Archaeology and Faith

French Dominican biblical scholar and archaeologist Roland De Vaux said, “If the historical faith of Israel is not founded in history, such faith is erroneous, and therefore our faith is also.”

William F. Albright, an early 20th century biblical archaeologist and scholar said as well: “[A]s a whole, the picture in Genesis is historical, and there is no reason to doubt the general accuracy of the biographical details.”

The first time I read these words I was impressed with the boldness of the message and did not think then and still do not believe any truer words could be spoken about the relevance of the Bible and the accuracy contained within its recorded history. But these words had been rooted in a belief that the findings would support their literal theological belief. Would these same men have made these same bold assertions should it had been discovered at their time of investigations, what the current archaeologists and professors such as Israel Finkelstein, Amihai Mazar and Neil Silberman have learned and shared through books such as The Bible Unearthed, David and Solomon, and The Quest for the Historical Israel?

The God Virus

I’m about to finish reading The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture by Darrel W. Ray. It’s been quite a trip. He maintains the metaphor of religion as a virus throughout, using terminology such as “vector” for priests, rabbis, ministers and imams, “virus/viral” for religion/religious, and “infected” as a term for those who have been convinced and converted to religion.

I had never considered things in these terms, but the metaphor seems to work well. Religions spread in the same way that viruses replicate, going through mutations and competition, lying dormant and making an appearance when confronted by the right combination of factors, etc.

I’m fascinated by the book and just wanted to share it with you.

My De-Conversion

It is hard to know the moment when I actually began believing in God, coming from a Catholic background and taught from early childhood of his existence.  An important shift in thought would have been the time I started taking God more seriously, which involved incorporating teachings from the bible into my life and this did not occur till young adulthood.

A triggering event that prompted a more thorough study of the bible were the visitations by Jehovah Witnesses, who were distributing their pamphlets while educating me of their views.  I was impressed by what seemed to be the amount of biblical knowledge they had and at the time of their visits,  both my husband and I were experiencing problems of our own so these meetings had become a welcome.

Yetzia bish’eila

I’ve never quite understood why leaving one’s Jewish religion is defined as “leaving with a question”. Notwithstanding the fact that it is a botched counter-term for chazara bit’shuva – the process of repentance for one’s sins – it is often a process which, though riddled with doubts, ultimately ends with one’s adamant surety in his/her decision.

I was certain in my decision to leave the religious world behind, and though my family hadn’t accepted my decision at first and fought me hard on it, I stood fast and carried it through.

Religious folks often liken the process of chazara bit’shuva as “stepping into the light”, darkness being the implied metaphor for the secular world. I would argue that it is just the opposite: leaving one’s religion, and thereby foregoing the belief in an almighty deity, is seeing the world in a much clearer and more truthful way than ever possible in the narrow-minded, superstitious, and fanciful world view of religion.

False Dilemmas and Religious Thinking

Last week I was hit by a huge surprise. Suddenly, my brother – like my aunt before him – starting placing loads of posts on his Facebook timeline (the new designation for the social medium’s “wall”) containing prayers and references to his faith in Jesus and his newly-discovered attention to religious conviction. The newest post in the series featured a picture of Romans 1:16 highlighted in a King James Bible: “I am not ashamed of the gospel....” It was probably the first time my brother had ever come across this verse, given that he doesn't read or understand the Bible.

It turns out that he recently attended a Promise Keepers convention, which reminded him of his bad life decisions, convinced him of his need for a savior and swindled him into committing his life to Jesus – the obvious choice for a savior that one hasn’t investigated. Since then he’s been attending church regularly, tithing, praying, blah, blah, blah.

I was simply stunned, and my reaction (“Why?! No! Don't be hoodwinked!”) may have been a bit strong, but among the replies to my response was a girl who attempted to insinuate that I was “persecuting” my own brother (whom I love dearly) and to lay before me a lame version of Pascal’s Wager. This post is intending to lay out the assumptions involved in that famous wager and also C.S. Lewis’s famous “liar, lunatic or Lord” dilemma.

True to Life

Apparently, the pic was real.

This is one of the more embarrassing elements of Judaism. According to this article (in Hebrew), the man is a cohen (כֹּהֵן “priest” [a son of Aaron]) who was concerned when it was reported that the flight that he had been moved to would be flying over a cemetery. This is a basic explanation of the situation.

Leviticus 21:11 has the following prohibition for cohanim (כֹּהֲנִים – plural of cohen):

וְעַ֛ל כָּל־נַפְשֹׁ֥ת מֵ֖ת לֹ֣א יָבֹ֑א לְאָבִ֥יו וּלְאִמּ֖וֹ לֹ֥א יִטַּמָּֽא׃
And he shall not approach dead bodies, nor shall he be made unclean for his father or his mother.

Since a cemetery is the place where we bury the dead, it has long been the traditional understanding of this prohibition that a cohen cannot enter a cemetery.

The man in the picture above was worried about the fact that the flight path would pass over a cemetery, so he consulted a rabbi. The rabbi told him that if he wrapped himself in a plastic bag, then he would not be contaminated and could pass over the cemetery.

