraham, if you and your ancestors, sorry, if you and your descendants stay true to me, I will create a great nation out of you. I will give you the nation of Israel. The third covenant is between Moses and Yahweh. It's called the Mosaic Covenant. And the idea is, if the Israelites follow the Ten Commandments and worship Yahweh only, Yahweh will protect them as a nation. Yahweh will show them favor. Okay? So, so those are the three covenants.
But when we get to David, called the Davidic Covenant, something interesting happens. All three previously are what we call conditional covenants. If you do this, then I will do this. But when we get to David, it's unconditional. I, Yahweh, will promise that you, David, and your descendants will forever rule Israel. The House of David will forever rule Israel. Okay? It's an unconditional covenant that shows his everlasting friendship with David. In other words, the Davidic Covenant marks the end of biblical history. Yahweh, this great God, poet God, who's been, who searched the universe for friendship, has now found his great friend in David. And so his search has ended, and biblical history has ended. Okay? So this is a radical new idea in human history, how a king and a God can be poets, and how the world, how reality, reality can be constructed through words. Okay? And that's why in the Bible, there's a very famous phrase called "In the beginning was the Word." And that's why, um, Jewish people are so literary. Okay? Because that's part of the tradition. If you look at some of the most famous writers, the most some of the most famous thinkers in the world, um, they're mainly Jewish. And again, a lot of it is because, um, the Jewish faith is a first faith to focus on literary creation. So that's the idea of legitimacy, cohesion, all cohesion.
The second purpose is to create cohesion. And as we discussed, after the Bronze Age collapsed, the land of Canaan was in complete chaos. You had all these, you had all these different groups within Canaan. You had, uh, the nomads from the desert, the Bedouins. You have the hill people of Canaan. You have, um, refugees from the cities of Canaan who've been, and these cities have been destroyed. You have Egyptian priests, you have foreign mercenaries. And now you have sea peoples, these Greeks and these other peoples who are coming into Canaan because they've lost their lands, uh, back at home. Okay? So you've got this very different group of people together. They're in competition with other groups like the Philistines. So now they need to create a national identity out of all this, right? And that's what the Bible is doing, guys.
Okay, remember there's a concept we learned that's very important in class called syncretization, right? Syncretization. It means when you bring different religions together and create a new religion. So, for example, let's say my God is Zeus and your God is Hera, and I conquer you and I make you part of my people. So what we do in this instance is we marry our gods to each other. So now Zeus is married to Hera, and they have children like Aphrodite and Athena. Okay? And this is a way to smooth the process of conquest because even though I've conquered you, I still have to live with you. Okay? So we have to blend in our different cultures. This is also true for the idea of genealogy, family history. Every tribe has a patriarch. And the reason why that patriarch is to tell the people, we've been in this land for the longest time, and that's why we have legitimacy and control over this land because we were here first. Okay? Now, when tribes get together, they intermarry, they form alliances. What they do that's very common is their ancestors merge together, and they become sons and fathers of each other. So it's like one family history. You take these different family histories and you merge them into one line. The same process of syncretization.
So if you look at this instance, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it's basically three major tribes of Israel coming together to form one family history. In this instance, the most powerful family is that of Jacob because Jacob, Israel, gives his name to the new nation of Israel. The second most important person or tribe is Abraham because he's the progenitor of this family. And third will be Isaac. And in fact, in the Bible, Isaac receives the least amount of attention. Okay? But the syncretization process also helps us explain Moses. Because we've been looking for a hundred years and we have not found any evidence that Moses ever existed or anyone like Moses existed in Egypt. Okay? So what's Moses doing? Well, what Moses is doing is explaining why there are Egyptian priests in the nation of Israel. Right? And why are priests important? Because if you're David, and you're now king, you want to create legitimacy and you want to create authority. And the best way to create authority is by centralizing your power. Back then, the best and easiest way to centralize power is by centralizing religious ritual. Does that make sense?
So what he did was this: he created, he made this new capital, Jerusalem, and he built something called the Temple of Jerusalem, which became the house of Yahweh. This is where Yahweh lived. So if you wanted to worship Yahweh, and you had to because he's your God, you have to come all the way to Jerusalem to offer a sacrifice. And who controlled the sacrifice process? Priests. Okay? And why did the priests, Egyptian priests, why are they controlling the sacrifice process? Because they're the ones Moses, who led the people of Israel out of Egypt, the ones who delivered the Israelites into freedom. Moses is an Egyptian name. It means "son of." Okay? So it's a very common Egyptian name. So, for example, Ramses means "son of Ra," the sun god. So Ramses is a very famous Egyptian Pharaoh. Ramses means "son of Ra." The son god. So both Moses and his brother Aaron, these are Egyptian names for Egyptian priests. Okay? So David was heavily reliant on these Egyptian priests in order to centralize authority. Also, the idea of circumcision. It is an ancient Egyptian practice that priests specialized in, right? So if the new law is to be a member of Israel, to be an Israelite, means you have to get circumcised. You have to circumcise your children. You're going to go to an Egyptian priest to circumcise your children because they're good at that and they know how to do that. Okay? Does that make sense? So by making circumcision the major mark of what it means to be an Israelite, it gives authority and power to these Egyptian priests. Okay? Does that make sense?
Okay, um, the Judges. What we believe is the Judges are these local heroes that bring in all the other tribes of Israel together. Okay? So, in other words, if you are a member of this new nation of Israel, you have a deity or an ancestor within the cosmology of the Bible. And that's this explains why the history of Israel is so convoluted, contradictory, and complex, because it's trying to create a national identity where everyone, all tribes, everyone is able to contribute effectively to the creation of the nation of Israel. Any questions before I continue? Is this clear to you guys what's what's going on? Any other questions?
All right. Now, the last question is differentiation. And this is the most important. Okay? Because remember, you have Egyptian priests in Israel. How do we know they're loyal to Israel and not to Egypt? Because the Egyptian priests went to war with a Pharaoh. We have Canaanites within the state of Israel. How do we know they're loyal? Because they went to war with the Canaanites. Okay? So in the Bible, what's interesting, read the Bible, is the Israelites, in their history, went to war with everyone. The Egyptians, the Philistines, the Canaanites, went to war with everyone. Why? Because they had members from every single geography and location in that area. And so they need to differentiate themselves. The best way you differentiate yourself is by going to war with them. Does that make sense?
Oh, also, like, also, guys, um, when I use the word "nation," um, I have to warn you, this is not the modern sense. Okay? Nation, it's a loose political affiliation that is fluid. Today, the nation-state, you're Chinese, you're stuck being Chinese. Okay? But back then, if you're an Israelite, guess what? You could walk across the street and become a Moabite. Okay? So the idea, the idea of identity back then was extremely loose and fluid. So when we use the term Moabite or Canaanite, basically we're talking about a geographic location that has some political force, but it's not a fixed identity. Okay? The very idea of ethnicity, race, group identity back then was extremely fluid, was basically non-existent. Okay? So Israel, the very idea of Israel, it's a literary creation. The idea of Israelite, it is a political creation. All right. Doesn't make sense, guys? Any questions so far before I move on? Okay. Are you clear? Okay. All right. All right.
So this explains why the Bible is structured the way it is. Okay? But then the question then is, and this is a very important question, is, okay, you know what, this was standard cultural practice back then. Everyone did this to create, uh, identity. So why is it we have a Bible today and not, say, other texts from Egypt or Mesopotamia? Why is it that the Bible was able to conquer the world, basically? Right? Because you have two billion Christians, you have a billion Muslims. The Bible was able to conquer the world and capture the imagination of humanity. And here I want to explain why the Bible is so powerful. It was how it was written that made it so powerful.
Okay, last class, we talked about the theology of David, about the BBA story, about the Abner story. And we believe the person who wrote those stories is what we call the court historian. We have absolutely no idea who he is. He's basically the official historian of the court of David. And every court will have an official historian. And those stories are good, but they're not, they're not literary. They're just propaganda and spin. But the person who wrote the Bible, especially Genesis, was a unique literary genius of the stature of Homer and Plato and Dante. The person who wrote the Bible, who first wrote the Bible, was an incredible literary genius. And we call her the Yahwist. Okay? Why do we call her the Yahwist? It's just convention because, because she uses, um, Yahweh as the name of God, and other writers don't actually use Yahweh as the name of God. Okay? So, so by convention, we call her the Yahwist.