Superstition and Science

The Hound of the Baskervilles

I was in the third grade the first time that I heard the story of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles. Our teacher took one hour every week – my favorite hour, for sure – when she would read to us various books of interest to kids of that age (around ten or eleven years old). I fondly remember listening to her read My Side of the Mountain (Jean Craighead George), Hatchet (Gary Paulsen) and, of course, The Hound of the Baskervilles (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle). Ever since that time, this has been my favorite of all of the Sherlock Holmes mystery stories that Doyle put into writing. (I later bought a set of various Sherlock Holmes stories and The Hound in a separate volume of its own, and it has certainly provided me with hours of entertainment and recollection.)

In this story, we hear of the death of Sir Charles Baskerville and a supposed curse that was put on his family. A naturalist scientist (Mr. Stapleton) found a way to promote a ghost story about a devilish hound called up from hell to haunt the family of the Baskervilles, the latest victim of which was Charles. Everyone in the area of the tragedy readily believed the story promoted about the hound, and their fear-supported superstitions directed at the beast allowed them to overlook the murderer that was freely walking around in their midst.

Posting in Hebrew

I thought I might quickly mention why I’ve decided to use two different styles of Hebrew on this blog and what these two styles are.

א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ר ש ת
The first style of Hebrew that I’m using on the site is the “regular” alphabet, as presented just here. This is the alphabet that is familiar to all Hebrew speakers in Israel, and it appears in published Hebrew Bibles and all Hebrew literature. I'll use it when quoting from the Massoretic Text (the received text of the Hebrew Scriptures) and when referring to Hebrew generally. This is generally called the “square script” or the “Assyrian script.”

א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ר ש ת
The second style of Hebrew that I’m using is the alphabet as it appears in the Mesha Stele (Moabite Stone). This is an older version of the alphabet, one with which most Hebrew speakers are unfamiliar today. It was used when the Bible was first written, and it has made appearances throughout the history of the Hebrew language. At some points we find texts that use the Assyrian script used in a text but the name of Yahweh (יהוה) written in this second style (as יהוה), which we call the “Paleo-Hebrew Alphabet.” There are actually a few variations of the letter shapes, but the form found in the Mesha Stele is very representative of the style and easily readable. (If you cannot see the specific letters because of embedding problems, you may want to download the font for free. This link contains several ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, Canaanite and Phoenician fonts. If you want only the Mesha font, then chose it from the ZIP file and install it on your system.)

Josiah and His Reforms

I find that my issue with blogging is that you always have to find something to say that is going to be both relevant and interesting. I’m not all too sure where to begin with such things, since what is interesting to me is rarely interesting to many other people. Ron basically told me last night that I’m “special” because my interests are not the same as others’.

For instance, I can stay up all night talking with people online or over the phone about the development of the Hebrew Bible and the reign of Josiah. It’s something that interests me to no end. I get really excited by what I read in the records of the kings of Judah when it comes to what Josiah did and how he enacted the reforms of his time – not that I think that it’s particularly good how he forced the people to observe his form of monotheism, but I think it’s extremely important to understand just what was happening at that time, since it can drastically change how we view the entirety of Israelite/Jewish history.

Relevant information from the Bible regarding Josiah: 1 Kings 13:2; 2 Kings 21:23-23:30; 2 Chronicles 33:25-35:27.

The Empty Universe

When I was a believer, I imagined a universe teeming with life. Even on planets in the remote corners of the galaxy, I could sense that life permeated all things. Why? Because I imagined that God (read: יהוה) watched over everything and lived in everything. The concept of a universe without God seemed unimaginable. It seriously caused my mind to spin when I tried to imagine a world – a universe – without the Creator.

When I first began to question my faith in God, I was posed with the issue of the number of gods.

My “Testimony”

I prayed the sinner’s prayer when I was twelve years old, just after seeing the series of movies made by Mark IV Productions (A Thief in the Night, A Distant Thunder et cetera). I was baptized at the age of fifteen, having spent my first three years reading the Bible (in King James) and learning to challenge adults in their thinking regarding the Bible. I started to learn Greek at the age of seventeen and went to Bible College at eighteen, with intentions of going into ministry. I was there for three years before I left Christianity (as the result of a long inner struggle) and began my trek into Judaism. After three years of study at the local synagogue, I converted in 2003 and came to Israel for the first time in 2004. I held onto my belief in God throughout those years and believed in the revelation of the Torah up until last year. I no longer believe that the Torah was inspired by a divinity or given on Mount Sinai. I no longer believe that there was an exodus in which over a million Israelites left Egypt. I’m rather sold on the position that the Torah was majorly composed in the time of Josiah, king of Judah – probably by his scribe Shafan in collaboration with the priest Hilkiah (Jeremiah’s father).

New Directions

Hello and greetings to my friends out there in the universe, whoever and wherever you are.

I have decided to make some serious changes to my online presence. Until recently, I have engaged in discussions about the Hebrew language and also about the Greek New Testament from a mildly religious perspective. Included in this was the hosting of forums online for people of various religions to discuss and learn about the Bible and its languages. First, there was JHR Online, which was more centered in the religious discussion, and then lately there has been the Hebrew Café, which has focused more seriously on both Hebrew and Greek.

Basically, I have decided to leave behind the religious side of things and take on all of my discussion of the Bible (which really is the top of my interests) from a secular perspective. I'd like to discuss the things that have brought me out of religion. I consider myself datlash (דַּתְלָ״שׁ), a Hebrew acronym meaning "formerly religious" (דָּתִי לְשֶׁעָבַר dati l'she'avar), even though I never maintained a level of observance that would count for "religious" (that is, "frum") in Orthodox groups.