Now, the question then is, who is she? And we're fairly certain she's a, well, it's a she. Okay? And as I show you, we're fairly certain it's a she because she focuses not on war, not on conflict, but on domestic tragedy and affairs, childbirth, marriage, love. And this is unique in human history. Okay? So we're fairly confident it's a she. There are many who believe she is of the court of David. The reason why is, first of all, um, what she writes is very favorable to the court of David. Also, back then, as you can imagine, in, um, only aristocratic women had the privilege of reading and writing. She clearly had access to, uh, the mythology of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Anatolia. She has access to a great education. Uh, so we believe she's a princess. I will go further and make the argument that she must be either the daughter or the granddaughter of the king of King David. I would, I would make this argument that she has to be the daughter or the granddaughter of King David. And the reason why is what she wrote, and I'll show you what she wrote, what she wrote was so controversial and so unique and so imaginative that the priesthood could not possibly accept what she did. If she was just, if she was just a priest or she, if she was just an aristocratic of low birth, there was no way her writings would become, um, part of the Bible. Okay? So she must have been someone of high authority. And there is actually a precedent for this.
So, so for example, we know that in about 2000 BC, this is, you know, at least a thousand years before the Yahwist began to write, Sargon of Akkad, who is the first great empire builder, the first emperor, basically. And this is someone that back then, during the time of King David, everyone knew and worshiped. King David knew about him and he knew about his practices. When King Sargon of Akkad conquered Mesopotamia, he appointed his daughter, named Enheduanna, to be like the high priestess of their religion. But what's interesting about her is she's a poet, and she is the first named author in human history. Okay? This is 2000 BC. She wrote a lot of poetry. So there is a history, a precedent for these kings to appoint their daughters to be the official poet of their nation. Okay? So that's why I think the Yahwist is, the Yahwist is. But honestly, we'll never know, and it's not important. Okay? We, we just have to know she was an exceptional literary genius who made the Bible what it is today.
All right, so let's go over some of her literary contributions very shortly. And again, because the Bible has been redacted for about 2,000 years, 3,000 years, we've lost a lot of her original writings. Okay? So I will, we analyze a couple of stories that we know for sure she wrote. The first is called Adam and Eve. The second is the story of Jacob and Rachel. Okay?
All right, so you think you know the story of Adam and Eve, but I guarantee you it's wrong. I guarantee you, even if you know the story of Adam and Eve, it's wrong. All right, so let's go over the official or the mainstream understanding of the story of Adam and Eve. God told Adam and Eve, "Listen, this is the Garden of Eden. It's paradise. You can do whatever you want. Your life is easy. Apples fall from the sky. Okay? You can pick tomatoes and carrots from the ground. Life is easy. It's paradise for you. But there's one rule and only one rule in the Garden of Eden. The rule is, do not eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, because it's poison." And of course, Adam and Eve had to disobey God. And God became so angry that he banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. And that was our act of disobedience, the first act of disobedience, our first sin, the original sin that has doomed us forever until the redemption of Jesus. Right? That's the story we all know. The story is completely and utterly wrong. That's not what it says in the Bible. Okay?
So I'll explain first what the, what the Bible says, and then I'll explain how we can interpret the story. Okay? So God says to Adam and Eve, "Don't eat that fruit." Okay? And then Adam and Eve are curious. "Why can't you eat that fruit?" And then Eve meets a serpent on the ground. And Eve and the serpent talk. And Eve says, basically says, "We can't eat that fruit." And the serpent says, "Why?" Eve says, "It's poisonous." So says, "No, it's not poisonous. You're being lied to. The reason why Yahweh does not want you to eat from the fruit is once you eat it, you'll become like God. Your eyes will open. You have the knowledge of good and evil." And then Eve gets angry because she feels manipulated. And she convinces Adam to eat the fruit as well. So the, the fruit, and their eyes are open. Now they have knowledge of good and evil. Yahweh visits them in the garden, and he discovers they're hiding from him. And Yahweh commands them to come out. And he sees right away they're embarrassed about their nakedness. They're embarrassed about being confronted by Yahweh. So Yahweh knows they've eaten the fruit. Adam says to Yahweh, "It's Eve's fault." Eve says to Yahweh, "It's the serpent's fault." And Yahweh decides to punish all three. He says to the serpent, "From now on, you will slither on the ground, and you'll be hunted by men." Eve, "From now on, you and all your descendants will suffer the pains of childbirth. Childbirth will be an extremely painful process." And then he says to Adam, "From now on, you must sweat to grow food to feed yourself. From now on, life will be hardship. It will be toil and pain and suffering." Okay?
And then he does this. Okay? This is very interesting. And this is where the Bible demonstrates its genius. "And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and his wife and clothed them. Then the Lord said, 'See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. And now he might reach out his hand and take also from the Tree of Life and live forever.'" This is where the Bible is genius because it's telling us why God is banishing Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. It's telling us it's because there's another tree God didn't mention to them. It's called The Tree of Life, and it allows you to live forever. So why is this a problem? Well, there are two things that differentiate God from us humans. The first thing is God has knowledge of good and evil. The second thing is God lives forever. That's it. Okay? That's the only difference. So if Adam and Eve now now know good and evil, if they eat from the Tree of Life, they can live forever. So God's afraid we'll become like God. Therefore, to protect the Tree of Life, he has to banish us from the garden. Okay?
Yeah, excuse me. Yeah, exactly. Think. Okay, okay. What is good and evil? Okay, so this is a really complicated idea. Okay? But, but good and evil does not mean you know God and you know Satan. That's that's not what it means. It means you know what's good for you and what's bad for you. So, for example, before I knew good and evil, I hit this table. I feel pain, right? And I'm like, "What pain? What is that? Is that good or is that bad?" I don't know. So I do it again. And I do it again. I cannot learn from my mistakes because I cannot differentiate what's good for me and what's bad for me. But now I know good and evil. I'm like, "Oh, I hit this thing. It's, I feel pain. Therefore, it's evil. Therefore, I shouldn't do it again. Therefore, I should avoid this table." So knowing good and evil means you have the capacity to learn and to grow through a process of self-reflection. Once you have judgment, once you're able to differentiate what's good for you and what's bad for you, you can always grow as a person. Does that make sense? And if you can do this forever, the Tree of Life, and live forever, it means you become God because your knowledge is now infinite. Okay? Does that make sense? That's what knowledge of good and evil is: the ability to differentiate for yourself what is good for you and what is bad for you, to engage in a process of reflection and self-growth. Okay? So God's afraid that if we continue to grow, we will become as powerful as God himself.
Any question? Any more questions before I continue? Okay. The key line is this: "And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and his wife and clothed them." This is right after he punishes Adam and Eve. This is right after he scolds them. Right? This is God giving pitying them and giving them a present. This is very strange. This is paradoxical. Why would God do this? There are different ways to interpret this. But I think this is God showing remorse and regret. Okay? This is a radical idea. But this is God saying to Adam and Eve, "I'm sorry for this." This is God showing remorse and regret. What is God showing remorse and regret? You show remorse and regret when you just say wrong, right? But what did God do wrong? What did God do wrong? Why, why is God in the wrong here? It's a radical idea, but can you figure it out?
God lied to Adam and Eve. God said to Adam and Eve, "Do not eat from this tree because it's poisonous." Right? So imagine this. Imagine you're my two daughters, okay? And you're like six or seven years old. And you see me at night drinking whiskey or beer. I'm really happy because I'm drinking whiskey and beer. So you two are curious. And you say to me, "Dad, what, what is this?" And I say, "It's, um, poison." And then you're like, "Why are you drinking poison, Dad?" Like, "Well, because I'm older than you are. When you're as old as I am, you can drink this poison." You two are now curious, right? You're curious why Dad is drinking poison. So your uncle comes to the house one day. And you ask your uncle, "Hey, is alcohol poisonous?" Your uncle's like, "Of course it's not poisonous. What are you talking about?" And so, of course, what you two do is you break into the alcohol cabinet, right? And you drink whiskey, and you're very, you become very happy, and you throw up. I come home and I shout at you, "You guys are terrible! I told you not to drink that! Go to your room!" And you're suspended for a month. Okay? You go to your room, you cry. And then I come knocking and say, "Hey, uh, do you guys want to go out to McDonald's and have a hamburger together?" You understand the story? Because I know I'm not wrong. I should have said to you, "Alcohol is poisonous." I'm a bad parent.
So what's remarkable about the story is it's basically a domestic comedy. You understand? This is what happens among families all the time. This is the power of the story of Adam and Eve. It's a domestic comedy. It's something we can all relate to. Something we can all understand. What's also really powerful about the story is God is fallible. God has made a terrible mistake. What's important is this: God understands he's made a mistake. That's why he's showing remorse and regret. Okay? So again, Yahweh, he's a poet God. He's curious about the world. He wants to have friends. But he's inexperienced. He's naive. He's a new father. So he's going to make mistakes. Making mistakes is a process of growing up. What makes humans exceptional? What makes humans unique from animals is our capacity to make mistakes and to learn from them because we ate from the knowledge of, from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Okay? You see how radical all this is? These are radical new ideas in human history. God is fallible. What's important is to understand and admit your mistakes and grow from them. Okay?
The story continues because now Adam and Eve are banished from the Garden of Eden. They have two sons named Cain and Abel. Abel is a shepherd, okay? And Cain is a farmer. Both they both love God. Both want the respect, the attention of God. So they present, they, they give presents to God. Um, Abel, is a shepherd, so he offers mutton, okay, to God. And then Cain is a farmer, so he offers, I don't know, like wheat or vegetables to God. God tastes both. And then God's like, "This mutton, it's tasty. Awesome. Thank you, Abel." And then he eats Cain's offering, and Cain's very anxious. He's very excited. Then Cain's like, "And Abel's like, 'Sorry, sorry.'" And then God, Yahweh, is like, "This food sucks, man. All right." And this is what it says in the Bible: "And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard." He hated Cain's present. He loved Abel's present. "So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. The Lord said to Cain, 'Why are you angry? If you do well, will you not be accepted?'"
Okay, again, it's a domestic comedy. You're my girls, you're my daughters, you go to school and you work very hard on presenting a present to me, right? And I say to one of you, "Oh, this is an awesome present. Thank you." And I say to the other, "You suck, man." I'm being a bad parent. God is being a terrible parent. "If you do well, will you not be accepted?" You suck, man. The problem isn't me, the problem is you. You just suck. Okay? And of course, what happens next is Cain kills Abel. But then what happens next is interesting because Yahweh finds out about this. He banishes Cain. And then Cain says to God, "Hey, if you banish me, people will know I committed wrong, and therefore I will be killed by other people." Then Yahweh says to Cain, "Okay, I will put a mark on you, The Mark of Cain. And if anyone touches you, then I will punish that person. I will protect you with The Mark of Cain." And this is again God showing remorse and regret for what he's done because God knows in his heart he's not wrong here. But what allows God to understand he committed wrong is because Cain argued with him. Okay? Cain argued back.
So this is a radical conception of faith in the Hebrew Bible. Faith, love of God, requires you to argue with God because it's only through the process of argument that God, who's fallible, will learn and grow. So when you argue, when you fight back, you're helping the other person grow. Okay? Any questions about this story before I move on? As you're going to see, it's a powerful story that reveals so much about the idea of faith and justice and divinity. Okay? And any more questions before I move on? Okay.
So again, the Yahwist is a literary genius. And there are two things that make her stand out, that make her unique in the history of literature. The first is her economy. Economy just means using as few words as possible to express as much as possible. You can see the story of Adam and Eve, the story of Cain and Abel. It's very economical. She's using very few words, but within these words are a universe of ideas, almost infinite meaning. You can interpret these stories any way you want. Okay? The second idea is irony. Irony just means she's funny. Okay? If you tell your kids, "Don't eat that apple, don't eat that fruit because it's poisonous," guess what? Your kids are going to eat that fruit. Okay? And then you're going to look like an idiot because it's not poisonous. So it's ironic. She's making fun of Yahweh, she's making fun of the highest authority in the Israelite faith. And again, that's why if she were not the daughter of David or granddaughter of David, there's no way this story would have gone into the Bible. Okay? But it's a great story that has infinite literary power. Does that make sense?
The last story I will mention is the story of, um, Rachel and Jacob. It's a very short story. Okay? So what happens is this: Jacob runs away from his brother Esau because Jacob stole Esau's birthright and blessing. And Jacob ends up with a relative named Laban. And Laban has two daughters, Leah and Rachel. Uh, Leah is the eldest, Rachel is the younger one. And Jacob falls in love with Rachel right away. And he says to Laban, "I will work for you for free for seven years, and then I will want your daughter Rachel's hand, uh, in return for my work." Laban says, "Well, you're a relative, and it's better for me to give her to you than to a complete stranger. So, yeah." Okay. Seven years pass, and there's a wedding between Rachel and Jacob. That night, Jacob has sex with a woman. He wakes up and sees it's not Rachel, it's Leah. He slept with Leah. He is now married to Leah. Then Jacob says to Laban, "You've tricked me." And then Laban says, "It is the custom of our people to marry the firstborn first. We have to marry Leah off first before we can marry off Rachel. If you continue to work for me for seven years, I will give you Rachel as well." And Jacob agrees. Okay?
So it's a very short story, and there's a lot of economy and irony in the story. But again, within the short story, there's a universe of ideas and emotions. If you're able to think very clearly and closely about the story, we will discover that Rachel and Leah hate each other. How do we know that? Because Leah stole Jacob from Rachel. We can imagine that when Laban announced that Rachel would marry Jacob, Leah was very jealous. And for seven years, every night at dinner, Leah would cry and scream at her father, "How could you embarrass me like this? I'm your firstborn. Do I mean nothing to you?" We can imagine the family drama and the comedy, right? It's like, you know what? If after seven years, Jacob marries Rachel, they're going to run off together, right? And for the rest of my life, I'm stuck with Leah screaming at me and hitting me in the head for the rest of my life, right? So he's like, "I need to figure out how to get out of this deal, right?" So that's why he tricks Jacob. We can also figure out that Rachel and Jacob love each other. Their love is the greatest love in the world because, first of all, Jacob's willing to put up with this crap for another seven years in order to be with Rachel, right? Second of all, Rachel is willing to wait for Jacob. She could at any time just run off and be with someone else, but she's willing to endure. She's willing to suffer. Okay? So we imagine the entire family dynamic and history based on just a few sentences in the Bible. That's, that's the power of the Yahwist. The power of the Yahwist. She's really writing about what it means to be human, what it means to have a family. And that's why the Bible endures to this day because there are these powerful stories in the Bible that tell us, that reveal to us what it means to be human, what it means to love, what it means to forgive, what it means to have family. And that's why the Bible has inspired people for thousands of years because in these stories, you are part of the writing process. It's co-creation. Your meaning, co-creation. Your meaning, your understanding, your interpretation is what gives life to these words. They're many words, but your understanding of these words is what makes these words powerful to you. And again, these stories are unique in human history. The story of Adam and Eve is, everyone knows the story of Adam and Eve, okay, because it's just a powerful story. You can also argue the power of Adam and Eve is because it makes us nostalgic for the Ice Age, right? Remember the Ice Age, where we were in an egalitarian society where everyone was equal, and the Garden of Eden is a metaphor, a symbol for that time. Okay? So it is provoking or activating our nostalgia for that time. Within each of us must be that a long-lost memory of a time when we humans were alone in the world, there weren't that many of us, but life was fairly pleasant. Food was plentiful, we were all friends with each other, we didn't really struggle against each other, we really didn't struggle against nature, we were one with nature and with each other. Okay?
Any, any questions? So who do the Christians believe to have written the Bible? Okay, who do the Christians believe to have written the Bible? Well, God, right? These are the exact, these are the words of God. And so in, uh, the Bible, um, there are people called prophets. Prophets. And how prophets work is they visit heaven or they visit by an angel. And there's one scene where the angel or God takes a parchment and puts it into the mouth of the prophet. So the prophet is speaking every word that's a direct word of God. Does that make sense? Like, it's, it's almost like he's just a mailman. I'm God, I put a parchment in your mouth, you come back to earth, and you basically, uh, announce the word of God. Okay? So there are people who believe God wrote every word. Okay? But this is only a minority of Christians. Most Christians believe that whoever wrote the Bible was inspired by God. That these are, um, prophets who were inspired by God to write down the truths of God. But if you actually try to read the Bible by yourself, it's impossible, okay? Because it's been redacted so many times. As I explained to you last class, there are at least four different sources in the Bible that have been splashed together randomly, and it's been edited constantly, um, over the centuries. Okay? But honestly, no one reads the Bible in its entirety. What usually happens is people only read sections of the Bible. Most people get their, get understanding from the Bible from preachers. Okay? And preachers will explain to you what these stories mean, but you won't actually have to read them together. Does that make sense?
So what I'm offering you today is not a scriptural interpretation of the Bible. I'm offering you a, uh, what we call a literary interpretation of the Bible. Okay? Uh, any more questions? Are you guys clear about this? Okay. So, um, we'll continue this. The Bible next class. And next class, we will look at the religion of Zoroastrianism because when the Persian Empire conquered the world, Zoroastrianism, their religion will start to merge with the Bible, which creates new ideas, okay, that will eventually become the basis of Christianity. Okay.